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The
black lipstick had been meticulously applied, so had the black nail polish. And
that hair, if indeed it was real, was so black as to give the illusion that it
was sticky, that it could be used to tar a roof. Her name was Mona.
She was a 4th-year MFA student – a poet:
“I concentrating on the subliminal sexuality of solipsism within the
context of a main-framed universe.” It was not Harold’s thing. He’d read
her non-metered, anti-rhyming jabberwocky and had drawn a blank. He knew about
things like “subtext,” but “sub-subtext inverted” was an entirely
different animal, and so was the word, “meta.”
What did “meta” mean? Still, he could pretend. After all, he was in
love. At least it felt that way. True, when he was a kid he’d always
fantasized about dating a cheerleader or any one of those fresh-faced girls with
blonde hair and short skirts. But life was weird.
You couldn’t always get what you wanted, and sometimes what you
didn’t want is what you end up with it. And it turns out to be perfect –
okay, maybe not perfect, but kind of
good, like sort of. Mona
got up from the couch to light another candle, a candle molded from black wax.
“Oh, they’ll be here soon,” she said. Her great “End of the
Semester Bash” had been scheduled for 7 PM. It was now 9:20. But
just as Harold was looking at the clock, the doorbell rang. Mona
gestured for him to answer it. “I’m not ready,” she said, then began
striding towards the bathroom, her long black dress shimmering behind her. Harold
trudged to the door, opened it and saw what looked like a human bowling pin with
glasses. It was an MFA student. The man brushed past Harold without a word, then
began helping himself to the snacks on the table, loudly eating away. Harold
watched him cramming pretzels, sour cream dip and tortillas down his throat.
“Uh…hi?”
Harold said. The
guy said nothing. Then
Mona appeared from the bathroom with hands fluttering in the air. “Oh! Hi,
James.” James
looked up, his mouth smeared with food and merely nodded. “James
is a genius,” Mona said. “His poetry is more than
sublime…it’s-it’s…” “Miraculous?”
said James, not even looking up. “Yes!
That’s it! Miraculous!” “What’s
it about?” Harold asked, standing there between them.
“Oh…”
said Mona with a wry smile, “you wouldn’t understand.”
“Yeah,”
said James, his mouth full of food. “He
wouldn’t understand.”
Mona
sat down beside James, gazing at him like he was an art exhibit.
“No,
really,” Harold said. “What do
you write about?”
“Oh,
pleeease,” said Mona, “don’t be
so droll.”
“Huh?”
Then
the door-bell rang. Again.
Harold
opened it. Again. An assortment of brown to
green haired people came walking in.
One of them had a nose-ring
like a cow’s and wore a metal-studded belt.
Another was terribly wall-eyed, even worse than the guy, Jean-Paul Sartre
(Mona had a poster of Sartre in her room: “Ad-Nauseum
is to die-for”). And one girl
had teeth so bucked it made Harold think of the prongs on a forklift (his dad
had tried to get him into construction, but Harold had protested too much and
dad finally gave up). And then there was the green-haired what-ever who wore
flannel – only flannel and had
peach-fuzz on his chin. Harold had met this character before – he was a
Fiction major, a regular walking story as in “What your
story?” As
they milled about, Harold was struck with inspiration, something kooky to shake
things up, something that might make him not so “not-with-it.” – a chance
to a make an ingenious analogy.
“Anybody
seen Star Wars?” he asked. “You know the Cantina scene?”
They
stared at him like he was a… freak.
“Uh…
never mind,” he said.
The
music got turned up, conversations began to take root, everyone struck a pose:
Ms. Wall-Eyed and Lady Bucktooth over by Mona’s bookshelf talking about female
poets and “lesbian tendencies”; Kid Nose-Ring and Mr. Green Hair in some
heated debate about “Post-Modern Deconstructionism”; Mona fawning over James
who kept stuffing his mouth. And
Harold – Harold just standing there, silent.
When
the doorbell rang for the third time, and he went dutifully to open it.
It was a relief to actually do something. Standing
outside was a man, maybe 50-ish, wearing black jeans, a black shirt and dark,
wrap-around shades. The man’s
hair was also black. And outside the sky was pitch-black. The man was holding a
bag from McDonald’s, splotched with grease stains.
Harold could smell a burger and fries.
This, surmised Harold, had to be the professor. “Um,
hi…,” said Harold, “You, uh, must be the professor?” There
was a long pause as the world stood still and the night sky drifted past and
Harold found himself gripping the doorknob tighter, trying to anchor himself.
There was an undertow of menace about the man, of homicidal tendencies kept
barely in check and when he finally spoke – it came out just the way Harold
thought it would -- quiet and calm, but full of rage: “I’ve
no time for your impertinence.” Oh
yeah, thought Harold, you’re definitely the professor. The
man walked in, carrying in the smell of fast food. Mona
became ecstatic, “Professor Strom! You
made it! You made it!” “Yes,”
said Strom, “I am here.” “What’s
that?” asked Kid Nose-Ring, pointing at the bag in Strom’s hand. “This…”
said Strom, lifting up the greasy bag for all to see, “…is the accumulation
of a mass-consumer culture reduced to the size of a paper-bag.
It is also my daily ration of protein, carbohydrates, and high-levels of
saturated fat.” “That’s
awesome!” shouted the kid with Green Hair, raising a fist.
Soon the others were yelling out the same and gathered around to watch
Strom eat a Big Mac with Super-sized fries. By
the time, they got around to discussing Joyce and the fascist elements found on
Sesame Street, Harold had retreated to the bedroom, locking the door. Fucking
assholes. ____________________ For those keeping track on your patented Defenestration scorecards, this is the third time Joseph has appeared in the magazine. And in the future, when he’s contributed eighty-five more pieces, we’ll say” “For those keeping track on your patented Defenestration scorecards, this is the eighty-eighth time Joseph has appeared in the magazine.” We are ruled by our originality. |
(c) Defenestration Magazine, 2004