All About Lulu by Jonathan Evison

Author:Jonathan Evison [Evison, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-04-17T07:00:00+00:00

We shuffled across the gravel parking lot toward the concrete dinosaurs. Lulu, still clutching the bottle, shuffled more than the rest of us. We paused beneath the brontosaurus to ponder its dimensions. Dan pressed his face to the glass and peered into the darkened gift shop. I surveyed the impressive length of the herbivore’s neck and gazed up into its face, which looked a bit like Michael Dukakis.

“Whoever built these was a total genius,” said Dan, with only a hint of sarcasm. “How awesome is this?”

“He died a few months ago,” said Troy. “I saw a thing on the news.”

“No,” said Lulu.

“Yeah,” said Troy. “I guess he was planning a woolly mammoth, too. And some other ones.”

“Awesome,” said Dan.

“He’s dead,” said Lulu, as though she couldn’t quite believe it.

“Lulu and I met him when we were kids,” I said. “His name was Clyde, I think.”

“Claude,” said Lulu.

“That was years before the tyrannosaurus was built,” I pursued.

“He was just planning it then. He had sketches and models.”

“They said on the news it cost him something like a half million dollars to build just the tyrannosaurus,” observed Troy.

“What a nut job,” said Dan.

“What’s wrong with that?” Lulu wanted to know.

“Well, if you had a million dollars, would you build two fucking cement dinosaurs in the middle of Bumfuck, Egypt?”

“I know you wouldn’t,” Lulu said. “You’d do something obvious. I suppose you’d buy some cool car and some cool house.”

“I’d save it,” Troy chimed in.

“Of course you would,” said Lulu. Gale warnings were officially in effect. Lulu had another slug of rum.

Dan started battening down the hatches. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with—”

But it was already too late.

“Have some respect,” said Lulu. “Just because somebody builds something doesn’t mean you have to tear it down. What have you ever built? Who here even has a woolly mammoth? Something we’ve charted out, worked for, something that if we died tomorrow, we couldn’t finish? If we had any guts, we’d be builders, not tearer-downers.”

“We all die with unfinished business,” I said.

“That’s not what I mean. That’s not even close to what I mean! I’m not talking about business ! I’m talking about actually doing something! Building something. Everything else is just pretending. We’re all just pretenders.”

“What about your painting?” said Troy.

“Pfff,” said Lulu. “That’s garbage. I don’t even like to paint. I’d rather clean houseboats. My paintings are terrible. Anyone who can’t see that is hopeless.”

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