Elephant Song

FOURTEEN

When the road gang returned to Miira after completing the road to Kuumic, it was hard to ignore the signs. Upon Waxy's house was a sign that read: "The Pope." Farther up the street, hanging from the edge of Poge Loder's roof, was a sign that read: "The real Pope. ½ price!" Farther up the street, painted in Waxy's unmistakable style, a sign leaned against Sunburst Sid's house, which read: "In here sleeps the cheap pope's ex-wife." Against the kraal fence was a sign that read: "Waxy's harem. Anything on all fours apply within."

True, the signs were troubled.

After securing the bulls, Little Will and Shiner Pete sat upon the logs of the kraal fence looking down at the town. Packy and the other bullhands had descended the grassy slope and were walking Miira's dusty street to get to their houses. Little Will swallowed against the hard lump in her throat and turned to Pete. "Where do we begin?"

Shiner Pete shielded his eyes against the sun and examined the town. "This is like harness that's been all tossed around and scrambled in a trunk. It just looks like a bunch of hooks and knots; but you can fix it. What you have to do is, one by one, untie each knot, unhook each hook." He pointed his finger at Sunburst Sid's house. "There's where we start."

Dot the Pot Drake sat on a long stone bench in the shade of her house's porch near the kraal. Cookie Jo Wayne, having secured the cookhouse wagon and horses, joined Dot on the bench. After an initial exchange of greetings and news, Cookie Jo pushed her silver-blond hair from her eyes and nodded toward the town. "How are you and Waxy getting on."

"About like dogs'n'cats. You and Packy?"

Cookie Jo sighed and shook her head. "I don't know."

They absent-mindedly watched the heat of Miira's street make the air above it dance. There were the sounds of angry voices coming from Sunburst Sid's place, and Dot raised her eyebrows when she saw Baggage Horse Betty march from Sunburst's door. "Now, will you look at that."

Cookie Jo watched as Sunburst stood in his doorway, calling out to Betty. Betty turned to reply and saw Waxy's "In here sleeps the cheap pope's ex-wife" sign. Picking up the sign, Betty turned abruptly and walked with rapid strides toward Poge Loder's place. Cookie Jo looked at Dot. "What do you suppose is happening?"

Dot the Pot shook her head and watched as Betty leaned the sign next to Poge's door, picked up a rock, and scratched the "ex-" out of the sign's wording. When she was finished, she examined the results of her efforts, then took a deep breath and disappeared into the darkness of Poge's doorway. After a few moments, Poge appeared in the doorway, went to where his "The real pope! ½ price!" sign was hanging and took it down. He turned, read the sign leaning next to his door, picked up the sign, and carried both of the signs indoors. A moment later, Poge ran from the doorway toward Dot's house. As he approached, Dot nodded. "How you doin', Poge?"

The man nodded, ran past the house to the kraal fence, picked up the "Waxy's harem" sign there, then turned and ran back to his own house. Seconds after he had entered it, Poge's door curtain covered the entrance to his house.

Dot leaned back against the front wall of her house. "Now if I was Mootch Movill, I'd say there might be a story in that."

Cookie Jo leaned forward, and a few moments later, Waxy walked from the door of his house. His eyes were confusion capped by a frown. He stood in the sun for a moment, scratched his head, and looked back at his house. Lowering his hand, he rushed to his "The Pope" sign, pulled it from the wall, and threw it inside the house as though the sign embarrassed him. The deed done, Waxy sat down upon a split-stump chair next to his door and stared in the direction of Poge Loder's place.

After a few more moments, Cookie Jo and Dot watched Poge Loder emerge from his doorway at the same time that Waxy got to his feet. Slowly, as though their feet were dragging through winter syrup, the two men approached each other, meeting in the center of the street. The two women could see that the two men were talking, and that it was talk instead of screaming was an event.

Cookie Jo shook her head. "I don't get it. I thought you said those two had been going at it like Arnheim and the Governor."

Dot nodded, observed the two men shake hands, then rubbed her eyes as the two men turned and walked back to their homes. When she opened her eyes she studied the deserted street, heard laughter nearby, and turned her gaze toward the kraal fence. She pointed at Little Will and Shiner Pete. "Now aren't those two just falling all over themselves just a bit?"

Cookie Jo studied the pair and looked back at Dot. "You don't suppose they were working a little of their think-and-do?"

"That's exactly what I suppose. Naughty, naughty."

Cookie Jo lifted her head, studied Packy Dern's house for a moment, then turned to Dot. "I don't imagine that they take requests."

"Hmm." Dot rubbed her chin, looked at Waxy's house, and nodded. "I bet they do." She grinned and looked at Cookie Jo. "If they don't someone who shall remain nameless might just rat on them to Waxy."

The two women stood and headed for the kraal fence.

Waxy sat on his cushion before his low plank table trying to write yesterday's entry in the Miira book. He chewed upon his reed pen for a moment, then tossed the thing down. "I don't understand it." He held his arm out toward the walls of the room. "I do not understand it! I hate that sonofabitch!"

His fist slammed down upon the table. "And there I was, pleasant as you please, standing in the middle of the damned street, in broad daylight, shaking hands—" He shook his head. "Maybe I'm sick."

He looked down at the papers, then swept them from the table with a single stroke of his arm. "Boring! That's what you are! D-e-d deadly dull goddamned paperwork!"

He leaned his back against the wall and looked at Miira's street through his open doorway. "Got half a mind to put my damned sign back up."

A great calm washed over him. He leaned the back of his head against the wall and closed his eyes. The faint sounds of the windjammers pounding out ragtime in the main top began thumping at the insides of his eardrums as the full complement of seventy-five bulls went tail-and-trunk around the hippodrome inside his eyelids. The image singled down to one bull. It was Queenie all decked out in silver sequins for the spectacular. Next to Queenie's left front stood the bullhand, Dorothy Drake, in dark blue sequins, her glossy black hair pinned up from her neck and capped by a long blue plume.

Waxy smiled as he let the vision and the sounds play in his mind. Dorothy turned, kootched along with her pachyderm, displaying her long, shapely legs. Her legs. They were clad in French knit hose—the kind with seams down the back.

"Yum."

She whirled about, and soon Waxy could see nothing but the sequined bullhand in the spotlight. The top of her costume seemed to strain against her ample bosom.

"Damn, but how did she ever get a handle like Dot the Pot?"

She smiled, the scarlet of her lips against the white of her teeth, the rich satin cream of her skin, the sparkling black of her eyes...

... the image wavered, her eyes changed to the color of blue, then back to black, then one was blue and the other black, then both were blue and stayed that way.

He heard a tiny voice. "I told you they were blue."

"I thought they were black," answered another tiny voice.

"Well, you should've checked."

Waxy studied the image, comforted by Dorothy's smile and the continuity of her eye pigmentation.

"Well, I'm glad that's settled." Beautiful blue eyes. And, Great Boolabong, those legs! Those long, lovely, luscious—

Waxy opened his eyes. "I've never even seen the damned show!" He frowned. "I've always been repairing and polishing harness! I've never seen Dot in anything but bullcrap-covered overalls!"

He scratched his head and tried to remember the time. There must have been a time when Dot was in costume. He closed his eyes, and there was Dorothy Drake inside his house. The smells! She was cooking. The cobit bread cut like fine, aged beef filet. Waxy chewed, and by damn it was beef! Dorothy, darling, Dorothy. Where ever did you get beef on Momus? Anything for you, Waxy love.

Waxy stood, walked around his table, and stumbled out into the street. Corn on the cob, lobster, scrapple, potpie, turkey, cranberry sauce, watermelon, spaghetti!

Lovely, lovely Dorothy, where in the hell did you get spaghetti? With antipasto? Chianti? Mama mia! 'At's-a some spicy meatball!

Anything for you, Waxy—

Waxy opened his eyes, realizing that he had just run into someone. He looked at the person's face, and it was Packy Dern.

"Uh, hi Packy."

Packy looked about the dusty street, then frowned at Waxy. "Hi, Waxy. Uh, where're you goin'?" "Damned if I know."

Packy nodded once. "See you there." The boss elephant man continued his stumble down the street.

—and the lovely Dorothy Drake again filled Waxy's vision. His feet walked upon clouds of whipped cream, the vision just out of reach. Those legs, that body, that smile, spaghetti! Waxy, I can help you with the paperwork. "Dorothy," he called. "Dorothy!" "What is it, Waxy?"

He opened his eyes and found himself next to the kraal, standing in front of Dot the Pot's porch. She was garbed in tattered overalls, her hair was snaggled, and Waxy suddenly remembered the lady busting Poge Loder's nose. Still, before him flashed images of the bullhand, her bosom straining against her blue-sequined costume, French knit stockings, the smell—the smell goddammit—of spaghetti!

Waxy closed his eyes, rubbed them, then looked away from the glorious vision just to clear his mind. He saw a boy and a girl sitting upon the kraal fence. They both screamed in surprise and fell over backwards when they realized that they were looking at themselves.

Little Will and Shiner Pete held hands as they stood before Waxy's table, Cookie Jo and Dot the Pot standing behind them. Waxy sat upon his cushion while Packy stood next to him, his face a study in perpendicular outrage. Waxy tapped his reed pen upon the table and poked, first at Little Will, then at Shiner Pete.

"Why?"

Shiner Pete looked Waxy square in the eye. "Little Will and I want to get married."

Waxy dropped the pen. "Hoo! Would that turn Poge's crank." He studied the pair, then held out his hand. "But why all this other stuff?"

Pete shuffled his feet around some, then spoke. "You didn't seem too keen on marriage the last time I was in town. We thought if we could square away your troubles with Poge—"

"What's that got to do with me and Dot?" Waxy pointed at the boss elephant man. "And Packy and Cookie Jo?"

Dot the Pot stepped forward and placed her hand upon Little Will's shoulder. "I asked them to do Cookie Jo and me a favor. If it's anybody's fault, it's mine."

Cookie Jo glanced at Packy, then at Waxy. "And mine." She looked at Packy, but the boss elephant man turned his glance toward Waxy. "Look, old son, can't we just put this thing to rest?"

Waxy leaned back against the wall, his eyebrows attempting to mate with his hairline. "I don't know." He looked at the boss elephant man. "What about you?"

Packy's face reddened as his voice lowered. "Well, I was going to ask Cookie once we got back anyways—" Cookie Jo issued a small scream and almost flattened Packy against the wall.

"You never said. Packy, you never said."

His composure almost restored, Packy looked into Cookie Jo's eyes. "Cookie, some things go without saying." He shrugged. '"Sides, I didn't know if you'd go for it."

Waxy looked at Shiner Pete and pointed at Cookie Jo. "What did you do? Did you have her slinging hash in the altogether?"

Pete's face flushed and he remained silent. Waxy scratched his chin, then looked up at Dot the Pot. "Well?"

"Well, what?"

"You going to make me say it?"

Dot grinned. "You can bet your brass buttons on that, Waxy."

"That spaghetti was hitting below the belt."

Dot withdrew her hand from Little Will's shoulder and leaned over Waxy's table. "You want spaghetti? I'll figure out how to make it."

Waxy looked down and hunched his shoulders up and down. "What're you going to do with a one-armed man?"

"It's not your arm I'm interested in." Dot moved around the table and knelt next to Waxy. "You are such a jerk."

Waxy looked up at Shiner Pete and Little Will. "I guess that leaves you two." Waxy waved his arm about. "Does Poge know about any of this?"

Both Pete and Little Will shook their heads.

Waxy pursed his lips for a moment, and then nodded. "Good. Never tell him. Never. Neither him nor Baggage Horse Betty." Waxy grinned. "There's a time and a place for everything. Now, as to you two—"

Weeks later, far to the south in Tarzak, Warts, the Pendiian route book man, was conferring with his assistant, Agdok Shti-maak, one of the turtle-shelled inhabitants of the planet Wallabee. Turtlehead held out a paper with a two-fingered hand. "Then there is this copy of the entry for the town of Miira."

Warts sighed, took the sheet of paper, and read it:

Workday, the 1st of Layup, Second year since the Crash Waxy Adnelli on the Miira Books

Today the road gang returned. No one died, and the Miira-Kuumic Road is finished. Everybody is getting ready for The Season the second in Tarzak.

Marriages annulled:

Baggage Horse Betty Loder to Sunburst Sid Bates;

Dot the Pot Drake to Daisy the Percheron;

Poge Loder to his mother, Agnes Loder;

Waxy Adnelli to Waxy Adnelli;

Poge Loder to the Miira town cesspool;

Waxy Adnelli to various and sundry plants and animals in the immediate vicinity of the town.

Married today:

Poge Loder to his wife, Baggage Horse Betty, to be made retroactive enough to take care of the three Loder boys;

Mortimer Loder and Agnes Loder, to be made retroactive enough to legitimize Poge in the eyes of the religion to which he is afflicted;

Boss elephant man Packy Dern to Cookie Jo Wayne;

Waxy Adnelli to Dot the Pot Drake;

Shiner Pete Adnelli to Little Will Kole.

And may the Great Boolabong look over us, each and every one.

Warts handed the paper back to his assistant. "Turtlehead," he said, "our primary purpose is to preserve John J. O'Hara's vision of the show. We must devote our every effort at making a success out of The Season the second." He waved a lumpy hand at the paper. "I think that human mating and religious rituals are something better left to specialists."

Turtlehead glanced at the paper, then looked back at Warts. "Do you still want me to move to Miira and help Waxy?"

Warts nodded. "Waxy has complained about the workload." Warts tapped a lumpy finger against the paper. "Still, I wonder why Poge wedded the town cesspool? Is it symbolic?"

"It would seem to be, since such an arrangement hardly seems productive." Turtlehead placed the paper into the Miira Book, then looked back at Warts. "Perhaps it was arranged. It was the custom upon my planet."

Warts scratched his lumps and nodded. "Perhaps. After The Season, I might ask Waxy to explain a few of these things. Meanwhile, there is The Seaaon for which to prepare." Warts noticed a curious expression upon Turtlehead's face, that of it which could be seen beneath his shell. "Is something bothering you?"

Turtlehead angrily tapped one finger against the cover of the Miira Book. "It seems rather callous for Waxy to wed all of those plants and animals, and then to dump them for one female human."

Warts nodded. "As I said, perhaps the subject is better left to specialists."