She smiled at the sculpture of the Indian elephant goddess that graced the mantelpiece along with a picture of Ham, photos of Joan and Chester as young children, and a silver Jesus. There was bounty in her life — and new beginnings.
IX.Joan
SHE lay in bed watching Larry King. That was a guilty pleasure. Why should she watch Larry King?
It was probably something her mother enjoyed. What would Zaha think? She doubted if El Zorro ever watched TV. ZH assuredly watched outlandishly cutting-edge films only available in PAL. Her best friends no doubt were the moviemakers Haneke and Kusturica, or Barney & Björk, and Joan imagined she’d cultivated Hedi Slimane to make dandruff-proof caftans for the whole psychotically pretentious claque. Or maybe she was a buddy of that hack Indian director, the Maya Angelou/Penny Marshall of Orissa who was married to the scholar everyone ludicrously compared to Edward Said. Edward S’Hadid. To be sure, ZH would soon be directing something à la The Cremaster Cycle. The Clitoris Cycle. The Cycling Clitoris. The Recycled Arclitect. Arclitoridectomy.
But maybe I’m wrong…
Could be that ZH was just a homie, an early aficionado of The Office, a Spamalot freak, mobbed up with Eddie Izzard, Billie Connelly, Sacha Cohen, and Eric Idle. A Spinal Tapper.
Fattie.
Fat fatiscent Fatimite.
Hogwart.
Digitally rendered museum-addition ski-jumped Iraqi cunt.
Larry King was a salacious, cartoony comfort — all Beavis and Butt-Head sharp bones, wisecracks, and chicken soup. Joan knew why she had a soft spot for him: she’d projected onto him the dad she never knew. Occasionally, she caught herself thinking: Wouldn’t it be bizarre if Larry King turned out to be my father?
Lately though he was getting a mite ghoulish; maybe it was age. She had saved a bunch of his shows on TiVo and was finally scrolling through them. The 1st she lit on was about a pretty blonde whose face got mauled by a cougar. Joan deleted it after about 20 seconds. The next one featured Dr Phil’s sister-in-law. She’d been driving along when someone threw a can of sulfuric acid from an overpass; it broke the windshield and dripped on her. They showed pictures from the hospital, her face all burnt. Dr Phil’s wife’s sister! Totally surreal! The 3rd Larry was about a black woman down in Texas whose boyfriend killed her mom then turned around and shot her face off. The ex was swathed in bandages — all you could see was one eye. Joan almost laughed out loud: Larry really had a Phantom of the Opera thing goin on! But the 4th show really creeped her out. Some white chick got murdered in the Village and Larry was hosting the boyfriend and the victim’s mother. He whipped through the interview by rote, bored and antsy, you could almost see his wheels turning (Why the fuck are they on? I should’ve booked Tammi Menendez again), holding back like a borscht bowl vampire — his guests nothing but long necks awaiting the fang — before rushing in, a white cell plasma TV Weegee in suspenders. Joan thought it so weird that people agreed to go on talkers just because someone they loved had been murdered or brutally taken from them. Even Susan Saint James! Monologuing about her little boy (angel with de-iced wings), and how she couldn’t bear to touch his clothes! Pornographic sharefests were the New Dignity.
She deleted the Larrys and switched to the 24 hour Health Channel. It was right at the beginning of one of those Medical Incredibles, a segment about a woman in her early 30s with a one-in-a-million reaction to a common antibiotic. Within 12 hours of taking a bitsy pill, she’d “sloughed” 100 % of her skin. As Mom and friends spoke on voiceover, there were shots of her in a medically induced coma, patented cellophane-like sheets of bioengineered dermis made from shark cartilage and cow tendons stapled to her body as a protective sheath. Joan couldn’t believe what she was seeing; she felt like Liv Ullmann in Persona, cowering in front of the psych ward TV watching a monk set himself on fire. Toward the end of the hour, her doctor said that around Christmas there was a ray of hope — a tiny patch of skin began to “recolonize.” The woman made her dramatic camera debut at the end. She was kind of Goth, kind of Echo Parky, a little overweight but eerily luminous, as if lit by a Tim Burton lantern she’d swallowed. She visited the ICU, hugging everyone who had taken care of her. She told the camera that her skin was now like a baby’s, tissue thin, and she had to walk under a parasol for the next few years when out in the sun. The doctors said she wouldn’t begin to wrinkle until she was in her late 60s, and that was when Joan lost it.
How exquisite.
She cried and cried and cried.
X.Ray
HE left the hospital.
Ray’s lawyer sent a Town Car. The old man was nonplussed, but Big Gulp ate it up from the backseat. She looked lovely. She wore a turquoise sari, hair in dark plaits. BG had a goofy, toothy grin; if the city wound up giving him a little money, maybe he’d have em straightened.
THEY met barely a year ago on the Santa Monica pier. Early morning, chilly weekday. He’d gone there to fish just like he used to decades ago, when his marriage was in trouble. She stood on the far end, staring off. He thought she was a jumper. He struck up a conversation — he was so old, he figured that would be the only reason she’d talk because she looked shy and skittish by nature. (It took months before she showed her ballbusting side.) They spoke of fish. She used to sell it, she said, at market in Calcutta. He couldn’t make the words out very well. Thick accent; low, furtive tones. Something about mustard seeds and how she’d worked as a nanny. How she wound up doing the same thing for the “CG”—the Indians liked their acronyms — the consul general in San Francisco. It was tortuous but he finally understood: she took care of some kind of ambassador’s kids. Ran away. Didn’t explain further. Ray (at 1st she thought his name was Raj) asked if she was a “wanted woman” but he didn’t think she got the joke, which probably wasn’t so funny and was even maybe true, and that she might have misinterpreted his comment as lurid. She said she had to go and he told her he’d be there the next day, same time. He hadn’t planned on saying it, nor the subsequent possibility of her reappearing, and as the words came out he suddenly half dreaded the thought of getting up early and driving all the way from Industry (where he’d just moved after pulling up stakes in Mar Vista) for nothing. But lo and behold, she showed up 25 hours later, wearing the same clothes as before. She looked hungry. “I don’t feel like fishing,” he said. “Let’s get some breakfast.” After some of that trademark headbobbling and balking, she finally agreed.
When they got to the car she became hesitant. She saw the Friar and was afraid. Ray said the dog was fine and opened the door to let him pee, introducing Ghulpa as he wagged his tail and ignored her, and she patted his head, all the time with that nervous, tooth-packed grin. He put the dog back and suggested they walk to McDonald’s. (He was going to take her to Norm’s but that was 7 blocks away and Mickey D’s was just around the corner.) They had thin coffee and McBreakfasts and didn’t say much because he wanted her to feel at ease. Not that there was a whole lot to chat about. It was mostly subterranean.