We sat at the House of Naan and Curry off 7th in the Sunset not speaking. The night was dank, saturated with a surrealistic air as the fog rolled in off the ocean, it’s tendrils seeping into every crevice and creating a halo around the neon lights. It made them all look like cheap Mexican religious artwork, lo and behold thy corona around the “kingfisher” beer sign!
“I like this place” she said, spooning up her mulligatawny soup. Sarah, with her peroxide hair and red lips.
“Me too, I’ve been coming here for years”
We continued to eat in silence, the N Judah rattled by. We talked some more about politics, our friends’ gold digger girlfriend, and ended up arguing about G.G. Allins country music. I said it was different and can’t be compared to folk punk. She said it can, it sucks and country singers have always been singing about whores and whiskey. “He stuck bananas in his ass and shit them out on a spoken word, that’s fucking groundbreaking and I don’t care what you say”. She muttered something indecipherable, no doubt to get the last word in. The waiter brought the check, thanking us and giving us each a free refill on our masala tea with a wink. They’re nice here. Not the surly type you find all over the area who snots in your chowder and has a grating voice that can only belong to 24 hour diner waitresses, carnies, and prostitutes.
We’re now standing out in the fog, waiting for the train home and she turns to me. “Tom, I want cannolis.” “Cannolis?” I say, “Sarah we’re in the Asian part of town and it’s almost 10 at night. Where the hell are we going to get you some cannolis?” “Hm, I guess you’re right” she replies glumly, “but I really do want some.” “Well that’s too bad. I just bought you dinner and so let’s just catch the Muni and get home. We have ice cream there” “Dogass” she mutters kicking an empty cup. The Muni pulls up and we both hop on. It’s a slow ride home, crowded, and in typical public transport fashion, it smells like urine and artificial lighting. I count the people on the train and when they get off I count the empty seats they leave.
Finally we get off at our stop by the Haight and walk the 2 blocks to our apartment past the spanging homeless and, even more wretched, the rich kids who are homeless for the “experience”. UC Santa Cruz students on their year abroad, the locals call em. We walk up to our flat and let ourselves in. It’s not much to look at. It’s ripe with chintz and sleazy Americana. A TV without cable, an ugly orange loveseat that will be stylish once the 70s come back in vogue, a mish mash of animal skulls, and Halloween decorations that have become year round. It’s like stepping into an Edward Gorey book. Sarah goes to the kitchen and asks if I’d like the norm, a whiskey sour made with some rotgut booze. She brings out the drinks on a tray, hers a bloody Mary, which is more Tabasco than anything else.
“Tom. I really want some cannolis,” she says.
“Sarah, there’s Ben and Jerry’s in the freezer from last night. Eat that. We have tons of food and it always goes bad”
“I don’t want Ben and Jerry’s, if I did I’d say I want Ben and Jerry’s.”
“Sarah we’re broke. I already spent more than I should’ve on dinner, I love you, but I’m not going on a quest for cannolis. If you want em, you can go buy em”
“To-o-o-m” she whined, “You don’t understand. I want cannolis. I need them. I’m DYING without them,” she gasped, grapping her throat and falling to the ground.
“NO! Don’t die on the rug, I just vacuumed!” I said, kicking her softly. Laughing, she grabbed my ankle and pulled me down with her. She kissed me on the nose and said, “I’ll get those cannolis, you wait and see. But right now I could settle for some you.”
Later that night I woke up, trying to figure out where I was. The living room floor. Ah, yes. I looked around for Sarah but she was gone. I figured she must’ve gone to bed. But when I got to the bedroom no one was there except for our two rats, Rattus and Rattus. Original. I know. The bed looked unslept in. I think it was the site of those sterile crisp sheets that set me off. The situation I was in was not sterile or crisp. Quite the opposite. Messy and fetid. My fiancé is missing. I woke up naked on the living room floor in the middle of the night and my fiancé is missing.
“Okay Tommy boy, tomarooni, just breath” I told myself. I found my phone and dialed her number, my fingers shaking at such a frantic pitch, and yes! her voice! “Hi! This is Sarah leave a message, or not”. “FUCK!” I yelled slamming the phone down. Had she left me for someone else? Is it because I didn’t get her cannolis? Was she abducted and now falling prey to chromatic anal probes? Was our sex abysmal? Did the government come whisk her away? I knew she shouldn’t have liberated that mink fur farm. These thoughts whirled through my head while I pulled on my boots and decided to wander the streets, most likely in vain, and search for her. I heard sirens in the distance and then
The door slammed open and there it was. A banshee. Crazed hell-bent eyes and hair crazed with manic electricity, it stood there. “HELP ME TOM!” it shrieked, breaking glass with her fevered pitch. “Sarah what’s the matter?” I cried running towards her. “HELP!” she yelled again. “She’s cracked”, I thought. My fiancé is batshit insane. She began thrusting bags at me. White bakery bags reeking with a saccharine odor. Once they were all off the landing she slammed and dead bolted the door. Her peroxide hair was covered in sludge and her black pants were now a ghastly splatter paint of white and black.
“What the FUCK” I bellowed, “What the fuck were you thinking? What the hell is all this shit?”
She stood there, eyes growing wide as the sirens drew closer, “Cannollis. Quick. Hide them.”
Sunday, November 9, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Finishing up Chef’s House (Cont. from Raymond Carvers’ “Chef’s House”)
One afternoon Wes was in the yard pulling weeds when Chef drove up in front of the house. I stopped marinating the fish I had been preparing for supper and walked outside to greet him. Wiping my hands on my apron I said “Hey Chef, good to see you. Come on in.”
“Oh no Edna, it’s ok, I wanted to be quick.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Wes, who had given up his futile attempt at ridding the garden of weeds. Why put so much effort into a garden that isn’t even ours? I wondered. Never the less…
“Well, yes and no,” said Wes. “You see, this couples made an offer on the house and they want to move in by the end of July.”
“July!” I said, “Why it’s June now and we didn’t really plan on leaving this place.”
“Our marriage is finally working out” is what I wanted to shout.
“What about the lease?” said Wes, “It’s a 12 month lease!”
“Look, I gotta do what I gotta do, and I’m sorry. You can piss and moan over the broken lease but it’s gunna cost more than it’s worth. I’m sorry.”
“I think you’d better be going now,” said Wes, “you’ve given us plenty to think about.”
Chef walked back to his black Jetta and drove off, one taillight was out and the exhaust was dragging along the road causing sparks. “Maybe it’ll ignite his car,” said Wes. “Maybe” I said half heartedly, “maybe.”
Dinner that night was a sullen affair, it was as though we were at a wake and we were both the mourners and the corpse all at once. Between scraping forks and muttering about fishing and weather forecasts I said it: “Do you really think we can find a place so soon?” Wes, chewing his asparagus said, “Don’t worry. It will all work out”. It hasn’t all worked out though. Until moving here we both barely spoke, didn’t even live together. Under the guise of the soft summer light and fresh lakeside air we’d recharged. It was just us here, and there was hope here. Hope, ha.
That night we made love in the split log bed. It was silent. It was distant. There was no warmth. I could hear Wes’s breathing and I knew he was asleep. He had had his first drink that night in years. Michelob, not even Dom Perignon for an oxymoronic celebration for this “event” of falling off the wagon.
I wrapped myself up in a blanket, counted the stars, and looked at the lake. A black obsidian moorland, rich with the turbid unknown.
The thought of returning to it all, the cloister of suburbia, the liaison accusations, it was oppressive.
“I can’t do it.” I said. I walked over to the closet and reached far, far back. I took out a package, wrapped in dry, crinkly, parcel paper. My mermaid costume from when I was a child. I slowly opened it, determined not to make a sound. I walked out to the lakefront, and slipped on the skin I had just unwrapped. In my new skin I entered the abyss, swimming away into the cold depths of the future.
“Oh no Edna, it’s ok, I wanted to be quick.”
“Is there a problem?” asked Wes, who had given up his futile attempt at ridding the garden of weeds. Why put so much effort into a garden that isn’t even ours? I wondered. Never the less…
“Well, yes and no,” said Wes. “You see, this couples made an offer on the house and they want to move in by the end of July.”
“July!” I said, “Why it’s June now and we didn’t really plan on leaving this place.”
“Our marriage is finally working out” is what I wanted to shout.
“What about the lease?” said Wes, “It’s a 12 month lease!”
“Look, I gotta do what I gotta do, and I’m sorry. You can piss and moan over the broken lease but it’s gunna cost more than it’s worth. I’m sorry.”
“I think you’d better be going now,” said Wes, “you’ve given us plenty to think about.”
Chef walked back to his black Jetta and drove off, one taillight was out and the exhaust was dragging along the road causing sparks. “Maybe it’ll ignite his car,” said Wes. “Maybe” I said half heartedly, “maybe.”
Dinner that night was a sullen affair, it was as though we were at a wake and we were both the mourners and the corpse all at once. Between scraping forks and muttering about fishing and weather forecasts I said it: “Do you really think we can find a place so soon?” Wes, chewing his asparagus said, “Don’t worry. It will all work out”. It hasn’t all worked out though. Until moving here we both barely spoke, didn’t even live together. Under the guise of the soft summer light and fresh lakeside air we’d recharged. It was just us here, and there was hope here. Hope, ha.
That night we made love in the split log bed. It was silent. It was distant. There was no warmth. I could hear Wes’s breathing and I knew he was asleep. He had had his first drink that night in years. Michelob, not even Dom Perignon for an oxymoronic celebration for this “event” of falling off the wagon.
I wrapped myself up in a blanket, counted the stars, and looked at the lake. A black obsidian moorland, rich with the turbid unknown.
The thought of returning to it all, the cloister of suburbia, the liaison accusations, it was oppressive.
“I can’t do it.” I said. I walked over to the closet and reached far, far back. I took out a package, wrapped in dry, crinkly, parcel paper. My mermaid costume from when I was a child. I slowly opened it, determined not to make a sound. I walked out to the lakefront, and slipped on the skin I had just unwrapped. In my new skin I entered the abyss, swimming away into the cold depths of the future.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Blasphemy
If thou art devotedly religious and easily take offense, thou best not take it out on me. Ye hath been forewarned.
Hanks old sea foam green Studebaker, not that the denizens of Rabbit Hash had ever seen the sea, rattled down the hard pressed dirt road. The heat was oppressive; it weighed heavy on the souls of everyone around. Even the farm hands sat under the wide leaves of the southern trees too hot to light their cigarettes. “Bad Moon Rising” crackled through the trucks old radio with a tinny sound. It was then that Hank noticed the woman.
It was her clothes that he noticed first. It wasn’t the frayed denim shorts or plaid shirt, but it was the way she wore it. Shorts cut so high the pockets peeked out the bottoms and shirt tied so high, “Looooordy” whistled Hank. He figured she was one of the whiskey bent ladies down at Miss Mays Bordello by the river until she thumbed him down.
“Hey” she crooned in a raspy voice that’s only found in sideshow carnies, “you got room for another? Headin' to town? I need a lift to church.” Hank took one look at her weathered face, broken Lucky Strike hanging from her lips, figured she could use the Lord, and said “Heck why not. Hop on in”. She offered him a drink and declared “Names Mary. You may know me as the Virgin Mother ha ha. Say want a drink? I don’t drink wine on the account of it bein’ kinda incestuous or some shit, blood of my son har har” she coughed out. Now, since Hank was such a church going man, and while he wasn’t one to offend this self proclaimed patron saint, he wasn’t one to stand for such heresy. “I really think it’d be best if I dropped you off now. I-I-I ain’t about to let no dime store hussy speak this way in front of me, no sir no never,” stammered Hank. “Ah I figured. Look I’ll make your hands bleed” she sighed as though she was accustomed to disbelief.
Hank gasped as stigmata appeared and quickly disappeared. He began to say something but she cut him off. “Ha-ha you think I’m crazy don’t you? Hell people have been seeing me on goddamn windows, burnt toast, and shit, yeah shit, for years and you think I’m crazy? Say I checked that e-bay site the other day and you can even buy my face on a potato chip. A fuckin po-tay-to CHIP!”
The truck rolled along on the dirt road passing a sign, “Rabbit Hash Center, 5 Miles”. “Yep” said Hank, “You’re the virgin mother, Mary, you ought to be proud of what you’ve done. You—“
“VIRGIN?” she interjected. “VIRGIN? Shit Joseph just had a small dick!”
“Now you listen here, I don’t care what you say you are you best need to shape up, I don’t know if you are the virgin Mary or if you made my hands bleed on a stigmatism on account of some witch craft but you best shut your mouth you crazy ol’ coot if you don’t want a hide full of buckshot, devil woman”.
“Crazy ha-ha now that’s one I haven’t heard before. Do you know the toll having a zombie son takes on you? Do you? Shit, my husband had a small dick, my son was delusional, and my insurance doesn’t cover mental healthcare. Shit! Pass Mary the tankard yo ho and a bottle of rum!”
They drove along in silence after this outburst. Mary, or whoever she was, smoking her cigarette and Hank staring at the road confused as hell. They rolled into a stopped infront of the town church, empty and sleepy in the summer heat, and Hank began to speak “Now looky here, I’m sorry for anything I said but you…” before he could say another word she hopped out of the truck, walked by the statue of herself, and instantly it started to cry blood. “Oh, they always do that when they see what I’ve become. Miracle my ass” she cackled, and walked on up the road.
Hanks old sea foam green Studebaker, not that the denizens of Rabbit Hash had ever seen the sea, rattled down the hard pressed dirt road. The heat was oppressive; it weighed heavy on the souls of everyone around. Even the farm hands sat under the wide leaves of the southern trees too hot to light their cigarettes. “Bad Moon Rising” crackled through the trucks old radio with a tinny sound. It was then that Hank noticed the woman.
It was her clothes that he noticed first. It wasn’t the frayed denim shorts or plaid shirt, but it was the way she wore it. Shorts cut so high the pockets peeked out the bottoms and shirt tied so high, “Looooordy” whistled Hank. He figured she was one of the whiskey bent ladies down at Miss Mays Bordello by the river until she thumbed him down.
“Hey” she crooned in a raspy voice that’s only found in sideshow carnies, “you got room for another? Headin' to town? I need a lift to church.” Hank took one look at her weathered face, broken Lucky Strike hanging from her lips, figured she could use the Lord, and said “Heck why not. Hop on in”. She offered him a drink and declared “Names Mary. You may know me as the Virgin Mother ha ha. Say want a drink? I don’t drink wine on the account of it bein’ kinda incestuous or some shit, blood of my son har har” she coughed out. Now, since Hank was such a church going man, and while he wasn’t one to offend this self proclaimed patron saint, he wasn’t one to stand for such heresy. “I really think it’d be best if I dropped you off now. I-I-I ain’t about to let no dime store hussy speak this way in front of me, no sir no never,” stammered Hank. “Ah I figured. Look I’ll make your hands bleed” she sighed as though she was accustomed to disbelief.
Hank gasped as stigmata appeared and quickly disappeared. He began to say something but she cut him off. “Ha-ha you think I’m crazy don’t you? Hell people have been seeing me on goddamn windows, burnt toast, and shit, yeah shit, for years and you think I’m crazy? Say I checked that e-bay site the other day and you can even buy my face on a potato chip. A fuckin po-tay-to CHIP!”
The truck rolled along on the dirt road passing a sign, “Rabbit Hash Center, 5 Miles”. “Yep” said Hank, “You’re the virgin mother, Mary, you ought to be proud of what you’ve done. You—“
“VIRGIN?” she interjected. “VIRGIN? Shit Joseph just had a small dick!”
“Now you listen here, I don’t care what you say you are you best need to shape up, I don’t know if you are the virgin Mary or if you made my hands bleed on a stigmatism on account of some witch craft but you best shut your mouth you crazy ol’ coot if you don’t want a hide full of buckshot, devil woman”.
“Crazy ha-ha now that’s one I haven’t heard before. Do you know the toll having a zombie son takes on you? Do you? Shit, my husband had a small dick, my son was delusional, and my insurance doesn’t cover mental healthcare. Shit! Pass Mary the tankard yo ho and a bottle of rum!”
They drove along in silence after this outburst. Mary, or whoever she was, smoking her cigarette and Hank staring at the road confused as hell. They rolled into a stopped infront of the town church, empty and sleepy in the summer heat, and Hank began to speak “Now looky here, I’m sorry for anything I said but you…” before he could say another word she hopped out of the truck, walked by the statue of herself, and instantly it started to cry blood. “Oh, they always do that when they see what I’ve become. Miracle my ass” she cackled, and walked on up the road.
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