* * *
Gianni Jiki’s tattoo parlor was by no means a hole in the wall. It was virtually a hospital with a central reception hall hung with display charts and a dozen side clinics with a dozen assistants working on the assembly-line principle. If, say, a Guff buck desired the prized (and rather expensive) cobra tattoo, the snake was first outlined around his waist in one surgery, detailed in the next, colored in a third, and the fanged head finalized in a fourth after a most respectful and tactfully induced erection. The lady who desired her labia majora converted into the lids of a roguish eye received the same respectful and tactful assembly line attention.
But on this first Opsday it was not business as usual, it was the mendicants’ carnival. In addition to decorative and erotic tattooing, Gianni Jiki also contrived magnificent injuries; bruises, contusions, livid scars, fresh wounds, and malignant skin eruptions for the larcenous accident “victims,” the blackmailing beggars, the deadbeats of the Guff. Consequently, his hospital was the informal clubhouse of the Guff’s professional panhandlers.
A joyous prosthetic dance was in progress in the main hall when Gretchen Nunn arrived. Synthesizers screamed. The professional cripples had removed their prosthetic arms, legs, hands, feet, and even half a neck and a shoulder. They were sitting in a circle, laughing and keying their tiny hand controls, while their detached prosthetic parts danced and cavorted in response to the radio commands. Lone legs kicked or tapped or soft-shoed. Single arms entwined with others in a prosthetic square dance. And some manipulators were clever enough to turn the fingers of their detached hands into chorus lines.
A jolly man, four-by-four-fat, stark naked, tattooed from head to toe, came up to Gretchen, beamed and greeted her. “Buon giorno. Opbless. Never, I thought, mai, never would you return.”
“Opbless,” Gretchen answered. “You—You’re Mr. Jiki, of course?”
“Si. Gianni. You were pazza the other night, eh? Too much wine?”
“I’ve come to apologize and make it up to you, Gianni.”
“To apology? Grazie. Most gentile. Grazie. But to make up? What? A joke only, eh? Molto cattiva, but yet only the joke. You have come, and my Opsday is made. That is enough.”
“But I must do something for you.”
“You must, eh? So.” Gianni considered, then beamed even broader. “Bene! You will dance with us.”
Gretchen stared at him. He met her look and nodded toward the floor. “Pick your partner, gentile signora.”
She was not the one to cavil or hesitate. Gretchen stepped onto the main floor, cased the cavorting prosthetics, and at last tapped the shoulder of a shoulder-and-arm.
“Sigfried,” Gianni called to three-quarters of a beggar. “La signora will waltz with you.”
Gretchen danced. Gianni Jiki sang, “Gualtiero! Gualtiero! Condurre mi per altare…”
* * *
They had this wretched hull of a Mississippi paddle wheeler for a barge and were holding their KKK Bar-B-Q on it. Shima found the celebration impossible to believe. There was a bed of glowing coals. There was a gigantic rotisserie revolving over it. And on the massive steel spit roasted a trussed form that was unmistakably humanoid.
“Dear God!” Shima whispered. “A cannibal barbecue.”
A seven-foot Watusi king, carrying all the accouterments of African royalty, greeted Shima. “Opbless, Dr. Shima, and welcome to our Honkfeast.”
“Opbless,” Shima replied faintly. “So you remember me?”
“Who could forget your rendition of that quaint Porgy and Bess with Miz Nunn? It is to be treasured.”
“I’m here to make amends for that. I’d like very much to square it with you; courtesywise, moneywise, anywise. You name it.”
“On Opsday? Impossible. Forget it, doctor. We have. Now come and join the feast. Dinner is about to be served.”
“I’d really like to do something for you,” Shima persisted, “because I want something from you.”
“Oh? What?”
“An estimate.”
“Yes? Of what?”
“I must conduct a sensory test which requires absolute isolation of the subject. I was considering some sort of small, thick concrete bunker.”
“Yes. And?”
“You people have a lock on the construction industry. How quickly could you put a bunker together and for how much? Can you give me a time and cost estimate?”
The Watusi king shook his head sadly. “Alas, impossible to gratify you, Dr. Shima. We are out on strike protesting management’s use of P.L.O. guards for security. They are not genuinely black, despite all P.L.O. claims. It will probably last another three months, and we are preparing for bloodshed. So sorry. Now come and join our feast.”
Shima waved queasily. “So sorry, but I have no appetite for long pig today.”
The Watusi lowered his voice conspiratorially. “Please do not disillusion our other guests, doctor, but we would not demean the KKK by roasting a mere Honk. We’re celebrating with a delicacy far more rare and expensive.”
“Than a man? My God! What?”
“A gorilla.”
* * *
Opsday! Opsday! Opsday! And in the Church of All Atheists they were crowning Christ “King of Fools” while the organ thundered sardonically. It was live, not a recording, Gretchen noted with surprise. There was a raving maniac on the organ bench, feet pounding the pedal bass, hands mangling the four keyboard manuals, and he was singing, groaning and growling a running continuo to his Satanic music.
She couldn’t appraise his class or status from his Ops rags, but he seemed to be an Iroquois Indian from his face and head. Swarthy complexion. Jutting nose. Wide, thin lips. Heavy ears. And a shaven skull, with the exception of a stiff black crest running from brow to nape.
“All he needs is a war bonnet,” she thought as she stole into the loft for a closer look.
Evidently he had wide side-vision. “What the hell are you doing here? Opbless.”
“Opbless,” Gretchen called over the roar of the organ. “I came to cool a scandal I created in the church the other day.”
“Oh. R. Like wow. You’re the bije babe who sang Orff’s Catulli Carmina. Forget it. The church has. Got a credit line of your own?”
“Credit?”
“Stay with it, babe. Credit. I.D. Name.”
“Oh. Gretchen Nunn. You?”
“Manitou-Win-Na-Mis-Ma-Bago.”
“Wh-what?”
“In your language means, He-Who-Charms-Manitou-Out-of-Sky.”
“You’re an Indian?”
“Most of me.”
“Like Opbless and wow and what do I call you? Mannie? Mr. Bago?”
“Hell no. That don’t go down. Call me Finkel.”
“Finkel!”
“R on. Scriabin Finkel.”
* * *
“The Right to Life” ballet of unborn children was being danced by twenty naked midgets in the Equal Rights maternity hospital. Each of them was connected to the tip of a phallic maypole by an umbilical cord, and all were mewing a fetal chorus to the muted orchestral accompaniment conducted by a savage Cossack who snarled at Shima in B-flat minor, “Get the hell out of the act, dude. Opbless.”
“Opbless. Sorry. Don’t mean to intrude. I’m just looking for someone in charge.”
“I’m in charge.”
“I want to apologize for the fuss I kicked up the other day, and square it.”
“Oh. R. You’re the joker that said he got banged by the elephant?”
“Yes.”
“Got a name?”
“Shima. Blaise Shima. Yours?”
“Aurora.”
“What?”
“Yeah. I was named after the battleship that backed the Red Revolution. R. Apology accepted. No hard feelings and Opbless. Now get the hell out, Shima. We’ve got to transpose, and these clowns can’t hack it.”