Eleanor: "Take my life, and let it be."

from the novel

note: the following three (3) posts are meant to be read in succession, as a kind of word triptych ....

Eleanor: If I had a lot of money, I might know what to do, because money is supposed to solve everything except for love, maybe. But the rest of it, besides love, money can solve, yes? So if I get my hands on some money and travel as far away as I can from here, I’ll be there, and there has to be a better place. I can start over. I’d bring my Biographer. No. I’d let my Biographer talk to me. On pay phones. I’ll find a pay phone and give him the number and he can call me back, but if he tries to trace the call or anything, I’m gone. I should be gone anyway. First I’m there, from here, and then I’m here again, except it’s another different place, different from all of the theres and heres I’ve ever known. I don’t even care if I get scared. I just want to find a motel room somewhere and buy lots of food at the grocery store so I’ll have my provisions, and then I want to watch TV. I’ll keep the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door. I’ll pay them for a week ahead of time. I’ll say, no housekeeping, please, I’m fine, yes, I’ll be just fine, thank you very much. And I’ll watch TV and I’ll make my meals from my provisions and I’ll sit in the bathtub for an hour or maybe even two hours – with the TV on of course, and loud, so I can hear it from the other room – and I’ll soak my body until I’m like a raisin and then I’ll be so clean that if I think hard enough the good thoughts – the thoughts about all of the places I want to go and all of the people I want to become, because there are so many people I want to become someday, and this is different from wanting careers, you know, because it’s being different people entirely, like going from there to here to here to there to here and you get so confused sometimes but then you’re where you’re supposed to be all along – if I think hard enough the good thoughts, I will be cleansed. I will be clean. I will have washed everything bad from my body. When my skin gets like a raisin, it will keep the good stuff in and keep the bad stuff out. It doesn’t even matter what’s on TV, you know? Just as long as the TV is loud, and just as long as I have the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the front door, and just as long as I have provisions, I will be A-OK. I will be better than fine. I will be good. I will be good here. Right here. Not there – here. This is where I want to be. This is the exact right place. The rest of it, well, I’ll figure it out later, but for now, this is right here good want to be here good and there’s really no rest of it except for that. I can hear David Letterman talking. I am going to close my eyes now and sink down closer to the bubbles. It feels so good to be clean, you know? I mean – cleansed is what I mean - cleansed.