The Scent of the Blueberry -- 2

She hadn’t regretted moving to the city in the summer. The idea had been to start a new life – to somehow leave the mistakes of the past behind. Get a decent job, a nice apartment – no, not a good man. A fresh start would do just fine. It all sounded like the lyrics of a country and western song – and just about as likely to become reality. But now it was winter, and she had to walk through this white shit they called "snow" in her sneakers. Served her right for not paying attention to the weather report, she supposed. Well, she was just a little bit busy these days. Working all day in the store trying to sell boys’ pajamas to parents whose kids already had enough pajamas to sink a battleship, and then spending her evenings modeling for the life drawing art class at the community center. Well, at least the modeling was fulfilling, she told herself. At least she was part of the artistic process – at least that was meaningful in some small way.

Yeah, sure. She’d looked at the drawings at the end of the 15-minute pose during the first evening. She fully realized that drawing the human figure was one of the most difficult tasks that you could attempt in art. She knew all about that – but she had to admit that only a couple of the drawings looked anything like her – or any other imaginable human being, for that matter. Well, at least they appreciated her efforts – they said they did, anyway. The money was good – and in cash – and the lack of apparent resemblence did offer her a measure of anonymity should the artwork ever reach the light of day. And they kept the temperature warm in deference to her lack of clothing. “Lack of clothing” – she wondered how her mother would feel about that. Well, she was 22, a college graduate, and there was nothing wrong with it. At least there wasn’t with this group – a bunch of middle-aged pillars of the community that included an assistant district attorney and the wife of the head of the school committee. Not like the time that I modeled at the community college, she told herself. If the male students had intended to drool that much, they should have worn bibs.

Still, the warm temperatures of the art studio had not prepared her for the snow and the wind chill associated with the walk home. The snow had accumulated just enough to wet her feet, and any sense of pride resulting from the compliments and thanks expressed by that evening’s group had long dissipated. Evelyn needed a drink.

No. Positive self-talk. She did not need a drink, she told herself. She had nipped that potential habit in the bud – swearing off after spending every night for months swirling some sort of liquid around in a glass before allowing gravity to let it flow through her mouth and down her throat. He wasn’t worth it. The bastard. She knew he had made good progress on that front. Six months ago, it would have been, “that fucking bastard.” A few months before that, “that motherfucking bastard.” The gradual loss of the adjectives marked the milestones in her self-imposed therapy. Self-talk. Positive self-talk. The snow was beautiful -- “La neige est belle aujourd’hui” -- even though she knew in her heart that the “neige” totally sucked. Fuckin’ neige.

The Scent of the Blueberry -- 1

It’s amazing what you find sometimes when you tear down these old buildings. Copies of the Gutenberg Bible, garters actually worn by Madonna (not the original one), false teeth from the corpses of old NHL defensemen, a sled bearing the single word “Rosebud” – a vast and unpredictable plethora of shit. The only absolute guarantee is that it’ll never be anything useful. But I always keep hoping.

So where was I? Oh yes, I was helping to knock down this old building at the corner of Main & Broadway, and we found a sheaf of papers in one of the ventilation shafts. Personally, I’m not sure why anyone would keep a sheaf of papers there – I always thought that people kept their ventilation in ventilation shafts, but I’ve always found that life is just chock full of little surprises.

Anyway, we took a look at it, and it seemed to be written in some strange alien script – we figured maybe Klingon in its pre-transliterated state. But one of the guys identified it as scrawled French – in other words, to my way of thinking, something pretty fucking close to Klingon. The problem is that he didn’t actually know French – and the only guy on the crew who understood French didn’t speak English. To make a long story short, we wound up getting it translated from French to German to Spanish to Swahili to English. So this whole project may give new meaning to the phrase, “there was something lost in the translation.” At least it’ll make it easier to write subtitles if we ever sell the rights to an international audience – easier, that is, if at least some of the theatergoers understand Swahili. If they don’t, well, they better know one of the other languages – I’m not spending any more time on translations until someone shows me some cash.

Anyway, the following is the text of the ventilation papers. I have no idea if any of it is true. I’m only sure that none of the characters resemble anybody that I ever knew, or you ever knew either – and, if you have any kids, they definitely shouldn’t try any of this shit at home. Let ‘em try it in the schoolyard, like I did.

So go ahead and read it. If you like it, well, personally, I think that you may be just a little bit sick, but feel free to send me some money to help pay for more translations (and my current bar tab, if you want to know the truth).

P.S. No animals were harmed in the making of this novel. We did screw up a few humans but, what the hell, nobody's perfect.


You could see the falling snow silhouetted against the street lights, and Evelyn thought that it was the most beautiful sight she had ever seen.

At least, that’s what she was trying to tell herself. Self-talk. Positive self-talk. That was the key to success, she told herself. The truth was that she hated the little goddamn flakes. Every one was supposed to be different but, as far as she was concerned, they were all the same. Six sides -- cold and wet. She knew that, for 15 minutes in the morning, the snow would lie like a beautiful white blanket over the landscape – and then the cars and buses and trucks would come along and turn it into varying shades of gray and black by noon. Butt ugly.