Darwin Alone in the Universe. M.A.C. Farrant

and idle and mechanized future we’d work one or two days a week, then play golf or pursue hobbies. This was the prevailing view of paradise.”

      This living hopefulness was as much a part of that time as is our fear today, that generalized edginess we have about where we are going, the world seen as ominous, hostile, and that period in the ’50s and ’60s, as merely a blip, merely pre-everything: pre-Anti-War, pre-cancer epidemic, pre-ozone and AIDS, pre-environmental, pre-victimization, pre-consumerism, and so on.

      Now, in place of naivete, contamination and dislocation are the prevailing moods.

      Contamination: of the air we breathe, the food we eat, the thoughts we think.

      Dislocation: of a people loving, bearing children, living in this world, and believing that their lives are inauthentic, of little value, in light of celebrity, in light of a doomed environment.

      Still, individual voices surface relentlessly like life-rings in a wild sea.

      This group of stories is about “change.” Because if you look at a thing long enough what you get is a bouquet of perceptions, various interpretations present themselves. The prolonged gaze that manifests itself in words. The prolonged questioning that attempts to keep apace with (and apart from) the times. Everything must be considered, especially our ceaseless quests for a living paradise.

      So … working on “change,” in a way, is the same as working on “vision”: a bouquet of views, of meanings, symbols, metaphors, and mysteries, of explanations and roadmaps, of concomitant alternative realities presented as existent.

      M.A.C. Farrant September 2002

      “I will be an incommensurate wanderer here,” said Ho Min. “I will not wander any further than the next step.”

      —“Sacred Tales, vol. 3”

      from Hiding Place of the Comediennes

GIFTS

      I CALLED FOR AN EARLY MORNING TAXI and they sent a hearse. In a cunning effort to keep my mood black, I reasoned. A hearse. Making sure I got the point. But I got in. Liking the way the hearse idled in the driveway like a limousine. The way the uniformed driver opened the door, solicitous as an usher. Inside the hearse: music playing—Mozart’s Requiem or it could have been Pink Floyd At Condo Hall. I sat in the front seat beside the driver feeling strangely buoyed: we were carrying no casket.

      Traveling to the city, then, at a funereal pace. Noting the sober glances from passersby: a woman at an intersection with a look of heavy concern, a group of pensioners staring grimly. I smiled and waved, determined to be sunny.

      Delivered at length to Forty-Fifth and Sharpe. There to walk the streets, my pockets full of dollar coins. To dispense at random to the squatting street kids with their dogs, sleeping bags, packs. And when a man asked for a cigarette I gave him the one I was smoking. And when a drunk holding an empty Listerine bottle said, “Spare change?” I gave him the rest of my coins. Thinking: whatever happened to Karl Marx?

      Thinking: gifts. And the pigskin wallet that you in your downy life might possibly need. Visiting the warehouse where my old friend Mona practiced supply side economics. In theory. Seven hundred pigs and a staff of twelve. The staff toiling third world fashion—strip, snip, toss. With a conveyer belt to the Chinese restaurant next door. The warehouse air chemically treated—made cool and sweet—keeping the pigskins supple. Row upon row of skins hanging from lines like laundry.

      And last week in the mail from the Bank of Commerce, another gift: Free Accidental Death Insurance to the tune of fifteen hundred dollars. For being a loyal consumer. What is this business of giving?

      Choosing your wallet from the many pigskin items happily displayed. Buying wholesale. Thinking dear. Thinking: business might be a good way to go: simple rules and your nose aquiver with ad campaigns, market forces: your life reduced to yea or nay. And Mona to admire, a woman meaning business, with advice to give: Oppose takeover bids. Prune your life of all things grey—sluggish partners and so forth.

      And will you admire your new wallet with its pouches greedy for your extra bills? Bought with wholesale intentions, mainly dear, love and so forth. And will my gift prove to be a wise investment? Thinking: what ever happened to Walt Whitman, that freewheeling champion of giddy days?

      Propelling myself, then, to the afternoon reception where I paid homage to three floors of newly installed books. Keeping my mood on the far side of black. In theory. So many books. So little interest. Helped along in this endeavor by complimentary wine and sushi. Prowling the guests for advantage. And meeting Karen entertaining a crowd about Jack: I got him straight from his mother and she practically wiped his ass. He doesn’t know what helping is. Comes home, sits in front of the TV, plays with his computer. Gives me a face if I ask him to feed the dogs.

      Thinking: whatever happened to the Dali Lama and the untainted, generous life?

      Back on the streets. The sun shining in spite of itself. A city duly warmed. Imagining the pile-lined slippers I might possibly buy. Another gift. For your nightly TV vigil. Compounding my investment; my mood surging to bright. And will your feet in pile-lined slippers thank me? Your feet tender from years of giving your all: pounding pavements, carpets, linoleum, grass.

      Meeting my friend Heather, then, for coffee at five dollars a pop. Coffee in theory. Made with chocolate, whipped cream, ad campaigns. The conversation turning to her lover, Ross: They don’t understand, do they? They don’t consider COMPLEXITY. For them it’s all business, the bottom line.

      Uh huh.

      Thinking: intravenous Buddhism. Cleverly attached to our sleeping arms—subliminal brain washing pumping us full of kindness, wisdom, love. And will the man asleep in the pet shop doorway thank me?

      Thinking of what Sartre said: There are two ways to go to the gas chamber, free or not free.

      Entering, then, the waiting hearse for my return trip home. Our newest form of public transportation, tailor made for those of us preferring the slow, gloomy sweep, the funereal glide. The hearse taking me home. Where I’m a volunteer participant in whatever falls my way. Sometimes smiling, sometimes not.

      And yesterday by mail a blessing from St. Mary’s Church. With a special message from the churchwardens: Please, we need your money.

      Giving and taking. Thinking: our ability to reconcile dark with light has diminished.

      Filling out my coupon for a bag of microwave popcorn. Free with a fill-up at Save-On-Gas.

      Intent on having giddiness.

THE RETURN

      LIKE ULYSSES, I WAS GONE FOR TEN YEARS. Little changed in my absence.

      My husband was still in bed. He had not taken up weaving. “I’ve been using the services of an elderly prostitute named Crystal,” he told me. He looked wan and threadbare lying on the unmade bed, the sheets grey and unraveling.

      The dog was miserable when I left and not much had changed there either. Upon my return she leapt into my arms and bit me.

      My son, now thirty, was still at home watching TV—Great Sea Journeys of the World. But thinking, he said, of becoming a male siren in the Fall. At last, I thought, direction!

      Only my daughter had moved on. Uninterested in Queendom, she was living on a ranch in New Mexico, studying the adventurous techniques of Georgia O’Keefe.

      She had changed her name to Penny Pacific and was painting from memory the delicate pink interiors of the West Coast clam.

THE THINGS I DO FOR YOU

      THE CAT’S MADE A DECISION. He doesn’t want his breakfast now. He got tired of waiting in front of his bowl. He sat in front of his empty bowl for forty-five minutes trusting