Carpet
Rash and White Trashed Page
4
9/7/2002
What's My Tribe?
Back at 187 Vista Linda Lane, Diane and I stumbled through door to the sound of some godawful Nashville pop yodel fuck. Faith Hope was curled in the middle of the huge couch (It was huge, one of those right angle "L" jobs that would have been 30 feet long if it were in a straight line. Sections of it even reclined. This was bubba comfort at its finest. Guess no trailer is without one of these.) listening intently, obviously moved by this crap.
"What
the hell is this," I tossed at Faith Hope trying to battle back those
deep brown eyes.
I'm not sure what her response was. Travis Trout McGillicutty or something like that. Obviously some lowest common denominator Nashville industry slut.
"The best country comes from Texas and sounds a helluva lot better than this," I snorted, plopping down on one end of the megacouch that was already in "recline" position, emitting a huge "aaaahhh."
"Robert Earl Keene, Lyle Lovett, Jimmy LaFave, and Jimmie Dale Gilmore," she blurted.
I was stunned, and in friggin' love. If she'd included Kinky Friedman in the list, I would have coronaried right there. Holy shit. The girl was a Real Country fan. Hope for the Trailer Park crowd. Faith Hope.
"Nanci Griffith..." I said.
"Hate her voice," she said.
"And you like Jimmie Dale Gilmore's?" I shot back.
"He's a guy, and a sexy Indian guy to boot."
"I'm a fraction Cherokee/Chickasaw and half a dozen other Trail of Tears tribes."
"Uh-huh, what's Trail of Tears, a band?."
"What, don't you...."
"I'm kidding," she said. "My grandparents are Okies. Where do you think all the Trailer Trash in California comes from, Saskatchewan?"
Oh my god! Smart and a raging smartass.
"Looking at your reddish brown complexion, my dear, what's your tribe?"
She didn't miss a beat, "Chickasaw, Seminole, Cherokee. There's more, but my grandparents won't talk about indian stuff anymore." She looks at the stereo, and points the remote at it. Jimmie Dale Gilmore gives of us You're Just the Wave and Not the Water.
"You're for real," she says.
"Huh?"
Diane plops down on the other end of the megacouch, reclines, puts her head back and closes her eyes.
"You're the first person I've ever met who says "Chickasaw" right," she explains. "Most people say it as it looks- Chick - a - saw. It's Chick - a - shay. You an Okie?"
"Hell no," I blurted. "Yo soy Tejano!"
"Huh," she said. "I took French, not Spanish."
"Je
Vien du Texas," I said.
"Oh. That explains it," she says.
"Explains what?"
"Your knowledge of good country, your vibe."
"My vibe? Didn't know I had one. Hope it's not offensive."
Faith Hope gets a far away kind of grimacing smile. She looks off in the distance, away from me, searching for an explanation.
Diane looks up, bleary-eyed. "His vibe?"
"Shut up," Faith Hope snorts and backhands her playfully on the upper arm.
"Oww!"
Diane falls back into sleep mode. In a few minutes, she is snoring. The whole place is filled with the smell of noodles, and what smells like beef.
"I don't know," she says turning toward me, "You just seem different."
She looks all embarrassed and glassy eyed.
I get a little boy grin, and kind of blush. "What does that have to do with being from Texas?" I ask.
"I don't know," she says, "I think it has a lot to do with it."
We both look at each other with embarrassed smiles.
"It's not a bad thing," she says. "It's really kinda...uh....cool, in a way, ya know."
I just smile. There's tension in the air, wonderful tension. In the back of my mind, I hear, "one-nil."
Diane snores.
Chicken and Noodles, The New Guy, Say It Isn't So, A Teenage Shrew, and the Odd, but Joyous Taste of Metal Mouth
"What do you mean, you don't eat beef? Oh my god. I didn't know. What about chicken? I have chicken. Want chicken?"
Before I'd even responded, I heard a freezer door open, and the "beep beep" of microwave controls. Thaw mode.
"I am so sorry," Faith Hope went on. "Why didn't you tell me," she said to Diane.
"Gee, I had no idea what you were cooking," Diane replied, I little pissed at all the blame being put on her.
I just smiled.
Diane, Dianna, and Faith Hope sat on one leg of the "L", why I had the recliner on the other leg.
They sat eating their ground beef and noodles, all sitting cross-legged, eyes intent upon the television, and Keanu Reeves in Devil's Advocate. I kicked back with a Diet Pepsi, casting quick glances at Faith Hope. I caught her returning a couple.
Faith Hope returned from the kitchen with a plate of noodles and chicken breast on the side that she had baked to perfection in basalmic vinegar and chunks of garlic. Simple and tasty, she took the Diet Pepsi from my hand, placed it on the floor, and replaced it with the plate. She sat down and curled up next to me.
"Keanu Reeves is such a dumbshit," she whispered in my ear. "Look at them," she said casting a glance toward Diane and Dianna, "I'll bet their both wet right now."
I repressed an immense urge to drop my plate of scrumptious chicken and plant a big kiss on Faith Hope. I just giggled instead and glanced at her. She was looking right at me.
"We'll watch The New Guy after this," she said. "The lead actor is hot."
"Why?" I asked.
"He's a dork. Dorks are sexy."
"You must think I'm raging, then," I said.
"Maybe," she said. putting her hand on my thigh. It just sat there, and I sizzled.
The New Guy DVD was sort of a gift left behind by Craig. He'd rented it and left it behind. I figured Diane was gonna keep it for good to spite him until I found out he'd rented it on her card. Hopeless.
Dianna cashed it in. Diane, Faith Hope, and I stayed for The New Guy. Faith Hope got up, put in the DVD and returned to the mega couch. I thought for certain she would take a more neutral position upon her return. But she practically sat upon me. She was pushed right up against me. The warmth was electrifying. It made the mediocre morass of a movie quite a pleasant experience. The sight of Eliza Dushku and Zooey Deschanel didn't hurt either.
She returned her hand to my thigh. I put my hand on the inside of hers. As I found out a little later, Faith Hope was wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants, and a Fed Ex hooded sweatshirt she'd stolen from an ex.
The lead kid in the film was a dork. A huge dork. In the final scene at the Broken Spoke, I felt a wetness dragging from the bottom of my ear to the top. But something got caught in the creases, scratching my ear. Our girl had a tongue piercing.
Diane cashed it in, and went to Faith Hope's room. We had this huge couch, the telly, and a big living room to ourselves.
Faith Hope put in Say It Isn't So. When Heather Graham cut off Chris Klein's ear, we both cringed, putting our foreheads together. I don't remember much about the movie except the taste of a metal tongue ring. Disturbing at first. But I grew used to it. Liked it, in fact.
Ten Things I Hate About You is a teen version of Taming of the Shrew. I didn't realize it at first. The school was called Padua, Julia Stiles was Katerina, and her begrudging man-to-be was Patrick Verona.
"What's with all the Italian names?" I blurted.
"It's Shakespeare, silly," Faith Hope responded. "Taming of the Shrew, duh!"
"Oh yeah, long time, no Bill," I said, "Well, except for that Beach Blanket Comedy of Errors I saw a couple of weeks ago in Hell A."
She punched me.
In a party scene, Julia Stiles gets all drunk, then she gets all jiggy with it on a dining room table to some low thumping, low diving hip hop song. She's actually on all fours on the table wiggling her ass like a dog on ecstasy. She stands up on the table to rip some more moves, but whacks her head on the chandelier. She falls, and pretty boy catches her, and drags her outside for some fresh air. Stiles and pretty boy sit on a swing set out in the front lawn of this house where the party is a-ragin', and get all doey-eyed on each other.
"Your eyes have a little green in them," Julia says, then ralphs all over pretty boy's shoes. Riveting, poetic stuff.
Totally inspired, obviously, Faith Hope grabs my head and lays a big one on me. She then grabs my right hand and shoves it down her sweatpants.
Shaven.
