And romance. You know it, Jimmy, even you got your Irish tongue around voolay-voo kooshay ahvec mwa, you know that one, eh? Bet you’ve used that one a few times — not in court, I’m sure, but extra-curricular. Am I right or wrong?
No, I never was in France, Korea was my war. You too, huh? Still writing wills and filing incorporations? Small claims and traffic stuff? Well, someone’s gotta deal with that stuff.
Oh, let me see, I was last in Mexico in … remember my ’57 T-bird? Turquoise, with the porthole windows? I used to store the top in the summer. Took me three months to drive down to Acapulco. Saw all the relatives. They thought I walked on water, still had donkeys and sticks in those days. Offered me their daughters. At that time, I liked every girl, let me tell ya. I had Norwegians, Germans, Greeks, even Italians. I never left any out, loved all my honeys, but I never did many Mexicans. I was too scared of the fathers.
Be still my heart, if it isn’t the lovely Tula! Where have you been all my life, my darlin’?
No sense of humour, eh?
What’re you having, Jimmy? Just coffee and a cruller? Hey, it’s almost lunchtime.
Okay, Tula. Spinach omelette. No toast, no hash browns.
I found my own gene therapy, Jimmy: no carbs. Now I’m aware, it’s so easy. I want to go out with my boots on, with feet, you see. So half of me is gone. I have a closet full of forty-fours and I’m down to thirty-four.
Women these days, even French doesn’t work on them. Wish I knew what does work — when you’re aware, everything is so easy.
Let me tell you about romancing women. I’d pull up outside Mercy High School in my ’36 Ford with that rumble seat, you seen it? I glued the leopard skin to the dashboard myself. Skirts way down in those days, Jimmy. Way down, I swear, nearly to the ankle, and if I saw a kneecap I was so excited. They kept them pretty well covered in the forties, you know, Jimmy. Ah, you’re too young, you only remember the fifties. Remember when the microminis came in in the sixties? Oh my god, I nearly died. And Elvis, how they wouldn’t show him from the waist down? Those Evangelicals were saying that was terrible, but they can’t put the genie back in the bottle now. I was ahead of the curve in the forties — now my kids call me old-fashioned. Now their friends look at me and say, I think my grandma went to your hair salon. And if you give them any advice about love — no one makes love like they do today, you know. No one can make love like these kids today. Oh my god, I’m old-fashioned now, but you know the kind of hairpin I am.
Thank you, my love. This omelette looks divine.
Grab me a napkin, there, would you, Jimmy? That woman is half in love with me, I swear.
Yeah, sure I was married. Twice. Once in Anchorage in ’54 — the ratio there was five hundred to one, so marriage was the only way to find some warm loving. Second time — maybe you met Nance? You should have. What a woman.
Ah, it’s a long story I should only tell to someone with an Emilio Zapata statue on the dashboard. Or Pancho Villa. They got along, you know, they had their own special interests like everyone else, but they got along.
All my friends were getting married, Jimmy — even you. Admit it. What year was it you got married to Arlene? I must have done it the year after, so 1965. I had to. Nance said marriage or the highway, and there comes a time when it’s hard to resist a good housekeeper, you know? I said to her, You white women are all alike, but really, the ones coming out of college these days, hell, they’re getting so many opinions a man doesn’t know what’s coming next. So I went and did it. Yes, I did.
I’m not going to say another word about my marriage, Jimmy. Just this. Nance was a fine wife, no doubt about that. I had so many honeys while she raised four kids. If I came home drunk, that woman would just let me sleep in the car, no matter what the weather. One night I was going home and I pulled over to take a nap. A flashlight shone through the window, I explained to the cop that I hadn’t wanted to get sleepy driving. Ten feet from the curb? said the cop. He took me down to the station and called Nance. Nance said, Keep him — what’m I going to do with him? I’ll pick him up in the morning. That’s the way she was, see, a practical woman. So the cop came back and I’d been sitting there talking for an hour — to a fireman’s coat and hat hanging on the wall. When I got home I told her, “Ay, you white women are all alike,” and I tried to give her a kiss. She said, Keep your hands off the merchandise.
But I did that too many times, wore her out, you know. Now I’m on Nance’s Ten Most Not-Wanted list, but she’s got good reason. Takes years to wear out some women, and that Nance of mine stuck it out longer than most. You want to know why? Take one guess — don’t bother, I’ll tell you anyways. It’s cause I’m more interesting than any of the young guys you see around these days. Oh, they’ll be faithful and they’ll be good providers to dull-witted women like Tula, but I ask you, do they have charm? Are they interesting? Can they make conversation with anything but their computers? Nah, Jimmy, you and I got it made in the conversation department. That’s what I used to tell Nance, any time we fought. And she’d tell me I was way too good with words.
Conversation. For years I made my living by conversation. Like you, but not as serious — you were always so serious I used to say your middle name was Silence.
The Shampoo Shrink, that’s what they called me. And they’d come saying, Oh, my wife just left me, or, I lost my job. And I’d sit ’em in my barber chair, and I’d pump the thing up till they were way off the ground, and then I’d tell ’em what I thought they should do and bring ’em back to earth again, cause that’s really what they needed more than my haircuts. Oh, Jimmy, I got so many friends that way — guys and all my honeys too.
And do you know, that was the problem, I couldn’t charge them! Over the years I collected so many friends I wasn’t charging nearly anyone. Then Nance started checking the books to see if my honeys paid, and she said, Hey, stop with the talking and the flirty thing, just do their shampoos and styles. She was right, I couldn’t pay the rent anymore with the number of paying customers I had left, so the salon went to pay its debts and I went personal.
Personal was good. I made house calls to rich guys, so they wouldn’t be seen in public with curlers and bibs on, you know. CEOs, them guys who get golden parachutes and retirement plans even when their companies lose billions of dollars. Senators, doctors. Gave them some of my advice and got some. Rich men love telling how they got rich and how they go about keeping it, which is much harder, you know, Jimmy, a lot harder. Nance said I should have listened more and talked less, but you only go around once, and she was just mad because after thirty years of her work and some of mine, we didn’t have nothing to show.
Yeah, sometimes I’d get loaded and say mean things. A silver tongue like mine usually comes with a black lining. Got so loaded one night, I fell asleep before I remembered to say the I-love-you’s. Next morning there was a note on the door from a lawyer and I had all the space in the world for my clothes in our closet.
No, no more coffee. Slow down, boy, slow down. Got your Nikes moving like you’re going to run in the Olympics. Don’t crash the dishes, dammit, you’re giving every Mexican a bad name. No one’s going to call Homeland Security to catch you here.
Well, Jimmy these days I hang around, talk to young white guys like you. Black guys, gals — I’m not particular. Yesterday they said on the TV that if you’re going to stand at a bus stop, stand with your back to the wall. Now, do I look like a pantywaist who’d stand like that? I said, I’m from Mexico, I don’t need to be worried about my black brothers, the ones who gotta be afraid are people like you Jimmy, look at you, white as white gets, even your eyebrows.
Course, my eyebrows are white too now.
Speaking of TV, am I tired of car chases and shoot-em-ups. Oh, listen to their great dialogue, A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. What do you think they mean by that? I mean, I’d like to ask Arnold that, say Hey, Schwarzi-negger, what did you mean? He doesn’t know — I swear he paid for acting sc
hool just to get himself a wooden face. Forget TV, we gotta get out like this more, talk to people. And women.
I tried some bars, but romance is pretty confusing these days, Jimmy. Remember when gay meant happy? How ’bout Gaelic? That must be rough on you, Jimmy, you can’t even say Gaelic any more, not that you might, seeing as you don’t speak it, but I mean you should be able to say gay-lick, you know? Last month I went to some bar where they had all tall girls, and I tried to make out all night, and when I was leaving this one with big eyelashes says to her girlfriend, Forget him, the bitch is straight. Turns out her name was Rodney.
Now I’m at this restaurant that wants to be fine dining. New York style in the Midwest, and at New York prices — it’s a lotta hooey! I wear a boutonniere and usher ladies to their tables while the young men tip the valet parkers. If you ever see my Nance, tell her I wear white gloves and pour the best champagne. Tell her I still have a few clients, but there’s no one I call honey.
Oh yeah, you’ve never met her. But if you do, you can’t miss her, she’s still a looker.
Anyways, since Nance left me I’ve got time. A lot of time. So I’ve been writing — started about a year ago, going down to the lakeshore with my spiral notebook and dictionary. You know you just take a word, add it to another, and you never know where you end up.
Here’s my new card. See the cupid? I make some bucks from young guys. They’re like you always were, Jimmy — got no vo-cab-yoo-lary of romance. Here’s a for instance: Last week, I was down at the beach and I finished a poem for next Valentine’s Day — sure it’s half a year away, but I keep in practice. I called it “Rendezvous,” that’s French for meeting someone you love again. I must’ve been missing Nance that day — my eyes were smarting. I get that way sometimes, whenever I get wondering if she ever thinks of me.
There was a young lifeguard sitting up on his high chair in his county uniform. Red shorts and all the sunscreen we never knew to wear at his age. I said, Here, give this to your honey. You got a honey? He said yes. I told him, Remember this: she’s gotta believe in romance, she’s gotta believe romance is everything, because the first minute your honey stops believing that, you’ve lost her.
Don’t you wish someone had given us that kind of advice? You know, when we were his age? Maybe someone told you a secret no one told me — that’s how come you’ve still got Arlene.
The lifeguard wasn’t Mexican, but I could tell he was a good sorta guy, you know, like I was at his age. But he didn’t understand what I was getting at. Probably won’t for another twenty years. I gave him the poem anyways, and I said, No charge, because I really mean it.
No, no, no more coffee, amigo.
Tula, I love you too, my darling.
Thanks for picking up the tab, Jimmy. See you around in another twenty or thirty years. Give sweet Arlene a kiss on her lips, say it’s from me. Tell her she’s got to believe in romance. Got to believe in love. Stay off the carbs, now — it’s real easy, once you’re aware.
Won’t do you no good, though. You can bet your Irish ass, this Mexican’s going to be around a whole lot longer than you. And when I’m done, I got me a spot picked out under a willow in Lake Park where the girls go jogging — not too many Mexicans got their ashes spilled around Lake Park, you know. They don’t like Mexicans around there.
But just think of it, I’ll be laying there, looking up skirts, laughing.
Hey there, Jimmy!
Sure, I’ll sit down a minute. I’m on my break. I got a whole fifteen minutes.
I was avoiding your eye, Jimmy, cause of Enrico talking to you. He a friend of yours?
Okay, I’ll tell you something I won’t tell many others. I don’t like him. Leaves me his dirty poems as tips, makes me mad with his guy jokes. Comes in here crying about how his Nance left him, but he’s still got no respect for women. Makes a big mess and calls me over like I’m going to clean up instead of Carlos.
But you’re not like him. I told my ma about that time when you took me for a ride on your Harley last summer and we went over the Hoan Bridge clocking ninety. I said, That man’s got some pep in him yet, he’s not just some boring two-bit attorney.
Yeah, well, ma said, Don’t get no ideas, Tula. That guy’s married. I said, I ain’t getting any ideas — we’re friends. Aren’t we? Besides, you’re way too old for me. Safe as condoms, ha, ha!
And you don’t laugh when I say I’ve got dreams. That Enrico, he don’t think anyone’s got dreams except himself. Keeps telling me I should cut my hair this way or that. Says he’d like to cut it for me. Offered to come to my home — said he was a personal hairdresser. He just wants to get in my pants. He’s got balls, I’ll give him that. A few years ago, all kinds of guys wanted to get in my pants, but a woman gets burned a few times, well, she gets ovaries.
Which reminds me, did you try the eggs Benedict today? No? I made the sauce, and it came out real smooth. It’s not much, I know. But it’s something.
My dreams are fantastic, Jimmy. And none of them are about you.
But I’ll tell you, they ain’t always going to be dreams. No way. I’m going to be a sculptor. How about that? Tula, walking in the footsteps of Myron and Polyclitus. And you know why I’m going to be like them, Jimmy? It’s because I can see people from the inside and outside at the same time. That’s thinking like a sculptor, right?
I borrowed this book out of the library, real thick, with glossy pictures, all about famous statues. Do you know what they thought was beauty in classical sculpture? They said it’s when each part depends on the other to create harmony.
And that’s how they came up with the idea of democracy.
No shit, I read it. Didn’t they teach you that in law school? You want democracy, you gotta go back to greasy old Greece before galactabourikos and spanakopita. Maybe even before the Olympics.
But the Greeks got it wrong, too, they ignored the slaves and the women — everyone who had to run things and clean up after them. It wasn’t beautiful, because it was out of balance, see?
But what can you expect from a bunch of old men?
Anyway, I wasn’t interested in all the Caesars and Italian guys. I wanted to look at the statues of women — you know, like Liberty. Wanted to know where she came from. You heard of a place called Colmar, in France — you ever been there in your travels? Well, one of these days, I’m going there. Because that’s where she was made. That’s where Bertoldi had his workshop. Yep. He made her in France and shipped her all the way here. And you know what else? She’s got two things, one in each hand. I bet you know one, but tell me the other.
Gotcha — you can’t think what it is, right?
Okay, I’ll tell you. It’s called a tablet. Not the pill kind of tablet. A tablet like a slate or a plaque. Liberty is holding it like a book. And you know what’s written on it? Think, try to see it.
No, it’s not the Ten Commandments.
I’ll tell you. It says July 4, 1776, in Roman numerals. Now what do you suppose the sculptor meant by that? D’you suppose he meant anything by that? Or do you think it’s there cause that arm had to be there and he had to do something with it? What do you think?
I guess they didn’t teach you symbolism in law school. Well, now that I read this book, I know all about symbolism. That tablet is about living under the rule of law. Awesome, that some Frenchie could think of that but nobody these days knows that, not that crowd in Washington, Bush and Cheney and that slimeball Karl Rove. They don’t think laws apply to them, only to people like me. It’s depressing, some days.
Yeah? A big attorney like you? What d’you have to be depressed about? So you’re not as good-looking as you used to be, but you ain’t worried about where your next meal is coming from.
Don’t give me no sob story about how your wife don’t understand you. Arlene — right? — she still at the VA hospital? Physical therapy for Gulf War Syndrome and Iraq amputees, well, someone’s got to do it. I don’t hear much about those vets. Every time I look up at that
TV in the corner — between tables, of course — I see some guy who says he murdered that little girl JonBenét Ramsey and someone else singing on American Idol.
Hey, didn’t Arlene make you buy that old twelve-apartment building on 17th Street? Yeah, you told me you renovated every apartment, just the two of you. Seems to me your Arlene has more sense in her pinky than a lot of men.
I got a friend who has business sense like that, she makes wedding cakes, says I should come help her. Says sculptors were just making cake molds, using plaster and metal in place of cake batter. And they probably learned it from watching their wives make cakes. Did they have cakes when Myron was around, Jimmy? Maybe you can look it up on the internet and tell me.
Well, what’s it for then, if it doesn’t have that kind of info?
To find me? I’ll be damned. Who’d want to find me? Oh, when I get to be a famous sculptor.
Well, I don’t have no bank account, so I wouldn’t use it to check my money. I don’t have no stocks or bonds, so I wouldn’t need it for that. Air tickets? What’s the use of me checking air ticket prices? You gotta have money to fly, buddy!
I could check it to get a different job. I could check the paper for that. Oh, in a different city. Yeah. But I have to be close to my gran’s. I stop in and check on her every day, before and after work, do her laundry. If I got a job far away, who’d do that for her? She only speaks Greek, you see, so my mom and I are the ones who talk for her.
Course, if I go to school, I’ll need a second job so I can pay the tuition. Maybe I’ll go decorate cakes after all. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be something.
I could find a student loan on the net, huh? That how you got to be a lawyer — with student loans? How many years did you spend paying them off? Oh, we don’t get nothing like the GI Bill these days, and I’m shit-scared of debt, buddy. Know how much your credit cards are costing you? Student loan would damn near be like that. That’s what you learn when you’re the daughter of Greek immigrants. My folks didn’t raise no dummy. Pythagorus didn’t have no debt, did he? Euclid didn’t have no debt. That’s because they had slaves. Didn’t have to work themselves, didn’t have to pay no minimum wage — that’s how they got to be philosophers. The internet can tell you that.
We Are Not in Pakistan Page 7