Pricksongs & Descants (5 page)

○ ○ ○

There is a storm on the lake. Two children play
“
Chopsticks
”
on the green piano. Their grandmother stirs the embers in the fireplace with an iron poker, then returns to her seat on the window
-
bench. The children glance over at her and she smiles at them. Suddenly a strange naked creature comes bounding into the loggia, grinning idiotically. The children and their grandmother scream with terror and race from the room and on out of the mansion, running for their lives. The visitor leaps up on the piano bench and squats there, staring quizzically at the ivory keys. He reaches for one and it sounds a note—he jerks his hand back in fright. He reaches for another—a different note. He brings his fist down—blam! Aha! Again: blam! Excitedly, he leaps up and down on the piano bench, banging his fists on the piano keyboard. He hops up on the piano, finds wires inside, and pulls them out. twang! twang! He holds his genitals with one hand and rips out
the wires with the other, grunt
ing with delight. Then he spies the iron poker. He grabs it up, admires it, then bounds joyfully around the room, smashing win dows and wrecking furniture. The girl in gold pants enters and takes the poker away from him.
“
Lust! That
’
s all it is!
”
she scolds. She whacks him on the nates with the poker, and, yelping with pain and astonishment, he bounds away, leaping over the stone parapet, and slinks off through the brambly forest.

○ ○ ○

“
Lust!
”
she says,
“
that
’
s all it is!
”
Her sketch is nearly complete.
“
And they
’
re not the worst ones. The worst ones are the ones who just let it happen. I£ they
’
d kept their caretaker here
...
”
The man smiles.
“
There never was a caretaker,
”
he explains.
“
Really? But I thought—!
”
“
No,
”
he says,
“
that
’
s just a legend of the island.
”
She seems taken aback by this new knowledge.
“
Then
...
then I don
’
t understand
...
”
He relights his pipe, wanders over to appraise her sketch. He laughs when he sees the shaggy buttocks.
“
Marvelous!
”
he exclaims,
“
but a poor likeness, I
’
m afraid! Look!
”
He lowers his dark slacks and show her his hind
-
end, smooth as marble and hair less as a movie starlet
’
s. Her curiosity is caught, however, not by his barbered buttocks, but by the hair around his genitals: the tight neat curls fan out in both directions like the wings of an eagle, or a wild goose
...

○ ○ ○

The two sisters return to the loggia, their visit nearly concluded, the one in gold pants still trying to explain about herself and the sun, about consuming herself with an outer fire, while harboring an ice
-
cold center within. Her gaze falls once more on the green piano. It is obvious she still has something-more to say. But now as she declaims, she has less of an audienc
e. Karen stands distractedly be
fore the green piano. Haltingly, she lifts a finger, strikes a key. No note, only a dull thuck. Her sister reveals a new insight she has just obtained about it not being the people who steal or even those who wantonly destroy, but those who let it happen, who just don
’
t give a proper damn. She provides instances. Once, Karen nods, but maybe only at something she has thought to herself. Her finger lifts, strikes. Thuck! Again. Thuck! Her whole arm drives the strong blunt finger. Thuck! Thuck! There is something genuinely beautiful about the girl in gold pants and silk neck
-
scarf as she gestures and speaks. Her eyes are sorrowful and wise. Thuck! Karen strikes the key. Suddenly, her sister breaks off her message.
“
Oh, I
’
m sorry, Karen!
”
she says. She stares at the piano, then runs out of the room.

○ ○ ○

I am disappearing. You have no doubt noticed. Yes, and by some no doubt calculable formula of event and pagination. But before we drift apart to a distance beyond the reach of confessions (though I warn you: like Zeno
’
s turtle, I am with you always), listen: it
’
s just as I feared, my invented island is really taking its place in world geography. Why, this island sounds very much like the old Dahlberg place on Jackfish Island up on Rainy Lake, people say, and I wonder: can it be happening? Someone tells me: I understand somebody bought the place recently and plans to fix it up, maybe put a resort there or something. On my island? Extraordinary!—and yet it seems possible. I look on a map: yes, there
’
s Rainy Lake, there
’
s Jackfish Island. Who invented this map? Well, I must have, surely. And the Dahlbergs, too, of course, and the people who told me about them. Yes, and perhaps tomorrow I will invent Chicago and Jesus Christ and the history of the moon. Just as I have in vented you, dear reader, while lying here in the afternoon sun, bedded deeply in the bluegreen grass like an old iron poker
...

○ ○? ○

There is a storm on the lake and the water is frothy and black. The wind howls around the corner of the stone parapet and the pine trees shake and creak. The two children playing
“
Chopsticks
”
on the green piano arc arguing about the jurisdiction of the bench and keyboard.
“
Come over here,
”
their grandmother says from her seat by the window,
“
and I
’
ll tell you the story of
‘
The Magic Poker
’
...
”

○ ○? ○

Once upon a time, a family of wealthy Minn
e
sotans bought an island on Rainy Lake up on the Canadian border. They built a home on it and guest cabins and boat houses and an observation tower. They installed an electric generator and a sewage system with indoor toilets, maintained a caretaker, and constructed docks and bath houses. Did they name it Jackfish Island, or did it bear that name when they bought it? The legend does not say, nor should it. What it does say, however, is that when the family abandoned the island, they left behind an iron poker, which, years later, on a visit to the island, a beautiful young girl, not quite a princess perhaps, yet altogether equal to the occasion, ki
ssed. And when she did so, some
thing quite extraordinary happened
...

Once upon a time there was an island visited by ruin and inhabited by strange woodland creatures. Some thought it had once had a caretaker who had
e
ither died or found another job elsewhere. Others said, no, there was never a caretaker, that was only a childish legend. Others believed there was indeed a caretaker and he lived there yet and was in fact responsible for the island
’
s tragic condition. All this is neither here nor there. What is certainly beyond dispute is that no one who visited the island, whether searching for its legendary Magic Poker or avenging the loss of a loved one, ever came back. Only their names were left, inscribed hastily on walls and ceilings and carved on trees.

○ ○? ○

Once upon a time, two sisters visited a desolate island. They walked its paths with their proclivities and scruples, dreaming their dreams and sorrowing their sorrows. They scared a snake and probably a bird or two, broke a few windows (there were few left to break), and gazed meditatively out upon the lake from the terrace of the main house. They wrote their names above the stone fireplace in the hexagonal loggia and shat in the soundbox of an old green piano. One of them did anyway; the other one couldn
’
t get her pants down. On the island, they found a beautiful iron poker, and when they went home, they took it with them.

○ ○? ○

The girl in gold pants hastens out of the big house and down the dark path where earlier the snake slept and past the gutted guest cabin and on down the mottled path toward the boat. To either side of her, flies and bees mumble indolently under the summer sun. A small speckled frog who will not live out the day squats staring on a stone, burps, hops into a darkness. A white moth drifts silently into the web of a spider, flutters there a
while before his execution. Sud
denly, there on the path mottled with sunlight, the girl stops short, her breath coming in short gasps, looking around her. Wasn
’
t this—? Yes, yes, it is the place! A smile begins to form. And in fact, there it is! She waits for Karen.
\

○ ○? ○

Once upon a time there was a beautiful young Princess in tight gold pants, so very tight in fact that no one could remove them from her. Knights came from far and wide, and they huffed and they puffed, and they grunted and they groaned, but the pants would not come down. One rash Knight even went so far as to jam the blade of his sword down the front of the gold pants, striving to pry them from her, but he succeeded only in shattering his sword, much to his lifelong dismay and ignominy. The King at last delivered a Proclamation.
“
Whosoever shall succeed in pulling my daughter
’
s pants down,
”
he declared,
“
shall have her for his bride!
”
Since this was perhaps not the most tempting of trophies, the Princess having been married off three times already in previous competitions, the King added:
“
And moreover he shall have bestowed upon him the Magic Poker, whose powers and prodi
gies are well-known in the King
dom!
”
“
The Old Man
’
s got his bloody cart before his horse,
”
one Knight complained sourly to a co
mpanion upon hearing the Procla
mation.
“
If I had the bloody Poker, you could damn well bet I
’
d have no trouble gettin
’
the bloody pants off her!
”
Now, it chanced that this heedless remark was overheard by a peculiar little gnome-like creature, huddling naked and unshaven in the brush alongside the road, and no sooner had the words been uttered than this strange fellow determined to steal the Magic Poker and win the beauty for himself. Such an enter
prise might well have seemed im
possible for even the most dauntless of Knights, much less for so hapless a creature as this poor naked brute with the shaggy loins, but the truth, always stranger than fiction, was that his father had once been the King
’
s Official Caretaker, and the son had grown up among the mysteries and secret chambers of the Court. Imagine the entire Kingdom
’
s astonishment, therefore, when, the very next day, the Caretaker
’
s son appeared, squat, naked, and hirsute, before the King and with grunts and broad gestures made manifest his i
nten
tion to quit the Princess of her pants and win the prizes for himself I
“
Indeed!
”
cried her father. The King
’
s laughter boomed throughout the Palace, and all the Knights and Ladies joined in, creating the jolliest of uproars.
“
Bring my daughter here at once!
”
the King thundered, delighted by the droll spectacle. The Princess, amused, but at the same time somewhat afrighted of the strange little man, stepped timidly forward, her golden haunches gleaming in the bright lights of the Palace. The Caretaker
’
s son promptly drew forth the Magic Poker, pointed it at the Princess, and—poof!—the gold pants dropped—plop!—to the Palace floor.
“
Oh
’
s!
”
and
“
Ah
’
s!
”
of amazement and admiration rose up in excited chorus from the crowd of nobles attending this most extraordinary moment. Flushed, trembling, impatient, the Princess grasped the Magic Poker and kissed it—poof!—a handsome Knight in shining armor of white and navy blue stood before her, smoking a pipe. He drew his sword and slew the Caretaker
’
s son. Then, smiling at the maiden standing in her puddle of gold pants, he sheathed his sword, knocked the ashes from his pipe bowl, and knelt before the King.
“
Your Majesty,
”
he said,
“
I have slain the monster and rescued your daughter!
”
“
Not at all,
”
replied the King gloomily.
“
You have made her a widow. Kiss the fool, my dear!
”
“
No, please!
”
the Knight begged.
“
Stop!
”