WHY I LOVE BRUNETTES by Christian Gehman CHAPTER TWO “Tom’s Wedding” When Doc finally woke up again, the third time, from a repulsive (yet still fascinating) dream about a dark- haired woman – not Diana! – hanging naked in chains (a dream not that much different, really? – than what nice guys do to women every day): Even before Doc opened his eyes, and for what seemed a tedious long time, he felt Death glaring at him with a baleful but incurious uncertainty compounded of cheap wedding Champagne and Morgon and cigarettes and Irish whiskey – Irish presbyterians! for God’s sake – topped off by a sad-eyed lady with a camera. At the wedding of a friend.
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
WHY I LOVE BRUNETTES
by Christian Gehman
CHAPTER TWO
“Tom’s Wedding”
When Doc finally woke up again, the third time, from a repulsive
(yet still fascinating) dream about a dark-haired woman – not Diana! – hanging
naked in chains (a dream not that much different, really? – than what nice guys
do to women every day):
Even before Doc opened his eyes, and for what seemed a tedious
long time, he felt Death glaring at him with a baleful but incurious uncertainty
compounded of cheap wedding Champagne and Morgon and cigarettes and Irish
whiskey – Irish presbyterians! for God’s sake – topped off by a sad-eyed lady
with a camera.
At the wedding of a friend.
Such a pity Champagne causes terrible headaches!
Maybe lying absolutely motionless would aid the process of non-
thought?
What Doc knew kept creeping in:
He knew he should not be lying on a white couch in the center of a
white room up at the Photocrat Gallery in Charlottesville – without Diana.
He knew it was raining.
The demon headache, Doc believed, had been caused mostly by
Tom’s cheap wedding Champagne.
The Jameson, he felt quite sure, had not done any damage.
Maybe all those cigarettes?
Doc lay on Sarah’s white couch fighting off despair and listening to
the rain drum down and cataloging physical sensations:
(right ear: cold;
left ear: warm;
left arm: stiff;
legs: far away;
bladder: full;
stomach: nauseated;
the headache: promising much worse if he moved).
He might have been a Swedish meatball lying stiff and greasy in a
pool of vomit: Morgon and cheap Champagne.
He lay there pretending he could still hope that he didn’t know
exactly what kind of trouble he had gotten into, even though he did remember all
the details.
After that, he lay there hoping Sarah hadn't photographed him
passed out dead drunk snoring on her white couch with her snow-flake quilt
thrown over him.
He lay there trying to believe he couldn’t quite remember all the
facts – because, as Tom liked saying, “Wallowing in facts can only make things
worse.”
Why did Champagne cause such terrible headaches?
But really, it had been the Beaujolais, and the pack of Camels, and
the Guinness – not the cheap Champagne. The Jameson, he still believed, had
done any harm.
Unfortunately, all the worst damage had been caused by a sad-
eyed woman with her camera, damn it.
At the wedding of a friend.
Doc hoped continue hoping Sarah hadn't really photographed him
dead drunk, snoring on her white couch with her snowflake quilt thrown over him,
he felt by turns a little smug and then a little sick at heart”
Fairly sure he might get caught?
And if he didn't want to think about sweet Sarah’s sad eyes or her
fascinating mouth; and if he didn't want to think about the way her breasts had
trembled like ripe peaches – downy and warm from the sun – or how her lips had
taken on such interesting textures when she kissed him, or the deep drowning
smell of her sex, or how it really had been just before it started, when he still
couldn’t quite believe that this was happening to him, and then again – and
again, each time wanting and getting a little bit more; and if he didn't want to think
about the first step: when Sarah allowed him to drown in the pools of her eyes,
meanwhile adjusting the seam of her blue jeans on his knee: well, that was only
because he still hadn't figured out (yet) how all that could possibly fit into the
movie that he was making with Diana.
That movie (Why I Love Brunettes) starts with a catalog of bubbles:
Diana coyly splashing in her bath, enveloped by huge drifts of bubbles from her
mother’s little shop in Xochimilco: Diana reaching toward a cake of soap, we see
her arm dripping bubbles, a cascade of soapy water, bubbles the color of pearls
on each breast, so startlingly firm and free; she washes under each breast
carefully, then leans back in the bubbles, stretching her legs up to wash her
knees, left leg, right leg, great splashing cascades of bubbles.
Now we zoom in toward the deep brown curl of the Sargasso ... the
splash sounds fade while, coming up from nothing, something like the white
noise of blue wind the color of an airplane, and over that we hear the sweet
Virginia burr of Wickham Oldknowe almost chanting his melodious voice over:
… And now think of toffee, caramel: the light brown that is almost
blonde. Light chestnut brown. Or Baltic amber. And the scent of chocolate,
coffee, cinnamon. The rare ambergris. The chameleon brown that's always
changing, sometimes almost blonde but sometimes quite brunette indeed. Or
mousey brown, the brown girls always wish away. The clear translucent brown
of poplar honey in the jar. Russet brown, a thrush. Or dark brown kindly eyes.
Ah, she has the brown hair and the brown eyes of Earth Mother. Pocahontas.
Van Morrison’s “Brown-Eyed Girl” … who knows the truth, who talks to critters.
And the way brown nipples crinkle under tongue. The khaki brown of military
uniforms. The deep brown color of tan skin on beach girls wearing string bikinis,
dark against the light blonde sand. And far away, the blue horizon. Earth tones:
banks of brown and brown-red loam and yellow and brown ocher, under the
green hillsides and the sky. The rich wormy brown of deep garden soil. The
rusty brown of windrowed autumn leaves in clear air with a rising plume of smoke
and red small flames in ribboned clusters on the pile. The clear nut-brown of
English ale. Bubbles and her dark brown hair. The French bread brown of
crusty fresh-baked baguettes warm under your jacket. The brown baked eggy
custard skin of crême brulée. Or baked rice pudding with a hint of nutmeg and
cinnamon. The crisp savory brown of well-roasted beef, a joint, perhaps a gigot
crisp and sputtering, with small brown baked potatoes, of lambies roasting on a
spit. Grilled steak. The Dark Bar’s flaming shishkabobs. Ancho chilis, browned
by the sun from the dark green of Poblanos. Texas chili savory with cumin, salt
and anchos with no vegetal reek of red tomato. The black gray-brown of pine
bark, dark brown mahogany. The forest brown of hickory nuts, the tan of acorns.
Walnuts, green until they turn a black dark brown. The brown mulch carpet of
the beech nuts under beech trees. The furry brown of coconuts. The bronze
brown of the oak's beginning in the spring. Saddles and a bridle: old brown well-
oiled harness leather. Brown Redwing boots. Brown varnished wooden chairs.
The comfortably dusty brown of old leather moccasins. Chocolate. The grizzled
brown of ash tree trunks. A dark bay mare: almost black against the green grass
of a meadow. Espresso coffee, sugared in the tiny cup, covered with light brown
foamy crema. Brown leather chesterfields. A leathern writing table. Brown
sheepskin slippers. An old scuffed football. Brown teak decking under sail. The
old brown cork from a bottle of Chateau Latour. The light brown of Amontillado.
Single malt Scotch glinting in a crystalline decanter. Irish whiskey. Kahlua.
Mulatto chili peppers purple brown. The brown garnet edge of old Bordeaux.
Brown sherry or some raisiny Madeira. Bacon browning fragrant in the pan.
Glazed roasted fat on a Virginia ham. Roast goose with small, split, browned
potatoes. Dark brown-black pumpernickel bread with goose fat, salt and pepper
sprinkled over. Pancakes. The brown edge of an omelet or a crepe. Brown
eggs.
Diana’s brown eyes, brown nipples and her dark brown hair.
Possibly the vision of her face framed by brown hair intensifies
empathic bonding. Brunettes might thus be easier to love. Or possibly the
hormone melatonin (which controls hair color in the blonde to black continuum)
helps harmonize a brunette's personality, reducing fits of the irrational, can’t fix it
temper. Its absence – as in redheads? – may help create the whirlwind?
Think of Mona Lisa, the Madonna: these women radiate the
qualities of inner warmth, compassion, tenderness – and something else ... a
certainty? You feel sure she might not be impossible to please?
Therefore: the possibility of peace?
She'll be the one you should have married, or the one you always
miss?
The question “Is it true blondes have more fun?” is an advertising
slogan: patently untrue.
What can any blonde be, really, but the after-image, pale and hazy,
of which a brunette is the original?
When Doc finally opened one eye, clear streams of water were
rippling across the huge front window of the Photocrat Gallery, now spangled
with driven rain through which a grey green light was filtering. Doc's ear was
cold, his head hurt, and he knew it wasn't nearly late enough to call Diana, who
was certainly still sleeping.
She would, of course, be coldly furious no matter when he called.
Because he hadn't telephoned! Of course not. No. He hadn't bothered to even
call her from the damned rehearsal dinner of a man she hated, hadn’t called her
after that, hadn’t even called her from Tom’s wedding breakfast, hadn't called her
later on from the reception, and he certainly hadn't called her from wherever the
hell he ended up after that;– No!
He had waited until the next morning to call, with his voice like a
broken piano, his terrible head, and the damp sour smell of his clothes.
Doc didn't want to start the day by lying to Diana: Hi love, things
are fine … Of course I drank … red wine, as usual, and then Champagne, of
course I drank Champagne, then finally I passed out on the couch at Bill's
apartment. Well of course I didn't sleep with someone. Things are fine. Except
this killer headache, prob’ly that's why I sound strange. Of course we're fine. I'm
off to Iowa, but you agreed that I could drive Tom's furniture out there, and things
are fine. You know I love you.
(The truth however, was a little more like: Yes, we both know things
have been impossible. Let's not go into that. Not on the telephone. It is just a
couple of days. A week. Ten days, maybe. A short break was your idea, before
Tom asked me to drive his van to Iowa. You said“I need some space.” Some
time and distance? Time to think?)
What Doc could never think about, was how he might break up with
Diana when they were both still totally in love. He kept hoping he could just walk
in the door and find Diana at the reading distance, with her blue eyes as big as
saucers:
Hello, Diana, I still love you.
Doc. I love you too.
The words, the reading distance, all that warm and whirly stuff that
happens in the game of crazy eights between two pairs of eyes.
That warm whirly stuff was how it had been always.
Until suddenly it wasn't.
Wasn't like that. No. Not much at all.
Quoth the raven: Nevermore.
Doc really didn't want to think about:
That Nevermore.
And so despite the way the Death kept glaring at him with incurious
uncertainty, Doc kept trying to believe he could still return to his own innocence.
When that failed, he tried persuading himself that he could probably return to
being innocent just as soon so ever as the killer headache went away, because:
True love creates a kind of innocence.
Which has a corollary:
What you do from true love cannot really be wrong.
And Doc still found it easy to believe that “what happened” with
Sarah had been done truly by that part of him which had been totally in love with
Sarah long before he ever met Diana.
Funny how some dreams, you don't let go.
They smolder in your heart until the old flame flares above the
dying embers, incinerating all your best new dreams.
That stuff about incinerating dreams reminded Doc of something
Bill said once: “The Eighties were the abbattoir of dreams: sort of an elephant's
graveyard where dreams became Japanese cars.”
Again Doc had the feeling that, if he had gotten his degree on time
(and then a job), or if he had just even finished his movie, why, things might still
be possible.
With a major cash bump, maybe?
Even now he still hoped things would soon go back to being
possible again just a little way off in the future.
I just need time to think, he told himself.
Because I still believe “True love creates a kind of innocence?”
And I still love Diana?
Another spangling of rain against the glass reminded Doc his ear
was cold. Hunching down under Sarah’s handmade snowflake quilt, he
deranged Sarah's gray cat Nuts, who yawned and stretched and manicured his
claws before resettling against Doc's knee. Closing his eyes, Doc made another
vain attempt to mitigate the glare of Demon Headache by lying absolutely still.
He lay there rigid, semi-conscious, on a white couch in a room
whose white walls were strewn with brightly colored photographs that reminded
him of monarch butterflies clustered on a treetop at the summit of a black
volcanic cone deep in the Sierra Madre – lay there on a white couch in a white
room near a low green hill in Charlottesville, welcoming the rain because it cut
him off from everything, and most of all from what he wasn't ready – yet – to think
of as a “spiritual breaking point” because it had been manifested in the real world
only by some physical sensations.
He lay there trying not to think mere physical sensations might
indicate a total change of heart.
He knew that there had been a moment when what he believed in
shifted – when he knew he was wrong. By his own rules. And then pressed on
anyway.
He told himself that it meant nothing, really, after all. It was only
just laying some old ghosts to rest. In any case ... it was done. No point
wallowing in facts. And even if it does mean things are over with Diana, it's still
done. And I don't really care exactly how or why it happened or what difference it
may make because it was just something I had to do – to go on being me.
And truth is, I have always been in love with Sarah. For how many
years? Since before I even met Diana.
But Sarah always was in love with Tom – my good friend Tom, so
prominently on the non-snake list of truest friends.
And even now that Tom had married someone else, Doc knew he
had been snaking Sarah, because he still Sarah was Tom's girl. And even Sarah
asked about it.
“Doc, you don't care about Tom?”
“Tom just got married, right? He's moving out of town forever,
right?”
Fuck Tom.
But now Doc lay there on the morning after with her snowflake quilt
clutched over him, surrounded by her brightly-colored photographs, trying to
remember where he started going wrong, like maybe tracing back to the
beginning was the best way to figure out what he had now become.
Like when he thought it through, the ending might be different.
There might be an apotheosis at the end of it, or an epiphany.
Not just this murdering headache.
Maybe he wanted to savor his memory of all those physical
sensations ... while at the same time wallowing in the fact of his own guilt.
Sarah.
Jesus.
What have I done?
He couldn’t quite escape the smug manly pride that went with lying
on Sarah’s couch. Because, against all odds, it had been a great spell of
fucking; not just something he had dreamed about for years.
And that pride kept him lying there recalling how the whole thing
started: with a haze of sunshine washing through the apple trees along the west
wall of the garden at Tom's wedding party.
Good old Tom.
Remembering an old song by Carl Phillips:
Tom Bombadil, Tom Bombadillo.Now let me writhe … on Sarah's pillow.In the green shade of … a weeping willow.
Doc had been standing on the back porch of the Colonnade Club at
the University, lounging up against a huge white Doric pillar, which Bill the
architect insisted on calling a Doric column, drinking oceans of the good vin rou'
because the bridesmaids in their crisp silk dresses seemed so unapproachable.
So young! How come these girls could seem so young? And so untouchable?
And yet so damned appealing?
Doc's understanding, which he had acquired from Tom, was that
Cassandra had given each of her bridesmaid a gorgeous and expensive set of
peach-pink silk from Victoria’s Secret: teddy, negligee and bustière,
supplemented by a matching cotton sleep set that included an ultra soft sleeping
brassiere, soft lacy peach, a comfortable tee shirt, and some mid-thigh sleeping
shorts. All in the orange peach-pink color of your wildest dreams.
The groom’s men, including Doc, all received enormous black Mont
Blanc pens.
Doc stood watching the happy wedding party crowding the