THE NATURAL STRANGER :: BOOK 1, "THE AEON" :: CHAPTER 10, EPISODE 4

I'd closed my eyes to Germans... and to those Austrians!... with Carlo under the old walls, "... Eindringen, uberfall... das verke, der cometogether cusa!" down those white roads as el Supervisor de Ruinas told us about before Carlo resigned his job. Roads, physical or spiritual... the real ones trails of whitewashed stones running through Mexico south to the Gulf of Honduras then, allegedly, beneath the sea to Haiti. They are also the path upwards one takes entering the World Tree... it truncates at the center of the Milky Way while the black road dives straight down through the Hells, without even the privilege of consulting your attorney.

The nine Uay hells are cold; cold, colder and even colder, more symmetrical categories of piss-freezing frigid. In the ninth, coldest... where, with Blake and Dante, starts the burning genius of absolute zero, with Augustine: "the torments of the damned are part of the felicity of the redeemed"... ice mounts fire to violate it, all of us monkeys under the pelt.

Of course the infidelios on Chauncey were never more than hinted at... one of the strangest (in my experience) turning out to be Rudyard Hayes. When the disease finished with him he was quadriplegic... more or less a corpse from the neck down. Old Zamora gave him a tiny pension, it was supplemented by the news kiosk he operated at the beach. Sunbathers bought lotion and La Prensa... mostly as it was something to put over their faces while they slept and, since this was so many years ago, few... tourists or locals... took advantage of the cripple by stealing his papers or scooping out the coins from the cigar box he used to hold his revenues, making change by lifting coins with his teeth.

In fact... perhaps because the passion of his discontent had settled where it only could... his salivary glands... Rudyard became a legend among bum Epicureans of the Malecon, who drew him into their revels, even flying him to London, Mustique or Miami for his cachet... the delight that he dispensed with his Camelot tongue. Time is a man, say quantists, space a woman. Rudyard had collapsed his patrons' waves into a trinity.

We grow older, and scenes cool down. But who's to say where Darwin's ape won't rear his blue-veined projection (or project his blue rear)... for example, Bud and I have gone, after the "Annie" mess, to Jack Doll's because we have no car, no driver... we'd have to crash at T's co-op (messy!), take the train (which, Bud believes, is dangerous at night) or throw a hundred and something dollars at some cabdriver who probably doesn't speak English. Getting down to the Village is ordeal enough, and with a paper bag of sandwiches from Charlie Brown's, plenty of German beer... no jaundiced Bud for Bud, thank Ida... we each thrash towards satisfaction, find a piece of it and roll over into sleep which is blown off sometime after two when the doorbell starts ringing.

Bud's still groggy from beer, so I get up, whispering "I don't have a gun," and wondering how the sonofabitch process server tracked us here and what the hell he wants.

The doorbell jazzles hideously, I press the intercom, ask: "Who's there?"

"Me!"

"Who?"

"Me! Lemme in, gotta see Jack!"

Me! I think... oh shit... turkey and brainwires, that squeaky voice... it's Paul. My husband's boss is raping Wilson Leonard's kid!"

"He's not here," I say. "Who is this. What's your name?" Name!

"Open up! It's me! Jack, please... it's me!"

Fortunately Jack Doll collects African art, there's jagged metal sculpture from Mauritania... says Jack's card... that I pick up before buzzing the intruder in. Bud has achieved the doorway, he's holding a lamp... as if to throw light on the situation?

The hallway buzzer buzzes. Africa in my palm, I disengage Jack's locks, except the topmost chain. When this is done I say, "Talk to me," and see a young man in a badly wrinkled tan suit with wild hair, standing on the threshold holding... what else, tonight!... a lone, diseased rose.

"Jack's gone to Florida," Bud says behind me, gathering his courage and musty senses once he's taken in the nature of the opposition.

The young man begins to weep, holding the rose through the aperture of the door.

The rose smelled like it had been marinated for two weeks in cheap Scotch. I make it an arrow, aim the stem towards Bud... it flutters impotently to the carpet. "Lucky thirteen," I sigh.

Sometimes the Bad Gods find your name and number, then it doesn't matter what you do, or where you hide.