| The last light of day that had made it possible for the Pisser and me to ascend the grand staircase has long faded. Toody and I are forced to feel our way downstairs, scootching on our bottoms from step to step. After our shins play hobnob with some coffee tables in the darkened lobby, we emerge from the palace into the city square. The square is a roaring carnival, people milling about under excited torchlight. We elbow our way through the crowd. Here and there we come to an open circle where prestidigitators, singers, puppeteers, instrumentalists or comedians are making street magic and passing the hat. I pull Toody over to me and shout in his ear so I can be heard. “These people aren’t very worried about the siege!” He looks at me tightlipped and nods. As I follow Toody working his way to the middle of the square, a sudden blast of trumpets and boom of kettledrums overpower the already deafening sounds of the crowd. All of us hold our ears and look to the source of the noise. At the end of the square opposite the giant statue of Thalia, on a platform high enough for everyone to see, Knots is standing in an eerie pool of light created by torches and large metal reflectors. His hands are above his head, silencing the crowd. Behind him, written in large letters, a banner reads DANGER! A couple of his City Guards pound the kettledrums. They’re having a lot of fun trying to outdo one another, so it takes a certain amount of effort to stop them. Eventually, Knots succeeds. “People!” He cries. (I noticed that his mother and Calculotta are behind him and to his right.) “People! We are in grave danger!” The crowd is utterly silent. His mother’s face clicks from a benign smile to intense alarm to laughing and applauding, trying to cue the audience. Knots shakes with a tremor of anger. He stomps over to his mother and says something that stops her applauding cold. She burst into tears and runs from the platform. The crowd mutters and shifts. “People!” Knots starts again. “An overpowering enemy is at our gate!” “So buy him some mouthwash!” It’s Toody shouting next to me, and it scores a big laugh. Knots can’t figure out who is heckler could be. He struggles to regain control. “This has nothing to do with mouthwash,” he shouts. “Yeah, we know. It stinks.” Toody again, and again a big laugh. The crowd is watching a ping-pong match, one player is invisible. “Guards,” shouts Knots, “seize that heckler!” In a flash, three spear-types are at our several elbows. They recognize the Duke. “Your Grace!” “Yor Grace!” “Ellen!” As Toody and I are escorted to the platform, he explains that his Dad made a rule of three regarding his form of address. Every third person has to call the Duke by the name Ellen instead of Grace. It’s a rule. The crowd parts to make way for us, and soon we are up on the platform with Knots, Calculotta and the April Fools Kettle Drum and Bugle Corps. As we mount the stage, Toody, still in his clown get up, mind you, turns to the crowd and deadpans, “I know this has got to be a dog act. I see the mutt,” (he points to Knots,) “I see yer pretty gal,” (Calculotta) “so where’s the guy in the tuxedo?” The people start to laugh, but the hilarity is strangled with the gasp of surprise. “It’s Toody!” one hollers. “The Duke!” cries another. “What’s happening?” “Not possible!” Then generally joyful hubbub, as the people begin to appreciate the miracle. Knot cues his drums and trumpets. Everybody holds their ears. He signals to cut them off and jumps into the ensuing silence. “People! Jokes and wisecracks cannot save you. The SPARTANS are coming to destroy the city!” Toody quickly follows up. “They should save themselves a trip. Most of the people in this city are destroyed already!” He snatches a wineskin from a tourist standing at the foot of the platform. “You love it tonight,” he says, “but it’ll hate you in the morning.” The applause and jollity are a bit more than the comment calls for, but people you like always make you laugh harder, and it’s obvious the people like Toody. The Duke pulls his brother aside as the laugh builds. I can hear him mutter, “This is not the way to handle the people. Panic is their worst enemy. And just what did you say to Mama that made her cry?” “I’ll handle your people!” Knots growls as he pushes away from his brother. “Listen you drunken feather heads,” he keeps up the routine, “this is your last chance to save yourselves. You can go with the bozo clown here and laugh and laugh while these Spartans dismember the city AND its citizens, or you can follow me and my City Guards and offer proper resistance to these savage murderers. Is there a choice?” “Yes!” cries Toody. “Go with the bozo! Go with the bozo!” The crowd picks up the chant. Even the kettle drummers and horn players join in. Toody glides over to Calculotta, takes her in his arms, and they two-step all around the platform. Everyone is delighted, except one person. The rage all drained out of him, Knots leaps off the back edge of the platform and disappears into the black slot of a side street. Being a guy of no mean curiosity, and newly charged with the city’s welfare as I am, I follow. The noise of the crowd fades behind us as Knots leads me down dark, twisty byways and alleys. It’s no job to avoid detection, since he’s stomping and muttering with his head down, looking neither left nor right, certainly not behind, and barely in front. I’m relaxed and really ambling behind the guy when he suddenly pulls up short and starts checking out the whole scene. I duck into a doorway just as he looks my way, and my prayer that he doesn’t see me is apparently answered. I hear the zing of his sword coming out of its scabbard, then hear footsteps. He mutters, “Good!” Then more steps, then a door opens and shuts. Silence. Very slow like, I look around the edge of the doorjamb where I’m hiding. He’s off the street. I creep to the building where he disappeared, really apprehensive, since, after all, he has a sword, and all I’ve got is this way of annoying the guy. Not an equal contest in my book. The door he apparently entered goes into a large, nondescript warehouse. There are no windows on the street side. I look to the left side of the building and it consists of two unpunctured stories, as well. A quick trip to the right side of the building and a quick scan down the blind alley there shows a little aperture, a dim shaft of light. Some crates suddenly find themselves stacked on top of another, and I’m looking in. I see Knots kneeling at an altar surrounded by circles within circles of fat red candles on the floor. He has placed his sword on top of the altar and is fumbling in his pocket, muttering in his inimitable fashion, which I’d be happy to imitate for you sometime. He says, “I got . . . here . . . this is all I could get . . .” He produces a little teacake and places it on the altar. “I know it’s not much. I could place a city on the altar if you’d just hear my prayer. My brother . . . a clown, not a ruler . . . I can’t take it anymore!” Knots starts to sob. Suddenly, there is a peel of thunder and the room is flooded with glowing sulfurous smoke. Standing about seven feet tall in his sandals, a guy all muscles and hardware with bright red skin appears just across the altar from Knots, who is somewhat taken aback. This guy is either Mars, the god of war, or somebody renting himself out as a celebrity imitator. “A TEACAKE?” The God bellows. “Nobody EVER has sacrificed a TEACAKE. People sacrifice oxen, sheep, goats, flagons of wine, even the still pulsing heart of a freshly killed human victim, but a TEACAKE on MY altar? I LOVE THESE THINGS!” The god jams the little cake into his cruelly shaped mouth. He continues to talk, spewing crumbs down the chiseled-in-red-granite proportions of his chin and chest. “That’s so good! By Jove, I feel GREAT! Let’s FIGHT!” Mars pulls a huge flaming sword out of his jockstrap. The little sword on the altar leads into Knot’s hand all on its own. Mars howls with pleasure, swings his sword above his head a couple of times and brings it down on Knot’s blade, cutting it in two, stopping just short of the man’s head. The cowering mortal crumbles to the floor in a heap of twitches and moans. Mars picks up Knots by his collar and brings him close to his face. “That’s TERRIBLE!” He roars. “You STINK as a soldier!” “I’m sorry,” whimpers Knots. “It doesn’t matter,” says the god. “Can you get me more of these cakes?” “What?” “The CAKES, the TEACAKES, man! Listen when a god talks to you! Can you get more cakes?” “Certainly, certainly. Of course. I make them myself. I’ll get you all you want.” “No. You couldn’t get me all I want. I want an ETERNITY of teacakes!” “I’ll do my best!” “I know you will. Now, why did I appear to you?” he asks himself. “Of course, your prayer. It’s answered, you know.” “Answered? How?” “My Spartans are coming this way. If you want them, go get them.” “It’s that simple?” “Wait! There’s more. Your clown . . .” “You mean my brother?” “Your brother the clown, that’s it! He’s not your brother.” “He’s not?” “No. That guy watching us through the window over there, he’s the clown’s brother.” Imagine my surprise when both the god and the supplicant purveyor of baked goods looked directly in my direction. Gee, thinks I, what do I do now? “Is somebody there?” queries Knots. “I can’t see.” In no time, I’m off the crates and I’ve run a couple of blocks toward the light of the city square. Of course, the way I tell it, bim-bam I’m off scot free. But you really can’t run away from a god. He or she can know where you are, and then BE where you are in an instant. You can only get away from a god who is indifferent to you. So the the whole time I’m running, I keep expecting a bright red kneecap with god of war attached to materialize in front of my face. Mars must be indifferent to me, because I make it without divine incident. However, what I encounter on the way to the square causes me nearly as much distress as being turned into a tree stump, or some other similar mythological mishap. People are walking and talking in small disturbed looking groups, drifting to home and hotel. Apparently, the party in the city square has broken down as much as it has broken up. “What happened to him?” I hear somebody say. Then from another group, “Never seen anybody choke like that . . .” “His dad never would have . . .” “Choke, hell. Swallowed his tongue . . .” “Liked the mouthwash bit . . .” “Obviously a fluke . . .” “What do you suppose Knots was talking about?” “Are we in danger?” “From boffo to bore-o in ten seconds . . .” “Who are these Sparkies?” “Spartitions. I’ve heard of them. Bad types.” And so forth. Very depressing. I redouble my speed. When I get to the square and come round to the front of the platform, I see our Toody sitting at the front edge with his head hanging from his neck like a pendulum on a grandpa clock, swinging back and forth. Calcuotta is standing at the back of the platform, evidently mortified, or appalled, or something. “Toody, what happened?” I’m right in front of him, at his knee. He won’t look up into my face. “Where have you been?” Calculotta calls to me. “What happened?” I asked her. She shakes her head. I jump onto the platform and hurry to where she’s wilting among the kettledrums and fizzling torches. Over our heads the DANGER banner begins to flap, as a cold breeze kicks up. “The minute you left, he froze,” she explains. “The people were rough on him.” “That’s too bad.” “You were telling him what to say, weren’t you?” she tells me more than she asks me. “When?” “When he was funny.” “What makes you think that?” I ask, a little shocked at the idea. “You were, I know.” “I swear I never told him anything.” She comes closer to me. “I don’t know why everything you say is so . . . well . . . you know.” She shivers all over, a slight ripple like her body is a little pond you drop in a coin. “You could babble nonsense to me all day,” she continues, “I don’t think I’d mind.” We are far enough away, Toody can’t hear us. Also, the wind is picking up and the banner is making quite a racket. “Lady,” says I, almost against my will, “you are betrothed to the Duke, my boss. We’ve got to stop this talk, with all due respect.” She gets closer yet. “You’re a lawyer. Am I responsible for something that’s out of my control? I’m just as much a victim of this thing is you are. It’s making me crazy. I’m used to numbers, formulae, things I can control.” “Look,” says I, steadily losing the argument, “I appeal to your sense of what’s right.” “It’s not me,” she breathes in my face, “it’s a monster I live with.” “We got to help Toody, don’t you think? I saw the Spartan army. They ARE coming. Some are here already. This is no joke. The city could be in flames within hours.” “For me,” she whispers moving even closer yet, “the city has been in flames from the moment I first saw you.” “Yeah,” I’m forced to admit it, “for me, too.” “Ye gods,” she moans as she grabs me and kisses me. A warm thunderstorm boils into my mouth, sending thousands of the lightning bolts out through the hairs on my head and all the way down to the ends of my toes. Suddenly, she leaps off the platform and disappears into the night. It feels as if I dreamed her. I stand there with my eyes closed, savoring the taste of her lips until moisture of water balloon proportions drops on my upturned face. A rainstorm is coming in, and fat Midsummer drops are plopping paradiddles on the kettledrums and the planking of the platform. Automatically, I rush to fetch our Duke. He is sitting at the edge of the stage, just as I left him, except he’s no longer alone. There’s a young woman standing a few feet away from him. I think I recognize her. Or do I? |
| Ancient Greasepaint Copyright 1990 Louder Than a Lie Publications, LLC and David Keith Johnson All Rights Reserved |