Brocade

So here I am at the airport, waiting. I can't believe there's another hour, now that the flight has been delayed. What am I going to do for another hour? I kind of want a cocktail, but I haven't had anything to drink in two weeks, I mean anything to drink except with Ned. There's no way I could get hard to fuck him without a few cocktails. I mean JoAnne didn't say anything about not drinking, she actually said she thought drinking and pot would be okay, and I said are you sure? And she said yes, I've never been drunk when I shot dope, what would be the point? And I said but pot, what about pot? And she said oh, you're right.

            So I guess our agreement is that neither of us is going to do any drugs, but we can drink: we’ll get cocktails together but not on our own. And I said wait, how about if we only drink when we’re having a meal, so that it’s part of a ritual that doesn't involve drugs? Maybe that was more for me than her, since I'm the one who always wants drugs when I get cocktails. But the word ritual, that was for her, she’s the one who likes rituals.

            I can't wait until JoAnne sees the new living room. I painted the whole room purple, just for her. With magenta trim. And then I painted the windowsill in Abby's room purple also, Abby's room which will now be JoAnne's, unless Abby comes back and then JoAnne will move into the third bedroom. And I painted my windowsill purple too, and I painted one of the walls in the third bedroom magenta. I was going to paint the whole room, but honey, painting takes forever, and I got tired. Maybe it looks better with just one wall anyway.

            But then I needed to find some furniture for the living room. One day I noticed signs for a yard sale a few doors down. There wasn't anything in the yard, but the front door was open so I went in and there was a really old lady who said: I like your hat, ma'am.

I guess she meant my hair, so I said thank you.

Feathers, she said, I like the old-fashioned kind. And I smiled.

Looking around I noticed the most hideous gold sofa set, Louis the 14th style, no maybe not Louis the 14th, but some king who made a sofa set so hideous that it was gorgeous. Maybe it's more 1970s then 19th century, now that I think about it, with the brocade swirly paisley tie pattern. But anyway I asked if the sofas were for sale. And this old woman said yes, everything in this room, my granddaughter is redecorating. And I asked her how much. A hundred dollars, she said, and I had $100 of hooker money in my pocket so I took it out right then and counted it for her. And she yelled Vito, Vito, can you help this nice young lady?

            And Vito came down, and looked at me like where is the nice young lady, but he didn't say that, he just said do you live nearby? And I said yeah, just down the street, 146 Webster. And the old lady said the sofa set, with the table.

I didn't realize I was buying the table, some atrocious mirrored thing, a big block of solid glass right out of some ‘80s coke party, but Vito said no problem, I'll bring it right over, and I went back home and waited. And he did come right over, with another middle-aged Italian guy, maybe his brother, and they said this is kind of a funny color in here, did your wife choose it? And I just smiled as they put the sofas and table in my new living room, and I couldn't really believe how over-the-top it looked. I was a queen before, but look at me now.

I called JoAnne right away and she said you know, you don't have to do any of this, you don't have to do any of this for me. And I said I know, but I'm doing it anyway. And she started laughing. I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in a while.

Then I started to get manic, or maybe I was already manic but anyway I realized there was nothing on the walls, so I took all of my lists that I've been saving, saving for something but I didn't know what, and I taped them all together, maybe 6 feet across and 5 feet tall, tricks’ names and numbers and grocery lists and INCEST and who knows what else, all of that, my life for the last few months, and then I taped it to the wall but something was missing, a frame, where should I get a frame? Then I remembered that Goodwill in Cambridge has great frames so I went over and got this huge gold thing.

But actually the lists were bigger than the frame so I hung it off-center like a frame without a frame no I mean art without borders, right, a new campaign slogan for the end of 1995. And it's funny how now there's all this gold in here because I hate gold. But it looks hilarious. Especially now that I keep adding lists so the art is growing underneath the frame and I can't believe I waited this long, waited this long to decorate the living room, what’s next?

Oh, don't forget the rubber tree — I got a rubber tree that someone left on the street, a really big one that was half-dead, but then I took off all the brown leaves and at first it looked kind of strange because there were leaves on one side but not the other, I mean it still looks strange but not any stranger than anything else in the room, and we do need a plant, right? I guess the landlord said we could only paint neutral colors. Oh, well — purple is pretty neutral to me. We can always paint it over later.