Fractal Paisleys Read online

  I swiftly fuse the end of Cynthia’s one-way cable for the actor with my one-way cable for her, which I have just unplugged at her end.

  She straightens up as if goosed by Godzilla and wheels around to face me.

  “Zildjian, you’re—you’re different somehow.…”

  Even knowing what’s going on, I am overwhelmed by the synergy of the new connection, which is full and taut as a firehose under pressure. “Cynthia, I—you—”

  “Oh, come play in my strawberry field!”

  After that, its our own private Beatlemania.

  The next few days proceed swimmingly.

  I get a new car and a line of credit without even putting on a necktie. It’s only a small matter of establishing the proper connections. At the car dealer’s up near the Plaza Hotel, I borrow the owner’s hookup to his elderly grandmother.

  “No money down, no payments till next year, and no finance charges? Why not? I’m sure you’re good for it.”

  At the bank, I utilize the loan officer’s feelings toward his mistress to secure a large sum of cash, a Gold Card and no-charge checking with fifty-thousand-dollar overdraft protection. The only complication is his hand on my knee.

  I maintain both these links for a few days to insure that the dupes do not come to their senses and renege on the deals before they are solid. (I am a little troubled about the cold shoulders which are no doubt being received by Granny and Lolita, but reassure myself that things will soon be back to normal for them.) Finally, I gratefully sever the adopted links, watching them retract through their transdimensional wormholes. Hopefully, they will re-establish themselves with their natural objects.

  What a relief, I can tell you. It has always been my philosophy that you’ve gotta go through this world as free as you can, and these extra bonds drag me down.

  I think from time to time of the monk, and his single golden cord.…

  Cynthia and I spend the next couple of weeks having some major fun, she having turned in her tail-feathers. We eat at the best tables in the best restaurants, gain immediate entrance into the smartest clubs, receive front row concert tickets for the hottest acts gratis, and in general carve a path through the city like Henry Moore through a block of granite.

  One day Cynthia asks me to accompany her to the hospital, where her sister has just had a baby.

  At the maternity ward window, I stare in disbelief at all the squalling or sleeping infants.

  Each one has a single golden cord, just like the monks. A few of the older ones have tentative parental connections, but basically its just that one heavenly stalk going straight up to who-knows-where.

  After that, I start examining kids everywhere more intently.

  Most of them seem to maintain their heavenly birthright pretty much intact up till about age three. After that, it starts to dwindle and dim, getting thinner and paler until it finally vanishes around age ten, tops.

  In all of New York, I fail to find an adult other than the missing monk who still has what he or she was born with. And that includes, natch, me.

  Of course, I am not exactly hanging in the places where such a person might necessarily be found.

  And although several times I almost take the opportunity to unplug a kid’s golden cord and sample the current flowing down it, I never quite dare.

  I realize I’m afraid it might reveal how shallow what I’m doing is.…

  One day about a month after getting the Lennon spectacles, just when I am starting to get bored with how easy life is, I am driving alone down First Avenue when I encounter an enormous flock of cars being herded by a squad of sheepdog cops. Poking my head out the window, I politely inquire of a policeman as to what’s going on.

  “It’s the President,” replies the cop. “He’s speaking to the U.N. before the war starts.”

  “The war? I thought the war was over.…”

  “That was the last one. This is a new one.”

  “Well, who are we against this time?”

  “Whatsamatta, doncha watch TV? The enemy is South Arabiraniopistan. Their leader’s here too. He’ll be lucky if he don’t get lynched.”

  I am not sure I have gotten the name of the country right; I never was one for following politics much. But this war-thing is definitely bad news of at least the magnitude of the incarceration of James Brown.

  Suddenly I recall my vow to do something good for all humanity.

  I get out of the car and hand my keys to the cop.

  “Here, park this, willya.”

  He starts to open his mouth to utter some typical cop thing, but I deftly make use of his obedience cable to his superiors (a slimy thing I always hate to touch), and secure his complete cooperation.

  The U.N. is crawling with security. I watch for a few minutes until I ascertain who the head honcho is. Then I approach him.

  This is not a time to cut corners, so I indulge in a little overkill. Not only do I quickly yank and plug into my skull his obedience connection to his distant boss, but I also take over his links with his wife, dog, son and what appears to be his riding lawnmower. (I always said these G-men were sickos.)

  “Would you mind escorting me in?” I ask sweetly.

  “Of course, sir. Right this way.”

  Issuing orders over his walkie-talkie, the Secret Service agent soon conducts me backstage in the Assembly chamber.

  I now face a minor problem: how to get close enough to the President for what I need to do. My outfit is certainly not going to help, as I am wearing a Hawaiian shirt, green scrub pants a friend stole from Bellevue, and huaraches.

  Improvise, improvise. “Loan me your suit coat.”

  “Certainly.”

  Thus somewhat more suitably accoutered, clutching a shopping list from my pocket as if it were a classified memo I must deliver, I step out onto the dais, my captive agent dutifully running interference for me.

  The platform is full of seated dignitaries. The Secretary General is speaking at a podium. Television cameras are focused on us. I have always wanted to appear on television, but not in this fashion.…

  Using the narrow space behind the rank of chairs, I sidle up inch by inch to where the President and his counterpart are seated. The Prez’s prep-school Puritan face is puckered into a mask of righteous indignation. The leader of our enemy wears a smug duplicitous puss like what you might see on a drug dealer who just successfully tossed his stash out the car window and down a sewer before the narcs closed in.

  No one is paying any attention to me.

  Yet.

  A thick orange scaly hawser of hate runs between the two leaders. I’ve never seen anything so malignant-looking. I truly believe for the first time in the reality of war.

  I am now within reach of the emotional linkages of these geopolitical megalomaniacs. Unfortunately, people are starting to take notice of me, and not in a kindly way.

  Before they decide to do something, I act.

  Gripping the hate-cord with both hands, I attempt to yank its ends out of the leaders’ heads. The resistance is immense. I strain—to the audience, both at home and in the Assembly, it must look, I am sure, as if I am gripping an imaginary barbell with the leaders’ heads as weights and trying to press it for an Olympic record.

  Finally, the hate-cord pops out. Both leaders jerk like gaffed barracudas.

  I can’t resist leaning forward and whispering in their ears.

  “Imagine there’s no countries, boys, it’s easy if you try. And war is over, if you want it.…”

  In the next instant, I pop the Prez’s patriotism link and plug it into the head of the South Arabiraniopistan guy. Then I swiftly jack the other guy’s loyalty into the Prez.

  All the hoodoo movements this involves over the heads of the two leaders is apparently too much for the unseduced security people, who now pile on me as if I were the football in a Super Bowl game.

  My Lennon glasses shoot off my face and fly through the air. I think I hear them crack. But I could be wrong. Sounds
are rather muffled through a layer of human flesh atop me.

  I black out.

  During this more-than-usually-unconscious state, Lucy appears to me, naked and resplendently begemmed.

  “A fine job, Zildjian. You are welcome to visit us anytime.” She starts to fade.

  “Wait, hold on, how do I get back to where I once belonged…?”

  But there is no answer.

  I am in prison for only six months. The pants from Bellevue helped my insanity defense. I don’t mind. Even if no one else realizes what I’ve done, I can relish being a working-class hero. Much to my amazement, Cynthia visits me three times a week. I had somehow thought that all the relationships I had rigged might vanish with the glasses.

  During my imprisonment, I am proud to report, our President and the leader of South Arab-etc., after their stunning reconciliation in front of the entire world, are photographed playing miniature golf together at Disney World.

  One day thereafter, I am walking down Broadway when I see the most familiar peddler dude.

  I cautiously approach the monk. He smiles broadly and points to the top of my head.

  “Nice looking lotus blossom you got there.”

  I don’t let on that I am pleased. “Hunh. Whatcha got for sale today?”

  The monk holds up a pair of clunky black retro plastic frames. They look vaguely familiar.…

  “The name ‘Peggy Sue’ mean anything to you?”

  Can one write a funny story that opens with an attempted suicide? The question is not as oxymoronic as it first appears. Much humor involves pain, but viewed through a suitably objective lens. As Mel Brooks once remarked: “Tragedy is when I get a thorn in my thumb. Humor is when you fall down a hole and die.” Another rock reference aids in the title.

  Mama Told Me Not to Come

  “Aren’t you having fun yet, Loren?”

  I lifted my head slowly. It felt like it belonged to someone else. Some sadomasochist who had stuffed it with sand, used the tongue for a doormat and the eyesockets for a photobath, then left the whole mess out in a cold autumn rain.

  Ann Marie, my hostess, towered over me, glass in hand. The numerous drinks she had consumed that night had done little to mute her incorrigible perkiness.

  “Do I look like I’m having ‘fun’ yet, Ann Marie?”

  I was sitting on the floor in a corner of Ann Marie’s living room, clasping my upraised knees. I was wearing the same stained suit I had worn for the past week, twenty-four hours a day. My hair resembled a haystack pitched by one of the less competent Snopeses. The stubble on my face was patched with dried mustard from a steady diet of cart-vendor hot dogs.

  All around me swirled and bubbled, perked and pooled, churned and chortled, shrieked and shouted, guffawed and gasped, tinkled and crashed that strange human activity known as—a party.

  A party I was in no way a party to.

  Ann Marie tried to focus her chipmunk-bright gaze on me, and, after womanful concentration, succeeded.

  “Hmmm, well, now that you mention it, Loren, I have seen you look happier, not to mention more smartly dressed.…”

  From a far-off room came the noise of breaking glass, followed by yelps, cheers and what sounded like curtains being ripped off their rods.

  “Ann Marie,” I said wearily, “don’t you think you’d better see what’s going on with your other guests? It sounds like they’re demolishing your lovely apartment.…”

  I believe it was one of the more feebleminded kings of England of whom it was said: “Be careful what idea you put into the King’s head, for once inserted it is nigh impossible to dislodge.” Ann Marie, especially after a certain amount of booze, was similarly singleminded. And now I was the sole object of her concern.

  “Oh, I’m not worried about anything,” she said blithely. “I bought special party insurance just for tonight. After all, it’s not every day you get the chance to welcome in a new century.”

  “An astute and unarguable observation, Ann Marie.”

  “You see, I don’t care what anyone does tonight, as long as they’re having fun! And that’s why I’m worried about you. You’re obviously not having fun!”

  “Fun” was a concept I could no longer wrap my mind around. It seemed to me now in my despair that I had never understood the word. I doubted anyone really did. All I wanted was to be left alone until midnight. Locking eyes with Ann Marie, I tried to communicate this.

  “Ann Marie, do you know why I came to your party tonight?”

  “Why, to have fun with your friends, of course.…”

  “No, Ann Marie. Although that might have been true at one time, it is unfortunately not so now. I came, Ann Marie, simply because you live on the forty-ninth floor.”

  A look of absolute bewilderment instantly transformed Ann Marie’s face, as if she were one of those dolls with a button in their backs that swapped their expressions.

  “It is a nice view of the city, Loren, but you’ve seen it a hundred times before.…”

  “Tonight, Ann Marie, I intend to see it up close and personal,’ you might say. At midnight, when everyone else is celebrating the beginning of a glorious new century, I am going to open your sliding glass door—assuming none of these ‘party animals’ has broken it before then, in which case I shall simply step through the shard-filled frame—and emerge onto that small square of unadorned concrete you insist on calling a ‘patio,’ from the railing of which I shall instantly hurl myself into space, thus ending my complete and utter misery.”

  Someone twisted the button in Ann Marie’s back, dialing up an expression of shocked disgust.

  “Do you have any idea, Loren, what a bummer that would be for everyone who’s trying to enjoy themselves?”

  “I am not too keen on the notion myself, Ann Marie. But it seems like the only thing left for me to do.”

  Ann Marie dropped into a squat beside me, sloshing some of her drink on my pants leg in the process. Not that it mattered.

  “Tell ol’ Annie all about it, Loren. What’s wrong?”

  “It’s quite simple. Precisely one week ago, my whole life fell apart like a dollar wristwatch. In the space of a single hour, Jenny left me and I lost my job.”

  “I wondered why she wasn’t with you. What happened?”

  “I still don’t know. I got home and found a note. It said that she was flying to El Ay with someone named Reynaldo.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “You knew about Reynaldo?”

  “She swore it was just a fling.…”

  I dropped my head into my hands and listened to someone moan for about thirty seconds before realizing it was me.

  “There, there, Loren,” said Ann Marie, patting my shoulder. “She was never good enough for you.”

  “But I still love her, damn it!”

  “You’ll find someone else, I’m sure. Once you get yourself looking respectable again. Why, the new love of your life could even be here tonight! And I’m sure you’ll land another job.”

  My laugh must have been awfully loud and eerie-sounding, to cause everyone in the immediate vicinity to look at me as they did. Even Ann Marie appeared shocked, and she knew what I was feeling.

  “Don’t tell me—” she began.

  I feared I was shouting, but I couldn’t help it. “Yes! I’ve been replaced by an expert system! A thousand dollar software package has taken my place! Six years of higher education down the fucking tubes! There’s nothing left for me but a government retraining camp.…”

  “I hear the meals are great…,” said Ann Marie half-heartedly.

  I scrambled awkwardly to my feet. Seven nights of sleeping on park benches and steam gratings had taken their toll. “I don’t care if they serve stuffed fucking pheasant! I’m going to kill myself! Do you all hear me? I’m going to take the big dive! Tickets on sale now!”

  “Loren, please! People are trying to start the new millennium off with a cheerful attitude!”

  All the spirit went out of me. To say I fe
lt like a sack full of shit would have been to err on the side of cheerfulness. I felt like an empty sack that had once held shit. “Okay, Ann Marie, you win. I’ll be a good boy. Until the clock strikes twelve. And then I’m going to make like a crippled pigeon.”

  Ann Marie’s native idiot exuberance reasserted itself. “That’s wonderful, Loren. I’m sure something will make you change your mind before you do anything rash. Now, let me see. First you need a little drink. Then, we’ll introduce you to someone exciting. Who would you like to talk to?”

  “No one.”

  “Oh, don’t be a poop! I know! There’s this real character that Sam brought with him. The guy claims to be a Greek god of some sort. Imagine! Now, he’ll make you forget about your teensy-weensy troubles.”

  “Is he Charon? That’s the only one I feel like meeting.”

  “Sharon? I told you, he’s a guy! Now, c’mon.”

  I let Ann Marie lead me away.

  I didn’t have anything planned for an hour yet.

  All around us the party was accelerating like a piano dropped from a penthouse suite, promising as spectacularly clangorous a finale.

  Five people were monopolizing the middle of the living room with a game of Coed Naked Twister. A bottle of baby oil seemed to be involved. Their audience were the people sitting three-deep on the couch, seemingly oblivious to the fact that one of the cushions appeared to be smoldering. In the corner diagonally opposite the one I had been occupying, there was a knot of bodies around what appeared to be a burbling hookah. A crowd was gathered in front of the flatscreen HDTV, playing a drinking game: every time the septuagenarian Dick Clark said “rockin’ in the millenium,” whoever failed to shout “Let’s party like it’s Nineteen-ninety-nine!” had to chug from a fifth of peppermint schnapps. What appeared at first to be a diapered child draped with a New Year banner was drawing with crayons on the wall. Upon closer inspection, I saw he was a dwarf, and his drawing elegantly obscene. From the next room a DAT player blared over the sound of projectile vomiting, and I could feel dancers shaking the floor. The whole building, in fact, seemed to be quaking. None of this, however, managed to wake the mousey woman who had gone to sleep six feet off the floor atop a narrow bookshelf.