The Müller-Fokker Effect (22 page)

‘What are we going to do about this god?’ asked Seldom From, who was council leader.

Three-Twenty shrugged. ‘I don’t think that’s a valid question. I mean, the question are there gods or not just doesn’t have any meaning for me. Not any more.’

‘How can you talk like that? With our god lying sick right next door—maybe dying!’

Three Dollars and Twenty Cents, always a troublemaker, had done it again. To preserve his dignity, he tried to veer the conversation off: ‘Let’s face it, Seld, gods are just smart men. What we need is a
front
. A solid tourist trade. We need
to get where the action is
. Send me to, say, New York, why don’t you? I’ll guarantee you a real return on your tourist trade investment dollar. You can start a pottery, a blanket shop, maybe an air-conditioned restaurant with souvenirs out by the candy counter…’

‘Smart men?
Smart men ?
You think all gods were “smart men”, eh? I guess Coolidge was just a “smart man”?’

Three-Twenty hooted. ‘Here we go! Just because when you were a kid you saw Coolidge wearing a war bonnet, you think he was something special to Indians, do you? Tell me this—did you ever see Coolidge dressed up in a Utopi hat? No. And I’ll tell you why. The Utopi hat is ridiculous, that’s why. It’s a stupid-looking hat! We don’t even make it ourselves, like self-respecting Indians. Oh no, we have to buy it from a plaster novelty company. So who wants to buy one from us, when they can cut out the middle man?’

Fake Sky objected. ‘Glen Dale bought one.’

‘Yes, and we’ll see how much damned luck it brings him! Listen, Seld, why don’t you step down and let some younger man take over leading the council? Like me, for instance.’

It was a difficult moment for the old leader. He was ninety-two summers old, while Three Dollars and Twenty Cents was just turned seventy. The truth was that Seldom could not think of any reason not to abdicate and let this impetuous young man take over.

‘Let’s get down to business,’ said Someone Else. ‘We haven’t named our god yet. We can’t go around calling him just “God”, not if we take him into town. Especially if he’s tied up.’

‘Why tie him up?’ Fake Sky was slow to catch on.

‘Just how long do you think he’ll hang around here if we don’t tie him up?’

After a day of discussion, they settled on the name ‘Wise Bream’ as both dignified enough for a god and simple enough to disguise his divinity.

Wise Bream took his captivity lightly. His first message to the Utopi was ‘She bears each cross patiently.’

His second message was ‘Many fish to eat.’

Three-Twenty scoffed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?
There are
many fish to eat? Many
people must
fish to eat? Many fish
are going
to eat? It doesn’t make sense.’

Seldom From explained that gods often talked what seemed like nonsense, in order to make their meaning clearer. Wise Bream’s utterances seemed to bear this out. He said ‘Some hand over the fish can fly,’ for which Three detected several meanings, and not ten days later one of the women cut her hand opening a sardine can!

Seldom From needed no further proof. The hut where their imprisoned god lay was immediately decorated with signs by Fake Sky, who copied them faithfully from G. Mallery’s
Picture-Writing of the American Indians.

Weeks went by, and they consulted their oracle often. A scribe was set by to take down every word,
^*
and the emotional, if not the actual, wealth of the Utopi increased a thousandfold.

One night Three Dollars and Twenty Cents crept into the sacred house and wakened the god.

‘I’ve lost my faith, Wise Bream,’ he whispered. ‘I don’t really believe in you. But all the same, I’m a gambler. I’ll take a chance with you if you’ll help me. Tell me, Wise, how do I get where the action is?’

‘One can.’

‘Is that all you’ve got to say?
One can?
Even that’s ambiguous. Can’t you just tell me something straight out? Some real truth? Anything at all.’

The god sighed and sat up. Clasping one knee with his manacled hands, he delivered, without interruption, the sermon known as the One Hundred Twenty-Eight Ways,
^†
which Heavenly cops had rudely interrupted before. Three-Twenty listened hard.

‘Still diff’ring wits think this: If Christ is shift’d within virgin by spirit djinn, if Christ is bircht, if fixt with pins till stiff (& ‘tis writ): still: stiffs’ limbs shift & lift nil in grim kist, nil in sky. Kill’d is kill’d.

‘Some say he was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, rose from the dead on the third day, and ascended into Heaven, but deny that he was actually buried.

‘Same soy has we plated ban the Hostly Go, miroculously barn of the Viry Margin, sundered uffer Pilius Pontate, cried on the calve of dossary, rain ago’s in thrawn dees, bunt tho dink hair bummied, thor at flea hew up to fizz heather’s haven.

‘Den there thare ose tho whay ses yo tything evercept exat the has wurried ban at the hose rom fre thead.

‘So me vest ate dint heir raccoun tsar eluctance ton our is halls even event soft hiss tory: The yown the reap pears a see din gout of the do vein torn aryan dab a by I nth I shy men O torn Ypres tat edits elf. Sod id Hebe are very singles trip eat pi late sex pert handy ester rib bled I vined eat hon across. O fan yen tomb men tan yes cape men tan yarrow zoo ming to ward heave never yon eh as tens to deny…’

‘There’s the answer/ the old Indian thought. ‘I’ll put this baby on a soap box in say Washington or New York. Let him jabber at the crowds. Ten cents a listen…’

There was jazz by the Morris Nonette, pop rock by the Root Beer of Eternal Darkness, and gospel singing by a choir from the Church of Christ, Bachelor. In the living room the guests, their drinking arms jammed firmly against their chests, jostled in a tight, frantic Brownian movement.

A silver urn, stamped with the
Stagman
emblem (a deer wearing a four-in-hand tie), stood on the mantel under the partly-restored
Bertha Venus
. Drew Moody was doing his best to ignore the urn and its contents and interest people in the painting and its executor.

Elsewhere Dr Fellstus watched a Xerox engineer do funny imitations, and elsewhere Deef John Holler sat as always alone. In one corner a large group had turned its back on Glen’s ‘funeral farewell’ party to stare at Wes Davis. This was difficult enough, for even in his new wig (an immense d.a. with a love curl) he stood only five-four.

In the den a quartette of peculiar soldiers had gathered around the harpsichord to sing barbershop. Their bizarre uniforms were all different; the only evidence that they all belonged to the same outfit was the pink plastic barrette each wore above his right ear.

One wore lederhosen, short socks with loud garters, a striped t-shirt with a large round hole disclosing the jewel in his navel, all topped off with a Guardia Civil bicorn hat. He carried a lorgnette. The second wore candy-striped puttees, velveteen codpiece, feather boa and fireman’s helmet, and he carried a conducting baton. The third wore a rope for a belt, a frock coat too small to hide his dicky and false cuffs, an opera hat and wide yellow shoes, and carried a long cigarette holder with a candy substitute in it. The fourth wore only a lap-lap, a padded bra (worn backwards), a huge ruff and a mortarboard, and carried a licorice whip.

Colonel Fouts, neat and suffocating in his dark dress blues, complained to the art dealer. ‘What do they think they’re trying to prove? Supposed to be the toughest oufit in the services, and just
look
at them—that eyeshadow and lipstick!’

Drew, who hadn’t noticed the makeup, looked again. ‘I don’t know…just kids fooling around, I guess. Like those others over there, heiling their little fuhrer.’

At that moment Myra, in black, came over to ask Drew if he noticed anything different about her.

‘Ears pierced?’

‘No.’

‘Not another nose job?’

‘Like it?’ She presented her profile.

‘Well, I wouldn’t say I exactly—hey, who’s that nun I just saw running around here a minute ago?’

‘That’s Dr Feinwelt.’

‘Feinwelt? I didn’t know he was a transitive.’

‘He works with this group,’ she said, shielding her nose with one hand from his inquisitive looks. ‘Transvestites Anonymous. I asked him about the habit, and he said it’s the only decent black suit he’s got. And this
is
a wake.’

‘He was treating Glen before the…um?’

‘Yes.’ She caught sight of the skinny figure in black, talking, hand on shoulder, to one of the Pink Barrettes. ‘Oh, I wish Glen could have gone to someone else. Someone, well, more
responsible
. Just look at him, swishing around here…calling himself Mother Superior Feinwelt…not kidding anyone but himself.’ She sighed. ‘I
hate
drag queens.’

Fouts, who had been trying to get in on the conversation, blushed and changed the subject. ‘I do too. Say, you know a funny thing happened to me on my way to the living room a few minutes ago. I opened this closet door by mistake and here was this old guy in wrinkled dinner jacket.’

‘Playing sardine?’

‘No, he was up on his toes, doing wee wee in the pocket of somebody’s raincoat. Said he was from Interpol.’

‘I don’t think that’s funny at all,’ said Myra. ‘You might try and show a little respect for the dead.’

What was there to answer to that? Fouts turned away and started watching Wes’s autograph party.

The author was wearing a white denim suit created by a famous Paris designer to imitate his prison uniform. Copper rivets had been replaced by gold, and it was otherwise complete—even to Wes’s old number stencilled on the back. He paused in his autographing of
One Man’s Fight
to shake hands with Senator Vuje for the photographers.

‘Is it true you’re running for president, Mr Davis?’

‘Just call me Wes, boa, unless you’re black. Well, if my country wants me, I won’t say no.’

‘Do you think you have any chance against the established parties?’

‘Let me put it thisaway: My chances don’t depend on “statistics” and public opinion polls. I’m casting my vote for the average, honest, decent, Protestant, gentile, American, Anglo-Saxon, hard-working, God-fearing, not overly intellectualized but clear-thinking white man—and I know he’ll be casting his vote for me!’

‘And do you really think there is a Negro conspiracy?’

‘Do you think there ain’t? Can you really afford to go on thinking everything is okay when thirty per cent of our army is black? They could strike any time, any place. That “harmless” old darky sitting there over by the door might be a spy! He sits there, all eyes and ears for everthing that goes on in this very room!’

Feinwelt was walking over to have a better look at Wes when suddenly someone seized his beads and swung him around, slamming him up against the wall.

‘Foutsy!’

‘Surprised to see me here, are you. Mother? You did invite me, you know.’

‘You almost wrecked my wimple!’ Feinwelt busied himself with black pins.

‘What about
me?
I listened to all your crap about clothes making the man. I even gave you my Miss Columbine outfit to lock up safely out of temptation’s way. And what happens? You invite me to a
drag party
! Half the people here swing that way.’ He gestured toward the Pink Barrettes. ‘And here am I, Feinwelt you mother, here am I in this—this stupid
mufti
! And of course here you are, scoring all over the place.’

‘You don’t understand) Foutsy. Listen, I know it looks bad, but I’m not hooked.’

‘Tough. I’m sure as hell not going to fasten your…’

‘No, I mean I can quit this anytime I want. I’m really straight. I just put it on to talk to those soldiers—they need help, Foutsy, and how can I get close enough to help them unless—believe me, this habit isn’t a habit.’

‘Save it, Mother. I want the key to my stuff, right now!’

‘No, wait. Listen…’

‘All right, forget it. I’ll go over there to TV Anons and bust in myself—
and get my gear!’

Feinwelt started to follow him out the door. Myra stopped him to ask how he liked her Dutch nose.

‘It looks like a snowplow!’ he snapped, and bolted for the hall.