cap, and beard, stood at the top of the sandy trail and pointed them toward the beach. At Gala’s request, Jeremy had carried the big clock outside and it stood next to her.
After Gala and the clock greeted each guest, they had to go past Jeremy and me, and we stopped them.
“I’m an orange,” the orange said.
“I can see that,” I said.
“Don’t shoot me,” he went on.
The snail roared with laughter.
“Get it?” said the snail. “William Tell shoots apples, not oranges.”
“Sorry,” I said to the orange. “We’ve got to frisk you for contraband.”
The snail thought this was funny, too, but the orange started to protest.
“Dali’s orders,” I said with a shrug and a look intended to make them think that it was just another eccentricity of the master.
I think the orange finally shrugged. I don’t know. The snail, even though she was a lady, was easier to search than the orange. We stood back and watched the couple waddle down the hill. I said, “Jeremy, this isn’t going to work.”
Looking particularly wise in his toga, he replied, “We will do what must be done.”
What had to be done next was to confront a woman in a gown and a head full of snakes instead of hair. The snakes looked too damned real.
“The Gorgon,” said Jeremy.
The man with her, if you ignored his big belly, looked like a Greek soldier complete with a big shiny shield. I tried to get under his armor. He was ticklish.
“Perseus,” Jeremy explained as the couple staggered down the hill. “He could only look at the Gorgon in his shield lest he turn to stone.”
They started to come too quickly for us to keep up with them. A herd of masked lemmings going over the cliff toward the water, lemmings disguised as ballerinas in fishing boots, buffaloes with the heads of owls, giant polka- dot chicken legs, red satin robots, and a hooded monk or executioner with ax. There were men dressed like women and women dressed like men. Half-man half-two-headed-horses, a bottle of mustard with an elephant’s trunk, and something that could have been a big wrinkled chili bean. It could have been something else, too, but I preferred to think it was a chili bean.
The noise level had risen considerably, though the waves were still slapping loud and close.
An angel and a Catholic priest wearing lipstick and sporting a long tail were the last to join the party. The angel, with white gown and feather wings, stopped next to us, played a few notes on her harp, and announced, “There should be no fires on the beach. The Japanese. It will draw the Japanese.”
“I think he plans to lure them to the beach and then pelt them with live lobsters,” I said.
“Droll,” commented the priest, heading down the hill to give her blessings.
“You hear that, Jeremy, it’s droll.”
“An essence of Surrealism is its offense,” Jeremy said.
“Anything?” asked Gala the Cossack, coming to our side and looking down at the madness on the beach. “Anything suspicious, strange?”
I looked down at the sight below, a beach full of escapees from a casting call for
“Looks normal to me,” I said.
“Dali seems pleased,” she said, stroking her beard. “Please bring down the clock.”
She headed down the sandy path toward her husband, who was standing on the seat of the throne, his paws folded, a mad knowing smile on his face.
“I’m going down, Jeremy,” I said, picking up the clock. “Keep an eye on things from up here.”
“It’s a bacchanal,” he said. “An astounding vision. If I had paper and a pen I’d write a poem.”
“Togas don’t have pockets,” I reminded him.
“I like that,” he said. “That will be the title of the poem, ‘Togas Don’t Have Pockets’-a surreal title for a surreal poem.”
The bow hooked over my shoulder dug into my back and the clock sank its claws into my stomach as I scurried down the hill and moved next to Dali on his throne in time to hear a woman dressed like a man say, “I hope you don’t die like the other painters, just when I get interested in your work.”
“In that case,” said Dali, “I hope we are both fortunate enough for me to outlive you.”
The woman backed away with a happy smile, and Dali leaned down to me and told me to place the clock before him on a marble pedestal. His voice was panicky as he put a paw on my shoulder: “They are coming too close and the sea is beginning to whisper something to me.”
“How about we call it a night and send the circus home early?” I suggested.
“Early? Early is dawn. The night is just coming. Fire dances in the waves. A feast of cannibals. Look. The lobsters look alive in their hands. Holes will appear in their flesh.”
“Sounds like fun to me,” I said.
“This,” contradicted Dali, “is not fun. This is art. Critics lurk beneath the masks, ready to steal my soul. Buyers hide their hideous drool behind hoods. They want to gather in my paintings, devour them in private feasts behind closed doors.
“I hope not,” I said.
A voice rose from somewhere behind us. I couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
“You could never be my analyst, Roland. You are not truly literate.”
The snail appeared with a polka-dot chicken leg, stage whispering, “His paintings reveal so much of the Id that one can but anticipate with longing his return to consciousness.”
“Quiet,” shouted Gala, who suddenly appeared on the throne next to her furry husband. Her arms were raised high and her slight voice fought the ocean and the murmuring of the guests. Behind her, Dali adjusted his deerstalker, folded his arms, and turned his chin up in a pose uncomfortably like one of Mussolini’s. “At midnight, Dali will wind the clock and time will begin. But first, he will recite a poem of love and honor.”
The crowd went silent except for the orange, who had turned into a giant screwdriver-the vodka kind-and was babbling about hairy teeth.
“Off with his head,” Dali ordered the executioner, pointing at the offending fruit.
The executioner weaved through the crowd and headed for the orange, who saw him coming, screamed, and went running up the beach in the general direction of Monterey. With relative calm restored, Dali began to recite in a language that sounded a little like Spanish, but just a little.
The bottle of mustard whispered, “I think it’s Portuguese.”
“No,” said a small voice behind me. “It is Catalan.”
“Gunther,” I said, turning around to look down at the Coroner of the Munchkins.
“It was all I could find at short notice,” he said.
Gala glared down at us with a look to whither knaves, and Dali went on gesturing eloquently as he continued reciting and pointing at the sea.
“What are you doing here?” I whispered to Gunther.
“The phone here is disconnected and I had to tell you-” he began, but Dali stopped him.
“You have come from a dream to destroy my poetry,” Dali shouted.
“On the contrary,” said Gunther, who was not known to possess a sense of humor. “We have come from Los Angeles in time to save your life.”
“We?” I asked.
“I drove here with Alice Pallis and the baby Natasha,” Gunther explained.
The crowd on the beach applauded. They seemed to think the Munchkin and the archer were part of the performance.
“Minute impostor,” Dali cried. “You destroyed my poem. You try to frighten Dali.”
“You were reciting ‘Goldilocks and the Three Bears’ in Catalan,” said Gunther.
Dali looked astounded. Tears welled in his eyes. His mustaches wilted.
“Off with his head,” cried Gala.
The executioner made his way back from the shore and advanced on Gunther. The crowd loved it. A zebra-
