As the car shaved the crops, its engine near redline, Colleen knew that nobody had ever forged that particular pathway, in that particular way. She laughed at the landlessness of it all, at her authority in motion, and then yelled out in glory with the choir of snapped stalks. . until the Chevy smacked dead into the irrigation tower and her face cracked the steering wheel.
Blood streaked her chin as she processed the pain. She listened for fighter jets, or the bleating of goats, her muscles locked in anticipation of a blast concussion.
When nothing came to engage, Colleen let go of her fear. She lay her head on the wheel as her body went slack. Her consciousness drained out to the wobble of gooseneck pipe that spanned the quarter-mile sprinkler truss.
She wasn’t dead. She was twenty-two years old, and very much alive.
11/19/98
This unusual episode is one of the series’ best ever, with the non-stop comedy roller-coaster suddenly throwing a brilliant surprise ending at you.
ANOTHER GLASS OF Beaujolais Nouveau. Every year, Shea tells me how special it is. Every year, it tastes terrible. Finally, this time, this year, at the Whole Foods I asked her to buy a new California wine instead. Called simply “Nouveau,” it was positioned right next to our horrible stuff. I mean, great marketing. It was from Sonoma too, I think, which would’ve been pretty good. (After all, Williams-Sonoma is pretty good, right?) The debut Nouveau also had an artistic and flashy wine label, just like the French stuff. Beyond even Beaujolais, the fake wine came with Christmas-ornament grapes in bronze patina, noosed around the bottleneck, for free.
Shea didn’t go for it. She said that some traditions are just that — traditions.
Anyhow, it’s Tuesday. It’s Wednesday. It’s Thursday. Must-See teevee. Friends and co. at six o’clock, six-thirty Seinfeld noosed around its neck. I’ll get another glass of this crummy wine. “Shea? You want anything?” “No, thanks, hon. Six minutes!” God bless her, lounging on the weathered brown Italian leather of the retro Cotswold sofa. The ruby Pakistani rug at her feet — what’s that rug pattern called again? — by way of Nieman’s. Resto Hardware oak coffee table, matching end table, bronze patina lamp and knickknack closing in. The laughable Burberry pajamas by seven p.m. The skin-tag polyps in her armpit. Another glass of wine.
Here’s the kitchen, here’s the wine, Access Hollywood. I need some wine. Kitchen. Should have gone with the Viking stove, for resale. Or at least the FiveStar. The rust-colored, Italian-style, Mexican-made-tile so slick under sock feet. Countertops wiped to a gleam. The cobalt-blue triple-Moen-sink; the green digital numbers of the stainless microwave. Travertine abounding, and Sub-Zero fridge, stocked. Museum of Fine Arts The Impressionists magnet smack-dabbing photo of Shea and me from the newspaper’s About Town section. I bought the Jenn-Air stove but was wrong to do so, despite what I argued to Shea and later had to admit, no problem. The Jenn-Air was $2,701, cheaper than Viking — ridiculous. Now I notice that 2-7-0-1 comes up all the time, just to mess with me. Like, there were zero commercials shown on 1/27. No kidding. Instead, at every break the network ran news clips of the President saying, “I did not have sexual relations. .” So depressing. And of course 12/07 is the “Day That Will Live in Infamy,” year after year. Point being, the Jenn-Air does not have (a) the resale value, nor (b) the conversation value of the Viking. Or even the FiveStar, for that matter. And since we’re not going to cook anyway, well, what the fuck? We need all the resale and conversation value we can get. Yes, I’ll be the first to admit it. My mistake. I hope we’ve moved on.
“Honey?” she calls. “It’s about to start”—12/71 being her birth month/year.
“Okay, coming.” I am hungry, am I? We’ve been watching for years and years and years and. . since right after college. This and Seinfeld and Frasier and, well, things have gotten interesting. Seinfeld and Frasier are the new Cheers and M*A*S*H, rerun- and real-episode-wise. Five-thirty Seinfeld, six o’clock Friends, six-thirty Seinfeld, nine-thirty Seinfeld, ten o’clock Friends. Seven o’clock new Friends and Frasier on Thursday. Shea and I joke that if you flip the remote exactly right, you never have to hear a single syllable of Peter Jennings or Dan Rather, or anyone else depressing. The other evening, around five-thirty, she said, “I’ll trade Chandler Bing for Vernon Jordan any day.” I said, “Ditto me for Joey Trib instead of Linda Tripp!” Do they still show Cheers and M*A*S*H? No? Maybe, yeah, sometimes, where?
“Honey?” I call to her. “I’ve got one.”
“Uh-uh, here we go. Better be good.” A few times a week, Shea and I do this thing where we’ll claim exterior-only parts of each other that we love.
“It is,” I yell back. “Oh, hey — can you hear me? Hold on a minute.”
I think I should piss. Moen faucet in bathroom, icy granite, extra-deep basin. Silent-flush, cavernous bowl. For a while, the whole Phoebe-gets-pregnant story line on Friends was hard for us, but the show is just too funny to stay down about. We try to do the thing where Shea pulls her knees up to her chest after I come. We’ll see. I despise the doctors, the specialists. Mostly, we never know whether to be excited or depressed when Shea doesn’t get her period. I can’t even ask her anymore. Textile-linens from Monte-somewhere in Italy, via Neiman’s, which are supposed to be “exquisite,” but really don’t sop up all that much. Bed, bath and shower curtain. (Still not sure if a downstairs shower is good resale or not.) The preview of today’s Friends Thanksgiving special says they’ll all remember their Worst Thanksgivings Ever — which I guarantee you will come up for a laugh around the table next week, at Thanksgiving. Aveda Energizing Body Cleanser and Aveda soaps promise “the art and science of pure flower and plant essences.” What the hell? Woman stuff, I suppose. Shea raves about this crap. I got a pimple after using it. Hadn’t had a pimple in years.
I call to her, “Okay, ready?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she says with a laugh.
“The backs of your front teeth,” I announce.
“Really?” she asks.
“Yeah, really. I mean, unless it doesn’t count. Does it count? Wait, you don’t have to tell me. But I think it should. And you know what?”
“What?” she asks, smiling as I walk in, zipping up.
“Even if it doesn’t count I love them, okay?”
“No. I think it counts,” she says. “When my mouth is open.”
Today’s episode airs on 11/19, a sibling of 11/91, which was when I came home from combat deployment. I was 19. Shea was there, waiting. I’d sent her weepy letters. She’d watched CNN. And of course there’s 9/11, the date G. H. W. Bush formally laid out his plans for war. (Ugh, I’ll never forget it, 9/11/90, because as soon as he gave the speech I got this sinking feeling. I just knew our unit would be mobilized — which sure enough it was, in mid-November, 11/90—heck, maybe even 11/19/90. I’ll have to look. That would be too weird.) Next week, Thanksgiving is on November 26—1-1-2-6—the exact last four digits of my Social Security number. They won’t show a new Friends episode, which is totally depressing.