ELEVEN

The Ultraworld!

[1994] (Hollywood, CA)

The smog formed a low haze over Santa Monica Boulevard, yet did nothing to mediate the heat. But within the controlled environment of Dirty D’s Donut Hole, the arid chill of conditioned air lent some relief for the wayfarer from outdoors, or a means to avoid and ignore such realities for those disinclined to face them.

OFFICER FRIENDLY, sensing the presence that lurked over him, looked up from the game board over which he’d bent to assess this stick-figure person who stood, droop-faced and flop-hatted, denim jacket tatter-hung like a sorry scarecrow – scary, yes, no doubt to some birds – over his frame of bones.

“I’m only here now,” Willy said.

“Uh huh. I see. Staying out of trouble, are you?”

But Willy only stared back, eyes framed in deep hollows.

“Have the two of you met?” indicating Davis across the board from him, whose arched back and nose held close over the board and its many scattered pieces the policeman, without meaning to, imitated. Davis looked up at Willy, and Willy down at Davis, though the two said nothing.

Outside, in the street, thick traffic crawled past, in a moment slowing to a stop at the light that had just turned to red. All cars, waiting, spewed extra smog into the air.

“What happened to your shoes, Willy?”

The stick-man stood in socks. His arms hung at his sides.

“The last I saw you, you could hardly stop talking. Now you’ve got nothing to say. Alright then, have a seat if you like. We’re just playing a little… ah…”

“I’ve moved, now you have to move. I’ve moved the Wailing Song of Soldiers from there to here. Look. You have to move now, it’s your turn, go.”

“I understand that, Davis. I’m examining my options. Let me think.”

“You’ve been thinking. You’ve been thinking. Now you have to move, now go.”

“Fine. I’ll move this…”

“You can’t move that. That’s the Fulcrum. You know that’s the Fulcrum, I told you, you can’t move that until the Bird hits the window and we’ve both seen it–”

A deep and hollow bang! sounded and hung a moment, resonant in the drum-struck warp of one large glass panel beside them, and all three turned to look at once at the small flapping thing that fell to the pavement and bounced, once, pathetically to a stop, all except for the one wing, left exposed toward the sky, which for some nerve-purpose continued to pump itself repeatedly, slowly, like a sad, small machine, up at the empty sky and back again against its tiny bird body. It did this for some few seconds, then didn’t.

Jun-suh, coming to investigate the noise, stood over them and looked as well towards this thing where all eyes were fixed. “I think it’s a finch,” he said, helpfully. “A finch, yes.”

“Okay, okay, you can move it now. Go.”