The Adventures of Elsie
I told Marie I'd never write
this…I mean it doesn't seem right to put your own life on the net for all to
see. Not that anyone will ever believe
this is a true story, I guess that's why I agreed to write this with her. It took her two weeks of pestering to get me
to do it…I'm not sure if that proves her persistence or my willpower. Besides, a story with no antagonist? Then again, Marie always says you can be
your own worst enemy. Well, here goes I
guess…this is the story of how I met my husband and basically proof to the
world that I am a complete ass. Oh, I
was an ass, don't worry you'll understand why soon enough…
It
all began… (Marie's looking at me oddly…well if she can come up with a better
opening she can use it to start her chapter!)
As I was writing…it all began when I convinced my roomie Marie to come
home with me for spring break. Oh, did
I tell you? Marie and I were roommates
in college. We went to a little school
in Pennsylvania called…now don't laugh…Beaver College, and yes, for all you
snickering out there, it WAS an all girls school at one point. But I digress, cuz it's fun… So, as I was
saying, we went to my house for spring break, I incidentally, live in Florida,
in a suburb of Orlando. As you may imagine it was one hell of a drive. It was
fun though, we worked on phan phic dialogue most of the time (hey when the car
has no radio what else are ya going to do?), you could almost call it a working
vacation, we had the car packed with Phantom references. You have to have references to write the
good smut…I mean stuff (Freudian whip…er, slip). Marie brought her complete phan phic archive and several books on
our favorite specter. Though on the way
down we spent most of our time working out dialogue for a fan fic Marie was
working on about some elves. Weird
stuff.
All
in all an uneventful drive down…except for our detour to my uncle's house in,
yes another weird name, Fork, South Carolina (no, I don't know where Knife and
Spoon are). Any place where the
directions include the words, "Just turn at the Flying J truck stop and
then go down the unmarked dirt road for about 5 miles…" worry me. (this
must all be said, of course, in the proper southern accent) We found it though,
and there was much rejoicing, (not to offend anyone from Jersey but Marie is a
prime example of a Jersey driver so we were damn lucky we got to Florida with
all the important parts in tact.)
especially given our track record for getting lost. Anyhow, we arrived at my uncle's in one piece
and were greeted by my cousin's crazy dog Buddy (we all call him Forrest, it
fit's his IQ—he got hit by a train three months after they brought him home,
not a bright puppy) who nearly knocked Marie over in his enthusiasm to lick her
face (next time she'll listen to me when I tell her not to eat McDonald's
before meeting a big dog). While that
was funny it wasn't nearly as good as the expression on Marie's face when she
found my Aunt's cat Skeeter gnawing enthusiastically on her copy of Susan Kay's
Phantom…I thought she was going to explode!
(to give Marie a little credit, it is a very good book, but still…a
little cat drool never hurt anything)
Aside from that misadventure we made pretty good time and Marie only
harassed me once or twice about my driving (the only thing that comes near to
being as bad as a Jersey driver is a Florida driver like me). Florida was interesting.
Actually,
interesting barely begins to describe a stay with my family…so I suppose a
little introduction is in order. We
could start with my Dad (and since I'm writing this and you have nothing to say
about it I will start with dad…ah, the power of the writer *insert maniacal
laughter here *). He's a pretty cool
guy as dads go. He's in the army and he
does military free fall, basically he jumps out of a lot of planes. Then there's his wife Jayne (yes I come from
the typical American broken home, big deal!) she's pretty cool as far as
stepmothers go. A little critical of
everything I do and always on my case about respecting my father…you know, just
like a regular mom.
The
real psychos in my family are my siblings. My half brother Doug and my half
sister Gab (short for Gabrielle, but trust me the nickname definitely fits,
I've never heard a child talk so much!) are complete nuts. Since they play a bigger part in the story
I'll tell you a bit about them. Gabby
is possibly the most obnoxious six-year-old on the face of the planet earth. For those who think I'm just being mean
here, I have one thing to say to you, you've never had to share a room with
her. (Just imagine being woken up five
nights out of every seven by a screaming child!) At any rate, she plays a big role in this story…if it wasn't for
her we might have just hung around the house and maybe trekked out to Disney.
But
fate had more in store for Marie and I…so instead of sticking us with the
baby-sitting Jayne, in her infinite charity, let us take Dad's van the Daytona
Beach for the weekend. (I thank Jayne
every day for that!)
Before
I describe our outing to the glorious white beaches I need to say a bit about
my brother the boy wonder…he's one of those children who is frighteningly
smart. You know, those kids they make
horror movies about because they know a little too much about science. My brother had the same spring break as we
did and flew out from UC Berkeley to
visit. He's only fifteen, but he's a
senior already. Sometimes it's almost
creepy to know people that smart! (And I still don't think it's fair that at
fifteen he was both taller and further along in school than me! *insert snort in Doug's general direction*)
He's a physics major and well, to say the least he's very mechanically
inclined. So when Marie and I went to
the beach he offered to fix the heat in Elsie, (Marie's car, yes, named after
the cow from RENT) which I thought was pretty nice considering he was on
vacation too (that and he had a crush on Marie).
In
any case, Marie and I were off to the beach…just for once I said, screw skin
cancer! And planned to go back to
school with a tan. We spent three days
checking out guys, bodysurfing, drawing, painting, walking the beach and
getting extremely sunburned. It was fun
and the sunrises were spectacular. If
you've never seen the sun rise over the ocean in Florida trust me, it's worth the
airfare! After our third day we
reluctantly packed up our drawings and six rolls of film (so we like cameras…if
it weren't so stereotypical I would say we looked like Japanese tourists for
all the pictures we took) and drove back to Apopka (I don't think I'm allowed
to live in a town that someone could actually pronounce). And it turned out the real action wasn't at
the beach, it was at home.
****
As
soon as we pulled into the driveway I knew something was up…it was just a
feeling but it was totally confirmed when Doug came out and took our bags in
without being told by Dad (getting this boy to do manual labor is worse than
pulling teeth). Marie had no idea
something was amiss and so she just went inside. Doug and I were alone in the garage. I pulled him aside as he was going in with the last of our
stuff.
"What's
going on Doug?"
For
a second he gave me that innocent, 'who me?' look and then he broke into the
widest grin I had ever seen. That
scared me. The only time he grins like
that is when he was finished with some weird invention or had 'modified'
something.
"Doug,
what did you modify this time?"
He
smiled even wider. "Don't worry
sis, you and Marie'll love it!"
It
took a moment for me to realize what he was implying. I swallowed hard. "Doug,
what did you do to Elsie? Marie's car
Doug, what did you do…tell me you just fixed the heat…please tell me you just
fixed the heat."
He
rubbed his chin thoughtfully and shrugged.
"Ok, I just fixed the heat.
There I said it, happy?"
I
lost it and grabbed him by the shirt, dragging his face down to my level. "What did you do to my friend's car you
little smart-ass?!"
He
looked at me with wide eyes. "Jeez
sis, I only made a few modifications!"
With
her characteristic timing Marie came into the garage. I supposed it must have looked a little weird, Doug all hunched
over to look me in the face and me looking like I was about to rip out his
spleen and do a jig on it (There are specific dances for each organ if you were
wondering. You see, for spleens it's
the jig, for hearts it's more of a classic Mexican hat dance and for lungs it's
more of a fox-trot). She cleared her
throat and I let go of Doug and tried to look casual. Marie looked at both of us.
"Am I interrupting anything?"
In
unison Doug and I answered, "No!"
Marie
gave us her best, 'yeah right' look and walked toward us. "So what this about modifications on
Elsie?"
I
rubbed at my temples to ward off the headache that came along with the thought
of what Marie was going to do to my brother when she found out, so I wasn't
looking at him when he told her.
"Well
I was trying to fix the heat, but they didn't have the parts at the store so I
put in a CD player…I mean jeez, you didn't even have a radio!"
Somehow
Doug's babbling was not making me feel better, if he had just put in a CD
player that would have been fine. But I
know my brother, he never got so hyped about something like a CD player, there
had to be something else. Not only
that, but he liked Marie, his eyes lit up whenever she came in the room…if he
did something for her it had to be more than a car stereo. My suspicions were soon confirmed.
"And
I, well I heard you guys talking about the Phantom of the Opera and the
Hunchback of Notre Dame and so…I thought you might want to well…um, visit."
My
head popped up at this. "What in
the hell are you babbling about now Doug?"
He
looked down like a puppy that knows it's about to get punished. "I made it into a time machine."
The
look on Marie's face was priceless.
It
wasn't just your basic, what the fuck look (you know the look a person gets
when someone else says something weird and they think 'what the fuck?') it was
beyond that, because she thought it was just some weird joke. I knew better. "So where'd you put the Flux Capacitor?" Marie quipped.
It
took me minute to gather my thoughts and react. "Doug, you didn't!
What the hell is wrong with you?!"
Marie
looked at me like I was nuts. I suppose
from her point of view it looked like I was really overreacting. Oh well, she didn't know Doug like I
did. Marie came over and put her hand
on my shoulder. "Jeez Lisa, he's
just fooling around, he couldn't really turn Elsie in to a time machine!"
I
shook my head, god she didn't know! I
took a deep breath, what I could have used was a beer, or a six-pack, how do
you tell your roomie that your brother is the modern day equivalent of Dr
Frankenstein…too much knowledge and too little common sense? "Marie, you don't understand…it is
entirely possible that he did just as he said."
Marie
just raised an eyebrow in disbelief.
"C'mon my car doesn't go 80 miles an hour, hell, it doesn't even do
60 with a tail wind!"
I
just shook my head.
Then
Doug piped up again, "Well, it doesn't work like the one in Back to the
Future…it's much easier to operate, and doesn't require any plutonium."
"Oh,
well that's a relief!" I stormed
as I dragged Doug toward the backyard.
"Just show us what you did to the damn car!"
"Well
as long as it's a damn car…or is it a damn time machine?"
I
groaned, well, Marie would find out soon enough.
We
opened the gate to the backyard and I breathed a sigh of relief, at least the
car looked the same on the outside.
As
we approached the car Marie sounded almost disappointed, "Just looks like
good old Elsie to me."
"Well,
the real changes are on the inside." Doug announced proudly.
I
scowled at him, when would he learn?
But as he gestured us into the car I had a thought, if it really was a
time machine we could visit Erik…No! It
wouldn't pay to think like that, stuff like that didn't really happen. Even if it could we might mess up the time
stream, paradoxes are no fun.
I
sat in the back and Marie took shotgun (she called it when we were still
halfway across the back yard) Doug opened the door for her and gave her that
puppy look again. Doug took the
driver’s seat. "Doug you don't
even have your license!"
Marie
looked back at me and winked. "Hey
Lisa, 'where we're going we don't need roads'!"
Doug
smiled that goofy smile again.
"Something like that, see, you don't have to move the car at all to
use the time travel feature."
"Oh,
well that'll save us gas, where are we going Doug?" I was still mad over him playing with
Marie's car, and that's when I really become a smart-ass.
Marie
still didn't quite get it, though she was a little more subdued when he started
punching in coordinates. "Duh,
Lisa, we're going where no man has gone before, or woman for that matter!"
Doug
continued rattling off the attributes of his little invention, how you didn't
need special fuel, how you didn't need any speed, how you could choose both
time and place. I admit I was not in
the best mood, and he wouldn't shut up!
So, (and yes I feel bad about this now) I shouted at him. "Doug, where are we going?!"
He
grinned again, "I was thinking something indisputable, something, Jurassic."
He quipped as he punched the final button.
Marie
and I looked at each other and in unison shouted, "WHAT?"
There
wasn't a big swirl of light or anything spectacular like in the movies,
everything just went black for a second or two and then we weren't sitting in
my backyard anymore…we were sitting in the middle of a huge field.
Marie
looked around for a minute and then turned to me and smiled. "Toto I don't think we're in Kansas
anymore."
I
started smiling too, this was actually a time machine, Elsie the car that had
all the speed of a snail on Valium was a time machine! Who cares if we could destroy the time
stream and screw up the future…we had just time traveled! Marie and I scrambled out of the car to look
around. That's when we saw them…do you
remember that herd of dinosaurs they ran into in Jurassic Park? Well that's what we saw running across the
field below us (we were on a hill. And
Marie started singing the Indiana Jones theme song, claiming we needed a good
sound track) And I swear it was the coolest thing I had ever seen. Everybody's dreamed of seeing real dinosaurs
before but there we were, the first people in human history to see them. I wasn't mad at Doug anymore, hell he could
have modified all my favorite CD's at that point and I would have forgiven him
(last time he did it was a different story, hey, what would you do if you came
home and found your RENT CD had been used as part of a solar oven?). Anyway, Marie and I were standing there
gawking at the dinosaurs…(by the way the coloring they gave the dinos in
Jurassic park was pretty accurate.) when Doug start gesturing at us from inside
the car.
Finally
he gave up with the pantomime and stuck his head out the window. "Guys, I
wouldn't stay out there if I were you."
Marie
and I asked, in stereo, "Why?"
Doug
pointed further up the hill and then we saw it too. Now I know most people have seen those dinosaur skeletons in the
museums, and so they feel like they know a little about the size of a dinosaur…they
don't. No one can really feel the mass,
the presence, of a dinosaur until they see it in the flesh. And there, coming down the hill toward us
was a Tyrannosaurus Rex (or some such carnivore). I don't think I had ever been so freaked out in my life. Marie and I let out an "Oh, shit!"
and dove for Elsie. Doug was already
punching in the coordinates but the T-rex was coming fast. I was reciting a basic hysterical litany of,
"Must go now, must go now, must go now…" (my best Jeff Goldblum
impression and Marie was reciting 'Holy Mary mother of god pray for us sinners
at the hour of our death, which is NOW!') and Doug was trying to enter in the
coordinates with an enormous carnivore literally breathing down his neck. Marie and I turned to look out the back
window and just as it was about to bear down on us, just as we heard a roar
that would have made a gargoyle jealous, just as we saw that huge mouth open
and were despairing over that many sharp teeth all aimed at us, the blackness
descended over the car and we disappeared. (Leaving behind a very confused and
hungry dino)
"Lisa,
Doug, are we dead yet?" Marie asked as we reappeared in my backyard.
We
all laughed a little at that, that high kind laughter that tends to follow near
death experiences. "No, I think
we're all here…either that or Apopka Florida really is hell."
We
all piled out of the car and Marie laid on the ground, and I'll probably
remember these lines for the rest of my life, just for the look on Doug's face,
"Doug, I'm either going to strangle you or kiss you, I just don't know
which yet."
I
raised my hand, "I vote for strangulation!"
I
helped Marie up and Doug cleared his throat.
"I
suppose you guys will be planning your trip now? I would just suggest doing it somewhere else." He looked meaningfully at the house.
"Cool,
we better tell your dad were going out though." Marie replied nonchalantly and left before I could protest.
Marie
was back in a moment and told me to get in the car.
****
About
a million things were going through my head as she drove down to the Dairy
Manor (a little ice cream shop down the street with a very badly constructed
rainbow atop it). I sat down at a table
(they're all outdoors) and watched the sunset while Marie got us sundaes. (chocolate is a necessity after nearly being
eaten by an extinct carnivore) I couldn't help letting the practical side of my
mind take over. I mean, we could
destroy our time line, create paradoxes, all in all, bad stuff could most
definitely happen if we used the time machine.
But how could I convince Marie of that?
I should have known better, there is no way to dissuade Marie from
anything she really wants. But being
me, (ie-stubborn as a mule) I had to try.
Marie
came back with the sundaes and sat down beaming. "So where do you figure we should go first…I can't decide
between 15th and 19th century
France."
"I vote for going back to school."
"You
wuss (does anyone know how to spell that?)"
"Excuse
me if I have a problem with destroying the time stream and creating
paradoxes!" I raised my voice and
people were looking at us strangely (which I should be used to, hanging out
with Marie all the time).
She grabbed my arm, "Keep your voice
down, I don't need Elsie on the ten o'clock news! (Film at eleven)"
"Think
about it Marie, we can't do this, what if we mess up the time stream, what if
something happens and we change our future?
Can you really take that responsibility?"
"I
already know where we're going and I have it all figured out." Marie answered cheerfully, waving her spoon
at my face.
"God
help us. (Or any deity you prefer)"
"Stop
right there and hear me out." Her
eyes were glinting between blue and green in that, ‘you might as well give up
‘cause you’re doing it anyway’ look.
Worry when her eyes start changing colors like that!
(I'm
still not quite sure how she convinced me, how someone that only ‘towers’ a few
inches above my own 5’2” can be that convincing eludes me but I'll give you the
whole scenario and maybe you can figure it out)
"Look
at it this way, The Phantom of the Opera is, for all intents and purposes, a
fictional work. If we come into the
play after the end where the Phantom supposedly disappears, then we don't even
interrupt the story, let alone anything important. Now I know what you're thinking."
"Do
you?" (I was thinking, at this point, that Marie lived in a very nice
fantasy world and I wondered if it was always sunny there.)
"You're
thinking, or at least you should be thinking, we don't know if he died, what if
he reappeared someplace else and invented something or otherwise steered the
course of history, in which case we would mess up time if we interrupt
him. I can prove that wrong."
At
this point I gave her my best incredulous raised eyebrow look. (A la Owen)
"According
to Gaston Leroux-"
"A
horror story writer."
"This
has nothing to do with the actual story, it has to do with his epilogue. Mr. Leroux found Erik's skeleton in the
basement of the Opera. Identifiable by
the gold ring that had once been Christine Daae's. So, obviously he died under the Opera and had no impact on
history."
"Are
you done?"
"Only
if you have no more protests."
"Oh,
but I do. Did you pause in your little
fantasy to ponder which Erik we might find?
Hmm? This guy is not notoriously
stable, hell we could get there and find him already dead, or find him alive
and get ourselves lassoed. Don't give
me that look, even if he was like Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom, he wouldn't be
likely to welcome us with open arms, given what he just went through. I for one am rather found of my neck."
"Are
you done yet?"
"Only
if you have no more protests."
"Oh,
but I do. Let's look at the versions,
namely the ones we don't like, Gaston Leroux's, Charnas', and Robert
Englund's. Leroux was a horror writer,
so of course he was going to make his character as frightening and as mentally
unstable as possible. Charnas was
obviously busy researching the darker side of human sexuality, like Anne
Rice. And Robert Englund, need I say
more?"
"Is
it my turn?"
"Yes."
"Oh,
good. Even in the versions we like,
mainly Susan Kay's, he's not emotionally stable. Hell, the man is a morphine addict! And last time I checked we aren't gargoyles, or anything that
could deal with Erik physically.
Besides what makes you think, even if he didn't kill us, that we could
do him any good. Last time I checked
neither of us were shrinks."
"Neither
of us has to be a shrink. All the man
needs is, pardon the expression, a few good friends. As for him killing us, if we present ourselves in the correct
manner..."
(Here
I got a mental picture of Kathy Bates from Fried Green Tomatoes, dressed only
in saran wrap, and 'presenting' herself to her startled husband)
"He'll
be too intrigued by our modern knowledge to try killing us. According to every version, he was completely
fascinated by both the past and the future… along come two girls from the year
2000 who have a time machine… what do you think, Sparky?"
"Don't
call me 'Sparky'."
"Fine,
Lisa…get in the car. Don't get that
horrified look on your face, we're just going back to your house…there's no way
I'm going to 19th century France without clean underwear, unlike some
police detectives!"
"I
guess this means I have to go, if only to protect the Phantom from you."
"Great! We just need a few days to get supplies and
then we're off!"
"Our
rockers."
Oh,
well, I still don't know how she did it, I just knew that this was going to be
as Robin Williams put it in Peter pan…a great adventure.
It
took us the rest of the week to get the supplies for our trip.
There
are certain things one needs when visiting the Phantom of the Opera: 1.A
portable generator (how else could we show him movies and plug in the coffee
maker?)
2.A
complete Phan Phiction archive (thank god we already had it with us, I can't
imagine explaining to my father why we used up two whole reams of paper and a
whole printer cartridge)
3.All
of the Phantom novels. (we had Susan Kay's but we had to go out and buy a copy
of Gaston Leroux's and Angel of the Opera by Sam Sicliano)
4.Music (Ah, if music be the food of love play on….
don't ask. There must be at least one
Shakespeare quote in each of my stories, get used to it. We brought PTO and RENT and anything else we
felt might interest Erik.)
5.Movies! (And the suitable appliances. Of course we took all the film versions of
PTO and a few other choice selections.)
6.Clothes. (Because we have no desire to be like Elisa
Maza on Gargoyles and go traipsing about in the same clothes for weeks
and months on end!)
7.And
of course, Marie's dilapidated, stuffed lion.
(Which was the size of a small Rottweiller)
As
far as my parents knew we were just trekking back to school…after all this was
not an adventure you share with mom and dad.
Before I left I found out my little brother is pretty good at sad and
pathetic. Apparently when he had time
to really think about it, he realized how dangerous this trip could be. He pulled us aside before he went to catch
his plane and told us to be careful. (He
had the sweetest sad puppy dog look) And then he gave us both a hug…it was so…so…sad
and pathetic. (Which, by the way, coming from Marie and I, is a compliment.)
Anyhow,
I think I'll turn this over to Marie now.
(Mostly because I don't feel like hearing her whine, 'is it my turn
yet?' again.) (Uh-oh, she just read
that and now she's giving me 'the look'…I'm leaving now!)