Thursday, May 15, 2008

A Mare at Night is Not Really a Nightmare


I had a puzzling dream the other night. I was in my kitchen, making a tuna casserole and I was out of toasted breadcrumbs. The house I was living in wasn't my house at all, but one of the homes of my old Black Cat prowls, a tract house in the San Fernando Valley. Anyway, I went onto the porch to see if perhaps there would be bread there (it was a dream, bunnies, so it isn't supposed to make sense). Anyway, out on to the porches of every single cottage down the street came a single woman, housedress alight with various floral prints, hair looking sculpted as if from clay. And simultaneously, they each called out for breadcrumbs, that their husbands would be home any minute and their tuna casseroles weren't ready. And then, Seabuscuit came galloping down the empty roadway, whinneying at the top of his lungs. And so I dashed inside, and began hammering lumber across the door, fearful that they would began pounding upon my door, thinking I had a loaf of bread stashed somewhere inside. And as I pouded the ten-penny nails through the hard cedar planks, the nails twisted themselves back out again, like worms crawling out from the dirt. And then I woke up, lightly dewy in perspiration.

I'm feeling oh so worried, kittens. This morning I was going through Walter's jacket pockets (you would think I would know better after discovering the aged nectarine and the exploded tube of Ben-Gay). What should I find but a matchbook from the St. Sebastiane Hotel off 49th street. Walter hasn't been to that hotel, that I know of, ever. For those of you not familiar with the St. Sebastiane, it rents rooms for $3.00 per hour, $2.50 if you bring your own linens. And what's with the matchbook? Please, Walter. Taking a matchbook from a hotel in which you are doing something scandalous is so cliched, it's rather "1932 Film Noir" if you ask me. And ridiculously stupid. But here's the puzzling thing: I'm not the least bit jealous. Perhaps since I've never really been able to give of myself to him, there's nothing he has of me that he can hurt. So many women, they give their heart and soul to their men and then when those men act like men do, the poor women blather on about how "he stole a piece of me." No, honey. He didn't steal from you. You gave it to him. He just didn't take care of it and left it laying around so that it could get damaged by the elements. That's what men do. Unless it's kept safe behind their zippers, they don't give a damn about it. And even that thing they throw out for any Susan that wants to look at it.

So what to do with the tramp he's meeting? I could easily find her, of course. I could find her and snap her neck before she even smelled the Chanel Number 5 wafting from my collar. And I might. Oh, I'm not jealous, dears. I'm telling the truth in that. I just hate to be made to look the fool. I'm a lot of things, but "stupid" is not one of them.