Fri., Jun 22, 8:15 p.m.. Dos Jefe’s
Karl Cerullo sits at the bar, absentmindedly stirring his vodka with a cocktail straw. He has been careful to keep his face pointed ahead of himself, questioning whether he has done something, in one of his many stupors, to one of the six law enforcement types currently sitting at a round table a few yards behind him. The conscious decision to do so has left Karl at odds with his usual motis operandi; his favorite game is people watching, and in this case, the only person he can watch is the reflection of himself in the mirror behind the bar. Right now, his face is currently half-hidden by a bottle of Glenfiddich, although Karl isn’t really sure what age of Scotch the bottle contains, considering he’s really only a fan of vodka and has no use for anything other.
His cigarette pack sits next to his drink, the cellophane partially ripped near the top of the box. An imperfection, it must be removed. Karl does so, crumples it into a ball, wraps it in his flimsy, damp bar napkin, and places it in his ashtray next to a lone cigarette butt. Some of the spent ashes cling to the wet napkin.
In the background, the jukebox is playing a Patsy Kline song, one he can’t recall the name of, but one he has heard a number of times, nevertheless. It’s melancholy, perfectly fitting his mood at the moment. If he had his choice, of course, he wouldn’t ever have to deal with Nikolai Valentino. But it is not his choice, and as long as he can keep his contact with the man as limited as possible, life can be manageable.
He is startled when Sunshine grabs his shoulder. “I saw your ostrich,” she says.
Lush Muffin and Arthur Cole are taking their seats to Sunshine’s right having not yet acknowledged Karl.
“You met Archibald, already?” I surprised Karl Cerullo asks.
“Karl, somebody dosed our drinks. It’s the only explanation.”
“Nobody did anything of the kind to me,” he replies.
“Tomorrow, you will feel very silly for all of the things you told me.”
“So you don’t believe you saw an ostrich?”
“Silly man.”
Karl Cerullo snickers, a smirk creeping up the right side of his mouth. “Archibald is nothing if not insistent. Believe me, he’s real.”
Sunshine nods sarcastically. “Whatever you say, Karl, whatever you say.”
Karl shrugs. “Believe what you want.”
“I will, dear.” She turns to Jackson who seems to never leave the bar himself. “Cosmo, honey?”
“Art, Muffin?” Jackson asks the two accordingly.
Arthur Cole puts his finger to his temple. “Red snapper. Goodbye cruel world.”
“Oh, that’s such a good idea. Two, please, large if you would, Jackson?”
“It’s going to be one of those nights.” Jackson mutters sarcastically before retreating to do his business.
Sunshine turns to Art who is directly to her right. “Potty time. Will you watch my phone?”
Arthur Cole glances at Sunshine’s pink contraption she has placed in front of her on the bar. “Will it bite?”
“Very funny. I’ve got to go talk to a man about a horse,” she says before trotting away.
Fri., Jun 22, 8:19 p.m.. Dos Jefe’s
Having done her business, Sunshine stands up from the toilet and straightens her dress with the inside of her palms. She pulls the door of the stall toward her, exits and heads to the sink. Hand washing, at least in this bar, is possible. They tend to keep the bathroom rather tidy. She leans down, turns on the cold faucet, squirts a little soap from the dispenser into her left hand, shares the soap with her right, rubs them together and places both hands under faucet and into the onrushing water. She scrubs them several times until all of the soap has been extricated. Happy with the cleanliness of her hands, she looks up into the mirror.
“You again,” she says to Archibald, who stands directly behind her.
“I am truly sorry if I startled you earlier,” he says, again tipping his top hat.
“Well, you know, it’s not very polite to sneak up on somebody, especially when they’re in the ladies’ room. I mean, even if you are a hallucination, it’s still rude.”
“Of that I am well aware. However, I thought it would be appropriate to speak with you alone, considering.”
“How very avian of you,” she replies, turning around from the mirror. She takes her right index finger and pokes him. She can feel that he has feathers and is, in fact, real. “Usually hallucinations don’t…”
“I assure you, Sunshine, I am not a hallucination. I am as real as you.”
“Oh, brother!”
“Do I remind you of a sibling?” he asks.
“It’s just a saying,” she says, not sure how to expound.
“Well, once again, my name is Archibald,” he says, holding out his claw.
“Well, I guess it is a pleasure to meet you,” Sunshine replies, shaking his claw tentatively with her still pointed index finder. “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Just making friends,” he says, “so I’m not so bored all the time.”
Sunshine, furls her brow. “Making friends?”
“You know, for fun,” he says, shaking his head in a playful way.
“So you’re just here to make fun of me?”
“Not at all! No. I just want to play. Play, play, play, play, play, play, play.”
Sunshine grins. “Play?”
“I love to play. But, for now, time for me to go. This room is about to get a visitor.” With that, Archibald presses a button on the top hat and disappears.
A few seconds later, Lush Muffin enters the bathroom. “Hey, honky,” she says to Sunshine.
Sunshine stands, slack jawed, her eyes looking at a point on the wall past Lush Muffin.
“You look like you’ve found out Charles Manson is your baby daddy.”
Sunshine closes her eyes and shakes her head slowly. She lifts her chin diagonally toward the ceiling and says, “Nope. Just another day at the office.” She brushes past Lush Muffin, through the door and out of the bathroom.
Fri., Jun 22, 8:21 p.m., Dos Jefe’s
“Okay, Karl, I believe you,” Sunshine says, taking a large gulp out of her cosmopolitan.
“I take it you met Archibald?”
“Twice. The second time was just now, in the ladies’.”
“I hate it when he does that.”
“So just what is it that he wants from me, anyway?”
Karl Cerullo shrugs. “These aliens are a strange bunch.”
“Did you just say aliens, in the plural?”
Karl nods. “There are a couple of other, even stranger ones around, but they tend to keep to themselves. Archibald is the only one is, oh, how shall I say this…” Karl Cerullo rub his beard with the knuckle of his right index finger. “I’d say he’s more social than the other two, for lack of a better term.”
“Social.”
“Yes.”
Sunshine dumps back the rest of her drink, after which she extends her arm out with the martini glass in hand in Jackson’s direction. The bartender retrieves the glass from her hand and goes to prepare another.
“You shouldn’t worry, really, Sunshine. He’s quite harmless. Actually, in my opinion, anyway, he has a great sense of humor, albeit odd.”
“So I just made friends with a humorous ostrich who is harmless.”
“With the exception of the occasional practical joke.”
Sunshine raises her eyebrows, cocking her head as if to ask for more information.
“Well, that and he can get a bit messy.”
“Messy?”
“And I’d keep the liquor in the house to a minimum. He’s particularly fond of Scotch, but also has an affinity for vodka. Trust me, I know. And he can drink pretty much limitlessly, although I can say that I’ve seen him actually get drunk a couple of times. Those times are particularly messy.”
Jackson returns with Sunshine’s drink. “Thanks, Holmes,” she says and then turns back to Karl. “What I’m sensing here is a bit of anarchy. Would that be far off the mark?”
“I think you hit the bulls eye.”
“And he wants me, as you so delicately put it, to be his playmate?”
“Those were his words, actually.”
Sunshine tries to fish a cigarette out of her purse. Today’s purse happens to be a rather large leather messenger’s bag, filled with a plethora of hairbrushes, lipsticks, chapsticks, balms, lotions, a wallet, pens, a bottle of Advil, birth control pills, and an assortment of other things one would normally find in a desk drawer, not necessarily a purse, a stapler, a roll of masking tape, some trapezoidal erasers and a tape measure. This being said, it takes Sunshine a good half a minute to locate the cigarettes, a fact that is making her more and more hyperactive, her hand lunging through the purse like a python in a pillowcase. At the point she finally retrieves the cigarette, she has become so flustered she lets out an audible grunt, points her unlit cigarette in Jackson’s direction and yells, “Damn it, Jackson! Get me Chartreuse!”
Fri., Jun 22, 8:24 p.m., Dos Jefe’s
“Lush Muffin, did she just yell Chartreuse?”
“Um, I believe you heard correctly.” Arthur Cole believes Sunshine is Pandora, and Pandora has packed for a gambling trip to the Philippines and left the zipper to her suitcase slightly ajar. “I believe the captain has just turned on the fasten your seatbelts sign.”
“Turbulence is scary.”
“Turbulence is child’s play.”
Thursday, May 29, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Chapter 10
Fri., Jun 22, 7:12 p.m., Place d’Armes Hotel
Avoiding Nikolai Valentino is tricky business, especially if your name, for the time being, anyway, happens to be Karl Cerullo. In his tapioca colored suite at the Place d’Armes Hotel, he has solace. To and from the suite, however, it’s a minefield.
In order to attain the safety of his quarters, Karl must walk in through either the lobby or the garage, up either of the elevators to the fourth floor when he then must make a pivotal decision, whether to walk the hall with the exact same carpet as in the movie, The Shining, the same hallway that passes the newly named Executive Offices of the Valentino Corporation, or he can opt to go the other direction, past the conference rooms, down the 1968 lime green Dodge Dart colored hall and back around to the suites. Either way, there’s danger lurking around every corner, and that danger smells like Stalingrad.
Karl Cerullo is sure that Nick decided to build both the corporate offices and the new conference center on the fourth floor just so he could better keep an eye on him. Back in the old days of the Soviet Union, the men never trusted each other, a fact that hasn’t changed much since.
Not that Karl has much of anything to hide from Nick; he just can’t stand the man, and every conversation he has to have with him brings Karl one day closer to the day he will take an ice pick and stab himself in the eye, ending it all forever.
Today, he will sharpen his ice pick.
“Karl,” Nikolai Valentino says outside the corporate offices, right smack in the middle of The Shining.
“Hello, Nick.”
“It’s been a few days since we last spoke. Are you aware that V.I., a company of which you are an honorary board member, has reached an agreement to buy Applebee’s, the world’s favorite neighborhood grill?”
“Yeah, Nick, I’d heard something to that effect. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Karl.” Nick wrings his hands together. “We’re going to make a real splash by introducing the world to product placement in the eatery. What do you think about that?”
“It sounds amazing, truly inspirational.”
“Yes, indeed it is.”
“Well, hey, I’m just here to go get reenergized, you know, the whole alien thing, but, um, it was great chatting with you.”
“Indeed.”
Fri., Jun 22, 7:14 p.m., Place d’Armes Hotel
Located in each suite in the residents’ wing of the Place d’Armes Hotel is something called a regenerator. Each of the residents of the hotel were brought to New Orleans by a team of alien psychologists who wanted to study the effect on humans (more specifically, soon-to-be-important historical figures) of an alien psychological phenomenon called historical displacement. This procedure involves removing people from their positions of power a split second before the time of death. The aliens then beam the humans to a laboratory (in this case, a hotel in the French Quarter) where the subjects must return nightly to regenerate. There is one catch, however: they must regenerate for a few seconds in every twenty-four hour period. Otherwise, they begin a rapid aging process (the aliens call it vericociosity) that causes the subject to shrivel like a rotting vegetable in a time-lapse video. The long-term effects of this procedure on humans has the effect of removing 1.34 years of aging for every ten years of regeneration. At 131 years old, Lenin looks to be not a day over forty-five.
Basically, the regenerator looks like a small metallic cobra, one that has two handles instead of a tail end. In order to use the device, the resident grabs the handles and places what would be the head of serpent on his or her forehead. A small electric current feels like it’s flowing through the person’s body and then, after a few seconds, it emits a beep, a noise that sounds like a squawking blue jay, and then it’s done. As long as the regenerator is applied every day, the subject can go on living. If not, well, ashes to ashes, etc. Unfortunately, the regenerator is not mobile, so the residents, whether they like it or not, must stay in town. Really, the aliens could make a mobile version of the device, but it would make tracking their subjects a whole lot more difficult. This way, they can keep tabs on everyone involved.
Karl Cerullo loathes the process, but for now, anyway, loathes the alternative more. A simple squeeze and a dot to the head, and he’s done.
Fri., Jun 22, 7:25 p.m., 626 St. Ann, #2A
Maggie Flick wipes the condensation off of her apartment’s front window so that she can see the entrance to the Place d’Armes hotel. Her vantage point, being on the second floor and directly across the street, allows her a perfect spot to chronicle the comings and goings at this most bizarre of establishments. She has, in her grade-school style composition book, documented at least thirty-seven people she believes to have permanent residence in the building, most of whom bear a striking resemblance to somebody famous and dead.
Laying on her stomach propped up on one elbow, on the top of her Palais Royale silk sheets, Maggie Flick gnaws on a cracker, allowing the crumbs to collect in the center of her notebook. She’s happy to be home; the time in the hospital was more likely to make her crazy than coming across the walking deceased. And best of all, now that she’s home, she can return to chronicling the comings and goings at the Place d’Armes.
Fri., Jun 22, 7:28 p.m., an entry into the journal of Maggie Flick
6/22 7:30 pm
Tonight has been rather fast paced outside the morgue. In the last 30 minutes or so, I’ve seen VL hurry inside as fast as possible, per his usual. AS dropped off IB and waited around for a few minutes. IB returned and they both headed north. No sightings of JS, but he’s a busy man. I’m sure he’ll be out and about soon enough. He’s easy enough to spot; the limo precedes him, always. I’m hungry, but all I have in the house that hasn’t spoiled are crackers. Might walk up the street later and see if AS and IB are at the Bombay Club and see what kind of entertainment the dead might be taking in this evening. Or may just head Uptown tonight. Haven’t decided, something has to give in this food situation, and that something is probably me.
VL just raced out of the front door like he’d been shot out of a cannon. I think I might have just spotted the new guy, who I believe is PT, but I haven’t figured it out for sure. He’s been here a solid month, and that’s a long time for a tourist. PT is a curious person to be included here. More on that later.
Can’t wait for what tomorrow brings.
It’s good to be back home.
Fri., Jun 22, 7:49 p.m., The Bulldog
Sunshine’s bright pink Nokia E62 phone, email, dog catcher, non-violent protester starts to ring on the bar.
“Hello?” she says. “Oh, hey. Hold on a sec. It’s loud in here. Let me walk outside.”
Lush Muffin, bouncing to the tune on the sound system, looks at Art for a moment and then looks away. She wants him to be cute, really, because he is such a nice guy with a steady income and lots of great friends, but the curly hair, the damned curly hair. If only he shaved it off, then maybe. But the hair, like he wakes up every morning and puts in tiny little rollers really tight, kind of like the bottom of George Washington’s wig, but brown and with even smaller, tighter curls. Lush Muffin calls it honeycomb hair, a truly unfortunate tonsorial handicap.
“Hey Art?”
“Yes?” Arthur Cole is drinking a vodka and orange juice, milking it, really, hoping he can keep ahead of Lush Muffin. The thinking is, if he can get her drunk enough, maybe she’ll want to sleep with him.
“Have you ever thought about shaving your head?”
“Are you serious? I’ve got great hair.”
Lush Muffin casually sips her Ketel One greyhound. “Hrmp,” she mutters.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you not think I have great hair? I’m not going bald, there’s no gray, and it’s immaculately coiffed.”
“I was just curious if you’d ever considered it.” A shiver runs down her spine as she imagines running her fingers through the tiny curls. “You know, for a lark?”
“It has never occurred to me. And now that you bring it up and it has occurred to me, I can say I am certain it will never happen.”
Sunshine reappears, her hips dancing in tiny circles. “Hey, I just got off the phone with Karl. He called to tell me he’s down at Dos Jefe’s and says I should get up there because there is some kind of cop convention taking place there, a bunch of FBI and other federal types there. He referred to them as my type, whatever that means.”
Arthur Cole grimaces.
“Lawmen? Like in uniform?” Lush Muffin asks excitedly.
“I don’t know,” Sunshine replies like a toy poodle hopped up on amphetamines, “but I sure know I want to go find out. Boys! This is so romantic,” she squeals.
“Um, Sunshine,” Art offers, “don’t you remember the batshit insanity thing?”
“You told me yourself. We were dosed.”
Arthur Cole imagines a perfectly good evening swirling down the opposite direction of a South American toilet.
Avoiding Nikolai Valentino is tricky business, especially if your name, for the time being, anyway, happens to be Karl Cerullo. In his tapioca colored suite at the Place d’Armes Hotel, he has solace. To and from the suite, however, it’s a minefield.
In order to attain the safety of his quarters, Karl must walk in through either the lobby or the garage, up either of the elevators to the fourth floor when he then must make a pivotal decision, whether to walk the hall with the exact same carpet as in the movie, The Shining, the same hallway that passes the newly named Executive Offices of the Valentino Corporation, or he can opt to go the other direction, past the conference rooms, down the 1968 lime green Dodge Dart colored hall and back around to the suites. Either way, there’s danger lurking around every corner, and that danger smells like Stalingrad.
Karl Cerullo is sure that Nick decided to build both the corporate offices and the new conference center on the fourth floor just so he could better keep an eye on him. Back in the old days of the Soviet Union, the men never trusted each other, a fact that hasn’t changed much since.
Not that Karl has much of anything to hide from Nick; he just can’t stand the man, and every conversation he has to have with him brings Karl one day closer to the day he will take an ice pick and stab himself in the eye, ending it all forever.
Today, he will sharpen his ice pick.
“Karl,” Nikolai Valentino says outside the corporate offices, right smack in the middle of The Shining.
“Hello, Nick.”
“It’s been a few days since we last spoke. Are you aware that V.I., a company of which you are an honorary board member, has reached an agreement to buy Applebee’s, the world’s favorite neighborhood grill?”
“Yeah, Nick, I’d heard something to that effect. Congratulations.”
“Thanks, Karl.” Nick wrings his hands together. “We’re going to make a real splash by introducing the world to product placement in the eatery. What do you think about that?”
“It sounds amazing, truly inspirational.”
“Yes, indeed it is.”
“Well, hey, I’m just here to go get reenergized, you know, the whole alien thing, but, um, it was great chatting with you.”
“Indeed.”
Fri., Jun 22, 7:14 p.m., Place d’Armes Hotel
Located in each suite in the residents’ wing of the Place d’Armes Hotel is something called a regenerator. Each of the residents of the hotel were brought to New Orleans by a team of alien psychologists who wanted to study the effect on humans (more specifically, soon-to-be-important historical figures) of an alien psychological phenomenon called historical displacement. This procedure involves removing people from their positions of power a split second before the time of death. The aliens then beam the humans to a laboratory (in this case, a hotel in the French Quarter) where the subjects must return nightly to regenerate. There is one catch, however: they must regenerate for a few seconds in every twenty-four hour period. Otherwise, they begin a rapid aging process (the aliens call it vericociosity) that causes the subject to shrivel like a rotting vegetable in a time-lapse video. The long-term effects of this procedure on humans has the effect of removing 1.34 years of aging for every ten years of regeneration. At 131 years old, Lenin looks to be not a day over forty-five.
Basically, the regenerator looks like a small metallic cobra, one that has two handles instead of a tail end. In order to use the device, the resident grabs the handles and places what would be the head of serpent on his or her forehead. A small electric current feels like it’s flowing through the person’s body and then, after a few seconds, it emits a beep, a noise that sounds like a squawking blue jay, and then it’s done. As long as the regenerator is applied every day, the subject can go on living. If not, well, ashes to ashes, etc. Unfortunately, the regenerator is not mobile, so the residents, whether they like it or not, must stay in town. Really, the aliens could make a mobile version of the device, but it would make tracking their subjects a whole lot more difficult. This way, they can keep tabs on everyone involved.
Karl Cerullo loathes the process, but for now, anyway, loathes the alternative more. A simple squeeze and a dot to the head, and he’s done.
Fri., Jun 22, 7:25 p.m., 626 St. Ann, #2A
Maggie Flick wipes the condensation off of her apartment’s front window so that she can see the entrance to the Place d’Armes hotel. Her vantage point, being on the second floor and directly across the street, allows her a perfect spot to chronicle the comings and goings at this most bizarre of establishments. She has, in her grade-school style composition book, documented at least thirty-seven people she believes to have permanent residence in the building, most of whom bear a striking resemblance to somebody famous and dead.
Laying on her stomach propped up on one elbow, on the top of her Palais Royale silk sheets, Maggie Flick gnaws on a cracker, allowing the crumbs to collect in the center of her notebook. She’s happy to be home; the time in the hospital was more likely to make her crazy than coming across the walking deceased. And best of all, now that she’s home, she can return to chronicling the comings and goings at the Place d’Armes.
Fri., Jun 22, 7:28 p.m., an entry into the journal of Maggie Flick
6/22 7:30 pm
Tonight has been rather fast paced outside the morgue. In the last 30 minutes or so, I’ve seen VL hurry inside as fast as possible, per his usual. AS dropped off IB and waited around for a few minutes. IB returned and they both headed north. No sightings of JS, but he’s a busy man. I’m sure he’ll be out and about soon enough. He’s easy enough to spot; the limo precedes him, always. I’m hungry, but all I have in the house that hasn’t spoiled are crackers. Might walk up the street later and see if AS and IB are at the Bombay Club and see what kind of entertainment the dead might be taking in this evening. Or may just head Uptown tonight. Haven’t decided, something has to give in this food situation, and that something is probably me.
VL just raced out of the front door like he’d been shot out of a cannon. I think I might have just spotted the new guy, who I believe is PT, but I haven’t figured it out for sure. He’s been here a solid month, and that’s a long time for a tourist. PT is a curious person to be included here. More on that later.
Can’t wait for what tomorrow brings.
It’s good to be back home.
Fri., Jun 22, 7:49 p.m., The Bulldog
Sunshine’s bright pink Nokia E62 phone, email, dog catcher, non-violent protester starts to ring on the bar.
“Hello?” she says. “Oh, hey. Hold on a sec. It’s loud in here. Let me walk outside.”
Lush Muffin, bouncing to the tune on the sound system, looks at Art for a moment and then looks away. She wants him to be cute, really, because he is such a nice guy with a steady income and lots of great friends, but the curly hair, the damned curly hair. If only he shaved it off, then maybe. But the hair, like he wakes up every morning and puts in tiny little rollers really tight, kind of like the bottom of George Washington’s wig, but brown and with even smaller, tighter curls. Lush Muffin calls it honeycomb hair, a truly unfortunate tonsorial handicap.
“Hey Art?”
“Yes?” Arthur Cole is drinking a vodka and orange juice, milking it, really, hoping he can keep ahead of Lush Muffin. The thinking is, if he can get her drunk enough, maybe she’ll want to sleep with him.
“Have you ever thought about shaving your head?”
“Are you serious? I’ve got great hair.”
Lush Muffin casually sips her Ketel One greyhound. “Hrmp,” she mutters.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you not think I have great hair? I’m not going bald, there’s no gray, and it’s immaculately coiffed.”
“I was just curious if you’d ever considered it.” A shiver runs down her spine as she imagines running her fingers through the tiny curls. “You know, for a lark?”
“It has never occurred to me. And now that you bring it up and it has occurred to me, I can say I am certain it will never happen.”
Sunshine reappears, her hips dancing in tiny circles. “Hey, I just got off the phone with Karl. He called to tell me he’s down at Dos Jefe’s and says I should get up there because there is some kind of cop convention taking place there, a bunch of FBI and other federal types there. He referred to them as my type, whatever that means.”
Arthur Cole grimaces.
“Lawmen? Like in uniform?” Lush Muffin asks excitedly.
“I don’t know,” Sunshine replies like a toy poodle hopped up on amphetamines, “but I sure know I want to go find out. Boys! This is so romantic,” she squeals.
“Um, Sunshine,” Art offers, “don’t you remember the batshit insanity thing?”
“You told me yourself. We were dosed.”
Arthur Cole imagines a perfectly good evening swirling down the opposite direction of a South American toilet.
Thursday, May 15, 2008
Chapter 09
Fri., Jun 22, 6:15 p.m., 1000 Valence St.
Judge Mule stares straight ahead at a point on the wall just above the fireplace mantel where the paint has begun to fade, probably from his housekeeper using too much Pledge on the woodwork and by way of collateral damage has begun to affect other surfaces, not just the wood. He finds himself staring a lot lately, mostly into space, but occasionally at imperfections, not so much as to make a mental note to cure the imperfection, but more just to have a place to catalog the things that are out of place. Last night has its own folder, if not it’s own drawer in that catalog. And now another thing has him troubled: the Laphroaig, his favorite Scotch has, for the most part, been consumed, and not by Judge Mule.
He has had the same housekeeper, despite her foibles, for seventeen years, and in that time, not a drop of liquor has ever been pilfered, nor has anything else for that matter. Nobody else, to his knowledge, ever enters the Mule household since the passing of his wife nearly ten years ago, with the exception of an odd plumber or electrician when something goes on the fritz.
When something goes missing, as it never does, it is certainly a moment for the Judge’s catalog, one that is so brimming with recent events that even the normally calm and logic-minded Judge Mule finds himself swimming a bit upstream. The Scotch cannot be an accident. To make matters worse, he knows that he had at least half a bottle yesterday evening because, as the police arrived, he, himself had a glass, at which time he noted that the seal had been broken, and not by him. When this occurred to him, he just figured that the crazy individual taped to his Bentley had taken some of it as part of his crazy drug binge. Now that the bottle is almost empty, he cannot make the same assumption, a point which troubles Judge Mule deeply.
Fri., Jun 22, 6:21 p.m., 3931 ½ Prytania
“Muffin?”
“Yes, Art.”
“Have you taken your bath yet?”
“Yes I have and I am as silky as silky can be.”
“That’s fabulous. Sunshine needs a drink.”
“So do I.”
“So meet us at the bar.”
“Um, which bar?”
“You know, the bar.” Arthur Cole cracks himself up sometimes.
“I think you’ll have to be a little more specific.”
“We’re going to the Bulldog. It’s free beer glass night.”
This registers to Lush Muffin as the night when the bar allows a person to keep the glass every time one orders a beer from one of the myriad spigots lining the wall behind the bar. “Yet another night of kitchen stocking madness.”
“You got that right. So get your buns in the car and meet us over there, pronto.”
“I will be there as soon as I can get my slinky self behind the wheel.”
Fri., Jun 22, 6:25 p.m., 3931 ½ Prytania
After collecting her car keys and purse, Lush Muffin heads out of the front door of her apartment on Prytania Street. After she opens the door, it becomes immediately apparent that something is not right. Directly outside her door where her driveway sits, there would normally be parked a late model, forest green Honda Accord. Tonight, this is not the case. The car, it seems, was abandoned during the previous evening’s festivities. Not only was it abandoned, but the aforementioned abandonment took place during the depths of a blackout. This is problematic, at best.
Lush Muffin stares at the oil stained pavement hoping to glean from its amorphous patterns where on earth she could have left her car. Probably somewhere on Frenchman Street, she figures, as the last place she remembers being was D.B.A., which would also make sense because she also remembers talking to a man who is a professional rickshaw driver and why in the world would she want to take a car if she could have a man pull her around the city in a rickshaw? Duh. Logic dictates the car is safely stowed in the Marigny, probably right across from D.B.A. Thusly, the proper course of action is to proceed directly, by cab, to the Bulldog and leave the salvage operation for tomorrow. Tomorrow is a much better day for such an undertaking. Tomorrow makes tonight much more manageable.
Fri., Jun 22, 6:43 p.m., The Bulldog
The Bulldog, located on Magazine Street two blocks downtown of Louisiana Avenue, is one of the more popular places in Uptown New Orleans for the twenty and thirty-something crowd to commune and inundate their livers with alcoholic beverage. Located in the heart of the Isle of Denial, that Isle being the non-flooded areas of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Bulldog was one of the first establishments to open after the storm and immediately gained a following of devoted and passionate drinkers.
To say that alcohol consumption, already at near epidemic levels, increased in the city after Hurricane Katrina of New Orleans is something of an understatement. Many people who returned shortly after the hurricane, unable to deal with the realities of a desolate city, broken infrastructure, absentee insurance companies and a general mood of despair, flocked to the city’s few open watering holes in numbers that nearly overwhelmed the city’s liquor distributors, a major task considering the abundance of drinking that took place on a much larger scale before the Katrina, even if the number of people who had returned numbered in the tens of thousands, compared to the five-hundred thousand who lived in the city before the storm. Since there was absolutely nothing else to do in those sweltering, brutally hot, empty days following the storm except seek out other so-called survivors and commiserate, the bars were human magnets, and the humans had mouths that needed both nourishment and verbally-expulsive exercise. Telling storm stories to other recently displaced residents was the only activity available to people, and the natural place for those conversations to take place would be somewhere where people could medicate and socialize at the same time.
“Remember when we first met here,” Art says while watching the bartender pour is first beer of the evening.
“How can I forget,” Sunshine replies.
“Mold.”
“Refrigerators.”
The decomposing refrigerator Art and rolled to the street one day in late September 2005 reminds him of an odor both sickly sweet and putrid, the ten pounds of previously frozen deer meat inside the taped shut refrigerator’s freezer undoubtedly contributing to the myriad bugs and other life forms seeming to come streaming out of every pore of the fridge each time it was jostled. “Anywhoo.”
“Anywhoo.” Sunshine finds her mind wandering a bit. The whole ostrich thing seems a little too real for it to be a hallucination, which, of course, it has to be, but still. “Artie?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Karl Cerullo is crazy?”
“I haven’t given the matter much thought, and I don’t know him very well. But from what I do know, he seems somewhat normal, at least in comparison to you, which is, by all standards, not necessarily sane.”
“So yes?”
“Define crazy.”
“Batshit insane.”
Art caresses his goatee for a moment and then replies, “Can’t say that I’ve made that assessment of the man, no.”
“Oh.”
“Well, why do you ask? I mean, he’s your friend, so you should know him better than I do.”
“That’s the thing, Artie. He’s never seemed crazy to me, that is, not until this afternoon, right before I left Dos Jefe’s.”
“Why? What happened?”
Sunshine takes a long swig out of her freshly delivered cosmopolitan, lets out a heavy sigh, turns to face Art directly and says, “Artie, the man started telling me this story, a story about aliens and, well, he told me that he was Vladimir Lenin, incarnate.”
“The Communist.”
“The one and the same.”
“Well, that would qualify as batshit in my book, if he’s being serious,” Art says with a chuckle.
“Sure it does, Artie, but that’s not all he said.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Well, he went on to say that the reason he was telling me all of this is because, um, and this is where it gets even more bizarre, he tells me that he has to tell me about him being Vladimir Lenin because there’s this alien, see, and the alien is an ostrich…”
“Not with the ostrich again.”
“Listen.”
“Sorry.”
“And this ostrich alien creature wants to make friends with me because he needs a playmate.”
“A playmate?”
“Yes, Artie, a playmate.”
“Wow, that is weird.”
“Yes, and in my case, the power of suggestion seems to have gotten the better of me.”
“That is really fucked up, Sunshine. Are you sure you’re up for being out and about?”
“Oh, I’m not going to let it bother me anymore. Just felt like I needed to get the whole thing off my chest. It’s all so odd, though. Karl just went off to the bathroom, and bam, returned batshit insane.”
Arthur Cole suddenly finds himself with his thinking cap on. “Hey, Sunshine?”
“Yes Artie?”
“What if, the same person who dosed your drink dosed his drink?”
Sunshine ponders that while rubbing the rim of her glass between her lips. “Well, that would make a bit more sense, wouldn’t it?”
Arthur Cole believes he has become the pinnacle of reason. “It is the only explanation.”
Fri., Jun 22, 7:06 p.m., The Bulldog
Lush Muffin’s arrival, as usual, is perfectly timed to coincide with another round of drinks in need of purchase.
“What took you so long?” Art asks.
“I had to take a cab. Kind of lost my car last night.”
“Again?” Art snickers.
“Hello, Lush Muffin,” Sunshine says, waving a palm-up finger.
“Sunshine. How are you doing, my friend?”
“Incapable of anything good to say, I’m afraid. I think somebody dosed me at the bar earlier.”
“Oh no! Did somebody do something naughty to you?”
“No. Just seeing things, is all.”
Lush Muffin smiles wryly. “Well that actually sounds kind of fun!”
“I’d call it scary. But I’m over it.”
Lush Muffin smiles and begins to look nervously at Art. “Who does a girl need to screw to get a drink around here.”
“Stop being figurative with me,” Art says.
Lush Muffin cranes her neck back around Art. “Anyhow, Sunshine, I had a couple of messages on my voice mail, from different, random people, something about Earl Patton getting thrown in the slammy. What’s that all about?”
Judge Mule stares straight ahead at a point on the wall just above the fireplace mantel where the paint has begun to fade, probably from his housekeeper using too much Pledge on the woodwork and by way of collateral damage has begun to affect other surfaces, not just the wood. He finds himself staring a lot lately, mostly into space, but occasionally at imperfections, not so much as to make a mental note to cure the imperfection, but more just to have a place to catalog the things that are out of place. Last night has its own folder, if not it’s own drawer in that catalog. And now another thing has him troubled: the Laphroaig, his favorite Scotch has, for the most part, been consumed, and not by Judge Mule.
He has had the same housekeeper, despite her foibles, for seventeen years, and in that time, not a drop of liquor has ever been pilfered, nor has anything else for that matter. Nobody else, to his knowledge, ever enters the Mule household since the passing of his wife nearly ten years ago, with the exception of an odd plumber or electrician when something goes on the fritz.
When something goes missing, as it never does, it is certainly a moment for the Judge’s catalog, one that is so brimming with recent events that even the normally calm and logic-minded Judge Mule finds himself swimming a bit upstream. The Scotch cannot be an accident. To make matters worse, he knows that he had at least half a bottle yesterday evening because, as the police arrived, he, himself had a glass, at which time he noted that the seal had been broken, and not by him. When this occurred to him, he just figured that the crazy individual taped to his Bentley had taken some of it as part of his crazy drug binge. Now that the bottle is almost empty, he cannot make the same assumption, a point which troubles Judge Mule deeply.
Fri., Jun 22, 6:21 p.m., 3931 ½ Prytania
“Muffin?”
“Yes, Art.”
“Have you taken your bath yet?”
“Yes I have and I am as silky as silky can be.”
“That’s fabulous. Sunshine needs a drink.”
“So do I.”
“So meet us at the bar.”
“Um, which bar?”
“You know, the bar.” Arthur Cole cracks himself up sometimes.
“I think you’ll have to be a little more specific.”
“We’re going to the Bulldog. It’s free beer glass night.”
This registers to Lush Muffin as the night when the bar allows a person to keep the glass every time one orders a beer from one of the myriad spigots lining the wall behind the bar. “Yet another night of kitchen stocking madness.”
“You got that right. So get your buns in the car and meet us over there, pronto.”
“I will be there as soon as I can get my slinky self behind the wheel.”
Fri., Jun 22, 6:25 p.m., 3931 ½ Prytania
After collecting her car keys and purse, Lush Muffin heads out of the front door of her apartment on Prytania Street. After she opens the door, it becomes immediately apparent that something is not right. Directly outside her door where her driveway sits, there would normally be parked a late model, forest green Honda Accord. Tonight, this is not the case. The car, it seems, was abandoned during the previous evening’s festivities. Not only was it abandoned, but the aforementioned abandonment took place during the depths of a blackout. This is problematic, at best.
Lush Muffin stares at the oil stained pavement hoping to glean from its amorphous patterns where on earth she could have left her car. Probably somewhere on Frenchman Street, she figures, as the last place she remembers being was D.B.A., which would also make sense because she also remembers talking to a man who is a professional rickshaw driver and why in the world would she want to take a car if she could have a man pull her around the city in a rickshaw? Duh. Logic dictates the car is safely stowed in the Marigny, probably right across from D.B.A. Thusly, the proper course of action is to proceed directly, by cab, to the Bulldog and leave the salvage operation for tomorrow. Tomorrow is a much better day for such an undertaking. Tomorrow makes tonight much more manageable.
Fri., Jun 22, 6:43 p.m., The Bulldog
The Bulldog, located on Magazine Street two blocks downtown of Louisiana Avenue, is one of the more popular places in Uptown New Orleans for the twenty and thirty-something crowd to commune and inundate their livers with alcoholic beverage. Located in the heart of the Isle of Denial, that Isle being the non-flooded areas of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Bulldog was one of the first establishments to open after the storm and immediately gained a following of devoted and passionate drinkers.
To say that alcohol consumption, already at near epidemic levels, increased in the city after Hurricane Katrina of New Orleans is something of an understatement. Many people who returned shortly after the hurricane, unable to deal with the realities of a desolate city, broken infrastructure, absentee insurance companies and a general mood of despair, flocked to the city’s few open watering holes in numbers that nearly overwhelmed the city’s liquor distributors, a major task considering the abundance of drinking that took place on a much larger scale before the Katrina, even if the number of people who had returned numbered in the tens of thousands, compared to the five-hundred thousand who lived in the city before the storm. Since there was absolutely nothing else to do in those sweltering, brutally hot, empty days following the storm except seek out other so-called survivors and commiserate, the bars were human magnets, and the humans had mouths that needed both nourishment and verbally-expulsive exercise. Telling storm stories to other recently displaced residents was the only activity available to people, and the natural place for those conversations to take place would be somewhere where people could medicate and socialize at the same time.
“Remember when we first met here,” Art says while watching the bartender pour is first beer of the evening.
“How can I forget,” Sunshine replies.
“Mold.”
“Refrigerators.”
The decomposing refrigerator Art and rolled to the street one day in late September 2005 reminds him of an odor both sickly sweet and putrid, the ten pounds of previously frozen deer meat inside the taped shut refrigerator’s freezer undoubtedly contributing to the myriad bugs and other life forms seeming to come streaming out of every pore of the fridge each time it was jostled. “Anywhoo.”
“Anywhoo.” Sunshine finds her mind wandering a bit. The whole ostrich thing seems a little too real for it to be a hallucination, which, of course, it has to be, but still. “Artie?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think Karl Cerullo is crazy?”
“I haven’t given the matter much thought, and I don’t know him very well. But from what I do know, he seems somewhat normal, at least in comparison to you, which is, by all standards, not necessarily sane.”
“So yes?”
“Define crazy.”
“Batshit insane.”
Art caresses his goatee for a moment and then replies, “Can’t say that I’ve made that assessment of the man, no.”
“Oh.”
“Well, why do you ask? I mean, he’s your friend, so you should know him better than I do.”
“That’s the thing, Artie. He’s never seemed crazy to me, that is, not until this afternoon, right before I left Dos Jefe’s.”
“Why? What happened?”
Sunshine takes a long swig out of her freshly delivered cosmopolitan, lets out a heavy sigh, turns to face Art directly and says, “Artie, the man started telling me this story, a story about aliens and, well, he told me that he was Vladimir Lenin, incarnate.”
“The Communist.”
“The one and the same.”
“Well, that would qualify as batshit in my book, if he’s being serious,” Art says with a chuckle.
“Sure it does, Artie, but that’s not all he said.”
“Oh, do tell.”
“Well, he went on to say that the reason he was telling me all of this is because, um, and this is where it gets even more bizarre, he tells me that he has to tell me about him being Vladimir Lenin because there’s this alien, see, and the alien is an ostrich…”
“Not with the ostrich again.”
“Listen.”
“Sorry.”
“And this ostrich alien creature wants to make friends with me because he needs a playmate.”
“A playmate?”
“Yes, Artie, a playmate.”
“Wow, that is weird.”
“Yes, and in my case, the power of suggestion seems to have gotten the better of me.”
“That is really fucked up, Sunshine. Are you sure you’re up for being out and about?”
“Oh, I’m not going to let it bother me anymore. Just felt like I needed to get the whole thing off my chest. It’s all so odd, though. Karl just went off to the bathroom, and bam, returned batshit insane.”
Arthur Cole suddenly finds himself with his thinking cap on. “Hey, Sunshine?”
“Yes Artie?”
“What if, the same person who dosed your drink dosed his drink?”
Sunshine ponders that while rubbing the rim of her glass between her lips. “Well, that would make a bit more sense, wouldn’t it?”
Arthur Cole believes he has become the pinnacle of reason. “It is the only explanation.”
Fri., Jun 22, 7:06 p.m., The Bulldog
Lush Muffin’s arrival, as usual, is perfectly timed to coincide with another round of drinks in need of purchase.
“What took you so long?” Art asks.
“I had to take a cab. Kind of lost my car last night.”
“Again?” Art snickers.
“Hello, Lush Muffin,” Sunshine says, waving a palm-up finger.
“Sunshine. How are you doing, my friend?”
“Incapable of anything good to say, I’m afraid. I think somebody dosed me at the bar earlier.”
“Oh no! Did somebody do something naughty to you?”
“No. Just seeing things, is all.”
Lush Muffin smiles wryly. “Well that actually sounds kind of fun!”
“I’d call it scary. But I’m over it.”
Lush Muffin smiles and begins to look nervously at Art. “Who does a girl need to screw to get a drink around here.”
“Stop being figurative with me,” Art says.
Lush Muffin cranes her neck back around Art. “Anyhow, Sunshine, I had a couple of messages on my voice mail, from different, random people, something about Earl Patton getting thrown in the slammy. What’s that all about?”
Friday, May 9, 2008
Chapter 08
Fri., Jun 22, 5:36 p.m., East Jefferson Hospital, Psychiatric Ward
“Good luck on the outside, Ms. Flick.”
“Thank you for all you’ve done, doctor.”
“Don’t mention it. Just part of my job.”
“So these release papers, these mean that somebody can’t come and throw me back in here?”
“As long as you don’t again act insane or become a threat to yourself or others, then, no, you’re free to do as you please.”
“I am so very glad to hear that.”
In the past few weeks, if Maggie Flick has learned anything, she has learned that honesty is not always the best policy.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:41 p.m.. 3931 ½ Prytania
“Lush Muffin?”
“Yes, Art. Hey, what time is it?”
“Sometime after five.”
“Oh, well, I better get out of bed.”
“Might be a good idea, you know, before sunset.”
“I think I am allergic to the sun.”
“Speaking of the sun, I hear Sunshine tromping around on her side of the house. Are you maybe interested in going and having some early evening cocktails with us?”
“Perhaps, but I’m broke.”
“Yeah, I know the drill.”
“Let me go take a bubble bath and I’ll call you when I’m out.”
“For you, a bubble bath could take all evening.”
“I’ll make it quick.”
Fri., Jun 22, 5:45 p.m., 343 Octavia
Sunshine, being Sunshine, is a bit of a clothes horse. In fact, she requires a two bedroom apartment, one bedroom for her bed and sleeping (and the occasional happy romp with a member of the opposite), the other to contain the clothing. Hanging on large, mobile, department store-style racks are literally thousands of different dresses, sun dresses, a-line dresses, floor length dresses, fishtail dresses, blouses, tunics, jumpsuits, knickers, pedal pushers, gauchos, Capri pants, slacks, tube tops, tank tops, spaghetti straps, sweaters, morning jackets, daytime jackets, evening jackets. Material-wise, the range is nearly unending, her clothes running the gamut from simple cotton, wool, linen, flax, silk, leather, fur and denim, to more exotic materials like rubber, Tyvek, hemp, bamboo, soy, paper and even PVC.
The lingerie corner is kept segregated from the other clothing items as to keep the sanctity of the delicates pure. Stuffed into a large dresser, there is every type of t-shirt imaginable. The only clothing items that do not live in the second bedroom are the shoes. They inhabit the entirety of the first bedroom’s closet. That, and the costumes. Costumes are given their own closet to themselves in the second bedroom, right there hovering above the aforementioned shoes.
Sunshine is looking for something to wear, never a simple task. She has shed the pink Capri pants and yellow tank top she had been wearing earlier and has now stepped into a cornflower blue, light cotton sundress with little white flowers, the flower prints about the size of a dime, their floral distinction distributed as a constant motif throughout. Her shoes aren’t going to change. She’s wearing white Keds and she doesn’t believe they need to be altered, this dress being very a very casual summer frock.
The mirror doesn’t lie. Sunshine looks beautiful, cool, relaxed and casual. But when she turns from the mirror to leave the room, that’s when the freaky bird appears.
Sunshine screams.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:48:00 p.m., 341 Octavia
When Arthur Cole hears the scream, and unnaturally loud and hideous scream, followed by a thump, he immediately bolts up from his computer and races to the front door of his apartment.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:47:30 p.m., 343 Octavia
“Hello, Sunshine,” Archibald says, straightening his bowtie with one claw and tipping his top had with the other. “My name is Archibald, and I am an ostrich.”
After a throat-reddening scream, Sunshine faints, for the second time in one day, collapsing to the floor in a floral cornflower blue and white heap.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:48:30 p.m., 341 Octavia
Art and Sunshine each keep a key to the other’s side of the house, and it is with Sunshine’s key which Art struggles in the lock. Having finally attained entry, he shuttles through the house looking for Sunshine.
“Sunshine?” he yells. No replies.
Arthur Cole feels the electric cold fear of the unknown. He walks through the front two rooms of the house, both silent, the only noise being made coming from the creak of the old wood floors and Art’s voice as he, no longer yelling, mumbles, “Sunshine?”
He moves through Sunshine’s bedroom, her house immaculate as always, the bed’s corners sharp edges of linen confidence. That’s when he sees her, lying in a heap between her bedroom and her, um, closet, the second bedroom.
“Holy crap! What happened?” he says, kneeling down over her. “Sunshine, wake up. Can you hear me?”
Sunshine begins to stir. “Artie, what are you doing here?”
“I heard you scream.”
Sunshine squints her eyes, trying to remember why she is where she is, and then it dawns on her. She squints harder and angrier this time and says, “Is he still here?”
“Who?”
“The ostrich.”
“What?”
“Arthur Kenneth Cole, there is an ostrich in my house.”
“A what?”
“An ostrich. Did you come in through the front?”
“Wait, what?”
“Did you come in through the front?”
“Uh, yes, I did.”
“The he must be in the kitchen!”
Arthur Cole is in some kind of surreal autopilot. He arches up and sprints back to the kitchen. The kitchen, as usual, is a very clean, avian-free zone.
He returns to Sunshine, who is picking herself up off the floor. “No ostrich in your kitchen.”
“Artie, I want you to listen to me and hear the words as they come out of my mouth.”
“Sure, Sunshine.”
“When I passed out, it was because I saw an ostrich with a top hat and a bowtie, and he was standing right here,” she says, pointing at a spot on the floor just to the right of Art. “And he said… what did he say…” she mumbles, still coming to.
“He was speaking.”
“Yes, Artie, he was speaking,” Sunshine bristles.
“And what did this, ahem, ostrich have to say?”
“I think he said his name was Archibald.”
“Is that right?” a now sarcastic Arthur Cole replies.
“Fuck off.”
“I’m sorry, but you just informed me that you were accosted…”
“Not accosted, more just spoken to.”
“Okay, you just told me that you were spoken to by an ostrich, one dressed in a tie and a hat, and you expect me to just nod and agree with you.”
“It was a bowtie and a top hat and I know it sounds crazy, but, well, Karl told me that I’d see him…” she struggles for the words and then say, “Oh, never mind. Somebody must of slipped something in one of my cosmos. I’m hallucinating.”
“That’s better.” Art exhales.
Sunshine points her finger and stabs it at her forehead. “The power of suggestion is something, though. Boy, was that a realistic hallucination. All the way down to his gestures. The ostrich was like some kind of goofy kid trying to be, I don’t know, like a goofball kid trying to be a gentleman. It was all sort of charming, now that I think about it.”
“I’m glad your hallucinations are charming, Sunshine. Are you all right now?”
“I’m fine,” she huffs, now a little annoyed with all the attention.
“Good. I’m going to go home and take a shower. Are you interested in hooking up with Lush Muffin a little later?”
Sunshine gathers herself as if to get into character. “That sounds romantic,” she says reflexively putting her game face on as best she can, even though, deep down, she still feels a little bit woozy.
Fri., Jun 22, 6:01 p.m., 303 Exposition Blvd.
The past thirty-six or so hours have tired even the normally tireless Earl Patton, so much so that he has even lost the burning desire to get Sunshine on the phone and chew her psychotic, insincere, nymphomaniac ass out. No, tonight, he has decided will be a night of quiet contemplation over a very full bottle of Jack Daniels. With Jedi skills he will dispatch the bourbon. Not a drop will remain.
Tonight, Earl Patton will put aside his fear of the unknown, of the unspoken favor for God knows who, of the people with whom he has found himself associating, those who work behind the damp, moldy wall of secrecy.
In the center of his coffee table sits the bottle of Jack, right next to a small, empty, soon to be not so empty cocktail glass he stole from some bar on some more eventful night. Earl notices that the dishwasher has left a small amount of soap scum on the glass and that, perhaps, next time he runs it, he will use a longer cycle. Such is the patience the normally impatient Earl Patton is developing. Prison, it seems, leaves a mark.
“Good luck on the outside, Ms. Flick.”
“Thank you for all you’ve done, doctor.”
“Don’t mention it. Just part of my job.”
“So these release papers, these mean that somebody can’t come and throw me back in here?”
“As long as you don’t again act insane or become a threat to yourself or others, then, no, you’re free to do as you please.”
“I am so very glad to hear that.”
In the past few weeks, if Maggie Flick has learned anything, she has learned that honesty is not always the best policy.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:41 p.m.. 3931 ½ Prytania
“Lush Muffin?”
“Yes, Art. Hey, what time is it?”
“Sometime after five.”
“Oh, well, I better get out of bed.”
“Might be a good idea, you know, before sunset.”
“I think I am allergic to the sun.”
“Speaking of the sun, I hear Sunshine tromping around on her side of the house. Are you maybe interested in going and having some early evening cocktails with us?”
“Perhaps, but I’m broke.”
“Yeah, I know the drill.”
“Let me go take a bubble bath and I’ll call you when I’m out.”
“For you, a bubble bath could take all evening.”
“I’ll make it quick.”
Fri., Jun 22, 5:45 p.m., 343 Octavia
Sunshine, being Sunshine, is a bit of a clothes horse. In fact, she requires a two bedroom apartment, one bedroom for her bed and sleeping (and the occasional happy romp with a member of the opposite), the other to contain the clothing. Hanging on large, mobile, department store-style racks are literally thousands of different dresses, sun dresses, a-line dresses, floor length dresses, fishtail dresses, blouses, tunics, jumpsuits, knickers, pedal pushers, gauchos, Capri pants, slacks, tube tops, tank tops, spaghetti straps, sweaters, morning jackets, daytime jackets, evening jackets. Material-wise, the range is nearly unending, her clothes running the gamut from simple cotton, wool, linen, flax, silk, leather, fur and denim, to more exotic materials like rubber, Tyvek, hemp, bamboo, soy, paper and even PVC.
The lingerie corner is kept segregated from the other clothing items as to keep the sanctity of the delicates pure. Stuffed into a large dresser, there is every type of t-shirt imaginable. The only clothing items that do not live in the second bedroom are the shoes. They inhabit the entirety of the first bedroom’s closet. That, and the costumes. Costumes are given their own closet to themselves in the second bedroom, right there hovering above the aforementioned shoes.
Sunshine is looking for something to wear, never a simple task. She has shed the pink Capri pants and yellow tank top she had been wearing earlier and has now stepped into a cornflower blue, light cotton sundress with little white flowers, the flower prints about the size of a dime, their floral distinction distributed as a constant motif throughout. Her shoes aren’t going to change. She’s wearing white Keds and she doesn’t believe they need to be altered, this dress being very a very casual summer frock.
The mirror doesn’t lie. Sunshine looks beautiful, cool, relaxed and casual. But when she turns from the mirror to leave the room, that’s when the freaky bird appears.
Sunshine screams.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:48:00 p.m., 341 Octavia
When Arthur Cole hears the scream, and unnaturally loud and hideous scream, followed by a thump, he immediately bolts up from his computer and races to the front door of his apartment.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:47:30 p.m., 343 Octavia
“Hello, Sunshine,” Archibald says, straightening his bowtie with one claw and tipping his top had with the other. “My name is Archibald, and I am an ostrich.”
After a throat-reddening scream, Sunshine faints, for the second time in one day, collapsing to the floor in a floral cornflower blue and white heap.
Fri., Jun 22, 5:48:30 p.m., 341 Octavia
Art and Sunshine each keep a key to the other’s side of the house, and it is with Sunshine’s key which Art struggles in the lock. Having finally attained entry, he shuttles through the house looking for Sunshine.
“Sunshine?” he yells. No replies.
Arthur Cole feels the electric cold fear of the unknown. He walks through the front two rooms of the house, both silent, the only noise being made coming from the creak of the old wood floors and Art’s voice as he, no longer yelling, mumbles, “Sunshine?”
He moves through Sunshine’s bedroom, her house immaculate as always, the bed’s corners sharp edges of linen confidence. That’s when he sees her, lying in a heap between her bedroom and her, um, closet, the second bedroom.
“Holy crap! What happened?” he says, kneeling down over her. “Sunshine, wake up. Can you hear me?”
Sunshine begins to stir. “Artie, what are you doing here?”
“I heard you scream.”
Sunshine squints her eyes, trying to remember why she is where she is, and then it dawns on her. She squints harder and angrier this time and says, “Is he still here?”
“Who?”
“The ostrich.”
“What?”
“Arthur Kenneth Cole, there is an ostrich in my house.”
“A what?”
“An ostrich. Did you come in through the front?”
“Wait, what?”
“Did you come in through the front?”
“Uh, yes, I did.”
“The he must be in the kitchen!”
Arthur Cole is in some kind of surreal autopilot. He arches up and sprints back to the kitchen. The kitchen, as usual, is a very clean, avian-free zone.
He returns to Sunshine, who is picking herself up off the floor. “No ostrich in your kitchen.”
“Artie, I want you to listen to me and hear the words as they come out of my mouth.”
“Sure, Sunshine.”
“When I passed out, it was because I saw an ostrich with a top hat and a bowtie, and he was standing right here,” she says, pointing at a spot on the floor just to the right of Art. “And he said… what did he say…” she mumbles, still coming to.
“He was speaking.”
“Yes, Artie, he was speaking,” Sunshine bristles.
“And what did this, ahem, ostrich have to say?”
“I think he said his name was Archibald.”
“Is that right?” a now sarcastic Arthur Cole replies.
“Fuck off.”
“I’m sorry, but you just informed me that you were accosted…”
“Not accosted, more just spoken to.”
“Okay, you just told me that you were spoken to by an ostrich, one dressed in a tie and a hat, and you expect me to just nod and agree with you.”
“It was a bowtie and a top hat and I know it sounds crazy, but, well, Karl told me that I’d see him…” she struggles for the words and then say, “Oh, never mind. Somebody must of slipped something in one of my cosmos. I’m hallucinating.”
“That’s better.” Art exhales.
Sunshine points her finger and stabs it at her forehead. “The power of suggestion is something, though. Boy, was that a realistic hallucination. All the way down to his gestures. The ostrich was like some kind of goofy kid trying to be, I don’t know, like a goofball kid trying to be a gentleman. It was all sort of charming, now that I think about it.”
“I’m glad your hallucinations are charming, Sunshine. Are you all right now?”
“I’m fine,” she huffs, now a little annoyed with all the attention.
“Good. I’m going to go home and take a shower. Are you interested in hooking up with Lush Muffin a little later?”
Sunshine gathers herself as if to get into character. “That sounds romantic,” she says reflexively putting her game face on as best she can, even though, deep down, she still feels a little bit woozy.
Fri., Jun 22, 6:01 p.m., 303 Exposition Blvd.
The past thirty-six or so hours have tired even the normally tireless Earl Patton, so much so that he has even lost the burning desire to get Sunshine on the phone and chew her psychotic, insincere, nymphomaniac ass out. No, tonight, he has decided will be a night of quiet contemplation over a very full bottle of Jack Daniels. With Jedi skills he will dispatch the bourbon. Not a drop will remain.
Tonight, Earl Patton will put aside his fear of the unknown, of the unspoken favor for God knows who, of the people with whom he has found himself associating, those who work behind the damp, moldy wall of secrecy.
In the center of his coffee table sits the bottle of Jack, right next to a small, empty, soon to be not so empty cocktail glass he stole from some bar on some more eventful night. Earl notices that the dishwasher has left a small amount of soap scum on the glass and that, perhaps, next time he runs it, he will use a longer cycle. Such is the patience the normally impatient Earl Patton is developing. Prison, it seems, leaves a mark.
