The Days Read online

Also on this day, in 1946, writer Gertrude Stein died in France while being operated on for stomach cancer. She was seventy-two. A year later, the American novelist Katherine Anne Porter writing in Harper’s magazine will call Stein’s work the “long drone and mutter and stammer of her lifetime monologue,” and refer to her “tepid, sluggish nature, really sluggish like something eating its way through a leaf.”

  For the rest of us still living, even the sluggish ones, July 27 will be like all the other days, which is to say, a combination of breath and panic and glory. There is not much we can do about any of this.

  Dylan Thomas Day

  How many hens go through life looking for their fathers in the faces of strangers?

  Wondering, “Is that him? Could he be my rooster?”

  3

  Dream Lover

  He’s a flower, a rolling lawn, a philosopher, and, finally, a poem. Anything else is second rate. He can jump, kick, flip, and stunt, and this has an effect on me. So I am positive, living the show. You totally get this point?

  Well, he chases me. He’s a six-foot-tall good time. There are forms of free-floating sex and sounds loud enough to excite. It means being carried around. It’s all about the smiles.

  Who doesn’t think they deserve humanity?

  I love how much he loves the universe. He isn’t just blowing on embers. He’s a raging bonfire himself.

  “Marion,” he says, “you are such a pleasant form of exercise.”

  “Don’t pinch me,” I tell him. “I don’t want to wake up.”

  Festival in the Kitchen

  The kitchen is a place of ambition and fear and desperation and a whole bunch of other things.

  The kitchen is where you make friends with strange and unusual vegetables.

  And every day you prowl it with your insect zapper looking for pantry moths.

  Dream about turning garbage bags into confetti.

  Never forgetting the egg’s integral role in all of this.

  The kitchen is where you perfect your kitchen language.

  Making a fist signals your teenage son to close the fridge door.

  Holding your hand horizontally after mashing pinto beans means you’ve had bare-bones times before and survived.

  Fluttering your fingers signals the last pot has been scrubbed and you can now go to bed.

  Placing one hand on the collar of your shirt and leaning against the stove means you need help. Oh, with everything.

  The kitchen is where your formative years were spent. You were like some strange kitchen nerd because you loved washing dishes and nobody quite got you.

  Your mom would make little fritters out of cardoons, a type of thistle, so yes, you ate thistles.

  Your dad was trying your whole life to impress you by making Sunday pancakes, even when he was hungover.

  A recipe: You take chicken soup and shove it up your soul.

  The kitchen is where you display the prize you received in Grade 12 for Home Economics.

  It’s a bronze coin encased in a glass cube, small enough to hold in the palm of your hand. In the middle of the coin a pair of woman’s hands hold up a modest house.

  Rays are engraved around the house to indicate splendour. On the back of the coin the inscription reads, Future Homemakers – Towards New Horizons.

  You won this prize for not losing your apron six years running.

  The kitchen is where you now occasionally give demonstrations on how to wash dishes the old way. Strangers gather to receive your instructions on water temperature, quality and quantity of dish soap, the correct order of washing (glasses to pots). There are discussions concerning the controversy around rinsing, yes or no, hot or cold, and, finally, an in-depth presentation on types of tea towels, linen being the best.

  You are an acknowledged expert in the field.

  You neither strip completely nude nor wear an apron when you give these demonstrations.

  You have bottoms on and wear pasties.

  The kitchen is where friends often gather to drink wine and taste your cheese melts, your crusty crostini. This happens towards the end of the party, when it’s midnight and the music’s still loud.

  You realize that this might be as good as life gets. You may cry your eyes out over this revelation, but you will still be happy, weird as that sounds.

  That’s what a festival in the kitchen does. It’s about discovery and understanding.

  Like a theory of the universe.

  The kitchen is the place for cute tricks. On command, Bryce will roll over and play dead. Then it will be your turn. You will beg for your supper. One pork chop, a hill of peas, a glass of soda water, rice.

  Doing these things will prove that you’re a good girl and he’s a good boy.

  Later in your kitchen, you will play with a pair of hot chestnuts. Bryce, the owner of the chestnuts, will say, “Whoa, Christine, I get where you’re coming from!”

  Treats all round.

  The kitchen is where you are often funnier than usual.

  Bryce knew he was in the presence of someone a little crazy – and incredibly talented – when he married you. But today you are off the dial. It’s pretty magic.

  You’ve stuck a lit Roman candle between your teeth so you won’t cry while peeling the onions.

  You’re going to see if it works.

  Old Wives’ Day

  This is the day you realize you’ve become an old wife. It’s because your husband, Owen, has given you an electric can opener as a thirty-second anniversary gift. And because the celebration dinner is the two of you at the Dairy Queen – Flamethrowers, Diet Cokes, a shared Oreo Blizzard – after which you ride home in silence sucking an orange Life Saver. Okay. So be it.

  But consider this. Being an old wife can be a cause for joy because you can now put your stamp on each day. From here on you’ll be able to add to the world’s store of tales, sayings, and remedies. And there’s a good chance you’ll become valued, even prized, because of this. You will soon learn that being an old wife changes all the pieces on the table.

  The only problem is that being valued can mean you’re in danger. This is because old wives are becoming a scarce item. Maybe divorce or disinclination are the reasons, but there are fewer of you participating in the long-haul marriage. As a result, old wives have become a rarity. People have taken to running off with them. They’ve become a cultural product, valued like argon crystal, or a horse coloured amber champagne. There is now this amazing phenomenon of old wives just quietly disappearing.

  If Owen is worried about theft, tell him it’s unlikely you will be taken. As an old wife you’re a pretty standard model, small and blonde, and you’re not shy and have a big mouth. You also wiggle your finger a lot, like an old cat woman, and you know what that means. Cats can suck the breath from a baby.

  Dorothy Parker Day

  On August 22 we honour Dorothy Parker for her corrosive wit. Born in Long Beach, New Jersey, on this day in 1893, she came to prominence as a writer, reviewer, and satirist while working for the New Yorker magazine during the twenties and thirties of the last century. “Those were the terrible days of the wisecrack,” she wrote. “There didn’t have to be any truth.”

  There still doesn’t have to be any truth, which is why August 22 has been designated as the one day of the year we can say corrosive things and be free from public censure. Dorothy Parker was reputed to have said corrosive things every day of her life, including the fact that she loved dachshunds better than men.

  “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.”

  “I require three things in a man: he must be handsome, ruthless, and stupid.”

  “Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone.”

  “Tell him I was too fucking busy – or vice versa.”

  On Dorothy Parker Day we wear wool suits and little hats, smoke with cigarette holders, and have a liver-coloured dachshund on a lead. We wander about being bored and sullen and sad and
nasty.

  “If you can get through the twilight you can live through the night,” she said.

  Come evening we toast her with whiskey sours, her favourite drink – bourbon, lemon juice, and sugar over ice. She was drunk most nights. When a reporter asked her if she was going to join Alcoholics Anonymous, she said, “Certainly not. They want me to stop now.”

  She died of a heart attack on June 4, 1967, her preferred words for an epitaph being, Excuse My Dust. Her ashes remained unclaimed in a lawyer’s office for seventeen years.

  Roddy Doyle Day

  –The Queen of England’s brought out this exclusive line of clothing.

  –What?

  –She’s calling it Reign Wear. There’s a whole campaign going on. On account of her being the longest reigning queen ever.

  –No way.

  –Haven’t you seen the ads? It’s coats and hats and gloves and shoes. All matchy-matchy pastels and kind of, you know, dumpy-looking.

  –Jesus.

  –My mom’s a big fan. She got the works in Celeste Green. Don’t you love that name? She got the matching hanky too. Likes waving it around.

  –Like royalty in a car? Like standing on a balcony?

  –Like standing on the bow of a submarine.

  –Before it goes under.

  –Ha. Yeah. My mom says the hanky’s symbolic and waving it and wearing the Queen’s clothes fills her with pride.

  –I guess, at her age.

  –There’s these white curly wigs you can get too.

  –I’ve seen them. Cotton tops.

  –Looking like the Queen of England’s starting to be a big deal.

  –Is there a website?

  –Of course there’s a website. I’m thinking of an outfit in Bare-Bones Yellow. It’d totally go with my rubber boots. I’d look like the Queen in her Wellies.

  –Are you being weird? What would you do in it? Visit a hospital? Tour Australia?

  –I don’t know. Maybe I could wear the outfit when I’m having tea at home with friends. That’s what my mom does. All of them sitting around in their Queen clothes getting wasted on tea with gin. My mom even wore the clothes when she took Chalky to the vet. People there were super nice, she said, on account of what she had on. You know, respectful.

  –I’m not dressing up like the Queen of England to get respect.

  –Why not? My mom says the outfit makes her feel regal, makes her feel she could last another sixty-two years. She says wearing the Queen’s clothes calms the central nervous system, like yoga. Lets her laser-focus when needed, like when she’s walking around nodding at strangers.

  –Carrying her little matchy purse over her arm.

  –Yeah. It’s a cutting-edge look.

  –We’re living in a time when this is happening?

  –We are. But the clothes, wearing them we get to share in the Queen’s savoir faire. They’re supposed to make everyone dream.

  –Sounds like a feel-good type of deal to me.

  –Well, who doesn’t want that?

  Guys in the Chorus

  –For the most part being in the chorus is interesting and provocative work. It’s stimulating. It makes me think. It’s fun too. And I’ve got a good day job, play golf, barbeque.

  –The female chorus is quite raunchy.

  –I realized early on that things in that department could change at the drop of a hat. So I make an effort to have my life filled with things I love to do. I’ve stayed true to that approach.

  –A lot of nights I feel like the mayor of Venice!

  –The female chorus is still a mystery to me. It’s like you have to be two halves of a single person.

  –I got to do a little dancing with Amy, which was pretty amazing. This was before I became used to being someone’s husband.

  –They go in for sexy costumes, the female chorus. That’s something.

  –While we go in for banana suits and gorilla masks.

  –At least I’m not your typical bad guy running around yelling at people, “Get in the car trunk, now!”

  –Me neither. I not a thrill-seeker. I’m more of a snack-seeker.

  –Actually, a lot of fascinating stuff still happens on my back porch.

  –Ah yes.

  The Cashier Speaks

  “Don’t take too long to evaluate your existence,” the cashier at Super Foods told me. She was older, had silver rings on every finger and on both thumbs. I was buying frozen peas, a tub of ice cream, dish soap.

  “The universe is big and you are small,” she said. “You are not as big as the moon or the planets.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ve heard that.”

  She scanned the peas.

  “There are a hundred billion galaxies out there bigger than you.”

  “Yes.” I looked around. The old guy in line behind me was holding a boxed apple pie.

  The cashier said, “Those galaxies have nothing to do with time, you know. We’re the only ones who have time. That’ll be twelve twenty-eight.”

  I gave her my card.

  She said, “Some of us were very surprised when we heard all this. Some of us started getting really sick and had to be evacuated by helicopter.” She handed me the groceries. “I wish things had worked out but it looks like nature’s changing the script. We’re a controlled-risk species. We’re just blowing raspberries at this point.”

  She turned to the old guy. “Isn’t that right, my handsome?”

  He grinned.

  Outside, a helicopter was about to land. Another one of us had fallen, this time in front of Maxine’s Shoe Emporium.

  Vibe

  I want Dad’s final resting place to be a piece of art and not an urn. A ceramic jar or a porcelain egg, on par with someone who gets a really nice casket. Only you get to see it all the time. It’s not rotting away underground somewhere.

  If you’re going to put someone on your mantel, you want them to look nice. You want people to say, “That’s beautiful!” not “Oh, that’s Ken’s ashes.”

  Seeing His Ex at the Wedding

  “Dredging up the past is like brushing your teeth with a steak knife,” he said.

  “Now I’m going to get wasted and head back to the motel alone.”

  Some Days You Just Can’t Talk …

  Because your tooth is hurting. It’s not attached to a smile, and, what is more, you are without a dentist to call your own. The only help is the dental clinic where others like you groan with abscessed teeth and show the whites of their eyes and clutch take-your-turn numbers like lucky charms.

  Where occasionally there’s a slight turmoil when the receptionist acts like a bartender and says, “What’ll it be?” And people cry out, “Gingivitis! Aphthous ulcers!”

  Where after something like a year goes by she hollers “Four hundred and thirty-two,” which causes some poor fuck to shuffle through the door marked This Way Please never to be seen again.

  You decide to wait outside on a bench and try to forget your inability to chew or speak.

  Your sister-in-law, Karen, has tried to help. She found some forty-year-old tabs of acid sewn into an heirloom poncho and you’ve taken two but they’re not working the way you had hoped. For example, there are all these flattened bodies of women in blue housecoats lying on the sidewalk like paving stones, some of them still clutching their jaws.

  You’d hoped to turn into a monarch butterfly.

  Dog Days

  What are you saying, Bonnie? I am saying:

  –That Uncle and Aunt’s dogs came to their ends sooner rather than later.

  –That Sandy, the bald one, who could dance on his hind legs, was deaf and wandered.

  –That he choked on a snake.

  –That a drunken spaniel named Bubba came next. That Uncle fed him beer instead of water and that Bubba was one of those mean drunks, grrr this, grrr that. He died of a fatty liver.

  –That a retriever cross named Sylvia, who was all tidy between the lips and had long-haired legs was next and tha
t Aunt was sold on her for a while. “You get love where it lands,” she told Uncle. “Look! The d-d-d-d-dog kisses!” Then Sylvia chased a woman on a bike and had to be put down.

  –That once, when I was nine years old and they didn’t have a dog, Uncle squatted on the kitchen floor with Aunt beside him on her hands and knees and said, “Sit up and beg, Bonnie. There’s a good girl.” I climbed onto the counter for laughs but instead I got my nose smacked and was put outside to think things over. And I am still thinking things over.

  –That meanwhile Grandma moved in and started calling out to anyone who would listen. “All the way to the end of the damned universe,” said Uncle.

  –That a stray German shepherd came by and this was the dog Aunt really fell for. They called him Harry. He could pee on command, and play Behave Yourself with Aunt.

  –That not long after Harry’s arrival, Grandma curled up by the stove like a shivery chihuahua and died.

  The Importance of Discovery

  Now that I’ve turned nineteen, my parents have decided that this friend of theirs would be fun for me to meet.

  “I’m an advocate of this man,” Dad says. “He may be somewhat smarmy and the means he uses may be a little gross, but I think in some ways his ends are decent.”

  “Does he work at the sex shop?” I ask.

  “Well, honey, he does,” Mom says. “He owns it. But don’t let that stop you. Getting to know Bruce will be a very interactive, very fresh experience for you. Plus, he’s always working on new and better ways for people to enjoy themselves.”

  The sex shop means a lot to my parents. Something magical happens there between persons who are truly amazing, they say.

  Mom is anorexic and Dad is 322 pounds. I find that kind of juxtaposition pretty amazing too.