Chapter III
Let’s go on a date. Let’s get something to eat.
You and I, O reader, shall become one flesh and then go wander around in my neighborhood.
We walk down the street and stop before a house that you say that you like the look of.
A young woman comes out of the house; she’s apparently planning to walk her dog.
“Excuse me,” we shout from the sidewalk. “Are you married?”
The woman looks up, slightly surprised that someone yelled at her (she apparently didn’t see us standing on the sidewalk) — she answers: “Yes, ma’am.”
I ask you what we should say — for, even tho we’re one literary character on the outside, we still maintain our individual personalities within her (our character’s) mind — and you tell me to let us speak the following line:
“Well, can we take you to dinner anyway?”
The young woman blushes. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Ditch the dog, please.”
The woman drops the leash, and the dog scampers off into the woods. (It was just a little dog.)
When the young woman meets us at the end of her driveway and we hold hands, you make us say:
“Do you have a daughter who has grown up and graduated from college?”
The young woman shies back like a filly horse and sez: “As a matter of fact, I do.”
“Let us whistle for her to join us,” we say in unison.
So the young woman gulps and nods; then she places her two pinky fingers into each of the corners of her lips and blows very hard, which act produces a sultry tune, and her daughter Teresa bounds out the front door and jogs lightly and happily down the driveway. She meets us on the sidewalk and holds our other hand. She smiles at her mother.
We walk to the drive-thru matrimony establishment, and we stand in line. Unfortunately it’s a slow-moving line. When we finally reach the window, before we can even begin to place our order, the celebrant at the register informs us that he cannot serve us because we are not manning a motorized vehicle.
“Sorry,” he sez; “it’s for insurance purposes. Do you have a van or a pickup truck that you could come back in?”
The young mother happens to be the closest to the drive-thru window, thus she is acting as the interdealer between the rest of us and this matrimonial outfit — so she turns to us and sez:
“Do you own any type of automobile that we could return in?”
“Would we need to wait in line again?” sez her daughter.
The mom turns and taps on the glass of the drive-thru window. The window opens, and the mother asks the celebrant: “Are you gonna make us go back to the end of the line, if we do return after having found a suitable vehicle?”
“No,” sez the celebrant, “of course not — I’ll save your spot.”
The window closes and the mother addresses her daughter: “He sez he’ll save a place in line for us.”
“Yes-s-s-s!” sez Teresa, holding her hands in the shape of a prayer.
“To answer your question,” we get the mother’s attention by raising our voice: “No, we have a red Pontiac Fiero in our garage, and it only seats two; plus it leaks antifreeze and transmission fluid. How about yourself — do you own a car that we might use?”
“Yes I do,” sez the young mother; “and it is red, too; but, thank God, it is not a Feiro: my husband owns a 1990 Saab Turbo, which has two seats in front — the rear seats are unusable because they’re cluttered with hardcover books (mostly adventure novels, like Bryan the Tyger); so I think we’ll use that. Shall we walk back to our house?”
§
So we walk back to the mother’s house and open the garage and climb into the car. The young mother pilots the vehicle, and we (you and I, dear reader, as two persons in one character) sit on her daughter’s lap in the passenger seat. The mother cranks the shift lever into reverse. The transmission’s gears crunch and grind noisily.
Thus we manage to back the mother’s husband’s Saab out of the garage without him suspecting that we’re eloping with his wife and daughter.
§
We drive back to Matrimony Quick & Fast. We get in line behind the other cars at the drive-thru. Four hours later, we pull up to the window and are greeted by the same celebrant who helped us before.
“Remember us?” the mother laughs. “We’re back!”
“Hi, gals!” sez the celebrant. “What can I get for you today?”
“Before beginning,” you and I interrupt from the passenger seat, “can you tell us what makes you so special that society should trust you to be able to bind souls for life, in the eyes of God? Because we all were aiming to go out on a dinner-date, but, in case it ends well, it seemed right to get married first.”
“Understood,” sez the celebrant. “It’s a good question. To be a marriage officiant in this state, one must impersonate a civil officer — I myself am dressed as a justice of the peace. I’m also technically a mayor and a judge.”
So we stretch over and struggle to grab the celebrant’s hand (it’s hard to reach from our place on the daughter’s lap in the passenger seat — moreover, his drive-thru window is situated uncomfortably high on the building, most likely to symbolize his authority as well as his closeness to God), and we perform a firm handshake, to prove we mean business.
The ceremony is over in about fifteen minutes. Now we drive off and look for a place to eat.
“What are you gals in the mood for?” the young mother addresses her two new brides.
“Fish,” we all say.
But first, because she happened to see it by the side of the road as we were cruising past, we stop at Mary’s parents’ house (studying the receipts of our recent vows, we are fascinated to learn that Mary is the name of the young mother whom we just wed) — the damsel slams on the brakes and exclaims:
“As long as it is on the way to the vineyard, I should introduce you to my folks. You, too, Teresa!” (For her daughter had never even met her own grandparents, till today, because they live in Skopje.)
So we meet mom and pop. They give us some money and wish us good luck.
Then we get back into the Saab and drive until we come to a vineyard. Mary parks the car in the lot, and we get out and stretch.
Now, behold, a Burning Tyger roars against us.
And the Spirit of the LORD suddenly gushes down out of the heavens from outer space. Its essence hovers before the both of us for a moment, and then it decides to fill your volition (not mine) with mad strength, O gentle reader. Thus, since you share the same body of the character that we’re jointly playing in this myth, you now cause our form to leap mightily upon the Burning Tyger, and we rip him to shreds just like he’s a baby lamb.
And our shared body is barehanded when you make her do this. (My point is that she did not even use a glittering sword.)
Our first instinct is to send a postcard to our recent acquaintances, the parents and grandparents of our new mother-daughter bride-team, and tell them the good news, that we have slain a Burning Tyger; but, in the next five moments, we end up talking ourselves out of doing so — we decide that it would be too risky; instead, we stamp “Top Secret” over the top of what we wrote, and file it with the nearest Intel Agency.
“We already possess a record of this,” sez the Agent who answers the door. He hands the postcard back to us: “We have a system that automatically keeps copies of everything.”
“Oh,” we say.
§
Now, after gleaning a bunch of grapes from the vineyard, we drive to a restaurant.
“Does this place serve top-rate seafood?” our bride Teresa asks.
Her mother, our other bride Mary, scowls in answer.
Teresa sez: “What’s that supposed to mean — you don’t know?”
(Mary’s scowl shall forever remain a mystery.)
We sit down at a table. Our waiter brings us menus. He then kneels down and talks to us at eye level: “What can I get you, for starters?”
“For starters AND enders,” I say, confidently, “you can get us some fish, because we don’t want anything else. Do you serve fish here?”
“Fresh, delicious fish?” the waiter raises his eyebrows. “Of course. We have a pond near the frying mechanism. I’ll just turn the catapult knob to the ‘Make some’ position. How many do you want?”
We all lick our lips as the waiter looks at us confusedly.
“A lot,” I say. Then I hold up my fork and point to it with my free hand.
The waiter bows and leaves.
§
Meanwhile, back at the vineyard, the carcass of the Tyger is on the ground, and bees are starting to buzz around and land on it.
No comments:
Post a Comment