The woman with the flowing robe continued to stand on her corner. Lauren hurried up to her.
"Find your mother?" the woman asked in a tired, but not unconcerned, voice.
"No. It's a place where whores go to die," Lauren answered.
"What did I say about that word?"
"There's nobody there, except an old whore who pretends to be Marilyn Monroe.”
“Everybody pretends.”
"Where are the live old ones?"
"They're dying."
"Where, in a hospital? I need to find my mother."
"We don't think about that! We might never get to that point. So, why worry about it? I don't know where they got those old women stored away. Ask those two over there. They harass us everyday. Now get out of here before you can't."
Lauren quickly approached the two Catholic nuns the escort had pointed out. She wondered if they were real nuns or just two young women playing out some dirty old man's kinky fantasy. When she reached the two women wearing the habit of religious sisters, Lauren recognized their faces right away. To make the nuns aware of her, she said, "You're the Mona sisters. I know you. You can't deny that, even in those outfits."
The Mona sisters didn't deny who they were. That would have meant denying their existence. They, too, recognized her, and without missing a beat, they exclaimed, "We use to be the Mona sisters. Now were known as the Monastic sisters."
They smiled as they had in jail and handed Lauren a leaflet dealing with the sin of adultery and a disease more powerful than AIDS - INDIFFERENCE. The Mona twins sounded like Adam Lux. She wondered if they'd been brainwashed, because their transformation from addicted hookers to Monastic sisters had been so instantaneous. Besides, she didn't have time and was in no mood for a lecture on their kind of religious experience. She wasn't a whore and didn't need salvation. But they said, "We love you anyway!"
"I have a question to ask you," Lauren said as they moved towards the fragile butterflies talking and haggling with the jackals.
One of the Monastic sisters remained behind while the other solemnly and radiantly walked into the mouth of irreverence.
"Watch what happens, Lauren," the one Monastic sister said.
"Where do they keep the old whores?" Lauren asked, anxious to get on her way.
"My sister will hand them our leaflets. Do you think they have the time or will to listen? No, our words might be lost in a vacuum. As long as they keep losing themselves in their desires, they'll always be deaf."
Lauren saw how the Monastic sister was being jostled by several of the scarabs and beetles whose hearts must have turned sour on God when they were still children. They pushed her down on the pavement and tore up the leaflets. "Get out and stay out," they yelled.
The one Monastic sister refused to leave, like a martyr playing out her pain. "I was one of you once. I know what you are going through!"
Several of the women began to beat her, but this Monastic sister just smiled.
Lauren asked the Monastic sister next to her to help her sister and was about to rush towards the insects biting the poor woman. The Monastic sister grabbed her hand and said, "My sister is doing her duty to God!"
"You're sick!" Lauren cried out, rushed into the crowd, and beat the insects free of the sister lying on the ground. They called Lauren names she ignored, but they didn't touch her. Suddenly, church bells rang twelve chimes, cars pulled up to the curb, and every half-naked woman was whisked away.
Lauren helped the sister up on her feet. Instead of moaning, complaining of her pain or blaming the streetwalkers, she said, "You have a good heart, Lauren!"
"She does," the other sister said.
"Why didn't you help me?" the sister asked.
"You never want to help me! But I don't need your help when they beat me."
The Monastic sisters were beginning to sound like the Mona sisters again, and this small change in tone restored Lauren's faith in them.
"Don't we make great martyrs?" they said in unison.
Before the Mona sisters slipped back into the Monastic sisters, Lauren blurted her words out, "Where do they keep the dying whores?"
"At the Hospice of Fallen Angels," they replied with joy and a smile.
Then, they pointed into the dark, which was darker than the dark they were standing in.
They warned her of man’s inhumanity to women and children.
"Hold on to your desires! Desires! Desires! Desires!" they sang and danced as they had in jail.
Lauren still couldn't understand why they were always jovial when their message was so important.
"Hold on to your desires when you cross over there. This is the bad part of town, but that part is worse than worst, and worse than here. Here we're free to be nothing but us. And us are we. We're us! But there, you can't even remember you're there!" they finished singing and dancing.
"Thanks!" Lauren said, and not wanting to hear another word from their incessant tongues, she ran into the dark, which was filled with neon signs of all colors blinking messages that blinded her.
"Hold on to your desires!" the Monastic sisters yelled.
'Hold on to your desires!' Lauren told herself, hoping there was a good reason for doing so.
The darkness became darker ahead of her. The street seemed to unreel itself with images crashing into Lauren's brain. Her feet felt immobile even though she was moving. She sensed she was being spooled into a series of scenes, made to frighten her.
She saw an old woman being robbed at gunpoint by a gang wearing masks of Halloween presidents. Young men and women applauded the performance. A man was stabbing his wife and repeating, "I love you, and you cheat on me, bitch!" The young woman, however, refused to die. She had a knife of her own and was stabbing him with it. She repeated the phrase, "I love you, and you hate me, bastard!"
A drunken boy was yelling, "I'm going to kill myself!" He was holding a straight razor to his wrist. "Do it! Put your money where your mouth is!" several men and women yelled. A naked old man with a white collar around his neck held a crucifix in his right hand and ran after a young, young, young boy. The naked man was begging him to kiss Christ and his St. Christopher to save him from damnation.
A man was swallowing a sandwich with a dozen layers. Another in a suit hung from a tall tree like a sloth with a briefcase. All he said was, "This is my money tree! This is my money tree!" Lauren caught a glimpse of the leaves, which were shaped like bills, but didn't stop to pick any of the fruit.
'Hold on to your desires!' she told herself, imagining herself as a silly sloth stuck in a tree for the rest of her life.
She rushed by an adult video shop. A bulldog man and a Chihuahua woman were fornicating on the sidewalk to lure young men inside. "You're ugly, the both of youz!" they yelled at the dogs they kicked. They demanded pretty and proper models.
Lauren wondered when these images would end, even though she couldn't feel her legs.
"Sylvia Dombrowsky, where are you?"
As she asked that question, a hospital building emerged, signaling her arrival at the Hospice of Fallen Angels. She didn't find its appearance surprising. She was, however, amazed she didn't give in to a young Romeo begging her to stop traveling and settle with him in a small cabin by the seashore.
Lauren didn't want to be a fisherman's wife. She quickly entered the Hospice of Fallen Angels. The air smelled of stale bread, urine, and old skins that no one was sweeping up. The halls were empty. No patient was walking to get better, and no one was visiting the dying. There weren't any nurses either. The hospice was well lit, but there didn't seem to be any doors to the rooms that should have housed the dying old whores she expected to see. It was strange that a hospice for angels had no room for the fallen when the sign outside clearly stated it was especially for fallen angels.
Lauren walked for what seemed a long time into the light of the main hall, hoping she would soon meet a decent, human nurse who could direct her to Sylvia Dombrowsky.
As soon as she imagined it, a nurse's station appeared in the light. A nurse wearing a white hat and a red evening gown smiled at her. Lauren didn't mind the color of the gown since she thought it was pretty.
"That's a beautiful gown," Lauren said.
The nurse had no nametag. Instead of thanking Lauren for the compliment on her gown, which she knew was beautiful, she said, "I'm nurse Nightingale."
"I'm Lauren Anderson," she said.
"You don't live here, do you?"
"Where?"
"Here in the hospice."
"Why should I live here?"
"All fallen angels do."
"I'm not a fallen angel."
"You look like one."
"I'm not an old whore, and I'm not dying."
"We're all fallen angels, and we're all dying, Lauren Anderson. Some choose to live here because they know they're dying. Most don't want to stick their noses in here for fear they will become infected by the air."
"It does smell pretty bad."
"We smell of what we are. And you smell like fish!"
"I do not!"
"You do too!"
"And you smell like a stale old lady with ancient furniture and moldy food in her fridge. When's the last time you bathed anyway?" Lauren cried out, and would have continued if she hadn't felt a strain around her neck choke the rest of her insults down.
"Are you all right?" the nurse asked, smiling as Lauren recovered her breath.
Lauren was going to utter something more nonsensical when she realized she had a mind of her own. She decided she would focus on the image of Sylvia Dombrowsky, and not allow herself to be drawn into the absurd sentences the nurse in red was certain to continue.
The nurse handed her a form to fill out and said, "Just bring it back to me once you've filled it out, and we'll see if there's a doctor available to see you." Lauren refused to take the form, which had to be full of dumb questions, and stated as clearly as she could pronounce her words that she was here to see the patient, Sylvia Dombrowsky.
"Why didn't you say so in the first place, Lauren Anderson?"
Lauren didn't open her mouth.
"Are you related to Sylvia Dombrowsky?"
"I'm her daughter," Lauren replied.
"She's already got one daughter. And according to our records, she didn't have a second."
"I'm her daughter. Ask her and she'll tell you."
"I'm afraid she lost the use of her tongue last night."
Lauren felt someone was impeding her search.
"My name is Lauren Anderson and my mother's name is Sylvia Dombrowsky."
"How do I know you are really her daughter, when you don't have the same last name?" the nurse asked, smiling at her own question, as if trying to dumbfound Lauren.
She kept her thoughts to herself and said, "I have my father's name, and when she divorced him, she took her maiden name back."
Lauren kept her statement simple and free of emotions.
"So, which Sylvia Dombrowsky do you want to see?" the nurse asked, still smiling.
Lauren felt she was part of a comedy routine, which she was unwilling to accept.
"How many of them are there?"
She thought a simple question would land her a simple answer. The nurse took her time counting the names in a black book. Lauren wondered why the nurse didn't have a computer at her fingertips. She could just imagine the care given to all the Sylvia Dombrowskys. She grew impatient, but said nothing. The clock on the wall let her know exactly 30 seconds had lapsed since she asked her question. But if Lauren asked why she was taking so long, she might find herself in a labyrinth with no exit. So, she kept her mouth shut.
"We have ONE Sylvia Dombrowsky!" the nurse exclaimed.
Lauren stood flabbergasted and angry it had taken this 'stupid' nurse so long to count to one! Still she said nothing.
"You're lucky all the others checked out this morning or we would never have been able to locate this particular one. You'd better hurry though. She doesn't have much time. She's due to check out at noon and it's already eleven thirty. God, how time does fly! Go on before it's too late. You only have half an hour to say good-bye."
"Only a half hour?"
"29 minutes, Lauren Anderson. The more you talk the less time you have left."
"Which room is she in?" Lauren asked, now anxious to meet her mother before she died.
"It doesn't matter which room. Everybody here is dying and everybody needs a hand to comfort her at the end. Pick any room."
"What number? Please, hurry. My mother's dying!"
"We have no numbers. Pick any door. Any door!"
"You don't even have doors!"
"28 minutes and 30 seconds. . . ."
"Where's the door to my mother's room?"
"There in front of you."
Faced with a real door, Lauren didn't question its validity. She opened it and closed it. Before her was a bed with what she imagined was the body of her real mother. There were no monitors, machines, or tubes attached to her. Why was there nothing being done to prolong her life? Lauren pulled out the chart at the foot of the bed, but there was no name or any information on the status of the woman's health she still assumed was her mother. The woman's face was bandaged to hide her features, but Lauren seemed undeterred by her looks. She noticed her left hand move. It was bony and wrinkled. Could she have walked into the wrong room? The Sylvia Dombrowsky she wanted to see couldn't have been more than forty.
"Sylvia Dombrowsky?" she whispered.
The woman moved her hand as if to acknowledge her own name. Lauren sat next to her and took hold of her hand without thinking.
"Are you my mother?" Lauren asked, without introducing herself or giving her reason for being in this room.
The bandaged woman didn't answer.
"I'm your daughter, Lauren. You were married to Philip Anderson. I was told you were pregnant when you married my dad. Please, answer me. I have come a long way. I'm sorry it took so long. I wish I'd known about you earlier. I want to know so much. Can you hear me? Please, squeeze my hand. Please. . ." Lauren said, and began crying.
The bandaged woman had no more strength in her, because Lauren could barely feel her hand. Lauren wiped her eyes, feeling someone robbing her of her own life. The clock in this room had worn down the 28 minutes the nurse had allotted for her visit. The old woman's hand dropped out of hers. Lauren felt cheated of her minutes. She wanted to run out into the hall and demand the nurse reimburse her 28 minutes so she could spend some quality time and find out if this woman was truly her mother.
"She's finally dead! What a fucking relief!" Lauren heard a voice behind the curtain say.
The voice appeared in the flesh, surprising her.
"Doreen? What are you doing here? Why did you leave me on the Island of Dr. MacGregor? I went to jail because of you. And I had nothing to eat but cheese and strawberries. I even had to teach macaws a stupid phrase. But here I am. I finally found my mother and she dies on me. Is life a joke or what?" Lauren said, overwhelmed by her own thoughts.
"Stop talking. You'll wear yourself out! Let's get out of this place!"
"But I can't leave my mother. We need to bury her or something."
"She was buried the day I was born. She's no more your mother than she was mine. Let's go! I wanna breathe some fresh air."
"She's not my mother?"
"See!" Doreen said as she pointed to the now empty bed.
"God, what a relief! I hate the sight of dead people."
"She was never your mother. That's why she was here. To show you she was just a figment of your imagination."
"Are you real?"
"I'm talking to you, ain't I?"
Doreen led Lauren out of the Hospice of Fallen Angels into the street. Lauren was going to turn left and return by the way she had come here. But Doreen grabbed her hand and led her to the right.
"I need to go that way. That's the way I came in," Lauren said.
"The way in is not the way out. There's nothing back there. Only darkness."
"So, was that woman Sylvia Dombrowsky?"
"Who?"
"The dead woman."
"Yes, and you're lucky you didn't come out of her womb."
"Why?"
"Or you'd be me instead."
"Was she a bad mother?"
"When I die, I'll be coming here at the Hospice of Fallen Angels. Does that answer your question?"
"Yes."
"Let's go."
"I can't go! And where are you taking me anyway? How do I know you're not taking me to your pimp so he can make me a sex slave for some Arabian prince?"
"You're crazy! You really should stop watching so many movies! You wouldn't know what real is if it hit you in the face!" Doreen said in anger.
"I'm real!" Lauren yelled, to make certain she was.
Doreen turned around and slapped Lauren in the face as hard as she could. Lauren smiled and said, "You'll have to do better than that!"
Doreen didn't have a point to prove. So, she didn't hit her again. And if she had added reason to her slaps, Lauren still would have insisted she was as real as Doreen.
Doreen walked away from her. Lauren didn't want to get lost in this place where she thought she would disappear without a trace and be a memory to no one.
"Doreen, please wait for me!" Lauren begged.
Doreen kept walking towards a light, which was rising on the horizon. Lauren thought it would be nice to see the sun again as she caught up with Doreen.
"Could you answer my questions before your dump me where I'm supposed to go? Where am I going?"
Doreen stopped, looked her straight in the eye and said, "You ask a lot of questions, but you don't seem to understand my answers. Which answer to what question would you like?"
"Where am I going?"
"Wherever the road takes you!" Doreen said, simply and calmly.
"That's no real answer!"
"That's as real as it gets. What is it? You want a map, is that it? You want details? When you gonna graduate from college? Career? When you'll marry? Who? How much money he's gonna make? How many kids? Girls? Boys? When you're gonna get cancer? Will you lose your breasts? Want the exact date of your death? You want that kind of map?"
"NO!" Lauren said, afraid of the unanswered questions she didn't want revealed.
"Life is full of surprises and mysteries. Keep it that way. It's better to leave boxes closed. So, what else do you wanna know, Lauren Anderson?"
"I'm afraid to ask."
"Why?"
"You confuse me."
"I don't confuse anybody, not even myself. Confusion is all yours because you don't understand the simplicity of things or you refuse to accept what I'm saying. The confusion's all in your brain, not mine. So, any more questions before I leave you?"
"Leave me?"
"You don't think I'm gonna spend the rest of my life with you, do you? How boring! Besides, I've gotta hit the streets. Somebody's gotta take my mother's place."
"Was Sylvia Dombrowsky my mother?"
"I thought I already told you that!"
"You said she was no more a mother to me than she was to you. That's what you said!"
"That was a literal answer."
"And what's that supposed to mean?"
"It means she didn't give birth to you at all. What do you want? Details that you weren't born? She was never your mother. Your father wasn't my father. Yours was kind enough to marry her, but the people where she lived were cruel and saw her as a sinful being. So, she left your father and came back to Gonora, where she knew who she was, and where people accept you as you are with sins and all.
“I grew up without a father. Sylvia met a man once, but his hands. . . . No sense in bringing up the dead. She was the best mother she could have been. I didn't hate her because she was a whore or because I became one. When you don't know anything else, you are what you are. You should be lucky you're not me! You still got your mom somewhere."
"So, she wasn't my mother. I came all this way to find out Sylvia wasn't my mother! What a wasted trip!"
"You really ought to think before you open your mouth, Lauren Anderson!"
"What?"
"No trip's ever wasted if you keep your eyes open. I hope you got the answer to your question. It's time for us to part."
"Don't go! Where am I supposed to go?"
"The road will come to you," Doreen said, and vanished into the darkness behind Lauren.