Crackpot Palace (8 page)

“I'm going to show it to you right now,” he said, and his face began changing. He reached into his inside jacket pocket and brought forth a small-caliber ray gun wrapped in a white handkerchief. He laid the weapon on the table, the cloth draped over it. “Pick it up,” he said.

He stared at her and she stared back, and after it was all over, she'd told friends that his blue pupils had begun to spin like pinwheels and his lips rippled. She lifted the gun.

“Put your finger on the trigger,” he said.

She did.

“I want you to aim it right between my eyes and pull the trigger.”

She took aim with both hands, stretching her arms out across the table.

“Now!” he yelled, and it startled her.

She set the gun down, pushed back her chair, and walked away.

It took the general two weeks before he could find someone he could convince to shoot him, and this was only after he offered payment. The seventh expression meant nothing to the man who'd promised to do the job. What he was after, he said, were the three shrunken Harvang heads the general had kept as souvenirs of certain battles. They'd sell for a fortune on the black market. After the deal was struck, the general asked the man, “Did you see that face I had on a little while ago?”

“I think I know what you mean,” said the man.

“How would you describe it?” asked the general.

The man laughed. “I don't know. That face? You looked like you might have just crapped your pants. Look, your famous expressions, the pride of an era, no one cares about that stuff anymore. Bring me the heads.”

The next night, the general hid the illegal shrunken heads beneath an old overcoat and arrived at the appointed hour at an abandoned pier on the south side of town. The wind was high and the water lapped at the edges of the planks. The man soon appeared. The general removed the string of heads from beneath his coat and threw them at the man's feet.

“I've brought a ray gun for you to use,” said the general, and reached for the weapon in his jacket pocket.

“I brought my own,” said the man and drew out a magnum-class beam pistol. He took careful aim, and the general noticed that the long barrel of the gun was centered on his own throat and not his forehead.

In the instant before the man pulled the trigger, the general's strategy centers realized that the plot was to sever his head and harvest his intelligence node—the Knot. He lunged, drill bits whirring. The man fired the weapon and the blast beam disintegrated three-quarters of the general's neck. The internal command had already been given, though, so with head flopping to the side, the robot general charged forward—one drill bit skewered the heart and the other plunged in at the left ear. The man screamed and dropped the gun, and then the general drilled until he himself dropped. When he hit the dock, what was left of his neck snapped and his head came free of his body. It rolled across the planks, perched at the edge for a moment, and then a gust of wind pushed it into the sea.

The general's body was salvaged and dismantled, its mechanical wizardry deconstructed. From the electric information stored in the ganglia of the robotic wiring system it was discovered that the general's initial directive was—To Serve the People. As for his head, it should be operational for another thousand years, its pupils spinning, its lips rippling without a moment of peace in the cold darkness beneath the waves. There, the Knot, no doubt out of a programmed impulse for self-preservation, is elaborating intricate dreams of victory.

A Note About “The Seventh Expression of the Robot General”

I'm still not exactly sure why the U.S. became embroiled in a war in Iraq. When I ask people what they think, most can't figure it out either (some of these friends were even there) and those who have an answer aren't very convincing. The mission was, at best, murky, and yet thousands of our soldiers were killed, wounded, and traumatized. Billions of dollars were squandered. And the citizens of our country who didn't have loved ones in harm's way basically slept through it. I wondered what it was that made the U.S. leap so readily and so blindly into the Grand Guignol of that affair. I know that something about the mystery of mindless war making for its own sake is at the mechanical heart of “The Robot General.” Vigorous flag waving and statements like “If you're not for us, you're against us” led us down the garden path into a futile morass. As an American who has some knowledge of the history of America, I like to keep in mind a quote from William Samuel Johnson: “Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.”

86 Deathdick Road

I
had on my good pants, the uncomfortable ones, and was in the car with Lynn. I knew we were going somewhere I didn't have any interest in going, because I was wearing a tie and jacket. She had on the lemon perfume I'd bought her two Christmases back.

“When was the last time we were out on a date?” she said. She wore a brightly colored shawl, paisley in gold and orange. It came to me that her hair, when I wasn't noticing, had gotten longer, the way she'd worn it back in college.

“Long time,” I said, and made the turn on 206, heading south. Twilight was giving way to a cool spring night, and we drove with the windows open. “Who told you about this guy?” I asked.

“I saw Theda in the market Wednesday. She and Joe went to see him. She said the guy's amazing.”

“The Man Who Knew Too Much?” I asked.

“No, he's the Smartest Man in the World.”

“But, come on, fifty bucks to behold his brilliance . . .” I said and sighed through my nose.

“Don't be insipid,” she said. “You can ask him anything and he knows the answer.”

“I could stay home and get that on the Internet for free,” I said.

Her smile went to a straight line. Before things could get rotten, I said, “How many questions do you get to ask?” It was all I could think of.

“Everybody gets one question,” she said, staring through the windshield.

“What are you going to ask him?”

“Why you're such a turd,” she said.

“What did Theda ask him? Two plus two?”

“She asked him if she was ever going to have a kid.”

“It doesn't take the smartest man in the world to answer that one,” I said. “She's fifty if she's a day.”

“He told her, ‘No,' but after he gave his answer, she said, he got up from his throne and walked over to her table. He shook hands with Joe, and then leaning over Theda, the smartest man in the world cupped her left breast with his right hand and whispered, ‘Know this.' She said she felt a spark inside her that went straight to her brain and exploded—that's what she said. She started crying, the audience clapped, the guy returned to his throne and took the next question.”

“Know what
?” I asked.

“I don't know,” said Lynn and laughed.

We drove on, listening to the radio, neither of us saying much except for me wondering aloud if there was going to be any booze involved.

Lynn gave a curt “No,” and then said, “Okay, you have to slow down here. We have to look for a dirt road, going into the trees up on the left.”

“What's the address?” I asked, easing down on the brake.

She lifted a piece of paper off her lap and unfolded it quickly. Turning on the overhead light, she read, “Eighty-six Deathdick Road.”

Suddenly I was almost past the entrance in the trees. I slammed on the brakes. There was no other traffic behind us, so I backed up a little and made the turn.

“Okay, look for Deathdick,” she said.

“Are you kidding? Deathdick?” I said. I didn't see any streets, just the dirt road ahead, winding through the woods, lit by my headlights.

“The place is called Mullions,” she said.

I looked over at Lynn, and her hair was glowing. When I looked back at the road, we were driving on asphalt through a posh suburban neighborhood of McMansions and landscaped lawns. Up ahead, I saw a lot of cars parked along the street on both sides.

“I guess that's it,” I said.

“But which house?” asked Lynn.

I slowed way down and crept to the end of the car line on the right-hand curb. We got out and I joined her on the sidewalk. Lynn pointed to the front lawn two doors down, at a bright tube of violet neon twisted into the name
MULLIONS
.

“Is this place legal?” I asked.

“I guess so,” she said.

We were met at the front door by a thin woman on the down side of sixty. She wasn't fooling anyone with the surgical cinching of her face. “Millions to Mullions,” she said. “I'm Jenny. I hope you're ready for some answers tonight.” She flashed us a smile of giant teeth and held out her hand, palm up.

Lynn dug through her purse and retrieved our fifty. Once Jenny had it in her hand, she said, “Ask well,” and then stepped aside as we passed into the living room.

Once we were out of earshot, Lynn said, “What was up with her face?”

“It's better to ask well than look well,” I said.

The living room was packed, people milling around, talking, sitting on the gold-upholstered furniture. A huge bad painting of a garden with a waterfall and a McMansion in the background hung in an ornate frame in the center of the wall, above the couch. The carpet was also gold, and there was a small chandelier above. I looked around, and right off the bat, I spotted some of my neighbors from town.

I pointed out Dornsberry to Lynn and she rolled her eyes and whispered, “Not that douche bag.” I'd never seen this guy at a party in town when he wasn't lecturing some poor bastard on the finer points of golf. A holy-rolling, cigar-smoking runt. His presence was bad enough, but off to the left of us was Mrs. Krull, laying out for some old guy on the verge of either sleep or death one of her long bummer stories. When her one-legged aunt had succumbed to cancer of the vagina, she'd called and kept me on the phone for an hour with the excruciating details. I'd heard she had a pair of gray parrots on perches in her dining room that crapped willy-nilly and constantly repeated the phrase “Just kill me” in her husband's voice.

Lynn saw I'd noticed Krull, and she said, “Sorry.”

“This smartest man better be really smart,” I said. Then a woman walked by carrying a small plate with hors d'oeuvres on it. I thought I caught a glimpse of pigs in a blanket. “Eats,” I said.

“If they have anything to drink besides soda, bring me a glass,” said Lynn, and I was off, wending my way through the crowd, happy to have a purpose. On the way, not really knowing where I was going, I spotted a good-looking young woman with a pile of blond hair, holding a plate with water chestnuts wrapped in bacon. “Not bad,” I thought, and hoped there'd be spareribs or maybe shrimp. I got jostled by the crowd, excusing myself a dozen times for every few feet traveled. It was the sight of someone holding a beer that gave me the fortitude to continue.

Within that sea of bodies it got really hot and I started to sweat. The deep rumble of conversation washed over me from all directions, snatches of dialogue differentiating themselves for a moment and then melting back into the general hubbub. “I told her, don't try it, bitch.” “Peter did so well on the SATs they had to invent a new score for him.” “The dog is old, it craps on the rug every day now.” “It's supposed to snow later.” When it felt as if I'd been on my pigs-in-a-blanket search for a half hour, I finally went up to a woman I vaguely recognized from the grocery store in town where she was a cashier.

“Hi, do you know where the food is?” I asked.

She shook her head, and when she did, right on the spot, she turned into Dornsberry. He gave me a look of contempt. “We're all Christians here,” he said and took a long swig of his beer. “What religion are you?”

“Where'd you get the beer?” I asked.

“You've been asked a question,” he said and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose with the back of his beer hand.

“I'm a product of the age of reason,” I said. “Where's the food?”

He shook his head as if in disgust and pointed behind me. I turned around, the crowd parted, and there was a long table with bowls and plastic cups and a crystal punch bowl half filled with a yellow liquid. As I walked away from him, I heard Dornsberry hurl the insult, “Clown,” at me. Any other time I might have pounded his face in, but instead I just laughed it off.

The food table, in the state I found it, held a bowl with three pretzels in it and five other bowls of a tan dip that had crusted dark brown at the edges. A live fly buzzed in the middle of one bowl, unable to free itself.

“That'll be a fossil someday,” said a voice behind me.

I turned to see a thin man in a black tuxedo. He had a wave of slick dark hair in front; big, clunky, black-framed glasses; and a thinly trimmed mustache.

“Pretty appetizing, huh?” I said to him.

“Allow me to introduce myself,” he said. “I'm the smartest man in the world.”

I shook his hand and told him my name. “If you're the smartest man in the world,” I said, “how'd you wind up here?”

He gave a wry smile and told me, “I only answer questions for money.”

I felt in my pants pockets for a crumpled bill. Taking it out and flattening it for him, I said, “Five bucks if you can tell me where I can get a beer.”

“Five won't do it,” he said. Now he had on a top hat and a cape and looked like Mandrake the Magician with glasses. “But five will get you half an answer.”

I handed him the bill. “I'll take it,” I said.

“You've got to go through the kitchen, that way,” he said and pointed. “Once you're there, go out the side door onto the patio. That's all I can afford to tell you.”

“A steep price for some pretty thin shit,” I said to him and couldn't believe I was getting belligerent with the smartest man in the world. There was something exhilarating about it.

“When your wife asks her question later,” he said, “after I answer it, I'm going to kiss her and slip her the tongue so deeply I'll taste her panties. She'll see God, my friend.” He tipped back his top hat and laughed arrogantly.

I picked up a crusted bowl of dip. “Touch my wife and you'll be the deadest man in the world,” I said. Then I threw the bowl at him. He ducked at the last second, and the bowl flew into the face of a heavyset older woman in a sequined gown. Tan goo dripped from her jowls and the bowl hit the wooden floor and shattered. For a moment, I wondered where the carpet had gone. The woman I'd hit had been standing with an aged gentleman wearing a military uniform and sporting ridiculously thick muttonchop sideburns. “Preposterous,” he shouted and his monocle fell from his eye. He reached for the sword he had in a scabbard at his side. Meanwhile the smartest man in the world had lived up to his name for once and had split. I didn't see him anywhere. I followed his lead and merged into the crowd, moving fast, sweating profusely.

In the kitchen, there was a fire-eater. He was performing in the corner by the range. People had gathered around to watch and it was impossible to get through to the patio door, which I could glimpse occasionally between heads in the crowd. I had to wait for him to finish his act and hope the logjam broke up.

I watched him. He had two little torches that he held with the middle finger of his right hand. He'd pour lighter fluid on them and then turn on the range and light them off the burner. He had a small blond ponytail and a beat-up face, broken nose, and scar tissue around the eyes. He was a lackluster showman. His approach was to say, “I'm gonna eat fire now,” in a low, placid voice, and then he ate it.

After you've seen someone eat fire once, there's not much else to it. I watched him eat fire five times, and by the fourth time, even though nobody left, nobody was clapping, either. I had cold beer on my mind, so, after the fifth time, I said in a loud voice, “All right, let's get on with it.” To my surprise, people started leaving the kitchen. The fire-eater tried to see who'd said it, but I kept my gaze down and pushed gently forward.

I found the cooler of beer out on the patio. It was filled with ice and Rolling Rock. I took one and sat down at a glass-topped table, on a wrought-iron chair with arms my fat ass barely fit between. I was alone out there in the dark. The night was cool but pleasant, and I could feel the sweat drying. Someone had left behind a pack of cigarettes, Lucky Strikes (I didn't know they still made them), and a lighter. That beer tasted like heaven, and the cig wasn't far behind. I took out my cell phone and dialed Lynn.

It rang and rang, and then she answered. “Where are you?” she said.

I told her, “I'm out on the patio, having a beer.”

“The show's going to start any minute,” she said. “I got us a table.”

“You can't believe how big the place is,” I said. “How many people are here. It took me forever to get to the food table.”

“Bring me a beer,” she said.

“Will do. And listen, if I don't get back in time and the smartest man in the world answers your question, don't let him touch you.” There was silence from the other end of the line. I said her name a couple of times, but it was clear that either we'd been cut off or she'd thought we were through and hung up.

I put the cigarettes and lighter in one jacket pocket, and then took another beer and put that in my other jacket pocket. I put my smoke out in a planter at the edge of the patio and then turned to head back in. As I moved toward the house, I saw the smartest man in the world's face at the window of the door. He smiled at me and waved before looking down, as if he was going to open it and come out. An instant later he was gone. I tried the doorknob and realized that what he'd done was lock it. When I knocked on the door, I looked inside and saw the kitchen was completely empty.

I heard a window opening above me on the second floor. I backed onto the patio and looked up. The smartest man in the world poked his head out. He was again wearing his top hat. “Perhaps like in Chaucer's ‘Miller's Tale' you can climb up here and kiss my hairy ass,” he said.

“Let me in,” I said.

“There's a reason they call me the smartest man in the world,” he said. “The show starts in ten minutes.”

“I'm going to call the cops,” I told him.

“Dornsberry says you're a pussy,” said the smartest man.

“I'll kill you both,” I shouted.