“Pete, why didn’t you tell us you were doing this stuff? It’s terrific. Look at all the great publicity we’re getting.”
“Huh,” Black Peter said. Jack laid the newspapers out on the table. Black Peter rubbed his eyes and examined the press. His chest got tight. He took a second look, and a third.
“Boy is Elder Marse going to be happy when he sees this. Why you and I are liable to get a bonus.” On the society pages of the New York Exegesis was the announcement of the wedding of Beechiko Mizuni to Wadsworth Longsfellow, former editor of Organic Society. They told the press that they were grateful to Black Peter. On another page there was a photo of peacocks with their arms around a turkey. The caption read: Black Peter brings understanding between Peacocks and Turkeys.
“Good picture of you, Pete,” Jack said. On the entertainment page there was an announcement that Fryer Moog was opening at some of the Village nightclubs. He’d gotten back his chops and reassembled his quartet from the old days after spending what he called many wasted years in Hollywood. He had gained back some of his weight and jogged every day. You couldn’t keep the guy away from juice bars and vegetarian food. He too thanked Black Peter, and there were others. A woman who needed a liver transplant for her child said that Black Peter showed up and contributed the check. A farmer whose family farm was about to be foreclosed said that Black Peter had arrived in the nick of time to rescue him. “Even though I’m a white man, if he were running for President I’d vote for him,” the farmer said. And so the stories went.
“And to think, we all thought you were pissing your life away at Xmas parties all over town, and here you were, flying all over the country, rescuing people. The department stores are mobbed. How did you manage to do it, O, tell me sometime about it, Black Peter—” Before Black Peter could say anything, Jack Frost exited the room.
Black Peter poured himself a glass of strong whiskey. He looked outside the window, and he saw people on crutches, as well as with other disabilities, and Third World women desiring blonde hair, blonde women desiring Afros, black men requesting that Peter bless their superman capes, white men begging Peter to teach them how to say hey dude, hey bro, hey home and to do the moon walk, but Black Peter was faced with some heavy “existentialist” questions as a New York Intellectual would say. If he were he, who was he? Or, who was doing him while he was doing him? His life was becoming like a riddle popularized by Abbott and Costello.
25
Meanwhile, in his apartment in the Netherlands, a cold metaphysical place, somewhere in the Arctic, where the favorite musician is Rudy Vallee, Nick was preparing for his annual visit for the Xmas season; he was pacing up and down, his hands held tightly behind his back. It was December fifth. He was furious, and earlier that morning had fired two elves who’d been assisting him for so many seasons, the other elves had forgotten when they joined the team. His favorite assistant, Destar D’Nooza, was shining his black boots. Mr. D’Nooza had the sad, drooping eyes of a basset hound, and an outstanding nose. In a former life he had served Lord Mountbatten when Mountbatten was the Viceroy of India, an experience for which he had always been grateful and told stories about it to the other elves, who hated him.
“Boss, you zeem so … so nervous. What bother you, boss?”
“‘What bothers me,’ he asks,” Nick said. “You see these headlines that Black Peter is getting?” “Black Peter Cured My Gallstones” read the headline of the International Herald Tribune, a newspaper that Nick read every morning.
“O, boss, why should you worry about dat? It’s just a Turd World trick to embarrass you. You still on top, boss. The happiest part of my life is bringing a brilliant gloss to your boots.”
“You really think so, Destar?”
“Tink so. I knows so, boss. Why dat Black Peter is impostor anyway. We check it out. He speak English very bad, boss. Very bad. He say, we bees, as in, we bees going. He don’t know how to conjugate verbs, boss, like I do. I went to school in London—”
“Yes, yes, you’ve told me a number of times, Destar. But I think you’re wrong, I knew about the impostor four years ago when I … when I—”
“Boss, don’t worry about dat. Don’t you worry. You choose wrong man. Dis Dean Clift have no credibility, and so when you make your appearance, though you change him, nobody believe, boss. Wasn’t your fault. You have a better idea this time. It will really alter the course of history. You so great, boss, you so—” Destar began sobbing.
“What’s wrong, Destar?” Nick said.
“I just tink, boss. I’m so happy to be of service to you. A … bug like me, able to do my part for Western civilization.”
“You’re a loyal elf, Destar, and if you continue such devotion I’ll see to it that you get that English country manor you were never able to obtain during your earthly stay.”
“O, tank you, boss, tank you, would you like a little lamb dish with some curry before we prepare for our annual journey?”
Nick nodded.
26
Bob Krantz bunked in Nance Saturday’s apartment for the night. He was up all night going to the bathroom and occasionally his trips stirred Nance. Krantz woke up screaming several times. He had a bad night. At breakfast the next morning, Krantz told Nance the whole story. Nance sat there, stunned. Reverend Jones and his pretend friends. The possible murder of Admiral Matthews. And most shocking of all, Operation Two Birds. During the Iran-Contra investigation in the 1980s, it had been revealed that Oliver North was part of a plan to round up all of the black leaders and put them in camps. But those plans sounded mild in comparison to Two Birds, which called for low-yield nuclear attacks on cities with surp populations, poor blacks, Hispanics, Asians, no longer the model minority, and the millions of whites who were as useless, nonvital and up to no good like the rest. Nance was shocked. He knew that a lot of people in power were crazy, but not that crazy. A preacher in the White House talking to ghosts. Operation Two Birds. A computerized superhero robot on loan from Hollywood. The murder of the Secretary of Defense.
“Look, Virginia Saturday is my wife. My ex-wife. You could go on her show. Tell the world about it.”
“Who would believe it? Look what they did to Dean Clift after he made those claims. They’d do the same thing to me.” Nance thought about it. He stroked his heavy mustache. It was so heavy it must have weighed about two pounds.
“Maybe you have a point.”
“Besides, I’m still indebted to Reverend Jones. He saved my life.”
“But now he’s trying to get rid of you. What kind of loyalty is that?”
“Reverend Jones is the only man in America who can stop our country’s sinking into the abyss.”
“You talking about niggers?”
“No, why get so sensitive? We’re not against blacks. There are blacks who are high in the government. The man who now runs Reverend Jones’s evangelical empire, Reverend John the Conqueror, is black. He does all of the preaching while Jones advises Jesse Hatch on how to run the government.” Krantz looked at his watch. He walked over to the TV set and turned it on.