Generation X (15 page)

priced apartments exist in the city. So their money all goes on their backs.

to obtain serious career

Tyler is like that old character from TV, Danny Partridge, who didn't experience. Sometimes results

want to work as a grocery store box boy but instead wanted to start out in the mourning for lost youth at

about age thirty, followed by

owning the whole store. Tyler's friends have nebulous, unsalable
but fun
silly haircuts and expensive joke-talents—like being able to make really great coffee or owning a really inducing wardrobes.

good
head of hair (oh, to see Tyler's shampoo, gel, and mousse collection!).

They're nice kids. None of their folks can complain. They're
perky.

They embrace and believe the pseudo-globalism and ersatz racial har-mony of ad campaigns engineered by the makers of soft drinks and computer-inventoried sweaters. Many want to work for IBM when their lives end at the age of twenty-five
("Excuse me, but can you tell me more
about your pension plan?").
But in some dark and undefinable way, these kids are also Dow, Union Carbide, General Dynamics, and the military.

And I suspect that unlike Tobias, were their AirBus to crash on a frosty Andean plateau, they would have little, if any, compunction about eating dead fellow passengers. Only a theory.

Anyhow, a peek out my window while looking for the reservation book reveals that the poolside is now devoid of people. The door knocks and Elvissa quickly pops her head inside, "Just wanted to say bye, Andy."

"Elvissa—my brother's on hold long distance. Can you wait a sec?" "No.

T h i s i s b e s t . " S h e k i s s e s m e o n t h e r i d g e a t t h e t o p o f m y nose,
CONSPICUOUS

between my eyes. A damp kiss that reminds me that girls like Elvissa,
MINIMALISM:
A life-style

tactic similar to Status

spontaneous, a tetch trashy but undoubtedly alive, are somehow never
Substitution.
The nonownership

going to be intimate with constipated deadpan fellows like me. "Ciao, of material goods flaunted as a

bambino," she says, "It's Splittsville for
this
little Neapolitan waif."

token of moral and intellectual

superiority.

"You coming back soon?" I yell, but s h e ' s g o n e , o f f a r o u n d t h e r o s e b u s h e s a n d i n t o , I s e e , T o b i a s ' s c a r . Well, well, well.

CAFE MINIMALISM: To

Back on the phone: "Hi, Tyler. The eighth is fine." "Good. We'll espouse a philosopohy of

discuss the details at Christmas. You
are
coming up, aren't you?"

minimalism without actually

putting into practice any of its

"Unfortunately,
oui.
"

tenets.

"I think it's going to be mondo weirdo this year, Andy. You'd better have an escape hatch ready. Book five different flight dates for leaving.

O h , a n d b y t h e w a y , w h a t d o y o u
w a n t
for Christmas?"

"Nothing, Tyler. I'm getting rid of all the things in my life." "I worry about you, Andy. You have no ambition." I can hear him spooning yogurt. Tyler wants to work for a huge corporation. The bigger the

better.

"There's nothing strange about not wanting anything, Tyler." "So be it, then. Just make sure that / get all the loot y ou give away. And make s u r e i t ' s
Polo."

"Actually I was thinking of giving you a minimalist gift this year, Tyler."

"Huh?"

" S o m e t h i n g l i k e a n i c e r o c k o r a c a c t u s s k e l e t o n . " H e p a u s e s o n t h e o t h e r e n d . " A r e y o u o n d r u g s ? " " N o , T y l e r . I t h o u g h t a n o b j e c t o f simple beauty might be appro -priate. You're old enough now."

O'PROPRIATION: The

inclusion of advertising,

"You're laffaminit, Andy. A real screamfest. A rep tie and socks packaging, and entertainment

will do
perfectly."

jargon from earlier eras in

everyday speech for ironic and/

My doorbell rings, then Dag walks in. Why does no one ever wait

or comic effect:
"Kathleen's

Favorite Dead Celebrity party

was tons o' fun"
or
"Dave really

thinks of himself as a zany,

nutty, wacky, and madcap
guy,

doesn't he?"

for me to answer the door? "Tyler, that's the doorbell. I have to go. I'll see you next week, okay?"

"Shoe eleven, waist thirty, Neck 15 and a half."

"Adios."

CELEBRITIES

D I E

It's three hours or so after Tyler's phone call, and people are weirding me out today. I just can't deal with it. Thank God I'm working tonight.

Creepy as it may be, dreary as it may be, repetitive as it may be, work keeps me level. Tobias gave Elvissa a ride home but never returned.

Claire pooh-poohs the notion of hanky -panky. She seems to know some thing that I don't. Maybe she'll spill her secret later on. Both Dag and Claire are sulking on the couches, not talking to each other. They're r e s t l e s s l y s h e l l i n g p e a -nuts, tossing the burlappy remnants into an overflow-ing 1974 Spokane World's

Fair ashtray. (That was

the fair where it rained

a lot and where they

h a d b u i l d i n g s m a d e o u t

of aluminum soda can :

tabs.) Dag is upset that

Elvissa gave him not one

shred of attention today

and Claire, because of

the plutonium, still won't

return into her house. The contamination business has bothered her

more than we'd suspected. She claims she'll be living with me indefinitely now: "Radiation has more endurance than even Mr. Frank Sinatra, Andy.

I'm here for the long haul." Claire
w i l l ,
however, make forays into her residence—no longer than five minutes per foray per day—to retrieve her belongings. Her first trip was as timid a one as might be made by a medieval peasant entering a dying plague town, brandishing a dead goat to ward away evil spirits.

"How brave," snipes Dag, to which Claire shoots back an angry glare. I tell her I think she's overreacting. "Your place is
spotless,
Claire.

You're acting like a techno-p e a s a n t . "

"Both of you ma y l a u g h , b u t n e i t h e r o f y o u h a s a C h e r n o b y l i n their living room."

"True."

She spits out a mutant baby peanut and inhales. "Tobias is gone for good. I can tell. Imagine that, the best looking human flesh I'll ever b e i n c o n t a c t w i t h —t h e W a l k i n g O r g a s m—g o n e forever."

"I wouldn't say that, Claire," I say, even though in my heart I know s h e ' s r i g h t . " M a y b e h e j u s t s t o p p e d f o r s o m e t h i n g t o e a t . "

"Spare me, Andy. It's been three hours now. And he took his bag.

I j u s t
c a n ' t
f i g u r e o u t w h y h e ' d l e a v e s o s u d d e n l y . "

I can.

The two dogs, meanwhile, stare hungrily at the nuts Dag and Claire

are shelling.

"Know what the fastest way to get rid of dogs that beg at the dinner table is?" I ask, to a mumbled response. "Give them a piece of carrot or an olive instead of meat, and give it to them with an earnest face.

They'll look at you like you're mad and they'll be gone in seconds.

Granted, they might think
less of you,
too."

Claire has been ignoring me. "Of course, this means I'll have to follow him to New York." She stands up and heads to the door. "Looks like a white Christmas for me this year, boys.
God,
obsessions are awful."

She looks at her face in the mirror hanging by the door. "Not even thirty and already my upper lip is beginning to shrink. I'm doomed." She leaves.

"I've dated three women in my life," says my boss and next -door neigh-bor, Mr. MacArthur, "and I married two of them."

It's later on at night at Larry's. Two real estate weenies from Indio are singing "wimmaway" into the open mike that belongs to our chanteuse Lorraine, currently taking a break from show-tuning along with her

wheezy electronic "rhythm pal," and drinking white wine while oozing sad glamour at bar's end. It's a slow night; bad tips. Dag and I are drying glasses, a strangely restful activity, and we're listening to Mr. M. do his
AIR FAMILY:
Describes

the false sense of community

Mr. M. shtick. We feed him lines; it's like watching a Bob Hope TV

experienced among coworkers

special but with home viewer participation. He's never funny, but he's in an office environment.

funny.

The evening's highlight was an elderly failed Zsa Zsa who vomited

a s t o rm of Sidecars onto the carpet beside the trivia computer game.

That is a rare event here; Larry's clientele, while marginalized, have a strong sense of decorum. What was truly interesting about the event, though, happened shortly afterward. Dag said, "Mr. M.! Andy! Come here and check this out—" There, amid the platonic corn-and-spaghetli forms on the carpet were about thirty semidigested gelatin capsules.

"Well, well. If
this
doesn't count as a square on life's bingo card, I don't know
w h a t
d o e s . A n d r e w , a lert the paramedics."

That was two hours ago, and after the testosteronal posturing of

chatting with the paramedics and showing off medical knowledge

( " G o s h , " s a y s D a g , " s o m e R i n g e r ' s s o l u t i o n , p e r h a p s ? " ) , w e a r e now receiving the history of Mr. M.'s love life—a charming, saved-f o r-t h e -w e d d i n g -night affair, replete with chaste first, second, and third dates, almost instant marriages, and too many children shortly afterward.

" W h a t a b o u t t h e d a t e y o u
d i d n ' t
marry?" I ask.

"She stole my car. A Ford. Gold. If she hadn't done that, I probably would have married her, too. I didn't know much about selectivity then.

I just remember jerking off under my desk ten times a day and thinking how insulted a date must feel if the date didn't lead to marriage. I was lonely; it was Alberta. We didn't have MTV then."

* * * *

Claire and I met Mr. and Mrs. M., "Phil 'n' Irene," one delicious day months ago when we looked over the fence and were assaulted by miasmic wafts of smoke and a happy holler from Mr. M. wearing a DINNER'S ON

apron. We were promptly invited over and had canned soda and "Irene-burgers" thrust into our mitts. Jolly good fun. And just before Mr. M.

came outside with his ukulele, Claire whispered to me, "Andy, I sense

the high probability of a chinchilla hutch on the side stoop of the house."

(Chinchilla Breeders Eat Steak!)

To this day, Claire and I are just waiting to be taken aside by Irene for a hushed devotional talking-to about the lines of cosmetic products s h e r e p r e s e n t s a n d s t o c k p i l e s i n h e r g a r a g e l i k e s o m a n y t h o u s a n d unwanted, non-give-away-able kittens. "Honey, my elbows were like
p i n e b a r k
before I tried this stuff."

The two of them are sweet. They're of the generation that believes that steak houses should be dimly lit and frostily chilled (hell, they
SQUIRMING:
Discomfort

actually believe in
s t e a k h o u s e s ) .
Mr. M.'s nose bears a pale spider's inflicted on young people by old

web film of veins, of the sort that Las Palmas housewives are currently people who see no irony in their

paying good money to have sclerotherapied away from the backs of their gestures.
Karen died
a
thousand

deaths as her father made a big

legs. Irene
smokes.
They both wear sportswear purchased at discount
show of tasting a recently

houses —they discovered their bodies too late in life. They were raised
manufactured bottle of wine

t o i g n o r e t h e i r b o d i e s a n d t h a t ' s a l i t t l e s a d . B u t i t ' s b e t t e r t h a n n o
before allowing it to be poured

as the family sat in Steak Hut.

discovery at all. They're soothing.

In our mind's eye, Irene and Phil live in a permanent 1950s. They

still believe in a greeting card future. It is
their
oversize brandy snifter filled with matchbooks that I think of when I make oversize-brandy-snifter-filled-with-matchbook jokes. This snifter rests atop their living room table, a genetic parking lot of framed MacArthur descendant pho-tos, mainly grandchildren, disproportionately hair do'ed in the style of Farrah, squinting with new contact lenses and looking somehow slated for bizarre deaths. Claire once peeked at a letter that was lying on a side table, and she remembered reading a phrase complaining that the jaws of life took two-and-a-half hours to reach a MacArthur descendant impaled inside an overturned tractor.