Pat Boone Fan Club

by Sue William Silverman

  Because the thing is, you aren’t particularly upset to find yourself floundering in this psychotic-cum-prepositional break. In (inside, within) this break, or during this break, you can actually believe that this warped wood floor in Woolworth’s is mere prelude to the neon dance floor of 2001 Odyssey, the disco in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Surely you already smell polyester-y cologne, taste Seven and Sevens, inhale salt-grit air rising around the Verrazano Bridge, all more pungent and real than this dusty Woolworth’s.

  In other words (or toward other words, or concerning other words, with respect to other words), in this prepositional confusion, you actually feel a modicum of comfort by reason of or with respect to the fact that reality, even in the best of times, is slippery and unpredictable. Not unlike prepositions.

  At the same time, however, here in notions, because of this prepositional impasse, you’re not, ironically, able to consider the notion that it’s as if you, yourself, are trapped between (inside, within, against) two tarnished, wavy mirrors. Prepositionally speaking, you do not see that your love of (for) John Travolta occurs in spite of your trapped life. Or is it on account of or due to it? Do you love him in place of any other life whatsoever? Love him in lieu of a life of your own?

  In short, in this prepositional chaos you don’t see the Big Picture. Or even know if there is a Big Picture, let alone its origins or what it means.

  A few years later, now divorced from (without) your Galveston husband, and with (beside) your Houston husband but still entrenched in (or with, during, among) your prepositional crisis (but definitely not between prepositional crises, thus crossing one preposition off the list), you stand before (but thankfully not between) racks of shoes in Marshall’s searching for a pair of cowboy boots. You just saw Urban Cowboy and want, more than anything, to resemble Debra Winger, or the character Sissy, whom John Travolta’s character, Bud, marries, loses, loves again.

  You don’t have enough money to purchase Tony Lamas. You pull on a pair of red-fringed, faux-suede boots, instead . . . Texan enough to dance the two-step with John Travolta at Gilley’s.

  John Travolta films Urban Cowboy in Houston. You almost see him in person, but don’t. You haven’t quite recovered from the near miss.

  As you sit in your therapist’s office (or on the couch in his office) for your weekly appointment, you discover how close you came to seeing him. Before you’re able to speak, however, you can’t help but silently ruminate about whether one sits on a porch or in a porch . . . and do you sit in or on a wicker chair on that porch beside (inside of) the railing? As you try to sort out these prepositional conundrums, you begin (dare you admit it?) to succumb to the weariness of this confusion. You even wonder if whoever invented prepositions in the first place ultimately ended up in (around, near, inside) the eighth or ninth circle of hell. And decide probably the latter.

  Dr. Gripon, due to your delay in speaking, finally says, “Guess what?”

  Still in your Stephanie phase, you wear the white camellia (now shredding) with a polyester outfit and platform shoes.

  “My wife and I saw John Travolta last night having dinner . . .”

  “The real him?” you ask, incredulous.

  Dr. Gripon has never been informed about your personal prepositional maelstrom or the cause and effect between it and your crush on John Travolta. In fact, by now, you yourself aren’t one hundred percent sure which came first, the chicken or the egg, or in this case, the prepositions or John Travolta, though you suspect the former.

  Nevertheless, what with this unsolved mystery—coupled with the dilemma as to which preposition would best express your love for (with, of) John Travolta—you have only mentioned him in passing to Dr. Gripon.

  “He’s in town filming that movie.”

  Urban Cowboy.

  “My wife got his autograph.”

  So now John Travolta has fallen madly in love with your therapist’s wife, you actually think. Because, after all, if he has seen her in place of you, isn’t it just as likely that he has fallen in love with her . . . now, for the first time, worrying that people, just like prepositions, are interchangeable.

  Interchangeable because, though you don’t like to admit it, even John Travolta is interchangeable.

  You once equally had a crush on Paul Newman. Whom you did meet in person.

  This was when you worked on (in) Capitol Hill and helped out at a Democratic fund-raiser. At one point during the evening, you found yourself standing beside (around, near, within speaking distance of—or to) Paul Newman, who asked you for a cigarette. Unfortunately, you don’t smoke. Which is what you told him.

  Which caused your first missed opportunity.

  Because you should have told Paul Newman to just stay put while you found a cigarette. And you should have moved both heaven and earth—above, across, behind, below, underneath, off, inside—and every other possible prepositional direction—on account of your search to find one. Because then he might have fallen in (into) love with you. Except you didn’t. So he didn’t.

  But even if you had (you try to reason), by the time you actually found your way out of the smoky prepositional maze, Paul Newman would probably have found a cigarette from some other girl hovering before, behind, around him. And he would have fallen in love with her. Because if prepositions and movie stars are interchangeable, aren’t, likewise, lonely girls?

  Before your mind further descends into a prepositional meltdown, you say to Dr. Gripon, “But you didn’t call me from the restaurant!”

  Thus resulting in the aforementioned missed opportunity to drive there to meet John Travolta.

  Now, what with a growing number of missed opportunities—and, by association, loss, alienation, an existential crisis—all entering the (prepositional) equation simultaneously, you wonder whether your prepositional breakdown is the root cause of all your problems, from the get-go.

  Maybe your prepositions were never neatly aligned inside (throughout, within) your mind in the first place.

  How can they be when even your religious beliefs are out of alignment by reason of (with respect to) your Jewish father’s damaging love—to say nothing of the seduction of popular culture and its ever-changing fads. Why wouldn’t you want to dance with (beside, along with) Catholic Italian John Travolta, aka Tony Manero and/or good ol’ Texas boy Bud, whether it’s disco or the Texas two-step? After all, if Jewish Debra Winger can masquerade in (with) what surely must be Christian cowgirl boots (real Jews, after all, never wear cowboy boots), why can’t you?

  So how can you possibly expect prepositions to clarify life when your whole identity from day one decidedly stood apart from (beside, without) whoever might be the “real” you?

  For the very first time since beginning therapy you weep. Though you aren’t really sure if it’s because of John Travolta, Paul Newman, your Galveston (ex)husband, your fast-fading Houston husband, or the state of your soul—as confused as prepositions.

  Compounding the problem is that you are now so endlessly mired in (with reference to) your prepositional nightmare, you can’t even explain it to Dr. Gripon. You likewise generally avoid discussing your childhood—and its religious implications—to him altogether, due to (on account of) your inability to select the one correct preposition to highlight the divide between (among!) genuine love, movie-star love, spiritual love, pop-culture love, and/or your father’s so-called love.

  To make matters worse, while still sitting on the couch in (within) Dr. Gripon’s office, you realize that his very name itself is adrift in the equivalent of a prepositional hazardous waste site. You worry you are losing your grip on him. For how can you grip on to him in order to save your sanity, with his name morphing (and why not?) into Dr. Gripoff.

  In any event, there is simply no way to discuss life and its various losses, confusions, and missed opportunities within the context of—and given the nuances of—so many prepositions and phrasal prepositions—even if you cross one (such as “between”) off the list—as you tried
to do. Though you suspect, given the right circumstances, it could just as easily return, as in “you are between two no-win prepositional propositions. Unless you are among more than two lose-lose prepositional proposals.”

  Years later, as it so happens, your doctor prescribes an antibiotic for an infection, and the antibiotic severely disrupts your intestinal tract.

  While you wait to either recover or die (now, without any husband), you watch old movies on television and see a young, glistening Paul Newman in The Long, Hot Summer. One Saturday evening, channel surfing, you also catch Saturday Night Fever . . . now sure that your life is flashing before (beyond, near) your eyes. How young and healthy John Travolta likewise looks in (with) that white suit boogying on (across) that neon-flashing dance floor. (It should be noted that although you have, by now, lost the camellia, the red-suede boots still occupy space on the floor of your closet—or perhaps simply in the closet—but at any rate not on your feet, which is where they should be if you are to die nobly.)

  You now wonder, in your frail condition, if you want(-ed) to be Stephanie and be in (within, inside) Saturday Night Fever because then you wouldn’t be outside it, susceptible, as you are, to disease, grammatically challenged childhoods, failed marriages, death . . . well, susceptible, after all, to life. Because you would forever be inside (within) the screen itself.

  To be dead is to be in (below, beneath, underneath, within) the ground. Or to be up in crematorium smoke. Or, if you believe in the hereafter—heaven, hell, limbo, purgatory, or whatever—which you don’t (or do you?), you’d still be above, beyond, off, outside the earth.

  Which would be all right if you are an astronaut. And now that you think of it, you always wanted to be an astronaut.

  But as you grow older, well, as you age and opportunities lessen, while, at the same time, prepositions metastasize out of control, you realize you’ll never be an astronaut—a stretch even in your twenties unless you played one on screen—which you would have liked to be—or to do. Just float in space . . . watching the marble of the earth sink farther and farther away, observing the earth (life, death, etc.) with perspective, while, at the same time, also gain perspective on prepositions and, finally, yourself.

  Imagining all this—as if you are either inside a movie or outside gravity—you realize: it doesn’t really matter if you mess up a few prepositions in your life; the problems, after all, of 56 little prepositions don’t amount to a hill of beans in (with regard to) this crazy world—because we all die anyway, boots on or off.

  Which leads you to (toward) the realization that you deliberately trapped yourself inside (among, below, behind, or underneath) prepositions in the first place because you want to be trapped as if between (yes, for once, you’re sure this is the right word) those wavy, almost-funhouse Woolworth’s mirrors in lieu of (in spite of, in addition to, or even in place of) reality, of life.

  All of which is to say: you might have figured out the Big Picture earlier if you’d confided in Dr. Gripon. But what with prepositions running amok, you lived in (inside) John Travolta’s world, a beautiful friendship, except for (with the exception of) the fact that it wasn’t yours to live.

  Gentle Reader,

  Have you missed me? Not to worry. I’m still here (though who the “I” is remains anyone’s guess), chronicling every misstep of our long-suffering gefilte. Israel, though pretty, was a bust in the identity department. Even my own sorry attempt at playing the role of Supplicant, which I previously neglected to mention, resulted in a zero as round as I am.

  Nevertheless, imagine this little gefilte rolling along with the best of them down the dusty path of the Via Dolorosa. Did you not see me dodging the blistered feet of priests, rabbis, clergymen, and American tourists radiant on the Way of Grief, the Way of Sorrows, the Painful Way. Oh, I roll past Stations of the Cross, one after another, even though my own station remains one big Matzoh of Confusion. By the end of my trek down the Dolorous Way, I have a headache this big—as if I myself wear a crown of thorns hooked to my head—not that gefiltes have heads. But what with Romans, Catholics, Christians, gefiltes, and Jews, who can possibly find the Path to Salvation let alone manage not to get lost in that maze of alleys in the Old City. In short, from all the tumbling and wrong turns I end up gritty and flattened, a gefilte latke, along the same Path that Jesus himself might or might not have walked. This possible (mis)direction just another of my own crosses to bear.

  Nor did I find my identity in, with, or even in spite of John Travolta . . . bearing in mind the enormity of the miracle (think, here, water into wine; loaves and fishes; being cast as female lead, etc.) that would have to occur for a gefilte to discover her Jewishness (or, let’s be honest, any realistic self) with a Hollywood Scientologist. If this isn’t looking for miracles in all the wrong places, what is, I ask you? Can you say I’ve been barking up the wrong tree? Except for the fact that a gefilte is hardly a dogfish—let alone one that barks—and we’ve got enough identities going on here as it is.

  By now the role of one long-lost gefilte has grown so depressing that I have a vision of a breakdown in my future. Are there rehab centers for gefilte fish? Twelve-step programs? My name is Gefilte and I am not a fish. My name is Gefilte and I am not a Jew. Or am I?

  Now, just to be clear, chronologically speaking, I still live in Galveston and haven’t, in “real” time (whatever that is), moved to Georgia as yet or started therapy with Randy. Miles to go . . . journeys, as you well know, rarely proceeding in one straight line or direction. In short, this gefilte swims one league forward, two leagues back.

  And speaking of backward, when you think of it, as much as I wanted to marry Christopher and live as a Christian suburban housewife in our own brick ranch in Glen Rock, let’s analyze this notion for a moment. Can you really imagine this gefilte fish wearing an apron or driving a station wagon full of my wiggling spawn?

  I thought not.

  S.W.S.

  Galveston Island Breakdown

  Some Directions

  The Neon Penises of Galveston, Texas

  Fall in love with a man who drives a blue Chevy convertible.

  You and he—along with his wife and a group of friends—are dancing at the Kon Tiki, a gay bar just off The Strand, across the street from the apartment you share with your husband. You’re here because the Kon Tiki has the best disco music, the best dance floor: clear Lucite underlit with neon penises. They flash on. They flash off. Red, green, blue penises strobe to the beat. “Stayin’ Alive.” Tonight, caught in the melodrama of the moment, you think, The penises strobe in time to the aching beat. Or, better yet, The aching penises strobe in time to the beat. This amuses you. Of course, you’ve been drinking Seven and Sevens all night long, you, in your jivy platform sandals, cutoff jeans, polyester tank top. You’re also celebrating April fourteenth, your birthday, your husband out of town on business.

  Don’t consider that marriage—blue Chevy convertible’s or yours—an impediment to falling in love. Especially here on the Gulf Coast past midnight, just drunk enough to believe he dances like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever, a movie you’ve seen upwards of twelve times. Thirteen times. Since in your present condition nothing is an impediment, slither against blue-convertible man during a slow number. Whisper “let’s fuck” into his ear.

  When these two short words—let’s fuck—slam together, blue-convertible man ditches his wife for you.

  You and he drive thirty-two miles to the west end of Galveston Island—with a bottle of Seagram’s to go. The convertible top is down. Music from KILE blares on the radio. You cross the San Luis Pass bridge, cruising the curve of the Gulf Coast, distant towns lit like radioactive dust. He stops in Matagorda, the Paradise Motel, its neon rendition of paradise consisting of a palm, a seagull, a sun. You have read Paradise Lost (or at least the Cliffs Notes). He’s maybe read Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Or Love Story. Or at least seen the movie. But why can’t paradise be neon palms, seagulls, suns? Why can’t paradise
be the strobe of neon penises? Why can’t it be a motel room with humid sheets?

  In fact, why can’t paradise, why can’t love, be like Sylvester Stallone’s line from Rocky since, right before you fall asleep, blue-convertible man whispers, “I’ve got gaps. You’ve got gaps. Together, we fill each other’s gaps.”

  Don’t dwell on exactly what each other’s gaps are. Tonight, your synapses crackling from the fire of alcohol, you’re sure your gaps are manageable. It’s only later you realize your gaps are gaping.

  When the weekend is over and he returns to his wife, counsel yourself: This love of your life lasted less time than you spent alone in the movie theater watching John Travolta dance.

  Dancing the Quadriplegic Two-Step

  By May, alone, answer an ad in the Galveston Daily News for a furnished apartment. Drive your un-air-conditioned green Volkswagen bug to a Victorian house on Market Street. Paint peels from loosely hinged shutters and galleries. One window pane is repaired with corrugated cardboard. The three-foot brick pier on which the house stands is cracked—many houses having been elevated above sandy swamps after the 1900 hurricane. Ring the doorbell. A disembodied voice, booming over an intercom, intones, “Door’s unlocked.”

  Enter a parlor where a quadriplegic man lies hoisted onto a hospital bed with pulleys, buttons, buzzers situated so he can raise and lower his bed with a flicker of movement. His massive bald head rears from an obese body covered with a sheet, soggy with sweat. In his static stare, not even his lids blink. His protruding eyes x-ray your heart.

  You are too sober to speak. Your first impulse is to stick a fork in your eye before you even see the apartment. Nevertheless, take the second-floor apartment, sight unseen. The rent is cheap. You’re broke, desperate.