He came now to a darkened TV room, whose walls, floor and ceiling had been carpeted with heterogenous scavenged remnants. An old console set dominated a couch on which were crowded Iona Draggerman, Jura Burris and Turk Vanson.
"Hey, Tug, join us! We're watching Vajayjay and Badonkadonk!"
"It's that episode where Vajayjay's relatives visit from India and have to go on a possum hunt!"
The antics of Kaz's animated Hindi cat and Appalachian mule, while generally amusing, held no immediate allure for Tug.
"Aren't you guys playing the part of quarks tonight? Shouldn't you be getting your costumes ready?"
"We've got hours yet!"
"We don't dance every time Ozzie pulls our strings!"
Tug moved on, past various uncanny or domestic tableaux, including the always spooky incense-fueled devotional practice of Tatang, the mono-named shorebird from the sunken Kiribati Islands.
At last he found Sukey Damariscotta, sitting all bundled up and cross-legged in a director's chair on deck, sketching trees upon the shoreline.
Only twenty-four, Sukey possessed a preternatural confidence derived from her autodidactic artistic prowess. Tug had never met anyone so capable of both meticulous fine art and fluent cartooning.
Sukey's heritage included more Amerind blood than most other Americans possessed. In her, the old diffuse and diluted aboriginal strains absorbed by generations of colonists had recombined to birth a classic pre-Columbian beauty, all cheekbones, bronze skin and coal-black hair, styled somewhat incongruously in a Dead Rabbits tough-girl cut repopularized recently by pennywhistlers the Pogues.
Tug was more than a little in love with the talented and personable young woman, but had dared say nothing to her of his feelings so far.
Dropping down to the December-cold deck, Tug admired the drawing. "Sweet. I like the lines of that beech tree."
Sukey accepted the praise without false humility or ego. "Thanks. Hey, remember those caricatures I was working on?"
Sukey's cartoon captures of the cast of the ongoing Tom Pudding farcical drama managed to nail their personalities in a minimum of brisk, economical lines. Tug had been a little taken aback when she showed him his own depiction. Did he really look like such a craggy, aged misanthrope? But in the end, he had to confess the likeness.
"Sure. You added any new ones?"
Sukey tucked her charcoal stick behind one ear and flipped the pages of her sketchbook.
Tug confronted an image of Pellenera in the guise of the enormous demi-barebreasted Statue of Marianne on her island home in New York Harbor. The statue's fixed pose of torch held aloft had been modified to feature Pellenera cradling all the infantilized Tom Pudding crew to her bosom.
When Tug had finished laughing, he said, "Hey, you ever gotten interested in bande dessinée? With an image like that, you're halfway there."
"Oh, I can't tell a story to save my life."
"Well, what if we collaborate? Here, give me that pad and a pencil, and I'll rough something out."
"What's the story going to be about?"
"It'll be about-about life in Carrollboro."
Tug scrawled a three-by-three matrix of panels and, suddenly inspired, began populating them with stick figures and word balloons.
Sukey leaned in close, and Tug could smell intoxicating scents of raw woodsmoke and wild weather tangled in her hair.
9. "More ocarina!"
The two men stood in a semi-secluded corner backstage at the Keith Vawter Memorial Auditorium, illuminated only by the dimmest of caged worklights that seemed to throw more shadows than photons. All around them was a chaos one could only hope would exhibit emergent properties soon.
Don Rippey was bellowing at people assembling a set: "Have any of you guys ever even seen a hammer before?!?"
Janey Vogelsang was trying to make adjustments to two costumes at once: "No, no, your arrow sash has to go counterclockwise if you're a gluon!"
Turk Vanson was coaching a chorus of ocarina players. "Why the hell did I bother writing out the tablatures if you never even studied them!?!"
Crowds of other actors and dancers and musicians and crew-bosses and directors and makeup artists and stagehands and techies surged around these knots of haranguers and haranguees in the usual pre-chautauqua madness.
But Ozzie remained focused and indifferent to the tumult, in a most unnatural fashion. His lack of affect disturbed Tug. Despite Ozzie's youth and a certain immaturity, he could appear ageless and deep as a well. Now, with Sphinxlike expression undermined only slightly by the juvenile wispy mustache, he had Tug pinned down with machine-gun questions.
"You're sure you know all your cues? Did you replace those torn gels? What about that multiple spotlight effect I specified during the Boson Ballet?"
"It's all under control, Ozzie. The last run-through was perfect."
Oswaldo appeared slightly mollified, though still dubious. "You'd better be right. A lot is depending on this. And I won't be here to supervise every minute of the production."
"You won't be? I thought this spectacle was going to be your shining moment. Where are you going?"
The pudgy genius realized he had revealed something secret, and showed a second's rare disconcertment. "None of your business."
Oswaldo Vasterling turned away from Tug, then suddenly swung back, exhibiting the most emotion Tug had yet witnessed in the enigmatic fellow.
"Gingerella, do you like this world?"
Tug's turn to feel nonplussed. "Do I like this world? Well, yeah, I guess so… It's a pretty decent place. Things don't always fall out in my favor, or the way I'd wish. I lost my job and my home just a month ago. But everyone has ups and downs, right? And besides, what choice do I have?"
Oswaldo stared intently at Tug. "I don't think you really do care for this universe. I think you're like me. You see, I know this world for what it is-a fallen place, a botch, an imperfect reflection of a higher reality and a better place. And as for choices-well, time will tell."
On that note, Oswaldo Vasterling scuttled off like Professor T. E. Wogglebug in Baum's The Vizier of Cockaigne.
Tug shook his head in puzzlement at this Gnostic Gnonsense, then checked his watch. He had time for one last curtain-parting peek out front.
The well-lighted auditorium was about a third full, with lots more people flowing in. Ozzie might make his nut after all, allowing him to continue with his crazy experiments…
Hey, a bunch of Tug's old crowd! Pete, Pavel, Olive-essentially, everyone who had helped him move out of The Wyandot. Accidental manifestation, or solidarity with their old pal?
Wow, that move seemed ages ago. Tug experienced a momentary twinge of guilt. He really needed to reconnect with them all. That mass o-mail telling them he was okay and not to worry had been pretty bush league. But the Tom Pudding experience had utterly superseded his old life, as if he had moved to another country, leaving the patterns of decades to evanesce like phantoms upon the dawn…
Tug recognized Lee Smolin in another section of seats, surrounded by a claque of bearded nerds. The physicist's phiz was familiar, the man having attained a certain public profile with his CBC documentaries such as The Universal Elegance…
The voice of Harmon Frawley, director-in-chief, rang out, "Places, everyone!"
Tug hastened back to his boards.
He found Sukey Damariscotta waiting there. She wore purple tights and leotard over bountiful curves. Tug's knees weakened.
"Doing that bee-dee together this afternoon was lots of fun, Tug. Let's keep at it! Now wish me luck! I've never portrayed a membrane before!"
Sukey planted a kiss on Tug's cheek, then bounced off.
Glowing brighter than any floodlight, Tug turned to his controls. He tilted the monitor that showed him the stage to a better viewing angle.