ABSTRACT
The only rule at the Plantation, besides get over yourself, is that no discussion of family, work, hobbies, the weather, or any other quotidian topics that make up the polite chitchat of the outside world is allowed. Only when the Typist dies near the end of the novella do her fellow members learn that she had a life-long love affair with the bar’s cleaning woman, Maria, who commits suicide by drinking bleach. Birthdays and last names may be unknown to regulars, who do know when to buy another round, what folks are drinking and when and with whom to talk, laugh, cry, dance, kiss, sing, fight, enjoy a comfortable silence or leave well enough alone. Those who flout the rules that structure the logic and order of the Plantation, rules that make its nonnormative pleasures and socialities possible, may be “cunted” with an inflection that bans the addressee forever from the Plantation’s inner sanctum.
