“And it’ll be really sweet the way the ferret growls in its cage,” Mr. Leakey said. “Six weeks old and already with razor sharp incisors, jugular-ripping incisors.”
“But wait. There’s more.” The half of us that’s Jane said. “There’s vet bills for distemper shots and neutering and three month checkups, and teeth filing and claw clipping. And the Vet’s nurse would give us a pack of those pet toothbrushes you put rudely on your index finger then rub over your pets teeth, in this case, a ferret’s teeth, and we’d have to wear our protective gear but it would be useless against the frenzied squirming of the ferret and you screaming at me, ‘For Christ’s sake Jane, hold onto the bloody thing!’ as the ferret slips from my grasp like wet soap and lunges at your face, lacerating your cheek, the ferret loose now and ferreting out the cats and me howling, ‘I didn’t really mean it about slaughtering the cats!’ which, fortunately, the ferret doesn’t accomplish because it streaks out the door and now there’s a semi-wild predator on the suburban loose terrorizing small children and poodles.”
Suddenly we felt like sleeping. Only 6:45 on a Friday night, the sunset a good three hours away, this being June, and we felt exhausted. By the idea of owning a ferret. We’d used up fifteen minutes exhausting ourselves with an idea.
So we chucked the whole thing and the Jane of us said, “Hey, let’s have a theme party! Let’s dress up as bag ladies, as bums, as hobos, as homeless people, as crazy people, as schizophrenics and psychotics off their medication. Let’s go over the top and invite ornamental catatonics, real ones, not just your regular bored empty people like us but authentic vacated bodies; we’ll serve hospital food; we’ll turn the house into a shelter. For fun. Everyone pretending to be destitute or suicidal.”
“Smack yourself for that idea,” Mr. Leakey said. “Smack yourself hard. That thought is not allowed. You can no longer dress up in the misery of others.”
“Then how about this,” Jane said. “The Sound of Music! We’ll do the Sound of Music. Rent the video, serve schnitzel and apple strudel; invite friends over to dress up as Maria, Mother Superior, the Count, the stupid singing kids. Ray a drop of golden sun. Tea a dish with bread and jam. “
Then we sighed. The pair of us sitting on the couch, wearing our crash helmets, staring out the window. We came down heavily. Hand in hand again, yawning at 6:50 on a Friday night: down, down, down. The helmets protecting us should we collapse from excitement, should excitement make a surprise visit. The yawns protecting us from glee.
“I’m telling you, coming up with fabulous, original parties is hard work,” Jane said, utterly discouraged. “Absolutely not exciting. Glee-less like the book of Job. There’s a definition: Job—One who under the disguise of comfort aggravates distress. That’s us! Distressed for what? All our lives?”
There was no distraction. We couldn’t watch TV because last week we’d burnt the TV as a political statement. We’d said, “Enough of commercially generated corporate-driven entertainment!” In retrospect, a mistake, perhaps.
So we decided to go out, ride the bike double around the block, look in neighbour’s windows. Like anthropologists. Next thing we’re on the way to the ferry terminal. “Let’s go out for dinner!” Mr. Leakey suddenly cried, inspired. “Let’s eat from the vending machines—Cheesies, Salt N Vinegar chips, diet pop, lemonade, O Henry bars, Cup-A-Noodle. The authentic food of the North American people.”
We rode the bike to get there—excitedly! A three mile trip over hills (no dales) to a stretch of highway. Jane giddy on the seat, the “you” of Jane’s life, Mr. Leakey, pumping away like anything.
We never made it.
Two blocks from home we saw a white rabbit. A huge white rabbit dashing across the street. White like Easter. White as snow. Dashing across the green and brown suburban world. An escaped pet, perhaps, a mutant. Maybe a rabbit like Alice’s. (Oh, for a hole to fall into! Some unexpected place … after place … after place … )
Then, inspired by the rabbit, you said, Mr. Leakey said, “Maybe a kid, Jane. Maybe we should go home and make a kid or two.”
So we did that. We went home—at 7:40 to be precise—and began work on the first kid. Then, a while later, we concocted another one. Then another.
And this is how we unexpectedly entered the world of jugular-ripping family life. Boredom banished forever! No sort of about it. Boredom in three decisive strokes eliminated.
Nothing but the terrible and constant excitement, now.
DROUGHT ON THE CASH FLOW RIVER
WHAT I’M DOING IN THIS ROOM will not make us rich. Sorry about that.
A black Jaguar will not park in our driveway unless it’s that magical one from South America that eschews all reason. Instead, our 1982 beater, overflowing with reasons, like us, will have to wheeze through another year.
There won’t be long vacations or two hundred dollar shirts or savings accounts or new barbeques, either. But what if I write a story in which you’re a tanned and elegant aristocrat sipping rare Bordeaux on a yacht anchored in some Mediterranean bay? Will that do? Fiction to the rescue again?
Our children, naturally, will have to make their own stories. “Look,” I’ll tell them, “Start right in the middle, forget about beginnings and endings. Cash in a lifetime of love and full attention. It’s worth something. Really. No, I mean it, really!”
I mean this too: it’s a mystery. As ever, the doors of lucre are closed to me. I’ve stopped knocking. Dollars flee from me like panic’d birds. There’s a terrible drought on the Cash Flow River.
I’m enslaved to a vagrant art that rewards fine sentences with a nod of recognition only. There really is a gun to my head. I put it there myself.
I hate to break the news but here it is: Eliminate the idea of retirement. That concept will be the death of you. Please don’t pull the trigger.
As it is, bitter old people scream at me in my dreams. They want to be cradled and entertained. I tell them to shut up. I tell them it’s a crapshoot. I tell them to go hungry; I can’t feed them. Sorry, but this is the nightlife I’m offering right now. As much fun as playing volleyball against a team of cadavers, I know.
Okay, let’s shake things up and take a ride in the wreck. Go to China Beach for the day, groove like the times when it was all clearly the middle, bitterness and want sliding past us like an Otis Redding song.
We’ll cash in the beer bottles for gas.
DOUBLE-WIDE
BY ACCIDENT I ESCORTED JACKIE ONASSIS on a tour through Mexico. She was dead but she looked great. Thin, but it was all there—the big hair, big sunglasses. She wore a black and white mini suit—short sleeves, short skirt—and high heels. I saw her sauntering along on the other side of the street, alone. So I walked over and joined her. It was a hot day. Overhead, a corner of the full blue sky was punctuated with tiny white clouds like a trail of periods.
“Hi,” I said.