We arrive at our house and we celebrate: it is our own piece of land and sky. We are worried about debt but we remain hopeful, my wife more than I because she has always been optimistic.
Because the house has many nooks and crannies it takes two weeks to find the previous owner's cat, which we'd hoped had died. This creature, a tabby with glossy fur and no name, is the legal embodiment of debts which we are required to assume. It is easy to love a cat, but one cannot become attached to the physical manifestation of debt, so we feed it but refuse to play with it. It is not allowed to sleep with us.
We acquire knick-knacks and furniture and we are pleased with our purchases, but every night the cat howls at something we can't see. Lack of sleep and the complaints of the neighbours force us to buy a smaller house for the cat. Our lawyer assures us that this is our best option, but he is also the lawyer for the cat, so we don't entirely trust him. We cannot afford a lawyer of our own. Our money goes toward tending the houses and buying a lot of kibble.
The cat is young and could live twenty years, long enough to outlast the university careers of our newly-born children. They are not allowed to visit the cat lest our legal situation become complicated: if the children ever feed it, they are required to share a portion of the debt which the cat represents, saddling them with responsibilities they are too young to handle.
The lawyer had given us a paper which certified the cat was sterile, but when kittens begin urinating on our front porch we realize the uncertainty of chemical sterilization. We are not allowed to touch the kittens without permission, which our lawyer refuses to grant, even after our own children die overseas in the Infant Wars. The kittens become our heirs. We must provide for them and their offspring, and rather than look at them every day we send them to subsequent and much smaller houses that we buy for them in the suburbs.
Our first home, the most beautiful one, we bequeath to the kittens. We move into the smallest home. It smells like urine and its furniture is scratched, and there are scraps of fur everywhere. It is hard to stand up because the rooms are so tiny.
Shortly afterward, and with no explanation, the houses burn down and our tragedy ends. We rent a bachelor apartment because we are too old to start over again. At night we are haunted by small burning kittens and their smoldering toys, which they jangle into and out of our one and only closet.
Showing posts with label my fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label my fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, September 11, 2011
Saturday, September 10, 2011
"The Dancehall"
After Lou paid off his debts he went to the cheaper bars, the ones without pretty girls. He got into a drunken fight over a game of pool but nobody cared because he didn't hurt anybody, he just pushed and yelled a lot. In another place, however, he tried to steal a bottle of whiskey and got hit in the face by a bouncer. He spent the weekend in jail, nursing his eye and playing checkers with the two fat cops who were sometimes nice to him.
He was sober when he got out. His monthly cheque was waiting in his mailbox and he knew he couldn't handle the really cheap bars, at least not right now, so he cashed the cheque and went to the dancehall.
The girl with the orange dress was on the floor, easy to spot. This was the woman who Lou liked. She was an exaggerated pin-up, just this side of ridiculous, a starved man's fantasy after years in barracks, hospital wards, and drunk tanks. His buddy Corman had said "Nobody looks like that for real," but he and Corman weren't friends anymore.
Smiling in the toothy, inappropriate way she did when she danced with somebody, the woman was clutching the back of a thug who swayed awkwardly beside the stage. She deserved better than the veterans and dock workers, Lou had decided. Better than the customers who were barely more respectable than him with his scuffed shoes and his frayed suit jacket.
Lou felt like he was spinning and his mouth was dry. He wobbled to the bar, timing it so he could cross paths with her -- Suzette, her name was -- and she put her hand over her eye and said "elegant shiner!" while swaying into the restroom. He touched his face and looked sideways into the bar mirror, where he could see the thug lighting a cigarette and watching him.
Later, after a few drinks, Lou had stopped thinking about his eye and the thug and he was looking straight into the mirror, watching the girl in the bursting orange dress dance in a haze behind the bottles.
"Everybody loves Suzette," said the bartender. He leaned close and Lou could smell his toothpaste. "She's a kook, though."
"How so?"
"Says she's from Mars and came here by accident. Says she's going home on the next flight out of here." The bartender shrugged. "Everybody knows she's a kook."
"Nothing surprises me," said Lou, "I just got out of jail."
"You should have taken a shower first." Apparently this was the last drink Lou would get here.
He managed to grab the girl's arm on his way out. "I hear you're from outer space," he said, and the thug punched him right below the ear, professional. After that, in the drunk tank, the two fat cops held his hat just out of reach while Lou jumped up and tried to grab for it.
He was sober when he got out. His monthly cheque was waiting in his mailbox and he knew he couldn't handle the really cheap bars, at least not right now, so he cashed the cheque and went to the dancehall.
The girl with the orange dress was on the floor, easy to spot. This was the woman who Lou liked. She was an exaggerated pin-up, just this side of ridiculous, a starved man's fantasy after years in barracks, hospital wards, and drunk tanks. His buddy Corman had said "Nobody looks like that for real," but he and Corman weren't friends anymore.
Smiling in the toothy, inappropriate way she did when she danced with somebody, the woman was clutching the back of a thug who swayed awkwardly beside the stage. She deserved better than the veterans and dock workers, Lou had decided. Better than the customers who were barely more respectable than him with his scuffed shoes and his frayed suit jacket.
Lou felt like he was spinning and his mouth was dry. He wobbled to the bar, timing it so he could cross paths with her -- Suzette, her name was -- and she put her hand over her eye and said "elegant shiner!" while swaying into the restroom. He touched his face and looked sideways into the bar mirror, where he could see the thug lighting a cigarette and watching him.
Later, after a few drinks, Lou had stopped thinking about his eye and the thug and he was looking straight into the mirror, watching the girl in the bursting orange dress dance in a haze behind the bottles.
"Everybody loves Suzette," said the bartender. He leaned close and Lou could smell his toothpaste. "She's a kook, though."
"How so?"
"Says she's from Mars and came here by accident. Says she's going home on the next flight out of here." The bartender shrugged. "Everybody knows she's a kook."
"Nothing surprises me," said Lou, "I just got out of jail."
"You should have taken a shower first." Apparently this was the last drink Lou would get here.
He managed to grab the girl's arm on his way out. "I hear you're from outer space," he said, and the thug punched him right below the ear, professional. After that, in the drunk tank, the two fat cops held his hat just out of reach while Lou jumped up and tried to grab for it.
Monday, September 05, 2011
"The Pick-Up"
I didn't see anything interesting in the stores and I didn't have any money. When I talked to the boy at the shoe store he kept rearranging his shoes and he said, "Shouldn't you go home and have dinner?"
I sat in the coffee shop. I held my textbook open just like I was reading it and watched businessmen coming in out, their suits with little creases in them, pants sweaty around their crotches because of the heat. I sat in the black shadow of the investment bank that was visibly moving across my table, feeling my own sweat drying between my shoulder blades and between my breasts
I read for a while. My legs were stiff and tingling and my neck was getting sore, and there was a man standing at my table who said, "Good book?"
I nodded. "It's just regular biology. I forgot my highlighter."
His suit was like the others, but so fresh it looked like it had just come off the hanger. "You can have some of this if you want it," he said, gesturing with his coffee cup. "I only bought it so I could talk to you." As if for inspection he lifted his hands so I could see his clean fingernails, the little pink cuticles. He smelled like the seats in an orange Volkswagon car.
My own fingernails needed clipping, I remembered.
We crept outward in his car, the windows rolled up and the AC blasting. He played '60s rock too loud on the radio and his knuckles were tense, his hand jerking the gearshift.
"What do you do for a living?" I asked. He hadn't looked at me since I'd gotten into the car. He was an excellent driver. He was scrupulous about the right-of-way. "I'm an Biology major," I said. "Third year."
He nodded. "I do financing. Financial stuff. Banking." He didn't answer any other questions.
By the time we'd pulled into his driveway my face was hot and my jaw had a tough knot in it. It was hard to recognize anything without my glasses on, but I thought I knew where I was. I tripped over one of the shrubs beside his porch. "Careful," he said. "Jesus, don't worry."
Everything was orderly in the front hallway. He walked through every room of the ground floor, yelling "Dora? Dora?" while I waited by the door. There was no answer.
"Go upstairs," he said, and walked around the rooms again. He hadn't loosened his tie or taken off his dress shoes.
All the carpets on the second floor showed the runners of a vacuum. I found an office and a nursery and then the master bedroom, a place like a museum. A woman's silky nightgown was over the back of a chair in front of a mirror, a table with hairbrushes and some pictures.
I took off my running shoes and belt and jeans, my awful tank top with the dolphin on it, my underwear. The room was cold with central air conditioning and I lay on top of the plush quilt, mostly naked. When I began to shiver I moved down under the covers and pulled my socks off and held them in my hands.
The traffic was going quiet outside. I looked up at the white whirls of plaster that nobody ever noticed, and my body began to warm up under the covers.
I sat in the coffee shop. I held my textbook open just like I was reading it and watched businessmen coming in out, their suits with little creases in them, pants sweaty around their crotches because of the heat. I sat in the black shadow of the investment bank that was visibly moving across my table, feeling my own sweat drying between my shoulder blades and between my breasts
I read for a while. My legs were stiff and tingling and my neck was getting sore, and there was a man standing at my table who said, "Good book?"
I nodded. "It's just regular biology. I forgot my highlighter."
His suit was like the others, but so fresh it looked like it had just come off the hanger. "You can have some of this if you want it," he said, gesturing with his coffee cup. "I only bought it so I could talk to you." As if for inspection he lifted his hands so I could see his clean fingernails, the little pink cuticles. He smelled like the seats in an orange Volkswagon car.
My own fingernails needed clipping, I remembered.
We crept outward in his car, the windows rolled up and the AC blasting. He played '60s rock too loud on the radio and his knuckles were tense, his hand jerking the gearshift.
"What do you do for a living?" I asked. He hadn't looked at me since I'd gotten into the car. He was an excellent driver. He was scrupulous about the right-of-way. "I'm an Biology major," I said. "Third year."
He nodded. "I do financing. Financial stuff. Banking." He didn't answer any other questions.
By the time we'd pulled into his driveway my face was hot and my jaw had a tough knot in it. It was hard to recognize anything without my glasses on, but I thought I knew where I was. I tripped over one of the shrubs beside his porch. "Careful," he said. "Jesus, don't worry."
Everything was orderly in the front hallway. He walked through every room of the ground floor, yelling "Dora? Dora?" while I waited by the door. There was no answer.
"Go upstairs," he said, and walked around the rooms again. He hadn't loosened his tie or taken off his dress shoes.
All the carpets on the second floor showed the runners of a vacuum. I found an office and a nursery and then the master bedroom, a place like a museum. A woman's silky nightgown was over the back of a chair in front of a mirror, a table with hairbrushes and some pictures.
I took off my running shoes and belt and jeans, my awful tank top with the dolphin on it, my underwear. The room was cold with central air conditioning and I lay on top of the plush quilt, mostly naked. When I began to shiver I moved down under the covers and pulled my socks off and held them in my hands.
The traffic was going quiet outside. I looked up at the white whirls of plaster that nobody ever noticed, and my body began to warm up under the covers.
Monday, August 08, 2011
Three Arrivals, Always in the Morning (Part Three)
"...the police officer said to him, 'I'm not gonna charge you if you take my advice: respect your parents. They brought you into this world. They feed you, they clothe you, they send you to school. When you're a fine young man then you'll do your father proud.'
"Then he went to Fort Murray. He said, 'Dad, I'm leaving home.' I said, 'You're always welcome back here, but make sure you've got the money...it costs money to go to Fort Murray.'
"Well, he was good for a while, but then he fell in with these kids, drinkin' and causin' trouble. So I booked a flight and went over there, he didn't even know I was coming. I went into his place and he wasn't there, but another kid was there. This kid said 'I'm just staying here until James gets back,' and I said, 'No you aren't!' And I straightened that kid out.
"One day James called me and said 'Dad, I want to buy this house but I don't have the money.' So I sent him some money and told him that he'd better make sure he saved for the rest and make sure he got that house.
"Well, now he's in Alberta and he has a four-car garage. Married a nice lady, gave me a grandson."
Meanwhile, among the homeless, the conversation is about the weather and religion, and about holiday meals and the churches that have offered them charity in the bitter cold. The elderly -- who have always had homes, and now flee them out of loneliness -- talk with disgust about the celebrity who was spotted at the mall: his terrible music, his unearned celebrity, their own unconcern that they wish today's youth would share.
"Then he went to Fort Murray. He said, 'Dad, I'm leaving home.' I said, 'You're always welcome back here, but make sure you've got the money...it costs money to go to Fort Murray.'
"Well, he was good for a while, but then he fell in with these kids, drinkin' and causin' trouble. So I booked a flight and went over there, he didn't even know I was coming. I went into his place and he wasn't there, but another kid was there. This kid said 'I'm just staying here until James gets back,' and I said, 'No you aren't!' And I straightened that kid out.
"One day James called me and said 'Dad, I want to buy this house but I don't have the money.' So I sent him some money and told him that he'd better make sure he saved for the rest and make sure he got that house.
"Well, now he's in Alberta and he has a four-car garage. Married a nice lady, gave me a grandson."
Meanwhile, among the homeless, the conversation is about the weather and religion, and about holiday meals and the churches that have offered them charity in the bitter cold. The elderly -- who have always had homes, and now flee them out of loneliness -- talk with disgust about the celebrity who was spotted at the mall: his terrible music, his unearned celebrity, their own unconcern that they wish today's youth would share.
Thursday, August 04, 2011
Three Arrivals, Always in the Morning (Part Two)
The shopping mall is only open because winter shelters require arbitrary schedules. Now, before 9am, it entertains the elderly and the workers themselves. Bored security guards fold their arms over their windbreakers and lean on empty kiosks, talking about hockey. There are beautiful young women everywhere, dressed immaculately, with elaborate hairdos and high-heeled footwear. Their faces are closed and inwardly-turned, they carry bagged breakfasts in as-yet functional hands.
Only the lunch ladies are eternal, always halfway between exhaustion and crisis, constantly patrolling the tables in this cavern which is spotless, sad, echoing, and almost empty.
I barely exist here. The lights serve no purpose but to guide the labour and to keep the elderly from falling down. The lights are not meant for me, they're brilliant point-of-purchase spotlights and soft pink gels that stupidly reach out to the very people who work there. The music sounds strange in a maze of caverns without enough moving bodies, like it's pushing hard to enter the world. No patrons, just the employees, who don't know each other well enough. They walk around, killing time, still wearing their winter jackets, from store to coffee shop and back again.
But for the elderly, this is their adult education center. They are friendly and familiar with each other. At tables they sit side-by-side, their eyelines parallel in the manner of old married couples who know each other so well. They've brought newspapers and they feel safe leaving their belongings behind during their frequent trips to the bathroom. They support each other and they have nothing to steal except porkpie hats and keyrings and pictures of the grandchildren that are too small for blunt fingers to handle.
A painted woman on the window has vibrant betty-bangs and she's promising to reveal a secret. Even at the best of times that secret would be elusive, but now her presence is taunting and irritating, signaling "Come in!" beside a door that's been locked all night.
Only the lunch ladies are eternal, always halfway between exhaustion and crisis, constantly patrolling the tables in this cavern which is spotless, sad, echoing, and almost empty.
I barely exist here. The lights serve no purpose but to guide the labour and to keep the elderly from falling down. The lights are not meant for me, they're brilliant point-of-purchase spotlights and soft pink gels that stupidly reach out to the very people who work there. The music sounds strange in a maze of caverns without enough moving bodies, like it's pushing hard to enter the world. No patrons, just the employees, who don't know each other well enough. They walk around, killing time, still wearing their winter jackets, from store to coffee shop and back again.
But for the elderly, this is their adult education center. They are friendly and familiar with each other. At tables they sit side-by-side, their eyelines parallel in the manner of old married couples who know each other so well. They've brought newspapers and they feel safe leaving their belongings behind during their frequent trips to the bathroom. They support each other and they have nothing to steal except porkpie hats and keyrings and pictures of the grandchildren that are too small for blunt fingers to handle.
A painted woman on the window has vibrant betty-bangs and she's promising to reveal a secret. Even at the best of times that secret would be elusive, but now her presence is taunting and irritating, signaling "Come in!" beside a door that's been locked all night.
Tuesday, August 02, 2011
Bells Bring Birds and Memories
Far off to my right, churchbells ring an epiphany of dubious quality. God says, "This is it, Creation! You are on to something!" It is no louder than the children squealing in the splashpark or the overworked cicadas, but the bells grab my attention because they are musical and they are novel.
Called by the bells and looking for the origin, a chorus line of geese begin their long slow march across the grass. They are not deterred by anything except for the Korean woman who wants her husband to stand with them for a photograph. It is impossible to coordinate: he approaches, they veer away, each goose turning diagonal for a moment to yield their passage. Thwarted, the Korean man attempts to corral ducks instead, and then he gives up and walks away.
The heat and the bells blur yesterday into today: there's nobody here to tell us about slaughter. No man offers cures for laryngitis as suffered by sloe-eyed and apparently vacant waitresses. Tourists do not gasp for the last drop of lemon water from an antique glass. Yesterday continues to intrude: the arts are overpriced, the elderly move slowly, papa-goose grunts his dissatisfaction and the children are making animal noises. The Goose Girl isn't here...I'm 42 days late.
The churchbells stop and are replaced by the sound of a dump-truck in reverse.
Called by the bells and looking for the origin, a chorus line of geese begin their long slow march across the grass. They are not deterred by anything except for the Korean woman who wants her husband to stand with them for a photograph. It is impossible to coordinate: he approaches, they veer away, each goose turning diagonal for a moment to yield their passage. Thwarted, the Korean man attempts to corral ducks instead, and then he gives up and walks away.
The heat and the bells blur yesterday into today: there's nobody here to tell us about slaughter. No man offers cures for laryngitis as suffered by sloe-eyed and apparently vacant waitresses. Tourists do not gasp for the last drop of lemon water from an antique glass. Yesterday continues to intrude: the arts are overpriced, the elderly move slowly, papa-goose grunts his dissatisfaction and the children are making animal noises. The Goose Girl isn't here...I'm 42 days late.
The churchbells stop and are replaced by the sound of a dump-truck in reverse.
Monday, August 01, 2011
Fat Americans and Skinny Italians
Italians conspire and shush politics with their wife-birds, bedraggled, bluntly confused. They are Europe's ambassadors to this crass continent of progress and cannibalism; we are the ones who fall the fastest, but our huge gravity will pull them down with us, all those staring dark-eyed peasants and pilgrims and artists. They would declare us guilty if we believed in their gods but their quaint piety is antichrist to our admittedly divided forces.
"You have broken the rules and wandered too far from us!" they scream at the back-ends of our boats, and we respond: "Denial of your beloved elder statesmen! They are too fat on food that took them too long to cook and eat! We, here, eat only the quick things, which we have invented ourselves, the burgers, the beans! Our fat is made of proteins alien to your history, and therefore we are brand new men and women!"
"You have broken the rules and wandered too far from us!" they scream at the back-ends of our boats, and we respond: "Denial of your beloved elder statesmen! They are too fat on food that took them too long to cook and eat! We, here, eat only the quick things, which we have invented ourselves, the burgers, the beans! Our fat is made of proteins alien to your history, and therefore we are brand new men and women!"
Sunday, July 03, 2011
Hot!
Our city is a sinkhole, falling under the weight of industry and families and new steel buildings. Our gravity pulls us so deep that we can only fill our skies with smog...it has to go somewhere! We want it gone but it won't go away!
Two city's worth of blacktop and pollution broils us in our clothes. We have sore shoulders from hugging the shady spots, and when those places reach critical mass, we fight or we retreat to our fridges. The sun has made us needy, every citizen is a gatekeeper of boats, curtains, private routes to heaven. Instead of love we have our own burning weight; we will not be tricked into embraces which only make us sweat. Sweet nothings are lost in the whir of fans and patio stereos. There is no room in our brains for sex or tipsiness when everything about us is pain.
Two city's worth of blacktop and pollution broils us in our clothes. We have sore shoulders from hugging the shady spots, and when those places reach critical mass, we fight or we retreat to our fridges. The sun has made us needy, every citizen is a gatekeeper of boats, curtains, private routes to heaven. Instead of love we have our own burning weight; we will not be tricked into embraces which only make us sweat. Sweet nothings are lost in the whir of fans and patio stereos. There is no room in our brains for sex or tipsiness when everything about us is pain.
Friday, July 01, 2011
Canada Day!
Flowers are entirely Canadian on Canada Day; nobody in any other nation has these yellow flowers pollinated by RGB finches who wear spotless feather-robes! We've owned these flowers since we arrived in this country. Before that they were untamed and savage...their water came from streams bounded by beavers and soil and sparse human excrement. But then we came in ships with our rats, and we imposed order on savagery, and today these flowers bloom in coordination with us, fed by nutrients and liquids that we have previously inspected (or at least touched gently with smokestacks), and when these flowers bloom for us they shout "CANADA DAY!"
Tuesday, February 08, 2011
Creepy Pedro Reviews "Generation X Video"
I arrived early to Mistress Quickly's tavern and found Dr. Johnson, as anticipated, already arguing and drowning in his cups.
"A theatrical performance can be appreciated only from the height of a man's two eyes!" he was shouting at Quickley's dog. "Your opinions lack stature, in every sense of the word! The day I take seriously the theatrical criticisms of a BEAGLE is the day I deign to piss in the cup of a Scotsman!"
To this the dog expelled a fart so enormous it should have filled the very halls of Pandemonium (if not it had a natural inclination toward ascension), and so gusty that the lamps flared in a dangerous fashion, and so rank of gas that Madame Quickly must have feared for the health of her customers if she were not lost in merriment, cackling wildly, dugs a-heaving, one hand slapping the unfortunate Dr. Johnson's recently-singed peruke.
"Oh dear Samuel!" she whooped. "Put that dog's arse-trumpet i' your dictionary, under the letter BRAPPP! It hath twice the politic of all the Beedle's bollocks you've wrote so far!"
"'That fart was wise indeed," Dr. Johnson admitted. "Mingere cum bumbis, rec saluberrima est lumbis."
"Where be our guest tonight?" I asked the silent tapper, and the he nodded to the tavern door. A man of great distinction stood on the threshold. "Two bags of oats for my mount, and don't forget the sauce!" he yelled to the Hostler. "My mare doth love the sauce!"
"Dearest Pedro!" cried Dr. Johnson, raising his bulk and motioning to Mistress Quickley for another bottle of sack. "You've tarried so, we half expected to find ye lost or slain!"
"Only one of those briefly, and I charge each of you to divine which," he said, and even the Tapper laughed at so clever a jest.
"Lost, I gather! How now, Boswell, this shifty rogue in the sheepskin doublet is weaver Pedro, a man of wit, a master artisan, and the creepiest fellow I have ever had the fortune to meet."
"I have heard of you, slimy toady," said Pedro pleasantly as we shook our hands.
"A weaver you say?"
"Aye, the halls from St. Peter's to far off Araby are graced with my warp and woof."
Mistress Quickly, having arrived with the sack and seeing entry for another fulsome jest, shouted, "A better treat then we experienced not 'alf an hour hence, which were this doggie's FART and woof!" All fell about in that curious British way so often acted in Shakespeare's bawdy "Carry On, Dead King," of holding wide the mouth and turning head from viz to viz, accompanied by a scattershot laughing as loud and regular as Antwerp's artillery fire.
"Mistress!" Dr. Johnson wiped a tear from his eye. "I grant you, though art quick!"
"How could one doubt it...'tis my proper name!" And once again we cackled, as was our comick nature. But throughout the merriment our weaver, Pedro, had been wiping something from his eye, and afore long Dr. Johnson made note of his sad countenance.
"Enough of these quibbles. Pedro, what troubles you? Why the creepy frowning viz?"
Pedro shook off Dr. Johnson's embrace and rose from the table, commanding the attention of all in the tavern. "I mourn the death of an idea, a dream, the final passing of culture, the end of the most companiable banter on our old and noble isle...the closing of our beloved entertainment vendor, Generation X!" Pedro collapsed to the table and sobbed, schoolgirl-like, into his sack.
"Have you not grown reconciled, dear Pedro?" asked Dr. Johnson. "It has been sad for us, true, but 'tis no reason to cry in your drink. For everything there is a season and an allotted time. Even the jolliest of men shall die before he wish. May we all go in the manner of Generation X -- in our hearty primes -- before we descend into ignominity and penury, our metaphorical halls and stages used only for wenching and bear-baiting and games of 'Throw The Apple at The Captured Esquimaux.'"
"Oh, the porn, which I so craved..."
"Man can live without porn, and without arty foreign films too. I have explained all this to Boswell."
"Mr. Johnson is right," I said. "There is peer-to-peer file sharing."
"Pah!" said Pedro. "Barely 300 baud in my wattle-and-daub hut so far from the city. It's trouble enough for a man to play a full game of Hunt The Wumpus or Schmoo, let alone to download the entirety of 'Michael Palin's Dugs-a-Plenty' in high definition."
"Patience, Pedro...drink of my sack."
"And where will I see YOUR films?" cried Pedro. "This latest--"
Dr. Johnson slapped his brainpan, sending his peruke into the fire. "Blast it man, I told you, I am not that blackamoor actor you prate upon!"
"Snakes On An Omnibus, Dr. Johnson! 'Twas your finest role! Ever since I first set my viz 'pon the premiere performance of Pulp Fiction at the Globe--"
"I have said time and time again--"
"Three encores! And John Travolta dancing!"
"Enough!" Dr. Johnson bellowed, and the babble of anachronistic cross-generational dialect ceased. "My peruke is in flames once again, Pedro, as is so often the way when we meet. I will trade all the porn in the world if you will stop this tiresome contrivance of mistaken identity."
"I shall consent, Dr. Johnson, if only you would enact a bitter moment from 'Do the Right Thing.'"
At this the enraged Doctor lurched into the thousand ticks and vapours to which he was subject in times of distress. "A turd i' your teeth!" he shouted. "Johnny Bums in Scratchland!"
Pedro rose from his seat. "Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure, but I must be off...Generation X is disclosing its wares and I must secure 'Michael Palin's Arsey-Turvy' before it is gone. You will excuse me." I tilted my hat, and Dr. Johnson, unable to cease his strange hopping perambulations, merely scowled from beneath his armpits.
"Let's rob a carriage and dominate a play!" shouted the fat knight in the corner, but for once nobody was listening to him.
"A theatrical performance can be appreciated only from the height of a man's two eyes!" he was shouting at Quickley's dog. "Your opinions lack stature, in every sense of the word! The day I take seriously the theatrical criticisms of a BEAGLE is the day I deign to piss in the cup of a Scotsman!"
To this the dog expelled a fart so enormous it should have filled the very halls of Pandemonium (if not it had a natural inclination toward ascension), and so gusty that the lamps flared in a dangerous fashion, and so rank of gas that Madame Quickly must have feared for the health of her customers if she were not lost in merriment, cackling wildly, dugs a-heaving, one hand slapping the unfortunate Dr. Johnson's recently-singed peruke.
"Oh dear Samuel!" she whooped. "Put that dog's arse-trumpet i' your dictionary, under the letter BRAPPP! It hath twice the politic of all the Beedle's bollocks you've wrote so far!"
"'That fart was wise indeed," Dr. Johnson admitted. "Mingere cum bumbis, rec saluberrima est lumbis."
"Where be our guest tonight?" I asked the silent tapper, and the he nodded to the tavern door. A man of great distinction stood on the threshold. "Two bags of oats for my mount, and don't forget the sauce!" he yelled to the Hostler. "My mare doth love the sauce!"
"Dearest Pedro!" cried Dr. Johnson, raising his bulk and motioning to Mistress Quickley for another bottle of sack. "You've tarried so, we half expected to find ye lost or slain!"
"Only one of those briefly, and I charge each of you to divine which," he said, and even the Tapper laughed at so clever a jest.
"Lost, I gather! How now, Boswell, this shifty rogue in the sheepskin doublet is weaver Pedro, a man of wit, a master artisan, and the creepiest fellow I have ever had the fortune to meet."
"I have heard of you, slimy toady," said Pedro pleasantly as we shook our hands.
"A weaver you say?"
"Aye, the halls from St. Peter's to far off Araby are graced with my warp and woof."
Mistress Quickly, having arrived with the sack and seeing entry for another fulsome jest, shouted, "A better treat then we experienced not 'alf an hour hence, which were this doggie's FART and woof!" All fell about in that curious British way so often acted in Shakespeare's bawdy "Carry On, Dead King," of holding wide the mouth and turning head from viz to viz, accompanied by a scattershot laughing as loud and regular as Antwerp's artillery fire.
"Mistress!" Dr. Johnson wiped a tear from his eye. "I grant you, though art quick!"
"How could one doubt it...'tis my proper name!" And once again we cackled, as was our comick nature. But throughout the merriment our weaver, Pedro, had been wiping something from his eye, and afore long Dr. Johnson made note of his sad countenance.
"Enough of these quibbles. Pedro, what troubles you? Why the creepy frowning viz?"
Pedro shook off Dr. Johnson's embrace and rose from the table, commanding the attention of all in the tavern. "I mourn the death of an idea, a dream, the final passing of culture, the end of the most companiable banter on our old and noble isle...the closing of our beloved entertainment vendor, Generation X!" Pedro collapsed to the table and sobbed, schoolgirl-like, into his sack.
"Have you not grown reconciled, dear Pedro?" asked Dr. Johnson. "It has been sad for us, true, but 'tis no reason to cry in your drink. For everything there is a season and an allotted time. Even the jolliest of men shall die before he wish. May we all go in the manner of Generation X -- in our hearty primes -- before we descend into ignominity and penury, our metaphorical halls and stages used only for wenching and bear-baiting and games of 'Throw The Apple at The Captured Esquimaux.'"
"Oh, the porn, which I so craved..."
"Man can live without porn, and without arty foreign films too. I have explained all this to Boswell."
"Mr. Johnson is right," I said. "There is peer-to-peer file sharing."
"Pah!" said Pedro. "Barely 300 baud in my wattle-and-daub hut so far from the city. It's trouble enough for a man to play a full game of Hunt The Wumpus or Schmoo, let alone to download the entirety of 'Michael Palin's Dugs-a-Plenty' in high definition."
"Patience, Pedro...drink of my sack."
"And where will I see YOUR films?" cried Pedro. "This latest--"
Dr. Johnson slapped his brainpan, sending his peruke into the fire. "Blast it man, I told you, I am not that blackamoor actor you prate upon!"
"Snakes On An Omnibus, Dr. Johnson! 'Twas your finest role! Ever since I first set my viz 'pon the premiere performance of Pulp Fiction at the Globe--"
"I have said time and time again--"
"Three encores! And John Travolta dancing!"
"Enough!" Dr. Johnson bellowed, and the babble of anachronistic cross-generational dialect ceased. "My peruke is in flames once again, Pedro, as is so often the way when we meet. I will trade all the porn in the world if you will stop this tiresome contrivance of mistaken identity."
"I shall consent, Dr. Johnson, if only you would enact a bitter moment from 'Do the Right Thing.'"
At this the enraged Doctor lurched into the thousand ticks and vapours to which he was subject in times of distress. "A turd i' your teeth!" he shouted. "Johnny Bums in Scratchland!"
Pedro rose from his seat. "Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure, but I must be off...Generation X is disclosing its wares and I must secure 'Michael Palin's Arsey-Turvy' before it is gone. You will excuse me." I tilted my hat, and Dr. Johnson, unable to cease his strange hopping perambulations, merely scowled from beneath his armpits.
"Let's rob a carriage and dominate a play!" shouted the fat knight in the corner, but for once nobody was listening to him.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
"Picked You"
I picked you because of your sweet voice,
your softened Rs and your awkward drawling vuh.
"How vewwy stwange" you said to me when I made a joke
and you didn't look nervous, like you didn't know you were doing it.
Talking to you, I thought, must be endlessly pleasant.
I could hear your voice and not even notice my own.
I picked you because your job conferred the impression of brilliance.
You did not have the eyes of the dim and the vacant.
Your wit must be as polished as your Rs, I thought,
your temperament fine, your patience velvet.
I would really like to hear about the things you did at work today,
I really would like to know.
I picked you for your anamorphic hips
as wide as they could naturally be,
and the way you goaded your body with a touch of grace
though you were not a floating swan, if we're honest,
and you're always pulling at your sweater
because designers draw blanks when they look at you.
I've picked you, and I must be a prize!
I'll write about you and imagine you
in quick-cut scenarios that I swear are mostly innocent.
I will, simultaneously, view you as a perfect vision,
and recognize in my heart that you usually don't look
the way I've seen you, and might never look that way again.
In terms of gallant action I will glance at you over shelves
and admire your valiant, struggling poise
and wonder if you are in a bad mood because you're working,
or because I'm watching you,
or because I'm watching you without saying anything,
like a screwed-up scary murderer would.
your softened Rs and your awkward drawling vuh.
"How vewwy stwange" you said to me when I made a joke
and you didn't look nervous, like you didn't know you were doing it.
Talking to you, I thought, must be endlessly pleasant.
I could hear your voice and not even notice my own.
I picked you because your job conferred the impression of brilliance.
You did not have the eyes of the dim and the vacant.
Your wit must be as polished as your Rs, I thought,
your temperament fine, your patience velvet.
I would really like to hear about the things you did at work today,
I really would like to know.
I picked you for your anamorphic hips
as wide as they could naturally be,
and the way you goaded your body with a touch of grace
though you were not a floating swan, if we're honest,
and you're always pulling at your sweater
because designers draw blanks when they look at you.
I've picked you, and I must be a prize!
I'll write about you and imagine you
in quick-cut scenarios that I swear are mostly innocent.
I will, simultaneously, view you as a perfect vision,
and recognize in my heart that you usually don't look
the way I've seen you, and might never look that way again.
In terms of gallant action I will glance at you over shelves
and admire your valiant, struggling poise
and wonder if you are in a bad mood because you're working,
or because I'm watching you,
or because I'm watching you without saying anything,
like a screwed-up scary murderer would.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Three Arrivals, Always in the Morning #1
Every weekday we'd drive to the parking lot of the obscure company and stand on the pvement, eating take-out breakfasts and making awkward conversation in the cold. The sun would come up and melt the frost in the wasteland of scrub and river around and below. When conversation faltered I'd watch that big empty space while we shivered and waited for Oscar to come out of his office.
Oscar relished our days together because we were young idealists and he was a wise, no-nonsense populist with extreme ideas. He'd bring us fresh coffee and reveal inklings of a generalized xenophobic hated. When he'd finished venting and the sun was up we'd drive our rickety vans a hundred kilometres, avoiding the weigh station with a long detour through undeveloped hills and farms, returning to the highway just in time to rendezvous again at the bankrupt company building.
The building was the only one in sight, otherwise just cars and trees and a lone microwave tower that I never got to visit. Oscar would unlock the front gate and then lock it again behind us, and for the rest of the day we'd be imprisoned, doing something that was probably illegal, protected only by our presumed innocence and the big steel fences.
Oscar gave us clipboards, then he'd disappear to prepare the vans and do his own mysterious paperwork. We, the employees randomly drawn from a temporary student labour force, picked an area within the building and systematically dismantled it. In the garage where the gardening tools for the bankrupt company were stored, we'd disregard safety regulations and hang from high shelves, dropping picks and shovels into the hands of fellow workers who would load them into Oscars' trucks.
Oscar was not innocent, he was informed and guilty and cheerful about his job. He told us to remove everything but the paint on the fresh new walls. In the bathrooms we'd unscrew soap dispensers and lighting fixtures and toilet paper rolls. In the meeting rooms we'd take down corkboards and put all the push-pins into the drawers of desks that we'd also move downstairs, out the door, into the vans. Then we'd go back up and remove the carpets, piece by piece.
One day, while we were on our lunch break, a black car arrived and a man in a suit approached the fence. He tried to give us a piece of paper. "Just take it and hand it to your supervisor," he kept saying, pushing the rolled-up paper through the fence, and the three of us stood back, afraid he'd grab us and take us to jail. We said no, no, no. Oscar had told us never to take papers from anybody. The man smiled at us and drove away, and when Oscar heard about it he was proud.
We drove the vans back the same way we'd come, even more careful to avoid the government weigh stations. The vans were old and not meant to hold a company's entire assets. They were sluggish and creaking and they rode low to the road with wide gaps in their carriages, and it was a relief to return to our starting point and unload the contents into storage sheds.
Desks, tools, carpets, fax machines, and paper documetation...everything was pushed into the sheds and locked up, hidden away from everybody who wanted it. Oscar was very happy at the end of every day, standing under a sky that had become warm and lazy, watching us spray water into the vans that leaked rusty mud out of every crevice. Every day he'd say "See you tomorrow, kids!" until the last day, when we were finished, and we handed in our clipboards and he said "You never did any of this." We forgot everything we'd done, like he'd cast a magic spell.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Coming Up!
I'm not just sitting hunkered over the computer with my torn cartilage, rheumatic toes, and carpal tunnel syndrome...no, I'm totally active! And here are two events you can catch me at:
May 8th: "A Night Out with the Queens Part 2" at the Royal Canadian Galt Legion (4 Veterans Way, Galt)
I love a good legion, and I love a good hand-picked drag show with Victoria. Come out and see us perform! Doors at seven, show at eight, fun instantaneous.
May 12th: "A Truck Load of Poets" at DeSotos (1079 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto)
I'll be there as part of the release party for Jacknife Express #8, and I'll be -- gulp -- reading my fiction out loud for the first time in about fifteen years. Show from 8pm - 11pm.
May 8th: "A Night Out with the Queens Part 2" at the Royal Canadian Galt Legion (4 Veterans Way, Galt)
I love a good legion, and I love a good hand-picked drag show with Victoria. Come out and see us perform! Doors at seven, show at eight, fun instantaneous.
May 12th: "A Truck Load of Poets" at DeSotos (1079 St. Clair Avenue West, Toronto)
I'll be there as part of the release party for Jacknife Express #8, and I'll be -- gulp -- reading my fiction out loud for the first time in about fifteen years. Show from 8pm - 11pm.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
Creepy Pedro Reviews "Hell House"
Some people are worried about going to "The Hell House" after they die, so I will try to be accurate here instead of riding the winged Gorgon of Dante's fancy, no matter how often that Gorgon says "C'mon, Pedro, and ride me!"
The "Hell House" documentary was a powerful life-changing experience for me, not because I was ever a Pentecostal Person who killed my peers but because I have spent every one of my two-thousand lives inside "The Hell House." I do not expect this situation to change.
For example, in one life, my wife left me for a lover she met in a chat room for cat fanciers. I was the young girl who drank too much alcohol and saw a tree fall beside an old man, and yet that girl (who was I) did nothing and told nobody and perhaps even smiled. I burned my bra on the capital steps and then spent eternity eating the same food over and over again, while waitresses tormented me and made me continue to pay for the food even though it was just the same food over and over...as though it were all some kind of "Hell House!"
Like the children in "The Hell House" I learned that it is difficult to refuse homosexuality when it is slipped to me at a rave, because raves make you feel "out of this world" and are distracting for those who think in "slow-mo." My school teacher used to say to me: "WHAT IS YOUR HOMEWORK, PEDRO?" and I'd scream "I DON'T KNOW, STOP LAUGHING AT ME!" and the teacher would say "YOU'RE CREEPY, PEDRO, AND YOU ARE THIRTY-FIVE YEARS OLD!" and I'd scream "WHEN WILL IT END?" just before, fortunately, it ended. This is a bit like when "The Hell House" ended.
Other than that, however, the movie was booooring. I learned that the Pentecostal People in the film were not ageless demons who had existed "before Jesus time," but instead they were all from the south, and some of them were in fact very old. According to the man who appeared in the middle of this documentary, the Pentecostal People spent time in hell and wanted to warn us to go elsewhere for a while. One part of the torture was to wear a plastic bag, and another part was abortion. They would not allow the Dalai Llama to go into "The Hell House" because of a policy regarding animals. FOR THIS ALONE I SALUTE THEM!
One final thing to watch out for: at 48:10 minutes into the movie, the "Hell House" people spoke in a love language that I didn't understand! I did not understand that love! This should not surprise anybody but it made me feel terrible!
(Another of the "Creepy Pedro" movie review from Genxine, the literary organ of Generation X Video. This one is from August 25, 2007 and it contains portions that were removed from the printed version...perhaps because they were simply too creepy!)
Sunday, January 03, 2010
Creepy Pedro's Favourite Songs from Movies
- I was offended when Tina Turner sang "We Don't Need Another Pedro." In response to this insult I called her a "spoiled ham." When asked about this on television she called me "a no-talent meat-man," and we have not spoken since this incident.
- I was happier with her song called "Acid Queen" from "Tommy," which did not address me personally. But the song I REALLY liked in that movie was Ann-Margaret's rendition of "Beans, Beans, Beans!"
- "Indian Love Call," from I forget.
- In "Kiss Me Kate," when Ann Miller sings "Too Darn Hot," she is sexier than a cat with tap shoes!
- Songs about asteroids make me cry for obvious reasons.
- In "Forrest Gump," Tom Hanks farts in a way that I consider musical, if unstudied.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
"Boxcar"
Another odd little video that I finally finished this morning: "Boxcar."
What do you do when your neighbour parks his junker car on your front lawn? You turn it into a constructive project.
I took my camera and tripod and filmed every piece of the car that I considered to be interesting. Since the horizon was rarely level with the car itself, I made a decision to always orient the camera based on the car's surfaces, which I think was a mistake: it causes the surrounding surfaces (roads, hedges, etc.) to appear skewed in a distracting sort of way.
Eventually I got the hang of avoiding reflections, and I also realized that late-afternoon light is very pretty when it bounces off metal.
My original idea was to mix the video clips with painstakingly hand-edited stills of the car, to make it look like a cartoon in the midst of a live landscape. Then I decided that it was a "too-tricky-clever" idea without any real point.
And since I was reading Iain Sinclair's "Lights Out for the Territory," I found myself getting more interested in the style of a film he frequently wrote about: "London" by Patrick Keiller. I hadn't seen the film at the time, but Sinclair's description of droll narration, motionless camera, and no-nonsense cuts was subconsciously inspiring...I was also thinking about Peter Greenaway's "The Falls." By referencing objects in the clips themselves, I wrote a little story and tried to find images that reflected the mood (rather than the content) of the clips.
I intercut with black frames to break the monotony of the images, and I threw a deliberately glitchy shot into the middle for the same reason. The background sounds are the ones from the clips themselves, with rougher sounds (like busses) removed and lots of denoising to compensate for my camera's crappy mic.
I hope you like it!
What do you do when your neighbour parks his junker car on your front lawn? You turn it into a constructive project.
I took my camera and tripod and filmed every piece of the car that I considered to be interesting. Since the horizon was rarely level with the car itself, I made a decision to always orient the camera based on the car's surfaces, which I think was a mistake: it causes the surrounding surfaces (roads, hedges, etc.) to appear skewed in a distracting sort of way.
Eventually I got the hang of avoiding reflections, and I also realized that late-afternoon light is very pretty when it bounces off metal.
My original idea was to mix the video clips with painstakingly hand-edited stills of the car, to make it look like a cartoon in the midst of a live landscape. Then I decided that it was a "too-tricky-clever" idea without any real point.
And since I was reading Iain Sinclair's "Lights Out for the Territory," I found myself getting more interested in the style of a film he frequently wrote about: "London" by Patrick Keiller. I hadn't seen the film at the time, but Sinclair's description of droll narration, motionless camera, and no-nonsense cuts was subconsciously inspiring...I was also thinking about Peter Greenaway's "The Falls." By referencing objects in the clips themselves, I wrote a little story and tried to find images that reflected the mood (rather than the content) of the clips.
I intercut with black frames to break the monotony of the images, and I threw a deliberately glitchy shot into the middle for the same reason. The background sounds are the ones from the clips themselves, with rougher sounds (like busses) removed and lots of denoising to compensate for my camera's crappy mic.
I hope you like it!
Friday, May 29, 2009
"Attraction" by Muffy St. Bernard
The man with the grey toque leaned against her, using her shoulder to support himself. He could come no closer because there were too many people around the bar.
"I'm attracted to you," he said.
She thanked him for saying so.
"It's strange, this attraction I have, because I'm gay. It's not obvious to anybody. Even my friends don't know! They're back there." He gestured. His friends were at the end of the bar, lounging, staring, interested.
"Would you know that I'm gay if I didn't tell you first?" asked the man.
She said no, she wouldn't have guessed. He pushed his toque down to hide his hair and then he smiled. "I want you to keep this a secret," he said, "just between you and me. Don't tell anybody what I just told you. About me being gay."
She said she wouldn't tell anybody. She promised. There were so many people around that she couldn't uncross her legs without hitting somebody.
The man with the toque kept bumping her shoulder, swayed by the moving crowd, bumping and bumping, but he didn't seem to care. "This is significant for me because I'm not actually attracted to women, I just pretend, I do it all for show...but you're the first woman I've ever been attracted to and I wonder what that means. I wonder if it's important?"
She said she didn't know if it was important or not. He put his hand on the shoulder he'd been bumping.
"Will you make this a special night and sleep with me?"
She said no. She said she was sad that he had to hide his homosexuality from his friends but that she was simply not interested in having sex with him. She said that there was no chance of him ever having sex with her.
He didn't remove his hand. When one of her male friends brought her a drink, the man in the toque said "So that's how it is, is it?" and he scowled bitterly, but he didn't remove his hand.
He was silent for a while, bumping. "It would mean a lot to me, if we could have sex," he said finally. "Since I'm gay and this is significant."
She said no, and he said "Kiss me," and he tried to pull her away from her stool and she sat back again forcibly. "Kiss me please." He pulled her face towards his. "It would be special. My friends are watching." And they were; they were taking pictures with their cel phones.
She pushed him away. He sneered. "I can't believe I told you about my sexuality and you're just rejecting me," he said. "I can't believe I confessed my biggest secret to you, and you're not going to have sex with me. That's awful. It's like you really don't care."
Her male friend intervened, pushed his way in and telling the man to cool it. She finally managed to uncross her legs and she drank her drink behind the barrier of her friend's arm.
The man with the toque stretched across from the other side, hissing. "I can't believe this," he said. "I told you my biggest secret and then you got your boyfriend to attack me. I can't believe you'd do this to me. I can't believe you'd betray me like that."
"I'm attracted to you," he said.
She thanked him for saying so.
"It's strange, this attraction I have, because I'm gay. It's not obvious to anybody. Even my friends don't know! They're back there." He gestured. His friends were at the end of the bar, lounging, staring, interested.
"Would you know that I'm gay if I didn't tell you first?" asked the man.
She said no, she wouldn't have guessed. He pushed his toque down to hide his hair and then he smiled. "I want you to keep this a secret," he said, "just between you and me. Don't tell anybody what I just told you. About me being gay."
She said she wouldn't tell anybody. She promised. There were so many people around that she couldn't uncross her legs without hitting somebody.
The man with the toque kept bumping her shoulder, swayed by the moving crowd, bumping and bumping, but he didn't seem to care. "This is significant for me because I'm not actually attracted to women, I just pretend, I do it all for show...but you're the first woman I've ever been attracted to and I wonder what that means. I wonder if it's important?"
She said she didn't know if it was important or not. He put his hand on the shoulder he'd been bumping.
"Will you make this a special night and sleep with me?"
She said no. She said she was sad that he had to hide his homosexuality from his friends but that she was simply not interested in having sex with him. She said that there was no chance of him ever having sex with her.
He didn't remove his hand. When one of her male friends brought her a drink, the man in the toque said "So that's how it is, is it?" and he scowled bitterly, but he didn't remove his hand.
He was silent for a while, bumping. "It would mean a lot to me, if we could have sex," he said finally. "Since I'm gay and this is significant."
She said no, and he said "Kiss me," and he tried to pull her away from her stool and she sat back again forcibly. "Kiss me please." He pulled her face towards his. "It would be special. My friends are watching." And they were; they were taking pictures with their cel phones.
She pushed him away. He sneered. "I can't believe I told you about my sexuality and you're just rejecting me," he said. "I can't believe I confessed my biggest secret to you, and you're not going to have sex with me. That's awful. It's like you really don't care."
Her male friend intervened, pushed his way in and telling the man to cool it. She finally managed to uncross her legs and she drank her drink behind the barrier of her friend's arm.
The man with the toque stretched across from the other side, hissing. "I can't believe this," he said. "I told you my biggest secret and then you got your boyfriend to attack me. I can't believe you'd do this to me. I can't believe you'd betray me like that."
Wednesday, March 04, 2009
"The Man Who Will Come"
I didn't know at the time that the hotel clerk was Rob's messenger. If I'd realized I would have paid more attention to him, gotten a better look at him, but when he gave me the letter I thought he was just doing his job. I was living a different life back then.
In my room I took out the letter and read it. It was a short thing, written on stationary from a more expensive hotel than I had been placed in. "Dear Laurie," it said, "I have to talk to you about something important. Meet me at the cafe at six o'clock."
I went to the cafe and he didn't show up, so the next day I went back to the convention hall where we'd met and I drank water in the foyer and expected to see him walk past. Maybe the crowd was too large. I missed both of my seminars and I was angry.
I didn't understand what had happened until I saw the police cars outside his hotel. I thought he'd been arrested, but there was nothing about him in the paper the next day. If they'd caught him they would have reported it. I knew then that he was still alive.
The conference was over and my return flight was booked, so I left a message with the maid and rode the shuttle bus to the airport. I hoped to see Rob on the street or hear about him on the radio. Rob wasn't at the airport; I didn't know if he lived in the city or if he was just there for the conference, or if the conference itself was just a secret way for him to meet people in an unlikely setting.
At home I unpacked my bags and I couldn't find his letter. Either I'd forgotten to pack it or the airport security had removed it.
I pretended to live my old life because there was nothing to do but wait. I had the children on the weekends and they'd either sit in front of the TV or go out with their friends. When Chad wrestled Dino and Dino's wrist got broken I knew for sure that my old life had been a mistake.
The nurse at the hospital said I had pretty fingernails.
Rob was unable to contact me again. He'd taken a chance by telling me about his secret life in the convention hall. Obviously he'd found no other way to meet me since then. I didn't feel angry anymore, I understood his problem.
I pieced together his travels by reading the newspaper. He'd escaped a house fire. He'd witnessed a miraculous rescue, though in the article he claimed to have no CPR training, which must have been a lie. He may have been in the crowd at the opening of a highway. His pictures were blurry and his last name always changed, but Rob was still doing his secret job. I was thrilled.
Now, in my new life, I sit on the apartment steps and look out at the world that Rob still lives in. I don't do anything else because I don't know what to do. I know he'll come eventually, when he's able.
In my room I took out the letter and read it. It was a short thing, written on stationary from a more expensive hotel than I had been placed in. "Dear Laurie," it said, "I have to talk to you about something important. Meet me at the cafe at six o'clock."
I went to the cafe and he didn't show up, so the next day I went back to the convention hall where we'd met and I drank water in the foyer and expected to see him walk past. Maybe the crowd was too large. I missed both of my seminars and I was angry.
I didn't understand what had happened until I saw the police cars outside his hotel. I thought he'd been arrested, but there was nothing about him in the paper the next day. If they'd caught him they would have reported it. I knew then that he was still alive.
The conference was over and my return flight was booked, so I left a message with the maid and rode the shuttle bus to the airport. I hoped to see Rob on the street or hear about him on the radio. Rob wasn't at the airport; I didn't know if he lived in the city or if he was just there for the conference, or if the conference itself was just a secret way for him to meet people in an unlikely setting.
At home I unpacked my bags and I couldn't find his letter. Either I'd forgotten to pack it or the airport security had removed it.
I pretended to live my old life because there was nothing to do but wait. I had the children on the weekends and they'd either sit in front of the TV or go out with their friends. When Chad wrestled Dino and Dino's wrist got broken I knew for sure that my old life had been a mistake.
The nurse at the hospital said I had pretty fingernails.
Rob was unable to contact me again. He'd taken a chance by telling me about his secret life in the convention hall. Obviously he'd found no other way to meet me since then. I didn't feel angry anymore, I understood his problem.
I pieced together his travels by reading the newspaper. He'd escaped a house fire. He'd witnessed a miraculous rescue, though in the article he claimed to have no CPR training, which must have been a lie. He may have been in the crowd at the opening of a highway. His pictures were blurry and his last name always changed, but Rob was still doing his secret job. I was thrilled.
Now, in my new life, I sit on the apartment steps and look out at the world that Rob still lives in. I don't do anything else because I don't know what to do. I know he'll come eventually, when he's able.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
"Max and Nightingale"
The party is finally picking up. The smiles have become manic, toothy, like the grins of boxing fans anticipating a particularly good fight, not caring who wins as long as they can see the blood. It's going to be that kind of night.
My stomach feels like it has fallen off of Blondie's balcony. I've been a reluctant visitor at enough of these parties to make an educated guess about the sudden change in attitude; either there's been a newsworthy tragedy which I haven't been informed of yet -- an assassination, an earthquake, a bombing -- or a pathetic and volatile guest is about to arrive.
None of these prospects interest me and I consider finding a quieter place to sit or -- better yet -- escaping the party entirely, but a slumming debutante has blocked the room's exit and is attacking the radio with her shoe. An elderly patron wearing a red bozo wig has sunk down into the couch and is being pulled apart from various directions, apparently unable to stand. Everybody is flaunting their drinks, and most of them are attractive, clean, stylish, and well-to-do. Most of them I know by reputation, some of them by name, but none of them intimately.
I just wish I could find Max, really.
Senator Worthy arrives, changing my corner seat from a cozy retreat into a fetid cul de sac. His toothy odour and desperate need for attention make me edgy. I know the dangers of encouraging him.
"Nightingale just phoned and he's bringing his girl," he says to me, hoping for a reaction. I give him my wide-eyed look of the stupid and unconcerned.
The Senator is not a nice man but he falls short of outright evil. The early-evening grapevine said that the party would be relying on HIM for entertainment -- which is why the other guests have been feeding him drinks all night -- but he has always been a mediocre fiend, trying hard to be offensive but lacking variety, doing the same things all the time. Like many of our elected alcoholics, Senator Worthy doesn't grow tired of his crude come-ons and crass jokes and late-night penis-waving.
But he was invited for a reason. Blondie doesn't pay professionals to sing or tap-dance or burlesque at her parties, she just invites selections of deviants, agitators, and the subtly drug-addicted. Part of the fun is guessing which one will go furthest over the edge, with bets on who's first.
Thrill-seekers and urban aristocrats enjoy this sort of thing. I personally don't want to be thrilled tonight, especially not by Nightingale and his new girl. I shouldn't have come at all and I certainly shouldn't have stayed. I'll never find Max, especially if he doesn't want to be found, and if I did find him I'm not sure exactly what I'd say and he'd probably run away anyway.
The static from the radio and the smell of the Senator's teeth is making my headache worse, so I excuse myself and accidentally spill my scotch on some anonymous person's shirt. "Whoa, Tiger!" yells the Senator, toasting me, grinning.
Out on Blondie's balcony the wind is vicious and a necessary tonic. I can't avoid the anticipatory chatter about Nightingale's girl, but by pleading feminine weakness I manage to secure a seat near the far end of the railing, close to the edge of the crowd. I huddle down, hug myself a bit, look out over the city. I can see three rooftop orchestras without even turning my head.
A new voice, sweet and naive and slightly twangy, says what the other guests are too tactful to mention. "Seriously, how do they do it? How do the two of them..." She stops, shy. She's a little lady who still smells of the countryside. Every party needs a farm-fresh waif the same way it needs a beast, a hero, and a cynic. I'm not sure which one I am at the moment.
The Short Actor grabs the girl's thigh and he promises a demonstration. "Want to know how they do it? Abby, darling, put your leg out like this and then lean back a bit. Pretend you're a hooch dancer--"
"Hey!" laughs a gaudy woman, feigning offense, but the Short Actor will not be distracted . He squashes the little farm girl against the railing and tries to force her head back. "Now pretend you're lying on the floor, prone, and put this bottle between your legs--"
"Don't, I don't wanna--"
"--and I'll be Nightingale moving in for the kill..."
"STOP it!"
She's not having fun. Tonight's hero, I come out of my huddle and say "Hey Dick, give the kid a break. She's never been to Coney Island. She's not your kind of girl."
He's surprised. There's a mixture of relief and disappointment in the air, but mostly the latter. He says, "I should be teaching YOU how to screw like a freak. Maybe you can get your boyfriend back."
The farm girl has slipped off the railing and darted back inside, so the Short Actor takes some of his pent-up aggression out on me. Among other things he says I'm too "loose" to be ruining other people's fun, says I make a living out of other people's misery, calls me a stuck-up elitist who needs a REAL man. He recites a brief speech about fallen women that I think I remember from one of his plays -- one I reviewed negatively -- then finishes with an absolute soliloquy of gossip: Blondie and I, Max and I, Nightingale and I. "You're giving ME a puritanical line about the sacred virtue of womankind?" He hisses. "That's rich."
Shrugs all around. I'm not interested in fighting with him. He makes a mocking evil eye sign that belies his upbringing and goes back inside, and after a respectable pause I follow.
I weave my way through the staring crowd, trying half-heartedly to corner Max. Everybody saw him walk through a door just a few seconds ago.
In the kitchen, Blondie's coloured maid is standing in my way and restocking the icebox, her single chore for the night. I ask her if she's seen Max lately and she shakes her head, frustrated, because I've asked her this already. She's never liked me, but I don't really believe she's ever liked anybody, at least not the sort of people I know.
Liquor bottles have completely taken over the kitchen. The abandoned diversions of the Blondie household are sitting atop a forgotten shelf: decks of cards, crossword puzzles, a horse-racing game, the dusty mah-jongh set. What happened to these normal pastimes, I wonder? Blondie and Max had decided that playing bridge wasn't exciting enough, long before I ever met them.
"Are we horrible?" I ask the maid. I don't know what I'm expecting to hear. "Me, Blondie's friends, her party guests. Are we horrible people?"
"I dunno," says the maid, muffled, her head in the icebox. "It's not my business."
I agree. It's none of my business either.
I hear a chorus of cheers; Nightingale and his girl have finally arrived. I hear Max out there too, suddenly audible after all this time, welcoming the newcomers, shushing the girl who's still trying to break the radio. Blondie laughs and makes kissy noises and asks them what they'd like to drink. With my head against the door I listen to Max and Nightingale, two men talking about booze and girl trouble. They're only inches away.
"Excuse me," says the maid, pushing her way past me, and she whispers something that I'm sure is uncomplimentary.
My stomach feels like it has fallen off of Blondie's balcony. I've been a reluctant visitor at enough of these parties to make an educated guess about the sudden change in attitude; either there's been a newsworthy tragedy which I haven't been informed of yet -- an assassination, an earthquake, a bombing -- or a pathetic and volatile guest is about to arrive.
None of these prospects interest me and I consider finding a quieter place to sit or -- better yet -- escaping the party entirely, but a slumming debutante has blocked the room's exit and is attacking the radio with her shoe. An elderly patron wearing a red bozo wig has sunk down into the couch and is being pulled apart from various directions, apparently unable to stand. Everybody is flaunting their drinks, and most of them are attractive, clean, stylish, and well-to-do. Most of them I know by reputation, some of them by name, but none of them intimately.
I just wish I could find Max, really.
Senator Worthy arrives, changing my corner seat from a cozy retreat into a fetid cul de sac. His toothy odour and desperate need for attention make me edgy. I know the dangers of encouraging him.
"Nightingale just phoned and he's bringing his girl," he says to me, hoping for a reaction. I give him my wide-eyed look of the stupid and unconcerned.
The Senator is not a nice man but he falls short of outright evil. The early-evening grapevine said that the party would be relying on HIM for entertainment -- which is why the other guests have been feeding him drinks all night -- but he has always been a mediocre fiend, trying hard to be offensive but lacking variety, doing the same things all the time. Like many of our elected alcoholics, Senator Worthy doesn't grow tired of his crude come-ons and crass jokes and late-night penis-waving.
But he was invited for a reason. Blondie doesn't pay professionals to sing or tap-dance or burlesque at her parties, she just invites selections of deviants, agitators, and the subtly drug-addicted. Part of the fun is guessing which one will go furthest over the edge, with bets on who's first.
Thrill-seekers and urban aristocrats enjoy this sort of thing. I personally don't want to be thrilled tonight, especially not by Nightingale and his new girl. I shouldn't have come at all and I certainly shouldn't have stayed. I'll never find Max, especially if he doesn't want to be found, and if I did find him I'm not sure exactly what I'd say and he'd probably run away anyway.
The static from the radio and the smell of the Senator's teeth is making my headache worse, so I excuse myself and accidentally spill my scotch on some anonymous person's shirt. "Whoa, Tiger!" yells the Senator, toasting me, grinning.
Out on Blondie's balcony the wind is vicious and a necessary tonic. I can't avoid the anticipatory chatter about Nightingale's girl, but by pleading feminine weakness I manage to secure a seat near the far end of the railing, close to the edge of the crowd. I huddle down, hug myself a bit, look out over the city. I can see three rooftop orchestras without even turning my head.
A new voice, sweet and naive and slightly twangy, says what the other guests are too tactful to mention. "Seriously, how do they do it? How do the two of them..." She stops, shy. She's a little lady who still smells of the countryside. Every party needs a farm-fresh waif the same way it needs a beast, a hero, and a cynic. I'm not sure which one I am at the moment.
The Short Actor grabs the girl's thigh and he promises a demonstration. "Want to know how they do it? Abby, darling, put your leg out like this and then lean back a bit. Pretend you're a hooch dancer--"
"Hey!" laughs a gaudy woman, feigning offense, but the Short Actor will not be distracted . He squashes the little farm girl against the railing and tries to force her head back. "Now pretend you're lying on the floor, prone, and put this bottle between your legs--"
"Don't, I don't wanna--"
"--and I'll be Nightingale moving in for the kill..."
"STOP it!"
She's not having fun. Tonight's hero, I come out of my huddle and say "Hey Dick, give the kid a break. She's never been to Coney Island. She's not your kind of girl."
He's surprised. There's a mixture of relief and disappointment in the air, but mostly the latter. He says, "I should be teaching YOU how to screw like a freak. Maybe you can get your boyfriend back."
The farm girl has slipped off the railing and darted back inside, so the Short Actor takes some of his pent-up aggression out on me. Among other things he says I'm too "loose" to be ruining other people's fun, says I make a living out of other people's misery, calls me a stuck-up elitist who needs a REAL man. He recites a brief speech about fallen women that I think I remember from one of his plays -- one I reviewed negatively -- then finishes with an absolute soliloquy of gossip: Blondie and I, Max and I, Nightingale and I. "You're giving ME a puritanical line about the sacred virtue of womankind?" He hisses. "That's rich."
Shrugs all around. I'm not interested in fighting with him. He makes a mocking evil eye sign that belies his upbringing and goes back inside, and after a respectable pause I follow.
I weave my way through the staring crowd, trying half-heartedly to corner Max. Everybody saw him walk through a door just a few seconds ago.
In the kitchen, Blondie's coloured maid is standing in my way and restocking the icebox, her single chore for the night. I ask her if she's seen Max lately and she shakes her head, frustrated, because I've asked her this already. She's never liked me, but I don't really believe she's ever liked anybody, at least not the sort of people I know.
Liquor bottles have completely taken over the kitchen. The abandoned diversions of the Blondie household are sitting atop a forgotten shelf: decks of cards, crossword puzzles, a horse-racing game, the dusty mah-jongh set. What happened to these normal pastimes, I wonder? Blondie and Max had decided that playing bridge wasn't exciting enough, long before I ever met them.
"Are we horrible?" I ask the maid. I don't know what I'm expecting to hear. "Me, Blondie's friends, her party guests. Are we horrible people?"
"I dunno," says the maid, muffled, her head in the icebox. "It's not my business."
I agree. It's none of my business either.
I hear a chorus of cheers; Nightingale and his girl have finally arrived. I hear Max out there too, suddenly audible after all this time, welcoming the newcomers, shushing the girl who's still trying to break the radio. Blondie laughs and makes kissy noises and asks them what they'd like to drink. With my head against the door I listen to Max and Nightingale, two men talking about booze and girl trouble. They're only inches away.
"Excuse me," says the maid, pushing her way past me, and she whispers something that I'm sure is uncomplimentary.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
We and Kyle
We travel north to study the newly discovered insects. Kyle Borrowman is assigned to us, and we respect him because the dossier says that he can survive. He's not an entomologist, of course -- there's enough of us here already! -- but he understands how to climb hilltops, and how to find fresh water on the top of the hilltops he climbs, and he can also make a special kind of dirt-food that is edible if not always tasty. Kyle Borrowman has ensured the survival some very important people, says the dossier that we pass around, disinterested. OUR survival is not the first thing on our minds.
We have never learned to preserve anything larger than a bug. We're accustomed to sterile conditions where food and water are always available, sometimes fed to us automatically when we're busy. Apparently, for this journey, we NEED somebody like Kyle Borrowman, and since most creatures are in some way dependent on others we like to imagine that he needs us too.
We're not sure of that, we've done no studies.
The north is a difficult environment and our research skills are not very useful. As we travel, Kyle Borrowman saves each of us in turn from a rock slide, a flood, and an infection which spreads from foot to shin. Doctor Feeler almost dies from a snake that she tries to investigate with a stick. Borrowman sucks the venom out and says crude things about her leg.
In light of this we recognize our collective debt to him, and we decide unanimously that Kyle Borrowman is the only member of our party who actually deserves a name. He disagrees, brandishing his handmade axe, and says we're being darn foolish. If we don't stop doing this stuff, he says, he'll go back south and leave us here alone, damnit.
We reclaim our names and we acknowledge that there are certain things we do not understand. Kyle Borrowman approves and offers us tobacco, which we decline because it hurts our lungs. He says "What a bunch of pussies!" and spits.
---
Researchers are too weak and impractical to survive in the wilderness. Even amongst peers we have trouble with things like public transportation and grocery stores. Some of us have gotten lost in hallways while trying to locate the researchers from other facilities, and even stairways of more than one storey give us trouble.
Kyle Borrowman tends us with a down-home type of tough love; he's dependable but sometimes frightening. The songs he sings have uncouth lyrics and he uses the fat of still-living mammals to waterproof his canoe. Every time we set up our campsite he stores our food high up in a tree, and then he hollers that he's not coming back down to give us any until one of us manages to hit him with a rock. He's the only one who's really good at throwing rocks. Maybe this is his way of encouraging us to try new things. We are never sure when Kyle Borrowman is joking or when he is trying to tough-love us.
He has a sensitive side that is not always apparent. During restful times he listens to waves sloshing against the shore, and he says they remind him of his home by the Lake Of No Name. We, by comparison, listen to the quiet buzzing of microscopic wings in our specimen jars. Kyle says that small things like that are not worth listening to, he is more interested in The Large.
Our camp is scattered with jars made of crystal, and each jar holds something that's very, very small. In a rare mood, far north of the timberline, Kyle Borrowman asks us what all of our junk is for and we don't really know what to say, but after a bit of discussion we try to explain it to him.
"Studying the insects is exciting," one of us says, and the rest of us applaud him. When Kyle Borrowman looks unimpressed, Doctor Feeler reads him some untranslated excerpts from her research notes. "This is what we do," she says. "We study."
Kyle Borrowman doesn't care. "That's fine," he says, "but can any of you do this?" He takes off his shirt and flexes his biceps, which are so massive and hairy that we can't believe we have similar biceps of our own. He turns around and flexes again so we can see him from the back. Doctor Feeler says that she doesn't think she could do such things personally, but she can't speak for anybody else. We agree.
His laugh is meaty, like his smell and like his hands. We can only keep his attention for a short time and we worry that he'll grow bored of us, forget the contract he signed, and leave us in the north to die.
He goes hunting with his axe and brings back rabbits, otters, and bears, all dead. He can drag a monster home by its antlers without sweating more than he usually does. We appreciate the effort but we insist on eating dry rations out of ziplocked bags, and he grunts, annoyed. He has begun brewing his own beer with cheesecloth, tinfoil, and tiny pieces of moss. Sometimes he looks at us and we wonder what he's thinking about.
---
It becomes terribly hot and the trees are poor shelter. Our little crystal jars reflect light-beams. Our tents steam, the beer ferments with a rich dungy odour, Kyle Borrowman sits drunk and naked on the rock which he calls his throne.
His torso is covered with mosquitoes but this doesn't seem to bother him. When he stares at Doctor Feeler like a lascivious killer, her sunburned face turns perceptively redder and she devotes extra study to her insects.
Our anxiety increases as the heat gets worse. Unable to look directly at our bright thermometers, we estimate the temperature from the oscillations of midges. The radio transmitter no longer works, but on cloudless nights we can hear German opera, and Doctor Pop sings along.
We run out of dry rations but we are afraid to ask Kyle Borrowman to bring some down from the tree-top, which for days has been surrounded by eagerly-fighting crows. We have heard about hunger before, but we have never known it personally. This is not within our realm of research and it is experienced without first setting down a proposal.
"So," says Kyle Borrowman one morning, addressing Doctor Feeler as usual, "you ever DONE IT with a mountain man?"
Nobody answers. It's terribly hot and we stare at our ragged shoes.
He points to the mound of mosquitoes on his crotch. "We gotta get it on."
That night we gather in Doctor Feeler's tent and hold a vote: we will no longer answer any questions which make us feel uncomfortable. We pack the delirious Doctor Pop in formaldehyde put him to bed, and in the morning he dies.
Our weaknesses infuriate Kyle Borrowman, who rarely stirs from his mosquito blanket. He says that Doctor Pop was a useless man who should have drank more fluids to prevent dehydration. He threatens us in a fuzzy voice and his threats, as always, are effective. By simply sitting on his throne and waving his axe around, Kyle Borrowman is more powerful than the rest of us combined.
That afternoon the heat breaks and a downpour floods our tents. We run to Kyle Borrowman for help and we discover that he is gone, and so is Doctor Feeler. She left her notes behind.
---
One day our savage children see an equally wild old woman stalking our burrow. The woman's lab coat is patched with fur and she is holding a knife in her hands, something tough and made of bone. Instead of fighting, our children jump and holler, and eventually the old woman goes away.
We have never learned to preserve anything larger than a bug. We're accustomed to sterile conditions where food and water are always available, sometimes fed to us automatically when we're busy. Apparently, for this journey, we NEED somebody like Kyle Borrowman, and since most creatures are in some way dependent on others we like to imagine that he needs us too.
We're not sure of that, we've done no studies.
The north is a difficult environment and our research skills are not very useful. As we travel, Kyle Borrowman saves each of us in turn from a rock slide, a flood, and an infection which spreads from foot to shin. Doctor Feeler almost dies from a snake that she tries to investigate with a stick. Borrowman sucks the venom out and says crude things about her leg.
In light of this we recognize our collective debt to him, and we decide unanimously that Kyle Borrowman is the only member of our party who actually deserves a name. He disagrees, brandishing his handmade axe, and says we're being darn foolish. If we don't stop doing this stuff, he says, he'll go back south and leave us here alone, damnit.
We reclaim our names and we acknowledge that there are certain things we do not understand. Kyle Borrowman approves and offers us tobacco, which we decline because it hurts our lungs. He says "What a bunch of pussies!" and spits.
---
Researchers are too weak and impractical to survive in the wilderness. Even amongst peers we have trouble with things like public transportation and grocery stores. Some of us have gotten lost in hallways while trying to locate the researchers from other facilities, and even stairways of more than one storey give us trouble.
Kyle Borrowman tends us with a down-home type of tough love; he's dependable but sometimes frightening. The songs he sings have uncouth lyrics and he uses the fat of still-living mammals to waterproof his canoe. Every time we set up our campsite he stores our food high up in a tree, and then he hollers that he's not coming back down to give us any until one of us manages to hit him with a rock. He's the only one who's really good at throwing rocks. Maybe this is his way of encouraging us to try new things. We are never sure when Kyle Borrowman is joking or when he is trying to tough-love us.
He has a sensitive side that is not always apparent. During restful times he listens to waves sloshing against the shore, and he says they remind him of his home by the Lake Of No Name. We, by comparison, listen to the quiet buzzing of microscopic wings in our specimen jars. Kyle says that small things like that are not worth listening to, he is more interested in The Large.
Our camp is scattered with jars made of crystal, and each jar holds something that's very, very small. In a rare mood, far north of the timberline, Kyle Borrowman asks us what all of our junk is for and we don't really know what to say, but after a bit of discussion we try to explain it to him.
"Studying the insects is exciting," one of us says, and the rest of us applaud him. When Kyle Borrowman looks unimpressed, Doctor Feeler reads him some untranslated excerpts from her research notes. "This is what we do," she says. "We study."
Kyle Borrowman doesn't care. "That's fine," he says, "but can any of you do this?" He takes off his shirt and flexes his biceps, which are so massive and hairy that we can't believe we have similar biceps of our own. He turns around and flexes again so we can see him from the back. Doctor Feeler says that she doesn't think she could do such things personally, but she can't speak for anybody else. We agree.
His laugh is meaty, like his smell and like his hands. We can only keep his attention for a short time and we worry that he'll grow bored of us, forget the contract he signed, and leave us in the north to die.
He goes hunting with his axe and brings back rabbits, otters, and bears, all dead. He can drag a monster home by its antlers without sweating more than he usually does. We appreciate the effort but we insist on eating dry rations out of ziplocked bags, and he grunts, annoyed. He has begun brewing his own beer with cheesecloth, tinfoil, and tiny pieces of moss. Sometimes he looks at us and we wonder what he's thinking about.
---
It becomes terribly hot and the trees are poor shelter. Our little crystal jars reflect light-beams. Our tents steam, the beer ferments with a rich dungy odour, Kyle Borrowman sits drunk and naked on the rock which he calls his throne.
His torso is covered with mosquitoes but this doesn't seem to bother him. When he stares at Doctor Feeler like a lascivious killer, her sunburned face turns perceptively redder and she devotes extra study to her insects.
Our anxiety increases as the heat gets worse. Unable to look directly at our bright thermometers, we estimate the temperature from the oscillations of midges. The radio transmitter no longer works, but on cloudless nights we can hear German opera, and Doctor Pop sings along.
We run out of dry rations but we are afraid to ask Kyle Borrowman to bring some down from the tree-top, which for days has been surrounded by eagerly-fighting crows. We have heard about hunger before, but we have never known it personally. This is not within our realm of research and it is experienced without first setting down a proposal.
"So," says Kyle Borrowman one morning, addressing Doctor Feeler as usual, "you ever DONE IT with a mountain man?"
Nobody answers. It's terribly hot and we stare at our ragged shoes.
He points to the mound of mosquitoes on his crotch. "We gotta get it on."
That night we gather in Doctor Feeler's tent and hold a vote: we will no longer answer any questions which make us feel uncomfortable. We pack the delirious Doctor Pop in formaldehyde put him to bed, and in the morning he dies.
Our weaknesses infuriate Kyle Borrowman, who rarely stirs from his mosquito blanket. He says that Doctor Pop was a useless man who should have drank more fluids to prevent dehydration. He threatens us in a fuzzy voice and his threats, as always, are effective. By simply sitting on his throne and waving his axe around, Kyle Borrowman is more powerful than the rest of us combined.
That afternoon the heat breaks and a downpour floods our tents. We run to Kyle Borrowman for help and we discover that he is gone, and so is Doctor Feeler. She left her notes behind.
---
One day our savage children see an equally wild old woman stalking our burrow. The woman's lab coat is patched with fur and she is holding a knife in her hands, something tough and made of bone. Instead of fighting, our children jump and holler, and eventually the old woman goes away.
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