Free The History of Luminous Motion by Scott Bradfield Page B

the
serious action again, the way the karate master is supposed to think through boards
and blocks of concrete. I thought it was the anticipation that made sex real,
but now I know it was merely my explicit faith in that imagination which
unreeled around my childhood like the spokes of a milky galaxy. I was beginning
to learn that the imaginative act was more important to my life than action
itself. Action merely articulated you with an exterior and superficial network
of facts, data and information that superimposed itself across the realer world
of my imagination like a restraint, or a clinging, oily film. I wanted the
dream of sex, the energy and heat of it. Had I been able to articulate the
problem for Rodney, I’m certain he would have preferred the dreams too.

 
 
 
    11

 
    “I’VE
NEVER CONSIDERED myself beautiful,” Beatrice said, listlessly running her hands
through her tangled blond hair. Beatrice was twelve years old and attended Rodney’s
sixth-grade class at Junípero Serra Grammar School. “But I don’t think beauty’s
the only thing men are looking for, if you know what I mean.” Her look let us
know she didn’t expect there was any chance we would ever know what she meant. She
tugged at her slightly soiled dress and crossed her legs. After a second of
demure hesitation, she accepted Rodney’s cigarette. Then Beatrice lit it with a
Ronco from her purse, which she snapped shut with a practiced flourish. “Beauty’s
just what a woman seems. Plenty of women can be made beautiful. Look at Vogue , for instance. Look at Cosmo . That’s not all men are looking
for, you know. I know that’s what
they say men are supposed to be
looking for, but that’s just a male myth. That’s just capitalism. That’s just
the psychological domination manifest in all competitive class struggle. Basically,
you see, I think men are a lot more capable and intelligent than that. I think
men want a woman they’re attracted to, sure–I’m no spiritual idealist or
anything. I don’t subscribe to bogus Christian dualism–all that
repressive male ideology we’ve inherited from the Greeks. But there’s a natural
woman men are looking for underneath all the Clairol and Maybelline. There’s a
raw–oh, I don’t know, call it sexuality, or passion, or molecular
urgency–that marks a real woman out from the pack. It’s in her eyes, in
her smell, in the way she combs her hair.” Delicately, Beatrice jiggled in her
seat, tugging her skirt straight underneath her.
    We
were sitting at a Formica booth in Winchell’s, feeling that warm arousal of
steam from our fresh coffees. I held my Styrofoam cup between my hands. I was
trying to keep my eyes expressionlessly focused on Beatrice. I was certain any
expression on my part would be a sort of self-betrayal. Better to give her
nothing about me she could analyze or remember, nothing she could keep for
years and years, like nail clippings or stray buttons with which she could cast
intricate social spells. I just wanted to watch Beatrice, her lips so hastily
smudged with the chocolate rainbow donut, her pink skin and knotty, unwashed
hair. Beatrice lived in a trailer park with her father. The trailer park,
located in Encino, was called Trailer Town, and Beatrice’s one-bedroom trailer
was a 1959 Spartan Luxuryliner with polished wood interior and fully operable
stove and central heating.
    “I
think that’s what I’ll always have to offer my men,” Beatrice said, and took
the first brave sip of our scalding coffee. Rodney and I had ordered it black
because Beatrice had. She put it down with a little emphasis.
    “It’s
like television, movies, books, even record albums. This is what beauty is. This is how you’re supposed to look. This is a girl’s normal height, how much
makeup to wear, how big your tits should be”–I felt Rodney give a little
jump beside me–“and all that long morose unforgiving catalog of what
women are supposed to be, how women
are