‘Pizza’ had seemed a reasonable request until I discovered that there was no frozen pizza, no leftover pizza, no nearby pizza parlour, and that I was expected to make a pizza. I quickly corrected the children on that expectation but was immediately labelled a liar by the oldest: ‘You promised us we could have whatever we wanted!’
I tried to get the three kids to become hypnotized by the television set, but discovered that only one of the three channels had cartoons, and the cartoons were so bizarre that minutes after the kids had snuck away to try raiding the refrigerator again, I stood in front of the set hypnotized. In the middle of a manic cat chasing an overconfident mouse would appear Snow White singing away with the seven dwarfs, followed by Dumbo diving into a pool of water and then a video Playboy centrefold smiling shyly out at the kids in the slimmest of bikinis, followed by Batman getting tough with Penguin, and then a beautiful two-minute scene of water gurgling down a mountain stream in autumn, the sunlight splashing such spectacular light and shadow and colour it was hypnotizing. I was only snapped out of my trance by the appearance of the three-year-old soaking-wet with blood that soon, thank God, turned out to be tomato juice.
I traipsed into the kitchen and tried throwing together three peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but found that none of the children would eat them because I’d used ‘crunchy’ peanut butter and not smooth. To show them who was boss, I announced that they could make their own lunches and marched from the kitchen back to catch some more of the cartoons.
A half-hour later, after I’d discovered that the other channels were equally bizarre and equally fascinating, I was feeling pretty good, especially since there had been a beautiful silence from the kitchen. Then I smelled the smoke.
By the time the kids’ mother returned from acting principal for over one hundred and fifty children she found her house looked as if another one hundred and fifty had run wild in it. I assured her there were only three, and hers, and that I was sorry I hadn’t cleaned up as much as I’d wanted to. As the poor woman stared around at the devastation, she wondered apathetically just exactly what I thought I had cleaned up – perhaps I’d rearranged some area of neatness that looked out of place.
It was five o’clock when the mother rescued me from a fate worse than death, but I discovered my trials were not done. I was ordered to report for duty to the lobby of the Hazard Inn.
I was met there by a thin wiry man named Ray, who in a soft gentle voice, announced that he was another diceguide. My first response to the Hazard Inn with its lobby crowded with people spaced out in their individual movie scenarios was one of both annoyance and a sense of righteousness: this was what I expected all of Lukedom to be like. This was the son of kookiedom that was my father’s madness at its worst.
I grimly followed gentle Ray down the central hall, off which were the strangely titled rooms, most of which had their doors open. In the Yoga Room was nothing more threatening than a group of seven people on a huge mat all arching their backs and sticking their tongues out in what I assumed was some traditional yoga asana. One of the seven appeared to be a leader. I didn’t see what yoga had to do with Lukedom, but Ray answered that it was a way of gaining new knowledge about one’s body and of making the body flexible.
I peeked into the Art Room, where nothing more subversive was happening than a dozen people, ranging in age from sixty to five or six, messing around with paints and clays and that sort of thing. It looked like every art class I’d ever seen, although Ray said something about the teacher getting the students to let chance enter their work. I sneered. That’s all modern art needed: more chaos.
The Death Room was not what I expected. When we stopped outside the closed door Ray explained that the groaning we were hearing from inside was the sounds of mourning by those within. He asked me to go inside and spend as much time as I wanted, but at least ten minutes, mourning for someone I had lost from my life. I hesitated, hating to be drawn into any of these games, even those that didn’t involve dice, but decided at least to enter the room.
Inside, it was dimly lit by stands of candles on either side of a raised closed casket against the far wall. There were six mourners, five seated in various positions on the deeply padded floor, the sixth standing. Two were crying softly, one moaning, and the other three were silent, with bowed heads.
Ray had come in too and went forward to the casket, crossed himself, and stood with bowed head in front of it. The casket was a simple pine one, but looked well made, with nicely designed handles on the sides and a clear varnish making it glow in the candlelight.
I eased myself over to one side of the room and, feeling exhausted from my babysitting, sat down on the thick floor covering.
One of the previously silent mourners, a young woman, now went public with a long wail, almost a scream, and then broke into noisy sobs. I was annoyed. After a minute, Ray turned from the casket and walked slowly back into the middle of the room and also sat down. When I noticed the candlelight reflecting off the tears in Ray’s eyes I felt first another burst of annoyance and then an inexplicable rush of grief.
I hadn’t even thought of anyone to mourn!! Yet I had to stifle a sob! I quickly lowered my head to get a hold of myself. But the sounds of people crying and groaning in grief around me were too powerful – I could feel their emotion vibrate through me and pull me down into a pool of deep sadness. Even as tears welled into my eyes, I was mumbling, ‘What the fuck!? What the fuck!?’ fighting against the rising flood of grief.
But for whom?! For what?
It didn’t seem to matter As the tears and grief and sadness flowed through me, I thought of my mother on the morning of her car accident, vibrant, happy, busy and unknowing, and I groaned. And then the memory of my sister Evie, still alive, but so different from me, now living her circumscribed life in Trenton, telling me that afternoon with the rain falling gently around us that she didn’t need any money, even as the beat-up car she was sitting in stalled and wouldn’t start. I grieved for her and for the distance between us. When I suddenly thought of Luke, my grief ebbed as suddenly as it had flowed, replaced by anger. I would not be tricked by that man’s madness into mourning him. But then the sobs and sniffles and cries from those around me overwhelmed the image of my father, again forcing me to remember my mother and weep once more.
In the next hour Ray took me into several other rooms, but none had the impact of the Death Room. I observed but didn’t participate in the Emotional Roulette Room, was curious about but didn’t enter the Prostitute-Client Room, and watched for ten minutes the people in the Childhood Room, off which was a playground where the childhood could be continued outdoors. There was something appealing about the adults playing with the blocks and the Lego and Nintendo and dolls. But when Ray suggested I get in there with the other adults and the few real children – who looked as if they were having a ball – and regress, I felt too wasted from the Death Room and declined.
Ray did get me involved in the Money Room, which was perhaps the most bizarre of all the rooms I’d seen. It consisted of an otherwise bare room lit by two harsh fluorescent lights and containing only a tiny wood stove, with a small live fire, and money: real dollar bills, and fives scattered over the entire floor of the room like windblown trash. There was only one other man in the room when we entered and he, like me, just stood and looked around in some incomprehension.
Ray handed me a die.
‘In here,’ he explained, ‘there are really only two options: you let the die decide whether you are going to keep or destroy each duster of money you pick up.’
I bent over and picked up a five and examined It. Damned if it didn’t seem genuine.
‘What for?’ I asked. For me the amounts of money were so small as to be trivial.
‘For the hell of it,’ Ray replied with gentle smile.
‘Hrhuh!’ I said, and with the five in hand went over to the wood stove. Then I turned back to Ray. The other man in the room was watching me.
‘What
prevents someone from coming in here and simply taking all the money he needs?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ said Ray. ‘Although in this room all decisions must be made with the dice.’
‘So if I say “odd” I take all these bills home with me and “even” I don’t, I can do it?’ I asked.
‘Exactly,’ said Ray. ‘But of course if the die falls “odd” then you have to clear the whole room of all its money.’
I absorbed this. Money was used here in Lukedom. I had paid for my food, my room, even the crowbar. People must be able to leave the place. Although there probably wasn’t more than a thousand dollars or so here, it did seem as if it might prove an expensive game for the owners of Lukedom.
I turned back to the stove and let the die decide the fate of my fiver. It ordered death by fire. I lifted the lid of the stove and started to place the bill into the coals, but stopped.
‘Why waste the money?’ I asked, turning to Ray with a scowl.
‘What else is there to do with it?’ asked Ray and then, with that strange seraphic smile, left the room.
I turned back to the stove, hesitated, and finally dropped the bill into the stove. When I saw it burning I felt very depressed.
By the time Ray released me from the Hazard Inn and I’d eaten and washed dishes for half an hour in ‘Joe’s’ café, I was exhausted. And lonely. After going up to my room to take a shower I shuffled down the stairs to the inn’s bar to solace myself with a drink.
When I remembered yesterday’s spat with Honoria it seemed as if it had taken place back in the Middle Ages. I realized again that Lukedom had the effect of making one’s normal life seem trivial, not an effect I enjoyed. When I was finally able to concentrate a bit on Honoria I was angry at her insistence on her own way and saw no need to apologize for my insistence on my way. I wanted her to phone and be sweet and apologetic and witty and our engagement be back on. Then I realized that if the phone system in Lukedom was run like the babysitting system, then my chances of receiving a phone call were small. That depressed me a bit too: I felt isolated. Yet when I thought of Honoria’s phoning and announcing that the engagement was back on and all was forgiven, I was surprised to find that such a scenario didn’t exhilarate me as much as it should. Was it possible that I wanted Honoria like I wanted to be making half a million dollars a year – as a symbol of having arrived? But I loved her! Didn’t I? The sex was good, we actually talked not only before, but even afterwards! How many men could say that about their fiancées!?
No, no, no, it was dear that this little tiff must be kept a little tiff. You don’t sell a good stock just because some small part of you thinks there’s an even better stock just over the counter.
I ended up trying to make phone contact with Honoria, both at her office and at the Battle apartment, but failed. So as I nursed a vodka and tonic I was feeling close to my low for the day, morosely trying to avoid talking to any of the weirdos and pretending-not-to-be-weirdos who occasionally approached me. Then who should come bubbling into the room but Kim.
FROM LUKE’S JOURNAL
Nature’s accidents are the universe’s way of throwing chance into a system which would die of too much orderliness. Hurricanes, droughts, floods, volcanic eruptions are all Mother Nature’s way of stirring up the pot to prevent stagnation and putrefaction.
A world without them would be a world of death. Floods, fires, eruptions, earthquakes all destroy and renew, kill and create, demolish and replant.
So too riots, revolutions and wars are societies’ ways of throwing chance into their systems, which are dying of too much orderliness. And like nature’s eruptions, these too destroy and renew, kill and create, demolish and replant.
And so too with individuals. Human beings need in their lives earthquakes and floods and riots and revolutions, or we grow as rigid and unmoving as corpses.
29
My heart, the little bastard, did a somersault. She seemed to be floating across the room toward me, vibrating with that sexy glow that seemed aimed to drive men (and especially me) crazy. Then I noticed that she was gaily walking arm in arm with Michael Way and the somersault flattened into a belly flop. As she approached, I stepped away from the bar to meet her.
‘What are you doing here?’ I asked, nodding a silent acknowledgement to Way. The fop was wearing Bond Street slacks with an Italian leather jacket and looked as if he was ready for a night in Beverly Hills. Kim was wearing jeans and a soft aqua sweater. ‘Did Nori send you?’ I then added with sudden confusion.
Instead of answering, Kim laughed and gave me a brief hug, then guided the three of us to a small booth. After Way ordered a round of drinks, Kim explained that she’d come to Lukedom out of her own curiosity. However, she had seen that Honoria was upset and wondered if I’d talked to her since our separation.
The subject depressed me and I hemmed and hawed about bothering to try to call her again until finally, sensing that for her own reasons Kim wanted me to phone, I dragged myself away to make the call.
At first Mr Battle, who answered the phone, gave me a lecture on the necessity of avoiding too tight stop loss orders, a strategy which could lead one to be stopped out of long-term winning positions. It took me most of a two-minute lecture to realize that Mr Battle wasn’t talking about market trading, but about Honoria and I having been apparently stopped out of our engagement position, a position that Mr Battle saw as a long term winner. He suggested that I ‘re-establish my “long” (engaged) position as soon as possible – before the market (Honoria) got away from me.’
‘Let me speak to Non,’ I asked when Mr Battle ended his extended metaphor.
‘Fine, my boy,’ said Mr Battle. ‘I shall go and get her.’
It look about a minute before Honoria’s voice came on.
‘Larry?’ was all she said.
It was a good opening gambit, forcing me to make the first offer.
‘Hi,’ I said. ‘How are you? Your trip back go all right?’
I too was stalling for time, but my innocent filler question was like stepping on a land mine.
‘My trip back was a ride with Mad Max through the Thunderdome,’ Honoria answered testily. ‘And I hope your stay in Lukedom is the same.’
‘Well, it is,’ I said. ‘I’m hating every minute of it. But I’m finding more and more suspicious things here. Did you know this place must produce its own TV programmes? Where can they possibly get the money?’
There was a silence. When two negotiators are really skilled they can talk for hours without either one of them saying anything.
‘Look, I’m sorry about yesterday,’ I said after several seconds of silence. ‘Have you forgiven me a little?’
‘A little,’ said Honoria.
But she added nothing to that ambiguous statement.
‘How do you feel about … us?’ I asked next. Like all men, I approached the subject of feelings as tentatively as possible and hoped that the woman would have all the answers.
‘I’m not sure but that we might be doing the right thing by calling it off.”
Did that mean she was still involved with me? Did that mean the engagement was back on but ought to be off? What did it mean?
‘I don’t blame you,’ I said.
A new ploy: plead nolo contendere and throw myself on the mercy of the court. When I sensed Nori pulling away from me I desperately wanted her; when I sensed her needing me I wanted to withdraw. My subconscious was working overtime to force Honoria to make the decision.
‘Im really sorry I was so selfish and cruel.’ I continued. ‘I just felt that for both our sakes I’ve got to get in touch with my father before his actions hurt us.’
‘I understand,’ said Honoria. ‘But I’m beginning to think it’s not worth it. Why don’t you forget the whole thing and just come back?’
Aha, it looked as if the engagement was back on – if I gave up my quest.
‘I want to forget my father,’ I said. ‘But Bickers and most of my life have m
ade it clear that I can’t just do it. I’ve got to find him.’
The other end of the line was silent.
‘It’ll only take another full day at most,’ I continued. ‘Tomorrow’s election day anyway.’
More silence.
‘My father was right: you’re fine the way you are,’ said Honoria finally. ‘You’re making a mountain out of your molehill father. If you really loved me you’d return immediately.’
Good point. I thought. But still, I could see Honoria any time. This might be my only chance to find my father.
‘But what about the possibility of scandal resurfacing about Luke just before our wedding?’ I asked. ‘Doesn’t that concern you?’
‘Yes,’ said Honoria. ‘It does. On the other hand, there are scandals and there are scandals.’
‘Beg pardon?’
‘I suppose I should have told you sooner,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’
I felt that my system was now definitely on overload. Lukedom, Honoria’s anger, Jeff’s bizarreness, Kim’s arrival, and now Honoria’s pregnancy! The data were coming too fast and furious for the technical indicators to keep up.
After a long silence in which I could hear Honoria’s quiet breathing on the other end of the line, I finally spoke.
‘You’re … pregnant?’
‘I haven’t menstruated in seven weeks,’ she said.
I had always had total confidence in Honoria’s grand ability to avoid all unpleasant situations. I knew she’d stopped using the pill because of side-effects and that we had depended mostly on her using a diaphragm. I’d assumed that she was as good at using that as she was at everything else.