Clearfather was filled with a sense of sympathetic sadness at this story and turned his mind out the window to a Costco the size of a small town. But Dr. Tadd was not one to be diverted in midlecture and a moment later remarked, “Sitturd arrived back in America with a royal blue macaw and a case of malaria.
“At first he did nothing but drink absinthe with prostitutes. Salvation came in the form of a commission from a consortium of the great industrialists of Pittsburgh. They wanted him to design an amusement park called Macropotamia, which was one of the titles for the new western states dreamed up by Thomas Jefferson—located near where Three Rivers Stadium used to be. Sitturd developed the largest assemblage of miniature automata the world had ever seen. There were ice sculptures, firewalkers, beer gardens, oyster bars, and great tents where whole steers were barbecued. But one of the most interesting features was the midway—which instead of freak-show attractions offered a range of lectures by university professors and theologians, as well as the services of astrologers, prestidigitators, clairvoyants, mesmerists, and oneirokritai.”
“What are they?” Clearfather asked.
“Professional dream interpreters. But where Sitturd crossed the line was with the world’s first true roller coaster. It was inspired by his experience with the whirlwind and was first called Lodemania, in honor of his sister—and then The Rapture. People were knocked out by the thing. Bret Harte wet his pants on it and Edison, who loathed Sitturd, got a hernia. But what many others experienced was something like a religious vision. Well, you can imagine what the church elders of Pittsburgh and the country at large thought about that! Take an amusement-park ride and see God! Then one summer afternoon three schoolgirls went on it. And went into labor. When the doctors made their examinations, they found all three hymens intact. There were no signs of intercourse! Virgin births! In Pittsburgh!”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right! Nothing went right after that. Sitturd had a falling-out with his backers. A mysterious fire destroyed Macropotamia, which many people insinuated that he set himself. He went into seclusion—perhaps in Australia. But he eventually returned to Dustdevil to found a spiritual community.”
“He became a cult leader?” Clearfather choked.
“No, no. He was never a leader. He was a sponsor of possible behaviors—a catalyst. But he fell afoul of the women’s reform movements as well as the captains of industry. The church demonized him. His fellow scientists were threatened, and artists thought he was too successful at bringing his art to life.”
“So what happened? Was he killed?”
“He disappeared,” replied Dr. Tadd, dodging a squashed armadillo on the road. “That’s why I wanted to visit Dustdevil. His last home and now there’s probably nothing left. Macropotamia is gone and no one knows where Labyrinthia actually was in South Dakota. The trail goes cold on the most Diagonal Thinker of all time.”
“Maybe that’s the way he wanted it.” Clearfather sighed. He longed to fall in a nice soft bed somewhere for a hundred years.
“Perhaps,” agreed Tadd. “But there are intriguing loose ends. For instance, Ronwell Seward—Stinky Wiggler’s real name—bears singular resemblances to Sitturd, and no one really knows much about Seward. The other point is that Dustdevil was also the scene of a siege massacre between the Feds and a pagan sex cult thirty years ago. Another reason to go to LosVegas.”
“Why is that?” Clearfather said, coming alert.
“The Feds and later Vitessa have suppressed the details quite effectively, but there’s a man I met when consulting to IMAGINE-NATION who claims to have some artifacts.”
“Who?” Clearfather asked, trying to mask his curiosity.
“Olly Podrida. Runs the Hall of Notorious Americans on Brando Street. Anyway, it’s just unfortunate that Vitessa decided to close down that entire part of Texas. I’d have taken my chances with the weather. Did you see anything of the Big Blow?”
“We got out just in time,” Clearfather replied. “There were guards—and robotic things. We were more worried about our own people than the twisters.”
“I know that feeling,” Dr. Tadd concurred, pointing out the Masai tribesmen herding miniature cattle.
“Well, we certainly appreciate getting a ride all the way to Albuquerque.”
“New Albu,” Dr. Tadd corrected. “Eight out of ten citizens were having trouble with the spelling so they bagged it—plus that biochem stuff during the war. But I hope you don’t think you’re going to be turned loose upon arrival. Dad would love to meet you. He has more than enough room for you to sleep comfortably, and we’re leaving for LV early tomorrow. Why not come with us?”
“That’s a nice offer,” Clearfather hemmed. “But we wouldn’t want to intrude.”
“Come and meet the old chap and see how you feel. You can at least have dinner.”
Clearfather felt a rush of gratitude. After the headaches and uncontrollable urges, a moment of peace and kindness seemed delicious. Delicious but suspicious.
CHAPTER 11
Root for the Home Team
Between the Somalis, the Beijing Opera antics, and the mujahideen wanted poster holograms, there was a lot to process upon arrival at the New Albu checkpoint, not to mention all the ultralights flittering over Samsung City. Dr. Tadd’s father lived in a Pueblo-style Sustainment Village between the surgery resorts and one of the city’s more popular sunset parlors. They were greeted at the gate by an armed human guard with a name badge that said FEDOTOV and waved straight through. Dr. Tadd gunned the engine but then immediately pulled over in a landscaped area full of fishhook cacti.
“Never seen ’em so bright,” he remarked—and then looked his passenger in the eye. “Do you know the expressions, ‘Don’t throw out the baby with the bath,’ or ‘The child is father to the man’? Well, please don’t mention them around Dad.”
“Why?” Clearfather asked, surprised.
“Dad went through an aging crisis a few years back. Got involved with that Dr. Wieviel character back in Pittsburgh.”
“I’ve heard of Dr. Wieviel!”
“Everyone’s heard of Evil Wieviel! Man’s a backstreet butcher! Anyway, he started this Vita-Repair business based on suspect and totally unapproved anti-aging drugs. And Dad fell for it.”
“The drugs didn’t work?”
“Oh, they worked—in one sense. Dad’s body underwent a reversion.”
“He got younger?”
“He got smaller. He’s now the size of a baby. But the shock and stress to his body have been severe. His bones have been partially gelatinized so that he has to live suspended in special fluid . . . in a tank.”
“A tank?” Clearfather said. “Like an aquarium?”
“A small aquarium—but don’t say that—he’s very sensitive. He may look like a baby, but he’s really a grumpy old man.”
“And he lives in the tank . . . all the time?”
“Mrs. Mendoza takes him out for physio- and vitamin therapy . . . and changes his fluid. She’s his nurse and carer, but they’ve been in love for years.”
“She’s in love with him?”
“Together—well, they’ve developed this religious thing. It’s harmless. Has to do with baseball. I think in its own way it’s healthy.”
“Wait a minute,” said Clearfather. “How can you take him to LosVegas if he lives in an aquarium?”
“A small aquarium,” Dr. Tadd corrected. “It’s not easy. But it makes him feel better. He’s got the world at his fingertips in a virtual sense, but it’s not the same as me taking him on an actual trip. This time he wants to go on a roller coaster!”
“I see,” said Clearfather, even more confused. But he had to admire the doctor’s devotion. “I promise I won’t say anything. But I can’t guarantee anything about Kokomo. She speaks her mind whatever it says.”
“And a fine mind, too,” Tadd declared. “I had no idea that Saint Anselm’s ontological proof of God had been denied by Thomas Aquinas, reaffirmed by Descar
tes, modified by Leibniz, refuted by Kant, and revamped by Hegel.”
Clearfather shook his head in puzzlement. “Neither did I. At least . . . I don’t think I knew that.” He’d barely heard Kokomo speak at all, in the usual sense.
The “old man” turned out to be exactly what Dr. Tadd had described. Somehow Clearfather was expecting it to be a joke. But Dr. Tadd’s father did in fact inhabit an aquarium tank, the weight of his fragile body buoyed by an unctuous blue liquid. His frame was the size of a young toddler but his skin was stretched and spotted, and his face had the substance and emotional weight of an old man. His apparel was a pair of tight bikini briefs. From the middle of an otherwise smooth chest, one stubborn tuft of gray hair undulated like kelp.
“Dad, I’ve brought people to visit. They had trouble on the road. I’m hoping to persuade them to stay the night and catch a ride to LV mañana.”
“Good Christ!” gruffed the baby. “Whose house is this? Do you know you’re late? You could’ve called. Why didn’t you call?”
“Basta, muchacho,” came a firm but affectionate female voice. “Buenas tardes, Thaddeus, y buenas noches.”
“Chaps, this is the beautiful and long-suffering Señora Mendoza.”
The woman was a bosomy middle-aged Latina with lustrous black hair and the softest hazelnut skin Clearfather could imagine—but he didn’t have a chance to say hello because Kokomo charged the tank and proceeded to smush her face against the glass like a fish.
It was several minutes before Clearfather and Dr. Tadd could get things calmed down, and in the end it was Mrs. Mendoza who wisely escorted Kokomo off to a bathroom to have a much-needed wash.
“I’m sorry,” said Clearfather. “My friend doesn’t know her own enthusiasm.”
“Holy shit!” grumped Mr. Meese. “Thought she was going to jump in with me!”
“Fascinating word, enthusiasm,” pondered Dr. Tadd. “En theos. To have God within.”
“Shut up, Tadpole.”
“Father, you know I detest that nickname.”
“’At’s why I use it!”
“Well, anyway I’m sorry,” Clearfather professed. “I hope you’re all right.”
“What do you think I am, a big baby?” demanded Mr. Meese. “Don’t be sorry. It’s pathetic. At least she’s got spirit!”
“If I haven’t already, may I introduce my father, Nathaniel Meese. Dad—Elijah Clearfather.”
“What sort of name is that?”
“You’ll have to excuse my father’s crustiness. He needs to soak longer.”
“Come in here and say that, squirt.”
“Dad was once the director of the Phoenix Energy Company’s Corporate Image Department,” Dr. Tadd pipped. “Just don’t ask him about the strategic planning retreat in Hawaii,” he whispered. “That’s the other thing we don’t talk about.”
“What about the strategic planning retreat in Hawaii?” Clearfather asked.
“Hawaii?” Nat splashed. “Don’t mention that pineapple plantation to me! That’s where you go when doom is at hand!”
“There’s no stopping him now,” sighed Dr. Tadd. “This is the incident that triggered the whole anti-aging debacle.”
“For years I’d worked on positioning the Petroleum Business as Morally Responsible, Financially Sensible, and Environmentally Sustainable for another hundred-plus years. Do you know how hard that was? Then wham! The company forged a new vision,” Nat boiled. “First, there was a Category shift, from ‘old rust belt energy’ to ‘new sunrise energy.’ Hah! Secondly, an Ideology shift from an Industrial Age exploitation culture to a Knowledge Age solutions culture. Hah! Then there was a Branding shift, which precipitated an Image shift. This led to an Icon shift. Tanya Claymore, the new CEO, got up at the podium in that five-star hotel and told us, ‘New Phoenix Energy shows the New Way in the Now Millennium!’ After that we had a luau with male hula dancers and pigs on spits. Then she took me behind the miniature volcano and offered me poi and told me I’d been pink-slipped.”
“I’m . . . sorry to hear that,” Clearfather said.
“I will not eat humble poi!” he yelled, almost capsizing himself. “I sued those bastards the next day—and got raped again.”
“Oh, you did not!” scoffed Dr. Tadd. “You’ve got this splendid residence and a very healthy portfolio. You definitely made them feel your pain.”
“I did?” Mr. Meese smiled as the fluid level calmed. “Well, anyway, let’s talk about happier things. Like Bob Gibson striking out seventeen Tigers in the World Series.”
“Too right,” said Tadd. “Why don’t you let Señora M show him the System? I’ll vouch for his honesty.”
“You will? He won’t try to steal it?”
“I doubt that anyone but you two could understand it,” Tadd replied.
Mrs. Mendoza reappeared and led Clearfather deeper into the residence, which was appointed with Navajo rugs and blankets, Spanish leather couches, and even an original watercolor by D. H. Lawrence. Everything tasteful and southwestern, however, was eclipsed by the pervasive theme of BASEBALL. Mythical American icons loomed out of the walls. The Babe, Musial, Maris, Mantle, Sosa, and Bonds. There was a huge glass case filled with signed game balls including the last ball pitched in Don Drysdale’s record-breaking sixth consecutive shutout game on June 4, 1968. One entire wall was covered with broken bats, each with a nameplate underneath. But clearly the pride of Mr. Meese’s and Mrs. Mendoza’s life began on the wall in the kitchen. It was like a snaking, genealogical tree. It wandered out of the room and into the hall and into the bedroom and back, covering the ceiling down to the floor, erupting every few inches in a baseball card, so that patterns were formed, resembling an endlessly mutating version of the Sephirotic Tree of the Kabbalah.
“It’s taken years to perfect—and we’re still learning,” Nat confided, floating on his back. “You see, baseball is an immensely intricate game that holds America together. This is the secret system that lies behind baseball.”
Clearfather took a breath and contemplated this remark. He had to admire what Nat and his carer had accomplished. It’s not everyone who can invent a secret religious system to keep a nation in balance.
Mrs. Mendoza showed them to the guest room. Clearfather’s anger and revulsion at what had happened in Texas softened. The stuff Dr. Tadd had told him about Sitturd explained some of the things about Dustdevil, but not all. Maybe the man who ran the museum in LosVegas had the answers.
He had a bath while Kokomo washed and dried her wig and then joined him. Seeing her naked in the light was a whole new experience. She was small, but perfectly formed, with high breasts and a hot round ass that stuck out behind her like the curve of a question mark. She had not one hair. Not a wrinkle. Not a mole. The only mark on her body exactly matched his, where the weather vane had pierced his chest, and even that you had to look closely to see. He had so many questions. And so did she.
“What’s the beginning of eternity, the end of time and space, the beginning of every end, and the end of every place?”
Later he realized the answer was the letter E, but in the moment he was too busy—their two bodies melting in the water, waves chopping at the tiles, rising to the brim and over.
Mrs. Mendoza provided them with some of Mr. Meese’s old clothes, soft tracksuits and baseball jerseys—and they joined the family for cocktails. Mr. Meese, who’d donned a sheer blue bodysuit for dinner, enjoyed his through a very long straw. They ate while Dr. Tadd outlined his plans for LosVegas, including his scheme to get his father on the famous Sidewinder roller coaster, which so worried Mrs. Mendoza, it looked for a moment as if Mr. Meese was in real hot water.
“Is there a conspiracy against me having fun?” he whined.
“Dad sees conspiracies behind every cactus,” announced Dr. Tadd.
“Look who’s talking. You once said if you can’t find a conspiracy, you’re not paying attention! Still beatin’ the dead McKinley horse?”
“Which horse?”
asked Clearfather.
“Dad’s referring to my interest in President McKinley. Assassinated at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo in 1901,” said Dr. Tadd.
“You think there was a conspiracy behind that?”
“Depending on your definition, there’s a conspiracy behind everything. It’s just a question of how big and how well organized,” Dr. Tadd replied. “Take the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens. My theory is that the plane was sabotaged by government operatives acting in concert with the Christian Right to try to control the spreading popularity of rock and roll among white teenagers. The op backfired and Buddy Holly became a saint.”
Kokomo farted.
“It’s a good thing we didn’t have frijoles,” said Mrs. Mendoza.
“Don’t you worry, lil girl,” said Mr. Meese. “No harm in a bit of a bubble.”
Clearfather felt like he’d known these people for years. Behind was horror and darkness. Maybe there was some hope ahead.
After dinner, while the world hung on every second of the Fight for Life (which ended up being just a matter of seconds), Clearfather and Kokomo were treated to what was obviously a ceremonial family entertainment of great significance.
“What we’re about to watch . . . ,” Dr. Tadd prefaced, “is something that Dad has been working on for several years. It’s an ongoing analysis of the 1968 World Series won by the Detroit Tigers. Dad and Mrs. Mendoza are of the view that 1968 was a watershed in American history, and that baseball holds clues concerning what was really going on—and what ended up happening later. Right, Dad?”
“Right!” avowed Mr. Meese, rotating like a baby porpoise. “That was the year that Denny McLain won thirty-one games, a tremendous feat! And yet, in the Series, it was Mickey Lolich, who’d pitched in McLain’s shadow all year, who proved the real hero and MVP. Later, as you may know, McLain got busted for gambling, racketeering, robbery, and fraud. It’s a great American Tragedy. We think the effects rippled out in time.”
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