XI
When I open my apartment door, I hear the scuttling of a hundred sticky toes. The refrigerator’s surface writhes with milk-white movement against the dark green of leaves. In another second I see that the white paint is instead the sinuous shimmer-dance of the geckos, their camouflage perfect as they scramble for cover. I open the refrigerator and take out a wine cooler; my feet crunch down on a hundred molting gecko skins, the sound like dead leaves, or brittle cicada chrysalises.
I sit in my underwear and contemplate my wound by the TV’s redemptive light. It has healed itself so completely that I can barely find it. The itching, however, has intensified, until I feel it all over, inside me.
Nothing holds my interest on my palm except the exquisite imperfections: the gradations of colors, the rough pliable feel of it, the scratches from Emily’s cat.
I walk into the bedroom and ease myself beneath the covers of my bed. I imagine I smell the sea, a salt breeze wafting through the window. The stars seem like pieces of jagged glass ready to fall onto me. I toss in my bed and cannot sleep. I lie on my stomach. I lie on my side. The covers are too hot, but when I strip them away, my body becomes too cold. The water I drank an hour ago has settled in my stomach like a smooth, aching stone.
Finally, the cold keeps me half-awake and I prop myself sleepily against the pillow. I hear voices outside and see flashes of light from the window, like a ferris wheel rising and falling. But I do not get up.
Then he stands at the foot of my bed, staring at me. A cold blue tint dyes his flesh, as if the TV’s glow has sunburned him. The marble cast of his face is as perfect as the most perfect sentence I have ever written in my life. His eyes are so sad that I cannot meet his gaze; his face holds so many years of pain, of wanting to leave the flesh. He speaks to me and although I cannot hear him, I know what he is saying. I am crying again, but softly, softly. The voices on the street are louder and the tinkling of bells so very light.
And so I discard my big-body skin and my huge hands and my ungainly height and I walk out of my apartment with David Jones, to join the carnival under the moon, by the seashore, where none of us can hurt or be hurt anymore.
[Article excerpts taken from newspaper accounts in 1988 and 1989 by Michael Koretzky in The Independent Florida Alligator and by Ronald DuPont Jr. in The Gainesville Sun.]
THE AMBERGRIS GLOSSARY
— A —
AANDALAY, ISLE OF. The mythic homeland of the piratical Aan Tribes. According to the tales of the Aan, the Southern Hemisphere once consisted of a single landmass, the Isle of Aandalay, populated solely by the happy, peaceful Children of Aan. Only after a great cataclysm — the nature of which varies more from tale to tale than the weather in that part of the world — shattered the Isle into a thousand pieces did the Aan become warlike, each faction certain they possessed the mandate for restoration of a united Isle of Aandalay. Thus did piracy become rationalized as a quest for a homeland. Some Aan even attacked the mainland, claiming it was merely a huge splinter exiled from their beloved Isle. See also: Calabrian Calendar.
ABRASIS, MICHAEL. The first head librarian of the Manzikert Memorial Library. Abrasis is best known for his collection of erotic literature and lithographs. When he died, in his sleep, his body could not at first be removed from his apartment because the piles of pornography had blocked the only route from bed to door. Oddly enough, by the time Abrasis’ relatives came to collect his things, the apartment had been picked clean. Abrasis bred prize-winning cababari in his spare time. See also: Cababari; Manzikert Memorial Library.
ALBUMUTH BOULEVARD. A rather famous thoroughfare cutting through the heart of Ambergris.
The site of both the Borges Bookstore and the headquarters of Hoegbotton & Sons,Albumuth Boulevard has long been privy to the inner workings of the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. During the civil disturbances of the Reds and the Greens,Albumuth Boulevard served as the main battlefield. Certainly the recent armed struggle between Hoegbotton’s publishing arm and the inscrutable Frankwrithe & Lewden could not have occurred without the events that first unfolded on the boulevard. No one can agree on the origin of the name “Albumuth,” or on the limits of the boulevard. As Sirin once said, “Like the Moth,Albumuth Boulevard has a thousand tributaries and streams, so that, ultimately, who can determine its boundaries or the limits of its influence?” See also: Borges Bookstore; Cappers; Frankwrithe& Lewden; Greens; Reds; Sirin.
ALFAR. The ruins of Alfar form, with Zamilon, the only recorded instances of a particular architectural style reminiscent of gray cap buildings. Most structures at both Alfar and Zamilon have been constructed as circles within circles. Alfar, like Zamilon, is of unknown origin, but an additional peculiar tale is told by shepherds in both places: that, on certain nights, Alfar and Zamilon glow iridescent green and red, a sheen that spreads and intensifies so slowly that observers cannot at first recognize the change, but finally cannot doubt the evidence of their eyes. No one has as yet confirmed this claim independently, nor has anyone thought to time these “eruptions” of color, one to the other. What would it mean if Alfar and Zamilon became luminous on the same nights? See also: Busker, Alan; Nysman, Michael; Zamilon.
AMBERGRIS. In folklore, a marbled substance often found on the seashore and thought to be a “sea mushroom.” Actually produced in the intestine of whales, ambergris can only be created when partially-digested squid beaks are present in the whale’s system. Whalers long sought ambergris for use as an aphrodisiac, in perfumes, and as a folk medicine. Since the founding of the city ofAmbergris, however, the popularity of the substance has decreased dramatically. The Truffidian Antechambers discontinued the habit of anointing their ears, eyebrows, and armpits with a tincture of ambergris before holiday sermons. The Kalif no longer eats raw ambergris to stimulate virility, substituting live snails. Male rats, however, still enter a sexual frenzy when they smell ambergris. See also: Kalif, The; Moonrat; Rats.
AMBERGRISIAN GASTRONOMIC ASSOCIATION. Founded during the days of Trillian the Great Banker, the AGA has published a number of books, including One Thousand Squid Recipes and Experiments with Different Types of Grease. The association achieved a degree of notoriety by uncovering the lost ingredients for Oliphaunt’s Delight: 1 pound of cherries, 17 pounds of freshwater squid, 20 gallons of goat’s milk, 5 pounds of fish paste (preferably flounder) and 1 ounce of asparagus. See also: Oliphaunt, The.
AMBERGRISIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Completely unlike the Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society. The most adventure this group has seen is undercooked flounder at the annual Ambergrisian Historical Society Ball and the occasional paper cut (sweet red relief from boredom!) opening mail sent by similar dullards located in Morrow andStockton. See also: Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society.
AMBERGRISIANS FOR THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS SOCIETY. Completely unlike the Ambergrisian Historical Society. Never has membership in a historical society been so fraught with peril. Every two or three years, another few members succumb to the temptation to pry open a manhole cover and go spelunking amongst the sewer drains. Inevitably, someone gets stuck in a culvert and the others go for help, or the gray caps, presumably, catch them and they disappear forever. One imagines the hapless AFTOIS members waving their official membership cards at the approaching, unimpressed gray caps. When not conspiring to commit assisted suicide, the AFTOIS publishes The Real History Newsletter. See also: Cappers; Martigan, Red; Real History Newsletter, The.