Marshall Applewhite likes his sushi cooked. Tempura everything, extra ginger, no seaweed. Lit purple by the neon sign blinking O P N by his tableside, Marshall Applewhite strokes the air and mouths the word martini at me, winks. The hit of molly rushes in. I feel like a rabbit right then and wag my tail at him. He smiles at me the way I’ve seen Helena emote at her second graders. I hate her second graders. I should get all her love. Or maybe it’s the patches on his Grimace-purple jacket drawing me in: Away Team, one says. I decide this means he belongs to a team that is away, like Helena is away. When I ask him, he says that’s correct, and he says Marshall Applewhite is not my real name, it’s what I’m called on Earth. By then I spill onto his lap.
Marshall Applewhite and I make love in the broken bathroom. The toilet overflows some part of the way. When he’s finished, Marshall asks me about heaven. I tie apron strings around my hips and tell him none of it is real. He puts a finger between my eyes and says in here. Marshall downs his martini and begins to cry. His Nikes slosh about. I tell him about Helena, the way she left me before ever leaving me. How you can live a life and its opposite at once. Marshall dabs paper towels at my cheeks. It is me, I am weeping.
His twenty followers still sit at the table: nails along the border of the mock bamboo like the keys of a piano, each in pageboy haircuts, androgynous in high collars and black cotton. I grind my teeth, they feel too long. I could never be a rabbit. Lunch time’s done and I cash out. My boss yells. Someone forgot to tip out the kitchen and I guess it was me. I fan the money stick it down my chest.
The bathroom door breaks open water rushes out. We are washed away into the street. Marshall pat-pats the table and we bob atop the slush. It is then he promises me heaven, another planet. I want to tunnel inside the whole of him. Burrow in wait for this whole place to go. I never wanted anything but flesh. I imagine the children with their growing teeth eke out the thing I could no longer.
