Misplaced Recipe

Misplaced Recipe

For our recipe combine the following:

Spike; a girl whose face is made pale by talc. Her hair dyed black, is wild and tangled. She watches the world through dark brown eyes. Eyes she’s made to look hard and skeptical, bold and thick - with black liner - to hide herself.

She sprawls like a rag-doll on the benches that edge three concrete planters. The planters- cracked and made rough by too many seasons of ice and rain - form an alcove near the street corner.

Nothing grows from the tired grey soil within the planters. It is speckled with cigarette butts and chewed gum.

The benches too, are broken. ‘No Future’ scrawled in black, angry letters across the splintered the wood. They are etched with names.

In places a slashed letter, ‘A’ encircled in black.

Anarchy; symbol of truth and freedom. Freedom from the shadow of the mushroom cloud, Spike thinks now and again. The thought wisps like smoke through her. Disappears.

A boy in long black coat, leans against the edge of a bench. The tips of shoes impossibly narrow. Impossibly sharp. His Black hair blunt hangs over one eye. He lights a cigarette and offers another to Spike.

“No,” she shakes her head. “Thanks.”

The boy shrugs. Watches as a woman in a yellow sun-dress pushes a buggy crowded with two heat flushed toddlers along the side-walk. The woman eyes Spike, the boy, and the others who lean with calculated disinterest against against a parked car.

She averts her eyes at the girls who sit cross-legged in a triangle of shade.

They are plaid trousers, and mini skirts. Torn black stockings. The girls stare coolly at the woman and children as they pass.

Spike watches for a moment. Wonders what such tiny children think of their worlds.

The late afternoon traffic reflects itself in the windows and mirrors walls of the corner hair salon. The speakers tucked beneath its black awning offer melodic lament to people passing.

The music hangs in the late afternoon heat. The air feels thick. It feels like damp cotton against her skin and tastes of coconut, of the exhaust from passing cars.

The exhaust shimmers a translucent yellow. It hovers above the pavement.

Add;

Spike he tilts her head - listens for a moment to the music. Listens for the lyrics, but they are drowned by the honking of a car horn. A heat flushed driver flings curses at no one who cares.

Her eyes burn. Sleepless.

She decides, the night will be busy at the club across the street. The night club that hides behind the black door across the street.

The grey walls on either side papered with calls to rally, concert announcement. Anarchy symbols and again the words - “No future.”

A generation’s mantra. Above the door tree tall windows over-look the brown and green glass shards across the sidewall.

The sun reflects itself in the dark windows.

Spike searches her pockets for any unremembered coins - money. Finds none. She sighs. Near closing time, She’ll slip in. The club bouncers will look away again. Forgive her the cover charge. Behind that door, at night her mind is still. Caught in music and light.

She nods to herself. Agrees with her evening plans.

‘Ziggy Stardust’ sounds from the speakers. Spike wonders whether she has heard the song three of four times that afternoon.

The music is obviously playing on a loop.

“David Bowie is God,” A cross-legged girl with a bleached and spiked hair tells everyone and no one.

  “Pffft,” the boy with the pointy shoes grinds his cigarette under his heel. His voice almost lost beneath the sound of another car horn. “Totally, - He’ll stop nukes and acid rain.”

Spike chews her thumb-nail. She snorts. Once- she’d have agreed. She might have said Bowie was a deity. Messiah. She wonders where she has gone that girl. Where does a child hide when the world crashes through the door?

She pokes a finger through a hole in her tights and twists. Her sister will come today. They’ll hug and her sister will remember. This time it will happen.

‘Family is family,’ her mother said - once. ‘ Family is -.’ Spike spits a piece of nail onto the sidewall. She lets the thought fall into silence.

Her sister. The child of gold. The child her parents dreamed into life. The day her sister was born, Spike became a shadow cast by nothing.

She hears the echo of her heart beat now. ‘Run’ it says again and again. But there is no where left to run. Not any more.

Still - she is a shadow cast by nothing.

Spike yawns and stretches her arms skyward.

Last night - again - sleep danced beyond her reach. She lay on a mat in a shop storage basement surrounded by boxes. She listened to the breathing of the others sleeping around her. Above them a boutique of silk and wool.

Last night, she picked her way over the others curled and sprawled in sleep. She climbed the uncertain rungs of the ladder and slipped into the night through the window frame.

The day’s heat still hung heavy in the alley. The air tasted of coffee and cigarettes and aged fruit. Frying oil and sugar. Still, she breathed like a diver coming up for air.

Spike found phone booth on a corner, not far from the alley. It smelled of cigarettes and perfume. Pee.

She breathed, once twice and held her breath. She dropped nickel, dime into the slots.

Fold in the following:

“Hello,” her sister’s voice sharp. Impatient. Spike heard someone with her sister laugh And behind them a collision of voices. Her sister’s friends. Her sister was rarely without her posse on a Friday night.

“Hey?” Her sister tried again.

Spike breathed. Held her breath. Breathed again. “Hi.” Her voice cracked in her throat broke as it fell.

Silence.

Then; “Oh hey.” Her sister said. Paused. “Oh, hey. You’ve been okay?” A question, but not a question.

Spike wanted to tell her sister; “No, it’s never okay. It’s never been okay. My heart feels like a bruise. The world feels like a scribble on a dirty wall.” But she said nothing. Her sister would never understand.

“You’re okay.” Her sisters voice - a declaration.

“I want to come home,” Spike said then. Whispered. Her stomach flipped and tightened.. .

“Again?” Her sister sighed. “You can’t keep doing this. In and out. You know it doesn’t work. Mum and you.”

“Dad?”

Her sister sighed again. “Kay - He’s easier to live with when you’re not here. It’s like you’re this element that messes things up for everyone. I’m sorry, but, it’s true. You’re just too - you?”

Her sisters words fell around her. Fell like rain. Spike tried to find a thought, to find words, to reply, but she found only the beat of her heart and silence.

We used to play - once, Spike thought. She searched for memory and found herself. Her sister. Once.

“Yeah, I know that corner you like to hang out.,” her sisters voice. Flat and dull as if reciting statistics. “I can meet you tomorrow afternoon, maybe. We can talk. I can bring you stuff. Maybe.” Her sister paused. Waited a breath. “I gotta go.”

A fumbling click as her sister dropped the receiver back into its cradle.

Sprinkle liberally with:

Spike rests her chin on her hands. She watches a pigeon land and trundle along the sidewall. She admires its deep auburn eyes. Envies it, the ability to fly. .

She is almost alone now. Only the boy with the pointy shoes and another whose painted paw-prints across the canvas of his black and white sneakers still linger. A girl wearing fashionably short flesh pink trousers joins them. The trio perch on the edge of a planter and watch the traffic. The girl smiles in Spike’s direction.

Spike allows herself a nod.

She watches the river of strangers as the pass her. Feels herself carried by the rhythm of their steps. Their voices.

Pour into square pan and bake until golden brown;

The sun’s light is caught in the chrome and glass of passing cars.

Traffic slows, then stops. Slows then stops. A little girl with dark brown eyes stares through the back window of a car. Turns her head to the girl beside her. Her sister, Spike thinks. The other girl leans toward the window to peers out at Spike. In the front seat.

The mother. The father. Turn. They find Spike. A silent question reflected in their eyes..

Spike lifts her hand and waves.