Chapter 5

Survival

Barbara rose early the next day. She didn’t put on any makeup and was dressed in yoga pants and a matching cotton top, and rushed out, leaving me to follow her into the car.

I entered the car and rode with her, eager to experience her world. She drove over the hills, stopped at my birthplace for something she called a latte, and then emerged onto a large ribbon of concrete filled with other cars that drove headlong toward the rising sun at a blazing rate of speed.

She turned on the car radio and sang with the radio, then called some girlfriends on her cell phone. Men in other cars, also driving at high speeds, tried to make eye contact with her as they passed her or she passed them. They whistled, waved, nodded, or just stared; she seemed to like it, although there were some near collisions.

We arrived at a large, blocky building with the letters CBS on the front. A uniformed guard waved us in, and she parked her yellow car in a small space next to a separate building. I left the car with her, careful to follow at a distance. We slipped into the building where she then went directly to a room and was seated in an oversized chair facing a bank of mirrors.

Other women immediately began to apply creams and solutions to her face, fuss with her hair, paint above her eyes, and paste on her eyelashes all the while talking and gossiping with her, mostly about their boyfriends, in whining, snarling tones. I was surprised that she allowed these people to swarm all over her, changing her appearance, her hair and face with pots full of jelly-like goo.

She seemed untroubled and submitted to their ministrations. What possible reason was there to change this supremely beautiful face? When they finished with her, she peered carefully at the effect of all the changes, nodded her approval, and thanked the women warmly for their services. They had managed to make her even more beautiful; perfection, I would say, if I could speak.

There were men too, doing the same process with other women, but they managed to sound like the women; they too were fixated on their boyfriends. Were they faithful? Were they fat? Were they boring, broke, or obsessed with sports, gambling, booze, drugs, parties, clothes, and girls with big tits? Either their boyfriends worked all the time or they didn’t work at all. They were high as kites or depressed beyond description. Barbara ignored these conversations boiling around her.

After what seemed like hours, Barbara rose and I flew behind her into another room where another group of women gave her clothing to try on. This process went on even longer than the first one, and I grew slightly bored. I must have given myself away. One of the younger women who had been searching through racks of clothing near the wall suddenly turned toward me, straightened up with a magazine in her hand, and slammed it against the wall. It clipped the edge of my wing. I was momentarily stunned, but reacted quickly to zoom away while she let loose a string of words and feelings that I had never heard before. I would hear them again.

Girl: “Goddamn fucking flies. I hate them. They’re everywhere in the summer. This whole place is full of flies and bugs. They should spray this place every goddamn day. They’ve taken over everything here, we need to get rid of every last one.”

I raced for the door, survival instincts kicking in, frightened that I would lose contact with Barbara and be lost in the maze of this huge building. I knew I could not go back to the costume room. Barbara left the room, telling the girl she needed a short break, and followed me out of the room. She pointed down the hallway and checked the corridor to make sure nobody was watching us.

Barbara: (whispering) “Cafeteria. Food that way.”

She retreated to the costume room, and I flew as directed.

I entered a large room, at the base of a stairway down the hall far from the clothing room, where food was being served buffet-style at one end of the room.

The big room was crowded with men and women, some in costume, some all made up, talking and gesturing, often repeating the same sentences. They called this “rehearsing.” They spoke in many different tones at different volumes. They were not whiny like the face painters and hair arrangers. Some of the speakers were f