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from Sex is the
Antigravity of Metamorphosis |
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Table of Contents Agog at Magog by a Magnetic Lake 1
At the CEGEP where Rayne worked, people were remarking on her smiling. Remarking that she looked pleased. They all knew Rayne had a boyfriend in her life. She told Palumbo who told just about everyone else. This made her a lot more pleasant to be around. Apparently she could be quite a bitch. But someone in her coterie at school was ambivalent about Rayne's obvious happiness with her new boyfriend. She mentioned to me that someone had left her a message in her cubicle but I really didn't pick up on it. So she brought me out to her school to see it. Barbie and Ken were placed in a mise on scene that was pretty grisly. It was a shocking mini-diorama about two foot by two foot -- spilling out of a kind of stage made from an open box; it was a painstakingly constructed scene all set about and festooned with a texture of candy wrapper and plastic junk food packaging trash. Barbie is being mounted by Ken, but Ken has some kind of hideous cork screw appendage. Barbie's head is turned and her luxurious hair is cascading down. She has that glassy-eyed, dazed look, like she is experiencing some kind of mindless pleasure. Ken is fiendishly made up. He's in a crossover glam mishmash of women's clothing. His lips are outlined in red and black. He has big eyes with black eye shadow (marks-a-lot) lines running down his face like he is crying black tears. He looks like a bizarre kachina doll from some unearthly glam rock religious pantheon. The voodoo fetish object altar-stage is scandalous. Wicked. Appalling. Ken has got long straight dark hair from some other doll. His face is painted half white and half dark. His body is painted a ghastly white, except for scars and burn marks and red welts. You realize from the welts that someone has tortured these dolls with a soldering iron?! And different colored eyes! That was chilling, the perpetrator of this obscenity had taken the time and meticulously cut out and removed a tiny little blue eye from a blond doll and transplanted it to the brown haired Ken doll. The obdurant depravity of that bespoke someone with way to much time and deviant dedication on their hands. The clothes are atrocious. Ken is wearing a set of Barbie's hose on his legs and another set on his arms, with the feet cut out for the hands to come through. His finger nails are painted black. He has a corset around his middle, and is wearing shorts that have been severely cut into a sharp v. These were the days of David Bowie and Ziggy Stardust, the long-haired boys of rock had atrophied into a androgenous glamour. And wedged, glued, to Ken's crotch is a long corkscrew -- like for opening wine bottles. Barbie is impaled on the corkscrew, apparently she has been turned around it so that the tip goes in. These two plastic dolls are bedecked in miniature chains. They are evidently in pain or extremis of sexual congress. They have been drawn upon, painted, colored , somehow melted &emdash; repeatedly flicked with a bic? Micro waved?! Tortured with matches and cigarettes? There is an inscription. "I see you are really happy with your new love." This also has been painstakingly created by cutting letters out of magazines. It is like a ransom note. The whole scene is a nest of candy wrappers and tins and labels from the trash, carefully arranged into a swirling chaos of flashy bright colored plastic paper. The thing is over a two feet tall, as big as an ice chest. Upon closer inspection of just the clothes on Ken you realize it must have taken someone hours and hours to create this scene of obscene torment. I began to wonder about who it could be that has this obsessive focus on my girlfriend. My "wife." I felt protective of Rayne and was rightly outraged. Frightened. Then secretly I thought it funny. As did Rayne. Barbie is surrounded in a fulminating plethora of food rappers. Her body has scars and marks. She has one little pump on. Her lipstick is lavender, as is her eye shadow and it is running down her face. Her face is a disgrace. One eyebrow is torn, and hanging, yet she has a great head of luxuriant curly auburn hair. The hair is quite natural looking. They are facing each other, she is kicking her long legs in the air. I exclaimed, "Wow, that's amazing!! Rayne looked kind of chagrined, almost blushing. "Who did that?" I asked "I don't know." "You don't know?" "It could be student; it could be the staff. Or somebody who works here at night." "This must be the work of at least a couple of people," I surmised. "They have done others before, but on a much smaller scale. At first I thought it was kind of creepy, but it seems harmless enough." "Wow, what a puzzle." I began wondering if it was some jilted lover. I could see someone in love with her, being left, but them still being cool about it. "Maybe it is someone who knows you are cool about it," I said. "Well several people have noticed it." "Have you reported it to security, because this is a bit out there." "No I haven't. I don't think it is that big a deal." And we left it a mystery.
Rayne was a lot of fun to run the back roads of Vermont with. And who wouldn't have enjoyed it. To get back beyond those hills into the country, to slow down and get into those little pastoral lanes bordered by split-rail fences winding through fields, fields manicured by gentle tanned cows who meandered on paths to and from wine-red barns with yellow trimmed windows &emdash; as beyond, the genteelly rolling sylvan vistas demarcated by hills led to other valleys of friendly folks -- was to go back into time. A time of nature and of our primogenitors. Next we went to a country wedding. I had not been to many weddings. Only my younger sister's and younger brother's. At my brother's wedding I felt like the bearded odd-ball brother wearing secondhand corduroy sport coat with professorial elbow patches. (Actually to put it more correctly, I felt like a mud rat looking over a white picket fence at decent people.) And at my sister's wedding I wore a rented light blue tuxedo with a ruffled shirt. (There I felt like a werewolfe looking through the bushes at humans.) I had never been to a wedding as part of a couple before. I guess Rayne and I were a couple now since we were living together. I washed and waxed the Mercedes for the occasion. I used to do that in high school and was pretty good at it. I got a bottle of Turtle Wax from an automotive store on Decarie and some old soft sweat shirt rags and washed it in the back alley being careful not to get any water in the broken back wing window for which the money to fix was not yet forthcoming. I felt bad about that. I got a parking spot across Staynor street in front of the park and in warm Montreal autumn sun got to work waxing the venerable touring car. I was able to bring out that sweet emerald green sheen pretty keen. Somehow I talked Rayne into wearing an antique garment she got from the 1800s. She did not subscribe to the pretty girl requirement that it was an obligation for a woman to always look attractive. She did not shave her leg hair for example, and did not wear any makeup. But on the other hand she was a sexual adventurer, and did understand the psychological component of tease. This genuine Quebec antique garment, probably worth hundreds of dollars, was laced up the back and it had a high neck and it was all black with lots of lace and bindings. It was hot, kinky. Looked like a cross between a straight jacket and a something a biker babe might wear to a B&D session. Though in its day, it was probably worn to a funeral. I drove my 'old lady,' she wearing her resplendent attire, in the supremely buffed, stately appointed touring car down Greene to Dorchester to the Trans-Canada where we crossed the Victoria Bridge. We drove along the St. Lawrence river, passed the Expo Dome nestled into its permanent home on the edge of an island in a bend in the river, and headed on down through the Eastern Townships to a hippie wedding across the border in Vermont. She in her wonderful top and me with my British bus driver's coat. We were a pair. We got to the wedding reception at a picturesque farm outside of Barton. They had set up large white pavilion tents in case of weather, but it was a gorgeous warm fall day. Banners flowing from masts made it look like a medieval encampment. The pre-Raphaelite hippie girls all dressed up in their finery, in long flowing dresses, looked like acolytes in robes at the altar of love. There were throngs of sinuous young women, in elegant fluid attire and bearded men in jeans. There were some girls in miniskirts, and long flowing hair. And hats! The ladies were taking the opportunity to exercise their right to wear big floppy glamorous hats that made them look like exotic flowers in the hot house of the wind. Groups of women were walking arm in arm -- though that was not usually done as it is in Asian and Mexican cultures. And there were mostly couples, men and women together. Some big tall skinny guys with their hands in their jeans pockets, very long hair looking perhaps already a little wasted, a little stoned. The women were astute, a lot of bustling here and there. It was a lovely day, the sort of day that touches your heart. Everything was in harmony, the hills undulated with waves of sea green grass, the birds flying so swiftly south stroked the air in unison. The abundance of verdure rose to fill the air with a luxuriant scent of healthy sweetness, the colors of fall played brightly against the shadowy covering of the tall evergreens all along the road. The whole vibe was love, it was intoxicating, contagious. A hippie wedding -- everybody on their best behavior, comporting themselves like young ladies and gentlemen -- yet intoxicated with the atmosphere of love moving in the trail of flowers in the bouquets dotting the tables and the whole beds that had been set about. Rayne was delighted; she is an extrovert and at ease in community. When she is in the country she utterly loses her head and is just plain happy. It is a joy to see. She knew quite a few more people there than I did. I, on the other hand am a shy and modest man, and not much of a socialite. My partying style (if you could call it that), developed in Texas, hadn't evolved much beyond "hanging back by the keg swapping lies with the good ole boys." I had that writer's reticence and ability to split off, to be both here and not here. To be able to observe myself as though from behind my own eyes rather than just through them, to observe myself observing. It is a kind of amplified epistemological awareness, a querying that over time becomes autonomic. Though it could be misconstrued from the outside as a dissociative stare. I was content to be a fly on the wall amongst the important unfolding events; I had been this way since childhood mentally able to generate, through the practice of silence, exile and cunning, an undetectable force field of imperceptibility. It was that sense of being a catcher in the rye on the fly, an outrider on the periphery observing through the arras, looking for the place where the veil of maya moved on its own, where it parted, was rent or thin and might not hold but fall down altogether and reveal the inner workings of the universe. I was pretty good at one-on one conversation though. I liked intimacy. So I was content to be on my own while she did her thing and went to greet and meet and be more a part of the scene. I hung back under the shade of a tree. A band was playing across the way. They were a high-energy dance band with fiddlers and guitars and drums and a piano. They were a little bit dressed up: some of them, with long hair of course -- but not outrageously long, played beautiful light-colored wood guitars, that glinted in the setting sun when they swooned and grooved. Some of the band men were wearing sport coats and turtle necks though it was sunny and warm. Throughout the evening they played all kinds of music: there was bluegrass wafting through the air; Western swing and country favorites for the old timers and parents there; straight country ballads; hippie country; and, some blues and rock and roll. Something for everyone. Soon people were dancing on the veranda and on the lawn. You had guys in tuxedoes, next to guys in lumberjack shirts, next to guys in frilly tuxedo shirts -- without the tuxedoes &emdash; wearing a necklace of puka shells, next to a couple of beautiful girls, one red-head with a voluptuous figure and gorgeous legs in a little mini skirt suit. Her top had extremely wide white collars, so did the trim on the cuffs of her sleeves. The house was a great big Vermont country white house with black roof with many gables and a big wrap around porch. People were sitting out on the porch, pretty girls leaning their behinds on the railings, playing with their long hair. Most of the crowd was in a big field boarded by the long driveway that went up to the house. Quite a lot of these Vermont women were wearing sensible footwear, boots, (with long dresses) to walk around the grounds in. I looked around catching glimpses of couples walking, holding hands up the drive way, or further away by the fence. There were planted gardens with beds of bushes and ferns. And placed here and there were stately urns filled with bright sprays of colorful flowers. In the tents older people were sitting at tables. And off outside were long barbeque pits with meat roasting. I was back by the keg not venturing too far in, though I would have liked to meet more people. The bride came through, and walked among us. In her heels she was being conducted, holding on to the arm of her new husband with one hand, stepping gingerly, and with her other hand lifting up her long dress. The ladies in her retinue were also gracefully circulating arm in arm with their beaus. The bride, she was stunning, with long auburn tresses, and thick eyebrows. A beautiful face, so young, maybe not quite 20. She was resplendent in an off-white all natural cotton, long maxi dress with a corset-laced-bustier. The sleeves where three quarter length, puffed and gathered and made of sheer lace, the scooped neckline drew the eyes to her robust twins; lace and ribbon embellished the bodice, a high empire waistline was swathed in long ties that wrapped around her slender torso and tied in the back at the waist in a large bow. Fortunate indeed would be the new spouse to open that gift package. The bride, our queen of the gathered tribes wore a crown made of woven daisy chain, as did her attendant maids. The groom was also young and a bit stern looking, with thick mustache and a big head of curly hair. They looked so young. He had on a white, high-collar, Nehru sport-coat, and seemed a bit uncomfortable in it. He was accompanied in the tour by his best man, a serious looking hippie with long dark hair and Zapata moustache; he had dark eyes, and looked messianic. The band was serenading them, playing to them. The lead singer was wearing a stylish fedora; he had a mustache and goatee. They were playing Moondance of Van Morison. The young drummer was spanking the zildjians softly; the base was a tall guy with jeans and a sport coat, hitting the downbeat. The banquet tables had been set with white tablecloth and silver. People were taking seats. They moved casually toward the food being served near the barbecue pits. Some took their picnic away into the tall trees at the edge of the field as the Autumn sun was setting and the light was so inviting. The light made the shiny sequins of the girls dresses spangle. It poured down like honey and made the highlights of their flowing hair into luminous rivulets. Beams angled down through the forest canopy and defined webs of demarcated spaces like convex hulls, or chi squares of field influences from the ecology. While the band jammed on a long quiet instrumental jazz standard. Rayne appeared at my elbow; she had changed out of her antique biker ensemble -- it was too risqué for this fine crowd. She had slipped into her comfortable man's flannel shirt and a car coat with fringe and was ready to party in her mountain hiking boots. We sat on long benches in a group of her friends I didn't know, and partook of the sumptuous ceremonial dinner. After, we headed over to where they were toasting the newly married couple, who were standing side by side with his arm around her waist and her arm around his waist, and she looked so sweet with the garland of daisies in her hair, and her stalwart blue gray eyes gazing with keen interest and power at the assembled people there in her honor and he looked pleased, with his long hair falling down his chest, and every man had his arm around his girl and every girl had her arm around her man and we were all just one of the many swaying to the music, moving slowly in the procession and the bride was a symbol for the Other who was the focus of all our hopes and wishes for marriage -- truly it is a moment of great commitment and change. I felt a wee bit nostalgic for my own future, longing + hope? A homesickness for one's own real home, for his own wedding should it ever occur. Like all the lovers and married people at a wedding, you feel your own commitment. That was a nice feeling for me. I felt really proud to be with Rayne. I was trying to remember: I don't think I had ever been to a wedding while in the state of living with a girl. Though I had lived in a state of monogamy and connubial domestication with three women already, Colleen, Dianne, and Terry. How odd. And in the glowing light of the setting sun, people's faces were softer. And everywhere I looked there seemed to be still-lifes in impressionistic lights, the young girl playing with her dog near the little lake at the bottom of the property, another maiden in a green chiffon dress and auburn hair and light wisp of green eye shadow had her eyes closed for a long time as if she were tasting something delicious, there were people clumped together, flash bulbs going off as group pictures were being taken, the girls looking so satisfied and kind of stoned, the men tanned and happy content, looking stoned too. The band was back on stage and really letting loose: some guy in a serape was genuinely enjoying the music, shaking and howling; some guy in a velvet jacket and scarves and a mullet haircut was blowing marijuana smoke rings. (But I didn't want to get too high because I was going to be driving Mz Luce.) And the great old house was witnessing from its place in history hosting there with its white porch pillars and the wisteria vine climbing up the far side, and a willow tree in the yard; it was just so pretty: men in white shirts and vests and bolo ties seemed to be in the grooms retinue, they were dancing on the porch with the maids. A beautiful hippie girl with long flowing hair and a long green frock coat was smoking a cigarette as she was talking and laughing with two bearded men. And the newly married couple finally emerged and people pressed around their car, which was a Volvo sedan with the long sloping back, and there was Just Married written in soap across the back window and a white cardboard sign cut in the shape of a heart and attached on the sloping trunk proclaimed Cathy + Tim. And the back side was festooned with ribbons. The saucy bride waved an unopened bottle of champagne out the car window as they lurched down the driveway. Ribbons fastened to the bumper were dragging a tail of Budweiser beer cans which did not make much of a racket on the dirt road driveway as they were heading out to the highway, and into their new life together. And I felt my spirit as I was swaying there in the soft crepuscule of gloaming twilight as it floated up to meet the setting sun. From on high I could see that car as it got further and further afield and I could see the hills against the last of the orange sun setting in a blue sky beyond the farm roofs, and I was able to look down at the revelers from this ancient shamanistic eye in the sky perspective and I could see me and Rayne were there among them and they were dos-y-doeing in a flow pattern of the dance like eddying whirlpools in a stream, like star clusters reflected in a pond, and it felt like the wind was a river flowing through the valley reflecting the archetypal flow that simply was and was poking into all our lives and how we encounter each other where it flows. And we were all flowing on this river as it passes to and fro, breathing in it like fish.
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