Nine Kinds of Naked (24 page)

 

 

 

 

The First Knot: A Gentle Breeze

 

L
IKE ANY
fourth-dimensional entity worth his self-transforming hypercube, Clovis could move forward and backward across time. Moreover, if he believed the rumors whispered about him by the gnomes when he was pretending to sleep, he was the only King of the Wood to be able to do this willfully, to exert some control over precisely when he visited. Whoever preceded him, in other words, dropped helplessly into and out of time with no control whensoever. But lest we laud Clovis's unprecedented ability and ignore his muse, remember that Clovis only learned to do this from a rogue nymph who consorted with him on the rare occasions when they could escape the watchful eyes of the gnomes and boars.

Clovis had no idea why this nymph's motivation differed from the other elementals—all of whom seemed to derive great delight in keeping him baffled—but he trusted her nonetheless. He tried asking her name once, but her only response was a music so piercingly beautiful that he could scarcely fathom its sound. Indeed, it was only by the whisper of the ninth echo that his eardrums reverberated something that resembled
Snapdragon
, but he never dared ask her to repeat herself.

In any event, as long as Clovis spoke
only
in the present tense while dropping into time, he retained perfect control over exactly when he visited. As for how he dropped into time, it was as easy as remembering a time he had already visited before he stabbed his sword into the earth and said
whoa now!
Of course, since he could only visit a time he remembered visiting, this limited him to the single period he happened to stumble into before he learned how to exert some control. Consequently, Clovis became quite fond of the twenty-first century, and it was great consolation to hold some familiarity with an epoch and its peoples. But there was a dire proviso to all of this. If he
ever
spoke of the past or future from within time, his ability would be forever lost, and he would be just another lonesome King of the Wood, careening through time uncontrollably.

Meditating amongst bluebells at the base of the king oak one day, Clovis pondered the knotted strip of leather the former King of the Wood had given to him just before he evanesced. Originally, it appeared as though there had been four knots in
it, though by the time he inherited it one of the knots had already been undone, presumably by the prior King of the Wood. And of course, the gnomes had tricked Clovis into untying the second knot as well by telling him that it would ease his loneliness.

This wasn't entirely untrue, but what they didn't tell him was that untying the knots was also a way of summoning a new challenger to his crown, and was typically a strategy of last resort. Unfortunately for the gnomes, most humans in the twenty-first century were much too domesticated to even guess at how much more there was to life than their narrow socialization had indicated, and even Diablo—the man who could see Clovis—could not see him for who he really was. Even if Diablo could have seen him or the mistletoe, Clovis had no interest in murdering him in order to defend his crown. He enjoyed picking on him too much, and he wasn't even sure the crown was worth defending in the first place.

The gnomes also neglected to mention to Clovis that when the first knot was untied by the prior King of the Wood, a gentle breeze was released into the world of humans, and that when Clovis untied the second knot he released a brisk wind. These were tremendous understatements. The gentle breeze, Clovis learned from Snapdragon, was the whirlwind that had claimed his wife and child. The brisk wind was the tornado that had stampeded through Normal, Illinois. And according to Snapdragon, if the third knot were ever untied it would release a maelstrom. When Clovis asked her what would happen if the fourth knot were ever untied, she simply smiled
mischievous and said that the maelstrom would be the calm before the storm.

So, bored with his immortality one timeless day and desperate for something,
anything
, to happen (even if it might summon fresh challengers to his crown), Clovis impulsively untied the third knot.

I've just released a maelstrom
, he marveled, and immediately wondered if this too were an understatement.

 

66
“I
T WOULD
behoove us to groove,” Diablo rhymed under his breath, enjoying a lull in pedestrian traffic on Bourbon Street. He sat with his right arm draped lazily behind him, supporting his head, and his legs were propped on a table displaying an assortment of handmade seashell pipes. Diablo had held this position among the artists and vendors in the French Quarter for more than fifteen years—ever since he ran away from home and eventually found himself volunteering at a free kitchen in the Ninth Ward during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, long before Laughing Jim came along. “Or move us to prove?” he tentatively attempted, striving to continue his rhyme, but shook his head and grimaced at the contrived and complacent stupidity of his second line.

Diablo's glance fell upon his left hand, inevitably noticing his bestumped middle finger. Like opening a door with no pins in its hinges, its absence never failed to surprise him. Invariably, it jolted his attention and left him with the lingering inkling of being not quite who he thought he was. It was an oddly comforting state of mind, opening easily into reverie, and this particular reverie led Diablo into a recollection of his running away and of Doreen and that dude slamming on the slouch almost twenty years ago.

Diablo grinned. He had a photo in his head that no one else would ever see. It was hilarious, the asininity of deceit, and at first he did nothing but point and laugh as they fell all over each other and swore and generally made their asses even barer than they already were. At some point, Doreen demanded to know what he was doing home, but by then Diablo
had already walked past them and fetched the butcher knife and the cordless phone from the kitchen. Laughing no longer, he ambled back in, where Doreen's other lover—the vulture picking at the carrion of his rotten relationship, and a bedswerving intruder, as far as Diablo was concerned—was trying to hop into his pants while Doreen huddled behind him on a blanket on the slouch, blubbering hysterically. Taking up a position square in front of him, Diablo twitched his right hand ever so slight and sent the eight-inch blade on a wicked double cartwheel, a skill he'd developed with some buddies while in the service. He locked eyes with the bedswerving intruder as he caught the knife by its handle, never watching, never hesitating, supremely cool, and smiling. The intruder, half-naked and still trying to fasten his pants, started babbling something remarkably cliché, pleading for his life and all that, a typical reaction to an atypical situation, as it were. Diablo interrupted him, told both him and Doreen to shut up, and then ordered the intruder to take his pants back off. He also called him an asshole somewhere along the line to emphasize his position of absolute authority. The intruder hesitated anyway and Diablo roared “NOW!” at which point the intruder did as instructed.

Calling 911, Diablo leveled his knife at the intruder as he reported that there was a prowler exposing himself at their condominium complex, pressing his genitals up against people's windows and such. After disconnecting, Diablo proceeded to lecture the intruder on the responsibilities of brotherhood for some time before ordering him to take his naked ass outside. Despite the intruder's complete lack of attire, Diablo's
menacing calm compelled him to comply immediately. Once the door was locked and Doreen started both apologizing and demanding to know what the christ he thought he was doing all in the same breath, Diablo laid down the knife and handed Doreen the phone. She looked at him astounded as he calmly informed her that she had two and only two choices.

Number one, she could do nothing, allowing the intruder to be arrested as a sexual predator. In this scenario, her low infidelity would be forgiven. Or number two, she could call the police and tell them this whole story, thereby preventing the intruder from being arrested. In this scenario, Diablo patiently explained, he would leave immediately, close the door, and never open it again. “Time is short,” Diablo reminded her, crossing his arms. “There will be no questions and no clarifications. Choose quickly.”

Two minutes later, Diablo peeled Billy Pronto's truck out of the parking lot, feeling enthused.

 

67
D
IABLO HAD AVOIDED
Billy Pronto for over a year simply by not driving anywhere. Lately, however, Diablo was feeling a little out of sync, and as much as Billy Pronto could irritate him, he nonetheless provided a certain privilege of perspective. Also, Diablo loved the casino game, cleaning up at the roulette table, although after the first few adventures he'd quickly been blackballed. As far as he could guess, some casino trade group has a division that monitors lucky individuals, photographing them and feeding their digitized faces into a data bank. If anybody's luck is consistent, facial recognition technology will alert security whenever one of these individuals
enters a casino that subscribes to this costly service. Diablo hadn't found a casino that could tolerate his presence for more than a few minutes in years. There may well not be one, he reckoned, for in an industry built on the temporal limitations of human perception—a tendency not just toward chance but toward active bad luck—one lucky individual can bring down the whole house of cards. As long as luck is censored, this is the only insurance a casino really needs to remain hugely profitable.

“Synchronicity is your tether to the rest of the universe,” Billy Pronto had explained. “Tune in to it, and the path of your life opens before you like the Red Sea. Luck is inevitable.”

Diablo had disputed this philosophy vehemently and at length, but in the end, there was simply no denying what Billy Pronto was able to show him. At one point in the course of their dialogues, Diablo had grown preoccupied with the plastic gas can and all the money inside, demanding to understand where it came from. Billy Pronto's only response, predictably, was, “Such an explanation requires the past tense, and I am incapable of such nonsense.”

“Can you
show
me how you obtained it then?”

“I am incapable of placing any bets,” Billy Pronto reminded him. “I have no physical existence.”

“Well then how the hell did I get it in the first place? I mean, I remembered everything that went down with Doreen after I dropped you off, and I can even remember it now. But I have no memory of this money or where it came from. You said I'd remember everything once I dropped you off and was no longer dichotomized.”

Billy Pronto grinned and shook his head. “You bind yourself with your own words.”

Diablo tapped on his steering wheel, puzzling. “What if I took you to a casino? What if we played roulette?”

Billy Pronto shrugged. “That certainly is an interesting idea.”

And so it went. He had been heading north already, and Atlantic City was not more than an hour away. Soon, Diablo found himself standing at a roulette wheel in a small casino, losing consistently. Unwilling to publicly confer with his imaginary friend, who was merrily watching all that was happening, Diablo grew more and more frustrated.

“Quit trying, for the love of God,” Billy Pronto advised at last. “The universe does not occur as a result of effort. Effort implies a past and a future divorced from the present that already is. The universe occurs in a single moment. It is an impulse, and nothing more. You are a molecule of water, but you are drenched in the ocean. Realize this, and you become the ocean.”

Forgetting himself, Diablo waved him off and retorted, “Now is not the time, oh enlightened one.” To everyone else present around him, he snarled this mockery into thin air.

“Sir?” inquired the croupier, as Billy Pronto, heedless of the sudden awkwardness, continued unabated.

“You are of course correct to ridicule these notions, for the universe is as ridiculous as anything is possible to be.” Billy Pronto talked over the croupier's further inquiry as to whether or not Diablo was placing another bet. “But the fact that you can laugh at something does not make it false. And incidentally,” he continued, “now is the
only
time.” Placing his palm
on Diablo's shoulder, Billy gently announced, “whoa now.” As he spoke these words, any doubts and aggravations that had been plaguing Diablo vanished with a gasp. This was due neither to the erudition nor charisma of Billy Pronto's words, but rather to an unexpected cessation of commotion. The entire casino, or Diablo's perception of it, had instantaneously and without explanation come to an absolute standstill.

Diablo was aghast, eyes sweeping wildly about the room, scanning for motion amongst the grotesquely frozen expressions of avarice and defeat. Billy Pronto continued undisturbed. “In the same way up and down have no meaning once you understand the infinity of space, before and after have no meaning once you understand the eternity of time.”

“What happened?” Diablo demanded, nearing panic.

“No,” Billy Pronto insisted. “What
happens.
Present tense.”

“Where am I?”

“The moment of Truth. Right here. Right now,” Billy Pronto answered patiently. “That is all you need ever understand.”

“I'm afraid,” Diablo confessed, feeling the worse for having admitted it.

“This is how you always react,” Billy Pronto sighed. “And you're not afraid, you're
alive.
Be careful how you define yourself. You can feel fear. You don't have to
be
fear. Look more deeply.”

Having nothing else to do, Diablo allowed his gaze to come to rest on the ball bearing frozen in its place on the roulette wheel. At first this was the only remarkable thing about it, but after gazing at it long enough to have been able to discover that all the numbers on a roulette wheel sum to 666 if he had
cared to add them up, he began to notice a luster that seemed no less overwhelming than the sun's own sparkle. Entranced but alarmed, he looked quickly away, his gaze falling upon the croupier's mannequin face, a fantastically exuberant child peering from beneath the besmogged mask of his adulthood. And it was the same everywhere he looked. There was nothing to see but the omnipresence of infinity, and the longer and the closer he looked at any one thing, the more light fantastic it became, and the more undeniable that each and every thing was a keyhole through which the entire universe spied upon itself.