Fumani's Story

Ben hates the Bozos. Hates them, hates them.

“Aesthetically I hate them because they play elevator music,” he tells me. “It's all done on synthesizers. It has no soul. It's the sound you hear drifting through the drilling noise when you're flat on your back at the dentist's having a root canal.

“Personally I hate them because I'm absolutely convinced he's a serial killer and molests those kids -“

“Get out,” I say.

“I have a sixth sense about these things,” Ben informs me loftily. “Well, okay, he doesn't molest the kids. But he has an unnatural hold over them and I know there's a body in a ditch somewhere -“

On Sunday Anaconda left the guys in the lurch. Woke up, announced she didn't feel like singing that day. Presumably spent the day in bed with her head turned to the wall, wondering why all beauty is transient and how she ended up on a double bill as part of the meal ticket for a white guy from Fresno.

When Bozo Senior wandered into the store to solicit me for a cigarette break, he looked a little forlorn. Despite Ben's antipathy, I like Bozo. He's cheerful, has a good sense of humor.

“She's high-strung,” I said. “She needs a break.”

“Well, we took Tuesday off,” said Bozo.

“She needs two days off in a row,” I said. “The first day to decompress. The second day to do her laundry.”

Bozo laughed and shook his head. “But, see, I keep telling her this is the summer, babe! This is the harvest season -“

“Tourists waiting to be plucked like ripe fruit -“

“Exactly! I mean, wouldn't it be great if we could make $6000? Then we wouldn't have to worry about rent till February. I mean, we'd have to worry about other things like how the fuck are we going to eat -“

“That's why God invented Grape Nuts,” I said. “Well, you know it's tough to work with someone you're emotionally involved with.”

“You do it with your husband.”

“True,” I said. “But we've been together a long, long time and we know each other very, very well. How long have you been with Anaconda?”

“Seven months.”

“Seven months,” I repeated thinking: whoa! talk about your courtship interruptus. I've known pimps who strung out the roses and moonlight conversations longer. “And before that… ?”

“Before that for twelve years I was raising those boys,” said Bozo. He looked slightly aggrieved. “Wiping snotty noses, putting band-aids on scraped knees. Wondering how I was gonna hold it all together. And I mean, this is prosperity for us. These are the good times. I don't want to have to go back to living in a car or a transient hotel in Santa Cruz -“

“Do you mind if I ask you what happened to the boys' mother?”

“Crank happened,” said Bozo. He laughed again. “I mean I'd be the first to admit I smoke my fair share of herb - maybe a couple of other people's fair shares too. But crank. That shit is dangerous.”

“Hey,” I said softly. “You done good. I mean really. Give yourself a lot of credit. A lot of men in your situation would have run out, dumped the kids in foster care. What you did was really noble and good --“

“Thanks,” he muttered. He was blinking hard. “I mean, she's so talented, she should have more of a career, wouldn't you think? I keep telling her: it's all in the marketing.”

Marketing for Bozo is a synonym for getting his teeth bleached and putting himself and his kids into those awful disco feyadeen shirts.

For a second I consider suggesting that when Anaconda dumps them as inevitably she will, he draft Robin who's often said he wants a show biz career. Robin could be Sonset Jazz's Michael Jackson. He'd look cute in a disco feyadeen outfit and could benefit from the dental tune-up. He knows all the right dance moves. All he really needs to do is learn to sing.

Instead I said, “How old is Anaconda?”

“Almost fifty.”

“And what about her life before? Was she married? Does she have kids?”

“She was married, yeah. Has four kids. Two of them don't talk to her.”

The picture is emerging: Pentecostal preacher's daughter who always did the solos in the Sunday choir but dreamed of bigger things. Married young, gave birth young, but went on dreaming. Menopause hits and she panics - the dream is still in the back of her closet but she's wondering how much longer she'll fit into it. So she grabs it, puts it on and slams the door on her way out. Your basic Red Shoes scenario with an all-black cast - that becomes integrated when she meets up with a nice Armenian boy, ten years younger than she is. No wonder her kids won't talk to her: mothers are not supposed to behave like that.

Everybody has a story. Everybody.