The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai (12 page)

Her musicianship was the only constituent of her repertoire of talents needing improvement in order for her to “make” residency and join our lively group, and it seemed to her paradoxical that musical composition, so neat on the page and so mathematical in form, should so seek to involve the emotions in its performance. Her problem, I suspected, was not a poor ear, or a lack of facility with her hands, but an overabundance of earnestness.

“How are your piano lessons with Rawhide coming?” I asked.

“Not as well as I would like,” she said earnestly. “We don’t seem to accomplish as much as we should.”

I felt for the first time in several minutes the urge to smile but did not, the increasing severity of B. Banzai’s facial expression overshadowing our idle intercourse, as he perseveringly dotted the reverse of her page of calculations with strange formations of figures.

“It increases and diminishes almost at regular intervals,” he said to Big Norse. “Have you managed to find a pattern?”

“You mean a code?” I queried.

“Exactly.”

She shook her head. “It rather seemed like a greeting to me when I first isolated the major features,” she said. “I overlaid it with several code wheels, but none of them applied. Any suggestions?”

He held up his hand for quiet, listening. “There’s something about it that I perceive to be familiar—why? It booms and then lapses into silence.”

Buckaroo then lapsed back into silence himself, anxiously scribbling with pad and pencil; and for the historical record, if nothing else, I inquired of Big Norse her thoughts at this moment.

Her words were well-chosen. “It means there is intelligent life in the universe other than ourselves,” she said.

“And they’re headed this-a-way.”

“They’re a long way off. They may even be lost, or friendly. There’s nothing to be gained by worrying about it until we’re sure.”

I then posed the question I had resisted asking precisely because it so clearly marked the place to which we had come, but now this waggery of fate demanded it. It was perhaps the commonest line of science fiction. “If they continue at present speed and course, when would they reach Earth?” I asked.

“Sometime early tomorrow,” she replied.

I felt the rush of blood drumming in my ears once more and excused myself to go in search of Professor Hikita so that I might execute the drawing of Dr. Lizardo, never dreaming that out of this boiling confusion would soon crystallize a thousand-year-web of sanguinary encounters between Lizardo’s occupant Whorfin and the space voyeurs above us. I departed with something of anticipation, however.

S
ince welding my modest physical and intellectual resources to those of B. Banzai, I have traveled the world over, from horizon to distant horizon, in every mode of conveyance known to man. I have seen parts of the globe that remain veritable mysteries, places where—tired as it sounds—few men have ever set foot. Engendered by a hunger for discovery and adventure, I have surveyed the inertness of the desert, the teeming life of the sea, and the two poles, as well as the loftiest heights and loneliest valleys of this planet; but none of that prepared me sufficiently for the sight that greeted us upon our arrival at the police station where Buckaroo Banzai was to meet Penny Priddy face-to-face, and we were to collect a new recruit.

Standing outside the building—sitting actually, although he appeared to be standing (such was his height)—wearing such a collision of colors that his face appeared animated even when it was not, was the splendid figure of Sidney Zwibel, Buckaroo’s self-doubting medical school colleague. Scarcely within the limits of the probable, he was, as they say, “decked out” like a cowboy in red shirt and bandana, tight-fitting black pantaloons and pinto chaps, and a sublime ten-gallon hat of the sort featured in early Hollywood Westerns. I am tempted to add, Where else?, because I am certain that such an outfit until that moment had never been worn anywhere in the real world. Add a pair of four-inch-high ruby-red cowboy boots, and you will understand why our bus nearly tipped over from the shifting weight of our collective troupe endeavouring to swipe a look at him. I do not stray far from the truth when I say that when he inevitably stood to stretch and rose higher and higher, his luster challenged the permanent brilliance of the sun. Thus did we lay eyes upon our “new recruit.”

He did have pluck; I had to give him that. It required more courage than I possess to wear such garb on a public street, and he did it with an undeniable style. What else could be said about a man who in addition to the items of wardrobe I have already mentioned carried a large stereophonic portable radio and wore a wampum belt around his middle. Clearly, events in his life had led him to a fork in the road, and he, like the rest of us, had chosen the diverging path.

At the very least, he gave us all a needed respite. Buckaroo peered out my window and flinched at his friend’s gross breach of good taste, ordering our driver Louie and the rest of us not to open the door, so that when Sidney took several steps toward the bus it quickly became apparent that no one was going to step out to meet him. For an awkward second, Sidney’s long shadow seemed to quiver, unsure whether to go forward or retreat in this humiliating condition. It was, I suspect, both a joke and a little test, for B. Banzai has a way of getting the whole sum out of his men. In all events, Sidney responded gallantly, overcoming whatever misgivings he must have had and knocking on the bus door. Needless to say, this time Buckaroo ordered it opened, and we all shared a laugh.

“Fellows, this is Sid Zwibel,” said Buckaroo. “He’ll be riding with us as an observer for a few days, so give him the treatment.”

“Don’t worry. We will,” said Tommy.

“The treatment?” asked Sid, quailing.

“Where do you hail from, Doc?” I asked.

“Fort Lee,” he said. “New Jersey.” And from that moment he was “New Jersey” to us. “You’d be Pecos,” he said, extending a hand toward me. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

“Nope. Reno,” I replied. “Where’s your spurs, New Jersey?”

He knitted his brow. “You making fun of me?” He grinned, and in that approximate instant I knew we were friends. There followed the usual flourishes of boisterous banter, although compared to other occasions, it was relatively artificial for reasons I have cited. Having no way of knowing it, Sidney had joined us at a troubled hour, a fact he may have divined when halfway through his offer of congratulations to Buckaroo Banzai for accomplishing the apparently impossible, i.e., traveling through solid matter, B. Banzai excused himself suddenly as if a precipitant pain were felt and walked toward the police station with Perfect Tommy.

For what occurred within the building before I belatedly arrived, I have to rely upon the recollection of Perfect Tommy, who accompanied Buckaroo and a female jailer to the cell where the pitiable girl sat with her back turned to all who might enter, her indescribable solitude seeming less a function of the steel and mortar that enclosed her than the anticipated futility of life. She was certainly not the proverbial little bird in a gilded cage. She was not so congenial as that.

Even when the jailer announced to her that she had a visitor, her head did not turn. There was, however, a humble vanity mirror in one corner of the chamber, and it was this that B. Banzai ingeniously used to step into her line of sight. Positioning himself so that she might see him in the glass, he began to talk as to an old friend, of subjects ranging from the commonplace to the recent coronation of a Nepalese monarch at which he had been in attendance. By dint of persistence, he succeeded in irritating her to such a degree that she sprang up full and shouted with a sneer on her face, “What are you doing here? Whadda you want?”

It was his first unencumbered look at her, and it staggered him. He flushed to the temples. True to Rawhide’s words she was inexplicably the very reincarnation of Peggy—a perfect stranger, and yet someone he had loved and loved again the moment he saw her. Those were the irreconcilable facts. Perfect Tommy, like the rest of us, a doubting Thomas who wished not even to consider the existence of such a girl, lest she might somehow supplant the memory of our Peggy, had managed indifference to this point. But now . . . he stood gazing on her as in a profound sleep, unable to utter a sound. In those first seconds of close quarters with her, he later told me, he felt a recurrence of the same arctic frigidity he had experienced the night of the final seance when Mrs. Johnson had charaded as Peggy’s ghost. But the woman standing before him now was no mechanical contrivance of hooks and wires illuminated by the moon. She was—how else to put it?—the reincarnation of our slain sister, the same creature, the same particulars down to the minutest corner of her face. If it were a guise, some trick of surgery that had transformed her thus, the shadowy supposition was that the Creator, Himself, must have been in envy of the hand that had wielded the scalpel. It was no wonder Perfect Tommy thrilled in silence.

Of Buckaroo, himself, what words of this or any writer could give a fair accounting of the exquisite agony he must have felt? His feelings beyond register, his doubts at once long passed and only beginning, he was in too sorry a state to speak. Noting their extreme reaction for as long as she lingered upon their vision, Penny Priddy must have been moved to curiosity herself and at some length asked: “Will somebody tell me what the hell’s going on?”

“Suppose you tell us,” said Tommy. “Who are you?”

“Penny Priddy. You’re Perfect Tommy.”

“That’s right.”

“In the company of Buckaroo Banzai,” she said, moving closer to the steel bars which separated them. Buckaroo withdrew slightly as she advanced, a small triumph she did not fail to notice and which in an ironic way rather raised her spirits. She threw her head back fancifully, and Perfect Tommy viewed her aslant from a new perspective, as if examining a fetching but unfathomable work of sculpture. Up close she was even more beautiful—no, beautiful is not the word. There was about her something wayward and dangerous. Lips slightly parted, tawny hair uncombed as if she had not attended to her toilette for days, she held that remarkable power common to certain Gypsy women I have known: the ability to arouse both repulsion and desire with a single look. Her hypnotic eyes fastened on our chief, who already adored her. I am convinced she could have asked him to go in search of the gold of El Dorado or the vineyards of the North Pole, and he would at the very least have called a council to discuss whether the notion appeared practicable.

Thankfully, she did not ask. No doubt contented with the surprising discovery that he found her attractive, she was of a mind to be generous.

“Getting an eyeful?” she said, the line eliciting screams of delight from various of the other female prisoners whom I have not had occasion to mention, but who at intervals made public their riotous feelings.

“Remove your coat, please,” said Buckaroo, outwardly calm once again.

“My coat?”

“Yes.”

“How much will you give me?”

“Five dollars,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “Do you want more?”

She looked steadily at him, unpenitent. “No, five will do.” she said and began to remove her coat.

“Who were you trying to shoot last night?” he asked.

“You,” she said. “I wanted to make the papers, and I did, didn’t I?”

“To be from Wyoming, you’re not much of a shot.”

She shrugged, at first making no remark, and then, “I’m glad I missed.”

“Are you?” He believed she had tried to take her own life, and he now was intent on knowing the aftermath.

“Yes, I’m glad. Otherwise, one of us wouldn’t be here, would he?”

Buckaroo did not at once respond, as she threw aside the coat to reveal her splendid form and, what was more, a scar on her upper arm that disappeared beneath her shirt. He bade Tommy and me to look away (I having just arrived) and asked her, “Would you do me the favor of taking off your shirt?”

It was clear early on that no request could shock her, and she took no exception to this, merely offering wearily, “For five dollars more, I’ll show you my secrets.”

“The shirt will be enough,” he returned. “A woman should always guard her secrets.”

“Even from her doctor?” She gave a light laugh like chimes.

“Turn around,” he said. “Let me see your back.”

Although curiosity seized me, I continued to avert my eyes from the girl, even as a visible shudder ran down B. Banzai’s frame. “Where did you get such a terrible scar?” he asked.

“In a fire when I was little,” she said.

“A fire? Was anyone with you?”

“My sister.”

“Your sister, was she your twin?”

“How did you know?” she asked, slumping on her bunk, once again the vision of hopelessness borne down with sorrows as she pulled her clothes around her in a gesture intended to shut out the world. “You’ve had your fun. Why don’t you be the gentleman you’re supposed to be and go now?”

The sulky indifference upon her face led Buckaroo to play his trump card. “I promised to pay you,” he said. “Here’s a shiny gold sovereign.”