— Helene Cixious

"I means you."

"Don't talk like an illiterate black person."

"That's not what I mean. I mean I means you, like I stands for you, I am you, but more, much more. It's an endearment with deep structural, some might say semiotic significance."

"Oh, okay."

"A sort of Derridean deconstruction of endearments, even."

"I'm supposed to reply to that? You want me to reply to that?"

"You could say, 'Thank you.'"

"Thank you."

"You could say 'I means you, too.'"

"I could. But I won't. Just because you say something doesn’t mean I have to say something too."

"Maybe you're right."

"Certain things are sometimes best left unsaid. Unthought, even."

"I said you were right."

"Maybe. You said maybe I was right."

"I always say maybe."

"Yes, you do. You're a real maybe kind of guy."

* * * * *

"When I was in the airport in Chicago that guru woman, the one with the bleached hair, the one who used to be a fat housewife and now does those absolutely loud and exhausting exercise infomercials on TV -- you know the one I mean. . ."

"I don't remember her name but I know the one you mean. From way back when. Not the buns of steel people, the other one."

"Right, the same vintage. That one, the one with the philosophy, the one you’d think would be dead by now, or at least forgotten."

"Apparently not yet. At least not by you."

"I’m trying to forget, believe me."

"You say you forget everything–"

"Only sometimes. But listen: I'm rushing between G and K concourse and I hear this loud Jersey voice saying, 'Shit, something's got to be open, for Christ's sake,' the sound cutting through the din, piercing it, like, I don't know, an ice cutter through ice. I turn around and there she is, a baggy shirt hanging off one bare shoulder, breasts bouncing, flunkies trailing, mouth going a mile a minute chewing gum. Nostrils flared, she rushes past me, like I wasn't even there, expensive bags hanging off her, more expensive bags hanging off the two girls gliding in her wake, chins out, a wedge of female flesh in search of some necessary and urgent item in the wee hours of an O'Hare morning."

"You paint a lovely picture."

"I try. Clifford Geertz. Thick description. You know, the emphasis on ‘thick.’"

"Emphasizing your thickness again. Love it when you do that."

"Irony? Are you being ironical? Saying one thing when you mean the opposite? Because if you are . . ."

"See what I mean: thick."

"Can I just finish my narrative? Please? Distraction, you know is well theorized hegemonic slight of hand."

"All I said was ‘You paint a lovely picture.’ You said everything else. You distract you, not me. Or should I say, not I?"

"Got me. You got me again. Caught me in a distraction."

"Okay. Thank you. Now just let me finish, okay?"

"Okay, okay."

So, then she says, 'Shit, shit, shit,' on seeing that another shop is not open. She stops suddenly, her white hair bristly, her nostrils expanding in centimeters as if about to give birth. 'This fucking country,' she says, putting the accent on the 'fucking.' Her shoulder is very white, alabaster, ivory, smooth, her collar bone pronounced and parallel to the floor, her waist home to bands of gold and works of oriental art, her heart pounding in her chest, her nipples pointed up toward the flags hanging from the ceiling, her pupils dilating before my eyes. In a very loud voice, she again says, 'Shit, shit, shit.' Then she rushes back past me, leaving the two girls behind, momentarily detaching her retinue --"

"Jesus, you didn't go all this way for that pun, that old pun, Jesus."

"What do you take me for? What do you think? Of course --"

"Never mind."

"You want to hear the rest of it? Because if you don't --"

"You got me on pins and needles."

"Don't you wish."

"Asshole."

"I know."

"Needles, I said, and pins."

"So, she rushes back past me--"

"Powter, that's her name. Susan Powter. And she's from Australia or someplace, not New Jersey."

"Did I say Jersey?"

"You said Jersey accent."

"Ah."

"Don't ah me. Don't give me those absurd theoretical distinctions. Don't do that."

"Did I do that?"

"Well, I might have been thinking about it. Traveling cultures, transplanted accents, that sort of thing. A little James Clifford, maybe."

"Don't. Just finish your story. Just finish it."

"Well, Susan Powter -- that's her name, Australian with Hoboken accent -- well, her two girls exchange a look, take synchronous deep breaths and follow her. As they pass me, one says to the other, 'So she leaves a trail of blood from here to Tampa -- from here to Tampax -- who cares, she's a star, for Christ's sake.' And the other one says, 'They should be down on their hands and knees licking it up.'"

"What? They said that?"

"They did. To each other. 'Down on their hands and knees . . .' I overheard. I remembered. I am telling you."

"Wow."

"That's what I thought. Wow. Spelled backwards."

"You realize I'll never be able to watch her again without it coming to mind, without that disgusting image plaguing me."

"I've implanted a new schemata in your mind. Feel yourself lucky, privileged, empowered."

"You can be so kind. When you try."

"It is irony. You are being ironical with me, trying to mimic me, trying to rob me of my ironical domain. I recognize irony when I see it. When you hurl it in my face. I do. Baudrillard says that the subtle layer of irony is what protects us from the radiation of stupidity. And he says it’s fast disappearing. I’m glad to see it’s still alive and well with you."

"And I’m glad you’re glad."

"Are you really?"

"Glad you think me completely stupid."

"Did I say that? Did I? Did I ever?"

* * * * *

"A friend of my works in a hospital, the maternity ward, where people have babies."

"I know what the maternity ward is."

"I know you know. I was just reaffirming it for myself. I need to do that sometimes. Words get shorn of meaning, you know, shorn. Angela McRobbie’s word: shorn. Sometimes I have to sew them back on."

"You never sewed anything in your life. Maybe that McRobbie woman has, but not you. Not your kind of needling."

"A pun. You said a pun. And I thought I was the only one with a penchant for punning."

"Penchant?"

"Penchant. Proclivity. Propensity. Appetite. Bent."

"Bent?"

"Never mind. How can your mimicry turn everything so . . . so parenthetical?"

"Distraction, I was recently told, is–"

"Stop it."

"If you insist. Anyhow . . ."

"I'm trying not to."

"Says something about something, about the power of naming, hegemony at work in everyday life . . ."

"If you say so."

"I could have told it as a joke, I didn't have to tell it the way I did, I could have turned it into a goddam Rasmus and Remus joke for Christ's sake."

"You're so considerate of the feelings of others."

"It is a joke, though. I've heard it before, as a joke, a trite bad racist joke. I've heard variations on it, other puns. It's beyond me that you believed it was true. Shows me a whole new side to you--"

"Why the hell didn't you stop me? Why?"

"Do I ever stop you? Do I ever?"

* * * * *

"So there I was, standing with Ally McBeal and Michelle Pheiffer, right next to the bar in the Grand Ballroom. At the Waldorf."

"Ally McBeal’s a character. You were standing with the actress--"

"Real names don’t matter in television. In television, actors become their characters. Disappear into their characters, for good and without desperation. Frasier is Frasier, for God’s sake, not some actor. And Ally’s Ally--"

"Something Flockhart--"

"I was standing with Ally, not somebody called something. Jerry Seinfeld understood. That’s why he named his character Jerry Seinfeld. In movies, on the other hand, actors never become their characters. The crisis of representation is alive and well in the movies. Not TV. TV’s the postmodern condition. Fluid, fractured, seducing, exposed, all consuming, sublime."

"It probably says Ally McBeal on her driver’s license. On her passport."

"It probably does. And if it doesn’t, it should."

"Jesus Christ."

"And the funny thing was they both looked so much alike, Ally and Michelle. Smooth white skin, like porcelain, but soft silky porcelain, unlike any porcelain in the mundane world, the same warm look on both of them, absolutely perfect complexion, bone structure, lips, teeth brilliant white, blonde hair razor cut, eyes sparkling, and that star aura radiating, absolutely dazzling, that Benjaminian aura, fuzzy, warm, seductive, turning the whole room pink, Jane Mansfield pink."

"Rose colored, more likely--"

"Michelle wore heavy black plastic-rimmed glasses. That was the only difference. I wanted to reach up and take them off--"

"I bet that’s not all you wanted."

"I was swooning, I admit, so filled with gawk. They were beautifully perfect mirrors of each other, so touchable, welcoming, so three dimensional, their subtle perfumes filling the air, tickling my nostrils. So delicate, Ally and Michelle, so regal, so confident, so at ease in the world."

"Even with you right there, sweating."

"Even with."

"Even with them looking right through you."

"I smiled. They smiled back. I was there in the room with them, at the Waldorf. I was one of them; I was somebody too. There, in that moment."

"That’s pathetic. Absolutely pathetic."

"Maybe so, but it wasn’t in that moment. It was a moment unlike any other. Satisfaction was complete."

"Really?"

"Really."

"I don’t know why I listen to you anymore."

"You had to be there. If you had been, you’d understand."

"You’ve crossed over. You really have. You’re one of them now."

"There is no us and them, no binary, not anymore, not in the television age, not in a postmodern world. There’s only us and us."

"Right. Only us. Thank God for ‘only us.’"

"You messing with me, aren’t you? Don’t do this to me. Don’t."

"I’m not doing anything."

"You’re saying and saying’s doing."

"Saying’s saying."

"Saying’s doing. The utterance. The speech act. Performativity. Austin and Bakhtin. Don’t you know anything?"

"Clearly not as much as you."

"Clearly."

* * * * *

"You know what I want on my tombstone? Engraved on it?"

"'Fuck 'em if they can't take a joke?'"

"Well, no. I want 'He used big words like he knew what they meant.'"

"You do. Really?"

"I do."

"What about, 'What's love got to do with it, do with it, do with it?'"

"That's a possibility, maybe. But it's not original. I didn't think of it. It should be something I thought of, something from me, like what I just said, like 'He used big words like he knew what they meant.' Now that's really me. I like that. Captures my ironical postmodern turn."

"Really."

"Really. Really me."

"I guess it would probably be best if I didn't make suggestions."

"It probably would, yes. Not in matters like this."

"I won't, then."

"Then don't."

"Okay."

"All right."

"How about, 'Like his 15 minutes of fame, his life was over before it began.'"

"Very funny."

"It gave me a brief chuckle."

"I thought you weren't going to help."

"I didn't. I made a joke. Forget it."

"How can I forget it? It was so vicious."

"Believe me, you can forget it. You forget most things."

"Paul Virilio says the more there is to know, the less you know, the more you forget. The more you have to forget."

"And Paul should know, I'm sure."

"I'm contemplating immortality here."

"I'm sorry. I didn't realize. A serious moment, then. I'll be appropriately solemn."

"Thank you."

"The least I can do."

"Okay. So, now, it'll either be 'He used big words like he knew what they meant,' or, how about this, 'Born blind, he will be remembered for a mendacious and deceptive clear-sightedness.'"

"Mendacious . . . If I were to say you were a mendacious asshole, would that be a correct use of the word?"

"Mendacious is not a big word. Everybody uses it. Even Clinton uses it. Even people talking about Clinton use it. And no, that would not be a correct use of the word. I could be an asshole, but I — me, personally — cannot be a mendacious asshole. Now you, given your particular standpoint — your peculiar standpoint — you might want to read me that way — and you can certainly do that — but that is not the privileged reading. No one would say that is the privileged reading."

"I'm not talking to you any more."

"You're not?"

"No."

"Why? Why not? What did I say? What?"

-end-