“I’m sorry, Poppa.”
“Cliff, I was reading the newspaper. I want you to know that. I was reading the newspaper, the sports pages, and I had to go to the John, and I kept reading it as I walked down the hallway. I was reading the newspaper and not watching where I was stepping, and that’s why I stepped on the toy fire truck. So just don’t worry about that anymore.”
“But—geez. I wish Rance had of known.”
“Let’s not worry about Clarence. There’s nothing either one of us can do about poor Clarence. Let’s just make this thing right between me and you.”
“Well … sure.”
“All right, son. I have to say good-bye.”
“Bye-bye, Poppa.”
“Stick with the Louses, son.”
“Okay. Bye-bye.”
Naked Blue Hermann is staring at me. “King,” says the ancient scribe, “they wouldn’t have published a paper on Christmas Day.”
The Claire thing wafts into the room. He’s dressed oddly, a pinkish sweater that descends all the way to his knees, and great big furry boots. He also has a Slavic fuzzy of the sort that the Rooskies like to wear. “Wakey, wakey!” the Claire thing shouts. Then Claire catches sight of the denuded Blue Hermann, who has managed to sit upright on the side of his bed. The Claire thing stops dead in his tracks. “Medics!” he shouts. “Medics!”
“Claire-baby!” says Iain. “You look in fair fith and kittle!”
“The wonders of slumber.”
“I wouldn’t know about it,” Iain mumbles. “Luckily for me, there’s always Better Living Through Pharmaceuticals.” The lad tosses some pills into his mouth.
“King,” says the Claire thing, “you are looking magnificent.”
“Listen up. Friends, drink the good old Canada Dry. It is sweet and bubbly and can make you burp.”
“Oh, for gawd’s sake, don’t say Canada Dry!”
“Why not?”
“They’re the big competition. I mean, we hate them with a passion that verges on monomania.”
“You ain’t Canada Dry?”
“No, no. My client is Acadia Dry, Canada’s best-selling ginger ale-type beverage.”
“Acadia Dry? That’s the swill that damn near poisoned me on the train!”
“Ah, you’ve had some.”
“How can that fart water be Canada’s best-selling beverage?”
“King, I’ll level with you. It’s cheap. Real cheap. Like a can costs all of a quarter.”
“You charge people a quarter for the privilege of poisoning themselves?”
“King, I’m an advertising whore, right? What did you expect the old pro Redford to say? I’m sorry, I can’t take the did-I-mention multimillion-dollar account because people who really know their ginger ale say the stuff stinks? Which I didn’t even realize until just now. King, Mr. Leary … are you crying?”
“It’s all so damn complicated!”
“Hmmm?”
“When did all this happen? Did that Serling fellow make a general announcement that we were living in the Twilight Zone? Did those Dogstar People get into our beverages?” I’m leaking from my nose, from my eyes, my mouth is filled with catarrh.
“Kinger,” implores the Claire thing, “don’t leave me in the lurch. Don’t say you won’t do it!”
“I never said I wouldn’t do it.”
“I mean, my Lord, the stuff can’t be that bad.”
“It’s plenty bad, Claire. But I’ll do the advert.”
“Thank you!” The Claire thing simmers down. “Now let us leave, the limo awaits.”
Iain stumbles over to help Blue Hermann get dressed, although Iain is more of a hindrance to the procedure. Blue has to wear this underwear gear that resembles diapers, due to his problem with incontinence. But unless you know exactly what God’s got in store for you, don’t laugh.
Blue struggles to his feet, supporting himself with the oaken canes. Exertion beads his upper lip with sweat.
“Attago, Blue-boy,” I tell him. “You’re doing just fine.”
Blue slaps that grin on me, the one he used when he was a young man. For a second, in my mind’s eye, it’s like he is young again, even to the extent of having a bubbly-bosomed girl dangling on his arm. This sort of thing has been going on quite a bit, this confusion. It has ceased to startle or worry me.
We go downstairs in the elevator. Music leaks out of a hole in the ceiling. We walk through the lobby of the hotel, into the day.
It looks like the welkin dumped about a foot of snow on the earth last night as I slumbered. Everything about the world is white and quiet. But the air is warm, and already the gutters are furious with melted snow. Maybe the snowfall was winter’s last huzza.
Guess who’s sitting in this sleek black limousine? Clay Bors Clinton, of course, hung over as can be. Oh, I know that, seeing as how Clay is a specter, he didn’t have anything to drink last night, but being hung over in the morning is force of habit to him. He rubs his eyes and focuses on me. “Morning, squire,” he moans, “Christ, I feel awful. Awfully awful.”
“Guess what? It wasn’t Rance left out the fire truck. It was Clifford.”
“Hmmm.” Clinton doesn’t seem interested. The Claire thing has opened up a newspaper, and Clay is reading over his shoulder, even though things don’t apply to him anymore.
“You don’t seem too surprised.”
“I’m not.” Clay reaches out a ghostly hand and prevents the Claire thing from flipping over the page. Claire assumes that he must have been interested in some article and his eyes peruse the print looking for it. “It doesn’t make much difference which of the tykes left it out, Percy my precious. You tripped over it.”
“It ruint my hockey-playing career, you know. And Chloe, remember, Chloe used to say that I never could forgive Rance for leaving out the truck. But if it wasn’t even him—”
Claire has opened to the stock market pages. Clinton’s eyes light up with fire. “Jiminy!” he cries. “Look at the money to be made!”
“If it wasn’t even him—” I persist.
“Yes, Percival?”
“Well, that’s …” I gaze at the city streets through the darkened limo window. I have come a long way since nineteen double naught. So has the world out there. “That’s monstrous.”
“Aha!” exclaims Clay. “Now we’re getting somewhere. Little P. Leary, something of a natural.”
“Monstrous? What’s monstrous?” Iain has tumbled into a Blue Hermann fitful doze, and my words startle him back into waking.
A little red sports coupe overtakes us, overly close, prompting our chauffeur to blast the horn. The driver of the red sports coupe pushes the gas pedal down, changing gears with arrogant noise. He burns away, hurling slush. “I didn’t know,” I whisper. “Worse, I never even thought.”
We pull onto a street that’s in the bad section of town, a lot of tenements, sorry little brownstones. Brave and valiant in the midst of all this is an old church. The stained-glass windows are riddled with marble holes. The huge oaken doors haven’t seen fresh paint in years. Without thinking, I raise a hand to cross myself. I’m startled to see my liver-spotted claw tremble. I don’t know if that’s from palsy, fear, or exhilaration. At any rate, I decline to make the cross with it. To hell with that noise.
Almost next door to the church is something called Solstice Video Studios. As we pull into the parking lot, bells start ringing. The church doors open and people spill out into the warmish winter air. They are poor people, largely black. Most of them are smiling, one or two are even laughing out loud.
Iain watches them and starts to cry. I pretend not to notice.
Meantime, the queer birdy Claire is flitting around trying to get things organized. He’s alarmed because Duane Killebrew hasn’t arrived yet. There’s fourteen cars packed into the studio’s tiny parking lot, and how Claire knows that one of them isn’t Duane-o’s is a mystery.
“Like,” Claire bellows, puffs of steam firing from his nostrils, �
�we have technicians here getting maybe triple, quadruple scale and a half for working on a Sunday. Get the idea? And, I should mention, we have Gordon Pennylegion waiting inside. Is this man cheap, my children? No. Mr. Pennylegion is not cheap. We’re talking heavy-duty exorbitance. So all right, let’s start without Killebrew. Iain, do you think you could manage to get the King inside? I’ll sweeten the pot for you, baby. Do you know what’s inside that building? Booze. All sorts of it. And you! You, fat stuff in the putrid off-white! Take Mr. Hermann into the Green Room. Follow that dipsomaniacal male-nurse person.”
A silver car with flames painted along the sides pulls into the parking lot.
“Well, well, well,” says the Claire thing, buckling his fists onto his hips, “look who’s decided to arrive. Mr. Hockey himself, the fab Duane!”
Iain is steering me toward the studio doors. He’s more wobbly than I.
Duane gets out of the passenger’s side, a girl from the driver’s. She appears to be seven foot tall, big busted as a dance hall queen. Killebrew spots me and waves. “Hey, King!”
“Morning, puppy!” I return.
We push through the door, my scrawny shoulder left to do most of the work. The walls inside are covered with photographs. I’m reminded of the old shanty groghouses that Manfred Ozikean loved so dearly. The people in these pictures are famous Canadian television personalities. I don’t know them from various Adams and holes-in-the-ground. Iain steers me down a hallway.
The Green Room is green. It’s got sofas and a little bar set up in the corner. Iain sets me down and goes behind to where the booze bottles are. He looks at labels and selects something crystal clear. Iain drains about half a glassful before asking me what I want. “Kinger-Binger? A spot of the good old stuff?”
“Beer.”
“Come again?”
“I want a beer.”
“Beer?”
Fat stuff in the putrid off-white steers Blue Hermann into the Green Room. Blue spots the wet bar and starts grinning his grin, a cat with a gobful of mouse. “Alphabetical order, thank you, Iain,” he says.
“The King is having a beer,” says Iain.
“The King is dead,” croaks the hoary scribe. “Long live the King.”
Clay Clinton spins around the corner into the room. “My, my!” He is appraising the bar. “What wouldn’t I give for a little taste.”
Iain hands me a tall pilsener glass. His hands are shaking pretty badly. The brew slops over the side. I salute them all and drain off a little bit of the beer. The foam tickles my lips, and my first draft is thick and bitter. It’s a distinctive taste, this beer. I give it another try.
“Well?” they ask me.
“That’s what all the fuss is about, is it?”
They nod.
I pull down another gulp.
“Well,” I proclaim, “I don’t see that—”
The burp starts somewhere in my great toe. It jumps electrical up my legs and tingles my groin. It heaves around my guts for a split second, spinning my innards like a wash cycle. Then the burp leaps upwards, almost squeezing my nipples, and it has me by the throat. My head spins back and forth—maybe it even does a complete three-sixty. The belch is magnificent and holds in the air like a cloud. The reverberations are slow to die. It is certainly the best burp of my entire lifetime. It has drained me, left me exhausted.
I manage to smile at my companions.
THIRTY-EIGHT
I AM IN THE GREEN ROOM, WAITING. They are setting up lights and cameras in the studio. The director has been taking Hitler lessons. He is screaming at everybody and has created an atmosphere of intense hatred and mistrust. Apparently this is crucial to the making of fine television adverts. It doesn’t bother me, though. I sit on the sofa and wait. Pennylegion’s assistant, Kim, is wearing a blouse that you can see through. She has small Japanese breasts that bounce a lot as she races around instilling in people the fear of Pennylegion. This girl is having quite the effect on Blue Hermann. He is so excited that I suspect blood is actually coursing through his veins. And Clay, well, Clay’s phantasmic eyes are bugging out of his head, as if he’s never seen a bubby before in all his days.
Kim screams at me about something, but I watch the heave of her breasts and grin. She leaves disgusted, reducing me, Blue, and Clay to wheezy old-fart laughter. Kim is slim hipped as a boy and from the rear (as she storms away) she looks to be no more than twelve years old. And we are still giggling when a voice says, “Here you guys are!” My blood chills. Manfred Armstrong Ozikean comes into the Green Room.
I think I mentioned before that Clay’s spirit has his young man’s face and his older man’s stout belly. When first laid eyes upon, that’s how Clinton appeared, but things are always changing. Sometimes the ghost is sixty-seven years old, preyed on by disease and bullied by the pugnacious heart, and sometimes Clay is eighteen and still a mite pimple faced. It is this Clay, a young brash one, that is currently engaged in pursuing Kim around the Green Room. Myself, I’m used to these Sirius transmogrifications, and even if it is a bit frightening, it’s the least I deserve. But I’m unprepared for Manny. Manny is melting, Manny is unglued. It’s as though he fled the grave without any practice at managing his wraith. Manfred grins toothlessly, his mouth gray, his empty eye sockets a deep black. “Percival!” he says, and then, catching sight of Clinton, Manny grins even wider. “Clay!” he booms.
Clay won’t be distracted from the Kim girl. He’s bouncing along backwards in front of her, his hopping timed to the fury of her breasts. “Freddy! Pull yourself together!”
Manny sheepishly tries to keep body and soul intact, but various limbs and accoutrements continue to drop off.
Blue Hermann begins to shiver, and for a second I think that he must see Manfred, then I realize he’s shivering because he’s taken poorly. Sweat has beaded on his face. Manny drags himself across the room and stares at Hermann for a long moment, if a fellow who has neglected to equip himself with eyes can be said to do that. Manny reaches out a spectral hand and touches Blue’s wrinkled brow. Hermann instantly tumbles into a sweet slumber, even commences a loud and gnarly snoring. The snoring amuses Manny, who steps back, chuckling. “What a racket!” he announces.
Here comes the Pennylegion creature himself. He stands five foot nil, wears a baseball cap, and carries a clipboard. The purpose of the clipboard is to beat against his thigh. Pennylegion looks in most regards to be somewhere in his early thirties, but his hair and beard are peppered with gray. “People, people, people!” he bellows. “Can we keep the fucking noise down!!??” He stops in front of Duane Killebrew, who is sitting on a couch with the long-limbed girl. Pennylegion snaps his fingers a few times. “What, what, what is it, Killebrew?”
Duane-o nods.
“Killebrew, here’s what the hair says. The hair says, remember the seventies? Killebrew, we lose the fucking hair.”
“I like his hair,” protests the show-biz type girly.
“I’m sure you do, honey. That’s why you’re, what, what is it, you’re a receptionist or a facialist or something, correct-a-mundo?” Pennylegion snaps the fingers on one hand and uses the other to beat the clipboard against his thigh. He must have one hell of a bruise there. “Hair people! Where are the fucking hair people?” Some hair people, two young women, charge in and set upon Duane with hedge clippers. “Now,” says Pennylegion, “where is this hockey legend?”
“Who’s that, you?” whispers Manfred. Typical of Manny to whisper even though he’s a vision that appears only to me.
Kim drags Pennylegion my way. She makes terse introductions, annoyed at me for being unable to take my eyes off her bubbles. “The point is, we are making a commercial for ginger ale,” Pennylegion grumbles. “We are not making fucking Night of the Living Dead. This creature should have been in makeup hours ago. I don’t see how we can have him resembling a humanoid before next fucking Thursday. Makeup people! Where are the fucking makeup people?” A girl bolts forward. Pennylegion grabs her elbow and wav
es at me. “You pull this off, I guarantee the fucking Pfeiffer Award.” Pennylegion turns to go away, but I halt him.
“Hey, you! Pup!”
“Pup?”
“Listen, pup. This is the thing. Any time now I expect to have my arse hauled out onto the carpet in a major way. I would appreciate it if you’d just calm down.”
“You tell him, King!” says Killebrew, whose golden locks are being shorn.
“Fucking hockey players,” Pennylegion mutters. He and Kim wander away. The makeup person attacks my puss with a powder puff. The girl is maybe seventeen years of age and very smiley. All the time as she does my makeup she talks, but I don’t pay much attention. She calls me “dahlink.” “Look up, dahlink. Look over there, dahlink.” Over there is Manny Oz. He is sitting down, his huge hands resting on his knees, and he looks as delighted as a child at the circus. “My goodness gracious me” he sighs. “What a world.”
“Worst part of it is,” I tell him, “this is typical.”
Iain comes over with a couple of sheets of paper in his hand. “All right, Kinger,” he says, “I’m your script coach.” He tosses one of the pages at me. His drink has an olive in it. Ever notice how serious booze hounds like to put olives in their drinks? Without the olive it would be too much like they were pouring liquid solvent down their gullets. “Your part is underlined in red, sire,” Iain says sloppily. “I shall read the part of Duane Killebrew, finest hockey player on the planet, which is what …?” Iain ticks off with his fingers. “One, two, three stones from the sun. Okay? Here we go. Ahem. First, a small sip of the pulque. Ahh. Now. ‘Winning the Stanley Cup was a lot of fun, hut it was a lot of hard work, too.’ ”
I have to hold my sheet at arm’s length to pull it into focus.
IT WAS THE SAME FOR ME BACK IN 1919.
“It was the … same for me … back in one-nine one-nine.”
“King, I don’t think they want you to say ‘one-nine one-nine.’ ”
“That’s when we claimed the goblet—one-nine one-nine!”
“Yeah, but people don’t say that, ‘one-nine one-nine’ Only you say that.”
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