1. In the Valley of the Happy People
1
In the Valley of the Happy People
The happily ever after lasted about three weeks. If we'd had a honeymoon — I mean, if we'd gone somewhere on a real vacation — perhaps we could have extended our bliss by a finite number of expensive but mindless days. Instead, we bought a house in Simi Valley and went right back to work, practical romantics so in love no thrill of travel to exotic locales could conceivably add to the joy of our everyday experience of each other.
We started down the slippery slope of mistrust and discord on a Tuesday morning. It must have been about seven a.m. Our mistake? The topic of our breakfast table discussion shifted. Prior to that portentous moment, the content of our exchanges had been almost entirely and intensely personal. She would express a reason for delight, I would affirm it aroused the same in me, warmth would flood our forebrains, and, more often than not, our more sensitive body parts would swell — any excuse to hump as if every day was Wednesday. Or, she would express a cause for discomfort, however mundane or minor, and I would scurry to alleviate it: Fetch the aspirin, scratch the itch, linger with the foreplay, order dessert with two forks. I could do no wrong!
But this fateful morning we departed from that regime.
We talked about the weather.
"Think it will rain today?" she asked, setting down her favorite teddy-bear mug, meticulously prepared by me with Mocha Java knowing her digestive tract would absorb the caffeine, increase her heart rate, stir her circulation, and bring a sexy pink flush to her extremities. (The edge of a rosy n****e peeked out from the terrycloth of her bathrobe, confirming the Java effect and making me want to take her back to bed, of course.)
"It never rains this time of year in Southern California. You know that." I thought my tone was manly, congenial, helpful.
"Yeah, I suppose you're right," she said dismissively, apparently deciding to ignore the counsel of the morning paper as she laid it aside. "I thought there was something just as the radio came on this morning. I was still in a sleepy fuzz, didn't catch it."
"No doubt another instance of the media manufacturing news to boost ratings," I surmised sagely. "Any amount of rain would be a big story in this draught."
The downpour started at two p.m. that afternoon. No innocent drizzle this, pleasant as a surprise shower in a leafy glade in New England. It was one of those continuous Raymond Chandler Big Sleep drooling rains, a Los-Angeles-class monsoon that soaks the thirsty desert for days a time, washing countless thousands of Starbucks cups down the storm drains and out to sea, and reminding the residents they live in the city that invented Mickey Mouse and film noir in the same era with scarcely a clue as to the irony of their historic coincidence.
When she stumbled in the door that evening, she was drenched — about as attractive as your proverbial drowned rat and with the disposition of a rabid rodent to match.
"You're so f*****g sure of everything!" she spat out, as she shucked off her wet clothes in the laundry room.
"What did I do?" I asked dumbly, my shields down, not realizing a call to battle stations would have been the wiser posture.
"You said it wouldn't rain" was her truthful statement of the obvious.
"Obviously, I was wrong," I admitted generously, naively assuming that pleading nolo would get me off without a trial.
"You were so sure of yourself" was apparently the nature of my crime.
"Okay, I was wrong. Do you have to do everything I say?"
"Not after this, you can bet," she vowed, now provocatively n***d as she peeled off her damp undies, a gesture that did nothing to help me maintain the attention span I needed to stay on message.
"I'm sorry it rained. I'm sorry you got soaked. But it wasn't my fault."
"You know, just once, if you know there's a chance you're wrong, why don't you say something like, ‘You know, I'm not sure, but there's a remote possibility it might rain. Maybe you should take an umbrella. I worry you'll get wet.'"
"Anyone will tell you, if you want to be a leader, you should always make all your points in a firm —”
Land mine!
"You're not my leader!"
A long, icy silence ensued as she donned her luxuriant, fabric-softened robe for the second time that day, tugging it closed at the neck to snuggle in its warmth or perhaps to make damned sure no part of her luscious flesh could protrude to inspire my l**t.
Was I looking for disappointment? Sure. More precisely, I'd been on the lookout for it since that day we took the vows. Nothing in my life had ever gone according to plan, or worked out as advertised, or exceeded my wildest expectations. So, not so long ago (as loveless mortals reckon time) when Felicia had smiled sweetly and finally accepted my second modest proposal of marriage, part of me was suspicious right away. Yes, this was something I'd planned (indeed, plotted for, as you might well know). And wasn't it the juiciest end to be desired — didn't all the glossy magazines advertise it to be the thrill of a lifetime? Certainly, if that promise had proved even partly true, our marriage would have far exceeded my wildest expectations.
In short, when we wed, my head was spinning with the thought I'd be slipping it to this delicious creature every chance we got, my righteous ardor inducing only squeals of joy. But deep down, where fear alone could penetrate, I was sure I'd be the one to get the shaft in the end.
Satan is an old bugger, they say. But no educated person, least of all Rollo Hemphill, gives the beast any credit these days. Evil, we postmoderns suspect, is simply the absence of God, who like a kindly but demented parent goes missing often enough but can't be blamed for creating the toxins that ooze into the abandoned void. But the way things play out, the way events on this human plane unfold and entangle, you gotta believe either God has a fiendish sense of humor or, as Plato and a few other crustaceous dudes believed, He's got an adversary who is more than worthy, subject to certain POM-dependent variables. (Sorry for the jargon. Phase-of-the-Moon-dependent variables are factors we code cowboys invoke when we've run out of all rational causes for software failure.)
So I don't believe in Old Nick for a minute.
I just wish he'd leave me the hell alone.
Why, indeed, does strife exist in the world? If we know what happiness is, and certainly if we're lucky enough to find some of it, why can't we embrace it, hang out there, hit that note, and play a long, languorous sostenuto until the Big Coda?
Maybe it's just that God likes a good story. As my crusty English teacher used to grumble, "Drama is conflict, you knuckleheads! No one wants to read The Village of the Happy People."
So don't worry. That ain't what we got goin' here.
