Generation X (16 page)

We tolerate Irene and Phil's mild racist quirks and planet-destroying peccadilloes ("I could never own any car smaller than my Cutlass
Supreme")
because their existence acts as a tranquilizer in an otherwise slightly-out-of-control world. "Sometimes," says Dag, "I have a real problem remembering if a celebrity is dead or not. But then I realize it doesn't really matter.

Not to sound ghoulish, but that's sort of the way I feel about Irene and Phil—
but in the best sense of the meaning,
of course." Anyhow—

* * * * *

Mr. M. starts off a joke for Dag's and my amusement: "This'll slay you.

There are these three old Jewish guys sitting on a beach in Florida—

(racial slur this time)—They're talking, and one of the guys asks another one, 'So
where'd you get the dough to come down to retire in Florida?'

and the guy replies,
'Well, there was afire down at the factory. A very
sad affair, but fortunately I was covered by fire insurance.'

"Fine. So then he asks the other guy where
he
got the money to come down and retire in Miami Beach, and the second guy replies,

'Funny, but just like my friend here, there was also a fire down at my
f a c t o r y a s w e l l . P r a i s e G o d , I w a s i n s u r e d . '
'

At this point Dag laughs out loud and Mr. M.'s joke-telling rhythm is thrown off, and his left hand, which is wiping the inside of a beer stein with a threadbare Birds of Arizona dishrag, stops moving. "Hey, Dag," says Mr. M. "Yeah?"

"How come you always laugh at my jokes before I even get to the p u n c h l i n e ? "

"Excuse me?"

"Just like I said. You always start snickering halfway through my jokes, like you were laughing
at
me instead
of with
me." He starts drying the glass again.

RECREATIONAL

"Hey, Mr. M. I'm not laughing
at
you. It's your gestures that are funny—

S L U M M I N G :
The practice of

your facial expression. You've got a pro's timing. You're a laugh riot." Mr.

participating in recreational

activities of a class one perceives

MacArthur buys this. "Okay, but don't treat me like a talking seal, as lower than one's own:
"Karen!

okay? Respect my trip. I'm a person and I pay your paycheck, too."

Donald! Let's go bowling tonight!

(He says this last comment as though Dag were a total prisoner of t h i s
And don't worry about shoes . . .

apparently you can rent them."

c o l o r f u l b u t d e a d -e n d M c j o b . )

"Now where were we? Oh yeah, so the two guys turn to the guy

CONVERSATIONAL

that's been asking the questions and they say to him,
'Well what about
SLUMMING:
The self-

you? Where'd you get the money to come down and retire here in Florida?'

conscious enjoyment of a given

conversation precisely for its lack

And he replies,
'Just like with you guys there was a disaster at my place,
of intellectual rigor. A major spin-

too. There was a flood and the whole place got wiped out. Fortunately,
off activity of
Recreational

Slumming.

of course, there was insurance.'

" T h e t w o g u y s l o o k r e a l l y c o n f u s e d , t h e n o n e o f t h e m s a y s t o t h e third
OCCUPATIONAL

guy, 7
got just one question for you. How'd you arrange a flood?'
'

SLUMMING:
Taking a job well

Groans. Mr. M. seems pleased. He walks along the bar counter's

beneath one's skill or education

length, the surface of which, like the narrow horseshoe of flooring sur-level as a means of retreat from adult responsibilities and/or

rounding the toilet of an alcoholic, is a lunar surface of leprotic cigarette avoiding possible failure in one's

true occupation.

Highway 111 (also known as Palm Canyon Drive) is the town's main

drag and surprisingly empty tonight. A few ambisexual blondes from

Orange County float vacuously back and forth in high-end Volkswagens, while skinhead marines in dented El Caminos make cruising, hustler's screeches but never stop. It's still a car culture town here, and on a busy night it can feel, as Dag so aptly phrases it, "like a Daytona, big tits, burger-and-shake kind of place where kids in go-go boots and

asbestos jackets eat Death Fries in orange vinyl restaurant booths shaped like a whitewall GT tire."

We turn a corner and walk some more.

"Imagine, Andrew: 48 hours ago little Dagster here was in Nevada,"

he continues, now seating himself on the trunk of a dazzlingly expensive racing green Aston Martin convertible, lighting a filter-tipped cigarette.

"Imagine that."

We're off the main drag now, on an unlit side street where Dag's

expensive "seat" is stupidly parked. In the Aston Martin's back area are cardboard boxes loaded with papers, clothing, and junk, like an accountant's garage sale. It looks as though someone were planning to split town in an awful hurry. Not unlikely in
this
burg.

"I spent the night in a little mom-and-pop motel in the middle of nowhere. The walls had knotty pine paneling and fifties lamps and prints of deer on the wall—"

"Dag, get off the car. I feel really uncomfortable here." "—and there was the smell of those little pink bars of motel soaps. God, I love the smell of those little things. So transient."

I'm horrified: Dag is burning holes in the roof of the car with the cherry of his cigarette. "Dag! What are you doing—cut that out! Not
again."

"Andrew, keep your
voice
down. Please. Where is your cool?" "Dag, this is too much for me. I've got to go." I start walking away. Dag, as I have said, is a vandal. I try to understand his behavior but fail, last week's scraping of the Cutlass Supreme was merely one incident in a long strand of such events. He seems to confine himself exclusively to vehicles bearing bumper stickers he finds repugnant. Sure enough, an inspection of this car's rear reveals a sticker saying ASK ME

ABOUT MY GRANDCHILDREN.

"Come back here, Palmer. I'll stop. In a second. And besides, I want to tell you a secret." I pause.

"It's a secret about my future," he says. Against my better judgment, I return.

" T h a t i s s o s t u p i d , b u r n i n g h o l e s l i k e t h a t , D a g . "

"Chill, boy. This sort of thing's a misdemeanor. Statute 594, Cal-ifornia penal code. Slap on the wrist. And besides, no one's looking."

He brushes a small divot of ash away from a cigarette hole. "I want to own a hotel down in Baja California. And I think I'm closer than you t h i n k t o a c t u a l l y d o i n g s o . "

"What?"

"That's what I want to do in my future. Own a hotel."

"Great. Now let's go."

"No," he lights up another cigarette, "not until I describe my hotel to you."

" J u s t
hurry."

"I want to open a place down in San Felipe. It's o n t h e e a s t s i d e j of the Baja needle. It's a tiny shrimping village surrounded by nothing but sand, abandoned uranium mines, and pelicans. I'd open up a small place for friends and eccentrics only, and for staff I'd only hire elderly Mexican women and stunningly beautiful surfer and hippie type boys j and girls who have had their brains swiss-cheesed from too much dope.

There'd be a bar there, where everyone staples business cards and money to the walls and the ceiling, and the only light would be from ten watt bulbs hidden behind cactus skeletons on the ceiling. We'd spend nights washing zinc salves from each other's noses, drinking rum drinks, and telling stories. People who told good stories could stay for free. You wouldn't be allowed to use the bathroom unless you felt-penned a funny joke on the wall. And all of the rooms would be walled in knotty pine wood, and as a souvenir, everyone would receive just a little bar of soap."

I have to admit, Dag's hotel sounds enchanting, but I also want to

l e a v e . " T h at's great, Dag. I mean, your idea really is great, but let's split now, all right?"

" I s u p p o s e . I —" H e l o o k s d o w n a t w h e r e h e h a s b e e n b u r n i n g a cigarette hole while I was turned away. "Uh oh—" "What happened?"

"Oh, shit."

The cherry from the cigarette has fallen off, and onto a box of papers and mixed junk in the car. Dag hops off the car and we both stare

transfixed as the red hot little poker tip burns through a few newspaper p a g e s , g i v e s t h e i m p r e s s i o n o f d i s a p p e a r i n g , t h e n s u d d e n l y g o e s
whoooof!
a s the box combusts as fast as a dog's bark, illuminating our horrified faces with its instant yellow mock cheer.

"Oh, God!"

"Ditch!"

I'm already gone. The two of us scram down the road, heart-in-throat, turning around only once we are two blocks away, then only briefly, to see a worst case scenario of the Aston Martin engulfed in fizzy raspberry lava flames in a toasty, kindling ecstasy, dripping onto the road.

"Shit, Bellinghausen, this is the stupidest effing stunt you've ever pulled," and we're off running again, me ahead of Dag, rny aerobic training paying off.

Dag rounds a corner behind me when I hear a muffled voice and

a thump. I turn around and I see Dag bumping into the Skipper of all people, a Morongo Valley hobo type from up-valley who sometimes hangs out at Larry's (so named for the TV sitcom ship's captain hat he wears).

"Hi, Dag. Bar closed?"

"Hi, Skip. You bet. Hot date. Gotta dash," he says, already edging away and pointing his finger at the Skipper like a yuppie insincerely promising to do lunch.

Ten Texas blocks away we stop exhausted, winded, and making

breathless, earth-scraping salaams. 'Wo
one
finds out about this little blip, Andrew. Got that? No one. Not even Claire."

"Do I look brain dead? God."

Puff, puff puff.

"What about the Skipper," I asked, "think he'll put two and two together?"

"Him?
N a a h .
H i s b r a i n t u r n e d t o c a r b u r e t o r g u n k y e a r s a g o . "

" Y o u s u r e ? "

" Y e a h . " O u r b r e a t h r e t u r n s .

"Quick. Name ten dead redheads," commands Dag.

" W h a t ? "

" Y o u h a v e f i v e s e c o n d s . O n e . T w o . T h r e e —"

I figure it out. "George Washington, Danny Kaye—" '

" H e ' s n o t d e a d . "

•'Is, too."

" F a i r e n o u g h . B o n u s p o i n t s f o r y o u . "

The remaining walk home is less funny.

I AM NOT

J E A L O U S

Apparently Elvissa rode the pooch this afternoon after leaving our pool (hipster codeword:
rode the Greyhound bus).
She traveled four hours northwest to the coast at Santa Barbara to start a new job, get
this,
as a gardener at a nunnery. We're floored, really
floored
by this little chunk of news. 'Well," Claire fudges, "it's not really a nunnery, per se.

The women wear these baggy charcoal cassocks—so Japanese!—and

they cut their hair short. I saw it in the brochure. And anyhow,

she's only
gardening."

"Brochure?" More hor-ror. 'Well, the gate-folded pizza flyer thing they sent to Elvissa with

her letter of acceptance."

(good God—) "She found

the job on a local parish

bulletin board; she says

she wants to clean out her

head. But I suspect that

maybe she thinks Cur-tis could drift through

there, and she wants to

be around when that happens. That woman is so
good
at keeping things secret that she wants to." We're now sitting in my kitchen, lolling about on burned-pine bar stools with dog-chewed legs and purple dia-mond-tufted tops. These are chairs that I lugged away gratis from a somewhat bitter condominium repossession sale over on Palo Fiero Road last month. For atmosphere Dag has placed a cheesy red light bulb

in the table counter's light socket and he's mixing dreadful drinks with dreadful names that he learned from the invading teens of last spring's break. (Date Rapes, Chemotherapies, Headless Prom Queens—who

invents
these things?)

NUTRITIONAL S L U M M I N G :

The evening's dress code is bedtime story outfits: Claire in her

Food whose enjoyment stems

flannel housecoat trimmed with a lace of cigarette burn holes, Dag in not from flavor but from a

his "Lord Tyrone" burgundy rayon pyjamas with "regal" simugold complex mixture of class

connotations, nostalgia signals,

drawstrings, and me in a limp plaid shirt with long Johns. We look

and packaging semiotics:
Katie

hodgepodge, rainy day and silly. "We really
must
get our fashion act
and I bought this tub of Multi-

together," Claire says.

Whip instead of real whip cream

because we thought petroleum

"After the revolution, Claire. After the revolution," replies Dag. Claire
distillate whip topping seemed

puts scientifically enhanced popcorn in the microwave oven. "I never
like the sort of food that air force

feel like I'm putting food in one of these things," she then says, entering
wives stationed in Pensacola

back in the early sixties would

with beeps, the time-set into the LED, "it feels more like I'm inserting
feed their husbands to celebrate

fuel rods into a core." She slams the door hard. "Hey,
watch
it," I call.

a career promotion.

"Sorry, Andy. But I'm upset. You just have no
idea
how hard it is for me to find same-sex friends. My friends have always been guys. Girls
TELE-PARABLIZING:

Morals used in everyday life that

are always so froufrou. They always see me as a threat. I finally find a derive from TV sitcom plots:

decent friend here in town and she leaves on the same day as my life's

"That's just like the episode

grand obsession ditches me. Just bear with me, okay?"

where Jan lost her glasses!"

"And that's why you were so draggy at the pool today?" "Yes. She Q F D: Quelle fucking drag.

told me to keep the news of her going a secret. She
detests
good-

"Jamie got stuck at Rome

byes."

airport for thirty-six hours and it

Dag seems preoccupied about the nunnery. "It'll never work," he
was, like, totally QFD."

says, "It's too Madonna/whore. 1 don't buy it."

QFM: Quelle fashion mistake.