“I am he as you are he as you are me and we are all together,” she whispered. Then she kissed him. Everywhere.
That night he had a deep, peaceful dream. He was back on the summer porch in South Dakota, Uncle Waldo and Aunt Vivian’s house. He was snuggled down listening to the gentle, regular breathing . . . of a dog . . . his dog! His dog—Lucky! Uncle Waldo and Aunt Vivian had given him a dog named Lucky. He remembered!
They woke after sunrise. The eagle was gone and there was no sign of the greyhound. He flashed back to his dream—the warm, doggy smell. It was so vivid—but they had to get moving. We’ve got to get to the nearest town, he thought. Maybe charter a plane. Even though the map had lied so far—or worse—he couldn’t abandon it. In fact, the attack seemed to make it all the more important that he complete his mission, whatever it was. Vitessa must know about the map, he realized; otherwise they wouldn’t have been lying in wait. They’d set a trap in LosVegas. But knowing that there would be trouble had to give him an advantage. He felt the little ivory ball in his pocket. It felt warm and a little moist, as it had when it had been in Kokomo’s tender mouth.
He whistled for the dog but got no response. The rain had cleared and the sky was brightening. Alongside the headless cowboy in the parking lot, the stripped letters curling like a rope trick said THE D NGLING RAN LE R. A haz-chem suit fluttered from a Cyclone fence. Five hundred yards across a muddy field they reached a road, and a mile down that a bigger road. Kokomo was walking fine again. He wished he knew where the dog had gone.
A few minutes later they heard a car. The terrain undulated and they had to wait for it to clear the rise. Clearfather had half a mind to get them running, but there wasn’t much cover. He listened for help from the voices but all he heard was the approaching vehicle. Then the car crested. By God, he thought, and had to smile—it’s a big hot dog on wheels!
The driver rolled down his window. “You look like you could use a lift,” he said with a friendly but tweedy voice.
He was apparently alone—afflicted with that boyish fifty-something tidiness that Clearfather was beginning to think was an epidemic among white males of means. He was dressed in a lightweight burgundy cardigan and microfiber slacks, sporting a Palm Desert cosmetic tan, an artificially full head of hair, and a premimum Voyancy connection.
“Big Dick Driving!” Kokomo squeaked and then proceeded to do something that looked like a rain dance.
The driver was at first taken aback by these antics, but then with plummy calm announced, “This is an authentic 1990s Wienermobile, one of those marvelously absurd promotional vehicles pioneered by the Oscar Mayer wiener company.”
Clearfather was concerned that Kokomo might try to mount the roof. He’d hoped for help and guidance. Maybe this was it. Then again, maybe it was a trap. But what choice did they have?
“Where are you going?”
“LosVegas,” the man smiled. “With a brief detour in Nuevo Albuquerque to pick up me dear ol’ Dad.”
“We’re heading to LosVegas, too,” Clearfather said before he could stop himself.
“Well, then,” said the man with a wave. “It must be meant to be.”
Clearfather noted that the fellow’s face was severely expressive, as if his whole skull were a puppet mask manipulated from inside by a restless hand.
“Aren’t you going to ask us why we’re out here walking, looking like this?” he asked at last.
“I suspect you’ll tell me in your own time,” the man replied. “I, myself, have always depended on the kindness of strange people. Come. You can both recline back in the Wiener Lounge . . . or one of you can ride up with me.”
Clearfather accepted the passenger seat, with a jab of remorse about the greyhound.
“Why don’t you let your—uh—friend—listen to this.”
“What is it?” Clearfather asked, on his guard again.
“A bootleg of Stinky Wiggler live in Omaha, called Suffering Succotash. Go on!” The man gestured to Kokomo. “We must put pedal to the metal because Dad is picky about punctuality and I’m running behind schedule after the tornadoes. And that Vitessa roadblock. Biowarfare danger, my eye! They spoiled my pilgrimage!”
“To where?” Clearfather asked, ears pricked.
“The little hamlet of Dustdevil. A very mysterious place.”
CHAPTER 10
Where There’s a Wiener
Clearfather never wanted to hear the name Dustdevil again. But the man didn’t seem to notice his concern, and Kokomo was already wiggling into the Wiener Lounge. He slipped into the front seat, and the long hot dog took off.
“You look . . . familiar,” said the man as the car got up to speed.
“I have one of those faces. My name’s Elijah Clearfather. My friend is Kokomo.”
“Distinctive names,” the man replied. “Well, you’ve probably recognized me. I’m Thaddeus Meese—Dr. Tadd, famous for Complexity Made Easy, The Value of the Meaningless, The Ancient History of the Future, and, my biggest commercial success, Everything You Didn’t Realize You Wanted to Know About Almost Anything You Can Think Of. As Don Quixote said, in my profession it is necessary to know everything.”
“Oh,” Clearfather said. “You’re like Mr. Whoopee.”
“Ahhh!” cried Dr. Tadd, effervescing. “What a compliment indeed—and in kind! Phineas J. Whoopee! You prove my point beautifully. Tennessee Tuxedo! My favorite was the sea lion sidekick, Chumly.”
“Walrus,” Clearfather said. “Chumly was a walrus.”
“Are you sure?” snapped Dr. Tadd. “Getting Chumly wrong would be like thinking Uncle Waldo was a weasel and not a fox.”
“Who—who did you say?”
“Uncle Waldo. Waldo J. Wigglesworth in Hoppity Hooper.”
“I have—or I had an Uncle Waldo,” Clearfather muttered. “At least . . . I think I did.”
“Well, there you are,” said Dr. Tadd. “You think you had an Uncle Waldo. You see? There are so many points that one can never be certain of. That’s why it’s vital to resolve these sea-lion-versus-walrus debates. Of course, the other side is that if all such questions could be answered—if nothing were ever forgotten or lost—we might also paradoxically be able to say that nothing could be found. As T. S. Eliot remarked, ‘All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance.’ In any case, I still say Chumly was a sea lion.”
Dr. Tadd continued nattering on but Clearfather found it hard to concentrate, although he liked the sound of the man’s chatter. It reminded him of what Ainsley might’ve been like if he hadn’t died as a child—if he’d been able to grow up as a man and not a ghost. The Wienermobile wheeled by shuttered motels and blossom-blown mimosa trees and then got on the interstate, clearing the droid-monitored checkpoint without question. This made him paranoid again.
Dr. Tadd explained that he’d added a powerful alt-fuel engine that had cost him his entire consulting fee to IMAGINE-NATION for work on 20th CenturyLand. He felt it was worth it because it allowed him to hum along at an impressive but environmentally sensitive speed. And hum they did, past fields of winter wheat, bright red all-season safflowers, a game reserve, and a Buddhist monastery. Then they were in Amarillo—and again no questions at the checkpoint. Clearfather felt powerful surges of unease and vague longing.
“I can see you’re curious about the lack of official attention paid to us,” said Dr. Tadd. “I hadn’t intended it, but the Wienermobile seems to fall below the drone threshold of concern. I only get stopped by human Securitors and police. Maybe it’s the vehicle’s humor and extraneous design.”
Clearfather considered this a reassuring but depressing thought as they drove by a Chu’s (TODAY’S SPECIAL: SUCKLING PIG TROTTERS IN BIRD’S NEST SOUP). On the deck of a pontoon camper moored in a sediment pond beside a helium plant, a Kashmiri man scaled a giant carp with a potato peeler. Monster pickups and armored jeeptors shared the drag with Solars and expressionless Chinese on bicycles or wealthy Triads in mirror black limousines, some pulled by Mexic
ans.
Dr. Tadd obviously knew his way around because he made passing reference to features of the town—like The Big Brim, a revolving restaurant in the shape of a cowboy hat overlooking pens of genetically enhanced cattle. They ended up at a primitive Pullman car diner in a grove of pecan trees. The place was called The Patty Melt and was run by a woman who spoke with a barbed-wire twang. The three of them each devoured a plate of buttermilk hotcakes and smokehouse sausage, a chicken-fried steak with iron-skillet gravy, and two eggs sunny-side up. Kokomo’s mouth was always full and open. Clearfather had doubts about leaving her alone with Tadd but he had no choice because he had to go to the restroom. When he got back to the table Dr. Tadd and Kokomo were wolfing down apple Danish and seemed like they’d known each other for years.
“Weef been harving a marvelous dishcussion—Somnia a Deo missa,” Dr. Tadd announced. “Dreams sent by God. Absolutely fascinating.”
“You . . . have?” Clearfather was puzzled.
Dr. Tadd excused himself to visit the restroom. Kokomo was still hungry, and by pointing at the menu and chattering like a chimp she was able to order a bowl of chili with onion rings and a slice of loganberry pie. Dr. Tadd returned. “There are only two other places like this left in America,” he asserted. “One’s in Chicago, near my home. They still make sauerkraut soup. The other that I know of is in Rapid City, South Dakota. Must go back.”
“South Dakota?” Clearfather repeated.
But the topic got lost in Kokomo’s chomping and the radio. Spurning a TWIN link, and not popular with Voyants, The Patty Melt was a proud supporter of American Pirate Radio. The big stories were about Dooley Duck and Ubba Dubba, the odds on the prizefight coming up at the Sun Kingdom, and the miraculous occurrences that had happened in the wake of the Texas tornadoes.
In the museum town of Dodge City it had rained prairie dogs (the first ever such recorded incident), while in Tenkiller Lake a Baptist minister, who was fishing, was knocked out of his boat by a first edition of The Varieties of Religious Experience. Meanwhile, an unexploded Jack O’Lantern blew up a controversial Planned Parenthood center in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The Right to Strife protesters who had gathered to celebrate were annihilated in a hail of children—some inside Vistex spheres that resembled hailstones. Dr. Tadd, who was a connoisseur of such phenomena, was exhilarated despite the personal inconvenience and felt that a whole career could arise from the analysis of that one day.
Kokomo finished scarfing down her chow and Clearfather picked up the tab. He sat up front again.
“You mentioned you’re from Chicago,” he tried as his food began to settle.
“City of the Big Shoulders born and bred,” Dr. Tadd confirmed. “Used to be on the faculty at the university—but I had to resign for health reasons. Fortunately my royalties have funded my freedom.”
“What was wrong with your health?”
“Mental health,” sighed Tadd. “I had an acute religious phase, which they diagnosed as nonspecific Saint Anthony’s Syndrome. I’d been studying the Venerable Bede, the eighth-century scholar who set out to record the market penetration of Christianity in England. That got me interested in Iceland, where Christianity was officially adopted wholesale in AD 1000. I wanted to know how they’d handled it, at the sod hut level, so to speak. I came upon an account from AD 1008 about a monk who went to visit a family on an isolated farm to see how their practice of Christianity was progressing. They invited him into their humble house for dinner. They said grace, which he was pleased about, and then they passed around a blackened mandrake-looking thing that he realized was a mummified horse pizzle. They said a blessing over this as well—and that’s when I had my revelation!
“What was the leathery, black horse phallus but a talisman of vigor and life passed down through the generations—just as a part of Christ is Tammuz, the vegetation god who’s reborn each year with the new harvest? I saw that this little tribe, who could worship Christ and an ancient fertility symbol concurrently, would be right in step today, because this is a culture where it’s never been a question of the Crucifix or the Horse Cock, but of the Crucifix and the Horse Cock. Trouble was, soon after that insight I started hallucinating these little Chinese men.”
“You did?” Clearfather perked up. “I—I’ve seen them, too!”
“Yes.” Dr. Tadd nodded. “I’ve since discovered many people have. My theory is that they’re an archetypal form speaking to us through the collective unconscious.”
“Do you still . . . see them?”
“Not since the Bigfoot earthquake. I was doing a seminar at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur and they appeared and told me that I should return to Chicago at once. If not for them, I could’ve been in the hot tub when Bigfoot struck.”
Clearfather felt better about this. “How . . . how did you recover? You have . . . recovered . . . haven’t you?”
“I take a regular dose of a synthetic called Pythagoras. But what brought me back from the brink was Stinky Wiggler’s music, especially Psychopomp.”
“Hm. Do you think Stinky Wiggler’s still alive?” Clearfather asked.
“I certainly hope so,” Dr. Tadd replied. “He’s alive for me.”
They arrived in Tucumcari, which was in part a Route 66 theme park with new old motor court cabins and tepee trading posts and the Giant Tumbleweed: THE LARGEST FREESTANDING CARBON FIBER STRUCTURE WEST OF THE MISSISSIPPI. Dr. Tadd filled up at a Phoenix station.
“So what brings you to LosVegas?” Dr. Tadd asked when they pulled off again.
Clearfather thought a moment, as if it were one of Kokomo’s riddles. “You.”
Dr. Tadd grinned and tooted the horn at a tangle of brown children, startling the cave bats out of a Blockbuster store.
“Seriously,” Clearfather continued. “We’re going to meet some people . . . I think. And start a new life—I hope. And you, where did you say you’d been—Dustdevil?”
Dr. Tadd shifted in his seat. They passed a haunted Kmart.
“Well,” he began. “My special province is the theme park and the obsessional private theme parks that America is so rich in. This trip I wanted to return to the Garden of Eden, which I hadn’t visited in a while.”
“The Garden of Eden?”
“Built by Samuel P. Dinsmoor in Lucas, Kansas. Wonderful character. Married his first wife on horseback in 1870. Then at the ripe young age of eighty-one married a girl of twenty. He built an allegorical sculpture garden devoted to biblical imagery and a critique of modern civilization. That was my first exposure to the art form years ago and it still holds up. But anyway,” said Dr. Tadd, lowering his voice. “My next project is about Lloyd Meadhorn Sitturd, the great neglected genius.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” Clearfather said.
“That’s because he’s neglected,” replied Dr. Tadd.
The geological intensity of New Mexico opened before them, stratified ramparts soaring into the sand-painting-blue sky, a few smoke signal clouds as white as desert chicory—and over the Pecos River a giant hologram announcing the distance to Wal-Mart World.
“What . . . does he have to do with Dustdevil?” Clearfather asked.
“Sitturd’s father, Hephaestus, was a blacksmith-cum-failed-inventor,” Tadd replied. “Always dreaming of new inventions he never finished. Married a mulatto conjure woman named Rapture Meadhorn in Ohio. Sitturd was born in 1838. A twin sister died at birth. Swamped with debts, Hephaestus inherited a patch of dirt in Dustdevil, Texas, and later moved the family there, where young Lloyd built a monument for his dead sister on the property . . . and one day while he was tending it . . . he was taken up in a tornado . . . and brought back twenty minutes later. To the exact same spot.”
“Really?” gawked Clearfather.
“Well, that’s the legend.” Dr. Tadd shrugged. “What we know for sure is that his skills began to accelerate in unexplainable ways. He became a pioneer in cinematography and went on to invent many of the special-effects techniques used by filmm
akers from the Lumières to D. W. Griffith. He was the first person to formulate the scientific principles of camouflage and emphasized that camouflage must not merely obscure real targets, it must create the perception of targets where none exist.
“He experimented with cryptography to convey subliminal messages. He even developed the prototype of what he called the Translinguisticon, an invention intended to communicate with the dead. But he pissed a lot of people off. He had a monstrous sexual appetite and was always going broke trying to run his private kingdom, Labyrinthia, in South Dakota.”
“South Dakota? How did he make his money?” Clearfather asked as the Wienermobile shooshed by a bombed-out mosque and a Piggly Wiggly Supersite.
“Ah,” warmed the driver. “Many people were eager to harness his talents. For instance, a rubber baron named Faro down in South America hired him to reorient the continent’s river system. Faro was married to a beautiful Indian girl from the headwaters of the Amazon. Alone in the palatial house with infested harpsichords and rotting Caravaggios peeling off the walls, Sitturd was there about two days before he was balling the wife. The rubber king’s skeleton was later found in the wake of an army ant invasion that Sitturd and the Indian girl survived. They lived together in the decaying house—and in that time the girl bore Sitturd a son. But the child died. You see, in South America, there’s a kind of catfish that grabs monkeys out of the trees when they come down to drink from the rivers. One snapped up Sitturd’s son when the mother was giving the boy a bath. The girl believed the river god was angry with her and drowned herself. Overcome with grief, Sitturd left the mansion to crumble back into the jungle, which is, coincidentally, the same fate that met Labyrinthia. In the time he’d been gone his caretakers had looted the place, tramps and moonshiners had set fires, and the wildcats and hoot owls had taken over. Not even a chimney remained.”
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