Forbidden Pez - part 2,

January 10, 2003

Forbidden Pez - part 2, continued from Jan 6, 2003

It had been a week since the harmonic convergence. He was living in the quiet greasy vacuum created in the wake of the event. It was as if he was now drafting, helmetless and with no hands on the bars, on his old orange Apollo ten-speed behind a gleaming semi trailer with rose flavoured exhaust. Nothing resisted the flow of his days when he had this momentum. Maybe it was the momentum of a complete life. He had known for the past few hard years that a meaningful relationship was increasingly unlikely. Once this was resolved he had reduced his expectations and rationalized his introversion to lofty heights. He honed his expertise at being alone. Now he had “the Butler Pez” he possessed something completely unique. The butler was gloriously alone and so was he.
The apartment would buzz with ions of potential energy until such a time that he decided how to tell people what he had. Relishing this excitement he treated himself to all manner of his favourite private indulgences. It was tough to call in sick to the Photomat when his voice held an uncontrollable undertone of delirious laughter. Fortunately weakness sounds the same as giddy mania if you consciously force yourself to speak slowly and drop off at the end of sentences. He was the manager and had never called in sick before -- so nobody really doubted him anyway.
He was pants down on the couch watching Fashion Television within thirty seconds. Left hand in the fresh bag of corn chips and the right one circling and rising like any cathode ray hypnotized love slave around the pale apex of his nerve endings. Sometimes his face got hot and flushed from watching too much TV. Simultaneously pulling himself off made him feel like too much TV wasn’t the problem. One couldn’t divorce the causes from the symptoms that resulted and he could choose to pin it all on the one that seemed to be more . . .well . . . natural. In truth he did a lot of both. TV and self love were a direct route to that feeling that he had unplugged. Eventually this led to the feeling that he had to do something with himself and brought him back to plugging in again. Just after the seconds of pleasure came the deep breath through the nose and a minutely desperate need to restore order and discipline brought on by the nosedive into thoughts of his student loan*. This time there was no little death. The knowledge that the butler could bring him unimaginable wealth made the euphoria of the gooey finale last tens of minutes longer and dovetail gently back into his general state of bliss. He reminded himself to savour the moment, grabbed the remote with his eating hand and flipped over to the hockey game.

* reference to the student loan inspired by Bruce McCulloch's "Shame Based Man". Buy the record and find the song.