Just be you
Underneath that space hat!
You popped from my heart like refries out a tortilla.
Pretty mama, I’m hoppin’ happy to be here and see ya.
Just like Mel when Shaman popped outa his mind,
I’m a durned sight spun-around, run-around loco behind.
But if you’re true to my dream,
I’ll be your sour cream,
My roly-poly holy guacamole sweet burrito queen!
Please be true, true, true!
Won’t you please be true?
(The phrase “space hat” in the eighth line refers to the pleated headdress popularized by Abu al-Hawl, the Great Sphinx at Giza, a sort of interstellar thinking cap he used for performing epochйs. It became quite fashionable among Earthers of the Egyptian Fifth Dynasty [circa 2500 b.c.] who lived in the vicinity of his landing site. On Sanduleak, it’s still la look.)
By the way, what Shaman said is quite true. On Sandy, when a singer calls his loved one “pretty mama,” he generally means just that.
19. Lingua Franca
“Let’s be human, shall we?” Shaman proposed. Diplomats settling on a lingua franca. “You have a spare somewhere, don’t you, Gypsy?”
The big nerve undulated to the cash register and punched “NO SALE” with one of his dendrites. He pulled up the tray inside the cash drawer, where the big bills are usually kept, and produced a squeaking mass of rubbery material that looked like a deflated beach ball. He started to pull it on like a pair of pants. When he was done, he was the rotund, superannuated hippie I’d met down on the highway, and fully clothed.
Nora squeezed my hand, then headed for the little girls’ room to tidy up. “You’re okay, Mel,” she said. “We’ll get through this together.” Then to Shaman: “The toilet?”
“Go ahead,” Shaman said.
“I’ll be a minute. We’ll sit down together when I get back. You’ll let him be till then?”
“Of course, Nora. What do you take me for?” He was wearing Gone Joe’s overalls. It still said “JOE” on his pocket, and “SMILING AND SERVING.”
“Oh, stop it!” Gypsy said. “Just because she’s an Earther doesn’t mean she’s stupid. She was thoroughly briefed when we recruited her, Shaman. She knows all about you, old Tut. She knows all about everything.”
Gypsy offered me his “hand.” He helped me up off the floor, then sat down at the table with me. Shaman joined us.
Nora was in the bathroom. She had been in the bathroom when I first entered the cafй, when I saw Gypsy, when the juke box played Johnny Abilene and Izzy? “Take a bite of this.” What did she do in there? Maybe she slipped in and out of fake bodies the way Gypsy did. I still ached for her, but I couldn’t do anything about it. I was a small, brown nothing. Shaman was tall and muscular, with strong, chiseled features, a square jaw, clear blue eyes, thick black hair neatly trimmed. He wore a white caftan and loose white linen pants; one leg was still soiled by errant thoughts?e v a p o r a t i n g?from my mind. Shaman could have Nora whenever he wanted to, and finish the job, I thought. My mind was a barber pole, thought-blood, endlessly supplied, spiraling endlessly down.
I listened to Shaman as a radio “listens” to a broadcast. It went through me. I should have been crying, but, though I looked and looked, I couldn’t find my tears.
* * *
20. Inoculation
“Izzy Molson can’t help you, Mel,” Shaman told me. Gypsy twiddled his thumbs and snarled under his breath. “I’m you. And you’re not what you think you are, Mel. I’m you. You didn’t consummate with Nora, Mel, or you’d know how right I am. I’m you. She wanted you to explode inside her, and not just your sperm, Mel. I’m you.” I felt like a cow being milked, helplessly and dumbly chewing cud. Shaman squeezing my udders, his fingers sticky with my milk. The hiss of milk spray into Shaman’s bucket. The pressure inside me dwindling. Chewing and chewing.
Then Shaman whispered: “I’m you, Mel. They want to pull the Sphinx up through your mind like a baby gorilla out an aphid’s pussy, so they can install him in the Magellanics. I’m you. Is that what you want, Mel?”