Untitled (14 page)

    Summoning every scrap of grace and tact that existed in my body, I very slowly asked him, "The meat. Does it taste like any meat that you have ever had before?"

    "Well, yeah!" he said. "And that's what had me wondering. I mean, it tastes just like beef, but..."

    Whatever he said next, I couldn't hear it. I was screaming too loud.

    And the word I screamed was, "YES!!!"

    Now he looked real confused, but I was doing my war dance: a victory dance that had the whole room staring. "YES!" I hollered. "YES YES YES!!! AH-WOOOOO!!!"

    Then I slammed down into the chair beside him, grabbed him by his unforked hand. I knew I was being a drama queen, but I just couldn't help it. Seize the motherfuckin' day!

    "You know what you're eating?" I said, speaking fast, like a speed freak on a mission in a Tarantino flm. "It's goomer meat..."

    "No shit?" He reexamined his fork. "I had no idea they tasted like this."

    "They don't!" I said, and he looked at me again. "I mean, that's the thing! Goomer meat is the most unobtrusive, fexible meat in all creation. It pretty much goes with anything, kinda like tofu on the hoof. The reason is that it just doesn't taste like much. There's not much going on with goomers, as a food or as a creature. They're like the biggest, furriest one-celled organisms I have ever seen."

    Gene told me about his Dr. Seuss-like experience, and displayed

a fne grasp of Oz's food chain politics. So I explained the theory behind Mikio's stereo, and then applied it directly to his rapidly-cooling meal.

    "I'm guessing that marination is the key to the alchemy: giving the meat a little time to swim with the sacred object. Plus I throw in a couple of language bush leaves, to assist with the translation. So. If I can take the hoof of a cow and make goomer taste just like beef—and, you'll notice, it's not just the taste but the texture..." Gene nodded in agreement. "…then theoretically, I could take a chicken's beak and make goomer taste just like chicken!"

     "Or marinate it with a human fngernail, and make it taste just like people."

    "Exactly!"

    Gene looked thoughtful for a moment. The food on his fork was cooling fast, and he ate it. Evidently, it tasted good.

    "Are you sure you want to go there?" he asked me, after chewing. "I mean, ethically."

    "I'm not worried," I told him. "We really don't taste that good."

    He shrugged, and took another bite of machaco con goomer.

    "Besides," I added, "and this is kind of the point: if you can duplicate any dish with just a little goomer meat magick, then you don't
need to kill anything else! The pressure is off! Do you see what I'
m sayin'?"

    "Well, sure," he said, still negotiating his mouthful. "Unless you really want to kill."

    Which, of course, threw me back on Rokoko, and our ugly conversation from a couple days back. I asked Gene if he'd read the pages, and he said, "No, but I got 'em right here..."

    At which point, I went "AAAAUGH!" and shook him by the shoulders, just as he was hefting another forkload, which went fying all over the place. Before he could stammer out a protest, I took a deep breath and said, even and low:

    "Gene. You gotta understand. There are no xerox machines in Oz. You're carrying around the only copy of my memoirs."

    "I thought..."

    "I said you should read 'em. I didn't say you should take 'em out for a stroll..."

    "Aw, man. Jeez, I'm sorry..."

    "It's like, that's my heart and brain you've got there." I should

have stopped then, but somehow I just couldn't. "Would you really feel comfortable, carrying my heart and my brain around in your bag all day?"

     "Okay." He was embarrassed now, rocking on the pivot between sorry and but now you're pissing me off. I realized I still had my hands on his shoulders; and suddenly it was my turn to feel embarrassed.

    "Listen," he said, as I backed off a step. This time, the deep breath was his. "I know you're kind of wired right now. And I'm sorry about your friend. But you have got to help me out here. I have no idea what's going on."

    I nodded my head, felt the tears welling up, tried to will them back into my head.

    "I mean," he continued, "I fgured it was all pretty much just cute little fairies and happy dust over here, but...it's really not."

    "No, it isn't," I agreed.

    By now, I was beginning to cry. Gene thought about hugging me, thought better of it, and proceeded to get some more things off his chest.

    "So I guess you could say I'm disoriented. I'm not sure what to do. I could just relax and have some dessert, but things are coming back to me now that leave me a little anxious. Like, for instance, the last two days of my life...

    "I mean, is it always this violent here?" I laughed; it was the way that he said it. "I've lived in L.A. for six years now, but I've never seen anybody just walk up to somebody and slice their head off."

    "It's kind of disturbing."

    "You're goddam right it's kind of disturbing! I feel like a displaced Bugs Bunny, you know? Like I took the wrong toin at Albaqoikee; and instead of Pizmo Beach, I came up in Rwanda."

    I laughed again, the tears burning off. I was starting to calm down; although I realized that, inside, I still felt totally insane.

    "And, fuck...I mean, look." He cast a gaze around the room. A whole roomful of people were pretending not to watch. But the fact is, they were watching; and they also weren't people, at least not as Gene could have possibly defned them. We were the only two people from Earth. (Although, I must say, everyone else seemed much better behaved.)

    "I keep waiting," he persisted, "for my meal to jump right off the plate and kiss me. Or for my arms to fap, and me to fy away. Do you hear what I'm saying? I'm losing my mind here."

    At least my voice sounded normal when I said, "Have you been writing any of this down?"

    "Well, yeah..."

    "Can I see it?"

    "Umm...no," he said. "I mean, not yet."

    I started to argue, then remembered that Gene had always been very protective of his writing. (Some people are more than happy to fash it; guess I'm just that kind of girl. Other folks, you've got to get in there with fucking depth charges if you want to pry it loose.)

    So we agreed that he would read my pages while he ate his breakfast (which he did); that he'd leave the pages here when he split (which he also did); and that tonight, after work, we would get together and sort this situation out (which we will).

    But, wow. I just needed to set that down, now that lunchtime traffc has cleared.

    And I gotta say—despite everything else—it's SO GOOD to see Gene again! Kinda grounding, if you know what I mean. Lodging me back in my historical self. Not to mention that I love and like him, too.

    I can only imagine what the next few days are gonna be like for him.

    Or, more to the point, I can't.

    But I bet you ten-to-one that I'll fnd out.

It's nighttime now, and looking out the open window of Aurora's apartment at the city glowing softly, muted to pale seagreens, aquamarines, through the diffused light of a million gaslights and torches, it's hard to believe that a monstrous blackness is making its way in a slow crawl towards this ethereal place.

    And feeling the soft breeze caress my face, calming, warm like the Santa Ana wind, it's hard to believe how frantically pissed off and agitated I was this afternoon.

    But I had a good reason.

    I left Aurora to deal with her restaurant, and wandered out into the street. I fgured I'd wander around a bit more, then look up her friend Mikio. Aurora had insisted that we'd be bosom buddies in a matter of seconds, and though I scoffed, she's usually right about things like that.

    Directly across the street from the Burrito was a charming little park, about a half a block long, flled with statues (I guess of distinguished Ozians of the past), a beautiful multi-tiered fountain that somehow managed to have the water change colors as it tumbled down to the next level, and several lovely, exotic looking trees. The trees were flled with birds, rainbow-hued toucan-esque things with long necks and peacock tails, and they sang like a roomful of drunken, lovesick fautists.

    I went through the gate and sat down on the lawn. I was feeling really satisfed, despite the conversation we'd just had, all the unfn ished business and impending doom. All I wanted to do was to sit down somewhere nice, chill out, digest my breakfast and do a little typing into my laptop.

    Being careful not to sit directly under any of the birds, I booted the laptop. This time it played some circus music, and the desktop spun around three times before settling into normalcy. My little friend was still with me, evidently.

    "Do we still have a deal?" I asked it.

    The laptop went "WOOP, WOOP, WOOP" and a modifed clown head flled up the screen for a second and winked at me. I took that as a "yes," and opened up the word processor.

    It was pleasant there, burping, farting, and recalling my morning, happily tapping the keys, until I noticed a shadow intruding upon my solitude.

    I looked up and saw a guy about my age, long hair, T-shirt and jeans, a pair of All-Stars on his feet.

    "Hey, man," he said, smiling, "you come through the gate? I'm Jules, man. I'm from Austin. Where you from?" He extended his hand and I shook it.

    "Yeah, hi, I'm Gene," I replied. "Nice to run into you, hope I see you again." I didn't want to be a prick, but I was enjoying my little moment, and didn't want it interrupted.

    "Yeah. Hey," he said, not taking the hint at all, "Nice laptop, dude. Can I check it out?"

    "Well, actually—Jules, is it?—I'm right in the middle of something, and I kinda don't—"

    And he lunged for it, that sonofabitch, made a grab for the laptop, and I grabbed back, and we wrestled ludicrously around the lawn like a couple of third-graders, until I felt Jules lose his grip and go "uuuuhh."

    I cradled the laptop in my arms and fipped around into a sitting position to see what was going on.

    This eurasian-looking guy was high-jumping, something out of a Jackie Chan movie, and kicking the bejesus out of old Jules, who crawled off with a wounded and suprised look on his face, then painfully got onto his feet again and ran like hell.

    The eurasian guy was still jumping around doing that animal imitation karate shit—what is it—a crane or something? Whatever it was.

    "I know who you are, dickhead!" he screamed out to Jules, "You better sleep with one eye open, fool!"

    I'm starting to get a complex. I mean, jeez, what is it, three people have saved my ass in as many days? And some of them more than once.

    "You're Gene?" Then he did a little bow. "Mikio Furi. Allallo down at Topeka said you would need help at the park. He didn't elaborate."

    "Charmed," I said, and bowed back a little. So this was Mikio. Tall, skinny, long stringy black, black hair, and half-Japanese looking, and smart, smart that you can smell a mile away.

    "Wait," I said, catching my breath, "Allallo? Is that the Indian guy? The bartender? What's his trip, anyway?"

    "Not an Indian. Native American kind, anyway. His people are Ozite all the way. Best indications are they're of the Mississipian Culture, came through the Salina gate about a thousand years ago." He grinned at me with big white, even teeth. "And he's not exactly a bartender like we think of them. More like a shaman—medicine man."

    "Any idea why somebody would want to steal my laptop?" I asked him, as I checked to make sure it was still functioning, remembering what Aurora had said about her heart and brain.

    He chuckled over that one. "Any idea why somebody wouldn't want to? This place is crawling with C.I.A., ex-K.G.B., probably Israeli, French operatives, not to mention the nasty guys who already live here. You've got a living artifcial intelligence in your hands, buddy. Wanna sell it?"

    I noticed that the little guy in question had written something while the scuffing occurred, probably the cyber-equivalent of pissing its pants. It looked like gibberish to me: unnumber cloud, unnumber man, an admonishment to look at the sky...

    I let Mikio see it. "This mean anything to you?"

    He read it, got a puzzled look on his face, then without a word, motioned for me to follow him. I powered down the laptop and stuffed it in my pack.

    Mikio walked over to one of the taller trees in the park, had a few words with it. Some branches came down and boosted him into the lower reaches of the tree. In a few moments he was so high up that I could barely see him.

    "Come on," he called down to me, "It's cool—you won't fall." I shrugged, and got the same treatment from the tree. Soon I was, with little effort on my part, being pushed high into the tree. The foutist-birds shuttled and fapped out of my way, and I found myself situated, fnally, at the top of the tree with Mikio, perched on a wide bough, staring out over the tops of the towers of Emerald.

    I was digging the view; Mikio, however was not so excited.

    "This is bad," he moaned, "Damn. This is not good." He pointed over towards the northeast, not one of my favorite places, and I could see a blackness covering a third of the horizon over there, reaching up to what looked like the top of the atmosphere. It might have been my imagination at the time, but it looked like it was moving.

    Our way.

    "Why do I think this doesn't mean it's going to rain?" I asked.