I am not exactly sure who this guy is, but he is a musician, a pianist, and he must have developed or contracted one of those Oliver Sachs-type neurological disorders because he has forgotten how to play boogie woogie. (Full disclosure: He doesn't actually use the term 'boogie woogie'; in truth, he has forgotten that most basic of proto-rock 'n' roll chord progressions, I-vi-ii-V, as in 'Heart and Soul'. I forget what he calls this progression, though.) Anyway, we are sitting in a restaurant and he is telling me the story of the night said chords fled his faculties, and how he struggled to recover, in the middle of playing a set with his band. His solution was ridiculously complicated: something about dropping red markers on the floor tiles to indicate to his band-mates which notes to stay away from in any given measure, so they didn't clash with what he was playing. In the midst of his explanation, at least one minor second relation occurs to me as verboten, and I agree with his method at least that far. (In retrospect, though, the whole thing is nonsense.)
Later, after boogie schmoogie guy has gone away, I am running the broader arc of his story through my mind, as if it were (and maybe it is) the plot of a movie. I am still in the restaurant—or club, the sort of place and maybe the place where the pianist suffered his sudden harmonic lacuna—sitting alone at a round 4-top table and stirring what is partly a cup of coffee and partly a bowl of soup. The chunks in the soup correspond to elements of the story I'm rehearsing in my mind. At the end of the story, the pianist breaks up with his girlfriend and it's a very 'get out yr hankies' cinematic sequence. Turns out, I am meeting the (now ex-) girlfriend for dinner, and what do you know, la voici. From the cheerfulness of her demeanor I surmise she has not yet heard that Boogie Boy has broken up with her. I am suddenly verklempt, and it seems imperative that I tell her that I love her. Maybe she gives me a look, because I immediately qualify that utterance—honestly, we really haven't known each other long enough to reasonably profess even platonic love, but I am in the moment. She ought to be assured somebody loves her. I guess I spring the bad news on her then, but the scene cuts early for some reason.
In a different, mutated thread, we are acquainted with the behind-the-counter workings of a family bakery. We are in a medieval village in the demesne of an oppressive and possibly psychotic king, and the latest news is that the king has decreed that all bakers must create loaves of bread that depict bears. Our protagonist family has been struggling to figure out how to do this, so far with no success. The regime is represented by obnoxious guardsmen on the street, always the same crusty pair, who loudly bellow the king's orders, seemingly non-stop. The story includes a lot of soap opera detail about the baker family and their interrelationships, but most of these are lost; the important thing is, the morning has come for all bakers to display their bear loaves and, hélas! our family has nothing to show for it. Rather, they have a loaf of bread with some vague lumps and mounds in a topography that is in no way suggestive of a bear or bears.
This story has been told before, I realize—it is familiar, almost a fable or household tale—but we are now seeing it from a new perspective. In this telling, the various bakers' bear-shaped loaves are loaded up on carts for presentation and paraded through the high street of the village. (There are, BTW, far, far too many such loaves to be representative of the bakerage of a small village—we're talking Macy's Parade in New York City with all the bakers in all five boroughs turning out to show they shit off.) Anyway, the products are amazing: loaf after loaf is spectacularly bear-presentative, some individual bears, menacingly mid-roar or in repose, others whole scenes with multiple bears hunting, bathing, frolicking. The crust are mostly glistening and rich golden brown, looking like egg-bathed brioche, gorgeously highlighting the detail of each offering. We see them all in motion on their carts, along with the king's men, who are inspecting the loaves for acceptability. We know that we will soon see the awful, inadequate loaf baked by our heroes and the suspense builds slowly as each magnificent bear loaf passes by. When the offending loaf shows up, however, the king's guard almost miss it: a moving obstacle—someone driving an ox, maybe—obscures it as it passes by. But they catch sight of it anyway: one guardsman says to another, in effect, "The fuck was that?" And we know our family is in for some heavy punitive shit, maybe dungeoning. But we switch stories again.
I am female. My sister (or "sister": think Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern) has sent me home from 'New Rochelle' to drop some stuff off. Typical for my dreams, my arms are ridiculously, elaborately laden and of course I have to fetch keys from my pocket. Once I get to the front porch, juggling all the packages I'm carrying, I realize that I have two keys for the apartment on me: my own set and a single, spare key that is destined for a house-guest. I think I'm supposed to find and deliver the spare, but for the time being I need to put stuff down in the apartment. It is a townhouse on a city street, but each such townhouse in this row have modest front porches, round and ballustered; some, like ours, have been subdivided, and two doors lead to separate apartments. My sister and I live upstairs, but I notice the downstairs door is ajar; so I put my parcels down on the porch (honestly? I let them tumble. Don't tell my sister.) and poke my head in to see who's about.
There are several family members and friends sitting in the front room: my cousins Michael and Jimmy are sitting on the couch just inside the door; my mom (I may be back to being male and myself at this point) and a couple other NPCs are sitting or standing throughout the room. Michael immediately asks me, 'How are things at New Paltz? Not New Paltz, I mean New Rochelle.' (Actually, I have no idea what followed the 'New' in either case... pretty sure it wasn't 'Paltz' and 'Rochelle'.) From here on out, everything anybody says is slightly off from what it should be, and somebody else corrects them: it becomes a game. I think somebody offers 'gin rummy tea' instead of gin seng. Jimmy isn't really Jimmy—he is (let us say) Greg Evigan, but he's still supposed to be my cousin in context—and he complains that somebody recently called him Gregory Peccary instead of Greg Evigan. Mom does most of the error-correcting. After a good chunk of this playful small talk, I take my packages and head upstairs.
There's a lot more where that came from, but this is all I remember.
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