Still Life With Woodpecker (20 page)

“I’m on strike,” said Gulietta.

“Oh-Oh, spaghetti-o,” Tilli was about to declare in summary fashion. Then she saw that the others had guessed her thoughts.

63

NEWS OF THE STRIKE
was a while reaching the attic. Downstairs, the place was in turmoil, it was worse than the time Gulietta went to Maui: dirty dishes piled up, dustballs rolled about freely, laundry fermented in the hamper, and the quality of meals plunged to 1.8 on the gourmet scale. What’s more, Gulietta was picketing the house, marching back and forth outside, completely naked except for a pair of oven mittens. Thanks to the acres of blackberries, she could not be seen from the street, and her picket sign, composed in a language that made Serbo-Croatian seem as simple as Bozo-Cretin, was in no danger of being read by an ordinary passer-by, but her protest parade upon that miniscule portion of lawn that had not been usurped by brambles caused Max and Tilli extreme agitation. “After all these years,” grumbled Max, “America has finally corrupted her.” Tilli’s constant comment hardly bears repeating.

Up in the attic, however, there were only a few repercussions. Gulietta continued to serve her young mistress, with whom she had no quarrel. In fact, having considerable extra time on her hands, Gulietta, out of boredom as much as anything, began paying unscheduled visits to the attic, thereby totally screwing up the Princess’s clock. Once, the striking servant brought the prisoner of love a stack of magazines, including an issue
of Arizona Detective,
two issues each of
Car and Driver, Fruit and Tarantula,
and
Pork and Trichinosis,
a recent copy of
Gentlemen’s Anus,
and a dog-eared issue of the
People
magazine that featured a full-page photograph of the Princess in balmier climes, lounging beneath the lippy leaves of a koa tree, her extraordinarily round breasts lending topographical grandeur to the flat cotton front of a Save-the-Whales T-shirt, her big blue eyes dreamy with visions of a modern Mu. A fifteen-round bout with literary temptation was fought before Leigh-Cheri, determined to read only the Camel pack, ordered the periodicals and their bearer back downstairs.

On another occasion, Gulietta fetched Prince Charming, terrarium and all, to the attic, insisting that it was unhealthy for a person to live completely without animate companionship. This time, Leigh-Cheri consented. For one thing, she suspected that where frogs were concerned, the old lady had arcane information that had best be heeded. For another, Leigh-Cheri rationalized that there must be something animate, a fly, a flea, a mouse, a roach, an ant,
something
breathing the air in Bernard’s cell, and therefore her admission of Prince Charming wouldn’t violate her vow to duplicate her lover’s experience. She only insisted that Gulietta attend to the toad’s daily needs, just as, in her role as surrogate jailer, she attended to Leigh-Cheri’s.

If Leigh-Cheri failed to notice that Gulietta’s recent appearances in the attic were
au naturel,
it probably was because she herself hadn’t worn a stitch since the weather got warm back in June. When the Princess finally did learn of the strike, she was amused. She was aware of her daddy’s opinion that every commoner in the USA, with the possible exception of center Jack Sikma of the Seattle Supersonics, was overpaid, and she felt that it was good, not bad, for the kingly heart to receive an occasional kick in its pants. Nevertheless, she had to recall with a twinge that Bernard hadn’t much use for labor unions. It wasn’t that Bernard objected to strikes—he approved of just about anything that stirred the stew—but that he believed that the time was long past when unions were effective in controlling the vices of big business, that unions, in fact, had
become
big business, had perhaps surpassed big business in relative stench of corrupt practices and violent hanky-pankies. It was the Hawaiian mongoose syndrome all over again. Who shall control those who control those who control?

As the goat feet of chaos danced on the linoleum of the kitchen below, Leigh-Cheri entertained various thoughts about labor and management. They soon faded, though. The striking crone and Prince Charming notwithstanding, her central focus was upon the Camel pack. And the Camel pack was leading her into the mysterious realm of the pyramids.

64

ON AN ATTIC WINDOWSILL,
which by then was about as dusty as a literal Sahara, Leigh-Cheri would set the cigarettes. Then she’d kneel so that the pack was at eye level, pyramids on the horizon. Majestic, timeless, enigmatically powerful, the pyramids pulled at her until in a semitrance she’d strike out across the open sands, chanting the pyramid names: Tiahuanaco and Giza; Seneferu and Cheops; Teti, Pepi, and La Huaca de la Luna; Zoser, Khaba, and Ammenemes; Neferirkare and Uxmal and Chicken Itza; on Chephren, on Unas, on Donner and Blitzen; now Dancer, now Prancer, now Sesostris II.

From a distance, the pyramids gave the impression of being sleek and well-preserved, but up close they were as ravaged by time and despoilers as Gulietta. The capstones and a dozen or more courses had been removed from their apexes, and the entire facing of Tura limestone, with the exception of some sections near the base, had been stripped from the triangular facades. Tunnels had been bored into their sides by treasure hunters, while enterprising builders had hauled off random stones to shore up their bridges and domiciles. Up close, the pyramids were cakes that had been found out by freeloaders. It saddened Leigh-Cheri to think that there was not one pyramid on earth that had not been gnawed.

“I can’t look at a pyramid without feeling like Perry Mason,” said Leigh-Cheri, meaning that like most people, the mere sight of those immense structures set her to popping questions like a prosecuting attorney on diet pills and beer.

How were they constructed? Why were they constructed? Who constructed them? What is their strange appeal to the human psyche?

The pyramids of Egypt were said by the experts to be tombs. The pyramids of Peru, Mexico, and Central America were said to have been temples. As for the pyramids of China, Cambodia, and Collinsville, Illinois, archaeologists were reluctant to guess. And as for the four pyramidal structures photographed by Mariner 9 on its fly-by of Mars, most scientists would just as soon forget them. Pyramidologists thought that in addition to their functions as temples and/or tombs, the pyramids also served as solar and lunar observatories. With the increasing evidence of “pyramid power,” that force that apparently accumulates inside the pyramidal cavity, a force that under the right conditions has the proven ability to regenerate both organic and inorganic matter, there was a modern trend to regard the pyramids as collectors or amplifiers of energy.

“It seems to me,” said Leigh-Cheri, “that whether a pyramid was built over a period of decades by hundreds of thousands of laborers using primitive engineering equipment like wooden levers and ramps and sledges and stuff like that, or in a few months by spacemen with laser beams, in neither instance would they have gone to such trouble to make a six-million-ton device that did nothing but sharpen razor blades and preserve fruit.”

Further, it seemed to the pyramid-gazing Princess that since the skills and sciences used by the pyramid builders were virtually identical, as were their finished products, that the motive for their construction must have been the same. Moreover, since the construction required highly advanced mathematical and astronomical calculations, some of which were clearly beyond the capabilities of those ancient civilizations, and since the civilizations were separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years, and since no records were left that referred to the methods or purpose of construction, that unknown outsiders must have been behind them.

Could those outsiders have been the legendary Red Beards? And could the Red Beards have hailed from Argon? Was there even such a planet, or was Argon a room behind an occult bookstore in Los Angeles?

Suppose there had been a number of Argonian colonies around the ancient world, and that in each colony pyramids were erected. What would have motivated Argon to endow earthlings with pyramids and with the scientific knowledge and near-impossible mastery of masonry that their construction required? Had there been a master plan? Was it still operative?

What, if anything, did red hair have to do with it?

And why is it
nobody
knows what the hell a pyramid is doing on the American dollar bill?

For that matter, what are pyramids doing on a pack of modern-day cigarettes manufactured from a blend of American and Turkish tobaccos?

Whenever she reached that point in her questioning, Leigh-Cheri gave up. “Bernard would probably have several ideas,” she said once. “I guess I’m just a dunce.”

Whereupon it occurred to her that a dunce cap is shaped like a … ! That sent her back to the pyramids again.

65

SHE HAD PYRAMIDS
on the brain like a tumor. After one too many mornings of waking up with her mind on stone monuments instead of outlaw flesh, she dispatched Gulietta to the Richmond Beach branch of the King County Public Library to pick up books on the history of package design. It wasn’t strictly kosher, a book in the attic, but in the last quarter of the twentieth century what was? The Woodpecker himself had taught her that laws were like buttons—meant to be undone when the moment was ripe—and if you can’t break your own rules, whose can you break?

Although Gulietta donned a dress to go to the library, she continued to carry her picket sign, not that anyone could read it. Chuck, who’d been drafted to do some minimal housework during the strike, dropped his mop and followed her. She must have known he was behind her because every block or two she’d look over her shoulder and yell “Scab!” in her inelegant tongue. Why Gulietta was bringing the sequestered Princess books on package design was beyond Chuck’s comprehension, but he was to dutifully report the matter to the CIA.

While Chuck was tailing Gulietta through the library stacks, a nondescript panel truck sped up the bramble-bordered lane to the palace, intrigue hanging out of both windows. Two foreign-looking men emerged. They wore hats and long, dark raincoats, though it was a sunny day in mid-September. The men let themselves in without knocking. Stepping over mop, pail, broom, and piles of newspapers, kicking aside dustballs, Chihuahua droppings, and the occasional poker chip, they made their way straight to Tilli and Max.

66

LATER THAT DAY,
when there came a rapping at the attic door, Leigh-Cheri opened it without hesitation. She was expecting Gulietta. Instead, there stood her father, his noisy heart rapping upon a door of a different essence.

The King was exceedingly flustered. Initially, Leigh-Cheri attributed his embarrassment to the fact that he had violated her sanctuary, after not setting eyes on her in five months. Then she realized that she was nude. Due to the heat in the airless attic, her nipples were studded with opals of perspiration, and her pubic hair was damp and swept back from her labia, which glistened as if they’d been recently entertained. Unless shaven, the peachclam scarcely could have been more exposed.

“Excuse me,” she said. She pulled on T-shirt and panties.

“Oh, I’m getting used to it. First Gulietta, now you. I trust the Queen isn’t next.”

“Oh-Oh, spaghetti-o!” exclaimed the Princess. They both laughed.

“You know that visitors aren’t allowed.”

“Sorry, dear. Gulietta was about to deliver you this volume. I thought I would bring it instead.” He handed his daughter a book.
“Wrapping It: The Art of the Package.
I must say, a curious subject.”

“I can think of curiouser ones. For example, a royal family in exile in America. Shall I elaborate?”

Max went to shake his head, but his head was so occupied all it did was sway. His Chaplinesque mustache swayed with it. “I shan’t beat around the bush, Leigh-Cheri. I have been wondering if your mental health could be described as sound.”

“By whom?”

“Interested parties.”

“Depends on their criteria.”

“Responsibility and—”

“Responsibility to what?”

“—leadership and—”

“Since when has leadership been a criterion for sanity? Or vice versa. Hitler was a gifted leader, even Nixon. Exhibit leadership qualities as an adolescent, they pack you off to law school for an anus transplant. If it takes, you go into government. That’s what Bernard says. He says the reason so many assholes go into politics is that it’s a homing instinct. At any rate, I understand that several romantics have started to follow in my footsteps. That makes me some kind of leader.”

“At last count, seventeen young women and one young man have locked themselves in their rooms in emulation of your lovesick self-indulgence. Monkeys and apes will attempt to copy any moron’s routine. I wouldn’t be too proud. But that is not my concern. I am trying to ascertain if you are playing with a full deck.”

“It may or may not be full, but at least it’s
my
deck.”

The King looked around the attic. The room was dusy, dim, and bare. It was stuffy and smelled like a Skid Row gymnasium. A wino wrestling team might recently have practiced there. The King thought of his beautiful daughter living nude in that filthy chamber. He wondered if she didn’t get splinters. “Leigh-Cheri,” he said. It was almost a moan. “Leigh-Cheri. You are wasting your life.”

“My life has never been more full, daddy. And it’s seldom been happier. You may tell your ‘parties’ that a life lived for love is the only sane life. Besides, I have other interests in here.”

Again, Max surveyed the room. A chamber pot, a frog box, a cot without bedding, what appeared to be a pack of cigarettes sitting on the sill of a blackened window. Other interests? He shuddered. He kissed her damp cheek. He left without telling her that he had been visited by agents of the revolution, that they wanted her to be queen when they won back their nation.