Generation X (2 page)

but three of us are just a bit too cool for our own good; we can't just let the moment happen. Dag must greet this flare with a question for us, a gloomy aubade: "What do you think of when you see the sun? Quick.

Before you think about it too much and kill your response. Be honest.

Be gruesome. Claire, you go first."

Claire understands the drift: "Well, Dag. I see a farmer in Russia,
HISTORICAL

and he's driving a tractor in a wheat field, but the sunlight's gone bad
UNDERDOSING:
To live in a

on him—like the fadedness of a black-and-white picture in an old
Life
period of time when nothing

magazine. And another strange phenomenon has happened, too: rather

seems to happen. Major

than sunbeams, the sun has begun to project the odor of old
Life
mag-symptoms include addiction to newspapers, magazines, and TV

azines instead, and the odor is killing his crops. The wheat is thinning news broadcasts.

as we speak. He's slumped over the wheel of his tractor and he's crying.

HISTORICAL

His wheat is dying of history poisoning."

OVERDOSING:
To live in a

"Good, Claire. Very weird. And Andy? How about you?"

period of time when too much

seems to happen. Major

"Let me think a second."

symptoms include addiction to

"Okay, I'll go instead. When I think of the sun, I think of an newspapers, magazines, and TV

Australian surf bunny, eighteen years old, maybe, somewhere on Bondi news broadcasts.

Beach, and discovering her first keratosis lesion on her shin. She's screaming inside her brain and already plotting how she's going to steal Valiums from her mother. Now
y o u
tell
me,
A n d y , w h a t d o y o u t h i n k o f w h e n y o u s e e t h e s u n ? "

I refuse to part i c i p a t e i n t h i s a w f u l n e s s . I r e f u s e t o p u t p e o p l e i n my vision. "I think of this place in Antarctica called Lake Vanda, where t h e rain hasn't fallen in more than two million years." "Fair enough.

That's all?" "Yes, that's all."

There is a pause. And what I
don't
say is this: that this is also the same sun that makes me think of regal tangerines and dimwitted but-t e r f l i e s a n d l a z y c a r p . A n d t h e e c s t a t i c d r o p s o f p o m e g r a n a t e b l o o d seeping from skin fissures of fruits rotting on the tree branch next door—drops that hang like rubies from their old brown leather source, alluding to the intense ovarian fertility inside.

The carapace of coolness is too much for Claire, also. She breaks

the silence by saying that it's not healthy to live life as a succession of isolated little cool moments. "Either our lives become stories, or there's j u s t n o w a y t o g e t t h r o u g h t h e m . "

I agree. Dag agrees. We know that this is why the three of us left

our lives behind us and came to the desert —to tell stories and to make our own lives worthwhile tales in the process.

"Strip." T'Talk to yourself." 1I"Look at the view." t'Mas -turbate." Ill's a day later (well, actually not even twelve hours later) and the five of us are rattling down Indian Avenue, headed for our

afternoon picnic up in the mountains. We're in Dag's syphilitic old Saab, an endearingly tinny ancient red model of the sort driven up the sides of buildings in Disney cartoons and held together by Popsicle sticks, c h e w i n g g u m a n d S c o t c h t a p e . A n d i n t h e c a r w e ' r e p l a y i n g a quick game—answering

Claire's open command

to "name all of the ac-t i v i t i e s p e o p l e d o w h e n they're by themselves out

in the desert." T'Take

nude Polaroids." T'Hoard

little pieces of junk and

debris." T'Shoot those

little pieces of junk to

bits with a shotgun."

H"Hey," roars Dag, "it's

kind of like life, isn't it?"

HThe car rolls along.

IT'Sometimes," says Claire, as we drive past the I. Magnin where she works, "I develop this weird feeling when I watch these endless waves of gray hair g obbling up the jewels and perfumes at work. I feel like I'm watching this enormous dinner table surrounded by hundreds of

greedy little children who are so spoiled, and so impatient, that they can't even wait for food to be prepared. They have to reach for live a n i m a l s p l a c e d o n t h e t a b l e a n d s u c k t h e f o o d r i g h t o u t o f t h e m . "

Okay, okay. This is a cruel, lopsided judgment of what Palm Springs

really is —a small town where old people are trying to buy back their youth and a few rungs on the social ladder. As the expression goes, we spend our youth attaining wealth, and our wealth attaining youth. It's really not a bad place here, and it's undeniably lovely—hey, I
do
live here, after all.

But the place makes me worry.

* * * * *

There is no weather in Palm Springs—just like TV. There is also no

m i d d l e c l a s s , a n d i n t h a t s e n s e t h e p l a c e i s m e d i e v a l . D a g s a y s t h a t every time someone on the planet uses a paper clip, fabric softens their laundry, or watches a rerun of "Hee Haw" on TV, a resident somewhere h e r e i n t h e Coachella Valley collects a penny. He's probably right.

Claire notices that the rich people here pay the poor people to cut the thorns from their cactuses. "I've also noticed that they tend to throw out their houseplants rather than maintain them. God. I magine what their
k i d s
are like."

Nonetheless, the three of us chose to live here, for the town is

undoubtedly a quiet sanctuary from the bulk of middle-class life. And we certainly don't live in one of the dishier neighborhoods the town has to offer. No w a y . T h e r e a r e n e i g h b o r h o o d s h e r e , w h e r e , i f y o u s e e a glint in a patch of crew-cut Bermuda grass, you can assume there's a silver dollar lying there. Where
w e
live, in our little bungalows that share a courtyard and a kidney-shaped swimming pool, a twinkle in the grass means a broken scotch bottle or a colostomy bag that has avoided the trashman's gloved clutch.

* * * * *

The car heads out on a long stretch that heads toward the highway and Claire hugs one of the dogs that has edged its face in between the two f r o n t s e a t s . I t i s a f a c e t h a t n o w g r o v e l s p o l i t e l y b u t i n s i s t e n t l y f o r attention. She lectures into the dog's two obsidian eyes:
"You,
you cute little creature.
You
don't have to worry about having snowmobiles or cocaine or a third house in Orlando,
Florida.
That's right. No
you
don't.

HISTORICAL SLUMMING:

The act of visiting locations

You just want a nice little pat on the head."

such as diners, smokestack

The dog meanwhile wears the cheerful, helpful look of a bellboy

industrial sites, rural villages—in a foreign country who doesn't understand a word you're saying but locations where time appears to

have been frozen many years

who still wants a tip.

back—so as to experience relief

"That's right. You wouldn't want to worry yourself with so many when one returns back to "the

things.
And do you know
why?"
(The dog raises its ears at the inflection, present."

giving the illusion of understanding. Dag insists that all dogs secretly
BRAZILIFICATION: The

speak the English language and subscribe to the morals and beliefs of widening gulf between the rich

the Unitarian church, but Claire objected to this because she said she and the poor and the

knew for
a fact,
that when she was in France, the dogs spoke French.) accompanying disappearance of

the middle classes.

" B e c a u s e a l l o f t h o s e o b j e c t s w o u l d o n l y m u t i n y a n d s l a p y o u i n t h e face. They'd only remind you that all you're doing with your life is
VACCINATED TIME

c o l l e c t i n g o b j e c t s . A n d n o t h i n g e l s e . "

TRAVEL:
To fantasize about

traveling backward in time, but

only with proper vaccinations.

We live small lives on the periphery; we are marginalized and there's a great deal in which we choose not to participate. We wanted silence and we have that silence now. We arrived here speckled in sores and zits, our colons so tied in knots that we never thought we'd have a bowel movement again. Our systems had stopped working, jammed with the

odor of copy machines, Wite-Out, the smell of bond paper, and the endless stress of pointless jobs done grudgingly to little applause. We had com-pulsions that made us confuse shopping with creativity, to take downers and assume that merely renting a video on a Saturday night was enough.

But now that we live here in the desert, things are much,
much
better.

At meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, fellow drinksters will get angry with you if you won't puke for the audience. By that, I mean spill your g u t s —r e a l l y d r e d g e u p t h o s e r o t t e d b a s k e t s o f f e r m e n t e d k i t t e n s a n d

murder implements that lie at the bottoms of all of our personal lakes.

AA members want to hear the horror stories of how far you've sunk in I life, and no low is low enough. Tales of spouse abuse, embezzlement, and public incontinence are both appreciated and expected. I know this a s a f a c t b e c a u s e I ' v e

b e e n t o t h e s e m e e t i n g s

(lurid details of my own

life will follow at a later

d a t e ) , a n d I ' v e s e e n t h e

process of onedownman-ship in action—and

been angry at not having

sordid enough tales of

debauchery of my own to

share. 'Never be afraid

to cough up a bit of

d i s e a s e d l u n g f o r t h e s p e c -t a t o r s , " s a i d a m a n w h o sat next to me at a meeting once, a man with skin like a half-c o o k e d pie crust and who had five grown children who would no longer return his phone calls: "How are people ever going to help themselves if they can't grab onto a fragment of your own horror? People want that little fragment, they
need
it. That little piece of lung makes their own fragments less scary." I'm still looking for a description of storytelling as vital as this. Thus inspired by my meetings of the Alcoholics Anonymous