“But what about Maricell?” I asked as I began to cry. “She okay?”
Mother nodded. “She’s hurt, but we think she’s going to live.”
Seventeen
As we raced back through Europa and across the Atlanticum bridge to America-1, and Walter sat slumped and silent, I tried to understand what had happened. That I had risked my life to try to revenge my half brothers and sisters, whom I had never met before—or even knew existed—perplexed and frightened me. But more troubling than my suicide run at the satin, was the depth of my feelings for them.
Did that mean that Mother was right all along? Was it where I belonged? Should I join Tanoshi No Wah and be in their shows? If I did, certainly my fame would change their lives. As Mason had said, they could tour the cities and charge a hundred times more. They wouldn’t have to eat roasted rat, live in the mud, and be attacked by pillaging satins.
Or maybe it wasn’t that simple. Maybe I wasn’t what they needed at all. Maybe my fame would only do to them what it had done to me. The way they celebrated, toasted, and cheered me, I had been a deity and a promise I doubted I could ever fulfill. And what would it be like for me, traveling around the world, holding Mother’s clothes as she stripped or even dancing with her? I couldn’t fathom it. Worse, I could imagine tens of thousands of channel reporters chasing after us, trampling the grounds and ripping the tents to get the story and images of my new peculiar career.
What if what I really felt was guilt? What if that was why I had run at the satin? But the truth was I hadn’t caused their misery. I hadn’t taken Maricell’s jaw, one brother’s arms, another’s heart, and whatever else. No, I decided, the best I could do for Tanoshi No Wah was stay with my plan and destroy the man who had made them suffer.
After exiting the Loop, we sped past the lights of Ros Begas, and up ahead, on the mountain, searchlights and lasers wove a fabric of light into the night sky. Halfway up the access road we had to stop, as the rest of the way was jammed with thousands of cars. A moment later, though, officials recognized us, and we were directed straight to the steps of the PartyHaus.
The area was flooded with people, smoke, bright screens, and sequined dancers. I saw LardLik men in big wooden necklaces; Ball Description girls dressed as mice and cats. Hundreds of Petunia Tune women wore elaborate gowns covered with spots and dots. But most were Ültra in super-saturated stripes, plaids, and florals, with feathers, metals, leathers, cardboards, necklaces, ruffs, lace, hats, ribbons, and lights. From the top step of the PartyHaus all the way down to the oxygen gardens, they formed a writhing mass of colors, textures, and shapes like the grotesque and oily guts of an enormous sausage made of every possible fashion catastrophe.
Even before the door slid back, I could hear an ominous Ültra beat in the distance. And when the door did open, a cascade of blue and orange fireworks exploded along the road sending sparks sizzling through the air. The gunpowder and smoke combined with an odd rubbery odor, and while it wasn’t as bad as some of the smells in the slubs, the stench sat in the back of my mouth and burned like a splash of stomach acid. The sea of partiers before the car cheered, clapped, and screamed at us.
– They thought you were dead!
– I wanna see inside Elle!
– Michael, Nora was attacked!
– Fist my heart muscle!
– I love you, but I hate you!
I tried to locate the person who had mentioned Nora, but it was impossible in the mass of movement and sounds coming from every direction. Fighting their way through the crowd, two hospitality girls, like those of old—covered with food, soap, oils, paint, wax, vomit, and other bodily fluids—came to greet us.
“Welcome to the RiverGroup product show,” said one, who had a big splat of what I assumed was pudding across her face and chest. “It promises to be the most fun show of all time, throughout the universe and perpetuity!”
“Was Nora attacked?” I asked her, as I stepped from the car.
Before she could answer, a man in a striped vest, checked pants, with blood-red eyes bellowed, “Should be! Hate that whore!” He began choking and then threw up black coagulated carrot juice onto his pink neon platforms.
Shoving him backward, toppling him and several others like bowling pins, Pudding snarled, “Back up, fuckers! Make room.”
“Excuse me,” I said to her, with instant respect, “could you please keep an eye on my friend.” I thumbed toward Walter, who still stood in the car, his eyes wide and apprehensive. She said she would and then cleared a narrow path up the stairs.
Halfway up, I heard a familiar voice.
“Were you assaulted by MKG’s satins?” The question came from the heavy woman from Intellectuals and Soup—the one I’d dubbed Pink Hat. She wore a simple, tasteful, long orange and red gown that looked like a TUNE-21, and her trademark feathered chapeau.
I stopped. I was surprised to see her here and asked, “MKG’s satins?”
Her brown eyes grew wide as if she hadn’t expected me to recognize her or respond. “Michael,” she said, the same way she might have savored lobster bisque, “I saw a report.” In person, her face reminded me of a young girl because she only wore cherry eye shadow, but otherwise her skin looked clean. “The report was about a dead satin in Asia-12… an MGK satin.”
Of course! The satins had been gold—one of the MKG colors, and Nora told me her father had sent them. The news was crushing because it meant that I had brought those satins to my brothers and sisters. I asked her, “Is Nora okay?”
Pink Hat’s mouth tightened and her eyes—which looked larger, and a deeper shade of milk chocolate in person—watered. “It hasn’t been confirmed,” she said, in a voice that didn’t seem to want to believe, “but I think she was injured.”
“Who did it?” I asked, as if I couldn’t fathom the answer.
“Crush my ass in my head!” screamed some Ültra goon behind her.
After she grimaced at the shouter, all she seemed able to say was, “I’m sorry.”
“She’s not dead, is she?”
“No!” She shook her head, and a tear skittered down her cheek and disappeared into the folds of her chin. “I just love you two,” she added, as she pulled pink tissues from her tiny beaded handbag.
“RiverGroup,” said Goatee in that slow, reflective way he had, “is barely viable.” He stood beside Pink Hat, like her escort, but I hadn’t even noticed him in his plain if handsome brown suit and a matching beret. His eyes focused on me with both intensity and feeling. “Despite tonight’s histrionics,” he continued, “my investigations suggest that RiverGroup is bankrupt. Monetarily and morally. There is one possibility now.”
“Rip it!” screamed a woman with a green face. “Break it blue!”
After I nodded to the intellectuals, I continued up the stairs. Goatee was right; there was only one possibility, and I needed to find my nitrocellulose suit. At the top, the Ültra was loud and each drumbeat knocked a half-breath from my lungs.
“VIP area,” shouted Pudding, “is level fifteen.” She motioned at an elevator bank.
“I had a suit delivered. Know where it is?”
She shook her head and shrugged. I thanked her, and then headed through the doors. The foyer had been turned into a lounge. Bars lined the walls. Behind it stood hulky men in see-through tuxedos. Partiers lined up in front of blinking carrot, beet, and radish lights. “Sir,” said one of the bartenders, who was coming toward me with a long orange tube, “tap root enema?”