2005-06-06
kudzu
Kudzu grows an inch a day. You can almost hear it sprouting. The stubborn vine comes from the other side of the world, some far-eastern place with an unpronounceable name. Settlers thought it could feed cows. This plan backfired when the stubborn weed waged war on native plants and besieged the southern landscape. It sneaks up on cars, covering them completely like some primitive form of topiary. It looks like the leafy stuff that people put in tropical aquariums. Decorations for goldfish.
Driving with my dad to Atlanta, I see a lot of kudzu. Vines drip from telephone poles and crawl across the wires, thick as Christmas garland. It grows on anything that stands still. I picture myself falling asleep in a field. I'd wake up looking like the Swamp Thing's long-lost sister. Spongy hills of kudzu whiz by my window. I wish it would swallow the endless parade of billboards, blotting out the scenery.
"We bare all!" says a sign beside someone's high-school yearbook picture. These strip joints feature the same type of girl in each ad. Is it the same girl? The same, frightened-looking teenager with a bottle-blonde, poodle hairdo. Some pictures show my wearing a bow tie, as if this would turn on my clients. Who knows? Maybe it does.
"Gas, Food, Lodging." It sounds like the lyrics to a song. Another sign announces, "Authentic Cuisine of India." In Cobb County Georgia, Big Rosie sells pecans, peaches, and pralines. Also goo-goos and authentic indian moccasins. "Clean Guest Rooms" are located at Steak and Shake, along with "discount carton cigarettes." A tattoo convention is taking place in the next county. Get three T-shirts for a dollar and experience Southern Hospitality at a genuine plantation, right beside the Chevron station.
I listen to All Blues as the skyline rises. Atlanta's skyscrapers appear like popup book illustrations. The sinking sun paints them gold, then red. Do sunsets really contain lithium? That explains why they make me feel god. I roll down the window and get a whiff of greasy Chinese food. An old lady zooms by in a candy-colored convertible. What compels people to cram mangy stuffed animals in their backseat windows?
A cemetery rolls by, reminding me of the Blair Witch Project, which is still playing at a local movie megaplex. I remember Dad going into that theater to get nachos. That's all he wanted. He took them home and rented something better than whatever was playing. Kids race around spotlit front lawns, banging basketballs against garages. It seems like the same, skinny, crewcutted boys have been doing this for years like extras in a movie. I imagine them never aging.
In my Uncle Matt's brick-sided house, everything smells the same. The guest room contains discarded gifts from my Dad. I recognize a mirror decorated with hummingbirds. On the wall hangs Monet's poppies. I saw the actual painting in the Orsay museum in Paris. Here, it seems out of place. A prop from the wrong play. The four-poster bed has somebody's initials carved into it. Crickets and katydids tune up outside. It sounds like a million sprinklers.
Uncle Matt has a secret life. He used to be a jazz guitarist. Now he spends a lot of time chasing tornados, trying to film their soft-serve curves. He tells me stories about his wilder days, when he and Dad used to launch midnight raids on recently-bought houses. They'd steal things like toilets, dump them in his truck, and haul them down the highway. Once in a while, the booty would fall out the back and shatter in the street, especially when cops happened to be chasing them.
My uncle spends a lot of time in the hovel, as he calls the basement, clacking away on his home-cloned computer. He gets bigger each time I see him, making me wonder if he's got a bowling ball under his shirt. He doesn't want me to get bored, so we take a long drive to Little Five Points, a place populated by neo-hippies who want to be in rock bands.
Mannequins leer in storefront windows. They wear rhinestone-studded leather and little else. I like the red bikini with the word, "Slut," stenciled all over. Decrepit old Victorian houses have been transformed into piercing parlors, tattoo salons, incense-scented New Age bookstores, health food groceraunts, as Uncle Matt calls them, and plenty of secondhand record stores run by stone-faced kids, all of whom are nonconformists, just like their friends.
I buy a copy of Coltrane's "My Favorite Things." The skinny, overly-pale dude at the counter says it's a good choice, not that I need his approval. I study a Styrofoam head with felt-tipped pens pushed into it, a blackboard with a menu of upcoming record titles, while the guy rushes around and pretends to look busy. By the time he finds the CD, a line has formed behind me.
"I wish I lived here," I say to nobody in particular.
"I wish you did too," the guy says.
In the car, I rip open the shrink-wrap. Inside is a commemoration booklet, a song list, and no CD.
f-i-n at 11:14 a.m.