[Scene: My impeccable McMansion, set amongst the towering pines and mold of the nature-ridden Pacific Northwest, on a cool and cloudy 10AM weekday. Because of our repeated coffeehouse brawling, a judge has ordered David Bowie to my residence so that we both may learn to work together and sort out our differences civilly. Our sentence is to bake a cherry pie, to be auctioned off to Bowie’s fans to pay court costs and to contribute to coffeehouse bouncer Armand’s continuing psychiatric therapy. David Bowie is accompanied by one Miss Melissa Van Der Flauffen, a court-appointed social worker. Bowie and Miss Van Der Flauffen arrive in a loaner Lamborghini from Paul Allen, and ring my doorbell. I answer.]
Me: (opening door sourly) Oh. Hello, Bowie.
David Bowie: (with a similar lemon-faced look) Hello, Marianne.
Miss Van Der Flauffen: (brightly) Good morning! My goodness, you have such a lovely house! Is that a slug there? How fascinating! I’m sure you both are ready to get cracking in the kitchen! Like cracking eggs, ha! Ha!
[David Bowie and I stand and glare at each other, ignoring Miss Van Der Flauffen and her awkward shuffling.]
Miss Van Der Flauffen: Well! OK! May we come in now?
Me:…I suppose.
[David Bowie and Miss Van Der Flauffen enter. I close the door. David Bowie surveys the home, lemon-lime faced.]
David Bowie: (muttering) What a shitpile.
Me: Pardon ME? Did you say something?
David Bowie: No, darling. Perhaps you should get your ears checked. Hearing loss is common in the aged.
Me: (angrily) THAT SO?
Miss Van Der Flauffen: Now now now now now now! We are here to respect each others’ feelings and to do good court-ordered things! Let’s move straight to the kitchen, shall we? Yes? Yum yum, I can almost smell that pie already!
[Walking single-file into the kitchen, with its gleaming stainless steel appliances, tall custom cabinetry, and warm granite countertops, David Bowie runs his index finger across a counter.]
David Bowie: (snarkily) How rustic. Is this your weekend cabin? Did one of your children build it for a school project?
Me: (pausing, then speaking tightly) You know that autobiography that your ex-wife Angie wrote?
David Bowie: Yes.
Me: I read it, but there’s only one thing I remember from it.
David Bowie: (warily) Do tell.
Me: I remember thinking, “Wow, this is really so uncool and gross that she tells this story about how whenever you guys had intercourse your penis would get all messed up and spotty.” Yeah, that’s something, huh? You ever get that fixed or did it just fall off one day?
[David Bowie seethes.]
Miss Van Der Flauffen: (coughs) Oh…goodness…well…Marianne, why don’t you set the oven to bake? David, perhaps you’d like to wash your pe…hands, wash your hands before we coc...cook! COOK!
[David Bowie vigorously washes his hands at the kitchen sink, I set the baking temperature, Miss Van Der Flauffen sits timidly at the kitchen table. I bring out a frozen pie shell and two cans of cherry pie filling.]
David Bowie: (staring in disbelief) You. Must. Be. Joking.
Me: What? Pie.
David Bowie: That is not a pie. That is swill.
Me: (irritated) Shell plus filling equals PIE! What’s your problem??
David Bowie: Where’s the flour? Where’s the pastry board and pastry scraper and pastry brush? Where are the sweet organic Bing cherries, freshly-pitted? The hand-churned salted butter? The demerara sugar? A cruelty-free egg, to be delicately whisked? The exotic spices? The fine extracts? DO you honestly believe that I would put my name on some kind of glutinous lumpy red glop poured from a tin can into a thin pasty frozen pre-made crust, sitting in a cheap aluminum plate?
Me: You say “aluminum” weird.
David Bowie: ABOMINATION! NEVER! SWILL!
Me: SNOB!
David Bowie: HICK!
Me: ELLIE!
[Ellie, my Newfoundland dog, leaps to her feet from the living room, runs into the kitchen, and latches on to David Bowie’s ass, growling and drooling, shaking her large head.]
David Bowie: AIEEEEE!
Miss Van Der Flauffen: (rising quickly) Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh dear! No, doggie, no! No no! Marianne, do something!
Me: (taking cell phone picture) Hold on, I’m Tweeting this, just a sec.
David Bowie: GET HER OFF ME! AAAAAA!
[The Oven beeps.]
Me: You ready to stop your shit, Jonesy, HAH? HAH?
David Bowie: AAA! AAA! WhatEVER! OW! YES!
Me: OK, Ellie, come get a treat! Good girl! (pats dog on head, rubs ears) That’s a good girl, yes you are mooshy mooshy wooooo…
David Bowie: (rubbing his sore and saliva-soaked posterior) Jesus Christ.
Miss Van Der Flauffen: (extremely shaken) Pie! Piiiiiiie! (cries)
[David Bowie and I look at Miss Van Der Flauffen, then at each other.]
Me: There’s a pie joint about a mile away. They win awards, I hear.
David Bowie: Good enough. Please put your dog outside.
Me: Of course.
David Bowie: (muttering) Monster.
Me: (turning sharply) What??
David Bowie: “Scary Monsters, super creeps, keeps me running, running scaaarrred…”
Me: Lid on it, Jones.
© Copyright 2008- Marianne Spellman