Betsy Shebang - Column for 12/18
The Bell Tolls for Thee
(Stop Requested)
Drove a rented SUV all day Saturday, moving furniture and buying a
Christmas tree and travelling to Vallejo for a semi-obligatory party with
my wife's co-workers. Thirty miles and half a tank of gas later, we
entered a maze of sprawling streets named after wines - "Burgundy",
"Chenin Blanc" - each picketed with identical stucco palaces planted in
slopes of brown dirt where nothing else will grow. Found"Blush Court" (so
named because one of the residents had forgotten to leave his 4x4 in the
driveway) and, amid concern about losing our Ford Explorer in the row of
identical vehicles that lined the curb, we parked a few houses away. The
corner dwelling was choked with Jeep Cherokees and Mountaineers, each
white as a nurse’s uniform (the color of adventure), the largest of them
parked across the driveway between two others and blocking two more from
getting out. We knocked, heard noises and let ourselves in.
The party was well populated and somehow I knew instantly this was "not my
scene". I have no SUV stats to share, no kids to compare, no career to
discuss, couldn't pretend to care. Sure, I could yak about the rugged
handling of the rental thingie we'd driven up here, if I then wanted to
listen to a lecture on the subject from someone I'd rather look down upon
from afar, but this was a party and I'd come to have fun. My wife asked
me to talk with her, so we turned to chat as if we'd just met, shielding
each other from outside conversation until the next tour group left to
explore the bedrooms.
The hostess, an executive from my wife's office, mid-thirties and
determinedly sexy, wore a lace shirt over a black halter top and tight,
low-cut pants that barely concealed the shadowy valleys where torso
becomes legs. She hugged my wife enthusiastically and shook my hand with
a genuine smile as we departed to stroll through the unused-bedroom wing,
the Loop of Luxury, led by our very own suburban Cher.
The master bedroom was small, with a huge bathroom reaching off one side
and an enormous drive-in closet opening off that, plus another closet for
the toilet; a thief chased into the hallway could evade capture for hours
in the fractal maze of doorways and plumbing and storage space. We
followed the sound of unnecessary conversation back into the hallway and
found an "unused" bedroom, home to several framed pictures and a chest of
drawers, and next to that a guest room featuring our hosts’ old bed, one
end table, one lamp and one copy of "If You Play Golf, You’re My Friend"
displayed like the bible in a white-collar prison cell.
The golf-is-life motif was expanded in the office that connected the
hallway to the front room, which housed only a baby grand piano and a
table of food; while the racks of monogrammed balls and trophies set a
dramatic tone for the office desk and its surrounding space, however, it
was the "unused-storage-space" look that defined the rest of the house and
provided its special welcoming glow. "Why, I could store anything
in here!" I excitedly observed, visualizing the emptying of my damp
storage locker into the second bedroom and the purchase of new equipment
to fill the third. The inviting emptiness, enough to contain a lifetime’s
haul of vital keepsakes and crap from garage sales, had stirred a lust in
me that our hostess’ outfit could never have achieved.
We chatted with other co-workers I’d heard unpleasant things about and
left early, now in the habit of yawning and sleeping while the rest of
civilization gathers in noisy rooms to repeat automotive statistics and
wait for the beer to rain attractiveness upon the world. Somehow this
makes me both smug and bitter, as if I had the social life of a new parent
and the enthusiasm of a forced-into-retiree.
Next morning I drove to Oakland Airport to return the SUV and I was joined
at the busstop by an old black man in worn-out clothes who’d gotten off
the "Not In Service" bus I’d thought would be my ride home. We sat on the
island between lanes of traffic, watching shuttle drivers pull expensive
luggage out of vans ferrying white college students to their flights, when
a long shiny limousine pulled up to the curb behind us and several chubby
black men in their fifties stepped out. One wore a black beret; another
carried a tan guitar case over his shoulder. A slight, weathered black
female airport traffic officer stepped up to the railing beside me. "I
better find out if that's B.B. King," she said. "If I let him get by me,
I'm gonna die!"
"WHAT GROUP IS YOU?" she shouted across the two lanes of traffic. The
man holding the guitar case said "HUH?"
"WHAT GROUP IS Y'ALL?"
"JAZZ ALL-STARS," the man announced, pointing out his colleagues to the
left or right on the sidewalk, each paying no attention. "MILT STEVENSON,
JERRY CARTER..." I don't remember the names, actually; all I remember was
his smile and the practiced pause after each name for applause and a
moment’s solo. I fought my instinct to clap.
The bus arrived and the old man and I got on. Several other passengers
boarded at nearby stops, all African-American, like our
driver. Hmm, I thought. These people are not dressed like the
people at that party last night. I thought. It’s as if there are
different social classes in America, and some of them live in a
make-believe commando world where they drive enormous top-heavy
gas-swallowing battering-ram cars equipped with winches and roof racks and
four-wheel-drive that will never be used, while the other half rides the
bus because they haven’t got any money. It’s a psychotic costume party,
with half the guests sharing a single, huge, filthy costume."
"It’s like we’ve all been castrated," I thought, every last one of
us, and a few of us have taken the proceeds from the event and purchased
oversize make-believe dicks to be displayed in their driveways. It’s as
if our one purpose in life, our only goal to achieve before we die, is to
purchase shit we don’t need with money we don’t have to impress people we
don’t like or even know. This is called prosperity."
An elderly lady with wiry curling hair, looking a bit like Shirley
Chisolm, wearing a white dress and a heavy tweed coat against the cold,
reached for the broken cable that ran along the side of the bus and was
sloppily knotted around one of the loops two windows from the
front. "RING RING RING! RING MY BELL! RING RING! RING MY BELL!!" She
shouted, lowering her hand. The bus pulled over. "Oh, no - I meant the
next stop. Sorry."
The driver turned back toward her. "Does the bell work?"
"No, it’s broke on this side."
"Okay." The driver continued and the lady - a nurse, maybe - got off at
the next stop.
Copyright 2001 Betsy Shebang
