Another Roadside Attraction

by Tom Robbins

  “Well,” sighed your correspondent, the conqueror blood draining ignominiously from his penis, “I suppose I might as well risk my life for a bunch of garter snakes as anything else. Soldiers die every day in the service of reptiles. But aren't you forgetting something? What about the flea circus? Aren't you going to liberate the fleas?”

  “You're being sarcastic, but the fleas have been provided for. They'll embark from here in a carefully prepared air-mail envelope addressed to a friend who'll see them to safety. As a reward for their faithful service and many exciting performances, they'll be allowed to retire to the back of a pink poodle in Palm Springs.”

  Amanda kissed the writer lightly on his lips and went off to endure another searching trance. As the writer set about to cook his hot dogs, he found himself thinking again about history. He had agreed to participate in a predawn raid to liberate a pen full of condemned garter snakes. How would a serious historian approach an episode like that? Later tomorrow, he may well help rush an envelope full of trained fleas into political asylum. Would Arnold Toynbee seize that action, would he wring consequence from it? Or would he brush it aside as a bothersome fly on the carcass of greater events?

  Look! If Ziller and Purcell are caught, chances are that the Corpse will be found with them. And if the Corpse is identified, as surely it must be, and if that identity is made public (How could such a secret be kept?), then most of the world is in for one hell of a jolt. Perhaps society will roll with the punch or perhaps it will sink to its knees. As you read these lines you may already know how the news was received. At any rate, the wordmen, the explainers, will have to deal with the occurrence. First, the journalists will report it. Then, barring unforeseen reaction, the pundits will analyze it. Eventually, the historians will have their turn; they will shape their various versions of the discovery of the Corpse, Purcell's abduction of it, the Great Dilemma it caused and the final flight with it to . . . wherever it might be out there in the broad American night. But will they, can they—the scholarly historians—reveal what really truly happened? No, the writer is now convinced that he alone can snatch that essence from its wild background and isolate it naked from commotion and myth. And the writer is willing to spill everything. If you dare to listen.

  Part III

  AN UNFAMILIAR COWBOY knocked at the roadhouse one rainy evening in March. He knocked as if in a dream. He was an undistinguished unfamiliar cowboy except that he pulled behind him a chicken in a little blue wagon. The chicken was old and extraordinarily bowlegged.

  “Howdy,” said the unfamiliar cowboy. “Understand you're planning on opening a roadside zoo.”

  “I believe that is true,” said Amanda.

  “In that case,” said the unfamiliar cowboy, “you might be interested in buying this here rooster. He's a famous rooster. His name's Big Paint and he was the lead cock in the great coast-to-coast chicken drive of 1969. Led fifty thousand head of hen from Ballard, Washington, to New Jersey. Took 'em four months but they arrived in time for the Miss America contest. Picture it, mam. Fifty thousand chickens a-clucking down the boardwalks of Atlantic City on their way to greet the new Miss America. It was a sight.

  “There's some businessmen want Big Paint to lead another drive—from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to Portland, following the old Oregon Trail. But I thought I'd give you a chance at him first.”

  Amanda purchased the rooster. It was only fair. Some people don't care that chickens have tender feet.

  Gonorrhea first came to the planet Earth through the atmosphere as a force of Lord Shiva the Destroyer (ergo Creator). It struck down a large populace in a few moments. Its strength was so great that only those who could withstand severe remedies could be cured once the germ was indrawn by the lungs. (Note: the inbreath is willed, the outbreath is automatic.) In an olden age of evil and corruption, gonorrhea purified the Earth.

  The second gonorrhea epidemic had its gradual beginnings in the mid-1960's. Its source is also believed to be divine. (Note: “The second breath of Brahma.") This second gonorrhea germ is considerably more refined than the first (and those weak offshoots of the first that have lingered as vulgar inflammations through the centuries). It is an evolutionary force affecting the reproductive organs of those beings openly susceptible to evolutionary change. Particularly, it has affected (Note: affection) the young—those brilliantly free children who have chosen not to regard love as a discriminatory accolade nor their bodies as exclusive property. If anywhere it has been more prevalent than among the love communities of the United States, it has been among the American soldiers and their native girl friends in Asiatic countries (Note: “trans-cultural pollination"—the fabled blending of East and West).

  Public health officials and military doctors lead the war against gonorrhea. They are being thrashed. All “cures” are temporary. Hardly do the medics discover an effective remedy than the germ learns to resist it. Consequently, the germ grows more and more powerful, and the temporary cures more difficult to develop.

  Gonorrhea is altering certain physiochemical mechanisms of a significant portion of younger Earthlings. It is helping to prepare man for his next step up the evolutionary ladder. (Note: the Jehovah's Witnesses also believe gonorrhea to be of divine origin. They, however, take a negative view. They claim that the Christian God bestowed the germ upon mankind as punishment for adultery and fornication, noting that the disease is never contracted by husbands and wives who copulate only with each other.)

  The preceding theory of gonorrhea is the work of Duke Elohim Jophaniel Forsteton, professor of magic at the University of the Changes and the Echoes in Timbuktu. It was recently sent to John Paul Ziller, who became one of Professor Forsteton's favorite students when he enrolled at the Timbuktu institution after his initial disappointment with the art schools of Paris. Incidentally, it was while studying in Timbuktu that Ziller first met Mon Cul, a mere infant at the time. The baby baboon was then living with its mother, who served as a handmaiden for an Afro-European noble-woman of rare beauty—but that's another story.

  Maybe it doesn't prove anything but the cockroach has been around a good deal longer than gonorrhea. In fact, the cockroach has been on Earth at least 250 million years. It is the most primitive of winged insects and its fossils (found in the rocks of the Upper Carboniferous) are the earliest known. No other creature has lived on this Earth as long as the roach.

  That's rather an impressive record for the repulsive little geek. Despite his filthy habits, one must give him his due. Come out from under the drainboard, Mr. Roach. We wish to salute you. Award you a gold pocket watch for your perseverance.

  But the cockroach has no thoughts of retirement. Oh, no. Not only has he been on Earth far longer than has man, he may well be here long after we are gone. The common urban roach is a crack-dweller; requiring no light, little food or water and able to synthesize vitamin C, he nests in tiny fissures deep within brick and stone. Consequently, he has excellent protection against radiation. Scientists venture that in the event of an all-out nuclear war, the cockroach might be the only species to survive.

  Certainly we are not about to rid ourselves of cockroaches by any means short of nuclear bombs. These insects share with gonorrhea an amazing resilience. They rapidly develop immunities to each insecticide invented for their extermination. In roach-plagued cities such as New York, every six months brings another sure-fire roach killer to the market. True enough, the new formula knocks them dead for a while. Then they build up immunity to it and pretty soon all it does is make them high. Zit zit: you spray with your $1.98 aerosol can of instant roach death and in a second the dirty little devils are cavorting like a bunch of the boys at a musicians' union picnic. The gas no longer kills them. They seem to like it.

  The preceding information about cockroaches was offered by Marx Marvelous in order to show Amanda that she wasn't the only person around Skagit County to know a thing or two about bugs. More to the point, it was offered also as a contrast to Ziller's relation of Professo
r Forsteton's gonorrhea theory, an account which Marx Marvelous found soaked with superstition and romance.

  They were glaring at each other like a couple of feisty sailors, John Paul and Marx Marvelous, when Amanda, her interest quickened by both contributions, added a hypothesis of her own.

  “Suppose,” said she, “that there is an all-out nuclear war. And suppose that the cockroach, that tough little fellow with the frantic antennae, is the sole survivor among living things. The cockroach would rule the Earth. He would survive because he was fittest, and with that justification he would be master of the world. Quite so. But germs and viruses—many varieties of them, perhaps—also would endure the holocaust. Right, Marx? Right. And if some germs survived, surely gonorrhea would be among them for it is so resilient. Right, John Paul? Right. Now suppose the surviving cockroach, lord of the planet, caught gonorrhea. Could he withstand it? Would gonorrhea fail with this insect where it has triumphed with man? Who would conquer whom? Or would it simply be a case of the immovable object meeting the irresistible force? They might lock in an eternal stalemate, unable to budge one another throughout the whole of time. Years after man, over some childish politico-economic misunderstanding, has obliterated himself and turned the green Earth into a cinder ball, then the real battle will begin. Gonorrhea and the cockroach fighting it out for ultimate domination of the universe. Now there's your Armageddon.”

  One moment, please. The author wishes very quickly to relate something of an immediate nature.

  Less than half an hour ago, he and Amanda were summoned down to the dining room by three agents. “What if they overheard our plans to absolve the snakes?” worried the author, who, exhausted from the day's typing, had been preparing for bed. Amanda's thoughts were not apparent. She had recently emerged from trance and her eyes bore a green-apple glaze. One of the agents thought she was on narcotics and threatened to go up and search her room. His companions talked him out of it. They had more important things on their minds.

  We were shown a fuzzy wire photo of a VW microbus which the agents claimed had been abandoned in an orange grove west of Orlando, Florida. The bus contained no registration papers, they said, and the license plates had been removed. We were asked if the vehicle belonged to anyone we knew.

  “Oh, my, I can't tell the difference between one car and another,” Amanda said cheerfully. “Chevrolets, Volkswagens, Lingams—they all look the same to me.”

  The agents groaned.

  “I'm sorry but it doesn't ring any bells,” apologized the author, thinking all the while that Ziller and Purcell must have gone by Aberdeen and gotten Plucky's VW out of storage. “Why did you think this bus would have any connection with us?”

  “In the rear of the vehicle the government found excrement from a medium-sized primate, possibly a baboon,” said one agent.

  ("Mon Cul, it would seem that a creature of your favored background could have controlled himself,” the writer scolded silently.)

  “Under the front seat the government found a sardine can wrapped in a page that had been ripped outta a notebook,” said another.

  “The writing on the page was done by the same hand that wrote the stuff we found in the suitcase near Miami,” said Agent No. 3.

  Agent No. 1 then solemnly read from a teletype tear sheet the following passage:

  “We are in man-eating mirror country. The cannibals sleeping in the flowers are carried away by their dreams, or rather their dreams bring them from far away, just as the mirage brings the lapping waters to our feet, just as the leopard behind us can get our scent but cannot get at us. The blossoms pretend to shake their heads. They shower the natives with pollen. Right in the spot where they are restless. In the morning we will trade beads for our reflections.”

  “Hmmmm,” mused your correspondent. “The style is quite like Joseph Conrad's. I don't recall which work of his it might be from, but then I've forgotten so much since I left the university. Have you ever read Heart of Darkness?”

  “None of your goddamn business,” said Agent No. 1.

  “Who could have written anything like that?” wondered Amanda, her startling green eyes widening.

  “Your frigging magician, that's who!” accused Agent No. 2.

  “Get on up the stairs, you sassy-assed bitch,” yelled Agent No. 3.

  “You, too, punk,” said Agent No. 1, attempting to poke the author in the testicles with the putting iron he always carried. His thrust was slightly off center. The author did not give him a chance to bogey.

  “I hope you're aware of the penalties for withholding information from the U.S. government,” growled Agent No. 2.

  The lawmen gathered at the foot of the stairs so that they could look up Amanda's skirt as we ascended. Boys will be boys.

  Amanda squeezed the writer's arm. “Just put it out of your mind,” she whispered lovingly.

  “I've got to put it out of my mind,” he said. “I need a good night's rest so I can be halfway alert when I return to my report in the morning. I'm about to introduce my readers to a very special gentleman.”

  “Fine,” smiled Amanda, “but don't forget our rendezvous at 2 A.M.”

  “No, I won't forget,” promised the author, feeling (shamefully) every bit as lascivious as the federal authorities we had left snarling below us.

  We parted without speaking of the Corpse or its attendants, who, no longer shielded by the steel and glass of the bus, no longer protected by the mobility of the bus, must be especially conspicuous and vulnerable wherever they huddle this night, strange quarter-dead, quarter-ape foursome beneath the aggressively public Florida moon.

  It was a bird-chirpy morning in early May. Sunshine elbowed through the stained-glass windows of the Capt. Kendrick Memorial Hot Dog Wildlife Preserve. Sweet smells rose stiffly from the fields outside and unfurled above the cafe like banners. Random notes of cheerfulness sailed through the air like paper airplanes. One landed in the steam pot among a logjam of sausages. Ziller brushed it aside and went on with his cooking. Another crashed into Amanda's hair. She removed the wreckage tenderly and deposited it inside her blouse between her sun-warmed tits. She hummed as she swabbed the L-shaped counter. The front door was ajar and she could see (across the Freeway) rhinestones glittering on the rain-swollen wrists of the slough. Indians of the Northwest used to sprinkle tiny flakes of mica over their well-greased bodies so that they would sparkle when they danced in the firelight. This May morning was such a dance.

  Gunnar Hansen, the neighborly pea farmer, came in out of the dance for a cup of coffee. Sorry. He was served strawberry-grapefruit juice. Last week it was apple-carrot. He'll learn.

  Farmer Hansen called Amanda over. She thought he was going to complain about the lack of coffee. No, it wasn't that. He had something to show her. “Er, I thought you folks'd be interested in this in the paper. If you ain't already seen it. I thought you'd find it interesting. Seeing that you got a baboon, I mean.”

  He handed Amanda the morning edition of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and pointed out a short article on page 3. The article was headlined in 36-point italic:

  MAN TRIES TO STEAL

  BABOON AT ZOO HERE

  A well-dressed young man tried to remove a baboon from its cage in Woodland Park Zoo late yesterday afternoon.

  The man used a glass cutter to slice through thick plate glass on the animal's cage shortly after the zoo closed for the day. He was attempting to coax the baboon into a large cardboard box when he was spotted by zoo attendants. The attendants held the man until police arrived.

  The man, about 25, gave no motive for his actions, but he stated that he wished the baboon no harm. The man, neatly groomed and dressed in a natty checkered suit, carried no identification. He told police that his name was Marx Marvelous, but he would not divulge an address or personal details.

  Detective Sgt. Ralph Prosser asked Marx Marvelous if he was named for Karl Marx. Marvelous replied that he was named for Marx Brothers. He is being held in lieu of $1,000 bail
.

  Zoo officials said the 3-year-old baboon—the only such ape in the zoo's collection—is valued at about $300. They said the animal is ill-tempered and might have given Marvelous some nasty bites had he succeeded in getting it out of its cage.

  Amanda zipped through the article once, then reread it more slowly. The second time, she giggled. “Oh yes, Mr. Hansen,” she said. “That is interesting.” She glanced through the kitchen doors at John Paul. “I'd like to show it to my husband, but he's pretty busy at the moment.”

  “Oh that's all right, Mrs. Ziller. Don't give it back. Keep the whole paper if you want it. I'm through with it. Nothing but bad news in it anyway. Even the Twins lost last night. Nineteen to nothing to Chicago in ten innings. Uff!”

  “Thank you very much. We appreciate it.” She extended a smile that almost thawed the tundra of the farmer's features. “Sorry about your team. I'll say a Cherokee stickball chant for them and maybe they'll win today.”

  “You do that, young lady,” said Hansen, a bit bemused. He finished his juice and disappeared into the dance.

  Not for several hours did Amanda find an opportunity to show the newspaper story to John Paul. The new spring sunshine, the bird chirps, the insect whirrs, the awakening organic gases that streamed from the fields seemed to have aroused in the populace an uncommon hunger for hot dogs. It was the cafe's busiest day since the first week it was open, when Skagit neighbors poured in out of blatant curiosity. It was past three o'clock when Ziller read the article, his fierce gaze nearly shaving the words off the page.

  “He's being held in jail in lieu of bail, is he?”

  “That is what the newspaper says, John Paul.”

  “Then I suppose we had best go down and get him out.”

  Amanda beamed. “I'm glad that's your response,” she said.