The Baby: a Video Novel by Viva

Author:Viva
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781497645578
Publisher: Open Road Media

Now, a couple of months later, in the huerta under the influence of Roberta’s acid-soaked blotter, I began thinking about that pheasant again.

“I’m getting hungry, Marian,” I told her. “Let’s go back to the house.”

“What about Roberta?”

“Do you think you can handle her? Because I can’t.”

“Don’t worry,” Marian reassured me, “I’ll protect you. At least Bonnie isn’t on acid. She’s the only straight one in the house. Maybe I can get her to make some dinner. Anyway, she can keep an eye on the children.”

Marian led me back down the dirt path, back under the creaking bamboo tree, into the house. One of the Englishmen was making tea. Jason Price was his name, and he was the editor of The Yellow Brick Road, a semi-underground newspaper based in London. He had set the tea things out on the big table in the main room, the table where Roberta’s children ate their pancakes every morning at sunrise. Now candles were lighting the room, music was playing, and the aroma of English tea filled the house. The English contingent seemed to be taking over.

Jason poured me a cup, asking, “How many sugars do you take?” just as Roberta walked in to announce that Bonnie was having a wonderful time; she had just taken acid for the first time in her life and she was out there, on the beach, communing with the moon.

“Who gave her the acid?” Marian demanded, her eyes blazing with fury.

“I did, why?” Roberta pretended to be puzzled.

“Why?” Marian screamed, “why? Because she was the only straight one in the house, that’s why! And we have seven children under this roof all under five years old! I just can’t believe that you gave her acid,” she finished helplessly.

Roberta’s eyes widened in surprised innocence. “I just thought that Bonnie should enjoy herself too. Everybody else is; why shouldn’t she? She works hard.”

As soon as I got over the shock that Roberta thought we were all having a good time I realized that she was playing the role of righteous benefactress to the core, and doing a good job of it besides. No matter what I thought, however, I wasn’t going to be spared by my former mentor.

“And what’s wrong with you?” Roberta burst out at me. “You look a little weird.”

“I have a backache,” I told her, “and I feel awful.”

Roberta stepped right back into her role, as though she hadn’t missed a beat, to ask me if there wasn’t anything she could do for me.

“You’ve done enough for me. I don’t want you to do any more for me,” I told her, looking levelly at her, making it clear that my response wasn’t dictated by social politeness, but by necessity. I wanted her to know that I meant it.

Marian, who had collapsed into a chair on the news of Bonnie’s capitulation and was drinking her tea, listening to Roberta and me, roused herself enough to offer me a backrub in my room. Gregory, looking sad, trailed behind us.

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