“Good afternoon, Moilin’s Woi-i-ild.” It was the Flatbush mechanical tweetie bird of the cadaverous vice puppeteer Suzette.
“Is my father there?”
“Oi-sula! Where are you?”
“Never mind that, where’s Merlin?”
“He was on his way,” Suzette said, “we had just checked into the Bangkok Imperial Tiger when the most wonderful thing happened-you’ll never guess.”
“No. I won’t.”
“He got a why-uh that he got the Mung-he had to fly right back to Hong Kong for a press conference. He sent me on ahead.”
“The who?”
“The Vogelkuss Mung Prize for International Understanding Through Art.”
“Oh.”
“It’s a fifty-thousand-dollar prize, dear. Think what Moilin can do with that money. The poor man has expenses like you wouldn’t believe.”
“O I believe it,” I said hastily. In fact I saw what was coming around the bend and, hoping to head it off, I added: “Well let him know I’m not one of em. Not anymore. Oink that.” But too late.
“Like that fancy mental hospital for instance-such greed I never saw! And listen to you, Oi-sula, my goodness, what’s happened to your language in that place? It’s gone downhill since you started slumming around with that bunch of juvenile wards of the court. Frankly I’m glad you’re out of there.”
I had all my arguments in a row-why I shouldn’t, why I wouldn’t, why I couldn’t go back to Rohring Rohring-but somehow they seemed superfluous to this conversation.
“That place was fine for a month or two,” Suzette went on, “and, as I recall, the poisonnel-wasn’t his name Reginald?-was extremely kind. So helpful! But for two years, as a sort of sleepover boarding school without the school, the place was a little overpriced, don’t you think? I mean, Oi-sula, the bills are breaking your poor father’s back.”
“Well that’s over,” I said, noticing I was rather superfluous to this conversation myself. I thought I’d better remind her I was a wanted woman. “I’m not going back there even if they say I did murder. It was an accident.”
“O that,” Suzette said with mild surprise, “I forgot about that-it’s all cleared up-didn’t you see it on TV? Turns out the poor doctor died of an aneurysm, I mean they found out some bubble boist under his heart, you know, where it goes into his stomach? Very unfortunate, the loss of a woild-famous diagnostician and that, but the problem was in his organs, dear, it wasn’t you at all.”
“That’s a relief,” I said uncomfortably, feeling like the late summer grit blowing across the highway. So Foofer hadn’t died of a broken head or a swallowed pipe-his heart had drowned, drowned in its own blood-while mine had washed up here, bone dry. Between trucks in the parking lot sat the taxicab I’d come in, BLACK-AND-WHITE CAB CO
“I should say so,” Suzette replied. “The coppers ransacked this place for a picture of you. Finally they had to settle for some ridiculous four-foot-long megillah with every last girl at Camp Chunkagunk on it. You’re in the back row with some kinda black gunk on your Adam’s apple, what the heck was that stuff? Well anyway dear you were famous. For two days. They blew up that tiny face and plastered it all over the TV screen…”
“I was famous,” I parroted, in a daze.
“… right next to your father’s-as if the poor man didn’t have enough trouble. Oi-sula, you wouldn’t believe the hate mail
“Did you get my Camp Chunkagunk picture back?” I growled.
“Did I what? God knows, dear, I’m sure I never gave it a thought… Oi-sula, Mrs. Kuchmek from the Juvenile Court has been calling. They’ve got to appoint some sort of, er, adult guardian for you if you’re not going back to the hospital. Somebody has to officially receive you.”
“Why not you and Merlin?” I said. “Just sign whatever they hand you, I won’t be any trouble, I promise, you’re never even gonna see me, I’ll disappear, I already disappeared, the taxi’s waiting outside…”
“Mrs. Kuchmek knows I’m flying to Moilin in Manila on Friday, and anyhow your father’s far too well known for you to go around pulling stunts like that. You need an adult to keep an eye on you. What about that woman doctor you ran away from the hospital with, that Zook or Shook or whatever her name was, she seemed interested in you-”
“Cheese it caused an international scandal already my leaving with Zuk, and besides I thought Merlin thought she was dangerous-”
“Politics, dear, politics. Anyway by now that’s all blown ovah,” Suzette purred, “nobody cares, dear, as long as you’re all right. You are all right, aren’t you? Do you need any money?”
“I’m fine,” I muttered.
“I’m glad you’re out of the mental hospital, that’s no place for you. Call Mrs. Kuchmek will you? So how about that Doctor Zook?”
“I’ll look into it,” I said.
“Moilin wants to see you when he’s in Washington in eighteen days.”
“I’ll be in touch.”
“Any messages for your father?”
“Nope.”
“I’ll give him your congratulations.”
“Give him my congratulations.”
On the beltway, heading for Route 70 West to Frederick, the cabbie tuned in WBUG “Afternoon Bandstand” and what do you think I hear?
“Hey, that’s my song,” I shrieked, “pull over.” The cabbie looked at me in mild alarm. She was a buzz-cut old jasper in an A-1 Auto Body tee shirt with a neck like a tree trunk. “There ain’t no shoulder, hon,” she said, “you fixing to get us kilt?” “I mean, turn off at the first ramp with a pay phone,” I said. So along we go, calmly, another two miles. Meanwhile the Frogman comes on: “This little tune,” he grates, “was written by the Bug Motels’ legendary fugitive girl singer-songwriter Ursie ‘The Bogeywoman’ Koderer. It was recorded live at the bughouse on the Regicide label by our own! Balmer! bughouse band, Dion and the Bug Motels! and zoomed overnight to number two on our charts!
I dialed East Six. Who should pick up the phone but Reginald carpet-nails-in-honey Blanchard himself? He says: “Bug Motels. How we can help you?” “Cheese, is this a bug hospital or a booking agency?” I spluttered. “Bogeywoman! Izzat you? How fast can yall haul ass back to the bughouse? You is no longer persona niggerata round here. The Bug Motels has debuted, they has busted into the big time, you my songwriter and I am your manager.” “What is this Dion and the Bug Motels stuff?” I asked, “you know that silly peacock can’t sing a note.” “Well-lemme tell you how it is-don’t nobody want to look at O’s big as a house self right now. Egbert and Emily best lay back dead in the looks department. And anyhow Egbert’s bailing out-found some gig in a bookstore coffeehouse on Charles Street-how square can you get? So I figure I can sell that pretty-boy face-hump I done already sold it. We got a TV date on WAAM on Friday. Way you at? I come get you.”
