The Return of the Orange Virgin―The Story So Far
Harry Profitt Pease, the unanointed priest of the Fata Morgana, Lady of the Wild Things, slaughters the White Sow of Naxos. Harry does not know the pig is sacred; the pig in question had a suspicion but now it is too late. This is a mistake. Nobody’s fault. Harry takes a pull from the screw-top pint of fortified wine never far from his hip pocket. Empty. Blood and mud. Spring killing. This is the reverse order of things. Harry is drunk and singing the Whiffenpoof Song remembered from his mother’s Victorola. Harry recalls Alma Nightingale, a might-have-been high school sweetheart.
The Electric Virgin, the Fata Morgana, the Lady of the Wild Things, etc., etc., toughens her mettle to chat up Jack Lamprey and Alf Tawse, two Elder Dwellers. They are hard at work digging a well. They are thinking of grazing sheep in the Goddess’ back meadow and their woollies will require water. Tawse and Lamprey are not impressed with her credentials. She is from somewhere else, so were the Dancing Lords, the previous tenants. The Lords had savage habits which the Elder Dwellers chose to ignore. The Fata Morgana wheedles the two and they agree to help her put in electricity. The Morgana is rehabilitating her second-hand castle.
Pen Harrington, an over-the-hill announcer at a small town radio station gets caught short while recording commercials down the hall from the on-air studio. The swish-click of a locked groove is repeating from the control room. How long had this been going on? There are no listeners he figures, and goes home to get drunk. Pen is a lover of night nurses and truck-stop waitresses; he is redeemed by a Priestess of the Fata Morgana. This introduces Prince, a big yellow Labrador retriever, familiar to readers of A Special Providence.
Biff Bangtree responds to a rumbling in his stomach. Tummy, actually. Morgana’s lover is tall, lean and broad-shouldered, a hero. If he calls his stomach a tummy, who would argue? Biff backs out of a buttery, his pockets full of doughnuts. Biff Bangtree is not yet his name, since Morgana has neglected to call him anything. That he have a name is not a vital component of their lovemaking.
Patricio, Oswaldo and Miguel arrive at a back country airstrip. Thumbing a pinch of white powder into each nostril, Patricio grows glassy-eyed. "Bueno, let us then do business." Dialing the combination release mechanism of a leather overnighter, he scoops out an amorphous lump of plastique about the size of a bowling ball. "Perfidious Albion’s ice-bound colony. The Church of England has civilized them all, taken their teeth. They await Mama Coca for their four o’clock tea." Patricio fondles the plastique. The explosive is warm. His nerve ends tingle with the heightened awareness of Mama Coca.
The Fata Morgana eavesdrops on a castle child and its mother as they watch the night sky. "Ohh, mommy, look." A bright blossoming flares and fades past the child's finger’s end. "A star exploding." The woman has been a mother many times over many years. The night sky holds no new wonders for her. "They do it all the time. Come to bed." The Fata Morgana seeks an understanding of the slaughter of her sacred swine in the fumes of cup of tea. Her priestess is a man. "Strange. But an athlete, a hero, and fallen on hard times. It must be women have lost the knack since I departed. Gray-haired and wise then, a canny conjuror. But a fool. These are confusing signals. And why is he calling me? There must be a reason."
Harry Pease is stalked by the perfume of gas, grass, sweat and Narragansett Export Lager as he mows the lawn of the Valiant Memorial Trust Library. He dreams of Alma Nightingale, a high school sweetheart, as he makes concentric circles with his riding mower. Alma’s husband has died punctually and in good taste after thirty years of boring fidelity. We meet Joyce Gladstone, Valiant Trust librarian, who lives in dread of Harry’s death and the subsequent bequest of his Popular Mechanics and Playboy collections to her shelves.
Spinning. Forgetfulness and no sense of self. The Fata Morgana's raspberry dream continues with yearnings, struggles, joys: all the paradigms, apotheoses, covetousness, sloth, envy, etc., along with dandelions, cabbages, butterflies―the hotel reservations and weekend painting projects of a googolplex of individuals are over, caput, finis―sucked through the eye of Eternity’s needle, pushed out backwards on the other end, and here she is. Simple, really. The goddess longs after her lost power. Not power to do anything in particular―threaten, coerce, destroy: illuminate a city, tighten the skeins of a siege engine or wind up the bowels of a child’s clockwork toy―just power to have around. Just in case. What has been hers is now not, and that troubles her.
Home from her cosmic tête-à-tête, the Fata Morgana cocoons Biff Bangtree against any misadventure and addresses Sarabande, Superintendent of plantings and the Herbarium. "Sarabande, I know this is becoming tedious for all of us, but you are not the Sarabande to whom I last spoke, are you? I mean you are truly beautiful and there is that in the curve of your mouth and the shape of your ear, the very turn of your hair―the way it exposes the notch, that tiny irregularity at your widow's peak when you tie it back like that. You are Sarabande?" Kneeling in the fresh spring mud of the greensward, Sarabande ruins her gown―"...the one to whom you spoke was my great-great-great-grandmother."
In the cellars of the Queen three stone heads grace the capital of a buried pendentive. The heads are malign at first glance, a dead craftsman’s nightsweats and horrors: vaguely a Cow, a Goat, and a Manticore. Mineral deposits have whitened the Goat’s tongue and striped his head so that his tongue appears to have paused in the fastidious licking of an ice cream cone. The Goat’s dead eyes are rolled back, hollow stone pupils positioned to stare up the kilt of any passing visitor. In former times he had been out-of-doors and his gaze was heavenward, away from the temptations of the earth and the flesh.
Pen Harrington has disappeared into the cellars of overnight radio, a lover of night nurses and truck-stop waitresses. To those up top in the sunshine who might think of him the consensus is that the best thing about Pen Harrington is Prince―big, loving, gentle and not too bright. Where Pen goes, Prince goes, and preferably by car. Prince sits in the passenger’s seat giant and yellow, and mostly Labrador retriever. Prince sleeps and dreams of a cow stuck in a wall. The stone head looks down and nods wisely. It has a secret. "I know who you are," says the Cow. Prince raises a leg. "I wouldn't do that if I were you. I am a sphinx. Cleopatra loved me."
Wherein Pen Harrington and Prince meet the Fata Morgana at a bus stop. Pen falls like the last of the great forest giants before the chain saw of wide-eyed disingenuousness. Prince also feels the call but, with none of his master’s inhibitions, walks up to the goddess and sticks his nose between her legs. "Prince..." A low, happy glottal rumble as ears are scratched by the exciting, wonderful woman. More tail-thumping and the nose is firmly back in place. "...I knew introductions would be in order. Prince and I are going to be close. Very close. Hi, I’m Morgana leFay. Call me Maggie."
Wherein Biff Bangtree gets a second start as an urgent baritone fills the room―"And now... Dolby Jenks, Space Ace, brought to you by Chocolate-flavored Ovaltine..." And Oswaldo Patricio Meléndez O'Rourke y Nuñez arrives in Harriet Hopwood's life unannounced and unforeseen―"I see you in the corners of my eyes, beloved," he says. That eyes might have corners is uno tropo, a figure of speech.
By their nature, the stones of the Fata Morgana's castle do not get around much, but compensate by a great pride of place. Black basalt they are, striped with travertine―an outcropping of the world spirit. The great blocks had been meticulously quarried to a master plan that allowed but fine tolerances at their joins and little tolerance for intruders. The stones get little satisfaction from the flickering, fluttering life dwelling in the spaces they define. Nor are they particularly quick-witted even by their own lights, and their thoughts, when they think at all, are particularly tedious, for not many decisions are required of them and they take the long view.
Linda Winkelman, priestess-designate of the Fata Morgana, wants "more." More of just what she is not quite sure, but she is certain there has been a short-changing somewhere along the line. A chips and nachos conglomerate is introducing Pork-A-Dillos, a low-cholesterol fried pork rind product, the latest scientific breakthrough. Linda has been named project manager for the new product's test marketing; if it flies she will be in line to direct the national campaign.
Wherein the Manticore quests through a spectacle of glittering implements―steel, iron, tin and aluminum, quarts, gallons, missionary cauldrons, runcible spoons, shirers, boilers, broilers and basters, colanders, ewers, forcemeat forms, pâté molds, sieves, lids and ladles. Fluted tin forms braided like the innards of a mollusk's abandoned husk await gelatin confections, larding needles languish for a loin of pork. A shelf of ceramic rabbits await their pâté masquerade. The Manticore is indifferent to the guises of chopped liver and salmon with herbs.
Wherein raspberry tarts and a spinach quiche are mentioned and the Manticore becomes impaled: "I say, are you stuck?" asks Biff Bangtree. He crouches to behold a creature made up of many other creatures: porcupine, man, lizard, eagle, scorpion. El the Eidolon, a quasi-divine meddler, drops in: "I have been so looking forward to this, Morgana, having you over―exacting blood for blood, wreaking havoc: the Eumenides charging about, flailing at whole populations, extirpating them all for the sins of their king. I love it. Just like old times." We likewise meet the Wise Child and the Destroyer―aspects of the Fata Morgana.
Wherein Biff, Morgana and the Manticore go prospecting for a priestess in peril: "Cute cupcake," the Manticore thrust his head between Morgana and Biff, "...and she wears an expression of extreme distress. An easy conquest." And Linda Winkelman meets the Eidolon: "I got all dressed up for the Visitation. You are the instrument, the vehicle, if you catch my meaning, of a meeting of vast teleological implications. At this very moment, even as we speak, so to speak, the emanations of the demon-queen of Sumer and Babylon are invading your persona."
Wherein we consider a washing machine, wealthy as washing machines go—an automatic bought new by Harriet of Oswaldo and Harriet, our young lovers from Chapter Thirteen. It is a good machine with a hearty spin cycle and a pump made for a big city water supply, it comes off the Sears truck and is the wonder of the neighborhood. With the affinity that some machines have for people, it has attached itself to Harry Profitt Pease. And the Queen on Heaven ponders tools: "The shovel, a useful instrument," remarks the Orange Virgin. "It asks little in the way affection, has no moving parts and runs on dried-out crusts, cheese rinds and yesterday's ale."
Wherein we visit Harry Pease at home—Harry’s house has the best ocean view in Willipaq: "So goddamned beautiful you could just shit," Harry once said, popping a Seadog on a fine Fall morning. And Harry meets the Orange Virgin: "You are a pig," he observes. "And you are a dirty old man. Don’t belabor the obvious."
Wherein we visit with Linda Winkelman who faces strangulation in the sub-cellars of the Hotel Taft. The Orange Virgin and El in his expropriated human guise are in attendance. A cat carries in a still-twitching mouse and lays it at Morgana's feet. "Someone at least remembers who I am. Pardon me, I must share this well-intentioned offering." Morgana sits cross-legged, facing the cat with the mouse between them. "To you it is religion, to the cat it is lunch, and religion will wait.." The Queen of Heaven bites the head off the mouse and hands the remains to the cat.
Wherein three of the pursuers of Oswaldo's cache of money—Champion, Everlast, and Quigley—face the twin certainties of Death and Taxation. Harriet Hopwood mourns: "I can't stop crying, just look at that—like rain on the windshield. And real tears, too." And the Orange Virgin consoles: "I never recite the truth. Ineluctable pronouncements, yes; facts, sometimes. Sometimes I even come close."
Wherein molecules rush in to fill the space so recently vacated by a medium-sized young man with golden Inca eyes. The Poet offers sustenance—"Corn whiskey―make it myself. God only knows what the proof is." Oswaldo has jumped into the clear air of a Europe untouched by Huns, plague or industrial revolution to land in a haystack, a guest of the Queen of Heaven.
Wherein the Queen of Heaven checks her rear end to discover a curly pink tail protruding at the base of her spine. "A cheap trick," she bellows at the sky. While the Manticore, set to tending tumescent toddlers, meets Linda Winkelman: "You will have to pardon me, but I'm not used to impromptus. Ta-Dah!" There is a smell of ozone, the flickering of blue and pink letters. WELCOME TO THE NEW JERSEY TURNPIKE. REDUCE SPEED APPROACHING TOLL PLAZA says a neon sign. "A regular touch of home," says Linda.
The house has a storybook air about it―a short ground floor and a steeply thatched roof with framed dormers peeking through the straw upstairs. Tudor half beaming, wattle-and-daub with an occasional fieldstone for accent. Oswaldo remembers seeing something like it in brochures for picturesque vacations. All destinations looked alike in the travel folders. "It's like dying but with regular mail service" remarks Valerie Hatt. "There's a village five kilometers upstream and through the woods. Or leagues, versts, miles. Depends on who's walking. Weights and measures are pretty unpredictable here."
Wherein Pen Harrington and Dim Lights Morrissey discuss life's travails with the Happy Time Bread man. And we meet Libby Pease, Harry's sister, to discover why lime jello with embedded chicken parts and an aerosol whipped topping is favored at covered dish suppers. Likewise Cousteau McClonaghy, proprietor of a flashing blue neon sign, EAT. Respect for his namesake has him keep fish frys Fridays at the diner long after Vatican II.
Wherein a medium-sized pig strolls out from behind a stack of snow tires. The pig looks like she has something to say. The pig, self-aware in the way country pigs are not, studies a trotter in the center of the triangle of Morrissey, Harry and Pen. That Harry entertains visitors from other planets is well known. Whether Harry has actually seen and talked with them is hard to pin down, but on one thing he is adamant: sojourners from the astral planes made his place a regular stopover on their passage from wheresis to whatever. He has seen their spoor: strange messages on the uninhabited channels of his TV, usually in the early morning hours when the decent, Christian stations were turned off.
Wherein Harry Pease discovers all is not as it seems: "Your voice. It reminds me of Lauren Bacall," he tells the black and white spotted pig. And the Orange Virgin spills her metaphoric beans: "Your death: immediate and terrible, Harry Pease. This is no longer on the menu. I forget people have feelings, too. Pardon me for being brusque—these are my little ways. I had planned something modern and deliciously psychopathic for you; you should be flattered. Like chopping you into little bits and flushing you out to sea."
Wherein Oswaldo returns from the dead. "Not so Great a Beyond," as he would tell Harriet, "...but OK." And Pen and Morrissey take a pig out to EAT. Harriet Hopwood is the waitress on duty, and Cousteau has rules. "Seeing-eye pig?" Harriet has rules, too, number one being Cousteau’s rules seldom apply. And Patricio Adolfo Ruiz y Martinez confesses to the murder of Oswaldo's parents: "¡Qué lástima! Ay caramba, what an admirable explosion! And poof! our beloved associates are gone. Like the snows of yesteryear, a mountain jonquil poking through the melt of early Spring, crushed and trampled... extinguished by the careless footfall of the passing Caballo Apocalíptico."
Wherein the Fata Morgana decides Linda Winkelman, priestess, is an unnecessary clutter. Tonight is the night Tom thaws Szechwan dumplings, too, thinks Linda. Please don't be angry dear reader, for we have reached that time in Linda's story arc where we have to bump her off. Anyway, the idea of missing out on Tom’s dumplings makes her disproportionately cheery about her impending death. She drops her gym tote and rummages through its pockets. Doesn't she have a bottle of Midol somewhere?
Wherein Quigley, Champion and Everlast ponder the future. Champion dreams of the dance and the fragile protocols that bind together the keepers and the kept. A patrician beauty dances open mouthed, taking short frequent breaths—more, surely, than are demanded by the exertions of the waltz—her eyes rolled back to the whites in a stylized gesture of sexual anticipation which her escort must notice. The escort notices, but he is busy covering his back. Both preoccupied they spin on woodenly—dancing around an object of which they must never speak, whose existence must never be acknowledged. There is power in a glance, the power that if your eyes linger overlong on another dancer’s partner this will require him to forget his timing, drop rhythm, break the truce. We have pretended we are here for the dance.
copyright 1993, 2007, 2008 Rob Hunter