My Juliette Lewis
by Margo LaPierre
When I say Orion watches over me, I mean it was the name I’d chosen for the baby. I mean Orion my unborn, whose fate was sealed when my bestie and a male stripper and I were kidnapped from Pink Pony Atlanta’s parking lot.
Toots and I didn’t realize it was a kidnapping at first.
We’d flown out because of Big Boi, the lesser-known half of the duo Outkast. Our obsession over his newly released Sir Lucious Left Foot album, on repeat. It was between Miami and Atlanta and I said why not Big Boi’s hometown? We’ll cut a rug.
• • •
Juliette Lewis’s voice drawls at the ends of her words. Heavy r’s, a legato rising and falling, stalling, punctuated by self-conscious little laughs and uhms and y’knows. Over-pronounced o’s, over-pronounced vowels in general. Droppin’ g’s on her -ing’s. Because is just ’cuz. You wanna. Speech like smoke trawling the air. There’s something childlike, yet deeply blasé about her. A false, weaponized stupidity.
• • •
We almost didn’t go to Atlanta. I finally found my missing passport in my TNA bag as Toots counted down “…four, three, two,” and clicked Purchase Flight. My last voyage before motherhood.
Upon arrival, we watched Natural Born Killers in our downtown trash motel. Cockroaches skittled across the bathroom, the first blight on Hotlanta. Toots hadn’t seen the movie and was awesomely weirded out by how much Juliette Lewis reminded her of me. Did I tell her my trick then? I’m sure I did. At the age of twenty-two, when cornered by men who discomforted me, I’d switch to Juliette mode. It worked every time.
• • •
In the 1990s, Juliette played a serial killer in Natural Born Killers and girlfriend to Brad Pitt’s serial killer character in Kalifornia. She’s actually the lead singer of rock band Juliette and the Licks.
She wears bangs, is the tiniest bit cross-eyed, has dimples. Her aesthetic: like a dirty French novel, the absurd courts the vulgar.
• • •
Fish soaked in butter, so American. The aphorism Toots taught me at the seafood restaurant: “Age before beauty.” Toots is five years older. She’d soon be eating her words.
• • •
Juliette’s dancing to electric guitar in a diner. One twangy guy to another: “Take a run at her, kiddo.” Before she slaughters them all, she giggles, “Are you flirtin’ with may-ee?,” one hand on bare hip.
• • •
I was sober, Toots was not. And why should she be, we were on vacation. We’d taken refuge at a strip club and met two lovely off-duty male dancers our age. We sat at a booth and chatted. We’d gotten there late. The lights came on.
• • •
Conan O’Brien: Good to have you on the show!
Juliette Lewis: Thanks!
Conan: I just touched you inadvertently—I wasn’t trying to molest you or anything.
Juliette: I— Don’t…it’s okay…
Conan: That comes la-ter, haha.
Juliette: [Eye roll; furrowed brow; quiet.]
[Audience laughs.]
• • •
I did my best to tamp my anger into something like feminine gratitude. My will grudgingly given. Toots would not be swayed from taking this free ride—why spend the money, she said. She’d done a few bumps. The old guy was the one with the coke ’cause what else is new. He was to drop Mike-the-stripper off somewhere (his friend hadn’t taken the ride) and us at our hotel.
On a bright, empty road past midnight, the guy, driver of the vehicle, pulled a bottle of whiskey from under him, took a swig and tried to pass it off to me. I politely declined. We were headed in the opposite direction of where we needed to go and we knew it. The old guy wouldn’t hear it.
Again, he offered.
“No, thank you.”
The energy shifted in the backseat. The situation dawned on Mike and Toots.
The third time he shoved the whiskey in my face—barreling down the highway—I shook my head and broke.
“I’m pregnant.”
He was one of the first people I told.
The fourth time, I lost it.
“I’m FUCKING PREGNANT.”
He didn’t miss a beat. “Yeah, but maybe you’re Irish.”
He pulled into his dark driveway up to his mega-mansion, despite miles of protests from all three of us. We refused to get out the car, and he slammed the door and disappeared.
“We should run,” Mike said.
“And go where?” Toots twisted in her seat.
Half-naked trees towered over leaf-littered wet ground. We were in heels, no GPS.
“He could be getting his gun right now,” I said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.”
He came back reeking of high-proof alcohol, no gun.
He finally took us to our hotel, but got one last dig in. He sped the wrong way down the highway for kicks.
• • •
Serial-killer Juliette’s trippin’ on mushrooms in the desert. She sways her arms up to the sloe starred sky as she dances on the hood of a 1970 Dodge Challenger. “I see angels, Mickey.” Light from an unseen source shines the blonde aureole of her wig. “They’re comin’ down for us from heaven.” The song playing is “Sweet Jane” by the Cowboy Junkies, a folk-rock band from Toronto. “I see the future. There’s no death.”
• • •
It was one of many misadventures on that trip.
When we returned to Toronto, my boyfriend interpreted my traumatized affect as proof I’d done something secret and reprehensible in Atlanta and kicked me out. In truth, I had realized I was about to have a child with a person who was neither able nor willing to keep me safe.
• • •
My Juliette Lewis is rusty, but she’ll always be in my back pocket. Orion’s bright in the south February sky. Orion’s life down here, sacrificed for mine.
ABOUT THE CREATOR
Margo LaPierre is a queer, bipolar editor and author of Washing Off the Raccoon Eyes (Guernica Editions, 2017). She serves as newsletter editor of Arc Poetry Magazine. She won the 2020 subTerrain Lush Triumphant Award for Fiction. Her work has been published in the /temz/ Review, Room Magazine, Arc Poetry, filling Station, CAROUSEL, PRISM, and others. She is completing her MFA in Creative Writing at UBC. @MargoLaPierre on Twitter. @margo_lapierre on Instagram.