Diary by Chuck Palahniuk Page B

in one hand and sniffing back tears. As if Misty can just say—well, since you asked, she just spent another day in somebody's sealed-off laundry room, reading gibberish on the walls while Angel Delaporte snapped flash pictures and said her asshole husband is really loving and protective because he writes his
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's with the tail pointing up in a little curl, even when he's calling her an “. . . avenging evil curse of death . . .”
    Angel and Misty, they were rubbing butts all afternoon, her tracing the words sprayed on the walls, the words saying: “. . . we accept the dirty flood of your money . . .”
    And Angel was asking her, “Do you feel anything?”
    The homeowners were bagging their family toothbrushes for laboratory analysis, for septic bacteria. For a lawsuit.
    On board the ferry, the man with his dog says, “Are you wearing something from a dead person?”
    Her coat's what Misty is wearing, her coat and shoes, and pinned on the lapel is one of the god-awful big costume jewelry pins Peter gave her.
    Her husband gave her.
    You gave her.
    All afternoon in the sealed laundry room, the words written around the walls said: “. . . will not steal our world to replace the world you've ruined . . .”
    And Angel said, “The handwriting is different here. It's changing.” He snapped another picture and cranked to the next frame of film, saying, “Do you know what order your husband worked on these houses?”
    Misty told Angel how a new owner should move in only after the full moon. According to carpenter tradition, the first to enter a new house should always be the family's favorite pet. Then should enter the family's cornmeal, the salt, the broom, the Bible, and the crucifix. Only then can the family and their furniture move in. According to superstition.
    And Angel, snapping pictures, said, “What? The cornmeal's supposed to walk in by itself?”
    Beverly Hills, the Upper East Side, Palm Beach, these days, Angel Delaporte says, even the best part of any city is just a deluxe luxury suite in hell. Outside your front gates, you still have to share the same gridlocked streets. You and the homeless drug addicts, you still breathe the same stinking air and hear the same police helicopters chasing criminals all night. The stars and moon erased by the lights from a million used car lots. Everyone crowds the same sidewalks, scattered with garbage, and sees the same sunrise bleary and red behind smog.
    Angel says that rich people don't like to tolerate much. Money gives you permission to just walk away from everything that isn't pretty and perfect. You can't put up with anything less than lovely. You spend your life running, avoiding, escaping.
    That quest for something pretty. A cheat. A cliché. Flowers and Christmas lights, it's what we're programmed to love. Someone young and lovely. The women on Spanish television with big boobs and a tiny waist like they've been twisted three times. The trophy wives eating lunch at the Waytansea Hotel.
    The words on the walls say: “. . . you people with your ex-wives and stepchildren, your blended families and failed marriages, you've ruined your world and now you want to ruin mine . . .”
    The trouble is, Angel says, we're running out of places to hide. It's why Will Rogers used to tell people to buy land: Nobody's making it anymore.
    This is why every rich person has discovered Waytansea Island this summer.
    It used to be Sun Valley, Idaho. Then it was Sedona, Arizona. Aspen, Colorado. Key West, Florida. Lahaina, Maui. All of them crowded with tourists and the natives left waiting tables. Now it's Waytansea Island, the perfect escape. For everyone except the people already living there.
    The words say: “. . . you with your fast cars stuck in traffic, your rich food that makes you fat, your houses so big you always feel lonely . . .”
    And Angel says, “See here, how his writing is crowded. The letters are squeezed together.” He snaps a picture, cranks the film, and says,