Decline and Fall of Alternative Civilization Page 2

  ~ ~ ~

  Sounds: a flicking, a racking, a cracking under a hood. O angels of parking lots hiding their eyes and closing their ears. The night makes fools of angels and noses sticking under a dinosaur's grave fliffing oily-soot laundry in triple-X-haust oh pop the hood this is an eight eight eight. Launch a bottle with a note. Straight to heave to ho-ho my loud Spanish word. And in the still of nights lost and found the wind sighs ?silencio! Always the wind, always ?silencio! And we'll wait on the road to reason and sailable soot-socks oh?

  Clacktch.

  A coil is a coil. Tesla tossed and turned; it burned to blackly cross the crackly speed limit. Pop the hood and will there be a topless valve dancer ?AQUI! toppie-woppie and a girl jumps out of the carburetor. Have your cake and eat it later.

  Click.

  Her name was Holley.

  Click.

  Lightly, go.

  1-2-3-4 push me down 5-6-7-8 jump some more. Eight popping wires and one more liar liar points and fires. A well capped story, 8 million cylinders in Motor City. 7,999,992 to go. This is good, dancers or no no notafinga. Leave the wires. That's nice. Don't wanna leave 'em mad, dad. Eureka in a parts store framzy frenzy and a brawla suey tuey, Louie. Look it up in the book here. They don't make these any more. If it ain't in stock we ain't got it. Lower the hood.

  C-Clauktch.

  ?Ssshhhhilencio!

  Pop fizzy pop unpop the hoodly woodly y'all come back my pocket flannel shticka. Heah's my card. Put it somewhere you won't lose it to the swelling of long waitings, roads on silly fire. To the clinking darken anticipations. From afar, a landscape witnessing the shadows of running obsession across highways of theft. Theft is property as property is theft. Silver birds and black eagles fly precise traditions that eye colors where uniformity breaks down to chaos. All in a midnight dreaming. Orbs untundra o conquistaduntrada en el noche al olvidada.

  Sssssssssss?

  (the mad thieves. why did they cross the road, and why did anyone ask why. the good samaritan fooled to thinking he could steal an idea from another traveler-a non-samaritan-and get away with it. leave a jew and a christian to write it all down in diverging histories and spend the rest of their days quibbling. but, like miles, days are numbered, too.)

  The getaway:

  An accelerator is a liberating thing.

  Somewhere there was a traveler bemoaning a loss only he or she could fathom. Somewhere else there was an upraised hood and another traveler contemplating the confusion of eight homeless spark plug wires. And yet again, somewhere there was a snake watchful of monsters on blacktop, a helluva dance, at any moment, on any day, roads on churning tires?forever?the party never ending.

  Pray.

  It sometimes works.

  III

  "A wise man once said, 'Never discuss philosophy

  or politics in a disco environment.'"

  -Frank Zappa

  i

  Though she learned to drive as a teenager, most of her life June had no need for an automobile and most of her life she couldn't afford to own one. Upon entering college, a rusted old Buick convertible became her urban chariot until the day it refused to start and disappeared a week later. Its squeaky, leaky, achey-brakey, fume-y with no zoom-y, rent-a-dent, BYODT (bring-yer-own-duct-tape) condition motivated her to continue studying philosophy. Why even bother to find out who towed it? Bread cast upon the water just got wet, and bread served with the dinner special usually got left as crusts sticking out of cold mashed potatoes. She had no reason to file a police report or to expect the patrolman who showed up at her door one day to inform her of the recovery of the stolen vehicle.

  The only things of value in the car were a paperback copy of Finnegans Wake and a borrowed hardback of Fear of Flying. She had read both books but the Erica Jong had one day plummeted from a hole in the floorboard during a parking maneuver in the rain. Kneeling in the gutter, she reached underneath and rescued it from a pothole-sized lake. Its owner wouldn't be too thrilled upon its return. June never went to the impound yard to claim her nonpareil. It did, however, prompt her to write a thesis titled:

  Fifty Ways To Spell Nietzsche

  or

  Why I Just Kant

  A critical dissertation on 20th century reasoning as defined by elements of dystopian ideologies and their resulting cultural ethics, the paper was marked "Clever, but incomplete?"

  The professor must have driven a Volvo. Or maybe he never had to wait tables. He probably had a spouse's car to borrow or a AAA card eliminating worries about terms of transportation that kept him from considering how a broken-down Buick could be the main determiner of fate. Attempting to defend her treatise, she watched the professor place both elbows on the desk (the fingertips of both hands together) and rest his chin on the hook of his thumbs. His eyes glazed over in an institutional When will you please finish torturing me? manner. Finally, he raised his head and said, as if quoting from the Chilton Manual of College Instructors, "That, my dear girl, is what Mechanics is for. You need to pay closer attention to Pure Reason."

  It was not the first time she understood murder but she stifled a response. Pure reason? How much purer than nuts and bolts, let alone meat and potatoes, can life be? If you were a vegetarian you could argue tofu and rice, and if a traveler, buses and feet. Beyond cause and effect, life was structured by ways and means. The ways would always exist but the means would define the possibilities of existence. She had to fight for the privilege of independence and for the privilege to own and pilot "Finnegans Flyer" across town from jobs to school. As did an infantryman to secure a small piece of earth just to act out the pretense of survival, knowing that one well-lobbed piece of artillery could turn existence into a farce. How could a turnkey life possibly solidify an understanding of philosophy or pure reason?

  She was glad she fled the ivory tower.

  Fleeing the living room, she pulled the bedroom door shut and launched her body onto an unmade bed. Like an errant party balloon, the professor's self-satisfied countenance bounced through her mind, and June saw hands grab and squeeze the floating image til it burst. In that second it could have been any face at all, any number of enemies or friends she killed. She loved her friends. Dedra Fatiuchka's friendship had pulled her from uncertainty to stability. The girl had committed sins, sure. No one was perfect. And Bryan? He was a dork. An admirably talented, ne'er do well dork with whom she could endlessly insult and joke around. Then there was Jerry. He was a jerk. Overconfident, small-minded, he had knocked over her bass and why should his highness stoop to offer so much as a feeble apology when his MFA smartly qualified him to be a university instructor?

  Why should he expect a college dropout, a mere restaurant and coffeehouse worker, to grasp the subtleties of lofty education? There may have been a West Point for auto mechanics but there was no such citadel for service industries. Down in the foxholes of waitressing there were no officers. At best, some sergeants; mostly they were enlistees. Unlike the dogfaces of the infantry, who occasionally marched into new territory, waitpersons were stuck with the enemy always bringing the fight to them. The only way to gain ground was to stand and defend what little ground they had. Focus was a virtue. Like understanding, it could turn wine into water when all that was hoped for was to make the mud clear. In the aisles, between tables, June learned that all roads lead to Sears before they get anywhere close to Rome.

  There were good days and good customers but, all in all, it was a war and you damn well better keep your head down when the enemy advances. Always the barrage of "What's good?" or "What do you recommend?" and the antsy onslaught of the lunch and dinner rushes. Maybe you'd get strafed by low-flying squadrons of teenagers or be felled by a goop grenade from a high-chair sniper. At point-blank range she deflected, made suggestions and said, "You'll never know if you don't try it!" or "A personal favorite of mine!" Fire! Return fire! Clever taunts to get customers to do something different in their lives; make up their little, troubled, powe
r-calculating minds about things they may not have considered; work their brains over the very action of tipping. And sidework was the measure of mettle. It was too easy to lose a finger rolling silverware, blood spreading from napkin to napkin. A humongus job to unroll everything to find the lost digit. On a hot day in a hot bathroom lesser waitpersons had fallen-casualties to order prostration or 12-top shock or tip deprivation, their bodies discovered facedown, drowned in the toilet bowl, a crayon clutched tightly in one hand, a line of red scrawled down the wall, the last gasp?the last ticket cancelled.

  But she was a Philosophy student! (insert laughs here)

  A bracing intellectual activity ultimately became a revelation that philosophy was incapable of liberating mankind with its perceptions. There were too many inflections involved. The language of ideologues and politicians may mean well, but in the end, her chosen major was merely a discipline that sharpened sword points that were not used to cut the bread. They were used to march the masses to pre-sliced loaves of dogma. The philosopher was too often made to bake the breads of wrath if not eat the rye crusts, or convince others that the ovens were not at all a factor. (audience titters)

  And what of Rationalism itself? (chuckles)

  Well, boys and girls, it's not the matter of this one. It's the matter of the other one. Das Glas neither halb nor voll. Der, der einen zum Weinen und Fremdgehen bringt. Yes. Really! (laughter)

  Wirklich? (twitters and scattered applause)

  Ja, Herr Leibniz! Ja, Herr Pangloss! Light shining in darkness! Illumination! Justification! Ich bin ein Hegelian! Oh, ja! Sturm und Drang! Das Auge, das das Ohr sucht, das nach dem Wald horcht, der Taubheit mit Ton vergleicht! Say Hey, Mr. Mays! If a vibration pulses through space where there is no time to continue, um, will Satchel Paige throw a curveball or just another fast one? (oh, yes; laughs and cheers; applause; Fade-out?)

  ii

  Station identification:

  In usual dismay, Mom was a drunkard. Dad disappeared with no one remembering his face, and the vanishing stepfather was equally worthless. But June had always loved her older brother, Tom, who seemed to know more about the state of the world than he was willing to reveal and was her only source of comfort. His ability to not make sense was the one thing that did make sense against a usual sweep of early-1970s midwest dissolution.

  At ten years old, he was the "King of Mud" who endorsed magical powers and mixtures of earth and water. She was declared "Princess of Bogs." When snows melted and streams flowed, they made pilgrimage to unseen urban puddles, fully ignored by the city's apathetic fools. A junior Willy Wonka tending the crops of imagination, he conjured tight spells and cast stares across dinner tables through long, piercing silences. She waited until he pulled her aside in the most secret manner and, away from the ears of an uncomprehending world, he whispered, "The coming of the mud." Then she relaxed. It had been spoken.

  They would flee the apartment to cast aside clothing, kneel in the ooze of earth, chant prayers and oaths, words of butterflies, words of trees, shafts of sunlight beating upon the ground. The King would anoint her and, in a perfect sacrament, they would eat of the mud in holy communion at the altar of all that Spring promised. Hidden from the scoldings of church and state, they tumbled into the cool sludge until covered in aboriginal bliss, only their eyes daring to appear civilized. And it was done. It was good. Ask no questions and there is no need for answers. Just a long, filthy walk back home.

  Two years after Mom's remarriage, the mudless Spring fell like a weight dropped from a window washer's scaffold. Tom's eyes had dulled and he didn't speak of the coming.

  Unbearable.

  She waited?he said nothing of the mud. Daring to inquire was a grave violation and also the moment their lives regressed into normalcy. Dear Uncle Kevin had taught her to shun pity and, if not for him, June would have been one of Chicago's youngest suicide victims, facedown in a freezing bog of earthen slime, a dime-store tiara attached to her head, homicide detectives pondering her motives while they mashed lifeless fingerprints into inkpads. The Princess of Bogs would not leave a suicide note. No. This was confided the day she walked endlessly around the block of Earwickers Pub, the bar her uncle co-owned with a friend. Her feet counted twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two times before kicking up the courage to push through the green door and enter, before her pounding heart killed her.

  Kevin McClunaghan, the last old-style patriarch, laughed at the tearful tale. "June, you're a good girl, you know that," he said. Taking her hand and leading her away from the bustle of bar patrons, he pulled the lass onto his lap at an unoccupied table. "You're a big girl too. But you're not so big that I can't set you down so. Now, I ask you a serious question and you must answer truthfully. Do you need to be tickled or do you need to be talked to?"

  Tickling was not in the cards that day but he assured that she had a home in his upstairs flat whenever she needed, and nothing, he said, could possibly bother a catholic Irishman who supplied Bushmill's for those who, like himself, preferred its taste and definite kick over Jameson. It was a matter of taste-nothing more, nothing less. Life was far too short to make whiskey choices based on politics. Goodness was rare enough in this or any other century. That should be the measure. And in telling her a wondrous old story from long ago, it would be the lesson of the day. She shouldn't expect to understand everything that happened around her, let alone her brother's strange actions.

  The only bar on the north side of town with an espresso machine and a man who knew how to use it, Earwickers offered refuge from the winds of achy lives, empty promises, enduring dirt and snow, and it offered protection against a home ruled by a spiritless mother. Such hell, and a cold trudge through the urban wilderness led her straight to a somber heaven where woe unto the manger-born bastard who could have a seat at the bar and learn well the true gospels that narrowly missed inclusion in the faith. Scriptures could tell a meek part of senses and their sensibilities. She felt something greater when she walked through the door and into the heady fumes of Guinness, coffee, the argument of the day, and was buoyed by her uncle's pronouncement, "Ahh, 'tis Herself. My day is now complete."

  On those days when the argument was particularly fueled, as old men are likely to fuel it, he would broadly gesture and say, "The ignorance of fools crumbles at her coming." She would try not to smile and would clumsily drop her school books, and he would brew her a cup of muscular caffeine, and she would drink it reverently, and he would resume his argument or his story weaving, and she would feel safe from sentence diagrams, long division and all else that might cause harm.

  June never counted the times she did homework sitting at one of the dark oak tables amidst a buzz of sometimes boisterous, sometimes hushed voices that chorused her own thoughts-bold, erratic, unsure, content, sorrowful. The oasis of verbal rumblings where today would be dealt with and tomorrow would be cajoled into something desirable before the dawn would render it not so; no, nay, not so. There was a poetry to men talking amongst themselves, a poetry to the rushings of the best brewed coffee and, under Uncle Kevin's supervision, the days of poetry that surrounded a pint of cold Guinness or a taste of golden Bushmill's.

  For years Earwickers was her de facto home. Still longing for the adventures of the Bogs, here she found refuge from the turmoils of her soul. And came the Winter day when Tom, a handsome teenager, pulled her aside as he had in times past. She stirred to hear of the coming but?no. He drew her close and said, "I'll have to go. You need to get out of here too. The mud won't help you if you stay too long."

  He walked away and shut himself in his room.

  iii

  There was a knocking on her bedroom door.

  "June?"

  The knob turned and a body eased through from the hallway. June's tall frame was stretched across the mattress, her sight fixed on a nightstand clutter of abalone shells, small photographs, action figures of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Dedra knelt by the side of the bed and rasped out a burp. The big girl bu
ried her face in her arms.

  Another party. Another escaped balloon.

  Rain pounded outside and on windows that rattled under the impact. The little girl reached a hand to her friend's skull and stroked hair that fringed a neck hot to the touch until a muffled voice ordered, "Stop it," then said, "I'm sorry."

  "Sorry? Why?"

  June raised her head, face a glistening mess of tear-smeared lipstick.

  "You should see yourself. You're a big sopping mess."

  "I'm really sorry," she sniffled, "I don't mean to be a jerk. I'm sorry."

  "You're not a jerk. But tell me, what's going on?"

  June gulped in a measure of air and gave a long, dense burp.

  "Will you cut that out?" Her friend laughed.

  "I can't help it." Her voice was a klezmer tuba bellowing behind the human walls of sorrow. "Why do I have to be such a big stupid loser? What's wrong with me?"

  "There's nothing wrong with you, silly." Dedra pulled herself onto the bed and patted her friend's back. "You're no more of a loser than the next asshole bitch. Quit being so damn hard on yourself."

  "Quit trying to make me feel better."

  "Like I should try to make you feel any worse?"

  "Like you should waste your time."

  "I'm not wasting my time, dummy. You pay me rent, remember?"

  "Someone else?anyone can pay you rent, y'know."

  "Whoa. Wait a minute." Dedra bolted upright. "I don't need anyone to pay me rent and you and I both know it. But that's not the point. The point is?you're my best friend. I want you here, dammit. Don't make me mad."

  June buried her head. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be?to say?"

  "It's OK, it's OK. I'm sorry too."

  June whimpered, "I gotta go pee," and stepped out of the room.

  Dedra combed a hand through a blonde shock of hair, pushed it back from her forehead and contemplated the scar tissue on her scalp, her pinky following the rift downward to where it forked through an eyebrow, into an eyelid. She adjusted the bifocals on her nose and fingered the hemstitching of the Little Mermaid pillowcase. The muffled flush of the toilet and sounds of water squeezing through plumbing whistled counterpoints to the drumming of rain on the rooftop. As June clop, clopped back into the room, Dedra jumped past her, singing, "My turn."

  In the hallway Dedra squinted at the two men talking quietly. Bryan had pulled his guitar from its case; he glanced back and opened another beer. She folded her arms, turned away and entered the bathroom, relieved herself and noticed the red lips smeared on the mirror. In her own room she pushed aside a messy pile of clothing, reached into a shopping bag and exited with a virgin fifth of Seagram's VO. Back in the other girl's domain she sat on the edge of the bed, ran a thumbnail through the seal and grinned. "Hi. I brought us a little something."

  "You're not gonna get me shitfaced again."

  "Maybe I am gonna get you shitfaced again." The seal cracked and the cap popped off with a deft twist. "You can have as much or as little as you want. C'mon, move over."

  Streaks of red smeared her face, even though June had rinsed her eyes. Dedra, on the mattress beside her, pushed the brown bottle in front of her face. The slim neck wavered in the lamplight like a charmed snake.

  "First swig is yours, O princess of darkness."

  June grabbed the bottle and took a healthy suck, swallowed in a bunch of air, and, "god????dammit. That's good."

  "Jus' what the doctor ordered. Have another."

  "No, not yet. Go for it." She passed the bottle back to Dedra.

  "VO. Best shit in the world."

  "Bushmill's is better."

  "Uh, we're not gonna get technical here." The little girl put down a big woman's shot, "Haaaa?" and placed the bottle on the floor. Straight, no chaser. Raindrops, footsteps, the sound of men's voices and the far-off tinklings of an unplugged electric guitar in the other room.

  "So, June. What the hell's going on?"

  "I don't know."

  "Wrong. Next caller."

  "Do we have to talk about this right now? I'd rather?"

  "I think you should talk about it. Don't you think?"

  June wrinkled a chin at the bottle. "De, you've been a great friend. And you don't know how much I appreciate all you've done for me. I don't want to say anything that'll?" A wave of tears wrung from her ducts and washed down to the pillow.

  "Take your time, June. We've got nothing but time."

  "I hate this crying shit."

  "It is sooo overrated."

  Sobful moments passed and Dedra stared blankly at the floor, at the bottle in front of her, remembering jokes about frontal lobotomies. June grabbed the bottle, took a pull, set it in front of her and bravely sniffled. "This is too much, De, but I'm trying my best."

  Dedra's eyes were a beautiful grey. They occupied that precise space between hard black and hard white where philosophers and politicians would forever argue. She wholeheartedly believed black and white were actual colors and not representations of absences or oversaturations. Staring at the floor and bottle again, her eyes pulled in the shadings of all those colors and the room light seemed to shake under the perfect suction.

  "I thought I was over all this, dammit. Every fucking day I wake up thinking this is the day. Nothing will affect me. But no, not today. Probably not tomorrow. Y'know, I'd like to have one day for that to be true. Is that so much to ask?"

  Silence.

  "Is it?"

  "It's a nice wish"-the grey eyes relaxed their grip-"but it's just a wish."

  "I know. But sometimes it does happen."

  "In the best of worlds."

  "No, in the real world. This world."

  "Such an optimist, June. None of us has any real control over fate."

  "I'm not talking about fate. I'm talking about mercy."

  "Mercy, huh? Is it Tom?"

  "Oh, c'mon. You know I love Tom. I can't stand Wendell."

  "Uh huh. Like I couldn't guess."

  "How did we ever get involved with such a loser?"

  "We?" The trance broke. Dedra's eyes narrowed.

  "Oh, yeah. I know. I'm the one who got him into the band and?let him in my bed. Geeezzz, what a fucking mistake. But we're both in on this, remember?"

  "Yeah, but?" The confederate-hued orbs sharpened on the whiskey bottle. She grabbed it, tossed back a swallow and militantly thonked it back on the wood floor.

  "And I'm getting the rawest end of the deal, OK?"

  "Uhhh, you're not blaming me, are you?"

  "I don't want to. I mean, of course not. But?oh?gee whiz."

  "I have the feeling that you're trying to tell me something?"

  A bolt of silence screamed like a line drive to shortstop. "Oh boy oh boy." June chanted like an infielder whose only prayer could make a difference, and when the ball smacked into the leather, "Dammit, De, I'd blame you if I knew I could get away with it but I know I can't. And what kind of a person would that make me, anyway? I didn't want to have to tell you. Didn't want to say anything at all but you've made me so mad. I didn't think it'd actually happen but you've really been pissing me off lately. I've held it in and held it in but now I can't anymore. And I already feel like shit but?dammit. You have no idea how much I've thought of just giving it all up and just getting the hell out of here. Just so I wouldn't have to say anything."

  "Why did I see this coming?" Dedra's voice hissed into the base, lips tightened into the rigid line of an overtaxed zipper, her face ready to disjoin.

  "Maybe cuz you're not stupid. I'm the one who's stupid for not bringing it up before this. I mean, you've got so goddam much going for you and you waste it on so much goddam bullshit. And I see it and wonder why the hell I'm? Then maybe it's none of my goddam business."

  Dedra's body stiffened and her eyes were no match for the bottle in front of her. "Shit," she breathed.

  "Do you have any idea what I'm talking about?"

 
; "Maybe you better just say it, OK."

  "Well??the way you've been shoving so much shit up your nose lately. All this white powder fucking crap. There. I said it." June turned onto her side, facing away. "Don't think I can't tell, De. You can't hide that shit around me and you know it. I mean, a little line every once in a while? Sure. But you know you're really not like that and I'm not your friend if I don't say it. And if you want to dig yourself into that fucking pit?go ahead. But I don't wanna have anything to do with it. And you know you can't tell me I don't know what I'm talking about. You already know I've been with all the pretty, drooling faces. And they're so damn pretty at first. I was married to one of 'em, fer chrissakes. Trust me, you don't wanna be one. If there's anything I learned from it, it's that?run away. Just run the fuck away. It all starts out so breezy but then there's the blind alley and you're at the end of it and Dracula is right there behind you and you don't know how to even turn around anymore so you let him keep biting you in the ass cuz it's easier than screaming for help and you don't even know how to scream anymore, let alone ask for help. And that pretty face is suddenly really, really ugly and you can't even recognize your own face in the mirror and for cryin' out loud, you're dry. Absolutely fucking dry. You can't love someone like that. And it gets harder and harder to even like someone like that, or just be around them and all the fucking bullshit." Struggling to hold back the revulsion, she turned back toward her friend. "Even in the best of worlds."

  In one soft movement the little blonde pushed up her glasses, covered her eyes with both hands and remained frozen until she said, "I hate you." Lifting the specs from her head, she tossed them onto the nightstand. "You fucking asshole," she sobbed, "There's a big rusty knife on the back porch. Maybe it'd be easier if you just cut my heart out with it."

  The big lipstick clown resisted offering comfort, but taking a swig from the VO, "We're such crybabies. Why do we have to cry so damned much?"

  "June, you're a damned sonofabitch."

  "That'd be Ms. Sonofabitch to you. Capital letters, please."

  Rolling onto her back, Dedra's half-sob, half-laugh convulsed her chest. An attempted smile disintegrated into lip-biting nervousness. "You fucker. Not only do you kill me, you correct my grammar too. I hope you have enough to pay for my funeral."

  "You're not quite dead yet."

  "Yes, I am! Good job! Go dig a hole!"

  "OK." June laughed. "Do we have a shovel?"

  "I think it's on the porch. Right behind the rusty knife." The girl gasped in a measure of air and exhaled. "I don't know if I should hit you or hug you right now. I'd have no problem with killing you, though. You're right. I'm an idiot. And here you are pushing me over like a drunken domino. And to think I'm a grownup but it doesn't seem to do me any good."

  "Why is that, De?"

  "Go ahead, grill me til I'm done. It's because I'm a jerk, that's why."

  "You and me both." The nightstand had a square photo of June's deceased brother Tom, his incendiary expression too much for her. She focused on the flying squirrel and the moose. "I think I was reincarnated from a past life to be the designated dodo."

  "Dodo?"

  "Yeah, that's me."

  "You can't blame yourself for Wendell," Dedra said, wiping at her face. "You know that he called, don't you?"

  "Yes, I know," she frostily replied. "He should save his words, though. He's done. I want him out of this mess. One of us has gotta give him the boot. If you won't kick him out, I will." She turned to face Dedra-a standoff of dive-bomber versus frigate.

  "You really want to go back to square one."

  "Why not?"

  "But?"

  "But what?"

  "But sometimes you make too much sense for me not to listen to you, that's what."

  "Well, good. That's the best thing I've heard all day. I mean, this shit just doesn't work. And what the hell was I thinking anyway? Why didn't you stop me?" She twisted onto her back and raised a hand that tried to grasp at something in the lamplight. When it appeared she had it, she gave a gesture of resignation and released it. "Sometimes I bet it can work but I'm sure it usually doesn't. Usually just leaves a huge trail of stains and paternity suits and bad songs on shitty albums. You know that."

  "How 'bout Dead Moon?"

  "Huh. The only exception. Ever."

  "Just call me D for disaster."

  "Oh?Finnegan," said June. "C'mon, you know what I mean."

  "D for dumbass?"

  "How 'bout damn the torpedoes"-an Uncle Kevin expression his dear niece couldn't help using-"At least humor me, OK?"

  Dedra grabbed the bottle from behind them and they each took a sideways swallow. June stood it on her chest and, against the tinny strummings of Bryan's guitar, said, "What the hell are we doing? Call me crazy, but I really want to play music, OK. To hell with the bullshit. Maybe it's stupid to wanna be another grrrl bass player in a city like this but I don't care. There's a difference somewhere. Maybe I could find something that matters to me for chrissakes. This is the only thing I've got going right now and no one's gonna look after me to make sure I don't fall on my face or something."

  "You've got me."

  "Come on, you can't be responsible for me. It's tough enough to be responsible for yourself, right?"

  "Yeah?I guess." Dedra belched.

  "Y'know, this might be the first thing in my life that's really real. Y'know, something where it's really me doing something that I never would have ever imagined doing but here I am doing it. And it feels so goddam good. It really does."

  "You are getting better. I have noticed."

  "De, I know I've got a long ways to go but I think I can get there. I wanna be?I wanna be?Juno Pastorian! Was that his name?"

  "Oh no. Not that." A giggle swelled to a belly laugh.

  "Why not? Listen. Listen???!" June grabbed the girl's arm and cried, "Last week I found out a lady named Carol Kaye played bass on all those old hit songs in the sixties!"

  "Who?" Dedra stopped laughing.

  "Carol Kaye."

  "What band was she in?"

  "She wasn't in a band. She was a studio musician."

  "Really? What records did she play on?"

  "All that old Beach Boys stuff?"

  "No way."

  "Yeah. Way. Way way way. They didn't play on their own records. They hired studio musicians. And all those old Phil Spector records. Isn't that amazing? I had no idea."

  "Did she really?"

  "Yes yes yes. It's true. I read it in one of Bryan's guitar magazines. Look it up on your Internet, girl. I bet it's there too. Read 'em and weep."

  "That's incredible."

  "De, I can do it. I know I can. At least I can die trying." June was pounding the girl's arm into the mattress. Realizing it, she released her grip. "Oh, sorry. Geeezzz, I never thought I'd ever hear myself say anything like that."

  "Have you ever considered a career in wrestling?"

  "That's next, I tell ya."

  "June the Loon pounding the squared circle."

  "Hmmm. That does have a nice ring."

  The conversation hushed as rain babbled onto the rooftop and a wind swept it against the windows. The Loon pulled herself up from the mat after hearing a referee's decision. "You can do it too, y'know."

  "Yeah."

  "But you have to want to do it. I mean, people give me shit about playing with my thumb but I don't care. I don't get along with picks."

  "It sounds fine to me."

  "De, I really wanna do this with you but the whole thing's lately been such a drag. We're at this stupid impasse and you don't? You? Aside from the drug crap, you act as if you don't care. If you do care, you've gotta get your shit together. You have such a great voice and it's natural talent. It almost makes me mad. I don't have that. I practice and practice and I still feel like such a dork when I listen to myself. It's so nice when there's somebody else to play with."

  "You're gonna make
me cry again, June."

  "No, I'm not. You're bluffing."

  "Just wait'll I drown in my sorrow."

  "Cut it out. I'm being dead serious about this. I don't wanna be waiting tables all my life. Even with my glowing proficiency evaluations I can't go back to the airlines. And I sure ain't lookin' to get married again. I gotta do something that gives me a sense that something can change. Otherwise I think I'm back to square one again and I don't want to be there. This is what I want to do. I want to do it now, not tomorrow, but I can't do it alone. Aside from that Pastorian guy, bass players are lousy soloists."

  "I'm with ya, Junie, but you can't expect this to bring you a miracle."

  "Of course it won't. I know that. I'm not looking for miracles. I mean, what about those girls in that Pork band? You heard their record. I read their interview in a fanzine the other day. They're bozos and they know it, but at least they know it and they're having a good time with it. At least they're having an honest adventure."

  "Yeah. So what do you want to do?"

  "OK." June scrutinized the bottle she had been turning in her hands. "I don't want to see or have anything to do with Wendell ever again. Uh uh. Gotta wise up. He's a goddam junkie." Dedra was scowling at the ceiling. "Tell me the truth. You've scored from him, right?"

  "Well?"-the girl's eyes opening wide-"Yeah, but not heroin. I've never wanted to even try that stuff. Or needles. Yucko. But, OK, yeah, the other things."

  "I knew it." She glanced back at the bottle. "Did he ever try to, uh?"

  "Please don't hold any of this against me. A few weeks ago he tried to hit on me but I dodged. Honest. I never, ever?"

  "That's OK." She held up a hand. "I believe you, De. Wouldn't be like you to do anything like that. But it doesn't surprise me that he would do that. Fucking scumbag."

  "Hey, I have no motivation to be with him. I've got a boyfriend."

  "Jerry, huh?"

  "Yyyyeah. I don't think you like Jerry."

  "Maybe it's none of my business but?no, I don't. He really bugs me."

  "Why?"

  "Aside from being a dickhead and a cokehead? Well, forgive me if I say the wrong thing but," June lowered her voice, "what the hell is the attraction? He has such a condescending attitude. I hope you're just in it for the boinking."

  "Boink? I don't know." Dedra dropped her speaking volume. "I have had my doubts about him, but I'm not completely sure what you mean."

  "C'mon, he'd make a great college professor." She snorted, "That really ain't a compliment. Got that ooky, faux professional attitude where he pretends to know way more than he does when it's obvious that you know one hell of a lot more than he probably ever will. He knows it too, so he cops that 'Mr. Sensitive Intellectual' air."

  "Ouch. Maybe I should dump him?"

  "Mmmaybe. But don't do anything on my account, I might be wrong. But if I'm right, he'll fawn over you and suck you dry for selfish advantage, then rationalize why you weren't worthy. He's a notch left of bootlicker. C'mon, De. You're one person who knows the value of hard work. You're young but you're sure not dumb. Don't blow it. And don't let people take you for granted. You have such an advantage over everyone else in this town."

  "Wow. You always?" She wiped a tear away. "I guess I never look at it that close."

  "Ooohh, be careful how you look at things." Speaking normally again, "It's such a chore to keep hormones on the ranch. Wish I had looked more carefully at Wendell."

  "June, I think you should be the one to deal with him."

  "God, I don't want to."

  "You think I want to? It'll probably do you more good than it will me. Whaddaya think?"

  "What do you think I think?"

  The little girl bounded up and off the bed, pulling the big girl by the hand. "C'mon, Junie, let's do it!"

  "Do what?"

  "Call Wendell. Right now, before you have a chance to change your mind."

  "But?" She followed in the lurch, being pulled off the mattress onto the floor. "Hey! Lemme do it tomorrow. I can think about what to say tonight."

  "Nuh uh. Do it now. Right now. You murdered me pretty good with no rehearsal. You think too good on your feet."

  Big clown towered woozily. "I was laying down. With your whiskey."

  "Look, if you do this now and get it over with, I'll take you out for lunch and a piroshky ma?ana."

  "Piroshky?"

  "They're the best. You could use one. And maybe a vatrushka, but you gotta earn 'em now."

  "OK! OK! Let me pee first. Here."

  She handed Dedra the bottle and scraped down the hallway. When done, she clopped into the living room. Jerry and Bryan had killed the first 12-pack and were halfway through the second. Squinting from their lack of eyewear, the two women sat before the phone as Jerry rose from the couch and said, "Uh, we were just about to go to the store for more beer, eh, Bryan?"

  "We are?"

  "Yeah. More beer and maybe some?"

  "Wait, you guys," Dedra said, "this will only take a minute."

  Jerry sat back down and quizzically made an uncertain face Bryan set his guitar aside, shrugged and took another gulp of suds.

  "I don't know what to say." June scratched her head.

  "Yes you do. I'm right behind you if you need me."

  "This is a real Finnegan Fandango, De."

  "It sure is!"

  "Don't be laughing while I'm on the phone, dammit."

  "I'll shut up. I'll shut up."

  Big picked up the receiver, punched six numbers and froze. She slammed it back down. "I can't do it."

  "You chickenshit. And after all your scolding? You promised." Little grabbed the receiver and forced it into Big's hand. "You gotta get it over with. Be a man."

  "Welllll?oh boy." She whistled at her fist. "If you put it that way?OK. Get outta my way, shrimp." She gave Dedra a shove, sending her sprawling against the wall, all shrieks and giggles. Six numbers were pushed?a decisive breath?then a seventh. Big waved her hand, Little covered her mouth. "Dammit. It's the machine. Stupid fuckin' message. C'mon, beep me. Here we go. Wendell? Are you there, Wendie baby? Look?no, listen. I'm taking off my shoes now, can you hear?" She pulled the cans from her feet and crunched them against the mouthpiece. "Doesn't this sound good? Huh? Well, this is gonna sound better. You're a goddam fuckin' loser, Wendell. Get the fuck outta my life and outta my band and don't even bother calling back cuz I don't wanna hear it. Sorry, I've got dishes to do. Actually, maybe I'm not so sorry. Maybe like all things everything turned out for the best so that I don't have to worry about you, you don't have to worry about me, we don't have to worry about each other or anything that might tax our emotions or cause us to think about each other or who we might hurt or who might think what or whatever and keep one or the other of us awake at night thinking about the other and heaven and hell knows that we don't want any of that now, DO WE?

  "Oh, one more thing: Have a nice day. Get high.

  "PS: Dedra doesn't want to talk to you either!"

  The phone slammed down like a rockabilly rimshot that left room and ears ringing. The two men were dumbfounded. Time suspended and shilly-shallied along words waiting behind curtains of rain and mountains of thought and an opening-night prayer rolled away the stone of inertia. The little blonde's face was ashen. She awarded her bandmate an expression of admiration, fear, cold surprise-probably a triad, a suspension of all three. "Girlfriend," she gasped and placed the beer can to her lips, forgetting to drink from it.

  Leaping up, June scanned the room gracefully. Like a Monty Python brainstorm careening into a wall. "Where's my petrowsky, bitch? I'm mighty hungry."

  "That's piroshky, you?HEY!"

  June grabbed Dedra by the hair and pulled her to her feet.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Gimme my petrowsky now or I'm taking you to the mat."

  "June, no." She was picked up and tossed over a shoulder, the full beer slipping from her grip a
nd diving to the rug below amidst a shrill "AAAAAAaaahhhhh!"

  "Petrowsky. Now."

  The front door burst inward letting in a raw gust of air. Out through the portal went June the Loon and a kicking, shrieking package of championship female noise.

  "JUNE! NO! PUT ME DOWN! HEEEEELLLPP!"

  "Two out of three, bitch."

  The men jumped up and followed the commotion, but too late. They were drastically behind the girl-driven beat. When they reached the porch, water raging down on the city and houses, the women were nowhere to be seen. In the stormy darkness, a muffled cry of "Help!" barely split the air. Bryan, peering into the sopping black night, focused on a muddy sounding splash and called out, "Hey. Are you guys gonna be needing a guitar player?"

  He was answered by a strange and rainy silence. Then a sailing postscript of a sodden divot flew narrowly past his head and through the open door.

  IV

  "Writing in English is the most ingenious torture ever devised

  for sins committed in previous lives."

  -James Joyce

  i

  Wendell never called back and June didn't care a rodent's ass. Dedra learned a lot from that phone call and, heeding Ms. McClunaghan's observations, she scaled back her time with Jerry to see what would happen. The day his highness disparaged June's character was the day Ms. Fatiuchka did not apologize for being impolite. There are countless ways to say "Fuck you, asshole!" and as many ways to address that envelope but rarely is there a more effective delivery than to unflinchingly give an asshole the eye, say "Fuck you, asshole!" and walk away. Had David handled himself half as well, Goliath would have saved himself a mighty headache.

  Little De hailed from Mobile, Alabama, a victim of proper southern upbringing. Some people don't cuss unless given a damned good reason to, or in damned intimate surroundings, or just very damned drunk. She had been the perfectly spoken lady until she met big Junie, and, a match made in domestic heaven, they became housemates who enjoyed each other's company and stayed out of each other's hair. Squabbles about rent and bills were nonexistent, they both cooked and usually failed to clean, and shared equal tastes in alcohol. Best of all, they couldn't borrow each other's clothes. Except for the morning when a hard thunderstorm sent them on a mad dash home from the laundromat.

  Both women late for work, there was no time to fold everything. Dedra slipped and spilled forth herself and a basketful to the wet ground. At home, it was impossible to quickly separate wet from dry, folded from un-, Big's from Little's. The hour getting later and nervouser, Dedra ran from the house wearing her counterpart's shorts and an equally ill-fitting stretch top. She was late, phone lines were down. In desperate times desperate women do desperate things.

  June somehow grumbled her body into one of her housemate's dresses that appeared to be one of her own. She slammed the door shut, ran down the slippery steps, twisted abruptly to recover balance from a near fall and split the side stitching wide, wide open. Her keys were locked inside the house. Drenched, she forced her way through a kitchen window. Snagging a hem on a faucet handle and awkwardly tripping one foot into a sink filled with cold, slimy dishwater, she flopped hard to the floor, ripping the dress into a useless rag. 'Twas the morning "Finnegan" became a cuss word.

  Naturally, June's clothes were the majority of the wet casualties (except for what Dedra had donned). The only dry garment that fit Big's body was one of Little's plaid flannel nightgowns. She was later, phone lines were still down. In more desperate times desperate women do even more desperate things. She couldn't work wearing her coat all day so a dopey Hello Kitty pullover and thick tights made the ensemble-how you say-workable. If only she'd had freckles and braids. At the coffeehouse an annoyingly gay, non-tipping male customer simpered, "Oh, Pippi! Where did you buy your outfit? Wal-Mart?"

  "No. Finnegan's Waking Emporium," was her reply.

  "I've never heard of that store."

  "It's new." She grinned, turned away mumbling an old Irish fishing oath, and stealthily added a bit of ground Ex-Lax to his double mocha latte.

  Never a great beauty, she did have her assets-a fine B-cup kinda figure, an infectious smile, gorgeous auburn hair-and when she had a man to please and a good job, she had affordably enjoyed being ladylike. Those days were gone and, not long in the Emerald City, stone-faced in a bathroom mirror, scissors in hand, she clicked heels together and the long, lush locks of her mane fell. A wigmaker's prayer answered, the tomboyish teen of old reemerged, sullen in flannels and standing at the vanguard of the world's trendy dress code. But a grunge queen? Hell no. She had been drinking strong coffee most of her life. She didn't even like whatever it was that was called grunge.

  The G-word had popped up overnight the same way "cyberpunk" had some years before. No one had a regular cup o joe. You could get almost any kinda woowoo-foofoo-haha-upside-down-and-out-flavored-this-that-thother-cup-o-tic-tac-toe-jam, as if a strong espresso or a cappuccino wasn't enough. And only because she had to make the drinks, she had tasted the future and it was diet with extra calories, schwack with a side o schwock. She didn't want to play grunge, she'd rather play flunge or, hell?maybe skunge.

  The breakup with George justifying rationalism (and after escaping from the double-ooky drug den), she became a house-to-couch transient whose cheap ass bass skills opened her to raw ass opportunity. Her first band in SeaTackyo was an all-girl unit that never got past its first gig, although two parties preceded. They called themselves "Grrrl-Cheez Clammitch." The drummer gave them the name but they missed the riot. They sucked, which wasn't unusual for most bands, and G-CC had managed to be merely regrettable. June was talked into playing dumb, diddly notes on the drummer's guitar. Not fun, but a band was a band, and it was a political requirement that let the drummer's bes' lez' frien' play bass so she could feel like she was worth a shit though she couldn' play for shit if it involved more than three or four notes. But she was a real nice grrrl who was more than eager to let the band practice at her house, and she had her ex-girlfrien's old pickup truck which mostly kinda ran.

  The parties were?well?they were OK, but their first club gig? Dedra had a big fight with her boyfriend before going onstage and they broke up after the set was over. She got too drunk and loosey-goosey to sing anyway, so she mumbled and screamed and did a lot of falling down. The drummer, who was already pissed at the bass player, bitched and bitched at the singer and fired her. She had already fired the bass player, who was a real nice grrrl who now felt totally worthless and was in emotional meltdown. They were no longer bes' lez' frien's.

  The drummer was a real PMS-bitch. She made a nice grrrl cry and run away and leave all her valuable equipment behind. June began gathering up bass and amp to return them to their owner the next day. The drummer, who had been bitching at anyone within bitchshot, had just opened her bitchy mouth to start in on June, who glared back as her hands tightened into fists when Dedra lurched up and pushed between them. She slurred into June's face, "Yew the mos' suckinass gitah play tha i ever her," then reeled around and leaned into the drummer, yelling, "Yew can fi her, shih quid, fuggin lesbi pebsbi bidch," while attempting to shake up a longneck in the bitch's face. Instead, it squirted all over herself. June, who had started her period that day (and narrowly missed the beer shower), was then thoroughly amused and thinking it might be a good idea to get drunk herself.

  A minute before the next band, who were gonna suck anyway, the singer grabbed June and said, "Les go ta my place an do sum drinkin, toots!" The boyfriend had stormed out and left her stranded in Lesboland. June had her trusty hatchback and was still sober enough to drive and neither of them had to work in the morning. When they walked into the house,

  !!!FUCK YOU CUNT!!!

  had been scrawled across the wall with a marking pen. It was almost an artistic job, in bold, with a few serifs. Dedra no longer had a boyfriend. He could come back whenever to pick up the things she heaved out the front door. It was over. Done. History. Yesterday's
news. Last night's dishes. No long goodbyes. No crying; lots of swearing. The same old song with a different meaning-glad you're gone.

  She wanted to start a new band with June and "Whud yew pleez jus say yesso I can quih feedih yew so mush whiskih? I nee moran yew nee cuz I god thizh brokeh hard y'know." June was easily persuaded. When sober, Dedra was an atypical singer who actually had a job. They drank and talked and drank and laughed and drank and passed out deep in the night, bonding over a fifth of C.C, and awakening to wonder where they were or how they got there or who had clobbered them over the head.

  Neither had been crazy about the Grrrl-Cheez Clammitch, and neither semi-stylish Dedra nor un-elegant June had liked the other at first. At one rehearsal it was painfully apparent that June was a far better bass player than the real nice grrrl who tried so hard. The real nice grrrl quit music and found a boyfriend. She turned out to be a gifted cartoonist and, in her really nice grrrl way, she bequeathed June her bass and amp, agreeing to sporadic payments. The bass was a really nice Fender Jazz. Black. She could wear anything with it. The drummer kept bitching at everyone about everything (she was a music major. she sucked.) until she bitched her bridges behind her and bopped her bogus butt to big bad Boston. ?Bueno!

  One day the real nice grrrl, accepting a payment, gave June a cartoon. A perfect caricature of her leaping over an espresso counter, eyes wild, legs flying, hands around the neck of a customer, screaming, "It's a coffeeHOUSE! Not a coffeeshop!" When she showed it to some of her co-workers they were miffed and said things like "I don't understand" or "What's the difference?" Her estimation of the real nice grrrl immediately went up ten points.

  In an eloquent example of need fulfilling need, and in fulfillment of the drunken pact they made late that night under the bondage of whiskey, Junie moved in with De. July 4, 1992, a little more than a week after G-CC went down in flames. Their initial efforts at starting a band were featherbrained, inexpert, and gobs of fun. June's lack of finesse and Dedra's lack of discipline were wonderful assets that settled into a common household where nothing and everything was accomplished. A few songs were learned, ideas were tossed about like pasta thrown against walls and ceilings, a few songs began to be written. As long as everything was kept simple, real music happened nicely between them. Simple was the only way they could be. When they tried to pull others into the equation, things got confused. Most guys-after G-CC they didn't want any more grrrls to deal with-either didn't understand simple or they simply refused to be simple. There were lead-ego-pseudo-soloists. Guitarists with too many pedals. Drummers with too many beats. Musicians with too many Black Sabbath bootlegs, too much Deep Purple envy. All of them keen to jam with two inexperienced women for the Thunder Thor thrill of it.

  George, the virtuoso drummer who could play perfectly simple, would have been the most perfectly inept guitarist for them but, alas, the most promising candidate was a silly, manic-panic grunge guy with whom they both got along fine until he went ballistic at a rave one weekend and became a scientologist. The guy who replaced him seemed a perfect match at first, but after a month of enduring his shifting influences and vegetarian rants, they packed him and his Les Paul off to more appropriate pastures. They really didn't want to be another Mercury Rev or Pavement or Green Day, or was it The Offspring this week?

  Drummers came and went in a gloom of sloppy rim shots and dropped sticks. Little D talked about buying a set and playing drums herself. Big J quickly nixed the idea. One day Little D came home with a borrowed Silvertone and amp, having decided to learn guitar and "?solve the problem." The less said about it the better. Thank god the Silvertone had no whammy bar.

  June may have been artless but she had both ear and feel, a far cry from the talentless stumblebum of her youth, and Dedra had a much better voice than anyone suspected. To hell with k.d. lang. Loretta Lynn and Patsy Cline would have been proud. She learned to sing from her mother, Dunia, and, though she had acquired her mother's contralto voice, Dedra's possessed a raspiness that was musically pleasing in a wholly American way. The Mother Fatiuchka had also played a fine fiddle. Native to the former Leningrad, she had classically trained and been a member of a quartet who crossed the threshold that usually keeps an accomplished violinist from learning to fiddle. Transplanting to Louisiana, she breathed whatever dusky voodoo hangs in the shadows of lazy air-the gris-gris that lets one become fluent in the contradictions and double stops of the Cajun style-to pull tunes from ethereal orbits that summed up ideas swamps had long ago digested. At a backyard cookout or parlor gathering, her bow would find one-a timeless waltz that made sense and could not be accompanied. When it had finished, she didn't know what it was other than "just something I heard once."

  The Cajun style, to the countrified ear, is a deception of droning simplicity. It's not so difficult to learn, providing one can disconnect from the familiar inflections of bluegrass and play the notes with more slurring moan than drawling twang. Dunia could play second fiddle to other fiddlers' reels and breakdowns well enough but when she played that voodoo, it was best to set your instrument down and let her play it alone.

  In the grand conspiracy of birth, deeper-seated genes can insinuate themselves into the next generation and, unscientifically, prove the wild card. Dedra's DNA had the same spooky voodoo that would occasionally bubble up from the depths of whatever she sang. Musically, she and June were leaning toward classic garage sounds. Bands like The Makers and The Mummies had become gods, and it wasn't a stretch to think her voice may have been just perfect.

  Within the context of the Seattle alternative scene, she was a different sort of animal who mostly went unnoticed. There were lots of girls who could sing well and a few stood out from the rest while most of them fit too easily into prevalent musical styles. No surprises. The same could be said of male tonalities but it usually wasn't. In an age of riot grrrl rhetoric, no one really cared about analyzing what da guys was doon, eh? Skateboards, baggy shorts, and shirtless dread-doodz notwithstanding, male artistic sensibilities in the media had as much freshness and excitement as another Keith Richards or Bob Dylan interview. Yeah, ho hum. Maybe a little hipper, usually just another ho-hum cover feature on Flea or Dimebag Darrell or whoever was the ANL (Alternity Nation-al League) Player of the Week. Even with Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Gas Huffer, Soundgarden, Alice In Chains, et al. in the national and international media, a Boyz Burger was kinda boring. Even wid cheez, dood.

  These bands and musicians (and even poets) were hunted down by an abundance of record labels, majors and indies alike. The traps had been laid. The woods were alive with the crawling of grungeable venison and it was the tender gender that was prized to come back on the fender. Meat, still murder, was now Bikini Killed and served into prime cuts like leg of L7, Lunachicken, Pork chops, Babes broiled in Toyland, Hole stuffed with Red Aunts and Tiger Trap topping, all sliced by Shonen Knives. There were sides of 7 Year Bitches and Ethyl's Meatplow appetizers, flaky crusts of Crunt cakes, Liz Phair fondues, Lisa Suckdog salads, split P.J. Harvey soup, and gravy boats of very special Courtney Love sauce. You could fill your Belly at the Yeastie Girlz grill waited on by Two Nice Girls and, if you didn't overdo it, not be Throwing Muses up. And if you weren't very hungry or if it was too early in the day, you could always step out for a light Lydia Lunch.

  ii

  The Alabaman was a computer graphic artist dissatisfied with the digital realm.

  In the beginning there was paper, and early civilization did not worry about editors, only about critics. Papyrus facilitated writing. Before that was dirt and stone. Sticks persuaded the best intentions of historians, and churches began the long chasings of sundials-signs of the cross versus signs of celestial wanderings. Scrolls and tablets of covenants became the back-room booty for congresses of wise men who argued details of sophomore years of intellect-years that would stoop to a premature demise. With paper, the great unleavened masses no longer had to care about the pronouncements of the elite. They didn't even have to care a
bout the philosophical riddles of precedence-i.e., which came first, the paper or the ink.

  Had the printer exceeded god?

  Fluent in DOS, Windows and Mac, Dedra grew up in a family-owned printing firm. The proverbial child apprentice with ink-stained fingers and a Compugraphic brain, she took to the qwerty system the way a line cook takes to frying pans, and by the time she was 20 had more than 15 years of hands-on experience under her belt. With typesetting knowledge and techniques learned from her father, Peter Fatiuchka, she easily transitioned from conventional methods to the brave nerdly world of desktop publishing (whose DTP acronym she derided as "Doodle Til Passable"). Such amateur exploits were here to stay. If not for her insight on this, the family business would have dried up and shriveled away like most old-style shops did in the late 1980s.

  An obscure blend of East European and Soviet heritage gave rise to the Fatiuchka name. It had published and engraved proudly for hundreds of years in Europe, centuries before the Declaration of Independence was a twitch in Thomas Jefferson's eyeball, or a black drop in John Hancock's inkwell. Native to Mother Russia, Peter's grandfather, Vladimir Fatiuchka, had gathered up his family and fled K?nigsberg when he sensed the outbreak of unprecedented hostilities only weeks before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand and the start of World War I. They landed in the gulf port of Mobile where they joined a checkered social economy that brought them into association with Negros! and, heaven forbid, the Irish! But this was America, where readers of all persuasions paid good American dollars for the printed word. And Vlad the Detailer aligned himself with a poor black printer and an equally poor bookbinding son of Erin. By 1916 ye olde family print shoppe was again dropping moveable type to paper.

  In the latter half of the century, Peter and Dunia ran the shop, and after the retirement of Louie, the last of the old hot lead crew, they had to carry on mostly by themselves. Louie left in the early '80s and was succeeded by a motley assortment of underskilled help who persevered despite their handicap, and it was soon apparent their child was learning far more than the hired help pretended they understood.

  iii

  In the world of overlapping possibilities there can be doubt about truth and all it entails. Truth can encompass all or nothing and, like Newton's theories, the actions that are created and the subsequent reactions they induce can amount to a sum that is neither hill-like nor bean-like. This sum is dependent upon how those actions are perceived and, the actions themselves notwithstanding, by how many perceive them. These sums can be not only greater or less than, but other than the aggregate number of components. In this world of overlapping possibilities there can be no doubt as to the management of truth and the power it then implies.

  FATIUCHKAN LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS:

  1) Truth can be created in the same way energy can be.

  2) Like the combustions and expansions of stellar matters, truth can arise from the burning of ideas that, radiating and smoking into the streaming mists of reason, will extinguish and collapse.

  3) Conserving energy onward, truth and its interpretations will curve back around to provide a basis for the next storm of books, flames, ideas, ashes, visions, sensibilities, sounds, deafenings, awakenings, inertias, collision, collapse.

  4) She who controls the hard components of language possesses the capacity to control not only the language itself, but all that can be implied by it.

  Dedra knew who Gutenberg was before she was dimly aware of Led Zeppelin and, being able to read by the age of three, she understood that a zeppelin could be defined as "a big balloon with people that fly" and that a Hindenburg had "fired when it falled." Years later, seeing an LP by the English foursome, she knew immediately where the graphics came from and was both amused and appalled at the play on words inherent in the band's name. By the age of four she was typing, and mistakes were as natural to her fingers as the ensuing comprehensions were to her budding proofreader's eyes. Words and punctuation were never daunting but, entering first grade, her Achilles heel of incompetence was exposed.

  Dedra had trouble with longhand.

  As natural as qwerty keys felt beneath her fingertips, she was mostly a manual klutz and pencils caused discomfort, a stumbling block that would send the six-year old home from school to erupt into tears behind a screaming web press. Her penmanship was disastrous. Teacher's letters urged "professional counseling" and "treatment for abnormal dyslexia," but her parents couldn't afford it; they needed the little girl in the shop; the little girl needed the place where words were crystal clear. She eventually made peace with a squiggly, knotted, longhand scribble that was as difficult to decipher as Helvetica Bold was easy.

  All typefaces considered, plates, glasses and vases were best kept out of her reach, lest poltergeists would launch them to a silly death on the Spring afternoon that sent kids wheeling downhill just short of a dare. Oblivious to gravity and ill attempts at recovery, she got launched over the handlebars and head first into the tangling chains and sprockets of fate. Her skull never hit the ground but when her body was untwisted from the multi-bike pileup, mad flaps of skin fell away from her forehead and the white cranial bone was exposed. The bandages removed, a scratch to the cornea demanded corrective lenses; one more millimeter of velocity would have done in her right eyeball, and a poorly handled suturing left considerable scarring. The preteen years triggered her habit of hiding a mopey face and acne under a forward-combed shock of curly hair. Behind the social curve, Dedra was an awkward duckling who only needed braces to appear complete.

  Junior high racked the invasion. A cups. B cups. C cups! Puberty's storm troopers advanced-D-CUP-DAY!-and there were not-so-concealed oglings of boys and jealous girls. Twelve years old and the little four-eyed blonde induced inappropriate jokes and whistles from men of all ages. Men whose lips would do better to recite the Magna Carta and find a non-denominational confessor to absolve them of impure thoughts against an empire of innocent, persuasive mammaries. A ripening, pubescent magazine of unexploded artillery, the idea of sex bomb was foreign to her but it chased the girl past paper, ink and proofread copy. Standing before mirrors night after night, she morphed into an improved version of a young Marilyn Monroe who routinely veiled herself from the world.

  Her loins nagged that marching virginity was overrated. When she met Luke, the boy of her nerdy 17-year-old dreams, she took careful aim and dropped her bomb. A direct hit. The relationship flourished for years and technology assured that the traditional print and graphics workshop was fading into the past. The newfangled digital revolution had hit the fan and the computer age was loading its cargo and making sail for parts unknown. Peter encouraged the 20-year-old to book passage now. This fleet would need able hands before its decks were overrun with topsiders. The business had avoided failure, upgraded hardware and trained a worthy crew, and he was confident ye olde print shoppe would not flounder in her absence.

  She bought a Nissan Hardbody truck.

  The whiz kid was shipping out to Seattle.

  Luke would be her helmsman and first mate.

  Cast off!

  iv

  Though a new city posed a chance to take a break, learn a new skill, find a new direction to explore, catch up on all the music and art she'd missed in Alabama, Ms. Fatiuchka was unable to find a job in anything other than printing. Money wasn't an issue, too much time unemployed was, and it would hit her stir-crazy, night-stalking bottom, as if life wasn't scary enough already. Clothing stores, shoe stores, restaurants, specialty shops, shipyards, etc-none would have her. Job apps were denied for lack of experience, sometimes for lack of stature-what could she possibly do as a dock loader? Most of them probably didn't want a scarface scaring away the customers. And being strong-willed makes the inexperienced appear overeager and incompetent.

  Her printing and graphics resume was so mind-boggling impressive that, like it or not, she was soon plugged in at any DTP or service bureau she wanted to be. Back to the old wonderful grind of disks byting e
xceeding small. But a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do if a girl doesn't wanna hafta do what a girl doesn't wanna do. Leave that for prostitutes, men and mothers. She did manage to land a coffeehouse job for a short, all-thumbs disaster of a time and would have been fired sooner had the owner not enjoyed listening to her jittery performance with an equally anxious coworker at an open mic night.

  Following this fling she bounced around the music scene doing band flyers, promo kits, demo cassette J-cards and, finally, a cover for a 7" slab o vinyl. And then another one?another one?and yet more. The hits kept coming and the little 7-inchers o plastic continued their multicolored parade. She really made the grade with her first 10" job. A few CD packages preceded, but a 10-incher was a sure sign of distinction. She also landed a good position at a notable graphics house, which led to more freelance work, which led to a better position at an even more notable firm. At one point, she was hired on by the Microsoft itself but had the foresight to depart their company before the advent of Windows 95.

  Despite the growing reputation of the Fatiuchka wunderkind, no one could pronounce her name correctly. She was used to it, but in this city it definitely bothered her. Strolling with Luke down by the Seattle Art Institute, they stopped to watch a heavily laden freighter pull slowly toward its berth. As a tugboat nestled into its stern, she said, "Wait here," and into the Institute she waltzed. Ten minutes later she emerged and snuggled up to his side, saying, "I think I wanna be a dock worker." He questioned why. She didn't explain. Didn't say anything other than, "Maybe I could be Tugboat Dedra." Even at the little piroshky shop down the way they corrected her and insisted it was a vatrushka she wanted. Later, she reflected that all the piroshky shops probably thought she was speaking obscenities.

  V

  "A black cat crossing your path signifies

  that the animal is going somewhere."

  -Groucho Marx

  Ah, Humanity-the cold espresso of a new epoch.

  Life could be an illustration panel from an old science-fiction story in which tin soldiers get trapped kicking blazing stars and being fooled by imaginary lights in fright. Eyeballs, hurt, glinting facets of black diamonds, the echoes of whispers of voices. There were the poems of Jack Kerouac, and disenchantment was climbing into the scraggly trees of day. The lovely Ms. Luna had survived another night, yawned from behind moving clouds as lovers continued their charades of longing and regretting. Crazy, man. She still hung around after these billions of years, proving that time had made her a divine fool.

  This morning JHH remembered an ancient drive to the Gulf Coast. On the sand, the only person around for miles, sea birds and jumping fish the only other life, he had watched the sun rise from a horizon punctuated by drilling platforms. As it rose higher and brighter, a setting moon dipped closer and fainter to the opposite horizon beyond the sand dunes. He had driven in the wee hours, taken the Port Aransas ferry across in darkness, traversed the hard sand to set up a beach chair, pop open a soda and wait for the dawn. When the sun's rays began warming his skin he pulled out sunscreen and remembered that this stretch of gulf island had once been selected as a possible test site for the Manhattan Project.

  Barren beaches were no good for atomic test blasts. There was no need for nuclear Dunkirks. In the mid-1970s he was glad the government had realized as much. Deserts were only slightly better suited for such activities but it pained him that any geographic locale should set the stage for a Trinity Reenactment passion play. He struggled with the thought of proposed testing on the lunar surface but man's folly, he knew, was limitless if allowed to be.

  Civilization = a boxing arena, angels versus devils, guppies versus sharks, unlimited rounds.

  "?in any case, the moon."

  Kerouac at least had the pretense of freedom. Being on the road was a flight of fancy from Fancy itself. True freedom is when a man has nothing left to run from. Until then he is a prisoner of whatever forces act upon him, and JHH feared he would forever be running from ghosts and distributor caps that haunted him. Such is imprisonment, but the faster he could run the better.