Read Online Just a Couple of Days by Tony Vigorito - Free Book Online

you frown, not when you smile. When you smile, the corners of your mouth point the way to heaven.” He stepped back and admired his work. “Did you know that all of your laugh lines ultimately emanate from a single point on your face?” He touched his green eyeliner pencil to a central point on my forehead. “That point is your third eye.”
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    20 Blip, of Italian and Irish ancestry, likes to call himself a Hindu, though he practices almost nothing of the religion, condemns the caste system as a justification for inequality, and chides karma as a charming but silly concept. He is, however, very enthusiastic about imbibing bhang to celebrate Shiva’s birthday. He claims that this prevents the quick-tempered deity (who really only symbolizes an aspect of our own collective consciousness, he never neglects to add) from growing irritated and destroying the entire world with his third eye. When is Shiva’s birthday? I do not know, but I am quite certain that it is not as frequent as Blip seems to celebrate it. As for Sophia, she’s half Huichol Indian and half Russian Jewish, with a touch of Romany buried somewhere. She practices as much Judaism as Blip does Hinduism. On some Saturdays, she studies the tarot deck with Rabbi Rainbow.
    When they had a child a couple of years after the wedding, I couldn’t help but ask what religion that made their daughter,
since descent is matrilineal in Judaism and patrilineal in Hinduism.
    They only shrugged the question off, as if it were as obvious as the purpose of existence itself. “She’s a Hinjew,” they spoke in unison.
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    21 Blip and Sophia are not averse to their Catholic and Native American spiritual influences either. Along with Christmas and Hanukkah, which they celebrate on winter solstice with some local pagans they’ve befriended, they fast on High Holy Days and were never hesitant to engage in peyote and other such ceremonies in their youth.
    Mostly they practice good cheer, which, they maintain, is the obvious purpose of existence.
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    22 Blip and Sophia imitate the innocence of their daughter, whom they adore. They named her Dandelion, though her eternally astonished eyes are more like black-eyed Susans caught in the headlights of heaven. Her nickname is Dandy, and she is the benevolent and undisputed head of their household. If ever she has a question, all else ceases until it is answered to her satisfaction, at which point she does a little dance halfway between a skip and a jumping jack and scampers into the next room.
    When she was very young, she would sometimes wander over and join any company Blip and Sophia might have been entertaining. She would listen intently to the talking, and after a while attempt to participate. Thus our conversation was often reduced to “yabble wuzzel fossy kline,” or some such piffle, no
matter how serious the issue at hand. At first this was quite innocent, but after a while it seemed to take on something of a mocking tone. She would dance around us, imitating the motion of our flapjaws with her hands, prattling and chanting nonsense. Or perhaps I project my own insecurities.
    Dandy never uttered an intelligible word except for
gardyloo
until her third birthday, at which point she commenced speaking with nearly perfect pronunciation and syntax, singing “Happy Birthday to You” along with everyone. Prior to that, Blip and Sophia thought their daughter might have aphasia, a psychological disorder in which the affected person cannot use speech, cannot connect words and ideas. They were not particularly concerned about this possibility, reasoning that it would keep them honest, since you cannot lie to someone who doesn’t understand language. “She perceives your actual emotional presence, not what you claim it to be,” they cautioned. “So no b.s.”
    When she finally did speak, it was a considerable relief to the rest of the adults who interacted