The Rainbow Horizon - A Tale of Goofy Chaos

by Karen S. Cole

  Chapter Ten

  A DECLARATION OF IMMUNITY

  NATIONAL STATE, OR SLAVE COLONY?

  THE Day I DRANK your Party

  Was a Night to Dismember?

  GABE, ARTIE, SARA and CAZA -- love elsewise

  A dark, moody piece, with Black Forest depth, Nixon-era, 1960s, yippies and college deans deserting their posts, dirt-ingrained permanently at the floor. With light flickering softly, mutedly, temporally over two people; dark moving shapes against the long brown bar. Multiple shining, light-encrusted ovals, vertically overwhelmed by a single giant, flat rectangular horizontal blob.

  Shapes of detachment and withdrawal in the blue indoor shades of afternoon, lost between two people murmuring gently. A voice sonorously announces: “I have come to investigate the firing of our elder Edward Bitters.”

  The drama furnished by this statement was great and fantastic. Yep. Fantastic drama. Perhaps a sponsor would interrupt shortly.

  “Well, that’s what he ought to say,” inveighed Saragina, thickly and heavily. She inveighed this at Artie as they nursed, with a slow typicality that was often alarming to Sara, a beer apiece one midafternoon at the Krakatoa. “But first of all, he wasn’t fired. He was “laid off” due to “budget cuts.”

  “Do tell,” Artie wetly replied. “Ah thought they retired ‘im young.” He took a long drink. Slurp. It was slow, it burned as it went down. Ahhhhhhh…

  “There’s this Japanese field investigator for the state attorney general. I forget his name. Gando-something. An American. From the east, near the capitol. Not a Santa Claus, but he’s real I guess, and Mr. Bitters’ political connections are coming through. He’s looking into the viability of charging Ridgeview Hodpital with discriminatory firing. You know why?” Sara leaned against the long bar with both arms, without relaxing completely.

  “Why?” asked drunken, free-wheeling, oddly awake Artie.

  “Because they fired him before he got his retirement.”

  Experimentally. Of course! Artie smiled, and twirled the glass between his two front forepaws.

  “Viability,” said Sara. She looked guarded, a little severe, as though close personal matters were involved. Artie cast her a believing, convivial, and drunken look, then steadily said, “Ah’m glad ah stayed outta that world, lady. Ah kin only wish you the best.”

  “Do tell,” breathed Saragina. A forte of hers. “Do tell, but I have not yet begun to enter that there world. I enjoy my job, thank you very much, world, and Artie.”

  Later on, they all heard, Ed was offered a different position at Ridgeview Hospital. It was a better one than he was currently holding as local manager of a major regional corporation.

  The position was not higher pay than the previous one. Ed had nearly the same benefits package at his new job, about 75% of the formal deal. The corporation that was Ed’s new boss would suffer terribly in the event that this country should happen to run out of loggable timber, but it would not do so for many years. Ed was too near retirement for anything like that to matter. Sure. He told Ridgeview no, straight-aways. That’s how Saragina currently looked ahead. Straightaways.

  “I’m still going to college, and nothing will stop me. Nothing…”

  Sara began rising from her barstool, brown slender hands gracefully falling, hard, on the bar.

  Only one of ‘em bounced.

  “…except money. Or too many useless distractions.” This was not aimed at Artie, really, y’know. He just happened to be there. Good to hurt others. Sara had appointments. She set her glass down and paid.

  “What about Gabie, though, hon?” Artie had to refrain from touching her arm. Couldn’t do that. It was Misunderstand-able. He spun towards her, carefully avoiding bumping his knees on the underside metal.

  “Why, he’s not nothin’, isn’t he, though?” high-pitched S. DeSoto, who had been self-confidently confusing for years. But that had been her ex-husband’s major problem, too. Maybe. He’d had trouble holding jobs…

  “I will arise and go now,” wheezed Artie softly to an empty room. He slowly realized he was sitting in an emphatically empty dusty tavern. With naughahyde plants drooping over the booths. Artie’s natural habitat for centuries.

  He ‘most turned to watch the volcano, erupting hollowly forever, but didn’t.

  CAZA IS MAYBE DYING of a degenerative kidney disease. That means peeing! Sooner or later her kidneys will begin to fail, well, get a little drunk and you land in jai-yul…she’ll be put on dialysis, which is only the beginning of waiting to die.

  She was happy-go-lucky, charming and sophisticated anyway, in spite of being a mere descendant of Mexican farmworkers, a dust mote on the speck of wisdom that is deemed humanity. She would never have children, she thought, but she hoped.

  In Gabe’s dreams she played, a yearned-for lost Madonna, a lost sister whom he could never reach out to, Norwegian wall-blocking, a vulnerable, crushingly Indian child, too much a toy in the hands of God. She was dying on us, and all that laughter and light and sweet talk would falter within any year’s time, with Artie the Drunk the only thing to catch her, there, if he did not slip. He was falling, too. Never is life sufficient. That’s why we use computers.

  If we refuse to acknowledge the natural beauty around us, there’s always the Losses file, to put every piece of dead gnarled wood in, each never fitting…you accountant, you…in the computer’s memory. The File Extract command is Invoked, Meph. No, I came now hither of mine own Accord. C1 will be the name for the extracted file, and this is key-entered when requested by the ...Caza. Lady of the Lake, Igraine, alike, the drowned under the value of tears, golden tears of Urine. Artie swore to tell himself, his lady’s urine is sweet and pure. But it wouldn’t be. No sirree. He might have to clean up her messes someday, but she’d probably handle it, or the hospital.

  After the command is complete, a new file is on the disk which contains the first quarterly totals and losses and returns. Puts the previous info in. The cell will be the upper left corner of the file that will be combined with the Yearly Losses Report…the command is initiated and the files are combined.

  This will involve swapping disks and retrieving and saving a number of files, and will sharpen your disk and file handling skills.

  The File Erase command permits a file to be Deleted from the Data Disk in Drive B without leaving the Worksheet. More efficient methods than this (shall we say, never?) are used to delete numerous old and unused Files. They are described in the next section on the LOTUS File-Manager Program in the Access System…Caza may access this System, as she so pleases.

  It may be Possible to recover the Data if a Mistake is Made, and an Important File is erased for which no duplicate exists. If no other files have been saved to this disk, it may be possible for someone who is very familiar with IBM data disks to “recover” your file. The steps to do this are beyond the scope of this text… GoTo Overview. Hurry! Next Job arriving in tomorrow’s mail…

  Caza’s no Rapid Religionary. Nope. No sirree bobberoonies. Limitations! The LOTUS database has several limitations imposed by the program itself. Because the database exists within the worksheet structure, the maximum number of records that can be Sloth be key-entered is 2047, and she generates a Good Income, 1 less than the number of rows in the Program. This is probably only a Theoretical limitation because the Computer’s Memory will be filled before these Column and Row limits are reached.

  LOTUS will not enter the numbers in individual cells if they are imported as labels. What is happiness, if not the actualization of peace? The pointer is positioned where the upper left corner of the imported chart should appear.

  After entering the text, the imported part of the chart appears the same as the original. The pointer is repositioned and the file is imported again, this time selecting the Numbers subcommand, Numbers, Deuteronomy. The result is the same chart with labels and accompanying acts of parasitic damage…

  When I get hungry, Caz sighed, I have an imaginary tapeworm that eats
my burritos. I fix great food for Artie, and he fixes it for me, but worms ensure the loss of eating by living in your intestines. If you’re lucky. Sometimes, they fly through the sandy air, laying their eggs in the thousands on your bed sheets. Being poor has its major drawbacks. Pinworms, hookworms, trichina worms. Nausea! I treated us both for pinworms once. I am glad they are gone, hopefully.

  GABE HOOTER GROPES at boredom. It was a hot, breezy, listless evening, typical for mid-to-late August. He knew, now. And his apartment seemed empty. He'd had a date with Saragina, his lady love of the moment--a long moment, but still not one tied down--and she hadn’t shown up. Gabe’s apartment was flooded with light, amberized, frozen in time. The city shown like a pulverized gem outside, trailing small lights in the gentle and gathering darkness.

  Earlier that day he’d met Artie on Guild Street. Blond Artie had a beard and a grocery bag, having bought several six-packs of cheap beer. They clinked.

  Gabe asked Artie what passes.

  “I thought we could have a party, man, you an’ me. Maybe summa t’others, but I can’t get holda nobody, not t’day.” Gabe and Artie both felt the heat. “It’s the last day b’fore dis thray-week job, man, an’ everybody’s gawn. Ah boughts all dis bare, hennyways.” Artie spoke hoarsely, breaking into his usual sweet laugh.

  He sounded tired, very spent with the heat. A tall man, he drooped forward over Gabe like a wilting sunflower. Gabe only leaned back and sighed.

  “I want to go up to my room, Artie, it’s too hot to hang around out here, taking up sidewalk. Maybe I’ll catch you later.” Gabe turned and headed down the street.

  “Don’t forget, job starts at 7 sharp.” They both worked, as I’ve said, for a local service agency, doing day labor jobs.

  “Later, Gabie,” called out Artie behind him as he stalked away, clinking the bottles in the sack.

  Up in his room, Gabe lay back on his bed and looked out the window. He had a small electric fan blowing at him. He could read if he wanted, or listen to the radio. But he didn’t. Right now it had caught up with him a little, the meandering, unambitious, pointless form his life was currently taking. And had been taking for several years. He had fun, he felt sure, but that was about all. And when he thought about it lately, he thought maybe he drank too much. He’d been figuring it would catch up with him. But waitaminute, maybe Saragina was coming over tonight. Panicked, Gabe started to leap out of bed, then stopped, landing squarely on the edge. No need to panic. So glad he was, living the life of not having to…make love.

  Saragina. What a problem. She had an ex-husband in California who wrote letters asking to come back to him. He wanted her there, with him. She wanted to stay where she was. Gabe wasn’t sure if it was him, or if she just liked the town, her job, and her friends. He ex had frowned on her having a career.

  She was leery of settling down again, and kept Gabe at a short distance. He wanted to close it soon, but his own career was gimmicky at best. He made about $800 to $1500 per month, not enough to support the probable family spring up, like freshly-planted grass. It gave him drinking money, with which he usually bought beers for his friends, but lately, he’d been slipping into that bottomless glass routine that always catches up with bored barflies. Sooner than later.

  Hanging out with Artie, he figured, was The Cause. Artie usually bought a pitcher or two and shared with Gabe, who had no excuses. Gabe sometimes drank in the afternoons due to this. Maybe, this could end…someday.

  Thinkin’ ‘bout drinkin’ is no good alone. I think Ah'll go down to the Krakatoa in two hours, git a beer and go to beds.

  Gabe went down to the Krak, which was a bar, and met Artie. THAR! Twang, they both walked into the bar, an’ didn’t fall down, n’yet.

  “Gabie baby, ah gots a rayl #1 magnifico idear. Le’s go hup thet ol’ buildin’ on To-may-to Strayt, th’ one wit th’ fahr ‘scape tha’ looks so fun. We kin git hup on th twelfth floah, man, and drink beers. An’ watch th’ pidgies flah bah. Right?”

  Once UPON A TIME, there had been a Sesame Street in Rama, Washington. It was where the Tomato Grocery was originally located. Near Mother Russia. It held the entire Universe, up to that point in time…when there were blue-blooded girls, with saffron in their hair…everybody was there…even Hitler’s SS didn’t care. Children played all day and night, without a fright, everything was clearly left behind. The nuclear bombs didn’t kill anyone during the 1970s’ Cold War. Sunny days, chasing the clouds away. Funny neighbors, and that’s where we meet…h’year that Jewish deeply melodious flute playing sonorously in the ground, to let you know? Hi diddle low, hi diddle diddle die, hi diddle do, die.

  There is the Second Holocaust, in Germany, @ 2015. Its tons smaller. Mostly, they are shipping them around the world now.

  So there they went, except Artie changed his mind midway up the fire escape and they entered via a seventh-floor window. They sat inside, drinking beers. Gabe put down two, thought about Artie soaking up all the rest, then stopped. That flew him pretty well. Artie never stopped. After all, he’s an American.

  “Hey, Gabe! Ah got ‘n idee. See theef boarz?” Artie drunkenly indicated several boards leaning against the wall. They--Gabe and Artie--were sitting by a window, outside of which an adjoining building's roof could be seen. Eery intent was buried in the back of his face, Artie’s face. Roof was about ten feet away.

  “I bet I could walk across t’ th’ othah buildin’ ovah thar. All I neez is dese boarz, man, and I’m ‘way. Wanna watch me, Gabie m’ man? Getch’a big kick outa that ‘un!” Sure, whatever, Artie…

  Gabe was pleasantly sleepy, sitting leaning against the wall that faced the opposite building. He had the fourth beer in hand and was painlessly and smoothly stretching it out. He tried to calm Artie down. “Artie, stop waving those boards around and sit down. You're going to get hurt. Now, be as sensible chap. There’s a good fellow hombre. Why do you want to pull a stunt like that?"

  “’Cause it’s FUN, man! I’m bored of sittin’ ‘roun and I’m gon’ do it. G’bye now.” So speaking, Artie pushed the boards out of the window. Gabe suddenly felt a slight chill, a suspicion of something altogether not good, but he let the beer drag down all of his present insecurities. They do that. Right. He muttered wearily, talking to the only ears that listened, other than his own:

  “Goodbye, King Arthur.” Yep, Art was that kind of a guy.

  Just as unconsciousness started to force consciousness to bite in, Gabe heard a muffled but resounding distant crash. Jolting himself to his feet, almost falling on the way, unwinding slowly, and staggering over to the window, he calmly looked out. Couldn't see anything, anything worth it.

  He ran down the inside stairs, which were musty and covered with garbage and filth.

  The seventy-year-old building was condemned to be demolished soon, and was standing yet in the place locals were accustomed to passing by, a place now considered to be useless and empty. Rama, the town too small for anything real but farming, had once been part of an expanded Western Washington city getting ready for an industrial boom. The Tomatoe building they were in, one of the largest in the area and nowhere near the stretch of concrete where Gabe was shot at, was one of many destined for the rumble pile whenever a buyer cared to turn one over into the soil and lay a new crop of stone or other means to hoped-for wherewithal. Nowhere in the state was small enough to escape such eventual action by a buyer. Japanese, familiar, or otherwise.

  All outside doors were locked, luckily, except for the one facing the alley; it gave to Gabe’s frantic push, at least, when he hit the bottom of the stairs.

  Nothing. Gabe breathed, taking in only dust once again, facing the mystery. He fought a wild urge to flee into daylight. But, what…Artie’s jacket. Lying flat, unnaturally sprawled, on the ground so filthy, steps away. Gabe picked it up, answering the pleaing of words from surely not inside him, not him, forming through his teeth, on his lips, Artie, how could you…it's blood-soaked.

  He stood there for a long moment, fe
eling betrayed, holding the blood-drenched jacket and wondering what God would allow blasphemies this strength to attack him, then slowly he realized something.

  It was Gabe's jacket, one of his cheapest ones. Old, loved, well-worn. Elbows vanishing into tawdry snakes of intertwined loose threads, gaping with flabby holes. Tears came to his eyes.

  Brown eyes, capable of reflecting non-extant fragments of light, peered with opening wonder down both sides of the alley-way. Artie must apparently have crawled out, literally on his hands and knees, or stumbled tragically broken and futile, a disabled weaver of pain, to the only legitimate place he could have gone to, Shell Park, the oasis of true beauty in nature facing Rama’s Rudnick Street. Gabe began to shake and choke with sops, stiffly accounting for the likelier actions having occurred and occurring, stifled, man-forbidden sobs that welled up from deep inside and ran through his hands into the politely-returned clothing. What if?

  Artie had left behind an insurance policy, stipulating that his entire crock-pot of money be left to his sweetie, the tartly nut-brown Caza Zooweiler. It was a $50,000 policy. It was all he could afford. He cleared very little, like Gabe, and Caza had said something about her needing heart surgery in the near future. She was a hurt, broke part-Indian gal, had nothing, kinda like Gabe. She’d always had these problems, really bad physical ones. They could end up meaning something, with or without help. Maybe it would?

  While Gabe stood still, holding the awful and bloody jacket. Artie lay shaking and mooning on a park bench, where he had crawled, as Gabe envisioned, to die. He had broken seventeen bones.

  Eventually a man saw Artie and called the police, who took him to Ridgeview Hospital, the public health hospital. Gabe called in and found out. At midnight, he dropped by Artie’s unit. Arthur’s fast asleep…raz for King Art!

  “AH CAN’T BELIEVE that, Mayan. Whata wimp…can ya forgive me?"

  Thus spake Artie Blend, even more gravel-throated, from his manual hospital bed. He had a tube up his nose, a needle in his left arm, a sling cast on his elevated right arm and a nifty body cast on both his messy legs.

  “Ain’ this sumpin’? State’s gonna hafta pay parta this. Ah got some insurance.

  “Ah tells you, man, that’s it fer me and drinkin’. Nor more, ever again, less ah gets sui-cidal. Cain’ talk anymore.” Artie lay there, sighing. Gabe stayed with Artie, murmuring amiably, but in a while he became very thirsty. He left the room to buy a couple sodas.

  On way to the cafeteria, which was in the basement, Gabe ran into Jesus Christ. Well, at least it looked like Jesus. He was even glowing. Decked out in full white robes, long flowing dark or sandy, lighting, can't tell, beard and hair. Beard.

  “Excuse me,” Gabe said, attempting to catch the astonishing figures attention. Christ was about to stroll past him, in the lobby. They were turning the corner at the gift shop. "Are you, uh, Jesus Christ?"

  “Of course I am," snapped the Man. "And I'm in a hurry. They are dying people here, see? I have to help them. What do you want?"

  “Uhhh, I was wondering what business you have here, I guess, but apparently you already have some. Maybe I should continue towards the cafeteria," said Gabe, looking at Christ over his shoulder as he passed him. "Perhaps we may meet again some other day."

  “Certainly!” cried the amazing figure. He walked away, down the hall, past the restrooms. Gabe watched him pass a giant painting of blue, waxen cubes on a kaleidoscopic green, red and yellow background. Then he left, heading for the elevators.

  In the cafeteria, the next mysterious event occurred. Mary joined him in line.

  Gabe had decided to BUY a sandwich. He had a feeling something was behind him.

  He felt something brush him gently while standing in line. He turned, and there she was. Mary, Mother of God, dressed in full blue robes and white-caped hood. There she was. Mary, Mother of God, dressed in full blue ropes and white-caped hood. There she was. Mary…oh, Hail Mary, Mother of Grace, uh, er umn er umm.

  “Holy guest appearances,” Gabe breathed. If you were female, you would enjoy. He grabbed a milk.

  “Yes,” quoth the Lady.

  “By any chance, is there a play going on today?” She was not very pretty. But she smiled.

  “Yes, there is. I am an actress, playing Mary. It's called ‘The Life of Christ’ and it's being staged in the hospital chapel, Wing D or 4th floor. It's primarily for the cancer patients, especially the children. Would you like to come see it?" Her Voice was particularly sweet, compensating for her face’s lack of youthful luster. Something in it made Gabe strange, made him want to turn away and flee, even though it was a highly pleasant and understandable voice. She had one freckle, no more, on her right cheek, or perhaps it was a mole.

  “I’m sorry, my Lady, but I'm here to visit my Friend and I should stay with him. Perhaps some other time."

  Gabe went back to Artie's room, sandwich and drink in hand, and told him what had happened. "She had a great voice and a so-so face. Couldn't see the Bod."

  “Yeah, an kin believes that, they have lotsa stage ‘vents heah. Ya kin open ‘m up an’ crawl insahd. Wow. You saw Jesus and Mary on the say-yam DAY! In the cafeteria! Far out. What will they think up next?”

  On the way out of the hospital, Gabe ran into the police. They stopped him to talk, burly the both of ‘em, male and female they created them, kinda fat each, also very pushy and authoritative, especially the Male. “We’re looking for a young man, muscular, about 5’10” or so. Possibly black or brown.” The officer seemed to be mildly apologetic.

  “He was reported selling cocaine in the hospital. Have you seen him?”

  “No,” said Gabe. Another weird moment of wishing what shouldn’t happen could. It passed. He took time to drop by and see Sara on the way to his apartment. She was fine, fixing him a rattling cup of Seattle’s best organic lunch blend.

  ARTIE WAS HOSPITALIZED FOUR-THREE (3) months, then sent home. Caza helped him apply for temporary welfare benefits, including unemployment. This paid the rent and fed him reasonably well, considering the circumstances, while he recuperated. During those long six months, Gabe worked extra hours, Sara put in some more time, and Caza did extra bookkeeping. Fortunately she and Artie were not married; otherwise the State would’ve counted her petite but considerable income as one with Artie’s, and paid out commensurately less in benefits. It was a pretty good program, anyway. He started physical therapy at Ridgeview and in a while was seeing a chiropractor, covered.

  Artie was walking on crutches in four months. In nine months all the casts were off. In two years he was ready for light work again, rarin’ ta go. He hadn’t taken a drink during the entire time, not one beer. He was very proud.

  “Ah feels great,” he bellowed. “Better than b’fore! The Doc said ah was starting to sustain major liver damage. He said it might kinda repair itself a bit if’n ah leaves it ‘lone. Ah’m gonna have to, so’s ah kin go beck ta woik ‘gin.”

  He didn’t mustard onion pickle catsup lettuce or relish the idea of living off Caza’s meager per-job income. Herself took so much personal care of Artie during this time that she seriously considered forsaking bookkeeping and becoming a nurse. She could earn a degree in two years at Hillbright College. She’d become chummy with the nurses at the hospital, learning enough to assume Artie’s health care at home. Under her, he thrived. “Yer mah silly angel queen ladeh!”

  At last, the grand day arrived. A Changed man, namely Artie Blend, walked with a pronounced but DETERMINED limp to the Guild Street Service Agency to apply for work…again. He only BREATHED a little harder. Don’t you?

  He got in without having to re-apply, and without shoving ANYONE WHATSOEVER out of his way. For a change.

  “Are you sure you won’t like to take a desk job? Most of our current listings are outdoor and field work. We do offer indoor and office work…” Bill Keane was the intake worker that afternoon, a paid volunteer with sixteen years of experience inside his expertise, which largely revolved around
cartooning.

  “No thanks, ah cannot wear a monkey soot and a noose, none of ‘em fit me. Ah jus’ HAF to wear mah blue jeans. Hit’s cuz they look great when they is rilly tight, and ah work in those only. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!”

  LONG AGO A PROMISE WAS MADE to a subterranean superannuity squaricle…who wasn’t really a fruity. Just an unmember of the overground. But, the under-WEAR, as well? What’s under there, underwhere? Well, hardly never.

  Said tread, when shed, belonged to Fred. Who lost (and regained) her ped. So, walk a mile in his shoes. But what the Heck is wrong with yours?

  I’ll warn you, they mayn’t flop. They’re leather, old, worn out, need replacing with spiff-rad running shoes. But there’s character in leather. Co-character…have you noticed that men’s shoes are still made from dead air-pad brownstone cows, or WHAT? No, but I have. And so has a dude named Fred…something.

  Fred had no more work, an’ couldn’t buy NO more shoes, ‘cuz his last job had tended in the direction of piling up hours. This was okay, but it was at the low pay end of the scales. He was bored, didn’t list, but there was money saved in his bank account. It too had piled high. Finally, he went back to work, and…omigod.

  It was great at first. He started at a twelve--hour day, and after six months he moved up to fourteen hours. After a year he was working sixteen to twenty-hours shifts. Five or six days a week. Seven. Eight. Nine…ten…duh…

  After the second year he was talking to himself and driving the delivery car back and forth across the meridian. In beautiful downtown Wabash, near Unionville, and finally he hit the freeway. Leaking brake fluid. This of course led to a “minor” traffic mishap involving five cars and two deaths, while his DisAbled passenger seemingly survived with just a few scratches, and Fred scrunched into a hopeless bo-loody murdered ball of tyrannized flesh. I say “murdered” because Fred had been born being paid sub-minimum wage at work, because he didn’t try hard enough, and the mounting hours were s’posed to help him make his court-ordered child support, beautiful Men! (And three to five eating kids) and accumulated taxes and bills. No, they were teds. His support hose. It was partly his own fault; he drank, two. Or more. Coffees. And a beer.

  Screwed, no screwed, up Theirs. Hiccup.

  “Blame it on suburban pride. If they hadn’t took me in a cart I’d have got off with Der Less.”

  Fortunately, the hospital personnel were able to pry him apart again, and he patiently and slowly became, in his own croaked-out words, “A-Okay from Stay.” He always was that abominable kind of guy. If he couldn’t do it, “by golly, I won’t!” He was prone for almost eight months.

  After two years and several months, he could sit up all day in a wheelchair. Without vomiting. After five years of daily physical therapy, and twelve major surgeries, suffering the maximum use of a totally persistant Nietschean will, Fred was able to sit up straight, and was shakily walking ten feet with a crutch. He could’ve done better, really. But he grit his pearly whites on every step, and you could hear those ivories grinding from down the hall, an hundred feet away.

  After twenty-seven frustrating, straight uphill years, with occasional ice cream and beer breaks, Fred was merrily prancing down hallways indoors on one crutch. Without it, however, he fell down hard. But, darn it, he’d get up again. And hafta walk some more. He could walk a quarter mile, no more, and he collapsed stiffly at the end of the walk, sin-king luxuriantly into his favorite chair. His WHEELCHAIR. Then he spasmed stiff as a board, again, often falling from the chair, messily spread-eagled. Whatta sight, Fred the Fright, on the carpet, none too light.

  He’d get up, sit down again, sneeze, let out a ton of saved-up air and fill the room with dog-tired sighs. Then he’d turn on his fan. He’d break out into a tooth-some growl. “I MADE IT!!!!!” was his usual exclamation at this point. Then he had some ice cream or pie, as a reward. And a beer or two.

  His sister, who lived with him for nearly ten years, got it for him. She was a saint from Heaven, but she had a very bad drug problem, pills, for a long time. She used to cry, and stare at his legs as though doping out a way to straighten them. Finally she moved out, literally shooed there by Fred.

  “I get some space to Wobble!” he foobled. He needed a Peace of Solitude.

  He was fully insured and the driver of his paid-for used care. They were really that bunch of crazies at the license bureau, yeah, and gave it back to him. Paperwork Fat City. His ever since, how ‘bout that. There. He’d returned to delivering those disAbled vehicle passengers to appointments, thirty years after the accident, at a much slower-paced four hour day. Eventually six! A helper rode with him. He was, after all, gettin’ older. Nobody ever pushed him now. His child support had grown up. He maintained the same liquid amount, thanks to a goodly raise.

  Nineteen years into this happily livable misericord of fortune, Fred chanced to run into Artie Blend on the Ridgeview rehab ward. Cancer patients, accident victims, and Medicare-social services’ form wrist-limp sufferers, plus other Beloveds of God, inhabited, place was crawlin’ with em’. Good God!

  “God, I can’t take th’ pain anymore!” Artie screamed while performing his twice-daily ‘waltzing Matilda’ down the hall, bouncing off the rails, five long months after his spectacular nose-dive splat onto the filthy alley off of Tomato.

  “God, help me!” he cried weakly, not wanting to sound too wretched. Walking unassisted, he was started to fall down for the ninth time. Floor, here ah comes agin,’ he saw with surety, dizzily gauging his rate of earthbound speed.

  “I’m here, I’m here,” chuckled “Fred the Walking Dead.” He was doing roughly the same as Artie. Excepting he’d progressed beyond the supreme PAIN that the Luckman Blendman was unfortunately presently experiencing in grand and sweeping detail.

  With every step. Fred caught Artie on the way down. They rocked like about, until righting with no gravitational pull, sheer ballast on their side.

  They stood motionless, practically staring into each other’s faces. Stop.

  “Physical Ed ain’t the bests sport for a wounded man t’ hafta face, is it,” Fred smoothed. They hadn’t collapsed, thank the Lord. He patted Artie’s busted, still-taped shoulder. Both shoulders, and his right arm, were broken. Artie winced. He held the wince as long as possible, then twisted it into a foppish, performance-clown face against the pain that both of them had to learn to fight, separately, but commonly experienced. A female cancer kid waved “Boo!”

  Fred, who booed the kid back, recalling what it was like and accompanying the stumbling Artie’s bum to his wheelchair, resembled no aide there. There were a few. Fred made visually made sure the brakes were locked and eased Artie, ‘shall we say, well?” into the padded manual deity. Artie was gratefuller ‘n hell. Fred talkered, so:

  “Reet walkin’, man! Now, use yer lovin’ arms to push that chair! That’s the spirit, Joe! What’s your cover, you look lahk a true Jesus freak you recent hard-core lifetimer, you!” Fred broke into laughter that broke into sobbing, coming back to laughter again. Via coincidence, the guiltless and immortal and that’s ridiculous goddess Fate, who freely bestows her oddest chances and takes special orders, had made them both tallish cusses, matching bookkends end-to-end. Fred was a good 6’0” or so, and Artie, bent over at present, was a fetchingly broken-and-reassumbled 5’11”. Artie, like a Virginia Pine Evergreen, would suremost sprout.

  He grew the remaining inches taller again gradually, and has been walking with a straight(er) back ever since. “One kind!” And several Bastard Nasty. A bad back is not the best form, but it’s somepin’ you get over in a few months.

  Insistantly Fred, chanting, cheering, jeering when needed and prodding, trodding and Maiden France sub-plotting, led Artie in spinning his wheeling up and down the ward. When he completed two whole laps, Fred loudly put politely applauded, yelling for everyone to notice Art’s incredible feet. They smelled! Artie collapsed sideways and burped “mama” like Elvis. His innards were frantically calling for me
dics, all at once. A real aide got him some water, and for the help Artie bought Fred a sandwich. That’s Artie, always Rolling Rolling, Rolling,

  Keep those High Plains Goin’?

  Keep those doggies rollin’?

  Pick it up or leave it, Rawhide!

  Sometimes I can’t stand ‘em,

  Pick ‘em up and Brand ‘em,

  Working toward the end of my ride.

  Move ‘em up move ‘em out move ‘em in move ‘em out move ‘em in move ‘em out, Rawhide, ride ‘em in move ‘em out…Rawhide!

  Fred shared Artie’s stupeed Drinkin’ Problem. Mr. Snowballing Work couldn’t seem to shake it; drank on and off regular. “It relieves the pain,” quoth he.

  One time he had Artie over to his house and offered him a delectable (once my knees hurt so badly I had to take a big bite out of a table, honest!) old vintage cabernet sauvignon. Artie was up and walking fairly well by then.

  “No thanks, you dear ol’ nee-grow, ah cain’t cuz ah promised meh Caza.

  “Ah’ll gait deef ‘for ah gets ‘nother DRANK. Last drop ah soofied was hate storahs HIGH. You gon’ stop or do ah has to throttle ya outa BOOZE! Yer choice!”

  Artie bellowed his general Montana mountain mossee-call, pitching out of his wooden kitchenette chair onto the table. With one sweep of his good arm, the wine bottle was smashed onto the kitchen floor. “Argoo with THAT, Frederickson!” They faced each other as gunless musketeers.

  “Ah, m’man, what you doin’ to ME for. Oh, well. I guess you are Correct. But MAY I finish this eight-ounce glass in safety and Peace, Massa Blend, oh my Christly freaky-being that obviously consists mostly of hair?”

  “What’re you talkin’ ‘bout, you BORE, didn’t ya usedta have a FRO?”

  Fred’s eyes, lingering on the Past, glittered devilishly as he easily, but slowly, raised the Art-forbidden glass to his thirty lips. That explains the Dead French. “I haven’t been taken with a lady for nigh unto twenty years, now.” He looked away from Artie, who whistled. A sharp, B…he looked away…”Yer freakin’ kiddin’, man!”

  “No SIR. I relax with my WINE. I can’t serve my family or the ladies like I used to. Those ARE the Breaks.

  “No serve! SHOR ya can! Ah still does! She flip back? You kin finda GOOD womans! You a handsome soulman, you even gotsome! You a workin’ Stiff. Ah’ll getcha a galfiend, ah knows more fahn Messikin Ladies then ya EVAH did seed, they working FAHMS, they be beauty QUEENS, and you’ll falls in luv with ‘least two dozen gals ah knows OF, ah even gots handles on other-types gals. They Portable! Yer pick! Ah’ll getcha off thet sub-stee-toot rocket fuel. You needsa sangle lady?”

  “LUV’S BEST, FREDS!” They soothingly poured a limpid acknowledgment.

  This rocks in the little small farmtown of Rama, Washington. Beware of your own Backhand. “You wantin’ decent female comp’ny in yer ol’ age! Ah’ll set ya up with sweet wife-quality material, Freddo, lahk you’ve never believed in yet. You hold taht!”

  Weirdly, Artie was good as gold on his word. He and Caza found Fred one Manuela Venuzco y Hernando, a farm and chore worker on the side for the rich elderly owners of the same farms. Can ya beet it. Still a spectacular raven-haired gentle siren, with a touch of distinguishing Grey in her sweeping feathery tresses, who was married twice previously to young Chicano bloods who sadly became over-burdened, under-priced drug dealers and who were, mercifully, shot. Darn! Hooray for holy-wooooooooooould…

  Manuela (picture her swiftly unfolding a ten-foot road map) needed a rest stop for such dealings. She was clean, joyful, sexy, intelligent, relaxed, and informal and quickly much Fred’s “slower” speed, although she exhibited a weirdly “bad” tendency to point. They married with the assist of a justice in Wabash within five poky months, and remain happily marriageable to this VERY day. Urrpppp. Wells, Manuella was skittish…Fred could end up alone agin. He don’ deserve it, he’s too calm a guy to hold onto anyone fer more than two years.

  Saturdays, Manuela y Fred go dancing in Unionville, same place as Gabe and Saragina met, the Eagle’s Second Hall, and square-dancing in the same club as Ed and Mabel “School” Jones. Fred was not the first black man to enter membership in the newly-named HotSteppers of Unionville, Square Della Rondeley Grover’s Yeehaw Club, and Chappiter Thirty-Five. And Manuela was the very first Hip-Hotstepper Lady. They cut a fine figure on the slower dances, as Fred sits many of them out. The club thinks he’s deep, and Tops. Next year he’ll be elected Treasurer, she’s going for Secretary.

  Artie never could see square-dancin’, sans contacts. “Ah lahks rock n’ roll hoe-down mo-town put down and been around!” He still free-styles the Shindig.

  Again at home, he grabs Caza, whirling her over his hairy head. “YAHHHHhhhh? Lemmee down!” she fakishly screams, but not shrilly, and he DOES. PHewwwww.

  Then she grabs his grey lapels, with flowers on either side, stuck face to face, and says if he flings her back up in the air again, she’ll do the Puke, or a flip, looping mythically skywards, as Artie is no longer drunk and has balance enough. Well, nahhh. He tosses her gently, remembering her heart, and she lands without their immediately falling over. Hot fulminations!

  “Life is, Shorty! Live it OVER! You should love your Wife! There ain’ nuthin’ goin’ on BUT life ‘less you holdin’ somepin’ big back on MAY!”

  Caza says she enjoys perpendicularity. Eventually they put on some music.

  GABRIELLO “BEAU” HOOTER woke up too early, of a depressingly nihilistic, hideous, insane, perverted and summarily twisted Saturday morn, yawned, and stretched, and sleepily noticed his soft, white, and snowy tiny miniscule forepaws. Furry, they were, and they tickled. He sneezed.

  He jerked awake, and was shocked to find he could only sit up partway. Plus he was extremely small, and furry. He could barely see over his covers. He was also color-blind. Then he looked down at what remained of himself.

  Omigod. I’m covered in snowy, bleachy fur, all over me. He thought: (har) Why, I’ve been turned into a pussy cat. And so “Jade,” the kitty, was born.

  This can’t be, he inwardly stuttered. I just yesterday ran completely outa tuna fish. Sara and I were going grocery shopping today. I was gonna grab six or so cans, on special, and a medium jar of low-cholesterol mayo.

  But no. This morning, out of the blue skiis, it’s “Return of Kafka, Part II.” I’m a pussy. How impoetic. I look like something named “Snowball.”

  “Meaoww,” he sleepily murmered, in the way of attempted dialogue. “MMeww. Muuurr.” What a predicament! He’d never get to wear his new high-tops, now. Purr-haps he could fit into one of them. Wonder what Roscoe would do in a situation like this?

  Bending all four new legs, he lurched upright, yawned, and stretched. And stretched some more. He had never stretched that far in his young life; it felt as though he doubled in length and straightaways folded back like an accordion. He chopped his chops in surprise, smeck-smeck. He glanced down at his usual pink tongue. But it was merely about half an inch long. Then he jumped down from bed, only to go into brief, jarred shock at the incredibly rough landing.

  God, how hard and cold the floor was. Brrrrrrrrrr. But how light he was…

  He was additionally stupefied by the tremendous lot of dust. Gigantic clots of caked dirt and dustbunnies. Roscoe would’ve choked to death on these. Can’t eat ‘em, he mused, and I haven’t swept for a week. Now I can’t. If Sara would, y’know, for me…gotta meet her in two hours. As a cat. Must be a karmic punishment, for laziness. I’ve been getting a lot of that, lately.

  Uh, no don’t think I can…I know, he decided, padding swiftly off on two sets of cushy li’l pink fluffy paws, I’ll go to the living room and fish out my I Ching. There’s spells that’ll turn me back into a normal human being again…if I can speak them aloud. Oooops, can’t find it. Thought it was in this pile, holy shit, where’d it go? My only wild hope. Fuck.

  Suddenly, Artie, Gabe’s former workbuddy, entered the one-time human’s apartment. Weird, exotic, ps
ychedelic smells hit Jade the Kitty’s mushroom nose.

  “Hey, big fella. Wha’s shakin’? Me an’ all da Vikings are gonna raid th’ east cosat of Angleland—yew wanna come ‘long? We’re gonna raize all dem shitty little villages, man, using M16s, and meltin’ tar with feathers. From birds you ate! An’ nervous gas outa mah butt! You cain’ back out on’s now, kitten! We gon’ eat them Angelfish suckas and them Sexy-uns-rayvenge! Pillage aspartame!! Are ya game? Wow, doo-ders, youse a real cat’s meow.”

  “Si, you said it,” said Jade, who apparently could manage speech after all.

  “I’ve been transmogrified—can you say transmogrified?”

  “No, man.”

  “I’ve been turned into a feline. Where’s a decent spelling book so’s I can switch-back?” Gabe ‘miaowed’ and tried to look appealing, like Rosco used to when he asked for his dinner.

  Politely and for the fourth time. Sara said he eats everything now.

  “Mountainous, man!” rumbled Artie. “C’mon, let’s go climbin’!”

  “I can’t do a Viking raid—I can’t even do lunch—I’m only sixteen inches long. They’ll eat me alive, those English dogs, or at least the fleas will.

  “If t’were forced to flea. Tick’s a silly idea.” Jade scratched—it was a pretty good ear. Vintage! “You’re raiding Vinland?”

  “Yeah! How’s ‘bout you raid th’ cathouse, man, that’d be yo spayed!”

  “Mouse likely it is. Do you think vermin will like me?” Jade blinked, pettishly. You might say he was being petty.

  “How dar’ you im-puma woman like that!” Artie magically grew a green suit with a purple paisley tie, a self-righteous expression, and a specious short haircut. Greying distinguishingly at the temples. Temples dedicated to Aikaterina, the Cat Goddess of Egypt.

  “And you a fur-man womanizer! You, you furball, ah’ll pull yer tail!”

  So screaming, newly-square “Artie” lurched down and grabbed Jade by his scruffy neck, which woke him up. It was really Saragina, Gabe’s girl, gently touching his hairless forehead. His hair was black as ebon, again She didn’t look whitely righteous. Gabe was lying in bed, still, and was largely a prone man.

  Sara was lovingly stroking his hair.

  “You’re having a nightmare,” she sexily whispered. Gabe felt his spine tingles all the way down to the base. ‘Awwww, poor Beau.”

  “No, I was a white kitty-catty,” he mumbled, albeit dryly. “Not a horsey.”

  A black and white Tuxedo female cat hopped and skittered by; Jade immejitely took off after her, tail lashing widly back and forth, sailing across the floor to catch up with this new, paranoiac prospect.