Outro: The Serial Novel

Twenty-one

Sending the Troops

Channy

I was covering a Sunday shift at the Red Apple, so I wasn’t there when Harvey returned from his Guard weekend. Not that I minded. When people asked me, I said he was “having one of his weekends,” which was not necessarily a term of affection. Since 9/11, my signpost prince had become increasingly “butch,” and it ran strongest on Sundays, when I could still smell the camo makeup on his face.

I had my theories. The Zero Squadron video battles centered on an enemy that was incontrovertibly evil, and drilled the point home with their military liturgies. For a man of Harvey’s generation, raised in the murky shadows of Vietnam, the clear-cut moral crusade of WWII must have held a tremendous appeal (and don’t think Star Wars didn’t play right into this).

The modern, educated human is expected to process a thousand gradations of good and evil, but the brain carries a strong survival instinct regarding its own capacity, so it streamlines matters by shuffling some of these issues into the black-and-white, one-or-zero auxiliary drive.

Thus, when a bona fide monster invaded our country and took out a few thousand civilians, Harvey was hard-wired to become a patriot. Osama bin Laden removed all the shadows from Harvey’s life, made his joining of the Guard a matter of prescient destiny, and afforded a military mission more justified than anything since Pearl Harbor.

And suddenly, this talk of Saddam Hussein. The Guard was no longer a corps of professional bystanders. If we went to Baghdad – with so many of our career soldiers still in Afghanistan – there was a good chance that Harvey would be among them. I spent a lot of time feeling absolutely terrified. To Harvey, I’m sure it all looked like a big mother lode of glory, the Luke Skywalker fantasy come to life. But he didn’t seem to understand that the bullets were real, that their express purpose was to penetrate human flesh.

On Sunday evenings, he spoke to me in blunt, government-issue sentences, and moved around on stiff, graceless limbs. He gave no response to humor or affection. I was afraid to hug him, for fear of cutting myself on his sharp edges. But I knew if I was patient, and held out till Monday, things would be okay.

I turned off the freeway and realized I was pressing my left foot against the floorboards, so much that my calf was twitching. When I got to our street, I found a strange, beautiful car in my driveway – gleaming white, with gold trim and sexy, long-torsoed lines, like something from an art-deco mural. A dark-skinned man peered over the roof and smiled at me. Harvey, standing near a headlight, followed his friend’s gaze and released a puff of smoke from his mouth.

I parked at the curb and crossed the yard. “Harvey? What are you doing?”

Harvey, still in his desert fatigues, held out a small cigar with a wooden tip.

“Sort of a Clint Eastwood thing. The guys in the Guard are crazy about ‘em. Gets you in the proper frame of mind for blowin’ up shit.”

“And gives you terrible breath,” said the dark man.

“This is Kai,” said Harvey. “He’s a Sherpa.”

Kai put his hands on his hips like a disgruntled housewife. “Would you stop introducing me like that?”

“Why? I think it’s damn interesting. And you can introduce me as Harvey the Cajun. Two of the world’s more interesting ethnic groups, y’ask me.”

“Hi Kai,” I said, wincing at the rhyme.

“Hi Channy. I know plenty about you. In between blowin’ up stuff, Harvey talks about nothing but.”

I allowed myself a smile. “I’m glad to hear that.”

“Oh and sorry for blocking your driveway. I thought I was just doing a drop-off, but my Cajun friend forced a beer on me.”

“The post-Guard beer is the sweetest you will ever drink,” said Harvey. He punctuated his point with a long drag on his cigar.

I couldn’t help noticing the way that Kai’s presence had softened up my boyfriend, and I decided that this was a friendship I needed to encourage.

“Would you like to join us for dinner, Kai? I made off with some lovely pork chops from work.”

Kai glanced at Harvey. “Long as I’m not… infringing?”

Harvey shook his head. “You kiddin’ me? Come on in.”


After the meal, Harvey stood from the table. “I don’t want to go into details, but I need to go sit for a while. Can you two maintain the high level of discourse?”

I gave him a sideways squint. “I never should have gotten you that thesaurus.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” he said, and disappeared down the hall. I immediately went for the beverage option.

“Can I get you another beer?”

“How ‘bout a coffee? I’ve got a bit of a drive ahead of me.”

I went to the kitchen and spoke to Kai over the counter. “Where do you live?”

“Fife,” he said. “The flatlands of industry. And cheap apartments.”

“Wow! You mean people actually live down there?”

He laughed. “I get that a lot.”

“You wouldn’t know from that car you’re driving.”

“My parents promised me a new car if I graduated college. I’m guessing they didn’t think I’d actually do it. The day before commencement, I’m sitting in front of a place in Ballard that sells coffee and cupcakes when a snow-white retro Thunderbird pulls to the curb right in front of me. Then this impossibly tall and gorgeous blonde gets out, and she’s wearing a white sun dress. And I tell her, ‘That is the most beautiful car I have ever seen.’ And she says, ‘Thanks. I just bought it.’ And I say ‘Oh! How long have you had it?’ And she says ‘Ten minutes.’ So you see I had no choice. I had to have a car just like that one.”

I punched the button on the coffeemaker and returned to the table. “You know? Everything in life should happen exactly like that.”

“Yes!” said Kai, with surprising enthusiasm. “Life should be one long fairy tale. Was that how it was when you met Harvey?”

“Yeah. A Dickensian waif wandering in a signpost forest. Somewhere between a ragamuffin and a studamuffin.”

“More of the latter, probably. He’s an amazing soldier.”

I glanced down the hallway. “Maybe that’s why he’s such a butthead when he gets home.”

Kai smiled and folded his hands behind his head. “Forty-eight hours of stuff exploding and men freely farting can have its effect.”

“Well,” I said. “I think you’re a good influence, and I’d like you to join us for dinner every Guard Sunday.”

“I’d love to. As long as Harvey…”

“Oh the hell with Harvey. This is my invitation. You’re coming.”

We indulged in quiet laughter, which drifted into a silence packed with thoughts.

“Are you going to Iraq?”

Kai blinked his dark eyes. “I think so. We’ve been told to be ready. Adjusted our training to desert and urban warfare. Learning phrases of Arabic. I don’t see any way around it. 9/11 changed all the rules, and we’re going to need the manpower.”

“It’s a scary, scary world,” I said. “Let me get you that coffee.”


Six months later, at one of those very Guard dinners, Harvey told me about his orders – and then proposed to me. The kneeling, the diamond ring – everything. Kai being there made it all the sweeter.

We were married a week later, at Kerby’s. It turned out that J.B. was an ordained minister – and, in fact, that we were his first wedding ceremony. That quiet man always had a way of surprising me. Harvey wore his full dress uniform, as did Kai, acting as best man. After the ceremony, we conducted an elevated rendition of the usual karaoke night. Debbie sang “True Companion” for our first dance, and the regulars sang every sappy love song they could think of. On the hundred-yard walk home, the sky over the ridge turning a robin’s-egg blue, I tried once more to feed the bison, but even the formal clothing couldn’t charm them.

For the rest of the weekend, we stayed home and made love as if we’d just met. On Monday morning, I drove him to SeaTac airport. I always pictured soldiers flying off together in some huge olive-drab transport, but it seems the modern Army made plentiful use of commercial airlines.

All the way there, we were very quiet, and I began to understand just how tough this was going to be. With the new approach to security, I could ostensibly hang around forever, waving at Harvey every five feet of the inspection line. One goodbye was torturous – seventy-five would kill me.

The Seattle airport has large enclosed walkways from the parking garage to the terminal. Halfway across, watching the streams of traffic below, I stopped.

“Harvey? I can’t do this.”

He turned and chuckled. “It’s too late, honey. We’re already married.”

“I mean… can I leave you right here? Can we say goodbye here?”

He set down his duffel bag and smiled. “So you only have to do it once?”

Women often have the unreasonable expectation that men should read their minds. But maybe that’s because once in a while they actually do, and it’s glorious. I attacked Harvey with a kiss.

“Wow,” he said. “I’m guessing I was right?”

“Oui, Monsieur Lebeque. Omigod! Do you realize my name is Chanson Lebeque?”

“You sound like one of Pepe LePew’s girlfriends.”

I should have laughed, but I cried instead. “Harvey, you’re going to duck, right? You’re going to come back to me, aren’t you?”

He placed a hand on my cheek and thumbed away a tear. “It’s not really a matter of ducking, but yes, I’m coming back. But I’m also going to do my job, and serve my country. But you know I won’t do anything stupid, because God damn, look at what I’ve got to come home to.”

He held me at arm’s length, as if he were memorizing my face. “We’re going to be all right, Mrs. Lebeque.”

I held him for a long time, my face pressed into the rough khaki of his jacket, then I slipped a black box out of my pocket and handed it to him. He flipped it open and pulled out a silver lighter.

“A fleur de lis! Now that’s French. So ma’amselle has decided to support my filthy habit?”

“Everyone’s allowed one filthy habit. Especially if they’re saving the world for democracy.”

“I will hand out Swisher Sweets in the streets of Baghdad, to win hearts and minds.”

“That should finish them off.”

We shared a relieved laugh, and then we were out of things to say.

“Time for goodbye?” asked Harvey.

I nodded.

“I love you very much, Channy.”

“I love you, Harvey. And I want you back.”

“Goodbye.”

He gave me a kiss, lifted his duffel and left, stopping at the door to give me a last wave. I fought off the urge to shout something, and waved back. Then I turned for the garage, a single married woman, and began the work of passing the months without him.


Next: Orders from Scootie

Image by MJV


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Outro: The Serial Novel

Twenty

The Christmas Surprise

The holiday party is a bigger deal than I expected. The company is a small chain of sporting goods stores, and the boss is much like Scrooge’s Fezziwig, willing to open up the pocketbook come Christmastime. Only this boss is much better-looking.

I’m all set up at the Tacoma Museum of Glass, inside the “hot shop,” where the artisans conduct demonstrations of glassmaking. The furnaces are on a sort of staging area, readily viewable from a bank of stadium-style seats. In between are sturdy metal tables where the hot-shoppers perform their hazardous tricks. Every item in sight is shiny and metallic; it’s like being on the inside of a giant industrial refrigerator. The ceiling is remarkably high and conical, designed to funnel nasty vapors toward the ventilators at the top. I was expecting the height to suck out all my sound as well, but the Museum allowed me to plug into their beautiful PA, and the results are astounding.

Our Fezziwig – Scott Jenalyn – has also procured access to the museum galleries. The main gallery is filled with brightly colored forms resembling sea creatures – a style inspired by the hometown hero, Dale Chihuly. The smaller exhibit gallery features the work of a young Russian woman who concocts statues of clear, colorless glass. The figures are dressed in everyday clothing – waitresses, cops, even a group of girls playing basketball – and the verisimilitude is downright unsettling. You feel like you could sit down and have a conversation with one of them, if not for the fear that they might answer back.

The capper to the evening is the mode of transport. After a sumptuous dinner in Gig Harbor, the workers are boarding Uncle Scottie’s yacht, crossing the sound and arriving at a dock a hundred yards from the museum entrance. (I’m now considering a career in sporting goods.)

From my DJ table, I can see Ruby, returning from a nervous stroll around the galleries. This seems like such a small gig, but it’s been a while since she’s had a real audience. I have utter faith that she will be a knockout. And if anything preposterous happens, I’m sure the outfit will more than make up for it. Were it an exhibit, I would title it No One Says No to Mrs. Claus: a red fur miniskirt trimmed in leather, a red sequin top that leaves as little to the imagination as possible, and black knee-high boots with stiletto heels. If ever there were an incentive to be on the Naughty List… I might even be worried about her, but I’m sure it’s all for show; underneath the brass, Ruby is just another boring monogamist.

“The acoustics in this place really suck,” she says. She’s descending the wide steps next to the seats, being very careful with her boots. “And I mean that literally.”

“Not to worry. I have tapped into the magic forces of the Museum. You just unleash that rapturous voice of yours, and Mama will take care of the rest.”

Ruby smiles, like she’s putting up a brave front. “It’s been a while.”

“Oh save it, sister. You know and I know that the music will start and you will click in like you always do. If you freeze up, just flash ‘em your tits. You’re already halfway there.”

“Ha! Use ‘em if you got ‘em, I always say. Maybe I’ll feel better if I go outside and look for the ship. Or not.”

She’s looking over my shoulder at a strapping middle-aged man, wearing a Santa suit that looks like it was tailored by Armani. Instead of the bushy white beard, his is a well-trimmed silver, to go with a moussed head of same, crow’s feet to die for, and eyes of the most oceanic blue. This is our Fezziwig.

“Scott! Hi.”

“Ho-ho-how are ya?” he declares, trotting the steps.

“How was the crossing?”

“Brrr! Froze off my mistletoes.”

“Some Santa you are. And aren’t you supposed to be fat?”

“Not sporting-goods Santa! Sporting-goods Santa likes to work out.” He gives Ruby an appreciative look. “And who is this? My fourth wife?”

“Well!” I say. “You certainly dress alike. This is your holiday chanteuse, Ruby.”

“Joyeux Noel,” says Ruby, and reaches for Scott’s hand.

“Ah!” says he. “All the best Mrs. Clauses are Jewish.”

“Oy!” says Ruby. “And here I thought I was fully assimilated.”

“A Christian icon should never admit this, but I’ve always had a profound weakness for the Hebrew goddesses.” His eyes are threatening to twinkle. “In fact, I married three of them. And sent most of my… income to… three of them.”

“Hmm,” says Ruby. “This could be the the Reverse-Shiksa Syndrome.”

Scott lets out a Santa-like roar. “And that is why I love them: that rapid-fire wit. Channy promises me great things from you.”

“Oh God – more pressure. Where’s the rest of your crew?”

“I thought it best that they view the galleries first. I’m thinking egg nog and expensive glass art is a bad combination.”

“That’s why you’re the boss,” I say.


I’ve never done a DJ gig before, and it does present some interesting adjustments. In karaoke, the relationship is automatic: they order the song, I play it. DJ’ing involves much more judgement, gauging the mood of a party and picking the music to match.

The employees drift in from the galleries, looking a little imprisoned by their suits and dresses. I’m keeping things on the down-low, a mix of mellow jazz and Christmas tunes. Then I look up to find seven young adults gathered at my table. Their ringleader is a tall, lean white guy with a military haircut.

“You got any Black-Eyed Peas?”

“Oh! Um, sure. I didn’t know you were ready to dance.”

“We was born ready, f’shizzle!”

The white kids shore talk funny these days, I think, and slap on “My Humps.” I notice, also, that they are apostles of the latest dancing trend, which focuses all movement on the region of the buttocks. I throw on some Outkast, the Gorillaz, Eminem. A half-hour later, I look up to find an older manager type, looking forlorn.

“Could you play something slow? I’d like to dance with my wife.”

“Oh! Um, sure. Very next song.”

“Thanks.”

I play “Lady in Red,” a sneaky reference to Ruby’s outfit. And I play slow songs until someone asks for “The Cha-Cha Slide,” “The Hustle” and “YMCA,” complete with spelling-through-extremities dance moves. Then I insist on “White Christmas” (Bing Crosby being a Tacoma boy), and everybody looks at me like I’m insane.

So with this crowd, at least, DJ’ing is just as much servitude as KJ’ing – but servitude with no clear instructions. It’s a relief when we arrive at Ruby’s portion of the evening. Scott gives a holiday greeting that’s marvelously light on ego and oratorio (I’m beginning to consider the advantages of a May-December relationship), then Ruby takes a crowd of feuding dancers and zaps them into a classroom of teacher’s pets. Her “Christmas Song” is a velvet dream, as pitch-perfect as Nat King. She takes a moment to explain how “Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas” is actually a sad song – that Judy Garland in Meet Me in St. Louis is actually singing about being forced to leave her beloved Missouri immediately after the holidays. What’s amazing is that no one’s even singing along. Even through a fog of nog, our sporting-goods employees seem to understand that what they’re watching is theater.

During the applause, I hear the past whispering in my ear. It says, “That is one fine damn singer.” When I turn to face the past, it’s Kai, wearing a grin as white as the snow in Bing Crosby’s dreams. So I stand, and give him a huge hug.

“Kai! It’s so good to see you! And the question would be, what the hell are you doing here?”

“I work for Scott. He’s a great boss. Shouldn’t you have some music on?”

“Oh. Duh!” I slip on a filler disc of Christmas tunes. Fortunately, the next item on the agenda is a hot-shop demonstration. Two burly men in aprons have extracted long rods from the furnace, capped with honey-like gobs of molten glass. We head upstairs to the lobby, gravitating to a glass Christmas tree that looks more like a bristlecone pine – barren, gnarled limbs hung with figurines in various military uniforms.

“So how are you?” I say. “What’s the new job?”

He looks at me and just laughs.

“What? What’d I say?”

“I’m working in the mountaineering department.”

So I look at him and laugh. “Do you even have any experience?”

“I’ll tell you what I told Scott during my interview. Wouldn’t you want to buy your climbing gear from a genuine Sherpa?”

“Rascal!”

“Your pizza from a guy named Luigi? Your Guinness from a guy named O’Reilly? So yea, I played the race card. But I do have a sincere interest. First chance I get, I’m scaling Rainier. Take a picture at the top, send it to Mom and Dad. So you’re DJ’ing now?”

“First time. I like it, though. And I like the money.”

Kai dons a calculating expression. “How did you get here tonight?”

“Ruby. She lives up the hill from here, but she was so amped up, she insisted on being my driver.

“How much gear do you have?”

“Just the stuff on the table – and a couple CD cases. What’s up?”

He just smiles, takes my hand and says, “Let’s dance.”

When we enter, the hot-shop guys are still at it, clamping and bending the glass into something resembling an agave cactus. On the remaining half of the stage, a handful of dancers are waltzing to “Silver Bells,” including Scott and Ruby (I imagine red paint on her shoes). Kai strikes a posture of invitation, and I notice that he is not imprisoned by his suit at all. I take his raised hand, feel his other hand at my waist, and we’re off into the crowd. And he can waltz. Of course he can waltz.


As a suitabley ironic finale, I play “Get Ths Party Started,” then proceed directly to my packing, slotting my CDs into their plastic pockets. I’m joined by Kai and a couple of young cohorts.

“Channy, this is Jeremy and Sasha. They will be loading your stuff on the company van and meeting us in Gig Harbor. You, meanwhile, will be joining us for a cruise – that is, if you’d like to.”

“Of course!” I say. I direct them to all the proper equipment, then track down Ruby to tell her she can leave without me. Soon I’m descending the wide steps of the museum to the dock, where the Designated Clipper is motoring up. Soon enough, we’re pulling into Commencement Bay and past the Brown’s Point Lighthouse. Though it’s absolutely freezing, I can’t resist standing on deck, connecting the Seuratian dots of Tacoma’s skyline as they fall and shimmy on the dark Puget water. Kai joins me and uses the cold (as I hoped he would) as an excuse to stand close and wrap me with an arm. The moment seems about right.

“Kai, I wanted to thank you for the Purple Heart. It means so much to me. It would have meant so much to Harvey.”

“It’s not for Harvey,” he says, rather abruptly. “The victim of suicide is not the one who commits it, it’s the ones he leaves behind. I will miss him, Channy, but I will never forgive him – not for what he did to me, not for what he did to you.”

There’s something about this statement that seems rehearsed. As if he has had these thoughts many times, and has chiseled them down to these exact words. He must have known that we would eventually run into one another, that I would thank him for the medal. But his tone is unexpectedly intense. It reminds me that Kai, despite his seeming innocence, has witnessed events that I could not possibly imagine.

“Are you all right, Channy?”

I’m not sure if he means at this moment, or generally speaking.

“Yes. I’m fine. And you’re very sweet.”

The dots of Tacoma disappear into his dark eyes, and his lips – the ones I have thought about more times than I would care to admit – are alighting upon mine. A chamber in the doorlock of my mind clicks in like the lift of a lyric set carefully into the pocket of a song.


Next: Wartime Harvey

Image by MJVPurchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1

Outro: The Serial Novel

Nineteen

Meeting Scootie

Ruby

Three years later, I was still with Joe’s troupe, Greenstreet Productions, alternating between big roles and small, fending off anything that smacked of administrative duties. I displayed my kryptonite competence only when it came to knowing my lines, arriving punctually and performing with every cell in my body. I did, however, have an intriguing proposition in my pocket: Joe had invited me to direct one of the shows for the upcoming season. It was tempting but scary, because I knew I’d be good at it and I didn’t want anything to come between me and the audience.

It was late summer, down-time before the fall opening. I found a flyer for an artists’ collective at a bar around the corner – a place called Savvy’s. When I walked in, the mood was positively Beatnik. The garret from Puccini’s Boheme. Andy Hardy putting on a show in the barn.

I swam through the bar crowd until I reached a wide pit where a funk band was wrapping up “Sex Machine,” a skinny black guy in a British cap spazzing a James Brown shuffle across the floor. Then the DJ called up a slam poet, a short, squat guy with a Fiddler-on-the-Roof beard. He jumped into a piece about trying to eliminate the excess food from his pantry, and instead winding up in an eating competition with Death. The rhythm of his words accelerated with a Bolero graduality until they caught fire and burst into a Ginsbergian inventory of comestibles. People were falling out of their chairs, probably on purpose.

By the time he was done, a reggae band had finished setting up, and rolled into a Jimmy Cliff tune. I took the opportunity to saunter up to the balcony, where a trio of painters were doing “live works.” A large black woman was pressing broad swipes of acrylic across a canvas, setting up the strata for a seascape. A baby-faced Puerto Rican kid scratched at a charcoal portrait: an old drunk leaning against a bar, wearing a look of utter dejection.

The third guy was older, mid-thirties, tall, a head of thick black hair with apostrophes of gray. He looked like he had never made an awkward movement in his life. He was working on a cartoonish, beatific creature with fan-shaped wings – or petals, I couldn’t tell. It stood upon a pedestal-like body, wide as a tree trunk. The background was an intricate network of lines, but looking closely I could see that it was actually composed of faces, their features melting into the mass: an Aztec warrior in profile, an amoeba with misplaced Picasso eyes, a robot alien with a saucer-shaped head.

The man was dipping a terry-cloth rag into a bowl of raw sienna paint, then scrubbing it into one of the petals – or wings. He gave me a quick glance, but kept steadily at his work. For a moment, I felt guilty for distracting him, but of course that’s what he was there for. And, to answer stupid questions.

“Whatcha doin’?”

He looked up with eyes so black you could fall right in. “You want the short version or the encyclopedic?”

“Um… I’m gonna go for the short.”

“We begin with a central figure: the ruby-throated angelflower. A profoundly positive presence, I filled in the background with a coterie of beer-coaster creatures, then sort of macramed them together in order to, in order to… Actually, I have no idea.”

“To make them look like a crowd?”

He snapped his fingers very loudly, then stared at them in surprise. “Wow – what’s that about? But yes! A crowd. Out of which rises the angelflower, like the rare and sudden blossoming of the century plant, erupting from the desert of the hoi polloi.

“I have this thing about complicated backgrounds. I get so attached to a project that I hate to see it end – so all this meticulous stuff helps to extend the work. Right now you’ve caught me at the final step, which is frankly like a three-year-old with a coloring book. I like to water down my acrylics, then scrub them in. Gives a nice solid block of color – but transparent, so it reveals the flaws in the canvas.”

“Why do you want to reveal flaws?”

“I like a surface that’s seen some livin’. This one was a dropcloth. Note the little splatters of black at the top of the stem. That was an oil change.”

He took another swab at his bowl and worked a corner of the petal, drawing the paint right up to the thick black line at its periphery.

“I can’t stand art that’s too smooth. If you’re not going to reveal the process at all, then why bother? This notion of creating perfect, untouched forms is riven with hubris. What are you doing after the show?”

He said all of this at a shot, and I wasn’t entirely certain that I’d been asked a question.

“Um, I don’t really know.”

“I have to show you something.”

I laughed. “Don’t think I’ve never heard that one before.”

He took my hand and held on tight, as if we were about to shake on a deal.

“What’s your name?”

“Ruby.”

He smiled. Large, dazzling teeth. “You see?”

“Ruby-throated,” I said. “As in fate?”

“As in coincidence – which is better, and tastier. You are one of the special ones. You do something creative?”

“So now you’re a psychic?”

He laughed. “Ask the right question in the right milieu, and your odds are pretty good.”

“Yes,” I said. “Actress.”

“Ah – of course. Lots of personalities swimming around in there. When you first came up, I thought there was a whole mob watching me. I’ll be done at midnight. Can I meet you at the bar?”

“What? I can’t watch you?”

“Actually, no. I’d be too distracted. Along with being one of the special ones, you’re enormously attractive.”

Picture me as an LP on a turntable; my needle has just been yanked away. I tried and failed to fight down a goofy smile.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “What’s your name?”

“Scootie.” He shook the hand I’d forgotten he was holding. “And yes, there’s a story behind that, too. But I need to get back to my painting.”

He let go, and I drifted downstairs. I gave some serious thought to leaving – he was entirely too smooth. But this cool punk band was playing, dressed in big chunks of black and white fabric, and a beer sounded really good.

Two bands and a standup comic later, Scootie appeared over my left shoulder, continuing our previous conversation as if we’d never stopped.

“When I was a baby, I had a middle ear infection. It messed up my sense of balance, and I took to crawling sideways, like a crab. So I got my nickname: ‘Scootie’. Have you done any Beckett?”

I fixed him with a look, and attempted to restart the conversation in a more normal fashion. “Hi, Scootie. How ya doin’?”

He blinked. “I’m fine. How are you?”

“Good! Waiting for Godot.”

You could see that little tidbit striking a speed-bump in his head – which was exactly my intention.

“Isn’t that…?”

“All-female cast,” I said. “We thought of calling it Waiting for Goddess, but we figured we were pushing our luck as it was.”

The bartender raced by, planted a Heinekin in front of Scootie, spoke the words “Jacks and Queens” and kept going.

Scootie eyed the label, said “Ah, Jacks and Queens,” and took a drink. “What did you think of it?” he asked.

“Jacks and Queens?”

“Beckett.”

I did my best to look thoughtful (I’m sure I did – I had practiced my “thoughtful” look in a mirror many times). “Irrational. Maddening. Plotless. Ridiculous. I loved it.”

“You ought to love me then.”

“Umm… maybe?” Keep it moving, keep it moving. “So where do your figures come from?”

“John Cage.”

“Oh. I thought Cage was a musician.”

“You thought Da Vinci was a painter. Music was Cage’s day job. When the moon came out, he was a philosopher. And the master cartographer of chance operations.”

Scootie took a pen from behind his ear and flipped over a beer coaster. Then he drew a long line, vaguely ess-shaped.

“I can’t illustrate worth shit. Any time I attempt to pull in something from the real world, it goes through some kind of crippling filter and ends up looking like the work of an unimaginative three-year-old. So I go backwards.”

He drew a straight line through the ess at a slant.

“I keep drawing lines until something makes itself known.”

A question mark with no period. Three sides of a square, facing down.

“When I arrive at the point of identity, I finish the job with the universal signifiers: eyes, nose, mouth – sometimes ears, or hair.”

He gave the question-mark head a pair of almond-shaped eyes, then angled a mouth-line with a small notch for a smirk. The nose was already there, a product of the first two lines. The upside-down square offered a torso; he added long, thin rectangles to imply arms.

“Sometimes they turn out, sometimes not. Sometimes they become ruby-throated angelflowers.”

“This one looks French,” I said. “That smirk might actually be a cigarette.”

Scootie smiled, initialed the coaster SJ and handed it to me.

“Here. Might be worth a dollar someday.”



He had a loft (of course he had a loft). It was pretty bare of furniture, and instead of a rug he had a canvas dropcloth, ten foot square, nailed to the floor. Affixed to the far wall was a canvas, five feet tall, three wide. It appeared to contain a swarm of mosquitoes, but closer inspection revealed words, hundreds of them, written with a black marker. I saw libretto, 1967, and Sutherland.

“What the hell is going on here?”

“Chance operations,” he said. “The human mind craves organization – and that’s the problem. I was in a choir once, singing a piece that called for white noise, within a certain range of pitches. Inevitably, we would gravitate toward consonance – toward chords. So we had to spend a half-hour assigning individual pitches to individual singers. There were some who hated that piece, but I thought it was the most beautifully constructed chaos I’d ever heard.

“The thing is, in order to achieve true randomness, you have to set up some ground rules beforehand. In this case, I determined to take the New Grove Book of Opera – all 687 pages of it – and extract the first word from each page. On the canvas, I depended on my natural ability to shuffle, beginning with any available white space and not caring if it ran roughshod over other words. I wanted a virtual windstorm of verbiage. Unbeknownst to you, I have already pencilled in the central figure, and will now bring him into being. Please – sit.”

He handed me a cushion, and I sat on the floor, cross-legged. He produced a small housepainting brush, dipped it into a jar of black paint and drew a rough line over the canvas. He began with two lines that started at the top center and extended outward. He drew a vee from one shoulder to another, trailing into a shape that resembled a tie. At either side of the X, he affixed the same almond eyes as his coaster creature, then a wide, flat oval for a mouth, vaguely merry. He stood back for a moment, then dipped the brush, took the tips of the X and extended them to the upper corners. He took a last look, notched a pocket on either side of the tie, then tossed the brush over his shoulder. It landed on the dropcloth with a splat. Then he knelt behind me, gripped my shoulders and said, “So. What is he?”

I took a few moments to study.

“The Creature from the Black Lagoon in a business suit.”

“Or a suit for the opera,” said Scootie.

“But those antennae…?”

“Yes! That popped in just now.”

“Like a cockroach. A giant impresario cockroach, off to the opera.”

“Luciano Cucaracchi,” he said.

I let out a burst of laughter, like a sneeze. “Okay.”

“Hey, I don’t make up the names. They just come in on the satellite dish. Now, take off your shoes.”

There was my decision point. A girl doesn’t take off her shoes just for anyone.

So I did. Scootie disappeared and came back with a pair of square plastic tubs. In one he poured red paint, in the other black.

“It’s just like roullette. Pick a color.”

I stood up and gave them a study. “Dare I ask why?”

“Ask yourself this question: what color do I want my feet to be for the next week?”

“You’re nuts.”

“We’ve established that. Now pick.”

“Red. Of course.”

“Communist!”

“Vampire!”

“Go ahead. Do the Hokey-Pokey.”

I knew if I thought about it, I wouldn’t, so I didn’t think about it. I don’t need to tell you how it felt, because you know how it felt. Scootie pushed a button on his stereo and conjured a waltz – that soprano from Boheme, in the café. He rolled his trousers to his knees, planted himself in the black, then left a trail of dance-instruction footprints on his way to the center of the dropcloth. He raised his hands; I stepped forward and took them.

And he could waltz (of course he could waltz). And of course I could waltz – I was a performer. We stopped at regular intervals to reload our feet. After that came Sinatra, “Saturday Night is the Loneliest Night of the Week,” and we switched to swing. Scootie’s lead was perfect, all the signals there in his big hands, twirling me one way, wrapping me the other. At the ending, he dipped me so deeply that, the next morning, I found streaks of red and black in my hair.

Scootie pulled me to my feet, kissed my hands and said, “We’re done.”

I stood on red tip-toes, kissed him on the neck and said, “Not hardly.”


Next: A Glassy Christmas


Image by MJV

Purchase the book at: http://www.amazon.com/Outro-Michael-J-Vaughn/dp/1440111405/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231020486&sr=8-1