Lizard World

by Terry Richard Bazes

  “What this proves is that celebrity violence sells, on an average, twenty-three percent better than celebrity sex and that the average American magazine consumer (who is a fifty-eight-year-old married woman with a seventeen-thousand-dollar-a-year income and an eleventh-grade education) would rather read about a dead celebrity than see a photo of a naked one. Now that is why Falling Star, which I see as a stylish, glossy monthly for sale on supermarket checkout lines across the nation, would. . . .”

  Smedlow saw her break off in mid-sentence -- notebook in her lap, pen in hand -- and finally notice that the limousine had stopped in the shadow of a rundown warehouse. Bags of garbage were piled on the sidewalk. Sides of beef were hanging up on meathooks. He felt certain that there still was time to warn her. If only he could get her pen and somehow force the hand -- his hand -- to scribble her a message. He tried to get her attention by blinking the eyes and gurgling. But she was much too busy looking out the window -- with a visibly dawning perplexity -- at the man in the black leather skirt and stilletto heels standing on the corner.

  At last -- with sudden, wide-eyed alarm -- she noticed, fully understood, that he was gurgling urgently, staring at her pen.

  “The pen? Is that it? You want the pen?”

  Smedlow grunted, blinked his affirmation, concentrated with all his might on the brown, tarantular fingers and -- finding no resistance in the muscles -- managed to grip the pen and scrawl one just barely legible word:

  RUN.

  He saw the horrid recognition in her eyes, and her sudden, panicked scramble to unlock the door.

  “Now boy!” screamed Lem, “Hunt, Blitz! Hunt!”

  As if released by a trigger, the enormous German Shepherd -- jaws wide, teeth bared -- vaulted over the front seat, growling, drooling, lunging for his hapless prey.

  “Hold her there, boy!” screamed Lem, holdin’ down the lock button, reachin’ under the seat for his syringe, and now, seein’ as how the enemy’s hands wasn’t busy no more tryin’ to unlock the door but doin’ what damn little they could to hold Blitz back from bitin’ up an’ clawin’ at her face, well, Lem just didn’t have no problem at all climbin’ over his seat and shovin’ his needle, real nice’n easy, right through her flabby skin smack-dab into her jugular.

  “Well, now look at that,” said Lem, pullin’ out the needle as the enemy’s eyes got all sleepy-like and glassy. “Why, I bet you was afraid yer lady-friend here was gonna walk out on yer big date. But she ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  Smedlow tried his best not to hear the swelling of the choir as his chauffeur climbed back behind the wheel. As the limo lurched forward, grazing past a dumpster, screeching around the corner toward the Hudson, he tried not to give in to the intrusion, to blink away the pulpit congealing on the dashboard and the silver-mitred bishop coming slowly into focus in the windshield. Like a drowning man he tried to hold on to the sidewalks, the trucks, the boarded-up warehouses becoming more transparent as they rushed by in his window. He tried frantically to hold on to some small shred of who he was -- his birthday, his social security number -- to bring into remembrance why he did wear this ring upon his hand, what the name was of this tedious cleric, and who it was now seated here beside him -- this silent, slumping woman whom he did now most plainly apprehend to be my Lady Chommeley a-drowsing next the maiden in their pew.

  For I being come perforce to church, of a purpose to take possession of my Lord Chommeley’s ward, there now must I needs sit in very great ill-content and dreariment, both by reason of the hardness of the bench and a deal of pious nonsense to which I was fain to listen. Indeed from the interminableness of the sermon and the coughing, stinking persons thereabouts I could nowise find relief save in the fragrance of my jessamy gloves and in the distant observation of my charmer who, for all her earnest prayers, full soon must grace my bed. And yet ev’n this small pleasure was diminished not only forasmuch as I could seldom ever see her face by reason of her overmuch praying and bowing down her head, but also because, whilst I endeavoured to catch sight of her lips and bosom, I could not chuse but look upon a number of most disagreeable creatures kneeling and mumbling of their prayers. Amongst these, in especial, I did abominate to see that confounded ass, my cousin Fawncey whom I had blinded in the duel, and next him his low little friend, that beggarly, shitten-ars’d bookseller, Barnaby, who did publish all his nauseous verses. And yet, all these most distressful pieties and persons notwithstanding, the expectation of enjoyment did suffice to bear me up. At the long last ev’n my Lord Bishop Compton was at a loss how to occasion further tedium: the congregation rose, and the whole babbling, sneezing, smelling drove did betake them to their several wretched ways.

  I, howsoever, did remain behind a-kneeling in my pew and a-waiting for that whoreson Chommeley with whom I had before concerted that, in order to forestall suspicion, he would introduce the maid to my acquaintance whilst I did seem enwrapt in prayer. Thus, in vain, did I most vexedly await until, at the length, I did espy my Lord Bishop Compton a-coming out the vestry, companied not only by the maid, her aunt and fat-brained uncle, but also by my blinded cousin Fawncey, poking hither and thither with his cane, clinging to the elbow of his friend, that scurvy little bookworm, Barnaby.

  Certain it is that if I had not, by reason of my distemper, suffered such great store of disfigurements, I would scarce have taken note of this most exceeding common little bookseller. But when now I did observe his little pink ears and over-many smiling teeth and how the maid did give this creature leave to speak with her whilst I must sit and wait -- and when, moreover than this, I did consider that I should want for ears and teeth when this mere beggarly pedant was most unrightfully possessed of both, I did verily begin to hate him. But it was not until I did at last perceive that my most Reverend Lord Bishop would never leave off chatting and that his presence would frustrate me of my purpose that I did resolve, in requital of my pains, to confiscate from Barnaby the right to keep possession of his ears.

  Chapter XIV.

  Containing many flowers and a meeting with a lady in a garden.

  The silver cigarette lighter was gone. Smedlow had no sooner awakened, submitted to the hateful ministrations of the monster woman (the feeding, the undressing, the enema, the sponging, the putting on of fresh pajamas) and been propped up in his wheelchair by the window, before he realized that they would never give it back.

  “That’s right: it ain’t here. Doctor’s orders. Doctor says we ain’t supposed to let you smoke.”

  She picked up a crumpled napkin from the floor and placed it on the breakfast tray alongside the soiled spoon and half-eaten bowl of oatmeal.

  “The doctor says that smokin’ ain’t no good for bringin’ back yer memory -- on account of it’s gonna clog up all them arteries in yer brain.”

  She scrunched her brow at him and scratched her scalp. He supposed that something like a thought must have occurred to her: for suddenly she picked up the tray and waddled closer -- until now she was standing nose to nose, squinting at him as if she were trying to see who it really was inside behind his eyes.

  “The doctor says -- Mr. Griswold, Sir -- that you ain’t been in yer right mind. He says that ever since yer head was fixed you’ve had a touch of the amnesia. He says them old-time panties and yer other stuff are gonna help you to remember.”

  She wheeled him past the gold-framed antique paintings -- the lords in velvet coats and satin breeches, the ladies with their sultry eyes and low-cut smocks, the little boy in the family portrait with his powdered wig and sickly stare -- until they came to a closed door which he had never seen before. For several moments he was obliged to wait while his captor chewed her gum and fumbled with the lock. But at last the door creaked open, emitting a stench like the odor of a Limburger cheese.

  A first glance took in three large wooden trunks heaped with sallow underclothes and, on the wainscoted wall above them, a gigantic tableau depicting several barebreasted beauties struggling with lustful Centurions -- obviously
the Rape of the Sabine Women. But it was the painting on the left that was particularly disturbing. For at once Smedlow recognized the same vicious little boy in the hunting scene, but now he had grown up into a pallid, pompous rake. This unwholesome young man was sneering across the room at a faded map of Europe, yellowed with age and replete with peculiarities -- which included a vast Holy Roman Empire and a smattering of other extinct nations like the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, the Principality of Moldavia, and the Duchy of Mecklenberg. Below this map was a huge rococco desk on top of which were an open silver snuff-box, a glutted ashtray and a half-eaten apple -- brown where it had been bitten but otherwise covered by a skin which was still red and only slightly withered.

  “This here’s yer private office. We ain’t touched nothin’ since you left.”

  Perchance it was the dizzying assault of robust odours, but Smedlow could not, of a sudden, bring to mind his own precious middle name. He did have some indistinct recollection that upon occasion, in his other life as a respected dentist he had -- long before his calamitous abduction -- experienced the very briefest moments of amnesia. Sometimes, for example, upon awakening in his split-level ranch, he had -- for a second -- not quite known where he was. And, of course, there had also been many other times when he could not remember someone else’s name or where he had parked his Beemer or left his keys. But all of those lapses of memory had been brief. This one was altogether different.

  “Now don’t it feel real good to be back home?”

  His right hand was beginning to move on its own again, clawing his pajama leg like a frantic crustacean. He felt certain that his middle name was on the tip of his tongue, that he would straightways call it to remembrance.

  “Now you just wait here and I’ll go fetch another toy.”

  He watched her trudge over to the desk and stick out her big rump at him, her housedress riding up her haunches as she bent over, exposing a myriad of dark hairs beneath her stockings. Having rummaged the bottom drawer, she stood up again -- holding out a simple, round gold locket.

  Smedlow -- if that is who he was -- felt the old carcass heave a voluminous sigh as the hand reached out to grab it. Smedlow, yes, Smedlow tried in vain to withstand the crackling in his head as the brown fingers opened up the locket, breaking him apart like the shell of an abominable seed. For the portrait therein of the grey-eyed lady was indeed so exceeding luscious that he did find himself, on a sudden, quite burst asunder by remembrances.

  Which is scarce over-much to be wondred at, inasmuch as I did ever now carry this locket in my waistcoat pocket, opening it up when I had leisure and banqueting my eyes on the voluptuous sweetmeats of her person. But one most insipid afternoon, when I was pent up most wearisomely in my cabinet and fell to looking on this portrait, I did become -- as one might well surmize -- ever more distressfully vexed and unsated by this mere painted likeness of a lady. In fine, I being now most exceeding wroth, both by reason of the postponement of my pleasures and of the base and insupportable usage I had received at the hands of that facinorous stinkard Chommeley, I presently took coach to Chommeley Hall, purposing there at once to demand of him to acquit his tardy debt.

  Thither had I no sooner come and knocked at door and suffered myself to be enquired of by some scurvy little varlet in livery, than I did perceive by him that he’d been charg’d to bar me from admittance. For upon my desiring of him to announce me to his Lord, he most pertly gave me to understand that his master was not at home. Thereupon, when I did enquire after his lady, this rascally creature did give me the lie to my teeth, saying that my Lady Chommeley was indisposed in her cabinet with the vapours. But I was not to be so saucily put off and did now command the fellow to conduct me straightways to my charmer -- whereupon this wretch answering me with most intolerable insolence that none should see the maid without his master’s privity, I did not demur to strike the little pismire with my cane. For it may well be conceived that I now would brook no further trespass on my patience. Hence forthwith did I commence to seek the maiden out -- until, at the last, one of the blowzes who did scrub the floor, a most fat-bummed, crook-backed, bad-faced animal, did beg leave to direct me to the garden. Whither I did now, in all haste, betake me.

  For what now befell I do confess I can adduce no manly explanation, save only to say that there, of an evening in that garden, amidst an odoriferous glut of honey-suckle, roses, lilacs, hyacinths and jessamins I did fall prey to a very conspiracy of flowers in such wise that I did find myself, of a sudden and in a manner most surprising, well nigh sick with an overmuch sweetful surfeit of smell. Certain it is that ’twas a flagging of my animal spirits occasion’d by this most unforeseen and exceeding over-burthen of smells that doth explain the o’ersweet languor in my vitals and the unexampled hesitancy that did now, on a sudden, overtake me.

  For when presently I did come upon the maid, a-sleeping with her prayer-book on a bench, and did see the pretty stillness of her face, so fair as I had never seen the like, and how her white chemise, which became her mightily, did rise and fall in concert with her breath, and how the setting sun did incarnadine the luster of her tresses, and did perceive myself upon the point of swooning for the aromatick excess of the flowers, I very near forbore to touch her bosom. But then, bethinking me how the creature was mine by reason of her uncle’s bargain and how long I had been cheated of my prize, I did rowse myself up from this my unprecedented weakness. I had but scarce commenced to finger the alabastrine satin of those orbs, when the maid did start awake. I do confess I ne’er did find myself so sore disordered. For now -- when I did perceive the beauteous alarum of her grey eyes -- I could not chuse but find my spirits once again belimed by this most excessive glut of fragrant smells. Indeed, I must fairly own that I had like to have remained quite utterly at a loss, had a prodigious bloated and unsightly spider not now chanced upon the garden-walk hard by. This I did no sooner point out to my charmer than, lifting of my boot, I did crush the vermin quite, declaring withal that I had seen it a-crawling on her person -- wherefore I had made bold to brush it off. I did say, moreover than this, that I had happed into this garden forasmuch as I was an old acquaintance of the family and was come to pay my service to her aunt.

  And yet, as soon as I had left off the speaking of this, my gorge did so rise up against my weakness, that I might again have had a mind to take my pleasure, had the maid not straightways thanked me for my kindness. Indeed, I scarce can say what unlook’d-for perturbation now did overtake me. For the maid did so entirely credit what I’d said, making much of my old friendship to her family and of her noting me at church and of the exceeding honour of my acquaintance, that I did find myself quite singularly unsettled -- both by the overmuch honey of her person and the oversweet abundancy of smells.

  Chapter XV.

  Mr. Frobey’s reflections upon the sufferings of soldiers, including tedium and hunger and what remedies that gentleman did find thereto. The unpleasantness of subway tunnels and an unexpected mishap.

  Of course Lemuel Lee knew damn well that half a soldierin’ is sittin’ on yer fanny and bidin’ yer time -- but hell, there was limits to a man’s patience and the point was that this here new prisoner was already turnin’ out to be one assload a trouble. God freakin’ damn it, it was near on eighteen hours now that he’d been holed up down here in his secret headquarters -- bored out a his skull -- with that butt-ugly editor lady over there still sleepin’ off that needle that he gave her. Why, sure, a couple a times he thought maybe she was comin’ out of it, but no such goddamn luck -- she wasn’t never doin’ nothin’ more than twitchin’ her big snooty face an’ makin’ all kinds a piggy noises in her dreams. Well, maybe it wouldn’t a been near so awful bad if he hadn’t just kept on gettin’ hungrier and hungrier -- which wasn’t no real big surprise, seein’ as how his last meal was that cheesesteak in the diner and since then he’d burned it all up springin’ his ambush and draggin’ the enemy down here. Hell, he’d been stuck inside here so damn fuckin’ long th
at right now he didn’t have nothin at all left to eat -- not even one damn measly slimjim or potato chip.

  Well sure, of course, come to think of it, there did have to be still a couple a them real old, browned-up hunks a chopped meat in the freezer -- but they was in all likelihood by now so damn bad-tastin’ and froze-up in the ice that they wasn’t really hardly worth the bother. But still that’s where he was now headin’, makin’ his way to the other side of the subway car, walkin’ past Blitz, steppin’ over the yellow-black-and-white Angolan python coiled up real quiet in his terrarium and then -- bein’ extra, extra careful not to knock over none a the stacks a x-rated videos and girlie magazines that he kept beside his mattress -- openin’ up the freezer where, sure enough, the ice was so damn bad you’d think you was on the top a Mount fuckin’ Everest.

  So anyhow, here he was starin’ into the goddamn freezer and not seein’ nothin’ at all but a whole lot a white -- except for a little froze-up blood which must a leaked out when the remains of the other prisoner was scrunched up inside here in a bag -- when all of a sudden he did see one real iced-over hunk a hamburger in the back. But them chunks a ice that froze it in was so damn thick that he was goin’ at it for near fifteen minutes with a fork, when -- just like before -- that editor-lady started squirmin’ about an’ fussin’, makin’ all kinds a ugly noises an’ faces in her dreams.

  “Hell, ain’t you never ever gonna wake up?” screamed Lem, stabbin’ at an icicle with his fork and tryin’ to remember all them surefire interrogatin’ tricks that Floyd had taught him.

  “You don’t know jack freakin’ shit, do you? Why, you can’t see nothin’ through that blindfold. You can’t see if yer in Nashville or in goddamn Peking, China. You don’t know who the fuck I am or why the hell I brung you here.”