Читать книгу Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles - Kira Henehan - Страница 20

14

We had been at the Tiki Barn not long enough to make even a dent in even the initial welcoming platter of shrimps when she came in through the bathroom window!

She did not. That was a terrible and willful untruth. Only it has a certain ring to it, doesn’t it, a ring that could be put to musical accompaniment and made into a popular song, no? She came in through the bathroom window!

But she did not.

She came scraping in through a window, yes, but not a window living in the bathroom, no, nothing so catchy as that for Kiki B, whose name for purposes of clarity I reveal at this juncture of the account but which of course I couldn’t have known at the time. She scraped pathetically in through the bright oversized window of the stockroom—a window one might not even notice, even as it sat there so oversized and bright, for the reason that the stockroom was piled high, high, high to the ceiling with books and vintage surfing memorabilia.

She upset a great many things, entering.

She made, one could say, an entrance.

Kiki B was of an aspect no pleasanter than that of me. Perhaps far worse. In that she was, for one, entirely and generously naked. Generously not in that there was a generous much of her, but generous in that the nakedness was complete, almost complete, complete but for a jangling sort of wristlet made of bright blue beads and some gold hanging things.

Other than the wristlet, her nakedness was complete. Generous. We averted our eyes.

She cleared her throat.

We kept our eyes averted.

She cleared her throat again, adding this time drama and insistence. She coughed several times in a delicate manner and then several more times in a manner not delicate but one might say tubercular, and then—and this was the point at which we could no longer keep our eyes averted—she barked.

—Bless you, said The Lamb.

—Thank you, said Kiki B.

There was then awkward silence until another pile of books and vintage surfing memorabilia lost its valorous battle with gravity and fell. It’d been trying, trembling, since Kiki B’s entrance to remain upright, but as no one was paying any attention, anyhow, it succumbed. To gravity. And to its own vanity, one must assume, as a collective of objects accustomed to being observed, and handled, and commented upon.

We all ignored the poor forgotten objects, now without even their pride, heaped so unceremoniously there on the dusty stockroom floor, and stared instead at Kiki B.

The Lamb stared at the legs, perhaps at the knees. Likely at the knees. The Lamb has hateful knees and thus uses the knees to size up new people.

Murphy stared at the wristlet, perhaps gone agog at the sight of a shiny thing.

Binelli stared at the feet, and then at the calves, and then at the knees, then the thighs and et cetera. He started from the bottom and stared all the way up to the very top, and then glanced quickly at me and then the others and then right back again to the top, from which point he stared from top to toe and in every and all likelihood back up again.

Tiki Ty stared in a general sort of disinterested way at the whole of Kiki B and then at the mess of his stockroom and then, like Binelli, at the rest of us, quickly and each. Then again at the mess on the floor.

—Why must you always come through that window, he said at last.

—I must, she said. She shrugged without apology. She shook her singularly adorned limb and the beads made a barely audible jangle before settling again about her wrist. The tiny jangle made Murphy jump.

—You upset everything. Tiki Ty’s tone was less admonishing than matter-of-fact.

Kiki B did a little sudden dance.—I’m an upsetter! she said. She shimmied to the right.—I couldn’t be better! she said. She shimmied to the left.

—Well you couldn’t be better at upsetting. He gave her that.

She shook her wristlet triumphantly above her head.

Her head was what I stared at. Personally. Which is a fact I perhaps forgot to include earlier in the staring section. I stared at her head in general and then more specifically at her hair.

What can be said of such hair.

For one, that there was very much of it, an indecent, one could say, amount of hair. For two, it was dirty blond. Not the dirty blond that is a hair color in and of itself: dirtyblond; but rather blond hair that was dirty. Perhaps dirtyblond as well, or perhaps just blond, or perhaps something else entirely. It was hard to determine. But filthy and with that piecey aspect hair attains when that hair has gone for a very long time without enjoying the acquaintance of a good boar-bristled brush.

I used my good boar-bristled brush each evening on my own hair. It was, as were all my grooming supplies, Binelli-issued and of the finest quality. Binelli issued my shampoo and conditioning and toothpaste and eyedrops and dry-skin lotion for the face and hands and elbows and feet. All, I have mentioned, of the finest quality.

Binelli concerned himself greatly with quality control.

He found it prudent to make a good impression.

—What, Tiki Ty wondered,—are you doing here.

—I have something for you, said Kiki B, answering Tiki Ty but looking in fact directly at me, which was surprising as I didn’t yet even know she was Kiki B nor what being Kiki B might mean for her or for anyone else; this not-knowing despite knowing her already in a practically carnal way.

What with the nakedness.

I looked at the rest of them.

The rest of them shrugged except for Binelli, who was watching Kiki B closely and in a manner that appeared almost coiled to spring.

Where was Lavendar, I was reminded to wonder. Lavendar usually preferred to be where the action was. Lavendar prided himself on remaining up-to-date and in-the-know.

If Lavendar were better connected and in possession, I suppose, of a working pair of hands, Lavendar would have made a fine gossip columnist.

Kiki B felt around her person and then laughed mightily.—But it’s in my pocket! she said with what seemed to be triumph but was certainly something else.

Though Kiki B’s bar for triumph, for all I knew, might have been set very very low. But so low as to be groping about oneself’s naked person, having no, being not of marsupial origin, pockets, and so without even the message with whose safe transfer one was charged?

A very low bar, indeed.

—A lack. Alas! She paused from her singsong and then continued, as if thoughtfully,—Unless I stuck it in my—

—Where’s your robe, Tiki Ty said quickly.

—I haven’t, she said,—the foggiest.

—Well don’t you think you ought to retrieve it.

—They’ll be by shortly.

They were. They came in through the bathroom window!

They did not.

I apologize.

They came through the same window Kiki B had. Two of them, dressed each and identically in white nurses’ smocks and there the similarity ground down to a nub. One was huge. Huge. This I cannot emphasize even close to enough to create the impression of even one half, one quarter, one sixteenth of this being’s enormity. I could sit here and say it over and over again, huge, huge, or, for interest, say it different ways, making fine use of the lexicon at my easy disposal: vast, mammoth, massive, colossal, titanic, gnarly (the lexicon, I should mention, is a fairly specific volume, geared toward those seeking to expand their wave-riding vocabulary, though I have made it clear that not all the books in the bookstore portion of the Tiki Barn are related, necessarily, to the surfing and surfing-memorabilia arts) until the sentiment is bled of all meaning and substance and yet, yet still I could not come even a fraction closer to conveying the sheer enormity of this white-smocked creature.

How had they found enough starched white linen.

—Who are you writing about? The Lamb said, bouncing a bit on her knees like a child.—Who’s so obese?

Were other nurses going without?

—Kiki B? Did you think she was so fat? The Lamb’s face was inches from my own, beaming.

Was—and here good heavens! I thought, so plowed over by my own Investigative prowess that I flushed just a bit about the apples of my cheeks and the knobs of my collar—Kiki B a defrocked nurse, forced into her otherwise inexplicable nakedness by the breadth and scope of starched white linen required to garb this immense freakish phenomenon of nature at its most awry?

—So freakishly fat? Is that what you wrote?

—Are you reading over my shoulder, I said, turning from my page.—Why are you so close to me.

—You mutter aloud when you write, The Lamb said. She flicked her magnificent hair.—It’s a sign of lower intelligence.

She picked herself up from her squat and began flouncing off. —I couldn’t care less what’s in your stupid report anyway.

The other nurse was quite small and with skin like a raisin.

This other nurse swaddled Kiki B in a robe of fuchsia silk, sprayed with flowers and characters of an eastern persuasion. This other nurse took a wide-toothed comb of bone from a breast pocket of misleading size and with the word BATTERSEA stitched above in neat blue script and began tugging at Kiki B’s hair. This other nurse after making a certain amount of headway through the tangle though not quite a lot of headway replaced the wide-toothed bone comb whence it came and took from the same and increasingly magically proportioned breast pocket a large silk flower and clipped it behind Kiki B’s left ear, pulling some of the hair back with it.

—There, said this small pruney nurse, looking critically at Kiki B. —There’s something.

Kiki B beamed in the manner of children and idiots the world over and pulled from the pocket of her freshly acquired robe a folded piece of paper. She handed it to me.

It was taken from me swiftly. So swiftly that my arm remained awkwardly outstretched for some moments after, fingers pinched around a paper-sized bit of air.

Binelli tucked the scrap into his own breast pocket, which was of the usual size and had no resplendent stitching above.

I moved my arm in as casual a manner as I could manage back to my side, where it hung a touch awkwardly. I made quick shaking movements to exercise the oddness out of it. Limbs should always be made comfortable.

The corner of the paper covered where some stitching would go, if Binelli had had some stitching above his breast pocket.

I thought we should perhaps look into some stitching.

It really was quite distinguished.

Only what would ours say.

It would take some looking into.

—Would you care for some shrimps, said Tiki Ty, quite out of the blue.

—We should be going, the raisiny nurse told him,—but thank you nonetheless.

—Is there. The large nurse looked at the ground shyly.—Is there any way. What I mean to say is, might it be possible—

—Of course, said Tiki Ty jovially.—I’ll bag some up for your return trip. I have spill-proof containers for the dipping.

—Bless you, said the nurse.—You are good and you are great.

—And I shall have you on my plate! said Kiki B, beaming a benevolent smile after Tiki Ty’s departing backside.

—Is that any way to talk, said the raisin.

—It’s one way, said Kiki B in a sulky manner, and then no one spoke until Tiki Ty returned to the room with an enormous vat of shrimps and a spill-proof container filled with dipping.

I worried.

I worried I must admit something awful about our remaining supply of shrimps and dipping. I felt a sudden and blistering annoyance toward not only the huge nurse but for the huge in general, who take far more shrimps than their due.

And seating on the trains. And white linen. And freshwater pearls. Et cetera.

The nurse became almost glazed of eye and aspect.—Bless you. O bless you, Tiki Ty.

The threesome made to take their leave.

Kiki B firmly in tow, the shrimpmonger and the raisin made to heave on and all through the window whence they came. Unfortunately for the future of popular music, not located in the bathroom. Kiki B cast a beatific smile over those of us remaining. It was an exit smile, an Exit, the gracious and munificent queen of a country or pageant sweeping out on the arms of her keepers.

—Wait, Binelli said. He gestured toward the bare feet of Kiki B with something akin to horror.

The feet were certainly scratched and of the bluish hue sometimes favored by vampires or victims of frostbite.

They were certainly filthy.

Kiki B smiled and the nurses made impatient noises.

—Doesn’t she have shoes, Binelli said, strangling a little bit.

—It’s lucky she got the robe. The shrimpmonger spoke with disdain dripping from that cavernous mouth as so very surely the honey and the crumbs and the pie fillings did with regularity.

The shrimpmonger had certainly undergone a bit of a personality adjustment now that the shrimps had been claimed.

—Well she can’t go on without shoes. Binelli had something now akin to hysteria about his eyes.