I am not jealous

Apparently Elvissa rode the pooch this afternoon after leaving our pool
(hipster codeword: rode the Greyhound bus). She traveled four hours
northwest to the coast at Santa Barbara to start a new job, get this, as
a gardener at a nunnery. We're floored, really floored by this little chunk
of news. 'Well," Claire fudges, "it's not really a nunnery, per se.
The women wear these baggy charcoal cassocks—so Japanese!—and
they cut their hair short. I saw it in the brochure. And anyhow,
she's only gardening." "Brochure?" More hor-

ror. 'Well, the gate- folded pizza flyer thing

they sent to Elvissa with her letter of acceptance."

(good God—) "She found the job on a local parish

bulletin board; she says she wants to clean out her

head. But I suspect that maybe she thinks Cur-

tis could drift through there, and she wants to

be around when that happens. That woman is so good at keeping things secret that she wants to." We're now sitting in my kitchen, lolling about on burned-pine bar stools with dog-chewed legs and purple dia­mond-tufted tops. These are chairs that I lugged away gratis from a somewhat bitter condominium repossession sale over on Palo Fiero Road last month. For atmosphere Dag has placed a cheesy red light bulb in the table counter's light socket and he's mixing dreadful drinks with dreadful names that he learned from the invading teens of last spring's

NUTRITIONAL SLUMMING: Food whose enjoyment stems not from flavor but from a complex mixture of class connotations, nostalgia signals, and packaging semiotics: Katie and I bought this tub of Multi-Whip instead of real whip cream because we thought petroleum distillate whip topping seemed like the sort of food that air force wives stationed in Pensacola back in the early sixties would feed their husbands to celebrate a career promotion.

TELE-PARABLIZING:

Morals used in everyday life that derive from TV sitcom plots: "That's just like the episode where Jan lost her glasses!"

Q F D: Quelle fucking drag. "Jamie got stuck at Rome airport for thirty-six hours and it was, like, totally QFD."

QFM: Quelle fashion mistake. "It was really QFM, I mean painter pants? That's 1979 beyond belief."

break. (Date Rapes, Chemotherapies, Headless Prom Queens—who invents these things?)

The evening's dress code is bedtime story outfits: Claire in her flannel housecoat trimmed with a lace of cigarette burn holes, Dag in his "Lord Tyrone" burgundy rayon pyjamas with "regal" simugold drawstrings, and me in a limp plaid shirt with long Johns. We look hodgepodge, rainy day and silly. "We really must get our fashion act together," Claire says.

"After the revolution, Claire. After the revolution," replies Dag. Claire puts scientifically enhanced popcorn in the microwave oven. "I never feel like I'm putting food in one of these things," she then says, entering with beeps, the time-set into the LED, "it feels more like I'm inserting fuel rods into a core." She slams the door hard. "Hey, watch it," I call.

"Sorry, Andy. But I'm upset. You just have no idea how hard it is for me to find same-sex friends. My friends have always been guys. Girls are always so froufrou. They always see me as a threat. I finally find a decent friend here in town and she leaves on the same day as my life's grand obsession ditches me. Just bear with me, okay?"

"And that's why you were so draggy at the pool today?" "Yes. She told me to keep the news of her going a secret. She detests good-byes."

Dag seems preoccupied about the nunnery. "It'll never work," he says, "It's too Madonna/whore. 1 don't buy it."

"It's not something you buy, Dag. You sound like Tobias when you talk like that. And she's hardly making a vocation of 'nunning'—slop being so negative. Give her a chance." Claire resumes her perch on the stool. "Besides, would you rather she was still here in Palm Springs doing whatever it was she was doing? Would you like to go down to Vons supermarket and buy needle bleach with her in a year or so? Or play matchmaker, perhaps—fix her up with a dental conventioneer so she can become a Palo Alto homemaker?"

The first kernel pops and it dawns on me that Dag is not only feeling rebuffed by Elvissa, but he's envious of her decision to change and reduce her life as well.

"She's renounced all of her worldly goods, I take it then," says Dag.

"I guess her roommates will filch most of her possessions she's

leaving beind here in Palm Springs, poor things. VSTP: very severe taste problem, that lady. Snoopy lamps and decoupage, mostly."

"I give her three months."

Under a fusillade of popping kernels, Claire raises her voice: "I'm not going to harp on about this, Dag, but cliche or doomed as her impulse for self-betterment may be, you just can't mock it. You of all people. Good Lord. You should understand what it means to try and get rid of all the crap in your life. But Elvissa's gone one further than you, now, hasn't she? She's at the next level. You're hanging on still, even though your job-job and the big city are gone—hanging on to your car and your cigarettes and your long distance phone calls and the cocktails and the attitude. You still want control. What she's doing is no sillier than your going into a monastery, and Lord knows we've listened to your talk about that enough times."

The corn appropriately stops popping, and Dag stares at his feet. He gazes at them like they were two keys on a key chain but he can't remember what locks they belong to. "God. You're right. I don't believe myself. You know what I feel like? I feel like I'm twelve years old and back in Ontario and I've just sloshed gasoline all over the car and my clothing again —I feel like such a total dirt bag."

"Don't be a dirt bag, Bellinghausen. Just close your eyes," Claire says. "Close your eyes and look closely at what you've spilled. Smell the future."

The red light bulb was fun but tiring. We head into my room now for bedtime stories. The fireplace is lit, with the dogs snogging away bliss­fully atop their oval braid rug. On top of my bed's Hudson Bay blankets we eat the popcorn and feel a rare coziness amid the beeswax yellow shadows that oscillate on the wooden walls that are hung with my objects: fishing lures, sun hats, a violin, date fronds, yellowing newspapers, bead belts, rope, oxford shoes, and maps. Simple objects for a noncomplex life.

Claire starts.

Дата добавления: 2014-12-23