by Tom Hourie
“Hey Amy,” I said.
“,” she said. “I love this show! What’s happened so far?”
“Maybe Hope can fill you in,” I said, getting up. “I have to be on my way.”
But the low-humor portion of my evening was not yet over. On the way out, I ran into one of those yellow wet floor signs. I didn’t slip on the floor, but I did manage to kick the sign over, earning myself a glare from the janitor. I mention the incident only because silent comedy mishaps have been a constant throughout my life. If there’s a banana peel, I’ll slip on it. If there is a puddle on the street, a car will drive by and drench me. I have never been hit in the face with a cream pie but I’m sure it will come.
That being said, things had been pretty quiet on the slapstick front of late. Whether it was because I had learned to be more careful or the Universe was tired of persecuting me I couldn’t say, but I was grateful for the breathing space.
Chapter VI:
A cluttered storeroom – Parallel Dimensions
“If you ever did get to second base with her, you’d probably cut yourself on her ribs,” Bill Fowler said when I told him about my failed seduction attempt later that evening.
Bill and I were getting pleasantly drunk in what I call Bill’s boneyard, a cluttered storeroom in the basement of the Electrical Engineering department filled with outdated equipment of no earthly use to anyone but much too good to throw out. Bill was lying on a worn sofa next to a shelf filled with ancient vacuum tubes, obsolete computer parts and other arcane electrical paraphernalia.
“Anyway,” he continued, “we both know she’s just keeping you around until someone better comes along.” He looked at me through the brown glass of a Rainier bottle before draining the rest of its contents.
Going back to my classification system, Bill is definitely one of the mole people. He’s a big pear-shaped guy with a pony tail and two days’ growth of stubble whose idea of formal wear is his prized Warren Moon Seahawks jersey, but don’t let appearances fool you. If you want to know the value of Planck’s constant in Joule-seconds (6.62606896(33)x10-34) or the words to the Monty Python Philosopher’s Song, Bill’s your man.
You might wonder how a sloth like me became friends with a mole person like Bill. It turns out we’re both into pistol shooting. Even so, we would never have met under normal circumstances. Bill is an old-fashioned, dueling stance shooter. Breath control, proper sight picture, gentle trigger squeeze, all that Zen stuff. Bill is really good. He gets mad at himself if there is more than one large hole in his target. Me, I like cowboy shooting. Draw from a holster, cock the hammer and fire. I’m OK but still have a tendency to rush my shots.
If you aren’t into handguns, the differences between Bill’s interests and mine probably don’t seem like much, but to the range warden who makes up the schedule, we’re as far apart as Episcopalians and Southern Baptists. As a result, Bill and I never shoot at the same time.
But this one day, I was going to the range and I saw this big, bewildered-looking guy surrounded by a pack of feminazis - sorry, progressive, socially-conscious young women. He looked for all the world like a fat raccoon that’s been treed by a pack of dogs.
Did I mention the range is attached to the ROTC building? The result is that you sometimes have to run a gauntlet of protesters to get inside. Usually they ignore the civilians and wait to hassle someone in uniform but I guess they were on a tight schedule this particular day and had to settle for Bill.
I could hear all the usual taunts. ‘Big gun, small penis, NRA flunky, gun culture buffoon.’ You get used to that holier-than-thou stuff from non-believers.
But as I got closer I could see that one of Bill’s most vocal persecutors was none other than Mary Lou Bernstein, the fellatio queen. I was offended. People with trust funds have no business lecturing others on social responsibilities.
“Well blow me down,” I said, “If it isn’t Mary Lou Bernstein. You ought to be more careful of that nice Hermes scarf. Looks like you’ve got a couple of spots on it.” I made a coughing noise and wiped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I continued. “I seem to have something stuck in my throat.”
Mary Lou’s face went beet red and she muttered something about ‘not wasting any more time with these morons’ before scurrying off down the street. Her companions exchanged looks of confusion and followed her.
I saw Mary Lou being interviewed on TV a couple of weeks later. It was during the Pacific Rim Leaders’ Conference and she was acting as the spokesperson for a group calling themselves ‘The Black Brigade’ with her face covered like an old-west train robber.
“We did it to draw the Fascist police away so that our brothers and sisters could expose the hypocrisy of this so-called conference,” she said, to explain why she and her black-clad chums had just broken the front windows of a Seattle Starbucks. “We contend that property destruction is not a violent activity unless it destroys lives or causes pain in the process.” How did I know it was her? Her bandit bandanna was that same Hermes scarf. It’s not every day you see an anarchist wearing a three hundred and fifty dollar fashion accessory.
It would be an understatement to say Bill was grateful. He shook my hand like he was trying to see if it would come off and invited me for a beer back at the aforementioned boneyard. There we began the first of a series of discussions on the nature of truth and the relative merits of domestic and foreign beers.
Bill was a romantic, like so many men with rough exteriors. His views on women were particularly idealistic. For example, he had jumped to Mary Lou Bernstein’s defense when I criticized her for getting in his face outside the range.
“She’s probably just lonely,” he said. “It’s her way of connecting with other people. Anyhow, it was nice having a pretty girl pay attention to me, even if she was getting spittle on my shirt.”
“Would you go out with her?”
“As if she’d look twice at me.”
I had been about to tell him about Mary Lou’s ongoing affair with Ross Percival but held off. It would have been like that scene in Cultural Learnings Of America For Make Benefit Glorious Nation Of Kazakhstan where the frat boys show Pamela Anderson’s sex tape to Borat.
There was one topic on which Bill’s ideas were strictly practical. Beer. “Some beer is better than others,” was his view, “but as long as it’s not warm, there is no such thing as bad beer.” Right now he was demonstrating the principle by quick cooling another Ranier in a flask of liquid nitrogen.
“And I’ll tell you something else,” he said, when the beer had chilled to his satisfaction. “Hope Buchan is totally out to lunch on dream analysis. Dreams have nothing to do with the subconscious.”
“So what are they?”
“Doorways to parallel universes,” he said, as he examined the glass object I had inadvertently brought back from my last sleep session. “You say this glass thing was attached to a cat’s collar? If you really did enter a parallel dimension it might have properties we cannot even imagine.”
“Or it could just be an ornament.”
“To me it looks like a miniature vacuum tube. Too bad the glass is cracked or we could test it out. Bring back another one next time you’re there.”
“I’m not sure there’ll be a next time. This cat business really has me spooked.”
“Or bring back the cat,” Bill said. “A genetic freak like that would go a long way to proving Everett’s contention that parallel worlds may be governed by different physical laws.”
“Oh please don’t start talking about string theory,” I said. “I’m sorry I brought it up.”
Bill said nothing but I could tell he was offended. I should know better than to make fun of quantum physics.
“So you think dreams are real?” I said, trying to make amends.
“As real as we are.”
“How real is that?”
“As real as Niels Bohr, as real as Hugh Everett. Dreams are how ideas spread themselves from one dimension to anot
her.”
“Ideas don’t spread themselves. They need humans for that.”
Bill looked at me with condescension. “Did you ever study electricity and magnetism before you decided to waste your life?” he asked.
“High school physics with Mister Sanderson.”
“What happens when an electric current flows through a wire?”
“It creates a circular magnetic field around the wire.”
“And that is what Mister Sanderson taught you?”
“It was.”
“Well Mister Sanderson should have his pension confiscated. Magnetic fields and electrical currents are like conjoined twins. You could just as easily claim that the magnetic field around the conductor causes the current to flow.”
“What’s your point, aside from slandering a dedicated teacher you never even met?”
“People and ideas are like electricity and magnetism. Each develops the other. Instead of saying that people develop ideas, you could argue that ideas have developed people as a transmission medium.”
I took a moment to digest this thought and to open another Ranier. “Well, if that’s so, I wish ideas would pay me a fee for carriage.” I said, wiping beer foam from my mouth. “Mrs. Gridestone is going to throw my ass out onto the street if I don’t come up with my rent soon.”
Bill pulled out his wallet and peered into it myopically. “Best I can do is forty bucks,” he said.
“Keep your money. You can’t spare it and it wouldn’t be enough anyway.”
“You don’t have any rich relatives you never mentioned?”
“As if. We Liddels have never been noted for financial wizardry. And besides, we mostly can’t stand each another.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Bill said. “If you are really strapped, I have a gig as a waiter at the Chancellor’s reception tomorrow. I hear they might be looking for extra help.”
Which is how I found myself in Wallace Hall the following night, looking and feeling absolutely ridiculous in a starched white shirt and black bow tie.
Chapter VII:
Sherry Baby – The Masque of the Red Death – Between Two Worlds
I don’t consider myself to be too good for menial work (and with good reason, my many detractors might add) but dispensing drinks to the USW teaching staff ranks high on my list of all-time embarrassing experiences. I wouldn’t have minded if I had been serving strangers but I had worked with some of the attendees and knew many of the rest socially.
To be fair, most of the people who knew me made a joke of the situation before returning to their weighty discussions of gas mileage, 401(K)s and lawn fertilizer, but couple of low-self-esteem types seemed to get a charge out of putting me down. “Glad to see you’re not sleeping on the job,” said one pompous ass whose only claim to fame was a study linking mammary asymmetry with breast cancer.
To make matters worse, Hope was there in a black cocktail dress, escorted by Ross Percival who said “Keep up the good work” and slapped me on the back so hard I spilled red wine down the front of my shirt. Bill Fowler saved me from an assault charge by showing up just in the nick of time.
“Head waiter is looking for you Bob,” he said, before turning to Hope. “Nice dress there Morticia. But won’t the Universe notice one of its black holes is missing?”
“If it does it won’t have to wait long for a replacement,” she said. “You’re so fat you’ll likely collapse on yourself any day now.” What can I say? Bill and Hope aren’t exactly on BFF terms.
“I wasn’t kidding about that Morticia thing,” Bill said, after Hope had flounced away. “She’s like something out of Edgar Allen Poe.” Then he pointed to the mezzanine above the main floor where a solitary, hooded figure in scarlet robes was watching the proceedings in silence. “And speaking of Poe, check out Professor Weill up there. The Red Death himself.”
Did I mention that the organizers had thought it would be a good idea for the welcomers to wear full academic regalia which for most people meant dark, bell-sleeved robes and silk-lined hoods? One of the few exceptions was the sinister-looking onlooker Bill had pointed out who was wearing a closed cope of bright crimson with the hood up so you couldn’t see his face.
I was trying to remove the wine stain on my shirt with some club soda from the buffet cart when I heard a female voice next to me.
“You’re just making it worse.” The speaker was Mary Lou Bernstein wearing a low-cut A-line dress which displayed her ample cleavage to good advantage. “The best thing is to dilute the red wine with white,” she continued.
I was in a foul mood, but that is no excuse for what I said next. “No Hermes scarf tonight, Mary Lou?” I said. “I read someplace they have one showing Linda Lovelace in action.”
I was sorry right away, especially when I saw Mary Lou’s eyes filling with tears. I wanted to apologize but how do you take back a crack like that?
An unlikely rescuer bailed me out. Bill Fowler had been standing close enough to hear the exchange and now stepped into the breach. “I must apologize, Miss Bernstein,” he said. “I see we have mistakenly served you house white wine. If you want to come with me, I am sure I can find you something better.”
Mary Lou smiled at him gratefully and they were just about to leave when there was a commotion on the mezzanine above. I looked up and saw one of my fellow waiters trying unsuccessfully to grab Doctor Weill who was leaning precariously over the mezzanine railing. I watched in slow motion as the hooded professor plummeted straight down toward me like a scarlet bird of prey. I would like to say I tried to catch him but the truth is I tried to step out of his way. He missed me but the gods of low humor weren’t going to let me off that easily. Weill bounced off the buffet cart which toppled over, pinning me to the floor and drenching me with a glutinous concoction of shrimp, Gouda cheese, dipping sauce and devilled eggs.
I was suspended between two worlds when they wiped the mess from my face. Not only could I see Hope Buchan looking down at me with an expression of annoyance as though it were my fault the party was ruined but I could also hear the ‘handsome suffragette’ hawking her newspapers in the distance. Maybe this was my chance. If I could come back with the Calico Cat and defend my thesis, I could get out of USW forever. I relaxed and let myself sleep.
Chapter VIII:
Sideways London – Inside Schrödinger’s Esoterica – A Police Raid
It seemed as though I were travelling downward through a haze of fine particles, illuminated by a horizontal shafts of light that rendered the cloud as a succession of parallel planes. The sight brought back a childhood memory of playing in a hayloft and watching dust motes dancing in the sunlight shining through the gaps between the barn boards. But here’s the thing. Each horizontal light beam was a kind of projector which produced ghostly images on the surface it created.
Plane after plane rushed toward me, each flashing images of phantom worlds, some almost familiar and some disturbingly bizarre. My descent slowed at last and the visions coalesced into the now-familiar Edwardian street.
This time the dream had none of the unreal qualities of my previous experiences. If anything, my senses were heightened. It had just rained and the moist air smelled of produce, horses and coal fires. It must have been market day because the cobblestone street was lined with multi-colored stalls selling everything from flowers to cookware.
But it wasn’t like travelling back in time. The scene before me was both distantly recognizable , like something seen in an old sepia photograph, and strange.
One side of the street was lined with utility poles supporting a horizontal row of overhead vacuum conveyor tubes. The puffy white wakes of steam powered dirigibles criss-crossed the sky overhead. Many of the stalls were equipped with miniature steam engines serving as power sources for sewing machines, lathes and other small manufacturing tools. The hubbub of the crowd was punctuated by the occasional sound of voices raised in disagreement, but the overall feeling was one of well being.
But not ever
yone was content. A man standing on an upturned apple crate had begun hectoring the crowd in a loud voice. “Brother Blackshirts, comrades in struggle! The British League of Fascists is fighting for the very soul of Britain. And in that battle, we will go forward together until victory be won. Our struggle is hard, because we are fighting for great things and great things are not lightly or easily gained.”
The frock-coated policeman from my previous dream came sauntering down the far end of the street, idly swinging his nightstick from a leather thong. A man in the crowd whispered to the speaker who cut his speech short and produced a large photograph of a black-capped man with a bristling military moustache. “Come and hear the words of our leader, Sir Osgood Wellesley who will speak to the nation this Friday evening at The Olympia Grand Hall,” he said, holding the photo aloft. “Learn the truth, my friends and the truth will set you free.” With that, he stepped down from his apple crate and vanished. The street was relatively quiet for a moment before another voice began to shout, this time right beside me.
“Remember Emily Davidson. Get The Englishwoman’s Review. Support the cause of votes for women!!” It was the haughty young woman from my earlier dream, this time standing in front of the shop called Schrödinger’s Esoterica.
I was about to buy one of her newspapers when I heard a loud noise behind me. I turned to see a brass-goggled man furiously squeezing the rubber bulb of a horn mounted on the side of a fast-approaching steam car. I jumped just in time to avoid being hit, got tangled in the suffragette’s cloak and pulled her with me through the open door of Schrödinger’s Esoterica where we landed in a heap on the worn hardwood floor. She got to her feet after a brief struggle and gave me a look of searing contempt before stomping out.