Funny Once: Stories by Antonya Nelson

Author:Antonya Nelson [Nelson, Antonya]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Literary, Retail, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9781620408612
Google: apYjAwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1620408619
Barnesnoble: 1620408619
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Published: 2014-05-20T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Two

Tired of telling her own story at AA, Hil was trying to tell the one of her neighbor. It had been a peculiar week. “So she comes to my house a few nights ago,” Hil began, “like around nine, bing-bong, drunk as a skunk, as usual, right in the middle of this show my roommate and I are watching. I go to the door and there she is, fifty-something, a totally naked lady standing under the porch light.” Even at the time, it had seemed designed to charm, her coy drunken neighbor sporting a plaid porkpie hat and holding a toothbrush like a flag or flower or torch. Choreographed, at least, and embarrassing to behold. Bergeron Love, grande dame in her own mind and all around the block.

“Looks like somebody’s not getting enough attention,” Hil had murmured as she unlocked the door. The night was soggy, Houston autumn, frogs like squeezeboxes wheezing in and out. Her neighbor’s nakedness seemed sad and enervated, breasts flat on her chest, a kind of melted look to the rest of her flesh, ankles thick on splayed feet. Southern belle in decline, a dismal “after” picture.

What had “before” looked like?

“You gonna invite me in?” Bergeron Love demanded, raising her eyebrows flirtily in an attempt to rally her own outlandishness. She was known in the neighborhood for being a character—some composite of Miss Havisham, Norma Desmond, and Scarlett O’Hara—her ancient family manse with its aspect of ruined wedding cake, fenced as if to contain inmates, its fetid kidney-shaped pool where her multiple orange cats congregated. Sometimes Bergeron’s antics were whimsical, like crashing a dinner or cocktail party, for example, or commissioning someone in a gorilla suit to deliver balloons, and sometimes they were a serious pain in the ass—reporting overgrown lawns or loose dogs or long-term parked cars, more than once phoning child protective services.

“You can’t exactly say no to a naked lady on your doorstep, can you?” Hil asked rhetorically at the meeting. She made eye contact with the smiling older man holding the leash of his helper animal. There ought always to be a blind man grinning encouragingly, receptively, in the audience, wavy white hair like meringue. The dog lay panting at his feet, head grasped a little unnaturally high by the leash, by the man’s inability to see. The man’s genial countenance was generic—through every story, no matter how unpleasant, he smiled benignly beneath his lovely hair. He had, Hil thought, become like a dog himself, unable to judge.

“My roommate never met my neighbor before, so I introduce them.” How strange to see a clothed person shake hands with a naked one, like the meeting of two utterly different tribes. Bergeron Love, this is Janine.

“Nice to meet you,” said Janine, averting her eyes.

“Janine is getting her degree at the U,” Hil offered. “In social work,” she added, since Janine was shy.

“Ha!” said Bergeron Love, raising her toothbrush. “You can consider this visit a piece of immersion homework! What in the hell is that?” she asked, aiming the brush at the paused image on the television.

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