Stranger Things Happen (19 page)

We have to admit that we are impressed by Miss Pennsylvania's
dress. In her interview, we found out that she makes all of her own
clothes. This dress has over forty thousand tiny sequins
handstitched onto it. It took a year and a day to stitch on all
those sequins, which are supposed to look from a distance like that
painting by Seurat. Sunday Afternoon on the Boardwalk. It really is
a work of art. Her mother and her father helped Miss Pennsylvania
sort the sequins by color. She has three younger brothers, football
players, and they all helped, too. We imagine the pinprick sequins
glittering in the large hands of her brothers. Her brothers are in
the audience tonight, looking extremely proud of their sister, Miss
Pennsylvania.

We are proud of Miss Pennsylvania as well, but we are fickle.
Miss Kansas comes out onto the stage, and we fall in love with her
feet. Don't let go of my feet. We would both marry Miss Kansas. You
squeeze my foot so tight when she comes out on stage in her blue
checked dress, the blue ribbon in her hair. She's wearing blue
ankle socks and ruby red shoes. She practically skips across the
stage. She doesn't look to the right, and she doesn't look to the
left. She looks as if she is going somewhere. When Miss Kansas
leaves the stage we instantly wish that she would come back
again.

I wish I had a pair of shoes like that, you say. I say your feet
are too big. But if I had a pair like that, I would let you wear
them. Now that we are married, our feet will be the same size.

We are proud of Miss Pennsylvania, we love Miss Kansas, and we
are afraid of Miss New Jersey. Miss New Jersey's red hair has been
teased straight up into two horns. She has long red fingernails and
she is wearing a candy red dress that comes up to her nipples. You
can see that she isn't wearing pantyhose. Miss New Jersey hasn't
even shaved her legs. What was her chaperone thinking? (We have
heard rumors in the hall that Miss New Jersey ate her chaperone.
Certainly no one has seen the chaperone in a few days.) When she
smiles, you can see all her pointy teeth.

Miss New Jersey's complexion is greenish. She has small pointy
breasts and a big ass and she twitches it from side to side. She
has a tail. She twitches her ass, she lashes her tail; we both
gasp. Her tail is prehensile. She scratches her big ass with it. It
is indecent and we are simultaneously dismayed and aroused. The
whole audience is aghast. One judge faints and one of the other
judges douses him with a pitcher of ice water. Miss New Jersey
purses her lips, blows a raspberry right at the television screen,
and exits stage left.

Well, well, we say, shaken. We huddle together on the enormous
bed. Please don't let go, please hold onto my feet.

#

Some of the other contestants: Miss Idaho wants to work with
children. Miss Colorado raises sheep. She can shear a sheep in just
under a minute. The dress she is wearing is of wool she cut and
carded and knit herself. The pattern is her own. This wool dress is
so fine, so thin, that it seems to us that Miss Colorado is not
actually wearing anything at all. In fact, Miss Colorado is
actually a man. We can see Miss Colorado's penis. But possibly this
is just a trick of the light.

Miss Nevada has been abducted by aliens on numerous occasions.
The stage spotlights appear to make her extremely nervous, and
occasionally she addresses her interviewer as Star Master. Miss
Alabama has built her own nuclear device. She has a list of
demands. Miss South Carolina wants to pursue a career in Hollywood.
Miss North Carolina can kiss her own elbow. We try to kiss our own
elbows, but it's a lot harder than it looks on television. Please
hold me tight, I think I'm falling.

Miss Virginia and Miss Michigan are Siamese twins. Miss Maryland
wants to be in Broadway musicals. Miss Montana is an arsonist. She
is in love with fire. Miss Texas is a professional hit woman. She
performs exorcisms on the side. She says that she is keeping her
eye on Miss New Jersey.

#

Miss Kansas wants to be a weather girl.

#

Miss Rhode Island has big hair, all tendrilly looking and
slicky-sleek. The top part of her jiggles as she wheels herself on
stage in an extremely battered-looking wheelchair. She just has the
two arms, but she seems to have too many legs. Also too many teeth.
We have seen her practicing water ballet in the hotel swimming
pool. (Later, during the talent show, she will perform in a tank
made of specially treated glass.) We have to admit Miss Rhode
Island has talent but we have trouble saying her name. Too many
sibilants. Also, at breakfast her breath smells of raw fish and at
night the hoarse mutterings of spells, incantations, the names of
the elder gods heard through the wall have caused us to lose
sleep.

Miss Rhode Island's bathing costume is designed to show off her
many shapely legs, which she waves and writhes at the judges
enticingly. We decide that we will never, never live in Rhode
Island. Perhaps we will never leave this hotel: perhaps we will
just live here.

We ogle some of the contestants in their bathing suits. We try
not to look at others. We have made a sort of tent out of the
bedspread and we feel perfectly safe inside our tent-bedspread. As
long as you are holding onto me. Don't let go.

#

There are five judges. One of them, a former Miss America
herself, is wearing a tiara, all her hair tucked away under a
snood. She is very regal but her mouth is not kind. In her hand is
a mirror, which she consults now and then in the scoring,
reapplying her lipstick vigorously. Now and then she
whispers, 
I'll get you, my pretty!

One of the other judges is an old drunk. We saw him down on the
boardwalk outside the hotel lobby, wearing a sandwich board and
preaching to the waves. He was getting his feet wet. His sandwich
board says 
the end of the world is nigh
. Beneath this
someone has written in lipstick lions and tigers and bears, oh
migh!

Two of the judges are holding hands under the table.

The last judge is notoriously publicity-shy, although great and
powerful. A semi-transparent green curtain has been erected around
his chair. We speculate that he is naked, or asleep, or possibly
not there at all.

#

The talent show begins. There are all the usual sorts of
performances, tap-dancing and mime, snake handling. Miss West
Virginia speaks in tongues. Somehow we understand what she is
saying. She is saying that the world will end soon, that we will
have six children and all of them will have good teeth, that we
will always be as happy as we are at this very moment as long as we
don't let go. Don't let go. Miss Texas then comes out on stage and
showily exorcises Miss West Virginia. The audience applauds
uncertainly.

Miss Nebraska comes out on stage and does a few card tricks.
Then she saws Miss Michigan and Miss Virginia in half.

Miss Montana builds her own pyre out of cinnamon and other
household spices. She constructs a diving platform out of
toothpicks and sugar cubes, held together with hairspray. She
stands upon it for a moment, splendid and unafraid. Then she
spreads her wings and jumps. Firemen stand on either side of the
stage, ready to put her out. She emerges from the fire, new and
pink and shining, even more beautiful than before. The firemen
carry her out on their broad capable shoulders. T

he million-gallon tank is filled before our eyes during a
musical interlude. We make out, frisky as teenagers. This way we
are feeling, we will always feel this way. We will always be
holding each other in just this way. When we look at the television
again, Miss Oregon is walking on water. We feel sure that this is
done with mirrors.

Miss Rhode Island performs her water ballet, a tribute to Esther
Williams, only with more legs. She can hold her breath for a really
long time. The first row of the audience has been issued raincoats
and umbrellas. Miss Rhode Island douses them like candles. During
the climax of her performance there is a brief unexplained rain of
frogs. Miss Texas appears on stage again.

#

I loved you the first time I saw you. Scarecrow, my dear
scarecrow, I loved you best of all. Who would have predicted that
we would end up here in this hotel? It feels like the beginning of
the world. This time, we tell each other, things are going to go
exactly as planned. We have avoided the apple in the complimentary
fruit basket. When the snake curled around the showerhead spoke to
me, I called room service and Miss Ohio, the snake handler, came
and took it away. When you are holding me, I don't feel homesick at
all.

#

Miss Alaska raises the dead. This will later prove to have
serious repercussions, but the judges have made a decision and Miss
Texas is not allowed on the stage again. It is felt that she has
been too pushy, too eager to make a spectacle of herself. She has
lost points with the judges and with the audience.

You ask me to put on my wedding dress. You make me a crown out
of the champagne foil and that little paper thing that goes around
the toilet seat. We sit on the edge of the huge bed, my feet in
your lap, your feet dangling dangerously. If only we had a pair of
magic slippers. You have your tuxedo jacket on, and my underwear.
Your underwear. We should have packed more underwear. What if we
never get home again? You have one arm wrapped around my neck so
tight I can hardly breathe. I can smell myself on your fingers.

Where will we go from here? How will we find our way home again?
We should have carried stones in our pockets. Perhaps we will live
here forever, in the honey month, on the honeymoon bed. We will
live like kings and queens and eat room service every night and
grow old together.

On television, stagehands have replaced the water tank with a
trampoline. We wouldn't mind having a trampoline like that. Miss
Kansas appears, her hair in two pigtails, her red shoes making our
hearts ache. She isn't wearing a stitch of clothing otherwise. She
doesn't need to wear anything else. She places her two hands on the
frame of the trampoline and swings herself straight up so that she
is standing upside down on the frame, her two braids pointing down,
her shoes pointing straight up. She clicks her heels together
smartly and flips onto the trampoline. As she soars through the
air, plump breasts and buttocks bouncing, her arms wheeling in the
air, she is starting to sing. Her strong homely voice pushes her
through the air, her strong legs kicking at the tough skin of the
trampoline as if she never intends to land.

We know we recognize this song.

We bounce on the edge of the bed experimentally. Tears run down
our faces. The judges are weeping openly. That song sounds so
familiar. Did they play it at our wedding? Miss Kansas rolls
through the air, tucks her knees under her arms and drops like a
stone, she springs up again and doesn't come back down, the air
buoying her up the same way that you are holding me—naked as a
jaybird, she hangs balanced in the air, the terrible, noisy,
bonecracking air: we hold on tight to each other. The wind is
rising. If you were to let go—don't let go—

3. The dictator's wife.

The dictator's wife lives in the shoe museum. During visiting
hours she lies in bed downstairs with the rest of the exhibits.
When you come in, you can't see her but you can hear her. She is
talking about her husband. "He loved to eat strawberries. I don't
care to eat strawberries. They taste like dead people to me. I'd
rather drink soup made from a stone. We ate off the most beautiful
plates every night. I don't know who they belonged to. I just kept
track of the shoes."

The museum is a maze of cases. Visitors wander through narrow
aisles, elbows tucked in to bodies, so they don't brush against the
glass displays. They drift towards the center of the exhibit room,
towards the voice of the old lady, until they come upon a bed.
Glass boxes stacked up in tall rows hedge in the bed on all sides.
In the boxes are pairs of shoes. In the bed is the dictator's wife,
covers pulled up to her chin. Visitors stop and stare at the
dictator's wife.

She stares back, old and fragile and crumbly. It is
disconcerting, to be stared at by this old woman. In proper
museums, you go to stare at the exhibits. They do not stare back at
you. The dictator's wife is wrinkly like one of those dogs. She's
wearing a black wig that's too small for her head. Her false teeth
are in a souvenir glass beside the bed. She puts her teeth in.

The dictator's wife will stare at visitors' shoes until the
visitors look down too, wondering if a shoelace has come
untied.

#

Another old lady—but not quite as old—lets visitors in. On
Tuesdays she dusts cases with an old silk dress. "Admission free
today," she said. "Stay as long as you like."

#

"My shoes," the dictator's wife says to a visitor who has
stopped to stare at her. She says this the way some people
say, 
My children
. She's got an accent, or maybe her
teeth don't fit so well. "People don't think about shoes as much as
they should. What happens to your shoes when you die? When you're
dead, what do you need with shoes? Where are you planning to
go?"

The dictator's wife says, "Every time my husband had someone
killed, I went to that person's family and asked for a pair of
their shoes. Sometimes there wasn't anyone to ask. My husband was a
very suspicious man."

Now and then her right hand disappears up under her wig as if
she's looking for something up there. "A family sits down to
breakfast. The wife might say something about the weather. Someone
might happen to walk by and hear the wife say something about the
weather. Then soldiers would come along, and the soldiers would
take them, husband, wife, children, away. They would be given
shovels. They would dig an enormous hole, there would be other
people digging other holes. Then the soldiers would line them up,
fathers, mothers, children, and shoot them.