MEMP’IS
BOOK
FIVE – “YOGA IS, as YOGA DOES”
(Saturday,
January 6, 2035)
And with a nod to the
still-revolving, still-flailing Homer... whose plight was beginning to elicit furtive
smiles from my wild talents, as well as his... Dr. Shore gestured for Henry Hat
to take the seat at my left, situating myself that at the center of the dais so
that our inquisition could commence.
"What
about you?" charged a still-smoldering Peg Reilly, who had migrated from
the inner zone of chairs and was, now, leaning against one of the tall windows,
next to Judson Crawford.
"In
the interests of security, I prefer to stand.
Thank you, one and all, for this invaluable service to the Republic...
for the newcomers, I am Doctor Miles Foster Shore, alumnus and Emeritus of Stimwood Academy and these three gentlemen are, of course,
from the police. My old acquaintance is
Henry Hat and, from the Trouble Factory, C-Squad, Corporal
Norlin and... and..."
he prompted…
Struggling
to righten himself, Homer blurted out...
"Officer Sack!"
"Officer
Sack! Exquisite! When I mention your names off this list that
has so graciously been provided to me, if you could be so thoughtful as to
cough, or raise a hand... Corporal Norlin, if you
will introduced your people, in their turn..."
This
apparently innocuous comment brought a swift, angry response from Lola.
"Beg pardon, doctor, but I ain't Norlin's people.
Until the kebbin' politicians bring back slavery,
I am a free citizen, Lola Mkwane... Lola from Angola
is what people call me..."
Dr. Shore hastened to
clarify, if not apologize outright...
"Very well, if out of turn. Let me emphasize: this is a non-judgmental
conference, in full compliance with the principles of Stimwood
and the teachings of Jezekiah Jemaliel
Jates. Every
opinion, every disclosure is important.
We are gathered to consider... and to solve... heinous crimes of theft,
violence, abuse of the self, of others and of cultural normalities. Crimes that menace the
foundations of substantiality, without which mere anarchy, corruption of the
brain, liver and circulatory systems arise and, also, a rule of tooth, claw and
the raised fist. To my own
introductions, then - at this time I’m pained to note that some of Stimwood's carefully cultivated Jatesist
scholars show unfortunate tendencies to cluster 'round particularly influential
or charismatic individuals and, from time to time, disputes of a largely
territorial nature arise..."
"He
means that the fruits and nuts, here, have organized themselves into
gangs."
Homer Sack's whispered
warning was just a little bit too loud and brazen to escape the Doctor's
attention.
"Of
my chosen twelve, which shall be seated in groups
of four triads, not gangs, the first
three clusters show this unfortunate tendency, whereas the remaining three...
well, you shall see for myself," Shore reiterated.
I believe that I muttered
"huh?" or "what?" or something of this nature, but without
effect. And Dr. Shore raised the silver
whistle to his lips and blew... the device barely inaudible, save to the
cat-faced "student" and another… shaven-headed, slightly simian - a
black sash around his light blue gown… and the two burly, ursine Stimwood nurses, Thor and Scotty. Also, to Homer Sack, who shook his head,
moaning...
"Make him stop!"
"Sorry," the doctor apologized. "Jud - get over here, here…"
With an expression of pained
condescension, Judson Crawford turned from his vista of Stimwood
gardens and the progress beyond, making his docile way to the folding chair
nearest the window. Considered as the
face of clock, the philosopher of HUMORGS represented twelve and King Jack,
sidling over to the metal seat at his left (the one o'clock position, from
which he silently taunted Homer, whose glastic throne
continued rotating erratically) as Shore began a formal introduction of the
rest of his savants. With a profusion of
gestures and flourishes that would not have been out of place in the court of
one of the French kings, before their revolution, Shore began:
"You
have already become acquainted with Judson Crawford... well, here he sits. Jud's
great-grandfather was a famous obscurantist whom he tries, however pitifully,
to emulate. He is our
intellectual-in-residence, nonetheless, and well-regarded by Stephen Stimwood, himself. Something of a leader, too, at least among a small, very disturbed
coterie. Do you have anything
further to add for the enlightenment of these gentlemen, Jud?
And Crawford looked up, a
momentary glance between him and Henry Hat, bringing a word to the tip of his
lips where, however, it died. He lowered
his eyes again, speaking barely above a whisper:
"This
is the beginning of a search, by me, for me.
My space… my home… my constituency in the MACRORG…"
Ignoring the squirming King
Jack, the Doctor waved a dismissive hand, gave Crawford a patronizing nod, then
motioned towards the line of waiting, shuddering talents - Stimwood's
finest fruits. Thor and Scotty escorted
forth a slight, ruddy adolescent with the distinctive, androgynous facepaint of a Nade, a small,
mean mouth and hideous acne (I do hope it was only acne) and a wan, shuffling girl whose lank, greasy hair masked
her pale and haunted face. Both were attired in traitjackets,
Stimwood's indicative pastel restraining tunics
("Light green is indicated for polypolar
disorders, yellow for autistic tendancies, pink for
the chronically enraged," Henry Hat confided, sotto voce, "…and, then, there is the blue!") which allows limited freedom of motion, but deters any
broader gestures which may be interpreted as hostile or menacing by various
sensors… constantly reading bodily indicators such as excessive motion,
heartbeat or personal moisture… which administered painful, disabling shocks,
should the wearer become agitated. The
boy fairly swaggered - elbowing the bedraggled girl aside… Shore coughed at
this display of impertinence, then, placed a fatherly hand upon his bony
shoulder, saying...
"Bobby,
these three gentlemen are from the police.
This is Bobby - let us hope that he has not brought (and Dr. Shore
grinned, rather unpleasantly) one of his friends."
Whereupon Homer Sack leaned
forward, pointed, nodding to myself and Henry Hat...
"He's the
one that tried to bomb the school!"
"What school?"
Dr. Shore, who had been
gazing across the southern half of the Turner Crisis Room, fingers to his
temples as if in a parody of concentration, blinked, then steered Bobby towards
one of the nearest of the empty chairs.
As Judson Crawford... now sitting silently, staring, apparently, at the
tip of his shoe, had been given the place of noon (or midnight) Bobby's
destination would be correspondent to four in the afternoon, or morning.
"Why can't I sit with Jud?"
Though directed at the
pouting boy, Dr. Shore's answers were, perhaps, of more interest to myself and Henry Hat.
"These
gentlemen from the Trouble Factory have asked that all of Stimwood's
premiere strategists be gathered to consider and, then, address their
situation. If I were to seat you, or
Lucy, by Crawford... why, Rocky, certainly, would demand to be seated with Jack
Bard. Perhaps, even Starrett..."
And Bobby blanched, taking
his place with no further dispute.
"There
is, in moderation, something to be said for factionalism of that sort that
seems to breed at Stimwood - as in other places. The partisan is alert, motivated to
excel. But there is also some danger in
allowing academically partisan sentiments full sway - not the least of which is
the security issue..."
And Homer, raising his hand
in front of his mouth, grunted...
"He is speaking of the risk of letting inmates run
wild in their asylum."
If he heard, Dr. Shore gave
no acknowledgement, as he resumed his introduction.
"Bobby
is a talented young man, if underdisciplined. He brought one of his friends to Basilisk
Academy - situated it in the auditorium, timed to go off during one of those
dreadful assemblies our professional education caste inflicts upon our young
people. Bobby's device did not go off -
Bobby, it would seem, still has some fundamentals to acquire regarding the
incendiary craft."
And the poxed
Nady boy snarled...
"T'wasn't a device, or friend, it was a kebbin'
bomb, you fexxin'
fraud. S'was
bad cordite the kebbin' doops
sold me - possum-face jesk'ballers!"
"One of the contingencies incumbent upon patronizing the
Chinese Market.
Sit down, now, Bobby, we have a ways to
go. Now... this is Lucy, Lucy
Groom. Her saga is less criminal than
tragic. Lift your chin, Lucy, let these
gentlemen from the Trouble Factory have a look at you."
Dutifully obeying the
Doctor's charge, Lucy widened her slit-suspicious eyes to meet ours and then,
without remark, followed Shore's finger to the eight o'clock seat and dropped into
it like a sack of HRI-certified soyflour. Her head sank again, cloaking any resentments
or aspirations she still held behind a veil of stringy, spidery curls. Passing along the southern perimeter of the
chair circle, Dr. Shore faced us behind the sad girl, placing both hands on her
yellow-traitjacketed neck...
"Lucy
is in recovery from a difficult pregnancy, being what... in another, less
enlightened age... we'd call an unwed mother.
She had a mysterious encounter at a respected… and licensed, HRI-approved…
research facility, and the fruits of it were, well, to say the least, somewhat
disturbing. And, as Mr. Stimwood has always been partial to the monstrous,
here..."
"If I do what you tell me, will be allowed to see my
baby?"
The doctor gave an ambiguous
shrug. Walking backwards towards the
line of students, he made a dismissive gesture to his security mutes. "Next!" Three more savants were
prodded forward in single file by Thor and Scotty; the foremost being a fierce
little fellow in late middle-age, another white coat over his blue traitjacket. Behind
him waddled a big-bosomed woman with additional glastic
elastic restraints crisscrossing her blue scrubs, pinioning her arms behind her
back and, thereafter, a youngman in pale green, an
old-fashioned dark top hat perched atop his scalp at a jauntily incongruous
angle...
The two men in white coats
glared at each other across the poles of Shore's HUMORG clock - Judson Crawford
narrowing his eyes. I cannot help but
remember an observation by an author named Orwell... now proscribed, except as
applicable to due procedure under the City Council, Law Firm or Trouble
Factory. In positing a world where
animals gained ascendancy over men, and pigs over lesser beasts, Mr. Orwell
described an inability to discern pig from man and man from pig... I do not
mean to infer that Crawford's bloodline has been compromised since the days of
his famous great-grandfather, only that instinct is, sometimes, a godmother to
discovery. Diminished, wandering off to
the side… rather like a rat, afraid of being trampled between two warring
elephants… Dr. Shore finally coaxed the first newcomer to the six o'clock seat,
which he took with a smirk traversing the eastern arc of Turner… passing from
Dr. Shore to Crawford, faltering only momentarily, not as his eyes met mine,
unfortunately, but as he regarded Henry Hat, who placed the flat of his palm
atop the fedora on his knee, smiling one of his most innocuous smiles. Bobby's fingers twitched, as if he wished to
be caressing one of his bombs. Lucy
slumped. Dr. Miles F. Shore cleared his
throat.
"As
you may have surmised, Dr. Wilson is an exceptional addition to Stimwood's fellowship, on loan from the Man Ray
Institute. We are grateful for his
presence, here, and await, with no minor exigency, the perfection of his
researches."
Of course Officer Sack and I
knew Wilson - at least by reputation . (Advice to reader: For further reference to
Dr. Wilson consult the file People #34:02685 in the archives of the Court of
Flux,) For his part, the
ghoul folded his arms, glaring crossly through my four wild talents at Judson
Crawford, biting his fingernails in the warmth of January's afternoon sun
before deigning to give a sarcastic reply.
"If
you were sincere, Doctor, I should
not have to be kept waiting, fighting... tooth and nail... for critical
materiel, without which my researches cannot progress. This man and this other... this Byzantium, massed here... they show no
other purpose save preventing me from completing my studies, which could help
save and prolong your lives... the lives of each of you miserable creatures
here."
"Whassat?" Like a trout to the caster's fly, Lola had
leaped up ahead of Troosh and Vona
Rae while Peg Reilly, hands folded, demurely, awaited further revelation with
the mild expectation of a late Sunday morning churchgoer. But, discerning that Wilson had nothing more
to say, Dr. Shore undertook a justification for his presence.
"The
good Doctor... my professional colleague... is only the latest to attempt
regeneration of the King by cloning genetic matter from has been alleged to be
genuine scrapings off the Conyers tissue..."
As Henry Hat seemed puzzled,
I hastened to draw the suncop into the discourse.
"A wart. A growth that doctors allegedly removed from
Elvis Presley's neck - or perhaps it was his nose, I'm not up to
particulars. Anyway, they kept it...
perhaps anticipating the genesis of the Fex
Market. Before the k'ball,
they had online auction houses selling hair and fingernail clippings - some real,
most not…. and it kicked around various medical facilities until stolen and
partitioned. Some of the tissue
subsequently turned up on a computerized auction block out of Conyers, Georgia
around the turn of the century. After
the K'ball it disappeared, again, into the underworld
- almost certainly into the possession of charlatans... no offense intended,
Dr. Shore?... who pry money from the gullible in the hope of medical
developments that would hasten resurrection of innumerable clone-Kings in their
squalid basements. Garages? Because, Wilson, you cannot grow stable doops from wart tissue... you may come up with things, but things that cannot sing, nor shake their hips, nor even curl their
lips..."
Whereupon,
Wilson snarled...
"I'm
working on that! At least I would be... if only the kebbers in this
joint would permit me the proper equipment..."
Dr. Shore's own lips curled
in an exasperated moue… his fingers closed round the silver whistle, but he
dropped it almost instantly.
"A
matter you may to take up, or revisit, with the Director. If he were not pursuing his researches here,
Officers, I dare say that you might have cause to add Dr. Wilson to your list
of suspects in that Specimen Depository burglary – howsoever at remove. Perhaps as an excessory?
The Doctor also travels with an entourage (and Shore beckoned to the
sultry redhead) - this young lady
here is Dawn Dancingfeather, one of several names she
has used prior to her, uh, matriculation... or perhaps you have heard of her
as..."
"They
called me Flame..."
And this remark brought Peg
Reilly out of her benevolent pose, and her chair, pointing...
"You! You!
You're the one who killed those go-go dancers on the Hamorite Strip... that one from Moe's, the Wave, the
Prancing Pony..."
"And what of it?"
"Good for you!
Good riddance to un-Jatesly rubbish..."
Whereupon Dawn... or Flame (Advice to reader: People #32:28345)...
turned towards the dais and smiled, aiming her ample breasts at Henry Hat like
a pair of heaters during the remainder of Peg's tirade. This gesture was, ultimately, interrupted by Terushka Batter, who had withdrawn some yellowed legal
papers from the folds of her chiffon, fanning herself as though we were in the
middle of July instead of nearing the King's Birthday on the opposant solstice...
"Filthy creatures, those Hamorite
strippers. There's always a couple of working girls hanging around the
back of that lozenge when Victor and his company drive up. Whores and dogs. I saw one of those, a Rottweiler, I think
they call it, although I know a little German and that creature was not red,
and not all dog either, it was black, black as the soul of Victor Iowa, and
it..."
Reilly
interrupted… “My disappeared husband was requisitioned by Fulke*Steinmetz,
the German Naval officer, in Mexico when..."
"…merely
shows the old art side by side with the relative speed in a new guise,
that…"
Whatever his Doctoral
credentials, M. F. Shore seemed to lack one quality essential to management and
facilitation... the faculty of causing people to shut up when their comments
drifted into the irrelevant, obscure and repetitious. So, assuming it would be down to me, I cut
off the dialogue among girlfriends before Vona Rae
and Lola could dive into the fray.
"As
we discussed, in confidence… Troosh, Peg… I believe
Dr. Shore has yet one more introduction to make - or, possibly, seven..."
Grateful, but straining not
to appear so, Shore motioned for his burly Stimwood
nurses to escort the young man with the lime-drab traitjacket
and top hat into the Academy's circle of charm, crooking his finger into a
warning gesture.
"If
I permit you freedom of movement to display your talent, do I have your pledge
not to attempt any stunt that would make me regret my indulgence?"
The kid merely smiled, but
Bobby erupted out of his seat - waving his arms frenetically until encountering
the invisible field of the traitjacket...
"K'ball! Why does he get to show off an' get his
monkey suit off, an' I don't..."
"Because the Kid's been a good boy, at least over the past
two weeks.
Isn't that so? No acting out, no
demonstrations, no sneakin' off to the South Node and
coming back with things no Kid should play with... oh yes, gentlemen and
ladies, this is Kid MacBeth, a lad of the Southwest's
meanest streets, yet blessed with an uncommon physical dexterity. Why don't you go up thataways...
no, not next to Crawford, leave a buffer between you, there... and show these
nice policemen what you can do."
I saw, now, that Kid MacBeth was significantly older than Bobby; I would
estimate eighteen or, even, twenty. (Advice to reader: People #33:07721, People
#32:18316)
With the ingratiating, vapid smile of a Lifestyle Criminal - polysubstantial, no doubt - he removed his top hat, plucked
several spherical objects from it and, upon replacing the stovepipe again,
proceeded to begin juggling - quite expertly.
Dr. Miles F. Shore fairly beamed with patronizing pride.
"Of
course this barely scratches the surface of the Kid's capabilities... he has
been known to juggle six... er, orbs... whilst on a unicycle or nine, suspended by his teeth from a
high wire..."
Henry Hat, scrutinizing the
young fellow's performance, lifted his own yellow hat from its place upon his
knee, slapped it briskly and suggested...
"Perhaps... a demonstration?"
The Kid inclined his head
towards Shore, who assented with a shrug towards the two "nurses",
one of whom unlocked the traitjacket with a remote
sensor. His spheres were mottled pink,
crimson and an unpleasantly fleshy yellowish-white and Kid spun them forward,
then back for a minute or so... eight, then nine, then ten of them until he
tipped the hat again and each dropped within, making ten distinct rubbery
PLOPs. I leaned towards the suncop...
"Caught
him working at the Chinese Market with what turned out to be veal hearts - there was talk that he
performed, in private, with somewhat more criminal apparatus, but the Law Firm
got him sent here on a deal. Figures
he'd hook up with a giglio like Wilson, more rumours have it that there's plenty of dooks
want him dead..."
Dr. Shore's hearing was
evidently superior as he hastened, now, to set matters straight...
"Of
course what we provide are merely rubber
balls. We permit our... uh... students
to utilize their Jates-given skills, to employ the
tools of their trade so long as they do so within the confines of the
law."
He winked - the Kid smiled
and, across the circle, Bobby sprung from his seat.
"Veal hearts! From the Chinese Market, he says... why don't
you make him tell the truth?"
And Homer leaned over,
whispering...
"Veal!... my hound dog's ass.
I'd lay my ticket to transport on that keb's bein' mixed up with those South Node mutilations. Probably had Philip Said's number at the top of his autocom!"