Mark Leyner: Et Tu, Babe

“At this point, my colleagues looked at me beseechingly and confided their suspicion that the monster child returns at night to the building. ‘We’re begging you,’ they said, ‘don’t stay late. If there’s extra work to be done, take it home. But there’s danger — we feel it, we feel that he comes back.’

“It was soon Christmas season. And one of my responsibilities was to close out the books for the year. It was a very hectic time for us and one night I was asked by the president of the company to stay late, finish some work, and then lock up. That night I worked on the books until almost two in the morning — the building, of course, completely empty except for me. I finished up, turned out the lights, armed the building’s security system, locked the door, and exited. I walked through the parking lot to my car, opened the front door, and got in. There was a smell … a smell of rotting flowers, of putrid water from a neglected vase … and the stench of decaying flesh. I felt something on my neck … not fingers, but stumps … finger stumps caressing my neck. I turned around and there were the corpses of my parents seated in the back, and they were gazing at me with wide eyes and horrible grins on their faces. I was ice-cold and nauseous with terror. I opened the car door, rolled to the ground, and ran back to the building. Fumbling frantically with the keys, I finally got the door open. I took a few trembling steps into the dark hallway, when I felt something brush against my leg and then do a series of … are you familiar with classical ballet steps?”

The Allure reporter nods. “Somewhat.”

“Well, it did a series of brisés volés . This is a flying brisé where you finish on one foot after the beat and the other is crossed in back … it’s basically a fouetté movement with a jeté battu . And then it landed in the middle of the reception area in an arabesque à la hauteur —that’s an arabesque where the working leg is raised at a right angle to the hip, one arm curved over the head, the other extended to the side. It was the monster child! And he had a birthday hat on his head! To my astonishment — especially after everything I’d heard — he wasn’t such a malevolent creature after all. We talked for quite a while — touching on a wide range of issues — and then he said that he had a friend who was in trouble and he asked me if I could help her. I said I’d try. I followed him deep into the woods, maybe two or three miles until we stopped. And there seated against a tree, sobbing inconsolably, was Julianne Phillips.

“ ‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her.

“She said that Bruce Springsteen had just left her for Patti Scialfa.

“ ‘Listen, I’ve got a car,’ I said. ‘Is there somewhere I could take you?’

“ ‘P-P-Paula’s.’

“Well, it turned out that Paula was Paula Abdul. And we became very close. And it was through Paula that I met Elton and then Axl and Queen Latifah. And that’s basically how I got started writing liner notes.”

“Thank you very much, Mr. Leyner, that was absolutely fascinating!” the Allure reporter gushes. “And good luck on your new book.”

“Thanks, it was a pleasure chatting.”

I’m frequently asked that question about how I got started writing liner notes and I have to admit that it’s become somewhat tedious explaining it over and over again. So I feel a bit pooped and sneak off to the bedroom for a quick nap. There’s an open book on my pillow. This is one of Arleen’s modes of communicating with me. She’ll leave a certain book, opened to a certain page and passage, on my pillow, and I’ll deduce from the text what Arleen is trying to tell me. Perhaps a passage from Wordsworth’s “The Prelude,” indicating that she’d like to spend more time in pristine, rural environments. Or an issue of Vogue , hinting that a new blouse or pair of shoes might be appreciated. Or maybe a chapter from Greenberg and Johnson’s Emotionally Focused Therapy for Couples , implying that we’re not “connecting” as Arleen feels we should be. So I take the volume — a weighty anthropology textbook — from the pillow and read the indicated passage:

When the men have retired to the “sulk house” to sulk, the youngsters run exuberantly to the river. In they wade, and with playful boasts, attempt to snare recyclable refuse — everything from broken chunks of polyvinyl chloride buoys to foil packets of ketchup — from the swift current. The women, who have been watching from either the menstrual gazebos or the song stalls where they flatten manioc cakes between their hands to rhythmic doggerel, shout praise at the boys and heap derision on the ensconced brooding men, impugning their scavaging prowess and disparaging their virility. The men sulk for usually an hour, when a preset timer resounds in the sulk house and, depending on whether the men have planned a hunting raid or just want to watch television and drink, prepare themselves accordingly. If TV and drinking comprise the agenda, the men change from their dark, cowled sulking robes into gym shorts and flip-flops and undo their topknots, letting their long orange hair fall casually down their backs. They then make exaggerated exhibitions of pride about their hair, tossing their heads and narcissistically flipping their tresses about with the backs of their hands. Although these displays of extravagant, almost effeminate vanity usually culminate in gales of laughter, this is a crucial, highly ritualized transition activity that psychologically enables the men to shift from sulking to watching television and drinking — a transition that is physically accomplished by walking through an underground passageway from the sulk house to the spirit house. Once in the spirit house, the remote control for the television — a device made out of black beeswax, parana palm thatch, jaguar bone, and toucan feather tassels and featuring power, mute, volume, and channel buttons — can only be operated by the “kakarum” (powerful one). To be acknowledged as a kakarum, a man must have killed at least several persons. It is considered a feat of overwhelming courage and strength to kill a kakarum and wrest from him jurisdiction over the remote control — but this rarely happens, and in fact none of the elder informants can remember a remote control ever being taken from a kakarum. Kakarums are believed to possess supernatural power derived from the souls of the men they have killed. The prospect of acquiring this power by killing a kakarum and usurping his remote control rights is often too enticing for ambitious young men to resist. But conflicts over the remote control almost invariably end with the violent death of the young challenger, whose body is then dumped down a metal chute that delivers it into a pit located between the menstrual gazebos and the song stalls where the victim is prepared for burial by his matrilineal grandmother or mother-in-law. The kakarum then chooses a TV program and signals the commencement of drinking by announcing, “Let us drink until we vomit” and “Drink quickly so that you may be drunk soon.” The beverage that’s consumed — and consumed in staggering quantities — is a beer made from masticated pupunah mash and sugar cane extract. It’s produced in two versions: regular and lite, which is less filling. The first man to vomit is known as “wetcówe” (vomiting one) and it is he who goes outside the spirit house and makes a loud, dramatic display of vomiting in order to signal to the women to come join the men and “utcíwaiwa” (party). The women, having been signaled by the wetcówe, change from the drab clothes they’d been wearing in the menstrual gazebos or the song stalls into short, back-strapped sequined dresses, and they dance single file toward the spirit house chanting, “utcíwaiwa wetcówe! utcíwaiwa wetcówe!”