The air buzzes with a latent frenzy, a dying murmur of a recent occurence. I suspect something eventful just happened. I don't specifically hear it, but the piano in the corner echoes the previous cacophony. Definite discord. That piano was not used to create music, but discord, like the discord of language. Someone was trying to speak on that piano. They spoke on the piano, though I doubt they could speak very well regardless of the instrument used.
The piano needs to be tuned.
The Crazed English Teacher appears from a velvety green that might be affixed to the wall. He struts forward in his Yves St. Laurent suit, seemingly serious and pensive. He would normally be serious and pensive, but something eventful just happened. I would normally step aside to get out of his way, but I feel no need to do so. He walks straight to me, never looking up, keeping his serious, pensive gaze firmly affixed to the carpet that occasionally wavers in telegraphic greys and purples.
I do not know what to expect.
'Buuhhhhh-!Waaaaahhhhhhhhh . . ,' he exclaims in a slow motion drawl, lifting his fingers to his face to form an inverted junior birdman face. He sounds like Bruce Lee. He sidesteps a few knee-high kicks and jumps atop a chair. I laugh. My cheeks seem to flare a few inches from my face every time I smile. It must be the humidity.
We have a pleasant conversation. . 'I'm here for a few days ... Why are you still here? I thought you left. . We carpeted the interior of the piano . . there's some cranberry sauce if you're thirsty, the plumbing fixtures have coagulated in the heat. . .'
I feel quite relaxed when he suddenly jumps in his chair and jabs a finger into his left hip. He uses his right hand which torses him oddly in the small chair.
'This. This is the point. This week.'
'Oh?'
'Mmm.. you wouldn't know 'bouts that,' he feigns in his derived Lowiddiana accent, slow, soft and Southern. 'Pauls mades it up fo' me. Each weeks I gots a whole new point to point ..'
He emphasizes 'Paul' as I should immediatly know or spend the time trying to conjure an image of 'Paul.' I have to conjure. . . Paul . . . Roman? No. You weren't here before he graduated.. . .Bobik? No. He'd do such a thing .. but . . he's got red hair.. Pete. . Pete Soens. It has to be Pete.
I think Pete and he nods his head slowly, expressing obvious pleasure that I have guessed the correct person. He tilts his head to the side so I can see a flickering image of Pete jumping from the second story bannister in loosely tied high tops and baggy beach shorts. I descend from just behind his shoulder, and rise again after he has landed on the first floor. Pete lunges forward, exclaiming, 'This! Here! Is thy point!' He jabs the Crazed English Teacher and takes another grand leap to the second story bannister after first removing a hagning piece of green velvet from the wall for use as a cape.
'Last week 'twas' rah-chere.' He points idiotically to a point between his eyes, half an inch above the bridge of his nose. He crosses his eyes for effect.
'You're a Dravidian!' I momentarily pause on how the meaning might be changed if I said 'Davidian,' but the significance of that statement escapes me.
He takes a spoon from his pocket and affixes it to his forehead.
'Best to rub spot with the smoothened backside of spoon.'
'You know, in India they curl spoons into serpents for that purpose,' I say. I imagine lines of men and women by the Ganges, muddy water dripping from soaked dhotis and saris, all a yellowy pink, tieing twisted spoons to their foreheads or affixing them there with a brown gum acquired from one of the local trees. Some are shaped like snakes, others merely twisted into fantasmal shapes. Knots have particular significance, but I cannot remeber what it is. He hands me the spoon. I twist it into an 'N' shape with the bowl of the spoon facing forward to represent the cape of a cobra.
He leans forward to take the spoon from me and closes his eyes as though entering a deep meditation, forcibly utters a few sentences I cannot understand while tilting his head back, and places the spoon on his forehead, over last week's point. When he opens his eyes the spoon rests upon his brow and remians fastened when he rights his head. He tells me that with some axial thought he could make the spoon gyrate like a real snake. I really have no desire to watch a spoon wiggle and squirm on his forehead.
lynn@pharmdec.wustl.edu