Viewmaster

by Ferdinand Stowell

Conversion therapy

  Maxine had other surprises waiting for me; she was one busy-body of Christ.

  “Well, the day of your Lady Go-Diva adventure, I just went buzzin’ around cleanin’ everything I could get a hold of. Then the French folks came back late afternoon for their naps; you know, they’re used to that sort of thing in Europe, their siesta, so civilized. After they got up we started a’chattin’ away. And when I told ‘em I was Born Again, they became positively transfixed by the light of the Lord. I told them I keep the Lord right here in my bosom, right against my heart; after I said that, they just couldn’t take their eyes off my breasts, especially the two Frenchmen. I just say ‘go ahead, boys, look at my boobies, you know? Let ‘em look, let ‘em be mesmerized by His love!”

  “You know, here’s an idea, I said to them. Why don’t you come to church with me? I’m going tomorrow, not too early. I couldn’t find a church suitable for me in the city, so I’m gonna have a little adventure and go out to the East Bay to one my Christian guide book suggested. Why don’t you come?”

  The French folks stopped making contact with their eyes and instead began shifting them from side to side. Then could be heard a lot of those guttural noises the French are so good at.

  “They’ve got a special treat as part of the service, the Passion Players out of Decatur, Georgia; one of the best Black gospel groups around.” That got the attention of the French.

  “We love Black gospel music.”

  “C’est formidable – fantastique, “ said Bruno, as he kissed the tips of his fingers.

  “Oui, oui, yes,” seconded the women.

  “Well, then it’s settled. Now we just have to talk Tip into driving us.”

  Much later, after Tip had began communicating with me again in his own voice, he added his own take on that day:

  “Maxine talked them into going to church with her, you know, as a cultural thing. She can be pretty devious; she talked me into driving. Well, they had some black chorus performing and the Frenchies got so carried away with the music that they agreed to be baptized. They were like shaking down their groove-thangs and before they knew it, bam! They’re taking a splash in the Lord’s Jacuzzi. Oh, they were a big hit. Don’t you think that preacher loved getting his clutches on some godless Euro-trash. Maxine got all carried away, you should have heard her moaning like she was having the best orgasm.”

  “I’m glad I missed that.”

  “You know, she’s going on about the power of the Lord, but if that was the Holy Spirit I smelled on their breaths, then he smells an awful lot like nouveau beaujolais. I think they were all alcoholics.”

  “They aren’t alcoholics, Tip, they’re French.”

  Maxine had converted my French guests to Christianity. I felt violated, used, dirty. First the Dreyfus Affair, then the capitulation of 1940, now this. I felt my love affair with France becoming a thing stale, cold and dry.

  Maxine informed me that she had something important to tell me and I had already invited her out to lunch so there we sat at an Italian restaurant just down the block from me. I was still a little miffed about her coup d’éclat.

  “You converted my French people to Christianity. I don’t know, it just seems so culturally arrogant to me. I mean, how would you feel if you went to India for a nice vacation and then somebody takes you to a temple, drops you into the Ganges and tells you you’re a Hindu?”

  “Now, stop, they were already Christians,” Maxine responded. “They were just passive; their membership had expired but the Lord reactivated them – with the help of The Passion Players out of Decatur, Georgia, mind you. I don’t know what those French folks were expectin’ to find when they got to San Francisco, but it wasn’t Jesus, I can tell you that much!” She gave a hearty chortle.

  “Praise the Lord, were they ever reactivated! You should have seen them dancing down to the preacher with their arms waving above their heads. Oh! It was a sight for sore eyes. We drove ‘em to the airport right after. Shame they had to fly off in a rush like that. Oh, and you know?” she paused and I said,

  “What?”

  “French people aren’t such a bad sort.”

  “Oh, no? What makes you so sure?”

  But the real coup d’eclat was still to come:

  “So, what’s the big news you wanted to tell me, Maxine?”

  “I’m moving to San Francisco!”

  “Wow, good for you,” I said, thinking this might not be so good for me.

  “I’m flying back home tonight to arrange my things and I’ve already got a real estate agent who’s gonna help me find a real pretty house.”

  “Why are you moving to San Francisco?”

  “I’m needed here. You and Tip need me,” she said quietly and then a little louder, “This city needs me; I’ve been called by the lord to live and love his word right here.” And then she practically yelled, “I’m so excited!” and gave me a big hug.

  I said my goodbyes to Maxine and left the cafe to continue on to my first dog assignment since getting back. Tipton still wasn’t speaking to me but Clemente was:

  “Joo mahst gate See-mon at one o’cloak.

  So there I was at 12:50 to meet and greet the dog. Simon is a lovable Great Dane, aristocratic but awkward. He is so vocal in his appreciation for all the time spent with him, like someone’s younger brother, a latch-key kid. His owner is a lawyer who defended a friend of mine who accidentally ran over his girlfriend who was dead drunk and had no recollection of the incident.

  I was now quite thankful for my dog-walking gig. I had tripped over the painful realization that there weren’t a lot of people for me to turn to when I needed unconditional love. Maxine perhaps. Jesus, not so sure. Admittedly that’s not the sort of love I ever let flow and, well, if justice is blind, then rough justice has had her eyes scratched out. But it became clear enough that a walk around the block with a four-legged friend was a superior form of therapy.

  Dogs form a descending line of second sons. They are buffers for our emotions, softening the blows of rejection and unasked for solitude. They act as our scouts to sniff out the dogs of the prettiest people, then storm their positions as the advance guard, conquering with conciliation. What a live-in-the-moment thrill it must be to feel the absolute urgency of following a scent, to sense the world as a network of smells, a complex circuit, to know nothing more compelling than following a lead, rubbing your nose in it, succumbing to ecstatic frottage - anything to sustain the ephemeral, the instability of attraction.

  Simon had begun filling a certain intimate, empty corner of my life with activity and noise and walking him made me feel like I had my own bravest self on a leash, that I was being led solely by the will of a being that will force introductions and form alliances with all those things that I’d lately felt disengaged from. His complete lack of guile or self-consciousness helped me to realize again the possibilities of play. I would look into his sorrowful eyes and coax him, feel his breath and saliva as he implored me to throw the stick he had clenched in his mouth.

  I took Simon to Buena Vista Park just up the street from his home. There around sunset are performed canine rituals of almost Druidic significance. For one brief hour every evening, man and woman and these best friends of man and woman, become members of a separate society with its initiations and secret handshakes and dues to pay. Pet owners meet casually, drifting in from their directions, usually following the same paths from the urban woods to the clearing at the top of the hill. But the dogs reunite with all excitement: they dart and bolt, leaping into copses, whipping themselves into a bacchanalian frenzy, doing all those things that bring so much pride and annoyance to the pet owners.

  There are moments when I can imagine the pack of dogs surrendering to some atavistic impulse to kill, to rip the flesh from the masters as they scream ‘Heal!’ and ‘Curb your dog!!’; to become the collared and selectively bred Meanads of city parks and sidewalks. But that never happens, the dog
s can never be so allied or so focused. A united front of dogs is sundered by the primary relationship, owner and dog; all actions remain within that orbit.

  ‘I’m older now’ (I reminded myself again), my hair canescent and breezy after a recent haircut. The wind blew stronger there in the clearing on the hill. It made long hair horizontal and stirred my clothing and skin. The wind almost made me smile at its sudden disruptions and its teasing chaos. There I was on the top of a hill, the sun glinting in my eyes as it sank low to the horizon, me nearly smiling at the breeze, at the dogs running riot, at the clusters of pet owners fawning over each other and each other’s pets and I was being approached by a woman.

  Chapter XXIII: The Pinkiness of Health