Neveragainland: Tinkering Part 3

CAUTION: Bilingual strong language

December 22, 2014

Unit 113

"Mom's back," Pete announced.

The patio gate rebounded as Dodge glanced up and pulled short, driving the corner of a crumpled Fiddle Faddle box into his left thigh. Happily, Dodge's thigh was shielded by a dense sheath of pre-retirement fat and newly bike-honed muscle. 

Having recently come off 33 sedentary years of bureaucratic hearings, ballroom PowerPoints, and chronic monitor glare, Dodge nonetheless winced even as his brows arched with interest. 

On the patio opposite, Pete's Zapata mustache twitched as he tapped ashes into an empty Folger's can. In May 2003, Angela Pentola had abruptly surrendered to complications from a type 1 myxoma -- a relatively uncommon heart tumor -- after putting up a gallon of her renowned kimchi. Angie's pickled cabbage followed her grandmother's formula, sans the despised red chiles added following the Japanese invasion and enhanced with herbs prescribed by Richard Pentola's mother.

The kimchi was plated at Angie's funeral luncheon at St. Nick's, and disappeared rapidly -- the petite South Korean had established herself early on as the worthy adversary of any trash-talking pettegolo in her Ninth Street neighborhood.

Seemingly, however, not even a gelatinous and lethal tumor could keep Angela at bay.

Pete lifted his AZChem mug with a shrug, chasing his nicotine with a slug of caffeine. It had been cannabis with a malt liquor chaser before he'd made the move from session musician to chemical feedstock sales. "I was out on a run to Glendale -- some new client needed me to hold his dick for him. Then Ben called, all freaked out."

Ben was a dark and uber-serious inker with a chair in Chandler and his father's addictive genes. "Thought he went home."

"He caught Shana with the ex again, and the three of them got into it." He took a long drag. "So this morning, Ben gets the kids off to school -- well, Wendi gets them off to school; he was still out on the couch. Late night anime on Cartoon Network. When my spawn got up, oh, noon or so, he smelled Grandma."

"Unforgettable," Dodge grinned. Avon's Unforgettable had been Angela Pentola's signature scent, even unto death. That Wendi and Pete had only reluctantly acknowledged detecting the cloying aroma to each other seemed to discredit the notion of some kind of synchronous sense memory. "You tell Ben about the other stuff?"

"I'd planned to -- hoped it might scare him home. But now he knows it’s Mom, he'll probably try to leave Jordon and Tylar with her."

Dodge jostled his refuse. "Well, at least you've got confirmation. Ben didn't know about your mom moving the couch or screwing with the crawl space light or spilling creamer on the dining room table. By the way, always just creamer? She never fixes an actual cup?"

Pete extinguished his smoke. " I figure she can't work the Keurig."

"You got a webcam?" Dodge asked, ignoring the light rapping at the patio door across the sidewalk.

"One in my MacBook."

"Set it up. Tomorrow."

"Nah. Afraid what I might see."

"It’s your mom," Dodge protested.

"What I'm afraid of. Old broad always did have to have the last word. I don’t wanna hear that shit."

Unit 116

Mike and Sarah Dodge

"They move the dumpster?" Sarah murmured as the patio door thumped shut. "To Scottsdale?"

Dodge smiled apologetically. "Pete's mom’s back."

Sarah nodded absently.

"And then I ran into Danzer at the recycle. The old jagbag wanted to know about the doggie DNA thing. I forget -- we for or against?"

"If we don't have to pay for it. We're not the ones leaving shit-bombs all over the complex. Why? What'd you tell him?"

"Pretty much that," Dodge hastened. "So, penne with the parm?"

"I'm carbed out -- you need to work on portion control, too. I got time for a bath?"

Dodge nodded. He preferred her absent for the breading process.

"Mm." She disappeared. He set to work.

Unit 113

8:14 a.m.

Pete ground his second Camel of the morning into the hefty china saucer he’d repurposed sometime around the middle of Obama’s first term. The Pentolas needed saucers or salad forks or gravy boats -- as Mom had misquoted Ms. Gloria Steinem -- like “a fish needs a dildo.”

Toward the end of the sidewalk, Alma was in an unsolicited briefing with the landscape guys. Alma’d once rubbed elbows with the likes of Donna Summer, Cher, and George Clinton at Soul City and Casablanca; Pete had been a contract drummer mainly with MCA. He wondered if some coked-up version of the elegant, eloquent Alma had ever stood on the other side of the glass from the semi-baked kid who now peddled argon and CO2 to the stars of metro Phoenix welding and fabrication.

Wendi’d headed out at 6:30 to beat the I-60 crush to her number-crunching gig at a Tempe HMO. Pete had several calls today, but luckily all within a 20-mile radius, and his boss gave him a loose leash. His blue-collar clients confused apathy and cheerful profanity for a refreshingly no-shit attitude. 

The first prospect of the morning was a small industrial park near Apache Junction where Pete recently had discovered an up-and-coming mom-and-pop bong manufacturer while checking in with a small but loyal custom tow-bar/hitch installer. He’d been drawn by a funky aroma that conjured memories of the metro Cleveland clubs where he’d fetched Wild Turkey for his dad between sets. Pete had shared a nostalgic hit with Bong Boss and came away with a pleasant buzz and a two-year contract.

As his Camel fumes dissipated, a bouquet of lavishly coiffed, trash-talking, Cleveland-assimilated Korean immigrant housewife intensified. 

“All right, all right,” Pete muttered as he hauled open the patio door.

**

The Palm Shadows Happy Hour began as always at Castillo’s, with abundant tequila and the scorching munchies it fueled. Dodge as usual was designated, this time for both Sarah and Alma, the ex-civil servant down the walk. 

The nominal Happy Hour afterparty host had departed early to Seattle for a combo family funeral/Christmas, and Pete had offered up the Pentola patio. Pete was one of the few non-“formers” in Palm Shadows, and seemed amused by the rites and rituals and melodrama of this snowbird graveyard. With the networks on hiatus, Dodge fetched a couple of patio chairs to watch. 

Dodge was impervious until Clarissa – the old Swiss divorcee in 122 – insisted he indulge in a short dose of kirschwasser. Like the bunny slope drinker he was, he succumbed to the bone-soaking cherry brandy. The evening was cool, and he nestled into his hoodie, sampling the conflicting, intertwining, tangential crosscurrents swirling about the 10X15 patio with the tobacco and alcohol fumes.

“…the doctors kept the hair they’d shaved off his skull ‘case they needed to glue it back on for the funeral, and they even planned a memorial. Sinatra told Quincy to go ahead with the party -- ‘Q, live each day like your last, and one day, you’ll be right…’”

“…When we saw that boy peddle over the hill, we all knew the Germans finally had surrendered. You’d have thought it was the Celebration of St. Nicholas! The music, the feasting, the drinking!”

“…thought I was his hired ni--, Negro. Told him he tried to put me on that kinda chickenshit duty again, I’d knock him so far into Indian Country he’d need John Wayne and the cavalry t’get him out… Dude was like all show and no go, so he pretty much let me be after that, ‘til he barbecued his ass in a Zippo raid…”

Wrapped in a cocoon of kirschwasser, schadenfreude, and zeitgeist, freed from the obligation to opine, comment, or contest, Dodge grinned inanely, then giggled as Clarissa’s contralto rose above and ultimately overpowered the jabber.   

“Petit enfant déjà la brune,

Autour de la maison s'étend :

On doit dormir quand vient la lune,

Petit enfant, petit enfant…”

Dodge stared tranquilly into the Pentola’s cluttered kitchen. Light and shadows flitted on the long living room wall beyond -- Ben had appeared briefly at the kitchen window and, as quickly, retreated to an evening of gaming with the boys. 

“…De tes yeux bleus clos la paupière,

Petit enfant, petit enfant…”

Some wag within the Pentola household had buried a sexually charged expletive within the maelstrom of on the fridge. Dodge smirked as a blue T, a yellow N, and a purple U nudged consonants and vowels and digits aside to join the profane verb. FUCKNUT. Dodge chortled. 

“…Rêve aux jolis oiseaux des branches,

Petit enfant, petit enfant...”

The letters began slowly to shuffle. Dodge leaned forward, righting himself before nearly face-planting at Alma’s feet. Colors merged and diverged kaleidoscopically as the writer nodded encouragingly, then moved to the periphery as a trio of magnets locked into the center of the grouping.

MOM

“Shit,” Dodge muttered, reckoning with the conventional behavior of objects. 

1975

Natural Energy and Technical Advancement Laboratory

Chicago

The small conference room was on the main floor, where visiting scientists were feted, interns and administrative staffs oriented, and taxpayers’ brats offered a glance into the declassified side of the lab’s work. Reynolds had expected to find some graybeard contemporary of Danzer’s, maybe Richard Feynman himself. He blinked at the figure at the far end of the long wooden table, who glanced up, grinned, and tossed a thick paperback on the leather blotter. Valley of the Dolls.

The petite Asian was incongruously domestic in a robin’s egg pantsuit and permed black hair. “Frankie, I begin to think you forget about me or something. Thought I was gonna have to have Richie haul his ass off the couch, jump on a plane, and come pick me up.”

Reynolds blinked again and refocused. The look was Gold Coast housewife, the type of stylish older chick he’d find prowling the racks at Carson Pirie Scott or congregating for “girls nights” out at The Italian Village or Russian Tearoom. The face beneath was smooth, fine-featured, but the patois reminded the young scientist of the impatient, impertinent matrons he encountered in the noodle palaces on Cermak.

Her smile returned, and she waggled a fire-engine fingertip. “Let’s get a look at you.” Reynolds started, and joined Danzer. “Hey, he’s a big one, Frankie. He’s gonna kill you on meal expenses.”

Reynolds smiled vacantly, attempting to square this brassy little woman with Danzer. “Nice to meet you, Ms., Mrs. …”

“Belle. Belle, this is the young scientist from Northwest I told you about, the fellow who’s made the wonderful discovery we discussed.”

“Are you on staff here?” Reynolds murmured. He remembered his Steinem. “Are you a researcher?”

Belle exchanged glances with Danzer, and they erupted simultaneously. “Hell no, Jimmy. I know Frankie a long time, but I wouldn’t know an electrode from a proton.”

“Electron, Dear,” Danzer amended. Belle shot Reynolds an eyeroll. “Belle and I met in ’54, when I was on the Rhine Center research faculty and she had freshly arrived from South Korea. She’d married one of our boys stationed in Seoul after the conflict, and a colleagues had heard about her from a mutual friend in Military Intelligence. I had Belle’s husband reassigned stateside, and Belle enrolled at Duke. Accounting major – you want your taxes done, ask Belle. Beautiful and smart.”

“Donnaiollo -- always flirt,” Belle grunted with a bemused sparkle.

“Belle was also one of my prize volunteers at the Rhine,” Danzer continued. “I figured you might need some convincing, so I asked Belle to come out and meet you. Belle retired from the program in ’61, and we relocated her and Richard to Ohio.”

“What exactly was this program?” Reynolds now needed some beef and grain alcohol and maybe a toke or two. “The Rhine Center was what, ESP, telekinesis, that kind of shi--, research, right? 

“That’s a very simplistic characterization, Jim…”

“What he means is yeah,” Belle sighed. “Big secret weapon. Clobber the commies.” 

Reynolds barked. “You guys are fucking with me, right?”

“Language,” Belle clucked. “C’mon, Frankie. Kid wants a steak, not a load of bull.”

“Belle,” Danzer implored. “Sit down, Jim. It’s movie time.”

**

At center stage, a government-issue lab table; a thirtysomething version of Danzer, sporting a white coat, black bowtie, and cheesy pencil mustache; a young Asian woman in a simple white blouse and dark skirt.

 “Moon,” the girl stammers. Danzer turns the first card to his right. A simple crescent moon on thick white stock.

“Apple,” Young Belle murmurs. Danzer flips the next card, grinning broadly. 

This progresses through 23 more cards; Belle scores 100 percent. Jump cut: Belle and Danzer on opposite sides of a wooden panel in the same spare room. Danzer displays a photo of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa ; Belle describes a plain woman with folded hands and a slight smile “like she have a secret.” Next up, Marilyn Monroe; Belle vebally sketches her down to the mole on her left cheek. The Empire State Building, Lucy and Desi, a pert terrier, a mushroom cloud – a perfect score. 

Reynolds felt he’d paid for a flaccid Vegas magic show.

Jump cut to CU: Danzer displays a household light bulb ; Belle closes her eyes. A vein in her forehead pulses slightly as he holds the bulb before her face, then releases it. The suspended bulb vibrates slightly, locks into position, hovers before Belle’s face. 

“Shit,” Reynolds whispered. He gaped as the bulb vibrated once more and the tungsten filament within flickered into full wattage. “Fuck,” he breathed, his chair squeaking back. “It’s a trick, right?”

“In a manner,” Danzer smiled. “Take a look at the film.”

“Yeah, run it again.”

“No. Look at the film.”

Reynolds frowned, leaned across the table, carefully tugged the reel from the projector, pulled a few feet of celluloid out, and held the film to the overhead light fixture. He saw only a slightly distorted overhead light fixture.

”Ever heard of Conrad Hall? One of Hollywood’s great cinematographers – In Cold Blood, Cool Hand Luke, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid. Hall observed, ‘There are infinite shadings of light and shadows and colors... it's an extraordinarily subtle language.’ 

“Hall mastered the mechanics of light and color to help us see the art in the ordinary. Belle, now, crafts electromagnetic waves, light and shadows, auditory frequencies into her OWN reality.”

Reynold’s eyes darted toward the tangle of empty celluloid. His lips twitched.

“Enough talk, Frankie,” Belle sighed. “You promised me a T-bone.” 

2015

Unit 116

Barney Miller was on one of those retro channels so popular with the formers. Dodge settled into the back room La-Z-Boy. It was the hash brownie ep, a classic, but the events and excesses of the evening had Dodge coiled into an anxious funk.

It was Dodge’s second winter in Neveragainland, but he’d never adjusted to the temporal laws of Early Retirement. The gelatinization of time was an adaptive response to human oxidation and friable bones, and the novice former hadn’t yet synched up. Dodge had bailed at the right time – before career oxidation began to kick in and well ahead of a societal meltdown beyond the policy writer’s hellish nightmares. But he’d bailed into a viscous timestream that flowed sluggishly toward – well, that simply flowed sluggishly.

The kirschwasser had largely processed from his nervous system, and Dodge glanced at the kitchen clock without daring to regard the Frigidaire below. 1:28 – a bass-forward riff played Barney and Co. off, and a bloc of lawyer ads and promos ED pills filled the void before Season 3/Episode 12 rolled. An attractive middle-aged woman was onscreen, wearing a period Asian ensemble Dodge had seen in a M*A*S*H rerun. 

“Dodge.” He tensed. The woman on the Samsung had called his name, and he fervently hoped this was a pitch for the new Ram 4WD. He blinked, and the vaguely familiar woman now sported a Chico’s suburban chic robin’s egg pantsuit.

“Don’t have a stroke, Mikey. Petey would kill me.” She cackled. “We gotta talk. Why such a gloomy gus?”

What is this? Dodge thought, heart slamming. The Ghost of Christmas Past, AARP Version?

“More like the Ghost of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, three-for-one deal,” Angie Pentola considered. “Block Universe Theory. Well, not a theory any more. Know what? Don’t worry about it – you’re already a Neurotic Nate.”

“You’re dead,” Dodge croaked. 

“Naaah. Well, yeah. All of the above. It’s the Law – matter and energy is not destroyed, just converted or goes off somewhere. I held up a little better than most. Classified top secret I’ll tell you about later. Maybe.”

“You’re, what, a ghost, then?”

“Mmmm, yeah, sure.” The screen pixelated for a nanosecond.

“Why me instead of Pete?”

“Eh, kid’s a lost cause,” the late Mrs. Pentola muttered. “I’m pulling your cacchio -- love Petey like a son. All the snowbirds bugged out for Christmas or sleeping it off -- you’re the only one on my frequency. This is a test, like that crap at the house tonight. But you listen, Mikey. All this ‘former’ shit – you sound like a bacucco, an old fool. Time don’t mean a thing, so eat all you want. How’s that for some Alanis Morissette BS? Quit being a bacucco. And get my cretino boy to lay off the smokes, hear? Annyeonghi and out.”

There were many things Dodge would not explain in the morning, but at least the cheap perfume dissipated with Pete’s mom.

Unit 113

7:32 a.m.

Wendi was making the most of her three-day holiday, and Ben and the boys were piled on the sectional after a late evening of mine-crafting, so Pete crept about in his socks as he slipped a Pop Tart from its sleeve and foraged for an espresso pod. When he discovered the soggy pod in the Keurig, he pivoted to the bill-stacked dining room table. 

The World’s Best Mom mug Wendi’d stowed in the back of the cabinet was steaming amid a scattering of sugar. Pete stared, transfixed as floral notes competed with dark roast musk, then bit into his raw pastry.

“Late night, huh?” he grunted.