“They may never see Fuck Street again,” echoed Pluto, laughing.
“You know, it’s strange,” the Mouse said philosophically. “It is. It really is. What goes on, I mean. I mean, people really do die. Your age. I mean there you are, you’re going along taking pretty good care of yourself. You look both ways before crossing, you don’t accept rides from strangers, you brush after each meal, then whammo! Whammo and blammo! Whammo and blammo and pow and zap! Kerboom and kerflooey, I mean. Mayday, I mean! But who’s going to hear you? And what good would it do if they could? No one can help. All right, maybe they take up a collection, maybe you get to be guests of honor at the watering place of your choice. Lourdes, the Magic Kingdom.
“But what’s strange, what’s really strange, is that after the melodrama, after all the best efforts and good offices of the go- betweens, the mediators, the maids of honor, the honest brokers, and best men, after the prayers and after the sacrifices, after the candles and after the offerings, worse comes to worse anyway. The unthinkable happens, the out-of-the-question occurs, all the unabashed, unvarnished unwarranted, all the unjustifiable unhappy, all the unwieldy unbearable. The unbelievable, the uncivil, the uncharitable, the uncalled-for. The undivided, undignified uncouth. The unkempt, unkind unendurable. The uncontrollably uncomfortable. All that unethical, unbridled, unconditional undoing. All the ungodly unhinged, all the unfriendly unnatural. The unpleasant, the unimaginable, the unprincipled. The unfit, the unsavory, the unforeseen. The unsurpassed, unsightly unruly. The untimely unsuitable, the unwelcome unutterable. The undertaker, I mean.”
“Untrue,” Mudd-Gaddis objected. (Because everything has a reasonable explanation, and Charles felt so old, time like some plummeting second-per-second weight in free fall, time like the incremental, famous dragged-out absences of love, the seconds minutes, the minutes hours, the hours days, weeks, that he no longer believed in even the possibility of death.)
“But unusual,” said Benny Maxine.
“I have to admit,” Mudd-Gaddis said.
Which is when the uprising started, the commotion. (Though it still wasn’t too late. All that was needed was someone who could have seen all sides.) Because most of them were filling the room now with their “Heys!” and their outrage. They’d been in Florida almost a week. Bombarded with special effects, with lasers, with 3-D like a geometry of the literal and a rounded stereophonics that sought the projections and deeps of the ear like a sort of liquid, they had seen science and engineering enlisted in passive play, at the service of the lesser wonders and mocking, it sometimes seemed to them, the priorities. By now they were accustomed to the little miracles as, two hours or so into their overseas flight, they had already adjusted to the idea of great speed, to eating in the sky, to pissing in it, to flying itself, and were offended—they needed someone to see round their corners—that the Mouse would betray them, that he had not come with a message of hope for them—they hadn’t expected him, after all, hadn’t even asked for him—showering dispensation, strewing reprieve. And offended by Pluto. Madder at the mutt, perhaps, than at the Mouse. Who’d failed to stand up for them, who’d slunk off to the bathroom when Mickey’s monologue had turned embarrassing. He had—there’d been no opportunity to speak of this; to a certain extent at least they were thinking collectively, were in touch with the protocols and instincts of death—betrayed the dumb goodwill of his lampoon loyalty.
Now Pluto, drawn perhaps by their racket, by their promising clamor, was back. He had shambled into the room and was glancing from one to the other with his fixed and serviceable expression, universal, one-size-fits-all.
“Where’ve you been?” Mickey Mouse asked.
“Been in the washroom,” said the Dog.
“Made a mess, have you?” the Mouse said, thinking they were into a different routine now, hoping they were, knowing as he did that he’d bombed with the first one. “Well, have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Made puppy poop.”
“Made puppy poop? Me?”
“What about it, kids? Think the ka-ka maker here has done doo-doo?”
“Why not?” Lydia Conscience asked levelly. “England expects every man to do his doo-doo.”
“Ohh,” groaned Rena Morgan.
“Pretty good,” Mickey acknowledged. First Sneezy, the speedy little magicianess sprawled out on the bed, then the original wise-guy kid, then Sleepy, then Happy Belly making with the puns. They’re ringers, he thought. They ain’t even sick. They’re just these healthy all-pro ringers. Them little dwarfs is show-biz giants. I’m a goner, I’m done for. The Fated Follies. I love it. Yeah yeah yeah.
The heart gone out of him now. Not in the mood any longer to take up the challenge. Unresponsive, depleted. (Or not even someone who could look through walls, see all sides. Maybe just someone who could see straight. Maybe just anyone who wasn’t depleted, who still had some of his wits about him. Though in the long run it probably wouldn’t have mattered. Or even in the short one. Just enough run for all of them to get out with their honor intact, cover their ass, make it home free, not have to apologize for anything, not go buy trouble.) Figuring he’d lost out, blown this gig too, his big break, his chance of a lifetime, his opportunity to play what he now understood would probably have been a series of command performances, limited engagements to kids who were themselves limitedly engaged, showing his stuff, special death material—and didn’t he have to hand it to the market research boys, though? they didn’t miss a trick—as if the dying-children trade were only another sort of convention, another sort of industrial show, using his falsetto still, but as protective coloration pure and simple, as once, he remembered, he’d refused to come out of its rear end when he and a partner had played a rag horse in a class play. Some career, thought the depleted actor. Horses, dogs, mice.
Because the commotion, the uproar, was not only still going on but gathering momentum.
Noah Cloth, hurt and frightened by the Mouse’s dark prophesies, had begun to cry. “Unbearable,” he sobbed. “Unkind. Uncomfortable. Unendurable. Unpleasant. How true, how true.”
“Get Cloth’s buddy,” Lydia Conscience said. “Who’s his buddy? The kid’s throwing a tantrum. Get his buddy over here. Janet?”
“I’ve nothing to do with it. I’m Tony’s buddy,” Janet Order said.
“Well, I’m not his buddy. I’m Benny’s buddy,” Lydia said.
“I’m telling,” Tony Word said darkly.
“Well, who is his damn buddy? He’s falling apart. He’ll wake the whole hotel.”
“Maybe Mudd-Gaddis.”
“Mudd-Gaddis wasn’t assigned a buddy. You think they’d assign Mudd-Gaddis a buddy? My God, he practically doesn’t even come with a shadow practically.”
“I’m telling.”
“Maybe Tony’s his buddy,” Benny suggested.
“How can Tony be his buddy?” Janet asked. “What’s wrong with you, don’t you listen? I already said Tony’s my buddy.”
“Who are you, saying, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Who? Just who in hell are you, saying, ‘Don’t you listen?’”
“Big man!”
“I never had any complaints.”
“Big man!”
“I am, I’m telling.”
Noah was howling now.
“You bet, big man!”
Practically screaming.
“What, what are you telling?” Lydia shouted.
“That’s what’s wrong with our system,” Mudd-Gaddis observed to Pluto. “We can’t always remember who our buddies are when we need them.”
“Does this have something to do with my religion?”
“What does your religion have to do with anything, Christ- killer?”
“This is what you think they want,” Mickey said, appealing to the Dog, “din and squabble?”
“Rena Morgan!” Mudd-Gaddis said suddenly.
“Rena Morgan what?”
“Rena Morgan is Noah’s buddy.”
Ly
dia Conscience was all over Noah Cloth like a mother hen. Janet joined her, cajoling, consoling, the two girls’ attentions vaguely suggestive.
“I’m telling that no one can help,” Tony Word said, and burst into tears.
“Well, yeah, I see it,” the Mouse said. “Really. I do. It has this certain—how shall one put it?—this certain…oh, Grand Guignol charm.”
They led Noah to the bed and laid him down gently.
“There you go,” Lydia said. “That’s right. Right beside Rena. He’s a little upset, Reenie,” she said. “See if you can quiet him down. Are you going to be all right, Noah? Are you going to stop getting on everyone’s N-E-R-V-E-S?”
“As a concept it’s brilliant,” Mickey Mouse said. “Right up there with, oh, say, signing Shakespeare for the deaf.”
“You mustn’t mind what Janet says,” Lydia Conscience whispered to her buddy, Benny. “She’s a bitch and a ball- breaker.” And turned to the blue girl. “In case you haven’t noticed,” she said, “Tony’s acting up.”
“Take care of it yourself,” she said. “Can’t you see I’ve my hands full?”
Mickey Mouse could. On the bed Sneezy was flailing about, her windmill hands going like crazy, missing the probable Dopey lying next to her, who’d covered his ears but didn’t seem inclined to roll out of her way. Together they managed to give the impression of a helpless, ignorant piglet and a vicious sow inside a farrowing house. Blue Grumpy had all she could do to try to guide the dangerous Sneezer’s flying hands back down to her sides.
It’s part of the show, was the Mouse’s professional opinion. He looked over at the talent scout in his Pluto suit to gauge his reaction. The Dog seemed worried behind his one-size-fits-all permanent stare. Clearly such niceties were either over his head or he was building the tip with his phony rim-shot concern. Probably the former and, if anyone cared to ask him, it would be over the heads, too, of most of her potential audiences. If they noticed anything going on at all, chances were it would just be a jumble of meaningless tics to them. Would they understand, or even see, for that matter, that she was shifting rolled handkerchiefs from one place on her person to another? If they did, would they notice that she sacrificed the advantage of leverage and not only worked them close up but lying down? Would they appreciate the Grumpess’s subtle contribution or at all take in that by laying hands on her, or attempting to, the result was the equivalent of working blindfold without a net, defying all ringmaster convention and actually inviting impedance rather than appealing for silence before a particularly difficult turn? Dulled, dying kids? It had to be lost on them. God, she was good. He had to admit it, suddenly as generous as one stand-up comic scrutinizing the performance of another. If it was lost it was lost. The children in her audiences had about twelve minutes to live. They deserved the best.
Then he saw that something had changed. She’d run out of props, the long furl of handkerchiefs she’d managed to conceal—so that what she did passed beyond the realm of entertainment and entered art—hiding this one here, that one there, all the while making discreet, even delicate, passes at her nose—because she actually used them, the Mouse saw—had all been filled and returned to their hiding places, all the while continuing to maintain by misdirection and the feints of her grand and flighty fidget the complicated illusion that nothing was there. (Which by now, of course, nothing was.) What she did took the trained actor’s breath away, and he looked again in the direction of the faggot Dog. Who seemed, talent scout or no, more than a little bored. Mickey Mouse shook his head in disgust at even this appearance of indifference and turned back to the girl on the bed. Who had gone into her labored breathing, the hacksaw rasps of her sawn and strangled weather. It was, essentially, the same big, terrifying finish she’d used on him in the elevator.
Her arms dropped to her sides and she flailed across the entire width of the bed, using all her body now, her torso, her arms, and her legs, digging into the bedspread with her face, trying to bite it away from the sheets with her teeth, very nearly smothering Noah before Lydia and one or two of the others thought to pull him away.
I’m wrong, thought the Mouse, it’s an even bigger finish, and burst into applause. “Bravo, bravo!” Mickey Mouse cried. “Most bravissimo bravo!”
She’d worked the bedspread free. Great dollops of black congestion dropped from her nose, from her mouth.
“Ring our rooms!” Benny Maxine shouted. “Get Colin, get Moorhead!”
“What, actually go near her, you mean? Isn’t that the buddy’s job?” said Janet Order.
“The buddy’s indisposed,” Benny said. “Shit,” he said, and picked the phone up, just inches from Rena’s head, himself.
There was no answer in 627. He dialed the other rooms.
“Why haven’t they called? I thought they were going to call.”
(But everything has a reasonable explanation.
(It hadn’t occurred to the adults that the kids would be in the hidey-hole. They’d looked for them throughout the hotel, in the shops, in the game room and restaurants. High and low. Recalling their splendid afternoon on Shipwreck Marsh, Mary and Colin believed they might have gone there. The marina closed in the late afternoon, but the more they thought about it, the more Colin and Mary were convinced that they’d taken a boat out, perhaps even stolen one. The marina man (who lived in Orlando and had to be called at home and told to drive the twenty or so miles back to the park) said that while he didn’t think any boats were missing he couldn’t be sure because at any given time there were always a few in the shop for maintenance. He’d a record of these in his notebook, of course, but hadn’t thought to bring it with him when he’d driven in. He was sorry. Rather than return to Orlando and lose precious time, he took a Water Sprite and suggested Colin follow in a big slow canopy boat, the only craft large enough to carry them all back together should they be found. They looked for them on Shipwreck Marsh and, failing to find them there, went on to Discovery Island.
(Meanwhile, Eddy Bale and Nedra Carp went with the search party—Security had been called in—through the half- dozen lands of the Magic Kingdom, and Moorhead and Mary, attaching themselves to some of the park’s policemen, trailed along with them through Epcot Center. Security, taking the disappearance seriously, alerted the transportation system: the buses and riverboats and monorails.
(So they never thought of the room. Because everything, everything, has a reasonable explanation and none of the adults ever understood why seven kids would want to coop themselves up in a stuffy hotel room.)
“You think we should go down?”
“I don’t know. Ought we to move her?”
“Maybe one or two of us could go down and wait in the room in case they return.”
“Take the kids then,” Lydia Conscience said.
“Not you, Benny,” Rena pleaded through her choking. “Please not you.”
“Maybe we all ought to stay put.”
“Get Tony out of here, at least.”
Now that Noah had calmed a bit, relieved to be out of harm’s way perhaps, Tony had taken up his friend’s war cries. He bellowed like one at the stake.
“Tony, darling,” Janet said, “I’m your buddy and you’re my buddy. We’re each other’s buddies and have got to make sure that nothing happens to either of us. Clearly it isn’t a one-for- all, all-for-one situation we have here. You wouldn’t want something to happen to me, would you? I know you wouldn’t. Yet all your screaming is giving me the heebie-jeebies. Do you know what the heebie-jeebies are, Tony darling?”
“The Hebrew jeebies?” he pouted.
“That’s right, sweetheart,” she said, ignoring Maxine’s glare. “The Hebrew jeebies are these dangerous palpitations, this shortness of breath and angina. They’re my symptoms. You don’t want your buddy to die on you, do you, Tony?”
“No.”
“Then please shut up,” Janet Order said.
Rena reached out for Benny Maxine’s hand.
“I beg your pa
rdon,” Pluto said timidly. “Just who is it you were expecting to call?”
There was so much talent in the world, Mickey Mouse thought. Even Matthew. His friend’s panic couldn’t entirely have been an attribute of the cunning mask. He had to admit: The Dog got a lot more out of the Pluto suit than he ever did. Gee, he thought sadly, remembering other auditions he’d blown up and down central Florida, maybe I’m not nearly the theatrical champ I’m cracked up to be.
“Benny?”
“Righty-o,” Maxine said, “hit’s our Benjamin ’ere.”
“Please, Benny,” she said, her voice crackling in her heavy phlegm like a sort of static, “could you give me your hand?”
Inside his mask, Mickey Mouse began to cry.
“Me ’and? Give you me ’and? Why, wot an idear! I don’ fink dat’s a bolt from da blue.”
Because many of them were seeing straight now. And had begun to drift toward the door. Lydia Conscience pushed Mudd- Gaddis’s wheelchair. Pluto tugged at Mickey Mouse’s arm and whispered something in his big ear the foolish but ultimately not unkindly Mouse couldn’t quite make out, though he believed he caught the Dog’s gist—which he hadn’t at all—and, nodding, reluctantly joined him in the exodus, all the while looking back over his shoulder, rubbing his big white gloves against what he’d forgotten were only one-way black glass buttons and not eyes, and thinking, the not-so-standoffish softy Lydia Conscience had been told about in her dream, that perhaps it made better art not to be in on the very end of their performance, that perhaps there were some things best left unstated in theater, following, nodding, glancing back over his shoulders and rubbing his eyes, perhaps the only one to get out of there with his honor intact.
Because despite the fact that the children were dying themselves, they had gone and bought trouble anyway. Getting home free had been denied them, not having to apologize had. All they could hope for now was to cover their ass.
“Hey,” Benny called, “where you off to then? Lydia? Charley? Hey, Noah,” he called.
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