47. freedom’s end
“Well, I don’t know her very well, I just met her. She’s one of
Mike’s best friends. She’s staying with us until she feels ready to
see other people. We’re like her first stop.”
Denver had run into a high school friend of his at Matches, the 24
hour local coffee hang out for the creative central valley crowd,
where Icky had dropped him off when they got into town. Troy had done
Castro and West Hollywood in his youth but burned out on ghetto life.
He had returned to Fresno, got a job as a hairdresser and worked part
time at the F.C.T. with his former lover, now roommate.
“She’s like really inspiring because she’s strong and open to
suggestions that could be used for her projects, but you know, you
can do everything in art. It’s fun talkin’ with her about her
experiences. She’s so funny. The things she talks about are kinda
kooky yet are often tragic.”
“She’s an artist?” Denver asked.
“Are we all violent? Of course she is. How could she be anything
else?” Troy rebutted, breaking the wooden stick that served to dilute
the three packets of sugar he had dumped into his coffee. He
temporarily changed the subject asking, “Do you know anything about
this Gogo Sunshine woman?
“Gogo Sunshine?” Denver’s interest perked up. “Funny you should ask. I
think I heard her on the radio tonight and I found her website.”
“You heard her on the radio? Really? She has a voice? Freedom’s been
telling me about her, or at least bits about her.”
“Yeah. Unbelievable. Out of nowhere came the voice of Gogo Sunshine
on the radio when Micky, I mean Icky, and I were driving down here.
We were changing channels and all of a sudden …” spreading his hands
in front of himself to present the miracle. “Wherever you go, you take
yourself.”
“Yeah well, it seems she’s got quite a following, ‘cause when
Freedom’s daughter died that’s exactly who she went to. She divorced
her husband, sold everything, moved to a commune, and then took off
taking pictures. Apparently things hadn’t been going very well in her
life. Her daughter got cancer, bone cancer, the worst kind.”
Denver kept his eyes focused on Troy as he rummaged in his travel bag
for something to hold to keep his hands busy while Troy continued the
story.
“That stuff can’t be cured. Freedom sure went through hell, and
blames herself for working with chemicals in the photo lab when she
was pregnant. Of course, she then contradicts herself and says that
she only went into the lab once. But in her state of mind, she says
something completely different every other sentence. First, the
cancer is caused by the photo chemicals, then it’s the bad karma from
her colleagues at the art department ‘cause she was so popular with
the students. Then she tries to see it from a cosmic perspective, the
afterstuff, she says and asks why, why her and not me. What lesson
can I learn from this?”
“It just goes on and on. The other day, I caught her looking up into
space and asking, Electra, are you still with me? Or she’ll say,
’Sorry Electra,’ when she speaks evil of someone Electra loved. She’s
totally excessive right now. I’ve had to cancel all my appointments
at the Whip Curl and I‘m takin’ the week off. Told them to tell
everyone my cat broke his hip,” sighing and pausing for a few seconds.
After a moment’s contemplation, Troy returned to the topic at hand.
“You know Denver, once in awhile, I have to point my finger at her
and say, Freedom! you’re goin’ too far and this time you have gone
too far, like when she asks for the umpteenth time, where the Vodka
or the Cognac or the red wine is.”
“Maybe you should recommend AA,” Denver said as he found his
sunglasses and began twirling them between his fingers. He had
been waiting to get a word in edge-wise in order to ask Troy if he
could crash at his place. Icky had already departed, saying he would
return everyday at the same time same place. But before Denver could
butt in, Troy went rambling away.
“It’s not like she’s an alcoholic. She’s a bit lonely and maybe a
little excessive but at least you can tell her to stop and she
normally does.” He took a sip of his café latte. “It’s just that
she’s having trouble dealing with the tragedies in her life.”
“Dilute man. This sounds like a misplaced story and I got a lot of
change happenin’ around me myself, right now,” Denver managed to add.
’”I got the blues myself. All this sadness.” Denver rubbed the
stubble on his head, “Look Troy …” he started to say.
“Sorry darling.” Troy interrupted. “What else would we have to talk
about if it wasn’t for tragedy? Anyway it’s not all that bad. This
woman is coping the best she can. I’ll tell you one thing though.
She’s fuckin’ around like a witch in a whore house. She sleeps all
day and roams the streets by night.” He sat back and brushed off
whatever crumbs were lying on the table.
“One morning, as I was getting ready to feed the animals, I open the
backdoor and Freedom stumbles in, literally being dragged in by the
cats. And get this …” moving closer to Denver for emphasis. “While
we’re sitting at the breakfast table, she goes on about how beautiful
Fresno is. Tell you the truth, I forget myself.”
They both laughed.
“Of course, she tells us about what she was doing. Incredible!” He
slapped the palm of his hand on the round Formica coffee table.
Denver sat still.
“She was telling us about this bar she went to, god knows where. Mike
and I hadn’t even heard about it. She met these two europeans
studying at the Fresno State. They took her back to their place. She
doesn’t even remember. Gawd! She must’ve had a wild time from the
looks of her that morning. She kept on saying they wanted to try
everything.” He started laughing to himself.
“She told us that the two guys kept on saying. It’s Freedom!” Troy
snorted.
Denver took a sip of his coffee and waited for Troy to stop chuckling
so that he might also join in on the joke.
“It’s Freedom. Freedom in Fresno. Freedom at Slaveway. Freedom at
Fashion Fair mall. Freedom on freeway 41. Freedom on the sofa.
Freedom at the kitchen table drinking some more wine. Freedom
everywhere.”
Denver got the joke and smiled accordingly. He could sense his
friend’s need to let off some of the steam built up by this woman’s
presence.
“Denver, I’m trying to do my best to comfort her a little. I’ve
practically become her slave. “
“Lesbian slave.” Denver said smirking at his own private joke.
“Lesbian slave?”
“I heard that woman say it on the radio.”
“Isn’t that weird?”
“What?” Denver asked and yawned deeply, stretching his arms
above his head.
“Boy, you look really tired. Did you get any sleep last night?”
“No. That’s just it.” He fought his body’s need for oxygen in order
to make his request. “I was wondering if I could crash at your place.
I didn’t get much sleep in the Galaxy last night and I don’t feel
like seeing the parental units or my sub-urban sibling just yet.”
“Oh sure. I’m sure I can find you a cozy corner to crash. We can put
you in the pantry.” Troy shook his wrist in front of him. “I lost my
train of thought.”
“Thanks,” putting on his sunglasses. “Sorry, I was only sorta
listening. My mind is like Teflon, nothing sticks to it. Don’t ask me
to repeat.”
“Well, anyway. Listen to this story she was telling me this morning.
Gawd, I’m so glad that I met you. I had to get out of the house for a
couple of hours. She’s driving me crazy, driving me nuts,” imitating
a line out of a Hollywood film while simultaneously pulling on his hair.
“It seems that she was traveling in Turkey, and was in the former
capital …
Um?”
“Uh?” They both strived to remember its name.
“It was called Constantinople before.” Troy commented first as if
competing with Denver on Let’s Make It Happen. “Funny, I should
remember that fact from history.”
Denver pressed the table and responded, “Istanbul.”
“You win.” Troy pointed at Denver. “Yeah. She was hanging around the
Israeli Consulate in Istanbul and someone had sprayed on its
wall: ‘go away, Yankees. First, she goes on with a ten-minute monologue
describing this white wall and this graffiti and on top, a row of red
bricks and beyond the red bricks, green grass. It made a terrific
photo and of course, she took a whole role of film. So, while she’s
telling me the color coordinates of this photo she took, Mike, you
remember Mike, my first husband, don’t you?”
Denver shook his head affirmatively.
“… stumbles in half naked, his eyes half shut, groveling for coffee.
She immediately gets up to make coffee and starts talking to Mike
about her career, completely forgetting about this other story, she
was telling me. I’m a photographer. I do art. I teach. But I’ve been
traveling. I got a grant. I am a teacher, you know, at the art
department.” He said mocking the intonation she had used.
“’What art department?’ Mike asks. I mean, he knows that she teaches
at Fresno State, after all, he is her best friend. Of course, he
knows. And of course, she has forgotten that she was making coffee
for Mike.”
“Troy. I’m going to get a refill.” Denver said standing up, knowing
that it would be another couple of hours before he could lay down his
head. Upon second thought, he wondered if life was playing a cruel
joke on him and if it might be better to find other sleeping
arrangements.
“Wait a minute. I’m not finished, this is the best part.”
Denver returned to a sitting position.
“Suddenly, she’s back to her story and goes on about how she’s of
european descent and about how some women were demonstrating
outside the israeli embassy. She goes over and tries to talk to them, but
she’s from california and in Istanbul they don’t speak our language.”
“Troy. It will only take me a second.” Denver stood up, cup in his
hand and went over to the canisters of coffee for a refill. Before he
had seated himself, Troy was already speaking.
“So. She doesn’t speak turkish but she wants to communicate with
these women and find out why they are demonstrating in front of the
israeli embassy. She goes into a bookstore across the street from the
embassy to buy an english-turkish dictionary, and while she’s in there
she forgets her camera.” Troy moved to the edge of his chair to
illustrate the intensity of the story he was telling.
“When she leaves the shop, a turkish man comes up to her and asks her
what she purchased. She doesn’t understand. She only speaks english.
But she somehow gets the drift of what he wants and is surprised that
someone would ask her what she bought and, of course, being the way
she is, she wouldn’t show him. They apparently had a long argument
and she finally pulls out the dictionary, opens it up and reads to
him something like ’Where is the bathroom?’ in turkish.”
Denver wondered if the story would ever end, and took off his
sunglasses to show interest and to finally bring Troy to the climax.
“So during her whole story, she’s constantly getting up and sitting
down, filling her half empty tea cup with more hot water, and like,
Mike and I are watching this action going on in our kitchen, totally
amazed. For Mike it must’ve seemed like a fuzzy dream.”
“So what happened next?” Denver asked, holding back a yawn, and
slurped at his coffee.
“Okay. This is like one big stream of consciousness and we’re
thinking, it’s budding, I mean, building up to something. So we let
her ramble on. She starts telling us about this turkish café where
there are only old turks dressed in black with salt and pepper
mustaches sitting at wooden tables playing dominos. Freedom had the
balls to go in and she winds up talking to them and, of course, she
wants to take some pictures. And low and behold, she notices that her
camera is gone.” Troy stopped and asked, “So what do you think she
does?”
“I dunno.” Denver said shrugging his shoulders, elbows resting on the
table, propping up his head. “What did the guy want, the one who was
asking what she bought at the book store?”
“We never did find that out. I mean, this woman has lost her child
and has been traveling the world, out of her mind. So, I think one
story kinda slips into another, or so has it been since she’s been
staying with us. It must be hard for her to be here in Fresno after
so long.”
“So what did she do?” Denver asked, not wanting Troy to go off on
some other tangent.
“Like I said, this is Freedom and Freedom does what Freedom wants.
So, she starts screaming, trying to explain to these men, but of
course, they have no idea what she is yellin’ about. In hysterics,
she leaves the café and runs back to the book shop where she
remembered she had left the camera and the men in the café start to
run after her, screaming and yelling too because they thought that
they had done something wrong and she was running away from them.
So when she got to the shop, guess what happened?”
“Uh.” Denver snapped up in his chair and tried to postulate the
eventual end of Troy’s story. “Well, uh, when she got to the shop,
she was immediately trampled on by all these secret service agents,
and it was a mess. The secret service men thought that the men in the
café had stolen her camera and she was running for help. She got her
camera back and showed it to them, and you know what they did?”
Troy shook his head, puzzled by Denver’ sudden verbosity.”
“They wrote in her passport about the photos she had taken and she
now lives in constant angst of returning to Turkey. They would
probably throw her in prison if she did.” Denver sat back, crossing
his arms in front of him and nodded his head triumphantly at guessing
the end of the story.
“Wrong. Nice try.” Troy said sarcastically. “No. She …”
“Okay. How’s this.” Denver enthusiastically continued his
postulations, using his fatigue as a creative impulse to finally end
the Freedom story. “Variation number two.” He waved two fingers in
front of him. “When she got to the shop, the secret service men
grabbed her and yanked her arms really hard. They thought that she
was a spy and that she had given the shop owner some secret photos,
but it was all okay when she showed them that it really was her
camera, but she barely got to keep the film. She had to beg and could
have been thrown into a turkish prison.”
“You’re actually getting close, but there were no secret service
agents.”
“Wait. Let me try again.” He took a short pause and scratching his
day old beard. “Number three. Okay. When she got to the bookstore the
men from the café stopped her and started to question her. She kept
screaming about the camera and they said they knew about the camera
and they wanted to know why she had left it there. She kept telling
them that she had not intended to leave it there. That she had simply
forgot it. They didn’t believe her until they took her to the police
station and made her sign something that made her responsible for the
camera, which was probably stupid, because for all she knew, they
could have planted something in the camera and she could be spending
the rest of her life in a turkish prison.”
“You’re a little closer. But the police were not involved. One more
try, let me hear what you can come up with. Go ahead.” Troy was
obviously amused.
“Okay. Last try. Variation number four. When she got near the shop,
it blew up and before she knew it, she was on the ground covered by
men and debris and she was yelling ‘camera’ and others were yelling ‘spy’
and they took her away. She had to spend a couple of days in prison before
things were straightened out.”
“Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Girlfriend, I thought the same thing and even
asked her if she was raped, and you know what she said?”
“Hit me.” Denver retorted.
“And this is a direct quote, ’I would like to say yes, or at least
that I had a fuck, but nothing like that happened.’ Can you believe
she said that?”
“So what did happen?” Denver asked after a moment’s pause.
“Was the camera there?”
“Yeah. The camera was there in the shop. The shop owner explained to
the old men what had happened. Everybody calmed down and had a good
laugh. But Mike and I were perturbed. It took a goddamn hour for her
to tell the story with all its deviations and then in the end,
nothing really happened to her.”
“Wow. Nothing tragic happened. What a drag! A happy end, once again.”
Denver yawned.
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