The saving reprieve of Mohawk Lady
So you all know yesterday was awful.
After leaving Betta to be cremated and throwing up a couple of times, I had to move on with life. Some things can’t wait.
Like deadline.
I ran to Costco to develop some photos I needed for an article (which now isn’t going to run this week, just one more Fuck This). I could barely form sentences or look the clerk in the eye. My hands shook over the photo order form. The deafening rattle of giant carts under a metal roof closed in around me while Conan O’Brien quacked away in the display model TVs. My knees began to wobble in sensory claustrophobia, and I dropped my head onto the exclamation-pointed counter ads for photo print deals.
Fuck This.
I had a half hour to wait, so I stumbled over to a row of electric massage chairs. When you want to abandon your existence in Costco, this is your best hope.
Then Mohawk Lady walked by.
Mohawk Lady goes to lots of concerts in SLC and dances next to the stage. Her head is shaved except for the greying mohawk and a thin, meter-long braid wrapped in embroidery thread. She wears garish colors, has leather-tan skin and is impossible not to notice.
Celebrity sighting at Costco! It was my first non-traumatic moment of the day.
“Oh, how about these!” she exclaimed at the chairs. She was with a man, who said something to her and went on his way.
“El gusto es mio!” she called after him and settled into the chair next to me. “‘El gusto es mio.’ I just love that. Do you know what it means?”
I was in awe.
“‘The pleasure is mine,’” she said. “I think it’s just beautiful. It’s Spanish. Oooh, this chair!”
I summoned my powers of conversation for the first time that day. We sat in the massage chairs and talked a little bit about studying foreign languages, and I told her about teaching English in China. We oohed and ahhed at the various massage settings. Mohawk Lady goes by Rainy.
Then I told Rainy about Betta. When I welled up, she grabbed my hand.
“She discarded the physical. That’s the only thing we know for sure.”
I described the trip to the vet, the bloody sinus, the freakish, terrified honking noises that little Betta made when she came in the pet door yesterday morning with her eye poked out. Anytime I said the word “died,” Rainy corrected me: “Discarded the physical.”
“That’s the only thing we know,” she kept repeating. She assured me that Betta would have good company with Rainy’s discarded physicals: little Mecca and Hodgie and Kikipoo. Then she told me about the three human modes of action: creator, scientist and monkey.
I figured it out right away.
Then my film was ready and I had to return to Fuck This. It just kept getting worse. The pictures sucked, I calloused my throat trying not to cry through night shift, my dinner was ruined when the takeout box fell apart, and then I had to stay an hour late at work because of a shooting and stabbing on deadline. When I got home after midnight, my boyfriend and I sat at the kitchen table for an hour while tears dripped off our chins and into our glasses of whiskey. Then I woke up with the squirts.
But for a half hour in the motorized recliners at Costco, goodwill showed up under a mohawk and held my hand.
Thanks for the breather, Rainy.
cats, shopping | Erin Alberty | 
July 28, 2009 2:49 pm
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By Garrett, July 28, 2009 @ 3:17 pm
I’m glad yesterday wasn’t all terrible – maybe the rest of the week will be more Rainy and less squirts.
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By Julie, July 28, 2009 @ 3:21 pm
I love Rainy’s perspective on life. We all need a little of that – glad she was there for you.
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By soul-fusion, July 28, 2009 @ 4:36 pm
I hate that during the some of the most privately tragic moments we can’t hit a giant pause button to put everything on hold while we grieve. When I found out about my dog’s passing I was in my office working on a Saturday and for weeks I couldn’t look at a dog or think of a dog or even hear about a dog without welling up with tears. I’m so glad Rainy found you in the midst of your crisis.
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By HereInFranklin, July 28, 2009 @ 6:08 pm
“She discarded the physical.” You know what’s so great about that? It’s like it was Betta’s decision. Not like she committed suicide or something, but like she had a choice. I’m going to remember that.
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By Dale Kemp, July 28, 2009 @ 8:01 pm
Angels don’t appear until we really need them.
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By mongoliangirl, July 29, 2009 @ 6:29 am
Delicious! It’s always good to know the universe is conspiring in our favor, eh?
“She discarded the physical, that’s all we know.”
The most important part of that little gem for me is, “that’s all we know”. Mostly because I usually want to analyze the shit out of everything and it would just be best for me and everyone else if I realized there are some things I will just never know or understand.
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By Dena, July 29, 2009 @ 6:50 am
This just strengthens my belief that there are no coincidences. This is one of my favorite stories.
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By Bob, July 29, 2009 @ 7:18 am
You absolutely blow me away, Erin.
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By Mom, July 29, 2009 @ 9:03 am
I agree with Bob.
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By rassles, July 29, 2009 @ 10:21 am
So, I think creator, scientist, and monkey is a far less embarrassing way of classifying people than my way. (Shiny, shiny flier, squirrel, smells like gravel. I know. It doesn’t make sense.)
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By Bellacantare, July 29, 2009 @ 3:15 pm
Wish I could give you a hug. Unless that’s creepy because you don’t really know me…
:-)
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By Ginny, July 29, 2009 @ 5:04 pm
How crazy-beautiful was that?!?
I’m so sorry about your cat, but glad the healing seems to have started.
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By Sra, August 2, 2009 @ 2:36 pm
Ginny said it best: crazy-beautiful. Sorry about all the shit. July 2009 can go to hell.
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