THAT WAS THE winter I learned to drive, propped up by two volumes of the Yellow Pages, and always at night. It was a dry, brittle winter in the San Fernando Valley, and the only snow around was painted on the shopfront windows of barbershops and Exxon stations. Santa Claus, flanked by bikinied elves, sweated in his bright red underdrawers as he lugged his gifts past high palm trees and a bright yellow sun. The streets were filled with young girls and boys standing about, leaning against their bicycles and eating ice creams they had just purchased from 7-Eleven. The air was still heavy with the always rich jacarandas, as if winter never came.
Some nights it rained, and we drove our car through long ripping puddles in the flat streets of the poorly irrigated basin, around Valley College, down Van Nuys and up into the Burbank Hills into Glendale, Pasadena, Whittier. When it rained the entire San Fernando Valley flooded with the bright rainwater and the reflected lights of other cars. I liked to downshift at stoplights and then, in neutral, coast through when no cops were watching and jerk quickly into second again, sometimes feeling that sudden loss of gravity when the tires spun and the smoke wrapped us up in a world very invisible, yet also very real. The windows of the houses all betrayed bright Christmas trees with silver tinsel, red bulbous ornaments and inconstant strings of flashing lights. Enormous plastic Santas, reindeer and manger scenes stood out on the front yards like migrant workers, and whenever we turned on the radio they were playing Christmas carols. “Jingle Bell Rock.” “A California Christmas.” “O Come All Ye Faithful.” “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” O Christmas, I thought. O Mom, O Dad. O History and Motion, O Motion and Light.
“Turn off that crap,” Rodney said, still happily thrumming his hands–against his own thighs now. Another of the bitter silences had interrupted his necking with Beatrice, who sat between us in the front seat, one hand surreptitiously squeezing my knee. She was sucking a LifeSaver. “It’s still fucking November,” Rodney said. “I haven’t even digested my Thanksgiving fucking turkey yet.”
“Do you believe in Christ?” Beatrice asked, gently disengaging Rodney’s hand from her shoulder.
“You mean like Christ, the son of God?” I had just lit my Tareyton, and was reinserting Mom’s lighter in the dash.
Beatrice, her eyes dazed by the glimmering streets, nodded.
“You mean like the bread and fishes?” I asked. “You mean like the Star of Bethlehem, and the three wise men, and dying for all our sins?” I was starting to get a little excited. “Christ wore a halo on his head, even when he was a baby. He slept on a mountaintop and collected apostles like trading stamps. One day they nailed his hands to a cross. Then, a few days later, he lived again. Which always made me wonder why God let him die in the first place. Because it was a symbol, that’s my guess. God never cares about human beings. God, like any halfway decent politician, only cares about symbolic language.”
“I dig the story about the bread and fishes,” Rodney said. “We’re talking luncheon meat for forty thousand. We’re talking pimento, coleslaw and fried chicken. We’re not talking about your average tuna salad. If my stupid mom had been there, she’d have been asking why they didn’t serve any fucking tuna salad.”
“I think Christ is an idea we came up with because we needed it,” Beatrice said. I glanced at her in the rearview mirror. Her eyes were closed.
“I think we might as well believe in Christ as believe in anything,” Beatrice said. “I mean, Christ makes as much sense and anything else I can think of.”
“Like Success,” Rodney said.
“Or Self,” I said.
“Or Family,” Beatrice said. “Or Woman. Love. Disease. Heartbreak. Death. God. Goals. Reification. Fried food. High fiber optics. Disinvestment. Cancer. AIDS. Genes, skin, tissue, soul.” Beatrice’s face and neck were covered with so many of Rodney’s red, splotchy hickeys she resembled a victim of the Great Plague. “They’re all ideas we need. The question shouldn’t be whether they’re real or not, or whether we believe they’re real. I mean, I can’t tell you how impossibly mundane that all is, all these ridiculous endless arguments about what’s reality and all. They’re such imbecile restraints upon our thinking. Empiricism isn’t a way of thinking; empiricism is a way of being. Of being a dickhead, anyway. Do we believe we need Christ, Phillip? Or do we believe we have any good reason for not believing?”
“Don’t forget childhood,” I said. “Childhood’s one thing don’t forget.”
“I believe we got to stop at a service station so I can drop a log,” Rodney said. “I mean, I’d really love to continue this highly intellectual conversation and all, but first I think–I mean, I believe–I believe I’ve got to chop me some serious wood. I believe I’ve got to cut me one mighty humongous loaf.”
WHENEVER I RETURNED home Mom left traces of herself around the house so I would know she was all right. It was like a secret Morse of displaced objects, punctuated by unvoiced sighs and iconic, invisible gestures. An unwashed glass on the kitchen countertop. A bottle of Seagram’s discarded in the trash basket under the sink. Sometimes she would leave a pillowcase stuffed with dirty linen outside her door for me to wash. Sometimes there might even be a little note attached. Usually it said:
Dear Phillip,
I love you.
Love, Mom
And of course I always left Mom a note in return:
Dear Mom,
I love you, too.
Love, Phillip
“You can’t grow up thinking life’s like your mom lives it, Phillip. That’s the important thing. I think that’s the real reason I want you back home with me. I’m not trying to say it might not seem fun, especially for a young boy. But what seems fun isn’t always right, and I think you know what I’m saying. What’s right isn’t always fun. I’m talking of course about all those corny, old-fashioned values your mom used to ridicule me for holding onto. Things like honor, commitment, duty, and yes, even good old-fashioned family loyalty. Hell, I’m not trying to sound like some sentimental old fool or anything. It’s just that the love you feel for your lawful wife and child happens to be a lot more ‘fun’ in its very difficult, thankless way than any free ride in your mom’s car. I think you know what I’m saying, Phillip. If I’m not too far wrong about my only son, I think you’ve got a good idea what your old man’s talking about.”
Often after Dad hung up my head continued ringing with his voice. His voice was something I carried with me now, just as I’m sure Dad carried my baby picture in his wallet. “What if everyone behaved like you and your mom. What if the police, or the firemen, or the president just did whatever they damn felt like, whenever they damned felt like it.” That Christmas Rodney and I would park Mom’s Rambler in the driveways of the homes we looted. We not only took resalable commodities now, we took the heavier and more flamboyant presents from under strange Christmas trees. We took many of the brighter trees themselves, and lined them up, already decorated, in the living room of my mom’s house. “What kind of life would that be like, Phillip, where people completely forgot their responsibilities to other people? I think it would be a pretty frightening world, don’t you? What if there was a fire and the firemen were all off having a good time with their friends?” We took festive wreaths and strings of popcorn and hand-painted porcelain angels and music boxes in the shapes of coned trees or leering Santas or elves in workshops. “What if Russia invaded and our president was traipsing off somewhere and hadn’t even left a forwarding address? What do you think those Russians would do? I can tell you what they’d do, Phillip. They’d walk all over us. They’d walk all over this great land of ours.” We found a dog tied to a building support post in the basement of one house, ringed by its own puddled urine and moldering, cocoon-like feces, its skin scraped and chafed under its collar, its leash entangled by tattered smelly blankets. “They’d start putting people in concentration camps. They’d ruin our industries and entire free-market system. The government would tell everybody what everything costs, and exactly how much
of it they could buy. Nobody’d have one ounce of individuality left anymore. Nobody’d even remember, after a few years or so, how wonderful things had been, and what a terrible mess we made of our great country.”
We unleashed the dog and carried it down to our car. It was a dachshund, and we named it Contrite, because it always looked apologetic about everything. Contrite slept in Rodney’s lap all the way home. Sometimes I couldn’t hear anything during the day except Dad’s voice. Sometimes, though, if I tried hard enough, I could hear Rodney’s.
“You know what Christmas means? It means if I love you, I’m going to buy you a whole load of crap. The more I love you, the bigger the load gets. Sometimes, if you can afford it, you can get your loved one literally tons of crap, and then you’re really loved. Love love love. It’s a terrific idea. Low overhead. Unbelievable mark-up value. Love is one thing that will always sell really well. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas.” Rodney was rolling a loose joint on his knee. He twisted the ends and held it up for my inspection. “Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas. Buy some more crap. Come on, line up and buy yourselves a whole lot more crap. Here’s something nice. Bought any crap quite like this crap recently? Crap crap crap. Ho ho ho. Like that mechanical Santa Claus in the Montgomery Ward’s window display. Ho ho ho. Merry Christmas, everybody. Have yourselves all one fucking hell of a merry little Christmas, all you poor stupid saps. Line up and get taken, that’s what I say, that’s what Santa says. We take MasterCard cards and Visa cards. Come on, losers. Line up on this side. Get your money taken on that side.” Contrite lay asleep in Rodney’s blanketed lap. The car smelled faintly of Contrite’s urine, which had a tendency to dribble meekly out whenever he wagged his tail.
“Could you do me a favor, Rodney?” I said. I was looking past him in the rearview mirror. Then, at the next streetlight, the police car behind us turned left. “Could you lighten up just a bit? I mean, it is Christmas and all. Just do me a favor and lighten up just a little tiny little bit, OK?”
MASS
_____
14
THEN one afternoon after New Year’s Rodney and I were transporting a Panasonic color portable television upstairs to my living room when we discovered Dad sitting very obvious and awkward on the sofa’s warped foam rubber. He was wearing a very nice navy-blue Brooks Brothers three-piece suit. He was wearing polished cordovan leather shoes. He was wearing a white knit tie. “Merry Christmas,” Dad said. His golden cufflinks gleamed. “Do you remember me, Phillip? Do you remember who I am?”
Rodney and I very slowly set the Panasonic down upon a pair of wooden crates that were filled with soft drink cans looted from the home of some Pepsi executive. I suffered a moment of light-headed, almost giddy disorientation. Everything about my living room seemed either too large or too small. I didn’t know what to say. For a few moments I thought I had staggered stupidly into the wrong home.
“I know I said I’d leave you both alone,” Dad said, “but I wanted to bring your presents. It is Christmas, after all.” By way of explanation, Dad gestured at his alligator-skin briefcase with silver clasps. The briefcase was open on the plastic coffee table, revealing festive packages wrapped with bright foil paper, ribbons and blossoming bows. “I even brought a few things for your mom.”
“I better go,” Rodney said. He took the smoldering cigarette out of his mouth and cupped it in his hand. The smoke uncurled secretly between his fingers.
“I’ll call you,” I said, and then suddenly found myself alone in the house with Dad.
Dad had very distinguished graying blond hair. He had large, ruddy and perfectly manicured hands. His white teeth flashed like spotlights on a movie set. He was a very handsome man, I decided. Even handsome enough for Mom.
We ignored the silence together for a while. The silence inhabited the room like a third presence, or a block of raw marble, implicit with its own hidden Aristotelian form. We smiled at one another. Dad looked at me, then at the Panasonic on the Pepsi crates, still smiling, as if trying to distinguish our relative value.
“That’s a nice TV,” Dad said after a while.
“Yes, it is,” I replied, thinking, This is history. Today I grow up. “It’s a Panasonic.”
I COULDN’T JUST dispatch Dad off without dinner and a few seasonal drinks, especially not after the gifts. A portable CD and cassette player with extendable stereo speakers. Def Leppard. Simply Red. Bryan Adams. Rossini’s Guglielmo Tell and Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier. “Even when you were little,” Dad said, “you always loved opera.” There were dictionaries and desk lamps and an electronic typewriter. There were shirts and sweaters and underwear and socks. There was five hundred dollars cash, and two five-hundred-dollar money orders, one in Mom’s name and one in mine. There was a fully assembled Stingray bicycle, a pair of walkie-talkies, a crystal radio set, a deluxe Sony Walkman and two ten-pack boxes of Maxell XLII-S 90-minute blank cassette tapes. “You can tape directly from the CD onto those blank tapes,” Dad said. “You’d be surprised. It sure sounds a lot better than those prepackaged tapes you buy at the record store.” For Mom there was a string of white pearls, and one red rose tidily enveloped by crinkly cellophane. “I’ll trust you to make sure she gets them,” Dad said. “I haven’t any intention of bothering your mother if she doesn’t want to be bothered. I’ll be gone bright and early tomorrow morning. You won’t even hear me leave. Here–save these receipts. If anything doesn’t fit or doesn’t work or you just plain don’t want it, make sure you take it back and get a full refund.” While Dad spoke he gazed off down the hall toward Mom’s room. He knew exactly where it was, and that Mom was in it. “I know how she gets. I know there’s no sense trying to make your mom change her mind about anything.”
I fixed almond and broccoli Stroganoff. “It’s got broccoli and carrots and cauliflower in it,” I told Dad. “It’s got rice and chick-peas and zucchini. It’s got paprika and potatoes and seaweed. It’s vegan, so if you want a little cheese on yours, I’ll melt some mozzarella in the microwave. I’ve been getting more and more into vegan food lately, Dad.” I wondered if he was impressed, and passed him the orange juice. I served the Stroganoff on our house’s only two chipped white plates, allowing Dad the fork while I used one of our plastic spoons. There was a large hot fire cracking in the fireplace, and the living room was still littered with bright crumpled Christmas paper, ribbons, frilly bows and cardboard packaging.
“Isn’t this nice,” Dad said. He had removed his jacket and unbuttoned three buttons of his vest. He had rolled up the sleeves of his starched white shirt, displaying the deep tan of his hairy arms. His teeth flashed, either cavityless or perfectly capped. “You’ve turned into quite a respectable little cook, Phillip. I used to be a bit of a cook myself. Back when we were all together, and you were a baby. Every evening when I got home from work, I used to cook meals for you and your mom.”
We drank Manhattans beside the fireplace. Once all the gift wrapping was consumed, Dad walked down to the corner 7-Eleven for a pair of Presto Logs. After my third drink or so, I loosened up enough to request one of Dad’s Marlboros, and even smoked it in his presence. “It’s OK to have a cigarette every now and then,” Dad said, examining the dim ember of his own. “But when you start smoking like me–two or three packs a day–then you better think hard about quitting. There’s nothing wrong with doing anything, so long as it’s in moderation.”
I couldn’t let Dad drive home alone that night. His face was flushed, and there was a remote, insipid smile on his face as he contemplated the fire. I offered him the troughed sofa, the pillow from my bed, and my new sleeping bag. “I’m really glad we did this, sport,” Dad said. He had taken off his shirt and loosened the belt of his trousers. He was still holding the empty glass in his hand. “I know it’s been a strange situation for a young fellow your age, but I want you to know I’m proud of the way you’ve handled everything. You’re a strong, bright young man, just as I always knew you’d be. Your mom’s very lucky to have someone like you who underst
ands and loves her as much as you do. I never expected everything to work out perfect for us, in fact I always sort of expected things wouldn’t work out at all. But I’m glad we could spend this time together and just be friends for a while. I’m hoping that whatever happens to all of us, you and I’ll always have this special time together.”
I don’t remember what time we finally went to bed, but my dreams that night were thick with visions of carnival and violence. Strange misshapen men with guns tramped through dry, brushy forests; drunken women danced wildly on tabletops, eventually tearing off all their clothes while crowds of voices roared inarticulately around them like an ocean; alien creatures descended the black night sky in terrible spaceships, filled with deadly viruses and gigantic, ciliated bacteria which throbbed and pulsed in deep chambers, energizing the ships like fuel. A beautiful white-haired man in flowing white robes emerged from the spaceship and offered me something from one of his soft pink hands. I was on my knees before him. His other hand stroked my brow. Politely, even demurely, I refused; his hand offered again. I refused again, and hard multiple arms grasped me from behind and handed me up to him, bound and helpless on a gold and silver tray. The church below was filled with thousands and thousands of faceless people. At that moment, as I was ritually dismembered before the adoring cries of dark shapeless figures (the event was being televised, I knew, for modular black cameras weaved the air around me, attached to long intricate metal cables and winches), I awoke and heard Dad outside in the hallway prying at the lock to Mom’s bedroom door. I got up from my bed. I walked to my door and opened it.
The History of Luminous Motion Page 8
