Brutally Haggard, Part 7

Mrs. Cross and John Attend the Theater

“There’s the Duchess of Bicker.” Mrs. Cross whispered to John after they had settled into their seats and begun to look around at the people sitting by them and, above, those in the boxes.
“How do you know?” Asked John
“I’ve seen her face in People magazine.”
John studied the face below the pearl-studded tiara. He was thankful when the lights dimmed for the beginning of the play.
The first scene was the deck of a turn-of-the-century ocean liner. Two men stood by the railing. The first to speak, Emiliano, is dressed as a typical gentleman of the era corresponding to the liner. He is young, lean, and tall. The other gentleman, Garrett, is also lean, young, and tall. He is dressed equally as well as Emiliano, that is; they are evidently both men of leisure. The only difference between them is that Emiliano carries a leather satchel over one shoulder on a long strap.

Emiliano: Now you know why I must never return to Georgia.
Garrett: It is so sad!
Emiliano: Sad? Yes, I suppose it is sad, from the vantage point of human sentiment.
Garrett: But what other kind of sentiment is there?
Emiliano: There is that of the self-aware calculating machine.
Garrett: Oh, yes. So you have said before. The great machine you told me about, that can make so many computations that it rivals the human brain.
Emiliano: That is correct, Garrett. I see that you still doubt me.
Garrett: Never you, old man. Only…
Emiliano: Only my word.
Garrett: Don’t put it that way.
Emiliano: Never fear; I am not upset. I realize it must be hard for you to conceptualize, after all the indoctrination offered up by the church and modern sociology. But when you have seen for yourself…
Garrett: The man you have arranged to meet?
Enter Hashworthy

Geoffrey Porter Stumbles into the Secret Lab

Gravely, a metal cap securely attached to his shaven head, the cap connected to a tall wooden box by a dozen black cables, selected carefully among three seemingly indistinguishable glasses of clear fluid on a wheeled cart before him.
“Uhhhh…..” Gravely droned. His eyes moved slowly, but steadily among the three glasses. His tongue, slowly protruded from his mouth and pushed a stream of drool out.
“Take your time.” Becky, sitting on the other side of the cart, urged him.
“Uhhhh…..” Gravely’s head, bent forward, twitched as his eyes continued to rove the proffered choices.
“Becky.” A voice crackled through the speaker box mounted by the door.
“Yes, Mr. Fungral?” Becky turned her head slightly towards the speaker.
“I need you to come in here.”
“Now?”
“Now!”
“Excuse me.” Becky said to Gravely as she stood up.
“Uhhhh…..” Gravely’s eyes followed the woman to the door.
Becky entered the data collection center and saw Fungral standing in the opposite door. He gestured towards him.
“In here.” He said. She followed as he led her to the break room.
In the break room Becky met Geoffrey Porter. The Hurrer was seated at the newspaper and magazine strewn table looking askance at an open box of doughnuts. On the floor beside him was a knapsack. Behind him the door to the coffee vending machine was open revealing a deep dark hole.
“We have a visitor.” Fungral told Becky. Geoffrey Porter rose from his seat.
“My name is Geoffrey Porter, madam.” Said the Hurrer nobleman.
“How did you get in?” Becky asked.
“Quite simply, the workmen I hired did a shoddy job. I was supposed to arrive in the city of Shedge. I assume I am not there?”

Tracy Governor Acts

Systemica Gustaf, as portrayed by Tracy Governor, went to the window of her father’s beach house and watched idly for the arrival of Mr. Whale.
“Night is coming soon.” She said in a defeated voice.
“The sun sets out the opposite window.” Grumbled her father, played by some old actor I won’t bother to name. You’ve probably seen him in dozens of black and white movies on Saturday afternoons. Considered virtually worthless now by the film industry, he has found a niche on the legitimate stage, using all the sorrow and anger accumulated during his career.
Catching sight of Mr. Whale, Systemica made no sound, though the delight was clear enough on her face and in the life of her shoulders.
“I think I’ll go outside for awhile.” She said after a pause to compose herself.
“Better not stay out too long.” The father advised. “Night is coming soon.” He added in a sour voice, mocking the daughter who had returned to him only out of necessity, full of secrets, and tainted by contact with modern technology.
Systemica exited, only to return to the stage a second later, Tracy Governor looking expectantly down at the front row of seats in the auditorium.
“Somebody hand me my coffee.” The old actor called over his shoulder.
“That was very good, Tracy.” Phillipe Goosen told her.
The actress flushed and twirled half-way about.
“Thank you! I knew I could do this sort of thing if I was only given a chance!” She enthused.
The old actor took his coffee with a mumble and a nod. As the young man who had brought it to him began to leave he was called back by a murmured request to see if there were any pastries left.
“What I’d like to do, however,” considered Goosen, “Is to try a little something on your face.”
“What do you mean?” Tracy asked.
“He means you look too old to actually be my daughter.” Said the old actor without looking around.

Lady Revich Gardens

“My neck hurts today.” Lady Revich rubbed the back of her neck and then rubbed her hands together. Winter was coming. She picked up her watering can again and sprinkled the elevated row of potted sticks before her. “Poor babies.” She said to the members of her garden, meaning not only that the dead time was coming around once again, but also that she didn’t know how much longer she would be there to care for them. Not that she doubted she would be there that same time next year, though who could say with self-reflexive prophecy being virtually worthless, but that the inevitable loomed, her own dead time, with no hope for a spring on the other side.
Down in the village just over her balcony wall, Lady Revich heard a sudden cacophony of shouts and clangs. Peering down, the margravine saw nothing in the location the noise seemed to come from, a circle of cobblestones around a small fountain. Then she saw a half-dozen villagers emerge from a building abutting the circle, dragging two others, one of whom appeared to be a human.
“Drat this nonsense!” She said aloud.
“Ma’am?” Asked Darnana, standing in the doorway behind her.
“Darnana, look down there. Your eyes may be better than mine. Tell me what you see.” Lady Revich put her watering can down.
Darnana approached and looked down.
“They’re dunking somebody in the fountain.” She said. “Two somebodies.” She caught her breath.
“What is it?”
“It’s a hurra I saw at the store yesterday. And a trotdat that I saw talking to her.” Explained the servant.
“I see.” Lady Revich glanced down once more before stepping away. “I wish I could hurl that watering can down there among them.” She declared.
“Ma’am?” Darnana asked, wondering if her mistress approved or not the public humiliation by the mob. Little could she know that the margravine had once taken a trotdat as a lover, many years ago.

Brindel and Darnana Dispute a Contention

Darnana arrived home that evening less nearly exhausted than usual. She found her husband, Brindel, sitting at the kitchen table reading the doorknob-maker guild’s newspaper, The Waterfall’s Roar.
“Much excitement today.” She said somewhat breathlessly as she hung up her cloak.
“Oh, have you heard?” Brindel asked.
“I’m surprised you have.” Darnana looked at her husband with lowered brows.
“About the new brass forge dies? Why shouldn’t I have?”
“No, I’m talking about my news. Some of the citizens caught a society hurra, a pretty little rich girl, and a trotdat…”
“Oh, yes, gave them a dunking in the fountain of goats.” Brindel interrupted. “Yes, I heard about that. Max Leanwood came in the shop and told me.”
“Lady Revich and I saw it happen.”
“Oh yes?” Brindel turned over the newspaper.
“Yes, we were on the garden balcony. Lady Revich called me over…”
“Just a moment, dear, before I forget: when are you going to be able to get those old hasps?”
Darnana had begun fussing with the stove, which Brindel had lit as soon as he got home to have it ready for her. She looked at her husband.
“Brindel, I don’t know.” She said.
“You told me you were going to get them for me.” Brindel folded the paper in preparation to defend his memory of what was said, what had been promised.
“I told you nothing of the kind.” Darnana put a pot of water on the stove.
“You told me she had some old hasps in a disused storage room.” Brindel quoted as closely as possible the original statement.
“I never told you…”
“You said you would do your best to get them for me.”
“If I could. I’m not going to just steal them!”
“You’re not going to ask for them! You said you would do your best. Doing your best doesn’t involve waiting for a place in her will. It means sneaking them out behind her back.”

Nose

The nose lay just to one side of the still-quivering spear that had been imbedded in the bread-like surface by a powerful cast of some long, hairy arm far out among the assembly of puppets; mechanical trees; elegantly-attired, bipedal pachyderms; and delicate, segmented robots. The nose, naturally considering itself the centerpiece or focal point of the big face in the massive, free-standing frame, assumed with equal naturalness that he had been the intended target. I refer to the nose as a “he” out of an intuitive understanding of his position, his identity, his biologically-ordained aesthetic standards.
“This is horrible!” Moaned some backstage onlooker. I stood impassively in the wings watching the eyes, mouth, the tiny rioting denizens of the cheeks and chin, and the yellow-eyes beasts stalking through the eyebrows react in their various ways to the assault.
“Aren’t you going to do something?” The theater manager demanded of me.
I took the fake cigar out of my mouth with a stunned look on my own face, nearly as big a face, from my vantage point, as the one on stage.
“What would you have me do?” I said. I admit I was acting a bit, putting on a show of my own for the manager; I have always thought I would make a good actor, if only someone would give me the chance.
“Find out who threw that spear!” He suggested, tears of frustration trembling on the edges of his eyelids like baby birds about to take their first flight.
“Very well.” I agreed, more to get away from the man and the dark atmosphere behind the scenes than any spirit of cooperation. My cooperative spirit disappeared long ago, or evaporated, I should say, for I know where it went: up into the sky like a pan of water in the summer sun. The years of manual labor in the capitalist workforce had driven me to this place.
“You!” I barked, pointing at a sullen youth in the back row. “Did you throw that spear?”
“Are you accusing me of something?” The youth looked up from his handheld digital entertainment console and stared at me as I had stared at my father when he asked me when I was going to wash my car.

Tooth

The growth of a new tooth excited my imagination and thrilled me with new sensations. Fearful of media interest (I try hard to remain a nobody), I mentioned the tooth only to a couple of friends outside my immediate family. However, as the tooth was growing in a rather odd spot, I finally decided that the dentist must be consulted.
This posed a problem for me because my usual dentist, the one who had watched over my teeth since childhood, had recently retired, turning over his practice to a younger man. What would this new dentist say about my tooth and its unusual location?
“I don’t want it pulled.” I told the technician, the woman who did the actual work, leaving the dentist free to oversee the redecoration of the office.
“You don’t?” She was nonplussed. “Well, we’ll see what Dr. Goldbroom says.”
Dr. Goldbroom! The name was an affront to my obliviousness of the passage of time. How dare things change!
“Hello there.” A man of my own age came into the cell. He wore glasses with tiny additional lenses affixed over the larger ones. His bland face already was shadowed with incipient beard at this early hour.
“#13B shows signs of emendation.” He announced in a voice like a NASA flight controller as he climbed into my mouth and pressed here and there with a stainless steel prong.
“Mr. Ash was concerned about his… extra tooth.” The cleaning woman said in a low, matter-of-fact tone.
“Oh.” Said Goldbroom, just now noticing the novel protrusion. “Odd positioning.” He commented, pressing the new tooth hard with the dentrifice. “Not… quite textbook.”
“I don’t want it pulled.” I explained as he switched his tool for another. They were his tools now.
“It’s your decision.” He said, stripping off his latex gloves. “Keep up the good work.”
On my way out I noted the workmen carting away the wrought iron fixtures and sling chairs that had been part of the office as long as I could remember. I rubbed my tooth thoughtfully.

Forked Tree

“The recording device is hidden in the fork of a tree.” The man in the shadows told me.
“What tree?” I asked.
“It is a pecan tree just outside the window of the young lady’s room.” The Japanese lanterns that ringed the dance floor outside out private alcove were momentarily reflected in the man’s glass as he raised it to his lips. I heard the rattle of ice cubes as they crashed down against his mouth, the sigh of satisfaction as he finished the whiskey sour, the clunk of the glass as he put it back down on the table.
“I believe two hundred was the agreed-upon price.” I said after a moment of reflection, realizing there was nothing more to say.
“There’s one more thing.” The man told me.
I paused in the act of pulling out the small envelope with the money in it.
“What?”
“We’ve just found out that the young lady’s date has been called off.”
“Oh yes?”
“There is a possibility she will be in the room.”
I nodded, passed over the envelope, and rose from my chair.
“Wait until I’ve been gone five minutes before you leave.” I instructed.
“But of course, Mr. Lincoln.”
I moved through the sparse collection of dancing bodies feeling somehow more coolly confident and indifferent than usual due to being addressed by the pseudonym, one that I used from time to time in dealings of this sort. The illusion that I actually was Mr. Lincoln, an idealized, if secretive, version of myself, lasted until I was out in the parking lot, walking towards my car. There was no one about; therefore there was no reason for a false identity in order to feel how I wanted; indeed, needed to feel that evening. Other people were ever my problem. That was what this whole project was about. The recording device contained, it was to be hoped, candid observations and commentary about myself.
Upon climbing the tree to retrieve the device, however, I was confronted with a dilemma.

Analysis of Retirement

After bullying my way past the receptionist, I made my way to Andrea Yong’s office. Although the latter was not susceptible to bullying, it was still necessary for me to forcefully demand her cooperation before she would allow me into the file room.
“Whose records exactly do you need?” Ms. Yong asked me, making one last stand of defiance at the door with her key poised over the lock.
“As I said, I won’t know until I actually get looking. But I will tell you that it will be someone who retired from the garbage fleet no earlier than four or maybe five years ago.”
She nodded as if that bit of information had been sufficient to convince her to acquiesce, fitted the key, and turned the bolt. In truth her acquiescence at this point was moot; I was ready to bash her skull in and enter alone, having been shown the key and the door. I followed Ms. Yong into the immense room and stood in awe at the racks and racks of file boxes as she flipped on the lights.
“Now, the records you want are here,” She stepped over to the opening of an aisle. “Somewhere down on the right.”
I made to push past her and begin my search. She halted me with an outflung arm.
“Do you mind if I take your ID and call headquarters for confirmation?” She asked.
“Take it.” I said, fishing the ID out of the interior pocket of my coat. I handed it over and continued down the aisle.
Five minutes later, just as I had jerked out a box that looked promising, the woman returned. She returned the ID to me.
“I am sorry, sir.” She said, deferential now, though loath to show it. “But I had to know for sure.”
“Yeah.” I said, digging through the accumulated dreck.
Ms. Yong stayed where she was, hoping to help in some way. She reminded me of Judy Dench and her presence there was as unnecessary and unwanted as that of Dench in the role of M in the Bond films.
“Is there anything I can do?” She asked. I said, nothing, having finally found the incriminating document.

A Croaking Voice

“Who is making that horrible noise?” I asked, peering around furiously.
My luncheon companion, a relatively unsophisticated automaton roughly corresponding in form to that of a female human, answered,
“I don’t know.”
The noise was a basso profundo croak, the kind of noise a man-sized frog might make, should he happen to be in a busy cafeteria, expounding at length upon the current political situation, which the manipulator of this voice (for such the noise was) seemed to be doing.
“Have the hairs on your legs fully grown out?” My companion asked, eager, I guessed, to distract me from the croaking.
“Yes.” I said firmly, to finally dismiss this subject from out conversation. Then, looking at her suspiciously, I asked why she was trying to distract me.
“Who are you trying to protect?” I asked. I looked around more furiously than ever, though the croaking seemed to have ceased for the time.
“You.” She said.
“Me?” I thought that was bitterly funny. Where was she on the mountainside the week before? Hungry birds and an empty sky had been my only companions that day.
The croaking resumed. Forgetting my creamed corn and fried okra, I jumped up and prowled about the room. On the other side of a table of hulking youths I found the croaker.
He was a squat man of average height in a brown and black blazer. Around him at his table were a quarter dozen young women, each dressed in a monochromatic uniform of orange.
“Excuse me a moment, please.” He said to his audience before turning to me. I loomed over him with a migraine-inducing look on my face.
“Yes?” He asked.
“Are you the frog man?” I begged to know.
“Why? Are some people calling me that now?” He laughed. He sounded like some cosmic hinge of doom, rusty with disuse, forcibly opened by a being of my superhuman strength.