He produced a gin bottle and spoke into it . Softly. The New York editor was smirking. Numerous accusations and at least one ripe papaya were lobbed at the podium. There followed an extended general exchange familiar to all who lived in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Women said the men had eaten the cherries out of the chocolates. Men said the women were peeing in the pool.
A teacher from the Delphian School in Sheridan, Oregon, got the mike for an instant. “It seems to me that in the midst of this bickering we are forgetting the children. When we neglect the children, we neglect the future, the future this conference is designed to serve.” He wore the mildly triumphant look of a man who has led a return to reason. Someone slapped him in the face with a bloody Kotex. “Existentialist!” the teacher cried.
“If you like babies so much,” a woman yelled, “have them yourself.”
“Right on, sister!” encouraged a young man in her vicinity. The man and woman firmly shook hands. The solution to the overpopulation problem might rest in such handshakes.
In an attempt to restore order, a well-known yogi, a Care Fest delegate, strolled onto the platform. He assumed the lotus position. He beamed. Serenely, meticulously, he took a cobweb apart, then put it back together. (There were no parts left over.) He swallowed three butterflies, then burped them up unharmed. Only that portion of the crowd that was already orderly was impressed. The yogi had the stink of eternity about him, and in many circles eternity was simply no longer fashionable.
The situation became increasingly unsavory. Also, tedious. You’ll be spared the details. Enough is enough. A banyan sends its adventitious roots to the ground, sometimes causing it to spread over a wide area. Under proper conditions, it bears figs. Thomas Jefferson was fond of figs. It was Jefferson’s genius that kept the American Revolution from being sucked into the tunnel faster than it was. Jefferson had red hair. Nothing is implied here. Except the possibility that everything is connected.
With the debate on the verge of violence—or worse, of being turned over to committee—Leigh-Cheri fled the park. The palm trees she passed, the romantic palms of Hawaii, were covering their ears with their fronds. Her sentiments exactly. “Jesus,” she swore. She felt like the gourmet who was goosed in Strasbourg. “It’s my pâte, and I’ll cry if I want to.”
In the Pioneer’s bar, she sat under one of the whaling harpoons that decorated the walls. She asked for a mai tai, then switched her order to tequila. Outside, the ocean banged its head against the jetty. She empathized completely. Inside, a different tide—young men with buzzing glands—swirled around her. From its eddy the news leaped like a sailfish: the police had finally solved the Lahaina bombing case. “Made da bust ’bout da hour ago,” she overheard a kamaaina say.
37
ACROSS THE WAVES, in Seattle, it continued to rain. Late at night the rain would harden into snow drops, but by the time the morning shift of engineers, coffee thermoses in hand, sloshed up to the security gate at Boeing Aircraft, there was plain rain again and plenty of it. A gelid wind, Alaska decals on every piece of its luggage, lingered in the rain without a sneeze, muscled through the blackberry brambles without a scratch, called upon the King and Queen without an invitation.
“Little wonder the CIA has so many leaks,” said Max. He was bundled against the drafts. “It knows nothing about insulation.”
Chuck wrote this down in his spy book. King Max watched him laboring over the spelling. “I—n—s—u—l—a—t—i—o—n,” said Max helpfully. If the King was aware of the insurrection afoot in his homeland, he kept it well hidden.
“He ain’t fooling me,” said Chuck. Using the kitchen extension, Chuck eavesdropped on a telephone conversation that Max had had with one A’ben Fizel.
“There’s some
A teacher from the Delphian School in Sheridan, Oregon, got the mike for an instant. “It seems to me that in the midst of this bickering we are forgetting the children. When we neglect the children, we neglect the future, the future this conference is designed to serve.” He wore the mildly triumphant look of a man who has led a return to reason. Someone slapped him in the face with a bloody Kotex. “Existentialist!” the teacher cried.
“If you like babies so much,” a woman yelled, “have them yourself.”
“Right on, sister!” encouraged a young man in her vicinity. The man and woman firmly shook hands. The solution to the overpopulation problem might rest in such handshakes.
In an attempt to restore order, a well-known yogi, a Care Fest delegate, strolled onto the platform. He assumed the lotus position. He beamed. Serenely, meticulously, he took a cobweb apart, then put it back together. (There were no parts left over.) He swallowed three butterflies, then burped them up unharmed. Only that portion of the crowd that was already orderly was impressed. The yogi had the stink of eternity about him, and in many circles eternity was simply no longer fashionable.
The situation became increasingly unsavory. Also, tedious. You’ll be spared the details. Enough is enough. A banyan sends its adventitious roots to the ground, sometimes causing it to spread over a wide area. Under proper conditions, it bears figs. Thomas Jefferson was fond of figs. It was Jefferson’s genius that kept the American Revolution from being sucked into the tunnel faster than it was. Jefferson had red hair. Nothing is implied here. Except the possibility that everything is connected.
With the debate on the verge of violence—or worse, of being turned over to committee—Leigh-Cheri fled the park. The palm trees she passed, the romantic palms of Hawaii, were covering their ears with their fronds. Her sentiments exactly. “Jesus,” she swore. She felt like the gourmet who was goosed in Strasbourg. “It’s my pâte, and I’ll cry if I want to.”
In the Pioneer’s bar, she sat under one of the whaling harpoons that decorated the walls. She asked for a mai tai, then switched her order to tequila. Outside, the ocean banged its head against the jetty. She empathized completely. Inside, a different tide—young men with buzzing glands—swirled around her. From its eddy the news leaped like a sailfish: the police had finally solved the Lahaina bombing case. “Made da bust ’bout da hour ago,” she overheard a kamaaina say.
37
ACROSS THE WAVES, in Seattle, it continued to rain. Late at night the rain would harden into snow drops, but by the time the morning shift of engineers, coffee thermoses in hand, sloshed up to the security gate at Boeing Aircraft, there was plain rain again and plenty of it. A gelid wind, Alaska decals on every piece of its luggage, lingered in the rain without a sneeze, muscled through the blackberry brambles without a scratch, called upon the King and Queen without an invitation.
“Little wonder the CIA has so many leaks,” said Max. He was bundled against the drafts. “It knows nothing about insulation.”
Chuck wrote this down in his spy book. King Max watched him laboring over the spelling. “I—n—s—u—l—a—t—i—o—n,” said Max helpfully. If the King was aware of the insurrection afoot in his homeland, he kept it well hidden.
“He ain’t fooling me,” said Chuck. Using the kitchen extension, Chuck eavesdropped on a telephone conversation that Max had had with one A’ben Fizel.
“There’s some
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