As they drove, Aix told Marshmallow everything that had happened, answering her questions, which were many and thoughtful. A few hours later, somewhere near Philadelphia, as they were pulling into a Heart station that said ‘vacancy’ on the neon sign, signalling there were rooms, Marshmallow said,
‘So can anyone be the city guardian, can there be more than one? Cos I wanna do it. This miscellaneous white woman doesn’t have any right to speak for me.’
‘You know what, I support you,’ Aix said, as she parked and Pippin woke up at the lack of movement. ‘My Aunt Victoria is a city guardian, you should ask her about that.’
‘I surely will,’ Marshmallow said, and stretched after getting out of the car, appreciating that Aix locked the doors automatically. ‘I’ll handle the room; my grandmother wanted to verify the money transfer went through properly.’
‘Oh thank you. Do you wanna look at clothes together? I know we both probably need some.’
‘Don’t say “my treat” again,’ Marshmallow said, before he could; she smiled to let him know there were no hard feelings.
‘But I like giving presents, it’s no trouble,’ Aix felt he had to insist, as she opened the door for him.
‘No, it’s fine, seriously.’
‘Okay, are we having crossed wires about how many times we have to refuse a gift, or...?’ Aix finally made himself ask.
‘What do you really want to say? No scripts,’ Marshmallow said.
‘It’s only recently I’ve had enough money to share with anybody, and I like being able to participate in the social behaviour of treating people to things. I also want you to know I appreciate you driving me so far on such short notice, and want to, like, make it clear I know what that means, and I want you to be comfortable. And I don’t want to behave like... like a skinflint,’ he said, unable to find a more modern term in his brain. Working without a script was exhausting; but Marshmallow was right, they had to drop mannerly scripts for clarity, just for a moment.
Marshmallow didn’t laugh—you had to know when not to laugh, sometimes. ‘You are definitely not a skinflint,’ she said, understanding now, but needing to know... ‘you mean you were poor? With an Auntie like that?’
‘Well,’ he said, as they went to the fridges, ‘she hasn’t been my Auntie long; only a few weeks.’
‘Ahhhhh, okay, that kind of Auntie.’
‘Technically I never stopped being homeless,’ Aix added.
‘Oh shit, right!’ she said, as she opened the fridge to get another bottle of cola, ‘you said that before! I’m so sorry.’
‘No, it’s okay, we’ve been talking about a lot of stuff. You can’t have that juice, Pippin, you can have this one, it tastes better,’ he said, gently taking the colourful juice box of sugar water with the cartoon characters on it away from her and exchanging it for a juice box of the unfiltered fresh-pressed apple juice. ‘And being homeless doesn’t necessarily mean you don’t have money,’ he continued, to Marshmallow, as they shopped for food, ‘just that you don’t have enough to have housing. That said, I scraped by on almost nothing for most of my adulthood. Then I met Victoria and her family, who just hand people money all the time, they’re like... old money.’ He looked at the clothing section, looking down when he heard a soft squeaky noise from Pippin doing a big yawn, hugging her box of juice.
‘Aww, baby bean tiyohed,’ Marshmallow said softly. She leaned down, offering her hand. ‘You wanna come with Auntie and get a room for sleepytime?’
Pippin nodded. ‘Up,’ she said, since her hands were full of juice. Marshmallow picked her up, balancing her on one hip. She snuggled into Marshmallow, hugging her.
‘You go on and get clothes,’ Marshmallow told Aix, ‘I’ll come find you and give you a room key and stuff.’
‘Okay. I don’t think she should be left alone, she was alone for a long time, and I don’t know if that would scare her,’ Aix said. Marshmallow nodded.
‘No worries. I’ll just carry her, she seems pretty happy to fall asleep already.’ It was true, Pippin had just fallen right asleep in Marshmallow’s arms, even clutching her juice box like a doll.
Alone in the clothing section, Aix started scanning for the plus section, didn’t find it, but realised... it wasn’t that plus sizes weren’t there; the sizes just went up and didn’t stop.
The underwear was in sealed packets, as usual for underwear; but instead of the usual brands, there were names and logos Aix had never seen before—and when he flipped a package over to see if there was a size chart and fibre content information, he found out that not only where they linen and union-made; but sized according to hip measurement and labelled with that number. The back had a short description of what real linen was like—hard-wearing, softer the harder you washed it, things Aix knew from his time researching fashion and textile history, but things most people did not know. He looked through the styles, knowing he wouldn’t find his preferred panty style, but if he could find some actual bloomers or boxers... and, wait, he wasn’t seeing the word ‘white’ on any of these, now that he was in his size grouping of bloomers, and looking at colours.
He was seeing ‘black’ though, and got one pack of seven, very happy to not have to compromise on the colour he really wanted. His feet hurt, but he was happy to have found what he needed so easily, and it was the same with the stock of basic clothes for travellers that needed them. It wasn’t just t-shirts and sweatshirts like at a drugstore; there were simple drawstring pants and shorts, tunics that Aix recognised as being of the simple T-pattern used in the middle ages, even reels of webbing and buckles to make custom size belts. There were regular modern buckles, but also rings, and Aix knew how to use rings. He found a tunic that was black and sleeveless, and found it was, also, made of linen, and not the loosely-woven crap either. He found a plain black hoodie too, and it was all cotton, which he hadn’t seen in sweater jersey since, quite possibly, the nineties.
Where the fuck was all of this made? It said ‘Union-Made in the USA’ but that could mean anything. Where were they getting the fabric? The dye? All of it said ‘pre-shrunk’ which, also, wasn’t something he’d seen in decades.
He needed to sit down. There was a bench by the rack of sandals. He sat and looked at the display for a bit, including the sign that said ‘END OF SUMMER SALE 50% OFF’, until his feet stopped hurting. He was just getting up again when Marshmallow came back.
‘Hey,’ she said, softly, Pippin still asleep against her. ‘You good?’
‘Just resting. I’m not done yet.’
‘Okay, well, here’s the room key—I can’t believe it’s an actual key,’ she said, handing it to Aix. ‘I’ve got one too. I said you had a wheelchair, so we’re on the ground floor. I’m gonna go move the car to our parking space, it’s right in front of our door.’
‘Oh cool, very retro,’ Aix said.
‘She offered us a crib box for Pippin, but I said I wasn’t sure, that you’d ask if you needed one. Was that okay?’
‘Pippin usually sleeps with me in my bed,’ Aix said. ‘They’ve got medieval style t-tunics here, and belts! Did you see?’
And Marshmallow learned, as Aix sprung up and started talking excitedly, that Aix knew a lot about the history of clothing. Not just fashion in terms of trends, but clothing as a technology, as politics, as a form of expression. Marshmallow wasn’t like some of her cousins and aunties, she didn’t really think about clothing. She thought about costumes quite a lot, but costumes were not at all the same thing.
The clothes were always pretty good at Heart stations, but she’d never really known how good, in terms of human rights and anti-capitalist practises, until now. She resolved to tell her family, and maybe do all her clothing shopping at a Heart station from now on.
Aix got himself two of the tunics, a belt, and a jean jacket, all in black, along with black socks and underwear. Marshmallow went for more colours—you could still find colourblock alive and strong at Heart, in bright primary colours as well as pastels—but Marshmallow wasn’t much for pastels, she was a cheerful, bright clown, even when she wasn’t clowning.
They went to their room together, and dined on some of the heartier hot food, and watched cartoons together, Marshmallow excited to find someone else as passionate about animation—and from the inside of the film industry, too; Aix had grown up in Hollywood, and furthermore in Disney, and Marshmallow finally got answers to a couple big questions—namely, why some of the decisions made by studios didn’t make sense. Aix made them make sense. They weren’t fun answers, but at least it made sense.
‘Oh it’s about the unions, my friend. It’s about the cost of human labour and how the studios just hate paying for that. LA is a union town, though....’
And she found out he was not only supportive of the unions, but had been raised by one—just like her. Bonma had unionised all the secretaries at her office in her day, and all Marshmallows siblings, aunties, and uncles were in the trades—and in unions. Bonma had always impressed upon her and all the other kids she took in that trades were a steadier income than anything at a fancy college, and they all had unions. You could be any manner of queer or strange at all, Bonma didn’t care—but if you were a scab? She ripped your head off and disowned you. Marshmallow remembered witnessing that once, when she’d been twelve, hiding halfway up the stairs, on the landing, hearing Bonma actually do something Marshmallow had never heard before or since: swear and raise her voice. At the same time, even! Outside her family, though, Marshmallow had learned that a lot of people didn’t like unions, bad-mouthed them, and so she had learned not to mention it, uncomfortable as it was; but she wasn’t very confrontational, she didn’t like arguing very much, so she just waited for other people to bring it up, to prove they were safe in that particular way.
Like right now.
‘My sister, Thema, is in IBEW. My uncle Obi is a Teamster. I always wanted to join a union too,’ Marshmallow said, with old frustration, ‘but I work for myself and... well, I don’t like the rules of the American Guild of Clowning Performers.’
‘Ugh, me neither. All that nonsense about being rated G, as though clowns have never performed for adults. As though drag performers aren’t clowns for adult audiences!’ Aix said, making sure to stay hushed, so they wouldn’t wake up Pippin, sleeping on the little armchair next to Aix’s bed, on a nest of blankets. ‘And...’ he laughed a little, ruefully, ‘yeah, I hear you about wanting to join a union, but not having a job that really... unionises. I mean, writers work alone. Maybe more alone than any job?’ he wondered the last more than stated it.
‘Probably. I mean, animators work all alone too, but at least they’re like, part of a team. Writers—what do you write?’ Marshmallow realised she didn’t really know.
‘Short stories and novels. Poetry sometimes.’
‘Yeah, that’s the really all alone writing, isn’t it?’ Marshmallow said, putting her bottle of chocolate milk back in the minifridge, ‘You aren’t part of a whole team, you’re doing the whole story by yourself.’
‘Exactly,’ Aix said, checking the time. ‘Jeepers, it’s late. No wonder I’m tired.’
‘It’s like, eleven.’
‘Yeah, and my alarm for my meds goes off at four, so I gotta get some sleep before then, or I won’t sleep at all,’ Aix said, getting under the covers. ‘It’s a Broadway song, by the way.’
‘What, your alarm? What song?’ Marshmallow said, turning off the light on her side.
‘We Both Reached For The Gun, from the movie version of Chicago that came out when I was high school,’ Aix answered while putting one of the new black tunics over his face, in absence of his usual sleep mask. ‘I probably snore a little bit,’ he warned.
‘Oh that’s okay, nothing wakes me up,’ Marshmallow said.
Marshmallow stayed up well past Aix falling asleep. He snored, but really quietly, and it certainly didn’t bother her as she settled down to get some sleep, herself. She’d never been able to sleep more than four hours at a stretch, and needed two of those a day; it had always been a strange thing, she’d never grown out of it—or hadn’t yet, anyway.
When Aix’s alarm went off, Marshmallow was already awake. Pippin woke up to the alarm, and jumped on Aix’s bed, beeping and making a general nuisance of herself, the way Bonma’s cat did. Marshmallow stifled a laugh, not knowing if this was acceptable behaviour to her keeper. Aix pushed the tunic off his face and got his phone.
‘I’m up, I’m up!’ he said muzzily, grabbing his pill box and taking whatever was in the morning section without looking, grabbing his huge water bottle off the shelf between their beds.
‘Morning,’ Marshmallow said softly.
‘Morning,’ he said, setting the water bottle back down. ‘You mind me being naked? Wait, then answer.’
Marshmallow paused. ‘I’m theatre people,’ she decided to say. ‘Nudity isn’t inherently anything.’
‘Same,’ Aix said. ‘Okay, Pip, shove off, Auntie has to heave upright.’
Pippin got off the blankets, getting under them and giggling when Aix half-kicked, half-tossed the covers off, then raised one leg almost straight up, flexing his foot and toes a few times, before throwing it down, getting upright from the counterweight, scrambling to get his arms under him.
‘What,’ he said, aware Marshmallow was watching, ‘never seen a cripple get up before?’
‘Sorry,’ she said, suddenly aware she had been staring, ‘I didn’t mean to be rude. I’ve never seen anybody get up like that.’
‘Former dancer,’ Aix said, grabbing a pair of socks he’d put up on the bedside shelf the night before and putting them on, sliding into his rainbow sneakers. ‘Gods willing, I will find a physical therapist and dance again.’
‘The Y back home has some classes for like, strengthening your core and regaining flexibility. If that helps,’ Marshmallow added. ‘Bonma takes those classes, is why I mention.’
‘That’s awesome!’ Aix said, having wanted to go to a local Y for years, since they usually had the last remaining public pools. ‘I might take it after I get a PT. I just need the therapist monitoring me, especially since I tend to sprain my feet really often.’ He pulled on the new tunic, tying the belt and figuring out how it worked with his new belly—he hadn’t worn a tunic since he’d been a malnourished teenager with a tiny waist and huge tits that hid the fact that you could count ribs. Anything with a waistband rode up, now, unless he pushed it below the apron of fat on his belly. He had mixed feelings about this, and went over to the mirror and adjusted things for a bit, listening to Marshmallow move around, packing their food from the fridge to the little cooler she had in her van.
‘You okay? Do you need to stop at a pharmacy or something?’ she asked.
‘No; I happened to have all my drugs with me, not just for the day,’ Aix said; he’d gotten into the habit of carrying them around ever since Mike had picked him up, something Mike and Victoria encouraged. It made him feel a lot freer, having the space to pack all of them. ‘Other than clothes and food, I’m actually really prepared to bug out at any time. I do that on purpose—not because I live a life where it’s really necessary, but just for like... Hairdryer Theory of OCD, you know?’
Marshmallow laughed. ‘Well, now I know what social media you use.’
‘And only that one,’ Aix said, laughing as he turned from the mirror, seeing Marshmallow sitting on the bed with Pippin, opening a packet of pre-sliced apples for her. ‘Thank you.’
‘No prob. I love when I get to share meals with joeys. They get me to eat more fruits and vegetables. Mostly fruits. You good to head out after she’s done? Maybe we can hit up a burger place on the way, I feel like burgers for breakfast.’
‘Oh same,’ Aix said, ‘and the fast-food joint that sells ‘em this early has the best coffee.’ He’d picked up a quart of heavy cream from the Heart store downstairs last night, preparing for the morning coffee, as well as a travel box of sugar cubes, that came with its own little tin and stickers to decorate it with. Nothing at Heart stations was plastic, except for the straws; everything was waxed paper, cardboard, wood, metal, or glass—and there were little signs explaining this all over the place.
Once packed, and once they both did a room-check, taking any and all soaps and complimentary toilet paper, cups and napkins with them, they got Pippin situated in her little car-nest again, and Aix put the cooler down by his feet, using the flat top of it as a foot-rest, and they got back on the road.
‘Can we listen to some music?’ Marshmallow asked. ‘I’ve got cassette tapes for the old girl; most of them are stuff I picked over from Simon’s stash. Mans has a lot of tapes. They’re in the—oh okay, you got it.’
‘My mom had this car when I was a kid, I’ve wanted one for myself for a while now. Oh no way, you have the Old Ship retro mixes from the 90s? I haven’t heard this in years!’
They sang along to the old songs—they weren’t specifically kids music, they were just silly songs from old Hollywood musicals. Marshmallow was again surprised at another thing—Aix could sing. He didn’t seem like a guy who could sing. Then again, Marshmallow thought, what did that even mean? Well, realistically, she hadn’t met a lot of white people who could sing very well, unless they were really churchy and were in choir or something.
It was fun, singing duets, and Pippin sang along too, though not with actual words. She could actually hit notes, though, and clowns could predict things well enough to have rhythm—it was the same reason they could juggle. Between songs, Aix had the map open and was good at navigation in a way only people who had grown up road tripping without GPS systems were. That was the cool thing about hanging out with older people, Marshmallow thought; they were really good at navigation, better than any GPS system.
When they went into the Holland tunnel into Manhattan, they slowed down considerably; but going slow was always preferable, in a tunnel; it gave them time to read signs, and look at the map, and double-check things. It was still stressful, because even though they’d been leisurely, and it was only ten in the morning, it was still Manhattan traffic. Pippin had first started beeping excitedly in answer to all the traffic horns, and they’d had to hush her, because clowns weren’t allowed in New York.
‘Ninja time,’ Aix said, and Pippin burrowed under her new favourite blanket, the black baby quilt, and dimmed her Flash.
They crept up, and Aix realised, as he saw more and more rainbows, ‘...Oh shit. It’s June.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What day is it?’
‘The... third? I think?’ Marshmallow said.
‘Oh,’ Aix said, quietly. ‘Well, it’s my birthday then.’
‘What!’ Marshmallow said, as Pippin beeped once in the same expression. ‘We gotta do somethin’ for you, dude!’
‘I’d like to go to Marie’s Crisis,’ Aix said, his gloom lifting as he realised... he had money, now, he could actually... do something he wanted to do. And since Victoria was about the same size as he was, maybe he could even dress up fancy for it....
‘Hell yeah! I would love to go with you.’
‘We could do that after dinner and the show, we’re here early enough,’ Aix said. ‘I’m turning my phone back on. Keep going up Sixth Avenue,’ he said, pointing the direction they were going, before looking at his phone, waiting for it to boot back up, then calling Victoria.
‘Victoria, it’s Aix,’ he said. ‘We just got out of the Holland tunnel....’ He looked down at the map, then out the window at the street signs, ‘we’re on Sixth Avenue. Yeah, traffic was fine. We need to park this van somewhere when we get to you. Turn onto... hang on lemme find it... oh here it is. Okay, so we hang a left on 59th... take Broadway the rest of the way up... left on Academy, right onto Cooper... right onto 204th... right into the alley round back of the building on that corner, follow the signs... okay, cool,’ he said, ‘no I was highlighting it on the map as you said it,’ he said, ‘yeah—well, with a coloured pencil. I was thinking maybe we’d eat before the show, and um, it’s my birthday, so—yeah, thank you, I wanted to go to Marie’s? ...Oh, right. Okay, well that’s the only bar I’ve ever been to other than the Waystation out in Brooklyn, and I know that closed because of Plague reasons. Yeah it’s cool. See you soon, bye.’
It took them a while to get all the way uptown, but they had enough music to sing to, and soon were pulling into a gated alley that just barely fit the minivan, where a guy that Marshmallow figured to be about her age, and who was wearing black pants, a black shirt, and suspenders was waiting to open the gate for them, closing it behind them and locking it again.
‘He’s following us, I’m gonna stop the car to see if he has directions,’ Marshmallow said, checking the rear-view. She stopped the minivan, and then rolled down the window carefully, not all the way either.
‘Hey, I’m Dean.’
‘Ey, Deano!’ Aix said, finally recognising him by voice and name. He waved, and Marshmallow rolled the window down the rest of the way.
‘Hiya, kid,’ Dean said. ‘Who’s ya cute driver?’
‘Marshmallow,’ she said. ‘You here to lead us to the parking?’
‘Yeah, go slow, this alley’s narrow, but I gotta open the gate for yuz.’
He led them to another gate spanning across the alley, this one just at the top of a curved ramp down into what looked like a lighted tunnel, opened it for them, and they drove into the dark. It was lit with amber light, not very bright.
‘Oh this is murder lighting,’ Marshmallow commented.
‘Not when a vampire owns the building,’ Aix said lightly. ‘Dmitri is Victoria’s husband, remember? Nobody can trespass without him knowing about it, and he doesn’t take kindly to people using this garage for anything but parking their car, and then only if they’re approved guests or residents. I said the same thing,’ he said, as Marshmallow turned off the car. They saw a flashlight approaching.
‘It’s Dean, and Butch,’ called the flashlight. ‘She said to help Aix with the chair.’
‘Are they for real?’ Marshmallow asked Aix, who nodded, grinning. The accents were thick and almost cinematic—except Dean and Butch’s families had been living in Brooklyn since the turn of the century, when they’d come over from Sicily, and were all natural.
Once Aix was settled in his chair, there came the nervous prospect of how to get Pippin out of the van.
‘Oh, Aix, where’s your Italian Particolour?’
...which was when Marshmallow finally sighed with relief, just as Pippin emerged and let Marshmallow pick her up, bundled in her little quilt.
‘Aw, there she is! Hiya, bambi!’ Dean said, as Pippin giggled, reaching for him. ‘I gotta push Aix, doll, but it’s good ta see ya. You don’t mind if I push ya, Aix? Only it’s dark in here.’
‘Nah, ‘saright.’
Butch, Marshmallow found out when they finally got out of the parking garage, was a burly lady with buzzed grey hair; she was wearing black jeans and a black sports bra, and had tattoos on both arms of naked pinup girls. She’d just held the flashlight and carried the duffel bag Marshmallow had packed all her and Aix’s new clothes and stuff in for them mostly, not really said anything yet. Aix had the cooler on his lap, and Marshmallow had Pippin still bundled in a blanket, her Flash dark.
They got into an elevator and that was when Pippin started lighting up again, wiggling and making effort-noises that Marshmallow interpreted as her wanting to get down.
‘It’s safe, she’s been here before,’ Aix said, knowing Marshmallow was likely both well-trained in how to wrangle wiggly joeys and knowing very well that clowns were illegal in New York on paper, but probably not having any experience with what that meant in practise—as indeed Aix hadn’t until he’d actually been living here more than ten years ago. Most people, particularly showbiz people, wouldn’t make a fuss about a clown, and certainly wouldn’t report one; if you saw a clown outside of a theatre having an active production involving them in New York City, well, no you didn’t.
They got up to the top floor, and Dean let Aix wheel himself the three feet to the first door on the right, the black one marked with a weathered green 13. But that was the least remarkable thing about the hallway, easily. The entire ceiling was coloured glass that made it look like a canopy of beautiful pink flowers with scattered green leaves, that made shadows on the green of the rug, which was scattered with petals the same pink colour, so it looked like some of them had fallen down. The wallpaper was a scrolling pattern of trees with the same flowers.
Aix watched Marshmallow take it all in, smiling. ‘Hey,’ he said, in a low voice, getting her attention, smiling mischievously up at her, ‘you wanna do somethin’ cool?’
She nodded. He looked up at the wall-sconce she was standing next to, the one nearest the door, which was shaped like a flower growing out of the wall, the glass shade in the shape of a lily’s cup-like petals.
‘Take hold of the stem.’ He waited until she had. ‘Now pull down.’
She did, and felt something in the wall click, and the door creaked open.
‘What the fuuuuuck,’ she whispered, eyes wide, an open-mouthed smile of shock on her face. ‘This is the coolest building ever.’
‘Oh is that our guests?’ called a voice Marshmallow had only heard on the phone, before; and it wasn’t just her Phone Voice, it was apparently her All The Time Voice. ‘Ohh, here’s my favourite little kitten, hello Pippin! Aren’t you well-dressed for tonight! Come through, dears, come through!’