Zanesville: A Novel

by Kris Saknussemm

  “Clearly,” he answered.

  The transparent woman shook her head, and a series of text options flickered before him. HETERO. GAY. PROFESSIONAL. PROVOCATIVE. SUBMISSIVE. DOMINANT. INTELLECTUAL.

  “What are you now?” he asked, feeling a little foolish to be talking to this phantom—until he noticed a bag lady deep in discussion with Dooley Duck.

  “Hetero-Professional,” Vinata Nidhu sniffed and made one of those dismissive hand gestures as if to say, Isn’t it obvious?

  “Let’s try Hetero-Provocative,” Clearfather answered.

  “Direct connections are aromatic,” she informed him. “And private,” she added. “Monsoon and Kalimpong Orchid are popular fragrances.”

  It struck him funny. This wasn’t a newsreader so much as a table dancer you put inside your head. “Where are you coming from?” he asked.

  “Informationally I’m based at a news desk in Chicago, but I’m visually generated from TWIN Central in Minneapolis,” Vinata answered.

  Clearfather noticed that a couple of drunks had slunk in to get warm. One of the men was tall and reddened, with a crooked frame that resembled a shillelagh. The other was all nose hair with the disintegrating squatness of a stubbed-out cigar. They tried to carry themselves like executives but about them both was the smell of protein excretion mingled with sour white sherry and a broad-spectrum disinfectant.

  “I want to see you naked,” Clearfather said. The broken-down men looked so forlorn, maybe a beautiful naked woman would cheer them up.

  The eidolon looked at him for a moment and then said, “Nudity is not one of the public platform options.”

  “I’m not a pheasant plucker, I’m the Pheasant Plucker’s son, but I’ll keep on plucking pheasants till the Pheasant Plucker comes,” he replied.

  Vinata Nidhu disappeared but a moment later faded back in with amazing clarity—naked except for her gold necklace from which dangled a tiny Shiva. She had a more Dravidian sheen to her skin now. Her nipples were so dark they were almost purple. After all the goings-on that had been going on, lust surged through him, although he knew that the image before him was just that. Still, her frank and graceful nudity was impossible to ignore. Even Ubba Dubba and Dooley Duck became curious.

  Queen Ubba Dubba’s voice sampled Whoopi Goldberg and David Attenborough, the host of pre-TWIN BBC natural history documentaries. The mix was disconcerting although it researched well. Dooley Duck’s vocalfile was based on the late actor Kevin Costner, although his character was paranoid—the result of the head of script development having had a bipolar breakdown.

  “She’s naked!” Dooley squawked. “That’s like one of my worst dreams. Exposed. Bare. Vulnerable.”

  “Earth spirit. Goddess of love,” Ubba Dubba intoned.

  “Hey!” one of the other Securitors shouted. “You can’t have nudie news presenters in here! Get that thing off the public broadcast area.”

  “I don’t know how to do that,” Clearfather said. “And I’ve got to go.”

  “I’m coming, too,” Vinata said.

  Clearfather stepped out of the viewing area—followed by the three eidolons: a naked goddess off the wall of a Hindu temple, a rotund ecofeminist orangutan, and a giant blue duck with psychological problems.

  “Where are you taking them?” the Securitor called.

  “I’m not taking them,” Clearfather said. “They’re just following me.” And as he said this he saw that several people were following him, too.

  “Come, children,” Ubba Dubba enjoined them. “Let us all be naked as we were in the Great Forest at the beginning of time.” And so saying, the queen of conservation slipped out of her green finery, which dissolved like hypertext, and stood, long-armed and hairy-breasted, like an overweight redhead with hormonal issues and a fund of gentle wisdom.

  “W-w-hoa!” stammered Dooley, doing his trademark neck roll. “This is like . . . I can’t be naked. W-w-hoa!”

  “You are naked, Dooley,” Ubba Dubba remarked. “Except for your jacket and that little vest you wear, which frankly doesn’t suit you.”

  “You don’t like my vest?” The duck shuddered. “I’m standing here on the edge of a full-blown episode . . . and you’re saying you don’t like my vest . . . and that other than that . . . I’m naked?”

  “Hey, Dooley,” one of the drunks called. “Take off that coat and faggy vest!”

  “This is a nightmare!” Dooley wailed—and then brightened. “I’m not naked the way she’s naked,” he said, pointing to Vinata Nidhu.

  “No,” agreed Ubba Dubba. “You’re missing some bits.”

  “W-hhhhhattttt?” the huge blue eidolon cried, and the look of dawning insight and panic in his eyes was hilarious and pathetic all at once.

  “Hey, duck!” the other drunk called. “Show us your cock!”

  “Dooley! Dooley! Dooley!” someone else chanted.

  “You’re saying . . . ,” Dooley gasped. “That I’m a duck . . . without a dick?”

  The huge blue duck’s eyes blurred and burned, and for a moment he seemed to pixilate. Then he re-formed with a look of acute, miserable comprehension.

  “I see it all now!” he cried. “That’s why I’m allowed around children! I’m a genitally disadvantaged male! Oh, the shame! The shame!”

  “Maybe it’s not too late to change,” Vinata suggested.

  “Change is the only certainty,” Ubba Dubba announced.

  “It’s all just hit me,” the duck sobbed. “I’ve woken up to the truth. I don’t think I can go on.”

  “What matters is the future,” Ubba Dubba stated regally.

  Clearfather had his hand in his pocket, fingering the curious ivory ball.

  “Maybe you could get them—whoever made you up—to give you some new equipment . . . ,” he suggested, noticing that the crowd was beginning to grow.

  “Yeah, make ’em give you a dong!” the drunks hollered in unison.

  “Fuck a duck! Fuck a duck!”

  The rising uproar was too much for Greyhound. Securitors equipped with stun weapons swarmed. Everything seemed to break apart in Clearfather’s head. He had to get out of there. One of the Securitors gassed a young street woman and he managed to slip out a side door while Dooley frantically rolled his neck, promising the panic-stricken group he was going to demand a rewrite and a re-rendering.

  “Yeay, Dooley!” came the cries echoing behind in the station.

  “Fuck a duck! Fuck a duck!”

  CHAPTER 4

  Allegheny Banger

  Whiffs of ganja and tortillas . . . methane-green letters rotating atop a Vietnamese market . . . MERCY HOSPITAL, MONTEFIORE HOSPITAL, AND ST. FRANCIS MEDICAL CENTER ARE CLOSED TO PATIENTS WHO DO NOT HOLD A VITESSA CARD. ALLEGHENY GENERAL AND WEST PENN ARE ACCEPTING ONLY MAJOR TRAUMA CASES. PUBLIC DRUG TRIAGES ARE OFFERED TODAY IN THE FOLLOWING LOCATIONS: SASSAFRAS WAY ON POLISH HILL, PANTHER HOLLOW LAKE IN SCHENLEY PARK . . .

  Maybe seeing a doctor isn’t going to be so easy, he realized. Then again maybe all he’d have to do is give the Pheasant Plucker speech. He had no idea why people reacted the way they did or where the words had come from. He was shuffling down Liberty Avenue contemplating the problem when he spotted the two drunks.

  “Hey,” Clearfather said. “You know where I could get some food . . . free?”

  “Breakfast at the Wieviel Organ Clinic in the Strip District is good. You can watch the towboats while they check your scans.”

  “What do have to give them in return?” he asked.

  “You don’t give ’em nothin’!” the squat, hairy one coughed. “At least not if you can help it . . . although, say . . . maybe you got somethin’ to sell. You in good health?”

  “You mean they want the organs . . . now?”

  The drunks roared with laughter at this question.

  “And there’s Ghost Meat down there,” the short one squeaked.

  “Shush, Klein, he’s looking for breakfast.”

  “What’s ghost meat?” Clearf
ather asked.

  “You don’t want to know, chief,” the lean, crooked drunk said. “Just look out for the Big Kidney. The whole operation’s not exactly legal but it’s AMA-run. Even the river pirates don’t fuck with the AMA. Drift on down that way . . . past the markets.”

  Clearfather waved goodbye. He noticed quite a bit of anti-Islamic graffiti and signs for something called Al-Waqi‘a, which had all been attacked. He was becoming more certain that he had been in Pittsburgh. But long ago . . . in the distant past. He remembered that the original Night of the Living Dead had been filmed in the city . . . and that it was Andy Warhol’s hometown. Images of slagheaps and a Catholic church came to mind. But what did it mean now? He figured food would help.

  Both the Allegheny and the Monongahela were choked with tugs and junks, dhows, floating casinos, and any number of barges stacked high with shipping containers like colored shoe boxes, the residents ascending and descending on a cat’s cradle of Tyrolean systems. He kept walking.

  There were still anthrax warnings up in the Strip District, and the coffee bars and trendy restaurants had closed. The wholesale markets had started up again, though, defended against beggars and marauders by drone Securitors and pig-killing dogs. On the fringe of the loading docks there was a sprawl of Pakistani and Serbo-Croatian food stands just beginning to open, and down in the rubble of lost nightclubs a family of Kyrgyzstanis offering sour horse’s milk and Chinese vendors preparing monkey brains in rice wine.

  At last he spotted an inflated red kidney the size of a GMC pickup floating above what looked like the remains of a warehouse. Emanating from the facility was a confusing aroma of latex, formalin, and Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage Waffles. An LED sign read FREE BREAKFAST FOR ORGAN VENDORS.

  He had to walk through a Geigerscan to get in, then a man in a uniform ran a handheld over him while a stone-faced guard looked on. They waved him through an air lock. A faint buzzer sounded, and the inner door opened. A Malaysian woman in a white pantsuit ushered him into a waiting area overseen by a large smiling plasmagram of someone called *DR. HUGH WIEVIEL*. Underneath his face was a hyperblurb that read: ORGAN SELLING IMMORAL? WHO SAYS? REMEMBER EVIL IS LIVESPELLED BACKWARD. Rejuv-E-Nation is the solution. We’re not asking for your soul, we just want you to use your brain—if you have an organ to sell, speak to us for the best deal.

  Two men and a woman all wearing white lab coats appeared.

  “I’m Dr. Miedo, formerly of Lima,” the first man introduced himself, and from between cane-white dental caps a pungent spearmint-flavored toothpick stabbed out like a dart.

  “And I’m Dr. Pinjrapol, formerly of Calcutta,” the woman announced, sniffing loudly. Her hands looked like they came from another body and showed signs of a ruby-tinted rash between the fingers.

  “And I’m Dr. Shecanguan,” the Chinese man said and blinked his heavily lidded amber eyes.

  “Where are you formerly of?” Clearfather asked.

  “Most recently, Planned Parenthood down the street,” the man hissed.

  “You’re here for a free breakfast, aren’t you?” Dr. Miedo smiled, ejecting and retracting his toothpick.

  Dr. Pinjrapol clapped her hands, and Clearfather was escorted by two nurses through a curtain. “An excellent-looking specimen,” she confirmed.

  “Yes,” nodded Dr. Miedo. “We’ll give our friend Mr. Brand first option. See what he’s willing to pay for a nice healthy liver.”

  “Oh, yes!” hissed Dr. Shecanguan.

  The nurses led Clearfather through a barrage of testing stations, then at last out to the balcony of what had once been a posh marina restaurant, enclosed now in a see-through tent looking out at the river. A short palsied man trembled up to him.

  “The m-maple s-sausages are g-gone. A-all w-we have is the Al-allegheny b-banger. A de-delishioussss b-blood s-sausage—v-very nuu-trish-us. ”

  “A blood . . . sausage!” Clearfather grouched.

  “What seems to be the problem, Torgal?” Dr. Shecanguan queried, sliding in through the plastic wall. “Behave yourself or there will be no medication.”

  Torgal trembled away so violently it looked like he might shake apart.

  “Now,” blinked Dr. Shecanguan. “Your test results are outstanding. How about putting off that breakfast and prepping for surgery? We have several buyers lined up. Would you be interested in selling a liver or a heart?”

  “A liver . . . a heart? You have one liver and one heart,” Clearfather replied.

  “Exactly.” Dr. Shecanguan smiled, showing teeth like old mah-jongg tiles. “Which is why, if they are healthy and genetically sound, they are worth a good deal. We ensure that the fee is paid to the beneficiary of your choice.”

  “You think I want to die . . . to sell my organs for money? That’s crazy!”

  “Oh, don’t be so hasty,” Dr. Shecanguan insisted, patting his hand and pouring him a cup of coffee from a thermex jug.

  Clearfather was about to take a sip of the coffee when he noticed Torgal peeking out of the kitchen. The poor man was shaking so badly, Clearfather found his own hand trembling and ended up sloshing coffee in Dr. Shecanguan’s lap.

  “I’m sorry!” he cried.

  Torgal wobbled over carrying a sponge that had been soaked in very cold water, and when he applied it to Dr. Shecanguan’s groin, it elicited another outcry and sent the doctor scurrying back into the clinic.

  “D-don’t d-drink the c-coffee!” Torgal sputtered. “It’s . . . d-drugged! Q-quick!”

  He dragged Clearfather into the kitchen and shoved open a sticky fire door that led to an alley. Clearfather took off before he could even think to ask any questions.

  “Torgal.” Dr. Shecanguan blinked, entering the kitchen wearing clean trousers a moment later. “You really shouldn’t have let him go. We’d just negotiated a wonderful price for his organs.”

  “I . . . I’m . . . s-sorry . . . b-but . . .”

  “Hush, Torgal,” hissed the doctor as he produced a loaded syringe gun. “Now, we’ve promised Mr. Brand a liver. And we always deliver.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Son and Shadow

  Aretha Nightingale sat in his tent nursing a cup of cocoa and a guilt complex that even his psychedelic geisha wig couldn’t alleviate. The Kricket they’d hidden on Clearfather was working, and Broadband had reported that the stranger had made it safely to Pittsburgh. The Oblivion.6 had prevented a mindstorm, but what other damage it had caused was unknown. The drag queen tried to imagine what state Clearfather was in and what he would make of the letter instructing him to call on Julian Dingler—not knowing that it had been discarded.

  He noticed that the trees that had seemed so tight and greedy the day before were budding now. Grody’s jonquils had come up overnight. The moods around Fort Thoreau had also improved. Who- or whatever Clearfather was, his coming hadn’t destroyed them. And their decision not to take him in hadn’t destroyed him. Not yet anyway. But the strange pilgrim had certainly stirred up strange thoughts.

  Ever since the drag queen had come out and changed his name from Denzel Fiske to Aretha Nightingale, there’d been no looking back—especially not after he’d been recruited by the Satyagrahi. From that time until Clearfather arrived, Aretha had blocked out much of his private history. He knew that his wife, Eartha, probably didn’t want to see him again. But his son, Minson, was another story. Especially if the boy, who was now a man, knew the truth.

  Minson Fiske, who’d once played the French horn at Juilliard, had abandoned New York and a professional music career to become a social worker in Fort Lauderdale, where he’d not only outed himself—he’d taken up boxing of all things—but also proved himself so good, he’d become a gay icon and then a national celebrity after knocking out the Reverend Stubby Kenwick, one of TWIN’s top Christian Entertainment stars, during a charity brawl at Miami’s Jackie Gleason Theater of the Performing Arts. Stubby woke up to discover he’d lost several million brain cells, twenty-two rating points, and all of his self-respect. M
eanwhile Minson Fiske became a star overnight, donating his winnings to AIDS.2 benefits. Since then he’d signed with Avalanche O’Flaherty, who’d teed up the so-called Fight for Life stunt with Xerxes “Corpse Maker” McCallum in the new Sun Kingdom in LosVegas, the megalopolis that combined the remains of Los Angeles and Las Vegas after the giant earthquake known as Bigfoot.

  In his new post-Clearfather mood, Aretha had to admit he was proud. His son was doing what he hadn’t been able to do himself until he was almost dead—being true to himself and an inspiration to others. But then to have the balls to get in the ring with Xerxes McCallum, a Congo-black bonebreaker from the slaughterhouse side of Kansas City, the world’s highest-paid athlete! Forty-five bouts, forty-five KOs, and three deaths!

  Aretha was afraid and excited for his son as he’d never been for himself. What a thing it would be to see the Fight in person! But it was an insane idea. There was too much work and responsibility here. Too many people dependent on his leadership. Oh, but what a moment! Of course Minson was likely to be knocked senseless in the first five seconds. He could be brain-damaged for life—he could die. But maybe not. Maybe not! Either way, it was a father’s responsibility to be there. Wasn’t it? Even if the father was a drag queen.

  The idea rushed like wildfire through his mind. A secret op. To slip out of Fort Thoreau, travel to Nevadafornia and see the Fight! He might be banished from the Satyagrahi. He might never get to meet Parousia Head. He might be captured by Vitessa or arrested by the Feds—pretty much the same thing. But it all seemed worth it if he could see his son again (and maybe do just a little bit of shopping).