The Savage Girl - Alex Shakar [102]
Stereorama, Le Clique Chic, Jujuland, Rocket Sport, Bestsellers, Veronique’s Boudoir, The Sole Man.
Everywhere shadowy forms mill about, hauling gargantuan bags along the serpentine corridors, wandering into and out of doorways, pausing to lean over the balustrades, gazing down at the shoppers below. Still others slouch on benches and over eatery tables, seemingly having given up all hope of ever finding their way back to the city above. The Underworld theme is spoiled, perhaps, only by these shoppers themselves, who are on average fleshier and more rotund than would seem permissible for undead shades. And yet the necessity of lugging around all that extra weight could be seen as a kind of infernal torture in itself, as if for every fraction of eternity longer they spent here, an imp would scuttle up and stuff another pound of fat into their voluminous shuffling buttocks and sagging abdomens.
Tenderbird, Juanita’s Golden Taco, Mermaid’s, Long Yum Lick, Sofruti Treats.
The names of the stores grow more senseless the deeper into the mall she gets, gradually losing any definite connection with the merchandise, as though they had been spontaneously and randomly generated by some long-obsolete, overtaxed computer spinning its tape reels and spitting out slotted cards in a room the location of which no one even remembers.
Boogalooga, Nice n’ Stuff, Qwertyuiop, Take Me Here!, Biggy Barn, Gottalotta, La Bonne Storé.
If her will to survive were stronger, she would turn and run to the nearest exit, wherever that is—these places are designed to disorient, and the exits are kept well hidden. Probably she would end up taking the wrong staircase anyhow, and ending up in one of the subbasements where mentally handicapped workers are paid two dollars an hour to toss all the separated items from the public relations–contrived recycle bins into a heterogeneous pile for shipment in unmarked trucks to the volcano’s mouth.
Haha Lala, Pretty Neeto, Bungalo Hut, Sneejak’s, Whatsamattayou, Quickelnickel, Fimsolec, Ocneskow.
The endless corridors remind her of the mausoleum where her grandmother’s ashes are stored, a place at once unmanageably vast and meticulously organized, with all the ashes distributed according to religious affiliation: Catholic halls lined with suffering Christs, Protestant halls adorned with simple crosses, Hindu halls bristling with Siva arms, atheist halls decorated with abstract paintings and potted plants. It’s in one of these last, godless hallways that Gwennan put her own mother, and there that she fully expects her daughters to put her when the time comes, and there that she fondly hopes they, too, will join her one day. She has reserved spaces for them all. This plan for their eternal storage was the issue of utmost importance in Gwennan’s mind last night when Ursula called her to talk about Ivy. Ursula’s idea was that if the two of them confronted Ivy together, they just might be able to cajole or if necessary even bully her into committing herself. But as it turned out, Gwennan not only already knew about Ivy’s website, but was an avid fan.
“Commit her?” she exclaimed in a way that made Ursula feel like a criminal. “She’s an artist, Ursula. She’s a performance artist, and she’s good. I knew she wasn’t going to be in that hospital for long. I always thought she had this in her. You should be out there supporting your sister, not trying to put her in a nuthouse.”
Gwennan could have left it there, but then she wouldn’t be Gwennan.
“Sounds to me like you’re just jealous as usual,” she added.
The idea that Ivy was doing performance art had not, until that moment, occurred to Ursula, but she immediately