by Lee Upton

 

 

You’re so right. This whole show is like extra-reality where people travel to tourist spots rife with killer viruses and terrorist vendettas against Band-Aids and sunglasses. You never expect anyone to survive let alone write poetry on a napkin!  Like they’ve got the contestants joining motorcycle gangs of hedge fund managers with initiation ceremonies that require the commission of a felony and five Velcro back patches. Oh, I love that it’s Modesta’s turn at last. A puppet show!

You’re exactly right.  I couldn’t agree more. We’re among puppets!  Hollow. Wooden. Voiceless. Unless manipulated by others.  Audrey, from a mile away anyone can tell you’re a therapist.

The thing that always gets me: Do they think that women won’t seek revenge? Or that the final woman isn’t enraged that for weeks she was kept in crappy locations where she had to bed down with women she might not even be remotely attracted to?   

Sorry, Sabrina, I don’t “have” dip. I don’t think we can possibly do better than lemon curd.   know curd sounds like something left over at the back of the refrigerator behind the tilapia, something that could make anyone shout “What the hell did this used to be?”  But no, curd is perfect. Curd is better than all of us.

Here we go!  Yeah!

???

Good. I’m glad they got rid of that blonde coloring book aficionada who’s underemployed like virtually everybody else in America except for the unemployed.  

Georgia, were you raised in a barn or in the state with the best peaches and the most STD’s?  Just kidding. I don’t know anything about peaches. That’s a joke. Listen, though, Georgia, I don’t have ash trays for a reason. That vase you just chucked your ash into was hand painted by a tiny white man with a tongue stud.

Okay.  I’ll be quiet.

Look who’s talking.  But you’re right, Katie.  This sure blows. A crappy helicopter ride and tacos on a rooftop and fireworks that the entire city can enjoy?  Plus, Trina is wearing a dress that looks like lingerie torn off a fake Barbie from a dollar store.

Can this get worse?  Now they’re walking through a graveyard of old traffic signs.  The creepy music in the background…

Why does Modesta keep saying she has a secret and that she hopes everyone will still accept her? Can we live with the suspense?  You know what? I have some ideas about her big secret. I bet she’ll say:

I was pulled over for a DUI in Burbank.  But I wasn’t even drinking. It’s just that my body is a brewery!  I hope you’ll still accept me!

You know, my dress is actually frosting piped on my naked body.  I hope you’ll still accept me!

Gosh, does it bother any of you when Gordon talks to his stuffed animals? He makes me feel so old, like the type of woman who pinches ketchup packets from restaurants to stuff into her embroidered hold-all the size of a bunny hatch. Sometimes, though, he makes me feel young and I remember things.  For instance, I remember being a twelve-year-old and reading “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson. I was the only kid, other than Kimberly James, who understood the story. The rest of the class thought the townspeople were digging a fire pit. Kimberly understood and wanted to volunteer her own mother and kept shouting “Tradition!” like some tiny brain-addled Tevye.  

Have you tried the curd?

Why does the camera always focus on his chest so much—his chest in running water?  He must shave his chest on the hour, I swear. His chest is so smooth. It’s like a hockey puck made out of ice.  It’s like he must slip out of bed every morning and glide right across the floor and hit his head on the wall. Okay, wait for it. Okay. Okay.  See how he looks at Trina? The joy, the look of delight and exhilaration—only the loser gets that look. To fool you. Really.

???

Oh no.  No. No. No. No. No. No. No.  

!

Quick, Sabrina, get Georgia! She’s out on the balcony.  Smoking like a loser. Get her. She won’t want to miss this!

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

Wait for it.

!!!

!!!

???

~   ~ ~  ~ ~

Well, that was quick.  Too quick. I really think revenge should, you know, take a little time.

No, Georgia. You missed it.  Too bad.

Inez!  You’ve been so quiet.

I know.  I know. I know that no one knows what the hell we’re watching. Diane—you think it’s the Westminster Dog Show, don’t you?  Remember. My turn to pick what we’re watching next. Not Cat Rescue.

Okay.  Hey, everybody. I’m pausing this. Let’s take a little break so I can tell you why I gathered you all here.

No. Listen. It’s about Lucinda Trapp.  I think we should initiate an intervention.

Yes, I’m referring to the same Lucinda Trash who stencils her clothes. Nothing’s wrong with that.  That’s not her problem. Or mine. I’ve knitted covers for toasters, and I’ve had my sweaters festooned with gray puff balls, and I think making pot holders kept me sane for half a year. It’s not crafting that’s Lucinda’s problem.

Oh, Inez, leave it to you. It was only a butter knife. It wasn’t even serrated.

I’m thinking if we all got together and confronted her and—

I did.  I even tried making analogies. I told her: You are vulnerable. You are, after all, your own homeland. Defend the homeland. Be prepared in any conflict to defend the weak. That is, yourself.

Of course not. That’s why we need a show of force. An intervention. She’s home.  I know that for a fact. We could all drive over and confront—

False pretenses. Yes, I invited you to a viewing party. This is a viewing party. Plus a meeting you weren’t aware of and a plea for your cooperation in an intervention. It’s not like I’m asking any of you to harvest your own organs.

Well, not exactly. I mean, it’s not like her body is ready to molder in a grave weighted down by a slab of granite upon which are stretched corpulent dope-smoking college boys on dates with their formidable nannies.  It’s not like—

True.  I’ll admit that gravity has thickened my own back muscles until I resemble a grazing water buffalo—sure. But her health is worse.

Lately she has no energy either.  She spends nights cracking the tails off shrimp and stripping the waste vein.  While she’s online. God knows what she even watches. Think of all the problems she has. Being abandoned, fired, abandoned again, fired again.  Nobody likes her. That strange preoccupation with the planet Mars. The way she dresses like the devil’s tea bag when she doesn’t have that industrial park look.  Plus: her terrible, terrible loneliness. Her voyeuristic tendencies. Her ritualistic attempts to appease the gods—

No.

No.

What do you mean—you think I need an intervention? Nothing’s wrong with me.

Okay.

Okay.

Really?

Thanks for your concern, I guess.

I’m fine.

So I only speak in jokes—and is that so wrong?

And they’re not funny?

People have laughed. Just not tonight.

True, but—

And they’re exhausting?

My jokes are abusive? Violent? Terroristic? Uncompassionate and yet not even political? My jokes cause global human suffering?

My jokes are just jokes.

I’m listening.

Right. I’m listening.

You don’t have to lecture me.

Sure.

Sure.

Please.

Lucinda! Wow! Great of you to pop over!  We were just talking about you! Wow!

What were we watching? None of us know.  Some kind of reality show.

Why should I? Nobody can tell what’s real and what’s not. And why should they?  After all, some of what’s real isn’t real, and some of what isn’t real is real. Everybody knows that.

Make yourself comfortable, Lucinda honey. Why are you hanging back like that? Come all the way on in.  I have crud. I mean curd.

What have you got there?

You’re going to scratch the wood.  I just had this floor buffed.

That thing looks like one of those blood-spattered altars weird prehistoric crowds in movies supposedly sacrificed their victims on. How weird, Lucinda. Human sacrifice—now that’s weird. I mean rituals are over-rated.  It’s not like world peace is going to be restored because of–. We’ve never had world peace, right? Wow. That thing’s bigger than my kitchen island. Where there’s curd. Right in the kitchen. Lemon curd.

This is a joke, right?  

Lucinda, you’re joking, right?

I mean I could be like women in old tv shows and shout, “Get your hands off me!” I could do that if I wanted to be predictable.

But this is a joke, right?

I mean everybody knows a joke is based on incongruity, right?  Something doesn’t fit… Right? An aberration, a deviation.

You  can make people think you’re going to do something brutal and tremendously painful and pretty much the work of the devil’s sticky right hand but you’re joking.  Always joking.

Ha ha, right?  Like you just want me to shriek and then you’ll all laugh—because you’re just joking, right?

This is your little joke?  Your joke?

Except it’s not funny to—

(END)

 

 

Lee Upton is the author of fourteen books, including Visitations: Stories (LSU Press, 2017). Her writing appears widely in such venues as The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and The New Republic. Her honors include a Pushcart Prize and three appearances in Best American Poetry. Click here to visit her website.