Crazy Little Thing (4 page)

Dueling Banjos

“So, tell me how you all met,” G-Ray said. He was
sitting on the floorboard between Ollie and Claire, wearing his homemade helmet
camera. Which was actually just the camera duct taped to a motorcycle helmet
which in turn was strapped to his head. “We need a beginning point for our
film. Have you all ever noticed that every good story starts with a journey?
Think of all the famous movies that start out with people getting in a vehicle
and going somewhere.
Thelma
and Louise. Easy Rider. Deliverance
.”

“
Deliverance
? If banjo music starts playing,
I’m turning around and going back home,” Claire said. “I was only twelve
years-old when I saw that movie. Now every time I hear a pig squeal I tinkle my
panties.”

“I never saw it,” Ollie said. “My mom took me to see
it at the drive-in but I was in the trunk the whole time.”

“What? Why were you in the trunk?”

“She was sneaking me in for free and then forgot I
was back there.”

“Ladies, please. You’re avoiding the question,”
G-Ray said, turning down the Elvis CD. “Tell me the story of how you two met.”

“Yeah, I want to hear your side of it,” Ollie said.

“You tell your side first,” Claire said.

“I know,” G-Ray said, “Ollie, you say one sentence
about how you met Claire and then Claire, you say one sentence about how you
met Ollie. You know back and forth, taking turns.”

Ollie looked at Claire. Claire shrugged and said,
“You go first.”

Ollie took a deep breath. “Okay. It was summer on
the beach.”

“I was there with my friend Suzanne,” Claire added.
“Ollie was strolling up and down the beach like she was all that and she talked
me into taking a lesson for free.”

“I wasn’t acting like I was
all
that,” Ollie said, “I was handing out business cards. You were laying there
watching me for two hours and I finally walked over and said hi.”

“I was shy,” Claire said.

“Shy, my ass,” Ollie said.

“Did you know she was gay?” G-Ray asked Ollie.

“No, but I was hoping,” Ollie said. She glanced over
at Claire. “She did have a rainbow towel and as soon as I talked to her my
gaydar started beeping away. I asked if Suzanne was her girlfriend. I figured
that was her chance to tell me whether she was family or not.”

“Ollie is pretty cute in her surfer shorts,” Claire
said. “I told her I was between girlfriends. I also told her I wasn’t exactly
athletic.”

“And I said I’d
give her private lessons,” Ollie said, wagging her eyebrows up and down.

Claire rolled
her eyes but couldn’t help but smile.

“She gets a lot of girls that way,” G-Ray popped in.

“I just wanted one,” Ollie said. She glanced over at
Claire who was looking out the window. Ollie had never told Claire that for her
it was love at first sight because Claire didn’t believe that such things were
possible. She imagined Claire saying that it was hormones creating lust and
people mistook lust for love. But for her it was Claire’s beauty, with her long
chestnut hair and those big dark eyes. And, if truth be told, she also had a
great upper deck. “She had this tiny orange bikini on. Great tits.”

Claire playfully whapped Ollie’s arm.

“Well, it’s true!” Ollie said.

“Well, you looked pretty good in your surfing shorts
and tankini,” Claire said. “Nice calves.”

Ollie grinned. “We never quite made it to the
surfing lesson. We downed about three pitchers of margaritas, made wild nasty
love on the beach under the moon —”

Claire interrupted, “Got sand in places where sand
should never be.”

“Drove all the way to Des Moines the next day—”

Claire interrupted again, “And found out a few
months later that we had made a horrible mistake.”

There was silence. Finally, Ollie said in a low
voice, “I didn’t think it was all that horrible.”

“You weren’t the one who had to deal with the pool
problem,” Claire said. “You were always doing stuff, not thinking first, and
then leaving me to clean up the mess.”

“If I remember right, you were the one who threw me
out of the house. If you hadn’t told me that I’d be arrested if I ever came
back maybe I could have cleaned up the so-called mess.”

Claire bristled. “So-called? What else could it be
called? You flooded my house!”

“How was I supposed to know that a pool had that
much water in it?”

“You completely ruined the basement and most of the
first floor. I had to replace flooring, furniture and have drywall ripped out
because of the mold!”

“You know what?” Ollie said. “I’m glad we’re getting
this divorce!”

“Finally! We agree on something!”

Ollie turned on her blinker and took the next exit
into a Love’s convenience store.

“Love’s convenience store,” G-ray intoned. He aimed
his camera and zoomed in on the Love’s sign, saying, “Another film-matic piece
of irony.”

The Tocks Have Spoken

Ollie pulled the van up next to a pump and shut off
the engine. “G-Ray, will you go up top and check on EZ?”

“Your wish is my command,” G-Ray said.

“Make sure she’s secure and maybe put some sun-block
on her face.”

“Consider it done.” G-Ray opened the sliding door
and bailed out. Claire opened her door, saying, “I’ll pump the gas.”

“You sure?” Ollie asked.

“Why wouldn’t I be sure?” Claire said testily. “You
think just because I’m femme I can’t pump gas?”

“I was just asking. I’ll go forage for snacks. Any
requests?”

“Get me a Vitamin Water, please. Dragonfruit,”
Claire said.

“C’mon, Oscar,” Ollie said, snapping the leash onto
his collar. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Watching Ollie walk away with Oscar opened a
floodgate of memories for Claire, both good and bad. Just looking at the tiny
blond hairs on Ollie’s tanned forearms made her have lustful thoughts. Then
Ollie opened her mouth and the next thing she knew she was picking a fight with
her. How could one person make her so horny and so mad all at the same time?
Thank God, she had Scarlet. Scarlet was easier. All Claire had to do was tell
her she was pretty and buy her nice things. Love should be simple. Right? It
was supposed to be easy, wasn’t it?

G-Ray interrupted her thoughts. “Um, Claire? I hate to
tell you this, but…”

Claire looked up at him. He was kneeling on the roof
of the van and had a stricken look on his face. The first thought that jumped
into her brain was that EZ had expired.

“She’s not dead, is she?” Claire rambled on, not
pausing for an answer, “Oh my God, this is all my fault. I didn’t really need
to bring all that luggage. It was so selfish of me. And now look what happened.
A person has died and all because I couldn’t leave my suitcase of shoes behind.
I’m sorry.” A sob leaked out. “I’m so, so sorry. I am such a bad person.” She
banged her forehead against the side of the van in anguish, repeating, “Bad,
bad, bad…”

“No, it’s not that,” G-Ray said. “EZ is fine, man.
Stop head banging. She’s not dead. She’s just wind-blown.”

Claire looked up at him. There was a big red spot on
her forehead. “Then what is it?”

G-Ray looked all around like he was afraid somebody
might be listening. He whispered, “My tock is tingling.”

“Your what?”

“Did he say his tock was tingling?” Ollie asked.

Claire flinched. She hadn’t seen Ollie walk up.
Ollie had an armful of snacks and vitamin waters. Oscar jumped in the van and
panted happily.

Claire took her Dragonfruit vitamin water out of
Ollie’s hand and opened it. “What’s a tock? Or should I ask?”

“You know, his buttocks.”

“I have a right tock and a left tock. Together they
are my butt-tocks,” G-Ray said.

“That makes sense in a really weird sort of way,”
Claire said. She took a sip.

G-Ray leaped off the roof of the van. “I need a
me-moment,” he said. He executed a weird walk – shuffle, shuffle,
hop
,
shuffle, shuffle,
hop
- toward a picnic table that was situated on the
far side of the parking lot.

“What’s he doing?” Claire asked, watching him try to
walk while holding his butt in both hands. “It looks like he has his butt
clenched while he’s skipping.”

“That’s pretty much what he’s doing,” Ollie said
with a sigh. She opened the passenger door and unloaded the snacks into the
seat, saying, “I guess it’s time to fill you in on G-Ray’s story.”

“His story? He has a story?”

Ollie nodded. “He was abducted by aliens. They kept
him for a while, studying him and stuff. Ever since he got back, he’s had these
weird tingling sensations in his buttocks. His ass is like a divining rod. It
tells him what to do, where to go, what’s going to happen.”

“His butt is clairvoyant?”

“You could say that,” Ollie said.

Claire looked back over at G-Ray. He was now
standing on top of the picnic table. He was bent over at the waist and aiming
his butt in different directions. His eyes were squished shut and he had his
index fingers plugged into his ears. He must get better reception that way,
Claire thought.

G-Ray began to shuffle his feet like a chicken
scratching in the dirt.

“What’s he doing right now?” Claire asked.

 “His ass is pretty good at predicting the weather,
too,” Ollie said. “Looks to me like there’s a storm on the way.”

Suddenly, G-Ray unplugged his ears and stood ramrod
straight. He cupped his hands around his mouth like a megaphone and shouted,
“Grassy Knoll! The tocks have spoken! We must go to the Grassy Knoll!”

“Grassy knoll?” Claire whispered.

Ollie smiled. “Looks like we’re going to be making a
pit stop in Dallas.” She opened a bag and offered it to Claire. “Care for a
pork rind?”

G-Ray Speaks

G-Ray’s right nostril filled the camera’s lens.
After a moment of showing the long, dark tunnel of his nose, G-Ray backed up
and his entire face filled the screen. He stared into the camera a full ten
seconds before speaking.

“My name is G-Ray. People think my name has
something to do with aliens or laser guns or something. It doesn’t. Ollie gave
me the nickname when we were kids, man. My real name is Gordon Raymond, but
that sucked for a skater dood, so she changed it to G-Ray.”

He scratched his chin for a moment, thinking hard,
then continued, “I wasn’t going to do this. Like, be
in my own movie? But it has become what you may call ‘apparent’ that I need to
fill the audience in on my back-story. So here goes: I am what most people
refer to as a conspiracy theorist. I totally scoff at that label, man. I am not
a theorist. I am a trueist. I have seen the truth. My Great Awakening happened
on a Sunday. I was alone on the beach, man. And, like, this little gray dood
walks up to me. He looked like a Keebler Elf but without the cookies. He smiled
at me and said something in, like, a foreign language. It was all squeaks and
creaks and clicks and clacks. I was more curious than scared. He picked up this
conch shell and clicked and clacked into it. This big blue spaceship rose up
out of the water and the little Keebler dood took my hand and we walked on
water out to it. On top of the friggin’ water, man! And inside the mother ship
was this whole tribe of the little elves. They weren’t wearing clothes or
nothing, man, but they didn’t have any genitals. At least not in the usual
places. They gave me something to drink. It was sweet and orange. I remember
thinking it tasted like Tang or orange Kool-Aid. I kinda passed out after that.
And when I woke up, I was lying on the beach, it was noon, my buttocks were
tingly and my mind was expanded. I suddenly knew the answers to all life’s
great mysteries. Who built the pyramids? What was Stonehenge? Who killed JFK?
Who killed Marilyn Monroe? Did Elvis really die? What is the meaning of life? The
only problem is… I forgot the all answers.”

He chuckled to himself. “That’s why I follow the
tingly tocks, man. If I go to the Grassy Knoll like the tocks command, I can
maybe solve the JFK riddle and remember all the answers. Then I can expand the
brain of the world.”

He got up to turn off the camera, but stopped. He
looked down his nose into the lens. “I know what you’re thinking. But I’m not
crazy. Ollie had me tested and the doctor dood declared me sane and highly
advanced on the speculum of creativity. Peace out, man, peace out.”

G-Ray flashed the two-fingered peace sign then
turned the camera off.

The Grassy Knoll

“I can’t believe I’m actually standing here,” G-Ray
said. “My tocks are pulsing. I can totally feel the pulse in my pants, man.”

“Be careful,” Ollie warned. “The last time I felt a
pulse in my pants I ended up married.”

They were on Elm Street in Dallas on the Grassy
Knoll and across the street from the Texas School Book Depository. G-Ray wore
his helmet cam. He had made an executive decision and decided that he might as
well document the whole wild ride instead of limiting it to just the Claire and
Ollie scenes.

Ollie and Claire stood back and watched G-Ray do his
chicken scratch thing around the summit of the Grassy Knoll. He stuck his thumbs
in his ears and made moose antlers. He wiggled his fingers back and forth.

Oscar danced around G-Ray’s feet, barking at his
moose impersonation.

“What’s G-Ray doing now?” Claire whispered.

“Trying to find a signal,” Ollie said.

“So you think this alien thing is real?” Claire
asked.

Ollie shrugged. “I think
he
thinks it’s real.
And who am I to pee on his parade? It’s not hurting anybody and look how happy
it makes him.”

“Happy?” Claire gestured to the people who were
double-taking G-Ray’s performance. “Looking like a fool in public makes him
happy?”

Ollie looked over at Claire and it was almost as if
she was seeing her clearly for the very first time. An unwelcome thought reared
its ugly head. How did she fall in love with and marry a woman who was so… so…
stodgy? “When did you become so…” Ollie began. She censored herself and stopped
mid-sentence. There was no use upsetting Claire any further. They had a long
ride ahead of them. And an even longer time that they would have to live under
the same roof.

“What?” Claire asked. “Finish what you were going to
say.”

“Nothing,” Ollie said and walked across the street
toward the Texas Book Depository.

Claire ran to catch up. Once across the street, she
grabbed Ollie by the arm and turned her around. “Tell me. What were you going
to say?”

“I don’t know. It’s not important.”

“I want to hear it. You said, ‘When did I become
so…?’”

“Uptight,” Ollie blurted. “Uptight and square and
worried about what other people think. You used to laugh more. You made love on
the beach under the moon. You weren’t afraid to have fun.” Ollie was really
warming up now. “Ever since you got with Scarlet, you’ve changed.”

“How would you know what I’m like now? I haven’t
seen you since the day you left.”

Ollie couldn’t believe her ears. “Okay, first off, I
didn’t
leave
. You kicked me out,” she said. “In fact, I think your last
words were, ‘Leave. And don’t come back.’” Ollie could feel her temperature
rising. She turned and walked away before she blew and said something she truly
regretted.

“Who’s leaving now?” Claire threw at Ollie’s back.

Ollie ignored her. She wasn’t going to stand outside
in the middle of Dallas with tourists milling around and make a domestic scene
with her wife.
Wife.
What a friggin’ joke. They lived together for two
months before things became so sour that Claire kicked her out of the bedroom.
Hell, she had lived with G-ray longer than Claire. Even whacko G-Ray with his
tingly ass was easier to live with than Claire had ever been.

Ollie threw open the door to the Texas Book
Depository and marched inside. She took the stairs two at a time.

The thing she didn’t tell Claire was that she had
seen her with Scarlet. The first time was by accident, at the grocery store.
She saw Claire and Scarlet loading up their cart in the diet food section. They
were getting all the food that had no sugar, no carbs, no transfats and no
taste. Scarlet was as happy as a pig in slop. Claire looked sad. Ollie had even
seen her gaze longingly at a box of Ho-Ho’s.

The second time she had seen Claire wasn’t an
accident. She was on her way to the beach when, without realizing it, she had
driven over to Claire’s new house. She stopped her van a block away and watched
Claire’s front door. She hadn’t even known she was doing it until she had already
parked. She waited outside in her van for two hours before she saw Claire and
Scarlet walk outside, get into Scarlet’s fancy red convertible and speed away.

Ollie found herself parking outside Claire’s house
several times a week, watching Claire come and go. She told herself she wasn’t
stalking Claire. Stalking meant she was planning to do something icky. Ollie
had no plans to be creepy. She just wanted to see Claire. She thought if she
saw how happy Claire was with her new girlfriend that would put the kibosh on
her feelings. She would get over Claire and be able to move on with her life.

But that wasn’t what she saw at all. She saw a
progression of Claire going from a normal, happy woman to a woman who was so
uptight and rigid that she looked like she had a pole stuck up her butt.

Ollie had to admit that Scarlet had several things
going for her. She had nice tits. Great lips. A perfect nose. And her BMI was
like a ten. Which meant, in Ollie’s humble opinion, that she needed to eat a
cheeseburger or two. In fact, after some sleuthing (not to be confused with
stalking), Ollie had found out that Scarlet’s body had cost more in plastic
surgeries than Ollie had earned in her lifetime. She would have had to paint
and sell about two million hermit crab shells to pay for just
one of those fake tits.

And then came the inevitable day when Ollie saw
Claire come home with two black eyes and a bandaged nose. At first, Ollie
thought Claire had been in a fight. But it was worse than that. Claire had been
to the plastic surgeon and gotten her nose redone.

Rhinoplasty.

What an ugly word.

“Let’s make a deal with each other,” Claire said.

Ollie was now on the sixth floor looking out a
window at the passing Dallas traffic. It was the same window from where Lee
Harvey Oswald allegedly shot the president. She sighed, but didn’t turn and
look at Claire.

Claire continued talking to Ollie’s back. “Let’s be
honest, absolutely honest, with each other. We have to live together until the
divorce, so it’s the least we can do.”

Ollie turned and eyed Claire. “Honesty? That’s what
you want?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, fine with me. Tell me something honest.”

“You go first,” Claire said.

Ollie didn’t even hesitate. “I hate your nose.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Ollie said. “I hate your stupid,
perfect nose.”

Claire cupped her hand over her nose, hiding it. “My
nose?”

“It used to be cute. It had a tiny crook in the end.
It was so… you. Not perfect, but perfectly you. Now it’s gone. You’re changing.
It’s like you’re trying to become something you aren’t.” Ollie took a deep
breath. “How’s that for honest?”

She walked away. She couldn’t stand to see the hurt
on Claire’s face. It seemed like everything she did, she ended up hurting
Claire. Why was that? Why did she always hurt the people she loved? That was
one of life’s mysteries. Maybe G-Ray’s tocks could answer it for her, but she
doubted it.

As Ollie walked out the doorway, she heard Claire
say, “Honesty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”

*

Claire looked out the sixth floor window and watched
Ollie stalk to the van and climb inside. She saw EZ sleeping soundly on top of
the van and G-Ray walking around shooting footage with his helmet cam. Oscar
pranced around, stopping to sniff and pee on every bush. She saw couples, young
and old, walking around Dealey Plaza, pointing, talking, taking photos. Claire
remembered the film she had seen once. It was called the Zapruder film. The
grainy footage clearly showed JFK being shot and Jackie climbing over the back
of the car trying to retrieve her husband’s brain fragments.

Now that was love. Jackie didn’t even have to think
about it. She reacted. She didn’t stop and think, ‘That’s gross, I don’t want
to touch his brain.’ She just went for it.

Claire wondered if she would ever love somebody so
much that she would react so selflessly. Had she ever loved Ollie that hard?
Did she love Scarlet that much?

Claire didn’t have any answers. If she was going to
be brutally honest with herself that was why she said yes to this trip. She
wanted to reassure herself that she didn’t love Ollie once and for all. And as
soon as that foolishness was settled in her mind, she could freely give her
entire heart to Scarlet.

The only problem was sometimes her heart and mind
disagreed.