THE FERAL STRUT

Chapter 20

Mary was trying to read, but Gris kept sticking his nose under the workbench or desk or whatever it was, and fussing. She was afraid he'd get tangled in the confusion of wires back there: from the car battery to the radio to the antenna. Also from the battery to her boombox, and another to the little reading light over the bed.

Which went out.

"Dammit, Gris— NO!"

The dog crept from under the bench, head lowered.

"Here! Now lie down. Good Boy."

She slid out of bed to crawl under the bench and reconnect the light, following the wire back to the rat's nest around the battery. It seemed like the thing had grown wires, like one of those fungus dealies on the pine trees: witch's broom?

But the book she was reading made everything seem sinister. One of the librarians in Jackson had taken a shine to her, and kept giving her lists of books. This batch was pretty tough sledding, she thought: The Golden Bough by Frazier, The White Goddess by Graves, and the one she'd left on the bed, Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia, that the librarian said was an antidote to the first two.

She read a passage aloud to the dog:

William Blake is the British Sade, as Emily Dickinson is the American Sade. Directly inspired by The Faerie Queene and its incomplete response in Paradise Lost, Blake makes sex war the first theatrical conflict of English Romanticism. (270)

Gris looked away and then started scratching himself. That's how I feel, she thought. Sade, pronounced Sod, was the B&D guy. French. Blake she knew, sort of. Dickinson likewise. One of the Sisters had forced them to read Paradise Lost— she hadn't liked it a lot. But what was The Faerie Queene?

Maybe I'll find out, she thought, and kept reading. It seemed to her that most books were written about the same things: love, sex, death, fear of dying. But in trying to talk about the essentials, they had to drag in so much else. It could be overwhelming. She'd gone to school with a Paglia, Lucy, whose dad owned a trucking company. She'd bet anything that Camille Paglia had gone to Catholic school, too. She had that weird obsessive focus.

Sleepy, she thought. But I need to stay up until Ginger gets back. Make sure she's okay. She was out with some friends from her high school, which was in Lugano, Switzerland. They'd come for the skiing. Probably rich sluts with serious drug habits, Mary thought. Ginger hadn't come within a mile of inviting her to go. God, I hope she doesn't fall off the wagon. She's been doing so well.

"Verum! Bonum! Pulchrum!" Gin's voice.

Gris leapt up, wagging, as she thundered up on the porch, opened the door, and fell through it.

"Whoa— that last step is a killer."

Mary looked down her nose from the bed. Ginger rolled over and nudged the door closed with her boot. "Yeah, I'm ripped, " she said. "Shit Alas!"

"I didn't say anything. But you did promise."

Ginger struggled to her feet and sat heavily on her bed.

"They had some champagne in their suite. Rude to say no."

"At least you're here. How was the skiing?"

"Great. We had a great time." She fought off her boots and flopped back.

"What were you yelling?"

"Truth, Goodness, Beauty— school motto. It's Latin."

"Yeah I know— we had it in Catholic school. Well— you're a beauty."

"You think so?"

"Need some work on the other two."