Can and Can'tankerous (10 page)

P is for PHOENIX

The sightseeing bus to Paradise had left nearly an hour earlier, when the tourists from Billings, Montana came wandering back to the Fountain of Youth. Bernie sat on the lowermost branch of the Tree of Life, overlooking the Fountain, using an emery board on his talons and regularly preening his feathers. He watched their approach from the East, and thought to himself,
Here we go again.

The husband and wife came trudging to the edge of the pool that surrounded the Fountain of Youth, and the woman sat down in the sand, and emptied her spectator pumps. Her husband, a corpulent man in his fifties, removed his straw hat, pulled a soiled handkerchief from his hip pocket, and swabbed at his sweating brow. He bent to take a drink from the Fountain.

“Probably not a terrific idea,” Bernie said, spreading his wings and fluffing through the range of scarlet into gold.

The tourist looked up. “Beg your pardon?”

“What I said,” said the Phoenix, “is that it’s not in your best interests to take a drink from this pool.”

“We’ve been walking across the desert for about three hours,” the man said. “I assume the tour bus left without us.” The Phoenix nodded, aimed a wingtip toward the West.

“Well, a fine howdoyoudo that is,” the wife of the tourist said, herself a tourist. “Just take off and abandon us without so much as a by-your-leave.”

“They waited almost an hour,” Bernie said. “The bus driver said something about having to get back for the Apocalypse, or somesuch. To be fair, though, they really couldn’t provide any sort of ‘by-your-leave,’ because you weren’t here.”

“Three hours,” the man said. “Three hours in the desert, walking back, just because one of the other people on the tour, I think an orthodontist from Beirut, said we could see the remains of the last four or five levels of the Tower of Babel if we walked over thataways.”

“And you believed him?” Bernie asked, trying to restrain his amusement.

“Well…”

“And how much did he stick you for the map?” the Phoenix said.

“Map? What map?”

“Then what was it?”

“Er, uh, you mean the key?”

“Oh, that’s sensational,” Bernie said, unable to restrain himself any longer. “A key? He sold you a key? To what?”

“To the secret door in the base of the Tower of Ba—” He stopped. “You’re trying to tell me we were hoodwinked?”

“Fleeced is more like it,” the Phoenix said. “You know how many millennia it’s been since that idiot Tower crumbled into dust?” He flicked his golden wings imperiously, impressively.

The tourists from Billings, Montana looked woebegone.

“What we’re talking here,” said Bernie, “is a real case of malfeasance on the job. Contract went to the lowest bidder, of course; which—in the case of a high-rise should make you more than a
bissel
nervous, if you catch my drift—meant that there was too much sand in the mix, the design was sloppy, they hadn’t even invented stressed concrete at that point; and forget the rebar. It was a very lousy job, but since nobody spoke the same language,
who knew
?”

“And it fell down?” the wife asked.

“Ka-boom.”

“A long time ago, right?” her husband said.

“We’re talking millennia, kiddo.”

“Well, that’s it, then,” the man said. “We lay out fifty dollars for a key to something that doesn’t exist; and we miss getting back to our bus, and now you’re telling me that I shouldn’t even take a drink, something I desperately need after three hours in the goddam desert? And who, may I ask, are you?”

“Phoenix,” Bernie said. “But you can call me Bernie; even my enemies call me Bernie.”

“Why aren’t you ashes?” the wife asked.

Bernie gave her a look. Arched eyebrows. Querulous mien. “That’s not till I make my exit. Very impressive, but not just yet, thank you. I’m only seven hundred and thirty-two. I’ve got at least another good two hundred and fifty in me.”

The man edged closer to the pool.

“Then you go poof?” the wife asked.

“According to the rules, there can only be one Phoenix at a time,” Bernie said. Then, lightheartedly, “There can only be one Minneapolis at a time, also, but that’s another story.” He chuckled, and added, “Get away from the pool, buddy.”

The tourist from Billings stopped creeping toward the water of the Fountain of Youth, and looked up at the Phoenix. “So you’re the one and only Phoenix…at the moment.”

“Indeed,” Bernie said. “My predecessor, Achmed, lived to be nearly a thousand years old. Nice chap. Bit stuffy, but what the hell can you expect from a Fundamentalist. Not a lot of laughs in their religion.”

“I need a drink,” the woman said.

“As I told your husband—I presume this gentleman is your spouse, yes?—it is really not a spectacular idea to drink from the pool.”

“And why is that?”

“Because this is the Fountain of Youth, m’dear; and if you drink from it, not only will you get younger, but you’ll live forever. What we, in the Phoenix game, call immortality.”

The tourists from Billings, Montana looked at each other; and in a flash, or possibly a flash and a half, before Bernie could say anything more, they flung themselves forward; faces immersed in the silvery water of the pool that eternally refilled itself from the Fountain of Youth, they drank and drank, and drank deeply. Occasionally, a water belch would break the surface.

When they rose, the bloom of youth was in their cheeks. Magnolias. Or possibly phlox.

They stood, tall and strong-limbed, with the gleam of far horizons in their eyes. The wife put her shoes on; the husband clapped the straw hat on his head; with a wink and a nod, the husband turned and began to stride off toward the West. His wife smiled up at Bernie, gave him a small salute, and said, “Take care of yourself, Bernie,” and she strode off after her husband.

Bernie sat there picking his teeth with a talon, fluffing back down from gold to scarlet, and sighed a deep seven hundred and thirty-two year sigh. “There’s one born every minute,” he said, to no one in particular.

The Phoenix smiled, and drifted off into a pleasant doze in which he would reflect on the ramifications of the genes of the gullible polluting the pool.

Q is for QIONG-SHI

It was night again, and the vampire was on the prowl. San Francisco’s Chinatown was roiling with fog. The dim and ominous shapes of buildings seemed to slip in and out of the real world as vagrant light from lampposts filtered through breaks in the swirling gray mist shroud.

Hopping at a regular pace, arms outstretched before it, the qiong-shi sought a fresh victim. Up Powell, down Grand, back and forth through narrow alleys, the vampire hopped, a pale, cadaverous nightmare in moist, fog-clinging funereal robes. At the corner of Kerouac Alley and Columbus Avenue the prowl car spotted him, bouncing high and landing lightly.

They turned on the gumball machine and slewed to a stop crosswise across the alley mouth. Compensating for the bulk of the prowl car, the vampire came down at an impossible angle, and hit the wall of the building. He fell to his knees, and crouched there, trembling, arms outstretched, eyes glaring at nothing.

The officers leapt from the car, threw down on him, and ordered him to hug the pavement. The qiong-shi got to his feet unsteadily, a great bloodless gash across his sulphur-colored forehead, and bounced toward the cops. The rookie fired a warning shot, and the sergeant commanded the suspect to stop.

But the vampire was already in the air, descending in a great looping arc toward the pair. When he hit, they were there, and the sergeant had his baton at ready.

They beat the shit out of the vampire for a considerable time, knocking him to the pavement every time he hopped up. It went on for the better part of a half hour, all of it being filmed by camcorders in the hands of one hundred and thirteen residents of the neighborhood, and a television cameraman circling overhead in a chopper.

When it came to trial, the Chinese-American Protective League and three tong gangs paid for the best attorneys in the state, and the vampire got only two years up at Pelican Bay for assaulting an officer. Or two.

Apart from his special dietary needs—without a doubt Q was a moveable feast—the qiong-shi comported himself well, became the bitch of a serial razor-killer named Mojo Paw, and was paroled into a halfway house after only sixteen months.

Rehabilitation was swift, the vampire responded to group analysis, and later ran for public office.

He lost. Big. His opponent, an ex-tv talk show host, beat heavily on the theme:
Be Careful What You Vote For
,
You Might Get It!

R is for RAVEN

I’m sick to death of it, let me tell you! Just fed up! Photosynthesize. Grandiloquent. Tumultuous. Matriculation. Portcullis. Cytoplasmic. Euphonium. Oleomargarine. Nascent. Extemporaneous. Schottische. Captious. Heterogeneous. Marginalia. Oxymoron. Xylophone. Sephardic. Perambulation.

Sick to death, I tell you.

Disgusting stereotypes, that’s all it is!

Nevermore
, my ass.

S is for SERAPHIM

Good hit, lousy field. Traded down to the Pony League. 

T is for TAHAMTAN

PRESS RELEASE. Dateline: Hollywood. 17 April.

Paramount Pictures today announced the resumption of production on the multi-million-dollar theatrical feature
Tahamtan, Warrior of Persia,
starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Based on the life of the legendary mythical hero who lived 2000 years ago, the film has been plagued by union strikes, unexplained accidents on the set, and the untimely death of the original scenarist, Rostam Shayegani, who passed away while only halfway through the screenplay.

Prior to Paramount’s commitment to filming the great myth of pre-Iranian Persia, the last person to write about Tahamtan died of grief. Ferdoci was commissioned by King Darush, the Persian ruler, to write a book of the myths and legends surrounding Tahamtan, in order to preserve old Pharsi. He was promised a gold coin for each verse. Over a period of thirty years Ferdoci wrote between fifty and sixty
thousand
verses.

Darush, direct lineal ancestor of the current head of production at Paramount Studios, contested the bookkeeping and royalty arrangement originally entered into with Ferdoci, and paid him in silver, rather than gold. Ferdoci, according to informed sources, was so upset, that he flung the money back at the Prince, and went off to die of a broken heart, leaving behind a curse upon all Persia.

Since then, Iran has been invaded by the Moslems, and Pharsi has been debased. Ferdoci’s book was the last one written in the true language until Paramount’s signing this week of a new scenarist guaranteed, by studio executives, to deliver a shootable script.

Paramount Pictures today proudly announce resumption of the film
Tahamtan, Warrior of Persia,
starring Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Danny DeVito, Sean Young, and Zalman King as Rakhsh; directed by Alan Smithee; screenplay by Salman Rushdie.

U is for UNSEELIE

The Seelie Court, the general Scottish name for the good fairies, can be considered, at best, cranky and best left alone by humans. Far worse are the fairies of the
Un
seelie Court. Their hatred of humans is monumental. They comprise the
sluagh
, the band of the unsanctified dead who hover above the earth, snatching up to themselves the undefended mortals they then use to rain down elf-shot against men and cattle.

And you thought it was Martians disemboweling your cows. Boy, how superstitious can you get!

V is for VIGINAE

Minuscule in size, they are demon imps who make their homes at the root of human nose hairs.

No other demons will associate with them.

Chadwick makes a Groomette nose hair cutter recommended in all the best grimoires.

Best to rid oneself of the snotty little bastards.

W is for WYVERN

“Would you prefer the couch, or just hanging there in mid-air?” The psychiatrist, Dr. Eugene Bucovitz, MD, PhD, FAPA, Mbr AMA-APA & SCPS, Diplomate American Board of Psychiatry & Neurology, Inc., stared up at the three-headed dragon hovering less than a foot beneath the ceiling of his office in Westwood. “If you have no preference, might I suggest the couch…your, uh, breath seems to be singeing the inlaid tropical wood ceiling.”

The wyvern’s middle head glared down at the doctor.

“Meaning no offense,” the doctor said hastily.

The wyvern settled slowly to the floor, ambled to the couch, and lay down. Its three heads, on the three ropey strands of muscled neck, remained nearly vertical, though the bulbous body, with its two eagle-like legs and its barbed tail, hung over the sides of the leather chaise. “We have problems,” the left head said.

“Of
course
you do,” said Dr. Bucovitz, “and I’m here to help you…or rather, to help you help
yourself.
That’s why Dr. Hildreth referred you to me.”

“We heard good things about you,” the right head said.

“You did wonders with Ghidrah, we understand,” said the middle head.

Bucovitz smiled, then sighed. “Yes, one of my successes. But don’t ask about Mothra. I still lament my failure there.”

“No one’s perfect,” said the left head.

“Except Godzilla,” said the right.

“Do you
always
have to add your two cents?” the left head said, with a snap of ice-crusher jaws. “Just because you had her.”

“Now stop fighting, you two,” said the middle head with a tone of mixed exasperation and mollification.

“Up yours, peacemaker!” said the left,

“Bite it, big boy!” said the right.