Wild Ducks Flying Backward (13 page)

HOME MEDICINE

Last night

we attempted

a lint

transplant

but

her navel

rejected

it.

Clair de Lune

T
he old wolf trotted over the hill with a little pink heart in its teeth. A pattern appeared in the snow—a trail made by paws and tail and drops of candy-colored blood—and that pattern could be read as if it were a fairy tale, although the night was much too cold for fairies.

From behind a surf of clouds, the moon skitted into view like a boogie board. Cautiously, glancing left to right, the wolf set its treasure down on a fallen tree trunk, raised its muzzle toward the sky, and through dandelion parachutes of its own frozen breath, issued a long wail that sounded like the siren on a 6000-year-old ambulance.

Suddenly, the moon howled back.

For a long moment, the wolf held itself so still it might have been a cardboard cutout in a theater lobby (a sequel to
Dances with Wolves,
told from the animal’s POV). The hairs of its mangy pelt were as erect as toy soldiers. Its eyes turned radioactive. Its breath was no longer visible. Its lame leg ached. Involuntarily, it pissed in the snow, affixing a new and perhaps not-so-happy ending to the fairy story previously written there. The old wolf waited.

As for the moon, it too was still, at rest on a cloudtop like some buttered skillet in which Vincent van Gogh was frying an egg.

Gradually, the lunar silence reassured the wolf, for while it, like its ancestors before it, had spent its life addressing each full moon without fail, it had never once, not even when a cub, expected or desired a reply. If there
was
a response, it resounded in the blood, in the spinal fluid, in the wolf juice, not the ears. Wolves did the vocalizing. Among beasts, as among men, the moon was understood to be mute.

But was it? Had the moon merely been biding its time all these years, patiently waiting for the right moment to make itself heard?

The wolf was straining so hard to learn what might have finally loosened the moon’s tongue that it very nearly missed the small, squeaky voice that piped up only a few inches from its nose.

“Well,” said the little heart, which had unobtrusively begun to beat again, puffing itself out like self-blowing bubblegum, “now that you’ve gotten the news, don’t you think you ought to return me to the breast from which I was ripped?”

Although hungry and perplexed, and despite the fact that its conscience was as clean of guilt as a nun’s bratwurst of mustard, the old wolf wearily complied, limping down the mountainside, squirming under the locked gate of the village, clambering atop a snowdrift, and stealing for the second time that night through a half-open nursery window.

And the next morning, my christening took place as scheduled.

ALOHA NUI

Drawn by the bloomy lights

of Honolulu,

the giant passenger moth

flies for a thousand miles,

through typhoon spray and volcano smoke,

sailors firing at it for sport,

barracuda snapping at its ass;

until, at last,

frazzled of antenna, salty of wing,

it wobbles into brief climactic orbit

around the 500-watt

coconut:

bachelor at a wedding

the bride never knew.

Are You Ready for the New Urban Fragrances?

(Headline in an Italian fashion magazine)

Y
eah, I guess I’m ready, but listen:

Perfume is a disguise. Since the middle ages, we have worn masks of fruit and flower in order to conceal from ourselves the meaty essence of our humanity. We appreciate the sexual attractant of the rose, the ripeness of the orange, more than we honor our own ripe carnality.

Now, today, we want to perfume our cities, as well; to replace their stinging fumes of disturbed fossils’ sleep with the scent of gardens and orchards. Yet, humans are not bees any more than they are blossoms. If we must pull an olfactory hood over our urban environment, let it be of a different nature.

I want to travel on a train that smells like snowflakes.

I want to sip in cafés that smell like comets.

I want to sleep in hotels that smell like the pheromones of sixteen-year-old girls.

Under the pressure of my step, I want the streets to emit the precise odor of a diamond necklace.

I want the newspapers I read to smell like the violins left in pawnshops by weeping hobos on Christmas Eve.

I want to carry luggage that reeks of the neurons in Einstein’s brain.

I want a city’s gases to smell like the golden belly hairs of the gods.

And when I gaze at a televised picture of the moon, I want to detect, from a distance of 239,000 miles, the aroma of fresh mozzarella.

HONKY-TONK ASTRONAUT

(Country song)

My wife up and left me a long time ago,

it’s just as well that she’s gone.

I’ve smoked out my windpipe with cheap cigarettes,

I can barely sing you this song.

But last night I saw more strange lights in the sky,

got so excited I thought I would die,

and it gave me the strength to go on.

I got a car with no brakes or transmission,

I usually travel by thumb.

Since I walked out on that job laying carpet

I’ve felt a bit like a bum.

But when I think of that great whirling saucer

and all the things it surely will offer,

my heart starts to beat like a drum.

Some people think I’m a leftover hippie, a loser, a drifter, or worse.

But I’m just a loner from Sedona, Arizona,

the center of the known universe.

I met a blonde in a bar up near Phoenix,

thought I’d found someone to love.

But when she laughed at me I climbed on a bridge,

hoping whiskey’d give me a shove—

—cause a cowboy with no job and no money

can’t expect to convince any honey

that his friends rule the earth from above.

(SPOKEN)

The whole world’s howling like a Tijuana dog,

everthing’s a little bit insane.

Them spaceships had better hurry on down and get me,

before I drown in this hard-hearted rain.

But, hey, I just got the message that they’re a-gonna,

they’re a-gonna land right here in Sedona, Arizona,

And we can say adios to our pain.

Now some people think I’m a leftover hippie, a loser, a drifter, or worse.

But I’m just a loner from Sedona, Arizona,

The center of the known universe.

CREOLE DEBUTANTE

She went to the School of Miss Crocodile,

learned to walk backwards,

skin a black cat with her teeth.

Soon, she could dance with dead pirates,

cook perfect gumbo,

telephone the moon collect.

But it took 23 doctors to fix her

after she kissed that Snake.

MASTER BO LING

Sinking his fingers

like rat fangs

into the round black cheese

(O moon that orbits Milwaukee!)

he heaves it onto

the path

the Tao

the waxy way

at whose end there awaits

amidst thunder

the ten buddhas.

R.S.V.P.

The invitation to

Tarzan’s bar mitzvah,

written in nut juice

and wrapped in a leaf

Arrived in my mailbox

with an organic rustle,

smelling of chimp dung

but promising a feast

And evoking immediate

hot hoppy visions:

The hair of the cannibal

and the sweet of the beast

MY HEART IS NOT A POODLE

(Country song)

My love looks in the window and watches you sleep,

can’t you hear it scratching at your door?

My love howls at the full moon down by the creek,

it ain’t for sale in any store.

My love is a wild thing and it can’t be trained

to do tricks to entertain your group

so put away that leash and that hoop:

my heart is not a poodle.

My love is wild, hog wild,

it ain’t for a sissy or a child,

it’s the hot stuff, not the mild,

don’t treat it like a poodle.

You can housebreak your puppy, you can housebreak your cat

you can even housebreak some bunny rabbits.

You can teach some old boys to wipe their boots on a mat,

but love holds on to its bad habits.

Passion hides in the shadows where it’s damp and it’s dark

to sneak out and bite you on the leg.

No, it won’t sit up and beg:

My heart is not a poodle.

My love is wild, hog wild,

it ain’t for a sissy or a child,

it’s sweet but it’s also vile,

don’t mistake it for no poodle.

Real love likes to run free like a fox or a cur,

it ain’t looking for no master,

so don’t be tying no fancy ribbons ’round its neck

or it’s gonna run all the faster.

I like the way you look, baby, I love how you smell

I long to be your very own,

but don’t toss me no old bone;

my heart is not a poodle.

My love is wild, hog wild,

it ain’t for a sissy or a child,

it’s the hot stuff, not the mild,

don’t treat it like a poodle.

(SPOKEN)

It ain’t nobody’s lapdog.

Won’t wear no rhinestone collar.

Don’t even think about calling it “Fifi.”

WEST TO SATORI

The meditation mat

is the yogi’s horse:

Git along little yoga,

gotta reach

El Snuffing Out Candle

afore sundown

own

own

own

own.

WILD CARD

Between the ace and the trey

between the raise and the fold

between the hat and the wand

down and dirty in Vegas

or up a magician’s silky sleeve,

the red deuce bides its time.

Born under the sign of Gemini

on Groundhog Day in Baden Baden,

bipolar double agent

too wild for just one world:

two hearts beating in one pale breast,

diamonds the color of rubies dangling from the Devil’s lobes,

Euclidean tomatoes,

jigsaw pasties,

Rasputin and his clone

in velvet suits scheming to topple a royal house,

Saint Valentine’s testicles swaying

imperceptibly to the fickle rhythms of chance:

the sagacious player understands

that these are no mere figures of speech.

If some night a pair

of bloodshot eyes

stare unblinking into yours,

remember:

no hand is a winning hand

’til you dare to lay it down,

and He who made the red deuce wild

knows both your secret names.

OPEN WIDE

Jacking the molar free

of its purchase in the bark-blackened gums,

the mission dentist made to toss it

into a pail of slops—

but the shaman seized it,

licked it lovingly clean of his own blood,

used a baby monkey to buff it,

built a wooden cage for it

and set it next to the dream pole

in the center of the village.

At sunrise the next morning

the tooth commenced to sing

in a sweet little Gloria Estefan voice,

awakening the missionary

who, chronically dazed by everything around him

for a hundred miles,

turned to the first page in his stiff hymnal

and tried to join in.

TWO FOR MY YOUNG SON

I

If Frankenstein grows tomatoes

And Dracula farms beans,

If the Wolfman plants the croutons

That Kong puts on his greens,

If the Creature From the Black Lagoon

Loves carrots, peas, and hash,

If Godzilla peels the potatoes

Used in the Monster Mash,

If Vego the Giant Cauliflower

Eats people like a fiend,

Then what is keeping you, my son,

From licking your plate clean?

II

The Abominable Snowman

Lives far from any city

Up in the Himalayas

Where snow falls like confetti.

Men climb far to look for him

Their ropes coiled like spaghetti

But though they’ve looked for years and years

They haven’t found him, yeti.

The Towers of St. Ignatz

A script treatment for a feature film

F
reddie Manhattan is a rock star of moderate magnitude—he has an asteroid talent but a supernova ego. He has just been informed by his manager that he’ll be cutting his new album in N.Y. right after the Christmas holidays (late autumn lies like a frosty leaf upon America). Freddie’s in a snit. N.Y. January is colder than penguin toejam. Okay, okay, L.A., then. No! Freddie wants the Caribbean. Elton John records in the Caribbean, Sting records in the Caribbean, the Caribbean is good enough for Mick Jagger, it ought to be good enough for Freddie Manhattan. Exasperated, the manager says he’ll see what he can do.

In Minneapolis, meanwhile, Howard, a high-school history teacher, is visiting a former colleague, one Newton Beck. A biology teacher, Newton, thirty-one, got one of his students pregnant. Even though he married the girl, he was fired. Young Mrs. Beck gave birth to twin sons, now about six months old. The twins are fraternal (non-identical) and Newton is explaining to Howard the ways in which they differ, one from the other. Heidi Beck seems uninterested in the Beck twins, her husband, or his guest. She is dancing alone to a Freddie Manhattan album.

Freddie, back in N.Y., is watching the weather on TV. “It’s already fuckin’ snowing in Minneapolis,” he observes sourly.

As dawn breaks the next day, the twins begin to fret. Newton gets up and heats their formula. It’s still early when they are fed so he slides back in bed with his teenaged bride and instigates some industrial strength foreplay. Heidi claims she’s too sleepy. Newton rolls over and peeks through the blinds. A light snow, the first of the season, has fallen during the night. “At least I’ll have something new to do at work today,” he says.

Newton now works as a guide at the Twin Cities Museum of Natural History. On a day like today, as a part of the Wonders of the Universe tour, he will collect fresh snowflakes and project them upon a screen to demonstrate both the intricate beauty of crystal structure and the infinite variety of nature: “Of all the trillions upon trillions of snowflakes that have fallen upon the earth, no two have ever been alike.”

Freddie’s manager is on the phone to the Caribbean recording studio, arguing about rental time. “Freddie can’t pay what Elton pays. He doesn’t move as much product as Elton moves. Only don’t tell him that.”

Just before the final guided tour of the day, Newton calls Heidi. She complains that the twins are not taking their nap. “How can they sleep with that music up so loud?” he asks, referring to the blare of one of Freddie Manhattan’s recent CDs. Once more, he collects and projects some snowflakes. “Of all the trillions and trillions…” The visitors laugh. They think it’s a joke. It takes Newton a while to really focus on the fact that two of the projected snowflakes are absolutely identical! He almost faints from astonishment.

Newton’s life is dramatically transformed. He quickly becomes obsessed with the implications of the identical flakes (which he managed to photograph just as they began to melt). While Heidi practices on her guitar, Newton studies the flake pictures, examines thousands of new flakes, meditates on the meaning of it all— does this mean that certain previously inviolable laws of nature are now in question, or is it simply an amazing coincidence without planetary or cosmic significance?—and broods because neither the scientific community nor the public is as excited about it as he is. Minneapolis TV stations give him a few minutes of exposure, but interest quickly fades, and serious scientists treat the photos as if they’re some kind of hoax.

Due to his obsession, Newton’s in trouble at work. And in more trouble than usual at home. Heidi now thinks he’s crazy as well as old. Then, a telegram arrives from the editor-publisher at the
Weekly World Enquirer,
offering to pay $300 for exclusive rights to the flake pix. Heidi says ask for $500. Howard (the history teacher) advises against it altogether. Newton decides to hand carry the picture to
W.W.E.
offices in Miami, so that he might convince the editor to publish a lengthy article. Sleazy publicity is better than no publicity at all. He dumps baby clothes out of Heidi’s guitar case, throws in a change of underwear and the pictures. He buys a bus ticket to Miami.

On the island of St. Ignatz, Freddie is cutting his album. At about four
A.M
., there’s a break at the studio and Freddie walks outside in the moonlight to have a smoke. Two wild-looking Rastaesque black men come out of the jungle, subdue him, and carry him off.

Early the next morning, Freighter and his common-law wife, Cookie, are awakened by a terrible racket. Freighter is a middle-aged white American, a burly, bald giant with sailor tattoos and a red beard. Cookie is a cute, young black woman. Bleary-eyed, Freighter stumbles out of his picturesque shack to see what the hell is going on. Across the clearing, at the equally quaint shack of Zumba, Zumba’s wife, Leroyette, and his brother, Brutha (the location is far back in the hills and nobody else lives within five or six miles), Freddie has been chained to a post in the dirt yard. He has been given a cheap, tinny electric guitar (wired to a car battery), and ordered to perform.

Freddie is bitching and moaning, not so much at the command performance, as at the quality of the guitar. Freighter stares dumbfounded at the scene. Zumba wears a fiercely triumphant grin.

Each of the two shacks has an unusually tall, makeshift, eccentric antenna attached to it. The antennae appear to have been built in stages, out of whatever material (mostly junk) that happened to be available at the time of each addition. These twin towers are maybe forty feet high and rather bizarre. Cookie looks from Freighter to the towers to Freddie and back to Freighter again. She is apprehensive about something.

Arriving at the
Weekly World Enquirer
office in Miami, Newton catches the publishing tycoon who had wired him, Desmond Hinkley Jr., on his way out the door. Hinkley Jr. (he insists on the Jr.—if you call him Mr. Hinkley, he corrects you: “Mr. Hinkley
Junior
”) has received a tip that something has happened to Freddie Manhattan down on St. Ignatz Island, and he’s on his way there in hopes of a scoop. Newton refuses to hand over the snowflake pictures without an interview. Hinkley Jr., in a rush, offers to hear him out aboard his Lear jet, so Newton tags along to the Caribbean.

High above the ground, Freighter is adding to the height of his antenna tower. He keeps glancing down at Zumba, but Zumba is ignoring him. Zumba stands with his arms smugly folded, enjoying Freddie’s forced concert. Freighter yells down to Cookie to turn up the music on his shortwave, but it’s already at full volume and it can’t compete with Freddie’s live performance. Freighter fumes and Cookie looks worried.

In his hotel room, Hinkley Jr. is on the phone dictating his scoop on the Freddie Manhattan kidnapping. He instructs his subordinates that once they’ve broken the story, they are to announce that Hinkley Jr. is personally organizing and leading a rescue mission. He’ll leave at first light. Meanwhile, that snowflake freak, Newton Beck, is keeping a watch on the recording studio and will alert the paper immediately should a ransom demand be made.

At the secret clearing, Cookie’s fears have materialized. During the night, Freighter has gone off in the dune buggy. Now he squeals up in front of the shack—and discharges his prize: Newton. His triumph quickly turns into humiliation when Newton backs up his insistence that he’s not a rock star by opening his guitar case.

“It’s snow,” Newton says. “You know what snow is?” At first, they believe he’s talking about cocaine and start to rough him up. When it’s demonstrated that he possesses neither an instrument nor drugs, but merely some boring photographs, Zumba and Brutha have a great, long laugh at Freighter’s expense. Freighter stalks away to sulk, and Newton tells the story to the rest of them, including Freddie. (It’s here that we learn the details of Newton’s affair with Heidi.) Cookie is the most attentive. Her eyes light up when she hears about the twins. After the rest of them have wandered off, she stays.

Cookie tells Newton about the obsessive competition between Freighter and Zumba. It is mostly manifest in the radio towers: every time Zumba makes an addition, Freighter adds to his tower (originally, they were trying to see who could get the best reception of Miami rock stations but they have moved well beyond function into pure form). Recently, Leroyette has become pregnant, so Freighter, competitively, is trying desperately to impregnate Cookie.

Well and good, but all that interests Newton is solving the mystery of the identical snowflakes, and here he is chained to a post in the isolated interior of a backward island, helpless to act upon his breathtaking discovery. Even were he free in the civilized world, however, he would be at a loss to solve the mystery, since science preferred to ignore his discovery, to deny its implications. Cookie listens attentively. Then, as she gets up to go inside (where Freighter is wailing for her), she says, softly, “I knows somebody who might can hep you.”

Late that night, Cookie slips out and unchains Newton. By moonlight, she leads him into the jungle. After a long trek, they look down upon a shack by a waterfall. “’Fore you go down there you be doin’ something for me, Mr. Twinmaker.” Newton resists, telling her that he knows nothing about making twins, that it was an accident of nature. Cookie seduces him anyway, and there follows a brief but energetic act of coitus beneath a mango tree.

Afterwards, she takes him to the shack, where their knock is answered by a woman wearing heavy beads, gobs of bright red lipstick, and smoking a big cigar. A black rooster is cradled in her arms. She is stroking it.

Cookie leaves Newton with her mother. Mama Lo’s shack is dominated by an ornate shrine, in the center of which are lurid pictures of Jesus and Mary. Mama Lo makes Newton puff her cigar. He gets dizzy. With a short cord, Mama Lo ties the rooster to Newton’s ankle. When he looks up, the pictures of Jesus and Mary are gone and the photo of the identical snowflakes has been pinned up in their place. Once again, Mama Lo passes him the stogy.

Meanwhile, Desmond Hinkley Jr. and his ragtag search party of tourists, rock musicians, and local black policemen have rousted the inhabitants of a mountain village, and, holding aloft Freddie Manhattan albums, are unsuccessfully questioning them. The villagers are sullen. Not a peep. Lionel, the cop who is acting as Hinkley Jr.’s chief aide, announces that clearly it must be Zumba who is responsible for the abduction. According to Lionel, this folk hero, Zumba, and his brother reside—he points to a map—deep in the valley between the twin volcanoes. [NOTE: the island of Montserrat, site of George Martin’s recording studio, is, indeed, dominated by twin volcanoes.] It is only about fifteen miles from the village. “We’ll be there in no time,” Hinkley Jr. encourages his men. But when they return to their two vehicles, they find the tires have been slashed. They’ll have to hike.

“What I want to know,” Newton confides to Mama Lo, “is whether the snowflake phenomenon is a signal that the Earth is about to enter a new phase of evolutionary development, one in which many traditional scientific truisms will become obsolete, or have we simply been wrong all along in our rigid assumptions regarding the structure of reality.” Mama instructs him to shut up and enjoy the cigar. A faint blue glow has begun to emanate from the shrine.

At the clearing, Freighter discovers that Cookie has freed Newton. “What do it matter?” Cookie asks. “He couldn’t play no music no how.” “Zumba has a worthless brother,” Freighter says. “I don’t have no worthless brother. He was gonna be my worthless brother.” “Well,” says Cookie, “he not you brother.” She turns from him, smiles to herself, and places her hands over her womb. “And he not so worthless.”

Freddie, meanwhile, pleads, whines, and threatens. Until Zumba swings a machete a few inches from his nose. Then he sings and plays. Zumba grins contentedly. Brutha joins in on the bongos. This routine is repeated throughout the day.

Hinkley Jr.’s rescue party sweats and pants up the steep jungle road. A bit of bravado has drained from its leader.

The strange blue light has completely enveloped Mama Lo’s shack. Newton writhes on a straw mat on the floor. His eyes are closed. He groans, he writhes.

Several feet of snow blankets Minneapolis. As a Freddie Manhattan album plays on the stereo, a melancholy Heidi stares out the window. In the distance, a small figure hops across the snowy suburban landscape. As it nears, we see the figure is Newton. He is bound with rope, as if to a mast, to a giant chicken leg. No chicken, just the leg. The leg hops through the snow, toward the house. In their crib, the twins begin to cry. Heidi picks them up, wraps them well, and carries them outside. As they stand in the snow, the chicken leg hops around them. Newton blows kisses at the three of them. The twins goo and smile. Heidi mouths halfhearted kisses at Newton. Then, the chicken leg carries him off into the distance. He disappears beyond the pale horizon.

At kiosks all over America, the
Weekly World Enquirer
reveals the news of Freddie’s abduction. Network TV picks it up. The word “terrorists” is used. Dan Rather, a bit bemused, announces that tabloid publisher Desmond Hinkley Jr. is leading a rescue party in the St. Ignatz interior.

Indeed he is. But not without difficulty. Hinkley Jr. and Lionel, dirty, hot, and tired, look at one another. They agree they must be lost.

Things are quiet at the clearing. Freddie plucks gently at the silly guitar, Brutha beats the bongos ever so softly. Zumba is speaking philosophically. White men, black men seem like twins, he says. Fraternal twins. They look alike, in some ways, but there are many differences. Like the biblical twins, Jacob and Esau, they are separated by inequalities, destined to live apart.

While Zumba speaks, Freighter drives up in the dune buggy. He has been to the recording studio and stolen Freddie’s personal guitar. “My ax!” exclaims Freddie. He hurls the cheap guitar to the ground and embraces his beloved instrument. Zumba ignores all this. He continues his monologue. The twin souls of black and white, rich and poor, socialist and capitalist, can never be joined, Zumba says. He pauses. “Except, maybe, by music.”