Veronica calls and says that Matt has just come home with a big bag of p-o-t and that maybe I should come over for dinner. “Yes,” I say, “maybe I should.”
Veronica is glad to see me. Really glad. For dinner she’s made her favorite, noodles with pepper and garlic. Lots of pepper. Lots of garlic. Matt is glad to see me also but is much less physical about it. No juicy lip kisses from Matt. Just a bare chest and two self-piercing nipple rings, a shaved head, and a downward glance that says, hello woman. Veronica sets the table while Matt puts on some music, a deep-trans-techno-acid-house-hop mix of apocalyptic wonder with 185 beats per minute. Perfect with dinner.
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Matt seems glad to see me, but I wonder if his selection of music isn’t a thinly veiled expression of resentment at my coming over to smoke his dope. I present myself as the perfect guest. “Matt,” I say at the dinner table, “this is a stunning tune. Who is this?”
“Well, I’ve got to stop living with my head in a hole, haven’t I?”
“I beg your pardon, Matt.” From the looks of the apartment I wouldn’t have guessed Matt was such a stickler for detail.
Matt says he would rather get on the information highway, and meet God on his own, rather than getting on the spaceship, which like the bus will only be a breeding ground for TB. He says the spaceship will be for people who don’t have computers and that he will have his by the time God comes. He says definitely, though, he will not be getting on God’s holy spaceship if Rush Limbaugh is on.
Veronica is hurt, so I spend after-dinner time in the kitchen helping with dishes as a gesture of goodwill and gratitude for the future bowl of hooch we will share in the living room after I have persuaded Matt to change the music. I ask probing questions about her childhood and family. I feign interest in her affairs. Her many, many affairs. One right after another, an endless stream of half-night romances with this bartender, that bartender. This cab driver, that cab driver. This paramedic, that paramedic. I imagine that Veronica’s services would be available to any adventurous commuter on God’s holy spaceship. “You’re crazy about God’s spaceship, Cheryl,” she says. “You better get on with God.” I imagine Veronica getting on with God.
