Dickensonian characters
Aug. 20th, 2001 07:13 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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Long talk with Max while I was working in the kitchen -- he's very self-conscious about his acne, particularly at the beginning of the new school year, and asked to go on accutane. Bad time to be incurring expensive new medical costs -- I just got a letter Friday informing me that Backlash would not be carrying my health insurance through September as I had previously thought which means I'm going to have to scramble for health insurance, it won't come cheap and whatever catastrophic plan I sign on to so the ER will give us a Band-Aid after we're hit by that bus will doubtless carry a huge out-of-pocket deductible. But whatever the boy wants, the boy can have if it's in my power to provide. He was uncharacteristically wistful -- the acne is a Very Big Deal...
We also disposed of the last of the puppies -- Pokey with her chocolate brown tail and irascible disposition. I had grown quite attached to Pokey since it seemed as though no one was going to adopt her; and though I didn't really want to devote the time necessary to train a young animal, was entertaining fantasies that somehow, in some haphazard manner, she would housebreak herself, pick up the rudiments of "fetch," "sit," and "stay" and be inducted as the newest member of the family circle. I was sad to see her go.
Pokey was bought by Benji Shake as a gift for a cousin who lives in Sacramento. Benji is a real trip, a truly Dickensonian character. He's the grandson of Sabu, the Indian actor who played Mowgli in the original 1942 film of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Book. After Sabu retired from acting, he moved to the Monterey peninsula and established a real estate dynasty. When we first met Benji he was living in a run-down chateau high in the hills overlooking Monterey, surrounded by hideous fake Louis Quattorze furnishings, his late grandmother's extensive doll collection, a pack of dogs and a shrine to his late grandfather. The very definition of land-rich and cash-poor, Benji wrestled a living from the glassbottom boat concession at Fisherman's Wharf and had countless ex-wives and part-time children amongst whom to split the pie.
Benji's heart, though, belonged to his Jack Russells. Plump Mickey and even plumper Minnie were a local institution as they waddled past the adobes and the law offices of old-town Monterey every afternoon, under the care of their English nanny Brigitte, Brigitte had a mysterious past. Vague innuendoes of abuse by a rich alcoholic husband swirled around her. She had obviously been very beautiful at some point in her past with her long blonde hair, perfectly symmetrical features and pale blue eyes but at fifty, she was perfectly content to devote her life to an assortment of canine charges; took a bus out every day from her house in Carmel and then walked the long distance up the ravine to Benji's mansion to pick up Minnie and Mickey.
We'd run into Mickey and Minnie with Brigitte many times on their daily walks so when Xena went into heat last year, we asked if we could breed her with Mickey. Benji was ecstatic -- offered to front the entire veterinary bill, all he wanted in exchange was a male puppy. "You gotta understand," he told us. "Mickey is my son."
The breeding didn't take and this year when Xena went into season, we decided to go in for the services of a stud with a better track record. But when we advertised the puppies for sale in the local newspaper, Brigitte was the first one to call. "We knew these were Xena's puppies!" said Brigitte. "We could tell just by looking at the advertisement. Benji wants a son for Mickey."
So we drove our little male up the hill for Benji's inspection. The faux chateau had been sold; Benji was living now in one of the other houses on the original Sabu compound. This one I would price conservatively at $3.5 million instead of $15 million. Benji had fallen on to hard times. The glassbottom boat had met a mysterious accident some weeks before, right at the height of the tourist season. "It was veritable money-minting machine," Brigitte confided, "and it wasn't insured. He doesn't have the cash to replace it." Benji was wandering around the rolling green lawn in a bathrobe with a cellphone attached to his ear, gesticulating madly. Yes, he wanted the puppy. So every week now, we wander down to the wharf to get our money on account. Some weeks Benji duns us; some weeks, he pays. Hey! we're not going to repossess the puppy.
End of rambling, seemingly pointless digression.
Later last night we went over to Heidi and Bill's for dinner. Heidi and Bill are our charmingly wacky neighbors from two doors down. They also have that Dickensonian feel to them, come to think of it, exceedingly warm and eccentric. They showed us home movies of Fritz before dinner which was a four-course meal, served on china with the good silver. Their house is entirely decorated with kitsch -- a See's candy Barbie and platters of Beatrix Potter Wedgwood figurines dominate their living room. When I have a house, that's how I'm going to decorate -- my Franklin Mint Jackie O doll complete with wardrobe trunk and miniature Igor Cassini couture presiding over all...
Oh ... and the serial is finally up online. My byline isn't attached but wotthehell:
http://www.libida.com/content/erotica/soap/home.php?soap_id=1&soap_series=2&id=1314496299
Mizz Pokey
Sabu
