kick in and provide them with a greater degree of comfort. At least, enough to break the silence.
Nelson Beach split a buttered crescent with Minnie while Sir Geoffrey whom everybody referred to as “Sir,” yet nobody knew whether or not he was actually knighted and if so for what and by whom, forged ahead to get the aisle seat across from V, knocking against the seat occupied by Philip and Mercy Pence in their high lacquered Christian hairdos more suited to drag queens, causing them to drop their magnetic checkers just as they put the last checker in place. Helga von Mummi leaned forward blocking her husband from being seen by Carlotta Bean whom she imagined staring at his crotch as he was busily arranging himself in his new white linen slacks. He was a well-endowed man and mighty grateful. Carlotta did catch the action, but she was too busy trying to disengage Billy Butts who was kneeling, facing backwards in his seat in front of her, looking like a balding gray haired elf; talking about Jackie O and how they had a great many friends in common who came to The Studio where he had been a club boy while going through his trust fund during his glory days in New York City before joining AA after several hospital incarcerations, was drooling all over Carlotta’s Greek who didn’t seem to mind. The Greek nodded and smiled showing his pristine white teeth and, though not knowing most of what Billy Butts was saying, he didn’t need to understand any of the words to get the gist of what Billy had in mind. The Greek did not discourage. Soon the Friends of Erotic Artifacts were rolling along their merry way towards their long awaited FEA field trip to Dead Squeezer’s Caverns.
After a couple uneventful hours, the bus turned onto the axle-breaking bumpy dirt road outside the town of Squeezer which led to the picnic tepee and souvenir stand where tickets were sold before entering the shaft leading down into the caverns.
The Queen City Friends of Erotic Artifacts were quick to disembark as the bus finally pulled up in front of the tepee and made an abrupt stop——nearly hitting a man in lederhosen who was foolish enough to stand wide-eyed and frozen as the bus came barreling towards him. The near fatality could easily be attributed to the bus driver’s auto-asphyxiation from farting all the way from Queen City.
TWO
tea time at shady sanctum
Maxfield Talbot, a burly man closer to seventy than sixty, sat on a beanbag watching natives beautiful black women glistening rainbows banana skirts dripping fruit flies naked beady-eyes behind shrubbery wearing Campbell’s tomato soup cans paying constant attention throw off cans where manhood stands Jesus naked whips snap where are you the Vatican everything out of order does it matter not really look at the mess you’ve created you need more self-control keep jumps shorter remember order by secret signs learn to read envision pay attention believe it you’re doing good yes believe it keep jumps short and simple try harder stop fucking with time did we switch points of view no they are all yours listen to yourself we are in the mind always in the mind listen LISTEN! AWAKE! Max awakens and mumbles, “Where was I there...where in hell is here where am I now?” Max wriggled out from under his bed while trying to remember yesterday, or if there actually was a yesterday.
The especially tall pine legs of Maxfield’s bed, made by one of his sister’s husbands to accommodate his “portly proportions,” heightening the bed to allow him to remain a robust figure without going on one of V’s torturous vegetarian diets. Max believed himself to be completely invisible while under his magical bed. And, maybe he was.
Maxfield’s hallucinations are inexplicable, if indeed they are hallucinations. However one might try, there are no words, not one single word, to capture a nano-fraction of his disjointed reality, or an essence of his drug-induced visions, if they are drug-induced——the inexplicable Maxfield Talbot.
* * *
Another time in the parlor of Shady Sanctum, Max’s niece, Victoria Aires, was having “another one” of her anxiety attacks.
When others disagreed with her, however slight, it added unbearably more anxiety to be anxious about. V’s mantra to escape and forget about that basket of deplorables, is to smoke a doobie. It doesn’t do a thing to cure deplorables, but it helps to see them in a better light as, more than likely, human; however, lamentable and pitiful.
The visions and ideas V conjured for America’s own good, in her efforts to save it, never came to fruition, since she was never quite sure what exactly needed saving. And nothing ever came to mind in that regard. V told herself that she had every reason to be anxious. She was diagnosed with something quite depressing——bipolar. V was prescribed enough drugs to put a person of lesser tolerance into a persistent vegetative state. But visions fade and melt. They disappear and stream towards their source. Time becomes entangled. Memories become taunting devils, impossible bullies who come from nothingness and disappear into nothingness; leaving a sadness and a desire to try to become acquainted with the subconscious, or at least to learn to listen to its advice. “After all, it is the home of my conscience, is it not”thought V.
V desired to be an ageless woman, a natural woman of grace and mystery. V was also a woman hellbent on leaving an indelible mark in history. Her anxieties had anxieties of their own. Each passing day became more insufferable. More psychotropics, Doctor. For V, anxiety has always been well-traveled, carefully surveyed and familiar territory.
“Who is that sitting at the kitchen table, Lil?”
“He looks a lot like a satyr.”
“Nonsense. You are suffering some kind of LSD flashback.”
“I never took LSD, V! That was you.”
“Are you sure?”
“I am. There is a satyr sitting at the kitchen table writing something in a spiral notebook. He looks pretty real to me.”
“I never doubted he was real, Lily. I have known several satyrs in my day.”
“You’re full of merde! Take your damn pills,” her dearest friend Lily advised.
“They give me dry-mouth,” V sighed.
“But they make you more…”
“What?”
Lily was reluctant to get it out, but she managed, “…normal.”
“What in hell is ‘normal,’ Lily?
“Sorry, just saying.”
“Please, try not to say ‘just saying’ to me. I am not one of your Facebook friends. How about you go see what he is writing. When a satyr takes notes it is a sign of something historical about to happen and we are somehow involved.”
“V, he just disappeared.”
“That’s a satyr for you.”
V, bright red hair, pale white skin, attractive without make-up, well-groomed, eccentric, writes with a fountain pen and only in green ink, claims to be thirty-five, even though she has enjoyed her thirty-fifth birthday for at least a decade, more or less. She is known for her fashionable hat collection to cover those bad hair days, to avoid the ravages of sunlight, or mainly because hats are simply fabulous. If you want to be a woman of mystery wear a hat, the bigger the better. If you are a black woman on Sunday morning wear a hat ornate with muted colors, pink, purple and lilac petals shimmering in the slightest breeze or the turn of a head. If you are the Queen of England wear the same thing. Cowgirls wear a hat. If you need to hide a hole in your head you wear a hat. For the love of haberdashers everywhere, wear a hat!
V
