Nine Kinds of Naked (5 page)

 

 

 

 

The First Knot: A Gentle Breeze

 

T
HROUGH NO LASSITUDE
on the part of faithful Attila, Clovis was captured within half a fortnight. Every vassal in the lordship had been dispatched to hunt him down, and Attila was no match for Lord Mauvoisin's horses. It was thus that Clovis found himself back in his village, and in a far worse predicament than when he'd left. Lord Mauvoisin himself had even granted an appearance to observe the death of this defiant serf who'd given him so much trouble.

Clovis didn't care, though. He had absolutely nothing left to lose. He'd already lost his wife and child, and now he had neither mule nor hut. Clovis knew his kith would mumble to one another after they'd beaten him to death with rocks that he
had brought it upon himself, and maybe they were correct. It
had
been impulsive, burning his hut down and taking off like that. But permitting Lord Mauvoisin to repossess Attila would have placed Clovis in the lowest order of serfs, and there was no life to be tolerated there. Serfs of higher classes, flaunting their meager wealth of a hut and two mules, would have snickered and sneered, perfectly oblivious as they complied with their own oppression. He'd seen it happen before, and he knew his patience would fail such ludicrous arrangements. Better to try his lot as an outlaw, he'd figured, maybe hook up with some minstrels.

But that gamble had obviously failed, and now Clovis was left wondering what everyone was waiting for as he stood facing them in the center of the village square. Had he been inside, Clovis would have felt much larger than usual. As he was outside, this curiously expansive sensation went largely unnoticed by him, being perceived merely as an exultant mood. In fact, it was his shining good cheer that gave the other serfs such hesitance. They scratched their heads in lice and confusion, and though they were centuries from understanding why, the supremely enlightened humanity of the twenty-first century can look upon these feudal fools and see clearly that Clovis's good cheer was undermining the only emotion feeding their venge frenzy—namely, a bloodlust born of the fear of death. This fear would be blunted by the punishment of he who stepped outside of social boundaries, for the social order is all that separates each and every person from having to face the monstrosity of meaninglessness beyond the walls of culture. But to batter down he who ventured beyond, well, the
violence would reassure them that life is dangerous and cruel, and thank heavens for the divinely inspired racketeering of Lord Mauvoisin.

Like vultures in hell, however, fear feeds on fear, and in Clovis there was no fear upon which to feed. He was supposed to be blubbering, begging, gracelessly cussing. But whatever had happened to Clovis in the hinterland (and nothing much had happened except that he had awakened from what seemed in retrospect to be a sort of trance), he was damn near luminous. To throw a rock at him would have been like kicking a cuddle of kittens purring in a basket of rose blossoms in the midst of a springtime wedding. It seemed uncalled for, and rude, and mortifyingly cruel.

Unmindful of the muddle of those huddling around, Clovis's attention was instead consumed by the oaken hills in the distance. Here the entire stout forest seemed to sway impossibly in a sea of cheering treetops, as if it were all so much steam rising sultry from the reeds of Pan.
And what fresh heaven is this?
Clovis marveled, captivated as the full wonder of the woods revealed itself to him in the surge of a single moment. Every tree became the forest and every breeze the wind, moving as one in a rustling symphony of seduction, a dryadic dance undulating at the heavens like the lazy licks of a verdant flame, charming him into the peace that never ceased. Clovis was awestruck. The seductive dance of the virgin trees beckoned with a synchrony the likes of which he had never before witnessed, and the wind carried to within earshot what sounded to be the laughter and the frolic of faraway children. It was such a bounty of beauty that he could scarcely contain
himself. It was all around and everywhere, and yet his people looked so sad, so severe. Couldn't they see? Clovis burst out laughing, and the wind that tickled every leaf on every tree compelled him to dance to the very same draft.

Of course, laughter is one letter away from slaughter, and despite Clovis's transfigured hilarity, no one likes to be laughed at, even if the laughter comes from a cuddle of kittens purring in a basket of rose blossoms. And invariably, it is the most fascist among us who are the least able to tolerate a chuckle at their expense, for laughter is nothing if it's not an expression of spontaneity, and those who presume to boss the rest of us around
loathe
spontaneity. Thus, it surprised no one that Tom Greely—a line-loving lunkhead who as a child had ratted out his entire group of friends for stealing grapes from Lord Mauvoisin's vineyard—was the first to cast a stone.

Least of all did it surprise Clovis, for in his peculiar state of heightened awareness, he'd felt a snarl of retribution stab at his hilarity, and it emanated directly from Tom Greely. Clovis locked eyes with Tom and laughed harder than ever, his eyes streaming forth tears as he felt his whole being radiate lightheadedness. Tom's frown stretched into a meanspirited grimace as he wound up and hurled the two cobblestones he'd been clutching, one right after another. Clovis's laughter ended abruptly, and he had time to consider that he had never felt more alive than at the moment of his death before he felt each of his palms instinctively reach out and catch first one and then the other of the rocks. Tom's pitches were so ham-handedly premeditated that Clovis had to reach up for one and over for the second, for they never would have touched him if he hadn't
caught them. Hesitating not at all, he turned and pitched one of the rocks directly back at Tom Greely, striking him square in the forehead and putting him down. Before anyone could finish a gasp, Clovis launched the second rock at none other than Lord Mauvoisin himself, smiting him identically.

Those who had been about to follow the belligerent lurch of Tom Greely immediately reconsidered, and within seconds all that could be heard was the thumping of rocks as the assembled lynch dropped and tossed their stones to the ground, no one looking at another. The vassals, too, were astounded, perhaps even impressed. They looked at each other stupidly, unsure of their role in this unprecedented circumstance, and all were thankful when Attila at last broke the silence with a heehawing bray and trotted up to Clovis.

Clovis was as astonished as anyone at his reaction. He had no practiced skill in pitching stones, yet here he had effortlessly cracked the skulls of two with alarming accuracy. Finding not a glance to tell him to do otherwise, he mounted his mule and watched as his murmuring kith immediately parted a deferent path. Clovis looked to the vassals and was met with downturned eyes. He was being offered exile, it appeared. Looking again and at last toward the trees in the distance, Clovis sensed them calling him into their wilds, waving all the more sensually as the wind wafted flutesong through the forest and the sky stroked its bow across a fiddle of sunbeams.

And so it came to pass that, with all the world serenading his passage, Clovis strolled unharmed through the parted crowd, chuckling toward redemption.

 

16
E
ARLIER ON THE SAME
morning that Diablo was released from jail, Father J. J. Speed was late for Mass. He stood in front of his coat closet, gazing at cases and cases of toothpicks and loathing his life. Before he finished seminary and landed his first pastoral gig, Father J. J. Speed had won a lifetime supply of toothpicks—a hundred thousand of them—when he picked the wrong door on
Let's Make a Deal.
He had laughed and played along at the time, but inside he was monumentally disappointed. The fact was, he didn't really want to be a priest. More precisely, he didn't really want to be celibate. By the time he began to admit this to himself, however, he was almost finished with seminary and he couldn't fathom what his parents or classmates would think of him if he quit. Consequently, and as far as he was concerned, his unhappiness was everyone else's fault.

And now, insane from celibacy, Father J. J. Speed found himself trapped in a sweaty confessional ten hours a week listening to the perversions of his parishioners. Jesusfuckingchrist, he'd think to himself as he nodded his head to one teary tale after another of lust and infidelity. What the hell is wrong with these goddamn people? At least they're getting laid, fer chrissakes. Father J. J. Speed contemplated blackmailing the lot of them and retiring to Vegas.

“Goddamn toothpicks,” he muttered as he surveyed the toothpicks in his closet, then bit his toothpick in half and spit it out angrily. He immediately replaced it with a fresh one. He really believed he had chosen the right door, he
felt
it the way a gambler knows when the roulette ball is about to hit his number. It would have been his door to freedom, but he had
been denied and was left a thirty-year-old virgin. He shook his head bitterly, forced a grin, and squashed a suicidal impulse with a nip from his tequila flask.

Time to get holy.

 

17
U
PON EXITING
the rectory, wondering what the hell he was going to talk about in his sermon, Father J. J. Speed was startled by the outdoors. This sudden agoraphobia was occasioned by an ambient sepia-tone blush to the local atmosphere, tinting an unnerving hue upon the landscape. Looking up, he was surprised to find the sky looming nigh, a remarkably low ceiling of reddish clouds casting the oak on the lawn into vibrant contrast. Impressed with this display, Father J. J. Speed regarded the tree for several moments before the trunk suddenly seemed to heave with the contours of a lust and jumble of naked women. If Father J. J. Speed had not been thoroughly schooled in holy patriarchy, he might have considered this a vision of the feminine divine, and a rare grace indeed.

As it was, however, Father J. J. Speed was simply horrified. He only knew that he often hallucinated elements of the forbidden female form whenever he spent too long sifting through his footlocker full of pornographic magazines, all confiscated from Sunday school students over the years. And now, here was a treeload of writhing bodies enticing him with the prospect of a Gaian smother. It might have been sublime if he wasn't so desperately horny and hungover with masturbatory guilt besides. He vowed to himself for the fiftieth time to destroy his porn stash.

He would not accomplish this anytime soon, of course, though he would proceed to give one screaming demon of a sermon on the evils of pornography.

 

18
T
HE AVERAGE RAINDROP
exists for twenty-three minutes. The first drop of water to condense from a local vortex of pressurized vapor deep within the wall cloud above Normal was no average raindrop. After all, this was a raindrop spat from a thunderhead spawned from the undomesticated breeze born of the Joker's resolve, the runaway dervish that just the day before had busted out of the slammer. This was a raindrop destined to live fast and die young, the vanguard of a mighty storm, an oversized dollop pitched from the center of a churning free-for-all, spinning like a glass speedball toward a home run, streaking out of the sky like it was late for a waterfall, a shimmering, pulsing bead reflecting a world on the brink of chaos and beauty.

Lawless and brilliant, the ninety-second drip of this rowdy raindrop endured a tumbling gauntlet of gladness and exultation. Not since the morning dew in Eden had a pearl of water known such clarity of purpose. From an infinite sea of vapor the raindrop thrilled into itself and without a moment's hesitation whizzed off to its own obliteration. Never before or since would it ever incarnate, that was certain, and so it had nothing to do but careen through the atmosphere, being there then, turning somersaults like it was being chased by God's good humor.

Never asking why this or why me, the raindrop flaunted the fundamental pattern of life as it traced a helical arc
through the air on the way to its destiny. And its destiny, as always, was simple: to make a splash, to shake it up, to burst the bubble, to keep it real, to share the water, to nourish the Garden. The raindrop delighted in the undulations of its surface tension, feeling the reverberations of the Big Bang pulse throughout its being, seeing no thing, hearing no thing, being no thing.

If the raindrop could hear, it would have heard Billy yell “Pronto!” right before it whizzed through the open window of his truck and splashed onto his forehead.

 

 

 

 

The First Knot: A Gentle Breeze

 

T
HERE WAS NOT
a path in sight. Clovis had fallen asleep on Attila's back, and if the ache in his neck was any indication, he had been asleep for hours. Deep under the canopy of a giant oak forest, he could not even determine the time of day. With nothing to be heard but the faraway hush of wind in the treetops, and nothing to be seen but the scattered majesty of the forest meditating in its silent serenity, Clovis bit his lip in a moment of regret. Upon kicking awake, his groggy and unthinking reaction had been to halt Attila's gentle step, and in retrospect this seemed foolish. After all, Attila was no dumb ass. She must have been going somewhere, trodden trail or
not. But now that her pace had been interrupted, Attila was suddenly stubborn.