Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty (4 page)

It is my business to comfort the lady.

Chasteness, more pampering, I must get married. I changed her sheets.

But this is not a lamentation. In this way, her story is handed on to you.

She had a good day; had dental done. Dinner is chicken winglets, pea loaf, and Peppermint Pattie.

Spring is. Summer is.

Madam used hibiscus, as a girl, to make her lips red, the soot of the candlewick to shadow her eyes, candle wax for her brows.

Her winter coat waves all its arms at us! Her camel duffle makes the sound of matchsticks being struck—if that helps.

It might seem to me that Chuck and I have a very happy marriage, which I cannot, I cannot believe I believe that.

I had gone out to look at what Chuck calls the dot plants—things out of proportion with the ground for which they are intended.

They’re a focal feature to form the centerpiece among the many plants that are not valued. In the house, he has his cascade bonsai tree on a high stand.

I could not get between him and what he was in front of and I found myself waiting on some joyous occasion.

By the close of the day, I had no idea how to be practical. I’d lost control of my life.

Chuck tapped me, saying, “Who is that woman? What did she want?”

It had been our neighbor. I wish she had been thinking highly of me, while her husband looked on, forlorn in the car. “Your quack grass!” she had cried. “Why don’t you just let me kill it for you?”

They have a rock garden, steppingstones, a perennial border, and then I could see that our weeds were menacing those.

The suspense in that moment had drawn me in and I was fascinated to hear my answer to her that was delivered in a weepy form.

In addition to the quack grass, we also have plantain, chickweed, thyme-leaved speedwell—curiously green and brown.

I understand. Hunks and slabs of weeds are not enjoyable to view.

Pressing the heel of my hand against my trowel, with a quick motion of the wrist and forearm, I repeat the motion. I am jabbing side to side. The tissues attached to the stem are softened enough for the root to be slipped out, so that I may remove my muscle section.

I was ready during the reunion back at his house in April and I had a feeling he was present.

Most curiously he had asked us to call him Uncle Chew and I’d been fond of him.

The elderberry lemonade reminded me of when we were young inductees to the religious world and we sat around here. I was very impressed by the box lunch.

They handed out sheets with the lyrics to the song we’d written as a farewell for Uncle Chew. A part was missing.

When we arrived at this reunion it was chilly. The next day warmer. The next day chilly. The day after, I had a speech to make. We had hiked a certain distance past the
church doorway, the hearth, the courtyard, along the village lane, the rough brick wall. I saw the same backdrop more than once so that I got my bearings. I was a woman in a fur collar and false hair, reminiscing.

They handed out lunch-box sandwiches as I came slowly down the length of my time, which I have become very attached to, and my memories and my remarks—hurt my pride.

I don’t like them or my brother. My children don’t like me.

I count the affronts, mindful not to give up all my views. I’d rather contort my guts. Conditions are somewhat unfavorable, despite strengths. I’d feel so much better if Brucie influenced me.

There is a side to me they have not been exposed to. I mention this. They take up their tasks. In short, my daughter told me to wait a minute, that she’d join me.

I said, “No!”

She put her head back and closed her coat at the neck. “I wonder if you realize…” she said. It took me a moment to.

Everyone else was hurrying. We stood. She was leaning against the mantelpiece. “Why are you so unpleasant?”

I answered, “I don’t wish you well.”

I threw my gloves on the floor and my hat. I had been wearing my dark blue coat. Drops of moisture were on our windows, and fog. We are a family. There’s a point to it and to the dimmer switch in the foyer. The next thing—my daughter was stepping along the corridor and out the door. I seriously did not think I was in the state I describe as reserved for me.

She made assurances that satisfied her ambitions—saw the body interred, spent the rest of the week asking questions, suggesting action. She visited with her family and reminisced.

Getting routine matters out of the way, she headed home after buying a grounding plug and ankle wrist weights.

She fed the dog and put the boys to bed. Allen didn’t go to work.

She received a call from a woman whose sister had died.

She made some of those unequaled assurances, was escorted with the family to the grave. People seem to respond to her. She talked with them, gave a woman a played-out peck on the cheek.

Getting routine matters out of the way, she attained riches, social position, power, studied for an hour or so, cleaned up, took the family to a movie, after which she forecasted her own death with a lively narration that gave her gooseflesh.

She felt raw, pink and so fresh!

“I am going to cough,” I said. “Cough, cough.”

I left Mary, my mother, to experience that by herself and went to get the dish—a lion couchant—with a slew of nuts in it, and I served us wine, and I coughed.

Mary put her hand on the top of her head, as if she could not rightly rest it there.

“Mary, how are you, Mary?” I said. “Now, Mary.”

“Not so good,” she replied. “I’ve just been lying around.”

Then she changed into the shape she pleased—an upright, independent person.

My father, her husband—we were surprised—walked in, buttoning himself to depart. I had thought he was dead. His bad foot had killed him.

My mother and my dead father provide strength for me. They recklessly challenge their competency.

It is senseless to prevent them.

It isn’t until a Bengal cat comes by—the Sheepshanks’ cat Andy—that I can see my way in the dark so to speak.

This flame design decorates almost all of his body and the brilliancy demonstrates exceptional technique.

When I pet the cat, I rough up too much of the detail, and the cat is yelling at me.

I went to the sex shop after. I know the saleswoman there very well.

And yet Brenda said, “I have never seen you before in my whole life!”

This must be on account of the harsh light.

At the cinema I watched closely the camels, the horses, the young actor taking his stance for the sexual act.

He started up with a pretty girl we had a general view of.

I felt the girl’s pallor stick into me.

Another girl, in pink swirls alternating with yellow swirls, intruded.

The girls were like the women who will one day have to have round-the-clock duty at weddings, at birthdays, at days for the feasts.

Unaccountably, I hesitated on the last step of the cinema’s escalator when we were on our way out, and several persons bumped into me.

An ugly day today—I didn’t mention that, with fifty mile per hour winds.

But here is one of the more fortunate facts: We were Mr. and Mrs. Gray heading home.

It has been said—the doors of a house should always swing into a room. They should open easily to give the impression to those entering that everything experienced inside will be just as easy.

A servant girl was whipping something up when we arrived, and she carried around the bowl with her head bowed.

We’ve been told not to grab at breasts.

Before leaving for Indiana in the morning—where I had to clean up arrangements for a convention—I stood near my wife to hear her speak. So, who is she and what can I expect further from her?

What she did, what she said in the next days, weeks and years, addresses the questions Americans are insistently, even obsessively asking—but what sorts of pains in the neck have I got?

Please forgive our confusion and our failures. We make our petitions—say our prayers. It’s like our falling against a wall, in a sense.

On a recent day, my wife gave me a new scarf to wear as a present. It’s chrome green. Her mother Della, on that same day, had helped her to adjust to her hatred of me.

I’d have to say, I’ve given my wife a few very pleasant shocks, too.

Derek is somebody everybody loves because everybody loves what Derek loves and he is handsome. I’ve left Derek behind on the veranda, in the vestibule, in the passage. He is fifty-two years old and behaving properly. Every day he thinks of what to do and wonderfully he tries to do it. I can make out his force, his shape. He sits at a shrewd distance from the dining parlor, now.

I poured myself a cup of coffee (none for Derek), bad tasting, that satisfies my hunger.

Oh fine—pretty rooms, opening out on either side. I am refreshed, filled with sweet feelings, enjoying a revival, long
and looping, and I pull a door shut and take slower steps, as if walking to my bus stop.

I’ll be unmanageable at the back stair’s spiral.

Not a correct use of this residence.

But how odd it is—I recorked a bottle and stowed a jar of mayonnaise and Derek came in here for a particular reason.

Derek’s task is to provide continuity room to room—thoughtfully—consistent with ensuring that no violent breaks occur and shouldn’t I appreciate this?

Also, the recent calming wave of walls and ceilings has helped me very much.

However, the shovel and tongs, upright against the mantelpiece, you could argue that they just don’t belong!

I make every effort not to crack or to split and to fit in, albeit, fitfully.

Like this—leaning forward—she spit into a tulip bed within a block of Capital One—with her head like this.

Passing Rudi’s, she saw the barbers in their barber chairs—four, five of them—in royal blue smocks—they had fallen asleep.

There are so many more things like that. She had spent the morning with the problem of sex.

Now she was making her progress into town. The sun was low. In any case, the weather—there are so many more things like that.

The woman made her progress as if she were an ordinary woman who was not aware of all her good fortune. The pear
trees in bloom looked to her like clusters or fluff. She saw more things like that, that were complete successes.

She had spit into the tulip bed, as so often happens in life, with verve, and that was fun. Neither was the sun too low or too cold.

The documents she signed at Capital One glittered like certain leaves, like some flowers. That bending, that signing had hurt her back. She had more money as of today in her everyday life and she was tucking her hair and bending her hair as she had so often planned.

When she awakened that morning, she had smoothed her hair—when semi-alert—but she was still capable of adventures and their central thrust and with some encouragement, the penis of her husband had been leaning its head forward and plucking at her.

The barbers in their smocks, in the town, had awakened and were busy with their customers. And, she’s a doctor!—or a lawyer!—with only a few griefs to her name. She’s great!

If we trace the early years of her life, the intricacies, the dark years, the large middle zone, the wide-spacing between the fluctuations, as between her progress and her verve—the balanced tension—we see that the woman turns everyday life into daydreams, trusts in the future, is gullible and has some emotional immaturity.

My association with Moffat was the luxury of my life or a decorative keynote—a postage stamp.

On Moffat’s recommendation I took a meal alone at Cheiro’s Café. I drank ginger ale with my black cherry linzer. I ate one fried egg and that felt as if I was eating a postage stamp—with its flat ridges.

I had begged Moffat, to be completely fair, to keep on with having what he called fun with me. Although, I have a respectful attitude toward the public status of the person addressed, he had become, he said, disentranced.

There is a reasonable code of conduct concerning Moffat.

I found I was a bit cold-pigged—drained, not dried entirely.

I came to rest in front of the elegant Blue Tree.

I had on a gather skirt—steeped in red—a blouse with a series of buttons, hair combed. I noted my showy, stylish approach in the shop window glass with relieved surprise.

Once inside, I bought a simulated coral and onyx necklace, colorless beads, another necklace with swiftly flowing floral decorations, with ruby and gold glints that gives me a liberally watered shine.

When exiting, I studied trifling clouds stacked deliberately.

By and by, Moffat came along, popping out his fingers bouquet-style and calling my name.

He made a simultaneous outward swipe, with both his hands, with his fingers spread.

What a darling! No bad side. He has a strong activity level and a good sense of presentation and he’s tentatively changed his mind—about me!

He’s added, throughout his life, quite a rare group of us to his collection.

Penelope, for one, has a coiffure with a small, japanned bun and she’s very neatly sweet.

My intention, with my own flourishes, is to create an impression of frankness and ambition.

I am prepared to be examined again.

I should be observed strongly and for a long time, so they can see the changes of my colors during the goings-on.