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mallorys_cameraHad the dream again.
Airless apartment like the inside of a wax fruit. Candles on the table. Ritual blessing. The family gathered around me, older man – my father – in the black suit and starched white shirt, the older woman – my mother – in a wine-colored dress with her head covered. I’m not me. I’m someone else, a boy. An adolescent boy – the body I’m in moves uncomfortably. I have brothers and sisters. They move around me talking, but I’m at an odd disconnect from the others. Waiting. Because even in the dream, I know I’ve had the dream before. It’s a moment encased in a thick timelessness. And eventually, inevitably, it comes – the knock on the door. Men in uniforms. Short pants and gaiters. They speak an ugly barking language that I understand. You’re going to take a trip, they tell us. Where are we going? my mother asks. "Jerusalem," says one of the soldiers. And they all laugh.
And my family begins to collect the things they’ll need for the trip. All except me. I know it’s a trick. "You can’t fool me," I say. "I know what’s going on. And I’d rather be dead."
And the soldier who’s laughing the hardest says, "Who am I to stand between a boy and his ambition?"
And shoots me.
And I wake up…
Busy week. I took possession of the store space two days ago, had the locks changed and the PG&E account changed over to my name. Spent all yesterday driving from one discount floor emporium to the next, looking for just the right laminate tiling at just the right price. The look of a store like this is important – it’s got to have all the right BUY signals. Mannington Terracotta – my first choice – is fake Saltillo for $3.50 a square foot. Congoleum Ultima Key West – my second – has an interesting faux mosaic border in olive green and smoggy-day blue around a central tile that looks like worn temple paving for roughly the same price. On the other hand, Lowes in Gilroy is having a sale on generic stone vinyl for a buck a foot. The store is 422 square feet. You do the math.
On the venue today is an Excel spreadsheet with my main hot sauce inventory order to be faxed to Peppers first thing tomorrow morning, plus buff and polish of the Business Plan to be presented to the Senior Vice President of SBA at Monterey County Bank tomorrow morning. "Banks like to loan money to people who don’t need money," John Laughton advises me. So the pitch must be tailored to make me seem aggressive without being overly desperate.
In other news, Ed called midweek from France.
"Mister Ed!" I sang. "A horse is a horse, of course, of course. You never answered my email –"
"Oh, that’s right. You emailed me, didn’t you?" he said. His voice didn’t sound right.
"What’s up, Eddie? You sound stressed."
"Tony’s dead," said Ed.
"What?" I said.
"Tony’s dead."
Tony had been Ed’s lover for fourteen years. A tall, thin dark-skinned man with an elegant nose and a real core of flirtatious sweetness. I was shocked when Ed confided in me that Tony beat him up regularly; less shocked, some months later, when Ed confided that Ness – the Algerian porn star whom Ed left Tony for – had also started beating him. There’s clearly something in Ed that craves physical punisment.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He killed himself," said Ed.
Another shocker. Tony didn’t seem the type to kill himself. He was much too superficial.
The news cast an odd pall over the next few days. I hadn’t known Tony all that well but I’d always liked him, had reserved judgement throughout all those long conversations at the coffee bar with Ed when Ed spilled the untidy details of their life together. It’s best to say absolutely nothing when people dump on you. You don’t want to mark the conversation as having been had in any way. Because people invariably forget that they dump unless you remind them, and if you remind them they always resent you for knowing their secrets.
Then yesterday Jeannie called me. A long rambling conversation, she sounded distracted. Elizabeth, her mother, is deteriorating rapidly. She’d had to move Elizabeth to a new nursing home. I had to pry the Big News out of her. "So what about Tony and the job hunt?" I asked. "Has he heard from Norway?"
Note: Not the Tony who killed himself. Jeannie’s husband Tony is a biology post-doc at the Hopkins Marine Lab who’s been searching for a job lo these five years past.
"Oh my God. I totally forgot to tell you. That’s the big news. Tony got the job."
My heart utterly broke for a second. I can’t imagine a world where Jeannie is more than a ten-minute car ride or a phone call away. She’s like a sister to me, one of the few people in the world who’s totally in my camp, who loves me unconditionally.
And then there was the messy barbecue at Heidi and Bill’s last night which probably deserves its own entry though who has the time? Suffice it to say that Tom Ayres and his surprisingly pleasant, purple-Mohawked son Patrick, are practically living there now and that Heidi is out of control. She was wearing hot pants under her white Kiss the Chef apron, you could practically see the pubic hair creep at the top of her thighs and all throughout dinner, fixing Tom with that intense stare and that braying laugh, she kept opening and closing her legs. Unconsciously, no doubt. But still unnerving. Bill was obviously miserable. I drew him into the corner and started pumping him for business advice. He’s a nice guy, damn it. He deserves not to feel invisible.
When I left, Heidi’s legs were straddled far apart. She was staring at the sky. "Venus is the planet of love," she announced. "Can you see it, Tom? Oh, Patrizia! You’re leaving so soon?"
"Can’t leave Robin alone," I said brightly.
Tom was on his third tumbler-sized glass of straight vodka. You couldn’t expect much from him. Still, I thought his behavior was deplorable. He knew what was going on. He should have tried to deflect it.
Airless apartment like the inside of a wax fruit. Candles on the table. Ritual blessing. The family gathered around me, older man – my father – in the black suit and starched white shirt, the older woman – my mother – in a wine-colored dress with her head covered. I’m not me. I’m someone else, a boy. An adolescent boy – the body I’m in moves uncomfortably. I have brothers and sisters. They move around me talking, but I’m at an odd disconnect from the others. Waiting. Because even in the dream, I know I’ve had the dream before. It’s a moment encased in a thick timelessness. And eventually, inevitably, it comes – the knock on the door. Men in uniforms. Short pants and gaiters. They speak an ugly barking language that I understand. You’re going to take a trip, they tell us. Where are we going? my mother asks. "Jerusalem," says one of the soldiers. And they all laugh.
And my family begins to collect the things they’ll need for the trip. All except me. I know it’s a trick. "You can’t fool me," I say. "I know what’s going on. And I’d rather be dead."
And the soldier who’s laughing the hardest says, "Who am I to stand between a boy and his ambition?"
And shoots me.
And I wake up…
Busy week. I took possession of the store space two days ago, had the locks changed and the PG&E account changed over to my name. Spent all yesterday driving from one discount floor emporium to the next, looking for just the right laminate tiling at just the right price. The look of a store like this is important – it’s got to have all the right BUY signals. Mannington Terracotta – my first choice – is fake Saltillo for $3.50 a square foot. Congoleum Ultima Key West – my second – has an interesting faux mosaic border in olive green and smoggy-day blue around a central tile that looks like worn temple paving for roughly the same price. On the other hand, Lowes in Gilroy is having a sale on generic stone vinyl for a buck a foot. The store is 422 square feet. You do the math.
On the venue today is an Excel spreadsheet with my main hot sauce inventory order to be faxed to Peppers first thing tomorrow morning, plus buff and polish of the Business Plan to be presented to the Senior Vice President of SBA at Monterey County Bank tomorrow morning. "Banks like to loan money to people who don’t need money," John Laughton advises me. So the pitch must be tailored to make me seem aggressive without being overly desperate.
In other news, Ed called midweek from France.
"Mister Ed!" I sang. "A horse is a horse, of course, of course. You never answered my email –"
"Oh, that’s right. You emailed me, didn’t you?" he said. His voice didn’t sound right.
"What’s up, Eddie? You sound stressed."
"Tony’s dead," said Ed.
"What?" I said.
"Tony’s dead."
Tony had been Ed’s lover for fourteen years. A tall, thin dark-skinned man with an elegant nose and a real core of flirtatious sweetness. I was shocked when Ed confided in me that Tony beat him up regularly; less shocked, some months later, when Ed confided that Ness – the Algerian porn star whom Ed left Tony for – had also started beating him. There’s clearly something in Ed that craves physical punisment.
"What happened?" I asked.
"He killed himself," said Ed.
Another shocker. Tony didn’t seem the type to kill himself. He was much too superficial.
The news cast an odd pall over the next few days. I hadn’t known Tony all that well but I’d always liked him, had reserved judgement throughout all those long conversations at the coffee bar with Ed when Ed spilled the untidy details of their life together. It’s best to say absolutely nothing when people dump on you. You don’t want to mark the conversation as having been had in any way. Because people invariably forget that they dump unless you remind them, and if you remind them they always resent you for knowing their secrets.
Then yesterday Jeannie called me. A long rambling conversation, she sounded distracted. Elizabeth, her mother, is deteriorating rapidly. She’d had to move Elizabeth to a new nursing home. I had to pry the Big News out of her. "So what about Tony and the job hunt?" I asked. "Has he heard from Norway?"
Note: Not the Tony who killed himself. Jeannie’s husband Tony is a biology post-doc at the Hopkins Marine Lab who’s been searching for a job lo these five years past.
"Oh my God. I totally forgot to tell you. That’s the big news. Tony got the job."
My heart utterly broke for a second. I can’t imagine a world where Jeannie is more than a ten-minute car ride or a phone call away. She’s like a sister to me, one of the few people in the world who’s totally in my camp, who loves me unconditionally.
And then there was the messy barbecue at Heidi and Bill’s last night which probably deserves its own entry though who has the time? Suffice it to say that Tom Ayres and his surprisingly pleasant, purple-Mohawked son Patrick, are practically living there now and that Heidi is out of control. She was wearing hot pants under her white Kiss the Chef apron, you could practically see the pubic hair creep at the top of her thighs and all throughout dinner, fixing Tom with that intense stare and that braying laugh, she kept opening and closing her legs. Unconsciously, no doubt. But still unnerving. Bill was obviously miserable. I drew him into the corner and started pumping him for business advice. He’s a nice guy, damn it. He deserves not to feel invisible.
When I left, Heidi’s legs were straddled far apart. She was staring at the sky. "Venus is the planet of love," she announced. "Can you see it, Tom? Oh, Patrizia! You’re leaving so soon?"
"Can’t leave Robin alone," I said brightly.
Tom was on his third tumbler-sized glass of straight vodka. You couldn’t expect much from him. Still, I thought his behavior was deplorable. He knew what was going on. He should have tried to deflect it.
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no subject
Date: 2003-08-11 07:46 am (UTC)Your entries are dense with material. How would you ever choose?