All Families Are Psychotic (27 page)

'It 's a scream, I kno w. What do you think of this place — Tara, eh?' 'And you, such a lovely magnoli a.'

'Give me tw o shakes of a lamb's tail and I'll fetch my things.' 'Such as ... your pills?'

Janet smiled. 'Like you wouldn ' t believe.'

'Oh, but I would. The family business, you kno w.'

'Why yes, of course.' Janet retrieved her pill caddy, and the tw o stepped out the fron t door, which Janet left unlocked. She asked, 'Where should we go for dinner?'

'I've selected a place a few miles down the coast. To be frank, I've never set foot in Daytona Beach or its environs before.'

'Well, around here it 's either steak or a seafood-bacteria filet. What I'd
really
like is a French restaurant, but dream on, Janet Drummond . All that delicious butter, and the French
never
chin tz on the salt.'

'Oh!' said Florian. 'You're a salt nut, too.'

'Oh
my,
yes. If you can locate a salt lick in a cow pasture, I'd happily have dinner with you there.'

'Janet, I simply
must
send you a bott le of this Maltese sea salt, Fleurs de Sel Sardaignain — li tt le specks of anchovy buil t into each grain — so subtle.'

'I think I saw that on
Martha Stewart.'

'Oh.' Florian briefly entered a sulk. 'Why must that woman popul arize
everything?'

'They've taken the salt out of all the food these days. Food has gotten so wimpy. Have you noticed?' 'Hasn' t it, though ? Please, hop in.' Florian held open the rear door of a Lincoln Town Car, the driver separated from the rear compartment by a slab of smoked glass. Janet got in, and Florian said to the smoked glass, 'Tio, to that seafood place we selected in New Smyrna Beach.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Is the rig set to go?' 'Yes, sir.'

'The rig?' Janet asked.

Florian turned to her, and poin ted to a mobil e home of Texan dimensions, pulling out into the street behind them, and said, 'I'm the opposite of a ligh t packer. But enough abou t boring , boring me — what abou t you?'

' Me? Dull, dull, dull.'

That's not strictly true, Janet. For starters, how did you contract hiv?'

'Oh.
That.'
The story took them the entire way to the restaurant, thir ty minu tes south, and with its telling Florian learned a great deal abou t the Drummond family and couldn ' t have been more sympathetic. He held her hand: 'You poor,
poor
woman. You deserve kindn ess, and what do you get?
This.'
Florian

nodded toward a bar they were passing with a large bikers welcome sign out fron t, as if it summed up the entire aura of the culture.

'It 's not so bad, you kno w,' Janet said.

'Janet, you lie like the rug. Tell me, how often do you take your pills?' 'Every four hours.'

'I rest my case.' The car entered a large mall parking lot and slowed down outside a place called The Shanty. The RV lumbered in behind them. 'Shall we dine?'

They entered the restaurant; the walls were min t green, and the air carried the odor of cigarettes,

janitorial cleaning solu tion and a dock. Florian was obviously horri fied, 'This is a gaffe on my part, Janet. My apologi es.'

'No, let's stay, Flor. We'll smoke — I just decided that I'm going to start smoking again tonigh t, after a ten- year hiatus.'
Why did I decide that? 'Well, why not?

'I love smoking ,' Florian said. 'And you called me " Flor " . So cheeky. So insouciant.'

Janet was surpri sed. 'You mean you didn ' t smoke in the car because of me? You're so sweet.'

A young and yawning woman with processed crimped hair of deepest mall showed them to a boo th, or rather marooned them in a boo th to the restaurant's east edge, where streaky sunligh t limped through the windo w. Janet said, 'Thank you,' to which the young woman said, 'Like I have any choice in the

matter.'

Once she was gone, Janet said, 'It really does make you wonder if management could drain the dining process of any more joy.'

Florian cracked open a pack of Dunhill cigarettes. 'Please.'

Janet accepted and li t up, a roil of nicotine licking her tonsils and transpor ting her to the world of 1950s sophomor e mixer parties. 'This is so lovely,' she said to Florian. 'Why ever did I qui t?'

'I bet you I can have our hostess fired in tw o phone calls,' Florian said. 'Bet me what?'

'If I win, you buy dessert.' 'You're on.'

Florian placed a call on his cell phone and barked sentences of German into the receiver, then hung up. He made one more phone call, put his cell phone away and said, 'Watch this.' The phone at the fron t desk rang, the hostess answered, listened, shou ted, 'Same to you. I hated this shit-hole anyway,' hung up and stomped — noisy
stomping —
out the door.

Janet's cigarette wasn' t even halfway smoked. 'Dessert's on me.' 'I love being petty,' said Florian.

'I wish I could be petty,' Janet said. 'No, you don ' t.'

'But I
do.
Because if I were petty, it 'd mean I didn ' t care so much abou t things.'

The few staff members who remained ran abou t like rabbi ts, and took turns going out to the parking lot to commiserate with the axed hostess. Amid the service vacuum, Florian went to the bar and poured tw o gin martinis. As he sat down at the table and handed one to Janet, he nodded out the windo w and said, 'Look how even the sacking of one employee crippl es an entire economy — in this case, The Shanty's

economy. My father always said that the fastest way to crippl e any economy is to manipul ate the key labor union s into striking . This invariably makes the middl e classes flip out, and before you kno w it,

boom,
there's a tyrant running the show. Anything to keep the lett uce arriving in the supermarkets on time.
Cheers.'

'Cheers.'
They clinked glasses. Janet said, 'But you kno w, Flor, that's nothing I haven' t already figured out on my own.'

'Really now?'

'You wouldn ' t
believe
the things I find on the Internet.' 'You like trolling the Web, do you?'

'Oh, God, yes.'

'Your friends troll , too?'

'Pffft .
No. I'm actually qui te disgusted with my own generation. They've lost their curiosity, but not me — I love the Internet. All these facts that were once forbidd en are all so easily available.'

'Such as?'

' Medical stuff first. And second, government files and documents — I'll never trust any government anywhere again.'

'A smart decision. Any naugh ty chat ever?' 'Yes, but I'd be mor tified if my family knew.' 'What's your secret Web name?'

Janet blushed.

'Oh come on now, tell me, Janet.' 'Promise you won' t laugh?'

'I'll try.'

'HotAsianTeen.'

Florian's laugh was like a dog 's bark. Janet blushed.

'Any hot dates?' he asked.

'No, but I
could
have if I'd wanted to.' 'Why bail out?'

'Florian, I could have been talking to my kids even — oh, God, I shiver at the though t.' 'Did you always log on as HotAsianTeen?'

'No. I only created that persona because I wanted to see how men behave when the wife's in the ki tchen and the den door is locked.'

'What did you learn, then?'

' Men are ruled entirely by their crotches.' 'That's all?'

'That's not enough ? I was raised to believe men were ruled by poli tical and social ideals. I
believed
that.' 'It 's time for another martini. Ano ther for you?'

'Please.'

A bir thday party of eigh t seniors on the other side of the restaurant was preparing to mutiny; Florian's second stint at the bar went as unno ticed as the first. He returned to the table and passed Janet her drink . 'Cocktail for your though ts,' Florian said.

'Well, there
was
one date, but we didn ' t meet over the Internet. We
did
meet at an Internet café.' Janet was dizzy from the cigarette.

Florian was interested. 'Oh?'

'But when he found out abou t my hiv, he bol ted. End of story.' 'He did, did he?'

'Yeah. Ernie — Ernie Farmingh am.' 'In Vancouver?'

'Yeah.'

A brief flash of preoccupation passed over Florian's face; Janet looked him in the eye. 'To be completely accurate, he lives in North Vancouver. You're going to destroy his li fe, aren' t you?'

'Absolu tely, Janet.'

Janet felt as if she were having dinner with God.

Menus were hurled onto their table. Janet said, 'We'd better order, but I don ' t kno w — I mean, I'm

immuno suppressed, and this place is such a dive. Food here migh t be dodgy in an E. coli 157 kind of way.' 'Not if you order in the Florian style.'

'What style is that?'

'Watch.' He walked across the room, tapped a waiter on the should er and handed him a hundr ed-dollar bill . In a blink the waiter was at Janet's side.

'Well, I suppose a green house salad — vinaigrette on the side -and Fetuccine Alfredo would be fine.' The waiter, name-tagged Steve, turned to Florian and returned the hundr ed-dollar bill . 'No need. The restaurant's going nuts tonigh t because Shawna got fired.'

'Why's that?' Janet asked.

'Karma. She acted like she owned the place because she's dating the weekend manager.
Ooh —
we're so impressed. Anyway, sir — your order?'

'Yes — a green salad with your undoub tedly captivating house dressing, tomato soup with doubl e

crou tons, chicken fingers —
yummy, yummy! —
with mustard sauce, no less. Then, howz-abou t — yes, deep fried zucchini sticks, and then a lamb
entree
substituting rice pilaf for potatoes, and then—'

'Sir?'

'Yes, Steve?'

'I'm not sure I understand you. Will anyone else be joining you?' 'No. Just myself and the lovely Janet here.'

'Well, then you already have more than enough food for the tw o of you — if I may be so bold as to say so.'

'Steve, thank you, but I would like to order more. There's no by-law in New Smyrna Beach regulating the amoun t of food one can order, is there?'

'No, sir.'

'Good.' Florian ordered ten entrees, each with meticulous attention to substitutions and the doneness of meats.

Steve was though tf ully amused. 'Boy, the chef is going to freak.' 'Life is for enjoying, righ t, Steve?'

'Yes, it is, sir.'

'You have to live every moment and capture the joy. Have fun, fun, fun. Now off to the ki tchen, Steve. We're nearly insane with hunger.'

Janet said, 'Feeling a bit peckish tonigh t?'

'Yes, and I shall tip the lad with my Piaget watch. Now, you were telling me on the phone abou t a new cream for rosacea—'

'Indeed I was.'

The tw o talked abou t legal and illegal skin care produ cts for ten minu tes, until staff members began to sneak peeks at the tw o of them. Shor tly the chef came out. 'Are you making fun of my food?'

'On the contrary, I'm honoring your food.' 'You're a smartass?'

'No, I'm a
customer.
I'm sure your meals are excellent, and I look forward to the bunch of them. The Shanty is well-kno wn throughou t the entire 904 area code for its fine dining and convivial atmosphere. Everybody kno ws that. Now go cook, my good man!'

The chef, puzzled, left. Steve lingered.

Florian said, 'Steven, my boy, having lots of fat people eating a lot of fattening food is a good,
good

thing for America.'

'You've lost me, sir. And Steve is fine.'

'Like anything in li fe, Steve, it 's numbers, numbers, numbers. Lots of fat people means lots of happy

farmers, happy agro-chemical makers, happy teamsters, happy fast-food staffs -happiness and joy for all. Fatness rippl es through the entire economy in a tsunami of prosperity.'

'Fat people have more medical probl ems, though . Common sense.'

'But that's the beauty of it, Steve. At present we're at the perfect equilibrium poin t between an obese society and a prosperous society. If all Americans were to gain even
one more ounce,
the medical system would be overtaxed and the economy would suffer. Were these same Americans all to
lose
even one

single ounce, Steve, the economy would nose-dive.' 'I've never though t of obesity that way.'

'Well, now you have.'

'Righ t, sir.' Steve was off. Florian turned to Janet. 'What I was saying — before — abou t li fe being abou t good times — a facetious lie of the first order.'

'I'm glad to hear you say that.'

'As far as I can see, Janet, li fe is just an endless banquet of loss, and each time a new loss is doled out, you have to move your mental furni ture around , thro w things out, and by then there's more loss, and the cycle goes on and on.'

'You've been reading my mind. Life is a bowl of chainsaws.'

'It 's not hard. I see it in your eyes.' Florian finished his drink . 'When did the notion first dawn on you?' 'I was a dumb bunny. I believed the scrip t I was handed. And then one day in the early 1980s I hit a red ligh t in North Vancouver and
ding ! I
understood that I was now for ever in li fe's minus column and the

plus column was over. Funny how you only
realize
how deeply events have affected you years and years after they've occurred. What abou t you?'

'It 's been my whole li fe — loss — the sensation of things slipping away. Not money — I shit money — money
likes
me — but everything else: going , going , gone.'

'You're not going to get much sympathy in this world for that, Flor.'

'Ah, but you see, I don ' t ask for sympathy.' Florian looked toward the ki tchen. 'Our food is on the way.' He stood up. 'Excuse me while I go pick up a friend. I'll be back shor tly — as you say, in tw o shakes of a lamb's tail.'

Steven began to deliver plate after plate of food, and once the boo th's surface was covered, he brough t over another table as an annex. Most of the meals seemed repulsive to Janet — a Caesar salad with eczema; gray disintegrating mahi-mahi; blackened lumps of ...
pig;
rubber bands and shoelaces mixed

together and relabeled as pasta. Steve, having deposited all the meals, made a mock blo w of his forelock. 'I'm forgett ing something — wait, yes—' He picked up a pepper mill. 'Pepper?'