“That was my father. He died the next year.” The personage bore no resemblance to Big Bill, less, in fact, than I bore any resemblance to Big Bill.
“Do you remember him?”
“Sometimes, but I’m not sure. Sometimes I think I’m just remembering pictures.”
“I know what you mean,” I said.
“Do you remember this?” said Big Bill, fishing another photo off the pile. “This was at Big Bear Lake, just before your mother died. Ross had a terrible fever. Remember? Your mother ran the twins back to Redlands and they took Ross to the doctor and stayed in a hotel. You and I camped. Don’t you remember? A black bear ran right through our campsite in the middle of the night. He was splashing around in the lake after something. Hey, what about this one?”
A quick glance at the photo in question revealed the story of my life after my mother and before Lulu. There were the matching blue sweat suits, the twins dangling from Big Bill’s biceps, and me standing off to the side.
“Who took this picture?” I said.
“Nobody. Don’t you remember? You set the timer, but you could hardly reach the top of the tripod, so you stood on the coffee table. You thought you didn’t get back in frame for the picture. That’s probably why you’re sulking. Ha! Look at this one!” It was a Polaroid of my mother, very pregnant in a blue bathrobe, shielding her face as though from the paparazzi. “Right before we bought this house, your mother and I lived in a one bedroom on Centinela, by the municipal airport. She was pregnant with you. There was a teenage kid a few doors down. His name was Tony, I think. He was . . . I guess you’d say he was retarded. Downs, maybe. He was a great big kid, and good-natured. Someone bought him an Instamatic camera and he’d knock on your door at six in the morning, and when you answered the door, he’d snap your picture, which of course was always terrible. Then he’d sell you the picture for fifty cents. Sort of like blackmail. Your mother refused to pay it the first half dozen times.”
“Why did you leave San Francisco?” I said.
“It was over. I was done with it. We were starting a family, we had to get out.”
“Why Santa Monica?”
“Because it was home. For me, at least. I’ve spent all but three and a half years of my life here.”
“Think you’ll ever come back? I mean, to live?”
“No, I think it’s over, Will. It could never be the same, it never was the same after your mother died. Different place. Different time.” Big Bill looked at the clock face and his wistfulness wore off instantly. He straightened up and patted the tabletop with both hands. “Well, better get moving on this mess.” And he stood up.
When I left Big Bill that night he was packing and stacking like a madman in the open garage. As I loaded up the Duster, he paused in his duties momentarily at the head of the driveway, under cover of the garage door, bathed in a rectangle of stale light.
“Still running, eh?” he said, indicating the car he’d bought me the summer of my junior year of high school.
“Still running,” I said.
“I’ll be darned.”
“Yep.”
“I wouldn’t take her too far.”
“Me neither,” I lied.
I told him goodbye, and left him to his work.
Among the relics I hauled back to the apartment with me that evening were my old radio, a leaky beanbag, and the cardboard box my fourteen-inch Toshiba black-and-white television came in, the television itself having long since given up the ghost when Doug, during the course of borrowing it, dropped it down the stairs. The box now contained eight and a half unmarked volumes of The Book of Lulu, rubber-banded in stacks of three.
Monument Valley
Descartes was distinct among his peers and predecessors in being the first one to distinguish the mind from the brain as the center of mental activity. This may seem like a no-brainer now, but consider that in 1630 Galileo still hadn’t figured out that the earth moves. They couldn’t even make ice, for godsakes. Barbers were treating gangrene. Frankly, I’m surprised they even knew what a brain was.
But it was the mind, not the brain, Descartes reasoned, that was the res cogitans, the thinking thing. The mind was the essence of self: the doubter and the believer, the hoper, and the dreamer. The brain was just a place to sit. So convinced was Descartes of the noncorporeal properties of the mind that, among his considerable inventory of doubts (indeed, he built a whole methodology on the basis of doubt), he discovered that he could easily doubt whether he really had a body—after all, he might well be imagining his body, dreaming it, hallucinating it—and yet he could not doubt for a single instant whether he had a mind. The mind was inescapable. Ponder that one too long over some doobage, and I guarantee you’ll start feeling a little cagey. I did.
It could be that Descartes never really overcame his doubt of the body being a distinct substance, because even his mustache looked a little dubious to me. At any rate, he stuck to the dualism model, staking his very reputation on it. Mind and body—two ontologically distinct substances, one of them immaterial. Where things got sticky was the causal interaction between the two. How can an immaterial mind cause anything in a material body? Beats the hell out of me. Descartes never had an answer, either. Poor guy.
Maybe what I like best about Descartes is that in Franz Hals’s famous portrait, he looks like one of the villains from Scooby Doo. Something about the black robe and tousled hair—as though he’d just been unmasked in the linen closet. You can almost see Velma, just out of frame. Her glasses are fogged up. Fred, Daphne, the whole gang’s there.
And there’s old Descartes—with his doubting mustache and tousled hair—unmasked, exposed.
“And if it weren’t for you meddling Newtonians,” Descartes seems to be saying, “I would’ve got away with it.”
Sounds like you’ve gleaned a basic understanding of the mind/body distinction, Will, although I think this one bears further investigation on your part. Also, I must say that I’m a little dubious about the Scooby Doo reenactment. Not sure Descartes would’ve approved of this type of grandstanding. You should really watch your reefer intake.
—G.S
Res Cogitans Rehashed Zoroastrian
Near the end of February, I found myself browsing in the adult bookstore around the corner when I spotted Mr. Pitts in the used aisle. He didn’t see me—or at least if he did, he didn’t let on. He was a little scruffy, still wearing a flannel dress shirt, still wearing those desert boots. His ice cream hair had melted, and his bald patch was visible. He had a bag of donuts by his feet.
Had I spotted just about anybody else, I would have ducked out before he made me, but somehow it wasn’t that big of a deal running into Mr. Pitts. After all, I’d already laid my heart bare for the guy at least ten times over the course of a half-million lunch-hour Cheetos junior year. What did I care if he read Barely Legal ?
“Hey, Mr. Pitts.”
He recognized me instantly, and didn’t look embarrassed. In fact, he hardly looked up from his magazine.
“How goes it, Miller?”
I thought he smelled a little like gin. But it could’ve been his aftershave.
“Good, Mr. Pitts, real good.”
“Call me Larry. Christ, even Harry, I don’t care. Anything but Mr. Pitts.”
“So are you still a counselor at Santa Monica, or what?”
“Yep, still at it, for better or worse. A thankless racket, but it pays the bills.” He tapped his Barely Legal. “And of course it keeps me in a good supply of smut. What’s your poison, Miller? Let me guess, older women?”
Old Pitts hadn’t lost a step. “How’d you know?”
“Just a hunch. Twenty years ago, that was my thing, too. Funny how that works. And I’ll bet you like big natural gazongas, too, with a little bit of hang time.” He demonstrated as per size and hang time. “Am I right, Miller?”
“You’re good, Mr. Pitts. Maybe not that big, though.”
“Larry, call me Larry. Let me ask you something, Miller. You ever get over that girl?”
“No.”
“Good for you.”
“I never got her back. How is that good?”
“Maybe you never got her back, Miller, but you had her once. And if you had her once, you can have her always. Even if it does drive you bonkers. Nothing wrong with a healthy obsession, Miller. Madness is always worth it. Trust me.”
I must say, I was a bit surprised. I’d never pegged Pitts for an agent of chaos. But looking at him now, with his melted ice cream hair and his issue of Barely Legal, I wasn’t sure what to think. There was a glimmer in his eye that I didn’t recognize from our former noontime association in his cramped office. I wasn’t sure I trusted his logic. I was even less sure just what course of action he was recommending I take, indeed, if he was recommending I take one at all. I guess I just wasn’t quite sure about Mr. Pitts in general, anymore, but I still liked him.
He put his issue of Barely Legal back on the rack and started leafing through another. “I know a thing or two about wanting, Miller. Do you know where she lives? Have you kept in touch with her? Or is she just a little hole in your heart, forever sixteen, that kind of thing? Which is it?”
“We keep in touch a little. She lives in Seattle.”
“Any restraining orders?”
“Oh, no, nothing like that.”
“Well, you’ve got that going for you. I was married once, Miller. Very much in love.”
“I didn’t know.”
“She died in a roller coaster accident in Orlando. Eight years ago. Struck by lightning.”
I thought he was joking.
“On our anniversary,” he said.
He had to be joking.
“The universe is a perverse place, Miller.”
“You’re serious?”
“As a heart attack.”
“Geez, Mr. Pitts, I’m sorry. Nobody ever told me.”
“Shit happens,” he said. “Nobody knew. We were living in Chevy Chase then. I moved out west a year and a half after it happened. I never told a soul here, not even my colleagues know. So keep that one under your hat, eh Miller? That gets out and I’m forever stamped as the guy whose wife got struck by lightning on a roller coaster on their fifth anniversary. And I’m not sure I could handle that.”
Poor Pitts. How do you even attempt to order the universe in the wake of such a thing? And on top of all that, how do you keep it a secret?
“My mom died when I was little,” I told him. “Cancer.”
“I know. It was in your file.”
“So, then, if you knew, how come we never talked about it?”
He shrugged, and turned the page. “You never brought it up.”
“I guess I didn’t know any better.”
“Apparently I didn’t either. Sorry, kid.”
“No big deal.”
“I figure everybody has a few secrets,” he said.
“Yeah, I guess so.”
“Say, Miller, you ever get yourself into anything like this?” He tilted his magazine to reveal the visage of a young, doe-eyed brunette woman in a prom queen tiara performing fellatio on a hairy fat guy.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Me neither.”
That was the last time I saw Pitts. I kept an eye out for him whenever I went to the bookstore, but he never resurfaced. I should have got a phone number. I should’ve dropped by the high school and paid him a visit. Maybe I could have comforted the guy, as he once comforted me. I guess I’ll just add that to my list of should haves.
Years later, I heard Pitts offed himself with a rifle one morning in his apartment. Poor guy. Maybe his secret finally caught up with him.
Cartesian Dualism: A Short Overview
By Will Miller
March 6, 1991
Dear Will,
I feel better since I gave up being a flighty soul-searcher and gave in to life. The highs are not as high, but the lows aren’t as low, and I think that’s a healthy trade-off for me. I don’t really miss flying high. Being a bird isn’t all sunshine and shitting from high places.
I work at a florist now after school and weekends. I like the flowers. They’re beautiful. They don’t have to mean anything. I wrote a story in English Comp about a girl who works at a florist, and she’s very lonely, and all day long she takes FTD orders from boyfriends to their girlfriends, and sells flowers to husbands, and talks to women about bridal bouquets, and at night she goes home and eats chicken pot pies and watches the news, and practically cries herself to sleep wishing she had somebody to watch the news and eat chicken pot pies with, and fall asleep with. She can’t even have a dog in her apartment. The story wasn’t about me, though. Because in the story, a lonely guy starts bringing her flowers picked from his own garden, which he arranges himself, and the girl and the guy fall in love, and they live happily ever after. If the story were about me, the girl wouldn’t accept the flowers, or she’d throw them away. Anyway, I got an A for the happy ending.
I haven’t seen Dan, and I hardly ever go to the Saloon anymore, or the Frontier Room or the Vogue, and never the Comet, because Dan still hangs out there sometimes. That whole scene is done with, anyway. It’s all hype now. A lot of the kids are just bored rich kids and European tourist kids looking for the heart of “the Seattle scene,” hoping to catch a glimpse of Mark Arm or Chris Cornell, hoping to touch the hem of Kurt Cobain’s flannel shirt. The rest of them are just drinking beer.
I hardly drink anymore. I stopped drinking coffee. It makes me restless. I drink this herbal tea that smells like poop, I forget what it’s called. It looks like homegrown pot. I buy it in big bags at Tenzing Momo. It has a calming effect.
Mom said something about you working at a radio station? Is that true? Why didn’t you tell me that? Why are you always so modest? What are you doing there? Are you a DJ or something? I hope! I hope someday you have your own show where all you do is talk. Or I hope you call the Dodgers games like Vin Scully, like you did when we were kids. Whatever you do, I know it will be special, it will be good. I hope you get everything you ever wanted.
So does this mean you quit Fatburger again? If so, good for you. If not, oh well. A job’s a job, right? Did Troy decide where he’s going to transfer? Am I asking too many questions? It’s just that I DO miss you, and your sad funny insights, which makes it even harder to tell you what I have to tell you:
I don’t think it’s a good idea that you visit me spring break, for a number of reasons. And hear me out, before you get mad. For one, I’ll be extremely busy with work, also I’m starting an internship around then, so I wouldn’t get to see you hardly, anyway. And the biggest reason is, even though my life is starting to have the appearance of a normal life, I’m still not on terra firma. I’m not sure I could handle all the feelings your visit would stir up. And when I say I’m not sure, I’m even less sure what the consequences of not being able to handle it might be. So, let’s plan something for summer. I’ll come down. Or better yet, we can meet in San Francisco.
Love,
Lulu
P.S. It’s called valerian tea.
The Pitts
It was drizzling, and my duffel bag was heavy, and I was tired, and full of bad coffee, and my eyes were playing tricks on me, and my ass was asleep, and the daisies I’d bought twenty-two hours earlier were already wilting by the time I reached Lulu’s doorstep. But nothing could deter my giddiness as I anticipated the sight of her.
She answered the door in baggy pants and a gray T-shirt. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her crazy hair was tamed into an uneven bun atop her head. Her heart was not singing, that much was clear, and she wasn’t even smiling; in fact, she was frowning, but she was still more beautiful than Helen of Troy.
>
“Oh, William, William, William, why ? How could you just show up like this? How could you not tell me? You promised.”
“Great to see you, too,” I said. “Here, I brought you these.”
I handed her the daisies, and stepped around her into the apartment. I hadn’t even set my bag down when I heard the toilet flush down the hall. A moment later, Troy emerged. All the spring went out of his step the instant he saw me.
“Oh, hey,” he said.
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t need to. So, here we were, the familiar crowd of three. Someone had some explaining to do. Troy must have been thinking the same thing.
“I’m maybe transferring here for fall,” he explained. “I just came to—”
“I invited him,” said Lulu.
“I thought you were busy.”
She was still frowning. “I am,” she said.
Disoriented, and stupid with surprise, all I could do was look at them for a moment. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” I demanded of Troy.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” was his reply.
“Well, one of you ought to have told me,” said Lulu. “Somebody ought to have.”
“I wanted to surprise you,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, you’ve done that,” she said. Then she looked at me, disheveled, miserable, and a little wet, still clutching my duffel bag, which was getting heavy. She softened. “Here,” she said, taking the bag. “Sit down. And don’t be sorry, I’m sorry, that was awful of me, I’m awful. You came all this way, and all I can do to welcome you is—I’m sorry. Make yourself cozy.”
As Lulu turned her back to me, setting my bag in a corner, I gave Troy the stink eye. He looked a little hurt and confused, but mostly guilty.
Lulu’s apartment was sparse. There was very little to define the space: a pair of straw mats, a paper lantern, some white walls. The wood floors were warped, gouged, and painted gray. Her old yellow footlocker was draped with a black silk scarf and served as a coffee table. Beyond that, the lone piece of furniture was a queen-size futon, an amorphous blob with a gray slipcover, coaxed and cajoled onto a wooden frame, where it perpetrated a sofa, upon which Troy and I presently sat, shoulder to shoulder. There were two plants, one on either side of the Blob; they could not have been farther from the window nor could their placement have made them any less accessible to the eye from our vantage. As for Lulu’s bedroom, I could not see into its darkness through the partially opened door.
All About Lulu Page 19