My Cousin, My Gastroenterologist

12. the serenity of objects

I was doing curls with a barbell and I became so sweaty and muscular that I couldn't stop fondling myself and thinking to myself, What a little savage you're becoming, and I ran into the kitchen to get the olive oil because I wanted to coat myself with it and somewhere in the back of my mind I wanted to be blinded and then pull the pillars of the temple down… and you were sleeping… and I remember lying down next to you and the almost inaudible splash of a gnat diving into the pool of perspiration that had formed in my navel must have frightened you because you jumped up in the bed and began screaming something about how two of America's most beloved screen stars, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, had been killed in a tragic accident. While filming Dino de Laurentiis's production of T. S. Eliot's "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," directed by John Landis who's known for his spectacular special effects, the huge metal robotic women who come and go talking of Michelangelo collapsed — crushing the aging Oscar winners.