17

Orpheus and La Dolce Vita

By Phyllis Janowitz

Elect me president, why not, why not,
I promise you’ll be driven in servile
limousines to watch croquet balls tumble
on unimpeachable greens. Your daughters
will cavort with cellos through mellow

Afternoons, while you, reclining,
compose concertos on fresh hay.
This will keep your thoughts away
from mortar and from butter; when you
sketch with sticks on dusky walls,

depicting antelope and buffalo
lurching gracefully over nothing, no
piles of stock and venomous ilk
will coil in your way. I promise
each citizen an equal sum to write

lyrics, sonnets and loony tunes,
to put a bee in every bonnet humming
in iambics; strophes and tropes adding
root and bloom will exude exotic
aromas in a jungle of golden freesias,

a garden of tropical fruits. My dear
brethren and sisters (I will say, raising
long arms as if to fly), do we not belong
to the same flock, all of us pariahs,
white and black? Once, fast asleep,

did I not awaken in a bed which rocked
like a ship going down, a rumble like
loose lions in the dark? The term
“earthquake,” missing from my brain, by
its lack increased the residue of shock.

Oh elect me, if not president, then
present dick, then take stock and dead lock,
your local tic tic toe, tickets toc.
If I am elected we will play together
a game called the learning of names:

Porbeagle – a small shark of northern
seas noted for it for its voracity. Pooh-
pooh – to make light of. Trumpet wood –
a musical tree of the mulberry family
with hollow stems and shield-shaped leaves.

Oh let us, benevolently, look after
the charges of that astonishing mother
nailed to the beak of the barque;
she has given us slippery words to tend,
squirming infants swaddled in vulture skin

who know nothing about political aims.
We can unwrap and release them
to seed in sweet water. We can train
the small minnows to swim. Ah,
we can do whatever we like with them.

A full orchestra is playing the Presidential Suite as the President and Scott walk down the aisle at the Temple of the Intelligent Designer (Christian-Orientation). Scott wears white tie; the President in black. The newscaster explains how Mr President and Scott chose the minister, Reverend Murray Washington, who is head of the Ministry of Family Homeland Values and a former CIA operative who left the CIA after taking a science course which led to his conversion to the Church of Intelligent Design.

“This is really a star-studded event,” says the announcer as the camera pans the audience. “T. Dakota Gunnerson Jr., Kelvin Winter Redstone. I see behind them Barbra O’Neil-Gandolfini, DJ Woofty Woof Bambatta, Little Theresa of The Flowers, Amber-Daisy von Thiessen-Leoni.”

Grandpa turns off the hologramovision in disgust. “Elect me President” he mutters, “Why not?” The whole darn country is watching this stupid show, what a lot of rubbish. The collective unconscious has been drugged, a faint whiff of chloroform lingers on the surround – else why would it have been unconscious? “Back in the good old days,” he announces to no one in particular, since no one is there and he has been left alone again. “Back in the old days.” Then stops. What exactly had been so good about the good old days, anyway?

Except he knows things were better. Or at least not as bad as now. He has always said, they never should have drilled that hole through the earth’s core; ever since then things had gone askew. But why is it no one else seems to have noticed? And whenever he brings it up, they all nudge each other and wink and he knows they are thinking, there he goes again on one of his paranoid conspiracy rants. He is not paranoid, something really is wrong!

He had tried to raise his daughter with old-fashioned values, but what the heck were they? And anyway, he obviously hadn’t succeeded or else she wouldn’t have trapped him here in this wretched little house, all alone except for that constipated dog who, he could swear, kept muttering things to him. He knew better than to tell anybody, or who knew what kind of meds they would start him on. Here, his own flesh and blood worked at that fancy Retirement Home, he had seen the place, there was shopping and fine dining, indoor track and field, all kinds of night life, what the heck did she keep him here for, some kind of punishment because he had once borrowed a lot of money from her? He hadn’t yet been able to pay back. Why had he needed to borrow money from her anyway? Then it comes back to him, back in the glory days when he had his own Monument Design company, drawing plans for the most intricate gravestones which were made right on the premises. That was before the whole business went high-tech and he scrambled, unsuccessfully, to stay in business while all over the place, thanks to that indestructible plastic that could be etched with the person’s holograph image and various buttons you could press. “Hi, my name is Wyatt Corey Durango, and I was born in 2034 and died in –” etc. The general text could be prepared, basically, at any time prior to the event. “Press One to hear my life story. Press Two to hear the genealogy of the Durango Family. To view a slide show of the life of William Corey Durango, press Nine. If you’d like to leave a message, press Five, followed by the pound symbol. For Spanish, or to repeat this menu…”

Now she’s angry because she wasn’t even going to be able to sell his house, which she had made him sign over as collateral, because since the whole damn place is about to be swallowed up into the sinkhole. That isn’t his fault!

He begins to rummage through the one suitcase they had let him bring with him; she had thought it was his clothes and toiletries and a few old family photographs – hah!

Dearest Almuncle

Thanks for your reply, though it was a little bit late, but all the same am happy to hear from you.

Sir, I really appreciate all you have said in your mail and which is fine, but sir, if I may suggest, can you let me have your contact details to enable me forward it to my late in-laws lawyer and he will be in the better position to let you know all that the transaction may require, because I know that it will cost both of you some money as he rightly stated to me, since they will go to the High Court to make changes of ownership into your name as now the beneficiary to my late in-law. Please it is just the favor that I am asking from you.

Kindly reply now.

Thanks

Lady Aishat

Almuncle rummages for a pencil, one of those good old-fashioned writing utensils, and a scrap of paper, on which he replies hastily, before anyone returns and sees what he is doing –

dearest lady,

so do you have room to put me up in your home? do you want me to bring anything from new york city, like, i don’t know, some bagels or something? new york is kind of known for its bagels, you know. or maybe you would like some t-shirts that say I ♥ New Jewsey? if it is a problem for me to stay with you, i could bring my own sleeping bag and sleep on the floor – that way i won’t get your sheets dirty! at this point i am hoping to arrive sometime early next week, what i’ll do is, when i get to amsterdam, i’lll take a train to hoek and from there get a taxi right to your day care center. or do you think it is within walking distance? also, what is the weather like right now? should i bring one ‘evening wear’ outfit in case there are clubs or parties we might be going to, or will it all be kind of casual? either way, i look forward to seeing you next week and hope we can work out all the financial stuff once I get there –

best –

Almuncle

And so on and so forth. After all, what the heck did he have to lose? He was fairly certain that this offer, unlike so many others, was sincere, if only because of the picture Lady Aishat had sent him, which was goddamn sexy, though in a demure rather than provocative way. A nice old-fashioned gal.

Of course then there was the matter of finding a stamp. Mail was always safer, if you could ever get someone to collect a letter. Fortunately in the bottom of the suitcase he had saved some, over the years; nineteen cents, twenty-two cents, thirty-four-cent stamps, on and on, a couple from each era. Only now realizing that in order for there to be enough postage to the Netherlands, my gosh, that would be… what, a hundred eighty dollars or so? And no room on the envelope: he would have to find something larger to put the letter into, but then, of course, the postage would go up, and so many of his stamps were two cents, or three. He shuffles down the stairs. There’s what’s-his-name and what’s-her-face, smooching away on the sofa.

“Hi, Grandpa Almuncle!” It is Julie, nervously she breaks loose from Cliffort and jumps off the couch. “What are you looking for, can I help?”

Almuncle is distracted and forgets what he was doing. For a moment he remembers how, when he was young, grown-ups appeared so very old; someone his age must, to Julie, appear like a completely different species, a kind of ancient reptile on the verge of extinction.

“Believe me, it may seem unbelievable,” he growls. “One of these days you people are going to end up just like me, hah! That is, if you’re lucky! Yup, your breath turns bad, your skin all dried out and wrinkly.”

How odd it all seems now, how quickly the whole thing went by, none of it ever seeming really life-like. A kind of facsimile or replica. And perhaps the next time around, things would be different. But if there was a next time, what, indeed, would be the point if he couldn’t remember anything from this life? He would simply have to start all over again. “Who’s this inflated amphibian, what are you doing here, sir?”

“Grandpa? It’s Cliffort, remember? Hello!” She is waving at him, he must have zoned out, what was he doing, anyway?

“Mr Antrobus,” says Cliffort, “Maybe you’re hungry. I’ll go fix us a little snack, oookay?”

Now Julie is alone with her grandfather. She tries to hoist her pants. “You promise you won’t repeat this to anyone?”

“What’s that? No, no, of course not.”

“So… well, Cliffort was showing me how to shoot, only he didn’t know that I had, like, straight As in munitions and stuff? And so, I think it was because he put his hands on mine, and, and, anyway, it was right after I pulled the trigger that the plane crashed – I didn’t mean to do it!”

“Oh my gosh, so you were the one who pulled the trigger that brought that plane down? That is terrible. So many people killed! That is something you are never going to be able to forgive yourself for, so many lives destroyed and not just the people that you killed, but all their families!” He loves people, Almuncle thinks, it’s just his own family he can’t stand. Geez, one little nanosecond of fun, one little squirt of jism and he’s supposed to feel related to these offspring and their descendents forever? Even a damn dog wouldn’t bother.

Julie begins sobbing. She had been so certain Grandpa would reassure her and say it wasn’t her fault, or at least make her feel better. She never would have confided in him if she thought it was going to be like this. “But I… I never…”

“You never what? You never considered there would be repercussions to your actions? Julie, I don’t think this information is something I can keep to myself. Not when it involves the deaths of so many. I am going to have to have a think. What shall I do?” Meanwhile Julie’s got that gosh-darn red spotted cockaroach climbing over her shoulder waving up its feelers in alarm. “Oh for heaven’s sake, why don’t you keep that thing in a box, you know it’s going to get squished. Here,” he rummages through his treasures, “keep it in this.”

Snuffles. “What is it?”

“It’s what they call a matchbox. In the old days you rubbed a wooden stick against the side to make fire.”

“One stick? I thought they rubbed two together.”

“Whatever. It was a long time ago, anyway, before people had plumbing.”

At least her snuffles have diminished. She holds a blistered, blackened finger up to her shoulder. What the heck is wrong with her? The roach steps onto it and she carries it down to the matchbox.

“Oh, don’t tell anyone, Grandpa, please! You promised! And… and besides, tomorrow’s the day of the big test, can’t you at least wait until after it to decide, the big test will decide my entire life, just about!”

He agrees he will wait until after it is finished to decide what he should do.

The big test is the one that all the eighth graders have to take; from the results only a few would be selected, though selected for what, Julie – nor anybody else – doesn’t seem to know.

Anyway nobody from her school ever was selected, has ever been selected. Being selected is for the rich people who live out West, so why do they even make them take the test? And some of her friends are feeling as sick as she, though others are like, yeah, whatever. Knowing it is all hopeless anyway.

Of course with her mother, it’s, like, you’d better do well or I’ll kill you; but then her mother would always add, “I don’t know why I bother, you’re going to flunk, I’m sure.”

A lioness swats her baby for no reason that the cub can determine; so it was with Julie and her mother. But even if she had done fantastically her mother wouldn’t have been able to come up with the money for whatever it was that being selected would cost. She can’t sleep, between worry about the test and what her grandfather is going to do; Julie can hear him and Cliffort talking in the kitchen. Finally she remembers Tahnee has a few pills in her top drawer and she takes a couple of these, which do have a calming effect, so calming, in fact, that she oversleeps.

By the time Julie arrives at Robert Downey Jr. Junior High she has already missed first period, homeroom. At school the Christian Fundamentalist Survivalist kids are at war with the Iscarians, who believe that Judas Iscariot is the good guy and Christ was a promiscuous Jew, a belief that has become more and more popular. Strip searches are conducted daily on the kids to make sure no munitions are brought into the school. It can take an hour, waiting on line, girls separated from boys, sniffer dogs, and so on.

On the other hand, in case the Homeland is invaded, every child is given an assault weapon, which you are supposed to keep in your locker. Of course no one does, most of the lockers are too small to hold them, anyway, you can keep it at home. You are supposed to attend weekly practice, but it is so boring. There are ways to fake credit in the course or at least make up for it by going on a two-day sleep-away camp two or three times a year, where, like, you sleep in these bunkers and all the kids get high and stay up all night and almost always some kid gets his or her head blown off or drowns.

Robert Downey Jr. Junior High was built in the early part of the twenty-first century at a time when there was an unusual numbers of shoot-outs and bombs, and thus had been designed prison/Stalinesque in style, originally supposed to be fifty stories high with offices and stores on the top floors; this had never happened though, nobody wanted to rent office space way out here and the school didn’t have enough money to keep the whole place heated, lit, etc. so now only the first three floors are in use.

Julie always thinks the sprinkler system in the ceiling was constructed so the place could be flooded if things got really bad or the kids rioted. Then the halls, the cafeteria, the classrooms where no windows can be opened – would fill with water, a giant fish-tank or sewer system, with the kids clawing their way up to the ceiling for the last gasp of air. Trapped even without a flood, so trapped, the smell from the cafeteria wafting down the hall; ancient food steaming for days atop the steam trays; untouched string beans, watery, overcooked; instant mashed potatoes, Salisbury steak, tuna salad, and all of it reeking of peanut butter. Some years back something had gotten screwed up in the laboratory where they grew the school food. Some of the kids majoring in the Chef’s Institute work there, and they say that peanut butter enzyme – or flavoring? – had gotten permanently embedded with all the starter-yeasts so there isn’t one thing that doesn’t taste like peanut-butter. The kids joke about it, peanut butter and hamburger day! Peanut-butter sushi day! There had been a clean up over the summer but… it still hadn’t worked, even with new starter-food spores and growth-medium from the suppliers.

The problem is, if you want just a plain old peanut-butter sandwich, which is grown in loaves with layers of peanut-butter between layers of bread layers, it tastes like raw fish. The tomatoes, which grow in a sort of gelatin block and can be sliced, taste like fish and peanut-butter.

Outdoors it is no better: the playground was designed eons ago by a landscape architect hired by the Bermese Pythion company as part of their Art for the People public works which meant that they didn’t have to pay local taxes.

There are eighty kids in homeroom and it is impossible for the teacher to keep order, especially today, when all the kids are wrecks, knowing in a minute they will file to the auditorium for the test. Julie arrives and takes a seat in the back of the class. This is where the kids sit who claim to worship Deepak Chopra and Tupac Shakur.

And then it is time, the auditorium, the sheets passed out, the whole thing made to seem… scary. “You may now open your test booklets which you will find in your computers on www.EighthGradeEducation.com!” The principal’s voice cracks through the air. “And… you may begin!” Loud music comes on over the speakers, some of the latest hit tunes the kids have asked for.

Three whole hours; a quick lunch break and then more.

MATH:

If the time before Christ is B.C. and after Christ is a.d., what is the time during which he was alive called. A) D.j. b) d.c. C) J.C. D) the twelve thousand forty-five days

Gladys bought two shares in Bermese Pythion stock. Over a one-year period the 52-week high was 84.8 while the low was 63.29. If the quarterly dividends were .68 of a share and the last change was +8.01, what is your prediction for the next annual report in the event that the Warren Buffet clone is twenty years of age and available? show all work.

ENGLISH:

A cat-o’-nine tails is to the English as

a) Hologramovision is to an American b) Lala Rookh is to Muslims c) Perl Mista is to a dinner party d) Teapot Dome is to taffeta

An olive is to a chair as a) an umbrella is to an algebra equation b) as buttered toast is to an alarm clock c) a cataract is to a catamite

A borsalino is to an isotherm as a) gaiters are to a monstrance b) ontology is to a philanderer c) an anchorite is to a hectare d) a pood is to a jeroboam

Suttee is to a suicide as a) a suture is to a surgeon b) sewage is to a sturgeon c) a surge protector is to a superior d) solution is to a servant.

Oh, bowel movement, she thinks, she’ll try to guess – that gives at least a one in four chance – maybe it is sewage is to a sturgeon… then realizes, she doesn’t actually know what a sturgeon is, something to do with a boat? An old kind of sailing ship? In which case, they would have plenty of sewage on board – unless the toilets in those days went right in a hole down to the water – but then, in that case, wouldn’t the…

bilge, yes that’s the right word, wouldn’t the bilge come up, back into the sturgeon?

The ship’s sturgeon… her head really hurts, and to make matters worse, her laptop – on which the test is – emits an odd sound and the question is… it isn’t lost, exactly, it has mysteriously converted into a little table, a diagram of some sort, and she can’t revert it back to its original shape. Now so much time has gone by she knows she is going to flunk. Flips through the test, a picture!

SPORTS MARKETING:

In this famous work by Jean-Louis David, entitled ‘The Tennis Court Oath’ discuss the use of foul language at Forest Hills and Wimbledon in the centuries since this was first painted and how it compared to what was being said in French. Describe the similarities and differences in clothing style and logos, advertising and sponsors.

There are almost two thousand kids in her school who are in the eighth grade; only half can fit into the auditorium so the others will take the test, a different one, tomorrow. Most of the kids are illegal immigrants, and it is obvious the only jobs that will be open to them are at the fast food franchises, and nowadays you have to go to a two-year college for that, or else get all the service positions out in Nature’s Caul Valley, working for the rich people. Sitting next to her is one of the Chinese girls, for some reason they are mostly named Maya. If only she had been adopted from China, it really isn’t fair, how come her mother had found, like, the only two fertile guys left on the planet who naturally had no brains… And all those Chinese girls, when they grew up, they got to go to China where there were like, a billion guys for every girl.

At this rate she is going to fail completely. “Psst!” she says. “Maya… you gotta help me. I can’t do an essay! What am I supposed to write?” Maya ignores her… maybe she should just go on.

LOGIC:

What comes next in the following list?

High boy; cowboy; toy boy; rent boy; drummer boy; delivery boy; cabana boy; whipping boy; head boy; dough boy; Boy Wonder; cabana boy; dog boy; down, boy! fat boy; charpoy; golden boy; The Beach Boys; Boy George; cabana boy; po’ boy; tom boy; bugle boy; hoi polloi; house boy

Logic? Is that something they even learned? This isn’t working, if you can’t answer a question keep going but… there is another goddamned essay section of the test!

In Song of Solomon, Solomon says, “Of the writing of books there is too many.”

What were the names of the books? Use your best judgment. Defend your position.

Holy intestinal extrusion! Where has she been all semester? She can’t remember ever being assigned the Song of Solomon. Was it something in her Musical Theater and Film class? The whole thing is a nightmare, she could look it up but obviously, all ZiplineNet 23 service has been cut off… Everyone else is writing eagerly. Keep moving, keep going forward, then if there is time she can go back to check the work…

What was the largest grossing movie of 2029? Write a plot synopsis, explaining why you think that movie was so effective. Explain the difference between net and gross profit. Extra Credit: provide biographical detail of this film’s producer.

Just for fun? Just for fun? My gosh it is so difficult to do anything with her hands all bandaged up…

Oh b.m., b.m., British museum! Why had she been such a rectum and not studied more; let there be a fire drill, let there be a bomb threat, something has to happen, she is going to end up with a big fat zero and nowadays you gotta do better than that even to be a bathroom attendant.

To her horror, her computer is eating everything in front of her. It is just swallowing up the whole text, little bugs are crawling out from under the keys, not fake bugs but the damn cockroaches!

Not that she is the only one to have cockroaches in her laptop, mind you, it’s just that she isn’t as tidy as the other girls, something sticky is on the keys and maybe if she had spritzed with that disinfectant the teacher kept telling them all to use…

She gives the laptop a shake; man that thing stinks, piles, clouds of cockroach droppings, like pepper flecks, come tumbling out of the holes in the back and the stench is tremendous, that cockroach smell of death, along with a nasty collection of dried legs, feelers, fragments of carapace. She’s about to start smashing the emerging newborns (very new, since they are still in their just-hatched, newly white stage) when a big guy comes out and just in time she realizes she’s about to smash Greg! He’s got that red spot and he’s waving his feelers at her; quickly she scoops him up and zips him into her bag.

Chateaux, the girl next to her, wrinkles her nose: oh, come on, there is no way Chateaux lives in a place that is any cleaner, those damn bugs are everywhere, she only wishes Chateaux hadn’t seen her rescuing Greg, it’s going to get around school, she bets.

Maybe her prayers have been heard: the giant hologramovision screen on the wall in back of the stage, which is constantly turned on, goes blank.

The kids applaud, they are so sick of the Educational Station: pictures of canyons filled to the brim with beer cans, dying elephants, effects of drought where lakes are drying up, animals being euthanized in shelters, hurricanes wiping out villages, the polar ice-caps melting, irradiated kids dying where nuclear power plants have exploded, etc. etc., and while these scenes play, at the bottom of the screen is the number you can call to donate money – anyway, all this goes blank.

When it comes on again this time it is the President. The kids taking the test begin to cheer; if he is interrupting the educational channel they had better listen! Even if it means not completing the test!

“Today’s security has been upgraded to Code Lime/23,” he says. “I urge you all to return to your homes and remain calm. We believe the threat of terrorist action to be very real. We believe this to be a very deliberate attempt to sabotage the coverage of my wedding. Nevertheless we have no plans to cancel this evening’s hologramovision broadcasts of the wedding supper followed by dancing to the Duchin-Haywood Orchestra, and this morning’s ceremony, as you may know, has gone smoothly. However, at the present time for your own safety, details cannot be released. As citizens of our great nation, I suggest that you make sure your Homeland Emergency Supply Kit is fully stocked and has not reached its expiration date. While you stay close to home this afternoon and evening, a helpful hint might be to turn to the Shopping Network. To keep our economy strong, for a limited time only the updated Emergency Supply Kit 2200Q will be available at a special price. Shipping and handling not included.” The sound grows fuzzy, maybe something is really wrong?

While he is blabbing the kids begin to print out whatever part of the test they have finished and fold up their computers. At least this way maybe Julie can re-do the whole thing, she’ll have the excuse that, as a Homeland Girl Guard, she has security duties to perform and she can say that somehow in her haste the print-out got lost, they have to schedule a make-up test, right? Nothing ever happens when the President says there is going to be a terrorist attack anyway.

The war has been going on now for… what, thirty years? Sixty? It isn’t always the same war but close enough; different countries take over from time to time on one side or another, mostly to get their turn at off-loading some weaponry they had been forced to buy or manufactured themselves that is rapidly becoming outdated.

The buses are lined up outside the school and she is about to get on when her mother pulls up. “What are you doing, Mom? You’re not supposed to be out, you should have gone home, didn’t you hear it’s a Code Lemon?” She looks around at the kids lining up to get on the bus.

“You, young lady, are in big trouble…” Murielle is white-lipped.

Julie doesn’t dare speak. The car is full of rage, they are sealed in together in an airless room filled with wet concrete. They drive in silence. The house is not far from the lab and her mother’s work, La Galleria Senior Mall and Residence Home for the Young at Heart. Her mother knows the back routes.

Maybe her mother can be jollied out of whatever mood she is in. “Sure is hot out here, huh?” Julie says. Her mother doesn’t respond.

Usually the weather is far more changeable. This heat has gone on for months, no rain at all or when it does it has higher-than-usual acidity. The raindrops sting your arms, blister the siding of houses. There is nothing left alive outside the car, even where things are not paved over, the plants and trees have died long ago, except for the property around the Bermese Pythion laboratories, where specialized trees and grasses have been planted, also genetically engineered.

Her mother is definitely in a sulk. Now all Julie has to look forward to is a long evening of cleaning out her own animals’ cages in the basement, and then, before getting to play with them, she will have to fix dinner. It seems odd that her mother is not berating her or telling her what a difficult day she had. Murielle is in a deep black funk, speechless, a sack of skin filled with rage, slamming doors, maybe not speaking to Julie for days, weeks upon end… leaving Julie unable to figure it out. “Ma,” she says at last, nervously, “Ma, is everything all right? Is it that Grandpa told you?”

Her mother acts as if a cork is pried from her mouth. A gassy explosion. Julie flinches. “Grandpa? Why? What did you do to him?” Murielle drips with cold sarcasm. “Listen to me: I had a call today, from A. Jesse. He says things have gone missing from the labs at Bermese Pythion, things, I mean animals and did I know anything about it; you are suspected… Lucky for you I didn’t tell A. Jesse that I figured you probably had done it. I told him, ‘If she did take anything I don’t know anything about it, yes she has some pets at home but she’s had them a long time.’ Believe me Julie, if you did something and you get caught I’m not gonna be there to bail you out! Why can’t you be like your sister?”

Julie bursts into tears, she begs to be forgiven. “Ma?” Julie is frightened. “What’s going to happen?”

“I don’t know what to say, Julie, if they decide to come over and search and you have their lab experiments, that’s the main thing they’re afraid of, that the projects will get in the hands of the wrong people or infest an area. Dyllis will probably lose her job, and I guess if you have their things, they’ll send you to juvenile detention or prison, whatever a judge decides.”

“Ma, I don’t feel so good. You better pull over.” She is out the door, vomiting copious amounts of what appears to be lime Jell-O. Small raspberry-colored things writhe in the transmission-fluid-green pool.

“Julie, you look awful. All kind of… Oh my gosh, ugh, you got pimples! Lots of them. Holy Excrement, it’s that Cox-Weems Pox, what should I do?” Murielle peers intently. Boils are rising as she inspects.

“I’m fine, Mama. Maybe something I ate.”

“They said on HGMTV that it was a terrorist biochemical attack. We’re going to the hospital.”

“Ma! I just puked, that’s all.”

It’s no use.

The hospital it is.

It is so nice of Cliffort to visit her for a while and give her mother a rest. Murielle goes to the cafeteria for a quick cup of coffee and some green jelly. Cliffort is so dreamy, she can’t help but smile when she sees the nurses and doctors do a double take, he really does look like a movie star. He gently pats her on the tummy and then bends to her ear. “My gosh, Julie… you’ve got quite a little tum-tum there, there’s no way you think you might be… you know.”

“What?”

“Um, how to put it? In the family way, enceinte, preggers, knocked up, a bun in the oven, big with child.”

“But how could I be?” She can barely speak, her voice is a whisper and for some reason she is not allowed anything to drink. But she manages to whisper, “I mean, I’m too young, I never even got my period, how could I be?”

“Stranger things have happened,” says Cliffort with a wink. “As the actress said to the bishop.” He takes a step back as the nurse enters the room with two giant objects resembling pills, or coated candy, each a bit bigger than a fist. She shoves the first into Julie’s mouth and tells her to bite down. Then the nurse turns her over and inserts the other in her bottom.

Julie wants to scream but instead she bites down. The thing in her mouth is full of a kind of liquid chalk with the flavor of blue cheese. She wants to say maybe the nurse got the two things mixed up, put the suppository in her mouth by mistake? But she can’t speak, she is half-choked and in pain.

“Nurse Dawn?” Cliffort glances quickly at her nameplate. “Perhaps you can answer the question: a friend and I have a little bet going. He says a woman can’t get pregnant before her first period.”

“Untrue,” snarls Nurse Dawn, as she yanks out a chunk of Julie’s hair. “The lab has asked for this for analysis before the intubation. Then we’ll have to do another, after.”

“And, part two, could the mere presence of spawn in the vicinity of the vulva find its own way up the vaginal canal?”

“Spawn?”

“Sperm, semen, jism, spunk, cum, ejaculate, tadpoles, manly nectar –”

The nurse is distracted. “What? Oh yes, I s’pose it could happen.” Julie can’t help but think that her mother and Cliffort are taking a secret delight in what is being done to her. They watch her expression as plugs of skin are removed with some sort of device resembling a hole punch; then, most horrible of all, Nurse Dawn inserts a speculum so that scrapings can be taken, to prepare her for the intubation. A group of medical students enter the room in order to watch.

By stretcher she is taken down the hall and placed in a narrow tube that slowly slides into another tube for resonancing of some sort, which wouldn’t be so awful except her body has to be practically frozen to reduce her temperature, she has to lie naked on a bed of ice for nearly an hour. They put a nasty suctioning device into her ear and painfully vacuum stuff out which hurts an unbelievable amount.

Still they keep saying they are trying to lower her temperature; she is sure she has heard a doctor say she is to be given some pain medication but no one does this and instead, still naked on the bed of ice, she is deposited on a stretcher in a hallway where everyone who walks by stops to stare.

Hours go by. More and more people – doctors? Interns? Official-looking men in drab suits! And someone claiming to be the Head of Security for Bermese Pythion – he wants to talk to her, even though she is stark naked and shaking! But curiously he disappears when she pukes, this time a lemon-yellow material, spongiform in appearance, dappled with holes from which protrudes something resembling waving, wiggling antennae…

At last it is decided she probably doesn’t have the Cox-Weems Pox; nevertheless, she should be admitted overnight. It may be some side-effects from being near the airplane crash, the fall-out of frozen sewage. She keeps protesting, she doesn’t feel sick! But after a while with the patronizing smiles and the peculiar-smelling air: a rubbery odor of powdered latex examining gloves, of Band-Aids, of rubbing alcohol, of recycled air, she slowly begins to think that, after all, maybe there is something wrong. In the next bed a woman is moaning behind curtains and buzzing for the nurses over and over. “Madam,” says Cliffort, “don’t you get it? Nobody is going to come!”

Around nine that night her mother announces she is going home. Cliffort lingers. “Don’t worry, Julie, if you are pregnant I’ll be happy to practice couvade,” he whispers, pulling the curtain closed as he crawls into the bed alongside her.

“Cliffort, what are you doing?” His tongue is in her ear, his soft webbed fingers are caressing her, making fluttery circles on her hot skin.

“Cliffort loves his Julie, Cliffort wants it real bad. Cliffort can’t wait any longer.”

“But Cliffort.” Julie is nervous, someone can come and pull the curtain aside at any moment. “Not here, not now! There are other people around!”

“Ssshhh, ssssh, it’s okay.” His pants are down, he’s peeling back her hospital gown.

“Please, Cliffort, you gotta go now!”

“Don’t you know what this does to a man, Julie? I’m starting to get green balls! Come on, just play with me down there a little bit.”

“No, no, I don’t care! Cliffort, get out!”

He stares at her coldly and gets up. “Very well, if that’s how you feel,” he says. He pulls on his pants and stalks out.

A nurse comes into her room; this one is tremendous, dressed in white, an overgrown loaf of pumpernickel, sour and yeasty. “Turn over,” she says.

Now Julie wants to call Cliffort to come back, but it’s too late, the nurse angrily pulls up her hospital gown and jabs her a number of times with something that burns as it goes into her buttock cheek. “What is that for?”

“Never you mind,” says the nurse. The nurse is furious but what did she, Julie, do to make her so angry? Julie has tried her best not to bother anyone, not to ask for anything to drink, not to buzz to use the bedpan until it is imperative; Julie smiles when the nurses come into the room, she tries to be helpful and informs them that the woman in the next bed is dead but… they obviously don’t like her!

The injection makes her itch; she scratches herself uncontrollably until, around three in the morning, just as she is drifting off to sleep, two different nurses come in, give her another injection and then, this time, tie down her hands. “No more scratching!” one says glibly. “It will leave scars!”

“You were lucky that the airline company agreed to pay for your hospital costs,” Murielle says when, back home, Julie complains. “Besides, that’s how it’s supposed to be in a hospital, and you were in one of the best.”

“But Mom, I can barely see – and I feel little teeny explosions inside.”

“Keep the bandages on, your eyes might get better. I don’t like to have to leave you alone, but I have to go back to work. When I go off to be with A. Jesse things will be different, and I think he can help us get you girls a settlement from the airline.”

“No!” Julie doesn’t want to explain she doesn’t want a settlement, it should be she who makes restitution to them! She is sobbing but no tears come out.

“Look, don’t cry. None of us can afford to cry right now. Why don’t you watch hologramovision? I left you a can of soup on the counter, all you have to do is put it in a bowl and turn on the microwave, just be careful when you take it out. You don’t really need to see to do that! And there’s tuna-fish, from the deli. You’ll be all right. Just call me if you get scared.”

Julie feels her way to the kitchen, opens the door to the fridge. Then pries off the top of a plastic container, sticks in her finger, pulls something out, maybe an olive? But when she tastes it, a color, sky-blue, or… no, it’s closer to rich deep purple, filling her mouth and in the air hangs a yellow 11. What the heck is that all about? 11. An idea of… egg-flavored icebergs, maybe sort of like meringues… ovoid shapes… a whole lot of information is getting scrambled up… maybe her ear-microdot is coming loose or the battery getting low 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 11 Somehow her wiring might have gotten switched to… a cooking show? All she knows is, it is awful and when a bell rings in the distance – the doorbell? – it smells meaty. Rotten meat at a low temperature. Or… chalky stale bird droppings?

Maybe it is just the stupid disease.

She is panicky restless. Shaky. Everything is all wrong. Something comes back to her, one of the doctors saying to another, if the pustules don’t erupt there is a strong chance of lesions in her head. What if everybody started feeling this way? Slimy walls, custard mattress. Nasty floating motes, the size of gigantic amoebas and whole paragraphs out of books, just hanging up there.

Hours pass, she is alone, it is dark.

“Julie?” A banging on the door. “Julie, it is me, Rima Patel, I heard the news that you are ill –” Mrs Patel is so so nice, she has brought her dhal and homemade puri and raita and rice, rice pudding and carrot halwa, things with cardamom and rose water. “Julie, I am here also, Mahendra Patel, from next door. We did not mean to disturb you, but Locu has been asking us to see how you are doing, he is worried about your sister, but he knows your mother does not care for him. Julie, where is Sister, he is driving us crazy.”

“Mahendra, the child is looking terrible, how can they leave her alone like this?”

Cool wet rags over her face… She sleeps, mostly… Someone comes into her room in the darkness and stands by the door… She is sometimes, dimly, aware there is noise, there are people blocking the doorway. It now seems that Mahendra and Rima and her own grandfather are taking care of her, but where is her mother, where is Cliffort, why does he hate her now, where’s her dad? Sometimes in her long trances she, the original Julie, emerges briefly, wondering whose voice is banging on, sinks back down again. Sometimes, Sue Ellen is there beside her, but who wants to have a wet spot that thinks it is trapped in a dirty ashtray, as a friend?

It is exhausting and each day her head hurts more than the last. The headaches now almost never go away. And yet her condition is not completely without pleasure. The root scent of a forest truffle, combined with the color blue, and the c-chord played on a slide guitar connected each time she hears the words “multiple ulcers” and “watering-can” along with the soft mouse? Or is it a hamster?

Okay, so things are not exactly right.

When everything is quiet in her head she turns on the HGMTV. There has to be some show on that can distract her and at least she can still see the picture, kind of, it is in 3-D from floor to ceiling…

The President is saying, “War with the Liberiayanesetrian people has escalated and it has become necessary…” Suddenly he puts his hand up to his ear… “What? Oh, I beg your pardon… The war with the Burkina-Bissau-Guinean-Faso (kind of complicated, but for your folks listening out there, ‘Faso’ gives you a clue as to what kind of system they believe in) people has escalated as once again they have refused to accept democracy and the decent way of life…”

She turns to another channel but he is still there, and on all the successive channels, it’s the State of the Union, except for the shopping show: he has pretaped his news conference, but is Live-on-the-Shopping-Network. “Hello Julie, and welcome to the diamond show,” the President says. “Folks, we have a new viewer who has just joined us… Does anybody want to tell her your feelings about diamonds? Yes, we have a caller!”

“Hi, this is Ashley, and I’m calling from North Carolina. You know, I bought the diamond ring, Julie, and it is just beautiful! I really hope you get one!”

Someone’s come in through the front door; maybe it is Cliffort, saying he forgives her. He is rarely around, he spends his days doing something, but she doesn’t know what, she thinks it has something to do with insects. When he is there he hardly speaks to her, he makes sure they’re never alone together, she feels awful! Julie picks up the remote control to turn off the HGMTV. “Hang on there just a minute, Julie!” says the President just before Julie switches him off.

“Daddy!” she says with delight.

Slawa strokes her upper arm, one of the few places they haven’t bandaged. “My little Julyka, my little my wixen, my wermin.” When she was little Julie would howl with laughter whenever Slawa pronounced his ‘v’ as ‘w’, he is doing it now to try to cheer her up but it has the opposite effect. He’s so upset at seeing her he doesn’t know what to say. “So how is Mother? And your sister?”

“Mom’s fine. Tahnee, you know, she’s at boarding school. She got a scholarship. Daddy, Daddy, see my ring?” Tahnee has lent her the ruby ring while she is away and Julie has wrapped it carefully in a bit of tissue, so that her dad can’t see there is a finger in it. Even though the finger has shrunk, she still can’t pry it out. Fortunately he merely glances at it before she tucks it away. “Oh, Daddy… oh, Daddy.”

“What is it, my little cabbage?”

“Oh Daddy, there are so many things, like, I shot down the plane –” Without thinking she blurts it out, oh Daddy.

“No, no, Julie, that is nonsense. Your grandfather has spoken to me about this silliness. He is miserable old man, Julie. You shooting, maybe, but not your fault plane is crashing. Cannot happen this way.”

“Oh, Daddy, are you sure?”

“Yes, of course you tell police this is what happen, they laugh at you. No one will believe this, or peoples not receiving insurance money from plane company. What else, my shapka?”

“Oh, Dad, all those animals I took home from the lab, Mom says I stole them and they’re really mad at me and I’m going to be locked up –”

“What, all your little pets you find outside laboratory, or dying inside? And only now they are finding out some things are missing? No one will say nothing, Julie, you will see, this kind of place no want the publicity on what they are doing to animals, and you find them mostly outside in garbage –”

“That’s true, Daddy, and I never took anything that wouldn’t have been thrown out anyway because it was almost dead –”

“And so they don’t notice an animal missing; how you think they will look if they announce now, for six years he has been missing.”

“And we really did find Breakfast outside, Dad!”

He clutches his head in his hands.

“Dad? Are you alright?”

Since Bocar’s uncle hit him with a bat, he has these terrible pains, not all the time but when they come they are excruciating. “No, it’s nothing. I am thinking. This is true, yes, we finded the dog outside, he is stray. Don’t worry, I am your father, I will take care of everything. I am here to look after you.”

“Oh, Daddy. I love you so much.” She sighs happily.

“Julie my love, I gotta go, I’m not supposed to be here. So, you feel better now? Is there anything else?”

“Oh, Dad, there is one more thing – promise you won’t be mad?”

“No, of course I will not be mad, you tell me.”

“I think… It was like this, I am kind of in love with Cliffort? You know, the guy looking after Grandpa? And so, one day he took me out, and I didn’t know what was happening, exactly, ’cause as it turned out he didn’t have a thing –”

“A thing? What kind of a thing?”

“You know…”

“No, I am not knowing. What is this ‘thing’?”

“His, um… private parts… You know, the part that men have.”

“His cock? He missing his cock?”

“Yeah, I guess…”

“Thank the Designer, Juliana, you know in this country if something happen, there is no abortion, no health insurance, Yuliya I don’t know how to explain, but for the people like us – we are never going to get out of trap, and that is where they want us to be.”

She doesn’t really know what he is talking about, only that he is upset. “But Dad, I don’t think he has a thingy, but… Dad, I didn’t really know what was happening, you know, but then, when stuff came out of him, which he said was, like, spawn or something, I think some of it got up into me and, so oh, gosh, now he’s mad at me and he’s not speaking to me. I want him back! I might be pregnant.”

She sees her father has turned pasty white, eyes narrowed in a pure blue-steel rage.