Darwin Alone in the Universe

by M. A. C. Farrant

  “I’m aware of that. Don’t spit when you shout.”

  “Sorry. I was thinking, sort of. There’d be rain, wouldn’t there. Out in the bush. Rain … while waiting for a ferret. There’d be plenty of rain.”

  “It always rains in the bush,” Mr. Leakey sighed. “Heavy, buckets-full-of-water-hurled-in-your-face kind of rain. And mud and cold and terrible discomfort. Wind, even, and not enough kerosene for the heater. Not enough survival food like six bottles of Bordeaux, and Calzone, and artichoke dip, and balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil for the bread. “Oh to contemplate the existence of an extra virgin, a spare virgin, or an especially virginal virgin, pure, pure, pure!” (Mr. Leakey said this as an overheated aside, and then returned to the distasteful damp.) “We’d be huddled in our rain gear, in the dark, with not even a flashlight burning because the light might scare the soon-to-be-captured ferret.”

  So, we decided that we’d find our ferret at a Pet Store, somewhere clean and inside. With overhead lighting and banks of dog food, and mouse toys for cats, and a vending machine at the door taking quarters for the Vets and giving chocolate covered peppermints in return. Definitely. We’d find our ferret in a Pet Store cage amongst a litter of six-week-old ferrets looking fluffy and adorable. Like kittens or puppies. Like budgies, even. With the teenaged salesgirl gushing, “Oh, they’re really, really cute. And smart! They understand every word you say! You can train them to beg and roll over and play dead and. Did I say smart? They’re like a dog with attitude.”

  “Attitude? A pet with attitude?”

  “Yeah. Not to dis slavish and loyal dogs, but ferrets? Ferrets are truly special. Spiritual, even. Yeah, ferrets are spiritual.”

  But she’d be preaching to the converted; we’d have already decided that some kind of transformation (emotional, spiritual, who cares?) was at hand with the purchase of a ferret and so all we’d have to do now was buy the gear: the huge stainless steel cage for it to live in; the bags of dry food, the cases of wet food because we wouldn’t know what kind it prefers; the toy rats to play with; the treats, the special protective clothing with which to handle the ferret, matching canvas suits so we’d look like beekeepers or astronauts or hazardous waste workers, and it would all come to just over two thousand dollars. But never mind, we’d tell each other. Never mind because we’d finally have our ferret and we’d be excited! Rushing home with our grand new baby ferret, we’d be just the most excited we’d ever been. In what? Decades and decades.

  “And it’ll be really sweet the way the ferret growls in its cage,” Mr. Leakey said. “Six weeks old and already with razor sharp incisors, jugular-ripping incisors.”

  “But wait. There’s more.” The half of us that’s Jane said. “There’s vet bills for distemper shots and neutering and three month checkups, and teeth filing and claw clipping. And the Vet’s nurse would give us a pack of those pet toothbrushes you put rudely on your index finger then rub over your pets teeth, in this case, a ferret’s teeth, and we’d have to wear our protective gear but it would be useless against the frenzied squirming of the ferret and you screaming at me, ‘For Christ’s sake Jane, hold onto the bloody thing!’ as the ferret slips from my grasp like wet soap and lunges at your face, lacerating your cheek, the ferret loose now and ferreting out the cats and me howling, ‘I didn’t really mean it about slaughtering the cats!’ which, fortunately, the ferret doesn’t accomplish because it streaks out the door and now there’s a semi-wild predator on the suburban loose terrorizing small children and poodles.”

  Suddenly we felt like sleeping. Only 6:45 on a Friday night, the sunset a good three hours away, this being June, and we felt exhausted. By the idea of owning a ferret. We’d used up fifteen minutes exhausting ourselves with an idea.

  So we chucked the whole thing and the Jane of us said, “Hey, let’s have a theme party! Let’s dress up as bag ladies, as bums, as hobos, as homeless people, as crazy people, as schizophrenics and psychotics off their medication. Let’s go over the top and invite ornamental catatonics, real ones, not just your regular bored empty people like us but authentic vacated bodies; we’ll serve hospital food; we’ll turn the house into a shelter. For fun. Everyone pretending to be destitute or suicidal.”

  “Smack yourself for that idea,” Mr. Leakey said. “Smack yourself hard. That thought is not allowed. You can no longer dress up in the misery of others.”

  “Then how about this,” Jane said. “The Sound of Music! We’ll do the Sound of Music. Rent the video, serve schnitzel and apple strudel; invite friends over to dress up as Maria, Mother Superior, the Count, the stupid singing kids. Ray a drop of golden sun. Tea a dish with bread and jam. “

  Then we sighed. The pair of us sitting on the couch, wearing our crash helmets, staring out the window. We came down heavily. Hand in hand again, yawning at 6:50 on a Friday night: down, down, down. The helmets protecting us should we collapse from excitement, should excitement make a surprise visit. The yawns protecting us from glee.

  “I’m telling you, coming up with fabulous, original parties is hard work,” Jane said, utterly discouraged. “Absolutely not exciting. Glee-less like the book of Job. There’s a definition: Job—One who under the disguise of comfort aggravates distress. That’s us! Distressed for what? All our lives?”

  There was no distraction. We couldn’t watch TV because last week we’d burnt the TV as a political statement. We’d said, “Enough of commercially generated corporate-driven entertainment!” In retrospect, a mistake, perhaps.

  So we decided to go out, ride the bike double around the block, look in neighbour’s windows. Like anthropologists. Next thing we’re on the way to the ferry terminal. “Let’s go out for dinner!” Mr. Leakey suddenly cried, inspired. “Let’s eat from the vending machines—Cheesies, Salt N Vinegar chips, diet pop, lemonade, O Henry bars, Cup-A-Noodle. The authentic food of the North American people.”

  We rode the bike to get there—excitedly! A three mile trip over hills (no dales) to a stretch of highway. Jane giddy on the seat, the “you” of Jane’s life, Mr. Leakey, pumping away like anything.

  We never made it.

  Two blocks from home we saw a white rabbit. A huge white rabbit dashing across the street. White like Easter. White as snow. Dashing across the green and brown suburban world. An escaped pet, perhaps, a mutant. Maybe a rabbit like Alice’s. (Oh, for a hole to fall into! Some unexpected place … after place … after place … )

  Then, inspired by the rabbit, you said, Mr. Leakey said, “Maybe a kid, Jane. Maybe we should go home and make a kid or two.”

  So we did that. We went home—at 7:40 to be precise—and began work on the first kid. Then, a while later, we concocted another one. Then another.

  And this is how we unexpectedly entered the world of jugular-ripping family life. Boredom banished forever! No sort of about it. Boredom in three decisive strokes eliminated.

  Nothing but the terrible and constant excitement, now.

  DROUGHT ON THE CASH FLOW RIVER

  WHAT I’M DOING IN THIS ROOM will not make us rich. Sorry about that.

  A black Jaguar will not park in our driveway unless it’s that magical one from South America that eschews all reason. Instead, our 1982 beater, overflowing with reasons, like us, will have to wheeze through another year.

  There won’t be long vacations or two hundred dollar shirts or savings accounts or new barbeques, either. But what if I write a story in which you’re a tanned and elegant aristocrat sipping rare Bordeaux on a yacht anchored in some Mediterranean bay? Will that do? Fiction to the rescue again?

  Our children, naturally, will have to make their own stories. “Look,” I’ll tell them, “Start right in the middle, forget about beginnings and endings. Cash in a lifetime of love and full attention. It’s worth something. Really. No, I mean it, really!”

  I mean this too: it’s a mystery. As ever, the doors of lucre are closed to me. I’ve stopped knocking. Dollars flee from me like panic’d birds. There’s a terrible droug
ht on the Cash Flow River.

  I’m enslaved to a vagrant art that rewards fine sentences with a nod of recognition only. There really is a gun to my head. I put it there myself.

  I hate to break the news but here it is: Eliminate the idea of retirement. That concept will be the death of you. Please don’t pull the trigger.

  As it is, bitter old people scream at me in my dreams. They want to be cradled and entertained. I tell them to shut up. I tell them it’s a crapshoot. I tell them to go hungry; I can’t feed them. Sorry, but this is the nightlife I’m offering right now. As much fun as playing volleyball against a team of cadavers, I know.

  Okay, let’s shake things up and take a ride in the wreck. Go to China Beach for the day, groove like the times when it was all clearly the middle, bitterness and want sliding past us like an Otis Redding song.

  We’ll cash in the beer bottles for gas.

  DOUBLE-WIDE

  BY ACCIDENT I ESCORTED JACKIE ONASSIS on a tour through Mexico. She was dead but she looked great. Thin, but it was all there—the big hair, big sunglasses. She wore a black and white mini suit—short sleeves, short skirt—and high heels. I saw her sauntering along on the other side of the street, alone. So I walked over and joined her. It was a hot day. Overhead, a corner of the full blue sky was punctuated with tiny white clouds like a trail of periods.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi yourself,” she said, friendly, taking my arm.

  “Do you mind if I walk with you,” I asked.

  “Not at all,” she replied, laughing. “I’ve already had a man. Now I need some company.”

  “Is getting a man easy for you?” I asked, “Considering your dead condition?”

  “It’s never been a problem,” Jackie declared.

  I gasped. The sexual possibilities of being dead had never before occurred to me, and I felt great relief, as when a burden is lifted. It was beginning to look like death was just another socially constructed reality.

  “Men,” Jackie continued, extending her arm to indicate the world. “They’re all mine for the taking.”

  “You know, I’ve never done this,” I said, meaning escort a dead celebrity on a tour through Mexico.

  “What!” Jackie was incredulous. “That’s like claiming a virtuoso guitarist has never picked up a guitar!”

  I took this to signify approval. We walked on. Up ahead I saw a red carpet leading to an auditorium. A crowd lined both sides of the street. People waved brightly coloured paper flowers in Jackie’s honour. There was Latin music playing and I wanted to fling off my hiking boots and walking shorts and dance. This is a far howl from life in the trailer park, I was thinking as we entered the auditorium.

  Once inside we took our seats on stage. A short fat man advanced towards the podium.

  “The President,” Jackie whispered, leaning over.

  The President made an enthusiastic speech, gesticulating, shouting. I don’t remember what he said because I was too busy being dazzled by the cheering audience, the military guard posted at the door, the glare from the spotlights, my accidental place of honour seated on stage beside Jackie Onassis. While the president held the stage, Jackie cooled herself with a lovely embroidered fan and scrutinized the men in the audience, all of them looking like Southern gentlemen in their white suits and Panama hats.

  When the speech was over we were escorted to a waiting limo, then left the city, driving for a time through barren countryside—dust and scrub trees, everything beige in colour, hot, dry. Eventually a battered blue van pulled alongside the limo. At first I worried about assassins and kidnappers and wondered how you could assassinate or kidnap a dead person. Was such a thing possible? And was this what I was doing myself? Then I saw it was my husband. He’d tracked me down.

  “Stop the limo!” I shouted through the partition. Jackie and I got out.

  My husband climbed from the van clutching a handful of papers. He was excited.

  “The results of the Municipal election!” he cried. “I won! I won! I’m an Alderman!”

  “I know how you feel,” Jackie remarked wearily. “It was the same for me when Jack … ” Then she sighed and pivoting on her heel returned to the limo. The driver climbed in the back seat behind her.

  “Who was that?” My husband asked.

  “Jackie Onassis!” I said. “Didn’t you recognize her?” When the limo started shaking I explained: “The insatiable dead are at it again!”

  But my husband wanted to talk about his win. “I got fifteen hundred votes. Not bad for a twelve percent turnout.”

  I was riveted. “Does this mean a new trailer?”

  “Baby,” he said, “this means a double-wide with all the bells and whistles. A cement pad with a view.”

  We stood there grinning, our double-wide finally coming in, hauling itself across the desert to meet us.

  ATTILA THE BOOKSELLER

  I ANSWERED THE AD: SWM likes to dance. Called him up (said his name was Jay), suggested we meet at the local cafe Tuesday night, something different, a performance poet performing. Free coffee and cookies, the place rocking with middle-aged angst.

  He shows up, dark haired, pink-cheeked, somewhere in his forties, wearing a yellow plastic rape alarm attached to his waist. “I’ll be wearing a black turtleneck,” I’d said. Watch him approaching several other women first, also in black turtlenecks, fresh lipstick, clean nails. Finally catch his eye, wave him over; we shake damp hands. Tell him my name is Serena.

  The emcee stands before the audience, says, “Thank you for coming.” Says, “Tonight we have from England, fresh from a cross-Canada tour, Attila the Bookseller!”

  Attila comes forward, a small man, chubby, late thirties, wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black pants, black watch cap. Says, “Thank you very much it’s great to be here.” Says, “I’ve got books and tapes for sale after the show.”

  Begins performing. Screams the word “vomit.” Shouts, “Libyan Students From Hell.” Shouts, “Love is like two maggots colliding at the bottom of a dirty pail.”

  Jay whispers, “Excuse me,” and departs for the back of the cafe.

  Attila grabs his mandolin, sings a song called “GRRRR.” Sings, “I’m a Rapping Mole from a Leaky Hole.” Sings, “Every time I eat vegetables it makes me think of you.”

  The audience giggles, claps. A man with a grey beard yells, “Awright!”

  Jay returns with coffee for himself and two chocolate chip cookies, also for himself.

  Attila gets serious, wipes his brow, says he’s got something heavy to read, says he wrote it last week and hopes he can get through it, a poem about a young mother dying from cancer. He gets through it, voice trembling.

  Beside me Jay is crying silently—wet cheeks, quivering jaw.

  Attila picks up his mandolin again, asks, “Do you want to hear more?” Someone yells, “Go for it!!” And Attila reads: “Here’s to you the septic few, here’s to ’84 and ’5 when all our dreams took another dive … ”

  It goes on for fifteen minutes.

  When he’s done he delivers his pitch, shows us where his books are stacked on a table by the wall, thirty copies of a single title and tapes by the same name. Tells us he’s one of the few poets he knows making a living off his work. Says he’s been all over—Australia, the States, Germany—and he’s been doing this for fifteen years. Says he’s a dedicated man.

  He’s selling books by the fist load; there’s a line-up at the book table. He’s charging twenty dollars for a sixty-two-page book that has a clearly marked price of five pounds on the cover. “One at a time,” he’s telling the crowd. “Easy does it.”

  A woman in a wheelchair who’s been parked behind me leans forward and taps me on the shoulder. “You know,” she says proudly, “I’m also a writer … I wonder if you’d move these chairs out of the way so I can get to the book table.” She’s anxious Attila will sell all his books before she gets there. “Save one for me!” she shouts above the din.

  I personally
wheel her to the table. “Excuse me, please, make way…”

  When I return to my table, Jay has gone.

  I pack up to leave the café. By now Attila has sold all his books and tapes and is arguing with the emcee. Saying, “Can you give me another two hundred for the reading? Saying, “I know we agreed on the price, but go ask your Arts Council, okay?”

  Dancing through the doorway by myself.

  THE WHITE SATIRE

  THE BRIDE’S DRESS WAS BEAUTIFUL. It was made of white satire and flowed about her in an elegant trample.

  The wedding ceremony took place on a revolving stair and was conducted by the lead guitarist of a local rock group. Afterwards, the groom bowed and the bride did a ballerina curtsy. The audience was huge and everyone applauded. But the groom had had enough by then and became slack and cold. Now the bride saw him as a thin and sour manager. The man in her mind had fled!

  A dear friend stepped in and became the stand-in groom. Together they greeted the guests. There was no harm in this. Everyone thought the stand-in was the groom.

  As for the real groom, he was never seen again.

  “What lucre!” cried the bride.

  Now she gives talks on wedding preparations to dazed young wits. They all want a white satire like hers.

  “White satires are essentially harmless and delightful,” the bride tells them. “Setting is important, of course, but anything loose will do—a hallucination, the great outrageous. A reluctant groom is useful for the photographs but if one isn’t available, a stand-in will do. After that … pfft! And make sure the minister is novel.”

  The young wits are taking notes. “Reluctant groom,” they write. “Novel!” “Hallucination!” “Outrageous!“ “Delight!”

  IN THIS INSTANCE

  AN ELEPHANT AS LARGE AS A MOUNTAIN is tethered to the centre of the world, a desert where white horses lie dead on their backs, their legs pointing stiffly upwards. The elephant moves slowly; he is the engine that turns the world.