Being Serena Green

By Faith DaBrooke

PART V

Every club, rather every good club, every club worth its neon signage, has atmosphere. The best clubs, the cream of the crop of the club world don’t just have atmosphere, they have an atmosphere. Believe it or not, that little article ‘an’ does make a difference. Top notch clubs have an atmosphere, an ecosystem all their own.

Tolstoy’s was one such club. There was a floor, an ancient and nasty hardwood scuffed beyond recognition upon which sat a soil of cigarette ash, dirt, and bits of food punctuated by boulders of broken glass and thin lakes and rivers of spilled beer and pooled sweat. For an organism as large as a human being it wasn’t really much other than a floor, but to the more robust bacteria it was a paradise.

Above there was a layer of nearly clear air topped off by a high mist of cigarette smoke that lingered about the ceiling until its fine particles fell back down to provide nutrients to the ecosystems of the floor. Tolstoy’s had a delicate cycle, as important to the lives of the cockroaches and bacteria as the water cycle or nitrogen cycle are to the macro-organism with which we are most familiar.

Tolstoy’s also had macro-organisms in abundance; specifically humans. If one wanted to get even more specific Tolstoy’s had an over abundance of teenagers. Several Gs worth of music pounded out a speedy yet regular rhythm that made glasses and spines alike vibrate. An alcove waited and so Trajedi lead Serena back, where they cloistered themselves in one of the few areas that stood out as even darker than the rest of the club. Synchronized in motion, they lit their cigarettes, puffing away until Chance came over, several beers in hand.

Chance squeezed in next to Serena, of course there wasn’t much room at the table, and so they pressed against each other, arms and legs mashed together and Serena felt it stir in her stomach. Quickly, she drowned her nervousness in a green bottle, her first alcoholic drink, but not the last, not even the last for that hour.

“Thanks for coming” Chance shouted at the top of his lungs.

“No problem” Trajedi called back, yelling her reply at several decibels despite their proximity. Trajedi’s eyes bore in on Chance and Serena, catching every gesture, every facial tick, every single tiny motion or gesture. Emotion is like words to some, they can read it, they can write it and they can build whole artworks out of emotions. Trajedi had that talent in buckets.

Serena drank and smiled and shouted across the table, letting her head bob back and forth a bit to the music. Chance drank and smiled and shouted and Trajedi drank and smiled and but never shouted, just sat back and watch the play unfold act by act, scene by scene. It was a play that she had written and directed, and Trajedi knew that no matter what, the show would go on.

He touched Serena’s ear, complimenting her earring no doubt, although Trajedi paid no attention to the exact dialogue. Serena turned her head, the two spoke, she put her lips less than an inch from his ear, whispering in a normal tone that could barely be heard above the pounding of the worn out PA system. He touched her hand, he told a joke and she pushed him on the shoulder, jokingly. They laughed and for a second they both just looked at each other and Serena cocked a half-smile and coyly look away as Chance ran to get more drinks. Serena made a noise, a noise like a person makes when they take the first bit of a well-prepared apple pie. A satisfied little hum.

Trajedi left them for a moment and mingled with the crowd. Keeping an eye on the goings on of her peers, she forced herself to let the table alone for a bit, to let whatever had been started between Serena and Chance develop on its own for a bit. In the end she just mingled toward the bathroom. It always seemed to happen that way, in that someone was waiting for her.

“What are you up to this time, freak?” she asked rather forcefully, as though the question in itself were enough to broach the subject and that an answer would be of only secondary importance. Weighing in at one hundred and twenty pounds and standing five foot seven in bleached blonde and a self-decorated outfit that might have once have been a thrift store bridesmaid dress, she was Gloria McKenna; Glorious was what she preferred to be called.

“Oh, Gloria” Trajedi snapped back, taking a step closer and looking as wicked as possible “You look downright…adequate tonight. It’s good you keep trying, I admire your perseverance.”

“I am to understand that that is your handiwork?” she pointed over at Serena and Chance. Serena didn’t look over, she didn’t have to and she didn’t actually want to either. Let the kids play, this was grown-up talk.

“That is my handiwork, and in more ways than you even know.”

“Funny.” Chance and Glorious had been the talk of the town last year, an inseparable couple. Though the exact details concerning their separation had never exactly made it into print, the rumors and gossip had all implicated Trajedi as the cause of the breakup.

“You know, McKenna, it is funny, actually. Chance has found someone new and you’re just gonna have to go it alone. Don’t worry…” Trajedi put her arm around Glorious in a mocking gesture of comfort “…they say isolation builds character. Have a good night.”

“Stupid cunt, you’re a stupid cunt. Mary! Trajedi, my ass.” was all that Glorious could get out before Trajedi slipped away into the throngs. Turning to Kat, Glorious bared her teeth and spat out “That girl is seriously pissing me off.”

“Who does she even think she is?” said Kat, sipping on some sort of concoction which involved a small umbrella.

“She thinks she’s soooo fucking cool.”

“Yeah, what’s her deal, anyway?”

“I’m gonna steal her little protégé.”

“Perfect irony, Miss Glorious; steal her lapdog way and get back for Trajedi stealing Chance.”

“Trajedi did not steal Chance. Okay. Understand, it was a mutual thing.”

“Yeah, totally, you…grew apart as people.”

“Yeah.” Glorious watched, watched as Serena and Chance, stilled pressed together despite the availability of room at the table, talked. Their words were lost in the din, but Glorious could see something she didn’t like on bit, something she was going to have to fix.

“Politics is such a dirty little game” said Glorious as she let her eyes go to slits as Serena and Chance played their own game across the room.

“Yeah.” agreed Kat, and she continued playing absentmindedly with her miniature umbrella.

“It’s a shame, you know.” the bartender said.

“It really is.” replied Trajedi. He was Chris, and he was in his early twenties, with blonde hair shaved Marine Corps short, a few tattoos, mostly tribal, running up and down his arms. His shirt was faux-vintage, with a picture of Debbie Harry silk screened in an already fading cyan. It matched his eyes, which was what Trajedi noticed.

“It’ll be fine till the first of the month, but after that it’s all gonna be over.” There had been a pending lawsuit concerning the status of Tolstoy’s. While the local laws allowed private clubs to serve alcohol to anyone regardless of age, the parents of a seventeen year old who had been arrested after drinking at the club, had decided to put an end to that. The suit had been settled out of court, but had stirred up enough bad press that a referendum had ended the “private club” laws on the books.

“Shit, this place is gonna go under.” Trajedi glanced around at the young kids gulping down alcohol like only teenagers can “No one over twenty one even comes here.”

“Yeah, they don’t have to. Eighteen and up, we can let in eighteen and up, but you guys are gonna be goners. Yeah. The owner’s pissed, he’s been pissed for months now. It’s his own fault though. Sure, he was raking in the cash, but he’s lucky he never got charged for contributing to delinquency.”

“Good lawyer?” Trajedi asked, leaning over to Chris.

“Pretty good, yeah. Still, that settlement killed him. Even with eighteen year olds I don’t think Tolstoy’s is gonna last.”

“I’ll be eighteen in three weeks. I’ll still come by.”

“You’ll be barely legal.” Chris joked.

“Hey, the age of consent is seventeen in this state, you know.”

“Tending bar in this place, hell, the first thing I did was go and look up the age of consent laws.”

“You’re a dirty old man, aren’t you?”

“Not exactly. Come and see me in three weeks, Trajedi, then I won’t be dirty.”

“Oh please” and she blushed a little, but it wasn’t quite visible under the layers of pale makeup. Grabbing his wrist, she smiled like a little girl “make me something. Make me a good drink, while I can still drink here.”

“Shit, that’s contributing to the delinquency of a minor, isn’t it?”

“Not yet, we’re still on private property in a private club, anything’s legal in here until the first of the month.”

He laughed and began adding stuff from various bottles, shaking it, and pouring it over ice. Finally, he handed it to Trajedi and added “I put in everything good, except the roofies. Don’t have any on me, right now, sorry.”

“Do you need ‘em?”

“That’s something you have to answer, little miss.”

“Little miss, please, you’re only four years older than me.”

“Four very important years, yes.”

“You’re a tease” Trajedi smiled, leaning over to get her drink. She smiled inside too, when she saw that Chris caught a quick glimpse of her chest as she leaned over. He was into her, four years or not. Everyone loved her. “What do I owe you for this extra special drink?”

“On the house, while the house still exists, I suppose.” And she grabbed his collar and brought him over and kissed him and he blushed and it was visible. For a moment they just kissed and Trajedi felt whole again. Then he broke it off.

“Stop that, you’re gonna get me in trouble.”

“Chris, baby, you’re already into trouble, deep, deep, deep in trouble.”

“And who’s pulling me down, Trajedi?”

“You, just you, because you like to be deep, deep in it.”

It was against the rules, but she took her extra-special drink outside and snuck around to the back of the club. Tolstoy’s sat on a narrow side street, between an abandoned hotel full of homeless people and drifters and a shop that claimed to sell skateboards but really did all their money in band t-shirts and posters. Behind them all was just a filthy little brick walled alleyway full of trash and broken bottles and the occasional spent condom. It annoyed Trajedi to think of kids actually having sex in a disgusting alleyway, but knew that under the right conditions she probably would as well. Parents weren’t always away and big comfortable bed couldn’t always be found. Sometimes you had to take what you could get.

She sat down on an old-style metal trash can, not caring what sort of nastiness covered it. A cigarette illuminated the otherwise empty and non-lit alleyway. On the wall she could make out poorly done graffiti, but its message was known only to its creator. One on the other wall just said “Abort yourself,” which didn’t seem like an altogether bad idea. Trajedi wasn’t feeling good and she wasn’t feeling bad, just feeling. There was something intense in the air, some vein of potential floating around, something intangible that stunk of permanent change. Tonight was going to bring about some major change, something was going to be gone and something new was going to be born and so it wasn’t bad and it wasn’t good. The night was all around her and it wasn’t like a straight jacket.

Behind her the bricks vibrated as the band played. Across the muffling brick wall every note was clear, every word of the singer was easily heard. Inside it was just noise, but from the outside everything made sense. Her own breath echoed in her head as she forced the smoke from her mouth. There are nights made for pain and there are nights made for dreams, and then there are all the others. Trajedi felt rightly that this was just one of those little nights. It was pregnant, that’s what it was. Time passed without flourish, it just passed and Trajedi felt like crying for no reason at all, she felt like crying just to make something happen.

Chris hadn’t rejected her at all, he just hadn’t accepted her either. With him it was all a game. He had had any girl he wanted, and to him Trajedi was just another, but there was still that game and it was a game that drew Trajedi in like a moth to a flame. He would play with her, toy with her, fuck with her and even maybe fuck her, but it was all just back-and-forth, all just the quick moves of a mental dance. Eventually, Trajedi realized that that was what she loved about him. In all her dealings, in all her projects, she had never found a boy she couldn’t have, couldn’t manipulate or reform or fix or break or mold. Everyone but Chris, apparently. And she did start to cry, just a little bit.

It was too much. She couldn’t do this, couldn’t cry, couldn’t be weak. If there was thing that Trajedi would not succumb to it was weakness. Weakness was for other people. Never would her emotions overcome her, emotions were just tools that let other people control you. The irony, she realized, was that she could control other people, but controlling herself was harder, much harder. Another tear came down, landed in the rough, refuse strewn sand below. Her hand rubbed her eye, smearing her makeup and she knew she had to stop, she couldn’t behave like this. Only weak little useless people behaved like this.

In an instant, the drink that she had been told was extra-special was gone, downed in a quick few seconds. Then it shattered, the glass shattered as she rammed it against the wall. Selecting the biggest, nicest piece, she lifted her skirt and brought it up to her leg. “My blood is more beautiful than wine” she thought to herself as she cut a line into her thigh and watched a few drops of deep crimson flow into a line and into a streak that fell to the ground with her tears. Breathing hard, she cut one more time then let it all go, let everything go, let the pain and the uncertainty and doubt and the weakness out in a single breath. All of it vanished, all of it went away.

Trajedi was back. There was no more doubt, no more pain, no more tears. Trajedi was back. Trajedi was back in control. Her blood, she thought again, really was more beautiful than wine.

“I worry about him sometimes, you know.” she said, looking over the plate of veal marsalla before her and trying to figure out where to begin “he doesn’t make friends easily.”

“He’s an awkward teenage boy.” said Serena’s father, starting on his own food immediately “everyone goes through bad stages, it’s what being a teenager is all about. No one’s every happy then.”

“You don’t think he’s worse off than most of his peers?”

“No, he’ll be fine. He’s just sullen and depressed and thinks the world doesn’t understand him.”

“That’s the funny thing about teens, isn’t it? They’re all so angry because they think the world doesn’t understand them. Little do they realize they get treated the way they do because we all understand them a bit to well, huh?”

“Insightful as always.”

“He needs a hobby. Since he left Scouts he’s been a bit off.”

“There’s correlation there, but I don’t think causation.” he thought about if for a bit and then an idea struck him “You know what I’ll do. The store’ll open in a few weeks, once we get everything together and then I’ll check with Bill and see if we can get him a part time job there. Might give him something to do, something to keep his mind on track. A job would be good for him.”

“Could be. It’s worth a shot.” She decided to forgo the pasta at first and start off with the veal. It was okay, it would have been better in any restaurant in New York, but it was still worth eating.

The store, was a new CloverAide branch set to open up in a few weeks. Serena’s father was a pathfinder for the CloverAide company and it was his job to oversee the company’s new developments across the country. It was a decent enough occupation, the pay was quite good and the only drawback was the fact that the family had to move every eight months, once one store was up and running he would have to run off to begin setting up for the next one. Of course, his own father, Colonel Danny Green had been a career Army officer, so Ben Green was used to moving around all the time. His wife Celia, and his son Simon, now Serena, had never quite enjoyed it, but had gotten used to it.

“I think Simon could use a little structure in his life.” she said “I just wish he could finish out the school year in one school this time. I think always being the new kid has killed his ability to make friends.”

“It hasn’t helped, no. But he’s not the only kid in the world who grew up moving a lot. The whole Gypsy life won’t kill him. It’ll just teach him to be a little more self-reliant than most of the other kids. That’s not a bad thing.”

“Still, Ben, I think you should take him to see Bill. A part time job after school is a good idea.” Celia poked around at the veal a bit more before adding “Taste this veal, it seems off.”

Tasting it, Ben contorted his face a bit. “Send it back, yeah, you can’t expect too much from these corporate theme restaurants. They spend more time putting junk on the walls than they spend making their food edible.”

“So talk to Bill.”

“Of course. We’ll open up in a month or so, and I figure we should have the usual celebration dinner for the managers. Once Bill’s good and liquored up, he’ll agree to anything.”

“Be nice.”

“I never said he wasn’t a good General Manager.”

“You think he’ll like Simon?”

“Everyone loves a sullen, depressed teenager.”

Finding her way back into the club, Trajedi stopped once again at the bar where Chris handed her another drink, another drink which she downed with veteran skill. She tried to flirt a bit with Chris, but there were too many customers and he just couldn’t pay her any attention. So instead, Trajedi just went to the back and found herself a seat on the old sofa that sat sentry near the bathrooms. The last thing that she ever wanted was for Glorious to come by. Of course Glorious came by.

“You just love the fact that Chance is with your new little lapdog, don’t you, Mary Catharine?

“Trajedi, thank you very much. Chance is a grown up, he can talk to whoever he wants to talk to, it’s not my decision.”

“Yeah, just pretend like you don’t enjoy it.”

“I don’t have to pretend”

“You know you want him, but you can’t have him so you just pass him off, right?”

“Hmph. I’m not passing him off. Been there, done that. Chance is cool but he’s not all that. Maybe for you he was, but I can do better.”

“Can you now? You think that Chris wants you?” Glorious cast her eyes up to Chris, back behind the bar, serving the drinks, making a living.

“It’s not your business, is it?”

“Oh yeah? Chris’ll totally go for me as soon as I give him the chance. Last week he was practically about to propose to me. You’re old school, Trajedi. You’re old and out of the loop, another washed up old hag.”

“You’re sad, Gloria, really sad. You think you can make me jealous? Chris would never cast an eye at you. You’re just sad.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Trajedi watched as Glorious walked up to the bar, ordered a drink and flirted gratuitously with Chris. A part of her, a rather large part of her, wanted to kill Gloria, but she understood that politics was never so blunt. High school politics were about subtlety. Gloria, call her Glorious if you wanted, either way she would get her comeuppance. All it would take was time and some skillfully played moves. If anyone could move skillfully, it was Trajedi. Glorious was an amateur playing in the professional leagues. Trajedi was confident, all too confident, that she could run circles around Glorious and hardly break a sweat.

Trajedi had the gift of control. She could control anyone and make them do anything. Granted, Glorious knew how to make her lackeys do her bidding, but that just wasn’t the same. Trajedi wanted control and she had control, over Serena, over Chris, over anyone. Glorious was going to fall by the wayside, that was determined, all that Trajedi needed were the details. But Trajedi was never one to sweat the details, everything would fall in line like it always did.

In his book The Third Chimpanzee, biologist Jared Diamond makes the claim that races exist because people tend to be sexually attracted to people who look the most like them. It all goes back to our evolutionary biology. When groups of proto-humans fought against other groups of proto-humans, it became hard-wired into us to fear those who looked different. Hence, those individual australopithecines or Cro-Magnons who didn’t fear those who were different ended up being killed. They never passed on their genes to the next generation. We grew from species who feared outsiders. So, we tend to be less fearful, and in cases of reproduction, more attracted to those who look more similar. Hence, you get specific racial identities.

At this point, it’s easy to say that Chance was attracted to Serena. It would have seriously surprised him to realize how much they looked alike. Granted, Chance was a bit more attractive, a bit more masculine and all that, but still, there was a definite similarity. Neither Chance nor Serena ever realized it as they talked that evening, but evolutionary biology was still playing its part, still pushing forth its influence after all these years.

Finishing the latest of many drinks, Trajedi stood up on wobbly legs and patrolled the crowd once again. Lights danced around her, giving the crowd a stop-motion effect that only heightened the disorienting effects of all the extra-special drinks Chris had given her. Bass and treble pounded the close set walls of the club and Trajedi found herself focusing carefully on each and every footstep, trying not to fall over, trying not to pass out.

Through the milling, dancing, writhing crowd she found herself trying to move against a tidal wave of bodies that pushed against her, shoved her and threw others against her. Still she made her way over to the table, her eyes, barely focused reach across the room, steadied herself on a counter, a table top and another table top.

Then, finally she reached the original alcove and sat herself down, closed her eyes and let the world spin around, slipping by casually.

Then, she opened her eyes and smiled for a thousand years as she watched Serena and Chance make out. The two of them kissing and groping as though there were no tomorrow.

Innocence, thought Trajedi, is really, really cheap.

since 9/19/05