Chapter 43
Although I was hoping to talk to Boonie alone, perhaps with Charles, it was not to be. Pelvis came down to breakfast when she got a whiff of the Canadian bacon sputtering in the pan. Charles had made a colossal bowl of eggs and cream and cheddar cheese and bits of ham and onion and was frying up portions to pour over toast, along with a mountain of the bacon. The girl was sitting at the kitchen table, spoons in hand, watching Charlie, her flimsy nightgown barely covering her mammary glands.
"Runny," I said to Charles.
"Yes, Miss Fleetsmith," Charles said, bored by my constant reminder to fry the eggs only until they were runny. Dry-fried eggs were inedible. Tasteless pieces of yellow fluff.
Fluff. It made me recall the problem at hand. Dermafix fluff. Had Pelvis mentioned fluff? Had we asked her about becoming hairy, ape-like? Last night was a little fuzzy. Shit! Every word reminded me of the affliction. I turned to Penny. Before she had a chance to bore into the heap of creamy eggs which Charles had poured, steaming, onto her toast, I asked the obvious question: "Pelvis? Penny? The weed … when you used the weed did anyone turn into … uh …"
I looked around, expecting to see Josey walk in. I remembered. She had gone to Atlanta. I was safe.
"Apes?" I concluded. "Did anyone become hairy, like Josey?"
"Josey?" she said. "Hair?"
"Jeesus! No more one word answers … please!"
"Hair," she said quietly, her spoons suspended above her plate. She had this technique of pushing the runny eggs with one soup spoon onto the other. "Yes, hair. Many time, hair. Many hair. Animal. Hair." Then she shoved the egg into her mouth and scooped up another batch.
Charles seemed surprised. "Miss Fleetsmith, after some discussion with Miss Penny, I was left with the impression that the onset of epidermal hair was not the consequence of—"
"Yes, yes, I remember. Only Caucasians, you said. But it's important, and I'd like to hear it from … from Penny." I turned to Penny who had finished her egg and was demolishing her bacon, capturing pieces between the spoons and tossing them into her mouth with surprising dexterity. "Penny?" I said. "The hair?"
"Hair," she said, then paused, then said something which surprised Charles as much as it did me. "Big hair, like monkey. Many time, big hair. No hair … Gumuhacki. Big hair … big hair … " she looked up at Charles. "Big hair, apa-noshu. Apa-noshu."
"Charles! Tell me what she said!" I cried out, now excited by the prospect that even these natives suffered from excessive hair. "Big hair, she said. And apa-noshu, she said. What the hell is—"
Charles raised his hand, set the frying pan back on the stove and sat beside Penny and spoke so softly into her ear that I could barely make out that it wasn't English. Eventually Charles smiled and turned to me. "In most cases, subsequent to the use of the weed, there was gomorashu, perfection. Occasionally there was smooth skin, baldness in fact, and the resultant natives were banished to the Gumuhacki. That we know," he said with a hint of pride, as though he had determined these facts independently of Penny. "However, there were apparently circumstances when, soon after emergence from the cocoon, the native grew big hair. That is, like a monkey. In such cases, the native—whether male of female—was, to be blunt, apa-noshu." Charles stopped, the smile gone from his face.
"Well?" I said. "Could you be slightly more blunt?"
"In such cases, Miss Fleetsmith, the native was sacrificed … in order to pacify the God. Indeed, it would appear that these hairy happenings were rare and the Chockli attributed their occurrence to a lack of sufficient respect for the God of the Weed."
Shit! That was the first thought that came to mind Shit! Shit! Shit! No reversal, no cure, no magic potion, no—
The door bell rang and we all jumped. I looked at my watch. It was 8:30 a.m. Who the hell would be calling this early in the morning. We were in the middle of breakfast. I stared at my plate. Once it offered steaming, creamy eggs on crisp, golden toast. Now, soggy, limp, cold. Shit!
"Howdy, ma'am!" The voice behind me was too loud, too cheery, this early in the morning. I turned and glowered at the intruder. It was Boone.
"Boonie boy!" I said, jumping from my chair and throwing my arms about his neck. "I … I had forgotten you were coming for breakfast. I'm so glad to see you. Here, have a chair. Do that leg-over-the-back trick, okay? Charlie! More breakfast, please."
The cowboy seems taken aback by my enthusiasm and slid into my chair, pulling his hat from his head.
"Well now, ma'am. Ain't hardly had such a welcome since—"
"Charlie! Eggs and bacon!" I shouted to Charles, who had answered the doorbell and was already removing my plate of soggy toast, replacing it with a plate of bacon and creamy eggs on crisp, golden toast. I wasn't quite sure why I was so excited to see Boone. I slid into the chair beside him.
"Tell me, cowboy, how y'all doin'?" I said in my best Texan.
Boone leaned over the table, grinned at Penny and said, "Ah is walkin' in tall cotton, ma'am." He wasn't completely ignoring me, but close to it.
"So, young lady, Ah take it y'all got somethin' to say," he said to Pelvis. She grinned back at him. "Ah reckon these good people," he waved his arm at Charles and me, "have heard it all, but can ya tell me 'bout this weed?"
"Weed?" Pelvis said.
Boone looked at me, frowning.
"Oh, she can talk alright," I said. I turned to Pelvis and growled, "Okay, say something. Tell Mr. Boone about the weed and gomorashu and apa-noshu and all that shit."
Pelvis looked up at Charles who immediately took a position behind her chair.
"Miss Penny," he said, "has provided us with a great deal of information regarding the use of the weed, in her village." Charles was talking directly to Boone. "It would appear that the medley of consequences which we have observed were also evident in the Amazon, to wit, the growth of body hair, the white fluff, the cocoon, the remarkable healing powers—"
"Okay," I said impatiently, "Boonie boy knows what occurs here. No need to elaborate." I turned to Boone. "Nothing new. No magic cure for apefication. We're back where we started."
"Apefication?" he said. I ignored his remark.
"Our task is to reverse the process," I continued. "We have at least four people who have devolved and are still alive and—"
"Three," Boone said.
"—there may be more that we don't know about. The others are dead. The two making out at the Flanagan Motel. The computer nut." I paused. "Three?" I said. "Two Ohshits plus Josey plus the ape in Arkansas. That makes four, still alive. Remember? Two plus two equals—"
"Arkansas was a mistake, ma'am. Some guy in Little Rock suffered from a disease … hypersomething. Got hisself hair all over, but it weren't no weed. The Arkansas police got themselves excited by the report from Atlanta and jest assumed—"
"Hypertrichosis," I said.
"Hypertrichosis?" Boone said.
"The hairy disease. Mmm … that's good. But we still have three and there could be more. Any idea how it got to the Ohshit in Atlanta?"
"Not exactly, ma'am, but we know that Werner visited his brother, Hans, in TO City, then returned to Atlanta. We figure Hans gave some of the Dermafix to his brother."
"Great. That's great. Now if we could just determine who else Hans gave it to … maybe we don't even need a cure. We just eliminate every last occurrence of … uh … but we still have Josey. We really do have to find a cure, for her sake."
"And Mr. Von Oerschott?"
"Ohshit can drop dead from hairballs, for all I care," I snapped. "This problem is of his making. He can suffer the consequences."
"Have y'all seen him recently," Boone asked.
"Oshit? Seen him?" I said, as sarcastically as I could. I was somehow perturbed by Boonie's questions. Perhaps I wasn't sure why I had greeted him with such … such enthusiasm. What was I thinking? "Sure. I invite Ohshit for dinner and he drops by with a bottle of wine and after-dinner mints and we chat by the fire."
Charles had clean
ed the dishes. Boone hadn't touched his eggs and bacon. Pelvis was falling asleep at the table. I was being a bitch.
"Miss Fleetsmith," Charles said quietly, so as not to wake Sleeping Beauty, "Mr. Boone has an excellent point. Since Mr. Von Oerschott has made certain visitations to this house—"
" Excellent!" I said, trying to be my usual charming self. "Of course. Perhaps we can speak to him—wait—he doesn't speak. His last words to me were Fan and hep as I recall. Hardly scholarly conversation."
"Ah," Charles said, dramatically, "but Miss Josey can speak to him, subsequent to having suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous Dermafix—"
"Okay, Charlie," I said, "enough."
Pelvis was sound asleep, her head on the table. Boone had a smirk, obviously enjoying the repartee.
"Why don't we lay a trap for hairy Hans," I said. "I suspect he'll return to our basement … one of these days."
"Indeed, Miss Fleetsmith," Charlie said. "Mr. Von Oerschott has spent several nights there, judging by the … uh, the …"
"Apeshit?" I asked. "Are you saying he's been defecating in our basement, again? Why haven't you mentioned this?"
"I was somewhat apprehensive … that you may feel it necessary to descend to the cellar, to view the excrement, to engage Mr. Oerschott in conversation, to—"
"I'll assume that you did clean up the mess," I said. "When was the last time he provided us with a stool sample?"
"I believe it was the day before yesterday," Charles said.
Boone stood up. "Can y'all show me these basement accommodations?" he asked.
I looked at Charles who looked at Boone who was looking at me. Without another word, Charles walked to the hall and the door to the basement. Boone and I followed.
I was hoping that my cellar wasn't bejeweled with the most current apeshit.