Conversations and Genie
written by: Chris Gee
The Wednesday before my birthday, I remembered trying to do homework and producing nothing but sweat. Even with the doors and windows opened to screens, the air just wasn’t moving. I even tried staring at the mountains and vegging. But my mind kept hearing whispers from town—that the fires raging across its East Ridge would turn on us when the wind changed.
Right before dusk, Aunty Meg called me out for evening chores. As I tossed out scratch for the chickens, a gust blew through, dropping the temperature. That must have been an omen, as a cherry-red Jeep came to a skidding stop outside our gate. Genie stepped down from it—like a movie star who knew everyone was watching—and sang, “Happy Birthday!”
She looked like Genie, but her hair, her flowing locks of black attitude—all gone! In its place, a pixie mullet, roughed up from her country drive. I dropped my feed pail, ran over, and tackled her with hugs and kisses. I barely stammered off, “You made it! I wrote for you to come, and you did!”
Genie tucked back loose strands of hair behind my ear and said with her trademark smile, “C’mon, Suzie-cat! It’s not every day my only niece turns sixteen.”
Aunty Meg must have been listening and chose then to burst our bubble. “Craziest thing you’ve done yet. Driving in with an inferno bearing down.”
“Meg. Glad to see you, too.”
I knew better than to get caught laughing at Genie’s zinger back, so I turned away. But I was never fast enough for Aunty Meg. “Susan Winona. Stop your fidgeting and warm up some leftovers.”
***
The kitchen, like the rest of the weatherboard house, was built by kin we never met. On the trail for California gold, they broke down not far from the house—busted wagon wheel, dead horse, whatever. Each re-telling had a different reason. Their crossroad moment never changed—fix up and somehow rejoin the wagon train or settle. They chose the latter and, mindful of all winters, integrated early with the natives. Over time, wars, heartbreaks, or diseases have worn down the family until it was just us. The last to go was my mom, Laurie—God rest her soul. I want to remember her as the ideal middle sister—who kept the peace and laughed at both sisters’ jokes.
Aunty Meg said grace over dinner: reheated chicken soup. Not another word was spoken. Having had enough of their Cold War, I asked for help to clean up. Those ladies couldn’t move to the lounge fast enough, with chairs scraping as their thanks.
I joined them afterwards and caught the tail end of an Aunty Meg sting. “—You’re changing your college major again? What are you? Twenty-seven?” She mellowed on seeing me enter. “Susan. Darling. Come sit next to me.”
Genie used the distraction to kick off her ropers and sat cross-legged in her corner of the wood-framed sofa. Her tube socks, something a clown would wear, with technicolor rings moving up the shaft, kept my attention. And since Genie was scarecrow-thin—sustained by Diet Cokes and Marlboro Lights, no doubt—she could dress any way she wanted. That night, it was a tie-dye sweatshirt-hoodie and deadstock jeans. Better than the going-nowhere, digging-a-ditch overalls Aunty Meg and I wore.
Once we were all seated, Aunty Meg continued. “There. Nice and cozy. What major?”
“Photojournalism,” said Genie, with an air of being interrogated.
“So, following a reggae band with your camera for a year trains you for Time magazine?”
“More like Better Homes and Gardens.”
I chuckled. Well, it was more like a throaty snort.
Aunty Meg turned on me, the maverick end of her salt-and-pepper ponytail sailed like a wild whip as it poked out the back of her Wilbur-Ellis cap. She even gave me the same icy stare I’d get for crossing up my sins in CCD, and mumbled, “… she protested nukes at Offutt, and I’m the bunny who drove the ten hours to bail—” before she stopped midsentence and turned slowly back to Genie—just like they do in the movies. “You’re here for the fires.”
Genie said while winking at me, “How else can we light candles on a birthday cake?”
Aunty Meg went off like a roll of firecrackers. I had heard her sermons before, so my attention drifted around the room. The settler-themed knick-knacks and flea-market watercolor paintings that hung behind us. A wide wooden cabinet next to the butler’s door, crammed with books none of us have ever read. My eyes stopped on our coffee table. An open tin of ALTOIDS rested, displaying custom-rolled cigarettes. Like cramped soldiers on the ready, they told me, without words, that Genie would be around a while.
Aunty Meg and Genie exchanged verbal jabs, mostly about past, unresolved stuff. Genie had a cigarette in her hand, but kept getting distracted trying to light it. When I least expected, Genie let it slip, “I saw Jack today when filling up in town.”
For the first time that night, Aunty Meg had nothing nasty to say.
Genie didn’t stop there. She took their conversation deep into the land of innuendo, way-back-when’s, and whatever-happened-to’s until their fight was forgotten. The way Genie plucked at Aunty Meg’s heartstrings matched a superpower.
The electrics went out soon after. I got the short straw to get some candles from the kitchen since “I was there last.” Genie briefly lit her Bic lighter so I could find her hand in the dark and take it like a baton pass. Once they were settled, I headed off to bed. The night kept getting colder, and—thanks to my laziness—I snuggled into a winter quilt I had not packed away. In the middle of my goodnight prayers, I heard my aunties bump and bang their way to the front porch. Next was the clanking of whiskey tumblers. Next, they talked above a whisper—on the fires, Mom’s plans for me, and such.
Outside my window, the hammock creaked as it swung from the old Bartlett Pear tree. If it weren’t so cold, I would have climbed right in, pretending the breeze was Laurie rocking me to sleep. A breeze beyond mortality, pushing and pulling through prairie grass. Like, inhales and exhales.
***
From that night, it’s a whole other re-telling of what happened. On Friday morning, though, Genie drove us out of town without another soul on the roads. She pushed in a cassette tape as we passed the “You are leaving Moxie” sign, and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Whiskey Rock-a-Roller” roared to life. She wore a second-hand, disco-red halter top that revealed bare arms and back. While both hands were on the steering wheel, she sang along like a misplaced Honkette. The whole moment gave me a heart ping, as I imagined my mom teaching Genie how to perform in some Teen-Beat-decorated bedroom. Sad to admit, since I scored solo time with Genie, I was grateful for the fires.
Taking inventory, the cherry-red Jeep was one sweet ride. Midnight black trim at all the right places with only a roll cage between us and muggy gray skies. I glanced behind her driver’s seat and saw a Canon-branded camera bag. I immediately thought of Aunty Meg’s protest mumble, but figured to leave it with them to work out.
The cassette tape ejected with a pop. Genie, having stopped singing about two bars back, did nothing about it. On a hunch, I asked over turbulence, “So, whose Jeep is this, anyways?”
“Marty’s. Well … it was Marty’s. I think you met him last time, yeah?”
“Did he ask you to park it on the other side of the state?”
“Silly goose! I won it—fair and square! A good, old-fashioned game of strip poker. I beat him with this killer hand. Needless to say, we ain’t a couple no more. So. New topic. You’re walking around town, and a tourist stops you, asking for directions. They go on a bit, but there’s something they ALL say that bugs you. What is it?”
“Oh, that’s an easy one. When they go on about how flat it is ‘out here.'” That got the strangest laugh out of Genie—one with no sound and her head nodding in agreement. I don’t think Genie had ever laughed the same way twice. “I mean, what the hell? They say it in such a way that you’re supposed to run out on the spot and go scrunch up the ground like a bedsheet.”
“Right! So right!”
“It’s our home, you know? I wouldn’t have it any other way.” Genie moved on to the next topic: specifically, me and dating. I shook my head no before I confessed, “There was Joey.”
I shared that last summer, I followed him around as he collected from puddles, creeks, potholes—anywhere with standing water. A day or two before school started again, I followed him to his parents’ garage, the place of his junior laboratory. As I was looking down his microscope, his mom walked in all stealth-like with milk and cookies.
“Ha, cookie blocked!” Genie laughed at the worst part of my re-telling.
“I know, right? After I left, I had half a hope of anything more with him, but by November, Mary-Breast, with her blonde hair and blue eyes—”
“Sorry? Mary-Breast?”
“Yeah, Mary-Breast. It’s what we all call her, since she has the biggest—”
“I get it. You were saying?”
“She fished him up for Sadie Hawkins. They’re a good match, looking like a wedding cake topper and all.” I kept going, even with a growing lump in my throat. “It’s just his mom gave me this… Look. Like, she hated me from the womb.”
Genie slammed on the foot brake and brought the Jeep to an illegal, tire-screeching stop. “Suzie-cat … Don’t—”
“Don’t what? You said so yourself, with eye-rolling flair and dramatics, in the big fight with Aunty Meg. ‘We’re Black Irish stock drowning in unwanted Lakota Sioux blood.'”
Genie pulled up the parking brake and touched my left shoulder. A shock ran across me, and I fell apart, bawling uncontrollably. Having all that bottled up inside surprised me! She pulled a bandana out of nowhere, wiped away my tears, and said, “You … with the memory of an elephant. A day will come when your own inner strength surprises you. Grandma Nicoma had a saying for it. ‘Look for the wolf in the river.'”
Her words slowed my crying, but I had no idea what to say back.
Genie reached over the floor shifter and hugged me—like I was a tube of sadness, and she would squeeze it all out of me. The smell of sandalwood and her strawberry-scented Lip Smackers comforted me, searing a perfect memory I will take to the grave.
“Oh, Suzie-cat. What I want to do can wait. I’d better get you home.”
***
Driving back, thunder sounded in the distance. Genie shared knock-knock jokes that were so bad, I couldn’t help but laugh. When we pulled in, Aunty Meg was on the porch, pacing back and forth. She pecked at us right away—going for a joyride, worrying her half to death. What I remembered most, though, was Genie’s ropers as she crossed stonework and wood. I expected sharp cracks, but heard in each step a warbly, weary sound. She climbed the short steps, pushed past Aunty Meg, and said, “Forget all of this.”
“Get back here!” Aunty Meg barked back, upgrading her rant to name-calling and slurs. Genie said nothing in defense. Her energy went into packing bags and leaving them on the porch. I made myself useful by buckling each of her bags into the Jeep.
The last of the pack was Genie herself, sliding down into the driver’s seat. We both listened longer than we should to Aunty Meg slamming doors and cupboards from inside the house. Black smudges fell from heaven, for a while without pattern, before running like tired mascara down the skin of the Jeep. It was black rain.
Genie spoke first, ” Suzie-cat. You know you can leave anytime, right?”
“I know.”
She started up the engine, giving it a rev at the end.
I asked her before I thought it through, “Will I ever see you again?”
Genie frowned back and said, “Absolutes ain’t my thing. I’m just kicking myself for not getting you a decent present. Wait a second—” She magically pulled out the same red bandana and spent a few seconds tying it quickly to my wrist. “There,” were her last words before putting the Jeep into a hard reverse away from our picket fence. Then she drove off, turning at the end of the road toward town.
By nighttime, rain came down in buckets and, thankfully, put out the fires. Folks praised the Lord and all, but then it kept coming—like torrents-worth—for the next two weeks, turning all that praise sour. The mudslides from the mountain were the scariest part, draining randomly and unpredictably along the county.
Days rolled into months. Without Aunty Meg’s knowledge, I wrote a proper letter to Genie at her UNL apartment. I got this cardboard bag back as a reply. Inside was my unopened letter, many bills addressed to Genie, and a rather hostile note from her roommate, Emily. She shared that Genie hadn’t returned, that the whole rent was killing her, and that she was grateful to have an address to forward bills to. I stuffed that hot mess deep under my mattress.
Months turned into spring when word about hosting a ‘Thank You’ dance for all the volunteers who fought off the forest and range fires became the buzz in town. My re-telling picked up with me helping Aunty Meg get dressed. Both of us wore our hair down. No caps. No ponytails. I want to say we looked like a pair of ready-to-go lionesses, but I think those cats are naturally bald. Aunty Meg had slipped into one of Grandma Nicoma’s Sunday dresses, this dark navy-blue one-piece with tiny paisley prints. It took everything I had to conceal my shock. I wore this black-and-white maître d’ uniform from Genie’s old stash. It barely fit my body type, as I’m more on the milkmaid side of life. As the two of us faced a full-length mirror—me pulling fluff off her dress—I asked Aunty Meg on a lark, “Maybe I should paint your nails or something?”
“Only if you want to be buried in that monkey suit.”
I stifled a laugh, not wanting her to get self-conscious. Suddenly, she reached over her shoulder and stopped my nitpicking. Something was desperate in her grasp. Our eyes locked in the mirror’s reflection, and both of us saw something new in the other.
“I’ve been hard on you. Not because I don’t love you. But because I do. God, I see more of Laurie in you every day.”
I kissed the back of her palm before suggesting, “We’d better get going.”
Barely a minute inside the venue, two of Aunty Meg’s American Legion Auxiliary sisters fished her out. They took no notice of how pretty she looked and launched straight into some problem that desperately needed her help. Before I could clear my throat, they had disappeared with Aunty Meg into the sea of party warmers.
The venue itself was the same hall used for winter basketball. I had volunteered to pour red punch from a drink station a week earlier. Half the room had filled with healthier-looking men, seasoned with wives and girlfriends. The other half had, well, more bachelors. Slowly, they mingled until ten counties of firefighters were one happy mess. If you asked me, that was the true miracle.
The old vets swarmed and leered at me, asking for refills again and again. Thank God when Lieutenant Elk-Shoulder and Sergeant Martinez showed up and scattered the vets like self-interested cockroaches. Martinez did all the talking and asked for Aunty Meg as some hikers had stumbled across a Jeep half-buried in mud. My heart skipped. They had it hauled back to town and found Genie’s I.D. in personal effects buckled to the passenger seat.
Whatever that meant, I heard Aunty Meg’s advice in my inner ear: don’t show your feelings to people you don’t trust. By then, the floor was thick with dancing couples. Even if I wanted to hunt out Aunty Meg, I’d have to stand on a chair or something because of my height. I hoped to God she had found her beau, and the two of them were mugging out in some private spot. A surge came over me to protect my kin. So, I made it crystal clear—in my best Aunty Meg voice—that I was the officer’s only choice and they had best lead the way.
After some lefts and rights, the three of us stepped onto the lot behind Mark’s garage. Martinez, I’m sure, had his reasons for keeping the police cruiser’s disco lights going. Steady, sensible lighting came from these four makeshift spotlights—the same ones carpenters use at night when rushing a job. Genie’s Jeep stood where their beams crossed. I clenched my hands into fists to fight off the shakes.
Martinez was quite pushy and asked for details from the last time I was with Genie, which would be a whole other re-telling. The only time Elk-Shoulder spoke was to say, “Give her a minute,” as I slid down into the passenger seat, not caring about the mud.
On a whim, I opened the glove box. I expected an explosion of gum wrappers and parking tickets. Instead, a matted, muddy clump looked back at me. Genie’s ALTOIDS tin was there. After some finger-chiseling and picking, I had the tin in my hands. I opened it up to look inside.
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