Still Life with Woodpecker (5 page)
Read Still Life with Woodpecker Online
Authors: Tom Robbins
Or—a typewriter constructed of tiny seashells by a retired merchant sailor, built inside a bottle so that it can be worked only by the little finger of the left hand of a right-handed person. A left-handed typewriter for a left-handed task. (You’re aware, I assume, of the scientific discovery that our universe lives side by side with a parallel universe. The two universes, identical in many respects, are opposite in electrical charge and magnetic property: the “anti-universe,” so called, is in effect a mirror image, a reverse copy. Well, certain amino acids are left-handed, some are their reflection, right-handed. But
the proteins in living organisms are always left-handed. The right-handed amino acids are impossible to digest and can be harmful to life. It’s smart not to eat anything you find in a mirror. As for those novels that claim to “mirror” reality … may a word to the wise be sufficient.
(Toward the wind-down of the Second World War, an American flyer parachuted from his burning plane to land in an isolated village near Japan’s Inland Sea. The villagers, devout Buddhists far removed from the hot arena of events and the Shinto/fascistic/industrial philosophies that had spawned the events, took in the broken pilot and nursed him. They kept him concealed and alive for several months, but eventually he died.
(Since Buddhists have reverence for all life, they also respect the proprieties of death. The villagers wished to award the dead foreigner his entitled burial, but the only funereal customs with which they were familiar were Buddhist, and those, of course, would have been inappropriate.
(Having packed the corpse in pond ice, they set out to make inquiries about Christian burial procedures, all very discreetly so as not to arouse the suspicion of the authorities. Their luck was small.
(At last, someone smuggled into the village a Japanese translation of an English language book that promised to provide the information they sought. The book was called
Finnegans Wake
.
(If you can picture those remote 1945 Japanese peasants earnestly trying to hold a drunken Irish wake, complicated by the experimental wordplay of James Joyce, you can picture the relationship between an author, his typewriter, and that reality to whose recreation he’s obliged to apply the southpaw touch, even though he knows only too well the function Arabs and Hindus assign the left hand.)
I’m not so far gone that I expect technologists to be interested in designing machines for artists—why, if novelists got wooden typewriters, poets would demand that
theirs be ice. What is more likely is that technology will bypass artists, that a day is coming when our novels will be written by computers, the same devices that will paint our murals and compose our tunes. If I’m chuckling, it’s because I’m imagining a computer, programmed to produce logical variations on the eighteen possible literary plots, I’m imagining that computer trying to deal with what happened in Leigh-Cheri’s attic. If I’m chuckling, it means that the Remington SL3 had better watch its
P
’s
p
’s and
Q
’s
q
’s.
II
IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON,
a good five hours before moonrise, when the flight touched down in Honolulu, but already the mai tais were swaying, the pineapples were jiggling, the mongooses were mating, and coconuts were rolling in ecstasy. The Hawaii sun, in contrast to, say, the Nebraska sun, had obviously fallen under the influence of the moon and was given to deporting itself in a fairly feminine fashion. Not that the Hawaii sun wouldn’t fry your hide off should you show it disrespect, but it had a romantic aura, a decidedly lunar attitude toward amore that the sun of Mexico would consider soft and weak. Despite the tangle of traffic, the din of condominium construction, the smoking sugar refineries, and the strange spectacle of Japanese tourists roaming the hot beaches in business suits and street shoes, Hawaii was, indeed, a travelogue tableau; a living Pap smear for the paradise flu.
So goofy/erotic was the Hawaiian language that the street signs read like invitations to pagan whoopjam-boreehoos, and “nookie” was on the tip of every sober tongue. Hawaiian was a language that could name a fish “humuhumunukunukuapua’a” and a bird “o-o,” and never mind that the bird was larger than the fish. Humuhumunukunukuapua’a
(a typewriter that enjoys that word as much as the Remington SL3 couldn’t be all bad) still played in Hawaiian waters, not fifty yards from the leather soles of Sony executives, but the o-o, that gorgeous honeysucker, was long gone. Hawaiian royalty favored the tail feathers of the o-o for their ceremonial capes. Hawaii’s rulers were mammoth, their capes were very long. It took a lot of tail feathers to make a king a cape. The o-o was plucked into extinction. O O spaghetti-o.
Although the ecological implications would have appalled her, Leigh-Cheri could fancy herself in o-o. If our pale Princess could have chosen a land to be queen of, Hawaii was it. The instant she stepped off the jetliner, her heart began to pump pure hibiscus juice. If her hands were tied behind her and the world had Hawaii in its wall safe, she would have figured a way to get it out. Hawaii made the mouth of her soul water.
Alas, Leigh-Cheri hadn’t much opportunity for reverie. Because of frog problems, her plane had landed on Oahu merely minutes before her connecting flight on interisland Aloha Airlines was scheduled to depart for Maui. She and Gulietta had to run, if you could call Gulietta’s scurrying a run, from one end of Honolulu’s airport to the other.
So intent was their dash that they failed to notice that Bernard Mickey Wrangle was loping along beside them.
THE FLIGHT TO MAUI
was as bumpy as a kite’s. As the small plane was tossed about by drafts, several passengers acquired the hue of Hawaiian foliage. Leigh-Cheri, however, had been driven to the airport that morning by
Chuck the chauffeur, and after such a ride, it would have taken more than a little turbulent air to unnerve her. Gulietta was simply too old to be unnerved by anything, although she was still pouting about the confiscation of her totem. As for Bernard M. Wrangle, who sat behind the Princess studying her red hair, his heart thumped peacefully against the explosives taped to his chest.
As the aircraft bobbed, so did Leigh-Cheri’s mind, up and down, from one level to another, thinking one moment of the charms of Hawaii, to which she had a mild addiction; thinking the next of the Care Fest and the great good that might come from it; bouncing to thoughts of herself, who she was and who she might be.
“I’m a princess,” she reminded herself, with a minimum of conviction, “a princess who grew up in a blackberry patch near Seattle, who’s never so much as set a tennis shoe in the nation where her royal blood was formed, a princess who doesn’t know diddly squat about princessing, a princess who’s behaved like a twit and a twat; who’s been, well,
disappointed
in men and romance, who’s a bit confused, who’s got a lot to learn, but a princess, after all; just as fucking much as Caroline or Anne, and although in the last quarter of the twentieth century the very idea of royalty may seem artificial, archaic, and somewhat decadent, I insist on my princess-hood because without it I’m just another physically attractive woman with that I-went-to-college-but-it-didn’t-do-me-any-good look and nothing much to offer anyone. If I’m lost as a lover, I’m still right here as a human. I feel the pain of humanity inside me, in my tummy, about eight inches above the peachfish. Whether I’m unduly sensitive to this pain because I’m a princess—could the whole world be the pea under my mattress?—I don’t know, but because I’m a princess, I might be able to do something to help lessen humanity’s pain. And the Care Fest just may show me the way to do it. I wonder if Ralph is staying at our hotel? I hope I packed my No Nukes T-shirt. Don’t Crosby, Stills, and Nash hang out in Lahaina? Can I drink more
than one mai tai without taking on the aroma of an aroused butterfly?”
Her thoughts dipped and lifted in unstable air.
Before long, they had passed over Molokai and could see the reddish corona of Haleakala rising in the southeast like the stone in a Truman Capote mood ring. “Maui,” whispered Leigh-Cheri to Gulietta. “Maui.” Her own red top bounced as she sat up straight in her seat. Bernard—the Woodpecker—regarded it with the gaze of an expert.
SUSPECTING THAT THE AUTHORITIES
might run checks on hair dye purchases, Bernard made his own coloring from roots and bark. It had a peculiar smell, but women did not find it unattractive. To Bernard, the odor evoked memories of vulture shadows and wolf howls; of cocaine, high explosives, and sure-footed steeds; of the hideout behind the waterfall. As for its effect on others, he’d been asked more than once if he didn’t shampoo with root beer. He limited the dying to the hair on his head and for that reason was careful to make love only in the dark. Once, he spilled the dye all over his shoes. From then on, he dyed with his boots on.
The Twelve Most Famous Redheads:
Lucille Ball, comedienne
Gen. George Custer, military maverick
Lizzie Borden, hatchetwoman
Thomas Jefferson, revolutionary
Red Skelton, comic
George Bernard Shaw, playwright
Judas Iscariot, informer
Mark Twain, humorist
Woody Allen, humorist
Margaret Sanger, feminist
Edna St. Vincent Millay, libertine poet
Bernard Mickey Wrangle, bomber
From this list, the analytically minded might conclude that persons with red hair tend to be either dangerous or funny. But of the dozen, only one ever had to hide his or her hue. Even Judas flew his natural colors. Judas Iscarrot-top.
How did Bernard feel about dressing his woodpecker strands in suits of crow? From the admiring looks that he aimed at Leigh-Cheri’s crown, and Haleakala’s, a shallow observer might be inclined to compare him to a connoisseur of rubies trapped under a coal chute. Upon more careful examination, however, one would have to report that he took a very nearly delicious pleasure in smuggling his curls about, their blaze concealed from the cold eye of the law by the thinnest millimeter of pigment.
And, of course, Bernard, as all men, carried around in his trousers the most renowned redhead of all—characteristically funny and dangerous.
ABOARD ALOHA AIRLINES FLIGHT 23,
Bernard wasn’t the only admirer of Leigh-Cheri. From the seat in front of her, a young man with a long, wavy beard, aloha shirt, and hibiscus blossoms intertwined in his ponytail had turned around to engage her in conversation. He was on his way to the Care Fest, he said, to teach meditation techniques at a workshop. The young man tried to interest
Leigh-Cheri in his program. He offered to give her personal instruction in meditation, free of charge. She seemed to be seriously considering it.
Bernard leaned forward until his freckled chin rested atop Leigh-Cheri’s seat. “Yum,” he said.
The Princess flinched, but did not glance back. The young man in front began showing her his puka shell necklace. While fingering the pukas, he spoke quietly to her of deep relaxation, inner peace, and the wisdom of letting things flow.
“Yum,” repeated Bernard. He said it very close to the royal ear.
This time she spun around. Her expression was indignant. “I beg your pardon.”
Bernard smiled as sweetly as a retarded jack-o’-lantern. “It’s my mantra.”
Leigh-Cheri glowered at him, as only someone of the redheaded persuasion can glower. He was dressed all in black and had bad teeth. He was wearing Donald Duck sunglasses. Kiddie glasses. She turned back to the meditation instructor, who at once ceased scowling at Bernard and gave her a sympathetic look.
“There are only two mantras,” said Bernard. “Yum and yuk. Mine is yum.”
It sounded halfway logical, but the Princess refused to respond. She squeezed Gulietta’s hand. She asked the junior guru in front how meditation could help alleviate suffering in the world.
“Yum,” said Bernard. “Yuu-mmmm.” Leigh-Cheri ignored him. The other passengers regarded him strangely.
“Do you need anything, sir?” asked the stewardess.
Bernard shrugged. He looked out of the window. He looked at the rosy rim of the big volcano. Haleakala—“House of the Sun.” If Haleakala was where the sun called home, what was the moon’s address? Did the moon live in France on Main Street?
IT WAS HALEAKALA,
erupting in tandem with a lesser volcano, that created the island of Maui. It must have been a show. The crater was seven and one half miles across, the cone more than ten thousand feet high, yet Haleakala had a presence at which even the most impressive measurements didn’t hint.
Such an eerie, unfamiliar place was Haleakala that there was a tendency to associate it with other worlds, outer spaces. Indeed, an unusually large percentage of visitors who camped there overnight in order to view the famous Haleakala sunrise, the sun awakening in its own bedroom, swore to having seen oddly lighted forms in the sky. To the dormant volcano, with its crumbly cromlechs, its lunar contours, its black and red sands, supernatural properties came to be attributed. Many regarded it a universal center, an intergalactic connecting point, a cosmic bean-hill, the earth terminal for spaceships of all degrees of substance and visibility. So many people claimed to have seen UFOs buzzing Haleakala that it turned into a mecca for flying-saucer fans and would-be cosmic cosmopolitans. Individuals, entire cults with outer-space orientations settled in the valleys near the base of the mountain.