Nobody Bats a Thousand (6 page)

Mary Jean awoke from the
horrible dream to find
the horrible dream
was real
. She was on the couch in Nadine’s apartment, and all that terrible shit that had gone down some hours before was true. Her first thought was to start drinking heavily, but the feeling left quickly.  She forced it to leave. This was not yet
decision time, but there were things to do.

Mary Jean, the versed traveler, quickly found her things, found the tiny bathroom, and was brushing her teeth when Nadine, bent and foggy-eyed, stumbled into the bathroom and plopped down on the commode, looking like
she’d
been the one who had just experienced a two-thousand mile, raging, noxious trip into frustration, surprise and despair.

Soon Nadine, in the middle of answering nature’s call, broke the tense silence.

“Mary Jean, can you ever forgive me?”

“Has that ever bothered you before?” Mary Jean spit and rinsed. “Does it really bother you now?”

“Of course it does. You’re my best friend
. I know I kinda screwed up.” S
he looked up then down, going for sympathy like a dog that had jus
t been busted chewing up a shoe. “G
ee whiz
, boss, you still got one left”.

“I don’t know, Nadine,
it’s just when I was younger I always pictured that by the time I was fifty I’d be on easy street not
on
the street.”

“Your landlord was a prick anyway. They were just looking for a reason to kick you out so they could bump the rent.”

“And you gave ‘em one.”

“They would have found something else. You know they’re charging Eddie two hu
ndred more a month than you. Eight hundred
dollars a month and all they did was paint, put in new drapes and a new refrigerator. The rents in the whole Pyramid District are going out of sight. That’s why I felt so lucky to find this place. It’s just on the border but still walking distance to everything.”

Mary Jean pulled her hair back into a ponytail and blinked twice at her reflection in the mirror. “Do you have any coffee?”

“Sure. Sure,
” Nadine started to lead MJ on the ten or twelve foot trip to the tiny kitchen but stopped mid-journey and spread her arms to slowly make note of her cramped surroundings like a tour guide displaying the rapture of the Grand Canyon. “Isn’t this place great? Two hundred and fifty a month, you could move in and split the rent. I already asked Maggie. Think of the money we could save. We could stay in Mexico next year for six months.”

“I don’t know Nadine. I’m thinking of moving to Alaska. Summer up there, work in some tourist trap, save a bunch of money, and then winter in
Tiempo
. That might be just right.”

“What are you going to do with your furniture?”

“Don’t be picking my bone
s just yet. It’s only a thought.
” Mary Jean looked around the room. “I see my couch, my tables, my television…”

“I’ve got cable, fifty-seven channels. It’s the first time I’ve personally had cable TV. I can’t believe all the stuff that’s on, I can’t believe all the stuff I’ve been missing all these years.”

“So where is the rest of my stuff?”

Nadine pointed to the floor. “Maggie let me store it in the garage below us. She’s so cool. Wait until you meet her. Your landlord had pushed your car out into the alley and crammed most of your stuff into the garage. What they couldn’t fit they just left out in the alley next to your car. Maggie let me use her truck, and Eddie and his boyfriend helped me move all the stuff over here. You know, Eddie really is a great guy.
Him
and his friend have a little two-person salon just around the corner from the Pyramid Theater. He knows just about every haircutter in town. He helped me get a job at
Crazy
Hair
just two days after I got…” Nadine continued on with her monologue for at least another five minutes, but while Mary Jean was physically seated at the cute yellow-topped kitchen table she had received as a wedding gift from either her second or third marriage, drinking weak-tasting instant coffee from one of her Irish grandmother’s china tea cups, mentally she had left the room.

She was thinking about her immediate future, but this still was not really decision time. The next few steps in her life were no-brainers. First she would have to go down and get herself back on the schedule at
Gene Burns Laugh-a lot Club.
The place served lunch on weekdays, and on Friday and Saturday nights was the only comedy club in a radius of a hundred miles. Since people needed to laugh and had paid good money to be there, they were determined to laugh at just about any unfunny fool with guts enough to stand up on stage and talk into a mike; so the place always did well. Gene had stumbled into this gold mine through dumb luck and the death of his father-in-law who had owned the business. Because Gene enjoyed spending his time at his country club or Las Vegas or pursuing almost any activity that couldn’t be associated with the word work, he had progressed the condition of absentee club owner to an astounding new level, which made him easier to steal from than a blind clerk at a mini-mart. This made a lucrative job even more lucrative. Mary Jean swirled a few thoughts of figures through her head and speculated she would only have to put up living with Nadine in this tiny hovel for a short time. A couple of good weeks at the club, along with the money from her undelivered rent check, would give her enough cash to move into her own place, where life would go on.

After another cup of weak coffee, MJ and Nadine threw on sweat clothes, walked down the stairs and up to the main house so Mary Jean could meet Maggie, get the key to the garage, go through her things, and see what further wrath Nadine had bestowed on MJ’s world.

They went through the backdoor, a small entry area, and into the kitchen. The room was large but seemed small, it was so packed full of things: kitchen furniture, two large bookcases full of books, and three separate tall, free-standing, too-big-for-the-room cabinets which, like all available kitchen space, were jammed with knick-knacks and bric-a-brac.

“Maggie?” Nadine called out. Gaining no response she continued down
a
L-shaped hallway, past a large bedroom, a small bedroom and bathroom. Mary Jean followed, and during this short journey she noticed a continuation of the kitchen’s motif. Every room was packed with mismatched furniture, full bookcases, and large cardboard boxes stacked against the walls.

Just as they were about to pass through a wide doorway, a loud male voice came bellowing from the room.
“Prozac?”
The voice was full and dramatic. “Prozac doesn’t make anyone come to terms with anything. ‘I’m all right as long as I take my medication’. Bull! You’re not all right if you’re a walking zombie, and you don’t
know
that you’re a walking zombie.  Have you ever seen anyone on Prozac?  They’re too damn happy. They’re happy in traffic jams. They’re happy running the rat race. 
It’s
mind control of the worse order…or the best depending what side you’re on and who’s running the show.”

Nadine and Mary Jean paused in the doorway.

“Reality can be a bitch sometimes, Dennis,” said a large woman seated in a large chair, finishing the sentence while grinning directly at Nadine and Mary Jean.

“Is there such a
thing as reality?  If there is
I’m convinced the best way to approa
ch it, to deal and cope with it
is to immerse one’s self in fantasy not to contort or avoid reality, no, no, no, but to enrich
it, to rise above the
ordinary.
” Dennis rose from his chair and stalked back and forth across the room with his arms fully extended toward the heavens. His T-shirt and jeans were both wrinkled; his shaggy hair and shaggy beard were both salt and pepper. “I’m
immersed, Maggie.
I’m immersed.” H
e sat back down.

“
You’re j
ust like John the Baptist himself. He was
also a crazy so and so,
nuts
beyond belief
.”

“Fantasy is more real to me than reality, bec
ause I live for the imagination. I live
for the imagination and
for
the soul.”

“John was a
crazy so and so, who
also
made it work for him
, just like you,
dearie
.”

“And the irony!
A nation of realists seeking sanity through prescribed delusions.
Prozac, Lithium,
Thorazine—pfui
, who needs them?
  I strive to be crazier every day as a duty.
Crazy, bizarre, unique

The
Divine Madness!”

The ball was batted back and forth in this metaphysical game of ping-pong for several more minutes, but Mary Jean had already shut down her listening skills. She was looking around the room, noticing all sorts of antiques packed into the large room, as she tried to remember where she had seen this unkempt nut who continued to run off at the mouth.

Finally the conversation crept to a halt.  Nadine introduced Mary Jean to Maggie, and Maggie introduced the featured speaker now sitting to her left.

“This is Dr. Christian. He teaches film at the college and makes brilliant, esoteric
movies

”

“Films!”

“Brilliant, esoteric films that no one ever gets to see.”

“When and
if
society is ever ready, they’ll get the chance but not a minute before.”

It was just at that inst
ant Mary Jean’s memory brought a picture into focus
and she realized where she’d seen this maniac. Her last husband had sponsored her return to college to finally finish up her degree, and this Dr. Christian was an almost daily attraction, roaming the campus, cutting across the lawns and through the flowerbeds, skulking down the peripheries of the hallways often vociferously ranting to no one in particular like a possessed preacher with no place to call home.

Dr. Christian looked Mary Jean up and down, then down and up as he extended his h
and. “My friends call me Dennis.” H
e held on to Mary Jean’s paw a little too long and forcefully before she pulled it away. “How would you like to be in my new film? Yes, yes you would be perfect.  I’d definitely have a part for you. Would you be interested?”

Mary Jean knew immediately what part he was talking about.
She flashed one of her radiant
smiles. “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said, while thinking I’d rather be stabbed in the eye with a fork than spend five minutes around a lecherous asshole like you.

“Too bad.
Well, if you change your mind let me know,” he said, still staring.

“Dennis is helping me organize a protest this Friday to keep them from tearing down th
e pyramid on
top of the theater.
” Maggie’s eyes looked huge and intense through the thick lenses of her black-framed glasses. She adjusted the large bun centered on top of her head. “We can’t let ‘em get away with it, we just can’t.”

“They’re tearing down the theater?” Mary Jean frantically looked at everyone in the room. “I just got back into town. What’s this all about?”

“Not the whole theater,
dearie
, just the pyramid,” Maggie said. “Hoyt
Bringham’s
latest young wife got the theater as part of their divorce settlement, and she’s decided the pyramid is too unsightly for her taste. Just because that man’s dick has gotten him into trouble his whole life doesn’t mean
we’re going to let him screw us.
” Maggie grinned showing two rows of short teeth below her thick glasses. “We’ve got to draw the line right here and put a stop to all of this. If they take away this cherished landmark what’s next, the whole Pyramid District turned into a giant shopping mall?”

“A horrible thought,” said Mary Jean.

“Thoroughly disgusting,” said Dr. Dennis Christian.

“Maggie, we need the key to the garage,” said Nadine, bringing the conversation to an unceremonious halt.

“Well, I must be going anyway.
” Dennis Christi
an rose from his chair.
“Ladies.”
H
e bowed to Mary Jean and Nadine. “Maggie, I
’ll
have my people there Friday.” H
e
shook her hand. “Friday we will create legend and change history. No more noble purpose can there be for living,” he said just before he turned and ran out the front door like someone had just set his ass on fire.

Maggie, standing before Nadine and Mary Jean, was a tall bulky woman dressed in black pants, which were too short, and a drab brown blouse, an outfit seemingly of thrift shop fashion convenient enough to fit.
She nodded in the direction of the departed filmmaker. “A strange sort, but just the type we need to get a good protest off the ground.”