Chapter 12: Helga returns from the kitchen, lips repaved, hair punched into place. She smooths her rayon uniform; it crackles with things to do. Still ruttish from the Cruzers episode, Olney watches as she hastily unloads a trolley of plates, bowls and cutlery. She seems intent on waking the dead as she puts them away. Olney is apparently the only one to notice, since neither grimace nor whimper issue from the other customers. Despite Helga's jarring demeanor, Olney gives her a thorough once-over. Oh, dear. He quickly abandons the follow-up twice-over. Depravity may yet be coursing through his scrotum, but rerouting the lust to Helga would take an adjustment requiring hard drugs and alcohol. "Naw sirree, bub!" she'd say, anyway. Nevertheless, if the cafe were suddenly to empty, he might volunteer for a squirm in her play places. Give that carnal axolotl its just desserts. Under his breath he says, "Psst. Hey, Helga. Hubba hubba." He tries a few serious propositions with ESP, but Helga's frequency band is tuned elsewhere. She's cleaning the ice cream freezer now, her dishrag whipping effortlessly over its black rubber lids. A departing shade steps to the counter to pay his bill. He pockets his change with a complaint. It seems the cigarette machine is spitting back coins for every brand but Chesterfields, Wings and Picayunes, and he wants Camels. Obliging Helga stands on a tiny step ladder to reach for the cigarette cartons on top of the empty refrigerator. Whistling Dick Contino's famous accordion rendition of "Lady of Spain" in rhythm to the ladder's wobble, she reaches higher and higher, her fingers closing in on the fridge top. The ladder begins to rock below the tips of her toes as Olney and the customer look on. Were the customer more than a brief summary of human indifference, he might be worried lest she fall. Likewise, had Olney been the compassionate servant of humanity he so often wished to be, he would have rushed to her rescue. Instead, the customer could care less and Olney's attention is snagged on a rent in her supp-hose. It remains there, like a wad of greasy cellophane hooked in its aimless odyssey by the failed bud of a starving creeper, itself rooted in the brown cliffs of a drainage ditch. Meanwhile, Helga manages to get the tips of two fingers on an outlying carton of Camels. Unable to grasp it firmly, and afraid the tottering ladder will collapse under her, she rakes at the carton frantically. It seems to be getting further away when suddenly her fingertips make solid contact, flipping it towards her. With a noisy expiration of breath she watches the carton vault her other hand and fall to her head, hitting her crown, as karma would have it, with a pointed corner. "Ow!" she yells, as the carton descends to her shoulder, bounces to the counter and comes to rest next to the tapping fingers of the terminally bored customer. "I only wanted a pack," he says. "I get faw you, right now." Helga climbs down furiously and rips open the carton. "You take pack, pay money and go." Lloyd have mercy, Olney mutters to himself, paying little attention to the scene. Unaware, as often as not, of life's cameo gems in favor of his zoom-specific obsessions, he's still mulling over Helga's legs and the way they seem to hang off her torso even as they support it. By contrast, a pair of shapely legs will act upon his nervous system in the same way the big bang influenced the universe. Now what is the formula for perfect proportions? He used to know it by heart. Hmmm. Let's see, for thigh, calf, and knee: length of each equals circumference of each. Ankle: circumference equals half the length from ankle to knee, which total length itself must be at least eighty percent of the length from knee to hip. Et voilà: Esthetics at a fever pitch. But, do such legs exist? Oh, yes! Give or take an inch or two, they not only exist here and there, but everywhere. Indeed, the sight of a woman's ideally proportioned bare legs--whether strong or delicate, smooth or downy, brown or white, long or longer, bending or tippy-toed, seen from the front or the back or the side--will often induce spasms of such electrical force as to cause his spine to smoke and his organs to boil. Such feverish responses inevitably lead to an extravagant loss of vital fluids, followed by an apish, trancelike state for the rest of the day. Although temporal Olney's self-induced seizures are models of self-gratification, they have caused no end of trouble for immortal Olney. For example, his fetish for designer flesh continues to effectively preclude any futures atop the world in the cold caves of Himalaya, where, owing to good karma and a sex chakra bypass, he might have chortled with the gods. But Helga, dear Helga, from the shores of Kowloon, thought well of and beaucoup amongst her groupage ... well, frankly, our boy is afraid her legs, heh-heh-heh... Unable to draw upon a rich and ancient history of inscrutable pulchritude, hers are little more than functional appendages, molded for reasons other than the quickening of men's blood. And what sort of landscape is nestled at their apex? A part whose only purpose is reproduction and waste disposal? And maybe not even reproduction? Perhaps her body is no more than a chassis whose sole reason for animation is to earn money. The lusty power of yet another sexist wisecrack is forming in Olney's throat as an arrogant roar, but just as it reaches his lips the poor thing turns into a squeak of guilt. Dadgummit it, he curses to himself. Them and their soft-skinned, wonder-bodies, dag-gag-dog it! What do they bloody expect? How is it possible to enter an entire half of the species for the purpose of sexual ecstasy and not refer to them as sexual objects? Hands on is hands on, right? for cryin' out loud. Those of the species whom one does not wish to hands on with, well, then the mind takes over and its all proper and non-sexual. How simple can it be? Oh, if they weren't so tantalizing. Can't get past their parts to deal with their minds, or, if dealing with their minds can't get aroused by their parts. Dear, oh dear. Olney was a sexist pig, all right. Women were more than the sum of their parts, he knew, but when the sun had lightly toasted those parts there was nothing for it but slaverous oinking. And he compared them and categorized them and when, in their innocent ugliness, they dropped below the lowest point of the lower percentile, the guilt of dismissing them as nonexistent things brought beads of sweat to his brow. Why was he cursed with a conscience? Why had he bothered with esoteric sutras and their chastening secrets? The sutras liked to talk about freedom from desire, but Olney's desire to handcuff small, slender females to his bed and gently fuck them for days on end was far greater than his desire for freedom. God knows, he would treat each of them like a Princess: Oh, what could be more erotic than a princess shackled to the bed! Little grunts, reminiscent of a prehistoric heyday, escape from his lips, hoping to run the Guilt-made-flesh to ground. And then ... but then...! Olney is faced with overwhelming odds in his quest to become a good person. Non-attachment worked fine in action: mind became essence, drawing appropriate behavior from the overload buffer when necessary. But when peacetime rolled around, all that all-there-is consolidated into one essential obsession: copious polygyny. Heavy despair rising. What was the use. The show was coming to a disgraceful close. Picadored this morning by would-be employer Plought, stung now by the banderillas of conscience. Would, then, the muleta of tonight, with no tomorrow of hope, be his ignoble shroud? The sex objects he has yet to meet should be so lucky. He wants to take his sexist arrogance back, tell Helga she's gorgeous, make things right with the regulars and the whole world too. Solos O.: The Empty Mirror of Mind and its hands-off love for all sentient beings is better than the sight of long brown legs, the touch of warm velvety breasts. The sutras wouldn't lie! From now on, the new Olney Garkle will adhere to "I Love" instead of "I Love You". It ought to be easy, all he has to do is try. There's got to be more to life than instant gratification. Ah, but so troublesome, those females. Got to stop looking at them as if they were naked, make a man lose sight of himself. Gonna walk the line, the high Himalayan tightrope. Become a front-lines bodhisattva instead of hiding in the reserves. Yep, it oughta be easy. Just to make sure, he'll drop by the free clinic tomorrow for a handy castration. §§§ Chapter 13: Chick and Cleola |