The bird face, as it slowly swings back and forth, pauses each time at either limit: over the painted arm, then over the arm of blood helper boy.
“The head of the bird dips, you see, into the boy’s arm.”
“Then dips in to the teacher’s arm, injecting him with blood.”
“You see, we have a band of zinc about the arm of the boy—”
“And the bird has a beak of platinum—”
“And we take this sulfuric acid—”
“And pour it into the hollow zinc coil about the boy’s arm, comme ça—”
“Then screw the top back onto the coil”
“And then we take this jar of nitric acid—”
“And with an eyedropper, place a few drops—”
“Into a secret reservoir between the bird’s eyes—”
“Comme ça—”
“And screw the top back onto the secret reservoir—”
“If you fear the boy’s escape.”
“And let’s say that he does—”
“By means of a concealed knife—”
“Or a confederate—”
“Tricks beyond all trickery.”
“And so he escapes.”
“The bird will chase him.”
“The boy runs — a free boy.”
“The bird is also free — you see the castors the table is mounted on—
“And the castors beneath each leg of the chair—”
“Nitric acid, sulfuric acid, a band of zinc—”
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“Of course, we expect no reward for our ingenious device—”
“No gold plates—”
“Or coats of honor—”
“Or precious rubies—”
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the great silver bird clatters after the boy, dragging the wingback chair, upsetting the lamps and cages that the boy dodges.
The youths join hands and bow to me.
“You see, Teacher, how it chases him?”
The boy stumbles right up to the Yid, trips, and falls down beside him, fingers landing on the eagle that I only now realize the Yid still has. The boy reaches out for the face of the eagle. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Eagle, guide me, where’s the elevator,” the boy says. “The acid has burned my eyes away — guide me, Eagle, to the elevator on which you love to perch.”
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machine regards him almost curiously, head cocked. It dips gently for the arm, as though sniffing. And the boy stumbles back, his toes still on the lip of the elevator shaft. His body tilts out over the chasm, arms windmilling.
The youths bow again.
“Therefore, a mechanical bird to draw clean blood from a boy, and unclean blood from the teacher, and, when the switch is toggled left, to inject the Teacher with the boy’s blood, when toggled right, with his own clean blood.”
The boy windmills. The machine rears back. And it is only at this moment that the youths understand the danger to their ingenious device. And they sprint for the shaft.
But the boy’s balance gives out before they reach him; and he tumbles backward dowsWHhm# mwz EM</wM w}Q</
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“I need my eagle back,” I tell the Jewboy. “You can’t have my eagle.”
The head of the eagle peeks out from under the blanket.
But, I discover, it is only the head. I tear the blanket to find that the pig has fashioned himself an outfit from the bird. He cut off the wings and the tail whole, and spread the feathers open; then he drew off the skin, and divided it into two equal parts, one of which he placed on his back, while with the other he covered his navel and his secrets. The tail he wears behind, the wings on either arm.
“My eagle!” I say. “Look what you’ve done to my eagle!”
Behind me, at the very limit of what the ear can know, I hear the paired crashes of machine and boy.
Or not a crash, no, just the faintest echo of disintegration, no louder than a dirt clod powdered in your own hand.
Khakis and open collars …
The khaki and collar regime …
Your Baghdad criminal element, or I mean, put plain, your Baghdad element, they see him, Jay, they see a low person, an FSU/Shippensburger, and they know what they see …
Jay the first cause, Jay a god of shit …
This burqa thing, I’m stifling, I told retired ambassador Clay McManaway and Donny as Jay led us through the palace.
I have brought my understanding to this porta-potty town, I’ll undo Jay’s damage, unknot and abolish the khaki and collar regime, usher in a new era in the Green Zone, thus the world …
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where it would be straight up, and not just the Green Zone, our whole fallen world, set it on its ear, straight up …
Kerpow, it just came …
Boots …
Kerpow …
What it was going to have to be was boots …
Boots, don’t you see, boots just the thing, stamp out the khakis in the Green Zone, set the Green Zone on its ear …
Dark suits, too, suits and boots, straightaway establish it, brand myself, suits-and-boots man, rebrand the whole Green Zone a suits-and-boots zone …
Baghdadi criminals, Baghdad’s super predators, they want and need and beg for mental domination, it’s what they respect, culturally, you give them your domination and then and only then do they give you respect, culturally, so, footwear, boots, that’s what I had to get …
Domination what Arabs look for, domination and what and you know and let’s just say, cards, table, explicit sexual domination …
To be sexually dominated, Arab mind-set, Arab mental process, that’s how you get into all that …
But here I was, tarmac, without my brand, my boots, my suits …
Hume, what I need is an incognito …
A burqa thing, Hume, it’s the only way …
Outside there were photographers and dignitaries, I needed an incognito …
I sent Hume to fetch me a burqa thing, I’d hide myself in a burqa thing and remain in a burqa thing until I found it, the solution, a true-blue American outfit, not khakis and collars but something to press down on the Arab brain, something to squeeze the Arab brain, squeeze it good, and when the pressing and the squeezing were at an end, we’d have a whole new Arab brain, I told retired ambassador Hume Horan, I told retired ambassador Clay McManaway and Donny as Jay led us through the palace.
Tarmac a full hour, then another, concussive waves booming against the fuselage, waiting for Hume, for my burqa thing …
Newsmakers and dignitaries, one by one they got whirled away, it never comes on a breeze, this Baghdad air, only in reeking blasts …