‘Palilalia’

Jaina Cipriano is a photographer, designer and filmmaker exploring religious and romantic entrapment. Her second short film, ‘Trauma Bond’ is a dreamy, coming of age thriller that explores healing deep wounds with quick fixes, it took home the grand prize at the Lonely Seal International Film Festival.

Palilalia

Red capital letters. Urgent. An unfolded electricity bill with severe creases is pinned to the humming refrigerator with a magnet shaped like honeymoon bugs in copula. In a purple cursive script, Louisianna is for Lovers is written across their insectile bodies. It’s a subtle notion, a reminder to remain open to humor, that Carla likes to sit with for a moment early each day. But here are obligations unmet. A speeding heart. PAST DUE steals the eye from DIY fliers and pictures of friends in Mardi Gras costumes.  

It isn’t true unless it’s funny and it isn’t devastating unless it’s hilarious. 

Next to the past due notice is a serial killer-esque cutout note demanding ransom: PAY THIS OR ELSE- LOVE, LANDON. 

Landon, the ever-jester, casts laughter where shadows linger. There he goes making light. There goes Landon paying his half on time, every time. Carla pats her pockets. She rummages through her purse. Couch cushions are upturned in search of coins. Didn’t she have a twenty on her yesterday? It ain’t fair Landon should have to worry. 

Carla takes Landon’s collage from the refrigerator door, folds it, and places it in her bra, imagining the warmth of his touch though his hands have never left the dugout, much less gotten to Carla’s second base. For a moment, she surrenders to the dream of his hands. His hands holding scissors that removed each letter of the collage like perfect surgery. The hands that steadied the paper as he fit together this precious thing with one simple purpose: to make Carla laugh. She presses the paper further into the keyhole passage between her breasts. It cuts her. The daydream is busted. Her top-heavy reverie topples. Tumbles like boulders. Smiling. Knowing. 

Carla admits Landon gives her no grit for her being a landlord. Her rhinestone boot has never been on that boy’s neck. Carla doesn’t wring him out like a washcloth soaked in sweat hoping for coins of toil to manifest. Cha-ching. Cha-ching. She wouldn’t dream, couldn’t dream of it. She would oblige him to pay in pieced-together letters if she had her way. If kitchen appliances would run on mirth alone throughout the day. 

Carla’s heart calms. 

The hum of the refrigerator ceases. Her melted body eases into the four walls of her kitchen.

Her kitchen. 

Mom and Dad got her this house before they kicked the bucket. Mom first, then, Dad. Didn’t take him long to catch up. The way it usually goes, it usually goes. Typical old man behavior.  It wasn’t tragic in the way people call untimely deaths tragic. Mom and Dad had a life. They laughed a lot. Cried some. They liked to go on drives together. So, they started a humble delivery business. It was the late eighties. 

When the new millennium came, they sold the business, Mom stroked out, had a few years, and called it. A sixty-five-year match, Mom versus Inertia, ended in a unanimous decision with Mom herself as the lone referee. She did not want to wait until she was afraid of death to do her dying. Another year went by, and Dad had a stroke, too. Dad was always doing whatever Mom was doing. 

Carla remembers her mother's stories, vignettes of former glories, of a husband content to stand by a wife’s side, rinsing the dishes she washed and proud to be in her gravity. In the evening, during TV time when the game was on, Mom would re-rinse the dishes, boil water for oolong tea, kiss her husband on the shine of his head, and ask him the score. Mom never asked him where his once-thick hair went. Dad never could give an accurate score, and Mom wasn’t sure Dad knew when he had gone bald. That was just fine with Mom. Just fine. Some men are more handsome when they go bald. There are some men, and there is Dad. That was just fine with Mom, too.  

Mom and Dad footed the mortgage on Carla’s house when they were alive and breathing. It was their dream to do this for her. Everyone, especially Carla, thought Mom and Dad had some more years in them. That’s the way things usually go. 

And here is Carla, on all accounts doing her best with all her empty accounts, a sinking heart, and parentless at thirty. 

"We need a roommate," Carla murmurs, her voice soft and strange against the urgent swelling hum of the refrigerator.  

Landon's response, articulated by the rhythmic thuds of his lacrosse ball against a shared wall, echoes, and dismisses the idea with a simple truth: "We need a roommate? Don't have another room. Can’t have another roommate." Landon waits for Carla’s answer and contemplates chucking the ball again as he rolls it with his fingers, examining its elasticity. 

 Carla closes her eyes and she is in the backseat of her parents’ car.

***

Little kid Carla. No seatbelt. She wore her backpack packed with too many books. The zipper was barely holding it together like it was trying to keep a secret. Or, like when what’s on the inside is too wild to be kept there. The straps strangled her shoulders. “Go Tigers” was written in black magic marker across the top. The home team cheer was fading like anything that’s been around too long. Sweat beaded on the tip of her nose like tiny diamonds. Her hair was a mess with bangs plastered to her forehead. 

This is where memories linger, linger like cigarette smoke, smoke stains on upholstery. 

Carla and her folks passed by orange and red trees that spoke heat one last time before they entered the deep sleep of winter. All four windows in the car were rolled down. All the way down. Mom’s curls, which she kept short and tight throughout her life, shook in the wind. The yellow hair bow Dad gave Mom on their wedding anniversary when he was feeling sentimental, which wasn’t too often, threatened to fly away. Mom played a game with it, something like freeze tag, holding it still, then letting it go, laughing and laughing like it’s the most fun she’s had in ages. 

Dad coughed through a giggle fit after some adult-coded talk between the two, some inside joke. The long ash of his cigarette between his stubby, calloused fingers broke off and flew to the backseat. Dad’s fingertips were gnawed on. Little cuts at the knuckles and short nails chewed to the quick. Little kid Carla held her fingers in front of her like men do, palm facing her. Her nails were pithy and unpainted like Dad’s. 

Mom twisted the volume knob of the car radio’s eight-track player. Her long, red nails made a show of something seductive. This was her song for when the weather turns, for when she finds herself wishing for snow that never comes. Oh, what is the name of that tune? Mom was singing her head off, though it was more like talking excitedly, with feeling. She didn’t care. Her ruby fingertips stabbed rapidly at the air. Dad’s face pinched in playful mimicry; his lips pursed. He smothered his cigarette in the ashtray, shook his head, and sneaked a wink at Carla through the rearview mirror. 

Mom filled up the car with a voice that was vibratory in the rapture of loved music, swimming upstream against the wind as they cruised this rustic scene. Mom turned to face Carla mid-chorus, the brightness of a favorite song colored her edges and Carla smiled, comfortable in the assurance of her parents. The assurance that Mom didn’t know what weapons were. She just loved red, that was all.  

Rolling across the floorboard with the car’s accelerations and turns was a moist apple, forlorn and forgotten until it bumped against Carla’s foot. She picked it up, rubbed it against her skirt, and tossed it to the other side of the back seat, making sure Mom didn’t see. 

***

Big Kid Carla comes to, blinking in the sunlight that stripes her face. It’s Rufus, her dog nudging her sandal with his wet nose. Carla kneels and cups Rufus’ piteous face and scratches behind his floppy ears. Shoulda named him Apple. Sweet puppers.

Landon emerges from his room, lacrosse ball in hand. 

Carla quickly places her palm on her chest. Why did she put the note there, anyway? The honeymoon bugs taunt her. Louisianna is for Lovers. She isn’t having it. 

“Carla, deary, we don’t have a third room. Ergo, we cannot have another roommate. Ergo-” Landon tosses the ball up and catches it with his opposite hand. He keeps his eyes on Carla, one eyebrow raised. Rufus gazes at Landon longingly like he’s got a cut of raw meat in his pocket. It’s the ball he wants. 

“Lumpy.” Carla stands using her hands on her knees. “Lumpy.”

Landon snorts. “Am not.”

“No, dork,” Carla laughs, showing all of her teeth before hiding the gap between her incisors. She hates that part of her. Not what is hidden, but the part that does the hiding. She’s done it since she was a kid. It's instinctive, like the way some people pull their sleeves down when they're cold, even when they know it's not going to do any good. Like dry lips licked. They become drier. 

***

Time slows to a crawl. Images flash. The pointing fingers of children. Carla looked away. Little Kid Carla. Her stomach was in knots. With a note passed from the back of the classroom to the front, Tommy said he would meet her after school behind the bleachers for a kiss. Her first kiss, yes, but probably not his. Definitely not his. She didn’t care whose lips his had touched before. She was smitten. Her heart called. She could feel its pound in her head as the teacher droned on. 

The second note was different. Tommy left it taped behind the bleachers where they were to meet. Carla read it as she crouched wet-eyed and flushed. Mind the gap, it said. Who would want a kiss from you, it asked in bad cursive. The poetry of ridicule. She hid her face in her hands until her taunting peers became bored. Carla crawled, then pulled herself to her feet to walk to the counselor’s office. The kids with the pointing fingers had run off to the busses. In their fickleness, cruelty switched off as quickly as it came on.  The second note was left stuck in the mud beneath the bleachers. The first note, she snuck into the front of her shirt. Carla heard the engines of the buses crank in unison. Then, she heard the squeal of their tires as they left the school at the end of the day. The scent of oil and pavement. Red clay and preteen musk.

Carla waited for her parents in the school counselor’s office. Her back ached from the ridged posture of the chair in which she sat. Straight-backed like it was designed for discomfort. The ceiling fan wobbled. Her arms pricked with goosebumps, but she didn’t complain. Not a word. The counselor tapped her foot, shuffled in her seat, and went rapidly through miscellaneous papers on her desk. 

The apple was green. The apple on the floorboard was green. 

Neither Mom nor Dad asked her why she missed the bus. The counselor greeted them with a high and scratchy voice. She told them how to exit the building. Carla is a lovely student. Lovely student. Even the best and brightest miss the bus from time to time. Won’t you have a good day? Lovely student.

***

“Lumpy, the couch. I gave him a name,” Carla said. Big Kid Carla. “He has to be worth what, a hundred bucks a month? Two hundred? Not to mention the added value of a live-in comedian and, of course, Mr. Rufus. Mr. Rufus, the best mutt this side of the Mississippi, maybe even the whole wide world.” Rufus wags his tail at the mention of his name and puts his paw on Landon, urging him to toss the ball. 

“He knows when you call him a mutt. And I am no comedian,” Landon says, tapping his chest with his finger. “Poet. Sculptor. Rock star. Yes. Yes. Yes. Of all the things you could have gone with, pick one. I’m no comedian.”

“You ain’t right, that’s what you ain’t. What do you call this?” Carla says as she pulls the crumpled ransom note from her bra, waving it like it’s a golden ticket.  

“Psychopath?” Landon says through red cheeks and averted eyes.

“He admits it. Rufus, are you hearing this?”

 “Psychopath. Not me, you. You, psychopath. Not me.” Landon launches the lacrosse ball out of the kitchen and down the hall. Rufus scampers after it, his back paws slipping and sliding, wanting to move faster than the slick linoleum floor will allow. “Side note, why is the couch a he, huh?”

The ball disappears into the shadow of the unlit hallway. Carla meant to replace the bulb. What was it that kept her from doing it last month? Oh, yes. She was going to go yard-saling. Yard-saling. That’s what Mom called it. Carla was going to find a skinny hallway table and an old, frilly, ornate lamp to set on it. Then, she was going to replace the hallway bulb. But things like that hardly ever get done. You say you're going to do something, but then life just pulls you in a dozen different directions, and before you know it, the ball's lost in the dark, and you're too busy to go find it, if you remember there was ever a ball to begin with.

***

Mom’s winter song had faded and suddenly her voice rang out, sharp and clear. “We are going yard-saling. How about that?” Mom turned to face Carla. Little kid Carla, eager-eyed and bouncing in the back seat.

“Yay!” Yard-saling was one of Little Kid Carla’s favorite things. Truly. 

“That’s my girl,” Mom said, tapping Dad on the shoulder lightly at first. Slowly, then, in playful little violent bursts. 

“Go ahead,” Dad shrugged. “She will find out later or sooner. Sooner or later.”

Carla shot up like a rocket, curious about Dad’s words and almost hitting her head on the dome light. “What am I going to find out later or sooner?”

“We are going yard-saling for a bassinet.” Mom spoke in clipped vowels to hide her knowing smile.  “Maybe a high chair. Some bottles, definitely some bottles. A binky pacifier. A few of those for sure. New ones, of course. Don’t you think, Dad?” 

“Si, si, of course,” Dad said as a matter of fact as though this were just some regular Friday. 

 “Why do you think we need that stuff? Is it because, is it because we must throw away your bed? Bed bugs are terrible pests. We told you not to let them bite. Did you not believe us? That is why.” Mom’s lips curved as she spoke, and there was her gap. Her big, beautiful gap. Twin mouths, she and Carla.

“No!” Little kid Carla leaped so that she nearly hit her head on the dome light again. 

“Is it because Dad, he hopped around the house with his big, clumsy man feet and broke all your cups and now you must drink from a bottle?”

“No!” Carla shouted- forgot about being abandoned, poked fun at. She forgot about Tommy’s dumb note. 

“Yes, yes, I think so. You must now sleep in a bassinet. You’re not so big. Maybe we take off your feet so you will fit. We are too poor for a brand-new bed.” Mom’s face sunk into her hands. She put on a real show. “This is the way it must be.”

“You’re going to have a baby!” Carla erupted. 

“There is no fooling you,” Mom said, while squeezing Carla on the shoulder from the front seat. “We will call you Detective Hermana Mayor, Hermana Mayor, the detective. Big Sister Carla.” When Mom spoke, she stuck to Carla like hot honey. “Get your fruit.” Mom nodded to the opposite side of the car. Her gap disappeared when she sucked her lips, trying not to laugh. 

“Yes, I am going to have a baby and our family will grow from three to four. Isn’t that a happy thing?”

“It is so happy!” Carla said, tripping over the words that would express the warmth, the fullness she felt.

 “Keep your eye out for signs, Big Sister.” When Dad spoke, he stuck to Carla like Velcro.  “Didn’t Abuela call you Eagle Eye when she took you yard sale hunting?” 

“She did! She did!” Carla whispered as she vibrated in her seat. Elation erupted from her and defanged any hurt that might have arrived with the mention of her grandmother- her grandmother who always said Carla’s name with a song, a winter song. Carla reached for the apple. “It’s dirty.”

“I will clean it for you, Carla. I will clean it.” Mom took the apple from Carla and turned forward in her seat. 

“When will I be a big sister, a Hermana Mayor?” Carla asked. 

“For the rest of your life.” 

Carla sat back, her fuzzy gaze lingering past the speaking trees, some of them with white signs stapled to their trunks. With bold, red letters they zipped by like sci-fi lasers: THIS FRIDAY AND SATURDAY ONLY. EVERYTHING MUST GO. DO YOU SEE US, EAGLE EYE? ESTATE SALE THIS SUNDAY. FRESH FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, ORGANIC. OVER HERE, EAGLE EYE! 

Life is short, kids. 

Notice the sky. 

Notice the signs. 

Give your grandchildren pet names. 

Remember all the times.   

Carla began to make room for another, a fourth. She peeled Tommy’s note away from her heart and tossed it out the window. He was too tall, anyway. And the way he tapped his pencil on his desk was simply the worst. His handwriting was ugly. He was ugly. He is such a back-of-the-classroom boy. Troublemaker. Note passer. Carla couldn’t have loved him. She was confused, not heartsick. She would never let that happen again. Not again. Never. No way. 

Now- away. 

Carla zipped her coat and tongued the gap between her front teeth. She imagined Tommy attempting to run behind the car faster than physics would allow. Saturday morning cartoon stuff. A smile cracked, tiny, but large enough so that Tommy would seep out of her and be sucked out of the window with his letter. Carla’s eyes widened to let in the light of new love. All the way. Three-sixty. The rubble that had filled a cavity in her chest became simple dust, the dirt on the floorboard of her parent’s car. She knew she would find the tools to clean the cavity, scrape away the rot, and make it into a new room for the new one. The fourth. A baby!   

“Roll your window up, deary, it is getting cold in here,” Mom said without inflection, her voice sobering. She then handed Carla the apple. Mom had sliced it into four clean and crisp pieces. Mom held her fingers to her lips, the tart juice souring the back of her mouth. Mom had a way of shifting, setting the mood. One minute cheerful and the next all business. She was a mood magician. She told stories with her gestures. Sleight of hand, slight of tongue, but never a liar. 

***

Carla, Big Kid Carla, nearly jumps out of her skin like she has a grand idea, the best idea. She’s hit the jackpot. The computer, a real clunker, is in the living room, and right beside it is the printer. Please, please don’t be out of ink. She turns on the desktop. It’s like waking an ancient Leviathan. No, it’s like lifting the lid of a sarcophagus and moving the mummy at its joints. Nah, it’s like using a rotary phone and realizing you’ve got the wrong number halfway through. Anyway, she’s on a mission.  

Rufus starts barking and jumping all over Landon. Carla is too focused to tell Landon to keep him from bouncing off the walls. The computer finally shows signs of life. 

Word. Click click. New. Click click. Time to type:

roommate wanted

Okay. Straight and to the point. I like it. No need for fluff. Carla chews her lip. 

Cheap rent

Cheap, cheap, cheap. But it is just a couch. Hmmm. Inexpensive? No, cheap. Let’s not sugarcoat it. I guess the location is important. Gotta mention the location. 

uptown, two bedrooms, one bath

“It should be an artist,” Landon says from the couch. 

“What should be?” Carla asks, half paying attention. 

“The roommate. If we get a roommate, she should be an artist.”

“She?” Carla raises an eyebrow. 

artist preferred, dude

Backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace. 

cheap rent 

Twice? Better not. 

Backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace. 

My number or his?

Mine. Definitely mine. 

call Carla (504)-***-****

Better be clear about the whole couch thing. Someone is going to think I’m offering a bedroom. Oops. 

You get the old, lumpy couch, Lumpy. 

That’ll do it. No false advertising. But maybe don’t call people “lumpy”. 

Backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace. 

“Anything else I should add?” Carla asks, squinting at the screen. This is tricky business. 

“Mention Rufus. Some people don’t like dogs.” Landon doesn’t look up. “That’s not the type of woman we want as a roommate.” 

PS: must be cool with my intrusive but sweet doggo, dude

Backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace, backspace. 

“Anything else?” Carla rests her chin on her hands, elbows propped up on the computer desk.

“The couch sucks, Carla. The couch really does suck.” Landon’s sentiment sticks to the air as Carla types the final line. 

PPS: you better have a good pillow, the couch really does suck

Carla clicks the mouse, the printer buzzes and inch by inch it spits out the ‘roommate wanted’ flyers onto the floor. Good news: it isn’t out of ink.

“Hey, Rockstar,” Carla says, holding up the warm stack of fresh flyers. “You wanna help me flypost these bad boys around town?”

Landon says he’ll grab the tape and Rufus gravitates to Landon, tail wagging, nose twitching, itching for another toss of the ball. 

***

People who use Greyhound busses to get from state to state aren’t usually the type to plan. Seat of the pants, day to day is more their speed. Lots of people come into town and need a place to crash. They can go to a hostel, or they can room with Landon and Carla. They just needed enough cash to pay the power bill, that’s all. 

That was her explanation, her justification to put up a flyer near the bus station. 

People who don’t plan aren’t usually the types you want as roommates. There is a reason they don’t tend to plan. That reason is they have chased out anyone in their life who they could bunk with. So, they can’t plan. They’re running from, not to. What makes you think they won’t start a dumpster fire here just like the one they left?

That was his rebuttal. A feckless rebuttal, one he knew to be so, but a rebuttal nonetheless. This was a game they played. Carla was going to do what Carla wanted to do and that was that. Landon pretended to be offended, but he knew it was a show, a performance he and Carla put on to entertain each other. 

Landon said the bus station was designed by someone who had Art Deco dreams but was working on a Brutalist budget. 

“K.” Carla shrugged and held out her hand, waiting for Landon to give her the tape. She was going to fasten a flyer to the flagpole.

“Art Deco was supposed to be America. It was supposed to be our contribution to the great architecture of the world. Now it’s just in movies.”

“Uh-huh.”

“In the movies. Did you see “The Great Gatsby”?”

“What?” Carla wanted the tape. 

“We don’t make beautiful statues anymore.” Landon looked around at absolutely nothing, eyes all full of wonder. “The Veiled Virgin was like a hundred and fifty years ago.” 

“Yes, I saw it.”

“Like, in person? When’d you see the Veiled Virgin? Do you even have a passport?”

“No, I saw “Gatsby” when it came out.”

“Oh, right.”

Carla thinks for a moment and Landon’s eyes go drifting off into the clouds. “Is a building the same as a statue?” Carla’s gap peaks out for the slightest second. 

“I never thought of buildings as statues, but now that you mention it, no. Buildings are not the same as statues.” Landon responds, bearing Carla’s sarcasm perfectly and without complaint.

Carla gives in. “I’m kidding, dork. Tape. Tape, please, and thank you.” Landon gives Carla the tape and she goes on taping the flyer to the flag pole. This is their thing, their little back-and-forth to give just enough dazzle to the everyday. Carla places her hand on her heart. 

“Watch. Someone is going to walk from this bus station, see this flyer, and totally be the perfect match. And don’t tell me that anyone who would be okay with sleeping on Lumpy and getting his face licked at 5:30 in the morning by Rufus is not someone we would want to room with.” Carla puts her hands on her hips and has stolen Landon’s full attention. “I know that’s what you’re thinking and you’re wrong.”

“You hungry?” Landon asks. 

“I think so.”

Landon produces from his pockets two green apples and hands one to a smiling Carla. 

“I like your teeth. You’ve got good teeth. Where to next?”

“We can be done. It’s getting windy.” Carla hugs herself. Her curls shake.

“Sounds good.” As they begin to walk to Carla’s car, Landon begins to hum a familiar melody.

“Wintertime Love!” Carla stops in her tracks and nearly busts Landon’s eardrum. 

“I didn’t know you were a fan of The Doors,” Landon says, rubbing the side of his head with his hand.

“I’m not. I mean, they’re okay. My mom used to love that song.” Carla takes a bite of the apple. Its juice sparkles on her lip. “I have been trying to think of the name all day and here you are humming it. Ain’t that something?”

“Maybe buildings are sometimes the same as statues,” Landon says, placing his apple back into his pocket, unbitten. “If buildings are sometimes the same as statues, then the body is a building, too.” 

“You make little to no sense,” Carla says, eyes rolling out of her head.

“I never do. Never wanted to.”

“We’re going to be late on the electricity bill.” Carla swallows. It might get shut off.”

Landon nods. “Eat your apple,” he says, like it’s the answer to everything. 

Carla takes another bite. Maybe it is. 

The two get in her car and drive, eager to be home, to toss the ball for Rufus, to sit on their old New Orleans porch with the lights off. 

5.4.24

1:12 PM. 

New Orleans, LA

Eric St. Pierre, a multifaceted New Orleans-based artist, weaves elements of story, color, and sound to create work that examines the play between the tangible and the transcendent. Eric’s writing and visual art have found homes in publications such as Grim and Gilded, The Raffish, The Emerald Coast Review, Running Wild Press, and the columns of The Independent News Weekly.