“Forget that powder. There are armed guards everywhere, even among the monks. No one can enter the shrine.”
“There’s a vent down there. A dog could get through.”
“Yes, but there are dogs in the pagoda, Lara. Dobermans, bullmastiffs. They’re guard dogs, trained by the monks.”
“I’ll take care of them.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t underestimate the power of a bitch in heat, Viskovitz.” Her face was lit, sinful. Swinging her hips, she walked off toward the garden and showed herself to the pagoda dogs with her tail raised like a slut.
What could I do?
I whimpered a sutra and visualized a lotus blossom.
I saw her again three hours later. She smelled of all the dogs in the monastery, including Skittles. She was walking sideways and humming an old Cantonese song.
“Did you do it, honey?” she meowed. I took her outside the temple to my favorite hideout. An old house that was under construction and would never be finished. In a corner were three large bags. They looked like lime.
“Oh, Visko!” Her dilated pupils were as green as jade. “Come here. What are you waiting for?”
For just one night, one night, I forgot all the hardships of existence, the smell of rot, fleas. I managed to stop time, to dilate space and to reunite, on more than one occasion, with the Divine Stillness. It was finally dawn when I managed to detach myself. It had been a long day.
“Visko, I’d say that among all the dogs in the pagoda—”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” I growled.
“I love you, Visko.”
“Don’t say that, even as a joke. In a few days you’ll be as cold as a squid, and it will be better that way.”
“Can’t you see that we’re a perfect couple? You with your sense of smell and me with my dedication—”
“To duty? No, Lara. It’s amazing how a few hormones always manage to deceive us. In this universe in which everything is unstable and ephemeral, nothing is more evanescent than love between dogs. No illusion is briefer. It is for this reason, I think, that we need other idols, other masters.”
“Not you, Visko. You’re not faithful to anyone. Not to the pack that raised you, not to the pagoda’s monks, not to me. You don’t have a master.”
“You’re wrong. I, too, have my leash, Lara. More painful than a studded collar. Sweeter than any other lie.”
“Ljuba?”
“No.” At that point, she might as well know the truth. I pointed to the fucking thing with my nose. Lara looked thoughtfully and shook her head.
“I don’t understand. The powder? You enjoy confiscating it?”
How could anyone be so naive?
I tried to explain it to her. “Look, they put it under your nose from when you’re a puppy—a hypersensitive nose like mine . . . day after day, at every fucking training session . . . well, your brain goes bazoom. Forget a little sugar lump or a little steak. Within a week you’re its slave. And then nothing else exists in life. That’s why I was so good at finding it when I was a cop: because I couldn’t do without it. I certainly wasn’t doing it to please the flatfoots who were drugging me . . .” I felt cold and was frothing at the mouth.
“I’ll help you get out of it, Visko. My love is stronger. I would love you even if—”
“Even if what? Even if I told you that this stuff has been here for a week, since I dug it out of Korzybski’s yard? Even if I told you that Korzybski died because he wasn’t able to return the drugs to the Triad? Even if I told you that I killed Zucotic because he got in my way?”
“I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it, I don’t believe it . . .” She was barking and backing toward the exit, with a bag in her teeth.
“Drop it, Lara!” I threw myself at her.
But just then two guys in uniform showed up, drawn by our yelping. Lara jerked herself free, leaving her collar in my teeth.
“You lose, Viskovitz,” she barked as she ran to the officers for help.
How could anyone be so naive?
The two dogcatchers slipped a halter on her and dragged her into the van.
“What are you doing? Stop! I am Lara from Narcotics, Detective Lara reporting for duty. Detective Lara!” She really looked like a rabid dog, so dirty, so upset, without the pretty collar and the little tag.
I would never see her again.
I stayed there briefly, reflecting on the transitoriness of things. I had an urge to howl, but I checked myself, because this was Chinatown. I sniffed a little stuff and right away felt better. By then I was no longer sleepy, and I headed off for the pagoda.
Chinatown was waking up to a new day. On the side-walks, young and old were doing the first tai chi exercises. The smell of ginger and onion was in the air, as was the far-off sound of the last saxophone. Everyone was busily returning to the harried rituals of existence, to performing the mystery of Anicca, the Great Illusion, the Dream of Brahaman, the Dance of Shiva, the Eternal Cosmic Joke.
The dogs of the monastery had begun their breathing exercises. I crossed my hind legs and assumed the lotus position. I concentrated on the muladhara to regain my energies and make them flow toward the place of salvation, beyond good and evil, pleasure and pain. Toward the heart of the life-giving pulse, toward the eye of clear wisdom, toward the Great Peace, the Great Peace . . .
HOW LOW YOU’VE SUNK, VISKOVITZ
“Ljuba, why don’t you love me?” I asked.
“Because you’re a worm, you’re vile, you don’t have a spine, you don’t have any guts.”
“And?”
“Because you’re insipid. Because you have no head, no character, no sensitivity.”
“And?”
“You don’t know how to love, you have no heart.”
“And?”
“You have a tiny penis.”
“Anything else?”
“Yes, Visko. You don’t ever think about me, you’re an egoist, a parasite, you only know how to take, you live at my expense, you don’t have an active life or interests, you’re draining me, you irritate me all the time. When are you going to stop torturing me?”
A shudder of revulsion and disgust ran through her, shaking her whole body—then another and then another again.
To make it through the spasms I got a good grip with my scales on the mucus of her intestines. I wiped the blood off my proboscis and asked:
“And what would you say are my defects?”
BLOOD WILL TELL, VISKOVITZ
“Papa, how did things go for you when you were little?”
“Childhood is the most wonderful time in a shark’s life, Junior. My mother was a big fish, she nourished me splendidly. Naturally it took me a while to get her down, since I was so small, still in gestation. I started on the inside and made my way out through the blood-rich organs, so I can’t say I really got to know her. I do remember she had a good heart.”
“Were you an only child?”
“No, I had two brothers in the same litter. ‘Visko,’ they scolded me, ‘now who will take care of us?’ In those days I couldn’t stomach them. Then, when my stomach was empty, I took care of them myself.”
“Didn’t you suffer from loneliness?”
“Well, at a certain point I felt an emptiness. But to fill it up, there were uncles and aunts and cousins and grandparents. Family is in my blood, Junior. And friends helped me get along. I’d say everything went swimmingly until adolescence. Then I got my first remora.”
“What kind?”
“The worst. I still remember his name—Zucotic.”
“Did he make trouble for you?”
“Oh yes, you know what those creatures are like. They say they’re symbiotic, but they’re really parasitic. They fasten on to your stomach with those toothy fins and they don’t ever let you go. But the worst thing is their hypocrisy. They criticize your every mouthful, they fill you with a sense of guilt. They tell you the personal history of every tuna and herring, so that when yo
u eat them you lose your enthusiasm and the remoras get more leftovers. Son, I’ve seen remoras fatter than sharks.”
“Couldn’t you ask someone to pull them off?”
“Yes, but at that point I didn’t have many friends. And Zucotic was basically my only company. You know, when you’re young, an expert remora can even convince you he’s helping you. But when I discovered I also had Petrovic and Lopez under my belly, I understood it was time to do something. I looked for a shark who could help me. Someone who wanted to exchange the favor. That was how I met your mother, Ljuba.”
“Did she have a lot of remoras?”
“So many you could only see her fins. And let me tell you, she wasn’t small. Her pectoral fins were as big as rays, her anal fin supple as seaweed. Even her streamlined caudal peduncle made you stare. But above all it was her eye that struck you—red and set deep in the socket— mean as poison.”
“Did you get along with each other right away?”
“Well, the first contacts were difficult, because remoras aren’t stupid. They know how to recognize danger, and they don’t think twice about sinking their whole set of teeth into your skin. But little by little, my parasites and hers felt a certain liking for each other. And then an outright affection. Consider that at a certain point my remoras were having their way with hers—and there she and I were, brushing our fins and gazing into each other’s eyes.”
“Couldn’t you . . . I mean . . . after all . . .”
“Her remoras were mostly on her sex.”
“And you couldn’t pull them off her?”
“Certainly—but she didn’t want me to. She had a terror of getting pregnant.”
“Yes, of course. Like all female sharks.”
“Anyway, at a certain point I’d had it with all this stalling, and I ate them off her. She returned the favor and a great love was born. Free of all restraints, our passion became frantic, Junior. We made love in the butchered bodies of whales, in the soft pulpy flesh of our prey. It was only by eating the flesh of others that we were able to keep from turning on ourselves. Throughout the deep we brought scandal and devastation, love and death, lust and loss. Naturally we couldn’t hope to come through without so much as a scratch. So one day the water had a higher concentration of her blood than of her hormones. And at that point I had to get over her. It was while I was tearing her apart that I saw your little head stick out. Deep Ocean! You made me go all tender. Your dorsal fin was as small as a single scale. You were born prematurely, Junior, and that’s why you came out so handicapped.”
“But I’m not handicapped, Papa.”
“Oh, yes you are. And it’s my fault. It mustn’t be nice for a kid to see the father tearing the mother apart and not even giving the kid a morsel. Loathing, sense of guilt, fear . . . you end up with a shrimp like you. Someone who grows up without any meanness, without blood lust. Just now I saw you playing around with that cod—why didn’t you kill it?”
“I thought he was nice, Papa.”
“You see . . .”
“There must be a way of living without hurting others.”
“Sure—you live off me. Like a damned remora. Damn it, I’ve already explained to you that nothing does more good than evil. Around here the one critical standard everyone understands is our teeth. We’re the ones who make this fucking ocean work. Is that clear? Imagine what would happen if every good-for-nothing was allowed to live without getting eaten.”
“Maybe we’d all swim around more at ease, maybe we’d learn to respect each other.”
“Respect is something you earn, kid, even from a herring. They know we kill them for their own good, and that’s why they respect us.”
“But—”
“But no one respects you, Junior. Look around. Tunas and mackerels are laughing at you. You’re talking like a remora, you’re behaving like a remora, you’re even hanging on to my fin. You’re becoming a parasite, goddamn it! The other day, when that female asked me, ‘Want me to pull him off you?’—how do you think that made me feel? Her son is the same age as you, and he’s already eaten up five or six baby-sitters. Don’t you get it? I can’t go on like this. Not if your name is Viskovitz.”
“The thing is, I have other interests, Daddy.”
“Right. Fooling around with blowfish and sea horses. Collecting diatoms. Listen to me: tonight Lara’s coming to dinner with her daughters. Don’t make us look bad, like that other time with those walruses. Or yesterday evening with those fishermen.”
“Why? What did I do wrong?”
“You have more than three hundred teeth, Junior, I didn’t give them to you so you could smile your silly smiles. I’m telling you this for the last time—you don’t turn to whoever is next to you and ask demurely, ‘Excuse me, could you pass me that drowned man?’ You get a grip and tear, you cut and destroy, you pull stuff out of other people’s gullets and you bite right into them. Have I made myself clear?”
“Even our dinner partners?”
“It’s natural. For example, this evening it would be awfully nice if you cut up at least one of the babies.”
“But they’re the daughters of our guest!”
“Of course they are, you idiot. Nice people always bring something to help with the meal, it’s polite . . . Look, here they are now. Don’t forget—good manners . . . Hi Lara! Hey there, girls!”
“Hi Visko. And this is your little boy? Nice, nice . . . oh, oh, oh! These are the tuna you told me about? Oh, Visko, you shouldn’t have . . . silver tunny . . . what a treat!”
“Yes, Lara. So hop to it, kids! Don’t let them get away!”
“Aaarh. Gnarl. Chop. Growl. Ugh. Slash. Gasp. Squak. Yum.”
“Thanks, Junior, for a wonderful evening. Your father was delicious.” “Your mother wasn’t bad, either. Good night, girls.”
YOU’RE LOOKING A LITTLE WAXY, VISKOVITZ
Even as a larva I was rather attractive. “He’s going to be a great drone,” the nurses said more than once. “If this is the sketch, just imagine the finished work.” Throughout the hive, my metamorphosis was viewed as an important social event, a big first. My antennae had barely emerged from the cocoon when there was a clamor of approval at the masterpiece. The critical reception was unanimous in appreciating “the chromatic liveliness, the solidity of the architectonic solutions, the refinement of the modeling.” The interpretation was less unanimous. Some said, “What a posturing little drone! It’s not the one with the tight abdomen or the sweetest setules who’ll be the winner in the nuptial flight. You have to earn reproductive success with your head and your wings . . .”
“That could be,” others replied. “But ours is a matriarchal society, and even if he’s no genius and not exactly a lightning bolt with his wings, with a cute little ass like that, he’ll go far.”
The queen put an end to these sterile debates. Hers was the only opinion that mattered, and she made the most modern and courageous choice: Viskovitz.
But she had to make some concession to tradition, so on the eve of the nuptial flight she came before the honeycomb of the drones and announced, “She whom you see before you is Lara the Sweetness of the Poppy, by the grace of God and the pleasure of these combs your queen and sovereign. Tomorrow the sacred nuptial flight will take place. The start, as always, will be the shadow line cast by the ilex as soon as the sun makes an angle of sixty degrees with the hive. The rules of the contest remain the same: whoever takes a shortcut, stings a rival or makes two false starts will be disqualified and killed. And, as our Law decrees”—she let the gaze of her enormous eyes sweep over us—“whoever wins this trial will have his glory with me. May the best drone win.”
I can assure you that as she said that, she wasn’t thinking of Petrovic and Lopez. In reality it had already been discreetly set up that after the start, once the boys had swarmed off, she would meet me under the burnt oak.
I got a good night’s sleep, and the next day I woke up in tip-top shape, as wired as a wasp. I ate a double rat
ion of honey, licked my setules, shook my wings and went up to the starting line with all the suitors. I did a little warming up, a little stretching, and tried a few takeoffs. You can think what you like, but the nuptial flight is always a big day. The fans were all for Petrovic. Since he was the favorite, they had bet everything on him. I saw him buzz around nervously, chewing rosemary—a stimulant. At the start he reared up furiously, then took off and was in the lead right away. We all rocketed after him. Headed up at ninety degrees, he climbed through the curves, doing barrel rolls and zigzags to keep anyone from passing. It was too dangerous to try drafting because of the stingers. The rules? Nothing but words. Up here it was all buzzing, screaming and cursing. Pretty soon I had enough of that, and when we got away from the hive, I broke off and glided gently down to the oak and settled in a poppy.
She didn’t keep me waiting.
“My hero,” she gasped. “Take your glory with me!”
And I, Viskovitz, took my glory.
Later the sovereign declared, “Oh my knight, I like everything about you. Your palpiger, your submentum, your proboscis. Truly, beauty has your face and your name! I know that according to tradition I ought to castrate you and kill you, but this time will be a noble exception. In fact, I shall have to ask you to come live with me at court, I don’t believe I can do without your body, your scent . . .”
“I see we understand each other. I have a certain need of that kind myself.”
That evening I moved into the royal comb. The other males were proclaimed outlaws and exterminated. I honestly believe there was nothing I could do for them.
The life of a king was nothing less than I had imagined, and our honeymoon was very sweet. In the morning I got up late and breakfasted on royal jelly and precious pollens while the female workers curled my setules and stretched my wings. I soon became a father, and my chromosomes began to be mass-produced in a printing of five thousand copies a day.
You're an Animal, Viskovitz Page 9