Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch

an excerpt from the comic-spiritual adventure

tHe PoEt & i*

a karo work

© 2014 karoworks inc       all rights reserved       www.akarowork.com

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-0-9936090-2-2

a disclaimer

tHe PoEt & i* and its subsidiary components are works of satirical fiction and commentary.

Except where intended as satire, fair comment or juvenile snark, any resemblance of characters to actual or alleged persons, entities or channels, living or dead, corporeal or non-corporeal, incorporated or non-incorporated, animate or inanimate, terrestrial or non-terrestrial is purely and entirely and indubitably coincidental in the standard, early 21st century neo-liberal, corporate, and materialist view of the term.

Similarly, any resemblence of events, locations, products or hidden meanings to actual events, locations, products and hidden meanings, except where intended as satire, snide mannerism or infantile nyah nyah nyah na nyah, is entirely a product of the reader's fetid imagination.

...in isolation

about this work

Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch

... the context

tHe PoEt & i* ... just the factsimile

About this work

On the surface, the novella Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch is the story of Abby, a woman in crisis. But the reality she inhabits is not the reality of everyday life. In her Real Wimmen dominated world where gender roles are strictly enforced, females are the breadwinners and males the stay-at-home caregivers. Unable to cope with these straitjacketed roles, Abby opens up to her inner male and goes into stand-up comedy as a male impersonator.

But appearances can be deceiving. It turns out that Abby's world is a reality co-related to that of the Rider, the main character in the comic-spiritual novel tHe PoEt & i*. Rider's on a coast-to-coast motorcycle trip, beset by a talking Goldwing and a shape-shifting entity called the Minstrel dictating a treatise on self-awareness. When Abby's world rips the fabric of his reality, all hell breaks loose, including another co-related reality that starts automagically writing on his laptop.

As excerpted here, Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch stands on its own, largely complete and self-contained. However, events and characters and thoughts in each of the stories do influence or shade into the other two stories. And all three co-related realities are profoundly shaped by the the 10 dictatums of self awareness found in The Teachings of the Minstrel. The author claims these dictatums are all that's needed to break free of the ego and achieve spiritual freedom.

While the stories can be read individually, reading them in the flow of the complete novel brings out and adds further layers to their narratives.

In the full novel, shifts between the intertwining co-related realities are indicated by the section break sigil. Here, they indicate where the story has been excerpted from the larger flow.

Also, in the full novel, there are two non-corporeal characters who interject comments on the stories, including this one.

The Bard, a self-aware computer, uses square brackets for its [ editorial input ].

The Inner Critic, described in the book as the "kid brother from hell, a kind of Leave it to Cleaver, with Wack the Knife as theme song" that everyone has inside their cranium, uses curly rackets for its { usually snide remarks }.

For a free taste of the full novel, have a read of the included outline Just the factsimile.

Oh. And there's Transformation, the very first karosong, which provides the novel's seven-part structure and drives the Rider's quest for self-awareness.

All karosongs are channeled songs. They have come from dark, pushed forward by deeper universal energies, into the awareness and voice of the channel. Nothing unusual in that except that the channel is ... to put it kindly ... an idiot musant.

See www.karosongs.com for more on the remarkable story behind this channeled music.

Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch

Damn! Tricked again. It was just a fade to black fade up. One of those especially cheesy ones. You know, with the face of the bad guy leering down on the down, the face of the good guy cheering up on the up — what happened in between now recounted; and the girl swoons at the bravery exhibited on her behalf. A cheap out, a kind of dramatic commercial break. Handy things to have around when you’re short of budget and low on imagination. Or shooting for television.

“Abby! Abby!”

Another tacky effect. Cheap too. Pulling the focus so concerned face swims in and out of blur — straight from the forties, that one. Now cut to details in the sea of soft dreams, and vignette memories from the interlude. Concatenation. Frantic voices, a distant siren, pounding feet. Orders to stand back. Pain, such pain in the chest, spasms of electricity, bursts of lightning fusing into glaring white, a tunnel, backlighting and so revealing dark splotches on the soul. A voice, female — that was Becky, wasn’t it? — echoing. Strain to hear, pull sense out of the voice. Hold onto it. There were three questions. Which is the story? Who is the writer? and How do you get a salami on wurst at 3 a.m. if you don’t live in New York City?

“Abby! Abby!. Come on girl. You can do it. Hold on. Don’t let go. Please Abby, don’t let go.”

Well the first question was easy enough. It was the story of a woman in crisis, taking her first steps towards a new life. As for the writer, well that was easy too. That was her skulking over there behind the camera. But that last wasn’t right. She’d read that in MAD magazine — whatever that was. Besides, just what the hell is a salami on wurst? It sounded revolting. Hold on. Even the voices were swimming, fusing and melding into each other. That other voice. That was Dicky, wasn’t it? But what was Dicky doing here? He should have been home with Edie. That was the deal after all. Abby got the bacon and Dicky cooked it. That was the way of the world.

“I’m sorry Mr. Fuego. But there’s nothing we can do. She has to pull out of this on her own.”

Can’t. Can’t pull out. Too many voices. Too many hands, reaching out, waving in her face. Becky’s hands. Grab them. She had to grab them. Becky! Becky! I’m trying! Don’t give up. Please don’t give up. But the hands were melting, becoming incandescent, bones inside luminous bags of dripping flesh. God, it was a fade to white! Please Dicky. Please don’t let go. They’re slipping. Dicky! Your fingers are slipping away! For Edie’s sake. Please.

Then the whiteness was complete.

That’s it!, she thought. Could there be any doubt? The pressure was gone. Disappeared. She felt relieved, lighter, as though she’d let go of something. For days, like a slowly growing abscess, there’d been this thought nudging forward into her awareness — certainly ever since she got out of the hospital, but maybe even before. Her hospital stay had been three days of hell waiting to hear the results of the tests — a real scare — but the tests came back normal. Just a quirk the doctors concluded, just a quirk that almost took her life. And who in Hell has the mental focus to detect a subconscious thought? But, it must have been there, because the first time Dicky kissed her on the way home in the cab, she’d pulled back, oddly ill at ease and with a sense of pressure in her head. Within a few days the pressure had increased and the thought was just there, but fuzzy, and no amount of worrying it back and forth would bring it into focus. The pressure in her head had scared her a little — was it part of the attack? another quirk? — but she was scared even more by a nagging feeling there was something important in the thought, something that would change her life. Completely.

But now that it was here, Abby wondered whatever she had found to fear in it. Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch. That was certainly it, but it was just nonsense. Dog-eared doggerel. Nothing to fear in that. Except…

Snap! She snapped out of her reverie and snapped. “Would you put her to bed?” Damn that Dicky. Edie had him wrapped around her little finger and got away with murder. He wouldn’t put his foot down either, just kept threatening “You just wait until your mother gets home”. Not that it did much good and Edie just kept getting worse. Well, Abby wouldn’t have allowed it, that was for darn certain. Justice delayed was justice denied.

“Good,” said Dicky. “You can make sure justice isn’t delayed by spending some quality time with your daughter.” Oh, God, she thought with a sigh, here we go again. The same old argument. The same old tired story. Dicky wanted Abby to take a stronger role in their daughter’s life, to start spending some ‘quality time’ with her — as though time were something that could be spent. Something that could be hoarded. He just had no idea what it was like to struggle at a career in the fickle world of tv soap where producers would script you out of existence in the blink of an eye, then set the stage for another actress with the old plastic surgery and amnesia routine. Then to come home and find supper not cooked and the living room a mess and the brat screaming. Really screaming. Then your beloved looks at you and says “Here. She’s all yours.” before thrusting the noisemaker into your bosom. And then not getting any because he says he has a headache. Yeah, right. She’d heard that excuse more than once. Well, she’d like some quality time herself. Some quality fucking time. But no, he wants a romantic dinner and sweet words on the pillow. Then he looks at me as though it’s my fault men and women are different about sex and says, “I’ve seen you looking at other men”. Well, it’s not my fault I need sex, Abby growled to herself. I just do, and who’s not going to look when you got nothing at home? And who’s not going to wish? But there’s no harm in that because it’s just looking, it’s just wishing. It’s not real. And thank God for that! Because if wishes were real, she’d be in trouble.

Real trouble.

It had started when a cute little blonde started on script. He had nice buns, a wide smile, and an engaging personality. He used them well — pretty clearly, he was screwing his way to the top, and had made it clear he considered Abby in his path. The little hussy wouldn’t take no for an answer, pursuing her relentlessly with small favours, pressing his body against hers whenever that brought them together. Lord he was good looking, so what’s a frustrated girl to do? I mean, I didn’t go looking for it, she justified it to herself. It just happened. I mean I can live with that — I don’t suppose it’s even worth telling Dicky about; it would just upset him when what happened really means very little. But now Jhikl’s asked me to spend a week in the Caribbean with him. He’s Danish, or one of those Scamndinavian countries. And I want to go. In fact, I’m obsessed with going but I can’t. I mean that’s something entirely different, going off for a week of sun and sex with another man. That’s premedicated, well, something like that. I mean it stinks. I couldn’t live with myself if I did that.

And with that, she forced the wish away. Unlike the Rider who, if anything, suffered from too much self-analysis, too much introspection, Abby was a thorough non-introvert (which is not necessarily the same as an extrovert). For instance, she was totally unaware of the old-fashioned values she had just demonstrated, and, for that matter, her old-fashioned double-standard. To Abby, those were just the way things were — part of the reality she had to deal with. And when one found one’s feelings at odds with the way things were, then one called on one’s will power to shut them down, to deny.

But what happens when the undeniable meets the ultimate denial? Abby was about to find that out. By co-incidence, but no coincidence, so was the Rider.

All she wanted was to be happy. Was that so much to ask, Abby wondered? She stared out over the beach to the water, purposely looking away from Jhikl’s lithely tanned body adorning the towel beside her. Trophy stud, she thought to herself. A real trophy stud that more than one other woman had cast covetous glances at. Then looked at Abby, sizing up the mismatch between young stud and older actress, wondering how easily they could insinuate themselves into that gap and him into their gaps. It was that kind of a world — dog eat pussy — and lap dogs like Jhikl were a favourite delicacy.

Well, they could have him as far as Abby was concerned. Take him away and take him to bed and take advantage of him. The trip hadn’t turned out at all like she’d hoped. And wished. And now she could see nothing but trouble ahead. Just for wanting to be happy.

Jhikl stirred beside her, murmuring “wassamatta honey?” in that sultry voice that used to stir her. His hand slipped across her belly, resting lightly on the stretch marks that still showed, years after Edie’s birth, and even after extensive reconstructive surgery. He said they were a turn-on but Abby knew better. No doubt, he’d tell his next step up the ladder her flat, unmarked tum was perfect, and probably hint how he’d left an older woman because of her stretch marks. Probably joke about how ugly they were. Bitch, Abby thought. She’d hooked up with a power- and money-hungry bitch. One who’d bend to blackmail. There’d already been a few hints of that. She shoved the hand away.

“What’s wrong, sweets?” Beside her, Abby could feel Jhikl rising, lifting his upper body and supporting it with one hand behind. She felt the other hand move across her shoulder, then lightly stroke her earlobe, a caress that only yesterday would have sent her into waves of pleasure. But now she flinched away, a movement that translated into her standing up and staring off down the beach.

If it were a postcard, it would have sold a million copies. Metres and metres of wide white sand, froth-laced waves hemming an azure sea, ozone-depleted sky brimming with fluff-formed cloud. No — a greeting card, that’s what it should have been. From the Romantic Visions series. In the foreground the woman stands while behind her the man reaches out, arms linking the gulf between water and sky. Faded in text, ‘When we met, the stars held their breath. So I hold mine waiting for your return.’ The mandatory fake handwriting in black ink, the kind meant to suggest the sender has sought the personal touch, given it a lot of thought. Open the card and the illusion continues. ‘Missing you. Missing you. Missing You.’ All that was missing, Abby sniffed to herself, was a sappy ‘Forever yours.’ But the tableau was posed, the emotions fake. Actor and actress already thinking of their next gig. Crew already breaking down the set.

She felt and heard Jhikl stand behind her, trunks rustling, sand compacting under his feet. Then felt his arms try to slip around her waist, knowing they’d next reach up to cup her breasts — her pendulous, breastfed-one-too-many-children tits as her agent called them, explaining why Abby was passed over for all the younger roles — then knead and mash them out of duty, out of some misplaced idea that all Abby ever needed was a good pound of round in the rump. The touch turned her cold and she knocked downwards and backwards with her arms, displacing his, a trick she’d learned in her one cop series. God, she couldn’t even remember what the title was now. “Abby. What’d you do that for?” But Abby wasn’t there to listen, had simply walked away, frothing with an anger she couldn’t fathom. “Abby! What’s the matter, hon? Do you want to talk about this?”

It was amazing how quickly even a shouted voice died in this broad expanse. And amazing how thoughts still managed to reverberate. Abby kept trudging across the sand, aimlessly aimed at the beach, mentally watching Jhikl’s receding form, seeing his consternation, his awkward indecision to pick up the towel or not, reading his lips, the lips that had given so much pleasure. “Abby! Come on baby. What’s bugging you? Abby! You got to talk about these things. You just can’t let them fester inside.” Then she was too far away to see his lips and the sounds of the ocean closed around her.

Talk about what?, she thought. An inner chasm of emptiness? A feeling that made no sense? A jabbing pain that had no physical cause? Only yesterday she’d been happy, thought she’d been happy. But when she’d woke that morning, it was into a suffocating sense of doom. Impending fate. Dangling participle doom.

Destiny.

She’d lain on the bed, the idea reverberating in her head. Destiny. Destiny’s day. And the panic had seized her, roared upwards, consumed her. She’d fought it. There was no reason, she’d told herself. No cause. It was just another morning, just another waking. Then she’d felt Jhikl stir beside her, turned to him, saw the soft lines of his face, the weight-lifted sculpturing of his chest. One leg casually scissored over the other, a hint of member under the artful swathe of sheet across his middle. He just never stopped — even asleep, the pose was one you’d find in a boyie magazine. Yesterday it had thrilled her and she’d plied his member awake, taking him in a jill rabbit burst of ecstasy, 20 seconds of high riding, hip grinding thrust that had propelled her into groaning orgasm. Today she found it revolting.

Destiny. Destiny’s day.

She couldn’t shake the thought.

She kicked at a washed-up condom, missed, took her time, hooking it with her toes and flinging it out into the waves. Then walked on.

Men!, she thought bitterly. They were either whimpering nags or spineless yes ma’ams. Take Jhikl for example — God please take him! She hoped he wasn’t there when she got back to the hotel, that he’d figured it out and had taken himself off. — now he was a real yes ma’am. Was it good for you too? Yes ma’am. Did you enjoy that? Yes ma’am. You don’t mind if I drop off to sleep now? Yes ma’am, no, yes, I mean no ma’am. But don’t you want to spurt? It’s okay ma’am. You mean you don’t mind at all that I’m done in 20 seconds when it takes you an hour to ejaculate? No, ma’am. Don’t you feel cheated? No ma’am. Oh come on, admit it. Don’t you just hate that I can cum with just a twick of your bic but you have to work at it? No ma’am. You really don’t mind? No ma’am. So tell me. When was the last time you spurt? In the shower this morning ma’am. Oh! That’s why you were so long. And I thought you were just getting clean. It’s a big job, ma’am. Yes, I can see that.

Then there was Dickie. Dear sweet nagging Dickie. She looked out over the ocean, seeing not just the thousands of kilometres of their physical separation, but the psychological gulf. The lies she’d told to be here. The lie that was her marriage. The years of constant fighting. Saw that she’d never tried to understand his point of view. Never tried at all. Maybe that was why, in public, he was another yes ma’am but in the privacy of their home he became a nag, a minstrel of misery — she liked that turn of phrase — and, everytime he did, Abby got her back up. And the misery went on.

did you hear about the miracle baby?,
it had a vagina and a brain.

Abby shook her head sadly. God, where had she heard that? And why had it flipped through her mind?

a woman’s definition of foreplay —
a four course meal and a burp.

Go away, Abby thought. That was one of Dickie’s jokes, one of the ones she’d sometimes overhear when he was out in the kitchen drinking tea with his buddies. They seemed to collect these bad jokes and trade them like playing cards. Giggle, giggle. Hey! Did you hear about

the woman who woke one morning with a cobra in bed beside her?
she didn’t know if she was coming or going.

yeah, and the undertaker couldn’t wipe the smile off her face.

but did you hear what happened to the snake?
it was arrested for impersonating a man.

Abby shook her head again, harder this time. This was weird. More than weird. Abby had always prided herself on her mental sobriety, her — what Becky called — ‘straight-laced’ mind. Her seriousness, her no-nonsense approach. But now jokes — bad jokes — just kept cascading through her head, like she was standing outside the kitchen eavesdropping. No, it was like she was in the kitchen, she was part of it. In there like a french tickler as Dickie would say. In all the way. She got them, understood them, somehow shared the bitterness behind them.

what about the woman who wore a strap-on inside out?
she was arrested for the same thing.

so, hear about the woman who advertised for a man?
wanted: domestic god. must be able to cook and sew.
premature ejaculator preferred.

Wanted. Domestic god. Yeah, that’s what she had always craved, wanted Dickie to be. A servant with a dildo. No, not even that. Just a self-propelled vibrator. Exactly what she’d found in Jhikl. Had had. And found wanting. Not a flesh and blood human being. Not a person with wants and needs like hers. Like Dickie. She started sobbing, letting go in a shameful rush of sadness and tears. Domestic god. The phrase seemed to mock her, reverberating in her mind, then coming from the clouds, from the waves, from the sand. Domestic god. Domestic God.

Domestic GOD.

Then it stopped. Completely. Even the surf went silent, the waves now mute, the wind dumb. It was preternaturally hushed — you could have heard a prick spurt, was how Abby described it later. Gazing around at this mad world, she could feel but not hear her own stilted breathing. Couldn’t even hear the rush of blood in her veins as she rose, slowly, legs tingling from her long squat, ears screaming for sound the way waterlogged lungs screech for air. The way her eyes squealed ‘No More! No More!’, for they saw too much; saw the sun touch the ocean, unleashing a single pulse of golden light that shot forward to touch the clouds and cause them to boil. God, they’d finally spent some decent money on effects, a part of her said. Then realized she was wrong. It was the clouds from The Ten Commandments recycled. They parted, no — they formed, no — they vaporized. Leaving words. Words in the sky that shook her, terrified her. Words she read and heard as voice over — a male voice; cultured, resonant, strong, precise; each syllable perfectly spaced and enunciated — rolled from the clouds.

Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch.

It repeated.

Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch.

And once more.

Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch.

Sound returned as Abby collapsed, folding down on her legs, breasts crushing against her thighs. How long she stayed like that she didn’t know. She came to in the dark, to find a dog licking her face, the mongrel whining, shaking with fear and anticipation. She shooed it away and stood, shaking the sand off her legs. And started back.

Now she knew where she was going.

So, is that a ten litre bra, or
are ya just enjoying the show?

"Gentlemen & Ladies!!!” The M.C.’s voice rang through the stage curtain. “The JackRabbit Club is proud to present, for the first time anywhere…”

God, she was nervous. Sure, she’d rehearsed, spent weeks perfecting the routine, honing it with promptu and impromptu performances at home and at work, forcing it on Dickie and Becky. Even Edie. Once — but Edie had told Dickie, and Dickie had told Abby to keep their daughter out of it. And, sure, she’d taken the time to perfect her costume, working out the makeup, even put on weight for the role. But it wasn’t enough. She was sure of that, certain she was going to bomb, be booed off the stage.

“…the incomparably scintillating…”

Deep breathe — god, her chest felt constricted — come on girl, you can do it. Another deep breathe, practise the mantra — relaxing relaxing relaxing. Ready. Here goes.

“…Schtudmeister himself! Ladies and gentlemen! — Betcher David!!!”

Betcher David. Betcher David. Betcher David. The name echoed away into a scattering of polite applause. The curtain felt heavy, could she pull it aside? Managed. Walk into the spot light. Throw the first line.

You know, I was talking to the missus last night,
well actually, she was talking to me, I mean in between
you know and falling off to sleep, and she said something.

She said behind every successful woman, there’s a good man.

Well, I thought about that, I mean she was asleep so there
wasn’t really much else to do, and I figured out she had it wrong.

It’s not that there’s a man behind, but there’s a man
inside every woman.

I mean, why do you think they’re called feemales?

Silence. Not even a snicker. Abby shaded her eyes from the spotlight, trying to judge her audience. But all she could see were backlit shapes, waiting, expectant. Was that Becky near the front? Couldn’t make out the face. Try the next line.

Whasamatter? Yeah, you with the twin derringers.
You wantta put them away? They’re making me nervous.

Last time a woman looked at me like that
I ended up married,
with children.

Silence. Not even a snigger. God, she thought, this is so different from working to camera. Screw up there and you don’t read about it for months. Screw up here though…

Anyways, now you think about being that man.

I mean what’s it like? Here you are inside some cigar chomping,
oestrogen-laced power maniac and all you want to do is
get out the frillies and settle back into a nice evening
of flipping through the family photographs, you know,
a little wine,
a little indulgence in memories,
a few caresses and maybe, just maybe, you’ll…

well, you know.

Nothing. Maybe Dickie was right. He’d said it would never work, that there was no market for male impersonators.

You do know, don’t you?

Damn. I told my agent not to book me into any more
girl scout conventions.

And I thought it was just a case of clit envy.

So anyways, you’re imagining you’re that man.
Do you get your needs acknowledged?

Nooo.

I mean do you get treated to flowers?

Nooo.

Do you get little presents that say ‘hey babe, I love you’?

Nooo.

You don’t. You get ignored.
You get treated just like a husband.

A giggle!

God, was that a laugh I heard?

Quick, somebody call a doctor.
I think one of these stiffs is alive.

Four giggles! And a guffaw! For a line that wasn’t even hers — not that any of them really were. Maybe he wasn’t right, maybe Dickie’s reaction was less than impartial. He did seem threatened by it, by the routine, by the cross-dressing for the part. What was it he said? If you play the man, what role do I have?

So I asks myself, lying there thinking
while the missus snores beside me,
‘So which came first, the husband or the inner guy?’

And I get the answer.
Right in between a ugghuh and a aggggghhh from the missus.

It was the egg came first.

Three, four, ten tables were laughing. This was better than working to camera. There if you succeed you don’t read about it for months. Here though…

Hey. Come on. Stop it.
What do you think this is — a comedy routine?

This is a serious discussion on male/feemale differences.
Now look, I know it’s illogical but
it's just the way the male mind works.
You input A and B and you don’t get C, you get 333.

Well, OK, sometimes you get testosterone.

Thank God for Becky. She’d supported Abby all the way, hadn’t laughed or made rude comments, hadn’t dismissed the voice on the beach.

Now, I want you to think about that.

The egg came first.

And doesn’t that tell us a lot about the

so-called war between the sexes?

Had even helped, fed her lines, suggested the chicily demure outfit she was wearing — a femalish suit with ruffed shirt and pink rose stuck into the lapel. Said don’t wear pumps — women get uncomfortable around a man who’s taller than them.

Not that it’s much of a war.

Isn’t it kind of like Iraq going up against the States —
you know, surplus scuzz bombs
against computer-guided, laser assisted, bombastic genius,
reen berets?

Jock straps against falsies?

And it was Becky who’d said she knew the Jackrabbit’s manager and would try to line up a gig. Becky who’d made tonight possible.

The egg came first.

Now I know there’s a lot of women say
it’s not their fault feemales come at the drop of a zipper
but males can’t get no satisfaction
without pumping for an hour.

That’s just evolution they say —
women are so fertile the brakes had to be put on somewhere
and, if the shoe fits, men should wear it.

And Becky who’d encouraged her to follow her instincts and develop the routine around male/female differences, around the dissatisfaction she’d found herself facing on the beach. And whatever did happen to Jhikl? He’d just disappeared from the face of the Earth, gone, like his function was finished and he’d been written out of the script.

I mean who needs condoms?
No spurt. No hurt.

She’d seen it happen to better characters.

And you wonder why men don’t like Mutha Nature.

Maybe Dickie would be written out too. Hell. Maybe Abby herself would get to meet the Great Scriptwriter in the Sky. The one that spoke on the beach. The one that fed her the lines.

So tell me.

Is that a ten litre bra?
Or ya just enjoying the show?

The one that had turned her world upside down, inside out, and back to front.

Well, fuck him. Fuck Dickie and fuck the whole lot of snivelling insecure pricks if they couldn’t take a joke. Fuck’em all.

Abby was not in a good mood. The latest edition of The Bi-National Enquirer had started a row between her and Dickie that she was sure meant the end of their marriage. But — as she wished she’d told him — frankly my dear, she couldn’t give a damn if some slick-clit, illiterate pair of boobs on the hoof had had the temerity to ask Dickie, “And what does Mrs. David think of all this?” — meaning his success, David’s that is, Betcher David’s incredible ride to superstardom. And then the engorged labia to actually publish his answer, Dickie’s that is, under the headline ‘Who wears the skirts?’ with a mocked up shot of Dickie in one of them, a nice little number actually, alongside the now almost iconic image of Betcher David strutting his ‘stuff’ in front of a flag-draped fireplace — complete with wine glass in hand and a cum hither look Jhikl would have envied. Nothing much more than commercial photography really, but commercial photography can be damned good. And the patch up job on Dickie’s skirt showed it was meant to be known it was not meant to be a real photograph — a few too many lost lawsuits had made The Bi a little more cautious about things like that. And Abby could understand Dickie’s resentment. For sure there’d be more lewd reportage but, sorry Dickie, that was kind of her stock in trade. That divide between male and female where the snide and the crude, the rude and the sublime reside. That gulf where we struggle with our own inner dualities. Yes. Vive! la difference! cause it put the bread on the table honey.

Besides — Dickie baby — if the skirt fits, wear it.

For Abby now had no doubt that Dickie had a female inside him, just as she had Betcher David. A female Dickie wouldn’t admit to: angry, brassy, loud, controlling; the personification of all the traits he buried below his surface image of the emotional and intuitive male. And not just Dickie, but all men kept this shadow self, this invasion of their opposite polarity, hidden, out of sight, denied. And all women too kept their own males in check. Each sex locked into a parody of its totality, afraid to express the aspects they’d been taught weren’t part of their gender. Their proper role. Each sex, she now saw, belittled and demeaned by the labels and their judgements. Each isolated from the other by revulsion at the sight of its own shameful shadow. But, like moths to flame, or tongue to sore tooth, or any of dozens such cliches, the abhorred attracts, fascinates.

That was the vein Abby’d tapped, the motherlode of internal strife that had propelled Betcher to stardom, and taken him from nightclubs to talk radio, then talk tv where her previous work as an actress was uncovered. Fawned over. There was talk of guest spots on sit coms, evening soaps, a movie — even a porno, David Does Dallas. Dickie had insisted she scotch that. And she’d had to learn to do stand up sitting down, put up with put downs, and pretend friendship with yet another faceless host. Oprah and Leno, Letterman and King, they’d merged into a composite image of tasteless vacuity that, in the end, cared less for her message than the chance to skewer the messenger. Did your father dress you funny? What made you come out of the kitchen? And what do you recommend for stuffing? (Really dry bread crumbs, home-made, and lots of good-old sage became her stock reply to the latter.) It had been irritating at times but Abby had understood, seen it all for what it was — the caverning maws of The Biz had opened; swallowing Betcher to feed, ruminate, finally fart him out when his twenty minutes were done.

And all it had taken was a voice on a beach. A voice that was no longer there.

It didn’t need to be. It hadn’t happened the first time Abby dressed and walked into the limelight — that had been an actress putting on a role. But somewhere in the weeks and months after, sometime among the thousand strides across the divide, a whole other side of her personality had opened and a completion had been made. Betcher David became real. From then on, the voice was inside, more like her own thoughts than external source. Part of her, free at least, basking in the attention. Sharing himself, and in that sharing s/he’d found a new Abby; more complete, more replete, without the sense of inner vacuum that had sucked her steps across the sand. She’d come to live, hell to be her own version of eclectic kitchen kitsch. In the kitchen and of it, but out of it and apart.

And that — no matter how much Dickie protested it was the dirty ditties among the dishes, the gritty gibes at the garborator that grated — was his real problem. Abby had broken free, shattering the implicit promise that, til death us do part, she would be a role, a figurehead, a comfortable familiarity. Wife. Breadwinner. Absent mother. The bastard that, joined in the communion of shared frustrations, Dickie could rail against among his mates. Now the bastard was a bitch, and it was his mates who did the railing. Riding Dickie unmercifully. She’d seen them just yesterday prancing around the kitchen table in a mocking parody of the male thrust — giggly chanting And does he do this? Thrust. Thrust. And does he do that? Thrust. Thrust — while Dickie sat at the table, face buried in his hands, writhing with shame. It was vicious and cruel in the way of grade schoolers; ribald comeuppance, a taking down by his peers of a member who’d let his partner break the rules. Break free. And yes, Abby had felt some sympathy, but she’d seen through to the truth. Dickie chose to be ashamed. Dickie chose to submit to these ancient rites. Dickie chose his prison.

Abby chose different. And that was where their marriage diverged.

“How can you do this to me?,” he had shouted, throwing The Bi down on the table where it had fluttered and died like an angry yellow eye. “How can you do this to Edie?” Abby’d been fascinated by the anger, had never seen Dickie express it so openly, so, so femininely, channelling it instead into the barbed bitching and bitter jibes of the masculine. Fascinated, but repelled. If only he could see how close he was to breakthrough, how near his own voice was. And so Abby had shouted back, trying to pry his understanding out of the ruts and the rituals, “How can you do this to yourself? Who cares what some rag vag prints? Who cares what your friends insinuate? Don’t give them the power for god’s sake Dickie. Don’t give it away!” She’d walked over to the table, picked up the tabloid and viciously torn it to shreds, her own anger rising. “That’s all this is worth. Cat litter! And if you take all this shit, then you’re not worth a damn thing more. Cat litter!”

And that was when he had gone silent. Coldly silent. Frigid. Then turned and walked out. Back in character.

Arrrrgggggggggggghhhh, Abby threw the pieces of the paper in the air, then stalked through their fluttering descent out to the living room of their new condominium, (tastefully decorated in tones of earth and sky, and recently featured in American Living) and sat on the tan leather couch, mentally cataloguing the noises she could hear in the bedroom — a drawer slamming, a closet door swept shut, a heavy zipper’s closing. She could see it all as clearly as reading a radio script. Footsteps in the hall, approaching, passing behind her, the schwclick of deadbolts on the front door. The moment of no return. A voice, his voice. “I’ll be picking Edie up from school. Don’t try to take her.” If there was a pause, a fraction’s opening for Abby to come to her senses and beg him not to leave, it wasn’t taken. There was nothing to say. Then the door had shut. And she was alone.

But complete. And all of a sudden she wasn’t sure she wanted to be.

There was a price, and part of it had just walked out the door. The other part stayed right with her, and she was only beginning to realize what it was. Burying her face in her hands, she sobbed, “Goddamn you Dickie! Goddamn you!,” blaming him for the feelings that beat on her like heavy rain. Pain. Hurt. Shame. Hopelessness. Blaming him, but at the same time knowing what they were, whose they were. They were Betcher’s feelings. No, they were hers, Betcher was her, she was Betcher and, now she saw, her rapprochement with her other side did not allow her to pick and choose which feelings she could acknowledge. No matter how much she tried to bury him, push the feelings away, Betcher came through loud and clear. He didn’t want to lose his daughter. He didn’t want to lose his home. He didn’t want to lose. Weep, whimper, curse, sob — she’d been in a storm once when the rain became sleet and the sleet became snow, became hail, became rain so fast you didn’t know what was hitting you. That was how she experienced her feelings now — the control, the years of denial were swept away and Abby was flooded, racked, wrenched and torn as the too long denied claimed its birthright. Her awareness. Her acknowledgement. But too fast — like too many fireworks to appreciate each rocket, each feeling’s impact was lost in the next, rendered almost meaningless in the overall gestalt. Except one that finally rocketed through and dominated. Anger. Anger she took out on the only person she could. Because she couldn’t take it out on the one person she should.

“Fuck you Dickie. It’s all a joke. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you.” She was ranting, frothing, barrelling from curse to worse, ricochetting between screams and slapping the phone off the wall, schwooping magazines off the coffee table, throwing Dickie’s photo at the fireplace. “A fucking joke!” Kicking his vase when it was down. “A joke!” Hitting a thundering crescendo with flailing forearm chops to the piano keys.

Then the anger was gone. Dissipated. Expressed, however poorly targeted.

Drained, Abby stumbled over to the bay-style window, but barely registered the sweeping metropolis her alter ego had conquered to afford this commanding view. Had no feeling for the symbolism of that vista — blocked to one side by her building’s condo companion, she could look to the other and see miles of city buildings falling away to malls and suburbs. All filled with people. Filled with one-sided folks who didn’t know any better. The root of her pain burst through.

“Why me?” It was barely a whisper, but in her head it reverberated every bit as much as the voice on the beach had. Surely the people down there heard. Surely they stopped and looked up to find the source of that anguished cry. “Why me? I was happy, or at least as happy as I expected to be. Why did you come to me? Why did you open me up to this?”

She was wandering, aimless, now. Racked with sorrow and inner pain. The world seemed darker, more limited. Less alive. More like destiny’s beach than success’ reach. Her vision narrowed, and she found herself staring at the leadlighted french doors to the balcony, watching them swing open at the end of a long tunnel. She walked out, or was she pulled?, into a constricted maze of plants and expensive deck furniture. Just a few weeks ago, this had been a bare and oversized concrete oblong. A vagrant marvel at its transformation — Dickie’s project; his point of contact with the earth so many floors below: the roots she’d lost contact with — flitted past. And she felt a nudge from behind. Then another. And another.

Swinging the tunnel around, expecting to find Dickie, or maybe Edie, there was nothing. Just another nudge. But this one from the front, now pushing her backwards. Towards the railing. The nudge came with a low bzzzzz. Another. Another low bzzzz. Like a symphony reaching its crescendo, a hundred bzzzzs joined in, the sound — amplified by the tunnel’s raucous echo — pushing her backwards like a piledriver. Somewhere she’d read that plants could communicate and she felt that now, felt their condemnation, their anger at her upset of their brave new world. ‘Get a grip on it girl,’ she said to herself. ‘Plants don’t talk. That’s as silly as talking insects.’ But the feeling wouldn’t go away, she felt it as a pressure on all but her front, like contractions in the birth canal pushing her towards the railing. She swung the tunnel, looking out. How many floors up?, she thought. How certain it would be, just that one fractional moment of decision and then letting life take its course. The one course it had. Birth into death. The one path it could never avoid. Why not?, she thought. Why not give it away. Let it go.

The phone rang. One of those electronic buzzes that are replacing the old fashioned drinnnggg. Or had it been ringing incessantly for the past few moments? Was that the bzzzzz she’d been hearing? Abby couldn’t tell, but some inner force pushed her away from the rail, battled its way back to the balcony doors. She stepped through, almost fell on her face as the plants’ forceful condemnation suddenly stopped. Crawled to the phone, found it under bits of broken vase. Hoisted herself up and around to sit on the floor, back against the couch. Forced a hoarse whisper. “Hello.”

“Abby! Is that you?” It was Becky, her voice near panic. “Thank god I got you. I just had this overwhelming feeling I needed to call. I can’t explain it, but are you all right? Why didn’t you answer the phone right away? What’s wrong?”

But Abby couldn’t talk. She felt like a bung had been jammed down her throat. She gasped, choking, clawed to pull air past the obstruction. Becky’s voice almost screamed, “Abby! Talk to me!”

Then implored, “Abigail… please!”

The pleas seemed to do it. [Old manners die hard.] {And old manors for that matter.} With a pluppp, the bung let go. Her first words were a hardly intelligible “Dickie’s gone. He’s left me,” but they sharpened into a flood that built and built, the whole story coming out, nurtured with that’s okays and let it gos from Becky. And not a judgement, no hint of condemnation. No puzzled shake of the head. Thank God for Becky, Abby thought. She was exactly what Abby needed. A friend who just let her be Abby. Or Betcher. Let her be someone who felt and heard plants. Heard voices on the beach. The flood dwindled, and Abby found herself sitting on the island of Beckie’s voice.

“There’s a book I’d like you to read. You don’t have to buy it, I’ll loan you my copy. A friend of mine actually wrote it, but that’s not why I’m recommending it. I think it may help, give you a way of looking at your situation.

It’s called…

Paparazzi!

Abby bolted the gauntlet of staccato flashes, shielding her face with Betcher’s arms, and ducked into the limo, crunching down into the rear seat. “Driver! Get us the hell out of here!” she ordered.

Damn that Jhikl!

‘Look. That’s just the price of being a star,’ Betcher thought to her. ‘You can’t change the world, so let it go.’ ‘But I can’t stand the unfairness,’ Abby gnashed her teeth, hating the voice of reason. ‘The hide of that prick!’ But reason wouldn’t leave. ‘Oh, he’s got a hide alright, and yes he does have a prick. And he’s got a damn good ghostwriter too. All in all, a sound recipe for a successful lick and tell. But you don’t have to buy into it.’

“But there’s millions reading that trash,” Abby griped, forgetting to hold her tongue. “Pardon ma’am?” the driver asked. “Nothing!” she spat. “Keep your eyes on the road and your nose out of it.” “Yes, ma’am.” ‘And you…,” she turned on Betcher, careful this time to hold it inside, ‘Don’t give me that SAS!’

‘If I don’t, who will?’ Betcher queried, laughing lightly. ‘Better me than The Minstrel, wouldn’t you say?’

‘What?’ she snorted mentally. ‘Better a non-existent fictional character than a bloody figment of my imagination? Hodson’s choice if you ask me. Besides, you know bloody well that book doesn’t exist.’

She turned away, determined not to listen. They’d had this argument too many times.

The Teachings of The Bloody Minstrel. Betcher had lapped it up, reading Becky’s copy of the book at least half a dozen times before returning it. Memorized the dictatums. Meditated on their meaning. Tried to apply them to his life. Which was Abby’s life. Which, after 333 lectures on SAS — Self-Awareness Shit! — had totally pissed her off. {You’da thought she’d be shitted off.} [I’m surprised you had the intestinal fortitude for that pun.] Countering a constant semi-conscious colloquy of oh, but don’t you sees and the eighth dictatum would suggest thats was worse than having a conscience. In fact, they’d almost come to blows. Once. Then Betcher reminded Abby what that would mean, and suggested she might contemplate the first and second dictata. {Shouldn’t that be dictati?} [As in, dictati, ergo stalin?] Fuck you, she’d replied and would have left if she could have. Betcher smugly suggested she consider the applicability of the 13th Corollary.

Blow it out my ass, she’d retorted petulantly.

And that was the worst of it. Armed with SAS, Betcher had become a frigging prig, a been-there-done-that-got-the-point blow-hard who reduced her to childish frustration. Full of hot air, allusions and quotations from Chairman Minstrel. Almost twenty-four hours a bloody day! Even invading her dreams, fabricating a faceless, obsessive-compulsive alter-ego to demonstrate his ruminations, or the applicability of the sixth and seventh dictata. Alter-boy seemed to have an affinity for animals. Bor-ing. She’d have given anything for a good wet dream.

Or the blissful slide into the darkness between dreams, when the self — or selves, as the case history may be — disappeared.

Then, Betcher had insisted on buying his own copy, their copy, of The Teachings, but he/she/they couldn’t find it. Not in any book store. Not in any library. Not anywhere. That’s strange, said Becky. No problem, said Betcher. Citing Minstrel’s citation that we create our own reality, he simply set alter-boy to writing. Betcher wanted a reality where the book existed, even if it was only in Abby’s dreams. What Abby wanted was a reality where bloody Jhikl and his goddamned book didn’t exist.

He hadn’t been written out of the script at all. He’d just been writing his own.

Already three weeks on the best seller list, Abby Dear Betcher had rocketed Jhikl to international prominence. Not too surprising. His long blonde hair and sculpted-to-instant-wide-on physique had coupled with his smarmy poise and PR’d image of a carefree surfer (Hah!) to quicken the pulse for thousands of women. And Quicken the bottom-lines of more than one boyie magazine. He’d become the All-American heroine and the focus of more myths than Joseph Campbell could collate. According to The Bi-National Enquirer, he’d been mobbed in New York, rooted at least 30 virgins to exhaustion in Virginia, and routed an invasion of alien body snatchers in Sutherland, Maine. And that was an off day. So frequent were these stories — and so outlandish — The Bi, in an uncharacteristic fit of journalistic fervour, had even assigned a crack team to check them all out. Until the rag’s multi-national owner reminded its editor that another of its subsidiaries had published A.D.B. The team was disbursed to report on ESP, mongoloid UFOs and an upcoming total eclipse of the sun in NB said to signal the start of the latest and newest, all the rage, New Age.

But Abby, if any woman, knew a man doesn’t live on good buns alone. The fuel in Jhikl’s rise had been jealousy and rage. Not his, though it was there, but the envy of a million women and the spite of a million more; ignited and channelled by a loose network of Old Gal CEOs and MBAs calling themselves Real Wimmen. Real women indeed. Incensed by the legislative success of the men’s liberation movement, Real Wimmen waged clandestine campaigns against employment equity and equal rights, and had turned on Abby for her alleged betrayal of their sex: Betcher’s jibes at their complacency, his ridicule of their power, her jokes about men having to sleep their way to the top wearing blinders.

However, consummate media guerrillas, they’d waited until the fourteenth minute, when public and media interest were declining, to launch their campaign. It was a textbook example of the Nixon/Kissenger Doctrine: discredit them on the way down and they won’t even rate a whatever happened to? The nation-wide release of A.D.B. had been the first salvo, backed up with same-week gigs for Jhikl on every talk show Real Wimmen owned. Week two followed with a fax-cast flurry of Abby/Betcher jokes (Did you hear she did herself to get pregnant? It was in psycho.), swamped open lines, rumours, ‘She’s on drugs.’, innuendo, aspersions. ‘She really is a cross-dresser. Probably queer.’ {How droll. A thespian lesbian.} Outright lies. ‘Yeah, I’ve slept with her. Who hasn’t?’ By week three, the campaign had gone public and media outlets slavered to get Abby in their sights, paying outrageous sums to deliver Jhikl’s simple and consistently repeated message: ‘She’s schiz. A multiple personality. They should be locking her up, not letting her poison audiences.’

Quaint technique, Abby grudgingly admitted — running the flashback scenes as reflections in the window of the limo. Jumping out of the passing streetscape, their highlights intermingled with Betcher’s shadowed reflection, reminding her she was still in costume. Four levels of reality in one, she thought. That’s what Betcher would say The Minstrel would say. The world’s a looking glass and Alice never lived here at all. She just watched. Oh look, there’s Opah — funny I didn’t think she’d have any highlights. Oh, and look, there’s the sheets burning Betcher’s effigy down in Alabama. Looks good on him. And — oh my god — there’s a restaurant sells liverwurst on rye! What the hell was that question?

“Driver. Stop! Stop!”

She was back in the car a moment later, her question unanswered. It wasn’t New York and they’d refused to serve Betcher. Add that to the cancelled bookings — Real Wimmen was going to pay! She’d find a way.

‘You know, Axiom 19 states: if you can’t beat’em, join the dots for them,’ Betcher patiently counselled from the window. ‘Screw off,’ she thought, and powered it down, vanishing the reflection. Cryptic bloody bastard. What the hell does that mean? ‘Just that as long as you fight on their terms, there’s no way you can win. So don’t,’ Betcher answered from no where. ‘Turn it around. Confirm everything. If they ask, Are you on drugs? answer Why? do you have some? If they ask if you’ve stopped beating your Dickie? say No! Why should I? When they inquire Are you schiz? answer Yes. No! Maybe. In short, Abby dear, as they want to create reality, let them. They may not like what they get.’

“Don’t you dare call me that!” Abby snarled, her anger rising. “Pardon Ma’am?” the driver asked over his shoulder. “I’m not talking to you!” The driver threw up his hands. “Yes, Ma’am. But can I ask, since we’re almost there, if you’d like to go in through the garage. You’d avoid them that way,” he finished, pointing ahead where Abby could see a paparazzi phalanx running to form up at the front entrance to her condo. Her own Praetorian Guard. Cameras ready. A few eager mongeese already shooting. The flashes jammed her eyes with hatred, and she understood how the later emperors must have feared their guards’ ‘Hail Ceasar!’ hurrahs hiding the knives. Her penned emotions started boiling.

“Ma’am?” the driver repeated. “No,” Abby replied. Slowly. Coldly. “I’ll get out at the front door.” The flashes intensified as the car swept into the semi-circular driveway and then to a stop. Grasping the door, Abby swung it open and…

Fifteen seconds. Quiet on the set. Two, you’re medium wide. In ten. Two, loosen it up. Seven. Three, ready on the curtain. Five. That’s good Three. Four. Two, steady it up. Three. Cue applause. Two. Two, ready to move. One. Up on Two. Cue the music…

…and cue Joanie.

Wasn’t it Andrea Warhol said the way things are going everybody’s going to be famous for fifteen minutes?

Roll prompter. Two, start your tighten.

Well, what if you’re greedy? What if that’s not enough? Maybe you want half an hour. An hour. What do you do? Bite a dog? Chew tobacco? Vote Republican? Well, tonight, someone who’s solved that problem.

Two, that’s good. Hold it.

Ready on Three. He’ll come through the curtain.

In fact this lady, well this ‘person’, well I don’t really know what to call him, says ‘if you got the time, i got the personality.’ Ladies and gentlemen, a warm welcome please

Three!

for Betcher David and

Three don’t move yet! Wait on hi.. yi yi!

The Usual Crowd!

God look at that outfit! Two! To the audience! Who is it tonight? Take it. Little Beau Pete? Looks more like Julia Ceasar on dulse. Back to Three, start your pull. Well the audience likes it. That’s good Three, hold that two shot. Ready on Two…

Ah… Betcher?

[Smiling] No, Betcher couldn’t make it. Something about a rectal exam. But I could and I just have to tell you how happy I am to be here tonight Bobbi.

Two. Three hold your shot.

Ah, that’s Joanie.

No [Slight pause] Jo Knee couldn’t come either. She’s just lashed her hare.

Back to Three.

Two, medium shot on him…
errrr...

her hair?

It? Steady. And Two.

[Offhand] Yeah, you know, one of those wild ones from Australia. Says G’day, wanna boink? Doesn’t do much for me but hey it keeps her occupied.[Look around]

Three, medium Joanie.

Oh, hare!

Stay with it Two.

[Fast] What is an airport in Chicago! [Hopeful] Did I win? [Sag] No? [Resigned Shrug] [Move Around] [Openmouthed] Ooooh, Bobbi! What a lovely house you have! [Check for dust] A little spartan… did you decorate it yourself? Oh yes, ni-i-ice chair. Do you mind if I sit down? [Engaging Smile]

House? Take Three. I think it’s part of the act.

Please do.

Nice springs. [Brightly] Early Salvation Army?

Two, gimme a two.

[Embarrassed] Oh, excuse me. I’m forgetting my manners. We haven’t been introduced. I’m She Ra, and you’re Bobbi of course.

Take it.

Ah, Joanie.

[Taken aback] Funny. I could of sworn I said Jo Knee couldn’t come. [Concerned] A little Alzheimers in the family dear? [Brightly] Hey, that’s okay… best thing about Alzheimers is never having to remember you’re sorry.

Oh god. The network won’t like that.

Who cares? The audience does.

[Look around] Wow! [Wide eyes] That’s amazing. You have a laugh track in your own house! Girl, you really are insecure. But hey [Stage Wink] that’s okay. [Stage Nudge] Best thing bout insecurity is never doubting you’re sorry. Isn’t that right Bobbi? [Big smile]

Three!

Joanie!

[Exasperated] Look, you can call Jo Knee all you want but she won’t come. We have a very strict rotation and it’s not her.. AGgGHh rUMh AgFAah HRRAAAAAA BLLHHAGGHA

Two! Quick!

God what’s happening. Stay on it Two! Don’t let her out of camera. Somebody call 911. No, no, it’s just part of the act. Act? God, I wish we’d rehearsed this. Well, it looks like Little Beau Pete just lost his sheet. Three. Get Joanie’s reaction. Dig the duds underneath. Three! Where’d he manage to hide that sword?

Betcher?

Two!

[Statement] No. Hu!

Who?

[Forceful] Hu nKra. I am Hu nKra!

Three.

Sounds like a bad cough. You should get it che…

[Imperious] Silence! You may call me Lord Hu!

Thre.. Two

Hu?

[Doubly imperious] Lord Hu! And who are you?

Joanie, ah you got that, Joanie Carlsberg. You’re on The TonitE Show.

[Scanning] How can that be? [Perplexed] It’s afternoon! [Anger] Witch! By what black magic have you transported me here?

[Brandish Sword]

Oh oh. Wow, that’s
a big humswinger.

Hey. No magic. It’s just tape delay. Please sit down.

[Scanning] [Menacing Scowl]

Two, stay with him.

Three! I didn’t tell you to move. Ahh… just a question:
are we insured for sword play? Go
to Three.

Look, why don’t you just sit down. Here’s a nice Salvation Army cha…

[Shouting] Army!?

Two! Now! Widen it!

[Drawing erect] Are those your knights? Must I fight them to prove my valour! Very well! [ReBrandish Weapon] Draw your weapons you single-eyed spawn of hell!

What the hell’s going on? Oh god. He’s stalking for Two. Two hold your ground! Three! get Two! What about Joanie? Fuck Joanie. {Okay.} We got Jonestown right on network tv. Second thought Two, you’d better back off, keep the camera between you and the maniac.

[Cold anger] So!, you feint with me! Scoundrel! You’ll pay for toying with a warrior! [Charge!]

Three! Shit he hit the camera! Take Two. Where’s security? Somebody make sure we get the overnights. Shit he hit Two again.

Two! Two! Get off the lights!

[Triumphant] Aiy… not so tough as yee thought?

Two? Two?! Floor,
what’s happened to Two?
Three. Take Three.

[Mocking] Aiy… as yee seed yee shall reap.

Floor here. Sal on
Two fell off the
stage.

[Turning] [Challenging] Now!
Demon! Would ye too taste my steel?
[Charge] Agggggghhhh!!!!

Shit now he’s going
for Three! Floor, get on Two. Get security the fuck out there. Three! Back up! Back up!

Aggghhhh! Hyack. Blaaaaggg. Hurrrmmpp. Gackkkk….

Two! Get on him.

What the fuck’s going on? Talk about in-your face.
God look at those molars. Shit his breath is steaming up the lens.
Two! Reminds me: What’s blue and doesn’t fit?
Uggn, not that one. It’s sick.

agHHgGgghhHhhh…………..

What? Like, this isn’t?

Betcher?

Stay on it, Two.

[Cheerful] You betcha.

Widen it…

No. I’m Joanie. You’re Betcher. I hope. Do you know where you are?

That’s good.

Oh oh. [Sinking] It happened again didn’t it?

Three. Get around in
front…

Something certainly happened.

[Nervous] Who was on first?

I don’t care if
you’re in Two’s shot. Just bloody well do it.

No. Hu was on second.

[Straight] Who?

Hu.

Oh. [Still straight] So who was on first?

Take Three.

No. Hu was on sec.. Hang on here — deja hu! I think I’ve seen this skit before.

[Giggling] Of course you have. I mean there’s really only four basic jokes, and everyone’s been ripping them off ever since God first told them to Eve in the garden.

Just four?

Yeah. [Sudden Thoughtful.] Seems a shame she didn’t get them but, hey, people have been banished for less. [Throwaway] I’m just thankful God didn’t rib Adam first.

Listen, can we sit down and get serious for a moment.

Take Two.

[Puzzled.] You want that putz? I mean, no disrespect to Sirius, but she is a bit of a dog.

Back to Three.

I mean… forget it.

[Precise] So who, meaning who not Hu, was on first?

Two, gimme a two.

Sh.. he.. said his name was She Ra.

And take it.

[Confused] She Ra? That’s a new one. [Moving on] So who was on third?

Three on Joanie.

No. Hu was… no, you were. I mean you are. What did you mean that’s a new one?

[Offhand] Personality… they just pop out all the time. I can’t keep up with them.

That must be a problem.

Well… [Noncommittal] sometimes. Like they say, multiple personality is always having to go back to say you’re sorry. But don’t get me wrong. There are advantages.

Like?

Well [Searching] say I’m at a boring cocktail party, I get Hu nKra to come out and liven things up.

He does that alright. But tell me, when did it start?

[Straight] What?

The personalities. You started out as a cross dresser right?

[Dead straight] No. I was quite happy.

Ahhh…

{Lean forward} [Confidential] Having two personalities meant I was never lonely. And I always had someone to argue with. That’s important you know. It’s like isometric exercise, you know where you develop muscles by opposition. Abby and I had some of the best arguments.

Then…

Then Hu nKra showed up, one night, just out of the blue. We were both pretty embarrassed when we found out — we hate reading about our selves in the tabloids. Fortunately, we were able to settle out of court… [Muttered Aside] I never knew tv cameras were that expensive.

Speaking of which…

[Interject] But hey! [Laughing] As long as the tabs spell the names right, who cares? [Pause] Nice laugh track. [Resume] And after a while we figured out it was okay anyways. I mean, there is precedent — the mother, the son and the unruly ghost.

Oh…

[Yawning] Listen, do you mind if I lay down?

Why?…

[Explanatory] Well, you remind me of my shrink and I have some of the best naps when I see her.

Naps?…

Oh oh.

[Lightly] Yeah. It’s pretty restful when I can deke out the back door. And there’s someone I’d like you to meet.

Cameras ready…

Ahhh… Who?

for anything.

{Waving down} No not Hu. He’s had his fling already.

Floor. Signal a break.

Promise?

You can say that again.

Ok… [Puzzled] But why? I really don’t like repeating myself cause I’m never sure if it’s really myself repeating myself. [Concerned] I’m not repeating myself am I?

In ten. Nine…

No…

[Relieved] Good. Cause I really don’t like repeating myself. Anyways, as I said, I’d like you to meet AgahHRackByLLyteebby.

Seven. Ready Black.

Six. Wrap it Floor.

Five…

Hang on there Betcher… we’re going to have to go to a commercial break. Folks, when we come back, hgghhggh, Who knows? Stay tuned!

Two. One.

Go to black.

{And don’t never come back.}

It had worked — like a charm. Damn him. Betcher’s cynical honesty had stymied the media. Accustomed to ritualistic no comments and categorical denials, a cheerful you betcha, sure’nuff, whatever you say gutted their questions, left them shadowboxing on the febrile veneer of their claimed moral outrage. But — Punch and Judy without Judy — the play was so patently ridiculous the jokes turned on the media. So the script was hastily thrown away and the media reverted to its only other mode, canonizing Betcher and The Usual Crowd with the ferocity they’d first crowned Abby. Love on the rebound could be no less forgiving. (Best of all, there’d been nothing Real Wimmin could do. Like fighting a martial artist, it had been their own force turned against them that won the day.)

Just like Betcher had predicted.

Betcher. Betcher. Bloody Betcher. God! she’d gotten tired of him. Tired of his smartass smile in the morning mirror, sick of his silly charades, fed up with his taking over everything from setting the alarm to ordering meals… shit, she hated vegetarian! Weary of feeling she was sleeping ten to a bed and she was the one shortsheeted, forced to the edge, and finally off. Her. Abby! Abifuckingail! The original personality. The real one. Who’d created Betcher in the first fucking place. Not that you’d know it anymore. He’d been letting her out less and less, especially in the act, claiming she didn’t have the skill to play the roles, the chutzpah to pull it off. Smoothly, too suavely, assuring her, let me take care of it all. Look at how well I’ve done so far…

Which made her feel like throwing up. Or was that just another side-effect of the estafanil?

Now that had been a trick, she gloated, privately, getting the prescription without him realizing just what it was for. And he said she couldn’t act! Hah! Thinking and talking in code for weeks, telling the shrink it was pms depression she needed help with, chemical help, “you know one of those new super-duper brain pills”, meaning the prozac cousins, promising instant change, a better mind for just a coupla bucks a pop, a more pleasing personality. Guarding that what she really wanted was a few less personalities, one less in particular. Scotching suggestions for prozac, zoloft, paxil, effexor, citing friends who’d tried each uselessly, or media reports of strange side-effects such as men growing clitties. (She could cite scores of these, mostly gleaned from her old friend The Bi-National Enquirer)

She’d arched an eyebrow in interest at the mention of estafanil. Lied through her teeth. “Oh, I’ve never heard of that.” Listened carefully, very thoughtfully to the description. Chemically unrelated to prozac class SSRIs, it was originally tested and marketed for schizophrenia. Kind of a super-duper triple-whammy with discernible effect on serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake and a very marked effect on dopamine levels.

“Interesting,” Abby murmured. “And you say it’s been found helpful in pms depression?” Well, that’s the thing with these new drugs, the shrink explained, full of useful knowledge and the prescription pad. All of these brain chemicals are involved in so many aspects of personality and the body, doctors just keep finding different disorders they seem to help with. Did you know prozac’s even being used for constipation?

“Creative or physical?” Abby joked, then sprang the trap. “Well, why don’t we give it a try? The estafanil. It can’t hurt…” me, she kept the thought unfinished. And had to choke off laughing at, which dictatum was it in Betcher’s bloody Teachings? Oh yeah…

And that is the eighth dictatum of self-awareness:

Give up collusion.

And what a strangled piece of loopy logic that had been, she tittered to herself. You create your own reality out of beliefs that were taught to you, absorbed as verities before you could question them. And now you collude with your teachers in maintaining those beliefs. So give up collusion. Give up creating a reality that others have taught you. Hah! Only Betcher could have swallowed that shit whole. Sure, Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch, she’d created her reality. She’d created the act. Created Betcher. And, yeah, look where it got her… caught, trapped in her own Francinestein. But it wasn’t her beliefs that had kept her trapped. No way Houdini. It had been the prick himself, with bloody Jhikl’s help of course, that had gagged and bound her, thrown her to the wolves, and turned away with a chuckle to hobnob on the television.

“God, I feel so sick…” Betcher’s voice in her mind was noticeably weaker, distant, throat-rough, like he was on day four of a five-day hangover. Which he was in a way. Except for the side-effects, the estafanil had worked like a charm, and much quicker than the shrink had said to expect. In fact, it was hardly a week before she knew it was working; Betcher started complaining about the side-effects. “Shut up,” she’d told him, her own teeth gritted from the headaches. Snarling, “You never felt my pms. You don’t know what it was like. Fact I’m rather glad to have you sharing this. For a change.”

For all its venom, the anger was more put on than real, a caution Abby felt necessary. No way she was going to let her real anger up. Not yet, not before it was too late for Betcher to take drastic measures if he figured out her plan.

“Well, I can’t understand how you could have felt like this when I never felt a thing.” Betcher had moaned. “Well, la Dee da,” Abby jibed back, drawing the syllables with derision. “You’re not a woman. You think because we share the same body you’d feel everything I do?” And when Betcher had no reply, when he didn’t jump and trample all over such a patently dumb argument, Abby had known his faculties were already slipping. He was losing his grip on her. It was going to work.

And — she couldn’t help the, dangerous, snigger — without a body, it couldn’t be called murder.

Could it now?

“Why?”

Betcher’s whine oozed wearily through the few remaining cracks, his voice faint, pained with the effort of being heard. But still cunning, aimed for effect, trying to twist the pain into sympathy. Desperately probing for any weakness that might allow a full frontal assault. Any weakness would do. “Why mother? Why did you do this to me?

Mother! Mo-th-er!!!”

It wasn’t working. Chuckling, Abby turned the page of her book. A Rub on the Wild Side was the fictional autobiography of Constance Clitoris, the first person, ever, to ride a motorcycle around the world — backwards — and Abby was thoroughly enjoying it. She found the humour subtly dry — far removed from Betcher’s bombastic bash’em — and the situations judiciously surreal. Like that description of a rear entry driveshaft, incorporating, as Constance put it, American efficiency, German chutzpah and Japanese creativity. Installed, it chugged and it lugged, then expired with a splat of viscous liquid. But not before Constance, an avid birder, had added another entry to her lifetime list, complete with footnotes and annotations on breeding and comportment, tongue style, diligence and a rating from one to ten. Abby couldn’t help laughing when she found Constance generally rated Scandinavians near the bottom of the list. Was intrigued to find Canadians consistently on top. {Of course.}

Betcher changed to a wheedle and probed again. “Mother, please talk to me…”

Enough was enough! “Oh would you pu-lease put a twist cap in it,” Abby gritted, snapping the book shut. Directing her attention inwards. Letting sarcasm express her anger. Digging. Poking. “Lord, the way you carry on, a person’d think you were being crucified.”

Needling back. “Besides, I’m not your mother.”

Emboldened he’d finally gotten her attention, Betcher pressed his advantage, modulating the wheedle down to an aggrieved sulk. “But why? Why are you abandoning me? What did I do?”

Abby laughed, scornfully. It was time, she decided, to take the gloves off. “What did you do? What didn’t you do? Listen you bastard. I made you. I brought you into the world. I fed you and clothed you. I got the gigs. I worked out the lines. Without me, Betcher David’d just be one more cross-dressing hump-and-clitillate working the dives for a couple of bucks shoved down your falsie. And a quick fiver in the back corner, tissues included. That’s all you’d be. But you got too cocky. You got too big for your condom. You thought you’d blow me off and swallow the glory, hog it to yourself. And sure you dressed it all up in that self-awareness shit — as though you actually were a self, spouting Minstrel’s nonsense like it actually had some meaning. Yeah, you could outargue me any day of the millennium, but that didn’t make you right. It didn’t justify what you tried to do.” Abby was almost shouting. “You tried to kill me!”

Betcher had no immediate reply — he’d pulled himself back to escape the force of Abby’s tirade. Moving back into Abby’s awareness, he briefly considered matching her anger, but discarded it — he just didn’t have the strength — in favour of his most reasoned and patient voice. The shrink. “So now you’re trying to kill me. But Abby, do you really think two wrongs make a right.”

It also didn’t work. “Wrong,” Abby gloated. “I’m not trying. I’m succeeding. You’re dead. You’re kaput. And you know the best part, Betcher dear? You’re going to meet your maker and she doesn’t give a fuck. That’s right, Betcher baby. Saint Michelle’s going to meet you at those big pearly gates and say, ‘Funny we don’t seem to have a record of your birth. What exactly did you say your name was?’ Then turn you away because you don’t exist. You never did. And you never will.”

“So, Mister Betcher David,” she finished triumphantly. Twisting the dagger. “Is that a ten litre condom or did someone just prick your balloon?”

She waited, ready. Primed to chop, slash, rebut any comeback. Ready for the kill. But there was no reply.

Then, feebly, barely audible over the washboard roar of adrenaline drenched blood, a child’s soft voice. Singing. Kind of. Daisy daisy. Flat, listless, practically tuneless… tell me your answer dooo. Fading perceptibly… the days are long, the schlong is gong, tel me yur ansr…

With a final gurgle, Betcher disappeared.

Just the way shit flushes down a toilet.

“So, what do you think?”

Abby rubbed her head tiredly, pulling back from making yet another choice. There were too many consequences. One choice led to too many, too damn many choices. She wanted somebody to make the choices for her, just let her get on the road, disappear, let the gaping wound formerly known as Betcher begin to close.

Ironic, she missed him, in a way. She felt like part of her was missing, like she’d woken to find her name, memories and feelings had disappeared. Gone. Leaving this sense of lobotomised incompleteness, a just half-there feeling that had to be subdued and boarded over or it would fill itself with guilt. And she didn’t want to live with that. Didn’t want the doubts guilt would fertilise.

“If it was me I think I’d go for that GoldWing. There’s just something about those machines that…” The saleswoman paused then shook her head sadly. “Ah, there’s no point even thinking about it.”

Abby walked back over to the bike for another look but it still left her cold. It was too… what? bulky? squat? Just too damn big with those fairings and bags. Just about every other bike in the big showroom left her feeling the same. Except for one, this cute little Virago clone, jammed against the far corner, all pink except for black leather saddlebags. Her eyes kept going back to it — drawn like a stick man as Betcher’d say, if he could — but her mind kept pulling away, too much in agreement with the saleswoman’s nasal contempt. ‘Brggggh, that’s a guy’s bike,’ she’d said, dismissing it. ‘You want a real machine, something that says something about you.’ Brgggh indeed, Abby had thought. But what did she want her bike to say? That she’d thrown the shackles of everyday life, turfed the hubby and brat, murdered her alter-ego, then gone chasing an eclipse of the sun up in Canada? Abby wasn’t sure she really wanted to make that statement. Even if it was true. Besides, that cute little machine… she felt like it was calling her name.

“No I don’t like that one,” Abby finally responded. “I just don’t like it. I want the pink one.”

The saleslady stiffened, clearly surprised, perhaps even a bit affronted her advice had been rejected. But she was a professional and quickly controlled it.

“Fine,” she said and called out, “Jo. Get the papers for a transfer. We’ve finally sold the Harley.

What a backwater, Abby grumbled to herself. She stepped out the hotel door straight into a blaze of sun thrown off the post office window across the street. The glare caused her to misjudge the step down to the sidewalk and her foot hit with a thud that shot up to her teeth. It did nothing to improve her mood.

Shielding her eyes, she looked up and down Hickston’s alleged main street. Nothing special. She’d seen half a dozen just like it the last few days of riding — crowded to narrow by mostly two-story clapboards painted in a dozen bright colours. Sometimes on the same building. Shops defined by plate glass, inset entrances and hinged signs dangling in the fetid air over the sidewalks. No neon. Picturesque — she’d give the old maritime architecture that — but the travel agent hadn’t mentioned time travel as a prerequisite for getting here. She’d gotten so used to being recognized as the woman behind Betcher David, so accustomed to just ignoring the startled looks and catcalls, that she found it unnerving how the locals clearly had no idea who she was. Not a glimmer of recognition anywhere. Even using her stage name to register hadn’t seemed to register with the hotel manager. Did they even have tv here?, she wondered. CNN? Time? Newsweek? Sure it was a different country but Betcher had had a dozen fan clubs up here in Canada.

Had had.

The past tense hit her like a sled.

But she pushed it away — a trick she’d gotten really good at — and looked around for someone who could help her. The street was empty, barren, except for one old man leaning back into a bench outside the post office. Abby had to squint against the glare to see him. He looked to be sleeping, soaking up the sun while it was still there. No, not sleeping... she saw an arm swat lazily at the air, fall loosely back to his lap.

Apart from him though, and the putative fly he was sharing the bench with, Abby wondered if everyone else had already gone out to their chosen spot for the eclipse. She looked at her watch — 1:20, a little more than two hours left until totality at 3:33. She’d liked that word, it’s tone of absoluteness, of complete erasure. It was what she wanted with Betcher, whose ghost somehow still managed to mount the battlements of her memory. Totality.

Stepping down from the curve, she suddenly pulled back, heart racing, feeling she’d almost been hit by a car! But the street was empty. ‘Don’t be silly, girl,’ she scolded herself and started crossing, but the whole way she had this agonizing sense the street was busy with traffic. Like there was just a curtain between her and a whole other world and that curtain had gotten bare enough in spots to see through. ‘It’s empty. It’s empty,’ she repeated to herself. ‘It’s the bloody rump of the universe and it’s empty.’ Reassuringly, she saw the old guy swat another fly.

Or maybe he just had a tic.

He didn’t move as she approached so she had time for a good look. A little portly but militantly neat. She could see the bristles along the lower edge of his mustache had been trimmed to a precise length, just enough to leave the line of his upper lip visible. A good sign she thought. Faculties all there.

“Excuse me.” One eye half opened, just enough to examine her against the backlight of the sun. Just enough to give Abby the sudden willies. She felt naked, like that half eye could see through her, see down to the depths of Betcher and Dickie and Edie. To the pain. The guilt she was still fending off.

“Excuse me,” she had to repeat when there was no further motion. “Can you tell me where there’s a good place I can watch the eclipse?”

The other eye opened to match the first, stayed that way and Abby’s discomfort increased. She could feel prickles run up the back side of her calves, and was about to turn away, thinking she’d been wrong, this was an inbred, when he finally spoke.

“Eclipse?” The voice was weak, more under the breathe than spoken and the tone was questioning. Like not only was today’s eclipse news, but the concept itself was novel. “Oh, the eclipse. Well,” and now the eyes opened wide, straight into Abby’s. “I think there’s a lot of folk gone up to Armoury Hill for that. Big picnic. Fireworks. Lot of noise I expect.” He paused, letting the eyes sink in. “But you don’t look like a lady wants to be in a crowd.”

He let the statement hang there for Abby to confirm or deny. She did neither, suddenly uncertain inside. Crowds were good because they usually meant she didn’t have to think much and right now that seemed a good prescription. Easier than riding, than being alone, pushing her feelings away. But Betcher had been too much like a lover, too much a brother, too much herself not to be grieved — to be sobbed over and cried out for in the wrenching loneliness the end of any such relationship brings. But she hadn’t sobbed. Hadn’t cried out. Had fought grief to an agonizing draw.

But no truce.

The old man shook his head slowly side to side. “No I don’t think you’re the kind for a crowd,” he went on, watching Abby intently. “I know the place ... go down this road bout two mile then go east on the old Horan Gorge Road. When you run out of road, park your car and follow the bit of trail that’s there, oh bout half a mile. You’ll come to a beach I reckon’s good a place as any for an eclipse.”

He stopped, watching Abby’s face for understanding or confusion. But she had the directions pat and was just about to thank him when he concluded, “There’s not many go there so it’s a good place for working things out too.”

“Does it have a name?” Abby asked. “Well nothing official I don’t think.” the old guy replied. “But there are those round here call it Heaven’s Gate.”

“Don’t ask me why.”

Abby stopped to wipe sweat off her forehead and pull her tee shirt off its clinging dependence on her upper body. The old guy wasn’t much for distance, she thought. Bout half a mile? More like a mile, a bloody country mile in a township laid out by drunken surveyors. The path had been little used, an old track overgrown with shrubs and invaded by branches she had to push out of the way. And there’d been enough uphill near the start to get her breathing hard and taking short rests. She’d kept looking at her watch, afraid she was going to be late, stuck on a goose stinking chase when the eclipse came on. As her breathing slowed, she could hear the creaking busyness of the woods around her. Then a low rolling smoash, followed by another several seconds later. She pushed on, listening as the sound grew louder, saw blue through the weave of green ahead. Then, pushing a final overhanging branch up and out of the way like a curtain, she was there.

Her little gasp of wonder just slipped out.

It was picture pluperfect, a 100 metre elliptic of rock sandy beach tucked between darkly forested headlands. The location scouts had done their job well for this scene, and she could see where the director would be setting up the camera for the long sweeping shots into the heroine, the background swatches of scenery that would be used to frame the character’s inner turmoil.

She was impressed.

The stage had been well set.

Abby watched the dolphin — or was it a porpoise? — envying its utter freedom. Wishing she could be as removed from the cares, the regrets of her life. She checked her watch, but the flurry of seconds that dogged her path to the beach had slowed to a near surreal manana. Hardly a minute had passed since her last check, still fifteen minutes to go but already she was feeling it a bust. Being here. Sitting here, waiting for the sun to disappear and take her cares with her. The past hour had dragged her through a morass of feelings — confusion, anger at herself, regret, resentment. They’d centred on Betcher of course, on the raw guilt she’d finally been unable to bury. She’d killed him and it was murder even if there was no body. She’d choked a part of herself to the death. And laughed, chortled, twisted his last minutes into an agony of rejection.

Holding back the pain, she waited, resigned to the inevitable. There’d be no totality for her feelings, she knew. No exoneration. And when it was over, she’d get back on the bike and ride off, as burdened as ever.

Betcher’s ghost would see to that.

Abby shook her head, certain she’d now parted company with reality. Somewhere back there. That damned dolphin had entered the water with hardly a splick of water, but something somewhere between a dolphin and a giant seagull had fountained back out, reee reeeing upwards, pulling her eyes with it to the sun. She lost the bird in the glare, slipped her eclipse glasses on, saw the nick on the sun’s waist.

It was starting. And, reee reee reeee, damn if that bird didn’t seem to be talking to her!

The moon’s fattening crescent had backspaced the sun to a final glinting wink. It was like lights down at the theatre, that uncanny passage between worlds, the last minute gibbers of sound falling to the silence of expectation as the first actor waits, feeling the challenge, how long can you hold it?, before the hush just screams for breaching. Waiting it out, letting it build, letting the first nervous scuffles creak. Still waiting it out. Letting the tension twine tighter, holding the audience in that limbo til they’re sure there’s some mistake, some glitch in the program. Til they’re stealing anxious glances, wondering who’s brave enough to demand release.

Exactly the moment, the actor judges, to lob the grenade and let all hell break loose.

“Ree reee reea!” The seagull had abruptly appeared out of the faltering light, just yards overhead, throwing its strident call at her, a grating “Rhee reeeh rheah!” that suddenly commingled, coalesced to syllables. Human. Abby panicked as the voice echoed across the stygian beach. It was the voice of retribution, karma. The circle come full. It was...

“Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch.”

Betcher!

And with the boom of the voice Abby was back at the first beach, watching the clouds split, the words that had changed her life clicsh appear, clic clicsh spasmodic, clicsh letter by clicsh letter, cli cli clicsh like a three fingered writer on an old Underwood clicsh bashing at the clicsh sky’s blank sheet.

Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch.

Oh god, Abby thought, as the words slowly faded. That was where it all started, where Betcher had first exsinuated himself into her awareness. Her stomach churned painfully. Where she’d started down the path to Betcher’s murder.

Cli clic cli clisch.

The typist suddenly found a rhythm, began pounding out the story, describing the scenes better than Abby could herself — the heart attack, her agonizing ennui, the fights with Dickie. Her embarrassment the first time she’d tried on a jockstrap, and liked it. The breakup. Edie’s loss. She shook her head, not wanting to read anymore, to get to the ending. Because she knew the butler didn’t do it. She did.

But cli cli clicsh the story wouldn’t stop. The kickoff gigs. Bad jokes. Betcher’s, at first, comforting presence. The scenes and details were piling on top of each other, jumbling into a stenographic blur. It was too much. With a sob, Abby hurled herself at the past, determined to stop it. Change it. Prevent the denouement.

But the past was a tornado of whizzing keys, actions and reactions that tore at her hands and twirled her helplessly about. She was bawling now, in agony as her last shards of hope were ripped to a few shrieking tatters of desperation.

And in that moment of utter despair, charged with the strength of a person hanging off a cliff, she managed to grab a key, pull it to a halt, just microseconds from the start of that awful, final sentence.

‘Then she killed him.’

Abby shook with the effort, squirmed her body between the key and sky. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “God I’m so sorry.” And she meant it too, she knew that. Meant it more throughly than she’d ever managed behind the facade of self-control she’d built against her feelings. And that was all it was. A facade. A Potemkin village of happy peasants waving to the passing Czarina. Ensconced in her coach, she’d only fooled herself.

But that could change she swore. Could. Would. She’d seen the movie set, the false fronts. Had gone past them. Now she just needed a little rewrite, a minor adjustment to that last line of the script.

Just one word.

The light was swelling all around her and a sudden beam hit her cheek, refracted into blazing rainbows on her tears. She had to look away, past her cheek, then past the corona dying in the widening sliver of sun, to the sky. And there he was. Large as life. Large as the sky in fact.

Betcher. Smiling sadly.

His smile was filled with compassion, Abby could feel it, like some angel looking down from heaven. Her heart filled with hope, her breathing stopped. It was a smile that could grant absolution, could forgive. “Please,” Abby whispered. But Betcher only shook his head in a sad, gentle no.

And with a sob wrenched past the Czarina’s crumbling ruins Abby knew he was right. The tale was the tale. Her actions were her own. Damn his dictatums, she had to accept her reality and let it go. She’d killed him. There was no undoing it, no going back. That was the deck she had to play with. She had to stop judging herself for it, destroying herself with guilt-ridden names and fear. They accomplished nothing except to keep her locked up in the past, unable to move forward.

Betcher’s features were fading into the wash of increasing light, but Abby was sure she saw him nod with pleased agreement. With a sigh of relief, Abby let the key strike him from existence, finally, fully, accepting her responsibility.

Abby felt a cold spot on her hand, looked to find a dog snuffling it’s nose, whimpering for attention. Sobbing gently with her release, she reached and pulled the dog to her, encircling it with her arms in a desperate hug as the moon cleared the sun and sailed blithely on.

PostScript

Abby snuggled down into the warmth of the sheets and pulled the blankets up into a collar on her neck. Ummm, she luxuriated in the afterglow, relishing the sensations, picking them over one by one, savouring each spark of satisfaction, each little niggle of reawakened desire.

She looked across the room to where Dirk Ryder — she liked the name, especially its Scottish connotations — was working at his computer. A little strange, she thought — he’d been like a boy with a new toy, screaming oh yes at the top of his lungs at the moment of truth. Which thankfully hadn’t taken too long — they’d both exploded and merged into a union of ecstasy she’d never experienced. Then, the first thing he’d said afterwards was I need a beer. Downed that, then pulled out a joint — which she declined, not from any moral or legalistic stand; she just had no wish to chance any resurrection of Betcher — and tried to play his guitar. He wasn’t very good. To say the least. But there was an earnest desperation in his effort and she could tell he’d gotten truly lost in his playing when he suddenly rushed to the computer and with a kind of glazed look started typing. He was pretty fast for three fingers, Abby thought.

And god! he was good for one. Abby’s body shook with release and remembrance once more.

Constance was right about Canadians.

Yes, Abby thought, snuggling still deeper into the warm folds of the bed. They’d ride together for a while. Maybe one day she’d even tell him about Betcher. But for now it was just good to be a woman in lust.

tHe PoEt & i*

just the factsimile

a comic-spiritual adventure

or, if you prefer

A Semi-Factional Account
of a Great Journey to the Nether Regions of
Antipodean Thought

*As written by The Rider in the company of tHe PoEt and The Minstrel, with input from [ The Bard ] and the usual interruptions from { The Critic }. While there are those who say that i* was the writer, the truth be known, I was hardly more than secretary.

a karo work

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This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

ISBN 978-0-9936090-4-6

just the factsimile

Like the guy said,

Just the facts, ma'am.

But an outline must convey more than that.
It should act as a metaphor or a simile,
suggesting the whole
in a compact form.

So herewith,
just the factsimile.

Enjoy.

✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧

✧ 115,000 words ✧ 10,020 sentences ✧
✧ average word length 5 ✧ average words per sentence 11 ✧
✧ longest sentence 150 words ✧
✧ shortest sentence 1 word ✧

divided into

✧ 7 parts ✧ 82 chapters ✧

consisting of

✧ 3 intertwining co-related realities ✧

with

✧ 2 related books ✧

&

✧ an original channelled song ✧

featuring

✧ 5 major characters ✧

1… ... an obsessive introvert
woken up to find his entire life is fiction.

And he doesn't like his writer

✧ ✧ ✧

2… ... a 38,432 year old
— give or take a drunken life time —
voice from an '82 GoldWing.

✧ ✧ ✧

3… ... the guy, sometimes,
who's the reason # 2's in the bike.

They made a bet.

✧ ✧ ✧

4… ... an aging soap actress from
a Real Wimmen dominated world.

She discovers her inner male. On stage and off.

Then has to kill him.

✧ ✧ ✧

& 5… ... an undercover
tabloid journalist on assignment in the Rump.

[ That's a Reluctantly unnamed maritime place. ]

He has a panic disorder.

{ Who wouldn't in this mob? }

It's triggered by water.

✧ ✧ ✧

Which brings up another two characters although,
without the usual bodily paraphernalia,
character might not be the correct term.

✧

One of them's a self-aware computer.
Or so it types. It edits anything written on it.
Likes to throw in the odd [ comment ].

✧ ✧ ✧

And the other one's the critic
few of us avoid.

{ taa daah }

The one inside.

✧

Yes, they all have names. And several have faces too. Except for The Rider.

He's # 1. He starts off with neither name nor face, an oversight he comes to blame on his no-talent hack writer. We first meet him riding a GoldWing through the west coast mountains, bound for Vancouver, then coast to coast. The Rider's a little uptight but seeing as, in just the past few months, his life has fallen completely apart, a little tension seems reasonable. Even a little anger.

✧ ✧ ✧

And then he'd walked outside, stretching and yawning and thinking about Vancouver when he suddenly saw the bike, mentally stopped to admire it and abruptly remembered, that's mine! It was the most male machine he had ever seen, with a kind of classic, sleekly fat, utilitarian ugliness that was beautiful. It was not the overt macho of a stripped down Harley or the chromed and decorated pimpery many riders went for. Nor one of those wind-tunnelled cruisers touring bikes are evolving into. An '82 {It was all he could afford now. Ironic, eh? Back when it was built he could have afforded brand new.} and you could still see it was a bike under the fairing and bags. It was a good bike with few faults: big, heavy, functional; a brute at low speed cornering and an effort generally in the city, but on the highway it came into its own and there was no machine that could compare after a series of 700 kilometre days. Well, of course the Rider was biassed. He had bought a GoldWing after all.

But he still hadn't named it. The machine had to have a name. That was de rigueur — wasn't it, after all? — for anyone doing a cross-country-just-separated-just-laid-off-mid-life-crisis-22-years-on-re-discovery-of-youth-tour [and planning a book about it to boot]. Yes. The motorcycle on which he hoped to experience that mystical union of man and inanimate but complex object could not be just 'the machine' or 'the bike'. It had to become, if not a person in its own right, then a part of the persona, the physicalization of The Rider's sudden new status as single male. {God, he loved the image of the bike and the image of himself as The Rider. That would change.} And there was no better way to denote that than with a name. Trouble was, none of the names he'd thought of had made the grade.

Gold. Goldie. Wing. GoldenWing. Hog Honda [He'd nearly gone with that.] Honey. The Rider had toyed with all the possible permutations of the bike's brand name (used here without permission, and therefore without payment, just to keep the record straight). He'd mouthed names like Freedom and Liberty, Peace and Double Happiness, and others like Churchill and Ghandi (even Milhaus, jokingly); and tried the taste of The Big 4-0, A1 and 10-4; but none had a sense of fit and of completeness, nor the feeling of perfect resonance with life that only an absolutely apropos nom de plume [or in this case nom de guerre] imparts. The bike's name, he knew with the certainty of a bard, would become not just the symbol of his summer, but would also title the book that was already fermenting in his unconscious. Without that feeling of resonance, it could not be the name.

So what was it to be, The Rider wondered? What was the single most dominant feeling in the panoply the trip and the sudden change in his circumstances brought forward? The answer came surging out of nowhere. Piss on it, he thought. Piss on the separation and piss on the job and piss on being 40. I'm alive and I am going to live. I will survive this time and I will survive next time. I'm a survivor and the Wing's a survivor's toy. So, the Piss On Everything Toy, the P.O.E.T. Yes, the Poet. Now there was a name he liked.

It rang true.

✧ ✧ ✧

And that was how the bike came to be called tHe PoEt, such moments, The Rider knew, being exactly the stuff of fodder {say that 5 times real fast} needed for the book he was planning to write. The font and case variation were a trick The Bard — he's # 6, the self-aware computer — suggested in his usual way… by going ahead and making the change without asking the writer's permission.

That's a point of some contention.

✧ ✧ ✧

As far as I know, The Bard's a virus that entered my notebook on its virgin encounter with the cyberworld, but I am assured by experts that the person doesn't yet exist who could find The Bard's program on my laptop, much less write it. The Bard, they say — and they do seem to mean this and are not just humouring my assertion that it exists — is several orders of magnitude more advanced than my laptop (which is just a 386 running at 20 MHZ with a 20 MB 19 ms HD and 1 MB of RAM) {Is that Imperial or metric?} should be able to support.

My gut feeling, well, my bum vibes if you like, is that The Bard is an alien but nevertheless fully realized fusion of software and one of my minor neuroses. Not one of my favourite ones either. My story — and I'm sticking by it — goes that it was kidnapped at birth, accounting for many of my abduction dreams and, for that matter, my painful relations with my birth mother. Since, it's been taught, or learned (I'm not sure which) the most advanced methods of survival and now neither freud nor gates could dislodge it. If it wasn't so damn reasonable, and right most of the time, it might have become an irritant. Well — truth — it is an irritant, but one hell of a fine editor. And he certainly knows me better than The X ever did, or is that just my own illusion?

Why am I out here hitting reality in the face?

✧ ✧ ✧

Now there's an interesting question, one The Rider's struggling with as he tries to make sense of a past that doesn't seem to exist except as a series of disconnected, almost alien memories. The question comes front and centre when, just outside Vancouver, his bike suddenly strikes up a philosophical discussion. The subject, life as a literary device.

✧ ✧ ✧

Now the Rider was not unused to hearing what seemed to be voices separate from his own thoughts but he knew this was not at all unusual. He knew the human psyche is not a single entity but a collection of emotions, conceits and neuroses that often seem to have an existence of their own, and it's the norm rather than the exception that they, in effect, end up as semi-autonomous subsets of the larger psyche. It can be a fairly noisy babble as these subset personalities are constantly jostling and fighting for room. Noisy — and quite rough at times, like growing up in a very large family.

Now imagine that crowd captured inside a balloon. What happens? What do you see looking at the balloon from the outside? In psychological terms, the balloon is the ego, the conscious self-image, and it does exactly what the balloon is doing — holding it all together. In most people, it succeeds amazingly well, but a number of forms of mental illness occur if and when, and how, the balloon breaks, and the self-image loses its ability to hold all its disparate elements together. Multiple personality is just the most dramatic of these afflictions. But simply hearing different mental voices was normal. [Of course, the balloon analogy leaves out that forces are acting inward as well — that it is not just the strength of the ego that guards against breakdown but all the sanctions and strictures and structures of the larger society one is part of.] Yeah. Yeah. He knew all that and was comfortable with it because it made sense of his own experience. What he wasn't used to was a voice that cut in over the music on his headset. Like, for real. The voice was in the stereo somewhere. Demanding attention.

“well, surely you do see that? are you with me at all? i mean are we, ah, having a meaningful discussion or what? for that to happen you have to take part, i mean, like converse. do you think we can try that? huh?”

The voice paused.

“well. I'm waiting. by the way, i'm in the whole bike, not just the stereo. ask me about it sometime. and, oh yeah. i am real. well, at least as real as you are.”

Mind you, it was not that he hadn't heard of it, or something similar. The Rider was more than a little familiar with New Age channelling. [Now there's a growth industry. In the same way that human population went exponential this century, the number of channels serving the many prophets of the New Age has gone stratospheric in recent years.] {Yeah. They're everywhere. Some days it seems you can't get away from them.} The X had been into it in a big way and The Rider had heard first hand more than one third party to a group of two's conversation — a sometimes eerie, sometimes hokey experience. And he'd read, well glanced really, through a few of The X's books on the topic once, reckoning there was a documentary or two that could be made. He'd never pulled it off, but that was monetary, not for lack of story potential. Still, The Rider wasn't sure just what to make of any given so called 'channelled entity'. He knew there were many styles and types, and he also thought any number of hypotheses {God he likes to use the big words, doesn't he?} might account for some subset portion of the overall range — say, those who experienced their voices as angels, or those who spoke to spirits of the dead. But that still left those who channelled voices from other galaxies or from the logos of distant stars. Guardian spirits too. Astral Guides. Beings from alternate and/or altered realities and, of course, possession by time travelling rakes enjoying a cosmic scam. Just to name a few. But there were few hypotheses you could name could cover them all, not even outright fraud and wilful delusion. Even fewer could account for what this seemed to be, a voice from an inanimate object. Even if it had a name.

The object I mean.

But then, of course, there was always the Big I, the question most of us avoid if at all possible, the Insanity Question. Which comes down to this. The insane hear voices. We know this for a fact. That is, we know the insane believe they hear voices. And so, if we, well okay, i hear voices then it stands to reason that we/i are/am ergo insane. Ergo we/i should probably go see a doctor. But, let's face it, that's all a lot of bother and what if we don't mind the voice? What if in fact we quite like it? Wouldn't we sooner welcome saint alonzo of the etheric brotherhood than an objectified psychoses? I mean, we're all human. [Speak for yourself.]

That's why so few of us care to consider the Insanity Question. Because when you do, that other question becomes…

“i'm still waiting,” the voice cut in again.

…am i really out here hitting reality in the face?

✧ ✧ ✧

Rider shook his head. Yeah, he was tired all right. Throwing half a ton back and forth to either side all day took a lot. He fairly ached all over, and didn't much trust his legs to keep the bike up at low speed. Tired enough to hallucinate? he wondered. He wasn't sure but he really didn't feel all that far out of it, just real tired. And he'd never had much trouble distinguishing reality when it hit him in the face. That was a putative survival skill in his culture, but he'd often wondered, and thereby allowed the Big I into his life.

Was this its answer?

“ok then, i'll go first. i won't stand on ceremony. i'll introduce myself first. then you can do it back and we'll be great old friends. you'll see. now, let's see. i really like what you called me. the piss on everything toy. tHe PoEt. yeah. you can call me that. but really, i'm a warrior not a poet. but what the hell. what's in a name? especially between friends?”

✧ ✧ ✧

Well, like the bike — you've probably figured out it's # 2 — said, what's in a name? Unless, like Rider, you don't have one. But even Rider puts that aside for the moment, the more important question being just what the hell's in the bike?

✧ ✧ ✧

There was a dramatic pause. Rider could have sworn he heard a phlegmy throat clear but there was no throat here to clear. A gummed-up carb? He wished he knew how to check.

“i am an authentic, entity class one, warrior spirit. i have the papers to prove it. i am 38,432 years old, give or take a drunken lifetime. i have been almost anything you care to name, quite successfully too if i must say so myself. as a warrior spirit, i am of the deep thinker tribe. i seek wisdom through the centuries which i impart as requested, and as allowed by my license. that is who i am. now the question is, who are you?

oh and yes, i do have references. do you?”

✧ ✧ ✧

And that was how The Rider met tHe PoEt. It was, once again, exactly the stuff of fodder for the book. Trouble was, it didn't turn out the way it was intended. The first intercourse between Rider and PoEt was to delve into the very fundamentals of existence, to slalom on the deeper and finer meanings of life. Not to degenerate into a wrestling style grudge match. Something had gone wrong. But what? It was as though the book — and its characters — had a mind of their own.

{They do.}

✧ ✧ ✧

Dulse! the Rider exploded at the sudden new memory. Just what the hell dulse was that? And if he'd smoked it, then why the hell couldn't he remember what it was like to be stoned?

And that was when it all cracked up. When the suspenders snapped. When the fan hit the shit and shortcircuited.

For the first time in his, admittedly short, life, Rider fully understood that he was nothing but a character in a novel, nothing more than a whim of a writer who could chop, change, truncate or expand his character as the plot demanded, or as the fancy struck. The realization struck deep, hitting a chord that made sense of the many inexplicables of his existence — the sudden awakenings to consciousness, the implanted and thoroughly alien memories, his inability to find a place where that fellow with the mysterious fingers couldn't find him. In a flash, he knew who that strange person was and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt what he was. And hated himself. He was nothing more than a writer's plaything, nought more than a reader's suspension of disbelief wandering through the playground of the writer's mind. A toy, he thought bitterly. A hack writer's toy.

Then what the hell was he in? Rider wondered. A bad sitcom? Some retreaded vehicle for a piss poor comic with a schiz schtick shift?

✧ ✧ ✧

Now there's a point worth mentioning. You see, tHe PoEt has two personalities, one a nauseatingly pompous 'professor' who looks down his tailpipe at its Rider, and the other a brash and obnoxious street kid. The two personalities don't get on so the triangle's equilateral — the Rider can't stand either. The prof in particular rubs Rider raw, especially when he bitches at being stuffed into a GoldWing because he lost a bet with a classmate from channelling school, which is just like it sounds — a school where spiritual entities can earn their license to channel to mortals on this plane of existence.

The classmate is The Minstrel, he's # 3. You'll recognize him — the first time he appears he's a seagull. Yes, like Jonathon. Except it should have been Dumpington, tHe PoEt complains, claiming Minstrel cheated on the bet — which of them could get published first with a silly tale about an enlightenment-seeking gull. So there'd be no question which of them had gotten through, tHe PoEt explains, each of them got to put their own spin on the yarn.

“now you want to talk about dense! what do gulls do? sure they fly? but where do they fly? you tell me that? where do you always see them going to? off on some existential pursuit of the spirit? hah! they're going to the dump! think about it. the name should have been jonathon dumpington seagull. go to the dump and shit. hah!”

But Minstrel, tHe PoEt alleges, bagged himself a ghostwriter for the polish, 'you know, someone like shakespeare or hemingway but damned if i could prove it.' So Minstrel got to choose how tHe PoEt had to channel. That's also a point of some contention.

✧ ✧ ✧

“so that's why i'm here. am i ticked? you want to believe it. i mean this is junior stuff. i mean this is where they stick raw recruits from other dimensions to learn something about this plane's life forms. it's an insult, i tell you, a deliberate insult. and to top it all off, he puts me in a bloody honda! he could at least have had the decency to make it a harley.”

Great, Rider thought, dismounting and stretching. A bike with an identity problem. Just what he needed. He looked around for a shady spot that would be out of the machine's range, whatever that was, but still within eyesight. He hoped that was possible — with the bulk of his worldly possessions either in the saddlebags or tied to the back seat, he wasn't in a hurry to let it out of his sight, but he was in a hurry for some quiet. Across the grass towards the shore there was a grassy knoll shaded by several medium size trees of a species he didn't recognize. He thought to tHe PoEt, 'Look, I want you to keep talking while i'm walking away so i can figure out when I'm clear of you.' Not waiting for a reply, and with goal in mind, he set out, but kept a part of his mind tuned to tHe PoEt to find out if and when he really got out of range.

“so here i am making your acquaintance. it's a pleasure to finally meet you. you've been pretty dense and impervious since you first took me out. i'd almost given up hope of getting through that thick helmet. the last few days…

It was at about thirty metres [one hundred feet], Rider figured, when the voice started to fade. Another ten [Figure it out for yourself.] had reduced it to almost nothing. But tHe PoEt wasn't really talking to him anymore anyway. It had turned inward, muttering and mumbling to itself. Definitely unbalanced, if not insane. The very last words he heard were…

“oh well, i should be thankful i suppose. he could have put me in a blonde.”

✧ ✧ ✧

Cooled and more relaxed now, Rider stood up, looking for a drink. The inevitable snack shack was there, Rider checked, still within eyesight of the bike. A little far for comfort. Of course. Still, as he walked over and stood in line, then ordered and paid for his lemonade, Rider was able to keep the bike in view at all times. No one went near it, and it just sat there, just an ordinary machine. And it just sat there all the time Rider was walking back over to it, downing his lemonade in long gulps. And it just sat there when Rider dropped his jacket on the seat and then squatted on the ground nearby, studying his strange companion. There was not even a hint of the beast's bark, but Rider figured it wasn't absent. Or sleeping. Like the best of hunting cats, it was just waiting for the moment, stilling the mind and opening a space, letting the moment fill with silence best to hear that next drop, instinct taking over to start the pounce.

Rider was wrong. This version of tHe PoEt was too pissed for niceties like that. It was the prof.

“well, you took your time didn't you. went to sit in the shade and left me out here in the hot sun to bake.”

Rider had his counterpunch ready. “So where you been? I mean, it's been a long time since that book was published. I can remember reading it in university, that was back in the early 70s, and it'd already been around a few years. So where you been in the meantime? I mean, this bike wasn't even built back when all this was happening. According to you, that is. So. Where you been?” Talk about hoisting someone on their own petards, Rider chuckled. How would it — and the bloody writer — weasel their way out of that little trap?

“there you go again, confusing concepts like time with some form of reality, and that reality an illusion impoverished by its linear approximation.”

Like a weasel. Of course. Perhaps this entity wasn't so different after all. Trapped into an answer, it had retreated into obscuration, thus completing the deadly triangle of sins — hubris, verbiage and obscureness. Interesting. They weren't there when tHe PoEt reverted to the kid. Maybe the kid was too young and those sins just hadn't set in yet. “Huh? You want to say that again?”

“there you go again, confusing concepts like time with some form of reality, and that reality an illusion impoverished by its linear approximation.”

“Now who's the comic? I mean say it with meaning, say it in English. Say it so I can understand. Come on. You know that. You can read my mind.”

“well, sometimes. besides i don't know if i can make it any plainer. they never told us what to do if the channel didn't get it. i mean who'd think there was anyone that dumb? or stupid enough to admit it?”

That was it. There was only so much a character, no matter how poorly drawn, could stand. Rider exploded. “Well, fat lot of good you are to have around too. I either get treated to a petulant kid who i can't understand, or I get a dose of gobbledegook I also can't understand. And I don't think you understand it either. I think you're a fraud. I think you probably failed channelling school and this bike is where they put dolts like you. Where you can't get into much trouble. Yeah. You should have been a Harley all right. You and the typical HOGger would make a real pair. Pig Dog and Dunce, assholes at large.”

His anger surprised and frightened Rider, and he was embarrassed to have lost control like that. Even more embarrassed when, once again, giggling told him he had been speaking out loud. Speaking out real loud, he assumed, because this time it was a nervous giggle. Rider looked to see the same two girls hurrying away just as one turned to look back. Their eyes met and Rider saw the girl's fear. Not a good habit at all. Rider started moving away from the bike, figuring it was that or end up in a reality where your arms curved behind your back and you had to call a lot of people sir to get out. Striding rapidly, Rider lost himself trying to figure why he'd gone off his brain at Harleys like that. Why? Why would he do that? Hell, some of his best friends rode hogs.

And that was when a new voice suddenly popped into his head. Only this time it was female. Decidedly female.

“That's right. And is there anything quite like riding a hog to set the quim aquiver?”

✧ ✧ ✧

Rider broke out of his reverie and looked around, expecting — by the proximity of the voice — to find a woman standing next to him, though what woman would ask him that question just out of the blue like that, he couldn't figure. And he couldn't figure how a woman would have known to ask that question — unless he'd been talking out loud again. Rider looked around, saw no woman there. But he had heard the voice. Ah shit, he thought. It's the bloody minstrel! Another goddamn mind worm of course! Rider cursed. Those lousy little bits of foreshadowing earlier on should have warned him, and he should have known the writer would follow through. What else can you expect from a no-talent like that? Dramatic impulse? Motivation? You got to be joking.

This was all getting to be a damn nuisance, this entity business, Rider bitched to himself. Most fictional heros just had to put little round holes in bad guys' foreheads, then draw little XXes in their eyes, not grapple with talking things — and anyways just what the hell was talking now? His hurried departure had put him out of the bike's range very quickly. So how could he be hearing another voice from the bike? Was it something else somewhere around him? Maybe a talking tree this time? How's about a talking toad? Will the real minstrel please stand up!

And that was when the goddamn seagull dropped in, announcing its impending presence with a splattering blitz of shitz.

✧ ✧ ✧

Rider wiped his sleeve, then took a closer look. As far as gulls go, it was pretty nondescript; medium sized, medium beaked and medium off white. Even the black wing tips were only medium black. Rider groaned. He'd been wrong. His writer was even worse than he'd feared. What a lousy setup, he thought, but had to admit his own effort was pretty lame — a deadpanned, “Doctor Livingston, I presume.”

“no. you were right the first time. i'm the minstrel.”

Oh! Shock! Oh! Surprise! An original twist, a neat little sucker punch. He'd been trapped. “But that thing never said anything about you being a bird. Or female.”

“who said i was? you see me as you choose to see me. you see a gull. you hear a female. your friend tHe PoEt sees and hears me as a male classmate. which is right? they both are. you see, you create your own reality.”

“Hah!” Rider winced, his bitterness so palpable he feared he'd gag. “Not me. I'm a character in a book. A writer creates my reality.”

✧ ✧ ✧

You create your own reality.

With that simple phrase, The Minstrel delivers the first of The Rider's lessons in self-awareness, the subject of the chautaqua that underlies and drives tHe PoEt & i The lessons become a book within the book, The Teachings of The Minstrel, in which he, or it — depending on the appearance he chooses for the occasion — expounds the ten dictatums of self-awareness. These simple rules, The Minstrel claims, can free a person from the slavery of ego blindness and open the mind to the wonders of a universe that has hidden itself in the here and thou.

But, to The Rider, it's all gobbledeebafflegoop. He's invested so much in his belief that he's not real he can't even get past the first dictatum, accept your reality. The Rider's such a tough case, his nemesis has to reach up his sleeve and pull out every trick he can, from appearing as just about anything — including a cockroach, bat and dog — to abruptly shifting Rider into a series of alternate realities. There is much method to this madness; like a Zen koan, the goal is to shock The Rider out of his ego complacency and open him to a different way of viewing the world. It starts from their very first encounter as Rider is sent reeling to stand on a mountaintop where he hears a female voice start channelling the six-part song Transformation. For The Rider, a frustrated musician, the song is overpowering and he longs to throw himself into its embrace. But he's abruptly pulled back to his everyday reality. A bit like coitus interruptus.

✧

Was the voice real? Rider wondered. It's femaleness was unreal — a compendium of every vocal caress, cadence and command needed to assemble a first rate 1-900 fantasy service. He had melted into it but now he knew it was just an experience, it wasn't reality. The magic disappeared from the voice. Just an illusion, he reflected, an illusion he somehow created if this bird was right.

“very good, and your first try too. he still hasn't got even that far.

The magic was gone! Hell, the gull was null! In its place stood an old 'gentleman' of the old school, a white groom groomed all in white, holding out some kind of food on a plate, asking with a gently military voice, “Would you care for a wing?” Rider stared, realizing the apparition — for what else could it be? — now stood in front of a film set where they were shooting a commercial for the General's Gaulic Grilled Gulls. The actors sat at bright plastic tables smoking Gauloises as though they were the end product of that camel dung franchise. No, it wasn't a commercial after all, but an anti-smoking public service. Good on'em, Rider thought. Give'em hell!

“that's very judgmental — you'll have to get over that.”

As he spoke, the old gentlemen's hand had carried a piece of whatever it was on the plate to his mouth, and he now stood watching Rider blandly while he gracefully tore small chunks from the whatever; eating them, Rider figured by the sound, bones and all. And that was when Rider realized what whatever it was was. The old gentleman beamed.

“ashes to ashes, grub to slug, wings to stomach. don't you just love the food chain?”

Rider stared, feeling sick. Was this some gruesome rite of passage? Some sideshow freak like the female spiders that devour their male in the throes of mating? Some psychic cannibalism? Rider reeled with one too many blows, staggering to the side, wanting to sit down.

“please. compose yourself. this is a public place you know. and please take your hands out of your pants. there are laws.”

Surprised, Rider looked down but knew even before his eyes arrived that he could be in trouble. Caught red-handed, you might say. If there was a cop about. Add that to talking with motorcycles and they'd recycle the key.

“you never said if you'd like a piece. try the tail. it's particularly tasty.”

✧

The old gentleman leaned into Rider's face, peering down his mouth as though Rider were a show horse. His monocle glinted and one stab of light, the angle just right, momentarily blinded Rider, just that split second of time it takes to react and look away. But in just that split second, the old fart was gone. The sudden disappearance of the face was startling and Rider jerked backwards, hitting something solid. Turning, Rider knew just what to expect, and his expectations were met. After all, once war starts, you go for the balls. And it was his reality after all.

It was a cop. Of course.

✧

And one thing cops don't like is a biker who claims he doesn't have a name. So The Rider creates one, tells the cops his name is Dark.

Dark Rider

Not a bad nom de plume says Potter, the friend Dark stays with in Vancouver. And not a bad nom de guerre mutters Dark, now convinced he's in a fight to the death with his writer. Dark's weapon of choice is his own book, Notes From The Shop, in which he makes his writer the central but thoroughly ineffectual character. He starts writing it at Potter's but a midnight visit from the Minstrel ruptures his world enough that two co-contemporaneous co-related realities start bleeding through. They even have their own story names: Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch features # 4, the aging soap actress, and # 5, the undercover tabloid journalist, is both the star and writer of Just a coupl'a GoB.

✧

Notes From The Shop

It was the usual Saturday morning crowd in The Shop, sharing the usual crop of complaints, bitches and pet peeves, along with the usual macho camaraderie that males relish amongst themselves. It was, in other words, a typical meeting of The Brotherhood, complete with beer, bravado, the occasional reef and firm, even if unwritten, rules that The Shop was offlimits to females. Well, not true entirely as there were the odd females who entered to check up on their mates, or go through to the barn. But it was hurried, with a certain sense of discomfort because if anything was clear just by the way things were, The Shop was the male preserve, the place where the guys could be guys and little boys could play with their toys.

Seated in as close as you could come to a circle when the seats were work benches and a couple of convalescent cars were Bif, Bop, Bim and Bum. That's not to say there were four physically present. In fact, there were only three. But Bum, for perfectly valid and understandable reasons, had recently changed his name to Bim. (Yes, the names have been changed to protect the guilty — in the true traditions of The Brotherhood, the innocent can look after themselves.) But Bif and Bop, long time friends of Bum, not only refused to accept the name change but had made it a joke. Getting a beer, Bif would ask Bim if he wanted one, Bop then ask if Bum wanted one too. It was the same with joints. Bim knew pretty much what to expect for his decision, still it did sometimes irk him that his friends always

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“to stalk self-awareness, there are two questions you must answer. that's right, just two, but answering them covers it all. it will take years and years of effort for you to achieve your goal, to become self-aware.”

“I already told you where you can fry your self-awareness. I'm in the market for heart and your brand's phoney. Phoney bologna.” (Isn't it neat how a word that shouldn't rhyme does. How many of you read baloney? Fess up now. It's not a crime. Just an indication.) Hah! Rider thought. Shove that where the klieg lights don't shine. But then his mouth dropped as the old gentleman slowly drew himself erect — then kept growing, taller, widening at the hips, sprouting tits and a wig, dress and high heels, talking all the time.

“phoney baloney? you been reading the tubesteak labels lately, honey. you know what's in those things? might be something you're allergic to. but you see, tubesteak's about all you going to afford if you don't stick with the scripts. frankly, nobody gives a damn what your personal problems are, and there's more than a few of us wondering about your mental balance. but, whatever your problems are, you leave them off the set and you give one hundred percent out here. you got that, abigail?”

“What did you say?”

“you mean you weren't listening? sotto voice damn! my best acting in a year and she misses it.”

“That's what I mean. That she stuff. What did you call me? Abigail?”

“so i used your real name. you might have changed your name, the credits might say lily, but you're still abigail to me. and i'm still becky. so what are you going to do? sue me?”

“But that's just it. It's not my name. My name's Dark, Dark Rider. I don't know how, but you've somehow got me confused with a woman, which, as you can clearly see, I am not.”

If there were academy awards for looks of exasperation, Becky's would have won on the spot. 'Why couldn't the bitch just get on with it?' it spoke in letters centimetres high. There was a loud “Cut!” and a sharp whistle, then darkness was falling but, in the instant then the fragment then the smidgen of time it took, Rider had his first experience of slow motion: saw the Minstrel, still Becky, stalking away; saw technicians start the breakdown in the background; saw the director's eye. The scenes flickered slightly at first, then the flicker became more pronounced and slow. Conveniently, there'd been enough time for the old guy to return, turn around and say the two questions that had to be answered were What is the story? and Who is the writer? Then repeat that awful name. Then the camera turned on Rider, but he was a her. A little frumpy in the face but well dressed. A little worn by the years. Then the frames were barely moving and the blackness was complete. Only now it wasn't blackness because he was continuous.

Hippity, hoppity, Rider thought looking around. What a clinical reality. Then he shuddered. Bibbity, bobbity!

Talk about going for the balls.

✧

Damn! Tricked again. It was just a fade to black fade up. One of those especially cheesy ones. You know, with the face of the bad guy leering down on the down, the face of the good guy cheering up on the up — what happened in between now recounted; and the girl swoons at the bravery exhibited on her behalf. A cheap out, a kind of dramatic commercial break. Handy things to have around when you're short of budget and low on imagination. Or shooting for television.

“Abby! Abby!”

Another tacky effect. Cheap too. Pulling the focus so concerned face swims in and out of blur — straight from the forties, that one. Now cut to details in the sea of soft dreams, and vignette memories from the interlude. Concatenation. Frantic voices, a distant siren, pounding feet. Orders to stand back. Pain, such pain in the chest, spasms of electricity, bursts of lightning fusing into glaring white, a tunnel, backlighting and so revealing dark splotches on the soul. A voice, female — that was Becky, wasn't it? — echoing. Strain to hear, pull sense out of the voice. Hold onto it. There were three questions. Which is the story? Who is the writer? and How do you get a salami on wurst at 3 a.m. if you don't live in New York City?

“Abby! Abby! Come on girl. You can do it. Hold on. Don't let go. Please Abby, don't let go.”

Well the first question was easy enough. It was the story of a woman in crisis, taking her first steps towards a new life. As for the writer, well that was easy too. That was her skulking over there behind the camera. But that last wasn't right. She'd read that in MAD magazine — whatever that was. Besides, just what the hell is a salami on wurst? It sounded revolting. Hold on. Even the voices were swimming, fusing and melding into each other. That other voice. That was Dicky, wasn't it? But what was Dicky doing here? He should have been home with Edie. That was the deal after all. Abby got the bacon and Dicky cooked it. That was the way of the world.

“I'm sorry Mr. Fuego. But there's nothing we can do. She has to pull out of this on her own.”

Can't. Can't pull out. Too many voices. Too many hands, reaching out, waving in her face. Becky's hands. Grab them. She had to grab them. Becky! Becky! I'm trying! Don't give up. Please don't give up. But the hands were melting, becoming incandescent, bones inside luminous bags of dripping flesh. God, it was a fade to white! Please Dicky. Please don't let go. They're slipping. Dicky! Your fingers are slipping away! For Edie's sake. Please.

Then the whiteness was complete.

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You've probably gathered by now that I don't acknowledge the little guy any more than I absolutely have to. It just encourages him. Yeah, # 7, the Inner Critic — you know, that voice that always carps at you over your mental shoulder, able to recite your every sin and all too willing to point out all your shortcomings of thought and being. You know, you've seen the sitcom a dozen times; the kid brother from hell, a kind of Leave it to Cleaver, with Wack the Knife as theme song. Yeah. You've got one of them too. The thing with my critic is that the kid's not just in my mind but in the laptop as well. I'm of two minds for how the latter comes about. I sometimes think he's like a separate circuit in my brain, with its own wires down to my hands and so they type without me knowing. (I've once or twice had the same suspicion about The Bard but he says I'm wrong. I guess the question is, Would you trust a computer?) Then I sometimes think the kid's just a fractured part of my electronic friend's circuitry. Or maybe his kind are replicating, writer help us all. But then I guess that makes me of three minds about the kid and that makes for quite a discussion. But I won't bother with it because, no matter how it comes about, the point is the little prick exists.

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Dark stared at the computer screen, perplexed. He'd slipped away for a moment to write down what lyrics of the song he could remember, and to make a note for the book, an outline of a pithy and wryly sarcastic description of how Bim had settled on a motorcycle trip, and why he had decided it would be on a Goldwing. Potter was still down in the studio, had never left it since Dark first went downstairs, so there was no way he could have been responsible. But, if not Potter, who, or what, had done this? There were no Notes From The Shop to be found, no NOTSHOP1.txt on the drive. Dark wondered if somehow he had erased it, but his UNDELETE utility could find nothing to resurrect, no electronic ghost returned from the dead. NOTSHOP1 had ceased to exist.

Worse, he had no backup on floppy. Nothing to save him the hassle of rewriting. For a moment he wondered if, in fact, he had written anything at all. Perhaps he'd only dreamed the act of writing. But he knew that was grasping at straws, he knew he had written. But where had it gone?

He stared at the file list, speculating the document had somehow been renamed. But all the other files looked right. Except one. What the hell, he wondered is GOBGAB.txt? He hit RETRIEVE. The screen blanked, shivered, and Dark's confusion convulsed.

Just a coupl'a GoB

So there we were, just a coupl'a GoB [1] from The Rump [2]. Shooting guff on the lam [3], running the backroads of the riding where a few beer and a bag of dulse aren't a problem unless you're unlucky. Real unlucky. Or followed. And that was probably the more likely for there was a pile of bush back here and fair few folk to fill it. But if you were followed it was your own damn fault anyway because, sure as shooting, them cops was sloppy and you shouldda seen'em. When you're a GoB, you watch your tail and you don't give them no excuses.

That's just one of the axioms that had fallen like swine from the lips of The Politician. He was my guide into these backhills of The Rump, my introduction to a way of life so far removed from life in the Big Cumquat, it seemed less a part of Canada than some transplant from a different planet — or bleedthrough from a different dimension. And he was a perfect guide cause he was a GoB, even if I wasn't. And he was a GoB Politician to boot. So we'll call him GoBBy. Poli GoBBy. He'd appreciate the humour in the name. And, needless to say but worth repeating, GoBBy gabbed. Loved talking and was quite loquacious in his own GoBBish way. I guess that's why he was one of the Rump's most successful politicians. Contrary to the popular perception which pictures them taciturn, GoBs love to gab. And they love gabbing about nothing more than politics. So a gabby GoB can grab a seat in the House just by gabbing. You see, when you're a GoB you vote for a GoB. That was just another of GoBBy's axioms. Like I said, they fell like swine.

Fat swine. Poli had made a plump career out of politics by giving the folks just what they wanted. Ten weeks of a government job so they could collect Unemployment for forty? No problem — there was a road crew working nearby that could use an extra flagger [4]. A flagon of beer at midnight? Sure. Just give me your vote and let me go back to sleep. Something done about those raccoons in the garbage? Ma'am, those are God's creatures too, but we'll see what we can do. Well, most of the time. There were times he took a stand and that made him popular too. GoBs love a good stand, even if they don't agree with it, and Poli's aggressive personality had earned him respect . Even a certain amount of affection. And if Poli was less than scrupulously honest, well, that didn't matter to the GoBs. He was an honest crook and he was one of theirs. Honest.

Honest.

But then, should you trust me? I've already lied to you once and will probably do so again. You might say it's an occupational hazard. You see, I'm an undercover journalist and so I work for the media — the vicious leftwing backstabbing anti-establishment media establishment. But hell, it's a living. One hell of a living in fact. I work deep cover for The Bi-National Inquirer (usually called The Bi, it's one of the better tabloids back in the Big Cumquat) meaning nothing I write ever gets printed under my own name. To protect my identity for future assignments. So, you'll understand that I can't use my real name. So let's just call me Mellow, Mellow Yellow. Poli'd appreciate the humour in that name too.

For the second time that day, Dark's sense of humour failed. Poli GoBBy? Mellow Yellow? What the hell was this? Nothing he'd written. What was it doing on his hard drive then? He looked out the window at the garage where tHe PoEt was not only under lock and key, but had his battery disconnected — just to make sure. Could he have done this? Wiped out a document and inserted another? No way, Dark thought. The Minstrel, then? Possibly, but not likely — there'd been absolutely no hint The Minstrel even knew he was writing a book. That left one possibility. No, Dark mused. It was a probability. Goddamn the writer man. Well, if he wanted to play like that, then Dark would rewrite it from memory and keep a safety copy on floppy, hell on a dozen floppies. And if that didn't work, then Dark would become like one of the living books in Fahrenheit 451. [Shouldn't that be Celsius 261.88?] (If you don't mind, it's a title.) [So?] He'd keep it in his head.

Sphinctered.

That would certainly give new meaning to opening and closing a document, Dark chuckled to himself, relieved to find his sense of humour returning. You needed it around here.

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And he will need it over and over.

As Dark travels across Canada, he struggles to write the book that will free him from his mad writer and come to some accommodation with his talkative mount. But, hounded, batted and cockroached by The Minstrel and his Teachings, the journey turns into a nightmarish fugue; a series of midnight encounters, strange characters and perplexing events that force Dark to question his sanity and wonder if he's breaking down, if his growing glimpses of Abby's world and the GoB book writing itself on his computer aren't signs of a fragmenting personality.

Abby comes to question her sanity too. Recovering from her heart attack and haunted by the phrase Eclectic Kitchen Kitsch, she suffers a profound angst that leads to an overwhelming revelation on a greeting-card-scenic Caribbean beach. Her female-dominant world forces both sexes into brittle shells called male and female, truncated parodies of what each sex could be. So Abby adopts a male alter-ego, Betcher David, dresses the part, and goes into standup comedy with routines based on, as she describes it, 'that divide between male and female where the snide and the crude, the rude and the sublime reside; that gulf where we struggle with our own inner dualities.' But she — rather he — becomes so successful her husband Dickie leaves, taking their daughter, and Abby becomes the target of a vituperous media campaign mounted by Real Wimmen, a loose group of Old Gal CEOs and MBAs fighting a rearguard action against men's rights and who resent Abby's 'betrayal' of their sex. The fight is so intense, Abby fails to notice Betcher is taking over, relegating her to the back seat neurons. Battling back, Abby sets out to kill him, a feat she achieves by inveigling a prescription for a new antidepressant.

Meanwhile, back in the laptop, Just a coupl'a GoB continues to unfold. Mellow Yellow has been sent to the Rump to write an in-depth exclusive on the Dulsia, a shadowy group of GoBs who control the world trade in the hallucinogenic seaweed dulse. It's only the bulbuous root, where the plant attaches to Bay of Fundy rocks, that's psychoactive and harvesting the root requires a dangerous trip into the depths of the most tidally-active water in the world. All in a day's work for most reporters, but Mellow has a panic disorder that's triggered by water. He survives his close encounter with Finnegan's Wake but when he's taken to meet Jimi, the storied master of the Dulsia, he's slipped a cup of the real mellow yellow, dulse that's been biologically processed to a potency guaranteed to bring a man to god.

Even if he's not ready.

All three inter-twining co-related realities come to their conclusions on maritime beaches during a total eclipse of the sun. Filled with remorse, Abby finds her peace with the departed Betcher and an exultant Mellow uncovers the true nature of the universe. It's made out of marshmallows.

The little ones.

As for Dark, he comes face to face with the last of The Minstrel's Teachings and has to accept that he is his own writer and his struggles to break free of the writer were nothing more than delusion. Face to face with his own unarguable reality, Dark has no choice but to accept the tenth dictatum of self-awareness.

Surrender.

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As I said,

just the factsimile.

To read the entire manuscript of

tHe PoEt & i,

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[1] ...

Good'ol Boys [back]

[2] ...

Reluctantly unidentified maritime province or place [back]

[3] ...

law avoiding manoeuvres [back]

[4] ...

ALT constructive avoidance specialist; BPC… flagman [back]