Jack Pendarvis: Movie Stars

But my friend had ceased to listen to me. He was huddled together with his tiny wife, with whom he seemed to be sharing a private joke. I examined her figure for signs of pregnancy and saw none.

I have nothing against babies per se. People are fascinated by their own babies, perhaps with good reason.

A typical conversation with a parent might go something like this:

“After Maddy’s nap, I either heat a bottle of breast milk or mix up a bottle of formula. Marcie pumps at work and puts the milk in these little plastic bags for me to use at home. We’ve been feeding her baby food for about the last month, too. She likes sweet potatoes.”

“Hmm.”

“Avocado.”

“Exotic and promising!”

“Squash.”

“That’s good.”

“Green beans.”

“An old classic!” (Here, his gracious avocado sentiment having been ignored, the secondary participant is trying again to muster some excitement and bring the discussion around to something more universal.)

“Green peas.”

“Those I’m not so crazy about. But I’m sure they’re good for a baby.” (Introducing a Hegelian dynamic to jazz things up.)

“Beef baby food.”

“My, what a hungry baby.”

“After you feed Maddy, you need to burp her. I either set her on my knee or put her on my shoulder and pat her back. It’s fun when you get a big burp. It’s funny when a big burp comes out of that little mouth. Sometimes you can hear the air coming up her throat right before it comes out of her mouth. Sometimes Maddy spits up. It’s mostly pretty random. You just wipe it up. Once or twice I’ve changed shirts when she spit up on my shoulder. And about once I’ve changed her outfit because it was so wet from spit-up. She seemed to amuse herself a few months ago by waiting for me to change a soiled diaper, then going again as we were putting the new diaper on. Sometimes she would do it two or three times in a row. I hope that means she’s going to have a funny sense of humor. I’ve heard her laugh repeatedly twice. I mean, not just a random laugh, but a prolonged bout of laughter that had some object to it.”

Once I suffered through just such a conversation with a former friend, a man called Mr. Harris. He was rather aged for a new father, which may have accounted for the otherwise unaccountable relish with which he employed such coprolalia.

“Why is it,” I asked him, getting into the spirit of things, “that a cat knows not to crap on the floor from the very day of its birth, but a baby will gladly crap in its own pants without a second thought?”

“But then a baby learns to talk,” said Mr. Harris. “What does a cat learn?”

“One of Little Jimmy Parker’s twins crapped on my breakfast table when she was a baby,” I informed him. “The other one crapped in my new porch swing. I think you could give babies a serum. Something with feline genomes in it or something. I just had an idea for a product. Something you put in a cat’s diet so its feces smell good.”

“Lavender,” said Mr. Harris.

“Really?”

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Harris. “It might work.”

For a moment it was there, the familiar spark. Mr. Harris was my old science teacher, and how we had always loved to come up with ideas for products. None of them amounted to anything, but our dreams kept us going. After he married his much younger wife — a former biology lab partner of mine, in fact — nothing was ever the same.

I observed the long table of tailgating dainties, so lately full of promise, all of which the infected nephew had rummaged through with antic physicality. Hands in pockets, I took my leave.

I smoked as I walked, recalling, as I often did, a father who was carrying his baby around a department store. The child was not wearing shoes, a fact I noted aloud at the time, as the temperature outside had taken an unseasonable and precipitous dip. I thought perhaps that the father had been shopping in the department store for some hours and was unaware of the change in weather.

“You know who says things like that?” the father responded. “Old ladies.”

He said it in a jesting and harmless fashion, as we had known one another for some years. I went on to humorously respond, “That is exactly what I am!” The humor derived from the fact that I am middle-aged and male. I was poking fun at my own shortcomings to be a good sport.

The father went on to describe how an actual “old lady” had come up to his wife, who was carrying their boy in her arms at the time. The old lady in question grabbed the baby’s bare foot and remarked, “His feet are like ice!”

The wife jerked her baby away from the old lady’s grasp and said, “Don’t you dare touch my baby.”

This story was presented as an example of bravery and fortitude on the part of the wife. The teller’s face shone with pride as he related the manner in which his wife had snarled at an old lady. I could not help feeling somewhat chastened, albeit it in a passive and not unpleasant way. At the same time I was bewildered.

Similarly, my thoughts were crazed and muddy as I walked home from the football game, a state of mind I welcomed. Hot air balloons, the electric coffee pot, the poetry of William Blake — here are just a few of the items we would not be able to enjoy today if someone had pushed a crazy thought to the back of his head because he didn’t want to brood about it.

The Bible says something about a “still, small voice.” What a beautiful thought. Another Biblical phrase is “like a thief in the night.” Inspiration does not come crashing and stumbling like a lout.

Few of us are old enough to remember homemade crystal radio sets, a pastime of yore. I do not believe I ever put one together successfully, yet somehow I retain a mental image of the process, possibly from a movie. What I am picturing is the infinite patience with which the young enthusiast groped for a signal. Somewhere, from the stars, a message!

I would not have to get my teeth fixed to become a so-called “Hollywood character actor,” portraying the henchman or goon of a corrupt and oleaginous Southern senator, saying things like, “Get in the car.” My unfortunate smile might even turn out to be a benefit.

“He’s authentic! He’s the real thing!” Such encomia I could imagine bursting from the lips of agents and casting directors as I stood by modestly within earshot.

Upon arriving home, I made up a list of the good points and bad points about my town.

Good: friends.

Bad: a chemical smell.

Good: plans to revitalize the economy through tourism.

Bad: tourism based on an infamous murder in a creepy doll hospital.

Good: flowers.

Bad: a dog somewhere that barks all night.

Good: old-fashioned hobby shop provides nostalgia and irony in equal measures.

Bad: racists.

The list thus completed, I called my friend. It was halftime, and the marching band was playing.

“There is nothing keeping me here anymore,” I said. “I’m off to pursue my dreams.”

My friend said, “Who is this?” He said, “Hello?”

ROBERT MONTGOMERY DUMPED JOAN CRAWFORD AT THE ALTAR. After that, there was a jump cut to Joan Crawford chopping wood at a mountain cabin.

“There she is, chopping wood!” I said aloud.

My girlfriend would have known what I meant, but she didn’t come over anymore.

Maybe I was drunk, but Joan Crawford was a hot-looking woman. I could watch her chopping wood all day long. It wasn’t her fault people turned her into a camp figure later on. Time turns us all into camp figures in the end.

AN OPEN BOX OF DOUGHNUTS ON THE COFFEE TABLE. LITTLE BULLETS lined up in a pretty little row. The girl working on the chamber of a revolver with a little tool like a Q-tip expressly designed for the purpose. Her yellow hair hanging in her eyes.