Read Online The Facades: A Novel by Eric Lundgren - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Eric Lundgren
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hadn’t taken the excuse to dig out fishnets, stilettos, and a black bustier.
It was a two person job, removing the thick plastic fish head. When we’d finally twisted it off, I blushed, recognizing Molly.
At that time in my life there was a certain kind of woman who made me want to fall to my knees and confess the wretchedness
of my being. She was in the music school, an ivied enclave set slightly above and apart from the rest of Trude U, but she
had descended to take up a chair in the advanced course Dead Ends of the Romantic Poets.
“Thanks,” she said, looking me over anew now that she was out of the fish-eye. “So are you being consulted much tonight?”
“Sorry?” I was still trying to comprehend this sudden, dreamlike surge of good fortune.
“Are a lot of people looking for meanings in you?” Molly looked at me intently. Her watery green eyes seemed to absorb everything,
from the print on my pages to the gestures and flirtations going on all around us, the tags in people’s costumes, the scratches
on the floor.
“Not really,” I admitted. “Everyone’s playing fast and loose with the English language tonight.” I rearranged the red board
on my chest that read, D ICTIONARY OF THE E NGLISH L ANGUAGE : S ECOND C OLLEGIATE E DITION . The words didn’t exactly fall from my mouth with a burnished epigrammatic gleam.
Molly did not respond. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you,” she said. “You think I’m a lesbian.”
“You’re not?”
She shrugged, scanning the room and its scores of French maids, call girls, dominatrices. “Not exactly.” She paused. “Iwas wondering what the third edition of the dictionary might look like.”
I told her my plans. We were seniors and I hoped, more than anything, that I might find some way to delay graduation and postpone
reentry to the so-called real world. “I’m thinking of studying law,” I said. “I’m interested in divorce.” My own parents had
recently finalized their divorce, and I’d tried to nurture this easily foreseen event into trauma. Molly never forgot this
statement or stopped mocking me for it. She would even introduce me, much later, as “my husband, who is interested in divorce.”
I descended into Hell and brought back cheap beer in plastic cups. We talked and drank; as the conversation went on, my pretentions
peeled away, and I found that I could talk to her in earnest. I remember the precise care with which I chose each word, glancing
from my dictionary pages to the intricate pallor of her face. The amputated fish head watched us with dismay. Scantily clad
partygoers passed us on their way to the bedrooms, clutching the banister. Two guys in ghost outfits hurtled around the house,
crying “ooh-ie!” and pumping their fists out from their midsections. “We’re masturbating ghosts!” they cried, and these two
baggy forms cling like faded barnacles to the memory.
O VER THE YEARS I watched her die hundreds of times onstage. Being a mezzo, Molly was not typically given the grand fall of the soprano—she
would more often be the loyal nurse who stumbled in and wailed, pulling at her hair. Still, when given the chance, as she
was in
Carmen
’s climactic bullring many times, her deaths convinced. She took Jose’s fatal knife in her belly, heldit there for a few moments with almost maternal gentleness, then tumbled to her knees and collapsed to the floor with an inspired,
bullish snort. In her villainous roles, too, she had ample opportunity to perfect her form. In Humperdinck’s
Hänsel und Gretel
, she played the witch, heading for the oven with a final searing cackle. Watching these acts was a kind of inoculation. No
matter how gruesome her demise, it would only be a few minutes before she would return to the bravos of the standing crowd.
The flowers rained down on her but they were not funereal flowers, they were Easter flowers. She had come back from the dead.
Maybe it was this
It was a two person job, removing the thick plastic fish head. When we’d finally twisted it off, I blushed, recognizing Molly.
At that time in my life there was a certain kind of woman who made me want to fall to my knees and confess the wretchedness
of my being. She was in the music school, an ivied enclave set slightly above and apart from the rest of Trude U, but she
had descended to take up a chair in the advanced course Dead Ends of the Romantic Poets.
“Thanks,” she said, looking me over anew now that she was out of the fish-eye. “So are you being consulted much tonight?”
“Sorry?” I was still trying to comprehend this sudden, dreamlike surge of good fortune.
“Are a lot of people looking for meanings in you?” Molly looked at me intently. Her watery green eyes seemed to absorb everything,
from the print on my pages to the gestures and flirtations going on all around us, the tags in people’s costumes, the scratches
on the floor.
“Not really,” I admitted. “Everyone’s playing fast and loose with the English language tonight.” I rearranged the red board
on my chest that read, D ICTIONARY OF THE E NGLISH L ANGUAGE : S ECOND C OLLEGIATE E DITION . The words didn’t exactly fall from my mouth with a burnished epigrammatic gleam.
Molly did not respond. “You’re afraid of me, aren’t you,” she said. “You think I’m a lesbian.”
“You’re not?”
She shrugged, scanning the room and its scores of French maids, call girls, dominatrices. “Not exactly.” She paused. “Iwas wondering what the third edition of the dictionary might look like.”
I told her my plans. We were seniors and I hoped, more than anything, that I might find some way to delay graduation and postpone
reentry to the so-called real world. “I’m thinking of studying law,” I said. “I’m interested in divorce.” My own parents had
recently finalized their divorce, and I’d tried to nurture this easily foreseen event into trauma. Molly never forgot this
statement or stopped mocking me for it. She would even introduce me, much later, as “my husband, who is interested in divorce.”
I descended into Hell and brought back cheap beer in plastic cups. We talked and drank; as the conversation went on, my pretentions
peeled away, and I found that I could talk to her in earnest. I remember the precise care with which I chose each word, glancing
from my dictionary pages to the intricate pallor of her face. The amputated fish head watched us with dismay. Scantily clad
partygoers passed us on their way to the bedrooms, clutching the banister. Two guys in ghost outfits hurtled around the house,
crying “ooh-ie!” and pumping their fists out from their midsections. “We’re masturbating ghosts!” they cried, and these two
baggy forms cling like faded barnacles to the memory.
O VER THE YEARS I watched her die hundreds of times onstage. Being a mezzo, Molly was not typically given the grand fall of the soprano—she
would more often be the loyal nurse who stumbled in and wailed, pulling at her hair. Still, when given the chance, as she
was in
Carmen
’s climactic bullring many times, her deaths convinced. She took Jose’s fatal knife in her belly, heldit there for a few moments with almost maternal gentleness, then tumbled to her knees and collapsed to the floor with an inspired,
bullish snort. In her villainous roles, too, she had ample opportunity to perfect her form. In Humperdinck’s
Hänsel und Gretel
, she played the witch, heading for the oven with a final searing cackle. Watching these acts was a kind of inoculation. No
matter how gruesome her demise, it would only be a few minutes before she would return to the bravos of the standing crowd.
The flowers rained down on her but they were not funereal flowers, they were Easter flowers. She had come back from the dead.
Maybe it was this
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