Читать книгу Sitcom - David McGimpsey - Страница 7

What is my news? Well, since graduating,

I’ve raked it in and I’ve tossed it off,

I’ve plucked the green peach and sodded the pitch.

That is, aside from noticing the moon

shimmering on saw-bladed ferns in redwood

groves, I have learned two valuable lessons:

always floss, and nobody wants to see

your collection of shot glasses. Mercy.

I did not cry when Henry Blake died, though

I died every time Kinch deferred to LeBeau.

‘That is so you!’ I’m sure we’ll hear that: ‘You were locked up nine months for passing bad cheques? That is so you!’ Of course, my high school band never made the big time, never backed up Thin Lizzy on their ‘Boys are Back!’ bus tour. Maybe our band name, Wee Willie Nelson, doomed us and I regret insisting on it, regret writing it in Magic Marker on the ass of my best acid-wash jeans. I enrolled at Buford Business College and just let the cocktails do the talking, left the academy under green clouds of vodka slosh and ended up working on the busy side of the phone: ‘But, sir, your agreement says you should pay us now.’ Today, I supervise a fleet of young phone hawks in both technique and bamegab. Admiral, that is just so you. Romance came around for me more frequently than Ernest movies and, alas, was almost as annoying. There was Becky Plover (do you know if she’ll be reunioning?) who wrote poetry about fast horses and father figures in undershirts. It was a miracle she was with me, always pressing for what she called ‘the truth,’ as long as the truth never again involved a story that ends ‘whacking off with Hazmat mitts.’ Who knew she’d serialize novels about the hot hot sexual awakenings of Toronto: ‘She kissed his smooth tanned chest and felt free.’ O my asthmatic princess, wringing your hands, your knock-off purse full of neatly printed scheduled coffee dates. Then there was salty Kathleen, who thrived on confrontation, who grew with each ‘piss off!,’ who sprawled on rank sofas and drank Pepsi while sitting in the tub. Thank God she won’t be there! I can see her coming through the gym doors like a tank through the palace gates in Saigon, flying high on her own mix of Jägermeister and milk, screaming, ‘Where is that stupid fag?’ And, finally, Pamela, who I used to love but who now says she has to try to work things out with her husband. I asked and she just laughed, saying, ‘I really love reunions, except for the part about murder being a crime.’ That is so her. ‘It’s been so long,’ they’ll say before turning to say, ‘It feels like only yesterday.’ My father thought the best way to fight heart disease was to simply ignore it, my sister yelling about his yellow pills.

I’m not so sure his approach wasn’t wise;

my mother sits patiently by herself,

makes her own tea, her own little cheese plate,

and still laughs when a TV ad begins

‘Do you have diarrhea?’ Through the years,

while the economy boomed and bulldozed,

while computers made life much easier

for secretaries and Jar Jar fans alike,

while doctors fought AIDS and cancer of the neck;

while populations across the globe soared

and citizen geeks fought to save marshland

and limit greenhouse gasses for the sake

of the dooming tear in the ozone, while

geneticists promised the dawn of the clone

and the Hubble Telescope took pictures

of galaxies that folded neatly into

other galaxies, I took time to perfect

the art of the bummed smoke, the hindered dream,

the delayed comeback zinger, the late lunch,

the jealous funk, the revenge fuck, hollow

vows, saggy jowls, long happy hours,

debit cards, loose-fitting pants, nighttime soaps

(don’t bring up the past), the hyena’s laugh,

blaming it all on nice people like you.

That was me in your medicine cabinet.

That was me hanging up just as you picked

up the phone. What’s the theme of the reunion?

‘Always and Forever: This is Us!’ or

‘May God save us from more remakes of

Planet of the Apes?’ It’ll just turn out everybody’s all dressed nice, showing off how our spouses taught us not to say ‘nothink.’ Spruced from long apprenticeships in the malls and cubicles since we left sweet Hoodlum High, we know how to deny the neighbourhood. Good guys all, we’ll hear, all shy and quiet, nerds and geeks who forgive the only school in the state to be closed due to ‘benzene poisoning.’ We’ll transform poor to cute-poor – cartoon-Brooklyn poor or Rydell High poor. Will there be awards? I’d like to see that. Can I put my name up for Most Improved Sense of Persecution? Naturally, the award for Most Exactly Where We All Thought They’d Be has to go to Charlie G., who smashed his Chevette into a pole. Would I see that guy – you know, the guy I once punched in the stomach for five delinquent dollars – get up, fight the piercing feedback of the microphone, accept his lame prize as Nicest Guy, and weep for ‘the best times of our lives’? I’m sure Nicey’s all set up: probably doing lines off a whore’s thigh while the whore’s tax attorneys look on. I will be at the reunion. I will dance to T’Pau and I will do impressions of old teachers ’til they pry me off the bar. But there will come a time when it gets dark. The lights against the wall will hypnotize. In frosted mirrors behind the Pernod I will see couples dancing and realize, for me, partying’s no different than waiting for a late flight out of Newark: despite the sequined dress of yearned-for Sasha-May, despite the welcoming handshakes, I opt for the vampire who lives behind the wall; he has leather chairs and a rifle range, a pet tiger he likes to call Earl, a desk into which to carve the words It’s over. Alone, I’ll smell the factories again and retrace the steps to the shops of my youth, where they sold candy made out of petroleum and just one brand of soft, gleaming white bread. I’ll see shiny elbows on my sport coat and, just like that, all attendees will seem like fat rich kids on ponies. They never ask if the pony’s back is sore, they only say, ‘I wanna lollipop!’ Wouldn’t it be great if the nicest girl, and I mean the most legendary Jesus-Loves-Me queen, showed up all divorced and brandy-weary? And if we excused ourselves to some long-lost stoner’s enclosure made for bra-strap fiddling, and we’d satirize everything, including Sasha-May, including my own dreams of a one-off and, looking in her green eyes I’d say, ‘We better get back,’ just as the band returned to play ‘Footloose.’ ‘I thought that was more of an encore,’ I’d say, tucking my shirt into my belt, and sensing our shared booby-prize despair, she’d take my hand and gently remind: ‘Koo-Koo, the nice thing about crawling into the woodwork is staying there.’