Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

terrier to follow her around during a movie scene, had had to have scraps of raw calf’s liver stapled to the soles of her high-heeled shoes.

Thinking of that terrier magnetized by meat-baited slippers reminded him then of the old bald parrot that had waddled after its mistress in a Lima suburb many months before—and for a moment Switters was back in Peru. That’s the way the mind works.

That’s the way the mind works: the human brain is genetically disposed toward organization, yet if not tightly controlled, will link one imagerial fragment to another on the flimsiest of pretense and in the most freewheeling manner, as if it takes a kind of organic pleasure in creative association, without regard for logic or chronological sequence.

Now, it appears that this prose account has unintentionally begun in partial mimicry of the mind. Four scenes have occurred at four different locations at four separate times, some set apart by months or years. And while they do maintain chronological order and a connective element (Switters), and while the motif is a far cry from the kind of stream-of-consciousness technique that makes Finnegans Wake simultaneously the most realistic and the most unreadable book ever written (unreadable precisely because it is so realistic), still, alas, the preceding is probably not the way in which an effective narrative ought properly to unfold—not even in these days when the world is showing signs of awakening from its linear trance, its dangerously restrictive sense of itself as a historical vehicle chugging down a one-way street toward some preordained apocalyptic goal.

Henceforth, this account shall gather itself at an acceptable starting point (every beginning in narration is somewhat arbitrary and the one that follows is no exception), from which it shall then move forward in a so-called timely fashion, shunning the wantonly tangential influence of the natural mind and stopping only occasionally to smell the adjectives or kick some ass.

Since this new approach should render chapter headings (those that designate date and place) unnecessary, they will from now on be scratched. If the next chapter were to have a heading, however, it would read:

Seattle

October 1997

It was on a mist-bearded Saturday morning, gray as a ghoul and cool as clam aspic, that Switters showed up at his grandmother’s house. En route from the airport, he had stopped by Pike Place Market, where he bought a bouquet of golden chrysanthemums, as well as a medium-sized pumpkin. Now, he was forced to juggle those items in order to free a hand with which to turn up his trench coat collar against the microdontic nipping of the drizzle. He had also purchased a capsule of XTC from a hipster fish merchant he knew, and as he walked from the rental car to the stately mansion, he managed to get it to his mouth and swallow it without benefit of liquid. It tasted like snapper.

He punched the bell. After a brief interval, his grandmother’s voice crackled out of the speaker. “Who is it? What do you want? This had better be good.” The woman refused to keep a downstairs maid, although she was eighty-three years old and had the wherewithal.

“It’s me. Switters.”

“Who?”

“Switters. Your favorite relation. Buzz me in, Maestra.”

“Heh! ‘Favorite relation’ in your dreams, maybe. Do you come bearing gifts?”

“Absolutely.”

He heard the electronic loosening of the latch. “I’m advancing. Brace yourself, Maestra.”

“Heh!”

When Switters was less than a year old, his grandmother had stood before his highchair, her hands on her still glamorous hips. “You’re starting to jabber like a damn disk jockey,” she said. “Pretty soon you’ll be having a name for me, so I want to make this clear: you are not to insult me with one of those declasse G words, like granny or grams or gramma or whatever, you understand; and if you ever call me nannie or nana or nonna—or moomaw or big mama or mawmaw—I’ll bust your cute little chops. I’m aware that it’s innate in the human infant to produce M sounds followed by soft vowels in response to maternalistic stimuli, so if you find it primally necessary to label me with something of that ilk, then let it be ‘maestra.’ Maestra. Okay? That’s the feminine form of the Italian word for ‘master’ or ‘teacher.’ I don’t know if I’ll ever teach you anything worthwhile, and I sure as hell don’t want to be anybody’s master, but at least maestra has got some dignity. Try saying it.”

Little more than a year later, when he was two, the child had marched up to his grandmother, pinned her with his already fierce, hypnotic green eyes, planted his hands on his hips, and commanded, “Call me Switters.” Maestra had studied him for a while, had puzzled over his sudden identification with his none too illustrious surname, and finally nodded. “Very well,” she said. “Fair enough.”

His mother continued to call him Baby Dumpling. But not for long.

Maestra failed to greet him in the vestibule, so Switters wandered the ground floor searching for her. Nearly a year had passed since he’d been in the house, but it was as he remembered it: spare, elegant, and spotless (Maestra had a professional housecleaning service come in twice a week; her meals she ordered delivered from Chinese and pizza take-out joints), and a dramatic contrast to the dumps in which her offspring—and their offspring—had often resided. Maestra had done all right for herself. Above the living room fireplace was an Henri Matisse oil of a mountainous blue nude reclining, distorted limbs akimbo, on a jazzy patterned harem sofa. He was reasonably sure it was authentic.

He found her in the library, perched at a computer. Much of the library was jammed with electronic equipment, twice the amount as on his last visit. Her collection of great books was now double- and triple-parked at one end of the room, while at the other end there were two computers, an array of modems, printers, and telephones, a forty-inch television set into which a stack of black boxes was jacked, a fax machine, and a helmet with goggles attached, which Switters took to be some type of virtual reality device.

“Maestra! Surfing so early in the day?”

“Less traffic this time of morning. Switters! Are you alone?”

“Of course. Who’d I dare bring with me?”

Punching off-line, she swiveled to face him. “Well, I did intercept an e-mail message in which you promised little Suzy you were gonna take her ‘all the way to grandma’s house.’ “ Her affectionate gaze hardened into a glare.

Switters blushed so incandescently he could have hired out his face as a beer sign. It was one of those instances, rare in his life, when he was at a loss for words.

“Perhaps that expression has some different connotation for you. Eh? Something I’m not hip to?” Her smile was ironic and a tad malicious. “After all, you’ve always exhibited the good taste not to refer to me as ‘grandma.’ “

“Uh, er,” Switters stammered, “Suzy? Suzy’s in Sacramento, how in hell did you access her e-mail?”

“Heh! Easy as pie. Child’s play. You of all people ought to know that.” The edges of her smile softened some. “All right, Switters. Come here. Kiss these wrinkly old cheeks. It’s a blessing to see you. A mixed blessing, but a blessing, nonetheless. Mmm. Boy. So what’d you bring me? Great, you know I’m crazy about mums. And a most fine pumpkin. Yes. Excellent damn pumpkin.” Her disappointment in the presents was ill concealed.

From his jacket pocket, he fished a Bakelite bracelet, pinkish butterscotch in tone. “Found this in an antique shop in Paris. Guy claimed it belonged to Josephine Baker.”

“Well, it’s mine now!” Maestra was immoderately fond of bracelets, often wearing as many as ten on each thin arm. “That’s so thoughtful of you, Switters. So sweet.” She paused, adding the bracelet to her jumble and admiring it there. “But don’t think this lets you off the hook, buddy boy. I don’t have to tell you what a wicked degenerate you are.”

“Oh, tell me anyway. I never tire of hearing it. Puts a spring in my step.”

“You are a wicked degenerate. A rascal, a wastrel, a pervert. . . . Don’t look so pleased with yourself. This business with little Suzy is not funny. It’s sick. What’s more, it’s criminally prosecutable. You’ve always been the most irresponsible—”

“Now, now. How can you say that? I’m a dedicated, decorated public servant with a top-secret security