The Dimenico Brothers and the Dishwaterblondefucks | by Page Getz

 

Mars Dimenico’s pit bull, Ringo, ate my favorite g-string while I was sleeping under a velvet picture of a matador in a blue cape. In a trailer park. The Garden of Eden Trailer Park. That’s what you get for sleeping with the Dimeneco brothers. But he went home smelling like 27 varieties of drugstore aftershave from 27 lap dances. That’s what you get for sleeping with a stripper from Junction City, Kansas.

Like all the Dimenico brothers, Mars was my type: slacker sideburns, closet full of second-hand flannels and only one pair of shoes, torn Vans that said “Fuck Jesus,” on the soles. And I was his type: goth black eyes under stringy black hair, closet full of thrift store lingerie and only one pair of combat boots, with the mosh pit blood of hippies on the soles.

“Wake and bake, princess,” Mars said, tapping a Statue of Liberty bong he bought in Times Square “before Giuliani ruined everything,” he told me.

“Have you seen my g-string?” I asked him, sliding back into the off-white, second-hand lace slip I wore as a dress with Doc Martins.

“I’m sorry, Honalee,” Mars told me, when he found what was left of the fishnet in Ringo’s mouth. “I’ll make it up to you. Let me buy you breakfast.”

We walked to Denny’s where we were both too hungover to eat. I threw up in the Denny’s bathroom. He threw up in the parking lot where the bus boys were smoking and we scored an ounce of shrooms from one of them. It was a good deal.

“You’re good luck,” he said, “You should come back tomorrow. “ So I stayed until the shrooms were gone.

The Dimenico brothers were not in the habit of girlfriends. They were the kind of guys everyone I knew wanted to be, to fuck, or to follow. But I was the kind of bitch whose name was carved in the flesh of guys like them with Swiss Army knives and rusted razors. I slept with all of them. The first didn’t count because it was in the third stall of the Electric Chair bathroom when Crackbilly Headrush was playing a punk cover of Merle Haggard.  The second Dimenico, Macy, didn’t count because I was on seventeen hits of Blintzifada acid from Tel Aviv and I thought I was a Smurf. (Never again.) The third, Vetriano, didn’t count because it was in a Motel 6 bathtub on New Year’s Eve and I had alcohol poisoning. The fourth, Gio, didn’t count because I don’t remember it and wouldn’t believe it happened if I hadn’t seen the video later. Vino the Aquarius, was the fifth and he didn’t count because we were smoking opium in the backseat of a green Nova parked in his parents’ cornfield on the night that Jerry Garcia died, and we were just sad.

“This is for Jerry,” Vino said, holding up a fatty it took him an hour to roll.

Dumb ass narc. I would’ve rolled it myself, but I was making out with some deadhead girl who just appeared, the way drugs and people just appear when a tragedy happens. Strawberry Sun was her name and she was crying about Jerry while I was trying to get her patchwork sundress over her dreadlocks. It turned out to be a pretty good night.

The Dimenicos were all in bands, (pronounced baaaaands in our circle) including their sister, Vienna, who I also did twice. But everybody did Vienna, so that didn’t count either.

Mars was the last Dimenico— if you don’t count that first time I did him when we hooked up the night Kurt Cobain committed suicide. “The day the power chords died,” Macy called it. He was into math rock, played guitar for the Methmatics and hated Nirvana. But nobody wanted to sleep alone that night. Nobody wanted to sleep. We stayed up for three days, cutting lines on the back of some Vonnegut book, set our combat boots on fire and threw them into the creek behind their parent’s barn.

“This is like the death of Grunge,” Mars said, slamming Everclear and a hand full of Vicadin, as we hung naked off the roof of the barn.

“No, dude,” I told him, taking the bottle. “Grunge will never die.”

It didn’t die that night, but we all got sinus infections from inhaling burning combat boots. (Never again.) I stayed until the Vicadin ran out, and there was a lot of it, because Mars had a life-long prescription after a 7 Year Bitch mosh pit left him with a broken wrist, two broken ribs, seventeen stitches and a concussion.

“It’s all good,” he said, as he showed me the scars.

It wasn’t good.

It was two years after the death of Kurt Cobain when I ran into Mars at the storage shed where his baaaaaand, Lucifer’s Overbite, formerly Flinchbunny, formerly Butter Messiah and Vetriano’s  baaaaand, Stormtrooper Soup, formerly Fun with Kryptonite, formerly Kryptonite Stew, practiced. The storage shed looked like a Pawn Shop on acid. A collection of pink-haired naked trolls hung from Christmas lights across the ceiling. It was crowded with bean bags, lava lamps and broken TV’s that had been painted or desecrated. A life-size cardboard cut-out of President Clinton stood behind the crooked pink couch that just appeared one day, the way that ugly couches seemed to fall in and out of our lives like flannel shirts and STD’s. The walls were covered in posters of Jimi Hendrix, Mud Honey, Sabbath, Radiohead, the Pixies, the Teletubbies and duct taped soundproofing that was always falling down. (There is no closer route to God than watching the Teletubbies on shrooms.)

Denver Seville and I were going through the trash of the Keebler factory behind the storage sheds looking for dinner. Before we started stripping at the Groin Elevator, we were always either on Food Stamps, dumpsters, or lined up in church basements for free stale white bread. Now we just did it for fun. She took all the cookies, I took the crackers and we split everything else. There really wasn’t much else. Denver and I were like soul mates. We shared everything but tampons. When I ralphed, she held my hair back. When she passed out driving her VW bus (like every night), I took the wheel. If there was only one hit of blotter left, we split it. I taught her how to play guitar and she taught me how to strip.

Denver had slept with five out of the six Dimenico’s, not including Vienna, who made out with her the same night Vienna’s first baaaaaand, the Sporks, split up over “creative differences,” she told us, “’Cause they’re like patriarchy, myn, and I’m like Wonder Womyn.” She was like Wonder Woman. She was a White-out-huffing, tweek-shooting, nitris-toking, weed-smoking, couch-surfing Wonder Woman who dressed like a ballerina and played guitar like Slash.

Unlike the other Dimenicos, Mars was a romantic.  

“I found this in the trash behind the Java Hut and it made me think of you,” Mars told me as he handed me a worn paperback copy of “Alice in Wonderland.” There were a few pages missing, but I didn’t plan on reading it anyway.  I tore a page out of it and used it to roll a joint that I smoked with Vetriano, the Dimenico I really wanted. It was something about the way he said “Check, Check, one, two, check.” It did something to me.

There have been 44 flavors of Kool Aid. Denver and I were attempting to dye our hair every single one of them. That night at the storage sheds, I was Pink Swimmingo and she was Tangerine. We split four hits of Yellow Submarine acid and headed for the sheds. While Denver made out with Wonder Woman, I shared my elf-shaped fudge sandwiches with Vetriano, and Mars watched us make out from across the shed where he was tuning his guitar.

Lucifer’s Overbite was a Grunge-Country fusion inspired by Hank Williams, Iggy Pop and a lot of Blue Plate Special sugar cube acid. Or was it Hank Jr.? Vetriano’s band was harder.  Metal meets Acid Rock meets Punk meets Jazz Fusion with a lot of distortion. Their front man, Lincoln, couldn’t sing. None of the Dimenico’s could sing and none of their singers could either. It wasn’t about that. When the guys were drunk enough, they’d let us sing with them. Denver and I could sing. Together our voices were a fisty, gravel howl like paint thinner.

“We got signed,” Vetriano said, pulling me closer by my spiked collar and wrapping his red flannel shirt around me.

“What label?”

“Nevernevermind Records,” he said. “We’re going on tour after Christmas. You should come with us.”

He cut off a guitar string and wrapped it around my wrist. His hands were rough, but he ran his finger around my arm, tracing the edge of vinyl string with such a slow and gentle motion. I had no idea he was so emotional.

“Where are you going?”

“Everywhere,” he said. “Well, Cleveland first.”

“Right on,” I shrugged, feeling strangely wrong about the whole thing. The truth was, except for the Kansas Lotto or slipping on some Kool-aid in Wal-mart, this was the best thing that could ever, ever, ever happen if you’re a grunger-punk fuck-up from Junction City. To be the girlfriend of a Dimenico— to be the Nancy of a Sid, the Courtney of a Kurt— there wasn’t a better gig.

“Dude! You totally have to go,” Denver said.

But it just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was the acid, I thought. I took a long, hard swig of Johnny Walker and kept drinking until the world was right again. When we were drunk enough, Denver and I straddled the amps and took over the guitars. We played Jane’s Addiction and Jesus Lizard and the Melvins and then Bing Crosby until the Dimenicos made us stop.

If Vetriano Dimenico and I had a song, it would be Nirvana’s “Papercuts.” Not the whole song even, just the screaming part. He had a habit of breaking things when he drank Tequila, which wouldn’t have been a problem if he didn’t drink Tequila all of the time. But he did.

After two weeks of watching him vandalize mailboxes and Dairy Queen signs, I threw his red flannel at him and ran off with Benji Israel, the front man for Science Tastes Good, formerly Evolution Loves You, the baaaaand that practiced in the next storage shed down. Vetriano was cool about it and we all got shit-faced together on X and Foster’s while Lucifer’s Overbite was jamming. The X was too good to stay mad at Vetriano, so while Denver was making out with Benji, I shared a fatty with him and Vienna and I let him wrap his red flannel around me again.

“Come with me to Cleveland,” he said. “I promise I won’t break anything.”

“I have a job.”

“Stripping is not a job.”

“Fuck off, Vet,” Vienna said. “Don’t listen to him, Honalee.”

“It’s a free country,” Vetriano said. “Whatever.”

It would’ve been a longer talk, but ecstasy has a way of hijacking conversations and Mars had more X than any of us that night. He had a right. It was his stash.

“This is a song I wrote for Honalee,” he interrupted. “It’s called, ‘A land called Honalee.’”

I’m sorry my dog ate your underwear

I’m sorry my brother busted your mailbox

I’m sorry I hurled on your Doc Martins

Honalee, Honalee, Honalee, Honaleeeeeeeeee

Don’t go to Cleveland, don’t go to Pittsburgh

Don’t go to Terre Haute, don’t go to Detroit

Don’t go to Mankato, don’t go to Telluride…

There were a lot of cities, so it was a very long song. Obviously it sucked, but at the end of it, Mars trashed his Fender Stratocaster, slamming it against the floor. It was primal. I had no idea he was so raw. I passed the joint to him and we made out for a while.

 “I think you should be my girlfriend,” Mars said. “You don’t have to quit stripping, but you can’t sleep with my brothers anymore— or my sister,” he added, as an afterthought.

When the beer ran out, we headed to the bars. When the bars closed we headed to an after-hours party at the bartender’s mother’s house. When the neighbors called the cops, what was left of us crashed at the Dimenico’s barn where we woke up with their mother hovering over us with a 7 mm Remington rifle and an apron that said, “Don’t you buy no ugly truck.” Mrs. Dimenico was the hottest farmer’s wife in the history of agriculture and though she was a born-again Christian who spent most of her free time lobbying to get evolution out of the public schools, her kids could do no wrong. She had been up early chasing Bambi and found us when she followed the trail of beer bottles down the creek. (Pronounced ‘crik’ if you’re a Dimenico.)

“Y’all hungry?” she asked.

The best reason not to bang the Dimenico brothers is because of Thanksgiving. I didn’t know it was the night before a national holiday when we took all that X. (I don’t understand how people just know these things. There are so many days.) When Mrs. Dimenico invited us to stay for dinner, we had no idea she meant Thanksgiving dinner. I wasn’t even sure how we got there or how it was that I passed out spooning with Vetriano fully clothed and came to all twisted up naked with Gio, who wasn’t even there the night before. I also wasn’t sure how Benji ended up across the barn with Vienna, naked except for Vetriano’s red flannel. But X is like that.

Inside the main house, Mr. Dimenico’s prayer group was gathered around the TV looking like pilgrims watching football. KC was playing Detroit. Mrs. Dimeneco was chopping onions and complaining with the wives in the kitchen. She was in a bad mood because she couldn’t find any deer to shoot for her special Bambi casserole. They made us shower, where Vienna shared her secret stash of Cat in the Hat acid to take the edge off of the X-crash. We returned to the kitchen freshly showered, eyes vortexing and smiling a little too much. They might’ve noticed, but they were really into football.

“Turkey, y’all!” Mrs. Dimenico yelled, just as the acid was really kicking in.

The Jesus freaks made room for us at the table where there was a giant horn featuring a plaster bloody Jesus dying in the arms of his mother, between the cranberries and the gravy. The Dimenicos were all there, along with a bunch of blue and pink-haired yahoos from the night before. The football game stayed on through Thanksgiving dinner, so the Jesus freaks— “Jesus Crispies,” Vienna called them—

kept their eyes on the TV even while they were praying.

The Crispies were always really nice to us because they wanted to save our souls. We all joined hands and tried not to laugh while Mr. Dimenico said grace, something about a baptism, a blessed bounty and the blood of Christ. There were a lot of B words, which made me laugh. That made Denver laugh and it was hard to get through it with that bleeding Jesus staring at me from the center of the table.

“Amen,” he finally said, and we all repeated after him very loudly Aaaaaaaaaaay-men!” It was my favorite part.

“Duuuuuuuuuude,” Denver said, petting her spoon, which looked to me like it was getting bigger and bigger and smiling as it bloomed. “The silverware are verbs!”

“Who?” Vienna asked.

“The utensils have all become verbs. We spoon. We fork.” Denver laughed. “We spooooooooooon.”

“So how do you kids know each other?” Mrs. Dimenico asked.

“Around,” Vino said.

“She’s my girlfriend,” Mars said, nodding towards me.

“Dude, she doesn’t wanna be your fucking girlfriend,” Vetriano said.

“Language,” Mrs. Dimenico said, with her eyes still on the TV.

“What? She gonna move into your trailer?”

“Yes.”

“Fuck you, Mars. You’ll both die in a tornado.”

“Language!” Mrs. Dimenico said.

“Well, she’s not your girlfriend,” Mars said.

“I never said she was,” Vetriano said. “She’s with the baaaaand.”

“Maybe she doesn’t wanna be a groupie,” Vienna said.

“You don’t have to be a groupie,” Mars said. “You can sing back-up for Lucifer’s Overbite. And you can still work at the Groin Elevator.

(Collective Jesus Freak gasp.)

“You work at the Groin Elevator?” Mrs. Dimenico asked.

“Only part time,” I assured her.

“Honalee, listen up, sister,” Vienna said. “You don’t want to be a groupie. We’ll start our own baaaaand. All girls. You can play bass better than my dumbfuck brothers and Denver can sing.”

“Language, Vienna,” Mrs. Dimenico said.

“Dude, we should totally do it,” Denver said.

“We’ll be like Babes in Toyland,” I said, feeling suddenly like God was shining a light on us and saying, ‘Fuck yeah, y’all.’ Even the bleeding Jesus seemed to be smiling at me. (Or maybe it was the acid.)

“We’ll be scarier than Babes in Toyland,” Vienna said. “We’ll be like L7.”

“We’re gonna need a name,” Denver said.

“Mousetrap Darwin Fuck,” Vienna said.

“Dishwater Darwin,” Denver said.

“Mousefuck Dishwater,” I said.

“Language!” Mrs. Dimenico said.

“Dishwaterblonde frog,” Vienna suggested.

“Darwin loves Karaoke,” Denver said.

Just then, the bleeding Jesus cornucopia stretched across the table smiling and unrolled a long neon pink scroll like a banner. The letters were blurry at first and I strained to read it. The Jesus Freaks didn’t notice. Their eyes were on the gravy and the football and the burnt marshmallows in the sweet potato pie. But Denver saw it. And the Dimenico’s saw it.

The Dishwaterblondefucks.

“What does it say?” Vienna asked, straining to read it.

“What does what say?” Mr. Dimenico asked.

“The Dishwaterblondefucks,” I told them.

“Genius!” Denver said.

“That’s it,” Vienna said. “That’s our baaaaaand.”

The Dimenico brothers were quiet. Everyone was quiet. Even the Crispies. It was clear Genius had spoken. The bleeding Jesus winked at me. All was right with Junction City. All was right with the world.

The Dishwaterblondefucks had been born.