Nine Kinds of Naked (29 page)

Of course, this act inspired a tremendous blowout between Dave and Georgeann, and it was from the dust of this spectacular argument that Elizabeth Wildhack learned that her mother's last words were “cherry shit.” She also learned, ipso facto, that Georgeann was not her real mother. It was not an easy time in the Wildhack household.

Elizabeth, never having known her mother as her father did, did not become similarly obsessed with Bridget Snapdragon's undying wisdom. And having barely been a second grader at the time of the blowout, she actually recalled finding the whole situation more confusing than traumatizing, and was relieved to discover that her mother was not a plumber. But once she grew older, and especially once Diana had begun teaching her kundalini yoga, a lingering curiosity sometimes made itself known. It was in such yogic reverie that she was so reminded of cherry shit the morning she asked Diablo what he thought about it.

Elizabeth had been impressed with Diablo's cherry pop centipede hypothesis, so much so that she called her father later that afternoon to tell him about it. She hadn't gotten through half the explanation before Dave interrupted and told her he'd already come across that angle years ago. Even if that is what she meant, Dave muttered, he could see no sense in it.

Elizabeth had to agree.

 

75
T
HE STREET MUSICIAN
at whom Special Agent J. J. Speed had barked disapproval concluded his rendition of John Lennon's “Imagine,” feeling defeated.
What am I doing?
he thought derisively to himself, gazing down at the pile of his independently produced CDs,
Songs I Sing So Sins Go.
He frowned, disappointed that no one had ever even noticed that it was a triple anagram of
gnosis. I gotta be kidding myself
, he thought. You can't swing a guitar anywhere these days without cracking the heads of a half-dozen latter-day Dylans. He glumly watched as a rivulet of Pepsi puddled its way toward his guitar case, spilling from a bottle a ways up the sidewalk.

He bent down and began gathering the smattering of coins and bills assembled in his open guitar case, pausing to pick up a plastic bottle cap that had also found its way into the mess. It might have been unworthy of note and littered immediately aside if he hadn't glimpsed a word imprinted inside the cap, which upon further inspection revealed itself to read
IMAGINE.

Goosebumping at this synchronicity, he looked around as if to confirm this coincidence but found no one to bear witness. He moved his guitar case aside to avoid damming the rivulet of black sugar water, his eyes automatically following the fizzing stream to its source, which he guessed to be the origin of the bottle cap. After a moment's contemplation, he trotted up the sidewalk to retrieve the bottle. Examining its label and reading about Pepsi's thousand-dollar giveaway contest, he gradually realized that the
IMAGINE
bottle cap someone had dropped into his guitar case was a winning bottle cap worth ten thousand dollars.

 

76
I
N SMUG SELF-SATISFACTION
, Elizabeth cajoled herself through the ostracism and harassment of her long adolescence, believing that it was bestowing upon her the ability to see the world for what it really was—a confidence game perpetrated and perpetuated by everyone everywhere and always. Initially, she did not regard herself as gifted with some rare extrasensory perception, though she soon enough discovered that everyone else seemed to really
believe
the prattling bullshit they told themselves as they went around bluffing intentions and wagering identities.

Her greatest gift, she liked to think, is that she could push her con better than anybody. And it was simple, really. She simply saw through what others did not. Everyone is goading some con or another, about themselves and life and everything in between, but not everyone is aware of it. Elizabeth was aware of it, and she took full advantage. As far as she was concerned, she was in on the scam, over the spell, and confident.
Confidence
, she repeatedly realized, each time straightening her shoulders a little more. Her poise could not be perturbed.

And then she met Diablo, cunning as the devil himself, and found herself consistently unable to direct an encounter with him. In Diablo's presence, Elizabeth felt helpless and out of control, and was determined to get the better of him, if only to hold intact the defensive identity so carefully forged in the fires of her adolescence. But Diablo not only dominated their encounters, he blew past her like the gusts of an approaching storm, leaving her exhilarated, yes, but also tangled and unkempt, and though she felt lighter for the experience, she felt also precarious and vulnerable.

Consequently, Elizabeth sought out Diablo again a few days later, this time with a plan to unbalance him. It was time, she'd decided, for her strategy of last resort, her means of annihilating a conversant's comfort level, and it was as simple as casually revealing her occupation in the course of a conversation. No man could contain himself in the presence of her relentless breasts urgently swelling against the taut fabric of her T-shirt, especially once she revealed her proclivity for baring them.

But Diablo just laughed, and explosively so. “Of course!” he bellowed. “What else would a tornado goddess be?” He shook his head. “This is just fantastic. Tell me, godchild, have you figured out what's going on yet?”

Elizabeth was perturbed. Not only was Diablo unfazed, he was amused. She may as well have just revealed that she mowed lawns wearing nothing but a thong for a living. “Actually,” she said, inflamed. “I
have
figured out what's going on.”

“Really?” Diablo mocked. “Well let's hear it, sister Christian.”

“Confidence,” Elizabeth pushed back. “What's going on is confidence, and nothing else. Everybody admires confident people because we think that they must know something the rest of us don't. But confidence is gullibility, really. It's basically believing what others have told you about the world. It's a form of enchantment, a spell. And me? I'm a con artist casting the stripper con, and a liar like everybody else. What's going on is confidence, mutual deception. I'm just honest with myself about my dishonesty.”

Diablo sat up. “Hey that's nice.” He pointed at her. “I like the cut of your gibberish, kiddo. Faced with the howling incomprehensibility of existence, all we have is confidence.
We're browbeaten into identity by parents and peers who were themselves browbeaten into their own delusions. Everybody succumbs to the social lullaby, sleepwalking through the dance of life, snoring in the face of infinity, perfectly confident that they are—and life is—as described. Then society, society becomes our security blanket woven from nylon lies and polyester platitudes. We cast cons in the web of social deceptions, and oh what a wicked web we weave. Confidence,” he nodded, “yes ma'am, that's nice. But I think you need to distinguish between two kinds of confident people. Those you're talking about are the false confident—confident only because they absolutely believe the social fictions they've been sold. That's not true confidence. Blithering dumbfuckery is actually what it is, obsolete stupidity, you hear what I'm saying? True confidence is absolute comfort with the notion of being alive.
Those
are the people we admire, those who went their own way, those who have no wish to lead but whom others can't help but follow. Pardon the pith, but as Barefoot Barry once told me, the only good leader is a reluctant one.”

“This is you?” Elizabeth teased. “The reluctant leader?”

Diablo shrugged. “Let me tell you something, sister. I spent two years in the military and five in mortgage and monogamy before I woke up and walked away. If that ain't reluctant, I don't know what is. And as far as leading goes,” he went on, “do your own thing, be your own king, that's my philosophy. Lead or get out of the way.”

“My lower lip trembles when I ponder your bravery.” Elizabeth continued her attempt to tease him down, but Diablo
just blasted right past her, pausing not at all in his babblative exposition.

“Here's the thing,” he continued. “The mediated masses of clubfooted cretins who act like they actually know where in the bottomless abyss of this universe we are, that ain't fucking confidence. That's marketing. They've been suckled on Satan's nipple, the boob tube, and now they can do little else but crap the consequences of their consumption all over the rest of the planet. I mean, did you know that the average American spends three years of their life watching television
commercials
? Three years! Just commercials! That's a lot of life to spend doing nothing but injecting dissatisfaction and desire into your existence. I bet if you told a dying person that, they'd bawl themselves to death right there. And if you've seen the teevee lately, you know that there's basically this totally contrived world dancing in front of us all, a billion brands of bullshit smiling fake and fancy, and selling a life stolen from us in the first place. And now,” he lifted his arms high, “now the lie is cast, the con is on, and this game in which we gripe drives us each into absolute mistrust and mortification, leaving us
allegedly
confident that life requires doing something other than exactly what you want to do and nothing less. As you've rightly guessed, we are merely trapped in a very persistent, very consistent
con
.”

“But the difference with us,” Elizabeth found an entrance, “is that we
see
the con.”

“Is that so?” Diablo replied, sarcastic. “Do you see yourself conning yourself into believing that you see the con?”

“Sometimes.” Elizabeth nodded immediately. “Absolutely. The con deepens every time I think I have it figured out.”

“Well that's good,” Diablo grunted grim. “Socratic ignorance.”

Elizabeth was indignant. “That's good? Look at you, frothing with talk of cons, and here you are conning yourself into presuming to approve of another. I require neither your approval nor your permission to be myself. And no offense, Pappy Gramps, but the last thing I need is a hypocrite's approval.”

“I am an American,” Diablo interrupted. “Hypocrisy is my birthright.”

“Well that's good.” Elizabeth nodded in surly imitation. “Honesty.”

Diablo stuck up his stub in demonstration and dismissal. “Do me a favor, Junior, and don't bullshit me like I'm your constituency. So you see the security blanket for the lie that it is. So what? It's still false confidence. You like to think of yourself as a con artist, so let me say this to you, and remember, I'm your climatological godfather, so listen up.” Diablo leaned forward. “If you really want to be a con artist, then learn the artistry of confidence, the courage to know—not to think, not to believe, but to
know
—to know that there is something a great deal more revolutionary happening here and now in this vast expanse of space and time than next year's SUV model or last year's political coup. This is the magic, the artistry of confidence.” Diablo sat back, and Elizabeth smirked in spite of herself. She rather liked the idea of Diablo being her godfather.

“Be your biggest,” Diablo went on. “True confidence
derives from the awareness that you are playing hide-and-seek with yourself in the shade of the Tree of Knowledge. The unself-conscious enthusiasm of play. That's the goal, you know what I'm saying? The boldness to be carefree, no hesitation, no reservation, no uncertainty. But most of us, instead of accepting this dare with cool aplomb, most of are Linus on a bad trip, stifled and sweating beneath the security blanket of our social structures.” Diablo paused. “It's like this: Have you ever heard of a Dutch oven?” Elizabeth shook her head, and Diablo continued. “Basically, a Dutch oven is when you fart and then stuff your lover's head underneath the blankets.”

“That's disgusting. Why are you telling me this?”

“What, you who bark cherry vulgarity are suddenly offended?” Diablo reprimanded. “Eproctophilia, flatulent affection. It happens, apparently. I didn't invent it, fer chrissakes, and I don't think the Dutch invented it either, but what the hell do I know? But listen, swapping repugnancies is not my point. My
quodlibet
is this: The Dutch oven is society, holding a security blanket over our heads and suffocating us with the foul winds of false confidence. And society, of course, society is none other than we the people. So essentially, we fart in our own face.”

Elizabeth wrinkled her nose. “You say fart too much.”

Diablo pointed at her. “I'm not going to let you throw me off my thunder. Listen, godchild: There's no rude and crude lover stuffing our heads under that blanket, just rude and crude ourselves, the lower versions of humanity, the chimpy-grinned braggarts of obsolescence. But for those of us who awaken from this social lullaby, or even those who stir restless
in their slumber and pull aside a corner of the blanket, what we get is . . . ” Diablo hesitated and shook his head. “See, there's no other way to say it. Ancient Sanskrit had over eighty words for it, but today we only have one. It's
love
, but no one wants to hear about that, do they? It's like that one guy, what the hell was his name?” Diablo snapped his fingers a few times. “Jesus, right? Look what the fuck happened to that dude. We'd sooner nail someone to a tree than hug a tree, right? Everyone knows that. We've all heard of it—all of us still roasting our souls in the Dutch oven—we hear the rumors and we ridicule. ‘Love and all that peacehuggery,' we chortle and snort and suck on maraschino cherries, hiding our existential insecurity behind our urbane cynicism.” Diablo shook his head. “But I'm sorry, I don't mean to demean love by disclaiming against it. It's love, like it or not, one love, and I'm not gonna goddamn apologize for talking about it.” Diablo fell momentarily silent, and Elizabeth was wondering if it was incestuous to be attracted to her godfather, but then he had to go and say
fart
again. “Anyway,” Diablo sighed. “Like I was saying, maybe it's time for some impatience with the fart breathers and their confident stupidity. The bus is coming, and they're not on it. Spark the confetti cannons, I say. Evolution is at hand.”