June 11, 2001
How Antelopes Do It
I took Bernadette to Carabella's, my favorite bar — the one where all the
roofers go. I ordered two Jack and Cokes and made her drink both (I was
driving). She said, "I knew you'd take me somewhere. I was going to ask you
to, but I knew you would anyway." I thought, Well she is cocky, isn't she?
When a tired, carless woman at my party wanted to go home, I was elected to
drive her, being the most sober. I'm not sure if I asked Bernadette to come
along for the ride or she somehow made it happen. She looked so hopeful,
with her round eyes and her way of always leaning forward. A couple of
months ago, Bernadette sent me one of her paintings. I think it's me
and Dave, only my arms are very long and so are Dave's buttocks. I wrote to
thank her, and then we started writing every day or so, but I write to a lot
of people and I didn't think much about it. But now here she was, in her
proper chignon and ruffly white shirt, telling me about when she lived in
Guam. She was standing on a dock, she said, looking into the water
when a barracuda leapt out and bit the tip of her finger off. She kept lying
— or not really lying, just making things up — and then she'd do this thing
with her hands in front of her face as if she was erasing all the stories so
she'd have a fresh start to make up more. I knew I should be returning to my party, but I'm a dutiful and prompt person — it's so rare that anything makes me want to be rude, I think that when I do want to, I should. So I kept sitting next to this strange creature who made no sense,
waiting for what would happen next. "You have a halo around your whole
body," I said. "Oh, that's from living near Three Mile Island in the late
seventies," she answered.
Suddenly we heard: "John, don't take your coat off! No, John, no!" John
was a very large, very drunk man. Apparently when he takes his coat off,
that's when trouble starts. John bumped someone with his stomach into the
next room; there he threw him into a table and broke it in two. Everyone was
screaming and running. Men and women together dragged John back into our
room and tried to get his coat on him. "Goddam it," wailed John's skinny,
haggard woman, "when is the nightmare going to end?" But her heartbreak
moment ended as soon as it began, and she realized that the violence had
made her amorous. She and John started humping against
the bar. "Oh no," said the barkeep, who hadn't bothered to help break up
the fight, "that's not happening on my bar," and he joined in the efforts
to get John in his leather coat. Everyone pushed John and his woman
out the door like they were a gargantuan couch to be moved.
Bernadette sees portents in everything, and magnetic strings between
people and events. She thought I'd arranged the fight for her; she thought
John and the rest of the patrons were actors. On our way back to the
car I struck up a conversation with a wobbling man; he turned his head while
walking away to tell us, "Life is good" and he walked right into an
oncoming truck. Luckily both truck and man were going about one mile per
hour and the man was unhurt, but a few minutes later a squirrel ran straight
for another truck and was not so lucky. Bernadette claimed I'd made both of
them do it.
I turned the car engine on, then I turned it off. I turned the radio on. "Do
you like Journey?" I said.
"That's a really funny question," she said, and I realized it was the kind
of thing a boy asks someone he's scared to kiss. Every second felt like
the moment I'd do it — I knew just how I would — but it kept not being
that second.
Then, when I didn't think I would, I did it. I pushed her shoulders
against the seat like I'd imagined doing forty times in the last half-hour,
and her shoulders yielded as if they were made of water, and so did her
mouth. She kept putting her chin down like antelopes do when they're ready
to fight, down almost to her chest. I'd go down below her head and push her
back up with my lips pushing hers — it must have felt like very bossy
kissing — and then her head would dip again. I knew I was about to move
down her body — I could picture it — but without intending to, I pulled
away into my own seat.
I took my first really good look at her. The shape of her mouth, her nose. I
had no idea about her breasts, in her bank teller blouse. I could have felt
them now if I wanted to, but I didn't want to grope her in the half-dark.
They, and all of her, are going to be — in some way, from time to time (not
all the way, because she loves someone else and so do I) — mine. I knew it
as well as she'd known I wouldn't take her straight back to the party.
I was expecting the party to be as rowdy upon our return as it was when we
left, but only a few guests remained and they were quiet and
worried. "Where were you?" they said. "Dave's out looking for you two — we
all thought you were dead."
I thought Dave knew what I was doing. "That girl's trouble," he kept saying
all evening, in reference to Bernadette. And since he's always trying to get
me to run off with a lady and I never have in our three years together (not
alone, anyway) and since he loves trouble, I thought "That girl's trouble"
meant, "I wish you'd run off with Bernadette." But Rachel told us
the other night about her third grade teacher, who never married until she
was fifty-five, and finally she stopped being a "Miss" and became "Mrs.
Halley." Life was good. Only a few months after the wedding, Mr. Halley was out driving and some reinforcement beams slid off the truck in front of him
and went through Mr. Halley's windshield and through Mr. Halley's head, and
he was dead. Even though this story is twenty-five years old, and even
though we are thirty-two, not fifty-five, it really scared Dave,
who, like Bernadette, feels buffeted by omens and hidden forces. He was sure
I'd been killed by a truck tonight, but I told him no, it wasn't me this
time.
Commentarium (39 Comments)
Viva Lisa!
Tricky, the way you snuck this one in a couple of days early. Checking to see who's paying attention?
That was funny and entertaining Lisa.
like the friendly neighborhood bike riding retarded kid says - all right!;)
Is that the most exciting story from your party? If so, Lisa, you are desperately in need of some adventure. It was good, as all your writing is, but I was expecting...more.
I.V.: Maybe there was an orgy or something at my party, but I wouldn't know, since I wasn't here for most of it. You should have your own party and have it (the orgy) and then write yourself about it. Having had more than enough group sex myself, getting all fumbly over the radio knob and a bank teller-like lady is much more interesting to me. I saw her again since that night, but now you have to wait two weeks to hear about it, bah ha! Oh, wait -- you don't care about that. Well, I got nuzzly molested by a man wearing nothing but a stuffed animal bear's head, and I'm not going to tell you about THAT either! AND I rubbed between the legs of one of my fellow Nerve columnists the other night -- can you guess who it was? Someone all alone on the dance floor and, I suspect, mortified.
don't let the illicit-mongering distract you from your MESSAGE, herr ero-illuminata!
I, for one, know why the bank teller lady wears that proper chignon- she did not wear it the other night, and LC probably ingested/inhaled over half a head of hair.
Bank teller lady ain't into chicks. The classic head bobbing to avoid the kissing. I've seen it before in threesomes when the 3rd chick thinks it's a good idea until it actually happens. Of course, then both girls concentrate on me, so I don't mind! Anyway, good story. Much better, probably, then tame party flirtations and silly drunken games.
Yeah but I'm not a chick. I'm the Dover jungle beast!
10 hours through the Misty Mountains of Vermont, nobody thought once to come and find me. Assured that my own thoughts and fears had eroded into a solid yellow line, Adam happily drank down a few Labatt Blues and promptly put Crystal Method into the CD player when he saw that he was beginning to travel on both sides of the New HAmpshire highway 495. Lisa may have gone for a drive, but I can tell ya right now, we wearn't ALL worried, at least not the Canadian contingent. You see the world could use a serious dose of "people of zee world relax" (sorry Tom), often we like to trump up an everyday situation and somhow create our own drama's. Did you really thing Lisa Carver was crashed into a tree.....I wouldn't bet the farm on that one. Instead I'd give the woman some space to do what I would assume she does best. Adventure about and get into some kind of curfuffle she could write about, thats her job. Personally, I was happy with my Hula hoop and the instructor that came along with it. As to whetehr or not the party was fun......well often leisure takes on many forms....I'll show again if invited, only this time I'm leaving an hour earlier and going home an hour late.
you mean like that's it?
kerfuffle?
slim pickings, very slim.
This anonymous feedback thing is catching on. Don't forget, a bunch of people jumping at the chance to tell you that "you've lost it!" is a form of flattery. You're not intimidated, just focus on the writing, right? I took a short road trip myself during your party time and my radiator exploded--that's what I get for not coming, I guess. Was this party as nonthreatening as the last one? Glad to see the hula hoop made another appearance. You know I'm starting to think if I just pretend to have ESP and paranoia that you'll fuck me!! I can do that, I've been around enough of that mess. It gets me going too, I have to admit... you get to skip the fear of abandonment if you know your lover is already completely out to lunch in the first place. Then if their skull is open, they invite you to walk on the moon with them. Lovely.
Are you kidding me??? Oddly enough, the Jackels that are so intent on harshly criticizing a party for not being "bad assed" enough couldn't find the time to show up themselves. Understandedly thier presense alone Would have elavated the atmosphere to near statospheric heights. Great golden copulations would have insued and the Rogue Dalmation would have gotten more than the table scraps he so slyly sliiped away with. Cat calling from the cheap seats was never very attractive to me, and really since from the time I was a child, I've been on the playing floor a hell od alot more than in the stands, I've never really learned to like anybody that could do no better than criticise.
Idiots!
Signed...most Non Anonomously..
Superjudge.
Aka. Craig
Aka. Fuck you if ya can't drive that far!
I liked this one. Bank teller lady sounds more fun than the italian waiter. It even sounds like Dave approved or that could have been just relief. I like the idea of all the omens and death and dysfunction going around. Like Lisa, they're living in public, surrounded by the clear glass of a windshield. Parking lot seductions are always exciting. Where do these people come from, Lisa??!!
right-on, sls!!
The READER FEEDBACK is more exciting than this weeks Diary entry!!!
I've been reading these for a few months now, and I enjoy them. I think Lisa is teasing us with this one! Of course, we want more (action) but the last laugh will be on us, I hope! Come on boys, can't we have any seduction with the sex?
How is the readers telling Lisa that she has "lost it" a form of flattery? That she once had it but no longer does is every artists' nightmare. I still think its an identity crisis and I ought to know.
NM: I started writing (record reviews!) and touring with "operas" and making films and CDs at age 18, and two years later people were saying I'd lost it, I'd sold out, didn't have the spark I used to have, and they've been saying it ever since. I think it's code for: "You're doing something different. I was used to the old thing you presented regularly, I miss it and now I'm crotchety so I'm going to try to hurt you." I think everyone in the public eye gets called a has-been for their entire career. Of course, there's the likelihood that ONE of these times I get told I've lost it, it'll be true! But how would I know which time? As for YOU, sls: By "these people" do you mean Big John and his skinny, scrawny woman? They're all in Dover, s. Come visit!
Lisa having an identity crisis? This makes me laugh. Lisa IS an identity crisis. She imposes them on herself. Ripping and destroying and getting to the bottom of everything.
leeesa, I learned early: "fuck-a-bunch-a 'sold-out'!"
NM: you seriously wrong on this one; like, The Lisafer holds an honorary docorate in sexual pathology, like, from the Sorbonne. And to whosoever complaineth the feedback to be better than the diary: wasn't that what Rollerderby was originally all about in the first place? Go study the art of performance, and call back later, you poseur![just kidding:)]
Eureka.
I believe that you've hi tit on the head mcg....but then it was obvious..no?
To legions of sandspecks longing to be in the light, it has always been of great interest what the Specks in the light were either doing or saying. For the most part the answer was always, and continues to be, right in front of them, smiling. Lisa is a Puppeteer of sorts, but her talents come from the audience that she keeps.
Superjudge
the bear started to scare me. I had to hula hoop him into his clothes.
Are YOU the one who was finally able to tame the bear, Emu? Did you really use the hula hoop to do it? How? Many others tried and failed.
Did sombody say Hula Hoop?
Judge, I heartily concur but see her more as a perverted nursery school teacher: and I mean that in the most positive sense, cause let's face it, none of us probably got the attention we deserved back then, anyway. Or better yet, she's like an erotic 'fisher of men'; this especially rings true during her chats, when all the little fishes be just JUMPING to get caught on her sexy hook. That's why I consider myself more of an angler, and her one sexy-fucking Moby Dick: or if you prefer, my great white pussy;)
No more similes!
Holy shit! I'm poppin' into nerve, and what do I read about but Bernadette!!(we didn't call her that exatctly but close enough). Well, you might not remember me, but I remember YOU from you-know-where in '92 in NYC! I knew EXACTLY who this was about(ok I am 99% positive) that is her to a T! I laughed my head off, about her and her omens. She always made me laugh.She was like that, with the halo but making some trouble too.And teh stories. Last I heard she moved to Singapore. Good to hear she is alive and well and kudos to the authoress for reminding me of this strange girl. Hope yer still painting too. your shows were always good "Bernadette". (James)
I read Susan Dominus' article in the NY Times and thought of you, Lisa. I'd love to read you in another context. I know you're all wrapped up in this role you're playing, but I'd give anything to see what else you can do. There's more to you than than you've shown. Keep me posted. Anything you write...I'll be there.
NM, man, this ain't no karaoke! We don't get to pick the songs she sings! We are just specks like SJ said! We WISH we could pick our favorite songs and MAKE her sing them, but where would that get us?
Can't blame me for trying. Or for encouraging Lisa. What's wrong with a little diversification. Everything is so specialized. All the little specks just close in on themselves and suffocate.
lcc - as if!!
Wow, the cult of Lisa is quite amazing. She's only human, people! If you cut her, does she not bleed!? If you deny her food, will she not starve!? If you deny her sex, well, then you're just askin' for it, then, aren't ya?
Well I grabbed said hula hoop and lassoed him with it and dragged him upstairs, where I assumed his non bear covered clothing was stored, but alas! He admitted his bear-less clothes were downstairs so I dragged him back down the stairs and forced him into the bathroom where I relased him from my hula hoop grasp and demanded he cease his incessant grinding upon and depositing of moist booty juice all over your innocent party guests and cloth himself right quickly OR ELSE.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........
Can't wait until next Monday!
Now you say something