RKH is a bantam if she ever knew one, a riotous contraction of winsome west and wistful central, unformed glob and eastern mental. Her langoustine could vanquish nations; knights-errant know no privation under wise Rebecca’s reign, for R makes haste that sylph and swain should ebb or lope and lark about provided that therewith a drought is not begun. Or lobsters wilting in the sun, not to be outdone.
For the revolution starts with R. An invalid, aye, but a peer notwithstanding. A practically paralyzed voyager, R is not unfamiliar with entanglements that would make her mother blush and her brother lope in the underbrush in hopes of saving himself from the stigma of the branded character ‘R’ upon the chests and bodices of his old instructors with whom he had so many ties, and so many scenes through which he imparted his secrets. And so, he’ll not have Rebecca sleep until she’s mobile again. Wildness Needs Encouragement and no one knows this more than she, chanting victorious from her sickbed late at night; slumming in the name of convalescing and expulsing her anger in which direction it is destined.
And let it be. Rebecca must needs writhe in 50% rayon, 30% cotton, 10% spandex and nylon. It is then her duty to dance the dance of the living; a bittersweet obligation for one who is immobilized. Flatbush may ail her and Midwood impale her, but tomorrow’s ham and cheese will more than make up for the sorrows of needless canoodling with strangers, wrongful waking comedians, corpulent expatriates, elfin musicmakers and satanic sound assistants in it own small way and what’s more: All kinds of romances compensate for slack, lobotomized sexual sparks. She won’t remember! Six tasty chicken drumsticks with salt, pepper, caraway seeds, avocado and tomato, German butter cookies with almonds, topped off in a cream puff white gossamer tea gown, Rebecca, Queen of the Desert, floats through the air. Everyone has her tumor now! Waddling on, they bounce and buckle under the weight of the Lord and His attention to R’s neuroma. Her space-age shades are some amends, in spirit, but she shall not deign to wear them.
Indeed, late one night, Rebecca unintentionally infiltrated a sober-minded constituency of Ayn Rand aficionados. Naively ill anticipating her own emotional entanglement, she painted in the commune while her fellow cultists likewise acted in their bleached blue winter coats, unaware of the shimmering outer rims to the washed-out, erotic objects that only R could see because of her astonishing ability to copycat Harper Pitt. They were enormously attractive and Rebecca near revealed herself a traitress, had not the laws of social propriety held her lubricious intentions in her person. It’ll break their hearts when I go, Rebecca thought. I am their last link to the world of feelings, camouflaged in phlegm(atic hebetude) in order to entrench myself in the heroic solemnity of these, my newfound family members. And so she painted, silent and stultified by unadvised desirousness.
But even now, R’s workplace is covered in ice-violet shellac and old bones of whom she should not disclose; limestone and red velvet. It smells of semolina for kasha, long-silenced kitties, Chinese torture devices, a spot of ale and tea. Effete spendthrifts, pious automatons, macho hucksters and barbarians of consequence make their rounds in Rebecca’s garret and then are heard of no more.
Civilization and Primitivism carouse raucously in Rebecca’s noisy WordPress account. For such is the ongoing battle of this, R’s louche and marmoreal Internet-engendered manse. The echoes of innocents still reverberate in the corridors, the ghosts of charwomen and ethnically dissimilar saboteurs still take their morning constitutionals in the garden before settling down to make ghoulish faces into flashlights that project onto the stony walls, after being bound and carted roughly back to their thankless chambers. Take lessons of Rebecca. Heed, but do not have the heart to follow. Amen.
b. 1985-
