by Bryan Hurt
A cloud moved away from the sun and a yellow sunbeam shined on a nearby tree.
“Look at that tree,” said Kara.
She pointed to the tall, luminous pine.
“There’s so much meaning in that tree.”
2
The next day Kara was sick with dysentery.
Brandon visited her at the hospital.
He gave her a bouquet of flowers and asked how it was going.
“I have dysentery,” said Kara, “because microorganisms have invaded my intestines via my stomach.”
“Montezuma’s Revenge,” said Charles.
“The lesson,” said Charles, “is never to drink from a limpid mountain stream.”
Great, thought Brandon, Charles is here.
3
A few weeks later Brandon met Kara and Charles for dinner at a macrobiotic restaurant on La Brea.
They sat at a small round table and looked at their menus.
“I love macrobiotic food,” said Kara.
Charles said, “Macrobiotic food is my favorite.”
Brandon didn’t know about macrobiotic food.
He looked at his menu.
What’s seitan? he thought.
“I’m thinking of ordering the tempeh with miso-cured tofu cheese,” said Kara.
“On ciabatta?” said Charles. “Ciabatta is a gluten,” Charles said.
Charles was a personal trainer.
Not so long ago he moved to Los Angeles from Orange County to expand his client base. This is how he met Kara.
First she was his client.
Then his girlfriend.
Soon they’d be moving in together.
“But I’ve lost five pounds,” said Kara.
“Because of the dysentery,” she said.
“In fluids,” said Charles.
Charles said, “Fluids don’t count.”
Kara pulled her hair away from her neck. Her neck was slender and featured an array of beauty marks.
“Then I’ll get the seitan wrap,” she said.
Charles ordered the chopped salad.
When it was Brandon’s turn he couldn’t decide.
In a panic he ordered the tuna roll.
But I hate sushi, he thought when the meals came out.
Charles said something about politics.
“I dislike the president,” he said.
“Garfield was my favorite president,” said Brandon.
“James A. Garfield?” said Kara. “President from March to September of 1881?”
“From Ohio?” she said.
“That’s the one,” said Brandon. He said, “I think he would have proven to be an effective leader if he’d been given the chance.”
Charles put his hand on Kara’s knee.
“That’s funny,” said Charles. “Garfield’s killer, Charles Guiteau, is my favorite presidential assassin, and it’s not just because we share a name.”
He said, “Did you know that Guiteau killed the president because he was sexually frustrated?”
“How awful,” said Kara.
Brandon poked his tuna roll.
“Don’t you agree, Brandon?” said Charles.
“Agree?”
“That sexual frustration is awful.”
“I thought Guiteau killed Garfield because he wanted to be ambassador to France,” said Brandon.
“Please,” said Charles.
He said, “Everyone wants to be ambassador to France.”
4
The next day Brandon woke up to the bright morning sun shining through his bedroom window.
He walked to his couch and napped until lunch.
After lunch Brandon looked for jobs on the Internet.
He read, Financial Analyst, Portfolio Associate, Dental Receptionist, Detention Services Officer, Helicopter Repair.
Just like the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that, and the day before that, there were no listings for Ethnomusicologist.
Ethnomusicology is all I am passionate about, thought Brandon.
Brandon had recently finished his PhD in Ethnomusicology. Often he wondered why it seemed like no one besides himself realized how important it was to study music in conjunction with certain ethnographic and social phenomena.
He thought about all his Ethnomusicologist heroes.
Why would the world not want more Ethnomusicologists?
Soon he found himself looking at pornography.
To cheer himself up he went to the movies.
There were explosions.
Romance.
When he walked out of the theater he felt even more depressed.
Film could have been a viable artistic medium, he thought, but had shed all its loftier aspirations for pure financial gain.
I was entertained, he thought, but I wasn’t moved.
5
Brandon went to Kara and Charles’s housewarming.
Local business entrepreneurs and minor celebrities loitered in the living room and on the patio.
Since when, thought Brandon, did Kara befriend so many minor celebrities?
“Charles just opened his own athletic club,” said Kara.
“We’re considering a franchise,” she said.
They had just moved into a new apartment in Silver Lake.
To celebrate they bought a Pekingese and named it Chu Chu.
Miranda July lived a floor above.
The apartment was decorated with modern furniture. Brandon wandered over to a sleek-looking bookshelf and looked at the bright and varicolored books.
Above the bookshelf was a painting.
Yellow, orange, a slash of red.
“Rothko,” said Kara.
“It’s just a print,” she said.
Miranda July stood alone at the drinks table.
She looked disinterestedly into her cup.
“That’s Miranda July,” said Kara.
“I liked her movies,” said Brandon, “and her books.”
“Thank you,” said Miranda July.
“They all occurred to me naturally,” she said, “as when a plant springs from the soil or when an animal gives birth to a litter of baby animals.”
Charles walked through the living room with a platter of cocktail shrimp.
Chu Chu trailed behind.
“Oh no!” said Kara. She said that Charles wasn’t supposed to serve the shrimp until after the crudités.
She chased Charles and Chu Chu back into the kitchen.
Miranda July asked Brandon what he did for a living.
“Ethnomusicologist,” he said.
“Unemployed,” he said.
“Of course,” said Miranda July.
She told Brandon that all worthwhile professions were practically unemployable. Then she told him about an uncle who was an analytic philosopher. He lived in squalor until he died.
“Pneumonia,” she said.
“It was probably very treatable,” she said.
A hired pianist began playing Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.
Brandon told Miranda July that the piece had been a favorite of his favorite Ethnomusicologist, the great Carl Stumpf.
Miranda July nodded.
“Music is the world-language of feeling,” she said.
6
Later that week the phone rang.
It was Miranda July.
“Of course,” said Brandon.
“I love lunch,” he said.
He stood in front of his closet and looked at his clothing. He thought about calling Kara then remembered that she and Charles had gone to Puerto Vallarta for the long weekend.
What does one wear? he thought.
Eventually he chose a dark shirt and thought about Miranda July.
Sexually.
7
“Hello, Miranda July,” said Brandon.
“Hello, Brandon,” said Miranda July.
Miranda July had chosen an outdoor table at the café and looked especially pale and elegant be
neath the bright and cloudless sky.
Brandon said something about the weather.
“Seventy degrees and sunny,” said Miranda July.
“It was overcast this morning,” said Brandon.
“The marine layer,” said Miranda July.
Miranda July wore a black scarf which she took off and folded in her lap.
Brandon twisted his napkin.
Miranda July checked her phone.
She sent a text message.
A white van pulled to the curb and several paparazzi jumped out.
“Look!” said one. “Miranda July is eating lunch!”
They began assaulting Miranda July with bewildering flashes.
“With whom is Miranda July eating lunch?” said another.
The cameras flashed on Brandon.
“Look at the shabbiness of his clothing,” said a paparazzo. “The collar of his shirt is fraying. His jeans are ill-fitting. His shoes are nearly worn to the sole.”
“He must be a blossoming actor,” said another.
“A struggling artist.”
“An independent musician.”
When their lunch came out, Miranda July squeezed ketchup onto her French fries. “These French fries are horrible,” she said.
“Taste them,” she said. “They’re limp and tasteless.”
Brandon thought the fries tasted okay but told Miranda July that she should send them back if she disliked them.
“One must not settle,” he said.
“I disagree,” said Miranda July.
She squirted more ketchup on the fries and continued eating.
She said, “An inability to settle can be the source of great unhappiness.”
8
“Puerto Vallarta is amazing,” said Kara.
As she walked, her hair clacked in tight, beaded braids.
“There are breathtaking sunsets and jungle-covered mountains,” she said.
Kara and Brandon were walking Chu Chu to the dog park near her new apartment.
Her new engagement ring burst in the sun.
Brandon told her that he’d had lunch with Miranda July.
“How’d it go?” asked Kara.
“She paid,” he said.
Kara scooped Chu Chu’s poop into a plastic bag.
Back at his apartment, Brandon watched a news report about gray whales. The gray whales were dead and kept washing up on a nearby beach.
Their smell menaced the surrounding beach communities.
The TV showed pictures of volunteers rolling the whales back to sea.
The news reporter explained that each time the volunteers rolled the whales out to sea they were washed up again somewhere else along the coast.
She interviewed a volunteer.
“This time,” said the volunteer, “we’re going to roll the whales out to sea and attach them to boats via meat hooks. The boats will drag the whales even further out into the ocean. With luck, they’ll be eaten by sharks and other sea animals.”
They stood on a beach where the whale corpses moldered in the background.
The reporter blinked into the camera. Her nose and mouth were hidden behind a carbon mask but her eyes were brown.
Kara has brown eyes, Brandon observed.
He remembered the last time he and Kara had gone to the beach.
Brandon had rubbed suntan lotion onto Kara’s shoulders.
Kara had rubbed suntan lotion onto his.
But now, he thought. Now Charles will be the only one to rub suntan lotion onto Kara’s shoulders.
9
Brandon, Kara, Charles, and Miranda July all went to the horse racing track in Hollywood.
They sat in the box seats.
Chu Chu sat in Kara’s lap.
“Horse racing is the sport of kings,” said Charles. He flagged down a waiter and ordered more ice for their juleps.
“But it’s dangerous,” he said.
“Per one hundred thousand participants,” said Kara, “it has the highest number of deaths.”
“A blood sport,” said Charles.
Miranda July sat next to Brandon. Her hands were folded in her lap.
There are Miranda July’s hands, thought Brandon. I would offer to hold them but I don’t know her intentions.
He pondered the artist’s inscrutable self.
Charles talked about his athletic club.
“I’ve just hired an assistant,” he said. “His name is Javier and he has long golden hair and the most perfect biceps I’ve ever seen.”
The gates opened and the horses charged out.
“Which one did you bet on?” asked Kara.
“Blaze of Enchantment,” said Miranda July. “He’s currently running neck-and-neck with Apache Sunrise.”
“Apache Sunrise is a shoo-in,” said Charles.
He said, “He was sired by Sierra’s Sweet Rain.”
The horses rounded the far corner and thundered toward the grandstand.
As they came nearer, Chu Chu leaped from Kara’s lap.
He bounded onto the track and was trampled by the thoroughbreds.
“Chu Chu!” said Kara.
“Blaze of Enchantment!”
“Apache Sunrise!”
The lead horses collapsed in a pile on top of the Pekingese.
Enraged, the other spectators began pelting Brandon, Kara, Charles, and Miranda July with their losing betting slips.
On the racetrack, a team of stablehands began untangling the scrum of jockeys and horses.
“Chu Chu,” said Kara.
Charles wrapped her in his commiserative embrace.
10
“Poor Chu Chu,” said Charles. “My only consolation is that Blaze of Enchantment and Apache Sunrise will never race again.”
“Nor will Moonshadow,” said Miranda July.
“Nor Lady Boots,” said Brandon.
“Nor Peach Blossom,” said Charles.
“Nor Afternoon Delight,” said Miranda July.
After the ceremony Kara stood alone by the punch-and-crackers table and stroked her jar of ashes.
11
The principal looked at Brandon’s resume.
“It says here,” said the principal, “that you’re an Ethnomusicologist.”
“I am,” said Brandon.
“Do you care to explain?”
“Ethnomusicology?”
“Yes,” said the principal.
Brandon explained.
“And you propose to teach Ethnomusicology to elementary school children?”
On the wall behind the principal were portraits of the school’s previous principals. They gazed sternly at Brandon.
“Yes,” said Brandon.
“Maybe,” he said.
The principal wrote something in his notebook.
“And what about the recorder?” said the principal.
He said, “Can you teach the recorder?”
“I can play the recorder,” said Brandon, “or the sweet flute as it was called in the eighteenth century.”
The principal reached into his desk and pulled out a recorder.
Brandon took the beige Bakelite instrument and blew into the fipple.
Out came a cascade of sweetly sour notes.
12
“Miranda July?” said Brandon.
“Yes, Brandon,” said Miranda July.
“Is it true what they say about us in the tabloids?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am.”
“Not even a little bit true?”
“How could something be a little bit true?”
“Well—” said Brandon.
“Well what?”
He said, “We do spend a lot of time together.”
After Miranda July left his apartment, Brandon continued lying on his couch and continued thinking about it.
But we really do spend a lot of time together, is what he thought.
13
Brandon p
honed his mother in Cleveland.
“I don’t feel special,” he said.
His mother told him that he was special.
But she was his mother.
Another week passed and he heard nothing from the job search, nor did he hear anything from Miranda July.
14
Kara told Brandon that she didn’t know what to tell him about Miranda July. “But when it comes to the job search,” she said, “maybe you should expand your horizons.”
They were at Charles’s athletic club.
Kara wore a black unitard and was on the step machine.
Her face was red from stepping.
“Ethnomusicology is diverse,” said Brandon.
“It’s multidisciplinary,” he said.
On the other side of the gym Miranda July was doing dumbbell squats in front of the long mirror. Brandon thought she was watching him.
“But maybe you should apply for other types of jobs?” said Kara.
“Charles could help you,” she said.
Brandon told her that he refused to work for The Man.
“The Man?” said Kara.
“The establishment culture,” said Brandon.
Kara told Brandon that she knew what The Man was.
“What year do you live in?” she said. She told Brandon that history had long proven the institution to be ubiquitous.
Meanwhile, Charles’s new assistant, Javier, approached Miranda July.
He placed the hand of his well-muscled arm above her buttocks and demonstrated a more efficient squat.
“Bend at the hips,” he said.
“The hips?” said Miranda July.
“Your fine curvaceous hips.”
Well, thought Brandon.
Back at his apartment he continued searching for jobs on the Internet.
Soon he was looking at pictures of naked girls.
The naked girls touched themselves. The naked girls touched each other. Sometimes the naked girls touched each other with cubes of ice.
15
The owners of the lamed horses were suing Charles and Kara.
“It’s outrageous,” said Charles.
“They want eleven million,” he said.