Chapter 16: Life is but a Dream Despair slithers from behind one of Helga's cram-packed napkin holders. Antennae swooping, it scans the counter before crawling toward Olney. Snugly fitting its dorsoventrality is a tiny T-shirt which, Olney bending to inspect, bears the inscription: You Are All Moon Food. Instinctively, our hero reaches for a napkin to squish the scooting blemish, but the napkins are wedged into a smooth, dense bulge upon which his fingernails rake fruitlessly. Helga, whose crisp efficiency is insensitive to the trials of clumsy, spatulate fingers, pays no attention to the scratching, tearing and cursing that nets Olney, in the end, no more than shreds. He leans over, purses his lips, tries to blow the foulness off the counter; it just keeps coming. Y'little scumbug! Olney shouts in the monastery ruins of his mind. His echoing voice is swiftly absorbed by the startled flapping of those behemoth butterflies. He rages: It isn't enough we're all siderean exiles, lost and pathetic little creatures on this Devil's Island of the universe. Now they are sending messengers with proclamations indicating further helplessness. Slurp, are we, for that pock-marked, sleep-thwarting bitch, that Fall of the House of Scorpio, that soul-cupper, that blender-at-grind of inner swells, that, that... Olney's jaw thrusts forward, as if on rails, locking into place like the jaw of the great John Carradine at the tension-filled moment when, awesome implications hair-tearingly grasped, incipient hysteria is handcuffed and turned over to Resolve. A soft plosion forms in the bowels of Olney's throat--or is it John's?--as he perceives the urgent task at hand: destroy the Loathsome Thing before it escapes the laboratory! Yes, yes, we must, exhorts Olney-John, to save the human race and, above all, to preserve the honor and sanctity of Science. There isn't a moment to lose, quickly m'boy! His eyes glitter with the intensity of an all-night druggist as he, John the Recombinator working through Olney the Famulus, reaches for the nearest salt shaker and empties it over the frenzied sizzling Thing. Undead, the monster scampers off the counter and into the dirty dishes. Revulsion pulls at the cheeks of a woman who has meanwhile entered the cafe and ordered a cup of coffee to go. "I just hate cockroaches," she says to Olney. Olney's eyes dart her way. Against their will, they record her physical attributes before returning in haste to the trail of salt and shredded paper napkin before them. Her skin is mottled like sour milk. Cellulite quilts the insides of her upper arms, left bare by a black sleeveless shirt. Faded primer-colored pedal pushers accent thick bristly ankles; her black flats are bursting everywhere. "Aren't they awful?" She smiles, inviting Olney to be her friend. The smile reveals long, discolored teeth that hang in the cavern of her mouth like lantern-lit stalactites flickering in the subfusc. He nods, crossing his eyes, wondering if even Christ himself wouldn't run the other way. She could be Charley Barter's daughter for all he knew, driving up and down the city's main drag, checking out the fast food scene with a boyfriend who packs Camels in his T-shirt sleeve, a guy whose only claim to fame rests in the monumental hangovers he greets every day with. Probably outside right now, behind the wheel of a Fury III, waiting for his scuzzy to bring him a cup to go. Two bleary desperadoes cruise out of her eyes and down to Olney's knee. Locking into four-wheel drive with grunts and curses, they travel up the crumpled road of his pants, AM blaring, engine screaming. A beer can sails out the passenger window as they come to a woof-warping halt in the parking lot below the rim of his change pocket. Car doors slam emphatically. They're out now and scrambling up the last slope to the frayed flap through which entry to the canyon of treasure is gained. But one peek is all it takes to distort their faces into a unison grimace: dry, desolate winds shriek up at them from the empty chasm within. The bandits vanish as she looks away. Helga brings her a styrene-capped styrofoam cup to go. "How much?" the woman asks, tilting forward. "Fifty-two cent," Helga replies heartily. "Oh. How about fifty. It's all I got." "Ok!" The woman's smile disappears in a fog which casts itself upon the unchartable stretches of her everlasting sea of hopelessness. A ship of ghouls, her only friends, sail over to finger her face into a flab of defeat. A last glance at Olney accuses him of being the taciturn cousin of Charley Barter. Indeed, Olney's neck is suddenly red and exposed, raw dunes of porous flesh raised high and bounded by gritty furrows. She leaves with her extract of dread; no boyfriend outside with fat paunch and full gas tank, no safe and titter-boring job down the street, no innocence and no humor left, no chance she and Olney will ever fall in love, with laughter and rose petals covering the bed, and splits of champagne, Veuve-Clicquot even. Between them there is only a smarting insect scuttling sideways through parallel universes. §§§ A shame, really. It wasn't every day a strange woman smiled at Olney. Yet he loved to bathe them with his. Or did he mostly leer? If a man tried too often to penetrate those eyes instinctively averted, didn't his High Himalayan Spontaneity regress to a pomaded posture in the bellowing lowlands? He looks in the mirror. Tries booting a smile to see if it's been corrupted by the dread leer virus. But the mirror itself is corrupted by decades of grime. It has a permanent smudge no amount of toil by resourceful Helga will ever wipe clean. Adding to this defective reflection are the unfortunate eyes Olney is equipped with these days. They badly need glasses. He'd love to have a pair, if only they'd simply appear in his shirt pocket, the one which only a short while ago contained that marvellous cigarette. Come to think of it, he'd gladly exchange his sight altogether for a pack of those cigarettes, dry-as-dust or not. Oh, well. But he did have a pair of glasses, once. And not so long ago. He thew them away; trampled them, actually. Well, they didn't work, did they? The problem lay not so much in the battered frames: the two broken temples held together by sewing needles wrapped in cellophane tape; or the missing spatulas, whose simultaneous departure shortly after purchase had set free the wires inside the temples so they might dig deeply into his temporal bone; or even the remains of the left nose pad, whose absence had raised a permanent and unsightly welt on the bridge of his nose. No, it wasn't the poor frames but the lenses themselves. Though the prescription had been obtained in North America, the lenses weren't ground until he found himself in India. For a good price, Olney would be able to see the world in focus again. Guided by his lifelong principle of leaping first and looking later, he stepped into the shop of a minuscule Hindustani in Old Delhi. The tiny man's little shop was next to an even smaller shop which was also in the grinding business. This second shop consisted of huge butcher-block tables where several men much smaller than the wee optician set about their work. These homunculi were in the business of grinding ganja into a fine powder, sprinkling it with water in the process, and rolling the result into golf-sized balls known as "bhang". The balls were then mixed with watered down yogurt to become the celebrated hallucinatory concoction known as "bhang lassi". It was a smear of this milk-of-magnesia-like substance that Olney was sure he'd had to wipe off the new lenses the thrilled sub-continental had proudly handed him. For as soon as Olney put them on, his equilibrium took off. The prescription had been filled so that all vertical objects--the walls, the door, even the buildings on the Chandni Chowk outside--were trying to lie down. Rushing to Olney's rescue, the pint-sized optician offered profuse and lyrical apologies, bade him sit in a chair with four solid legs and retired to the back room to regrind the lenses, over, Olney suspected, more tipples of the sense-distorting goop. At last the world leapt into focus (or sort of did: there remained a dip in the lower left lens that would continue to throw him off balance until, a few years later, he finally threw the glasses away). The vest pocket ganjamaniac gleefully accepted Olney's black market rupees and treated him to a couple of rounds of the chalky drink, which promptly knocked the world out of focus again. Olney offered profuse and lyrical praise to the walking stick he'd purchased in the Sub-Himalayan village of Manali a few months earlier, for it alone kept him upright on the hazardous trek to his room at the Crown Hotel. He slept until dawn, dreaming serenely and sometimes intensely that he was Krishna, or at least one of Krishna's clones. As the blue-faced baby god he had lots of fun stealing ghee, but it wasn't until much later, when he was going about in Vrindaban, that the dream upgraded wildly, taking him on a bit-mapped, high resolution tour of Krishna's colorful role among the gopis. There, on the banks of the sacred Yamuna, did Olney and Krishna wondrously sport with the cowgirls fair. By day would the Grand Blue Two instruct them in detachment from such earthly drudgeries as minding the herds, churning the curds, and nosy husbands. As evening drew nigh, the blue-hued boys would break into song for the chelatrice throng. They doubled and danced and whipped out their flutes, which gaily till dawn, the milkmaids did toot. When Olney awoke in the morning, he could still feel the cool dewy grasses they had all lain themselves down upon. When he awoke a little more, he gingerly reached under the covers to verify the impression. Yagghh, he trumpeted, leaping free of the bed. Later, over chai and a Charminar, he wondered if Krishna had ever wakened from a jasmine-blown soiree to find himself alone on a dream-stained charpoy. §§§ Olney peers in the mirror again, trying to smile. Oh, dear. As a smile, it threatens to shatter his face into the Tom-chunks of old Tom and Jerry cartoons. As a leer, it's plainly insincere. He tries again. Leers again. Hmmm. Forget the smiles, the leer's improving. This one reminds him of the days when he used to hang out in Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais. The mirror responds to his memory. Hey, what the... It shivers. Warm sand and sea gradually swap reality with the MFC, which finally disappears, with a shove. A North African jouer-de-boules, taking a break from the nearby day match he and his cronies have been playing for years, sidles up to our stranded job hunter. He points with enthusiasm to a bikini-clad houri coming up the beach. "Pour elle, ma tohota est vraiment fantastique," he says, quoting the popular Algerian one-liner. Happiness coats the large teeth of the man's masterful leer. In contrast, Olney's attempt looks like a feeble impression of Elisha Cook, Jr. The woman spreads a towel close by, graciously conferring upon it the pertness of her fesses du midi. Oblivious of the oglers, she bares two God-gasping breasts. Sun, sky and scoptophiliacs-a-pair moan as she squeezes the middle of a thick plastic tube. A creamy kiss of lotion, pale and girl loving, shimmers at its tip for the briefest of moments before embracing a crooning wafture of air down to her belly where it foams and bubbles in minute, nearly sub-atomic pores of joyous purification. The man jabs Olney in the ribs. "Quelle nana, non? Je veux bouffer la chatte!" He slaps Olney on the back. "Et vous, monsieur? Vous ne voulez pas se laver les dents avec elle?" Olney picks himself up from the sidewalk. "Moi, je.... Moi, je...." But no, Olney's file of French phrases has suddenly gone missing. Improvising, he blurts "Oui, oui, oui," a dozen times, explaining with helpless gestures his frankly inept lingo. The two Toms resume their peeping. Rubbing in the cream, the girl's hand moves in a diadem of admiration over her belly. Oh, how it loves passing its life on this host, this plenary of dreamy textures and luxurious secretions. As if on a dare from her other hand, it starts moving seductively lower... Olney comes to with a start. Blinking violently, he tries to shake off the enticing hallucination. Intra-muscular make up men employed by his face work over its contours until an expression of unalarmed nonchalance is pronounced satisfactory (with only one or two ticks caused by the usual disputes: "Jeethuth, Garth," hisses the foreman, "thimply what did you have in mind with thothe thtretch retheptorth. You nearly cauthed a thnarl."). But the mirror isn't buying any channel changes. After a lifetime of reflecting the had-and-grabbed, it's not about to lose sight of those hands with fingers so long there's a last-chance saloon at each knuckle. They're darting now, in and out of her bikini bottom. She's playing at playing with herself, fingertips calling out, "catch us if you can," to that hidden, digit-devouring and vasty swamp. Olney blinks again, hoping desperately to tighten what surely must be a loosening of the mental bowels. His eyelids open and close with the terrifying whirr of efficient shutters working on apertures in the dread Paparazzi. He keeps them shut for a few moments, appearing to be caught up in devout prayer. At last he peeks out, hoping to find no girl, no pétanquiste, and no Moon Food Cafe either. Given the choice, he'd like to find himself in a quiet padded cell, one equipped to deprive him of all senses. But the reflecting deviant will have its way. In the meat department of Olney's face, alert horns whoop and honk as the scrambling nancies fall to from buccal fat pads, where magazines are thrown aside and cigarettes butted quickly. Resorting to genius, they assemble a chef-d'oeuvre of madness. "Jesus crept 'n' Moses wept," mutters the mirror. Hot on the path to self-realization, it glances with irritation at an Olney in the grip of no-holds-barred, and his pal, the exalted bowlsman. The two stand alone with not a twinge of recognition for any of the infinite worlds they keep slipping in and out of. Behind them, top floor, American Consulate, a carapaced U.S. Marine zips up at the window of the men's room. Above him, a pigeon hobbles on the roof. Above all, the azure leer of a prurient sky. "Ok," sez the mirror, "back to biz" ... to the beach, the hot sand, the salty blue-green waves, and the girl, her close-set Mediterranean eyes sun-crossed and all fantasy, fingers thrashing in a noyade of steaming divinity. Before breaking on through to the other side, the Mirror takes a last look at Olney Pétanque. His béret's gone askew and he's drooling. A brief squeal of laughter cuts across the pathways of eternity before the perma-smudge goes blank and Olney is looking at the pauvre homme pauvre of his own face. "Merde!" he says, startling Helga as she sprints by in the course of duty. "Moah salsa?" she calls over her shoulder. "More Windex!" §§§ Helga fills his cup. Her eyes hop over its rim to the counter, pausing there a moment before leaping with a single bound to Olney's face and its gawping eyes, fixed so esuriently on the mirror. What he lookin' at like that. Sof' dlink machine? Th' toastuh? "Hey bub. You wan' toast?" Bub doesn't answer and Helga gives up, customers like him all in a days work. She turns to open the huge institutional refrigerator, removes its only contents, a small plate of butter pats, and heads for the kitchen. Olney begging with ESP: Mirror, mirror on the wall, get thee back to the fairest of 'em all. I won't fuss about realities any more, I swear. But, too bad, Olney. The mirror has self-deleted, might as well accept it. Helga returns from the kitchen, where she's evidently gotten a quick recharge. Emitting wavelengths like a laser gun beaming rippling ribbons of bright candy, her uniform-cum-transmitter catches all-ears-Olney with the message: Say, who are you, anyhow? Yeah, says a boy scout from the comic page in the newspaper at Olney's elbow. Taking over from the radiosphere's Himalayan peak-hopping Voice of the Sub Continent (as broadcast by Helga's uniform) while it deals with invading amplitudes above sweltering land masses, the scout re-poses: Just who is who with you? Olney glances down through the mirage of his nose to the comic in question. In a blown-up single frame, the scout and his chums are playing catch, chasing butterflies, picking dandelions, teeter-tottering, swinging on a jungle gym and hanging out of a first reader tree. Chubby clouds flocculate the sun out of the sky above a little rolling hill. Look at us closely, says the scout. One of us is out of whack. Well, will that help me to find out who is who? asks Olney, standing off frame, uncreate. Only if you can see us all at once, chortles the little meritocrat, pupillarity all a ruse, the kind of kid who would help a little old lady across the street: Watch out, m'am, here's the curb. The lady steps forth, Oh, thank you, young man, only the curb belongs to another world: Young man! What have you done to me? More laughing ... Blip. Yeah, mulls Olney, his turn to ask the question. Just who is running this show, this con-job-of-an interesting drama, this fable of the unfolding of one man's fumbling, with a captious aggregate all under one name and sovereign, yet clamoring for chaos. Who talked to Plought this morning? Whose intestines are gurgling now in their effort to break down this morning's killer gruel? And who are all these other guys, the supposed members of Team Olney? If I called a meeting, would anyone come? Fat chance. Someone though, has been signing my name to a lifetime of ... of what? Serial episodes starring me? Wa-hait a minute. All these other turkey's are me too. And I happen to know for a fact that the guy who goes to sleep vowing to quit smoking has never met the guy who wakes up and lights up. But which one of them is me? I don't even know these scrounges. And they don't know each other. We're all fucking strangers, man! The protean index of Another Fine Mess flaps languorously against a monochrome pillow of Screen Gems satin. Crap, he persists, how can a person think when everyone is trying to call the shots? Maybe I should take a roll call. Lessee now, where're the time sheets ... who's got the fuckin' time sheets? --You do, chump. Get wise, relax, take it easy, ask the right questions. --Oh yeah? Which one of me are you? --None. I'm from outside. Surpri-ise. --Are you the boy scout? --Let's say I'm the scoutmaster. --Are you a fag, then? --Don't get cute. --Sorry. Well, uh, Mr. Other, I'm having some heavy me problems, like I don't know if I-- --Whoops. There you go again. --But personal pronouns are necessary, aren't they? --Only if you know who's who. Listen, I've only got a minute, so let's get to the point. Tell me, which is more accessible: something you did last night, or some moment out of your past, say when you were ten years old. --Well, heck, that's easy. Last ... er ... last night. I mean ... whaddya mean, more accessible? --Just answer the question. --You don't mean recently at all, do you. --That's right, Onley-- --Olney. --That's right, Olney. Which of those two events in time can you more easily get hold of. Come on now, put your finger on it. Finger it in your solar plexus, pretend you've just drunk the fourth snifter of that cognac you love so much and it's generating heat up through your innards to your heart and brain, to your mind. Realize, Olney. Which has more substance, last night or the last thirty-odd years. Well? --Willikers, Mr. Other, I mean, they're all just out there. --Out there, huh? Out where? You sure they even happened? --Sure I'm sure. I mean ... didn't they? Hey, I've got photographs. --Snapshots of dreams, you mean. Look at 'em all you want, those places, those people, that person doesn't exist. And no one can prove he ever did." --Hold on, there. I can show you a picture of me and my friends in the place I'm living now, taken a few weeks ago. We all know we were there. We were there! --Consensus of dreams, young fella. Maybe you were, maybe you weren't. In any case, it's a photo of ghosts. Let's look at your scouts hanging from that tree again. We'll start by taking out the brass tacks and throwing away the frame. That puts you right in it. To begin with, there's nothing wrong with the picture. It's perfect. Those boys are there. The only scout out of whack is you, Mr. Whozit. Those kids are perfectly aware of what's been going on and what's been going on is nothing. That's not their worry, though. Out of the infinite number of realities, they get to be perpetually static, always at a certain degree of teeter or totter. But it is your problem. You get to climb down from the tree. You get to stop playing catch. You even get to forget you ever played catch. The scouts, there, are locked into the present, their motion eternally on pause. Think how well they must know their world by now. No random factors to deal with. But you, all of your life is totally lost to you; all those linear events have fallen off the edge of your world, into one vast warehouse of blips. Everything you do, every word you speak, is instantly sucked into that obscurity. Your consciousness can't touch any of it. Oh, maybe a remnant or two are lounging in the wings, fixed there haphazardly by some chance attention, waiting for a revival some day, a summer stock chance to play the windswept Kansas small towns of your wrinkled reminiscence. But consciousness, as the man said, is only a feeble spotlight scanning the stage of a darkened theatre. The stage is littered with all kinds of junk. Sometimes the spot hits the edge of one or two other things, but rarely more. Usually it doesn't even illuminate one very well. And it always keeps moving. No concentration. Like a monkey swinging from tree to tree. And who is moving it? Consciousness is only the spotlight. It isn't really very much at all. It can't expand, it can only be directed. All the real work is going on in the control room. Where who is. So grip up, Slim. Your whole life could have fitted into last night's dream. No substance there, I'm afraid. Years locked into an inconscient posture, no grasp at all... Well, I gotta get along now. Be seein' ya. --Say, who are you, anyhow? --Better to ask: Who is it that's speaking to who am I speaking to... §§§ Chapter 17: The Conference of the Bird-brains |