"I am the genie of the lamp, and I am here to grant you three wishes," the man said.
That’s no ordinary man who said this. In fact, he may not be a man at all. He is exactly as he describes himself: genie who has issued from a lamp which Weetzie was simply trying to polish. And “genie of the lamp” he means the real deal as we all recognize it: “a little man in a turban, with a jewel in his nose, harem pants, and curly-toed slippers.” And that’s no joke. As the real deal he is not only capable of granting wishes—a maximum of three so don’t try that stuff about infinite wishes—but of actually making his granting come to fruition. Of course, as always in situations like this, one should refrain from too cavalier. In fact, if you are lucky enough to find a genie who imposes no expiration date on your three wishes, take a year off to work out all the angles and construct your wishes with precision. Unless you are just in it for the sake of adventure like Weetzie, in which case throw caution to the wind and let loose with the first three things that come to mind.
"I wish for a Duck for Dirk, and My Secret Agent Lover Man for me, and a beautiful little house for us to live in happily ever after."
And there it is. Simple, efficient, apparently easily translatable to the genie and immediate. No critical thinking skills applied, just impetuous, impulsive and emotionally stimulated desire expressed as a three-fold aspect of wishery. Maybe you are different and look at things more in the way that Weetzie sees the world, but doesn’t it seem a bit odd that a genie who had just introduced himself to Weetzie not even two minutes earlier would be able to immediately figure out what any of that actually means much less make it so? Who is Dirk and why does he want a duck? And is “My Secret Agent Lover Man” an album? Or a novel? Or what, exactly? How does the genie know what she considered to be a beautiful house and what does she mean by little, not to mention who is this “us” she is talking about? It is very confusing how any of this could actually come true as a wish. But then, that’s part of the plot, perhaps? Only one way to find out. Ask someone who’s read the book.
The film was quite a success, and it brought Weetzie and My Secret Agent Lover Man and Dirk and Duck and their friends money for the first time. They bought a mint 1965 T-bird, and Weetzie went to Grau and bought a jacket made out of peach and rose and gold silk antique kimonos.
Well, however he managed to do it, the genie managed to do it. He figured out the mystery of Dirk’s Duck with a capital “D” and that My Secret Agent Lover Man referred to an actual object of romantic interest and probably even managed to pull off the complicated calculus of something being small and beautiful without being too small or crossing over from small into big. My Secret Agent Lover Man is not just Weetzie’s dream lover come true, he is a filmmaker who manages to do that most elusive thing among all the filmmakers in L.A.: become a successful filmmaker. Life is good for Weetzie. So good, in fact, that on the very next page she even says she feels like Cinderella. And then clock strikes midnight in the next paragraph when Weetzie says wants a baby and MSALM's gut reaction is to wonder how anyone could want to bring a baby into a world filled with disease, Three-Mile Island, and psychos before concluding “We can’t have a baby.” Or can they?
