Words & Dreams (Book 1 of Smithers Family Saga)

Chapter 31

Dollie was at the supermarket, pushing a cart and humming to herself as she saw the basket of dog toys, stopped, and settled on a small stuffed lion and a small stuffed tiger. Then, finding a stuffed bear, put it in her cart, and said aloud, "Lions, tigers, bears, oh my!" and giggled with an infantile spasm. She was looking forward to her date with Danny.

Really, that's the way to do it, she thought, you fuck 'em and then you get the elephant out of the room by throwing it at your sister, and then you've eased almost all the tension: "from there it's smoother sailing," she whispered aloud. She thought of her thought of the elephant, looked back at the basket, and found an elephant. "Two for each," she said. There was no need for new toys. But she decided it would be good to have back-ups. Yes.

"What am I going to wear," she said, again, lowly, a can of dog food in her hand, rotating it, as if looking at its calorie content when in reality her mind was in her closet and wardrobe, seeing herself in the mirror on her wall, and seeing herself in the transition between the dressing, and looking her naked body over, as if to make sure it was ready for action.

"Excuse me," a customer said.

"Oh, I'm sorry," Dollie said back, and moved her cart out of the way so that an old lady could find some cans of food for her cats.

Erica was at the house of her friend, Yvette, a painter, who she'd chosen to speak with solely for the purpose of having someone to speak with. Yvette had a PhD. in the arts and was the type of person, who, in a room full of medical doctors, if called 'Ms.' or 'Mrs.' would correct them, and say she was to be referred to as Dr. Yvette Reed. Many people thought of her as a snob, but Erica thought of her as class-eccentric, in the same way that Salvador Dalí might be thought eccentric by showing up to the gallery in a knight's armor on the back of a friend, with a note on the back of his friend that said, 'my ass; not Sancho Panza.'

Erica knew a few dozen such people, but Yvette lived the closest.

She was an attractive woman, with dark hair and eyes. She was French and spoke with said accent, but with a certain sonorous oomph added, as if to intensify her sense of superiority.

Yvette listened to Erica as she painted the Buddha entering a castle which had a vaginal shaped opening in the stone, while crowd of people looked on with their mouths open in horror. It was a fine piece.

"-and the man's a- take the brush off the canvas," and she waited as Yvette took the brush off the canvas, made a sound of irritation that she should have her genius halted, as Erica said, "he's a janitor!"

"Thank you," Yvette said, after a jolt went through her body.

"Huh?"

"For telling me to take my brush off the canvas. I would have spoiled the Pussy of Life, and would have had to paint over it. I do not wish to paint over the Pussy of Life. It is essential that it should be as naked in relation to the canvas as a tampon to a period."

"What the hell does that mean?" Erica said.

"Foolish 'Rica," Yvette said, pronounced 'Ree-cuh' with a thick French accent. Erica had let it be known to her friends that this nickname was only allowed if said in an accent not native to the English language. "Why, of course, it means, the blood gets to the whiteness," and she made a hand with her fist, pumped it in the air, "and only so- a female. Pure in all her filthiness. That no man can defile. It is the purity of her spirit, as a rifle- no, a sword- is to war. A rifle is far too mechanical."

"So it's- like, empowerment, then?" Erica said. Yvette was one of the few people in the world who could make her feel foolish. It was probably the severity of the 'artiste' in her. She saw the world in a way that she thought would be natural to everyone, which is part of the reason she felt superior; it was easier to communicate within one's own class, than with another.