Moldenke said, "I believe that deletion should read eEagleman.' Professor Eagleman. They get worse toward the end."
Featherfightei closed the book, returned it to the drawer. "Would you like to start today, Mr. Bufona?"
"Yes. I need the chits. What will I be doing?"
"You'll be eating various insects and dreaming up recipes. Let's get a frock on you and I'll take you down to the Tasting Lab."
76
Roquette opened a door. "This is your room, Moldenke. A bed, a chair, a sink, an oval lookout, a night-stand, a radio, a lamp, a closet, and a small fireplace with mock logs." Moldenke said, "Very nice."
Roquette said, "There's a common pisser down the hall. We share."
Moldenke said that would be fine. "I think I'll take a nap and give my hearts a rest." He went to the bed and fluffed a rubber pillow.
Roquette said, "No rest. I'll show you around part of the boat."
A note in greenish ink was pinned to the pillow.
Moldenke,
I am on the boat. Don't show it if you see me.
Love,
Roberta
He folded the note and ate it. Roquette waited in the hall. "Hurry on, Dink. Leave your baggage here and we'll meet a few of the folks. Who knows, we might catch a movie." He removed his packs and left them at the foot of the bed, followed Roquette to the elevator.
77
Mr. Featherfighter,
Here is my first report:
(1) The cedar bagworm does not seem worth the bother of tearing it out of the bag. It is leathery on chewing and it has a tendency toward bitter excretions. However, if one were to allow them to pupate and emerge, they may then be soaked in potato milk and pan fried.
(2) Halictine bees, dried, make a hearty, bracing tea, good for the imagination. Eaten raw they leave blisters in the mouth.
(3) The cicada killer, boiled and iced, resembles the quahog of the old days.
(4) While the robber fly has a disturbing pungency and tends to irritate the chuffs, it does have beautiful eyes.
78
Mr. Bufona,
Tasting Lab
The Health Truck
MEMO
Your first report is now on my desk, etcetera.
Mr. Featherfighter
Mr. Featherfighter's Office
The Health Truck
79
There were no lookouts in the Tasting Lab. At lunch break Moldenke turned to the wall and closed his eye until the time was up. Had there been lookouts he would have watched the sidewalks go by.
On the second day of work he arrived early and found an aquarium on his desk, and a note: An aquarium, Bufo, since you don't have a lookout. Will send along the water and the fish later. I'll read your report today-Mr. Featheretcetera.
On the third day, when he swiveled around from his lunch break and found a gallon of fleas marked "for tasting," he wrote a memo:
Mr. Featherfighter,
MEMO
No. No fleas. I have hesitations.
Yours,
Moldenke (The name is
M O L D E N K E.)
80
Mr. Bufo
Tasting Lab
The Health Truck
MEMO
I have read your first report, Mr. B. I find it lacking in seriousness, especially toward the end. I look forward to the second report.
Your employer,
Mr. Etcetera
81
Mr. Etcetera,
My second report:
(1) Both fleas and cantharides lead to self-abuse.
(2) I feel I should resign.
(3) I feel. I feel. Therapy helped me.
(4) I do resign.
No longer yours,
Moldenke
82
Roquette said, "Let's stop off at the hot room. Take off your clothes, son. We're all ourselves in the hot room." Moldenke undressed and hung his clothes in a locker. "My hearts, Roquette. I shouldn't be going in there."
"Malarky, Dink. Step in. You'll never regret it."
They bowed under a low passageway, entered a room lit dimly red. Wooden benches, a wood-burning stove, a woman attending the fire, the odor of wood sap.
"Sit down, son. Relax." Moldenke sat on a bench, head between his knees. "Breathe it in, son."
"What's the temperature, Roquette?"
"That would be hard to say. I wouldn't want to guess."
Moldenke sat up. Another heart stopped. "May I have water? Is there water in here? I need liquids."
"Watch the fire-lady. Fire-lady, this is Moldenke. He'll be boating with us." The fire-lady turned, smiled. Moldenke's eye was closed. "Let the poisons work themselves out, Moldenke. Let it come. Fire-lady, get this man a cup of water." She carried a wooden bucket, dipped her hands in, splashed water over Moldenke's body. He opened his eye. Perspiration filled it.
Roquette whispered, "She likes you, son. Wouldn't you say her tit nipples resemble pencil erasers? Moldenke?"
"I don't know." He tried to clear his eye. Her silhouette against the stove light seemed familiar. "Cock?"
"Pardon me, Moldenke," Roquette said. "Do you know this lady?"
Moldenke said he didn't and closed his eye.
83
Dear Miss Roberta,
Once they said there was nothing to do about the weather, then there was, then too much was done, and now it's out of control. Keep yourself warm, Roberta, no matter what comes down from up. Hide your thinking in the clouds where artificial winds do not exist. I'm sorry, Cock. Excuse me. I've strayed from the middle.
I will tell you about an interesting thing I saw in the papers, last nigger dies in great Chicago. Cock, the very last one is gone. Roosevelt Teaset. The article says they'll clean him up, prepare him, and show him in a case at Preservation Hall. I don't doubt they'll also sell popcorn, and put him next to a banana plant. They had stuffed him with twenty odd hearts before the blood rush drowned his brain.
I am wired today, Roberta. I may go on. My feelings are greatly improved. I find it hard to acquaint myself with the new condition, but I don't hesitate to take advantage of it.
Roberta, do you remember the morning I scattered sesame on the window sill and the mock birds came along to feed and woke you up? Remember the night we slept in a rubber house at the edge of a marsh in the worst of summerfall? I showed you foxfire and we watched it follow an army train across a bridge.
Cock, it seems that whenever I'm looking for you, you're out, and whenever you're in, I'm never looking. It reminds me of the ghost crab relationship. He'll crawl to her hole with his claw raised, she'll be gone, and he'll crawl away, his claw trailing in the sand. Then she'll return to the hole, wait for him, grow impatient and leave. Then he'll come back to the empty hole. That's the way they do it, Roberta. And we have doorbells and telephones. I suppose, judging from the younger ghost crabs I've seen, that eventually their periods of being at the same hole do coincide, although I've never seen it happen. Nor has Burnheart.
I don't remember much about the mock War, Roberta. I do have a recollection of being found by a lost dog. Because I could feci the heat of the earth I knew I was in a hole. There were government noises over the ridge, loudspeakers broadcasting airbursts. I looked up from the hole and saw the dog's face, his teeth showing ricelike in the battle light. I pulled him in with me and we shared fleas and heat for the night. In the morning I followed him back to my tent, then lost him in the smoke and confusion. At one point someone opened my tent flap and said, "Go home, Moldenke. Your war is over. The injury qualifies. Please don't mention the particulars. Say you were away at camp and you fell in a chuckhole." Don't ask me about the War, Cock.