Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas
TWELVE FIFTY-FIVE P.M.
Bowling, how doth Gwendolyn Mati despise thee? Let you count the ways. One, bowling is a marginal sport (precious little athletic ability is required of its practitioners, most of whom seem more interested in drinking beer and chit-chatting than in the finer points-if there are finer points-of the game). Two, bowlers are marginal people (in the hive that is America, only the drones go bowling). Three, bowling alleys are marginal places (theres hardly a one that could not have been designed by Mussolini, built by his brother-in-law, and decorated by his teenage mistress). Four, bowling is popular with the masses (enough said).
The instant you enter the Thunderbird, you are overcome with an edacious distaste and a puncturing depression. In the totalitarian glare of its half-hectare of fluorescent tubing, you suddenly are rubbing shoulders with working stiffs and blowzy babes, the sort of blue-collar rabble that habitually you have gone to great lengths to avoid. You fancy you hear them belching and farting, quoting Clint Eastwood, exchanging off-color punch lines, and making all the other uncouth and threatening noises with which the rabble customarily express themselves, but soon you are forced to admit that most of it is in your imagination. In the lounge area, a selection of louts grin at you and beckon you to their various tables, but active bowlers by and large ignore you, and minute by minute, your fear, if not your aversion, diminishes. At least nobody is barking.
Trying your hardest to appear inconspicuous, you stroll around, searching in vain every nook and cranny for Larry Diamond or someone who looks as if he might in some way be associated or acquainted with Mr. Diamond. In particular, you scrutinize the area around the pair of pay phones bolted to the wall near the entrance, scarcely more than a bowling balls throw from the first of the Thunderbirds sixteen lanes. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as you can tell. Fishing a quarter from your bag, you decide to make a call. The equipment behaves exactly as any other public telephone, you attract no undue attention from patrons or staff-and Q-Jo Huffington doesnt answer at home. Drat! you exclaim, oblivious to the fact that no Filipina has ever, in the history of the world, said drat before you.
Could it even be possible, you wonder, that Diamond lives in the neighborhood, in one of those dreadfully dEclassE little snoose-stained houses, and slips into the Thunderbird to use its pay phones? Of course not, dummy! He couldnt attach his answering machine to a public phone. And neither of the numbers on the pay phones here matches his number. Even their prefix is different. Undoubtedly, this is a wild-goose chase of governmental proportions. The relationship between Thunderbird Bowl and Thunder House seems about as close as that between toilet bowl and toilet water. Okay, but hold on a second. What about the prefix? You could ring up the telephone company, give them Diamonds prefix, and they would tell you what part of town hes in. Good grief! It has taken you this long to think of that? You are to detective work what Grandma Moses is to German Expressionism.
The directory assistance operator seems to have been waiting all morning to honor your request. Seven eight three, she says quickly and cheerfully, is one of the prefixes for Ballard.
As you hang up, you glance over both shoulders, while something cold and bristly, like Nanook of the Norths toothbrush, runs up and down your spine.
ONE OH-NINE P.M.
The Thunderbirds office is located in a loft area above the cocktail lounge. As you climb the stairs, you are both pleased and alarmed that you may be homing in on your target. You remove your index finger from your lips, where you have been gnawing on its nail, and press the buzzer. On the other side of the door, there is a scampering sound, causing visions of gerbils, hamsters, field mice, deer mice, voles, muskrats, wood rats, lemmings, and all things cricetid to scurry past your eyes. Whatta you need? somebody asks. And you think your voice is squeaky. The door is opened by a woman not a whole lot taller than a bowling pin. And you think you are petite.
Uh, is the, uh, manager here?
Not today. Its Saturday.
As the woman answers, you are furtively looking past her-which is simple to do: one can look around her and over her as easily as if she were a garden ornament; why, one could wind her entire body in one of Q-Jos turbans and have enough fabric left over to wrap King Tuts biscuits. Speaking of which, Q-Jo read in one of her esoteric magazines that genetic scientists, using dried blood scraped off mummy bandages, may someday be able to clone the pharaohs. Thats nice, you told her, but I wouldnt buy any stock in the company, considering that the demand for resurrected pharaohs is likely to be weak. Yeah, she agreed, but therere other applications for the technology, and I suggest you and I squirrel away a few used tampons, just in case.
Remembering that conversation makes you blush. The midget, probably believing her appearance the source of your embarrassment, commences to fidget and shuffle her feet. Visions of gerbils, hamsters, field mice, voles, etc., scurry past your eyes. You hasten to speak. Ill … Id like to call the manager next week then, you say. Would you mind giving me the number here? The office, cramped, cluttered, and entirely banal, lacks a single element that might connect it to Larry Diamond, yet you are sure he is somewhere in Ballard, either in a bowling alley or with bowling alley sound effects on his telephone tape, so you must turn this stone.
Seven … gerbils the tiny clerk.
Uh-huh.
Eight … she field mouses.
Yes? Yes?
One … she voles.
And before she can hamster another numeral, you are swiveling to leave, disappointment and relief lying in a lovers braid upon the unmade bed of your heart.
ONE-FOURTEEN P.M.
Because bowling, on the whole, is not a particularly strenuous activity, the clothing of the bowler is seldom soppy with the moisture secreted by a body in a state of exertion. A body playing basketball or tennis, for example. (The attire of the bowler is at risk from spilled beer, but that is a different matter.) If there is anything that you might mark in bowlings favor, it is its relative aridity. Whenever possible, you avoid any but the most distant association with sweating persons. Except in the abstract, you find the term honest sweat regrettable. On the other hand, no sweat is a phrase coined in Paradise with you in mind, although it is unlikely that your mouth would pronounce the phrase, sweat being one of those words that thicken the tongue. Your mother did not perspire. Ever. So she boasted. As for you, you are uncertain whether or not you are guilty of the act of perspiration. You would be inclined to contend that you have inherited your mothers glandular immaculacy, except that there are times when your breasts and belly are so wet you have to wonder if that much wetness could be entirely the output of the pores of Belford Dunn. In any case, you shower immediately following sex.
When a person is fastidious, to the point of being very nearly squeamish or prim, odds are forty to one in Vegas that that persons secret inner sanctum is a mess. One neednt be a riverboat gambler, a psychiatrist, or a sage from the Orient to figure that out. Through the rackety basilica of the Thunderbird, your shortish but shapely legs transport the unmade bed of your heart. Happily, if that isnt too strong a word, none of the bowlers whom you pass en route are visibly sweating (as has been noted, bowling is not ranked among the arduous sports), but many look to have the potential to perspire, to sweat like hogs, in fact; and that is quite enough to spur you to quicken your pace.
So, you quicken your pace. But where, Gwen, are you going? Well, your first stop is back at the public phones, where, by consulting the directory, you learn that there is one other bowling alley-Sunset Bowl& Recreation, by name-in Ballard, but the Sunsets prefix is 782, rather than 783. Still, you will have to check it out, you suppose, although for some reason you are disinclined to abandon the Thunderbird right away. While the jukebox vocals of Bruce Springsteen and Waylon Jennings fill the spaces between rumblings and crashes; while the fluid levels in glasses, bottles, and bladders rise and fall; while chicken wings flap their last in the deep-fat fryer, as if waving to the memory of henhouse companions they will ne
ver fan again; while spares engender whoops and splits give rise to groans; while tobacco smoke, steadily accumulating, attacks your sinuses and the hungry eyes of the lounge lizards attack your derriere, you stride over to the bulletin board area purposefully, giving the impression that you are expecting a message there.
League standings have been recently posted. The Swedish Pancakes, you discover, are leading in their division, easily outdistancing the Danish Moderns and the Norwegian Wood. In the Tuesday night league, its the Troll Patrol out in front of … oh, who cares? Elsewhere on the board, there is a history lesson. Bowling, it seems, is a very old game. The ancient Egyptians enjoyed outdoor bowling about seven thousand years ago. How about that? If mummy-wrap cloning proves successful, the pharaohs could form a bowling team.
Flyers on the bulletin board also alert you to the existence of a Bowling Hall of Fame. Honored therein are champions with names such as Marion Ladewig, Andy Veripapa, and Ed Lubanski, hailing from burgs such as Grand Rapids, Milwaukee-your mothers poem was on the money-and Akron. Your moms verse was also correct in establishing a link between bowling and religion, although the connection is not to Buddhists but to Protestants. No less a Protestant than Martin Luther, who took it upon himself to fix the number of pins officially at nine. Prior to Luthers edict-nailed, perhaps to the door of a sixteenth-century bowling alley-there had been considerable argument among German churchmen concerning the correct number of pins. Surprised? You shouldnt be. Did you think theologians were referring to something other than bowling when they argued over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin? Today, of course, there are ten pins in the game. Maybe the Dead Sea Scrolls proved Luther wrong.
According to the fascinating literature at hand-and this item is more down your alley, so to speak-bowling emporiums flourish in hard times, financially troubled populations tending to gravitate toward cheap, wholesome recreation. But of course. When the going gets pinched, the pinched go bowling. Hmmm. What conclusions about the depth and potential length of the current economic trough might an analyst draw from the fact that early upon a Saturday afternoon, the Thunderbird is packed like a tin of Norwegian sardines?
A party of white-haired, ruddy, snoose-dipping septuagenarians has assumed responsibility for feeding the jukebox. As a result, Bruce Springsteen and Waylon Jennings have been supplanted by Lawrence Welk. Nobody in the Thunderbird seems to mind, least of all you. One form of blue-collar music is as unfortunate as another, in your opinion. It is not a Lawrence Welk polka, then, but the grudging admission that you really ought to be investigating economic indicators over at the Sunset Bowl (might it be crowded, as well?) that propels you at last from this particular cacophonic cavern of cretinous keglers and out into the torrent.
Despite the lack of a functional umbrella, you stop midway between the exit and your car. The unmade bed of your heart stops with you. Are you certain, Gwendolyn, absolutely certain, that you havent overlooked something here? God knows, you wouldnt want to have to come back.
ONE-THIRTY P.M.
Like a rice farmer in an upside-down paddy, you stand amidst the self-harvesting stalks of the rain. Thin as chopsticks and chopstick-straight, greenish-gray as the strings of the oceans zither, the stalks hang from the clouds by their roots and shake free their bursting grains. The rice bowl of your collar is soon overflowing. When you hunch your shoulders, they make rain sushi.
In the parking lot, three-quarters of the stalls are occupied. Is this indicative of a recessionary economy, whereas full occupancy would signify an out-and-out depression? That the vehicles in the lot are mostly battered pickup trucks and aging Japanese minicars is probably meaningless: you suspect that avid bowlers drive clunkers even in the best of times. Your Porsche stands out like an orchid in a septic tank. And speaking of the Porsche, its going to be just grand getting in it and driving away. First, however, you had better walk over a wee bit closer to the ramp-the ramp that, as you have just discovered, descends to what apparently is a lower level, a sort of daylight basement, of the Thunderbird. Hmmm? At the bottom of the incline, there is a handsome wooden door that, in substance and design, seems incongruously juxtaposed with the cheesy Dead Zone aesthetic of the rest of the building. If this is a service entrance, it is an unusually fine one. There looks to be a sign of some sort on the door. With raindrops bouncing off your astigmatic eyeballs, its difficult to tell. Yes-you are nearer now-it is a sign, or, rather, a plaque: one of those handcrafted redwood plaques, the kind that say The Schicklgrubers or Bob&Mary Ann or Loafing R Us in an awkward, chiseled script. You are more than halfway down the ramp before your tremulous suspicions are confirmed. The plaque reads Thunder House.
ONE THIRTY-SIX P.M.
The clouds are throwing shoes, as well as rice. You feel like the bride at some elemental wedding. Somalia could wring out your hair and end its drought. Still, you stand in the deluge for another minute or two, weighing alternatives, plumping your nerve. The smart thing to do at this point would be to scour the parking lot and adjacent streets for Q-Jos car. Yet, what would you learn, really, from its presence or absence? This business has gone on long enough. You may have to wait until Monday to find out how many spoonfuls are left in your honeypot or what sharp bees may be circling its rim, but here is a mystery that can be solved. Now.
You rush down the ramp and pound on the door.
Its a hefty door, with strong iron hinges; its central panel embellished with low-relief carvings of cumulus spitting zigzags of lightning. The wood is dark, the carvings discreet and hard to see. That the door requires study is fortunate, in that it gives you something to do while you wait.
You are hardly surprised that Larry Diamond would keep you waiting. You have the impression that he is the sort of person who might not answer his door at all. Larry Diamond might not answer his door even if he didnt have your best friend, Q-Jo, bound to his round water bed with leather thongs and rubber goods. Which he probably does not, but still, this business has gone on long enough. Dont they understand? The U.S. stock market is swirling down the drain, threatening to suck foreign markets into the vortex, unraveling world economic order and creating chaos and despair. Dont they get it? Chaos and despair. A great unraveling (which means the same thing as raveling, an etymological fact that you find wholly irksome). You havent time for this nonsense. Q-Jo! Diamond! As your tight little fist strikes the door another blow, you make a mental note that the stylized thundercloud against which your knuckles are rapping is an American Indian motif. That realization should have lessened your astonishment when the door is opened by a rather large American Indian. It should have, but it does not.
Muscular, more stocky than tall, the man is dressed in clean, pressed denim and a beaded headband that holds in place hair as black as yours was once, before occupational pressures, bad luck, and lifes annoyances took their toll. His age is indeterminable, as it often is with you non-European types. He has a narrow brow, a nose more broken than hooked, a mouth with thin, straight lips, and heavy eyebrows curved like elk-hide canopies over a pair of serene, though slightly protruding, brown eyes. Coldly returning your own rude regard, the man is motionless, silent. His entire being, especially his eyes, suggests an interruption of an inward gaze. Feeling as if you have intruded upon an arcane reverie, you cannot help sounding apologetic when you stammer, Uh, hi. Hello. Im, uh, Im-Im looking for a guy called, uh, Larry Diamond.
The Indians smile is so slight, so shy, it reminds you of Dr. Yamaguchis. Such a contrast to the grins of the bowlers upstairs, grins as loose as bar rags and wide enough to put the cat out through. Larrys not here, he says softly. There is a syncopated cadence to his speech.
Uh, well, where is he? You almost blurt it out, forgetting the manners your mother managed to teach you even as your father was deriding good manners as a tactic designed to camouflage the insidious motives of the bourgeoisie.
Again, the hairline smile like the first chalk-scratch of daylight on the blackboard of the little red schoolhouse
of dawn. Larry went to see the amphibians, he says. At that, his smile widens. But the door closes.
As if trying to be helpful-or maybe theyre just rubbing it in-raindrops repeat the Indians parting words in your ear. Larry went to see the amphibians.
Good grief!
ONE FORTY-ONE P.M.
This is the scene: you are standing in the wind and rain, beating on the basement door of a bowling alley in Snoose Junction, shrieking in your twinkie-tone falsetto, Where? Where? Where are the amphibians? And the bowlers, those entering the Thunderbird and those leaving, are looking at you as if you are a lunatic. They are laughing at you and hooting, and one woman yells, Get a life! as if you dont have more of a life in your toilet than that blowzy bimbo has in her entire … her entire … life. These are bowlers ridiculing you-low-life bowlers, for Gods sake; and you are red all the way to your bones. Yet, neither embarrassment nor fury stops you from pounding, or from shrieking Where are the amphibians? although you do tone things down a bit when a couple of bon vivants in thin nylon jackets and baseball caps commence in unison to croak like frogs.
You are in such a state that it is slow to dawn on you that you might not really want to know the whereabouts of the amphibians. There is information that is not in ones best interest (although one must decide that for oneself; the decision should never be the prerogative of the government, the networks, or the medical profession). Moreover, until one possesses the information, it is nearly impossible to judge its effect. At any rate, a vision of the Nommo card, or rather the disfigured Star card, begins now to flicker in your consciousness. You recall the young woman with the green scales and the flippered feet. Green scales and webbed toes are hardly normal attributes of a healthy human female but may be regarded as commonplace, if not definitive, in the amphibian sector. Listen! Is activity of an occult nature being dabbled in here? The very fact of Q-Jo Huffingtons involvement infers an affirmative.