AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 22

At the end of the half-hour telephone conversation, Courtney came out to find Kathy standing in the front door doorway blow-drying her hair.  Four extension cords plugged end-to-end trailed out into the hallway and back into her apartment.  Her boyfriend Bob sat amongst Courtney’s fresh poetry, blithely glancing through the pages.  Peach was gone.  Lauren and Bob were talking about Courtney’s poetry——which instantly metamorphosed into current events at the open of a bedroom door.

Kathy was a shy Minnesota girl whose career with Preferred had not developed according to the advertised ASA.  Rather than moving back home to the twin cities, she and NYC-Native Bob had found a ‘terrific’ apartment together in New York City.  Dirt cheap at $1,650 a month.  It would give her more time to click as a model.  Kathy was getting some work, but not as much as she needed.

A few days before, Courtney and Lauren had gone to a sort of pre-housewarming party for them.  Courtney had been shocked.  $1,650 a month?  It was an awful building on Fifteenth Street, the grimy apartment was five floors up, No Elevator.  Their love for each other might be major-league, but the kitchen and the bathroom didn’t even have plumbing fixtures, not even a toilet.  Bob wasn’t worried: he was handy about such things.

And at the moment, handy with Courty’s poetry.  “You know, Kath and I are going to Chuck Beauregard’s tonight.”

Since Lauren and Bob now owned property rights to the sofa, Courty sat on the carpet near them.  Her attention peaked at the name Beauregard.

Chuck Beauregard was an American institution.  His computer-made assembly-line silk-screens of Big Macs had assured his fame, way back in the good old days when only 1 billion had been sold.  His artistic work defied all conventions (created occasionally without any human intervention), and defied all categorizations (some multi-media, a few multi-sensual, most multi-logical which tended to slyly debunk ‘successoid pod-people and their hyper-acquisitive ethos’).  His work was not restricted to the two-dimensional; in fact, it roamed beyond what was usually considered Art.  Beauregard sold the largest known prime number in one of his shows.  He successfully masturbated with the assistance of an IBM PC, for money (refusing to stop until paid), without getting arrested or charged during a performance art piece on a public sidewalk.  One of his computers was currently engaged in telecommuting around the city, 9600 baud modem in slot, seeking an honest machine.  Essentially, Beauregard defied all, and as a result, was deified.  He was the absolute center of all underground art activity in New York City.  Simultaneously, his shows outgrossed (in many meanings of the word) all the competition, forcing the Big Biz Art Crowd down from the fat jay haze of Mount Manhattan to play the degrading ritual of social kissy-face with this ‘famous for forty-seven seconds’ junk artist: They had to take him seriously, review him with kid gloves, invite him everywhere, and obey the edict of his invitations.

“Oh, God,” Lauren said.  “Not that crowd!”

“You’ve been there?” Bob asked.

“No, but I’ve heard,” Lauren said.

Kathy shut off the hair dryer.  She said, “Chuck gave me an invite when I posed for him last Sunday.  He made me so nervous!  He just looked at me and looked at me.  He stood me in the center of his studio, and kept walking around me, staring at me, not saying a word.  It was creepy.”

Courty asked, “Does he still have poetry readings on Friday nights?”

Bob said, “I think so.  That’s what I was thinking a minute ago: Too Bad You Can’t Go.  It’s just Kath and me.”

“Kathy,” Courty pleaded.  “Sneak me in.  Please.  I have to go.  I absolutely have to go!”

“It says, ‘And Guest.’”

“That’s me, babe.”  Bob was gleeful, almost sadistic.

Courty sprang to her feet and begged at close range.

“But Courty,” Kathy begged off, “And Guest!  Only one.”

Bob laughed a sadistically cold HA-HA at Courty’s discomfort.

Courty swooned melodramatically in Kathy’s arms, forcing the other girl to catch her.  “Pleeeeeeease?  Oh, Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?  Please?  Pleeeease?”

“Cour-ty!  Courty.  Bob, Help!”

“Pretty please with pumpkin seeds?  Pretty please on automatic pilot?  Pretty please with praying televangelists?”

“No, NO.  I promised Bob.”

Courty was not proud.  She was now on her knees, clinging to Kathy’s jeans (Lauren was giggling wildly).  “I’ll vacuum your apartment, wash your dishes, iron your clothes, give you a haircut just like mine——no?——how about if I give Sea Shell and Motsey both a bath?  All of the above?”

Kathy turned the hairdryer on high and defended herself.

Lauren was bowled over with uncontagious giggles.  Bob let out an animal groan; he knew only that he had lost his handle on reality; it happened whenever the density of women per unit volume approached critical mad.

“What’s this?  The Bimbette Sisters?” Peach asked, squeezing past the struggling spectacle, into Lauren’s apartment.  Peach was completely redressed for the evening, visually redrafting the question: Can a girl survive on BAD taste alone?

The hairdryer was flicked off.  “Bob, she can come with.  Can’t she?” Kathy asked.

Now Lauren was exploding with laughter at Bob.

Peach made friends with the nearby recliner chair, and pulled out of her glitter-glunk purse survival rations: a six-pack of Twinkles.  “Where’s everybody going?” she asked.

“Everybody is not going,” Bob forcefully said, stern and grim.  His grandpa glasses slipped further down along his nose.  He glowered at the group, his hairline and happiness receding.  “This is important.  I may be able to turn it into a piece for Concept magazine.  I don’t want Kath and me to get barred out of The Warehouse if you do some crazy stunt!”

Kathy smiled loving, sympathetic encouragement to Bob.

It was the kind of argument Courty could understand and relate to.  It hurt, but she relented.  She knew that she could keep pushing until she was invited along, and that maybe, just maybe, she could somehow think of a way to charm her way past whatever security they had.  But Bob was a struggling writer, trying to earn a living; Kathy was supporting him.  Courtney felt she had no right to interfere with what might turn out to be an important break for him.  She was all sad gloom as she picked herself up off the floor.

Peach devoured the phallic sucrose gremlin.  “Oh, pooh.  I crash Chuckie’s parties all the time.  They’ve never stopped ME!  C’mon, Courty, let’s go.  Sounds like fun!”

COURTNEY, Chapter 23
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47