Chapter Two
Anna came home from the temp agency early. They had promised to send her out but they didn’t. What was wrong with her? It used to be that stockings, heels, and combing her bangs forward were the only prerequisites for employment. Now she had to know Word Perfect, too. Feeling inadequate and inappropriate, she splurged at the newsstand and then made a beeline home, running the gauntlet of beggars and people handing out circulars, business cards, and discount flyers. She clutched their offerings to her chest and ran up the stairs.
The first thing Anna saw at home were three roaches hanging out by the dish drain. Vengefully, she put out the Combat and waited. Those assholes at American Mutual were too much to take. Thank God she didn’t have to go back there. In three days she had typed up all the correspondence pertaining to a group of workers with asbestos poisoning trying to sue the company. Then there was the puny executive who cornered her at lunch.
“How can you live with yourself knowing that you’re fighting poor people who are dying from asbestos?” she’d asked.
“Most of them were heavy smokers,” he said, satisfied, and then asked her out for the second time.
Later in the office the old Italian guy who had worked for the company for twenty-four years was moaning and groaning about some fag who’d moved in next door.
“What do you care?” Anna said, trying to be sweet about it. “He’s not bothering you.”
“Not bothering me?” the guy said, offended. “He’s a big queen How would you like it if some butchy woman was in your face all night long?”
There was no one to take it out on but the roaches. Now, as she walked through her apartment, there were black plastic squares in every room protecting her from vermin. But actually this gave her no comfort because she did not know how Combat worked. She had no assurance that it did not operate on the same basis as radiation, another invisible substance.
It was time to relax. But how? Anna had given up bicycle riding because her bikes got stolen every two months, and the price of bike locks was hovering somewhere near the cost of health insurance. She couldn’t bear to watch television. She couldn’t listen to most of what was on the radio because of the way the music constantly rhymed. But everyone has to give over their mind to some electronic field. Everyone needs someplace to surrender. Anna liked magazines. They were glossy machines. The only technology that she could fold. She read them on a regular basis because they were absorbing. Each one came out on a specific day of the week and was good for an hour of absorption.
Anna took off her shoes and left them standing in the middle of the room. She carefully rolled down her stockings, knowing that the slightest scratch would cost her. Damn it, they caught on a toenail. This was so humiliating. It made her sick to death of herself. Anna read People magazine. Why was gossip more interesting than the world? It had something to do with marketing, of that Anna was sure. It had something to do with the organized promotion of a Fake Life. As far as Anna could see, marketing seemed to happen to everyone: drug dealers, beggars, people with careers. It was an unacknowledged public embarrassment. That’s why People was her private pleasure, not to be enjoyed on the subway in front of others. This week’s photo had a picture of some guy. She glanced at the face but it was meaningless to her. The names on the cover were: CHRIS EVERT PRINCE RAINIER ZSA ZSA CHAPPAQUIDDICK
She was not interested in any of this. Thank God those names were timeless. They involved no commitment. It was like saying “but,” “that,” and “which.” Prince Rainier was daily life.
More important than the stories were the advertisements because People’s articles tried to homogenize while the ads wanted to grab you. One said REORIENT YOUR THINKING. It was from Nissan. Behind the car was a glossy blue sea. The sea reminded Anna of those window displays with shreds of tin foil fluttering in the breeze of an electric fan. It wasn’t sexy. The Japanese were people to admire grudgingly, but never strive to be. They weren’t sexy. They didn’t appear in their own ads. The car was enough.
Anna skipped to the video section, tried the movie section but had to skip it after reading one word. What were they talking about? She couldn’t understand why they thought something was important. She couldn’t understand the values. There was nothing in this magazine that she saw in the mirror. No person, gesture, slogan, or hairstyle looked like her. In fact, there was no magazine on the entire newsstand rack that had her in it. The ones that said they did didn’t have good pictures.
Anyway, People had great titles, like “Mummy Dearest,” where Anna could get the idea without having to read the article.
Stop it, she told herself. I’d better stop paying too much attention or I’m going to get alienated all over again.
Time to eat, but what?
She could go get a bowl of soup. She could afford it. But there’s that problem of restaurants being depressing plus going out on the street when she knew it would smell of macaroni and cheese. No, no restaurant. It’s just not worth the money except once in a while when she’s ready to hang herself. No restaurant. Chris Evert. Chappaquiddick seemed like a diversion. More nostalgia.
Even the free handouts on the street had nothing to do with her life. She wasn’t going to see Sister Rosa, faith healer. She didn’t need artificial nails. Cheap therapy, now that might do some good. She didn’t want a free Chicken McNugget with every three Big Macs. There was nothing left to do but go to sleep.
That night Anna had a strange dream. When the radiator knocked, she changed, but it wasn’t waking. It was a half space filled with revelations. Each one about the dream. The dream.
Convinced, she fell back asleep. Compared with memory this was gentle and easy to slip into. But the second time the dream had more power. In it she was astonishingly vague. Trying to think at face value without realizing how much that was actually worth.
I could provide a description of giving head, she dreamed. A head filled with breathtakingly beautiful images cannot pay attention to the radio or laundry, so bleed on me.
She woke with the breath of a ghost on her back. She was green orange. Her orgasm was square. A pink star, a spider web, a dancing star too and a point and a shadow. A sky below, a calico rose in the middle of her skull. A red mask. A red egg. A moonscape made of glass. Magnified tongue cells. Salted spongy things. Mountains of black. Gray hills.