The Glue Gun Queen

           She's not ugly, but no one has ever been attracted to her. She has that kind of nervous smile, annoying laughter, and de-inflated ego that makes people think she's, at least partly, mentally challenged. No one has ever called her pretty. Her mother strokes her head, calls her endearing names: "My little button," "Lambie," "Sweet girl of mine." She calls her names, and she knows she loves her, so there's no need, no reason, absolutely nothing to be gained from little white lies. 1

            "Shae-Shae," she mutters in a too-old, foggy, smoker's growl, "There's no point to boys, anyhow. Of course they don't notice you, you don't want them to. You put on that whore's face, and they'll only laugh. Put the lipstick down, girl. You look like a clown." 2

            She looks in the mirror and brushes her hair, mousy-brown and curly in all the wrong places. She hates her uneven nose, hates her too-big eyes, her short eye-lashes, wild eye-brows, her face is wrong, sad, and miserable to look this way. She picks the lint off of her sweater; the one her mother said was too large. It hides her hips, and she twists sideways, looking down, wishing it concealed her enormous rear, as well. 3

            A grown woman now; twenty-seven and living in her mother's apartment with the smoke, cats, carpet-stains and greasy floors. Her mother used to sew, but now she only jogs. She’s alone often, and twenty-seven years old, begins to think that connections with those outside may be of value. She’s walked by the coffee shop, on the way to the library where she reads cheap romance paper-backs, emails aunts, and watches children. She’s looked inside the café windows on her walk more than a few times. The folks inside rouse yearnings, loneliness, boredom that’s been gnawing away at her for years. Her age, but somehow, they appear much younger; like they’ve found some secret spring at which they swim, drink, and absorb the liquid that, would probably be, glittering like the sun and warm. She looks in the window and scoffs, snorts into her over-sized hand-knitted shawl. 4

            “What funny clothes!” she says, but inside, truly wishes that she had leather, leopard print and skin-tight jeans. She never admits these thoughts to herself, and keeps her quick stride all the way to the library. 5

            There’s a book at the library that she’s seen once or twice, set upon one of the stands in a window display, probably new, to show how exciting the city book collection can be. When asked about it, the young volunteer reports to his superior, returns, takes the book off of its platform, scans the barcode, and places it in the enthusiastic, anxious hands of the woman with a green scrunchie and Minnie Mouse book bag. 6

            The book is covered by a mattress sheets and quilts during the day and extracted by flashlight, after the older, bony woman has retired to her futon. Eager fingers slide across the glossy cover: a picture of a woman, nude, separated into disconcerting jigsaw squares, created by thick splashes of warm, bright colors. “Picasso,” she identifies the painting in a whisper, and opens the book to a random page. Classic, round, skinny, young, old, and even a few unusual womanly figures fill almost every page she encounters. Soulful eyes, beautiful eyes, graceful, gnarled hands and feet. Every single feature, limb, and imperfection is so painstakingly reconstructed in a way that no matter how plain the features of the woman may be, she still looks beautiful. Girls with freckles, boring hair, bad teeth and crooked noses seem to fit in effortlessly with the Romanesque visions of beauty; side-by-side posing, dancing, laughing and living for the artists that form their image in paper, canvas, stone and clay to survive forever. The woman holds the coffee-table volume in her lap with a small flashlight between her teeth, comprehends that she is a part of these beautiful visions. She’s twenty-seven, and she feels like a woman. 7

            Every day, she gets dressed in the early morning before the sun’s quite risen: hiking boots and tapered, loose-fitting jeans, white, sometimes flowery, sometimes grey T-shirt, vest, maybe sweater, and a charm bracelet, if she’s up to it. Her attire for many years varies layers by the season, but other than that, shows no sign of interest in life. 8

            Today, she rummages through her mother’s closet, and finds an old moth-eaten violet lace skirt. She slips it up her legs, and pulls at the waist that doesn’t fit like it should. She safety-pins the side, brushes her hair into a bun, puts on a hardly-ever-worn tank top, and heads towards the door with the destination of the library in mind. She stops, remembering that she left her book in the bedroom, then notices, for the first time it seems, a tall wooden bookcase by the sofa filled with dolls. Many have no clothes, and she’s reminded of the pretty doe eyes and soft curves of the nudes lounging by pools of water in her library book. She steps toward them, mystification and intrigue on her face. She touches their small bodies. Barbies, Cupies, and porcelain girls. She pulls herself away and shoves the large book in her bag. She eyes the dolls on her way out, and ignores her mother’s bark, “The hell you get that from…?!” 9

            She walks and hugs her book, shrouded in her linen bag, and stops abruptly at the coffee shop. She’s twenty-seven, and for the first time, considers trying caffeine. After a brief struggle with the handle, she stumbles through the door and sits on the nearest sofa. She tugs uneasily on the apron of a server, attempting to scurry past. The tall girl whirls, almost dropping her tray and stares wide-eyed at the frumpy woman sitting on the green leather cushions. The woman is embarrassed at the girl’s wordless mouth agape, and quickly extrudes a crumpled five-dollar bill from her pocket. 10

            “Can I get a coffee?” 11

            The girl nods and points to the counter before walking away. The woman looks at the register, but remains at her seat. She takes in the rest of the room. Today, almost completely empty, save a few college-age boys in the back, sipping espresso and clacking away at their lap-top keys. She looks at the brightly-painted walls. Hanging on wires are rows and rows of decorated boxes and boards. She walks towards the nearest hanging item, and notices a tag on the wall next to it. It reads: “Mother of Life and Death.” In a crate half the size of a shoe box, there is a carved wooden figure. A woman with a skull-painted face is shrouded in tiny squares of fabric, glazed in a clear type of varnish so that it looks like it hangs in heavy folds and drapes. Sun rays protrude from her body in orange, wiggly wires. Stars sprinkle the back board and patterns of red, green and black creep around her feet in the painted boards. Shells hang in short strands from the top of the box, and click and chime in the draft from the air-conditioner. It’s put together seamlessly, as if the scene were taken from a real-life play and shrunken to this hand-held size. Below the title, the artist’s name: “Darryl H,” and the price, “$50.” The woman moves, transfixed, along the wall and peers into each ornate little wooden shrine. There are clay flowers, beads, magazine cut outs and found medallions carefully adorning angels, saints, and goddesses. Virgin de Guadalupe. Kali. Vishnu. Gaea. St. Michael. Aphrodite. A boy attempts to hide his questioning gaze from behind his lap-top. The woman must sense it to some degree; some level of uneasiness, because as soon as she finishes viewing the last piece at the end of the wall, she gathers her things and leaves, without getting any coffee. At the library, she checks out the same book, and brings it home once more. 12

            When her mother leaves for a “girl’s night” with a few ladies who share the same enthusiasm for bridge, she delves through her mother’s plastic storage bins, tucked away in a lonely corner of the basement. She pulls off the blue lid with “CRAFT SUPPLIES” written in permanent ink, and sorts through the miscellaneous fabrics, pom-poms, glitter, scissors, glue bottles and googly eyes. She finds what she’s looking for at the bottom. A hot glue gun. Old, burnt rubber surrounds the metal nozzle in countless layers, and strings as thin as a spider’s web cling in chaotic patterns to the faded blue handle. There are bags and bags of sticks made specifically for the gun she holds in her hand. She’s fascinated by those few wands of glitter, radiant colors; jewels nestled inside of the mass groups of opaque colorless glue. She wraps its cord around the handle, and moves the entire box to her room. 13

            She retrieves a few naked dolls with tangled hair clumped in wiry knots, and rips the limbs and heads off of every one. She plugs in the glue gun, rests it on a ceramic plate on the table, and arranges the doll parts in different ways. One large baby doll head to a Barbie torso. She fishes out wires and nails from the plastic bin, and twists it into crude, spiky limbs. She sets each length of wire and nails into a socket on the Barbie torso. She cocks her head to the side, and smiles. She grabs tiny, chubby legs from the pile of parts, and pops off the cap to a bright blue Sharpie marker. Carefully, she draws a line from the ankle to the top of the thigh, wrapped around like a candy cane. She does the same to the other, and places them on top of the large head like rabbit ears, with the toes stuck out. 14

            Soon, the glue gun starts to ooze clear liquid from the nozzle, and the parts are fashioned together in mutant, absurd shapes. The air smells like burning rubber. Boards are found, cardboard and wooden, which are painted bright colors, some with a simple design or pattern. The doll-creatures are applied with the same goopy adhesive that holds them together. Googly eyes are glued onto legs, and arms. Artificial flowers and leaves surround plastic heads in crowns. Nails jut out from everywhere- eyes, cheeks, breasts- in agonizing metal porcupine quills. 15

            Those thin strands of dried glue float from one project to the next, connecting them. Tiny hairs, clear, almost white, growing from one deformed joint to another. 16

            She spends the next few weeks working on the pieces of art in her room. Some are now spray-painted gold. Many legs and torsos are written on, powerful words like “Fear,” “Hate,” “Alone.” The shelves that once held many dolls are lightened; gaps show through what used to be a solid mass of plastic, porcelain, nipple-less breasts and smooth bare crotch. Her mother notices. 17

            The old woman has spoken hardly at all to her metamorphosing daughter since she first saw the table full of painted, glittered, glued structures of evil. She is afraid of her newfound “hobby.” She tries not to stay at the house too often, for revulsion of the things her daughter calls “my friends.” She’s confused, hurt by the way her daughter has rebelled. Odd dots and patterns are sometimes painted on the girl’s legs, arms and forehead. For fuck’s sake, she had hardly seen the girl’s limbs unless she was in a swimsuit, which was very rare. These clothes she’d started to wear- tight, insane colors and lengths. Jingly bracelets, sandals and ruffled skirts, shawls, beads, she was an absolute stinking hippy; she’s even begun to let her mid-back length hair flow, free of constraints, when she leaves the house to go… god, she couldn’t even be sure where anymore. 18

            The thing that disturbs her mother most is that there’s now this incessant, dopey smile on her face. 19

            She’s twenty-seven, and she’s begun a routine of drinking coffee every morning. It’s an absolute rush; no matter how groggy or horrible she wakes up, after a full belly of the bitter, black cup, she feels like conquering the world. She’s befriended the tall server girl, or at least, is able to have short conversations with her. She asks about her piercings, band-name T-shirts, make-up, boyfriends. The girl doesn’t even roll her eyes or reply in sarcastic, snappy declarations. 20

            One day she asks about the works of art on the walls; they come down, and a new set by a different artist is hung back up every now and then. There’s a waiting list, the tall girl says, that at the moment isn’t too long, so that she could hang her pieces up in about three weeks, with the $30 fee and appointment with manager. Commission she may get when a piece is sold is all hers. She’s ecstatic, and signs up to show on Thursday. 21

            She works hard, putting every girl she created on tacks to allow hanging. The glue gun comes out again to make corrections, ensure that bits and pieces are firmly secured. The synthetic substance covers nearly everything twice over. They line up, one by one, leaned against her wall and smile with shining painted, distorted grins. Her mother peeks in every now and then, wide-eyed at the gruesome acrylic scene. She is relieved when they leave to the coffee shop, though she knows they will return, and dread fills her heart. 22

            One sale the first day: an opening marked with free tea and lemon squares attracts wanderers, and a cherubic black-paint-coated flower-girl with eyes on her breasts attracts a grungy-looking high school student. Twenty-five dollars. Two weeks pass; one hundred and fifty dollars, a purple-striped torso with painted bleeding crotch, a saintly-haloed giraffe with a shaved Barbie head, a rather large spray-painted golden porcelain doll with a crown of nails and stiff skirt of glittered, beaded glue-gun plastic are exchanged. She visits every day until her art’s time at the coffee shop expires, she collets her money, and tells her mother of her success. The girl practically jumps for joy with the check in hand, and looks expectantly into the old crone’s puckered lips. Her mother twitches, smiles, grumbles in pebbles and sandpaper, “That’s wonderful, kitten. I’ll help take the rest down and bring them home in the van. Go celebrate with a night for your self,” she hacks, hands her daughter a twenty-dollar bill. The girl, twenty-seven, now feels proud and loved. She beams, hugs her mother, and sprints toward the late-night thrift store. 23

            Her mother drives in her van, the one with the seats ripped out so that her wheel-chair friends can be accommodated. Cushion foam litters the back, tin rusty shell of wooden tacks and nails. The mother practically leaps out of the van as soon as she parks, engine still running, smog still leaking from the tail pipe. Angry, grasping white-knuckled hands try as hard as possible to remove each work of her daughter’s as carefully as she can, so that no one is suspect of her rotten intentions. Once she’s outside, she throws them onto the carpet-less floor, with little heed to the condition of those wicked, blasphemous figures. 24

            “Sinful,” she mutters to herself as she slams the van into gear, “vile, unholy things. You will not get hold of that girl. That sweet blueberry pie, has never committed fault, never done nothing to no one. You’re demons, you’re filth. I’m her mother…” She spits out the window at a stop light, turns back to see the dark, dangerous looking lumps, and breathes cigarette smoke through her flared nostrils. 25

            “So, I will save her.” 26

            The girl returns to her house with a draw-string bag of cheap second-hand skirts and stockings. The house is still smelly, soiled, humid, dismal, and, the girl drops her bag, devoid of any altered plastic dolls. Her mother smokes a menthol cigarette, strokes a fat yellow cat, lectures her daughter who, tears running down the corners of her twisted mouth, simply snorts, blubbers, stands in place and nods. 27

            She now makes coffee in her own house; Folgers sour, vile ghost of what she is accustomed to. She continues to wear her hair loose, her tight jeans, flowery shawls, beads, and sandals. She’s still unattractive. She has a job; a part-time librarian. She has her own place; an old guest house in back of her mother’s, newly cleaned, furnished. Her friends are few, but stimulating; poets and song-writers, a homosexual man in his forties, and a tap-dancing woman who once saw New York. She never steps into a coffee shop door, never picks up that glue gun again. She does doodle when she’s lonely and bored, on napkins, scrap paper, or when she’s particularly absent-minded, table cloths or phone books. She draws faces of girls, smiling, beautiful, with crowns, painted foreheads. 28

            Another, younger girl, some miles away from that particular part of town, sits on the floor surrounded by odd paintings and structures of plastic glue gun baby doll sculptures. They’re arranged in a patterned collage on the bare carpet. A pile she found, stacked on top of one another in a city dumpster. They smile, tortured by the glue, shards of glitter, nails embedded in their anatomically incorrect bodies. The girl thinks of the person who made these wretched monsters. She feels the genuine effort, emotion emanating from the works of painted atrocity. 29

            “You were loved,” she tells the plastic girls, and sighs. The beads of globby hot-glue long dried, dripping from the cardboard and plastic seams. It’s a disappointment- she thinks, twirls her hair and feels remorse- the poor execution of such grand visions. 30