“Who?” Diablo interrupted, this sudden business about his name being enough to momentarily distract him from his swelling perplexity. “Why did you just call me Mr. Wilson?” Elizabeth indicated the Wilson surname engraved into the cover as if it were as incriminating as a fingerprint. Diablo squinted at the Bible, again lost in confusion, struggling to piece it together. “You saw a crusader give this to me?”
“He had a donkey with him,” Elizabeth added.
Diablo shook his head, not trusting his experience. Billy Pronto had presented this Bible to him, that much was certain, but something new was here developing. “A crusader with a donkey gave this to me,” he repeated the scenario for clarification.
“Busted.” Elizabeth nodded happily. “Mr. Wilson.”
“My name isn’t Wilson,” Diablo protested, but Elizabeth was no longer paying attention. She had let the Bible fall open, and was busy reading its bibliomancy. “See!” she announced after she had scanned a passage. She followed the lines with her index finger and read aloud from Job, chapter 39, verses 4—5: “Their young thrive and grow strong in the wilds; they leave and do not return. Who let the wild donkey go free? Who untied his ropes?” She slammed it shut triumphantly. “Who let the wild donkey go free, Mr. Wilson?”
“What the christ are you talking about?” Diablo demanded at last. “There was no donkey and there was no crusader, and my name isn’t goddamn Wilson.” He peered at Elizabeth, trying to puzzle out what this implied. “But you do seem entirely convinced,” he adjudicated. “And that was a splendid synchronicity you just there manifested.”
“There is nothing but synchronicity,” Elizabeth replied, though she was not about to be thrown off her jackass. “But who let the wild donkey go free, Mr. Diablo? And why do you continue to deny the truth?”
“Why do I continue to deny the truth?” Diablo repeated absently, wondering if he had completely lost his mind and if Elizabeth was just another avatar of Billy Pronto. That last question certainly sounded like something Billy Pronto might say.
Elizabeth puckered. She didn’t appreciate Diablo’s bald-faced deceptions, though his prevarications aroused her curiosity all the more as to what he was hiding. “Whatever your name is,” she pronounced. “I know why you call yourself Diablo.”
“Is that so?”
“Diablo is Spanish and Italian for devil, as a matter of fact, and it comes from the Greek diabolus, which means half circle. Diablo destroys the whole, halves it, and creates dualism. And definitionally, a devil is anything that imagines itself to be separate from God, which is of course impossible given omnipresence. So, you own your own alienation by calling yourself Diablo. I like that, and good on you. Don’t let this go to your head, but I think it’s a form of enlightenment to admit that you’re not enlightened.”
Diablo grinned, impressed with her interpretation. “There’s nothing I like better than pissing off the ostensibly enlightened,” he admitted. “But it’s actually not up to the individual to name oneself. I don’t call myself Diablo. I was called Diablo because I used to be the door gunner of a Blackhawk helicopter. And let me tell you something, there’s nothing quite like operating an M-60 belt-fed machine gun, spurting transmission fluid all over the belt to lube the bullets as they’re slammering into the chamber, and then blowing your ammo all over creation. ‘Diablo’ was what the other members of my unit called me. It was either Diablo or Skykiller, and I just never responded whenever they tried to call me something as dorky as Skykiller.”
Elizabeth considered this revelation. “Did you kill anyone, Skykiller?”
Diablo shrugged in dismay. “Probably, but who can say for sure when you’re flying past at 160 miles per hour? That’s certainly what they trained me to do, anyway. Military institutions are very skilled at mangling the masculine impulse. They twisted my testosterone before I even had a chance to consider what else I might do with it.”
“So why do you still call yourself Diablo?”
“I told you, it’s not up to the individual to name himself, and you should never trust the posers who try to pull that crap. We name each other, not ourselves. I know this guy who named himself Freedom, calls himself a yogi, and is always running around, giving orders, trying to be in charge. I told him once that he ought to call himself Fascism. You see what I’m saying? That’s the kind of Orwellian horseshit that proceeds when people start naming themselves. Besides, no one has given me a new name yet, and Diablo just kind of stuck. It’s hard to shake a name. A crusader and a donkey, you say?”
Having been unceremoniously dubbed Betty Boobs by others, Elizabeth didn’t agree with his perspective on naming oneself at all, but she was more interested in picking up the earlier thread of their encounter. “A crusader and a donkey,” she affirmed. “Is it starting to come back to you now?”
Diablo shook his head. “Although the fact remains that I don’t know what you’re talking about, I will concede that someone gave me that Bible a few minutes ago. But I don’t think he had a donkey, and I’m certain that he wasn’t dressed as a crusader.”
“What was he dressed as?”
“A jail guard, actually.” Diablo chuckled. “A correctional officer.”
“A correctional officer?” Elizabeth asked, momentarily forgetting that she already knew his friend was a crusader. “Are you on probation or something?”
“No, that’s just what he always wears. Please don’t ask me why.”
Elizabeth squinted at him, then shook her head. “No. Jail guards don’t clatter around in chain mail wearing a white tunic emblazoned with a red cross tucked into their belt. They also don’t carry swords, shields, or keep livestock. I don’t know what you think you’re hiding or who you think you’re kidding, Mr. Diablo, but I’m in the middle of the most spectacular day of my life, and I can tell a crusader from a correctional officer.”
“The most spectacular day of your life?” Diablo inquired, but Elizabeth ignored him.
“I know what’s going on,” she charged, though she didn’t, not really. “And I know who you are.”
“You know who I am?” Diablo repeated in mock astonishment.
Elizabeth touched the side of her nose and pointed at him without a lick of hesitation. “You’re Billy Pronto,” she said. “You’re the secret mastermind of m2.”
94 SINCE WILHELMINA had reached her apparent destination, Special Agent J. J. Speed ceased monitoring her location via the homing beacon. Now, he leaned against the building on the corner of the alley, listening intently to Diablo and Elizabeth’s bizarre conversation being broadcast into his earbud receiver via the radio microphone on Wilhelmina’s collar. After a few minutes of this uninspired reconnoiter loiter, touching the outside of the earbud receiver to press it closer to his eardrum, Special Agent J. J. Speed decided he should put his mirror shades on in order to look more secret service. He wished he would have thought to wear his black suit. Then he would have looked really superspy. He settled for a stony expression, flicking his toothpick menacingly from side to side, don’t mess with this secret agent man.
Mostly, their conversation made him drowsy. It was not so much the content; Special Agent J. J. Speed had logged thousands of hours of surveillance, and at least their chatter carried the question of which one of them was crazier. Rather, he had not anticipated the implications of mounting a radio microphone on a collar right next to a cat’s throat. Despite having the most cutting-edge noise-reduction technologies packed into the radio microphone, it was difficult to discern their dialogue over the tremendous reverberations of Wilhelmina’s incessant purring coming through his earbud receiver. And since the frequency of feline purring is known to have a sedative effect on humans, it was not long after Special Agent J. J. Speed learned that Diablo used to be a Blackhawk door gunner that his mind relaxed and he idly began wondering what action movie it was where the hero always chewed on an unlit wooden match. Maybe I should trade my toothpicks for wooden matches, Special Agent J. J. Speed considered. Whateve
r the movie was called, it’s old and insignificant enough that nobody would remember it, and so I could claim it as my unique trademark. That would be cool. But they’d have to be safety matches, he hastily cautioned himself, the kind that require a reaction with the striking surface on the box in order to ignite. Otherwise, some prankster could refract a focused point of sunlight onto the tip, cause it to flare, and singe the hair right out of my nose. That would not be cool.
Adrift in this aimless reverie, Special Agent J. J. Speed swerved in and out of trying to decipher the conversation. This put a damper on his spy game, and he may have lost interest altogether if Wilhelmina hadn’t paused her purring for a few seconds to scratch. As it happened, it was in that break that Elizabeth pointedly accused Diablo of being the secret mastermind of m2.
Special Agent J. J. Speed jolted his head toward the corner at this announcement, as if this would enable him to hear more clearly. “What’s this now?” he said aloud, snapping his toothpick out of his mouth. Though he had been taunted by m2 conspirators many times, he was so far out of sync with what was happening around him that he had never heard about it directly. If he had heard about it, after all, he would have been a part of it. But Special Agent J. J. Speed was unaware of all of this. All that mattered was that this Diablo character was maybe the secret mastermind of something, and this could be the big break in his civil surveillance assignment.
“Am not,” Diablo replied to Elizabeth’s accusation. “What’s m2?”
“Yeah, what’s m2?” Special Agent J. J. Speed whispered to himself, pulling out his notepad and pen. M2. Sounds diabolical.
“You are so,” Elizabeth answered Diablo’s denial. “And you know exactly what m2 is.”
“What the fuck is m2?” Special Agent J. J. Speed hissed, as if the sheer force of his whispered insistence would compel them to reveal the answer. The only response he received was from Wilhelmina, who, still hoping to provoke their affection, resumed her purring.
Diablo capitulated. “Of course I know what m2 is, but you flatter me by imagining that I’m the mastermind.” Diablo stroked Zippy a few times, addressing the cat directly. “She thinks I’m a mastermind, Zippy.”
“Zippy?” Special Agent J. J. Speed repeated aloud, gathering that he was referring to Wilhelmina and curling his lip indignant.
Elizabeth knew this con, pleading guilty to a lesser charge as a means of distracting your interrogator from the larger issue. There was no way she was going to let him pull that one. “You’re Billy Pronto,” she said. “Admit it, Mister Mastermind.”
“Billy Pronto?” Special Agent J. J. Speed repeated, jotting it down and desperately trying to make out their words over Wilhelmina’s thunderous purring.
“Never heard of him,” Diablo lied.
“Yes you have. If you’ve heard of m2 then you know that Billy Pronto is the mastermind.”
Diablo sighed. “If you really believe there’s a mastermind then you’re missing the whole point. The point is to master your own mind, to get evolved. Gnothi seauton, know thyself. That’s all m2 has ever been about. Isn’t that right, Zippy?”
Special Agent J. J. Speed growled in frustration, having no idea what was being talked about. Know thee Satan was all he could derive from gnothi seauton. Plus he didn’t like this slime bag petting Wilhelmina and calling her Zippy besides.
Elizabeth paused. At least he was speaking straight with her now. “Maybe that’s true,” she said, “but that doesn’t change the fact that you’re Billy Pronto.”
Diablo sighed impatiently. This whole interaction was careening uncomfortably close to a sense of sanity he wasn’t even sure he possessed. Over the years, he had come to feel certain that Billy Pronto was some bizarre aberration in the space-time continuum, yes, but not a split personality of his. The last thing he needed was someone trying to tell him otherwise. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered uneasily.
“If it’s not you then it’s your crusader friend.”
Diablo groaned. “I told you, I don’t have any crusader friends.”
“Fine, whatever, your jail guard buddy, then. Whatever you think your friend was dressed as, the two of you are obviously in cahoots.”
“Cahoots?”
“A nefarious collaboration,” Elizabeth defined.
“A nefarious collaboration,” Diablo repeated, finding a grin. “That sounds very romantic, Ms. Wildhack. I must be quite the rascal in your estimation.”
Elizabeth gazed at him, her eyes sparkling like the diamond tips of a drill that could bore through any BS. “I just want to know what’s going on.”
Diablo deflected her piercing gaze by avoiding eye contact. “Don’t we all,” he agreed. “But the trick is to discover the truth within ourselves, don’t you think? Besides,” he reminded her, “you said a few minutes ago that you already know what’s going on. What do you need me for?”
Exasperated, Elizabeth decided to gush the whole truth on him. “Listen,” she said, suddenly vulnerable. “Last night I dreamed that a little girl gave me one of your seashell pipes filled with something she called m2, and later she turned into your crusader friend that you claim does not exist, and now I’m starting to feel like I might be going crazy. Please.” She paused, biting a tremble out of her lower lip and looking away. “Pretty please.” She looked back at him, overriding desperation with jest. “Pretty please with a maraschino cherry on top. Can you tell me what’s going on or not?”
This dream disclosure startled Diablo, and he had an urge to flee her presence despite her cute little maraschino cherry in-joke. He knew too well, however, what the gnashing desperation of losing one’s sanity felt like. It was not an apprehension he would foist upon anyone, let alone this delicate hurricane of a woman with whom he had grown so fond of bantering. “Did you smoke the m2, then?” he asked hesitantly, resigning himself at last to a reckoning with his sense of reality.
Elizabeth nodded, feeling suddenly guilty, as if she were admitting to eating a forbidden fruit. “But it wasn’t a decision; it just sort of happened.”
Diablo nodded, opening the door and gesturing her to step inside. “I know,” he said grimly. “I’ve had that dream, too.”
95 SEVERAL BLOCKS AWAY at an outdoor café, a ceramic mug of mocha latte with chocolate sprinkles levitated off its saucer and drifted silently away, the saucer tagging along after a moment’s hesitation. Neither a drop was spilled nor a noise was made, and this departure went unnoticed by anyone, including the owner of the beverage, who was otherwise occupied reading the Aquaholics Anonymous exposé on counterfeit berg ice. When he did eventually notice his mocha latte’s unaccountable absence, he angrily demanded an explanation from the waiter, who, having no answer, settled for picking up the abandoned teaspoon and tapping him twice on the head with it. Then he touched the side of his nose and said, “Walk away,” just before walking away himself.
Several blocks later, the ceramic mug of mocha latte with chocolate sprinkles gracelessly splotched its contents onto the front of Special Agent J. J. Speed’s white shirt. It was not scalding, but it was hot enough to elicit a yelping “Motherfucker!” from Special Agent J. J. Speed, who was so immediately preoccupied with pulling the hot and wet shirt away from his tenderized skin that he failed to witness the wonder of the ceramic mug settling silently upon its saucer a few feet away on the pavement, suffering neither crack nor chip.
The mocha latte with chocolate sprinkles had also sopped the notebook upon which he had scribbled m2, Diablo, Billy Pronto, and Know thee Satan. “Motherfucker,” Special Agent J. J. Speed again whined when he saw this damage, snapping the loose foam from his notebook and noticing only then the bestilled ceramic mug, smug in its emptiness. Glancing apprehensively at the sky, he realized simultaneously that his earbud receiver was no longer purring. He frantically tapped at it a few times, and was relieved when he heard their dialogue resume at last, and without the distraction of Wilhelmina’s purring no less. It was Diablo who spoke
first:
“Welcome to the eye of the storm.”
96 WIND IS SILENT and invisible until it touches something. As a consequence, untold numbers of chaostrophic vortices—gustnadoes—were spinning their way through the. atmosphere enveloping New Orleans, unobserved as they went about rearranging sundry objects according to the dictations of unknowable whimsy.
Because air is a fluid, it operates according to the principles of fluid dynamics. Tornado researchers often gesture vaguely in the direction of this esoteric field of inquiry when pressed to explain how a tornado once stole a duffel bag from a resident’s attic and planted it in their neighbor’s attic, where it lay undiscovered for many months and was eventually found to be brimming with several kilos of cocaine. Or how a farmer’s wife once entered the locked door to her bedroom after a tornado and, upon hearing some commotion from within her chest of drawers, opened the top drawer only to discover two squawking chickens burst out grotesquely naked, tumbling and thumping about in their imbalanced featherlessness. In such circumstances, the researchers explain, the air itself achieves tentacular tendencies, that is, acts like a tentacle, maintaining its cohesive force, and with obviously astounding consequences.
Thus it was that exponential curiosity began appearing throughout New Orleans. In one instance, a couple stepped into their kitchen to fetch a second bottle of wine, pausing for an amorous kitchen-counter encounter, and returned breathless to their dining room only to find the front door wide open and their table gone missing, though every random thing on the table was still arranged just as it had been on the tablecloth, resting undisheveled upon the floor. Drunk on sex and Chianti (“This wine doesn’t breathe,” the boy was heard to say as he dramatically popped the second cork, “it pants . . . ”), they pursued their lovely evening regardless, and several minutes later a crowd gathered around a nearby utility pole, pointing in puzzled enthusiasm at the dining room table dangling from the top of the pole, hanging precariously from one leg.
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