Brutally Haggard, Part 9

The Fascination of the Toaster

“It’s so utilitarian.” Gnome said as he stared intently at the toaster.
“There was a time when toast was central to breakfast.” Shomki, not yet a PhD, rubbed his unshaven chin and mused.
Musing was a habit with these young men, later to become famous as the discoverers of the Gratuity Confusion Principle. At this time, however, they were but untested scholars, sitting in a small, brightly-lit dining room, waiting for the thrill of the expected toast popping back into view.
“Does that make the toast gratuitous?” Gnome asked. This may have been the first broaching of this important topic between them, the first inklin of what they were to expand into two volumes of observations three thousand pages long. Discussion of the topic was squelched by Shomki’s next words.
“Something is approaching the house.” He said.
Gnome looked out the window through which his friend was looking.
“What is it?” Gnome asked.
“Red, cylindrical, big, big like a… a vending machine.” Shomki commented.
“A snack cake vending machine or some sort of hot beverage machine?”
“Hard to tell. It’s moving quite rapidly.”
“It might hit the house!” Gnome ejaculated.
“That was my precise thought.” Shomki agreed, rising from his chair.
“The toast!” Gnome objected to panicky flight.
“Whistling wheat!” Shomki swore. This was no time to delay. And yet, he too felt the hypnotic pull of the toast. He leaned towards the toaster, his knuckles on the vinyl tablecloth.
“Pop up, damn you!” He growled.
Later, surveying the damage the red object had done to the garage, Gnome handed his uneaten crusts to Shomki.
“Here’s a little something extra for you.” He said.
Shomki took them without a word. He was looking at the red object, torn open by its impact with the garage. Its contents, hundreds of strange-looking and more strangely-packaged pastries, littered the area.
“I’m going to eat one.” Shomki finally declared.
“Bravado is your forte.” Gnome mispronounced the last word.

The Paper Leitmotif

“Whenever the paper appears, a little trill on the oboes will be played.” Explained Dinglord, the theater’s director. He cued Ms. Groop at the piano. She trilled out the series of notes.
“That’s a piano.” Hyram objected.
“I know it’s a piano.” Dinglord sang. “But in the actual performance of the piece we will have actual oboes here.” He pointed at the orchestra pit. “We have none at the moment.”
Hyram and Corky exchanged looks. No oboes! What kind of cheap company had they joined up with? Corky complained later that he had had to get his own coffee.
“You’re lucky.” Hyram countered. “I had to bring my own.”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean what do I mean?” Hyram lowered his brows in confusion.
“I mean, what’s the difference?”
“You got your coffee: went and got it. I brought mine. Had to bring it from home.”
“Didn’t you know they had coffee here?”
“What’s the point in drinking their coffee if you have to go get it yourself? Besides, they have crappy coffee here.”
Summoned to their places, along with the rest of the cast, Hyram and Corky entered the blue, high-ceilinged room with the green shag carpeting covering what stood in for distant, mountainous terrain. The signal given, they began. Corky, in his role as the hermitical wise man, sat atop one of the shaggy peaks. Hyram, singled out from the crowd of squirrel-people, climbed up to this wise man.
“Oh, wise man!” Hyram called, once he had reached that high place.
“Yes?” Corky inhaled the rich aroma of the coffee in the cup in his hand.
“What is the right course of action for my people?”
“Well,” Said Corky, putting down his coffee and taking up a scroll. “According to this document…” Corky’s words were supplemented by the trilled notes of Ms. Groop’s piano.

Ric Ocasek in Gelatin

“Have you heard about Todd Rundgren?” Bantu Sani asked me,
“And the ‘New Cars?’” I replied.
“Yeah.” His eyes were wide, disbelief evident in every shake of his head.
“It is a sad day for all parties concerned.” I made my comment and returned to the planting of the baby beans. Of course, Bantu Sani would have pestered me further, had I allowed it, but finally he turned away finding me unwilling to talk. Even if he had said something most engaging (and just about anything to do with the Cars or Rundgren was potentially engaging) I would have denied both of us the pleasure of conversation. The beans must be planted today; there was no other time to perform this task. Besides, what a pleasurable task it was. I was in the greenhouse, not out on some dusty plain bending my back before the merciless sun. No, my garden was indoors, on a tabletop at hip level, each bean to be placed in moist black loam in its own florally patterned paper cup.
“Your smock is dirty.” My wife told me as she met me emerging from the greenhouse sometime later.
“Let it be dirty.” I smiled. “I never want to wash this smock again.”
“Smock, smock.” She said, a smile of her own on her face.
“Smock, smock.” I repeated.
“Are the beans planted, Papa?” My son asked that afternoon as we gathered around the radio to eat our toast while listening to the News from Inside My Head.
“Yes, my son.” I put a slice of bread for each of us (except Bantu Sani) into the toaster and pushed down the levers.
“When will they begin to grow?” Asked my daughter.
“They are already growing.” I said, tuning the dial of the radio until the familiar theme music came through the airwaves.
“I just want to be in your panorama.” Bantu Sani could be heard singing as he washed the dishes in the kitchen.
“I’ll deal with him.” I assured everyone as I rose from my chair and took down the riding crop from over the mantle.

Card Games of the Judiciary

I will admit that when first the subject of card games of the judiciary was suggested to me (by old man Cowold, out in his rough shack among the thickest part of the forest) I was reluctant to pursue it. After all, having been a frustrated card player for most of the latter half of my life, with no one to play with as the overwhelming bulk of humanity is now inextricably fused to their omnisensory televisual interfaces, well… let’s just leave it that I’m both a little burned out and bitter on the subject.
Of course, there are those who would play with me, if I only were willing. As a rule, however, these tend to be the same people that I avoid as I would the sight of ghostly figures in the periphery of my vision, when they emerge from their subterranean muckholes to seek out lonely people in need of their tedious jokes and commonplace opinions.
In my capacity as a judge, I am forever at odds with those who see the law as an entity unto itself. These are the people who say things like “we’re a nation of laws, not men,” which is patently absurd. Laws don’t eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, or have babies. It is individuals who do these things. The law is an abstraction used to make the lives of groups of individuals more pleasant by making their lives, as a group, more ordered.
“No one wants to hear your philosophizing.” One man told me. My reply, as usual, was,
“Old man’s breath smells like beef stew.”
“Shut up and deal the cards.”
“Very well.” I shuffled the deck as best I could with my work-swollen fingers and dealt the whole pack out among we four players, leaving only four cards face down in the middle of the table.
“What’s that?” One of the women asked me, pointing at these last cards.
“That’s the kitty.”
“The kitty?” She questioned, looking at her fellow female as if to confirm the validity of her shock.
“It’s vulgar, I know,” The other woman agreed. “But what can you expect of a man-created game?”
“This is a game?” The man queried with a shocked expression.

Backbeat of the Scholar

The drums I played on that famous series of albums were homemade, constructed of plastic buckets, blocks of wood, and some decorative miniature cymbals found at a thrift store.
“What an unusual drum sound!” Friends and acquaintances would comment on hearing the albums. When I explained the makeshift nature of the drums, the inevitable reaction (mostly on the part of the latter) was that they had been cheated, their listening experience had not been valid. When shown the error of their ways by the most elementary of arguments, these same critics were wont to sniff,
“Well, that’s not Jazz!”
“One hundred years ago you’d have said it wasn’t music.” I reply.
The liner notes, consisting of fragments of stream-of-consciousness-type fumings edited together into passable gibberish, were equally praised until it was discovered that they could accompany any of the other albums as well as the one in which they were included. This was discovered by the simple method of my admitting to the fact. I think my mistake in both cases was in fessing up that it was all a game, that the serious emotions engendered by the works of art were not inherent in them, but in the observer, the listener, the participant.
“You’re philosophizing again.” Was the third of the criticisms leveled at me.
Indeed, it is so. The point really is not that I am inventing new methods of artistic construction, but that I am surrounded by morons who ought never to be exposed to any of my work, as they are not familiar with any culture or entertainment not produced by a machine.
How best to describe my music? The term lo-fi comes to mind at once, at least to someone like me, deliberately adopting the term even as I know that terms and labels are ultimately unsatisfactory, becoming too broad to have any efficacy of indication. I might as well adopt “Jazz.” Much as I’d like to, however, I have such respect for the term that I won’t sully it by adding my stream-of-consciousness music to it. Perhaps a new term is necessary. I could call it “Toadic” or “Bean” or “Lottery.”

Full Motility

In the soup the vehicle moves like a magazine opening and closing, rifling its pages under its own power. It had been my privilege to see my enemies incorporate Miles Davis into their lexicon of touchstones. Soon they will burp out the name Captain Beefheart with their broadcast lips, robbing me of another (perceived) unique talisman. They will never take Jean Dubuffet, though. Dead too long, for one thing.
The smell of butter-flavored poison is filling the room. People stop and tell me the headlines. I continue to concentrate on my own aging. Will I become as they?
I am a man who likes Giacometti’s drawings and paintings more than his sculpture. I like Bacon from the mid-60’s onward. His popes and Van Goghs leave me unmoved, undisturbed, if disturbance is really what you want. My own art is not disturbing. At one time I wanted to make pictures that frightened me, but now I want to paint that which brings to mind all that my childhood had already envisioned years before all this.
The magazine is the imaginary one, not put out to contain as many ads as possible, but to be the compendium of which I have dreamed to discover. Every wonderful thing. Text and images. A dream of infinite comics. Every surface covered by tiny figures or Tarzan’s little bugs.
The soup? The soup of life, I guess. What a commonplace that is. Some split pea broth from the swamp, full of green brains and rising bubbles flatulent with mystery. Don’t you want a taste?
The easiest way for me to finish this segment is to include a little dialogue.
“Mr. Abandon, what do you think of my current conceit?” I asked with a devilish simper on my thug’s mug.
“I am uncertain of what it all means.” Mr. Abandon covered his genitals with a hastily submerged washcloth.
“I don’t think it’s really necessary that it means anything.” I suggested.
“It sounds like you’ve just given up.”
“Bah! Two pages out of a hundred. No one will notice.”
“I think it’s a little more than two.” Mr. Abandon motioned me to leave him to his bathing.

Walking Stick

By the time I found my walking stick the bus had pulled away ffrom the platform in front of my house.
“What will you do now?” My robotic female attendant asked.
“Get away from you, anyhow!” I snapped, shaking the walking stick furiously at her. I stormed out the front door, pulling my hat firmly over my eyes. As I walked down the narrow path through the knee-high grasses I kept my eyes fixes on the ground.
“Watch where you’re going!” I heard a hateful voice bark. I looked up in time to avoid two men carrying a large pane of glass towards me. To avoid them I had to step into the grass.
“Asshole.” The man walking at the rear muttered as he passed by. I hate these workingman types; they’re so certain that anyone who dresses as I do is pretentious and knows nothing of their lives. I reached out in my anger and smashed the pane of glass with my stick. The momentary look of shock on their faces was delightful. Just as their shock turned to wrath I tumbled backwards into the grass, snuggling down into it. As they hunted about for me I moved unseen far away, eventually coming to a neighborhood of small, mice-like people. The grass had scratched my face. I was hot and winded from the unfamiliar exercise. So I entered a small ice cream establishment and ordered, not ice cream, but a simple cup of cold lemonade.
“What town is this?” I asked, after I had gulped down the drink.
“This is Bosomill.” The shopkeeper and chief scooper told me.
“Bosomill!” I declared, as shocked as if I’d had a large pane of glass smashed by an asshole stranger.
“I know someone who lives here.” I said. “Do you know Craggy Izodi?”
“Sure.” He replied. He went on to give me directions to Craggy’s house.
Ten minutes later I was sitting with Craggy in his front yard sipping another lemonade, this one homemade and much tastier than the last.
“The squirrels are out of control.” Craggy told me. “My people have tried to reason with them, but they won’t listen. It’s not entirely their fault, and I see their side of it, but only bad stuff can come of this.”

Kiplough’s Transport

“In these uncertain times,” Said the salesman. “You need reliable transport.”
“What does it eat?” Asked Kiplough as he looked dubiously at the wheeled animal’s mouth. The vehicle looked sleepily back at him.
“Not as much as you’re thinking he does.” The salesman chuckled, shaking a finger of friendly admonition.
“Yeah, but what?” Kiplough turned from his inspection. He felt he should assert himself at least a little.
The salesman clapped his hands together and peered closely into Kiplough’s face.
“Household scraps, if you like. Whatever you eat, he can eat the leftovers. Or, feed him dry dog food, if you prefer.”
Convinced, Kiplough bought the vehicle and drove it there and then, from the salesman’s lot to a previously scouted-out location where a large door, big enough to accommodate the vehicle’s passage, could be accessed by the Bolsisean machinery in his apartment. One could not simply go through the door, however. One had to make use of the machinery. Kiplough, therefore, left the vehicle alone and returned to his apartment. Then he went through the machine back to the location (a historical site in a quaint district of Shedge) and retrieved the vehicle. Was it happy to see him? Kiplough wondered idly as he drove it back through the intervening space to his apartment.
There he loaded the vehicle up with a few personal items and all the supplies he had on hand. He scratched out a note for the Bird, left it on the kitchen table without much hope that his friend would ever see it, and exited the apartment for the last time.
Down the long corridor of green light he drove all day and on into a night he could only feel and not see, until he came to an ultimate door. Through this he passed out into a field of blue sketchily given depth by a few lines of black in the distance. As he drove he thought somewhat regretfully of his note to the Bird. Why he felt regret was unknown. He felt foolish for the regret, because he would never have to face any consequences for his note. Part of it read,
“Thank you for nothing, jerk!”

Hat

“Unusual hat you’re wearing.” Is a comment often addressed to me.
In most situations I am reluctant to share details about my belongings with strangers, who are the ones most likely to ask about them (friends would know better), but for you, on this important occasion, in this special setting, I will now reveal all, or at least as much as I am able to cover in the time we have available.
My hat, known by the name of the Gearender, is a semi-sentient creature shaped somewhat like a fedora. There have been times when I have wished it to be a homburg or a bowler, but I am stuck with the Gearender as it is, just as the Gearender is stuck with me as I am. I’m sure that must galling at times, considering my slight propensity to eat too much and lack of diligence in certain areas of grooming.
The Gearender has subtle facial features on its crown. These can be easily overlooked by casual passersby, as they are drawn in thin, black lines. Aside from its face the Gearender is, on the exterior, to all appearances a normal felt hat with a satin band. Inside, however, it is quite evidently abnormal. Tucked within are eight thick, purple tentacles and a complex nervous system. When the Gearender is put on, the tentacles reach down and, through a mysterious process, connect themselves to my brain. In some ways, my hat and I become a symbiotic organism, sharing input and output of data and sensation. Yes, some of my supposedly great powers are derived from the hat. I feel I can trust you with this information.
There is a possibility that there are similar hat-creatures in this universe centered around me. Only the other day some fellow freshly introduced to me said,
“Unusual hat you’re wearing. I know a guy in Greater Alu with one very like it.”
Do these hats have the same properties as the Gearender? Unlikely. But are they similar, having powers closely approximating those of my hat? If so, are they descendants of the Gearender? Do they come from the same manufacturer, if manufactured these hats be? I strongly suspect that I was manufactured, so who knows?

Bag

The Gearender is not the only item with special properties in my personal things. Why, the bag that I sent for as I tarried in Bosomill, preparing to see about this squirrel business, has a particularly interesting feature. I’m sure I won’t be putting myself at a disadvantage by telling you that the interior of this bag is actually one of my closets back home at what I humorously refer to as the palace (industrial-sized Chinese puzzle box is more like it, wheeled underneath, and looked down upon by the locals, for whom their mongrel, preassembled domiciles are symbols of unaccountable pride). I can put my arm into this bag and retrieve anything I want from the closet. I can even jump into the bag to hide or carry along a friend or two.
“Toadsgoboad,” Craggy Izodi called from the door. “That parcel you’ve been expecting: it’s here.” A delivery man dressed in traditional messenger’s garb handed the overwrapped parcel to Izodi, who brought it to me where I sat doodling comic figures for the amusment of his two small children.
“Ah!” I expressed satisfaction. “Here.” I turned over the pad and pen to the children to fight over.
“Craggy, I want you to have this.” I told my host and friend as I plunged my arm into the bag after I had freed it from my robot woman servant’s too-diligent efforts at packaging.
“Oh, no, Toadsgoboad, I couldn’t… “ He made a token gesture of renunciation.
“Shh.” I pulled out a smart little edition of my collected poems, bound in the finest of vinyls. “Here you go,”
“Oh, thank you. Our household shall treasure it always.” He opened the book to the flyleaf where an attractive engraving of my visage greeted him.
“And now, I must be on my way.” I hefted the bag and gripped my stick.
“No, don’t go! Don’t go!” The children surrounded me and jumped up like baby pigs in a cardboard box.
“Now, now, you have my words and my picture.” I gestured at the book. “And my blessing.”
“Tell your wife I am sorry I missed her.” I told Craggy.
“She will be sorry, too.” We shook hands and I departed, heading towards the woods at the edge of the field.