Brett and Leslie: Chapter Nine
Shaking My Tail
Swinging along, shaking my tail, I made it to that 11 AM prep-cooking shift with almost 30 seconds to spare, plan in skull. I would get my first fat paycheck at the end of the shift; it was a short shift, too, so I had time to not only get to the bank—cash machines were barely on the scene—but also to spend it on my new idiot machine.
Its funny how I’ve been accused of writing very recognisably Gen-X-ish fiction—the epithet “poster child” has gone aloft—funny, because there are so many culturally unifying objects, supposedly dear to my so-called generation, which only make me feel alienated from it (even if, fine, our hallmark is meant to be alienation… And? What do you want from ghosts?).
For example, all of movie history.
At parties, at shows, at jobs—when we were in our 20s, “creative” people my age quoted movies the way real writers used to quote the Greeks. It got worse when I moved to Chicago and the years went by, but even in Wisconsin in the 1990s, blathering about fill-ums or—more often—replacing actual conversation with trading recitals of single movie lines like a bunch of creepy parrots—was mandatory for hanging out with “scenesters.” Which seemed fine at first, since the words “the scene” made me ill anyway. I barricaded myself in a single room and did acid.
But it slowly became clear that if you wanted to participate in the arts, you were supposed to waste several years of your life with your thumb in your mouth, watching movies, because these creatures had crawled into every crevice of every medium and you weren’t going anywhere without giving them a schmooze. They were like the Sphynx, broken into a million mouthy shards of shit and armed with actor trivia questions instead of riddles.
Or with quotes from Mystery Science Theater—a descent into recursive hell. That cable-TV obsession marks the fault line where hipsterism in America lifted the arts in its silver spoon to its rotten lips and drank them dry. The premise: Adenoidal-voiced mediocrities—operating, appropriately, robot puppets—heckle fun, old movies. Movies that were much better than the pretentious plagiarists they worshipped, which made it even more bewildering. Even people who fancied themselves novelists and playwrights couldn't get through thirty seconds at a party without laughing conspiratorially at a non sequitur from this circle of the inferno. This was the first time I noticed the Uncanny Valley.
This generation of movie-bots banked on trying to seem gritty, which sounds like they wrote from life, but ha!—instead, hipsterism hinged on rejecting the highbrow, beautiful, and mannered forms of classical art that show you the insides of another human being. They replaced the interior monologue of the novel with one-liners that sound sexy with a Beretta or a shopping bag, then looked to their gold-leaf bust of Marx for a wink of approval. Nothing to do with reality at all.
And yet, for some reason, books were supposedly the preppy-bitch thing.
They and their vast televisual-media libraries were snobs against the "snobbery" of those who grew up in the public library, getting books for free like the stuffy, highbrow literary slobs we were, or searching through the fifty-cent book rack to score some Pollard or Thackeray.
But I was the one who was stupid, and also probably went to boarding school.
Even Brett gave me shit about it. Once he saw a photo of me and my sister at home, and he was shocked that we looked “like normal people” and not, like, I don’t know what he was expecting… gold bookcases? A horse?
No way Brett had rich parents, but he had divorced ones. Which meant either of them would skip meals if necessary, to bribe the kids with enough crap and toys to love them better than the other parent. (And this became my dating pool.) So my parents, as the last people to stay married in the 1980s, were also the last people on earth to get a VCR.
A lot of people my age think they were oppressed because they’re the children of divorce—they laugh at the woke kids’ version of oppression, but you should have heard them then. But maybe the problem with the mid-20th century wasn’t divorce but the condition that marriages were in to begin with; they got off easy. The war ended. My parents openly wanted to murder each other as far back as I can recall—but they were Catholic. Catholics didn’t divorce back then: everyone lost their shit when Dad’s older brother got a divorce, so my dad stuck it out, and instead of guilt presents I got… well…
OK, I need to move the story along before I give myself a stroke.
Life demanded I sit through the Church of Movies services, so I was GOING to become literate in movie-speak, if only to show Life who was boss. As much as I loved music, working with musicians was turning out to be not my kind of nightmare. And you needed a practice space, so if you didn’t have money you needed this circus’s worth of roommates. But there was no way I was about to go through life enjoying everyone else's artistic labors without making anything myself—I might be a freak, but I ain’t no parasite.
Little did I suspect that, in the future—and probably already—the spectator, not the artist, would be the precious and scarce resource.
For a civilisation of people who can't entertain themselves without an Internet connection, we all seem to want to be the guy onstage—and nobody is ever embarrassed when it turns out they have nothing to say, so long as they keep their clutches around the mic. Everyone still wants to make art out of everything—but now everything is already trying to be art, and 99.9% failing.
But never mind! I thought my dumb shit was needed, and I love a good mission—and if I didn't at least get fluent enough in Outsider Hollywood to at least dog-paddle my way through a conversation with one of these trust-fund hipsters who would otherwise dismiss me as a monocle-wearing snob, the mission would surely fail. So I was gonna buy that $200 combination TV-VCR, rent a bunch of videos, and get exactly as drunk as I needed for as boring as they turned out to be.
Five hours of gourmet culinary prep-cooking later—mostly I humped 50-pound bags of carrots up a rickety spiral staircase and then fed them into a blade that could take my hand off, but it was better than washing dishes!—I must have been roiling with palpable, spit-like bubbles of glee when I hit up the assistant manager for my check on the way out of the brewpub. She narrowed her eyes at me.
Yeah, the brewpub was big enough to have an actual assistant manager, unlike Joe's, where Joanna mostly pretended to be one; but otherwise they were so alike I called this one Joanna II. They even had the same underbite. Assistant managers were the pre-corporate equivalent of a Human Resources lady. And I say I must have been visibly happy because Her Highness made fine sport of shooting me down.
“Don't spend it all in one place," she said, releasing the paper into my paw with distaste. You'd have thought it was her money. “Unless that place is paying your rent in advance. This experimental promotion isn't going to last long if you keep showing up late.”
“Late?! I was thirty seconds early! You can check my punch card! And—hang on, who said this was an experimental—”
“Yeah,” she said. “I fixed that for you.” She glanced down at her manicure and back up with a mock-flirtatious smile.
“Fixed what?”
Fixed ‘You're in the big leagues now,’” she said.
My confused look seemed to please her.
“When you wear that cook’s apron, you need to be in the cook’s apron before you punch in, and you need to punch in BEFORE your in-time. Simply…LEAPING!… into the building at 10:59 for your eleven o’clock shift smelling like a… a BREWERY!… isn't going to cut it any m—”
“We work in a brewery, Joanna!” I snapped.
“Joanna?”
“Uh… Sorry—Kate. You're not smelling me, Kate, you're smelling that giant vat of beer brewing in the corner, with a few high notes from the rich, fruity bouquet of your own… RAGING!… insecurities about your—”
“OK, OK, can you lower your voice?!”
“And for the last time,” I added cheerfully, “I had NO idea he was married, are we clear? To be honest, I didn't even want to have sex with him—he drunk-nipulated me into a corner. You’re both disgusting. I still have that scar from your giant set of yacht keys or however many houses Daddy bought you above my eyebrow, so I think we're even, or at least even enough that we don't need to make each other's lives more of a living hell here than they need to be.”
“Don't you—shh, please!—don't you like your job?” she needled, always able to find a reason to be smug in any situation.
“I love my job,” I snapped, "but have you smelled YOURSELF?!”
“Not in front of the customers...”
“There are no customers, you killed our afternoon traffic when you nagged them into getting rid of Smut ’n’ Eggs, and I’m in too good of a mood to waste any more of this beautiful day listening to you and your failing marriage. How many times do I have to beg you both to leave me alone? Now, I have some illiteracy to combat; I bid you good—”
“Huh? Illiteracy?”
“Bye, Kate.”
Only slightly soured, I scampered downthe sidewalk, trying to convince myself that this was going to be fun. At least as fun at books. I knew people are lazy, so why would they spend so much time watching movies if it weren't amusing—right?
I felt a bit less certain when, an hour later and a month’s rent poorer, I was standing in the middle of Madison’s “cool” movie rental shop—on the (possibly mistaken) assumption that it would be marginally less boring than Blockbuster—fresh new machine in hand, beginning to wonder if I was an easily bored person.
None of it—not a single back-of-the-cassette-box blurb, which is often all you had to go on when choosing a movie—sounded like it had a story. The packaging told you a few scraps about a couple of characters, then bragged about how important, brilliant, or "cult" (did that necessarily involve Tarot cards?) the movie was, which didn’t help me decide, since every single one of the movies said they were one or more of those three things.
Were there any movies that would make me feel like I was communicating with an excellent, generous mind at work, like a good song or book? No data at all.
All I had to go by were ten different variations on “a brilliant, unconventional, sex-com set in the exotic year of 2015,” mildly dirty cartoons, and probably a bunch of those Merchant and Ivory films. Anything is interesting in the hands of a good mind, but I was starting to suspect all this crap had come from the hands of hipsters, which are usually sticky, never mind interesting.
But I wanted to be excited! I finally had a VCR! I was afraid it was going to turn out like my social life: By the time my mom let me have one, I didn't want it anymore.
Now I finally had my VCR, was I going to go home in defeat, to enjoy nothing but a lonesome book? No! But that machine was damned heavy—I had to convince myself to get excited about SOMETHING before my arms snapped.
Finally, I spied a biopic about Oscar Wilde that had the Jeeves and Wooster guy in it, and some La Blue Girl, which, if it was boring, could theoretically be rejiggered for another purpose, and hipsters mentioned Japanese cartoons all the time.
Back at the ranch, I hoped nobody would see me before I got my entire life savings up to my room. I didn't hope much, though; as usual, Paul and Jollie were lurking in the loft, smoking pot and scanning the forest floor for any potential carrion. I could feel their eyes on me, like tree rats.
But I clambered upstairs like everything was normal, with that big package under my arm trying to look like groceries, rutabaga eyes scraping my T-shirt like laser sights, to greet Chumpy the guinea pig, the highlight of my day.
But I didn't have any beer or groceries to deposit in the kitchen and it smelled like the Terrible Twosome had to be almost comatosely stoned, so I figured I was safe. Nonetheless, I went straight downstairs with a book and casually fumbled for the vodka.
“Oh, Lucy, you're so paranoid,” I told myself. “Lighten up and enjoy the evening! We’ve got a BAND GIG! We’re getting a PROMOTION! We’re gonna be HIP!” I decided that, after I read my way through a cocktail, I would bang on the drum for a while; not only would I get practice for the show, but around the time I started to feel silly playing without a guitarist, Paul would decide he needed to ruin my practice session for me by insisting he had to go to bed early for some made-up SSI appointment or skateboarding-startup scam. With him safely passed out in his second bedroom, snoring like a pig, I could sneak upstairs and at long last delight in my “video nasties” (I DID have a friend who owned all the Young Ones videos, and occasionally let me watch; those weren’t boring at all).
I didn't think Paul would actually try to fence my TV—or, not at this time of the month, anyway; he'd just got his SSI check, I could tell by all the pizza boxes. But I knew exactly how obnoxious he would be about commandeering the thing, making an evening of it, constantly insinuating that someone should order food to make it a real party, and—worst of all—he would want to make us watch some of His bullshit.
I know, I was doing this to try to blend in with these assholes, but I felt no rush to jump into the deep end—and I stupidly hoped that someday I would find real Art People who weren’t always trying to steal from me. The mystical poet worship of dead old Oscar Wilde was as flakey as I needed to get, for the nonce. Alternately, the thought of watching La Blue Girl with Paul and Yollie was already giving me genital sores.
So—too distracted by the question of whether I would be able to plug headphones into the TV/VCR, or whether I should give Paul some vodka to make sure he stayed asleep—I stared at the same paragraph, mind gleefully racing, all the way through my Midwest Tartie (vodka and Tang, an invention of Smacky’s). Almost smugly, I searched for my drumsticks.
I should have learned, even by then, that I don't get to make plans.
What am I saying? I learned that lesson TOO fast; half my problem was that I was always flinching at the thought of the future. I mean, we were RIGHT about the coming collapse, but I don't think zero percent of that was self-fulfilling prophecy—although, face it, 90 percent of most things is the wheel of history relentlessly grinding the plebs to sausage no matter what they do, à la that amazing scene from the Roman poet Juvenal—but chin up!
At ANY rate, I never began drumming; by the time I noticed the phone was ringing, Paul was already commanding me to answer it. (Only record executives had cellphones; if you had roommates, you all shared the same one.)
“Paul, the phone is ten feet from you and I'll bet you're doing nothing.”
“I actually moved it into my loft," he croaked, “but I’m weak with malnutrition. Nobody has ordered pizza today.”
“Uh huh.”
The phone stopped ringing.
“Oh well, I hope that wasn't the lottery,” he said.
“You lazy asshole.”
“You can’t call a disabled person crazy!”
“I said lazy. And you’re not disabled, Paul. I’m as crazy as you are. AND I have to work.”
In retrospect, I was nowhere NEAR as crazy as Paul the Asshole, but some work—even just the exercise part—would have done him a world of good.
The ringing started again.
“Paul!!”
“What?” he said. “It’s not going to be for me, anyway! Never! I shouldn't even have to pay part of the bill! I should get it reduced! I'm gonna die just like l’ve lived: Alone, Unappreciated, abandoned, neglected…”
Jesus Christ," I muttered. I clambered up till I could get my arms into his malodorous loft, where indeed, the phone was right by his dpurple feet, picking up foot juice.
Gagging slightly, I picked up the receiver. An evil look crossed my face. “It’s for you.”
“SHIT! SHIT! Tell him—shit, tell him I’m not here. No, that'll look like I’m trying not to pay him. Uh—”
"Kidding. It's for me, Paul.”
“Oh. Ha ha.”
“You're still paying your bill. I hear you on here begging your dealer for a gram when I’m trying to read.”
“I am NOT—”
“Shhh!" I chuckled; then, knowing all pleasure for the evening had been cancelled, the grin fell from my cheeks:
“Heyyyyy, Joanna. Great to hear from you.”
“I'm sure. So... you still interested in that promotion? I still can't believe Joe's thinking of—if he goes out of business, I have a CONDO I just made a down payment on—”
“How? Jesus Christ. Never mind. I don’t want to know,” I said. “When do you need me there, and what's the gossip?”
“As an-hour-ago as your gross little chicken legs can bock down here, number one—and, two, Dweezil had an overdose.”
“Typical Monday evening, then. On is it even Monday?”
“I don't remember,” Joanna said, exasperated. “I’ve been awake for 48 hours, I don't have time for small talk—Joe just got into a fight with a customer.”
“Oh—that guy who keeps saying he’ll put sugar in Joe’s gastank if he doesn’t arm wrestle him?”
“Don't make excuses for Joe's behavior!”
“Condo, down payment, yeah, I got choo.”
“But yes, it was that dickhead.”
“Called it! OK, I'll be there. But you owe me!”
“Oh my god! How do I owe you?! If anything—”
“Bz bzzzz, bzzzt, your connection has gotten bored, you will be shortly redirected to my farting chamber…”
I slammed down the phone and tried not to let Paul the Asshole hear me groaning. “Gotta go back to work, huh?”
“Yeah, so you can be fat, Paul.”
“Bigot! Oooh, baby, baby, it's a wild world,” he sang. I could hear the bong start to bubble and shook my head.
Then, pretending nonchalance, I raced upstairs to put on my stupid hot-dog T-shirt. Paul did just get paid, but he was already begging, and he seemed bored, so… just in case, I took my new TV-VCR and buried it in my dirty laundry. I don't know why I thought any laundry pile—even one belonging to a porcelain sanitation engineer—could deter someone who routinely walked around smelling like Paul. But youth is as unwise as it is fleeting.
I think Paul and Yollie found my new possession with their noses, smelling someone else’s hard work and money, like coyotes sniffing after your beloved pet cat.
When I crawled back from work, my room was covered in scattered dirty T-shirts—as soon as I noticed that, I felt a kind of dread and, unfairly, as always, guilt. I should have bought a safe. I found my hours and hours and hours of feeling and smelling people’s slimy food leavings crushed under their loft bed, smashed, its guts all over, with their disgusting bare feet hanging above as they snored.
I can’t remember how I managed to not kill them. But if you want to know why I don’t know anything about movies… well.
Begin the begin:
Chapter One: At Home in Hotel Hell
Chapter Three: SUCKER PUNCHED!