I went downtown last Tuesday to visit my friend Lyle. I stood in the musty hallway and knocked on the door of his apartment. When he yelled for me to come in, I did and closed the door behind me. The room was dim like sundown, and when my eyes adjusted to the dark I saw Lyle sitting in an orange beanbag chair, stark naked. Small piles of leftover food and kitchen scraps surrounded him on a clear plastic drop cloth. Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries" boomed out of the stereo and Lyle was smoking a little cigar.
"Oh my God, Louise! I thought you were the TV people," he said. "Please don't mind the mess. I have an appointment, and they'll be here any minute."
I looked at Lyle's round little belly and the bristly blond hairs covering his skin. He sat back in the beanbag chair, his legs extended and crossed at the knee, his little feet beating time to Wagner. The room smelled like overripe tomatoes.
"What the hell, Lyle? You don't smoke," I said.
"This is just to celebrate. I'm making my own TV show."
"Well, I guess it's ok if I smoke in the house today, then." I pulled up a chair and lit a cigarette. "Why don't you put on some clothes if the TV people are going to be here?"
"Well, normally I would, but the concept I'm introducing today requires that I be completely nude."
"Is it for cable or something?"
"Oh yes, of course. You're welcome to stay and watch. I'd love to have an audience."
We heard footsteps coming up the hall and stop. Someone was trying to ring Lyle's doorbell, which doesn't work.
"Would you please get that for me?" Lyle said, handing me the ashtray. "Do you want me to turn on the lights?" I said, ditching the ashtray in the sink and looking around the room frantically, afraid to open the door.
"No, I just want this single spot on me." There was a desk lamp on the table behind Lyle, the shade tilted to put all the light in the room on Lyle's head.
I turned off the radio and opened the door. A man wearing a brown suit, carrying a briefcase and camcorder, asked me if this were the residence of Lyle Verona.
"Yes it is," I said, "please come in."
The man sat down in the chair next to Lyle and put his briefcase on the floor.
"You must be Lyle," he said.
"Yes, I am. And you must be Tom Baird of the Creative Development Agency. I'm very happy to meet you."
Tom Baird looked at Lyle with a slight smile on his face and stood up with the camcorder.
"Yes," he said, "I imagine you are. Are you ready to get started?"
Lyle said he was, and after Tom Baird found a suitable spot from which to shoot Lyle's performance, he said action. Lyle sat up straight, keeping his legs crossed, and began.
"Hello, I'm Lyle Verona and this is Scraps of the Stars! Today we have James Caan, Connie Stevens, Elizabeth Taylor, and so very much more..."
Without looking down, Lyle scooped up a handful of stewed tomatoes and slapped them on his chest. They stuck, only trickling down a little. He rubbed them into his skin and said, in a hushed voice, that they were right off William Hurt's table.
"That's right. Imagine William Hurt eating stewed tomatoes, and serving them to guests even!"
He grabbed a paper carton of Chinese food, noodles and vegetables, and dumped it in his hand. He held it for a moment; then rubbed it all over his round hairy belly, talking the whole time of Jack Nicholson and busy folks who just don't have time to cook.
This went on for thirty minutes; Lyle spoke reverently of the stars and their food while rubbing the casserole and coffee grounds on his neck, his thighs, his chest, even his feet; back and forth, in strokes and circles. Lyle was covered with food, banana peels draped over his shoulders and red and brown and green smears of glop covering every inch of his exposed body. At this point he took up the last remaining relic, a halved cantaloupe rind and slowly brought it up to his face and kissed it.
"They say the King is dead, but what would you say if I told you that a waitress in a Kansas City truck stop sent this to me, with a letter swearing that she herself served this to the King and watched him eat it. Elvis is alive, somewhere, and he's watching his weight!"
Lyle put the hollow cantaloupe rind on his head and blew a kiss toward Tom Baird.
"That's it, my friends! See you next week with Scraps of the Stars!"
Tom Baird said cut, and turned off the camcorder. He picked up his briefcase and looked down at Lyle, still wallowing in his scraps of the stars.
"Wonderful, Lyle, really wonderful. We'll send you your copy of the tape and the bill later this week. Thank you!"
Tom Baird left and Lyle stood up. He went into the other room and I could hear the shower running. I opened up all the curtains, turned on the lights and opened the windows all the way. I felt hot and thirsty and got a diet soda out of the refrigerator.
I rubbed the cold can on my face then gulped the sharp fizzing drink until my chest hurt. I threw the orange beanbag chair in the hall closet and folded the dirty plastic into a little square which I stuffed in the trash under the sink. I hung my head out of the window and took ten deep breaths.
Lyle came out wearing clean gray sweat pants and a white t-shirt. His hair was wet and when he opened the bathroom door the clean soapy steam wafted out into the living room. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth and washed my face. When I came out, Lyle was sitting in the kitchen chair drinking a Diet Pepsi.
"Lyle, I feel like I just woke up from a pornographic nightmare. What could have possessed you to humiliate yourself like that? And to pay for it?"
"What do you mean, humiliate myself? I just happened to come up with a great idea for a show so I decided to give myself a chance for once."
"A chance for a vision straight from the pit of warped emotional hellfire," I said.
Lyle didn't answer me. He strolled into the kitchen and started filling up the sink to do the dishes. He hummed to himself, washing first the glasses, then the silverware, finally the plates. I lit up a cigarette.
"No smoking in this house!"
"Excuse me all to hell, Lyle! I'm just going home if you're not even going to talk to me! An hour ago we were smoking cigars and having public humiliation and rotten food orgies in here, so just excuse me for living!"
Lyle picked up the other kitchen chair and put it directly in front of me. He sat down and put his hands right on my knees.
"Ok. I'll tell you. But you'd better not mock me."
"Please, just tell me," I begged.
"Well, why don't you give me one of your cigarettes first?"
I shook my head and gave him one. He lit it, and took a long drag.
"Well," he exhaled, "a few weeks ago I had this dream. I dreamed that I was at a fabulous dinner party in a beautiful mansion in Bel Air. You would not believe who the hostess was at this party."
"Who?"
"Marilyn Monroe. And she was wearing that white dress, you know, the famous one from when she stands on the air vent? And dripping with diamonds. She was sitting at the head of the table."
"Who were the guests?"
"Well, me of course. And James Dean, and Elizabeth Taylor, and Montgomery Clift, and Judy Garland and Fred Astaire. And they were all young. They were all beautiful and funny and charming."
"So what happened?"
Lyle shot me a look and shook his cigarette at me.
"First let me tell you about the food! The table was absolutely groaning with food. All of it delicious and beautiful. There was baked Alaska, chocolate mousse, strawberry shortcake, apple pie, gooey tollhouse cookies..."
"That's all dessert."
"Will you please let me finish? Yes, it's all dessert. But it's my dream. Do you mind? Anyway, here's what happened. I was sitting at one end of the table and Marilyn was sitting at the other end. I got up from my chair and took off my tie. We were all in formal attire of course, the men in tuxedoes...so I took off my tie and walked over to Judy's seat, the first on my left. I took a piece of cake off her plate and ate it. Then I went to Fred's, then Liz's, and so on, until I got to Marilyn. She was looking at me in the gushy way she does, her lips parted, breathing hard. When I got to Marilyn's place at the table, I was completely undressed. And I slowly took a handful of her baked Alaska and rubbed it on my chest; and the mousse and the shortcake, all over my body. Oh my God, it was the most incredible dream. I had such an erection when I woke up."
I quickly lit another cigarette.
"Do you understand?" he asked me.
"I understand the dream, but why the show?"
"Because eating and touching the stars' food is like having sex with the stars."
"I know that. But why did you actually have to do it?"
"Because it was a great idea."
"God, Lyle, it was so cheesy the way you actually did it. Your dream is so much better."
"You just don't have a taste for real porn," he said.
"But it wasn't even erotic! It was so cheap and real."
"See what I mean? It's cheap and it's real and it's shameful and that's why it's hot!"
"Lyle, no one is going to put your show on TV," I said quietly.
"I know that, you silly goose," he said.
"Why did you pay those people to film it, then?"
"Because I wanted it to be realistic!"
"So this was just for you?"
"Who else?"
Brenda Munroe primps vegetables and sells soy milk to healthy people at a natural foods store in Eugene, Oregon. She's working on what appears to be a novel which features biscuits and gravy, but no rich desserts. This is her first published story.
For other stories by Brenda Munroe, click here.
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