 
King and Queen of Swords

by Terry W. Gintz

Copyright 2012 Terry W. Gintz

Smashwords Edition

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"Peace will come

With tranquility and splendor on the wheels of fire

But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall

And cruel death surrenders with its pale ghost retreating

Between the King and the Queen of Swords" -- Bob Dylan

Dedicated with many many kisses to Beaver Meadow, my proverbial angel, lover, momma and rain or shine companion. _(Her_ kisses forever humble me!)

Part One: The Grooming

Chapter **1- 9AB (After Brady)**

Their story opens in a parallel far out galaxy, maybe the eleventh or twelfth pancake of a simultaneous stack of non-uniform universes, on a very slightly elliptical or bent planet nicknamed Wobble by its scientifically-minded inhabitants and surrounded by milky haze and one crustaceous skeletal moon, not necessarily very different initially from another combustible planet nicknamed Terra Infidel by perspicuous aliens, since the spark that germinated life on both planets was the same dynamo, along with countless other inhabited worlds, but tending to somewhat divergent results, since evolution has its own fickle pathways to follow... Such is the intimidating transmigration of most intelligent specie worlds. Go figure the booking odds, and then subtract nineteen. How I love to seed new places – the Unrepentant Traveler, take 2893197170. And Actshun^&*^&#@$!

No bones about it, the bozo was definitely drowning. He wasn't swimming in circles. He wasn't bobbing for pippin apples. He wasn't breaking wind to aerate the tropical fishes. He was just your average perfectly-random drowning victim. His feet had slipped beyond the shallow edge of the rogue river and the tepid water had sucked him in. All of a sudden he was a submerged contestant in Instant Jeopardy. Mechanical pelicans rose above his head with a scoreboard counting down his doom. The panoramic cameras zoomed in on his plight, and then zoomed out to the raucous crowd. (They loved a good gut-retching act.) Shaking and wobbling, there was nothing to balance on as he struggled to keep his head above the water. (Zoom to a head shot, eyes bloodshot, neck twisting this way and that, the frothy water drooling out of his mouth.) He knew there was nothing to fear; they wouldn't let him drown on the show of the year (Simulated Death Throes.) Still, he panicked when he found he couldn't kick with his feet to propel himself forward or backward. (His thongs acted like a cake knife on butter cream.) Turning around and using his arms in a crude backstroke, he couldn't see anything beyond a few inches, and the merciless sun and pelicans overhead. (Zoom to a spectator wearing a skull and bones mask, and holding a sign up that read, "The end is near; give up sucker!") When he thought he was close enough to shore, he tried standing up but slipped back into the murky depths. "Give me a break!" he bawled, "Haven't I suffered enough?", throwing his white towel at the onlooker wearing an alligator costume, and swallowing his tongue in the process. It felt like a rope had been drawn around his neck. His eyes bulged and his cheeks flushed. (Zoom to the film crew wearing Bermuda shorts, laughing it up; they thought he gave a great performance.) With seconds remaining in consciousness, he thought of shooting himself with a water pistol filled with squid ink, but that wasn't in the script. He looked over toward the bleachers where his girlfriend stood anguished, and managed to spurt, "Honey, don't!" (Zoom to the straggly girl in the Bo-Peep outfit who was pouring a bucket of blood all over her chest.) Then out of the blue depths... Zap! The holographic picture fizzled out.

"What'd you do that for?" Bert yelled at his blonde buxom wife, who was clutching the dream machine's remote control and smirking that little smirk of hers. He threw a couch pillow at her protruding tits. Bella's face turned into chagrin, "Aw, that tickles, Albert," Bella said, while nibbling some flax seed. "Scratch my back, huh?" "Get out of here and leave me alone!" Bert responded, unsympathetically. It always boiled down to this after the flames had died out between them. Bert was one moody son of a revolver. On a platter next to the sofa were the remains of a few grains of colazene cut with a little lip-syncing acid (the dietician approved supplement for confirmed anarchist immortals) and a beer chaser. Somehow no matter how good they conjugated, he needed his space afterwards. Bert climbed off the couch, walked through the kitchen, and started pacing the hallway between the kitchen and the bathroom. (It was a long hallway.) Anytime he was disturbed with the drugs seeping into his system, he walked around to blow off steam. "Just give me a kiss, honey, and I'll go to the Mall", Bella whined, puckering her lips and waiting unperturbedly. Bert turned around in his Homer Samson rocket shorts, and then he ... walked on down the hallway. He reversed direction, passed through the kitchen again and smacked her two centavos worth. Bert was trying hard to be nice, ever since that time he backhanded her for getting on his case and accidentally chipped her upper two front teeth. (The dentist patched her up using titanium caps.)

The Mall was a favorite hangout of Bella's where she hung out, literally, at the Anti-Gravity Café, and smoked dark chocolate reefers with other spaced out beings. They could play Space Pucks in zero gravity, spiraling around a holographic scoreboard that sort of acted as a multi-dimensional skate-board arena, complete with micron-sized black holes that sucked you in one side of the arena and popped you out another at random. The object was to predict where someone would emerge then blast them with a soggy snow cone gun (in one of nine gooey flavors.) When Bella got tired of simulating a regurgitated pop tart, she took a hot steamy shower and hopped on over to the Brown Bear salon to have her back scratched by two-inch grizzly-kins. These were artfully conceived miniature reproductions of the long gone Ursus Arctos species that were programmed to do a Celtic jig on the back of any healthy immortal, claws penetrating to the depth of 1 mm. (Those with excessive blood-letting tendencies need not apply.) The grizzly-kin scratches left the ruby imprint of any image you wanted from a catalog of over a gazillion, and stayed there for about a week, or until you showered next. Bella always left with an image of a hot tamale topped with red salsa for Bert to consume when he got over his grumpiness.

Doctors could do almost anything these days. Replace arms and legs with bionics, transplant brains, even reverse the process of growing old. Ever since a scientist in Zombezeland discovered an enzyme that counteracted the natural aging cycle, thirty years ago, Bert had regressed to the unequivocal age of thirty-one. He was finally satisfied with the way he looked. Not bad for-- in actuality -- an old man of ninety-one. Bert was a former copyright examiner who opted for early retirement just before the Rejuvenation Pill was invented. There were occasional rumblings in the United Congress of Americanos to revoke the social status of countrymen like him, but so far all the talk just led to filibustering.

When it had become clear that no amount of fencing and policing was going to reduce the number of illegal border crossings, it was decided in 10BB (Before Brady) to abolish the national boundaries in North America, Central America and South America and make everyone the United Americanos (UA), which kept pace with the Consolidated European Enclave (CEE) and Asiatic Technocrats Union (ATU.) This was in preference to calling itself the United Americas to distance itself from the previous failed attempt of Bolivarcus to merge all the South American states into a single homogenous nation. Someday there would be one compact World Citizen League but that was too much to expect in the twenty-second century, with the Mid-Eastern banditos, the Afrikaner mud-slingers and the South Pacific's bangle shooters still stirring up global unrest.

Bert still kept an ebook collection of best-sellers by his pillow in case he needed to apply for copyright recertification. (In his heyday Bert could process one hundred novels and short stories, predominantly horror, a month.) Copyright evaluation was a specialized occupation that would be needed as long as books in any shape or form were written, PDQ. Thanks to regenerative therapy, all Bert's marbles remained copasetic, if at times askew from nightmares of gargantuan origin. (Bert's mind was akin to the Winchester house, full of scary stairways of knowledge and experiences that led nowhere.) The bed massagers kept him strong and fit, working silently on every muscle while he slept, and Bella was looking better than ever. If Bert needed a tighter intellect, there was always the mystic tantric to draw energy from, which regrettably had the occasional reverse side effect of turbocharging the libido and turning a person into another bloody Mr. Hyde, so Bert was careful not to overdo it like some yogis he'd met did. By taking a single pill a day, he could remain immortal, barring a fatal accident, and even then it might not be too late. If his brain was still intact, they could transfer it to a brand new clone, or better yet a nearly indestructible android body, skin like polished satin, with all his tactile sensations preserved or enhanced to the limit his mind could take. But that could wait. The process still wasn't perfected, and sometimes your brain missed your real body so much your electronic circuits burned out, or your clone went berserk from memories of a past life and doctors had to lobotomize it. You never felt a thing afterwards. And of course with an android body, impregnation in real time was impossible, unless you salted away some semen for a rainy day in a sperm bank. It was widely demonstrated that constant freezing lowered the IQ of live semen by ten percent a year, and could cause stropage (sperm tail dropage) in rare cases. (Bert hated the idea of passing his juice to the nurses who ran the places, anyway. He always got the feeling they were laughing behind his back.) Conversely, you couldn't create sperm out of spinal cells. Eggs were a little easier. When a woman was on the brink of death a thousand eggs were expelled from her ovaries. These could immediately be transferred to a female android's body, where they were kept in her 'ovary' pouches at a constant 98.6F, ready for fertilization at the right time. The only drawback to this was you sometimes had to choose from a thousand possible embryos that were produced by an accidental massive expulsion of eggs at the time of coitus. It appeared some women enjoyed sex so much it overloaded their sexual circuits and caused all the eggs to squirt out at once, sort of like death remembered. This was similar to what happened in some human females, when they produced twins or triplets, only the results were a hundred times worse in androids.

These days of aging regeneratively and gene-slicing, Bert had plenty of time to think about procreation and the implications of finally fathering one of his own, but he still wasn't convinced it was the right thing to do, not with twenty billion souls crowding the planet. Though mass starvation was a thing of the past, and most countries were well on their way to affluent stagnation, Bert surmised there was more to life than screwing around and adding to the surplus population, which was now being shipped off to the Venusian highlands for safe keeping. Exactly what it was, Bert couldn't say, but he hoped to learn before cows flew or horses played guitar, which was fast becoming a possible scenario.

Satisfied she'd gotten all he had to give her, Bella dressed in a pink cotton tank top, red velvet slacks, and black suede open-toe wedgies and left the house. She knew when to argue and when to get even. When he was grouchy, she always waited for him to cool down, giving him the silent treatment and stuffing him with bonbons. When he was ice cold, she stretched him out on their meat rack called a bed and broiled him alive. They had glorious times together making up after their quarrels.

51BB -- Bert first met Bella at Walt Distant World Resort while taking a short vacation to celebrate his promotion from mailroom stalker to junior copyright associate at CRU (Copyrights aRe Us.) He'd taken a few home study courses in copyright standards, and was looking over the shoulder of a copyright associate while delivering some office mail to him. At a glance Bert could tell the associate was a phony, because there were cookie crumbs and coffee stains all over the copyright applications on his desk. This was contrary to all the standards that Bert had read about. When Bert mentioned this to the associate he got real huffy and red in the face. "If you're so smart, you evaluate them!" the associate hollered at Bert. Bert was happy to oblige, and in a few hours had over fifty copyright briefs researched and approved or disapproved. After that piece of mental wizardry, Bert's future in the copyright agency was assured. Bert was standing under Spaceship Wobble near the opening of the Epcotta Center, when a slinking shadow passed over his body and gave him an incredible tingle all over. Bella had spotted Bert from a thousand yards off and was doing her best to sneak up on him. Bert didn't quite figure it out, when suddenly this woman out of nowhere rushed into his arms -- she was quite an armful, sweaty and randy -- and planted one of the most seductive kisses on Bert's mouth that he'd ever tasted. They must have remained glued together for what seemed like twenty minutes, though it was only a few hundred seconds. "Woe, Sheila!" Bert finally managed to gasp, extricating himself from her lovely body, and remaining perfectly still, while he eyed her top to bottom. Bella cried out "You're the one!" and seemed to mean it too. Bella had been told who to look for by a gypsy fortune teller seven years before, and how to tell for sure. "It's in your kiss" the gypsy explained. "Kiss him, and if he doesn't run off immediately, hang on to him. He's yours!" Bella just knew Bert was her husband to be, though she'd been wrong a mere 2191 times before. Armed with what the gypsy woman had told her, every day except Sunday Bella went looking for her sweetheart described as "six foot two or shorter, eyes of blue or hazel, in a grey seersucker suit or Bermuda shorts and alligator shoes or pigskin walkabouts." She always managed to bag one hapless sucker a day with a kiss, but they usually ran off after the first clinch. Telltale signs of male marriage phobia, perhaps? Sundays she spent at home or in a lonely penthouse crying her eyes out, and filling all the teacups in the house. (Bella had been up and down the East coast in her search for her perfect soul mate, and she had plenty of time and mullah to conduct it, having been born into a Tampa Bay family who'd early in the nineteenth century invested in Hershley's dark chocolate bunnies and gotten filthy rich off the candy wrapper giveaways. Later they reinvested in Distant preferential stocks and struck a bonanza in Distantland and Distant World then sunk all their proceeds into Palm Beach tattoo parlors. On her seventh birthday, Bella had a tiny red devil permanently inked on her left buttock, after crying Gila monster tears for hours to get it.) This time Bella got it right. It just took another three thousand and three kisses to convince Bert – that and some pretty heavy petting and making out. All that remained was the proposal, which he proffered to Bella on All Souls Day (since she always felt they were soul mates, the timing was a no-brainer.) The event took place two thousand feet off the ground in a hot air balloon, without looking down, while a flock of Canadian geese sailed by honking their encouragement. Bella responded with a kiss that sent Bert sky-diving toward Mount Olympus and a resounding 'Yes!' that blew the feathers off some pigeons that had chosen the balloon's balustrade for a perch.

50BB -- Since neither of them was particularly pious or religious, their marriage took place in a glow-worm cavern at a Las Vegas simulation of the Amazon basin by a ragamuffin of a non-denominating minister in a Felixo the Cat costume, as Rosetta cockatoos cackled and phosphorescent sleigh bells tinkled, with tropical incense-flavored flowers and a steamy web cam video feed for the folks back home, the chapel's All-Together-Now Special, which occurred about the same time Mt. Kilauea erupted for the 62nd time in a stupendous dangling past-participle, warmly promiscuous. When it became obvious their honeymoon getaway to Hawaii's Big Island was about to get toasted, they opted for a deluxe suite at a private resort near Mt. Vesuvius instead. (Their sitting room featured a complementary Tuscan horn of plenty filled with apricots, cherries and grapes and a bottle of Lachryma Christi del Vesuvio 1981, and a cage with a pair of black and white turtle doves who cooed lasciviously the whole night through, which was mostly pleasing but could be extremely annoying at certain crucial times and then you covered their cage with muslin. A heart shaped water bed in the boudoir and a king-sized spa in their marbled bathroom completed the suite's arrangement.)

Between extended bouts of spooning, Bert and Bella strolled among the excavations of Pompeii, admiring the ancient Roman columns and Street of Tombs, and then took a bus to Naples to visit the National Archeological Museum and shop for souvenirs. (A life-sized reproduction of Venus Aphrodite seemed an incredible bargain at 50% off but the crating and shipping costs were prohibitive. They compromised on a smaller version, solid bronze, which fit neatly in Bert's backpack.) Later in the day they climbed to the top of Mt. Vesuvius from the Valle del Gigante (Giant's Valley), and regarded the smoking crater while walking around its rim. Incidentally, the surrounding view of the Sorrento Peninsula and Pompeii was perfect.

After a day of hiking in ash, and sore shoulders from carrying around Venus, it felt good to relax in the tub with jets of hot water shooting across their bows and legs interlocked in idyllic embrace. Afterwards, afterwards... Well, let's just say, they had fun, lots of it, oh yes!

(9AB)

Bella had what you might call a persistent kissing bug, ever since she met that fortune-telling gypsy woman. (Or maybe it was the fact unknown to Bella she'd been born with a second clitoris on the tip of her tongue, and the gypsy had done something to awaken it.) When Bella kissed her tongue would slither in and out like a snake, or a heat-seeking missile, always probing for the right spot to unleash her passion. She could cover a lot of ground or skin that way, and wet squiggly ones were her specialty, though it used up a lot of saliva which she replenished by drinking flagons of water each day. When Bella kissed you, you stayed kissed. When she concentrated Bella could emit an electric spark from the tip of her tongue that was like a hypnotic charge, or the Medusa effect as Bert thought of it. Bert was constantly mesmerized by this quirk of Bella's, but kept his mouth shut about it, lest Bella turn his winky into a petrified woody. She once accidentally transformed his tongue into a leathery bicep, and for seven days Bert was able to lift a bicycle by its frame by curling his tongue around it, and spoke like Jabba the Hut until his tongue loosened up and he was able to talk normally again. After that incident Bella was careful to use her tongue's sparkplug only to arouse certain areas of Bert's body, among them his big toes, knee caps and little pinkies... Eating was a challenge with Bella also. She couldn't tolerate foods too hot or too cold, so her tongue constantly darted in and out to test the cuisine's climate, which in restaurants led to curious observers sometimes cracking terribly unfair comments about her. When she couldn't stand the abuse anymore, Bella gave them a furious tongue lashing. If that wasn't enough, Bert settled unruly bystanders back in their dining chairs by feeding them a knuckle sandwich -- which led Bella and Bert to be kicked out of more than one restaurant.

Bella always wanted a kiss for something. She would block the hallway with her sweet tuckis and wouldn't budge without a smooch. When he tried to sit down on the couch she was there ahead of him, with her velvety lips stretched out. He sat down anyway, and slid off her lap. Bella held him down and wouldn't let him up until he covered her mouth with wet ones. She was built like an Amazon queen, about three inches taller than him, with muscles that rippled through her lithe thighs and nylon biceps, and blonde wavy hair that danced in the wind. Her breasts stood out firm as Dutch Gouda, without the waxy covering, though she always claimed "I'm just a silly hussy, ain't I, Bert", every time he squeezed her platinum butt. She squeezed him back until his tongue stuck out, and then she curled it with her curling iron. The bathroom was always a tricky proposition. Bella liked to lurk inside the linen closet while he was doing his thing on the toilet. She would pounce at the most inopportune time, grab him by the shoulders, lifting him off the seat, and plant beautiful French-fried kisses on his open mouth. This led to embarrassing consequences sometimes. On long car trips Bella would block his vision trying to get a little peck from him. He once side-swiped a police car during one of her attempts, and had to spend a night in jail for that, pay a five-thousand dollar fine and serve as a traffic guard for six months. (The citation read "Reckless driving. Failure to signal before changing lanes. Assaulting a police officer. Creating a public nuisance. Unable to control impetuous wife." – the whole ninety-nine yards, all for one little kiss!) He was really burned up over that incident and the next time Bella tried to kiss him, he was ready for her. He had his lips spread thickly with Jalapeno green sauce. "Yuck!" Bella exclaimed, spitting out the salsa verde. "That's nasty, Albert. All I wanted was a little sugar..." (When Bella had issues with Bert, she called him by his full name, giving "Al" the predominant accent. At most times "Bert" would suffice, except when she wanted to get intimate, then she called out to him in her sexiest voice, "Oh, Mr. Proofreader...", after laying herself flat out like a June centerfold. Bert never refused the come on, unless he was watching Tommy Tinselhead, with transistorized ear phones and chocolate cookie inserted half in and half out of his mouth. He wore the horse blinders half-up, to follow the movie script. Then Bella had to slowly massage her media in front of him until he got the message. Bert took off his blinders, put on his Batmatic parachute and digitally-enhanced tunnel vision spectacles, and imagined he was diving off a cliff from an altitude of ten thousand feet. The specs had a nominally inverted zoom range of .0001 to 1, but were adjustable to .000000075, for takeoffs involving a moon leap. When his parachute failed to open, as it often did, he landed with a splat. Bella was always there to cushion his fall.) Bert chuckled and went on browsing his Rock Carving & Gem Making magazine.

(20BB To...) -- Bert once belonged to a gem and mineral society, who ran a lapidary shop where he learned cabbing, silver casting, jewelry making and finally stone carving. He got caught making alterations on the specimens in the upstairs showcase, and was banned from the place, but not before he'd perfected his specimen carving technique and turned a priceless collection of Russian chalcedony into a miniature replica of the Bedouin Badlands. Bella and he still made excursions into off road places to gather stone for his carving or their immense rock garden. Once a rattlesnake bit his leg in the Painted Desert and they barely obtained anti-venom in time. Saved by Bella's cell phone! Another time a wild goat kicked him in the mouth and knocked him flat, when he strayed onto a plateau in the Arizona badlands looking for pachyderm tears. It took Bella two and a half hours to drag him back to their Wrangler Jeep, mainly because she couldn't resist stopping every thirty seconds, and murmuring to his limp head and shoulders, "Just one more kiss, Bert." (Her lips were a bloody mess when the paramedics finally showed up.) The medics said he was very lucky, his front teeth protected him, though they crumpled from the impact. A kick to the dorsal cranium might have been fatal. Bert wore a bridge and four false teeth for the rest of his natural life. (In 12BB, that was all fixed up by the new reconstructive dentistry.) As Chief Black Cloud was known to have said, "What weighs a pound is worth around a pound, more or less." When Bert came around he thought he was Bullwinky the Moose.

Chapter **2- (9AB)**

Bert switched the 32-inch wide-RICA holovision set back on. The boy was riding on a giant catfish round and round the swimming hole, holding on to a lariat wrapped around the fish's neck and mouth. "Where'd he come from?" Bert wondered, upset he'd lost the plot of the series. When he tried to switch channels, the television exploded with river water and flooded the room. (That was often a problem with holographic projections. They had a tendency to combine with LSA and become frightfully real.) Bert was barely conscious that he was brain surfing before the deluge was on him. Bert couldn't tell if he was the boy or the boy was him. They were both drowning then. The river became an ocean and all manner of sea creatures and flotsam came crashing through: tuna, Marlin, tiger sharks, minnows and bullheads, nylon fishing lines with two pound lead sinkers attached, long strands of seaweed and tumbling sea urchins, drift wood in strange twisted shapes, a ship masthead carved with a Greek mermaid, and finally a great white shark with an enormous mouthful of six inch teeth, ready to swallow Bert up. Bert barely dog-paddled out of its way in time. A tiny catfish swam by, mouthing the following poem:

When you read a poet's words

be very afraid...

Like a god in his fury

you might find

an ocean falling on you,

shark bait!

Smart guy, you know nothing

your words are foil tokens

following the breeze

Yet you persist in this foolishness

with a grudge unquenched.

(We will grow old together, you and I

what is the sense of this?)

When he hollers out his rage, hun

be very calm.

You always are

until next we twine

gotcha!

Bert thought this was very interesting, but it didn't clean up the house. He still had a bad taste of river water in his mouth, like someone had peed in it. "God, why do you have to be so obnoxious?" (Bert was always accusing his Mentor after incidents like this.) Bert spent the next couple of hours cleaning up the apartment with a plastic bristle broom. There was algae everywhere which he carefully swept up and transferred to a steel bucket he kept by the couch. After all this sweeping, Bert had worked up an appetite. He opened the refrigerator, pulled out some frozen wheat bread, an imitation butter tub and a slab of imitation cheddar cheese-wiz. (There were no dairy products these days, after the mad-cattle plague of the twenty-twenties.) He sliced the cheese-wiz thickly, spread some butter on a couple of slices of bread and put the cheese sandwich into a fry pan on the stove. He set the fire to low, then went back into the living room to look around. Still a mess, he observed. Bert found a piece of rough onyx on the rug. This could a bear or penguin, he thought. Check it out, look at those bands. Bert got very excited when he handled a natural artifact. Its shape only required some basic modifications, and a light polishing. Animals were easier to carve than nudes, though the latter gave his imagination a real workout. Bert was still musing on the piece of onyx he held in his hand, when the smell of homey bread reached his nostrils and he remembered his sandwich! When Bert returned to the kitchen, one side of his sandwich had a black tarry crust; and the cheese was gooey. "Damn", Bert said to himself. That always happened when he got distracted. His fingertips rebelled as he tried to scrape the burnt layer off the sandwich. Finally concluding that it wouldn't get any better, he took a bite ("Not bad", he thought) and consumed the rest of it. "Look out stomach, here it comes", Bert relished the pun.

Bert decided to make a zebra out of the onyx. After printing a picture of a zebra off the stone-age hyperrnet, he started outside with rock and paper when he realized he was half-naked. Ducking back inside, he dressed in some old jeans, a red T-shirt with moose art on it, and Smart-aleck Woolish socks and Nike-missle sneakers. He exited through the front door and pulled out his keys to lock it. The house monitor chimed behind him. On his key chain was a mummified tongue he kept for good luck. He positioned the key in its slot and threw the deadly bolt. He didn't bother to set the alarm (the Tasmanian Devil security service had been discontinued months ago. It kept re-arming itself when they were home and once nearly took a bite out of him.) Bert went down to the basement where he kept his lapidary equipment. The basement shop was on a discrete floor from his Victorian cellblock, so he had to use the outside staircase and pass through the laundry room to get to it. It was rumored that satanic rituals were performed there, because of the cross Bert had hand-painted on the door in fish blood, and the police once even investigated a neighbor's claim of suspected foul play. All they found were Bert's lapidary equipment and a small cemetery that held the remains of the family's goldfish and other pets, a few fish bones and numerous cat skeletons. The cross was just Bert's way of honoring the family tradition of burying their dead and departed house sitters. That and to keep would-be grave and lapidary robbers at bay, mostly the latter. Little sticks marked each grave site, with names scrawled on each like "Furball" and "Scratchy". (Bert calmly explained to the police that each skeleton was completely stripped of flesh in a hyper-allergenic acid tank, before burial, so everything remained neat and sanitary. The police departed whistling Dixie and turning cartwheels like hop-headed Jet Lee's.) When Bert's vacuum station filled up with stone dust from his carvings, he just dumped it equally on each grave and watered it in. The pet ghosts didn't mind. They enjoyed watching Bert at his work, and sometimes sang purrty songs of mousecapades that only Bert seemed to hear.

Bert unlocked his shop, went in and put on an apron, and slipped a respirator over his head. The smell of fresh earth hung in the air, but it was rocky disintegrations he was worried about. (Onyx dust though mostly calcite was still dangerous if it got into your lungs.) He adjusted a pair of reading glasses over the respirator then some safety goggles, and prepared to leave orbit.

Chapter **3- (9AB)**

Outside where he did most of his rough carving, Bert turned on his electric chisel and carefully etched out the figure, referring to the picture often when he forgot what a zebra looked like. The chisel was good for rocks fist-sized to a foot or so. For boulders and larger stuff, he used a nuclear powered pile-driver, which worked on anything up to the size of Mount Brushmore. The only drawback was it woke up the neighbors at a radius of half a mile. Bert could care less, having ear plugs made of old wooden nickels, but the neighbors were furious. The bomb threats became so frequent he had to deep six the pile-driver.

4BB -- When he became well-known for his smaller carvings, the Government asked Bert to add another president to the Big Four at Mount Brushmore. Bert declined because he didn't like Conservationists. They claimed to be working to protect the nation's resources, but ninety percent of the wealth of the country was being "conserved" by just a few percent of the people. Bert's favorite party if he had one was the Madhatter's Tea Party, because they knew how to share tea and crumpets, without a cash exchange or sales taxes. Secretly one night Bert put a silencer on his pile-driver and carved Henrich Millar next to George Washingtan. (Bert could work very fast and anonymously when he wanted to.) When the tourists saw what he'd done, a great clamor was heard all through the Black Hills of South Dakota. It was if the old Indy gods had suddenly woken up and were chasing the pale man's Holy Grail back to the Atlantic Ocean, the molten sea of shells it had sprung from. President Jeffersaint wanted to obliterate the "fiend" beside Washingtan. Lincola, iconoclast that he was, was willing share the block with all newcomers. Tedkins grew a beard and went incognito. Washingtan himself was embarrassed that he hadn't thought of it himself. (He remembered his encounter with the cherry tree and smiled.) President Anna Davenport wasted no time calling out the Nike-missile bulldozers, but people were adamant that Henrich remain on the shelf forever, as a token of free speech and world-wide brotherhood. (Henrich's fans were legion. They loved the contrast of authority and non-traditional anarchy, and saluted the unknown artist for being on top of his genre.) Six months later after the hoopla had died down, Bert carved Randolph Scottsburo riding a palomino next to Lincola to finish his prospectus. On the other side of St Elmo's Peak, Crazy Horsey welcomed Randolph and launched his hatchet at the full harvest moon. The moon split open like a ripe pumpkin and showered the earth with all kinds of crop enhancements. The corn stalks had five foot ears that summer, big as any Paul Bunyan ever grew.

At this point the figure looked more like a cow or sheep with its legs glued together. (Onyx was a soft material, easy to carve, but brittle if you tried to cut off too much at one time.) When he was satisfied he had gone as far as he could with the chisel, Bert went inside to finish the details with his Freedom wizard, an octopus-like contraption with over a dozen arms -- Only one arm was active at a time, the rest retracted into its globular body. Attached to the arms were diamond-covered wheels, nibblers, vibro-files and polishing buffs, for the different finishing stages. Diamond worked well on softer stones, with no lubrication. (When he tried to use a drip system, the water just mixed with the dust and covered his safety goggles, making it hard to see what he was doing.)

Bert turned on his Suckitclean dust collector, and listened for a few seconds to the wind tunnel sound it made. (The pet ghosts woke up and danced in plain sight.) He grabbed cutting-wheel #1, depressed the foot petal with a slow steady pressure, and dug into the creatures legs, neck and tail. He glanced at the picture whenever he needed a refresher on the zebra shape. For finer detail he chose a nibbler or pencil-like nicker. Sometimes a leg would break off, if the bands on the onyx were too coarse, or maybe it was his finger that he severed. Then he would have to stop what he was doing, glued the leg back on with a five minute Epic glop stick and waited for it to harden. (If it was his finger, he sewed it back on with a leather needle and cat gut; it was stiff for a while longer. It didn't hurt, the hand was prosthetic, really, a replacement for the one lost to a carp in the Yangtze River, during his tour in the Peaceful Corps.) Then he would begin again, careful not to press too hard on the glued or stitched piece. Sometimes this happened more than once. If the rock or hand he was working on kept breaking Bert threw it in his discard pile and searched the shop for more malleable material. Fossilized moray-eel dung and petrified sloth brains worked well, but were hard to obtain. The former was found under a ton of lava at the base of Kilauea on the big island of Hawaii; the latter was mined in the wooly outback by the bushmen of Australia. (Hands he kept in a rusty Maxwell House coffee can by the dust collector.)

This time Burt was lucky and he grooved out the final details without a hitch or stitch, including a couple of shallow eye pits which he would fill in later with silica. He used various grades of diamond files to smooth out the cracks and grooves left over from the diamond wheels. Working from coarse to fine abrasive tools, Bert eventually obtained the smooth surface necessary for polishing his figure. White Lightning worked well on onyx, and he applied that to his artificial hand, and then massaged the stone surface until it developed a satin finish. When he spotted a few furrows in the beast's coat, he went back to the diamond or least coarse abrasive tools to remove the flaws. Then the process of smoothing began again, until Bert was satisfied with his creation. Upstairs he added turquoise eyes with chips of silica, glued them in place with pearl drops, and waited half an hour to let the eponymous layers set. Then he smoothed the eyes in his shop with medium and fine vibro-files, and buffed them lightly. With a happy grin on his face, and a bounce in his step, Bert returned to his apartment in triumph. If the finished figure looked more like a disgruntled aardwolf doing a fox trot than a graceful zebra on the African savanna, he didn't care. It was a stone first, a caricature at best. As long as the rock had character, that was all that mattered.

Bert set his new carving in a prominent place so Bella would notice it when she came back from the Mall. He was filled with energy and had to do something with it. "Maybe I should go down to the library and casually observe the blondes..." Bert considered, and then changed his mind. Not that one way street again! (Bert's libido didn't stay down for long.) He decided to take his usual hike up to Canyon Street and back.

It was a small town that you could easily walk around in a few hours. Bert often got the feeling he'd been there before. (He had.) He could trace back his earliest memories to landmarks that never seemed to change. Except for a new coat of paint on the city hall, a new building here and there where the old one had burned or been torn down and replaced, or the lack of gas-driven cars cruising the streets, the town could have been stuck in the nineteen hundreds. (Part of the town charter demanded that every historical building be preserved inviolably.) In point of fact it was only Bert's brain that never moved on. He kept repeating the highlights of his life at the nineteen stations of Jiminy Cricket. This was easy to do because electric sidewalks connected all public areas. You only had to step on the moving ramps to transport yourself from point to point, and then get off when you arrived at your chosen destination.

Bert rolled past the wall as a boy he'd wooed Jenny from...

Chapter **4- 75BB**

Have you ever been around a person who was so special you experienced bliss just being in their presence, listening to the song in their voice, while time floated on its way undirected, and channeling every emotion toward them so that all you observed and felt had heightened meaning? Maybe there's a chemical imbalance that triggers these feelings, so intense you need to be around that person constantly though you're not really coming on to them. The beauty of Jenny's face and the grace of her voice enthralled Bert. (Albert loved the Muppets, especially Bert, so as a kid his parents called him Bert. The name stuck.) Curly blonde hair, ethereal figure, Jenny creamed his mind. He spent all of his allowance buying her candy (twenty five cents worth). The corner sweet shop (long gone now, replaced by Acey-Doocey Hardware) had jars of tempting morsels, at a penny a scoop, milk duds, licorice sticks, jawbreakers, chocolate-covered raisins, thick mints, etc etc. Bert bought the works, filling up a good sized grocery bag, and dumped it over Jenny's head like a barrelful of monkeys. He raided his secret stash to buy her bows and ribbons from Deirdre's Five and Dime (now occupied by a Daisy Dollatorium storefront.) Bert's prize possession was a Mexican onyx bank, shaped like a sphinx, given to him one Yuletide season by his great Aunt Sybil. She was a world-wide traveler and often brought him back interesting trinkets, like copper pots from India and a dragon fan from Hong Cong. Into the sphinx went all the coins he found on the street, including foreign ones, and anything he saw laying around the house that wasn't glued down. Like an automatic robot vacuum, he purloined his parent's spare change. They left the coins out in lieu of a bonus for chores well done. As long as Bert mowed the gangly weed patch regularly and burned the trash, his parents were very generous. Under cover of darkness Bert cut the flowers in his neighbor's hydroponics garden to present to Jenny as a spring bouquet. The neighbor thought it was raccoons taking a midnight snack, and never suspected Bert. Bert didn't care that when the other girls got together with Jenny, they whispered to her: 'He loves you', as if that was real funny and warranted a laugh or two. It was worth it to see her smile and shyly say "Thank you, Bert." Bert just yawned when he heard the girls caution Jenny, "You never can tell about the silent ones", as if Bert had an evil streak in him somewhere. (At home Bert liked to play Spin the Cat on a wheel of fortune, and practice his knife throwing.)

Bert felt overwhelming warmth walking beside Jenny, holding hands to and from summer school. They passed by a couple moaning in the bushes, which caused electricity to travel up and down his arms. When they were alone Bert whispered "You are so beautiful. I want to eat you up. You make my heart sing. You make everything peaches and cream." Sometimes they would stop, long enough for Bert to put his arms around Jenny's waist, and give her a little peck on the cheek. They both blushed at that. (They were too young for anything else.) One day he dressed up as a pirate for the school carnival, with a three-cornered hat and a leather patch over his left eye, out to steal the heart of his beloved. (He tried ring toss to win her a Giant Stuffed Panda but missed the swaying wooden ducks.) Bert stood up on a brick wall outside the fairgrounds, waving a wooden sword, and commanded Jenny in Cinderella costume to listen to his entreaty. "Come away, my love, to the ends of the Sargasso Sea. My ship is waiting at Plymouth Harbor. Let us flee, flee, flee!" He did a little jig, which cracked Jenny up, then he tripped on a real crack, gashed his knee, and bled all over his pantaloons. Jenny called 911, and the paramedics patched him up. (Luckily Doctor Who's phone booth had just arrived and the good doctor helped her place the call.) This infatuation went on all summer, Bert getting more and more confused, as the moans of the couple in the bushes got louder and stirred up the marrow in his elbows. Sometimes he had the urge to undress Jenny and compare anatomies, but butterflies would circle around his head like tiny Tinkerbellas and cry out "No, no, no! Not yet you fool."

Then disaster struck. Jenny's dad got transferred to Madrid. (He was an architect with fascist leanings.) Her parents were taking darling Jenny with them. The lovers in the bushes went on moaning. The final parting came when Jenny had to say goodbye to Bert forever. "I won't be able to see you anymore, Bert." Jenny spoke huskily, through the open car window, where Bert was sitting tearfully with his mom and sister. Bert leaned out and fastened his lips on Jenny's. They stuck. Neither his mom nor sister could pull them apart. Bert was determined to make the kiss last, until his dying breathe if necessary. Finally Bert's mom had an inspiration. She stepped on the gas, and the Pontiac coupe took off with a flying leap. Bert had Jenny's tongue half way down his throat. At the jolt he clenched and bit it off. A fine souvenir for summer, he thought. Jenny never wrote or spoke to him again. Bert's sadness lasted for years. To expose life's hypocrisy, Bert cut down the bushes behind which all the moaning came from. (The hidden couple ran away to the White House shrubbery, and later ruined the country.)

Bert slid past Washingtan grade school.

Chapter **5- ~72BB**

Boys did a lot of gross things in grade school, like picking their noses, striking a Vulcan death claw pose and spitting on the pavement. Since Bert was small for his age, he was an easy target for bullies and wannabe toughs. They would challenge him to an archery match after school, but Bert was an expert marksman and could usually split the tail on their donkey's bottom. This gained him a wide following. Having a frail looking frame made him unpopular in team sports too. He was usually the last to be picked, when choosing sides. Once when it was his turn to bat, they played him short and pitched to him like a wimp; ("He can't hit, the other team's captain clucked). Bert lofted the ball over all their heads into the wild blue yonder. The ball landed in a falcon's nest on the head of a statue of Saint Francisco. The falcon flew the ball to Coopersville, where it resides to this day in The National Batboys Hall of Fame. (Boys imagine the craziest things.) Oh yes, while they were running after the ball, Bert circled the bases running on two fingers, and cleaned home plate with a water balloon, which he'd cleverly stored in his tummy bag. Splash!

Bella had different headaches. She had a congenital memory and could remember kicking in her mother's womb and sliding down her birth canal. (Bella repeated her stories so often to Bert, they became a part of his memories too.) As a young child, she wouldn't burp in front of grownups. When she was full of chocolate milk, she'd run outside, let loose an enormous belch, then run back for more 'moo' juice. Bella had a fixation on pennies, which she sucked constantly, like she was teething or something. When they visited the Central bank, if the teller forgot to give her two centavos, she would cause such a ruckus, the bank's president gave her five bucks one time (horns and all) just to shut her up. Her mother couldn't get her to budge until the clerk remembered, "Oh I forgot to give you your pennies. I'm sorry, sweetie." Her grandparents thought she was a greedy tike. They urged her parents to send her to the Belgian Congo to live with the thrifty gorillas. A nursery school teacher said that children often liked shiny copper, and sucked on the metal until it dissolved in their mouths. So Bella was given a brand new bank roll, which she promptly swallowed at the next meal. Her mother knew she could burp, but was surprised the first time Bella did it in her ear. Her mother was eating a sour pickle sandwich in an old Dodge Dozer, without thinking to share it with her, and Bella's stuck her head through the seats and belched and belched, which made her mom almost drop her sandwich. Bella had learned to swallow air, and then bring it up, explosively. She could do this again and again, and refused to be ignored.

Bella was a prize fighter as a child, nearly uncontrollable until the lower sixth grade. She didn't put up with anything. When a boy threw an eraser in her face in kindergarten, she grabbed the boy by the collar and rammed a black board pointer into his skull. He had a permanent rubber tip in his brain after that. In the first grade the teacher disciplined her students with a strap to the buttocks. The teacher hit her once, but the next time she tried to do it, Bella put her hands on her tush, and cried out, "Get away from me, you bloody pervert!" and refused to submit to it. Another time the teacher got her so mad, Bella burned down the classroom. Bella was expelled for a year. (Bella returned to school when the whole teaching staff and the principal died of anthrax poisoning, and she was able to sneak into the office and change her record.) Bella was always tardy, because she had a sleeping disorder. Her teacher warned her, "One more time, and you get the hot seat." (The teacher had a George Foremantic grill she used for punishment.) Bella came to school early with a ski mask on and batted baseballs through the classroom's windows, and snuck in when the teacher went out to investigate ten minutes before the bell. (They never could pin the blame on Bella, who looked as pure as Snow White when interrogated.) Playing on a teeter-totter, her opponent decided to jump off suddenly and Bella went down hard on her bottom. Bella grabbed the girl and stood her head down in a huge rain puddle, and spun her around and around until the girl puked up her breakfast. When the girl later stabbed her in the butt with a steak knife, Bella grabbed her by her little toes and dragged her to the principal's office, in the process causing the girl's head to bounce up and down on every step of the staircase. Bella sat on her until her parents arrived. "Get that schtick out of my bum!" she yelled at them.

In middle school, in the shower line after PE, a girl tried to cut in front of her. Bella pushed her to the end of the line and told her to wait her turn. (The girl later apologized, after Bella dunked her a few times in the horse trough outside the boy's bathroom.) In high school Bella bid on a dinner date with one of the volleyball captains, Lenny Osborne. His girlfriend a wafer-thin broad named Lulu Luckless told Lenny to pretend to get drunk and vomit on the date. Bella would be so mortified she'd walk out on him and then Lulu would have Lenny the rest of the night. Well things didn't turn out exactly like Lulu planned. After Lenny barfed in Bella's soup, Bella went straight to the girl's dean's office and demanded her money back, then slugged Lulu for good measure. She embarrassed the volleyball captain so much he gave Lulu the kiss-off in front of McDougals Deep-Fried Tonsils. When the metal shop instructor wanted to give Bella soft aluminum for a project instead of the steel he was giving the boys, she complained, "I'm taking this course to learn something" and threatened to walk out and take her complaint to the dean. He gave her a piece of four-inch thick titanium. She carved and polished it into the Star Trekky Garbage Scowl, took an 'A+' for the project, and her instructor later apologized for doubting her abilities.

Just last week Bert was riding the transcontinental airbus to Denver with Bella, part of a time-sharing promotional package, when an equestrian horny demon got on and sat side saddle in the front of the airbus. (Airbuses cruise on a layer of air, sort of like Jetson mobiles and go up to one thousand miles an hour.) The demon would scrub any boarder that walked by him, sometimes on the thigh or tuckis, other times on the bust or chest. Bella was sitting directly facing him. He looked over at Bert once or twice. Bert gave him his boiling lobster stare – the demon meekly shrugged. Then he leaned over and nudged Bella in the bust. Bella grabbed his tail and yanked it so hard the demon's micro-bionic teeth fell out. (Bert knew that was coming. Bella didn't let any other man or beast touch her boobies except doctors, always with a nurse standing by. If a doctor got too fresh, she slapped his face. If it was Bert doing the pinching, she just said "Ouch" if he got too rough.) The demon was so shocked he kicked out a couple of windows and had to be restrained in a custom leather straight-jacket, especially designed for centaurs. The whole bus cheered Bella. The bus driver didn't say a word until they carted the demon off the bus. Then he said confidentially to Bella, "Personally I really can't blame you, but professionally it would have been better if you'd chopped off his hooves." When the mayor of Denver heard what she'd done, he organized a floating parade in Bella's honor, complete with fireworks, streamers and a ten-piece calypso band. (These days the politicians used any excuse to have a good time at the tax-payer's expense.) The circuit judge fined the demon fifty pesos and sentenced him to thirty days without grass on a local dude ranch, then saddled and bridled him for the amusement of the guests. For the demon it was a sobering experience.

This kind of thing occurred more often than you might think. Ever since same-sex marriages became mainstream, it was only a skip and a jump before bestiality was legalized. Shortly thereafter, scientists through gene-splicing made all sorts of offspring possible. Sheep and horses were favorite liaisons; horses you could ride all over the country with, while sheep kept the clothing budget lowest. The side affects of such unions were numerous. Mostly the children had no conscience and behaved like uncontrollable adolescents, until they were gelded or labeled as "pests." Then the parents were forced to keep them in nursery pens until they matured. This could take decades or never (It was too soon to tell.) The most telling side-effect of cross-breeding was to blur the definition of who was considered a humane person. It was finally decided that if an animal could recite the Golden Rulebook (audibly or in sign language) it was considered part of a humane species and had full rights and privileges typically reserved for the human species, as long as it was responsible enough not to encroach on the rights and privileges of other beings of said species. Sometimes the definition became so tricky to interpret or a pain in the adagio, as sign language could be confused with tail-whipping a buttock and the heavy accent or brogue of some animals defied understanding, that species evaluators generally settled for a friendly handshake if all else failed. However, when things finally settled down to a monotonic routine, so-called "minority rights" became a thing of the past; there were so many minorities that the term became worthless and hack lawyers quit fighting for them. Spurious lawsuits thereafter confined themselves to browbeating the scientists when their minor (but numerous) experimental creatures ravaged a town unexpectedly, like the infamous Aboriginal-dragonfly attack on a remote hamlet outside of Alice Springs.

Bert had to admit the merging of animal and human DNA was intriguing, and the act itself was hard to beat, from a purely animalistic compulsion. Of course with all the new semi-human species being created, a major switch in dietary habits became mandatory. You couldn't have someone eating your next-door neighbors, just because they were part sheep; and heaven forbid if you got caught munching on someone's immediate predecessor, mother or father or grandparents, depending on how far back the family line went. There was also the pain involved to be considered. A sheepgal really let you know (in most provocative Anglo-Saxon pigeon English) if something was bugging her, like someone chomping on her buns. She could kick back too.

So scientists were called upon to develop a more humane and ethical diet for the majority of the humpty dumpty critters masquerading as overlords to planet Wobble. (There would always be miscreants with a fondness for any kind of "monkey" meat, but they were supposedly relocated en mass to Deviled Egg Island, spoil sports. Every so often some of these anti-socialites escaped from the island in an old tuna boat and made it just far north enough to energize the next generation of goose-necked wardens, who were strategically positioned to ward off such intrusions on the civilized community. They never made it past the goosemen's first blockade, and ended up racked and fricasseed. For their services, the wardens were immune from the universal Unitarian ethic, because of their ancestor's long time mistreatment by Four Star chefs.)

Creating a new planetary diet wasn't as hard as it seems, once point to point space travel was elucidated (wormhole expresses), as there was still a vast supply of dormant Martian sea creatures that made a steady diet for human-like folk, once the Martian oceans were refilled and the atmosphere re-aerated with a "halos of fog" machine which spewed out millions of liters of liquid H2O from a gram of nuclear dust. (Gene-splicing techniques didn't extend to extraterrestrial Nessies yet.) There was also speckled algae from the asteroid belt which was collected with huge vacuum pumps and transported back to terra cotta in transparent titanium air cruisers. With the algae, all sorts of tasty protein rich foodstuffs could be transformed into tasty protein rich meat-like products (tprmp's) for the meat-starved populous, or tasty protein rich morsels (tprm's) which the vegan advocates preferred. The morsels were later steamrolled into lasagna noodles for Italian culinary uses. The meat-like products could be gene-spliced with rubber plants, or vulcanized for extra chewiness, and baked or broiled or thrown as-is into a vegetable stew pot. There was a continual debate between strict vegans and former meat digesters that designing meat substitutes in the form of animals was inhuman and non-flattering to the new hybrid people. So far this didn't cause any actual pain to the consumers, except when someone over indulged on beeve steak or a neighboring centaur was served horsehyde-n-hooves (which the British called saddle thumps – pronounced "sudlethups") and the hooves stuck to their gums. Scientists still hadn't figured out how to communicate with earth-bound things, so they had no idea if the pain quotient in vegetables, for example, was the same as in humans. So vegetables and grains were still allowed to be grown by farmers for mass consumption. Besides, former meat eaters all argued without grains and vegetables wouldn't the entire man-like species die out? The congresses of most civilized nations on Wobble agreed with this, and made it part of their universal Unitarian ethic, "Spare no pains to eliminate terrestrial suffering."

There were few activities that made Bert feel like a beast, sex being one of them. (Another was fantasizing about riding a dolphin bare-backed under the Golden Gate Bridge chased by a great white shark to Angel Island, where he auditioned for Tarzan's Sausalito Adventure! Another was listening to Maren Ordly singing "What if the world were a little more perfect", which made him want to gallop to Taos and bury himself in quicksand.)

It is natural to suppose that engaging in the real thing with a down-to-earth creature like a horny elk-skinned temptress would unleash the most instinctive passions... But when you came down from the rain and clouds you were stuck with an odoriferous off-smelling partner – most animals loathed soap or a hot shower – who didn't speak English, or any other translatable language, and some STD's that no one in his right mind liked to discuss, the least of which was toadstool sprouts, a painful bovine yeast infection (curable with the right medication, or you could try sautéing and eating them.). The third or forth generation spawn might be more civilized and disinfected, Bert supposed. Until then he only toed the line socially with them, shared a cocktail or wheat-grass soda at the racetrack on Horse Bride Day, and hoped he wouldn't contract Arabian pony fever when a rambunctious teenage womino (half-woman, half-palomino) slurped him with her big fat tongue.

Bert stepped off the strip to watch the high school track team work out.

Chapter **6- 70BB**

In high school Bert had some of the same problems in sports as he had in his pre-teens. Though he had thews of steel from working out with ten pound Jack La Laney dumbbells, the rest of his torso still looked like that of a pencil-necked geek. No one wanted a skinny road-runner (albeit bulging pectorals) on their All-American team. In his frustration Bert clobbered everyone in battle ball. He had some success at track because of his long wiry legs. He'd start out with a full head of steam, which suddenly exited him in one loud smelly expulsion, slowing him down a few seconds; at which his Spanish-American coach Hector just grunted and yelled "You can do it Bert!" while timing him with a sweat-proof stainless steel Swiss Army stopwatch. The coach then added "Don't blow it now!" Bert almost broke the school record on the 400 or 800 yard gallop, but was startled by a Muppet in a garbage can at the finish line wearing a leopard-skin pillbox hat and waving an Armenian flag. Bert stubbed his toes in pausing to comment to the Muppet, "Where'd ya get the neat-looking hat?" which delayed him an extra ten seconds. The coach was so enraged at this he kicked Bert off the playing field and sealed up the Muppet with duct tape, en la can, before rolling him to Khan's Mongolian BBQ restaurant for a mid-day snack (Muppet burgers.)

Bert finally entered his stride, if you could call it that, when he took up Scotch tether ball (like English tether ball, except the ball was filled with sand, which made it fun to knock out your opponent's windpipe.) He learned to serve the ball like Chef Casey at the Key Lioness steak house (one reindeer haunch took up a whole table.) Bert joined the tether ball team mid-season, but by a singular twist of fate got stoned by the leading competitor, Gabriella, a fantastic Amazon princess with a steel-plated vest. Bert's Achilles' heel, in his coach's opinion was his failure to "knuckle down and keep his eye on the ball." Bert would rather look at Gabriella. (The next season Bert tried using his feet to kickoff, which didn't require eye contact with his opponent. He had great luck with his kamikaze shots and racked up a perfect string of victories. They called him Bruiser the Contuser. Even Gabriella was impressed, but she still floored him when she unbuckled her vest.) Bert remembered the coach's warning to the boys not to follow the girls into their locker room after practice. "If you go in there, I'll break your armadillo." the coach said grimly, without a ghost of a smile. Bert ran in anyway, saw gold at the end of the rainbow, and got clouted by Big Bertha. They carried him out on a stretch limo, with a sublime expression on his countenance, and a CB radio antenna sticking straight out of his pants.

To be perfectly honest, until about the tenth grade, Bert had a terrible fear of breasts. Their large protruding nipples scared him to death. (The movie "Everything You Wanted To Know About Sexus, But Were Afraid To Ask Us" didn't make them any less scarier.) How it happened that way with him, Bert had no idea, unless it was a Freudian complex he suffered from being exposed to too much mammy juice as a baby. He avoided all contact with big-busted girls, and concentrated his passion on the petite flat-chested ones. He tried to block out all knowledge of bosoms, even going so far as to imagine them nippleless. Seen below the cleavage, there was nothing to get excited about. Boobs were like water balloons, smooth as a baby's behind. Then he accidentally interrupted his mom when she was putting on her brassiere. The delusion of the titless breast instantly dissolved, poked full of holes by areolas. His mind struck back by slicing them off at the source. Bert dreamed of surgically amputating Lola Albright's boobs with a Swiss Army machete and lining them up on a plate, like Hostess snowballs. No blood on the plate, just creamy flesh. They kept growing back, heavier and heavier, until he could barely lift the platter. Finally in desperation he got to putting on falsies, just to see how it felt to be well-endowed. He reasoned it takes one to know one, and then you couldn't be afraid of one or two. Bert outgrew that fantasy when he overcame puberty between the ninth and tenth grade. Then breasts became very compelling, and he couldn't get enough of them. (He spent hours at the corner newsstand, furtively scanning Playboy, Penthouse and Brassiere.)

There was the old gym where they held the Junior Prom.

Chapter **7- 68BB**

Sally Sundance appeared out of an August rainstorm just before Prom night. Bert shared his umbrella with her at the bus stop. (He'd rather ride the bus to school than have his jeans soaked by wet bullets while he walked. Umbrellas were useless when sleet swept the streets, but provided a cozy place to talk.) With breath like Bazooka bubble gum and an Angelina Jolene figure, she lit up his brain cells like the bumpers on a pachinko table. Walking her home one day (when it was sunny) Bert told her ruthlessly she was going to the Prom with him. She said "Yes, I will, Bert, you don't have to push", and blew a big bubble which broke in his hair. Bert thought that he'd found his fabled match made in heaven and they would live "happily ever after." (Sally even had a Turkish grandmother, which made the fairy tale complete.)

Later at the Prom, Bert spun Sally onto the gym's dance floor, and drew her close to him. Sally became rabid after dancing in his arms for hours non-stop, bit his lower lip, and shoved him on the wrestling mats. The Prom chaperones dragged them apart. Bert offered Sally a coke and a light snack and settled down with her to twist and watusi the night away, until he got the bends and had to break out. (He spun on his head until the lights in the gym were one big blur, and ink spots fell off his jacket.) After the Prom, Bert took Sally to Murphy's pizzeria, where they gorged on bacon, onion, olive and mushroom (boom) pizza and a loaf of garlic bread. They spent the rest of the night beachcombing: wading in the surf, dragging their feet in the sand and picking tiny crabs off their toes. When they laid down in the dunes, Bert pulled Sally on top of him and heard Mt Tamalpais' fault in the distance thrusting. A crescent moon was rising. It was his first tortoise-shell coupling and she really gave him a shellacking. Fiddler crabs pinched his earlobes. The tide crept up on them and salted them down. Bert was a raging tornado. He kept asking Sally for seconds, thirds, fourths... Once started on something Bert kept going until he was a real pain in the groin. By then the beach was overflowing with seaweed, foam and creepy crawlers. (Sally didn't mind as long as the crabs left them alone. She used her hair brush as a weapon, which gave Bert more bruises than he could count. Tiny crushed crabs littered the beach dunes where they made out -- It was not the most ideal spot for romance.)

On her porch at five in the morning, Bert shared a long passionate kiss with Sally. Little did he know Sally's mom was waiting just inside the door to strangle him if he asked to come in. The next afternoon Bert showed up on their doorstep, and Sally's mother shot him with a Derringer. (She'd found out about their little escapade on the beach.) Lucky for him she was a poor shot, and only grazed his putz. Two weeks later Sally gave birth to crabby quintuplets. She returned them to the beach.

Bert glided past the science building. Mrs. Jawsky's class would have been on the second floor near the window where a robin's nest nestled.

Chapter **8- 67BB**

In the twelfth grade Bert was a lab assistant for Mrs. Jawsky, a ferocious anatomy instructor, who seldom handed out A's and made you work for any grade you got. Bert was lucky not to have had her for his teacher, though he got along fine with her as an assistant, cutting up cadavers and pasting organs and tissues on the modeling board. (Mrs. Jawsky's pet project was assembling a Herculean giant, which she gleefully displayed like Michelangelico's Davido.) Bert hated his high school id photo, and by cutting out the silly image with a pocket knife, he replaced it with a photo of Mrs Jawsky's Frankenstein. He pinned that to his lapel, wore that as his lab assistant id. Mrs. Jawsky liked his work as an assistant so well she wrote him a recommendation to the mortician at Mike's Place. She told him to make an appointment and go see the mortician in person. When Bert called to make an appointment, the grave digger's assistant told him that they didn't have any ground-floor openings, and hung up before Bert could make an appointment. Bert was mortified that he hadn't followed Mrs. Jawsky's advice, and couldn't face her the next day. He stayed home, refused to return to class and wanted to drop out. His mom couldn't accept this, and push came to shove, she sent him to an officer's training camp, where he spent a week or two as an understudy to a skinny half-witted sergeant named Victor Cosgrow. The new recruits thought Victor must be part Martian, his skin was so green, but they were all wrong. (Victor had an inferiority complex, so he ate ten pounds of spinach every day, in the mistaken belief he would gain muscles like Popeye.)

Bert couldn't believe anyone could be so dumb. One night the sergeant snuck into the barracks when he thought no one was looking and peed all over the privates' beds. When they caught him with his green thumb out, the sergeant tried to cover it up by saying it was all a terrible mistake. He'd forgotten where the john was. Later the sergeant tried to seduce Bert by kissing him on the lips, a thick pasty kiss like cotton candy. This left a taste of rotting greens in Bert's mouth and caused his stomach to upchuck. Bert complained to General Sam Coyote, a jovial Native American who immediately took the offense under consideration. The General gave the sergeant a heads up and treated him like a sacred lunatic. (Traditionally crazy or gay people had a place of honor in Sam's tribal hierarchy.) Sam piled sawdust at Victor's feet, and lit it with a propane torch. How Sam loved a good jest! Bert begged Sam to release him from his post. (This was a Zen rock garden that had no sand and no rake.) Through persistent bellyaching to the Chief of Staff, and sweetening Sam's punch with psilocybin, Bert obtained an honorable discharge from Camp Stevenson. He made up his missing high school credits, and meekly apologized to Mrs. Jawsky before processing her latest morgue order, a gray-green guy in sergeant's rags. With a shrug and a last look at the crispy cadaver, Bert left Victor to bloat and ripen.

A little further on was the Biology room where he hung out with Annette.

Chapter **9- 69BB**

Annette was a "knowing" girl, the teacher's pet, and enormously mature and sophisticated for her age, though maybe only a year older than Bert. (More important she was flat as a gridiron in front, which made Bert very relaxed in her presence.) She was a foreign exchange student from Prague, with an accent thicker than axle grease, and a fetid perfume that filled the air around her like a misty embrace. She could dissect worms faster than a roadrunner gallops, and never mind the mess. She swallowed dozens of tic-tacs, and her breathe froze on his face. Staring through his horned-rimmed glasses and waving a Havana Havana, their instructor Marco asked one day, "Who's never smoked a cigar before?" Click click. Marco's false teeth chattered each time he asked a question or made a point. That got the classes attention quick. Bert raised his hand (the only one to do so) and everyone thought he was lying. Marco gave him a Havana Havana to puff on. Annette just continued dissecting. As a follow-up question Marco asked, "Ever sniff glow-glue?" Marco had a paper bag that he opened up to let the fumes escape. Not getting the point of the question (having built lots of model airplanes, and gained a heady high from the resin), again Bert raised his solitary hand. What a maroon! (The class tittered. All except Annette, who blew him a kiss.) Bert went home that night with Marco's bag of gunk and tried it out. He stuck his head into the iridescence and took a deep drag. His brains exploded with starry meteorites. It was better than Haley's comet.

Annette was more understanding than most. Bert had long passionate conversations with her before class. "Is reality just a dream? Every time I wake up in the morning the scenery changes in a series of vibrant colors. I think I'm going crazy, is it the same with you? Are you my Krispy Krème? I've been waiting for a Stepford wife, maybe you are the one. It was destiny that threw me against your crimson shores. Come on, Annette, let's go make out in the tulles." (He didn't show her Jenny's tongue, which he kept on a key chain in his hip pocket like a rabbit's foot.) Annette would smile and shake her head. "We aren't in Paris, Bert. And I'm not you're Playboy bunny. However, if you'd like to step outside after class, I might show you a thing or two about oral sex." Bert drooled and promptly had a premature erection. Later, Annette hummed as she wiped off her mouth. "Boy, Bert, you sure came fast!" Annette laughed. "Now it's my turn!" Bert was feeling rather hot under the collar. He never imagined it could be like that, after reading all the graffiti on the stalls in the boy's bathroom. "Jackie sucks dick" and "For a good time, call Pam 555-6969", made it seem like such a dirty act. But with all the affection Annette poured into it, he felt like a rocket that had just blasted off and was now speeding gracefully into the outer limits. Bert almost passed out, when Annette exposed herself, and he returned the favor, which was like licking rancid unsalted butter. Annette reassured him, "Don't worry, you'll get used to it." (He did!) "Always remember to take a shower afterwards." (He did!)

There was that time in History class, when his body decided to give an impromptu anal report on the sewers of Ethiopia. He found it was easier to slowly let it out, furtively like a piccolo, than let his intestines growl indefinitely. "Who cut the cheese puff?" the class lothario suddenly asked and looked straight at Bert. Bert was mortified and turned beet red. Annette came to his defense; she could see he was having trouble handling it, "That was a good one, Berty. You're so funny." Bert wanted to curl up into a ball immediately, and hide in her belly purse. In his yearbook she wrote: "I'm sweet, but you're a hunk, Bert. Give me something rich to get the taste out of my mouth! -- Annette." He wrote in hers "Tuesday is Red's Tamales day! You get what you pay for, Annie. Try a five-cent Coke – Bert."

On the other side of the street was old Jarvis McKinley's house, the former vice principal.

Chapter **10- 68BB**

Out on a lark with his high school buddies, they climbed the high school vice-principal's back fence on Halloween, and sprayed his windows with quick-drying enamel, "Ghostbusters beware!" They had the paint cans hidden in paper bags, when the police on skis stopped them and asked what they were doing. (In a freak snowstorm, all the sidewalks were covered with ice.) Nothing much, they replied, with frozen breath. That was a close one; they all exhaled, as the puzzled police slid off.) The gang built straw skyscrapers across sodas and milkshakes at Archie's ice cream palace, patted the pretty waitresses on their behinds, and left large tips to cover their transgresses. They ate fried eels at the Tokyo Sunshine Sushi house or giant panda burgers at Fat Fred's Diner, and marched for miles around the Welch district, high on the Golden Gate breeze, and rated pigeons on a scale of one to ten. Aces were the plumpest, and two points for squishing their tails. A mixed-up bunch occasionally, but not considered themselves anything out of the ordinary, Bert and his friends were classic nihilistic types, no relationship to the "peacock" crowd, cupcake perversions aside, happily getting together on any weekend for a wicked blast, Mel's crossbow range the ultimate in being square.

Bert's friends in high school did a lot of great things together, like skateboarding the East Bay hills and imagining the Andes, eating calzones at Dinosaur Pizza parlor after a burlap bag race, chewing pork rinds in back of the Mormon Temple on High Holy days, and recounting their first romp in the hay in the back seat of a 1955 Chevy (it was a tight fit, all of them humping the same chick.) Bert's friends were really into James Dean and Manor G Krebs by this time, so everything was American kool. Racing down Highway 666 at 120 mph one night, Jake's '56 Pontiac outdistanced them all in 109 degree heat. They played games like Board the Hussy while examining prints of half-nude all-American women (mortuary shots). They compared biceps while white-water rafting on the Eel River, cycled across bird sanctuaries near the Columbia Gorge, scaring the wild herons, and peed behind tick-infested bushes. (Bert had one attach itself to his penis, where it swelled up as big as a Concord grape, and caused his cock to flatten out like a Western Diamondback. After it fell off, Bert wondered what caused the itchy red spot, until he found the tick sound asleep at the bottom of his briefs.) They swapped Reveal magazines and shared notes on cream puffs ("She was too sweet! I took a mouthful and spit it out." "That's what a bidet is for, dickhead."). On a quiet Christmas Eve, they listened to spontaneous poetry by Bert imagining himself a rosy red chicken in a Texas slaughter house. Bert's friends always thought he was little strange. The poetry proved their hunch.

Hal Krasner was a neo-Nazi type who probably got most of his ideas from skinhead Melvin (Doc) Hielbriner. With a shaved skull and a warty chin, Melvin dreamed of operating on the steaming entrails of hapless prisoners of the Second World War. Hal liked to crack "cheap" amputation jokes until he found out Bert was squeamish. Hal was the straightest redneck that Bert associated with, and yet he could surprise you sometimes with his totally realistic view of things; completely unemotional and flat responses. Like the time the subject of bear meat came up; was there anything tasty about it? Hal opened up like a vacant cannon, "Tastes like shoe leather!" End of subject.

Bert hated the Nazis for their superiority complexes. He didn't hate them because they were racists and bigots, because that was tragically absurd. In his opinion the value of racial purity was the biggest hoax ever committed on humanity. Bert recalled the fate of the Pharaohs and the English monarchy, the interbreeding among siblings and cousins, and the short-lived idiots spawned thereof. Ethnic customs had their place in the social strata, but limiting procreation to one racial denominator was like supporting genetic suicide. How boring! In any case, an unadulterated race was a spurious delusion, in post-biblical civilization at least. Every man women and child was a composite of innumerable ancestral strains, stretching back five thousand years to a common super stud and Lady Jane. Genealogists had proved that decisively in reams of research. A Nazi was only part of the human composting cycle; Hal was just a can-of-worms opener. Bert later wrote a poetic broadside about it:

When they cut the Nazi up

they expected to find

ice water in his veins

but he bled red

like any other man

When they applied electrodes

to the Nazi's arms

and turned on the juice

they expected not a groan out of him

but he howled loud

like any other man

When they measured the Nazi's balls

they expected to find

testicles as large as hen's eggs

but they were small as marbles

and so was his prick

When they asked the Nazi

why he did it

he just laughed and said, Heil Hitler!

like any other monkey would

Next he came to the Arts and Humanities building.

Chapter **11- 67BB**

In his twelfth grade English class, Miss Hargrove taught creative writing which was borsch soup for Bert who heretofore hadn't made much attempt to harvest his lettered beats. Miss Hargrove asked her students to pretend they were rolling dice, follow the path of the dice, and then watch the dots when the dice stopped. "If you can do this you can write verse", Miss Hargrove's eyes twinkled when she said this. Compared to Albert Einstein, Bert thought writing poetry was a simple equation and proceeded to model a lot of it on the repetitive cadences of in and out lines, out and in rimes, to prove a point pointedly obtuse. With the bare shadow of an idea and loads of double-talk he could carve out perception in a nutshell. For instance, he wrote:

STOW LAKE NONSENSE

Stow Lake, the lake to stow galoshes

down near the lake I stow

nearly drowned in Stow Lake.

Stow my booty, fear no stower

who stows: thy grub is nonsense

To find it still, it found still,

is nonsense that I unearthed it

It found itself, no self to stash,

though some make foolish stew of it.

This was the beginning of a totally subversive change in attitude toward the world at large and Bert's place in it. No longer did Bert consider himself an accidental freak waiting to succeed in business. Poetry was the bootstrap to reveal a truer purpose in life, with free will the prize at stake. As his voice grew in timbre, so did his awareness of how unique a person he actually was, until all of a sudden Bert had a front row seat to all the cosmos, and no daffy-duck draft board was going to take that away from him. On balance it seemed that something had exploded the myth inside that Bert was just an unimportant aspect of nature controlled by the dominant species: Man. Off the cuff, Bert wrote:

I AM NOT A MAN

Why am Man; all know what,

though know not a whit, why Man am....

All do live as Man with life,

but some who live life as Man,

have only sheer luck to show for it;

for self to live, who has life...

Isn't it great, who have life?

Am not much, and it isn't much,

What as a manikin, I am.

(It's so fun to watch the crowds passing...)

Poetry was the way Bert used to strike out at an insensitive society, rules and regulations that were meant to rein in individual expression, and keep the playing field a huge baby potty chair that established Wimps and other artists bowed down to. (That society was only a figment of his imagination, Bert had yet to learn.) There was always the copout, and more and more Bert was seeing the tune-in dropout mentality as an alternate to the iron thumb straight jacket perpetuated by history.

CHECKERS

A giant lies before us;

there, to lure us, a giant checkerboard

On it, we move, move on it and

play our chances; we chance our moves.

If we reach, our goals reach, then we receive

rewards; our last reward: we are crowned,

crowned like kings, checker kings

If we refuse to play, then we leave;

free then, leaving the game then,

we are imprisoned then.

Bert remembered the bullies and hallways as he overtook the glass-enclosed passageway to the Little Theatre.

Chapter **12- 72BB**

In middle school, Bert was always nervous about his falsies, even though he initially wore an AA cup, or about a 30" bust, about as flat a chest as they come. He was afraid someone would notice his bra through his undershirt, and expose his deep dark secret. (In PE he hid it in his gym locker before changing into his shorts and jockstrap. He only retrieved the Playtex when no one else was looking. He was almost always the last one out of the locker room.) One day in fifth grade he just couldn't hold in it any longer. He stood up and cried out "I'm tired of hiding it. I'm a transvestite!" and took off his shirt, exposing a teeny bopper's bra with the letter 'T' burned into it. The whole class was astonished, but after a few seconds burst out laughing. They thought it was great joke, until they realized Bert wasn't smiling. The teacher didn't know what to make of it and sent him to the nurse's office. Bert explained shyly to the nurse that he had this weird fear of boobs. The nurse looked as though she had just escaped from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and was bursting like ripe figs. She casually replied while gently leaning on him, "You'll get over it". Bert suspected she wasn't being entirely honest with him, judging from the sarcastic grin she tried to hide with her right hand. This sorry episode followed him all the way to high school, where a heckler remarked to him to one day "Heard you exposed yourself in the fifth..." Bert didn't say a word, though his expression said "Imbecile!"

Bed swampers have it rough, but show yourself a little queer in class, it never lets up. Come high school the bullies took aim at Burt and jammed his locker's combination lock with toothpicks, or gummed up the works with rhubarb pie. (In the former case, a sympathetic classmate managed to blow the door off with seconds left in the lunch break. The latter offense Bert reported to the highway patrol.) "Go ahead, bite me, Bert," the school bulldog taunted, cornering him once at his locker. (Mack was packed with meat from working out at Archie's Gym.) Bert bit him in the shoulder. "That all you can do?" (Smirking on the sidelines.) "That felt like this:" Mack chomped on one of the bystanders in the same spot, taking a large chunk of flesh in his mouth, "Yumm!" The shlimazl (unlucky one) collapsed, owwww!

Bert excelled in logic and the natural sciences, all the way through Astrology and Hen-pecking (an elective for potentially abusive unwed parents), but couldn't stand droll Sexual Ecology and refused to contemplate the abstractions in Analytical Jumping Jacks (an elective for kids with a basketball Jones.) He never took a Chef's class, but treated himself to dunking donuts and custard-filled bagels, as bait for some of his fly casting. Because of his natural facility for manipulating language (the falsies gave him the added confidence to speak his mind on written assignments), Bert was placed in the upper English class in his high school freshman year. (This had nothing to do with IQ tests, on which he always scored abysmally low. More on this in Chapter 24.) When his instructress guessed his perversion (it was hard to miss, as by this time he'd advanced to wearing a DDD cup), he was relocated the next term to the lower blimey class (taught by an Aussie sailor on shore leave.) The sailor graded his students in shipspeak. Bert had a hard time at first, managing only groggy seas (c~c) for his efforts, until he did a book report on Elaine Parton's "Grow the Battle Ground". His instructor stunned him by announcing to the class only two students that had weathered the assignment, Bert being one of them. "Good improvisation, mate!" his instructor wrote.

Bert stepped up his pace. It wasn't always like that of course. There were other distractions in the hallways.

Chapter **13- 67BB**

Sheryl that Nigerian exchange student and cheerleader kitten with the lovely black-hole eyes, coal-black hair straight as straw, velvety skin the color of raw sugar, and shaky pompoms that danced in the wind was always smiling at him when she passed him in Middleman Hall. He knew she was already going steady with Michael Stedman, a six foot two linebacker. Her eyes told him something different. "Why don't you come up and see me sometime, and peel me a grape?" Sheryl softly teased, and would bat her eyes at him each time they accidentally brushed shoulders. In the cafeteria she would often pretend to slip and land in his lap. (She sat there just long enough to cause Bert's ears to emit sparks.) This flyby romance with Sheryl gave him great expectations, but alas nothing came of it. Although it seemed at times a great electro-magnet drew them together, Michael was always there to break up any connection between Sheryl and him. There was that time she turned a triple cartwheel while cheering for the home team and landed in the stands right in Bert's outstretched arms. Michael just happened to catch a pass at the sidelines at that very moment, and crashed into them like a ton of bricks. Disgusted, Sheryl grabbed the ball and threw it thirty yards downfield. "Fetch, Michael", Sheryl said, panting like a Saint Bernard. Michael was halfway to the football, when the coach cried, "Time out!"

One day Bert followed Sheryl covertly in the direction of the girl's gym, intending to surprise her from behind with a sneaky "Guess who?" He snuck down a crooked metal staircase, but fell on the last step and twisted the navicular bone in his left foot. Sheryl turned around, saw Bert prostrate, and rushed to his aid. After helping him to his feet, she used her shoulder as a crutch under his arm. Sheryl barely supported his weight, but Bert thought she was a peach, and licked her fuzzy earlobes. Michael came charging in then; he'd suspected something like this was going on, and was determined to put a stop to it. He hogtied Bert and dragged him to the nurse's office. Bert was so sore afterwards, he was bedridden for ten days. Michael got detention and was suspended from the football team for the rest of the season.

Sheryl felt sorry for Bert, lying on his big brass bed with his foot elevated. She drew tulips on his cast, then leaned down and kissed his toes, which sent electrons pulsing up his ankles. A sand crab crawled out from beneath his foot pillow and pinched her eyebrows. Bert ordered a Rueben sandwich from Delmonico's delicatessen to share with Sheryl, heavy on the mustard, no mayo. Just when he thought he had a chance with her, Michael busted in like a wild bronco and hoisted Sheryl on his shoulders like a sack of marshmallows. Sheryl wiggled her tail at Bert as a parting flirtation. That was the last he saw of Sheryl before she eloped with Michael in a horseless sleigh (battery powered) presided over by a minister dressed up like Elviso -- She was a sucker for crooners. He spied her a year later sticking out like an inverted tuba. For a shower gift, Bert sent Sheryl a pregnant cabbage patch doll he purchased in Las Vegas on one of his dad's gambling trips (to get away from his over-possessive momma.) The doll wore a tank top with the inscription, "I went to Las Vegas for romance, but returned with a fat ass." Michael was so enraged he tore the shirt off the doll, sprinkled it with Worcestershire sauce and fed it in shreds to his pet bulldog Handsome. Handsome ate a few bites, turned a muddy shade of green and threw up discretely behind the couch. He bit Michael in the hand when he tried to feed him the rest of the shirt. (Apparently, synthetic cotton didn't agree with him.) Handsome was banished to the city Pound, where he languished for twelve days until Bert saw his picture in the Alameda Sun (it still goes everywhere.) Bert bailed him out, took him home, and Handsome became the best watchdog Bert's family ever owned. (He never failed to bark like crazy, though, when Michael was nearby.) Sheryl slept with the nude doll under her pillow – she wouldn't let Michael touch it after that – except for diaper-changing practice, which she insisted he master. (She soaked the Huggies in a wheat-grass concoction to simulate the real thing.)

D-day arrived and Bert just happened to be in the neighborhood walking his dog, when Sheryl entered labor and was about to give birth on all fours. (She mistrusted hospitals and opted for a midwife and home birth. Her midwife assured her that a face down curl was the most comfortable birthing position.) Michael was nowhere to be seen, having passed out in a bar, five blocks away, nervous as expectant father sometimes are, full of Quaaludes to settle his restless stomach. The midwife hadn't got there yet – Sheryl forgot to call her, she was so busy timing her contractions. When she saw Bert and Handsome through the parlor window, Sheryl took a deep breath, slipped into her daintiest teddy and invited them in. Handsome got the scent and barreled in under Sheryl's teddy, so Bert was forced to tie him up in the den. At the next contraction, Sheryl was back on her hands and knees, begging Bert to help her deliver. When he saw the state she was in, Bert stretched out his hands and arms quarterback-style and began counting signals (hup one, hup two, hup hup hup.) He caught the infant on the last hup – a boy -- who was ejected like a pop tart, completely incased in his natal sack. (Rare, but it happens.) It was eerie holding him there, like an alien from Alpha Centuri, but Bert held on tightly until the baby boy extracted himself with a kick to the pouch and slid out free. (Bert was drenched in the process.) Bert heard Michael entering the front door, and handed the little laddy to Sheryl then beat it out the back, blood stains on his pants and a notch in his belt, which he'd nicked while severing the cord. (He'd tied the cord with a double hitch.) As a distraction, Sheryl threw the afterbirth at Michael, and cried out "Catch, honey!" Michael collapsed in a red heap. "I'm a Backdoor Man!" Bert hammed and hummed an old Doors tune as he made his sloppy retreat, with Handsome lapping at his knees. A passing patrol car saw him and thought he'd done someone in. "No, no, no!" Bert explained to the policemen, "That's just blood from Sheryl's womb." They let him go after talking to Sheryl, but warned him to get a license if henceforth he wished to practice midwifery. The police felt sorry for Michael, the poor shmuck. (Michael blew a gasket when he found out Bert had delivered his son, but was so busy changing diapers he was in no condition to seek revenge. Sheryl pretended to weaken every time Michael brought the subject up, and the police had already warned him about postnatal retaliation. Baby Rosco felt a bonding with Bert that Bert only learned about years later. He let his two cents be known by whizzing on Michael every time he uncovered him.)

After his near fatal rendezvous with birthing, Bert decided he was never going to be a father and consulted Dr. Ruthless on how best to avoid pregnancy. (Condoms were out ever since Bert had developed an itchy allergy to latex.) When Dr. Ruthless saw the size of his thingamajig she told him not to have a boner inside any ovulating female, except on Highway 666, or better still rip out the girl's fallopian tubes to prevent spermatozoa from reaching her ovarian canals. Since Bert was more the romantic musketeer type than the Charlie Manson ripper type, he elected on a third option and encased his eleven and a half inch winky in a telescoping tube of solid brass 2 mm thick, custom made by Anchors Away of Ho Chia Mink City, Vietnam. This had an automatic expansion and contraction feature and a patented reciprocating system that redirected his semen backasswards. An unfortunate side-effect of this tubing caused him to yell out "son of Athos!" each time he had a sexual union. (The brass coupling was a couple sizes too small when he was fully aroused and completely engorged, but women loved the hardness.) Later when foolproof masculine birth control was invented, Bert removed his brass citadel and went on a strict regime of "Bare No Love Child"tm an over the counter birth-control Pill for men, which caused extremely low sperm count (but worked like Viagra in all other aspects) and had a 98.6% success rate. When Bert married Bella, she relieved him of all coitus restraint and impregnation fears. Bella was incurably infertile having once contracted sea urchin fever from wading in an aquarium petting pool as a young child.

When scientists made immortality possible they also made child rearing superfluous and most citizens virtual polygamists, except for the die-hards reactionaries who insisted sex be reserved for monogamous procreation only, and people should die when they're supposed to. These persons as you might expect formed a very small though extremely violent minority. (William Brady, the President of the United Americanos, at age 137 had to be constantly protected against silver coffin-shaped bullets fired by Church of Anti-Longevity subversives, while cavorting around with 101 different mistresses each month of every race, color and creed. His wife Lady Brady also had a potpourri of choices among male escorts, who made her feel like ambrosia, at the wonderful age of 129.) Bert took a more moderate stand and limited his promiscuity to a fantastic plastic imagine-that optical implant which allowed him to visualize Bella in thousands of different sizes, shades and shapes. When the implant needed recharging every sixty days or so, he took a trip to Dagwood Mountebank's Wonderful World of Women amusement park, which always helped to rekindle his appreciation of Bella. (More on this in Chapter 31.)

William Brady was originally born in Okinawa in 1908 and later emigrated with his family to the United Americanos with full citizenship granted in return for participating in top-secret longevity experiments which were designed to expand even the Nipponese's phenomenal lifespan. The UA was determined to maintain world-dominancy by making the life expectancy of its fellow hedonists so extended even the Reds and the Blues would have to envy their biological success rate and give up the moon and sickle and barbwire. When the Rejuvenation Pill was finally perfected, Brady was one of the first to enjoy its benefits, and later proclaimed himself the father of a new era of civilian rights, the first of which was the right to unlimited existence unfettered by Death's hindrance. To further his integration into UA society and make a beeline one day for the Presidency in 2032 (1AB), Brady changed his name from Enno Takeshima and underwent full facial reconstruction at the hands of some Frito-munching epidermal surgeons, who were reprimanded (for a job unprofessionally done) by Elviso Conswello, the head of the RPA (Reputable Personas Anonymous.) As a result Brady had a tendency to squint and recoil from high-intensity lighting, so he always gave his national pep-talks as fireside chats and munched on soft pretzels during the intermissions.

Bert approached the spot where the Island Drive-in once stood, and was now occupied by a super-sized Walgroan's Pharmacy.

Chapter **14- 66BB**

Stephanie was a real turn-on at the Mormon Temple's annual Easter-egg dance, warm and buxom, super hot in his arms, but wasted on weed or hashish most of the time, so he never could tell if she was coming or going, mostly coming when he nuzzled against her bust. He took her to a drive-in movie, his mom their chauffeur, pulled out a six pack of beer, and gave her special delivery in the back seat of the family car. His mom was too busy watching With Six You Get Eggroll to care what they were doing. (In reality nothing escaped his mom's attention. Boys will be boys, she reasoned, and made sure the back seat was well stocked with pre-lubricated latex condoms. She'd rather attend to his son's needs than have him learn first hand from fourth street whores. All boys should be so lucky. She had the back of the front seats posted with glow-in-the-dark diagrams that showed how to practice safe seduction, with Confucius explaining in dry witticisms the ins and outs and Minnie and Mickey Mouse performing the illustrations. All this was lost on Bert, who unbeknownst to her, learned from Mae Ling years ago how to eat an eggroll.)

Bert wrote Ruthie, the Romanian girl who introduced him to Stephanie, "The movie sucked, but the car was well-stocked with booze and _phylacteries_." (The religious significance of the latter was not lost on Bert. When he used words they meant what he meant them to mean, and not what they were supposed to mean. Bert had a good sense of irony. Ruthie picked it up immediately and wrote him back in code: "The rain in Spain falls mainly on the wild toad. Shakalaka Baby!") Stephanie had freckles on her back, moles on her chest, and a wishbone in her mouth which she tickled Bert's nose with. When he got around to discussing logic with her, his favorite subjective in high school, she dropped her wishbone and drifted off to Graceland. Stephanie dreamed the Sasquatch had taken her prisoner to his ice cavern, and removed his outer skin, revealing a sorry old man who might have been Harpo Marxist if he had been a little thinner. When she woke up and told Bert the tale, he gave her another beer, and picked his teeth with her wishbone.

Bert stood on the corner of the block near the intercity airbus stop, which he often passed up in his 1988 electric Camaro (converted by proxy not OEM.) Before he learned what a gas it was to drive (at the golden age of 35) or when he lacked the change to ride the local steam-driven bus, he rode a 31-inch eleven-speed Yonkers bike with Shimerti shifters and side-pull calipers, which was one of the first "high-risers" on the market. He loved the over the top view. On vacation in northern California while still in his teeny-bopper years, Bert once rode from San Jose to Richmond behind the Oakland hills through the EBMUDDY flats and back again to SJO, over a hundred miles and one sore butt. But mostly he traversed the Berkeley hills in search of his Aunt Mabel, whom his mom had once described as an "eclectic minstrel, underground poet and survivalist." Her den was somewhere around there, but he always forgot the exact location. (There were no GPS in those days.) When he did manage to find her hideaway, it was just barely visible, being a musty cave halfway up the hillside near Grizzly Peak Boulevard; he had to rest some before tackling the climb. She welcomed him with a Celtic sonata and cooked him honey-basted lizard and barbecued ermine on her baby hibachi, which he thoughtfully tossed over his shoulder to the wildcat she kept. It was either that or surrender his back and neck to a horrible mauling.

Chapter **15- 62BB**

At twenty-one, Bert attended UC Berkeley on a free scholarship for hippies (part of their give everyone a chance program.) After being kicked out for non-attendance and vegan-peddling, Bert was cycling around Berkeley carrying his notebooks on his back sleeping in seedy hotel lobbies and generally taking in whatever the streets dished out. He came across an ad on a bulletin board that seemed to read, "Freaks wanted to share house". So Bert took a spin over to the address posted and very politely asked for an interview with the landlady. Turns out he didn't read the ad close enough and what she really wanted was Hollywood stunt men, or Piedmont heiresses, who could afford a rent hike now and then. This left him out in the cold. Seeing his distress the proprietress allowed him to remain a bit longer, behind curtain number two, while the current tenants a group of yoga students finished screwing after their perfectly ascending tantra yoga class.

When the curtains opened, there she was. Lila explained she wasn't really a yogi's mistress, but more of what you might consider a groupie if you applied the term loosely. Bert had lived for several months on stuff like granola, organic molasses, dandelion stems and powdered ginseng (vegan politics fit in nicely with his anarchistic agenda), so Lila's voice was a narcotic to his ears. He immediately decided that this was a girl he could elope with and cling to the rest of his life. Seeing him with his scant beard and bedraggled Delane-like hair, and after listening to his dietary descriptions, she and her yogi friend Gandhi thought Bert was an eccentric saint, and treated him accordingly. (There were some gurus that existed entirely on tapeworm's blood, they said, nodding.) Bert in turn thought the yogis were headed toward karma's rear end citadel, and he only lacked the means (in bullion cubes, that is) to join his pathways with theirs. (Later he learned they binged weekly on Sri David's liverwurst sandwiches, and found Harry Patterson's "All Meals Must Pass" hard to stomach at night. They had vomit contests to see who could regurgitate first, which Bert thought was real sick.)

The union between Bert and the yogis ('yoga' means union in Sanskrit, a fact) was not destined to be consummated; sexual orgies were not his ultimate fantasy, as their swami secretly taught. However, he continued to hang around the yoga institute, which was moved to Hawthorn Street, and took some tantra classes just to spend time afterwards with Lila. Back then pork was cheap and during the week the yogi chefs liked making stuffed manicotti with lots of Canadian bacon, a recipe they'd gleaned from the Illustrated Encyclopedia of American Cooking. Bert decided to help out in the kitchen one Wednesday just to impress Lila and Gandhi with his gentility and culinary expertise. Bert had never made manicotti before, but by then the tantric energy was streaming through him and he felt he could do anything. He didn't eat any of the manicotti, however, preferring to continue his vegan regimen. (Bert had his own stash of vacuum packed nuts, fruits and oats that he purchased wholesale and made into granola or Swiss muesli whenever he got hungry.) For some reason Lila and Gandhi didn't realize that bacon was fried first before being added to the dish (maybe cooking wasn't their forte) so to humor them he left the bacon raw which made the whole dish very chewy and quite delicious. Only later did they come down with trichinosis. (Gandhi and Lila weren't really adverse to eating meat, and filled up on roast lion or cougar at Gandhi's parents' house on every visit, but only on mid-weekdays. Weekends and Fridays were meatless and strictly kosher, as prescribed by Swami Wutsyerpleasur, to prepare for the ensuing weekend orgies. Gandhi's father was the famous African hunter, Allan Quarterpounder, who was actually a closet fruitarian with DQ smoothie leanings.) Bert contributed what he could afford to the potlucks the yogis held every Sunday. The yogis were much impressed with the tuna casserole Bert brought in one Sunday, thought it was mock fish, and even auctioned off the last piece ("Don't make me eat my own fish tale", was Bert's entry for the contest. He didn't touch a bit of it.) Some of the yogis looked upon him as almost godlike, until they discovered that the tuna was from a Modesto fish farm, which was quite unsettling to these weekend vegetarians. There was great joy around the institute that night in purging their stomachs of Bert's mercurial jest.

Bert was just testing the yogis to see how well retching yoga purified their systems. When everyone started puking up blood with the remains of his concoction, he knew he'd gone too far.

In the meantime what started out heaven-sent had now become a blackboard jungle, Lila and Gandhi and Bert and any other outsider who stepped through the institute's white picket fence. Lila couldn't make a choice between them, liked to sleep with all of them at the same time. This was her fatal flaw, which she seemed to repeat with every male newcomer. (The bed got more and more crowded.) Bert would show up at odd times trying to get Lila alone. Sometimes that strategy worked, and for an afternoon Bert would have Lila to himself, gloriously happy, walking hand in sweaty hand and later eating broccoli sushi (on her stomach.) That's when he surprised her with a hand-painted butter croissant. (Bert was into colorful oil paints on French rolls, which he licked dry, and made him feel very giddy.) Lila squealed like a stuck pig when she saw the gift. To thank him she suggested they return to her bedroom. Gandhi was snoring like a bullfrog there, having taken some downers. Lila couldn't wake him up to join their tryst, but Bert was already worked up. After their love-making Bert stroked Lila's tootsies with a slow steady massage, and kneaded her chest. She snuggled into his arms once more and sucked his nose. Bert totally lost it, and took the plunge. He raised his head after a while, and asked "Are you ready to take that shower now?" Lila soaped his beard good. Gandhi went on snoring.

Lila refused to commit monogamy. Came the week Lila was by herself watching the institute Dalmatians. Though Bert cut his wrists and wrote a note to her in his own blood, Lila refused to see him, saying the dogs had worn her out and she wasn't up to another bout. His dream came crashing down then; that was the final blowout... The next time Lila saw him she very playfully licked his face as a lioness might, the odor of the kisses lingered like raunchy incense. She asked why he hadn't come to her orgy the night before and Bert replied, "I had another date, and I didn't feel like sharing her." That's when he hit the road burning with letdown and ended up in West Yellowstone, just before the park season opened, after catching a three-hundred mile ride from Boise in a Porsche 912 driven by a TM (transcontinental masturbating) priest. The priest acted like he was performing a medieval ritual or something, the way he kept waving his left hand in a circle and pointing to his groin. Bert was slightly freaked out when he asked Bert to take the wheel for a moment while he adjusted his vibrating jock strap. (The story of Bert's Yellowstone adventures is discussed in a later chapter.)

Chapter **16- 60BB**

Before he arrived in Boise, Bert spent a few weeks at Moonbeam farm, by way of a magic mushroom bus. He also lived for six months in Bar Harbor, Maine on the Atlantic coast where he rented a three room flat in the NE section of town for seventy-five dollars a month. This was a low cost area rented chiefly to space invaders and other aliens, who had infiltrated the area in the fifties; in other words, what a discovery! (If anyone asked they pretended to be two-bit actors making b-rated science fiction movies. There were always easily hypnotized landlords to believe their stories.) The neighbors were cool, an older Ferrengi even asked him if he could to fix his broken ear-washing machine, but not having learned basic plumbing Bert had to politely decline. But he allowed Big Ears to use his Oral B water jet at no charge, with a separate nozzle of course.

Since the flat was far too large for his own use, Bert advertised for roommates, and soon was sharing it with two other transients, thirty-five dollars apiece including utilities. Bert worked at Bellow University, a private Cathartic college (specializing in loose bowel studies), in the kitchen, lead man for the dishwashing crew. The trays from the cafeteria would coast down a conveyor and Bert scraped them and arranged them on a rack, then shoved them into the machine. "Sometimes you have put on the coals", his boss told him, seeing he was a little slow on the uptake. (Bert took a shovel and dropped them down the boss' pants. The boss never mentioned coals again, but gave Bert the red eye whenever pay day came.) There were lots of girls in drab uniforms dining in, minus their drawers, so the busboys had a field day snooping under the tables. "They don't have anything on underneath, so you can see all the way up their dresses", a busboy gleefully remarked. Bert installed a wireless transmitter under one table and a remote monitor in the kitchen. Every time a girl sat down at the table, Bert shoveled more coal.

One of the guys that Bert shared the flat with was nicknamed Coz, who turned out to be an elusive serial Ferrengi killer from Orion and carried his victims' earlobes on a chain under his triple chin. When Bert discovered this (the smell was hard to miss), he only allowed Coz to stay on condition he leave Big Ears alone. When Bert came home from work, Coz was waiting for him in the kitchen pantry, meat cleaver raised like in Psycho, his idea of leisure time. "Your ears are too scrawny anyway," Coz said by way of an apology, after Bert pelted him with tomatoes. Coz had some sun lamps in his closet where he grew Texas tea, but he called it Colorado Koolaid to keep Bert in the dark about its potency. Bert recommended Coz for a chef's position at Port Ross U. Coz showed up for a couple of days, long enough to make duck soup out of clam chowder, then went amuck in the foreign exchange commissary. Bert told Coz to leave because "The Feds are getting close" and "I'm tired of smelling your ears." Bert expected a fight but Coz meekly replied "Okay, I'll go." Before he left though, Coz set off an Orion slime bomb in his bedroom (which made the room smell of Orion slug guts) and glued all of his planters in a semi-circle on the lid of the dumpster out back. Coz really had a heart after all. Unfortunately it belonged to Big Ears', his latest victim, which he left on the living room rug for all to savor.

The other roomer was an itinerant Romulan reverend named Rufus who was very engaging in his conversations with Bert. "You're psychotic, you know that. The holy Book says no knowledge can be trusted", he would tell Bert, while Bert rambled on about his philosophy and convictions. Rufus always listened carefully. He'd think about it a few seconds then tossed back, "You're still a loon, Bertram. The Book of Romulus says children with empty thoughts should take up tie dieing." Then he'd hand Bert a copy of the Book to study in his spare time. Rufus was always stretching the truth as well as his stomach. On Fridays he'd walk into Conway Twitty's Country Market, sneak out a huge buffalo steak and a can of Texas black-eyed peas under his shirt, bring it back to the flat and cook it up. When Coz and he'd finished it, he'd rub his stomach and say "That was great steak and beans." Later, after he'd farted half a dozen times he'd get out a torch, and tell every one to stand back. Then he'd light the torch at the same time he bent over and burnt his butt, instantly sealing the offending orifice and blackening the carpet.

Another roommate Bert selected after Coz had left was a Martian noodlehead everyone called Fonzy. (Fonzy's real name sounded like Iffy M—unpronounceable--, but he liked to put on elegant airs like the TV celebrity, which landed him the nickname.) Come Friday night Fonzy got his kicks watching the United Mud-Wrestling League on an old thirteen-inch b&w tv, picked up in some thrift store. The UMWL had a bunch of clowns who sparred with each other in outlandish costumes inflicting as much dirt on each other as their rubber arms and legs could throw. When he wasn't laughing over their antics, Fonzy liked to muse on finding the perfect "piece of bottom round." Bert entertained himself crossing the bridge into downtown Port Ross, visiting the head shops, novelty stores and army/navy soup kitchens and returning via the bridge, the smell of Quacker Oats permeating the area around the bridge, old rhino breath asleep beneath it. He bought an electric Fender guitar in a Salvation Army store with a broken bridge for twenty-five dollars. Coz helped him glue the bridge back on with epoxy. The best guitar Bert ever owned, it made Jimmy Hentrix sound like B.B. Sling. The novelty stores had used paperbacks of William S. Borroughs and H.G. Cryer, which he devoured in one sitting. With rent so low, and limiting his food budget to twenty five or thirty dollars a week, even at $1.60 an hour (then the current minimum wage) Bert could save money. He treated himself to a Hungry Eye pancake once a week, and all the paperbacks, at a quarter each, he could carry home. For a bed he bought an air mattress and a sleek blue down sleeping bag at an army/navy surplus shop, which was quite nice, but he tended to slide around in it.

One day Bert strained his knee caps twisting his body into the butterfly pose (ankles and feet behind the neck, hands and arms straight up.) Fonzy liked to ask for free food from the kitchen and since they were going to throw them out anyway Bert smuggled some left-over roast chicken under his shirt and started to leave the building. He hobbled along like a jockey bent over a racing horse. That's when his boss stopped him when he saw that Bert was in obvious pain. "What's wrong?" "Strained my leg joints", Bert replied, as a leg and thigh slipped out of his shirt. The boss had waited for this moment for a long time, and fired Bert on the spot. With no job and nothing to keep him there, Bert bought a bus ticket to Boise and left his sleeping bag and guitar to Fonzy, leaving a note on the bag, "It's all yours, palsy." As he was leaving the bus station in Boise, Bert was stopped by an undercover cop on the trail of his former roommate Coz. "I have you for aiding and abetting. Where is the kingpin?" the cop demanded. Bert had to bribe the agent with his last forty dollar bill and a phony tip, to get him off his case. "Coz is everywhere. His father is Santa Cloz", Bert said, hoping it was all true. The detective seemed to believe him, and turned to depart. Bert thought he looked suspiciously like Coz's twin brother from his profile. (Or was he really Coz himself? With false whiskers and a beard, it could be...The smell of dead earlobes lingered.) Bert decided to vanish in case the cop returned and demanded more tips...

At the main library Bert dropped in to say hello to his friend Alvin, a library aide there. He paused at the College catalog section and spotted one for his old alma mater, SF State University (formerly SF State College.) Bert had a lot of fun at the college, until the rioting in 1968 (65BB) forced him to choose between Vietnam and a deferment. (He chose neither, figuring it was better to serve in the Peaceful Corps than bloody his hands in a phony war. He enlisted in the PC two year later when his last protest failed to reverse his 1A classification, the Draft Board by then having exhausted all other eligible candidates. After boot camp they sent him to Hong Kong to learn Kung Fu and sampan steering. Later he ferried special BNE agents across the harbor to confer with British intelligence, but that is another story.)

Chapter **17- 66BB**

After graduation from high school, in the love banquet of summer '67, Bert hung around the Asteroids in Ashcan City, until the police shut their place down due to lack of sanitation and condoms. He never got to taste Linda Necklace in all her raw pearls, but he did cook up a mean buffalo stew. Bert listened to noon concertos in the Fall attending San Francisco State College, the Soho palace of the hip cats, commuting there every day by Muni. They featured notorious acts like Huntsville's Clay Burns and the rock band Armageddon. (The latter set off mock atomic bombs at the end of each performance, while the former burned down the stage when some of his pyrotechnics accidentally discharged into the stage floor instead of skyward.)

At SF State in addition to his mundane required curriculum Bert was allowed to enroll in an advanced think-tank class, taught by Dave Eisenstern, a counter-culture guru who later co-wrote episodes for The Love Boat. He began to pick up on what was really going on in the mayo-and-baloney world at large. (Dave's breathe was always rank like a deli sandwich while he coached the class on revolutionary tactics.) The class was a one-way illustration on how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Dave accepted no arguments from his students. If someone tried to offer a rebuttal to his theories, Dave turned his moony hind side to the class and walked back to his office. Each session was about fifteen minutes because of this. Assignments were always posted before class, and deposited on Dave's desk the next day before he arrived.

"If you really want to subvert the establishment, never eat the crap at McDougal's" was Dave's motto for openers. Nudity, or the ban against public exposure, was another favorite topic. It was Dave's contention that all the crimes against the body familiar, rape, groping, flashing, pedophilia, pornography, sadism and prostitution were somehow linked to an infidelity complex due to prudish edicts that insisted humans were indecently viewed unless properly clothed and sexually restrained, which led to surprising peccadilloes on the wedding night; erectile dysfunction in the buff, unfaithfulness and all the other ills followed. The navel, the female breast, all forms of hairy butts, etc etc needed to be critically examined for what they actually were, not what Victorian society supposed them to be, evil incarnate, or the root of all sin. The sin mythology, Dave argued, was spelled out in a witch hunt scenario that satanic imaginations made up to compensate for lack of control over natural instincts.

The first thing Dave assigned (after burning an effigy of Randy McDougal) was that everyone closely examine themselves in private, off-campus of course (since the college fuzz still frowned on sharing the bare essentials in class), with a partner if possible, to determine what if any deficiencies made them less attractive to the opposite gender, and report back their findings, with the salient points highlighted by a yellow marker. This assignment was looked upon with great intrepidation but also terrific anticipation by most freshmen and freshwomen. Once the task was finished there were fewer doubts about what mattered in the long run. Analyzing the pros and cons of each student, it was discovered that what one lacked in one area one made up in others. It turned out penis length and cup size were vastly over-rated, compared to the advantages of a cute face, pleasing personality, and fresh breath. The former were useful mainly in stimulating sexual encounters, but did little to grow flowers. The latter were year-round credits. After all, who didn't like being surrounded daily by orchids and tulips?

Once nudity was a subject glossed over and matt-finished, Dave took his class to the Museum of Fine Arts to point out the philosophical differences between current and past artists. In post-Renaissance days -- Dave alleged, while pointing to a reproduction of Leda and the Swan --the female figure was portrayed by painters like Rubens unfettered with all its imperfections, bulging waistlines, voluptuous terminals, and sliding buttocks, then pointed to Rodin's The Thinker (a bronze copy of the original at the Musee Rodin in Paris) where male anatomy remained idealized with streamlined musculature due to the Olympic games and man's ego-trips. Come the twentieth century, cubists and other modernists had to reinvent the signature female elements to stay ahead of dialectic censors. Dave illustrated this with Picasso's "Girl with a Mandolin", which looked like a food processor had sliced and diced her most poignant contours. (Women's liberation made it a hub-nosed crime to exhibit Eros too realistically, which in Dave's opinion only made the dichotomy between the sexes achingly worse for wear.)

Another topic that Dave loved to dote on was how language defined the human condition, specifically how clichés, stereotypes and aphorisms shaped the 20th century mind. For a midterm, Dave assigned a paper that could be on any common expression, as long as you linked it to depravity or constipation. Bert chose "what you see is what you get", and stretched the truth far enough to make Evil Lynn look generous. To emphasize his point, Bert stripped off the pair of underwear he'd worn all semester long, wrote on it "The good man has no shape" (from Wallace Stevenson) and said goodbye to the remainder of his inhibitions. After midnight, he ran it up the flag pole in front of the Humanities building. It was still there the next day for everyone to see, especially that tease Nina, who was Bert's cast off femme fatale, and later played Job, the daughter of Ms. Ballbreaker in Porky's VI, The Handle on the Candle. Dave took a photo with his Polaroid camera and pinned it to his bulletin board. "Another anarchist is born!" he thought, decidedly delighted, and went on munching his pastrami and rye sandwich. Bert earned an A+ for that stunt. Dave awarded points strictly on the basis of what you did for him in his class. If it made him laugh, that was worth ten points and a free pass to the Playboy mansion (Hugh Heffnerd was a close friend of Dave's.)

With all the innuendo stirred up in Dave's class about sex appeal and deft attractions, that old pair of Norwegian sneakers still kicked at Bert's chest in his spacier moments, which had him sitting on an iron bench afterwards, and waiting for Sharon Stone to rattle his bones:

1968: SF State Remembered

She said she was horny

and I looked horny too

so she sat on top of me

and we screwed awhile...

A happening: this was what

I had been waiting for,

a chance to really communicate

with another human being.

She said she was horny

and I was real horny too

needing that chance to copulate

badly.

This was actually quite Tropic of Cancerish, like Henrick Millar the lecherous expatriate catching a whiff of French perfume.

Bert fell on his tush while nailing a sign up for the Yiddish Liberation club. On it he proclaimed:

A man is nothing

without sunflower seeds

and an answering machine.

The fans of history

beat on his head

like chop sticks

They are all wrong.

A man is nothing

without old tennis shoes

and a personal computer.

The fragments of life

are fractal teeth

chewing and chewing

time in its segments.

A man is nothing

without the Eveready bunny

and a Passover blintz,

a dash of sour cream

on his old mustache

Brush it off, compadre.

The fringe of consciousness

is a pale light where we're going.

A man is nothing

and he's not even handsome

Bert met Jack Kerouache when he was returning from his Bar Twenty class (a study of Clarence Mulfard's novels.). Jack had a dirty beard, ten-day halitosis and a leaf stuck to the seat of his slacks. Jack talked for hours on the mating habits of Tibetan fireflies. Bert was so excited he climbed to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge and cried out:

I take it in

and spit it out

I'm pretty good at that

Life

do we have an understanding

yet?

At the golden gate

there's a crazy beautiful man

building perfectly balanced

rock

sculptures

like dragon droppings

frozen

in

spline

pretty clever trick

bent over his latest masterpiece

I thought he was it

Life

is class over yet?

Don't need drugs or booze

to illuminate

this

Ferlinspaghetti surprised him appearing magically out of a cubby hole in the poetry room at City Lights Books. He had on an Appolinarch trench coat, complete with silvery cobalt wings, a Fidel Castrate mask with mirrored contact lenses, which doubled as forensic sunglasses, but no cock of the rock sang in B-sharp or flat inside King Tuttu's tomb, that day at least. Bert tacked on the bulletin board outside the store:

Over and above the wooden eaves

of a Columbus street bookstore

the poet flies out for a last look

at Basin Street West, funky city

to the hippies' children's children

a string of beads (no clasp)

in a straggly mo' mo' town.

When you go out

at the last out (pitcher's choice)

don't let the wax toupee

drip into your salty brows.

I have here your negative, Lawrence

though not the Saturday Night Post

"a voice not silenced"

as your words of wonderment

gain a sepia cast

the verses full of rust

Hell no we wont go

to Valhalla in a blood-pudding boat

the mad stallion chews at the bow

asses come ashore.

I have here your minted image:

a shallow signpost

for a newly-nixed millennium

May your successor

grow horns in her vowels

may your wonder

exceed your slippery grasp

chitlins maybe

polka dots

and ranch dressing

Giddeup cowpoke:

your shore leave is granted

Sometimes death seemed the only outcome in Bert's nightmares of nuclear annihilation (the world was so on the edge in those days that a nuclear firestorm seemed inevitable.) In countless dreams, Bert would start the countdown right before the missiles arrived, and wake up just as the first one cracked his marbles. The image stayed with him for days.

One bright spot in this chaos was the chance to recite decorum in front of a group of his peers, part of an orientation process for a new Corsican-based curriculum:

Death is

the wonderful thing

like

a croaking man's

last gasp

withering words

of

slippery

traction

Satisfying

the remorseless urge

to predicate

a suction

that releases a being

from the ruthlessness

of confining

doldrums

and there it

ends.

This monstrous poem haunted Bert for years, though the audience of young freshmen thought it quite a neat trick and asked what Bert intended to do "after you become fatuitous". Pied Piper schemes!

Between this last poem and the verse he was writing in high school, Bert had evolved a form of lyricism he called "word enhancements". These were variable metric rhyme and free verse compositions that were mood-generated with obscure semi-conscious images and logistics, still more like word play for the sake of word play without any pronounced under-the-surface meanings. The natural result was thus:

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DANCE

In the deep brown Autumn of

the night, a shy moth shivered

around the sight of a sun/lamp.

The passive love the moth held in

view could not keep fiery Fate from

burning its wings. For gypsies had

told the rank moth it would have to

mate, and this would kill its song.

The moth shivered and collided with

the lamp, which wasn't willing anyway.

So it flew away, broken-winged, and sang

subtly at the gypsies' white death in day.

I suppose if you analyzed this carefully you'd find the underlying theme makes flawless sense. In order to attain complete fulfillment, in his short life common man must mate, grow old and die, but the poet has other hardships to deal with, to refine his art, which precludes such a total commitment, and thus he's doomed to a constant state of flux, manic depression, the whole ninety-nine yards to kingdom come. This of course was well before scientists discovered the secret of eternal life.

The great thing about poetry Bert found was you could say anything that came to mind and if you were connected to the Source it nearly always made good hash! The fountain of bizarre stuff that erupted from this was a joy to perceive, in the same token a lot of stress built up from city launderers ironing their shirts on his forehead was let loose from his soul's purgatory. There were millions of variations possible for any one poem. Sometimes his first impression worked best, but later on after the poem had sat around and mellowed he might go back and embellish it a bit and make it even easier to swallow. Shine on and on and on, hooray for English! Practice practice practice made his lyrics iron-tight but Bert made it a point not to over-emphasize his e-goals. He remembered the fate of old Lemon Drop Kid, shot at point blank range by a fatuitous pie hunter! "Do you know what you just did, man?" the television journalist asked. "Yeah, I popped Joe's Lemons." "I should get a custard pie for that." We need to imagine a better world, Bert thought, a world free of grease and rust and Pandoran boxes. Then just do it. Move on to the utopian age of Aquarius that was promised us in the 60's, before the yuppies got tied up in Fortune 500s. Bert was getting tired of the sermons his mind dreamed up. It was the same old malarkey that Karl Marxist used to brainwash the Russian Bolsheviks. In revolt of reason, Bert wrote the following poem:

If you ever decide to shoot your camel

don't leave it on my back porch

An old man of Corinth once said

a blind goat follows its own path

If you shake a eucalyptus tree

the leaves will cover your tracks nicely

Therefore save your breath in mini tea cups

Belief is a stale croissant

in a memory too choice to scuttle

If you ever decide to run for President

leave your ghost riders in the closet

Ah-so

At the end of the term, Dave invited the whole class to his ranch at Big Sur for a nude plop in some private hot springs, and posted candid photos of the event in his office. (In later years, Dave got written up by the faculty president for exhibiting nude photos of his students on the Internet without a webmaster permit.)

Bert dropped out of SF State the following term to take a breather from higher education and to put all he'd learned about anarchy to more practical use in the real world. He started by picketing the local Draft Board, since they were immediately on his case after he gave up his deferment. He went on to gain fame as a stand-in for the mysterious Naked Guy on the UC Berkeley Campus, wearing only a Zorro mask to hide his secret identity. Between streaking and picketing, Bert worked a number of odd jobs and wrote numerous eponymous satires for the Berkeley Barb.

Chapter **18- 64BB**

Bert passed the old Animal Hostel, which was now converted into a bed and breakfast for sightseeing gorilla people. Bert remembered how one summer he spent cleaning up the stalls and cages of abandoned pets and lost livestock. How he loathed the smell of sick or dying quadrupeds, but he guessed it was better than inhaling at commercial mega-farms that housed thousands of animals in one square acre... (Bert later visited a mega-farm and barfed all the way home.) Bert also hated the genital mutilation going on in the name of wayward bestial population control. When the pets were deprived of their reproductive capabilities by cutting or spooning, slicing or dicing, they were ready to be adopted or farmed out for chicken feed. The leftovers were broiled and fed to the hostel's guard dogs as a special treat. This so sickened Bert that he replaced the insides of the hostel manager's BLS (bacon, lettuce and salsa) sandwich one day with some of the leftovers. The manager never noticed the difference, except for slightly more gristle in the bacon, which he spat out.

There was a giant tortoise that someone dropped off, when it outgrew their backyard and rammed its nose through the wooden fencing. Bert would hop aboard Tookie, as he called him, and ride through the parking lot, imagining the endless grazing lands of Montana, and lassoing any stray wildcat that crossed his path. There was also an ailing llama that Bert restored with tincture of lanolin. The curative wasn't part of the llama's normal complexion but he seemed to like it internally, and his hair grew fluffy and unbelievably soft as a result. Bert sheared the llama and spun its hair when it reached a suitable length, then knitted it into a blanket which he curled up in at lunchtime regularly for a two-hour siesta. The hostel's manager Renardo who usually worked nights showed up one afternoon in a surprise checkup and swept Bert out the door along with his blanket. In retaliation, Bert snuck in at night wearing a ski mask, lead-lined gloves and a clown costume and released all the poor neutered and spayed creatures, then silently burned down the hostel with elemental magnesium he'd refined at home from granular dolomite. Bert inscribed a large "Z" on a nearby signpost with his palm-sized ruby laser. Bert then proceeded to implicate Renardo in his retribution by planting buckets of dolomite in the manager's basement along with the mask, laser, radio-controlled fuses, assorted refining flasks, test-tubes, lead-lined gloves, clown suit and a Bunsen burner. To leave no doubt of Renardo's guilt, Bert transferred the manager's finger prints onto all the apparatus, using R. Astin Freemanic's "chromicized gelatine" technique, first described in The Red Thumb Marks, and left a do-it-yourself manual on magnesium refining near the Bunsen burner. Renardo got ten years on a mega-farm, with an additional five for his bad attitude for constantly complaining "I was framed by Zorro!" and "God what a smell!"

Chapter **19-**

Bert was so exhausted he stopped at the fifteenth station and headed on home. All those memories pouring in on him made him weak in the knees. The house had magically cleaned itself up! He laid back and contemplated the crass state of American politics and the wretched life of a library aide. (Hmmm, there were perks to all occupations, Bert supposed. Bert thought how easy it would be to cozy up to a beautiful lass, while positioning a book in its place. Just doing my job, miss. Then he thought how horrible if the woman had BO.) Drowsy with boredom he turned over on his side and glued himself in Alvin's shoes. Frothy bubbles from his mouth oozed.

Round and round the library page goes

shelving novels and periodicals

newspapers and picture books, etc etc

Up and down the isles

the Machine pushes his cart

eyeing the sassy chicks and

straightening the shelves,

like making so many beds

bless his ordered mind... At last he sits

taking a break from the geeks and stacks

All human knowledge at his grasp

But no, there isn't any sorcerer's stone

no reservoir of wisdom to get rich from

in the hoard of words imprinted therein

Just the folly seekers and surly idlers

hip kids finding amusement

in Manga graphic novels, and old deflated women

tapping the romance and mystery sections

Somewhere is the staff from which life springs

but not in the New books, only flowery dreams

(He dreams of a girl he once knew

grown old and lonely who

kisses him with clenched lips and grinding

teeth, the smile that once brightened her face

etched deeply in the ruin that remains.)

Bert woke with a start. Sunny frightened him, suddenly aged almost beyond recognition. He couldn't believe he fell for her charms on Maggie's cotton farm. She was the ragpicker's daughter, a girl he met in Peach County (~57BB), Georgia while emulating the roaming migrant workers in The Grapes of Wrath. Long golden hair curling around her shoulders, a bust like Dolly Partake and a set of teeth that lit up the moon when it was only a sliver. He used to slaver all over her nape, chewed on her golden locks and sniffed at her subterranean channel. Her incense intoxicated him more than a bag filled with airplane glue! But her father didn't like his anarchistic tendencies. Bert thought Timothy Weary was a true minister of Blind Faith, and liked to chew LSD gum. Delane had a great influence on him too. Bert played a Hohner blues harp with a Woody Guthrie accent, and a tambourine that he kept time by beating on his buttocks . He had memorized all Delane's songs from the sixties, including Blonde on Blonde's Sad Old Lady of the Low Landscape. He once hitchhiked to Juarez, Mexico and got lost on Chicken Row. Bert visited Alameda, California which had the dubious distinction of being the alternate site for Delane's Highway 61. The road crews paved it, Mel Gibsand christened it, but Delane didn't care much for the skunk stripe down the middle of it. They left its designation SR 61 anyway.

One day Sunny's pop caught them in the hayloft, got out his slingshot and let Bert have it where it hurt. Bert took off running down the road, his legs half in and half out of his pants, a hand over his privates, and catcalls from Betty Lou in the nearby pasture. Those were the days, Bert grinned. He remembered it well into the sunset. Did it always have to end like that? With a bruised tuckis and blistered feet, instead of Aphrodite on the half-shell strumming a golden harp? Where was the romance in that? Bert turned over and went back to sleep. The Grim Reaper whispered a parable in his ear:

Someday long after I am gone

you'll lay in your bed alone

and it will all seem a dream

that I ever held you there.

The kisses will fade away

but the space between us will remain

unbreached and unclaimed

a garden left to weed.

Sometime when you are calm

remember to listen to the in,

bristling with life's moment

away from death's pain

Bert dreamed he died in an atomic blast, atomized to bits; his ghost floated up to Heaven, a frigid wasteland with a white marble façade. The Lord saw him approach and asked, "What are doing here, schmuck?" He threw one of the pearly gates at Bert. "I don't want you here now! There are ten lessens you need to learn before I'll let you into this Iceland:

1) Know your roots; establish credibility with your family!

2) Be fruitful and multiply, any way you can; be persuasive with the ladies!

3) Learn all you can about competition in the city; it makes the world a battleground!

4) Share your wisdom with others; they are dying to know all about it!

5) Learn to drive a pickup; it'll get you further on down the road!

6) Get a nose job so you don't look so hideous; fight back depression and frigging influenza!

7) Read a good book or magazine, not just Ann Landers or Dear Abby!

8) Consult with a librarian, or search the internet, when you don't know something!

9) Visit every state in the Unionjack on a Greyhoundog bus, and fly to Australia on Qantusk!

10) Go fishing, mackerel head, and leave the bigger issues to crooks or politicians, essentially the same thing!

The world is a beautiful sacred areola, or a snow queen's Riviera! I'm not telling you which design to put your suction cups on! Free Willy and all that!" (When God spoke, Bert listened. His Voice was like a gigantic brainwashing machine!)

Bert only remembered half of God's commandments when he woke up. By this time school was out, and teenagers congregated in front of Bert's two story house for a friendly game of five on five. Bert tried to settle back to sleep, but the constant bouncing of the basketball on the pavement kept him awake. Kachong, kachong, bong, bong, swoosh. Even though the windows were closed and his bedroom was one level above the street, he could hear every bounce of the dribbled ball, when it banged against the backboard, and the swishing sound as the ball went through the hoop. After an hour of it, he'd had enough of that. Bert raised a window, leaned his head out and shouted, "Hey, cut it out, I'm trying to sleep!" (Laughter from below.) Bert spied Sheryl's great great grandson in the middle of the rowdies, and called out to him, "Cool it, Bosco, or take your game somewhere else." (They had a running feud going, the two of them, every afternoon. It would start out peaceful enough, and then escalate until the cops had to settle the argument. Bosco always ended up the loser in this case, as the police had no use for basketball freaks, and after all disturbing the peace was a valid complaint.) "Bosco answered, "Take this, sucker!" Suddenly a basketball came sailing toward the window and clouted Bert on the snout. Bert was knocked on his butt. That's it. Now Bert was really mad. He stormed out of the house and down the steps, pushing out his chest and flexing his biceps. Ten against one, a fair match, Bert thought. He had a black belt in butterfly Kung Fu from his swift boat days in Hong Kong.

Chapter **20- 63BB**

In the last days of the War Against Mind-Altering Drugs, Bert was sent to Hong Cong to act as liaison between the BNE and British Intelligence. Officially a member of the Peaceful Corps, Bert was secretly undercover for VIAGRA (vociferous infidels attempting gross and ridiculous atrocities.) His kung fu instructor, Master Li, for instance, in addition to the usual hand and foot bag of tricks, had him turning cartwheels in preparation for flying flip offs. When faced with overwhelming odds, he always advocated a sly smile, then a back flip into any nearby dumpster. When that didn't work, and it usually didn't, there was always the "puff of the butterfly wings." Deceptively simple, when Master Li flapped his elbows there was enough power in them to topple the Statue of Liberty, or in the case of Hong Cong, a hundred foot statue of King George V. Bert only achieved a fraction of this force, enough to knock over Bob Hopeless from ten feet.

In his spare time, Bert was taught to sail the harbor junks, for reconnaissance missions to ports as far away as Bangkok. Being a diligent student, he learned to steer a sampan so well he could out-maneuver a river gopher or a sea turtle at one hundred yards. (The river gopher is a marine relative of the same gopher that gave Rodney Dangerfielder and Bill Hurray fits in Caddyshack and later appeared in Caddyshack II. The sea turtle is a distant relative of the one that sailed backed to England with Darwin and was studied by geneticists for years before being retired to the Brisbane Botanical Gardens where Harriet, as she was called, lived for over a hundred years before being donated to the Australia Zoo.) When he came up against the Thailand tongs, Bert got out his Italian ones and made spaghetti out of their arms, legs and torsos. He bull-dozed these into mincemeat as fish bait for the freshwater stingrays that occupied the Chao Phraya River. When the opium warlords of Shanghai threw their cloud and rain at him, in Monsoon season, Bert took off everything and skinny dipped in the Yangtze River. A giant carp bit off his hand, but the acupuncturists were able to save the rest of his arm. Bert was discharged from the Peace Corps then, and sailed home on Bill Halesi's Rock Around the Clock schooner. It took months to reach America, as Bill insisted on going in ever-widening circles, in tribute to W. B. Yeats and his gyres.

Chapter **21-**

Bert felt confident he could punch out the lights of those basket cases. (He didn't understand the soft spot he felt for Bosco, thought it was a mild case of stomach flu. It was 74 years since Rosco was born. After that came Tosco, Losco and finally Bosco, only fourteen but already the terror of the island. He had his great great grandfather's DNA.) Bert would settle the score once and for all. They circled him like a gang of thugs around Bruce Lee. When they attacked, Bert lashed out with lightning kicks, blocking, batting, foiling their best efforts. Down they went like bowling pins, until all that was left was a seven ten split. Bert turned to his left and puffed his elbows, knocking Charlie Future on his can, but got clobbered by Bosco's ten fingers of inheritance. Bert finally understood the connection. Bert fell into a soft dark place, comatose, dreaming of Sheryl's open spittoon and cherry pop tarts.

When Bella got home from the mall, she found Bert spread-eagled in the neighbor's cactus garden, unconscious and prickly, where Bosco had dumped him. She spent hours picking the needles out with her teeth and lips, then dragged him up the steps to their boudoir. (She was too embarrassed to call 911; this wasn't the first time he'd stumbled and fell into a neighbor's yard. Bella thought Bert was only disoriented due to the pills he'd consumed earlier.) When Bert didn't respond to skunk oil, a common over-the-counter restorative, Bella fed him bonbons, which stewed in his mouth and dribbled out in little swirls of black and white. Finally she curled up to sleep beside him. After that, Bella attended Bert daily, washing his face with a cool rag when sweat beaded on it, and spoon fed him barley soup, the recipe for which came from Grandma Moosehead's Country Cookbook. To keep him from developing bedsores and pressure ulcers, she rolled him gently each day back and forth. Bedpans were another matter altogether. She let the home nurse she'd hired from a temp agency handle them, that and change the bed sheets once a week. Kisses just weren't the same, when Bert responded like a dead puppy.

When he revived and opened his eyes, at first Bert was uncertain of the time, date or place. He just laid there with a silly grin on his face. It was great not to have any pressure or pain, lying back with a down comforter spread warmly over his legs and lap. He was a little stiff, from being bedridden for so long, and having his ass slung over a steel bedpan, so he didn't move around much, but propped himself up on a pillow and contemplated his life thus far. He remembered the main events in his life, his broken romances and early crushes, his wacky high school scene, and trippy travels. He also recalled vaguely the five lessons that God commanded him to learn to gain salvation. Heaven was a far-off dream now. It was so comfortable just being alive; he wanted no more of cheesecake in the sky.

Bert decided to celebrate the first chance he got, when he was able to walk again. (Bella was also dying to get out of the house, having been cooped up for months making vegetable soup.) He made reservations and took Bella to the Purple Pelican Saloon, a drive of about one hundred and fifty miles. They arrived six hours early. "Better early than late, then they can't cancel your reservation", Bella insisted. Bella was stoic about the screw-up. She used the time to treat herself to a permanent, in the Walt Distant beauty shop next door. Bert took a long nap. When Bella returned she looked like Snow White but smelled like a mildewed forest. Bert wore a Mickey Mouse clothespin as a nosegay.

Bella loved to dine at the "Sa-loon", as she nicknamed it, as long there wasn't any horse-like radish about, to which she was deadly allergic. She could smell it from one hundred yards, and always asked the waiter to keep it off her plate. One whiff of it would make everything inside her want to get up and gallop. It was such a phobia, that Bella the minute she got there stuck her head inside the restaurant's floppy doors just an inch, sniffed the air to be sure there wasn't any "horsy" smell about, then ran like hell when a cowboy happened to lasso her nostril. (It was mixed crowd there, part ship to shore sailors, part country gamblers, and part Brooklyn dodgers. These people were masquerading, of course, since all of those characters were ancient history since the twenty-twenty Depression.) After Bert caught up and hogtied her, she settled down again. "Oh Bert, you don't have to be so rough", she panted, and planted honeysuckles on his mouth.

Bella ordered a gin and tonic, the only drink she could stomach, heavy on the gin and a drop of tonic. Any other drink caused her to swell up like a killer bee sting. (One night after imbibing a Dashing Swenson (a dash of hundred-year old Scotch, a shot of Viking muscatel and a twist of apricot seed extract topped off with crushed ice and Rigley's spearmint-flavored pop), she bloated up so bad her legs swelled up like Roman columns, her chest puffed into seedless melons, her bottom became a baby grand, and her mouth looked like a horn of plenty gone gaga. It took her hours to deflate, sipping black mamba anti-venom.) Bella's favorite fireside feast was the Dieter's Special: This night it was baby zucchini, purple cauliflower, and cottage cheese. Bella thought they'd sprinkled it with poppy seeds, until she put on her glasses and noticed the seeds were moving. She sent the whole plate back to the kitchen. The head chef Marcel (a sly Frenchman with a Hercule Peridot mustache) brought her a new plate which was covered with a plastic dome. He apologized for the ants, saying they had somehow escaped while preparing chocolate-covered stirrups. "It was my tough luck to land a job as a one star chef in a two-bit joint", the cook confided to Bella. "I'm actually a four-star legionnaire, laid off from Amos Napoleon's gourmet commanders in Paris", he winked and revealed a three-cornered hat under his smoke stack cap. Since it was a special occasion for both, he sang them the French national anthem.

When she had had enough of her feast, Bella ordered desert. She always had room for caramel-covered bullets. Bert had an aversion to the stuff, ever since he cut into one and discovered one millionth of a rat hair under an electron microscope. Bert's unabashed dinner choice was pelican delight. The brain-dead pelican had all sorts of tasty tidbits which Bert scooped out of its mouth. (Animals and birds had to be certified brainless and therefore immune to pain to work in restaurants, part of the universal Unitarian ethic.) For a drink, Bert preferred fermented wheat grass and Egyptian asp juice, which he poured down the pelican's throat between courses. This kept the pelican purple and sanguine, though he gargled a lot. Bert accidentally let slip to Bella that he'd forgotten his wallet, and hoped the management understood, since they'd eaten there so many times in the past. That's when all the waiters gathered round and threw birds nests at the couple, until they high-tailed it out of there.

To be quite honest, Bella never forgot a debt, but sometimes left a two-centavo tip. She wrote the restaurant back, "This check's for you, written in squid's ink, PIF. P.S. I don't eat ants or plastic domes." The erstwhile chef came to their house and left an enormous chocolate moose on their porch. "Compliments of the lone-star admiral."— the card read. They had no doubt of its meaning.

On a yet lighter note, since Bella always ate her share of everything in sight, and because she could find no better eating than French Provincial cooking, they hired the erstwhile Napoleonic chef to fricassee for them on the Sabbath, all Bella's favorite garnishees, including little sundries composed of sweet Nantes and champignons, or "elves ears" as the peasants called them, wrapped in Marian eel skins and fried in pseudo-ram butter. For the entrée, the chef whipped up a delicious imitation mutton Marengo, topped with koala poop (the deceitful chef's last insult, unknown to them.) They had no idea; it was so tasty, that it could be... instead of the duck pâté that Marcel claimed it was. (They noticed Marcel's apron was always covered with what looked like dried pelican droppings though, and he smelled like a mountain goat's behind.) Mutton Marengo turned out to be one of their favorite past-the-gut adventures, much to the cagey chef's surprise. They ordered a double portion on Sundays. Except on Easter Sunday, when Bella spent the day doodling caricatures of the Pope, wearing outlandish hairdos like a crew cut with the body of a gorilla or a wild hairy haggis, with a long-stemmed rose in his teeth. For dinner she cooked spaghetti flambeau, and burnt the synthetic "meatballs" to a cinder. The chef had such a hard time meeting his supplies quota, having to order it from the far off outback, that he decided to purchase a few koalas (mother and babies) from Down Under after cultivating his backyard with acacia trees. Unfortunately the koala mother was very stingy with her poopoo, having naturally reserved most of it for her newborn offspring, which supped at her ass when hungry. So the chef had to blindfold the mother, and insert a Chef's Pride sauté pan between the mother koala's babies and her..., each time he prepared their scrumptious dish. (Years later when Marcel decided to retire, he left them a laudable note, describing all of his sadistic ruminations, but unable to leave it at that, enclosed the entire recipe for his goulash, which they had begged him for ages for:

One old tprmp ram belly, vulcanized and aged in a Turkish outhouse

A quart of imitation Japanese Cognac – the cheap stuff

Two thimblefuls pulverized duck-like kidneys

A dash of McCormack's Poultry-less Seasoning

As much salt as needed to mask the gamey taste of the ram

A heaping tablespoon Mrs. Dashit

A few tomatoes, seeded and sliced diagonally

Enough onions to fill a moderately-sized bathtub, finely chopped, or as many as your eyes can perspire

Sufficient mock-sperm whale oil to coat a nude Madonna

A basket of assorted root veggies, chopped in weird shapes

Secret topping: several ounces of fresh koala poop, sautéed gently not stir-fried

Stuff everything except Cognac into ram belly, which should be stretchy enough to accommodate. If not, stand in it and pull hard! Coat with whale oil and drop "belly button" into a five-gallon metal-lined three-cornered hat, drizzle over the top with Cognac, and slow cook on giant hibachi until everything is roasted to a tee, basting with Cognac as necessary, until the ram belly opens up with a delicious whiff of greasy pigs knuckles and spicy bull's balls. This should take about eight hours. Top each plateful with a dollop of koala poop and serve. Wah lah!

When Bella read the recipe in its entirety she cried for over a month, filling all the birdbaths in the neighborhood. Their elation at finally having the recipe for Mutton Marengo turned to cedar ashes in their mouths, and Bella got out an Irish tickler to regurgitate what for years had been clogging her small and large intestines. The yogis had nothing on Bella then as she proceeded to empty a blue whale-size quantity of mixed foodstuffs into gutters that led directly to Half-Moonshine Bay, thus producing a run on red herrings and reestablishing the canneries at Monte Hume's Half-Price Scullery, for a few months anyway.)

Chapter **22-**

Bert in his strung-out states often hallucinated he was driving a souped up flat bed Ford with a 450 hp engine, dressing in coat and tails like Henry Maserati and daring all challengers:

Hot rod Henry is burning up the streets

Engulfed in flames he cruises

the avenues in a purple pick-up.

He knows the way

to Santa Fe.

He knows

when the slaughter house opens.

He was always sharp, that boy.

Twenty-eight years

away from home.

When you comin' back, son?

Ivy and clover cover the graveyard

in winter. Sunlight pierces

the pines thinly.

Hot-rod Henry races the wind,

only in dreams does he remember

his mom.

Chapter **23- 61BB**

Bert did the craziest things after high school, like hitchhiking in the dead of winter to Montana, (it was springtime in Surf City) hands freezing and hard to get a two-fingered V up. The passing motorists pointed at his bald head, like he was a coconut or something. He crashed at the local YWCA, signing in as a Baptist minister, and flushed sanitary pads down their toilets as a prank. (He dug up their rose garden in anger after being told by the nuns he didn't look like a Baptist.) He threw Easter eggs at Benny Buffano statues while being chased by the custodian at Fort Mason. He buried a pet alligator in a satanic ritual with his sister, then dug up the petrified tail years later. He was sleeping in an old school bus on the road to Moonbeam Farm, dreaming of magic mushrooms, and suddenly there was a raccoon scratching at his skull. Bert threw that pest out the window, into the waiting mouth of Bigfoot!

In later years Bert was so disillusioned by the yuppies, he wrote this poem and sat on it:

We thought we was free

to say and do what we wanted

in the non-stop sixties.

Decades ago

the revolt was thorough

or so we thought

to say and do --

What a cop out!

Nothing free that couldn't be bought

freedom to sup

life's easy comfort

leper to the tooth

Man we was had!

And what freedom did we gain

along the crazy scene?

The jail bells still ring

the courts still obscene

and casting freedom to the mezzanine.

Here's rose water in your mouth, Mr. Fudd.

Take a leap off the Golden Gate

my high-flying Patriot.

Between freedom and the darkened crotch

who knows better

to hand up bear grease

lickety-split

spontaneous slop!

When we are free, really free

there won't be a firewall

inside our skull

a deep rotten smell

rolling over the roads of Shell

God help us

the curse was far worse

than any imagined

the metal chains a part of our bones

the rage to destroy

FREEDOM

part of the national core

bureaucracy retained

in a pencil point

in a penile brush

in the penitentiary

rap the new voice of resistance

persistent as the slaughterhouse

Where we survive

chained to the wall

yet awaiting life's fall

into

f r e e

In 1977 (55BB) Bert traveled thousands of miles across the Atlantic Ocean to the home of frankfurters, Deutschland. The plane ticket was his mom's reward for graduating Summa Cum Laude in Prospecting at the Lost Dutchman's College. (The private institution had an outhouse in back that became his favorite stakeout.) Bert found himself in Berlin, an American expatriate, alone and exploring a wide swath of lush meadows, tulips and winding lagoons in the heart of the bilingual city, riding the trolleys and eating knockwurst , a kind of German sausage that was introduced to him by a sweet Bavarian girl on a day shopping trip. (Bert ordered one in a café for breakfast, and waited patiently to be served. "Spicy hot dog", the clerk called out. Bert waited a while longer for his knockwurst, then asked the clerk for it. The clerk threw up his hands and repeated in a deadpan voice, "Spicy hot dog, don't you know, capeesh?" like Bert should know the English variants. Knockwurst could be grilled, baked or boiled, his pretty guide had explained.) Before she left him, he asked to take her picture as a sign of friendship, showing her his camera. She gave him her Playboy photo. Bert kept that for years. Bert got sick on a sauerkraut pizza, German style, lots of fermented cabbage but only a sprinkling of Bierkase (beer cheese), his first real Basque-style pie. Tramping through the red light district without getting laid, checking out the FyreSid (fireside) Lounge, an LSD droppers haven, Bert was later confronted by a German nationalist in a singles bar. "Your country is putrid", the Berliner stated with conviction, which left Bert wholly mystified. It turned out what he had against the US was the fact that garbage collection was only once a week. "In Berlin, our Street Sweepers work 24/7." Bert's rebuttal, "Your gutters still stink.". Ferrying over to England, Bert mock-hanged himself in the Tower of London, stink-bombed the Dickenson house, scaled Big Ben and swung like Tarzan, vine on vine, to Westminster Abbey, searched fruitlessly for 221B Baker St., and climbed the hill to the highest point in London, Hampstead Heath, a sort of artist colony that followed all the trends. The sculptures looked like 3-D inkblots of Poe's Raven. He fed himself on Indian curries and Russian potstickers, until his mouth runneth over with froth. Ferrying back to the Netherlands, Bert tracked across the war bunkers at Maasstricht, played football down the center and caught his own pass downfield. He hiked for miles and miles in the forest of Arnhem to the Vincent Van Gogh National Museum. Bert didn't go in (he was a cheapskate.) Back in Berlin, Bert was served a traditional German breakfast: a hard boiled egg, Stinkkase (Limburger) slices and Pfeffernusse (pepper cookies), with a garnish of horseradish and sour cream, three days in a row. Finally he got fed up and ate out on the final day of his stay.

Five years later Bert and Bella smoked old stogies on a train to Scotland (it felt alright to leave his sainthood at home) In Edinburgh, they found a quaint shop that served baked turnips stuffed with all sorts of things like hollandaise and brussel sprouts or hamhocks and blue cheese. They went on to cheery Wales, a tour ending in Delane Thomas's home town, wool undies and brassieres at every stop. "Nothing keeps you warmer than wool," the salesgirls promised. Bella tried on a pair of panties and felt like a greased pig. (They were saturated with Lanolin. "Don't worry," the salesgirls chuckled under their handkerchiefs, "It all comes out in the wash!") Bert suffered with the flu in Marlborough after a lousy coach ride through hill and dale. "If you give the coach driver more than a two cent tip I'll never speak to you again", Bella threatened Bert. He called her bluff by giving the driver an IOU for five hundred clams. Later, when the driver tried to collect at their hotel, Bert substituted a can of anchovy paste and told him to Go to H—L! On a side trip to Stonehenge and Bath there were more bras, this time lined with mink fur. "Nothing keeps you warmer than mink" the salesgirls averred. Bella tried one on and broke out in a cold sweat. (It was crawling with ticks and lice. "Don't fret", the salesgirls chimed in b-flat, "The Orkin man gets rid of all pests!") In London, after fumigating Bella's undergarments and applying BENGAY to her privates, they treated themselves to ESB (Extra Special Bitter) at The Lark and Ladle, and then played guest to Queen Victoria and her court in a mock "reenactment" of English courtesies. "Young man, kiss my bosom" the Queen broached while leaning forward. On a nod from Bella, a scarlet-faced Bert salivated, then licked his chops and attempted the kiss and got his nose squished between the Queen's boobs. The Queen winked and handed Bert a plate of Tiddy Dolo's famous gingerbread cake covered with marzipan icing. (Underneath the cake Bert found a wedding proposition which he politely declined...) On tour in Devonshire Bert and Bella filled up on strawberries and clotted cream, the butterfat so thick it glued your arteries shut, then preceded to the smoky cliffs of Dover, a twisty road to a barren fortress on top. A smattering of ravens stood watch.

Chapter **24- 70BB to 67BB**

Every summer in his teens Bert climbed Mount Shasta with his sister Gail and threw snow off the cliffs at the summit. One year Bert hiked seven miles to the Broken Barrel, a wash littered with volcanic glass. He cut his thumb on a sliver. It bled and bled. Bert liked photographing the pristine waters at Shasta National Forest, such as Reflection Lake, a perfect image of the mountain in sky blue stillness, until he stuck his thumb in the water and turned it a hazy shade of red. This vacation was preferable to their earlier camping trips to the redwoods north of Napa, where about the only things to do were swim or fish. On one trip to Guerneville, Bert misjudged the edge of the river while fishing, and slid into deep water with his boots on. A large catfish came to his rescue.

Bert was always wishing and hoping the world would wake up and hide its dark shadows under a redwood stump. Then there might be six more weeks of Summer vacation, and no more gypsy moth blight. As an adult Bert blamed George Bushwacker junior for the terrorist seeds he always had to pick out of Bella's hairnet. The seeds grew very fast, if he didn't get every one, and soon there were mini Georges running all over the apartment. Bert had to spray with Portobello mushroom fungicide to rid his home of George's dead ringers. Bert stuffed the following poem into the yawning mouth of one of the little buggers:

If you believe there is something better

around the bend

what are you doing

in this town, in this den?

People moving

around like kings

pockets full of things

free to do as they please

the soul's corruption

is a steady breeze

In America we don't need a terrorist

to do the devil's dirty work

You find that out

after a few centuries plowing up

the ragged earth.

If you believe the world

tells it straight

what are you doing

in this town, full of hate?

The times roll and scroll

beyond the theater lines

The passage made somewhat bearable

by all the dope passed about.

In America we don't need a terrorist

to do the devil's dirty work.

We have George W. Bushwacker to do that

If you believe

if you conceive

the pearl is up for grabs

what are you doing to get it?

And Jesus said, render unto me

your kindest hearts –

Is there a heart left

under the mask of freedom?

In America we don't need ...

to do the devil's dirty work

Bert felt sorry for the Alaskan grizzly. It had to share its home with the ice cream fairy and the ghost of Captain Long John Silver. He wrote Santa the following Greenpeace poem:

Polar bears are hunting

for more ice, more ice

Penguins take the high road

and slide down the coast

Every creature is dependent

on man's goodwill and faith

while consortiums of whalers

harpoon the last school at length

Well, is death so much to fear

or a slow lingering impoverishment?

This age may or may not

ever pass again, my friend

as the Cosmos expands and contracts

diffusing and reassembling

the atoms of the universe

Artic terns are flying

to the ends of the earth, this earth

while babies in Siberia

huddle inside a snow drift

What's it going to be, people

by the middle of the century

Survival is not the only option

There are worse things

Bert had a problem with ants in his bathroom. They infested the toilet bowl, and sang lusty songs long after sunset. There were just so many ants he could flush away, before they invaded his pants. Then he had to strip down and jump in the shower. While the shower was running, Bert sang with a full head of steam. His head spun around, and gave Bert a hickey button. The hickey submerged and cried out for more lemon. Neighbors heard Bert and thought he was a schizophrenic fruitcake.

All the neighborhood joined the baker's dozen and responded in 4/4 time:

people awakening from amnesia

people baking cherry cobbler

people collecting shells at Manila

people delivering an elegy for Santa

people earning their daily breadstick

people fooling around in the street

people going somewhere and nowhere

people having fun shooting ducks

people inspecting the fine print

people jeering the clowns in DC

people kissing their butts goodbye

people living other people's lives

people milking cows and goats and sheep

people nursing a bottle of gin 'n tonic

people opening presents on St. Patrick's day

people pursuing a lost rainbow

people quiet and nonchalant looking up

people reading Stendhal's Red and the Black

people singing gypsy songs of genocide

people talking and joking in the snow

people uniting in revolt of mankind

people vindicating Al Gore

people writing anything but the truth

people XXX (censored)

people young and old copping out

people zipping along like mindless wolves

in alphabetical order

people sleeping in purple hallways

people calling out for mob justice

people running for president of Venus

people working in carbon sewers

people playing metal instruments loudly

people trailblazing down crowded ski slopes

people juggling ten deadly sins

people sick and tired

people hungry for a fix

people creating plastic dreams

people making war on defenseless people

people betting on the Devil 666

people screwing up oceans

people hiding from Bob Delane

people exposing everything to next of kin

people hunting for a blue leper

people lumbering on icy mountains

people eating the whole enchilada

people cooking Greek gods

people reciting Clan of the Cave Bear

people driving everyone nuts

people crying for a clay Superman

people sighing like Manga the Gimp

people making up all sorts of lies

people birthing a brittle country

people dying in a falling catastrophe

people digging their own graveyards prematurely

people just being people people

people all creeds and nationalities

in no particular order

people that make up the wide wicked world

for better or for worse or much less

people

hugging and murdering every mother's special spawn

have a whole-wheat sandwich, Milo

Say cheese, pleese

When he wasn't brushing ants off his toothbrush, Bert was gathering rhymes for the Reader's Digestion monthly jingle contest. He assemble the following verses, based on Japanese métier:

Phony flowers

are easy to grow

Set 'em in the ground

and watch them flow

Watch them flow

or yank 'em out

Phony flowers

don't need a pot.

Plastic dreams

get closer

closer each year

closer to the lead soup

that sinks all fear

Open shut

the hat on the shelf

we return from our walk

back to the lock-up

In the sixth grade the teachers played disaster drill tapes that ended like: "This concludes our test of the emergency broadcast network. If this had been a real crisis, you would be instructed to turn to your local channel for further information. This concludes our broadcast. In the event of a nuclear attack, remember to turn out the lights. Above all don't panic. At the sound of the gong, bend over and kiss your butt goodbye." Burt hunched under his desk during the makeshift drills and shot spit balls at his classmates through a paper straw.

When IQ tests were handed out in grade school Bert always scored lower than anyone could imagine. He had a little bilingual tick that kept jabbering in his ear while taking the tests that his sub-conscious mind assumed was God telling him what were the correct answers. (Later Bert found out the tick was really the Devil's payback for watching too many Abbott and Costellito flicks while his pet cat Snooky rested on his forehead like a coonskin hat.) Therefore like a proto-autotron (albeit a robot) Bert never stopped to think what boxes he checked off and consequently got everything wrong. His IQ was rated at -70 which was a school record for non-achievers. Indeed, it was lower than anyone in the USA, maybe the whole universe, which made the NSA, and the whole military complex eventually, very curious about this seventh grader. What made them even more concerned was when they ran Bert's test responses through their high-end national security computer BRAVOS (Brute-force Reconnaissance and Virtually Omniscient System) and it revealed the computer's administrator password that day in twenty eight different languages! For a time Bert was sent to Alcatraz for serious study. While he was there he met such famous cagers as "Acey Ducey" Ray Molina, the Las Vegas czar of gambling, who later appeared on Stump the Raiders (a card matching game between the whole Oakland football squad and Acey Ducey), and "Stinky" Leonard Liedercranz, the cheese baron who was incarcerated for his lucrative plot in helping some mid-eastern terrorists inoculate California cheese with hooping-cough serum – the kind that gives you the fatal cough cycle. Acey Ducey had made a fortune bilking small-time wannabe gamblers via the giant Wheel of Misfortune. This was like a Wheel of Fortune, only ten feet high, in which the gambler was strapped to it with a chance to win a cool million dollars if he landed upright after spinning out of control for sixty seconds. The poor sucker also had to hold his guts in after being fed a two pound Big Mackie just prior to the spin, which resulted in numerous honchos suffocating on their own putaneska or blowing a hole through their stomach linings. The wheel also had a hidden weight which 999999 times out of 1000000 left the gamester tilted at an incorrect angle. In other words the wheel was rigged, and only one gambler in ten years hit the jackpot. Still the Wheel was very popular and led to mass hysteria, which the Feds finally curtailed by indicting Acey Ducey for tax evasion. (His deductions for the cost of the Big Mackies didn't match the actual cost of the buns and meat. An insider French chef blew the whistle on Acey Ducey, when it was clear all he could expect from his latest job was a fast-food resume.) Bert liked Stinky even though he had to wear a gas mask around him. Stinky didn't mind. He was flattered that anyone would dress up around him. Stinky spent hours with Bert describing his favorite cheese-making methods, and gushing over some of his more successful hybrid cheeses and pasties, like Limburger Deluxe a combo of Bavarian Limburger and anchovies from the Bering Straits, and Kookoo Chremslach an unorthodox Jewish pasty filled with a goat cheese and a smidgen of pigeon breast (all dark meat). The latter was a special favor to his neighbor Cody Brunswagger who loved to mix tradition with Nuevo Buenos (new goodies.) Stinky wouldn't talk too much about what got him incarcerated at Alcatraz, except to say he'd gotten too greedy for his own good and let the damn terrorists rip him a new a-hole (sic).

While Bert enjoyed his talks with Acey Ducey and Stinky when he wasn't under an electron microscope furnished by the NSA, he longed to get back to proper schooling and spit ball city. The Federal doctors had run him through the proverbial inspection ringer and couldn't find a thing right or wrong with him, except a tiny tick near his right ear lobe that clung tenaciously and caused it to swell up like a maraschino cherry when the tick was forcibly removed with tweezers. When a doctor next examined Bert, he couldn't even find a pulse or blood pressure, Bert was so calm and white as fresh snow, that the doctor concluded Bert must be a ghost, until another doctor told him to use a bloody tampon on Bert's wrist. The smell alone got Bert's pulse up to 150, and a blood pressure of 180/120, and his winky stood out nearly a foot ("What's that doctor?" Bert asked innocently, though he'd been jerking off for the past year with a picture in his mind of sexy Trudy, a twelve-year old vixen in the class ahead of his, with breasts the size of peanuts... a safe bet in those days. )

72BB -- In the sixth grade about nine A.M in the morning, Bert saw an upper classmate named Joe Bundy doing it in the boy's bathroom while smoking a Marlboro cigarette. Ash accidentally dropped on the tip of Joe's thingamajig. "Oh my God Fuck!" Joe hollered with a grunt. When Bert smugly asked what he was doing, the eighth grader just replied, "Fuck off, Bozo" and ran out of the bathroom, the sting of agony all over his face. Bert was well acquainted with the facts of sexual reproduction and many of its kinkier aspects, having read extensively in the Encyclopedia of Copulation, which his parents had left on the coffee table in their living room for Bert's future reference, perhaps too tight-lipped to explain it all to Bert one on one. He'd also watched a few dozen porno movies which were in plain view too, like Lolita's Big Snatch and The Pruning of Esmeralda. But Bert hadn't felt any sudden urges up to this point to experiment with himself. Maybe his prostate gland and gonads were just coming into play. Bert tried it and decided he liked it, everything but the cigarette, which he considered a filthy disgusting habit. Bert squirted a little Ivory Liquid on his winky, from a pocket-sized bottle which Joe had left in his haste, and started chugging away. He was surprised how fast and long it grew... At the climax Bert couldn't resist crying out in imitation of what he'd just seen, "Oh my God Fuck!" One day Bert was silently dry-masturbating in grammar class, groping himself through his stretch jeans, while gazing out the window where Trudy was practicing some robust cheerleading (maybe to stimulate her anemic boobs.) Suddenly Bert found he couldn't get his zipper down in time for the explosion (it had snagged on some thread.) Bert was so embarrassed by the consequences that he burst out with a stream of cussing and vitriolic words, ending with "Oh my God Fuck!" His teacher Miss Lizzy Swizzlestick thought a speech impediment was causing Bert to utter profanity and other vulgar expressions, until she saw the bulge in Bert's wet pants and sent him to the nurse's office to dry out and calm down.

Unbeknownst to the guards in charge, Bert in his spare time had assembled a weather balloon out of dried orange peels and plastic wrap (scrounged from the prison dumpsters), and stitched together with French knots and sealed with beeswax (which he methodically rubbed off the wings of honey bees he'd caught in the prison flower garden.) Until he was ready to escape Bert kept the deflated balloon stashed under his bed. (Since he was only eleven and supposedly very stupid, the guards didn't inspect his cell too carefully.) After he filled the balloon with sawdust (which the guards kept in the dining room to eradicate the products of over-active bladders and prisoners with stomach flu, and which Bert collected slyly in mouthfuls at each meal) Bert made his escape one night by punching out a hole large enough to crawl through to the service hall. This was possible with the help of a battery-operated transistorized micro-pulverizer which Bert had cobbled together from spare parts in the Electric shop, and which Bert later patented (thousands of transistors working in parallel, triggered on and off, built-up a lot of mule power. The electrolytic batteries he made from used tin foil, sea water and piss – very potent.) Once in the service hall Bert climbed up the cold water pipes (that fed the cell johns and sinks) to the roof and after jumping off rolled down the hill to the dock by the Bay while straddling the weather balloon which floated neatly when it hit the water. (Bert was covered in a cellophane-based camouflage outfit, so all one saw was a moving smokescreen that resembled a ghost dog rolling, and since none of the guards at the towers wanted to be accused of seeing things, kept their bloody mouths shut over this incident.) All Bert had to do was keep rolling the balloon to shore while tethered to it with a cord woven of dog hairs collected from the warden's watchdog. The warden felt sorry for Bert, so he let Bert groom Renardo the Barker for consolation. (Renardo was a ruby red Saint Bernard that was all bark and no bite but made a good watchdog whenever the guards on duty took a nap.) Of course the Feds were shit-faced over Bert's escape and wanted to keep the whole incident quiet, for no one ever escaped from Alcatraz, the story they spoon fed the public media, and promptly dropped the matter when Bert resurfaced at Washington Elementary, although for years afterwards they kept an eye on his trash barrel, hoping to learn whatever it was that made Bert tick.

When the Indians made their fatal take-over of Alcatraz in the sixties, Bert couldn't resist the urge to join them, having a bit of Cherokee DNA in his own bloodstream that he could trace through family archives (or graphic novels) to the times of Blood on the Plains. Bert dressed up in his best feathered nightgown, snuck on a pair of falsies, for old time's sake, and in case the Indians didn't believe his Cherokee background was authentic, he could always pretend to be a crazy horse with tits – they'd have to believe their own eyes for that. Fortunately none of the Indians doubted he was nuts, and let the paleface join the usurpers. When food became scarce, Bert showed them how to catch striped bass with chicken wishbones and lumps of Limburger Deluxe, which he'd learned to make from Stinky. Bert substituted sea gull poop and maggots for the cheese and anchovies – it seemed to work the same, or maybe it was just the maggots that the bass liked. The sea gull poop sure made them squirm... When the FBI came to dislodge the remaining Indians on the island, Bert pelted them with a mixture fish scales and cement chips, then quietly exited the island in a hot-air balloon.

If truth be known Bert actually had an IQ exceeding 200 (the alien tick was smarter still), was prone to telekinetic abilities (like lifting miniature boxes of Cracker Jacks) and foreseeing the future up to twenty years beyond his time after eating little bites of crazy corn. He was also pretty good at remapping his own history for the sake of future biographers. But that is another (untold) bone-crushing story.

While he was convalescing after experiencing the whipping at the iron hands of Bosco, Bert read a true story in Reader's Digestion journal. He couldn't believe he read the whole thing. (His usual reading diet consisted of Ann Landers's Sunday column.) Bert didn't feel very sympathetic about anyone, but this story had him swimming in his teardrops:

Chapter **25-**

Barometer of Death

by Mikhail Manslaughter

Cody was dying. There were no two ways about it. He had a brain tumor and he wasn't going to get any better. That's what his doctors said. His brain was swelling and he needed an operation to relieve the pressure, or else his head would explode like a ripe pumpkin. Lying in his hospital bed, with his wife Cherise holding his hand, Cody wasn't having much fun. He could laugh and act like it didn't hurt, like the countless mutilations he had performed in the slaughterhouse on newborn goats. (He would hold the baby goat in his arms, look it straight in the eyes, smile prophetically and say "This shouldn't hurt, little one", maybe to ease his conscious, before he sliced and diced the little goat and drained its blood into a steel bucket. They used the entrails to curdle milk. The blood was used in satanic rituals. Whether it was from actual pain or just a gag response to the cold stainless steel blade, the baby goat bleated for a second, terrified. Cody sang softly in Latin until the baby quieted down. After that it was a simple matter to cut its head off and slice its flesh into sukiyaki. There was a little blood to wipe off the blade following the procedure, but that was a minor inconvenience. It always worked. Cody was nothing but methodical, his method hadn't changed in over twenty years. Cody was a natural born actor, he could have been courting the queen of England for all the care he put into his performance. After the butcher's work was done, Cody treated himself to a lavish spread of herring, blintzes, bagels, cream cheese, lox, horseradish, gefilte fish, pâtés, all sorts of pastries, braided challah, smelly imported cheeses, caviar and pumpernickel. (He raided his Jewish neighbors refrigerators and freezers indiscriminately. Like in the movie Motel Hell, parts of them were already deep sixed and ready to be stuffed into sausage rolls, when the goats were all taken care of, that is.) It was an occasion to celebrate immensely. Alas, this may have also led to Cody's fatal tumor. He was a hefty fellow, robust in life and consuming it to the hilt.)

Every time Cody looked in the mirror and saw his swollen head he cringed. He knew that wasn't right. He knew if something weren't done about it, he would soon be ready for the wax museum. His doctors gave him no guarantees about the success of another operation, but little time if he didn't have it. "You just got to forgive me for being so fat headed," Cody said to his wife, my aunt, trying to manage a smile as he was wheeled into the operating room. He had his future family to consider. They'd miss him terribly when he was gone, his wife, children and their seventh (expected) child. Time was running out for him.

A sort of miracle occurred after Cody's death. His wife gave birth to a healthy eight-pound alien duchess. During his lifetime Cody had only fathered beatniks, seven of them. The baby was named Sticklet after her Martian mother who unbeknownst to me had replaced my aunt's body and soul, after a crash landing on the planet.

Cody's wife was not the only one affected by his struggle for life. In his lavishly decorated apartment I also enjoyed the company of butcher Cody, and shared wine and jokes with him. His pimply face filled the room's space, like Pinhead on a bad hair day. Pictures of little satanic devils hung on the walls, urging everyone to have a ball. To impress my aunt and me, Cody would imitate the mating call of a bull elephant with hilarious authenticity. We would toast "Bottoms Up", with a bottle of Chianti, and nibble on Russian rolls spread with caviar. I listened with rising spirits to Cody's inspired voice when he sang the national Anthem at Dodger stadium. Cody performed the butchering on each of my goatkin, and was a major reason Trudy and I began attending afternoon Satanic services. Devil worship for Cody was not just on Easter Sunday, but also a yearlong commitment to Satan, family and evil doers. Everyone loved Cody, for there was much to commiserate. In many ways Cody was a monster at heart, just like Goldilocks, even at 54. He had an ego that wouldn't quit, and loved to strangle people with the truth. (He had lots of yarns to tell about his early years. Like that time stationed in France after the Second World War, Cody was staying at a country bed and breakfast, and they asked him how many hens he wanted. He meant to say 'two' in French, but what he said came out 'twenty.' They served him twenty Cornish hens roasted on a stick. "No one could eat all of that," Cody said to us, "I was mortified and upset, most of it would spoil before I had my fill. I ate as many hens as I could and stuffed the rest down my hostess' throat. I trussed her up like a Christmas goose, and sent her to Queen Elizabeth with my compliments." Then there was the time Cody fabricated his education and experience to run for President of Turkey. He told the crowds he had a Master's degree in butchery and years of previous experience in Transylvania. They thought he was joking and laughed hysterically. That is, until he was elected and lined the courtyards with their bodies pierced straight up on stakes... They never checked his credentials.) Play acting was just a way to lead you closer to the truth. "We are all stray lambs. We all belong in the same stew pot," would be written on his tombstone. At his memorial service, I agreed with one of the speakers that Cody was a real Truman Capon. Cody's legacy would live on.

In memory of Cody Brunswagger:

We roll our tinker toys away

among the hazy drive-in shows . . .

The day does not clear;

the treatise has been drawn and hung.

And yet, yesterday we remembered to play accordions.

You taught us that bowing was an adult thing only,

A miserable echo of the world unchanged

Without the snowy music's chantings

A world buckling under despotism and

a pot of chicken soup.

If it was what we knew was inadequate

then what we know is too reckless

bound to erase itself in ceaseless morass.

And yet, yesterday we remembered to yodel.

You taught us that yodeling was a holy

thing, like spinning cotton

under the great pyramids of Egypt

as if they were undamaged and fresh.

It was your voice that taught us

what deeds could not fetch

and brought us a floating happiness

within the language of please.

And Cody, yesterday we knew how to drag race:

when the blood flowed out of you.

You blew yourself away

and never counted the loose goats in sleep

You had sheep for that

and Hades wouldn't wait.

For the rest of our days we

will walk in your fires

and the sight will clear our boils a hundred times.

And yet, the day remained hazy at the last

a reminder our playmate was away.

You taught us killing was something people did for life.

You led us in our rituals

and arrived first at every poke

But Cody, today you've lost us

playing a crazy game of Break the Mother's Skull.

Come out, come out and be a ghost rider.

For yours was the Titanic and the iceburg

and who will match the strength of Mount St Helens?

The words tangle and the legs cramp

When yesterday the sutures were clean as Kentucky.

Teacher, quench your lips on this blood bucket.

You taught us the best drinks were

shared with the choicest guests --

yourself and a family circle

And we were all your family, Cody Brunswagger.

Teacher, I am afraid for a world that

plods on uncaring and couldn't

do more to save the wonderful creature

trapped in a faulty body when the love

hung lost in an embittered shell . . .

Teacher, I am sorrowed by the words of

daring that I never touched your breast with.

Was a knuckle sandwich quite enough?

Cody, Cody, I cannot sleep.

Your peace is too deep, and mine

a shipwrecked encyclopedia.

You taught us to laugh

after a blood bath

and the laughter was a healthy one.

The words were mightily inhuman, and he coughed up a little bile.

The channel was dredged like a rosy lagoon and we set off once again.

The rocking of the battleship made us long for shore leave.

Cody, we will carry you onward to the pithy end, even

as you carried us into the rift between God and Satan,

and never content ourselves

until our ashes mix with yours

and a little gin and tonic

Almond Joy

Chapter **26-**

I had a fever when Cody first entered the hospital. The diagnosis wasn't good. After an operation to relieve the pressure, Cody got better briefly and my fever subsided. When the bleeding recommenced and Cody was wheeled back for another operation, my fever grew rapidly to 108. The operation was unsuccessful. After numerous spokes to the brain, the doctors would give Cody no more Milk of Amnesia. He already looked like pinhead in diapers. His thinking factor was down to zero, they said. He'd received the equivalent of a total hand grenade to the head. Cody blew up at exactly five in the afternoon. (My aunt told me this later. She licked the blood off his shoulders.) My temperature returned to normal.

This wasn't the first time that I had a fever just before someone died. In the previous three years, it had happened more than once. My wife called me "the barometer of death" after a couple of these instances. We were over in Castroville and a flu-like fever hit me after a wild ride through the artichoke fields. The tour driver wouldn't stop for anything, ran over a skunk, which stunk up the whole bus, and spoiled the trip for both of us. The bus almost had a head on collision with a spinach truck, due to the driver's recklessness. He just wanted to get the tour over with, and to hell with his passengers. "If you give this guide a tip, I'll excommunicate you", Betsy wrote on a little slip of paper, she was so disgusted with him, which is unlike her usual propensity for double dipping. (If she really liked someone's service she would offer herself up as a desert covered with chocolate frosting.) I gave him two centavos. This occurred at the same time Betsy's father keeled over and died of a hernia. We didn't learn about his passing until we returned home from Monterey. "She's going to be distraught" I thought, when my sister relayed the news in private to me. But Betsy was delighted to hear he hadn't suffered much. Betsy talked so frequently and fluently about her parents, I felt I had lived through it all with her and was ready to punch her out.

Again my temperature rose inexplicably when my maternal grandwitch Celeste passed on a few months later. Celeste was always a little meshuggeness, crazy from the old country, sometimes forgetting to wash her hands after a goat sacrifice, but we loved her all the same. As children we watched Freddy Krueger in her front living room. Her kitchen was warm and cozy; filled with chicken claw fetishes and shrunken heads. She enjoyed cooking grouse for us on Passover, her gefilte fish always contained a few shark's teeth. Her pot roast was something special, stuffed with roasted termites; it cut easily with a fork. She would embarrass the heck out of me sometimes, standing in her witches outfit, large pointed hat, blood-stained dress, and black cats purring at her feet, on the corner waiting with a roast camel sandwich for me after school was out. At her death I felt I'd lost one of my favorite snacks.

I was ill for a week, right before Betsy's mother departed this earth. Betsy broke down completely when her brother told her he'd found their mom hanging from the ceiling rafters. Betsy said her mom just sounded tired and a little choked up over the phone the night before. Betsy had a close relationship with her mom, talked for hours to her on the phone, even after we married and had two youngsters to care for. She cleaned house for her mom, washed ant-covered dishes that her mom never had time for, being more interested in dancing the night away, or staying up late watching Fred Astaire and Danny Kaye. I became very close to her too, never refusing a task she set me, like poisoning her neighbor's pitbull who barked a lot. I bought a few USDA choice New York strip steaks, added arsenic and some jalapeno sauce for good measure, and tossed them over the fence. Luckily the poison was slow acting, so the pitbull ate everything and the neighbor could only suspect foul play. Even doggie vomit all over the place wasn't conclusive evidence. The way we figured it, Betsy's mother must have slipped on a banana peel while she was stringing Hanukah lights, and the tangle of wires caught fire when a bucket of herbicide overturned. This shocked Betsy's mom so much she walked around in a daze, phoned Betsy just before she stepped into an African snare trap that was intended for a gopher-sized rat. That left her hanging upside down. The blood rushing to her head caused a embolism in her brain to burst. R.I.P., Ruby Tuesday.

Finally my younger sister Kristie became gravely ill, the doctor said from a mixture of diuretics in her system and a catfish bone stuck in her esophagus. Kristie could hardly speak to me from her hospital bed, her words slurred every time she opened her mouth. I feared the worst when my fever again raged. I visited the library to research paranormal reactions to the dead zone. In the non-fiction 200's there were some religious books, but nothing topical. I turned to the 900 section and looked up the history of Transylvania. From the description of vampire legends, and their evil reputation, I decided to hunt up one in Little Tokyo. At exactly 9:30 in the evening, I spotted one munching on the leg of Helen Armstrong, my childhood wet nurse. Though Helen was out of it, the vampire interrupted his meal to chat. When I broached the subject he said that eating meatballs was to blame for my family's ill fortunes. Happens every time, he confessed, but we vampires are helpless to resist the consequences of our unnatural lust. Like a bad luck charm then, ground beef was the culprit. Or was it the non-kosher blood in it? It was anathema to my kundalini practice, that I always knew, tightened the muscles something terrible, and led to Restless Bowel Syndrome and ED also. And now my family was slowly vanishing because of that sin, with me the focal point of all the bad karma.

I became a vegan in my late teens, when one day I saw an uncooked rat lying on the kitchen counter, ready to be popped into the deep fryer. There was something almost loathsome about the veins and muscles in the rat's spindly legs and thighs, tied back with little pieces of string. I can't eat that, I thought. It would be unnatural, though mom always said rat was good for you, as good as any other filet mignon. For fifteen years I vacillated between eating burgers and not eating chicken fajitas, at one time eliminating all dairy products except raw milk, then poached delicacies like goat's head soup, then milk which I stirred up from goat milk powder, until I subsisted solely on wild foods like dandelion greens and huckleberries. I had some great visions at that time, the world glowed ephemerally, unfolding with every bus ride, but slowly I lost weight until I was just skin and bones, like a half-starved rodent. My body demanded more nourishment, and I gained it all back like one continuous great white shark attack, consuming loads of exotic fish products, shark's fin soup and beluga caviar, thirty pounds in one month. I was really strung out on Star-Kist tuna too. Whoa, Charlie!

After hitch-hiking my tail off, I would go back to consuming flesh products to fit into an invasive situation, like passing mustard at a Naval recruiting center. "Have you ever had a seen a pink and yellow Tasmanian devil?" the examiner asked. "Only in Tasmania and only on summer solstice in a muddy dump," I replied. "You'll do, buster." I reverted to veganism in Oakland, after feasting on monkey curry and ostrich burritos in Berkeley. (Later the host at the Leopard of India would test my yogic resolution by mixing up my order and serving me kangaroo gumbo instead of the cauliflower curry I'd ordered. I sent it back untouched.) In Europe on our second honeymoon, it felt more natural to eat Highland boar, where the pigs were hunted more actively before the hair grew long on their bodies. (I always remembered the pithy rat on the kitchen counter.) When we returned home, I resumed where I left off. Betsy convinced me to include fish heads in my vegan regime, since it was easier to avoid bone loss that way.

My philosophy changed over the years, and my reasons for remaining vegan were not always constant. I could weave belts from cotton cord to avoid leather straps, but shoes weren't that easy to fabricate. The canvas ones didn't fit my narrow feet. I rationalized that since leather was a byproduct, left over from the slaughter houses and meat packers, I wasn't responsible for the cow's or sheep's death. I no longer felt it was cruel to slaughter and eat cattle; they had as much control over their lives as vegetables. If men couldn't stop killing men, how could you expect them to stop killing animals? In a deeper sense, I needed to remain separate from a society that preyed on people's weaknesses. The whole fast food mentality was based on an omnivore's love of over-consumption, meat as its primary mover. "Ribs, it's what's for dinner." That was just another way people tried to speed up man's conquest of nature. Whose nature? – The whole planet's: nationalities, forests, animals, birds and any other species they needed to leapfrog over. Competition was my worst enemy. Everyone had talents all their own, but competition and greed just brought out the worst in men. Women too.

Betsy's best friend Holly accused her of plotting her mom's death, because the Christmas tree lights had Betsy's fingerprints on them. (Betsy purchased them for her mother, true, but that didn't make her a killer.) According to Betsy, her so-called 'friend' was guilty of planting giant Venus Fly traps at her mom's house, that Betsy had to eradicate with gallons of Raid. Her ex-friend's startling accusation came out of the family mausoleum six months after she was comfortably married to Betsy's brother Gil. He had split with Betsy their dad's ten million-dollar inheritance. Sister-in-law had nothing to lose by then revealing her true feelings, after both Betsy's parents were gone.

I swore off meatballs and shark's fin soup forever, and my younger sister recovered. Since that time, I have never relapsed into thermal meltdown to mark the passing of another relative. Meat substitutes are widely available and California cows no longer fear me. My paternal grandma Jezebel took silent flight when my immediate family and I were still up in Washington. My temperature didn't change. I have no doubt after my experience in Monterey, that distances matter nothing when someone is glued to your Adam's apple. A chain of happy coincidences? My last experience with Cody seemed to dispel that hypothesis.

Disclaimer: while I have tried to relate things as accurately as I remember, everything is subject to interpretation, as my sister Callie says, always ready to dispute my every word. Nothing is certain but death and taxes, or is it galoshes? Let us pray.

(End of "Barometer of Death")

Bert took comfort that could never happen to him in a million years. After reading that, every night he took an ice bath.

Chapter **27-**

There was a movie in the 50's, Invasion of the Body Snatchers that infected Bert's nightmares. Pods would open up and creatures from outer space would clone nearby sleeping people, who never woke up or were disposed of silently with sulfuric acid. Bert imagined a pod opening beside him, and kept a fire extinguisher filled with nitric acid on hand. One day he accidentally squirted his pet cat, who happened to be resting near his bed. Bert had pink eye which partially shut his eyes, and he thought he saw a pooty cat from Mars. The cat reared back and clawed Bert's arm, which left a long S-shaped scar. Ever since then the cat's coat was a patchwork quilt, half fur and half skin.

In the 60's Bob Delane came around with his songs about the circus and Mr. Jones and the Rolling Stone girl headed for a shakedown. The rolling stone bit Bert understood and felt, and hung on to Delane's every lyric like they were his soul's overalls. Mr. Jones was harder to fathom, but really more of the same basic theme. You are as much your thoughts as your experiences, fictitious or in the flesh, which is why Bert could justify escaping into realms of H. G. Wellstream and Jules Vernacular anytime life was serving him liver and cold boiled onions. His friend Paulson supplied him with Henrich Millar novels and Lee Boxer turned him on to Manga graphics.

Bella was a great fan of Star Wars, and when they were first going together Bert and Bella would soar through the heavens holding hands aboard the Death Star, and throwing silver daggers at Darth Vader, which made shreds of the movie screen. (The theater manager came out with a black mask on his face.) Latter they rode broomsticks in Harry Potter films, and cast toad spells on the mudbloods in the audience. Some people objected to having fish guts tossed on them. Bella loved the Wookie and would dress up Burt to look like him. Burt liked to pounce on Bella if she didn't let him win at Galactic poker.

Rock and roll hit critical mass in high school with the American arrival of the Beatless and the Rolling Pie Tins. Bert started wearing an aluminum toupee on his shaved head and was soon known by his friends as that "Tin Pan Alley cat". Bert's trigger finger itched with the release of the White Album, and he frequently woke up drenched in sweat after a night fondling clay pots (a foreshadow of things to come?) Eric Clapstone made the scene in Creamery, with the provocative line: "The rainbow has a beard." Bert was a professional though, and didn't get much satisfaction from ripping off thrift stores. He preferred pilfering cigars from Berkeley's smoke shops.

Bert always had a drunken appearance to his face, especially when he shaved with whipped cream, and patted it down with Channel No. 9. One time when he was walking with his friend Paulson, a guy came up to them and asked, "Is he drunk or just queer? Quick, tell me!" "sober as a leopard" Paulson replied with a laugh. For a while Bert wore a wig and dress and padded his chest to repel that ambiguity. Later he grew a beard and mustache and pasted hair on his chest. He hated to be pinned down to any one routine.

In homage to Delane he addressed the following poem:

The shingles on your Tambourine Man

have long since faded in the sun

Your cracked mouth song

lies in the dust recaptured by the moon.

A growing-up process, perhaps?

(Fame and prosperity

overshadows the youth)

Turn turn turn on the run

will these visions ever end?

Who will visit you then

lying bereft of words --

grey and thin in your medicine bed?

Who will come to learn your gypsy melodies?

Turn turn turn away

while the parade passes by

and the ocean waves crash down

on your cities unwound

Bet you never figured on that, country boy.

Now Mr. Jones was an enigma, even though Bert comprehended the words, the meaning was still detached, like people can temporarily become warriors in Platoon then go about their daily lives like it was all a fiction. Bert never guessed there was actually substance in Delane's refrains. As he grew older Bert finally realized it was his life the dramas were replacing. There was no way around it; you could live your life at matinees or hit the road and actually do something with your time. What was more real, the myths or the highways? In the end only dreams remained. Getting off the highways was more fun though, climbing Mount Rainier more breathtaking than watching Captain Kirk tackle Half Dome. Scaling a glacier was better than watching The Wide World of Sports, tramping barefoot on a muddy beach strewn with golf balls at Pebble Beach better than reading Kerouache's On the Road, carving antique beasties out of soft stone better than visiting art galleries. But experiencing other artists' work was essential to understanding the bottom line. Photographing nude models was better than being absorbed in video games, meeting native Americans like Bear Tooth on their home front better than watching John Weeyne shoot redskins. Fooling around with a loved one in real time was better than watching Julie Robertson on wide-screen television, though either had its kicks. While he was growing up Bert could think of a thousand ways to get it on, but mixing it up with Bella was far superior. The backdoor man loved his chicken.

In his middling age, Burt could still get off on Delane's lyrics, especially the haunting 'Senor'. Lord Lord, what are we waiting for? It you can't do anything to clean up the mess on this planet, give us a sign there's something else in store for us, after the finale. Make a clean breast of it, or leave us alone. When his faith was ebbing, Bert reverted to poetry as a lifeline:

I was searching for the ancient one

I was wondering when He would come

I was waiting for a magic star

I was looking at a blinding mirror

Broken toe, I am for you

wherever you go, whatever you do

Send me out to do your bidding

My life is your candle, my flame

is your handle. Toss the dice

Reveal your presence. I won't wince.

I was hunting for the key to time

I was feeling like I'd come undone

When will we be one again?

In what season, in what land

will balance be returned?

I was searching for a sign of Him, anything

It was a long time coming, Brother

Man would be far better off leading a strictly ethical life, Bert thought, (free love and all that) than relying on ancient doctrine to justify holy wars and crapshoots. But no one followed priestly sermons anymore, by the Book, because man wasn't fashioned in that manner. (Bert once offered to share Lila with Gandhi only, but Lila replied "I need more than that to keep me satisfied.") Bert theorized that deep down most men and women were manic depressants or lavishly promiscuous, the instinct was always there to turn a mild-mannered gentleman or lady into a freaking-bad motorist (six-legged Wheeler!) or a private citizen into a whacking-off voyeur. (Bert watched Last Tango in Paris with more than a minor interest. He couldn't believe what a little hair conjured up.)

Bert read Eric Clapstone's autobiography and wrote this soliloquy:

The duke of Windsor aint my cousin

The prime minister aint my dad

Love washes over the world like wild hibiscus

There is no sweeter incense

What's the difference between a liberal

and a conservative?

A conservative aint happy

until he has everyone under his thumb

A liberal aint happy

until he gives everyone their freedom

Death makes small tracks in life's ocean

The roast of faith gets sliced daily

Can we, should we, shoulder all

that the canopy of existence presents us?

Or turn a hollow eardrum to the real

unreal powdery confections

And something is finally happening

and you know exactly what it is, don't you

Mr. Potter! Squirrels and bears feed on the

penitential landscape, a chilly aside

to a parched lipsync, while Mick Jaggery

rags on everyman's dreamscape

Poor fellow never knew his uncle's brother

along the boozy lap-crushed cattle trail

Roman legions aint my sons

Julius Caesaro aint my god!

Homeboy picks up the pieces

and throws them all away

So fetch a fallen star, take home a meteorite, there's substance in those darn rocks, ageless too, Bert thought. Like dinosaur bone, the detritus stays put. Bert had his collection of toad stools too. 'What goes in the pot, comes out of the pot", another of Bella's favorite sayings. "Seek out good karma whenever possible, a cherry tree drops many blossoms" – Bert's Law of Lost Leaders.

Chapter **28-**

Stephen King's It snuck up on Bert one day while riding the Greyhoundog bus, wearing a Randy McDougal clown suit and burping up rivers of gore, which scared Bert into a nervous twitch until the passenger in the next seat elbowed him in the crotch and he woke up. He'd saved a few bucks from his stint in Yellowstone Park and blew it most of it on an Ameripass. This left him little money for room or board, so he mostly slept on the bus and ate sour pickle sandwiches for lunch on weekdays or Krispie Kreme holes on Sundays.

At the Old Faithful cafeteria (59BB), Bert had a forty-eight hour work week (skinning and mashing potatoes mostly) at minimum wage minus room and board, and one day a week to explore the park with a free bus pass. He shared a cabin with one or two other blokes. On Fridays the cafeteria crew set out for West Yellowstone for their big drunk, sometimes skinny dipping in a hot spring on the way back, or had their own party in the back room with a quart of Jack Danielson and passing around a fat ham-hock joint. Up to this time, Bert had refrained from imbibing or stoking, having seen what happened when his dad's familiars got together, gambling and sousing and pluming the night away, until the house was quite stinking. So after work, Bert would usually sit in the hotel lobby sipping cherry cola and watching the quaint tourists drift by. On his off days Bert would wander in the back country, a liberty bell tied to his belt to ward off the gummy bears. There were also company sponsored movies, like Alicia's Hot Pantsuit, and a band gathering, where Bert played a mean blues trumpet (actually a saliva-encrusted penny flute with a gourd resonator attached to it.) "Brewmaster" one of the other musicians commented, when Bert effortlessly bent a note and filled the air around with a steady mist of spittle.

Sibyl had makeup that was layered so thick as to be almost baroque, that and a veneer of soft brown hair on her upper lip, made her mask strangely appealing to Bert. The guys would pull Sibyl into the freezer for an outtake, and Sibyl was always smiling when she came out. When Bert tried it, he found out she was stronger than she looked, and all he managed to do was grab her ankle. (She had a kick like a mule.) Drawn to Sibyl by an invisible cord, he would often follow her around, until she brusquely told him to "take a long walk off a short pier." That's when he started to drown his troubles in sudsies, though the Oly tasted obnoxious at first, and he also shared some hamhock whenever it was offered to him. "Why are we giving this guy the works?", one of the cafeteria staff asked before passing the joint.

The manager of the kitchen was a corrupt tyrant with a female assistant, who never let anyone contradict her whether she was right or wrong. "Picking on a girl, huh!" One day the manager left his paycheck in his locker, came back to find it gone, and tore up the place. He got canned for that. (His last words before leaving were, "Viva la revolution!") The new manager promised some major changes, if only Bert would hold his cookies in a while longer. This was due to Bert's diligence in keeping the pots and pans squeaky clean. "Yours was the only workstation that passed muster, because you used too much vinegar." the manager grudgingly admitted.

Came the night Bert tried mixing rum and vodka and tequila and ended up in a blue funk. Bert followed Sibyl to her cabin, and sat on her porch. Beckoning her to come closer he said with a slur, "You're so bleautiful, and purrfect", clicked his high heels, then walked off into the snowy night. The next day with a nasty handkerchief, which he wiped his bloody nose on constantly, Bert decided to quit his two month old job. Sibyl would give him no sign of affliction, his only reason for staying on the wagon. His last day in Yellowstone, Bert sat in the hotel lobby, blithely watching Sibyl and her girlfriend strut their stuff, until they ducked into the ladies room and vanished from sight. (Must have had a back exit in there, because they never came out.)

Chapter **29- 59BB**

Greyhoundog was advertising an America Passthrough for $150, that allowed you to ride the bus unlimited for one month, with a month's extension for another $75. Bert bought into that and rode all around the country and Canada that summer from West Yellowstone to New York City, passing through Omaha, a very windy downtown, on to the Chicago skyscrapers and all around the Great Lakes, Detroit, Philly, DC and Cleveland, and finally NYC. Getting off the bus and walking uptown, Bert was accosted on the street by a few whores, very prissy. "Hi Honey, how's it hanging?" a saucy blonde teased him. "None of your bizzwax" replied Bert, maybe a little too sharply, while pressing past her out-thrust bosom and trying hard not to get turned on. (He didn't dare make a date with these Blitzkrieg interlopers or conniving cantaloupes, as he acrimoniously referred to them, but he could commiserate with the high heels and skimpy clothing they wore day and night. Their feet must get awfully tired, he thought, and likewise their bodies chilled like raspberry sherbet. Sweet!) Close by was the Empire State building, over one hundred stories high and what a view of Manhattan! (Bert thought it was great to hang over the rail, until the guard came and talked him down by offering him a Snickers bar.) Then it was up the eastern seaboard to Bar Harbor, Maine where he sat down on rocks to rest after crossing the bar, and got bird poop on his pants and a lobster on his big toe. He tried to brush off the dodo but it stuck to his hand. The lobster he cooked over an open fire, using his toe like a spit. Down to Providence, R.I. a classical Puritan town, very clean with no garbage trucks in sight, and on to downtown Boston. He was walking down the street with his hands in his pockets and was suddenly lifted up with one hand by a sailor built like a tank, "Fish?" he asked, like he expected a perch from Bert. "No gots" was all Bert could mutter, until he was put down in the gutter. Later at the 5th Street wharf Bert stuffed his pockets with herring. He wasn't going to be caught by that sailor twice napping.

Bert slept in a coed dorm at Cape Cod where the girls were very accommodating. They sang and rode him like he was Don Juan, and left him gasping for spring water. Bert visited the White Cedar swamp the next day and collected the foam in a wide-neck Thermos jar. He waded at Virginia Beach, with his shoes tied over his shoulder, strolled through live oak and colonial-style mansions in Tallahassee, with a monocle in his left eyecup, and cruised on down to Key West, Florida on a shuttle bus from Miami, the highway a lot of one-lane island hoppers, sure to get wiped out in the next hurricane season. Key West was a great town to visit, the most tropical spot in the continental states, intense sunlight and very colorful trees and plants, a beach called Sunset, plus the Hemingway house where Earnest blew his brains out. Clouds burst briefly every day, and Bert was soaked in five minutes with nature's blood and guts. After admiring the flowering trees outside Hemingway's estate during the day, Bert later secretly took a tour of the place. Breaking in after dark gave Bert a very eerie felling, especially when he developed a ringing in his ears after visiting Hemingway's study. There was the pistol, a Colt 45 with which Hemingway bid a sad adieu to his cantankerous body. Bert wondered if there'd ever be a time when suicide would look like the only way out for him... But no, life was too energizing to ever think of such a thing, as long as his gonads kept pumping and the spirit of Saint Christopher protected him. (Bert wore a Christian commemorative medal under his t-shirt that was given to him by his late great aunt Chastity on his fifteenth birthday. He remembered her modest lesson on abstinence, "Never do it on Sunday" was the mantra she etched on the back of the medalion. This became a joke by the time Bert reached eighteen. "Screw one for the Gipper", was Bert's motto by then, which was tattooed on Bert's left buttock. Surprising most of Bert's conquests thought this was very funny when they saw the tattoo. They all thought he had very cute cheeks, and the tattoo just added to his eroticism. Go figure. On his other cheek was tattooed "With two you make Jell-O", which is how Bert's bed usually looked after a night of orgasmic pleasure. On the day this saying was engraved by Sam Wong in a Vietnamese Tattoo Parlor, the spirit of Confucius looked down from Egg Shell Mountain and howled.)

Next Stop: across the country again diagonally to Niagara Falls and a wet tunnel overlook, the same as in the film The Fugitive. Bert objected to the tour guide that the larger than life size poster of Harrison Fordit blocked the falls. The tour guide, a French Canadian with a Hercule Poirot mustache, replied by pushing a button on the cave wall, which neatly retracted the poster. "Better, eh?" (For his next trick, the guide jumped over the rail, and back again, bungee-style.) Arriving in Quebec, the French customs inspector grilled Bert on his purpose for visiting and his monetary resources. Bert liked to hide his cash behind a flap in his wallet, so at first glance the inspector didn't get it "Young man, where is your money?" Bert lifted the flap revealing about $15 left, enough to last him through Canada, since he was sleeping on the bus. The inspector grudgingly admitted him, after a boot to the head! In Montreal when people saw Bert coming up the street, they ducked out of sight. (He wore a King Kong mask that was very realistic.) In a grocery store, there were no scales at checkout. You were supposed to weigh your produce before you brought it to the checkout, but Bert didn't know this. The irate clerk who spoke no English had to walk back and weigh the twenty pound watermelon that Bert had picked out. Another boot to the head! Bert went on to Toronto, Ontario, the cleanest city in North America, and littered the city park with melon rinds. (Until he got there, the city parks were spotless, except for a few bird droppings.) He rode through Saskatchewan to beautiful Alberta, stopping off at the Banff National Park and the Canadian Rockies. They rose breathlessly around him to dazzling heights. He climbed a few pine laden trails. Sasquatch met him on the path and offered to share his moose lunch. He took a small bite, not wanting to upset his host and get his arms or legs torn off.

In the Banff Springs hotel lobby was a brochure for the Chateau at Lake Louise, an exclusive resort for honeymooners, which just happened to be close by on the bus route, a short but brutal hike uphill from the bus stop. At this time Bert's available cash was almost petered out, so he just sat on the Chateau lawn like a bum eating a bag lunch of wish sandwiches (he'd run out of sour pickles) and watched the newlyweds arrive and depart. He was having a great time watching the grooms' in their pink suits and the brides' unfettered busts, until one of the groundskeepers asked if he was a guest of the Chateau, then forcibly escorted him off the lawn when he said he was "just passing through."

Back on the bus westbound again Bert conversed with a few locals from British Columbia, who assumed he was also English until he explained he was from Hetchy Ketchy. "Ah, a real stanky Yankee", they exclaimed. The Canadians were very nice, even though he hadn't taken a bath in over a week. "You're awfully smelly, but we have a remedy." On arriving in Vancouver, BC, they treated him to a shower at the Hilton hotel and a bottle of cologne. Riding and sleeping on the bus seven days straight, caused Bert's ankles to swell up like Napa cabbages, which made it very painful to stand and walk about. While waiting in line to reboard the bus, a woman cut in front of him to rejoin her husband. Bert bit his lip, spitting blood on her skirt in the process. (She was in too much of a hurry to notice.) After that experience, Bert never slept on a bus again, but ever after donned a pair of Draconian fangs to discourage line-cheating wives.

Bert raided his bank account and extended his Ameripass for another month, and started by riding through the South, passing through San Antonio, lunch in the Greyhoundog cafeteria, a golden-fried swan's egg sandwich, smothered in brown mustard (or was it?), and a four-inch high slice of Key Lime pie; topped with shreds of coconut. He stayed overnight in New Orleans, after a hike in the French quarter and Cajun cuisine that ate at his tonsils like a blow torch. The white sandy beaches on the gulf side of Florida crusted his nostrils. After a whole week of nostalgia revisiting Key West and the east coast, Bert had had enough. In seven weeks Bert had visited or passed through all forty-eight states in the continental US and six provinces of Canada, a journey of over eighteen-thousand miles. He felt like the Road Warrior with a habitual jockstrap itch.

This wasn't the end of Bert's tripping, as he made one more trip by bus to Port Ross and settled down near the Lords of Linguini town center, for a few months working as a dish huckster in Ye Old Crap Snacks for $2.50 an hour and reacquainted himself on weekends with the alien residents. He could have anything he wanted for lunch free, like blueberry crispies (blueberries piled high over a thin ryecrisp) and BB (Barking Bowwow) eye of baloney croquettes (pork rinds stuffed with assorted animal waste products topped with a blistering cranberry concoction.) One time he ordered both and turned a hazy shade of sting ray gray. The waitresses would yodel at him if he didn't get the silverware to them on time, or melted birthday candles on the conveyor belt. The cooks thought he ought to use less lather. The utensils and pots were starting to look like last month's split pea soup. (It wasn't Bert's fault that he was hyper allergenic to most standard detergents, which made him feel like his hands were on fire.) He took frequent breaks, and smuggled in his own brand of grease cutter, lamas milk and vinegar. This worked for a while until he ran out of apple cider vinegar. (That became unavailable due to a world-wide apple crop failure.) Bert tried burning off the grease with a micro-touch, but only succeeded in melting the plates. When his boss saw what he'd done, he cut out Bert's free lunch. Not to be undone, Bert smuggled out Alsatian rolls topped with cream cheese and cranberries under his trench coat, until a chef caught him (when a cranberry rolled out) and pinned him to the wall with a butcher's knife. Bert gained a second belly button from that one, and another boot to the head!

Chapter **30- 15AB**

Though he was well into his nineties, because of the R-Pill, Bert still dreamed of making out in a rusty corvette, rolling down highway one and floating off a cliff in orgasmic release. There were so many things scrubbing his thoughts that he thought would never see the light again in a thousand years but were fun to imagine all the same. Going out on double or triple dates on Mars and having a ball with all the space chicks, flying a shuttle into the sun and finding Baldwin's Native Son whining for Mother, hanging himself by his eyelids while shooting the Colorado rapids, visiting all the countries of the world and streaking the capitals, climbing the Himalayas and getting lost in a snowstorm, and then being rescued by silk-clad hand-maidens of an unknown monastery; owning a castle in Scotland, meeting the Lords and Ladies on his own home turf, playing ball with Babe Ruth and knocking his socks off, or walking down Columbus avenue with Ferlinghetti as a bosom buddy and hiring Carol Doda to model sweatshirts made out of paperclips and beer can tabs. Bert could dream of standing on principle and putting a hit contract out on ever-bungling Congress, the lecherous President and the superannuated Supreme Court. Fuck all laws that bring a man to his knees, and take all the joy out of conspiring to liberate the coffins of ecstasy. Death would be an everlasting trip to the stars, or a return visit reincarnated as a cat or squirrel.

The broadest conception of what happens after death was brought to his attention when years ago he read William Saroyawn in The Daring Young Man in the Flying Trapeze. Perfect integration with the universe. Bert had a life after death experience one day very sick and retching in his parents' upstairs bathroom. He had maybe just taken some aspirin. Suddenly released of his bodily chains, he transcended the muddy plains and then he was beyond flesh, timeless and a holy ghost, for a second all fears retreated and Bert was left in a state of Nirvana, a quickening satori , samadhi, or cosmic consciousness. The moment was all too brief. How to recapture this, he had no idea. In his yogic meditations Bert couldn't quite let go, though sometimes he was on the verge of flying out of his spine, puffed up by prana, and ready to soar. But something always held him back. When they were first married Bella tried to minimize Bert's use of chakras, fearing he might one day leave his body and never return. That didn't happen, maybe because tantric energy was only meant to tune a person into the sacred vibes, like Carlos Casteneta in The Teachings of Don Juan, delving into the matter stream and leaping off metaphorical cliffs. Never a finishing touch to this, as the philosopher/poet Kenneth Rexwreath said once, if you carefully pulled on the flax, its length was endless, a continent whose perimeter lengthened as you used smaller and smaller increments, a fractal moonscape with innumerable craters to jump into, each loci descending to bottomless depths where a mountain of bat guano resided.

Bert compiled a list of obsolete goals:

Never Again List

Never made out in a Hearst blindfolded

never climbed Mt Everest barefoot

never visited China or Australia

on Daylight Savings Time

never wrote a novella cross-eyed

never drove a broken down Mac truck

never ate lunch with the Duke of Hamburg

never sang at Hollywood Bowl with the Beatles

never was an office boy for the elite

never grew tobacco or cannabis

never coined my own mint

never sailed on Hudson Bay

in a coast guard cutter

never flew an X-15 backwards

never baked a tangerine skinless

never read War and Peace

with a microscope

never copied the Encyclopedia Britannica word for word

never spoke Samoan

with a Turkish accent

never fingered a wind tunnel thumbs up

never rode an ostrich tail

oops

never dug for Pennzoil with a torch

never incited a riot in cell block 8

never crashed a motorcycle

on highway 66

never kept a bombshell primed and armed

never bought a horse and wagon

never lived for countless millennium

never raised an albino goat

or three-legged wolverine

never carved my initials on Mount Vesuvius

never floated in a balloon over the Sistine Chapel

never walked on Viking stilts

never clasped a wooden fiasco

never skied from coast to coast

never thought of everything absurd

the first time around

never saw a ghost dog cry

well maybe once in a movie

never spent the whole day with the Black Plague

never heard a forest fire skip rope

never killed a relative in anger or lust

never lived inside a palace in a rusted cage

a castle yes a palace never

never forgot a Martian's ugly face

never saw one in any case

never played a piano with an iron claw

never said never

inside a burial crypt RIP

never ended a poem with never

Addendum

never voted for the Jolly Green Giant for President

never drank blood through a glass straw

at a Hawaiian luau

never crawled through a lava tube

in Superman costume

never turned cartwheels in zero gravity

never made shoes out of cardboard and cloth

that lasted more than a week

(made them but they never stood up)

never plucked feathers from a turkey vulture's head

never dined in Madame Tussaud's wax museum

never spun a web of pure gold

and got stuck in it

never carried a baby elephant in a Camelbak pack

never phoned Alaska to wake up a grizzly

never built a clubhouse out of milk cartons

never viewed the universe through a slice of Swiss cheese

never sucker-punched my boss in the face before

never set fire to the opera house in Denver

never blew up the Boulder Dam

as a reminder

never trained with terrorists from Iran on a dare

never brainwashed the brick layers of Egypt

then escaped naked across the desert

never traded insults with Henrich Millar's son

never did the nasty atop an antelope

in the Tropic of Japan

never stole the key to the outhouse

in never never land

never fished for trout in Napa

and caught a barracuda instead

never blew my brains out as a joke

never rolled and smoked a white cedar swamp

never rearranged the pages of history

and made a worse mess of it

never jumped off the Eiffel Tower

and caught a flower

backasswards

never tried a roll-on deodorant with

kerosene as its main ingredient

unless it was Banned

Bert could think of a million things to add to this list but it all amounted to the same souped-up hogwash, corn-ball recipes with a twist, Ferlinspaghetti on steroids. Never again was an incomplete dreamscape like reaching for the horizon and catching stardust in a bottomless Dutch oven.

Chapter **31- <22BB**

Before scientists discovered the secret to eternal life and the R-Pill, Bert saw all his fellow countrymen turning into medicated guinea pigs with fabricated symptoms for all sorts of diseases. If you weren't developing heart conditions, you were a likely candidate for restless leg syndrome (RLS.) Give those legs some exercise and you'll be doing your heart good at the same time, he thought. Bert liked to walk along the A-town beach, on a paved stretch, which gave his mind a chance to open up and kept his body from atrophying. He was never as fast as the fast-food freaks who frequented Ecoli Incorporated or McDougal's. (They had to jog to get that blubber off.) With a high metabolic rate most of his life, his body only slowed up in his fifties. Occasional starving and loud yawning helped to keep his weight under control. "You look no worse than most men your age", Bella often teased him, poking his soft under belly with her forefinger, and scrutinizing his weak chin with an Optovisor. Along the raunchy beach Bert would see females in all shapes and sizes, their bottoms tossing in the sun, as they passed him up, with well-greased legs and thighs, jogging to who knows where in an effort to gain "buns of steel" and tight abs. Why all the pressure to scale down their natural assets? What fun was there to pinch a derrière hard as a rock? No wonder Viagra and its cloned imitations were selling so briskly. With women starving themselves into petite models, there was nothing to work up a lather about. Bert didn't like them oversized either. You could get lost in all that blubber, and a three-hundred dilettante made a poor dance partner, unless you liked getting smooshed in a ton of loose flab, or enjoyed a fast fox trot with a Jell-O pudding. Bert had no problem with fat women though, in a mainstream environment. Some of the wittiest office personalities were matched with humongous bodies. As his dad would say, "It all turns to lipoids on women", which led Bert to respond "and long beacons." Dad laughed at that.

Bert wasn't too concerned about colon cancer. From an early age, he followed a vegetable-and-fruit-enriched regimen full of fiber and lots of soy products based on the Richard Simonton un-diet, so his bowel movements were generally very satisfying to their multi--fanged flush-less toilet, a relatively recent innovation and addition to their household. This used a Tasmanian devilfish to consume the dregs. Bella loved it because the insatiable devilfish kept odors to a minimum and kept the stainless steel "catch" bowl spotless. The T-fish only needed replacing about once a year when it became senile (due to too much nitrogen in its diet) or died of poor nutrition (rare). Bert kept his behind a few inches above the toilet seat at all times, for fear the fish would bite his nuts off or worse if it grew too hungry. This theoretically could happen if the couple ate out too often and developed persistent constipation caused by low-fiber French rolls and fatty entrees that specialty restaurants made it a point to serve, for cost-cutting reasons (fiber-rich foods added to the tab and fat tasted better anyway.) So Bert always made it a point to order the largest Chef salad in the joint when they ate out. (Bella wasn't nearly as concerned as Bert. She kept a whaler's gaff at hand to stab the little beastie if ever got fresh with her.) Once the toilet supply company Grits Away Incorporated (GAI) sent them a flying sailfish as a devilfish replacement by mistake which luckily flew out of the bowl before it could do any damage to Bert's external plumbing. Finally in 129AB, a scientist invented the ultimate cure for constipation and leaky bladders, a legion of nano-insects that lived in the stomach and intestines and periodically cleaned and sucked you dry, which made all toilets obsolete. This was like having a fifty foot tapeworm inside you, so you never worried about getting fat. Best of all, you could eat all you wanted without throwing up.

Bella worried constantly about becoming over-endowed, a family history of it, so had to keep her selenium consumption down, or go to the Venus Center of Rehabilitation (VCR) for reconditioning help. If she got too pumped up, Bert was turned off and nagged her until she began to shrink again, using after-dinner leeches and iron spikes. Bert liked a little cardio-muscular tissue to play with, but too much was too much. Conversely with excessive bleeding, Bella's shoulder muscles began to flatten and condense into vulcanized rubber, not that appealing after that, really. At her best Bella had a behind shaped like a championship bowling ball when she bent over, and nice Lucky Strike udders, which pleased him immensely. (Bert always scored a perfect game when they got together on Bedford lane.) Bert wasn't that concerned that Bella put on a few extra pounds of Fibonacci tissue as long as she burned off the excess regularly. Bella jogged fourteen miles a day or more to keep it off. She had iron-clad calves and silicone thighs, which Bert liked to slide ice cubes over and under, while she was sleeping, until she kicked him with her steel-tipped boots. (Knowing Bert's habits, Bella kept her feet dry, warm and covered at all costs.) When they went out for a stroll together, every time they were separated by a street pole or tree, Bella would say, "Kiss and make up", then mashed him mercilessly on the lips.

Bert avoided doctors whenever possible, never had a physical. If there was something wrong with him, he didn't want to know. Besides wasn't the R-Pill supposed to take care of those things? He didn't want to be tied down to medications, but had his teeth cleaned six times a year. (He was mortally afraid of gingivitis and below the gum excavations.) Bert saw no point in extending life for the sake of long life, if the quality factor wasn't there. He didn't want to end up as a garden-variety vegetable or fruit, attached to a bubblegum blowing machine for the rest of his life, and relying on someone else to put his halitosis to rest. His desire was to go out on his own flat feet, in full possession of his crooked musculature and his cracked marbles. So his motto was, "Eat healthy, avoid fad exercise, and hope for a miracle." This meant consuming natural foodstuffs without additives or preservatives and in as wholesome a state as nature intended. For working out, walking or hiking was better than jogging, weight-lifting or palates, and less exhausting. (The rolling sidewalks were the perfect way to relax.) When it was your turn to go, surrender gracefully to the unknown Father or Fiend. It was bound to be better than suffering flatulence and endless toothaches. Bert had a fear of cremation, that when he was put through the oven, he was only hibernating, and woke up screaming in the flames. He preferred a "green" burial, wrapped in burlap or satin, or a rocket trip to the sun. He'd rather take his chances with the worms and give something back to the earth, or go extra-terrestrial in one final blaze.

Photography was a hobby Bert picked up from his friend Paulson, starting with a twenty-five dollar 35mm rangefinder camera and moving up to a Nikon single lens reflex (SLR). Paulson did a lot of landscape photography, and also experimental infrared pictures, which turned all foliage red. Later Bert was introduced to high-resolution digital photography by his mortician buddy Mike. Bert would walk the beaches with a digital reflex and photograph squirrels and birds, never the scantily clad joggers, as it would require a model release to post any figure shots. Fat chance of getting one of those, more likely a punch in the nose, or a roughing up from one of their boyfriends.

What was it that made girls' buns (and boobs) so attractive to Bert? The gentle swaying from side to side, the bountiful tuckises that cried "Look at us!" or the light swish of a tail that grabbed your attention and held on. Gee, that caboose would be fun to get into, was his frequent macho dream. What was really obscene in Bert's opinion was the latest revival of exposed flesh to sell products or entice a prospective date. As the Ferrengi said, "You dress your women to undress them." Showing a little cleavage, front and rear, was far more pornographic than baring it all in a commune or nudist colony. Bert couldn't remember anyone having a hard-on at Moonbeam farm with the girls sitting quietly in the buff at the breakfast spread, sitting cross-legged and letting it all hang out. But walking aside a chick with a beautiful prow and a couple of robust knockers stretching a wet tee-shirt was bound to cause his ship to rise stern to bow. A man just can't help it. It was a profound mystery to Bert why a little tease was such a turn-on. A bit of cheesecake was more compelling than stacks of ancient Playboy magazine center folds. What did Sally's sister Manny think when escorting her home one day Bert had an uncontrollable projection on learning she was in a class three years below his, instead of the much older girl he presumed her to be? Why did that set his stomach churning like baloney and whip cream? He was hoping she wouldn't look down. But he could tell she did when she started to hum the American anthem. She still went out with him though, maybe just to see why he had dropped her sister Sally off his list of eligibles and chose her instead. Her mother probably thought he was out to cherry pick her whole brood and told her to keep a close eye on his roving hands. At the movie theater, her hand was a limp turnip when he tried to clutch it, no feeling no response.

To Bert, from his early twenties on, seeing a bare smooth rump was a precious sight when revealed in a R-rated movie or magazine. (How many other men felt the same he could only guess.) They didn't choose wrinkled up old ladies for these shots, unless it was a documentary of shepherded females entering gas chambers in Nazi Germany thinking they were going to take a shower... Twenty-five years after WWII, Bert saw these explicit films depicting the horrors of the extermination camps, and the poor naked creatures that were corralled in waiting demolition areas, or carefully chosen to bear blue-eyed babies to replenish the 'Germanic' stock. Polish women were best for this purpose, with fine golden hair and ample hips. Sex had been going on for a long time for innumerable purposes. In the European version of Oh Calcutta! in London, England, Bert saw a skit on women's underwear that documented bras and foundations throughout the ages. In the beginning women wore nothing underneath. Since bathing was infrequent in merry old England, when the wind was right a contact could be made in seconds. Later the undergarments became more and more convoluted, adding slip over petticoat over girdle over panties or a chastity belt in the middle ages. You had to get a key from the local priest to unlock the belt to procreate, then close up the womb's entrance at all other times, which led to many chaffing problems. Bert stood up and offered his services as a locksmith.

The good ol' medical industry (now defunct for thirty years) wanted to treat any and all excused for hypochondria -- treat not cure was the key word here -- because that wouldn't pay as well. You can't operate on healthy specimens, but Americans were suckers for wellness cures that didn't work, cholesterol medicines that did nothing to reduce blood platelets, diets that backfired, you lost it then gained back twice as much weight, diagnostics that reduced people to walking dipsticks, preventive examinations that violated the private parts, and elixirs that gave all day readiness. You could almost hear the women moan, with sore pussies that just couldn't take it that long. Bert never needed any kind of chemical entitlement, though it was intriguing to think about. (Bert was an old-fashioned hypochondriac when it came to worrying about past medical treatments and diets, but you couldn't blame his analysis of such things. His sense of timing was usually so skewed by the monotony of immortality that flashbacks to previous decades was a major source of entertainment for him, whenever he got bored with sex fantasies and rock carving.)

Some musings by Bert while hiking the A-town beach:

Can't get very excited these days

about colonoscopy

except that wife has to get one

which probably means no sex

when she gets home

Large buns small buns

buns all sizes

round buns flat buns

who counts?

Soft buns bare buns

long buns short buns

holy buns

yum yum

Sea gulls sail shoreline

dogs on leash, tongues hang out

wildflowers, trees shiver with breeze

geese guard meadow, straight necks

squirrels scramble 'twixt rocks, graze grass

picnickers eat lunch, chat

A-town beach between two and three

joggers stretch legs, buns into shape

Bert never considered himself a sexist, just a very observant cowpoke. If he was behind the times, in gender respect, he blamed it on Bella. She drove him to it, with her silly boudoir ripostes. How many terms could she use to describe her derrière? Tail, tuchis, bum, tush, buns, rump, buttocks, behind, fanny, rear end. Bert often wondered, where did the list end? Then there was the male counterpart. "He has a cute butt", Bella would interject, while watching a recent Lester Maddox movie. Girls liked to look too. Mandrills had large protruding hind parts, especially in estrus, to attract a mate. But the human male had the largest penis of any primate. Why was this of so much interest? Sex was a weather-beaten rag doll that the media still exploited to sell automobiles and films, tooth-whitening products and prime synthetic sausage. However, the human female behind still ruled, a leftover artifact from a distance past, or the driving force for progress. Let Freddie the slasher get his claws into her, it all deflated in bloody gore. What a waste of raw material! Bert's romantic and sentimental streak were probably media-born initially, the product of endless 50's pop songs, the Frugal Gourmet's equivalent of shake and bake. Loving and ravishing Bella changed all that. Now he could look back and count his blessings. The road ahead was still full of gorgeous babes, but only one Bella Donna. Buns would always be buns. If they were large enough, he quietly played tic tac toe on them....

Bert is a real idiot, too dumb to tie his shoestrings straight, even if they don't exist anymore, replaced by self-tightening boots and moccasins. That's the trouble with the human race; everyone is always on the make, they never outgrow the compulsion, or lay face down in the water in Jaws IX in a dead faint. – Killjoy's complaint.

Part Two: The Send Off

In the scenario of an ultimate evolutionary process, anything conceivable will eventually come to pass, or the co-conspirators will die out or merge into something uniquely inhuman and all powerful. Thus progress is a potato-edged sword that replaces morals and ethical behavior with free willies then whittles away at society's inhibitions until only the lustful fruits of civilization bind one to unrepressed decadence AKA utopia: "a hellava good time for all sentient beings" – Dexter's abrogated dictionary.

Chapter **32- 77AB**

At Dagwood Mountebank's Wonderful World of Women amusement park, on the Truth or Dare info highway, they offered all sorts of surreal (better than real) sex fantasies (in 3-D stereophonic dreamscapes.) You could ski down gigantic bosoms or do a belly flop into a navel pool. Bert especially liked the one called The Big Dipper which allowed you to body surf the womb and examine the depths beyond. Wearing a waterproof sperm suit (optional) and a special mail-order headset to control visual effects and emit fragrances, once deposited through the iris opening, you could ride the vaginal rapids to the uterus branches and on to the ovarian restaurants, where a mock lunch like jellied egg mousse on French toast was offered. It was rumored that for an extra cost (under the table of course), there were side pathways to this scenario that allowed you to explore the rear cushions and analogous passages. Bert imagined he was inside Bella's tunnel of love, floating gracefully along, lapping up the foam and striking a match every so often to avoid collisions with passing tuna fish. It was a bumpy ride at times, when a simulated orgasm happened. There was a slider on the headset that controlled the frequency of such events. Bert set it for maximum, which made the journey more challenging. For an extra thrill, Bert pressed the period button, and got covered in menstrual blood. At the twin branches, the opening narrowed and he felt squeezed like a strand of spaghetti, until he reached an ovarian cafe. Bert punched his headset for a deviled egg sandwich. He always worked up an appetite at the ride's finale.

While sexism had supposedly ended when bestiality was legalized, men were still animals and no amount of deodorizing and sanitizing biological urges (DNA reconstruction) would keep them from following a great piece of tail. Women of every species and hybridizations also enjoyed the proverbial come-on, and once freed of virginity and frigidity and other sexual incongruities there was no shortage of amusement parks that catered to their special erotic fantasies. One such park that Bella frequented occasionally was the Big Stick Orgasmic Revue AKA Goliath Knockdown City. Gals of all ages enjoyed venting their spleens on fancy sex machines that were guaranteed to leave one panting in perpetual ecstasy. Not only did their vaginas get an exceptional workout, but the penetration could be as far as desired, up and out the mouth and round and round the chest then back again through either of the lower orifices. The women were really tied up as it were for hours on end. The lubrication was perfectly slick so no one was ever troubled with a sore pussy or Daggerall's Complaint (akin to buggery without the excruciating pain or frequent diarrhea.) The big high was riding the Big Stick (as might be expected from the park's namesake) which was one hundred feet high and twelve feet in diameter. This required a virtual reality connection which was extremely realistic and comely. Once connected a female could not only feel the stick piercing her through and through, but the orgasm it produced was nothing short of Mercurial icing on the cake. Up and down, down and up, when the woman finally blew, a terrific stream of semen-like fluid was injected at high velocity into her ... and wow!??$$$! Depravity never felt so great, though extremely sticky and itchy. Bella never came home before riding the BS a couple dozen times, which required hours to clean up and dry out. She loved the courtesy blow dry the park always provided. All she had to do was step out naked on a circular steel platform, perforated with holes and feel the breeze shooting upward from below her, while the platform vibrated to a sexy rhythm.

One day Bert received an offer by instant messaging to extend his big dip to the outer limits. Bert jumped at the chance. Only ten thousand pesos! Behind the ovary counter, square in the center between the bronze statues of Lacy Madonna and Horace the Lecher, was a secret gateway that opened silently and discretely to a dark and delicious chocolate stream (or was it?) After signing a ten-page non-disclosure form, Bert was cordially escorted by a pair of mermaids to a paddle boat especially designed for a rear exit. Attached to the stern of the boat was an outboard motor for lazy bird voyeurs. On the bow of the boat was a LCD map that showed all of the subterranean passageways. Bert set it on autopilot and ran it full blast through the small intestine. When he reached the larger one, he turned the corner, disengaged the autopilot and took a short cut into the gluteus maximus. Being only a simulation, and leaving room for maneuverability, the fatuous cells were soft as cotton candy. He breezed along until he bounced off the cheek's outer wall, which felt like a rubbery pasta shell. Bert turned his craft around and explored the other shell. "Same as the first," he expected, but this one was filled with sour cream, which made the ride slick as greased lightening around the bulbous circumference. Donning his mask and respirator, which came equipped with front and side windshield wipers, Bert prepared for evacuation. (There were instructions under the paddle rings, with very severe warnings in capital letters.) His time was almost up, and it had only cost him a modest fee. "Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him roaring back", Bert remembered this jingle and threw all caution to the wind. Bert let go of the throttle and ratcheted down the rectal canal. It was lined with a sticky substance that looked like crunchy peanut butter (or was it?), which made the track a bit sluggish. Just as he reached the superannuated oculus, his engine died and he was stuck half-way in and half way out like a pelican's beak (or was it?) Bert paddled his way out, down a winding track that led to a secret bush garden that magically parted revealing the Big Dipper's entrance. Bert breathed a sign of relief; once was enough for that extra-curricular excursion. No doubt about it, sex was a compulsion that bordered on insanity. Where did it all end? Bert had just found out.

That Dagwood had a way with women; he also had some great sex toys. Bert was much impressed, until Bella came home early one day and unplugged his Brother Buzz terminal, which had been attached to his you-know-what for the last hour and a half. (Bert could dish it out all day, over and over, with the new Niagara Falls pills the local pharmacies distributed.) "How dare you begin without me!" she bellowed, barely hiding the amusement in her glassy eyes. (She had prepared this surprise for months and was planning to spring it on his birthday, but never could keep a secret.) "Now you're really going to get it." She began by tying him to the ceiling rafters, which were old redwood four-by-fours. She employed a rubber utility cord they normally used to plug in their electric Zip scooter (a city-only vehicle they used for transporting groceries.) The beams squeaked but held his weight. Soon Bert was feeling the heat, when Bella started scraping his back with a Mammoth jaw they had bought as a souvenir on their last vacation trip to Siberia (the new Malibu resort for terrestrial bound earthlings.) Then she let him down, full of cuts, and wound plastic wrap around his entire nude torso, except for a few chosen spots, which she attached leeches to. When he was sufficiently bled and excited beyond words, she got out the heavy artillery. This consisted of an eight inch dildo, which she crammed up his posterior just for kicks, and two programmable android sluts. These could do all the work while she just sat back and watched the Scientology Finally channel. Bella had managed to program them to do one thing only. The androids had very raspy tongues, so Bert looked like a boiled lobster when they got through licking him. Bella passed him a ten page manuscript. "Here's the prep manual, Bert. You figure it out." (Bella never understood anything technical. Twenty-second century sex was a real gastritis to her.) Bert was in Starburst heaven reading up on the particulars. (He'd lost enough blood to hallucinate Uranus.) Bert started playing with the androids' controls which were recessed on their waists, inflating and shrinking their boobs, tightening and loosening their love canals, while manipulating their pubic muscles into a torrid dance of extreme movements. When he wanted extra fluff, whipped cream spewed out of their vaginas. (There was also an optional drink, a sort of Mongolian punch aphrodisiac, which came right out of their nipples when he pressed their belly buttons.) Making love to two babes at once may not seem so far out, since Alex had done it already years ago in A Clockwork Orange, but the android makers had improved on the technique. With a detachable penis attached to his mouth, and a virtual connection to his nervous system, Bert could screw both lulus without missing a stroke. The simultaneous orgasm was incredible. His own saliva doubled as spermatozoa, which made his mouth drier than papier-mâché afterwards. When Bella and the androids got done with him, Bert felt like Samson without his pigtail and Shogun without his Katana.

Bella taught Bert a good lesson that time. "Be careful what you wish for, Bert", Bella said with a smirk. "You always wanted a configurable girl, and now you've got Lulu, Jezebel and me... Kiss and make up, honey?" All three kissed him then, the androids on his cheeks and Bella square on the mustache and mouth. Bert offered them each a pack of flax. (Bert washed the dildo and hid it under his pillow for future use on Bella, though a vibrator might have worked better. The androids he reserved for special occasions, like the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.)

Chapter **33- 78AB**

After the warm welcome Bella had prepared for him, Bert felt energized and decided an off-world rock-hounding field trip was in order to celebrate his one hundred and sixtieth birthday. As usual they over-packed everything into the ATJV (Atlas Transport jet vehicle): One hundred gallons of spring water, in addition to a solar wastewater converter that made urine taste like alpine water, a radiation umbrella and gas masks in case of tactical nuclear attacks, a multi-purpose fire extinguisher which they never used but couldn't get a refund for, three weeks rain or shine clothing and space suits for moon gazing, mountain climbing equipment and down sleeping bags and tents for sub-zero climates in case they got lost in a space blizzard, two Hummer folding mountain bikes that could withstand dropping from the highest peaks of the moon, a baby nuclear submarine for two persons, super light yet mobile at two miles depth, an android pit bull to ward off claim jumpers, a dozen rock-hounding manuals from the turn of the century describing sites which were mostly played out decades ago, cordless power tools that could do everything from shaving a mountain to excavating a pyramid, a spare fusion generator for the power tools and jet engine, in case the one already built into their ATJV failed, three weeks of freeze-dried rations, in case they located an unknown uninhabited planet and wanted time to explore it, and since they usually never traveled off-world, ten-thousand CD's to last a decade's journey, ten pounds of gold and platinum bullion, in random denominations, in case the natives demanded real currency instead of flashcard funds, a full-sized ironing board and iron for sprucing up, if Bert and Bella decided to show off on a ballroom dance floor, a whale-sized transparent aluminum refrigerator to keep everything cool, maps GPS address books and common cents if everything else failed, 90-proof sunscreen, cobalt-tinted sunglasses and Hollywood chap stick suitable for presidential meetings, holographic projectors with universal computer interfaces, a gallon of waterless hair conditioner/shampoo for that squeaky clean feel in the follicles, and last but not least a week of assorted printed trash in case they missed junk mail. Luckily the ATJV had a ten-thousand pound cargo hold, so most of it fit with room for a ton of rocks, though the current quota was still only twenty-five pounds a day per person. (Bert was only planning to be gone ten to thirty days, but sometimes these trips extended into ten months or twenty years. Time didn't mean much to affluent immortals. Bert had amassed a fortune from his eccentric carvings. The art critics raved about his bizarre figures. His body and hands though micro-bionic were still as nimble as jackalopes, so it was all a question of motive not means.) Ever since the national parks and off-worlds were opened up to private collectors and rock hounds, to pay off the national debt, the quota was strictly enforced by fully-automated border patrols. If you could afford the fee, $250 a pound (for moon rocks, double that; Martian rocks, triple it), there was a lot of rock to choose from. No one came home empty-handed, unless you tried to cheat the government. Then they suspended your pilot's license, and made you walk home barefoot, or shot you for treason, depending on how much over sampling you tried to sneak out. The patrol drones were well-equipped with night vision, heat sensors and stealth missiles, with a range of twenty miles. They fired a warning shot first, a blank shell-casing that announced in a creepy monotone, "Rapacious looters will be dealt with unceremoniously. Tentative preparations are thoroughly underway." (Uncle Sammy's poet laureate contributed the lyric.)

Though Bert could well afford a new one, he always liked a bargain, so picked up an ATVJ cheap at an outdoor armada garage sale for 100 centavos. It was a Barbary Coast knock-off of the military version, with crinoline-coated plastic siding attached with silly putty, so the sides tended to burn or fly off at any speeds greater than Mach-1/2, which the plastic motor included was hardly able to rev past. Bert eventually had to replace the lot of them (after replacing the motor with an Astro Boy's gizmo) with Godzilla-brand armor plating and decided to weld it on himself. "Never let a scab shop do the work if you can do it yourself" was Bert's motto, to his everlasting shame when Bella confronted him with his pants down in a cosmic rain. In his zest for welding the plates together, he forgot the ATVJ sub-structure was supposed to go inside the plating and created an empty shell of a jet vehicle around him instead, with no room for an exit when his Kool-To-The-Touch micro-torch ran out of hydrogen juice. Bella had to blast the contraption apart with a neutrino particle gun which left Bert huddled on the ground in his jockey shorts full of holes. (Like Bert's torch the neutrino particles only attacked non-living materials, being controlled by miniature robots that in turn had been programmed by the great robotics' expert Spencer Azimuth and followed to a tee their one programming instruction: never ever harm a sentient being unless he's throwing something nasty at you, then it's okay to blast him.) Bert then decided to read the instruction manual that came with the plating before reconnecting it. There were other quirks with the garage-sale ATVJ which Bert spent millions to correct, but he always thought a bargain was a bargain, no matter how much you spent afterwards.

After the ATVJ was loaded, Bella did a quick house check, she hated to forget anything. Since that time they left without turning off the stove and came back to find the roof had melted, she was careful to unplug everything but the refrigerator and garbage disposal. (The latter served as a rat and termite trap, when set on standby, though all they ever caught was silverfish and lice.) Bert got behind the wheel, and Bella right beside him, cranked the engine, which came on with the usual warning lights: air bags functional, fuel tank topped off, Junior Field Marshal License verified, radar by NASA. He was ready to take off, but Bella grabbed his arm. The water line had tangled while retracting, which caused the warning light to stay on. "Honey, please get out and give the hose a punch.. It's stuck again." Bella calmly said. "Why does this always happen at the last moment?" Bert fumed. He got out and shoved the flex tube in, twisting his thumb in the process. Now Bert was really irate, and slammed the fuel door shut, reentered the cockpit and spit his ginseng plug out the window. Bella gently kissed his finger, and then grossed him out with a kiss that nearly ruptured his esophagus, half tongue and half saliva.

Chapter **34-**

Bert decided their first stop would be to a newly terra-formed and barely colonized world named New Aussie, since he wanted to stock up on some premium opal that was sorely lacking now on Mother Wobble, and since the new planet was bought and paid for and designed by Bert himself. New Aussie had all the perks and pride of Down Under, without the hoards of tourists and claim-jumping opal miners. The route to New Aussie followed the usual hyper-connection between star gates (sort of like a fiber optical space connection, a million ATVJs could pass through the eye of Osissy at any one time and exit into any galaxy that Atlas Transport had its grubby taps into. The change of a major bodily screw-up was a mere .000007 to 1, though sometimes your hair changed color or your eyeteeth grew an inch which was easily remedied by filing them down with diamond coated dental floss.) The ride was uneventful except for some static due to passing meteorites which just bounced off or vaporized upon striking the polarized intersecting channel groove. At a speed of one thousand times the speed of light (or thereabouts) the flight took about four hours, which gave Bella plenty of time to pucker up and had Bert perpetually gasping for O2. Finally Bert relaxed and let Bella do all the work while he sailed off comatose and mildly florescent. This was only their second or third trip to New Aussie, so the novelty of owning a planetoid had barely worn off, and Bert was looking forward to a long and fruitful vacation.

When terra-forming a new planetoid, the buyer had the option to include whatever features that were desired, including any that the original model (if any) had. In this case, in addition to the opal plateaus, Bert had the choice of including any of Australia's native habitats and creatures, immortalized on Wobble by Stephen Devonshire, the famous Aussie wildlife photographer and goanna charmer, whose many exploits with the Aborigines of Australia were legendary. The buyer also had the option to simplify the terrain building by skipping half the planet initially and let the uninitiated part of the planet retain a smoke and gravel consistency. (The latter half a planet could be cleverly disguised as a smoke-and-gravel regurgitating sea monster from the Black Cat asteroid belt, which kept the wary buyer from wandering too close and destroying the illusion, or in the case of New Aussie, the whole planetoid could be flattened and copied front to back like a two-sided designer plate. The plateoid would then revolve on its edge giving night and day to both sides of the coin. It was merely a matter of flipping a schilling to determine which side of the plateoid to land on. They were approximately both the same, except seasons were inverted and animals and people sometimes had their snouts where there bums ought to be, on the flip side of the planetary divide, that is.) Bert chose the whole shebang, not realizing the danger he was placing Bella and himself in. Bert figured wearing tritium-alloyed suits and boots would protect them from snake and croc bites, but he never figured on a giant kangaroo kicking the shit out of him or camel spit in the ear that stung like acidophilus (terra-forming still had its quirks.)

Now that Bert was a little more seasoned astronomically he thought they could avoid the hassles of the first few visits to New Aussie, and just relax and have a great time! He still packed the tritium suits and boots, but reserved them for really dangerous situations like mining opal at ground zero (plenty of venomous snakes and spiders around) or climbing a gum tree (those koalas could get pretty nasty if you woke them out of a sound sleep.) The rest of the time he just wore his skivvies or nothing at all when visiting the Aborigines, at which time he rubbed himself with red dirt to blend in with the natives better. Bella preferred a modified G-string that softly wrapped around her bum, without cutting into her sensitive pubic regions. (Her tits needed no such embellishment. They were happy to stand alone and give Bert a potent eyeful.) When visiting the Aboriginal lands Bella preferred to anoint herself with multi-colored ochre paints in an ancient Aboriginal fertility design, sort of cross between yin and yang and two goannas humping. This gave her exclusive access to the forbidden fertility caves of Uluru, while Bert wandered around Uluru's perimeter. He wondered if there was a backdoor in the stone monolith that the Aboriginal men used to visit their mistresses there, to perform their mysterious and very secret rites of connubial bliss. If there was such a door he never spotted it, not knowing it was underground, and the Aboriginal men came for miles around when Bella was in town... Bella was never tempted to go all the way with any of them, having a deep aversion to adulterous liaisons, but valued their friendship dearly, so just sparked each of the men on the tips of their little toes, which sent shivers down the rest of their fleshy bones, and left them with a crazy grin on their faces, blowing their didgeridoos loudly all the way home. The first time Bert heard the sounds of the 'doos he thought it was an Aboriginal festival in town or a religious ceremony of some kind. Then Bella explained afterwards (she never was one to keep secrets from Bert) and Bert felt a deep sense of honor and decorum that Bella was chosen High Priestess of the clans, and Keeper of the Spark, and gave her bum a little squeeze to show his appreciation. Bella responded with a kiss that caused Bert's pores to release a continuous series of electrified spores, like red green and blue light-emitting diodes, which swirled around Uluru like a cloud of fireflies and lit up the night skies for kilometers. What the Aborigines thought of that was unclear, but the event was recorded in typical pictographic fashion for future generations to gaze upon as a series of barnyard scratching inside one of the monolith's many overhanging cubby holes.

Bert landed on a virgin Boulder-opal-laden plateau about a half-mile above sea level. He could see the opal sparkling just below a light coating of quartzite. In his specifications Bert decided he wanted a thin skin for the opal-laden rock, so he didn't have to excavate too far with his power chisels. Besides it was a lot prettier that way, with shallow pits that were easy to fill in after the matrix was extracted, instead of the horrendous open-pit mining that was carried out by Wobblelings ages ago.

While Bert was examining the strata for the best insertion points, Bella spent her time examining the native flora with a 360 degree telesnoop. This had an incredibly comfortable fisheye field of view that also magnified things up to one thousand times (without vertigo or the usual feeling of dangling in space.) Bella focused on the eye of a baby koala that was hanging onto the branch of a nine hundred foot eucalyptus tree. The eye winked, and Bella smiled back.

In no time at all Bert had carved up an area about the size of a muddy football field, and proceeded to carefully toss it all into a portable opal extractor/dryer (poed), which purred gently. Opals were delicate stuff, much too delicate to break up by hand and took years to dry the old fashioned way. The poed used a laser-based disintegrator to remove most of the matrix and a fusion oven to gently but rapidly dry the remaining opal. Bella loved the sand-cast pendants Bert made to enclose the finished opals.

When Bert had extracted about twenty-five pounds of primo opal, he decided to call it a day. (Though Bert technically owned the planet, the property deed was actually based on a renewable ninety-nine year lease to Atlas Transport who in turn owed allegiance to Uncle Sammy. To protect their long-term interests, Atlas insisted on a strict mining quota. Bert had too much invested in New Aussie to double dip, and who knew what security measures Atlas had set up to guarantee compliance with quota requirements? (Nearly invisible thumbnail sized robo-cops were not unknown in the off-worlds. What they lacked in bulk they more than made up in squealing power having a direct line to old man Atlas himself, whose grubby hands held more than a billion off-worlds in thrall.)

Bert suggested they go see the Reef islands or atolls which surrounded the southern outskirts of New Aussie and then head on to the Aboriginal playgrounds at Big Skye Ranch, after a brief snack of reconstituted roasted broccoli hearts and golden fresh-cracked Macadamias, topped off with Bella's famous Vegemite brownies and sprouted brown rice juice. Ever since the unfortunate passing of Stephen Devonshire while documenting the mating habits of wild narwhals (as is well known, his fatal mistake was to slip off the back of a female narwhal and get pierced up the pokey by the male of the species – ouch that gotta hurt!) Bert had a deep and abiding respect for all Stephen had accomplished, but as he often sadly related to Bella "He shoulda stuck to Down Under for his dilly-dallies, instead of wandering off to uncharted Attica territories, mate." So Bert dedicated most of New Aussie's watery stretches and over half of the land mass of his newly terraformed plateoid to a series of native species atolls and laid-back red-dirt ranches, of which Big Skye Ranch was the most prolific of the ranches, no bars or cages atall and blow the didgeridoo, boys.

Chapter **35-**

After leaving their ATJV miles away on an overlooking plateau, Bert and Bella proceeded to visit all the south sea atolls by nuclear-powered glass-bottomed canoe. The crescent shaped chain of atolls took about a fortnight to explore (it was a relatively small planetoid ocean stretch by alpha-beta-zeta standards, but just when you'd thought you'd seen them all, another atoll popped up out of nowhere and punctuated the horizon.) The canoeing included short stopovers each day for a nightcap at Buddy's Swill and Krill shack, an Aboriginal-family owned chain which was conveniently located half a trillionth of a parsec (fifteen and a half kilometers) off the starboard bow of each sub-tropical atoll. Bert loved the extra thick martinellis, composed of fermented pineapple juice, macadamia cream and soda water, and feasted on sacks of fresh roasted peel and pop-in-yer-mouth krill, about a thousand to the kilo. (After a fortnight of this, however, he was all krilled out and longed for more substantial stuff like Northern lobster, which due to infrequent harvesting on New Aussie grew to enormous size in its Northern Ocean. You just had to watch those pincers, as they could slice a man in two in less time than it took to yell 'didgeridoo, boys' while being skewered by a narwhal. Bert had a run-in once with a hundred pound lobster and it wasn't pretty. He had to use a light saber to disarm the lobster, which sprayed out its remaining life force directly into Bert's face...tartar sauce, anyone?)

Encircling the atolls was one of the most complete and balanced aquatic collection of reef life ever let loose on a sparsely inhabited planet in the galaxy. Snorkeling was a daily delight, passing over the multi-colored coral branches and tropical fish, while bottle-nosed dolphins and barramundi playfully circled, but watch the giant clams – they had no teeth but could swallow a leg or two in a fraction of a monkey's moniker. Then you had to get an ionic-powered pry bar to free yourself, which gave the giant clam major indigestion, and you were lucky to escape without a case of giant clammy rash (gcr), not to mention a stern warning from the Shell Protection Conglomerate Agency (SPCA) which oversaw all off-world shell-encased marine life. (Yes, it's true, Big Brotherhood was everywhere these days, like the snickering ghost of Saint Nickerson.) The atolls themselves had abundant indigent mammal and bird life, such as flying foxes, sulfur-crested cockatoos and quokkas, small wallaby-like critters, and some not-so-nice flying insects, such as foot-long grasshoppers and malaria-B carrying mosquitoes, or malmosqs, about the size of a sword-billed hummingbird but with a beak like a carpenter's keyhole saw, and a full mouth of five-inch fangs. (Only the female's malmosq's beak was sharp as a sword though; the male had a beak as blunt as a rooster's crest and was mainly useful for waving at the female like a red flag during courting season. The male malmosq's half-inch fangs barely scratched the surface on a date, but contained a powerful immobilizer that caused the female malmosq's beak to retract during intercourse. A serum based on the male malmosq's secretions was currently being carefully studied by the UA military for off-world operations and for population control in the baboon infested jungles of the southern tropics. One notable effect was how injected into the male baboon's snout it shrunk his prominent proboscis to a fraction on an inch which made him look like a sick puppy, and uncontestedly turned off his attraction to the female baboon.) Thoughtfully, Bert and Bella always received periodically self-administered booster shots by mail for the malaria-B vaccination. Still it was quite painful to be stung or poked in the eardrum by one of these two ounce flying 'vampies', as Bert liked to call them, so before visiting the atolls he always rubbed himself fiercely with Banshee juice (also known as Get-Off-My-Back potion, a concoction of tsetse fly venom, maple syrup and lip balm, for external use only, one micron of which usually stopped a female malmosq dead in her beeswax.) Bella herself never seemed to need any bug repellant, for if any malmosq came close to her honey-emitting pores, she zapped it with a spark from the tip of her tongue. Banshee juice was one of the few things that turned off Bella's kissing bug completely, something in the tsetse fly pheromones, and worked on malmosqs too -- that and repellants containing horse-like radish juice. Bert didn't dare wear bug repellant containing the h-radish juice for fear of permanently alienating Bella. Sometimes a malmosq developed immunity to Banshee juice, in which case when a malmosq hussy became too persistent in her blood quest Bert and Bella played a game of bare-handed badminton, and hurled the pest back and forth until its fangs broke, beak bent and its ardor was fully spent.

On the atolls the small tree-climbing quokkas were very tame and could be fed by hand little nuggets of reconstituted malmosqs. According to Bert, they also liked chocolate-covered termites and chili-flavored grasshoppers, but Bert reserved those as a special treat when a quokka cuddled up to you like a kitten and purred gently. The purring was more like a wild cat coughing, though. You also sometimes found spiny-covered echidnas slumbering under a log, waiting for a rose-scented night fog to awaken them and send them scurrying about looking for ants and lady bugs. You could also wake them with a spray bottle full of rose water. The echidnas were heavier than they looked; having a center of gravity ten times that of a human being, so they were almost impossible to pick up. If you stuck your leg out in front of them they would climb up it thinking it just another tree limb using ten-pound claws that felt like vise grips when they paused on the way up. At that point you had to shake like hell to get them off. They were quite cute though, especially when their long slender tongues stuck out and licked the salt off your skin.

Bert idled next to a coconut tree, admiring the emerald green sea waves washing the shoreline while occasionally swatting a malmosq or brushing off some red ants which liked to circulate through the blonde sands around him. Bella was offshore riding a green turtle like Lady Godiva and combing the reef for hidden treasure, which Bert had years ago secretly sprayed from space while she was sleeping. Bert had to do something with all the wealth he'd accumulated, and loved baiting Bella with it. She came ashore later dripping with gold and silver baubles and wearing a snorkeling mask, and nothing much else on, and wrapped herself around Bert like a frisky python. Bert had a real job unwinding her... When they were done fooling around in the sand, a flock of Rosetta cockatoos descended and covered them up like a gray and pink blanket from Heaven. That was when Bert resumed his dream with God who appeared suddenly as a discombobulated old man. The Lord spoke (in a deep sonorous voice that started out slowly in a swirl of nothingness, then reached tornado speeds at Bert's eardrum nest, each sentence a staccato of importance; He could speak no less):

"Well, you learned to use the internet, dumdrum.

An ATVJ is certainly better than a Mack truck.

I'm still not crazy about yer hook nose or suspenders.

Bella is surely a sight to get stewed on (breaks your heart, doesn't it?)

That trick with Mount Rushmore still gives me the hives, but

You got the message out with Ole Henry in cascades and rapids.

I think there are still things you should know about family and commitment.

Be a good Joe to the less fortunate PDQ (pedestrians, doctors and quacks.)

Crikey, the New Aussie wastelands are a start in the right direction, Popinjay.

Go and listen to the Aboriginals' lessons on the care of marsupials and their bellies.

And learn to blow the gosh-darn did-ge-ri-doo, b o y o h b o y!"

When Bert awoke, his head was still full of a Mighty fog that slowly subsided into a purple mist, tiger's breath and hot pitchforks. He could only remember God's last two sentences, but that was enough. Bert yelled out "Pack your suitcases, Bella. These molehill atolls are historic antiquities. We're heading for the last roundup, Sanchez, the Big Skye Ranch!" Just then the Wicked Witch of the West flew over him waving a black opal which emitted red and blue and green sparks causing Bert's winky to grow the size of a didgeridoo and imbedding itself deep in a sand dune. The sand dune resolved itself into a miniature volcano and blew its stack causing Bert to rebound straight into the heavens, knocking the witch off her broomstick and giving Bert the ride of his life. By then Bert was fully awake and realized that his latest dream song was only then ending its post-climactic stage. Bella smirked, flashed her ruby-tipped tongue and wiped her mouth in barely concealed glee. Bert felt set up, his mouth full of rosy ashes, but said nothing further about it, though his winky howled for a week afterwards before finally shriveling back to its normal size. In the back of his mind he remembered "I knew I forgot to apply the Banshee juice somewhere."

Chapter **36-**

Bert and Bella waved goodbye to the atolls and transferred all of their travel clothes and accessories (an extra pair of extra grungy shorts, a two piece striped bikini dotted with bull's eyes and a couple of camel hair toothbrushes) to a houseboat for cruising up the Murray River to the Darling River cutoff and thereafter to the Warrego River before taking a short cut to the Big Skye Ranch. A glass-bottomed canoe was great for circling the shallow reefs around the atolls, but a fully-armored houseboat was essential to ward off any marauding swarms of crocodiles lurking in the mangroves on the banks of the untamed rivers. Not that a houseboat was large enough to discourage a hungry fifty foot croc, but a charge of ten-thousand volts encircling the boat at sea level kept the croc well at bay, that and the armor piercing spikes that also lined the boat. All the croc could do was open wide and show its shocking yellow teeth. Its breathe was enough to knock a camel over with, which is why the houseboat also came equipped with ten-foot fans to clear the air around it. Only once did Bert or Bella feel mildly threatened on their journey upriver. That was when several ten-year old crocs happened to form a side stack by crawling one on top of each other on top of a sand bar in the middle of the river, eventually the uppermost croc rising twenty feet out over the water and perched precipitously ready to drop into any passing houseboat. For a few seconds Bert was transfixed by the sight of such an incongruous lingering of croc flesh, and hated to spoil the croc party, so got out his spray paint gun and anointed the crocs with some good old fashioned Brooklyn graffiti, after affixing everything permanently together with an instant super glue bomb scented lightly with the essence of river red gum trees. Years afterward New Aussie visitors marveled at the impromptu croc composition which was aptly named 'Gummy Crocs on a River Sand Bar'.

On the way up the rivers, Bert had time to review his life's joys and achievements, avoiding Bella's kisses whenever possible. (He was still smarting from their last explosive encounter.) Happiness was an all too flighty thrill-seeking animal that could be prolonged with the right kinds of drugs, but there would be no lasting meaning or profound insight found from them. There was only an abyss that threatened to suck up all consciousness at the end of his sky-diving days. His brief contact with a Supreme Being could be passed off as wishful thinking or banal hallucinations of another albeit bizarre kind. When did reality actually make sense? Dust settled on everything, and a maze of possibilities overshadowed any hasty departures. Dark thoughts wove themselves together like mangrove roots. You could be philosophical about this ad infinitum until your gall bladder broke or you tripped on another orgasmic pie or cake and paid homage to the Universal Spirit or Munchkinlander, if that's where the truth laid in wake. All Bert could do was curl up and read a good book, unravel the author's mundane thoughts, and suffer like all the rest of history's "great men", bartering his soul to the highest offering, whether from devil or angel, pauper or billionaire. There were no happy endings in life, just an unforeseeable improbable conclusion to whatever fate unrolled in front of you. No matter how hard Bert chewed the licorice, it still sprayed out pitch black and bitter in his spittle... which left him floating on a houseboat, lazing away the day on the Murray with his woman snuggled close beside. It was a long shot, but he could almost reach the far shore if he tried hard.

As you might expect, Bert eventually got tired lying on his fat arse, as it was a long trip up the rivers, over five thousand kilometers and nothing but mangroves and crocs to view, occasionally a bald-headed barley vulture hovered overhead after smelling miles away Bert's grog, and sky skie skye lots of Ska-aye with its assorted cloudy retinue passing by, filled with animal cracker crumbs. Still in his skivvies, Bert took out his fishing pole with hooks the size of one-year old croc mouths, baited with wiggly krill maggots (he still had a left-over sack from Buddy's that he liked to age gracefully in a pot of quokka dung he'd collected on the atolls and made excellent croc bait – the maggots not the dung) and cast his line left and right managing to snag some dozen one year old crocs which he strung up by the tail on a whirly go round and amused himself with their mouthings, opening and closing and emitting little puffs of air which sounded like cicadas crackling in the wind, until one of the little beasties got loose and bit him on the bum, at which point he launched the whole mess overboard, hook line and whirly go round to be instantly consumed by a swarm of three-year old crocs, doing the crocodile roll, since the one year olds couldn't run away and were tastier to the three-year olds than krill maggots.

At this point the view of mangroves, mangroves and more mangroves forced Bert to the houseboat's roof (he left Bella softly snoring down below and the houseboat on auto pilot) , where he extended a thousand meter ladder straight up into the air, ultra light for packing but made of a super strong berkelium alloy that neither bent or swayed when fully extended (with a ten meter circular enclosure of pale aquamarine barium glass for wind protection – to keep Bert safely housed while he climbed up and down it) with a telesnoop at the very top. As Bert ascended he could see further and further into the distance, noticing that the mangrove forests only extended a few kilometers on either side of the river. After that the country leveled out into more or less bush land with here an there some red gum trees and tea trees next to narrow tributaries of the river (currently the Warrego) and other less recognizable faunas that only a botanist could discern belonged in the Aussie outback. When he got all the way up the ladder Bert could use the telesnoop to zoom in on any wildlife for milestones around, which included rambunctious hop-scotching kangaroos, spit in yer eardrum camels, a six-pack of salivating dingoes gnawing on an emu carcass, and wild horses that did the Salisbury trot, which was a throwback to their lowly origins in Merry Old England, having been ditched with other unsavory soul-crushing characters in another age or century (the realistic terraformed additions cost extra, but made the global recipe so much more interesting and enjoyable, in Bert's honest-Abe opinion.) To the far west Bert could also see tracks in the sand which consisted of original Aboriginal designs, which popped out of the natives spontaneously as they made their trek toward the Rock of Ayers at Big Skye Ranch. Every potty told a story. Here and there Bert spied a lone blue-tongued lizard, a frilly-necked lizard or a thorny devil, and rarely a large spotted Perentie trekking across the red sand or shading itself under a shrub. Bert flash-photographed whatever caught his eye with a through-the-eye cryogenic image capturer. This nifty ocular attachment not only reproduced any image he could see through the telesnoop but also by laser decryption also decoded the actual dna of any plant or animal life so that it could be studied later and even cloned in species labs to identify any random mutations caused by terraforming in the next Universal Census taking. Bert didn't care a fig leaf for the dna data and spiked, submersed and generally corrupted the encoded information and sent it back to the labs via carrier pigeon (mechanical of course) on a lark to see how many monster mutations escaped on the next Census day, and hoping he wouldn't be anywhere around on that eventful day.

Off in the distance still about five hundred kilometers or more (it was hard to tell exactly because of the sandy haze factor, which made everything seem closer) there stood the Rock of Ayers, otherwise known by the Aboriginals as Uluru, or as Bert was informed by a trickster coyote translated roughly as the "Supreme Dreamer". The Rock was currently going through a phase shift and color change due to atmospheric interference, or a very infrequent occurrence in the actual terrestrial locality, a summer cyclone. (For his own viewing pleasure, Bert had stacked the odds of this occurring from once every five to ten years to once every ten to thirty days in his terraforming model, but only for half a day at most, so the aborigines could get back to their business of praying and hunting without too much disruption.) The cascading water falls sluicing down its sides turned its coloring from ochre red to venomous purple, while the most venerable Aborigines kneeled and quickly said their prayers in their birthday suits and who got whisked away for their troubles by the ensuing flash floods which covered the plateau's edges from there to the tooti-fruity Olgas, otherwise known by the Aboriginals as the Kata Tjuta or Bert referred to as the Snake King Mountains, having once been spooked by the ghost of the snake king Wanambi while camped with Bella at its base. The snake king juggled a dozen angry Anthill pythons in a furious circle until they dripped python butter onto Bert's camp fire, almost putting it out, until Bert rose up out of his imitation leopard-skin sleeping bag and caught one of the pythons and twirled it around his middle finger like a hula hoop. "Show off!" Wanambi cried out and vanished in a cloud of acrid red smoke, leaving the pythons really up in the air until they came down with a crashing splat. After sweeping up the mess, Bert finally got some sleep that night. (Bella had already passed out after smothering Bert with a thousand and one kisses. "Are you loved up enough yet, hun?" she crooned until Bert turned over on his side exposing his bum, which she kept on kissing until it turned beet red and Bella figured it was well done. "Good night sweetie..." Bert just yawned.)

Chapter 37-

The Warrego River suddenly ended at its source about a thousand kilometers from the Darling and Bella and Bert hopped off their houseboat to be swallowed up by a rabbit-transit tube (RTT) that transmitted them to Big Skye Ranch in two shakes of a dingo's whiskers. For this engineering feat, to eat out the underground tunnel Bert had enlisted the Horta's fourth generation children from Star Trek's first season, or a reasonable facsimile of them, since by this time science fiction fantasy creations had become real scientific invocations. (The actual passage through the tube was accomplished seated in a two-passenger mining cart highly motivated by rocket boosters attached to each of the cart's side panels. )

At this point Bert and Bella might have experienced a little jet lag or breathlessness if the Aborigines hadn't received advanced warning of their coming and prepared a splashy welcome for their Master and High Priestess, a sixteen foot pool of wild raspberry jelly laced with native herbs and spices. The pool perfectly absorbed their arrival, kit, cart and caboodle, only knocking them out for a few nanoseconds until satisfaction brought them back wide awake and ready for a shindig. By that time the party was gearing up for a truly swinging shebang, a hundred didgeridoos crooning simultaneously inside a series of dream circles and Bert and Bella fell into the rhythm like sliced peaches in a pie shell, doing the Crocodile Chomp and other dances such as the Kangaroo Hop and Wallaby Waltz, not to mention the Tasmanian Devil Twirl. The latter dance was facilitated by releasing a real live Tasmanian devil into a circle of tribesmen, the bravest of whom would reach into the circle, grab the devil by the tail and run like hell around and around to keep the devil from biting off his bum. The record was fifteen seconds before snap went the devil's jaws and the tribesman was forced to release his grasp and seek Immediate Medical Attention (IMA!) This rarely proved life threatening as the Aborigines had bum skins like steel casings, their diet being rich in iron and magnesium from kangaroo, emu and crocodile sausages, not to mention camel humps, jabiru eggs, muntrie berries and fried yams.

Bert insisted that New Aussie be true to its early Aboriginal origins, unhindered by the present day dietary restrictions of Terra Diabolical (as Wobble was sometimes sarcastically called by anti-authoritarian aliens.) Aborigines were exempt from flesh eating prohibitions, except for cannibalism which was strictly forbaden, or Bert refused to come within a yodel of them, savages or not. (This taboo was subliminally reinforced with strategically-placed billboards all around the Ranch as high as Uluru that contained a set of blood-red lips around a man-like creature with a line drawn diagonally across everything.) Bert and Bella however eschewed all meat products except fish and eggs, while visiting the New Aussie bush lands and dieted on native roots, nuts, berries and skewers of brook trout, with a little Vegemite marinade brushed on to regulate their digestion.

The party went on all night, the Aborigines getting totally snookered on emu eggnog and Buddy's sugar apple rum, some going as far as mounting live kangaroos and hopping until daylight in imitation of the Lone Tribesman who was said to have hopped all the way to the top of Uluru on an eight foot kangaroo, side saddle and wasted, just to blow his didgeridoo to the full moon.

In the middle of the festivities Bert was struck with a conniption fit, or a giant kangaroo kick, that flattened out his male ego and made him rise up in a hypnotic trance a few meters off the dirt and contemplate how strange a turn things had worked themselves into. How was he blessed to have a wife like Bella? Did he owe it all to a gypsy prediction, a fluke in the time stream, or was there something else that bound them together like Crazy Glue or dumb luck destiny? What went on in that precious mind of hers while he was bombed out on dreams and schemes and she but meekly followed along, waiting, waiting and more waiting for what pray tell? What was so important that kept her with him, forever young on the outside, but had to be bored out of her skull to keep up the façade of showing even the faintest interest in him, a self-professed control freak, admittedly abusive and indifferent when he felt low down and pithy, after all these redundant years? When she could get any man she liked, with a little self-restraint, why did she keep coming back like a stealth bomber to spin his baton and cudgel him with kisses? This stream of thoughts haunted Bert so much he did a thing in public he rarely did, reciting an old poem that wrapped up his feelings like a sad song:

Rain washes the streets clean

of oil and grime

The cycle of decay

is momentarily halted

Half alive in bed

is better than all dead

Our souls awaken in the twilight

'til sleep conquers the night.

What is rhyme but the beating

of our hearts in time

the gentle persuasion that captures sound

and brings us back to dusty dreams

Those onyx figurines, carved by hand

That unicorn mirror a gift from someone

You promised to stay with me

until my days were done

You were never wrong, darling.

Abruptly Bert was falling; falling through a didgeridoo, falling into Bella's outstretched arms, falling out of the dream into a new understanding of living, breathing and dying. Scientists had learned to defeat death and reverse the process of aging, but that wasn't what made people feel young or old. With maturity came responsibility; with responsibility came the weight of the world, and no one's head could support that indefinitely without changing places with Atlas himself. So youthfulness really depended on forgetting yourself, and just living haphazardly, never seeking more than you could digest at one time, and grooming yourself on the only things that stayed true to form, love and the new born. Bella was his to nurture and cherish for all time, but time was a thread that went on and on, irrespective of perspective, crushing anything that didn't bend with the tune, irreverent and sloppy like good sex, always. How could Bella be anything else, wedded as she was to his molecular chimes, as closely as he was bound to hers, deeper than oceans' sway, always eclipsing what came before, past, present and future coalescing in what unknown endgame? Luck had nothing to do with it after all. When he thought of his lifelong infatuations with girls of all shapes and sizes, and the culmination of his dreams in the loving creature he called his own, how could he not worship all that was honest and true in womanhood, their shape, their softness, their hidden attributes modestly displayed in romantic comedies, or shamelessly exposed in momentary distractions like Dagwood's erotic theme parks? As he read once in the Book of Romulus "A rose is a rose is a rose until it becomes a nosegay. Only then can one appreciate its scent fully."

Suddenly Bert knew what he had to do before it was too late and his brain shriveled up into a dried out prune, while his body remained subtle as a woman's womb. If Bella couldn't bear children, Bert would just have to do it all himself. It might be hard, especially the last trimester, but Bert was up to the challenge. With a little dna from both of them, and an artificial uterus connected to his belly, next to his pancreas, it could be done. Semen was no problem, and Bella's tongue could supply the rest, including the spark that started the ball rolling inside of him, sort of like a primeval soup ready to get stirred up... Fortunately, Bert didn't have to go that far. Bella had already planned things out in advance, having coincidentally met at a downtown mall before the latest trip the same gypsy that turned her on to Bert in the first place. The gypsy told her this time, a new package would be forthcoming, straight down her alluvial channel. All she had to do was curl up into a ball and press her tongue down under and give herself a nice belly rub to activate her egg sack functions. "Just be careful not to overdo it or you might end up with a baker's dozen instead of one or two children. You'll know when it's enough when a bucket of blood gushes out, signifying your menses are working for once" the gypsy advised. "Oh and one other thing, try this stunt only on a full moon in some distant place called Bigeloe Ski Resort, or something like that. The exact name of the place doesn't matter; you'll know when it's time to proceed. Give it your best shot, as most likely it's the only chance you'll get to ripen up."

When Bella saw the look in Bert's eye when he fell from the sky, she knew it was the right time. She flexed her hands back and forth and gave Bert a little wink, and then curled up as tight as she could and gently massaged her tummy with her tongue, until her whole body glowed a preternatural blue-green. Bert didn't mind the blood gushing all over his head after Bella explained. "I'm going for a swim now. Care to join me, my lovely Belle?" Bert was starting to get an awful itch down below. They found the deepest water hole that Kata Tjuta had to offer, and slowly paddled around entwined in each others arms, oblivious to the millions of water bugs feasting on Bella's menses. When they'd had enough of playing around, Bert led Bella back to their own private dream circle. He lay back then and blew the nearest didgeridoo that was close to hand. "Come and get it, Sweetie" was all he said, all that needed to be said.

Finale -- 79AB and beyond

On her one hundred and thirty-eighth year of existence Bella gave birth to a bouncing baby girl, while relaxing and cooling off in a mud pond at the foot of the New Aussie Olgas. Bert counted out the signals, as he did at Sheryl's birthing event a hundred and forty-five years ago, and caught the little hatchling by the right ankle after missing her slippery head by the barest stroke of a Portuguese goatee. He cut the cord with a native machete. (Bert refused to leave New Aussie after learning Bella was pregnant, feeling it was best not to risk the hyper-connection back to Wobble just in case their embryo got scrambled up with one of the million other blokes passing through the Osissy keyhole.)

They named her Sheila Matilda, after no relative in particular; it just sounded like an appropriate name for their daughter born off the cuff as she was in an Aussie mud bath. It must have been something Bella ate just before conceiving on New Aussie, for Sheila was forever jumping out of her cradle, whenever Bella put her down after a thorough guzzling and belching. Even Bert was surprised by how much crème de milk poured out of Bella's extended nipples, thick as a yoghurt shake and sweeter than imitation sucrose. Often he couldn't resist a lick or two after Sheila was finished. There was plenty to spare, and Bella didn't mind atall, anything that relieved the bloating, swelling and overall uncomfortable cowed-all-over feeling. Besides, it kept Bert close to her where she could kiss his curly crown, which always made her feel much better.

Sheila grew up to be as loving a daughter as anyone could ask for, though she took more after Bert in looks than Bella, plain as a pancake without syrup on it, or an unfrosted layer cake. She had many other talents though, such as high jumping and rock climbing, the latter she must have inherited from Bert also, which made more adventuresome their rock-hounding excursions together. Bert carried her around in his rock-hounding satchel for her first eight months until the rock bag broke and the rocks came tumbling out. Bert taught Sheila everything he knew about figurine carving, relaxed vegetarianism, and desecrating public monstrosities; and Bella taught Sheila the secret uses of her tongue, (a genetic trait Sheila had inherited from her mom) when she was mature enough to handle it. (Until then Bella passed it off as a birth defect, whenever Sheila asked about the lump on the end of her tongue.) When Sheila was four years old, they inoculated her against sea urchin fever, having kept her far away from wading pools and aquariums until then.

Bert knew he couldn't keep going on forever, the birth of Sheila had revealed to him that endless life without death was a static concept or an oxymoron, and he sure didn't want to turn into another Atlas, so he stopped taking anti-aging pills when he reached one hundred and seventy-seven. The residual effect of the pills was enough to prolong his life another eighty or ninety years, with minimal discomfort, just a minor cough at times sounding like a cougar grunting. His remaining years (when he wasn't tutoring Sheila or rock collecting with his daughter, or entertaining Bella or being blitzed by her bedside manner) Bert devoted campaigning alongside the Church of Anti-Longevity for the peaceful disintegration of all governmental authoritarianism and a return to Henry Taba's simplistic concepts of a naturalist's life in the bush. To reinforce his anarchist's message Bert secretly skyjacked an Army spy satellite and reprogrammed it to spray paint the rose gardens around the Capital a sickly puce color, then bombarded Congress with a stinky fallout bomb consisting of well-soiled kitty litter. The President of the Americanos, still the impeccably dressed William Brady, attributed the attacks on a terrorist's bad hair day or messed up facial, not willing to admit the spy satellite was in orbit for one purpose only, to evaluate all the maidens in the land as candidates for his infamous love nest, sequestered twelve stories beneath the Presidential suite and guarded mercilessly by a stone-faced eunuch goon squad Brady fondly nicknamed the Bashful Crypt Keepers. The 'crypt' actually doubled as a film studio specializing in XXX movies which a syndicate of Brady's hawked at dude ranches, pawn shops and corner bars under the Black Capon label to fund his reelection campaigns. (In the steamy close-ups Brady always covered his face with a black ski-mask.) It was doubtful the girls themselves knew exactly what was going on, having been secretly snatched off the streets and pumped full of Lisbon aphrodisiacs, which made them horny as queen ants or bees, and craving all sorts of bizarre acts of carnal intercourse, whether animal, vegetable or potpourri. All photography was done in the dark using hidden ultraviolet cameras, and the footage then reprocessed to bring out the natural skin tones. Afterwards the poor girls were fed the dregs of forgetfulness and released to wander aimlessly until picked up by the night patrol for vagrancy.

Every streetwise woman knew Brady's reputation as a sex fiend and for years sordid stories had appeared in the national tabloids cleverly disguised with bylines like, "Z's latest fiasco" or "Z strikes again", which were promptly burned in effigy by irate Bostonians but gobbled up by the bushel by matronly housewives in Topeka, Kansas. Since campaigning and voyeurism didn't mix well in Bert's unprincipled opinion, Bert enlisted Bella to put an end to William Brady's shenanigans through an elaborate scheme of deception, seduction and cross pollination. Bella slipped into the President's boudoir one night (after stunning all his rear guards with knock-out kisses) and joined the President in a joust that the President lost hands down. Incidentally, Lady Brady was at this time off gallivanting around in Egypt with the cousin of Mickey Flynn, ostensibly on a charity fund-raiser for the orphaned pigmies of the Sudan, but actually to sample the diverse cuisine of the Nile headwaters. When Bella got through with him, Willy was witless, tongue toasted and too swollen and petrified down below to do anything but cover himself with an enormous codpiece made of Great White sharkskin, to his everlasting public shame. The swelling eventually went down, after twenty horrendous years, but by then Wicked Willy was long gone from office, having retreated to a hermitage in the West Bronx. His self-prescribed treatment alternated heaps of diuretic pills (for the puffiness and stiffness) and flagons of dark Crimean ale (for chronic depression), which coincidently reduced the bulging under his codpiece at the same rate his belly outwardly ballooned.

Bert finally succumbed to a brain aneurism and joined his pet cats in the hereafter on Jade Flower Mountain. Bella was heartbroken for a spell, but cheered up briefly when Bert reappeared on the summer solstice as a ghost rider and wrote her name in the skies one thousand and one times in Century Gothic, and bombarded her with a kazillion farewell kisses at sunset...

The French chef/legionnaire returned to Paris and started an uprising among the Briquette Baker's Union (BBU), claiming the flour was lousy, the salt was pasteurized and the cream was an unpalatable blend of imported sewer rat's scum. This incensed the bakers so much they stuffed his gullet with escargot, packed him in dry ice, then crated and mailed him *return address withheld by request*, for rain or shine delivery or disposal, stamped in large letters ODC (odious detritus contents) to the North Pole Dry Cleaners Association (NPDCA), which coincidently was owned and operated by the legionnaire's long lost brother, Philippe Gusto, a frequent wine connoisseur. The brother sniffed the box as if it contained a rare spirit or Epson salt then wrinkled his nose in distaste and refused delivery. (The crate ended up buried in a pile of undeliverable rubbish in Greenland's northernmost post office.)

Lila finally found her niche in the cult classic "Girls Just Want To Get Pawed", a b-movie filmed entirely on the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for Action On Demand, rated R+, with elements of action including Skinny Bum Races, Cavernous Cleavage Snooping, Sandy Cavorting Segments and Joint Rolling Auditions. Gandhi costarred along with Swami Wutsyerpleasur, who had a heart attack half-way through the picture chasing volleyballs for skimpy clad dolls. On a tight film schedule, they buried him temporarily with sand and finished the picture without him, but for dramatic effect left a single arm sticking out clutching a bikini bottom.

Bosco married his tenth cousin twice removed, an Abyssinian princess of pure camel and Queen of Sheba stock. They had great times facing off in mock combat (which Bosco usually lost by a leggy hoof to the stomach or sacroiliac) or galloping around the Beach Boardwalk, sidesaddle, so Bosco could reach under and stroke or squeeze her hairy kazubas, which always made her run faster.

Bella lived on to the great great great great great great grandmotherly age of two thousand two-hundred and forty eight. Sheila turned out to a real go-getter (when she learned how to punctuate her kisses with asterisks and cover her plainness with an inch of permanent body makeup and some strategically-placed prosthetics.) Like an alabaster swan, Sheila had the unforgettable allure of a platinum-breasted Barbette doll and the precipitous propensity of giving birth in triplicate on a giant clam shell, perhaps because of her loneliness as an only child, or she was just plain fertile. Over the millenniums she blessed her mother with scores of nephews, nieces and grandchildren, which Bella amused by blowing bubbles from the tip of her tongue that exploded into multi-colored fireflies that lit up the suburbs for miles around. (Bella never seemed to age at all, despite refusing to take her anti-aging pills, because her head was filled with a love of life and the memory of Bert and a certain indefinable spark that poets loved to write about. Maybe the Vegemite sandwiches she loved to eat also had something to do with it, or the fact that her grandchildren spiked the family punchbowl with pre-Columbian Bedouin elixirs when her back was turned.) Bella revisited New Aussie once every decade after Bert's death (faithfully renewing the lease on it every century) and lit on top of Uluru a two hundred and thirty-two foot opal-encrusted candle (one foot for every year they were married) which was digitally timed to burn for forty days and forty nights (how long she was in mourning after Bert's passing.) Betwixt this time she performed her transient duties as High Priestess or wrestled a medium-sized croc or two in the muddy Murray (after donning the tritium suit and boots that Bert had designed for that purpose.) Bella missed Bert a lot and spent fifty-eight percent of her time on Wobble kissing and slobbering over his portrait which she had to continually replace with a new pocket-size print after it had disintegrated from such treatment. The other forty-two percent of her time she spent shopping for presents for her huge clan, or baking colossal pans of lasagna and pound cake to feed them. Every day seemed to be someone's birthday, anniversary or bon voyage day. People moved around with more and more fluidity, as the global village became the global backyard, and finally the whole planet was transversed in two shakes of an ass's behind. Bella finally realized she'd stuck around two thousand years too long when a mocking bird from the Garden of Eden flew up her nose, causing instant aromatic enlightenment. Filled with the wisdom of Methuselah, Bella committed suicide by swallowing a hogshead of Buddy's sugar apple rum and followed it up with her own tongue, whispering with her dying breath "Ready or not Bert, here I come."

At the Pearly Gates the Lord apologized for letting the mocking bird slip out of his cage prematurely, while at the same time performing the Heinlein maneuver and carefully extricating and reconstructing Bella's tongue, which had acidophilus burns top to bottom. "I wasn't expecting you so soon, luv, but Bert is sure happy to see you. Bert has had one Tasmanian devil of a time restraining himself from casting himself into a blue lagoon, which would have only gained him a regrettable reincarnation. Make no mistake about it, he would have forever lost the heady reunion with you that I'd promised him for over a millennium." A wonderfully rejuvenated Bert smiled and grasped Bella around her naked bum, lifting her skyward with the force of thirty something G-strings. Bella completed the action by sticking out her slinky tongue and cried out "At last, Ignition!"

Afterword

As the world continues to crumble, and scientists delve deeper into life's secrets, and sex remains a slippery subject, Independence Day comes to Sleepy Hollow. Over time man has achieved much freedom, freedom to accumulate a hoard of things, freedom to pollute Hudson Bay with acid rain or the Bay of Pigs with BP oil, freedom to wear thick makeup and cover your body with satanic tattoos, freedom to exterminate your brothers or sisters in the Blackboard Jungles of Africa, freedom to eat whatever cheap crud is sold to the masses and puke it up in the gutters of NYC, freedom to diet until you're as skinny as a stick of Dentine, freedom to mate behind closed doors with whosoever pleases you under the influence of liquor or drugs or a combination of both, freedom to masturbate or ruminate under a Harvest Moon in Drain, Oregon, freedom to sing or chant or raise the roof with silly love songs or punk rock, freedom to make music using primitive instruments like hollowed out logs and conch shells, freedom to parade through the streets behind floating temples of nauseous perfume or streak naked through the Southland Mall at noon, freedom to be right or wrong at the same time or in a parallel consortium, freedom to murder words and sentences and thought streams, freedom to harvest body parts from legally dead people with hearts still beating, freedom to carve rocks into wild caricatures or free-form Smithsonian Institution pieces, freedom to kick ass and fricassee steak with Bone-Sucking barbecue sauce, freedom to give birth to the next generation of foot soldiers or turn the other cheek and abort Jesus, freedom to subvert and plunder the oceans deep and relentlessly cull the humpback whales of Antarctica, freedom to read Henry Miller in your sleep or wide awake with a continual mental orgasm, freedom to be a Devil in Paradise or a meek Uriah Heep, freedom to recite the five books of Gargantua and Pantagruel non-stop in thirty days, freedom to grow old with a lover or a harem in Brooklyn's east side, freedom to watch porn movies or male strippers or visit a brothel in Jerusalem or sleep in the catacombs, freedom to climax in celebrity, satori , samadhi, or cosmic consciousness or even death in the movies and be resurrected in next week's tabloids as a fallen angel or precious sinner, and freedom to travel the wild blue yonder, especially free to visit beautiful Australia and camp out under the stars -- no lights please, just the stars. We haven't reached the stars yet, and we may never, without extraterrestrial help, but dreaming is cheap, and politics makes it seem so viable. That society has a tendency to remain stagnant, with an incredibly sluggish inertia behind it, is a given. No one got to be rich and famous just to give it all away in a day, a week or a year; and those in power resist with a vengeance any effort to unseat them. So the ball rolls back to center court, and people are just as bamboozled and empty-headed as before. Nothing changes except with a new slant on things, which usually results in war when tin-headed leaders trade lead instead of good will. If it doesn't make much sense, it doesn't have to. Just breathe deeply and try to enjoy the absurd show; that's all that's left to do.

TWG, Alameda 7/4/2010 (22BB)

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