“But suppose death is necessary to evolution. What if we have to give up our bodies so that we can evolve off the earth plane, move on to a higher plane? It might be foolish and regressive to cling to our physical bodies.”
“Might be. Although life on the astral plane has always held a minimum o' charm for me. No whiskey, no books, no Frederick's o' Hollywood. And if it should turn out that there is no astral evolution, where does that leave your poor dead self? 'Tis a gamble I'm not willin' to take.”
“After the gambles you've taken with vision root, all those psychological deaths and rebirths, how could you still be afraid of regular old dying.”
“Sure and I'm not afraid o' dying. Never have been. Death can't do anything to us because death is dead. What's dead can't hurt ye. Fear is not the issue. Like your man Alobar, I'm less scared than resentful. We've got ourselves stuck in a cyclic system that makes true freedom, true growth impossible. In the arts, a period o' classicism is followed by a period o' romanticism. Then 'tis back to the classical again. 'Tis as simpleminded as a bloody pendulum, and for me, at least, it robs art of any real meaning. Same thing in society. A conservative cycle, a liberal cycle, then a conservative cycle again. Action and reaction, back and forth, like the tides. As long as we're trapped in these cycles, we can't expect much in the way o' liberation, we can't even expect fundamental change except the awful slow variety where each step takes a million years or more. For most of our history, we were trapped by the seasonal cycles, the weather cycles. Now, however, we can at least move south for the winter, north for the summer. The seasons still operate cyclically, but we don't have to submit to 'em. All I'm askin' is for that kind o' mobility in life as a whole. I'm askin' for the opportunity to break out o' the birth-death cycle. Ye see what I mean? 'Tis far too rigid and predictable to suit me. Cycles take the meaning out o' life, just as they do in art. Me hope is this: certain individuals have always managed to break out o' the artistic and social cycles — that's why I love and respect your individual more than I love and respect humanity at large. Maybe, maybe, the time is ripe for certain individuals to escape the birth-death cycle, as well. And I don't mean by vaporizin' into the void o' Buddhist Nirvana, either. Maybe Alobar has done just that. Maybe I can do it, as well. And maybe — as long as I'm into the maybes — some cycle-buster will come along to rescue mankind from the hollow tides o' mortality.”
“We deserve a break today?”
“We do.”
“Dying is a bad habit?”
“Yes, and must be broken.”
“Good luck, Wiggs.”
“Thanks. You know, there is one condition under which I might willingly die. Might even take me own life.”
“You're joking?”
He shook his head as somberly as an elephant. “If anything ever happened to Huxley Anne, I think I would choose to die, too, just on the chance that we could be together.”
“Oh.”
Wiggs was quiet for a while. A tear bubbled up, like a syllable from a flounder, in his single eye. It hung upside down from his lower lid, like a transparent sloth from a ledge, until gravity finally pried it loose, sending it plunging, silently, headlong, salt and all, into the anonymity of the steaming tub.
“One last thing about death,” said Wiggs.
“What's that?” Pris asked rather morosely. She was still staring at the spot where his teardrop had hit the water.
“After you die, your hair and your nails continue to grow.”
“I've heard that.”
“Yes. But your phone calls taper off.”
Once more, they climbed out onto the tiles to cool. Then, another hot soak and a final cooling. They toweled and slipped into their underpants, his as crisp and green as a shamrock, hers a faded, indeterminable color ringed with sagging elastic. They donned their pants, his of tweed, hers of denim, and, with the hands of miracle workers, restored to wholeness the golden salamanders that held the pant fronts together.
He'd made it clear she was not to stay the night. Seemed he and Huxley Anne had plans for early morning. So she embraced him at the door, feeling a trifle, well, vulnerable, insecure, and was steeling herself for the walk home when he asked, “Well, how's it comin' with the perfume?”
She hadn't wanted to speak of perfume for fear she might blurt out something about the bottle. She dare not tell him of the bottle, but, rather, must show it to him, must hold it up to that gleaming orb of his and watch the silver hairs stand on his head like the bristles of a robot's toothbrush. How she looked forward to that moment!
“I've come to the conclusion,” she said, “that beet is the bottom note in K23. Am I right?”
Hesitant to respond, he eventually nodded in the affirmative, trusting that the fairies, that the Salmon That Fed on the Nine Hazel Nuts of Poetic Art, that his ex-wife's knickers would not regard a nod a breach of promise.
“I thought so. But how in the world is it used? I really can't figure out. .”
“You're the perfumer.”
It was Priscilla's turn to nod in agreement, but to herself she said, “Ha! I'm an unemployed waitress without an ounce of first-rate jasmine to my name. And if I don't get lucky, and fast, this time next week I'll be hustling nachos at someplace like Gourmet de Tijuana.”
The way she backed through the door, waving good-bye, sort of burdened and flustered, you'd have thought that she had suddenly and inadvertently cornered the world market in refried beans.
In truth, Priscilla felt a twinge of resentment that she had to return to her little studio apartment. Certainly there was plenty of room for her at the Last Laugh Foundation. Why, Christ and all twelve disciples could have dwelt in the Last Laugh Foundation, although Judas would have had to sleep on the sun porch.
She walked down the path feeling like three-fourths of two pieces of slug bait. As she passed the letter box at the guard gate, she had an urge to stick a stamp on her forehead and mail herself to the Abominable Snowman.
On the street, it was worse. The crowd of aspiring immortalists was restless and surly. They glared at her as if she were a piece of modern art at a county fair. A hostile sneer here, a puzzled laugh there, and not a blue ribbon in sight.
Apparently, there recently had been a provision run, because many in line were munching on fast-food hamburgers. They were old enough to know better. Some of them were old enough to remember when old McDonald had a farm.
People used to die from germs. Now they died from bad habits. That was what Dr. Dannyboy said. Heart disease was caused by bad personal habits, cancer was caused by bad industrial habits, war was caused by bad political habits. Dannyboy believed that even old age was a habit. And habits could be broken. Priscilla felt like lecturing the crowd on its habits and sending it home, but, of course, she did not.
Toward the end of the line, she thought she heard a white-haired guy on crutches remark that it was December 7, “the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Bailey.” He was wrong. It was then December 8.
Five days later, on December 13, Pris gave Wiggs Dannyboy a call. She was in a funk about their “relationship,” a snit compounded by the detective's lack of progress, and was desperate enough to try to force a talk.
“Pris, me darlin', 'tis happy I am that ye called!”
“Really?”
“Sure and I couldn't be happier was I to learn that God and the Devil had settled out o' court, endin' once and for all the ridiculous notion of a struggle between good and evil that has provided the religious o' the world with a pious excuse to kill and plunder and has spoiled the plot o' many a novel. I couldn't be happier was I to grow another eye, one that shines in the night like a wolf's eye and can twist on its stalk to look up a lassie's skirt. I couldn't be happier was Alobar to be released from the nick, which, indeed, he may be next month, if it's not too late. As fortunate as I am to be born an Irishman and thus possess a license to broadcast this brand o' pseudolyrical bullshit, that's how fortunate I am that you — I mean, ye — called. I would have called ye but ye haven't a phone.”