I’ve heard of four other new races that are fierce in sexual activity. They include: the aphid clan on the north side, the fire mites, the blue women, and the cockroach people. I’ve never seen any of these races, but I’ve heard many stories from Christian.
I finish with the toilet and step outside.
All the medieval ones are at labor on their festival. It looks like it will start tonight, hopefully before I have to work. Some of our other neighbors, the midgets in presidential costume, are watching the creation of this festival. There’s a James K. Polk midget, a Benjamin Harrison midget, a Woodrow Wilson midget, a John Quincy Adams midget, and an injured Abraham Lincoln midget. It seems that all of the community, every cultural group in the neighborhood, is excited about the festival, and I’m sure to see them all tonight. There are so many interesting peoples I have never seen before, and I can’t wait to meet them all.
Lenny told Nan that he was the last anthropologist, but now that he’s dead I guess I will take that title for myself. And since I’ve given up the reading of history books, other than Richard Stein’s, I will make experiencing new walm races my hobby. I will try to write them all down, into a book — my history book. The walm might be able to take my soul away and throw me into oblivion, but my life and the memory of all of these races will live on through my writing. There should be at least something of me to live on after I die. Oblivion only wins when you are forgotten.
Once I hear Christian awake, I reenter the warehouse.
Christian, with his flashy pants and buttoning up his white shirt, wrinkled clothes and hair, goes to the steaming toilet for his morning piss.
Christian has a few cuts in his face. They’re from sleeping with broken glass. He doesn’t know how it happens, but every morning he finds shards of glass under his sheets. Nobody puts them there. There’s not much glass in the warehouse at all except for broken beer bottles here and there. He just rolls around in his bed, getting all cut up, bloody sometimes. This time the glass got his face, it must’ve been sleeping on his pillow.
Normally, the glass only gets his back. He’s got extensive scars, like train tracks, like stretch marks on his love handles. My only guess is that the glass hates the cold concrete floor, and at night the shards snuggle into bed with Christian to nuzzle against his warm hips and fat.
Christian notices the festival through the window. “What’s going on?” He goes to check it out before I answer.
“Big, big, big,” he says.
Many more cultures are out here now. I see a family of the aphid people.
The aphids are standing with refreshments from the refreshment stand, so apparently some festival booths are open. There are four adults and eight children, watching the caged animals growl and sleep. The medieval ones don’t mind the spectators, working away at the tents and stages. One warrior says, “Looks like we’ll definitely have a crowd tonight.” The other warriors practice for their fight in the arena. I call them warriors instead of gladiators — though it is the same type of bout — because gladiators are slaves that fight other slaves for amusement, and these warriors are freemen that fight other freemen for fun.
The aphids are a peculiar ant-like people. Their male/female ratio is one to three, because of their sexual performances. The males have three sexual organs on three places of their bodies. All of the sexual organs look a lot like tennis shoes; one is on his stomach, and two are on each of the hands. When the aphid people mate, three women fuck one man, one woman for each sex organ. They are also joined in marriage in fours. One husband and three wives. Each of the wives have assigned jobs: One is in charge of child care, one is in charge of home maintenance, and one assists the father with putting food on the table. These families usually produce twelve to sixteen children and are prejudice against other aphid families. As a result, incestuous behavior is very common, sometimes encouraged.
The aphid family jolly-walks away from Christian’s vision. The husband of the family goes first; and his wife — the second father and also his sister — is in the back to make sure the children don’t wander. The children all hold hands, crab-claw hands.
“Let’s go check it out,” Christian says, stepping out the door.
I follow him barefooted. He already has his shoes on; he didn’t take them off last night.
We stroll, watching… I waddle with rolling visions of water wheels and windmill turnings being constructed outside of the BIG tent. My shaggy nest of hair, greasy and dry and dready, lonely for shampoo, butterflies in the wet wind.
Medieval ones break apart pieces of wood, shredding them to make the floor for the inside tent. Loud hammering sounds, like metal rain falling around us. We drift closer to the tent village. Most of the spectators are here, watching all the construction, eager for tonight’s events.
Christian recognizes a man coming out of a festival tent. It is Cecil Sword Dodd, an older drunk about thirty-five, the only medieval one we know. He doesn’t have a family and drinks with anyone willing, even an outsider. Drinking is what Christian has in common with him, which is why they consider each other drinking buddies.
Cecil’s middle name is Sword. All male medieval ones are supposed to have a weapon for their middle name. Common middle names are: Dagger, Arrow, Club, Sickle, Hammer, Trident, and Hatchet. The middle name you have is the weapon you specialize in. Middle names are required and enforced so that nobody gets confused about which medieval one is good at using which weapon. At first, I thought it was strange, but then I got to know the medieval ones. Their lives revolve around weapons and fighting, even when they don’t have any enemies to fight.
When Christian met Cecil, Cecil called him over from the train tracks. He offered him a drink and so they drank. Then, when they introduced themselves, Cecil wanted to know Christian’s middle name. Cecil said this: “So what’s your weapon?”
“Huh?” Christian then said.
“Your middle name.”
“James,” Christian said.
“That’s an odd name for a weapon,” Cecil said. “What’s it look like?”
“It’s not a weapon. It’s a biblical figure.”
That’s when Cecil told Christian how middle names are weapons. And Christian told Cecil what biblical figures were.
Christian then told him his new middle name: “Broken Beer Bottle.”
“Cecil,” Christian yawps.
We head over to the tent. Cecil looks up from his cake-making. He’s the fried cake-maker, and he runs the booth himself. The only customer he’s had is an Andrew Jackson midget, who has already purchased a fried cake and is now glazing it with raspberry topping.
“My friend, Christian,” Cecil says in a toothless smile, alcohol breath. “Are you coming to the fights tonight?”
“I don’t think so,” Christian answers. “I have to work.”
“You’re going to miss a lot. I’m fighting a Carpet Beast.”
“What’s a Carpet Beast?”
“It’s like a small bear, but it has carpet instead of fur, and walks like an ape.”
“Sounds tough. I wish I could see it.”
“There’s going to be fights all day long, including one with a Prowler Beast. You should at least watch the first match. It should start pretty soon.”
I stop paying attention to Christian and Cecil and use my God’s eyes to go after a naked woman that’s passing in the distance.