DESSERT OASIS
Fuckin’ tequila. Caustic belly. I swallowed a lighted cigar. Maria Maria Maria rattling all night in an empty head and pitiful stomach, racing nonstop, a mantra marathon erasing every fact and fiction of my life.
“How ya doin’?” Roman says. He’s calling to see if I’m alive. I’m not.
“Ughh… slightly better than the pope.” John Paul isn’t going easily. Today’s Easter and would be a good day to ascend.
“I know what you mean.”
“I feel horrible… ” Can’t think what to say. Didn’t think he’d actually call. A migraine conga pounds between temples and eyeballs. “Is getting plastered a prerequisite for writing?”
“Gotta get rid of inhibitions, somehow.” He says this as if he might be writing it down.
“Well, I feel gutted, like snakes feasted on me inside and out.”
“Yeah, I know. A python’s been squeezing the crap out of me, literally.” Roman admits, “I’m sittin’ on the john.”
How do you respond to that? I don’t.
“John Paul…” he says slowly, pausing for the right words, or maybe to have a bowel movement, “I think he got his name from The Beatles.”
“This, I doubt.”
“You can’t tell me he wasn’t aware that John and Paul were two of the most famous and popular people in the world.”
“Maybe,” I say. Of course, he’s joking partly. Or maybe not.
“Don’t you think it more than a strong coincidence that he took those particular names, in that particular order -- John, Paul?”
“Row, he got his name from the previous pope.” I think.
“Hear me out – famous people do that – reuse names – Madonna? Hardly original. These guys, these cardinals are not stupid people. They’re very educated. John Paul was a great choice for a name at the time he became pope.”
Come to think of it, Hitler tried to look like Charlie Chaplin, but I don’t want to get into this right now.
I can hear the muted rips and folding toilet paper and vaguely see him leaning to wipe himself while balancing the phone, “It’s always been John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He didn’t choose Paul John did he? John Paul. See?” The toilet flushes.
I can see.
“Hey, I’m calling to tell you that I did in fact have one poem published last month, for Valentine’s Day in some obscure monthly called ‘Press Ahead.’ Had to pay $15 to get a copy, which obviously seems unfair, but it finally came in the mail last night, er yesterday.”
“Ok.” I can hear pages being smoothed out. I need some breakfast. Hope he’s not going to read it.
“It’s a poem about Cupid – which visually looks like it could be ‘stupid’ because I put an arrow between the c and the u.”
“Ehh, I’m lost, need some food…”
“Oh, ok --“ he says with a shyness that curls along the phone cord. “Later then…”
The non-poetic hangover and empty stomach won’t allow for much appreciation of anything, but Cupid I can relate to, or relate against, “Yeah, that little fucker’s missed the mark one time too many.” Maria. Pleasure pain.
I need to achieve homeostasis, body in balance again. That’s what Max advises on Sunday afternoon when I go to Ocean’s briefly and he serves me ginger ale. The place is morgue-like without a game to rally behind.
“You’ve got to get the body in balance. Homeostasis,” says Max, the medic and the night-time advice nurse filling in for Charlene on the afternoon shift.
“Sorry about last night, Max.”
He leans forward, points to the whiskey row and says confidentially, “That’s poison. The body can flirt with it and filter it up to a point.”
“I got the point.”
“I think so.”
“I’ll make it up to you. I’m an embarrassment.”
Sunday evening. The Dessert Oasis cafe is a people place, like Oceans, except for the Sahara murals and the fake palm trees. Lighting is toned down for added mystique to the seductive, aromatic coffee scents. Dessert Oasis targets stressed-out nomadic patrons who don’t question the logic of hot coffee in the middle of the scorching desert.
Roman and I claim a street window front table and take a seat while Max is over at the dessert case. We gave him twenty-five bucks to splurge, part of the compensation package for our recent unacceptable behavior. At least one good thing came out of the hangover phone call.
Row is staring at me as if I’ve missed a cue. He’s gripping a piece of paper he had tucked in his blue Hawaiian shirt pocket, his “Easter” shirt, he says.
“-- Mind if I?...” he smoothes the crinkling creases on the table /ironing board.
Fragrant and fragile, bursting bud beautiful
you are genuine and gentle, pristine
here, there, air unseen
The fall of me is her destiny, I’m thinking.
“Why can’t you tell it to her straight on?”
“I want to win her. Speak to the heart.”
“Well,” I say, stirring honey into my midnight madness herbal tea, “go try it out over there then.” My drippy spoon points to the sand dune booth across the room. Two female occupants are chatting away over marshmallow lattes. They’re young and ambitiously attractive with highlighted facial adjustments and neo-poverty attire (expensive, ripped jeans). They might prove a pleasant, non-offending, appreciative audience.
Roman hesitates long enough to comb over his shyness then goes to their booth, introduces himself and repeats the reading which is muffled with his back to me. I can see their animated faces as they listen, nod a bit, say something, then Roman turns and walks back balancing his mocha in one hand and his poem in the other. He shrugs his shoulders.
“So?” I say.
“They’re polite,” he says and positions himself back at our table, “but --.”
“Bursting bud beautiful,” I say, browsing/deciphering his scribbles, “that’s cool.”
“They thought it okay, but – ‘Think rhyme, think beat’ they said.”
“So then,” he says, with a sly knowing, “I hit them with --
Juletish Fetish
We pass again and again
A brief stare, a soft glance
Distance romance
soaring hope dope
But I’m afraid to meet you, miss.
It may not be as good as this
“And they liked that. It always works. Everyone experiences these passing fantasies. Illusion is better than reality.”
“What’s better than reality?” says Max approaching with a pitcher of water and a plate of piled-up desserts.
Roman slides the paper over to Max who places the tray in the middle of the table, leans down and reads carefully, “When our eyes lock it’s like docking into soul…”
“The other side,” Roman says and flips the page over.
Max pours a glass of water and scans Roman’s lines as if it’s bar code.
“I can’t explain it as well as I want to,” Roman says.
Max downs the water in one gulp then gets right into Roman’s face, “Do you want to run home and clean up your life, right all the wrongs, straighten all the mess? Do you sense that being with her is privilege?”
Right on. Exposure to zillions of Oceanic conversations centering on heart aliments is culminating in his Socratic drill-sergeant-to-a-recruit challenge.
“Yeah,” Roman admits, “That’s how it is. Privilege. She’s privilege.” Sir.
“Well son, that’s all bullshit! But go ahead and find out for yourself.”
Roman’s got that look, that deer in the headlights look that some women like to pull off the road to help. Poems would give added instructions and incentives, and could possibly reverse the situation. Roman could be a killer-diller on the romance road. Those sand dune dames were flirting with him.
”Did you see the quote in today’s paper? Imagination is more important than intelligence. Einstein,” Max reports like a seasoned anchorman, “love is in the imagination. If you can’t find someone who has an active imagination, you’re out of luck. Move on.” He bites into a white powdered scone and rolls his eyes with exaggerated delight.
“That might be the problem right there. I can tell she hasn’t been imagining me beyond our work interactions; nothing beyond what she can see with her own eyes. But I see her all the time – she’s hitched a ride in my head. I sleep, dream, eat, shower, commute with her. That’s why when I see the real her it throws me off.”
“If you do not exist in her imagination, she won’t have that desire to link the real with the imagined like you do.” Max is bright, a professor emeritus of bartending, and from the way he obliterated the lemon meringue, he’s a dessertaholic.
The two young women, teens really, neo-gypsies rattling with bracelets approach Roman. They’re on their way toward greener pastures. The dark haired early-Cher-looking one says, “We thought it over. It’s great really. And so romantic, just like the movies. Good luck.” Flirt flirt.
“Thanks,” Roman says watching them leave. You can see their thong underwear (one red, one black) lurching up and out of their butt mounds. “They have imagination,” he announces, “and it’s contagious.”
Max says, “Young butts and breasts being flaunted used to demagnetize my moral compass. But not anymore. It’s like wishing for a tropical island not knowing there’s bugs, too much sun, and in the end it’s an incredibly boring and mindless adventure, incompatible with sanity.” A cream puff disappears.
“What is it with these young people? Affluent kids in new jeans that have been deliberately torn at the knees. Boozers dress better. And the young rapper-wannabees – with their pants hanging down to their thighs and underwear mooning out -- they can barely walk down the street without tripping over in their falling-off pants. They’re rapping all right – gonna smash their freakin’ skulls on the pavement.”
Max is taking the maximum bite out of a strawberry-filled scone, his fourth pastry. “I remember when my sister got sent home for wearing blue jeans in a public high school,” he says, licking sticky goo from the corners of his mouth while pouring another glass of water. Again he downs it in one smooth motion. The guy knows how to drink. He starts nibbling on a cinnamon swirl and continues, “I got sent to the principal’s for having long hair. Times change. If parents are gettin’ face lifts, eye tucks, lipo suction, and both moms and dads dye their hair these days – what do you expect? Each generation needs to find its own voice, its own identity. My grandparents smoked non-stop, drank martinis every evening, and lived on red meat and canned vegetables. That was an easy one to rebel against.”
“Tongue rings, nipple piercing, and tattoo’s. Where do you go from here?” I ask. Roman is writing, so I’m talking to a fifty-year-old stuffing scones like a five year old. “Hungry?”
“I’ve been on a sugar-free diet for six months. It ended five minutes ago. Besides, I haven’t had dinner.” Homer Simpson and a box of donuts describes what is taking place. Bears rip out picnic baskets slower than Max and his disappearing pastry plate.
“How’d you end at Oceans?” Roman asks without looking up off the page.
“I was working in a photography shop for fifteen years. You know, prom shots, senior photos, passport stuff. Then things went digital, the shop went out of business. Oceans had an opening, and – I dig meeting all those people. It’s a great job, not that much different than the photo shop – I’m still giving shots. People open up when being photographed. People open up when drinking.”
“I’ve never seen you drink. Alcohol.” I say.
“Because I don’t, not anymore. Runs in the family. Working in a bar saved me. Overexposure does the trick.” A chocolate cupcake vanishes in one quick swoop by Max the magician. Its paper panties are squished into a tiny ball that gets tossed into the trash can, a five foot swish. “Anyway, imagination is important. You can imagine god, imagine love, imagine family, imagine sports; …otherwise, life makes no sense whatsoever.”
Where would I be without Maria Oasis? If you don’t love, you are screwed, sucked into a vacuum of empty inner space. We need someone or something beyond ourselves. A portable heaven. … Maria-the-mirage chagal-floats passed the window… My heart thumps hello.
“It’s all conditioning…” Max says, between swallows, “I used to masturbate in my late teens and early twenties. I was concentrating so much on college that I didn’t want to waste time on a relationship. Masturbation is full of imagination. I conditioned myself this way. It was very hard to have only one lover after that. Took years before I realized why I had had so much trouble sustaining intimacy. Three marriages, and two live-ins.”
Free therapy, donated sweets accepted.
“Men in general, at least those that frequent bars, have this problem. Besides, with billions of people roaming around, don’t you think it’s unnatural to desire sex with only one other person?”
“Good question for the next pope.” Roman says.
“Did you hear about his John Paul theory?” I say finally. It’s been the Max show so far. He’s used to listening to everyone else. Must have a ton of things to say. Roman and I are the real guests here.
“What’s this Roman?” Max asks.
Roman halts his pen in mid sentence, “John Paul’s name was influenced in part by the Beatles.”
Max starts laughing and choking on carrot cake he’s wolfing down. “The Beatles,” he coughs and clears his throat, “They were like gods. Everyday after school I would go down to the basement, make sure the drapes were closed tight and pretend I was in the Beatles, performing right along with the records. Every day. I was fantastically popular and immune from the ugly, unhappy life of my non-Beatle moments. That gave me self esteem and the songs helped me deal with inflamed feelings. I was one whacked-out kid. A secret Beatle. Even today when I hear one of their songs, I feel like I had a part in it, like it was my own. If no one’s around, I still perform.”
“Max and the Pope, what did I tell you.” Roman raises his coffee for a toast to himself, Interpreter of Social Behavior. He resumes writing.
“I feel high.” Max says. “Former alcoholics are good at indulging sweets.”
Max is giving out the kind of self-incriminating information that comes out of binge drinking or torture chambers. “What’s in these pastries?” I ask and prod the last brownie with my white plastic spoon.
“I’ve never told these things to anyone.” Max says soberly, sucking his sticky fingers clean, “Sugar intoxication,” he jokes, stands, “Truth syrup.” He scouts for the restroom, which he spots. It’s a short camel ride past the plastic palms.
“Beatles and masturbation. Now we know, Max.”
“I’ve got it all here,’ Roman says, holding up squiggly lines swerving across unruled paper. He has been writing everything said.
Our last two comments trailed Max into the darkness of the Oasis. He may or may not have heard them.
“Think everyone secretly pretends to be someone else?” Roman asks. “I wanted to be William Blake. Blake’s not my real name any more than Roman. I dug his writing so I started using Blake as a pen name about six years ago. It just stuck.”
“Well, who are you?”
“That my friend is a very good question.”
So Max thinks he’s whacked-out for pretending to be someone else? I have my Tom Brady moments. Laundry day I’m throwing perfect spiral socks into the drawers downfield. Crowds cheer, women swoon. Taking a leak – every time I raise the seat cover I’m under center calling plays and deconstructing the defense. A good piss is worth a crowd-filled flush touchdown.
Imagination is more important than intelligence. Einstein knew a thing or two.
“Look at the freakin’ moon,” I need to mention, almost squinting at the brilliant full moon. Roman blurts out, “it’s more than – I’m making a list -- it’s a snow cone moon, an egg-white eye, a mashed potato, a cauliflower, a round of cheese, that Pillsbury guy, a meringue disk, a cream puff, a cracker balloon, a macaroon pie.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I don’t feel well,” Max informs us without sitting back down, “Today’s been rough. I’m pissing blood again. Used a treadmill for ten minutes this morning. Blood in the urine after exercising is happening too frequently. Sometimes the urine is cola colored, other times, like today, it’s yellow and red, sunset. Got to keep flushing it out. This is in addition to the doctor informing me that my PSA is elevated, an 8.5. Normal is 0 – 4. Prostate cancer is coming soon. CT scan tomorrow. To summarize: I can’t drink, can’t sex, can’t exercise, and I sure as hell can’t eat any more desserts. Excuse me. Got to get some air.”
Roman and I are still processing this unexpected change of mood when Max pushes the wood frame glass door open and steps outside onto the moonlight and amber sidewalk stage. We watch from our front row seats. He’s engrossed in some disruptive inner dialogue play. Maybe he’s telling Ringo to come in a beat or two earlier. We should go out and check on Max but suddenly he leans forward and lurches over a green city trash can to barf and heave out twenty-four dollars and fifty-seven cents worth of putrid pastries. The way his body jerks back and forth it looks as if he’s being beaten by an invisible whip. He looks like us last night.
Must be a virus.
ROTATIONS, Chapter Two: Dessert Oasis © 2005 by John Kirkmire, © 2013 KIRKWORKSHOP, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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Fuckin’ tequila. Caustic belly. I swallowed a lighted cigar. Maria Maria Maria rattling all night in an empty head and pitiful stomach, racing nonstop, a mantra marathon erasing every fact and fiction of my life.
“How ya doin’?” Roman says. He’s calling to see if I’m alive. I’m not.
“Ughh… slightly better than the pope.” John Paul isn’t going easily. Today’s Easter and would be a good day to ascend.
“I know what you mean.”
“I feel horrible… ” Can’t think what to say. Didn’t think he’d actually call. A migraine conga pounds between temples and eyeballs. “Is getting plastered a prerequisite for writing?”
“Gotta get rid of inhibitions, somehow.” He says this as if he might be writing it down.
“Well, I feel gutted, like snakes feasted on me inside and out.”
“Yeah, I know. A python’s been squeezing the crap out of me, literally.” Roman admits, “I’m sittin’ on the john.”
How do you respond to that? I don’t.
“John Paul…” he says slowly, pausing for the right words, or maybe to have a bowel movement, “I think he got his name from The Beatles.”
“This, I doubt.”
“You can’t tell me he wasn’t aware that John and Paul were two of the most famous and popular people in the world.”
“Maybe,” I say. Of course, he’s joking partly. Or maybe not.
“Don’t you think it more than a strong coincidence that he took those particular names, in that particular order -- John, Paul?”
“Row, he got his name from the previous pope.” I think.
“Hear me out – famous people do that – reuse names – Madonna? Hardly original. These guys, these cardinals are not stupid people. They’re very educated. John Paul was a great choice for a name at the time he became pope.”
Come to think of it, Hitler tried to look like Charlie Chaplin, but I don’t want to get into this right now.
I can hear the muted rips and folding toilet paper and vaguely see him leaning to wipe himself while balancing the phone, “It’s always been John Lennon and Paul McCartney. He didn’t choose Paul John did he? John Paul. See?” The toilet flushes.
I can see.
“Hey, I’m calling to tell you that I did in fact have one poem published last month, for Valentine’s Day in some obscure monthly called ‘Press Ahead.’ Had to pay $15 to get a copy, which obviously seems unfair, but it finally came in the mail last night, er yesterday.”
“Ok.” I can hear pages being smoothed out. I need some breakfast. Hope he’s not going to read it.
“It’s a poem about Cupid – which visually looks like it could be ‘stupid’ because I put an arrow between the c and the u.”
“Ehh, I’m lost, need some food…”
“Oh, ok --“ he says with a shyness that curls along the phone cord. “Later then…”
The non-poetic hangover and empty stomach won’t allow for much appreciation of anything, but Cupid I can relate to, or relate against, “Yeah, that little fucker’s missed the mark one time too many.” Maria. Pleasure pain.
I need to achieve homeostasis, body in balance again. That’s what Max advises on Sunday afternoon when I go to Ocean’s briefly and he serves me ginger ale. The place is morgue-like without a game to rally behind.
“You’ve got to get the body in balance. Homeostasis,” says Max, the medic and the night-time advice nurse filling in for Charlene on the afternoon shift.
“Sorry about last night, Max.”
He leans forward, points to the whiskey row and says confidentially, “That’s poison. The body can flirt with it and filter it up to a point.”
“I got the point.”
“I think so.”
“I’ll make it up to you. I’m an embarrassment.”
Sunday evening. The Dessert Oasis cafe is a people place, like Oceans, except for the Sahara murals and the fake palm trees. Lighting is toned down for added mystique to the seductive, aromatic coffee scents. Dessert Oasis targets stressed-out nomadic patrons who don’t question the logic of hot coffee in the middle of the scorching desert.
Roman and I claim a street window front table and take a seat while Max is over at the dessert case. We gave him twenty-five bucks to splurge, part of the compensation package for our recent unacceptable behavior. At least one good thing came out of the hangover phone call.
Row is staring at me as if I’ve missed a cue. He’s gripping a piece of paper he had tucked in his blue Hawaiian shirt pocket, his “Easter” shirt, he says.
“-- Mind if I?...” he smoothes the crinkling creases on the table /ironing board.
Fragrant and fragile, bursting bud beautiful
you are genuine and gentle, pristine
here, there, air unseen
The fall of me is her destiny, I’m thinking.
“Why can’t you tell it to her straight on?”
“I want to win her. Speak to the heart.”
“Well,” I say, stirring honey into my midnight madness herbal tea, “go try it out over there then.” My drippy spoon points to the sand dune booth across the room. Two female occupants are chatting away over marshmallow lattes. They’re young and ambitiously attractive with highlighted facial adjustments and neo-poverty attire (expensive, ripped jeans). They might prove a pleasant, non-offending, appreciative audience.
Roman hesitates long enough to comb over his shyness then goes to their booth, introduces himself and repeats the reading which is muffled with his back to me. I can see their animated faces as they listen, nod a bit, say something, then Roman turns and walks back balancing his mocha in one hand and his poem in the other. He shrugs his shoulders.
“So?” I say.
“They’re polite,” he says and positions himself back at our table, “but --.”
“Bursting bud beautiful,” I say, browsing/deciphering his scribbles, “that’s cool.”
“They thought it okay, but – ‘Think rhyme, think beat’ they said.”
“So then,” he says, with a sly knowing, “I hit them with --
Juletish Fetish
We pass again and again
A brief stare, a soft glance
Distance romance
soaring hope dope
But I’m afraid to meet you, miss.
It may not be as good as this
“And they liked that. It always works. Everyone experiences these passing fantasies. Illusion is better than reality.”
“What’s better than reality?” says Max approaching with a pitcher of water and a plate of piled-up desserts.
Roman slides the paper over to Max who places the tray in the middle of the table, leans down and reads carefully, “When our eyes lock it’s like docking into soul…”
“The other side,” Roman says and flips the page over.
Max pours a glass of water and scans Roman’s lines as if it’s bar code.
“I can’t explain it as well as I want to,” Roman says.
Max downs the water in one gulp then gets right into Roman’s face, “Do you want to run home and clean up your life, right all the wrongs, straighten all the mess? Do you sense that being with her is privilege?”
Right on. Exposure to zillions of Oceanic conversations centering on heart aliments is culminating in his Socratic drill-sergeant-to-a-recruit challenge.
“Yeah,” Roman admits, “That’s how it is. Privilege. She’s privilege.” Sir.
“Well son, that’s all bullshit! But go ahead and find out for yourself.”
Roman’s got that look, that deer in the headlights look that some women like to pull off the road to help. Poems would give added instructions and incentives, and could possibly reverse the situation. Roman could be a killer-diller on the romance road. Those sand dune dames were flirting with him.
”Did you see the quote in today’s paper? Imagination is more important than intelligence. Einstein,” Max reports like a seasoned anchorman, “love is in the imagination. If you can’t find someone who has an active imagination, you’re out of luck. Move on.” He bites into a white powdered scone and rolls his eyes with exaggerated delight.
“That might be the problem right there. I can tell she hasn’t been imagining me beyond our work interactions; nothing beyond what she can see with her own eyes. But I see her all the time – she’s hitched a ride in my head. I sleep, dream, eat, shower, commute with her. That’s why when I see the real her it throws me off.”
“If you do not exist in her imagination, she won’t have that desire to link the real with the imagined like you do.” Max is bright, a professor emeritus of bartending, and from the way he obliterated the lemon meringue, he’s a dessertaholic.
The two young women, teens really, neo-gypsies rattling with bracelets approach Roman. They’re on their way toward greener pastures. The dark haired early-Cher-looking one says, “We thought it over. It’s great really. And so romantic, just like the movies. Good luck.” Flirt flirt.
“Thanks,” Roman says watching them leave. You can see their thong underwear (one red, one black) lurching up and out of their butt mounds. “They have imagination,” he announces, “and it’s contagious.”
Max says, “Young butts and breasts being flaunted used to demagnetize my moral compass. But not anymore. It’s like wishing for a tropical island not knowing there’s bugs, too much sun, and in the end it’s an incredibly boring and mindless adventure, incompatible with sanity.” A cream puff disappears.
“What is it with these young people? Affluent kids in new jeans that have been deliberately torn at the knees. Boozers dress better. And the young rapper-wannabees – with their pants hanging down to their thighs and underwear mooning out -- they can barely walk down the street without tripping over in their falling-off pants. They’re rapping all right – gonna smash their freakin’ skulls on the pavement.”
Max is taking the maximum bite out of a strawberry-filled scone, his fourth pastry. “I remember when my sister got sent home for wearing blue jeans in a public high school,” he says, licking sticky goo from the corners of his mouth while pouring another glass of water. Again he downs it in one smooth motion. The guy knows how to drink. He starts nibbling on a cinnamon swirl and continues, “I got sent to the principal’s for having long hair. Times change. If parents are gettin’ face lifts, eye tucks, lipo suction, and both moms and dads dye their hair these days – what do you expect? Each generation needs to find its own voice, its own identity. My grandparents smoked non-stop, drank martinis every evening, and lived on red meat and canned vegetables. That was an easy one to rebel against.”
“Tongue rings, nipple piercing, and tattoo’s. Where do you go from here?” I ask. Roman is writing, so I’m talking to a fifty-year-old stuffing scones like a five year old. “Hungry?”
“I’ve been on a sugar-free diet for six months. It ended five minutes ago. Besides, I haven’t had dinner.” Homer Simpson and a box of donuts describes what is taking place. Bears rip out picnic baskets slower than Max and his disappearing pastry plate.
“How’d you end at Oceans?” Roman asks without looking up off the page.
“I was working in a photography shop for fifteen years. You know, prom shots, senior photos, passport stuff. Then things went digital, the shop went out of business. Oceans had an opening, and – I dig meeting all those people. It’s a great job, not that much different than the photo shop – I’m still giving shots. People open up when being photographed. People open up when drinking.”
“I’ve never seen you drink. Alcohol.” I say.
“Because I don’t, not anymore. Runs in the family. Working in a bar saved me. Overexposure does the trick.” A chocolate cupcake vanishes in one quick swoop by Max the magician. Its paper panties are squished into a tiny ball that gets tossed into the trash can, a five foot swish. “Anyway, imagination is important. You can imagine god, imagine love, imagine family, imagine sports; …otherwise, life makes no sense whatsoever.”
Where would I be without Maria Oasis? If you don’t love, you are screwed, sucked into a vacuum of empty inner space. We need someone or something beyond ourselves. A portable heaven. … Maria-the-mirage chagal-floats passed the window… My heart thumps hello.
“It’s all conditioning…” Max says, between swallows, “I used to masturbate in my late teens and early twenties. I was concentrating so much on college that I didn’t want to waste time on a relationship. Masturbation is full of imagination. I conditioned myself this way. It was very hard to have only one lover after that. Took years before I realized why I had had so much trouble sustaining intimacy. Three marriages, and two live-ins.”
Free therapy, donated sweets accepted.
“Men in general, at least those that frequent bars, have this problem. Besides, with billions of people roaming around, don’t you think it’s unnatural to desire sex with only one other person?”
“Good question for the next pope.” Roman says.
“Did you hear about his John Paul theory?” I say finally. It’s been the Max show so far. He’s used to listening to everyone else. Must have a ton of things to say. Roman and I are the real guests here.
“What’s this Roman?” Max asks.
Roman halts his pen in mid sentence, “John Paul’s name was influenced in part by the Beatles.”
Max starts laughing and choking on carrot cake he’s wolfing down. “The Beatles,” he coughs and clears his throat, “They were like gods. Everyday after school I would go down to the basement, make sure the drapes were closed tight and pretend I was in the Beatles, performing right along with the records. Every day. I was fantastically popular and immune from the ugly, unhappy life of my non-Beatle moments. That gave me self esteem and the songs helped me deal with inflamed feelings. I was one whacked-out kid. A secret Beatle. Even today when I hear one of their songs, I feel like I had a part in it, like it was my own. If no one’s around, I still perform.”
“Max and the Pope, what did I tell you.” Roman raises his coffee for a toast to himself, Interpreter of Social Behavior. He resumes writing.
“I feel high.” Max says. “Former alcoholics are good at indulging sweets.”
Max is giving out the kind of self-incriminating information that comes out of binge drinking or torture chambers. “What’s in these pastries?” I ask and prod the last brownie with my white plastic spoon.
“I’ve never told these things to anyone.” Max says soberly, sucking his sticky fingers clean, “Sugar intoxication,” he jokes, stands, “Truth syrup.” He scouts for the restroom, which he spots. It’s a short camel ride past the plastic palms.
“Beatles and masturbation. Now we know, Max.”
“I’ve got it all here,’ Roman says, holding up squiggly lines swerving across unruled paper. He has been writing everything said.
Our last two comments trailed Max into the darkness of the Oasis. He may or may not have heard them.
“Think everyone secretly pretends to be someone else?” Roman asks. “I wanted to be William Blake. Blake’s not my real name any more than Roman. I dug his writing so I started using Blake as a pen name about six years ago. It just stuck.”
“Well, who are you?”
“That my friend is a very good question.”
So Max thinks he’s whacked-out for pretending to be someone else? I have my Tom Brady moments. Laundry day I’m throwing perfect spiral socks into the drawers downfield. Crowds cheer, women swoon. Taking a leak – every time I raise the seat cover I’m under center calling plays and deconstructing the defense. A good piss is worth a crowd-filled flush touchdown.
Imagination is more important than intelligence. Einstein knew a thing or two.
“Look at the freakin’ moon,” I need to mention, almost squinting at the brilliant full moon. Roman blurts out, “it’s more than – I’m making a list -- it’s a snow cone moon, an egg-white eye, a mashed potato, a cauliflower, a round of cheese, that Pillsbury guy, a meringue disk, a cream puff, a cracker balloon, a macaroon pie.”
“Are you hungry?”
“I don’t feel well,” Max informs us without sitting back down, “Today’s been rough. I’m pissing blood again. Used a treadmill for ten minutes this morning. Blood in the urine after exercising is happening too frequently. Sometimes the urine is cola colored, other times, like today, it’s yellow and red, sunset. Got to keep flushing it out. This is in addition to the doctor informing me that my PSA is elevated, an 8.5. Normal is 0 – 4. Prostate cancer is coming soon. CT scan tomorrow. To summarize: I can’t drink, can’t sex, can’t exercise, and I sure as hell can’t eat any more desserts. Excuse me. Got to get some air.”
Roman and I are still processing this unexpected change of mood when Max pushes the wood frame glass door open and steps outside onto the moonlight and amber sidewalk stage. We watch from our front row seats. He’s engrossed in some disruptive inner dialogue play. Maybe he’s telling Ringo to come in a beat or two earlier. We should go out and check on Max but suddenly he leans forward and lurches over a green city trash can to barf and heave out twenty-four dollars and fifty-seven cents worth of putrid pastries. The way his body jerks back and forth it looks as if he’s being beaten by an invisible whip. He looks like us last night.
Must be a virus.
ROTATIONS, Chapter Two: Dessert Oasis © 2005 by John Kirkmire, © 2013 KIRKWORKSHOP, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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