Chapter 20: Where to, bub? Olney to his feet. Whoa! Too fast, blood draining from head, neck and so on as all upper fleshy bits go uniformly white, down through shaky legs--ghastly white even with blood--and all the way to feet, toes clawing through rubber soles to find the floor, still there, thank you Lloyd. Pants stuck fast to blushing bottom from so long sitting. Little bottom, at that. But cute, Maggie always said, lest we forget. Hands flat on counter, whole body wobbly from hunger and fate. Flow of blood unrestricted now through all those tiny vessels: no more cigaretch. Reaching into pocket, where's that change, finds rubble remains: God as a yellow balloon, axolotl bubblegum card ... Maggie's delight. Get her one some day, a real one. Squirmy little critter for those private moments, ha-ha. If she ever settles down, that is. Off to the South Seas, now. Young Ma Kettle goes to Hiva Oa. Getting bronze banana-body in blue lagoons. Girl eats enough bananas her tits be nice and big for those Marquesan Don Juans sliding down coconut trunks with hip pocket flasks of kava to bed the wahine from Canady. Ouaip. Well, adios, m'dear. Olney sails the card into the Insect's slough. Might as well God and the bus transfers too. Wads them into tiny spitballs, finger flicks to the muck, card not yet sunk. Balloon and transfers don't sink either, just like the leafy green that won't flush and here comes the man. Olney trying to destroy the only indirect evidence he ever looked for a job (no one'll pin that one on him). Was it all just talk, hysterical and made up on the spot? It was. Lays the matchbook on the counter; some Moon Food smoker will thrill to the score, unless Helga whisks it into eternity with her mad efficiency. Ah, Helga, going home soon, weary from another day of the thing lived. Door locked behind her (cook folded and tucked away), she'll trudge along the streets of Placid Blastoma, her big Helga head wagging woefully in Sino-dismay, with the Odd Chinaman, her lover by her side. The two of them, meanwhile, converse quietly. It remains for Olney to pay up and leave. He finds the change, makes sure he touches her palm, but dear Helga has put her armor back on. She looks at him from the bunker of her skull, no invitations to return 't'mahoh.' He glances at the Odd Chinaman. The little man's delicate, ivory face broadens in a smile. He shrugs his shoulders, as if to say, "Life might as well be a bowl of cherries". Olney nods, his own as-if-to-say arching big bushy eyebrows above wide rolling eyes. He bids them farewell and steps into the cool air of evening. He gulps hard. Whistles a few bars of Prokofiev until his whistler goes dry. Hey, wait, let's talk it over some more, he wails to an empty house of erstwhile thirsts and drives. Well, you asked for it, the Unc is peeved already. "I know," sez O. aloud. He sighs mightily, then pronounces: "When in doubt, act like a hero..." In a smaller voice: " ...and disappear." In a smaller voice still, he mutters, "Adios insect." And in the smallest voice of all: "I hope." Hands a-pocket and leaning into an imaginary wind, Olney Garkle steps forth with giddy resolution as the shrieking sound of a small coin rushing in from the void hits the asphalt behind him. §§§ The Moon Food's prequel: Living in the O |