Newspaper Boy
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Dangerous Angels (The Weetzie Bat books)
Copyright: Francesca Lia Block and HarperCollins Publishing
"Why do you read the newspaper every morning," Weetzie Bat asked, "If it depresses you so much?"
She and My Secret Agent Lover Man were cuddled up together on the red sofa in their living room, munching on Doritos with avocado dip, having just watched The Girl Can't Help It for the hundredth time. Cherokee and Raphael were playing basketball outside, Witch Baby exploring the city with Angel Juan. Dirk and Duck were taking advantage of the last days of summer to catch some waves. It was the perfect time for Weetzie to be confidential, to ask a question she had been wanting to ask for years.
"I just like to stay current," he said, his green eyes darting away and focusing sharply on the Dorito in his hand. "You know, on top of things."
She rolled her blue-lined eyes at him. He sighed.
"Okay, okay. You want to know the real story? Here goes."
My Secret Lover Man had grown up in an apartment in one of the poor parts of L.A., where the wallpaper had bullet holes in it and where you had to walk up five flights of steps carrying the groceries. His mother, Marci, was an exotic dancer at a local bar called Vizzini's. She had coppery red hair down to her hips and she loved everything that glittered: jewelry, mirrors, glasses of gin. One of her boyfriends – a man whose name she forgot later; all she remembered was that he was a photographer - had resulted in an accident. Pregnancy.
"You're no accident, honey-honey," said Weetzie, stroking her lover's long black hair away from his forehead. "You were born for me, of course."
She grinned and winked at him; he kissed her and went on.
"Ever since I knew my father was a photographer, I used to look at the papers obsessively every morning. I'd fish them out of wastebaskets and read them during recess when everyone else was playing soccer or hopscotch. Every time I read about something, like an election or a hurricane or a war somewhere, I'd think, is he there with his camera, taking pictures? Is he living through the horror and the pain?"
His eyes and voice were unfocused, far away. Weetzie had a sudden vision, black and white like an old movie, of him as a little boy: his small pale face hard with determination, wrestling with a huge flapping, rustling newspaper as big as himself.
"And I thought, what if his talent got passed one to me somehow? If I started taking pictures, if they were shown somewhere public with my name on them – My Secret Agent Lover Man is what Marci called him...I mean, it's hardly a common name, right?"
He couldn't say the next part, whether out of embarrassment for the silliness of his childhood fantasy or out of pain for the disillusionment that followed. However Weetzie, who knew him better than anyone, could make guess.
"You thought he'd find you," she said softly. "But he didn't."
"No." He cleared his throat, uncurled himself from the velvety depths of the sofa, and went into the kitchen. he came back with drinks: a Perrier for himself and a strawberry milk for Weetzie. She did not ask why the purple shadows under his eyes looked even purpler than usual. A man had his pride, after all.
"I met Coyote when I was twenty-one," he said. "I'd switched to making movies because I felt it was better for telling stories. I was doing a documentary about the local Native reserve..." He grinned crookedly. "It didn't go so well. They were pretty ticked off at having some strange white kid barging in and sticking his camera into everything. Can't blame them. Coyote was the one who got them to calm down. He was always good at that. I thought he was the most amazing human being I'd ever seen – just glowing, you know? Radiating peace, confidence, courage. Everything I didn't have. I followed him around like a puppy dog. He told me to let go – to forgive him, my father, but mostly to forgive myself. Easier said than done, eh? But I try."
He put his arm around Weetzie and held her close.
"I'm sorry," she whispered in her low, scratchy, sympathetic voice. "I didn't mean to bring up so many...sad memories." She thought of her father, found in his unheated apartment with an empty packet of pills on the ratty brown carpet. Her mother, falling asleep with mascara on, weaving through the house with a martini glass teetering in her hand.
"What about Marci?" she couldn't resist asking.
"She died about a year before we met. Drove her Vespa over the canyon. Probably an accident, but I don't know for sure."
For a long time neither of them said anythig. They sipped their drinks, lost in thought, each knowing the other could feel just what they were going through. The thumps of the basketball hitting the driveway, along with Cherokee and Raphael's running feet, sounded so distant they might have been on another world.
Cherokee's squeal of victory brought them back to the present.
"You do have a family," said Weetzie. "One that loves you. I love you. Don't forget."
"I know." He stood up and pulled her upright, holding her hands in his. For a long moment, they looked into each other's eyes. Green and blue. The colors of a perfect, sunny Pacific Ocean. Waves of laughter, passion and comfort.
"I love you too, Weetz," he said. "And I won't forget."