Club Vesta, Level II, Round 1.5

8/9/2019 Club Vesta, Level II, Round 1.5

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Yael R. Dragwyla First North American rightsEmail: [email protected] 17,565 wordshttp://polaris93.livejournal.com/

Club Vesta:A Journey Beyond the Mountains of Madness to

Find a Sea of Stars(Love-Letter to America)

Level II: The Carnal

Round 1.5 The Judgment and Assignment

Then looking outward I made out a throngassembled on the beach of a wide river,

whereupon I turned to him: Master, I long

to know what souls these are, and what strange usage

makes them as eager to cross as they seem to bein this infected light.

. . .

My son, the courteous Master said to me,all who die in the shadow of Gods wrathconverge to this from every clime and country.

And all pass over eagerly, for hereDivine Justice transforms and spurs them so

their dread turns wish: they yearn for what they fear. . . .

Dante, Inferno, III: 67-72, 118-123

Interlude: Two American Tails

So we went down to the second ledge alone;a smaller circle of so much grater pain

the voice of the damned rose in a bestial moan.


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There Minos sits, grinning, grotesque, and hale.He examines each lost soul as it arrives

and delivers his verdict with his coiling tail.

That is to say, when the ill-fated soulappears before him it confesses all,

and that grim sorter of the dark and foul

decides which place in Hell shall be its end,then wraps his twitching tail about himselfone coil for each degree it must descend.

The soul descends and others take its place;each crowds in its turn to judgment, each confesses,each hears its doom and falls away through space.

O you who come into this camp of woe,cried Minos when he saw me turn away

without awaiting his judgment, watch where you go

once you have entered here, and to whom you turn!Do not be misled by that wide and easy passage!And my Guide to him: That is not your concern;

it is his fate to enter every door.This has been willed where what is willed must be,

And it is not yours to question. Say no more.

The Inferno, V:1-24

Did I hear her say Keyport, Lu?Thats what I thought I heard, too, babe, Lu told me as we approached the door at the end of the

passage. Behind us, the pretty little hostesses who had guided us this far waved and called out, Have agood Tour, ladies! Their voices seemed to fade away as if we were drawing away from them at greatspeed, even though we had gone at the most only a few dozen feet from their assigned area and the ThirdVestibule.

The door, covered with intricate carvings which, on closer examination, presented beautifullydetailed scenes that would have astonished both Larry Flynt and the Marquis de Sade, contained anelegantly inscribed glass panel in its top portion; the inscriptions, like the carvings in the wooden door,contained countless microscopically detailed scenes of events and activities which wouldnt have beenout of place on the Walls of Pompeii. But so dense were the carvings in the glass that no matter how Itried, I couldnt see anything through it.

But thats I thought that was a city inNew Jersey! This is Washington State, after all.Dont ask me, babe I just work here. Why dont you open it, Esh?Apres vous, sil vous plaiz.Mai non, apres vous, cheri! she told me, grinning.

Turning, I stared hard at her. You sure you want to go out that door? They told us Fuckwhat they told us! Weve got several hours to kill, at least, before they can get that tow-truckin here, Esh. We can check the scene out here and be over with it in a couple of hours, tops. Piece ofcake. Or do you want to sit back there with all those raving lunatics, spanking your lily with the best ofthem, until we can get the truck here?

Lu Yeah, well I dont. So lets go see what the rest of this place is like. Okay?So saying, she threw the door open and stepped out through it.Whaffuck ?

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Round 0 The Judgment and Assignment Interlude: Two American TailsPage 2 of 23


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Whats wrong, Lu? Stepping through the doorway myself to see what the problem was, I foundmyself standing next to her on what seemed to be a plank walk. We had come out into a bone-chillinglycold fog so thick that even standing right next to her, I could barely see Lu at all.

Uh maybe youre right, Esh, she told me, her teeth chattering from the cold. Starting to turnback to the door, she said, At least theyve got snacks and drinks and its warm back inside. Lets goback in there and

The boom! of the door behind us cut her sentence off short as if by the blade of a guillotine.

For a moment, neither of us moved. That boom! had sounded so very, very final.Shit, Lu said at last. Whirling on heel now in earnest, she threw herself at the door, trying to

wrench it open by its great brass, oddly phallic knob.No go. It refused to budge.Here, let me try it, Lu, I offered, coming back to join her.The hell you will! Ive got something one fuck of a lot better, she growled, drawing her Glock

from her belly-bag. The fog was now curling around us like a shroud, obscuring what little we had beenable to see before. The breath came from our mouths in great clouds of frosted vapor. Around us,nothing made a sound, nothing stirred. Save for our voices and the movements of our bodies, muffled byfog and dimmed by cold, it was dead silent.

The shots roaring from Lus gun were terrifyingly loud against that background of nothingness.Thatought to do it, you son of a bitch! Lu snarled.

But I noticed that nothing had followed the gunshots, especially not the sound of bullets strikingmetal, wood, or glass. It was as if she had fired into empty air.

Lu What?Wheres the door?What do you mean, wheres the door, you idiot?!! she yelled at me, reaching out for the door. It

was right here a min- Her tirade ceased abruptly. She uttered an odd sound, a cross between a moanand ayip! of surprise.

Now frightened, I reached out to the place where the door was or had been. Grope as I wouldthrough the fog, my hands found nothing. I would have searched farther, but I was afraid of losing Lu,the only familiar thing in all that silent world, if I moved away from her in the fog.

Lu, where are we? I moaned.I hush, she suddenly ordered, reaching out to grab my arm.What is it?Did you hear that?

Hear what? I cant hearanythingother than you and Doesnt that sound like water to you? she hissed, her hand tightening on my arm so hard it hurt.Water? Where Then I heard it: the low lapping of cold water against a breakwater and the pilings of a pier the

pier which, I suddenly realized, wed been standing on all this while, ever since wed gone out that door.Youre right. Hey, were by the ocean!But this is Washington State! she cried, echoing my earlier outburst. How the fuck can Si sempre muovere, or something like that, I told her. I guess we came out onto some sort of pier.

How weird.It sure is, right in the middle of Washington States central desert!Maybe its some sort of ride, like in Disney World or something. Remember we went down a flight

of stairs or so? This could be an underground type of ride. Which means theres got to be a boatnearby, if thats what this is.

Youre out of your mind, Eshda Drake!

I may be, but this is sure an awfully solid hallucination, then!What is?This thing over here. Feels like the gunwale of a boat, I told her, running my hands along the

structure Id just discovered next to the edge of the pier. Now, as the fog began to lift just a little, I couldhear the creaking of timbers as whatever it was rose and fell in the gentle swells of the water below, andof the ropes mooring it to the side of the pier.

Cn I help you, ladies?An old, old man was looking at us from the side of the boat which, as the fog thinned more and

more, I could see was a huge old ferry-boat, a cross between the old Mukilteo that used to carrypassengers and cars from Edmonds to Kingston, WA before they discontinued that run, and the harbor-

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boats Id ever seen in every movie about New York City from Fiorello! toDoc Savage and the Beasts ofBroadway. The old man, who was little more than skin and bones, was dressed in an ancient captainsoutfit, decorated with about two hundred pounds of heavily tarnished gold braid that could have beenCivil War vintage. He had a long white beard clear down to his belt-line, and smoked a pipe that lookedolder than he was and smelled worse than South Bronx on a bad day. Whatchoo want? he prompted.

Uh we . . . uh . . . arent sure where we are, I told him, before Lus temper could get the better ofher. I was worried about her this wasnt like her at all. If anything, she was always cool, calm, and

collected Iwas the big bare bundle of nerves, never able to deal with shit at all. And here I was, actingas a buffer between her and the world, just as she had for me before.

S Keyport. Last stop before I enter the harbor. Next stops Ellis Island. Just stoppin here for fuelan supplies. You want on board, you better hop, he told us in a high, cracked voice through whatsounded like wooden dentures mixed with very, very bad teeth. Turning briefly to one side, he spat overthe side, then, turning back to us, said, Either git on board now or yell be left behind, and they aintnothin by here for the next two weeks.

Where are we! Lu cried.Yeah, is there a town or anything nearby?Conaskonk Pints up t way, he told us, pointing in one direction, an o course theys Union

Beach. All you have to do is walk up First Street there pointing til it turns into Florence, youllcome right out. Or, you cn turn around, go the other way, over to Cliffwood, take the same road until itturns into Front Street, he said, pointing the other way. An theres always Mechanicsville, he said,pointing in still another. Thing is, though, gals, around here, roads aint always what theys sposed tbe, and when you get where youre goin, it may not be the place you aimed at, know what I mean? Ashe took a huge puff off his pipe, then leaned back, savoring the smoke, I shivered not only from thecold.

Whats the fare? called Lu. As the fog gradually attenuated away to nothing in the warmth andlight of the morning (morning?), I could see the beginnings of panic in Lus expression as she lookedaround in all directions. Ahead of us was open water and the great boat tied up at the pier on which westood; around us on every side was nothing but burned-out desolation, charred rubble, the blastedremains of what had once been oil tanks off in the distance. On the ground just at the place where thepier began lay a singed Big Bird doll, next to the smashed, charred remains of a GI Joe doll. The skyabove us was now blue and clear, the sun in the east warm and friendly but it wasnt hard to imaginethat not too long ago, a hideous toxic winter had covered this land.

Whattaya got?We each peered into our money-pouches. As it happened, in addition to our credit-cards, I had about

fifty dollars plus some odd change, while Lu had another hundred and change. Whats your regularfare? asked him.Two drachmae, he told us.Two dr-shit! snarled Lu. Dont you take American money?I here, come on up the gangway, here, and lets see what you got, he told us. I had a feeling that

that was a courtesy he didnt often offer. Blunt as he was, somehow I knew he could have been a lotworse than blunt.

My reply was to do as he suggested. Lu followed with bad grace, grumbling all the way.I held out the money I had to him.Ignoring the wad of bills in my hand, deftly he picked out the coins, which included some dimes,

pennies, nickels, two Susan B. Anthony dollars, a silver quarter Id got from somewhere, and an oldEisenhower half-dollar.

As he raised the Susan B. Anthonys up into the light to see them more closely, I could see a suddengrin fill his face. Well, well, well, what do we have here, dearie? he chuckled. Good Lor, aint

never seen the like o these! Elevensides! What willthey think of next? And whats this on the back?Turning one of the coins over to look at the reverse, he stared in wonder at the scene of the Americanflag and bald eagle above the Lunar surface, Earth hanging in the sky above.

Now even Lu was aware that something out of the ordinary had occurred, and that the coins sofamiliar to us had never been seen before by the old man. Why, thats a commemoration of the ApolloXI Moon Landing, she told him, smiling.

Moon landing? he said, astonished, the grin becoming even broader.Yes, the first landing on the Moon, back in 69, I told him. You know, when Buzz Aldrin and the

others actually walked on the Moon for the first time.

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Who who were they? Never heard of em! Lifting the coin up to his mouth, he bit into itcarefully. Hmm . . . aint never seen metal like this stuff before! he muttered, half in disgust, half inwonder. What is this shit?

I dont know enough about numismatic metallurgy, I told him. A little of everything, though,somebody told me. These are for general circulation, and we havent been using silver in our coins for along time we dont even use much copper in our pennies anymore, you know, I added, thinking maybehe was from a foreign country of some kind, where they didnt have television or much news of the

outside. But how could he be that ignorant of such things as the first Moon Landing if he was captain ofa boat that had come all the way over here, to the States? Surely hed have heard some news of suchthings over all these years.

Yeah, well, numis-whatics be damned, this is the strangest coin I ever did see. Okay, you cncome aboard, dear, for these two coins. An yer friend? Whatveyou got, sister?

The look on Lus face was peculiar as peculiar, doubtless, as the look on my own. Uh, Ive gotsome Susan B. Anthonys, too, she told him. I keep some with me all the time in case I need to buysome stamps or pay tolls or something. Here, these okay? So saying, she handed him two more of the11-sided coins.

You bet! he cried, chuckling. Never seen any like em! Betcha theyre worth moren a couplagold talents Ill have t show these t Midas, see what he thinks! Okay, ladies, youre on! Just go onback there, inside there where the rest of the passengers are, he told us, pointing toward the center of theboat, where the deckhouse loomed high over everything else. Its long rows of windows were lit, andwithin we could see countless people moving about. Warm in there, and theys even food and wine,courtesy of the house.

Okay, thanks. Come on, Esh, she told me, once more taking the lead, adjusting her backpack andthe weight of her guns before starting off for the deckhouse.

Yep. Thank you, sir, I told the old man as courteously as I could. We appreciate it.Thats all right, sister, youre a good gal, glad to be able to, he told me, a strangely kind, almost

sad smile briefly tugging at his mouth, sparking in his eyes, before retreating to the depths below hiscurmudgeonly exterior.

Following Lu, I entered the deckhouse, finding myself suddenly surrounded by a great crowd ofpeople, who all seemed to speak a thousand different languages, dressed in clothing that could have beenfrom as many different eras and cultures. Many of them were women, but just as many were men, andthere were quite a few children of both sexes, as well.

I wonder where theyre all going? Lu said in wonder.And where they all come from, I added. The captain seems to speak English, but I dunno, Lu,

I just dont know . . .Say it, asshole! she growled happily.Ive got a bad feelingabout this, Lu . . . Then we both cracked up.Hey, didnt he say they had food and drink aboard this tub? Lu asked me, once she got her

laughter under control again.He said food and wine. And I guess they probably have water. But I have the oddest feeling we

arent going to find Coca-Cola or Jolt on board here.Why am I not surprised? Well, lets go get coffee and a donut, if they have them, and take a seat?

Wherever this is going, its gonna take awhile.I think that table over there is where they have the good Lord, is that a centaur? I cried, rubbing

my eyes.Hunh?I think Im seeing things. For a minute there, I thought I saw a centaur, you know, half-man, half-

horse, laying food out on that table. But it was just a steward of some kind.

Esh, you sure you dont have a uh-oh!What?Whatever you have, I think its catching I thought I just saw something like the hero ofE.T. go by

over there. No, I guess its just a short guy in robes of some kind. Well, lets hie over there and seewhat they have.

Making our way to the table, we found a great many of the passengers, especially the women, wereeyeing us the way they might large, dangerous animals. Women wearing robes or djeballahs drew awayfrom us as if we were contaminated. Men in analogous costumes hissed, licked their lips, and looked usover with feverish eyes as if they werent sure whether to rape us or simply kill us right then and there

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then drew back, turning away, as Lu carefully displayed her Bowie knife, its razor-edge gleaming underthe gas-lights set high in the walls of the deckhouse, about one every two feet or so.

As we got closer to the table, the costumes began to change. More and more of the women weredressed in conventional American dress or conventional at some time during the twentieth century,anyway while the men were dressed in trousers, shirts, coats, ties, and hats, the styles all American,ranging from the late 19th century to the late 20th. Over in one corner there was an upright piano; playingit was a man who reminded me oddly of Rick in Casablanca, and with him was a woman who looked

arrestingly like Lauren Bacall. Another man, leaning against the piano and taking an occasional swigfrom a tall, frosty mug of beer or ale, looked rather like John Wayne, dressed as he had been when heplayed the pilot of that plane in The High and the Mighty.

Suddenly a tall, courtly man, dressed in a gray suit, a black string tie, and a gray hat of the sort wornby gentlemen in Americas Old West at the end of the 19th century came up to us. He had a well-trimmed, handsome handlebar mustache, thick, dark blond hair cut long and brushed back, and hard grayeyes that couldve seen through a brick wall. Ladies, he said in his resonant baritone voice, a softGeorgia drawl gracing his words, very pleased to make yer acquaintance. My names John JohnHolliday. And this here is my friend, Big-Nosed Annie. Annie ?

A woman stepped forward. Wearing a red-and-white checked dress with a ruffled yoke that was cutin a style popular on the American frontier in the late 19 th century, with petticoats which, though notheavy, managed to make the dresss long skirt flare out prettily, she was tall and carried herself with anodd dignity. Her blue eyes hinted at a great deal of pain, yet she was no victim even Lu looked at herwith real respect, and the smile she favored us with was knowing and full of ancient wisdom. How doyou do, friends? she asked us. Of whom do we have the favor of making acquaintance? Quietlaughter lilted her voice whether at us, or herself, it wasnt possible to be sure.

Uh, Im Mrs. Luciferia Blake Skua and this is my friend, Ms. Eshda Drake, Lu told Annie,extending her hand. And you are ?

Annie Jones, the woman told her. Miss Annie Jones, she added pointedly, looking hard at Lu.You a widow, dear?

No, no Erik, my husband, is back home, in San Francisco. Im just visiting my friend Eshda,here.

Wheres here? Annie asked her, curious. I mean, whered you-all get on board the boat?Why Washington State!Youre a long way from home, girl, Annie told her, almost grimly. Aint that out in the

Northwestern territories you know, Oregon?No, they made that into two-three states, dear, her male companion told her. Remember? Called

one Washington were gonna call it Columbia, but didnt want to get everybody confusin it with thenations capitol an Oregon proper, an Idaho, I think. Washingtons the one way up next toVancouver, British Columbia, isnt it? he asked Lu.

Yeah, thats right. Oregons just below, and Idahos east of both, she told him.I think Wyatt maybe went up that way no, thats right, he went on up to Fairbanks, him an his

lady, before comin down to settle in Los Angeles. Oh, Im bein rude. Would the two o you likesome o this here food? Its mighty tasty. An the wines pretty good, too mind you, Id rather havewhiskey, any day, but this aint bad at all, a good dark red from someplace in France, an lately theyvehad some from place north o San Francisco in California, real good wine country up there, I hear tell,an theres some Italians moved there an started their own vineyards an winery. Here, lets see whatthey got today.

So saying, he stepped aside and waved us toward the table.Gyros! exclaimed Lu. Oooo, I love em! But why are the pitas all red? Thats weird.Look, Lu, everythings red here! See? I told her, pointing. Sure enough, the table was covered

with platters of red food of every description as to kind, but totally monochrome: hundreds of red fruits,from strawberries and boysenberries and pomegranates to apples and cherries; red bread and pitas;tomatoes and strangely dark-red carrots and hot little radishes and incandescently hot red peppers; evenmeats that had all been dyed red, from slices of roast beef and roast pork to ground meats for the gyros.More, even the platters that held the food and the jugs that held the wine were all either red or whitepatterned in red and black and the patterns were ancient, images from Ionian Greece and ancient Egyptand Mesopotamian cultures.

Is it good, do you think? Lu asked me nervously, holding a gyro that was filled with ground meat,sour cream, slices of peppers and tomatoes, and diced red cabbage, not quite daring to take a bite of it.

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Oh, its good, all right, said Ms. Jones. But you want to be careful if you eat that, you mightnot be real happy with the consequences.

Annie! chided Mr. Holliday.Somebodys gotta tell em, why not me? she retorted peevishly.Its not as if theyre gonna be able to John Holliday, hush your mouth. You always was a mite fast on the draw that way, dear, she said,

affection returning to her voice and eyes as she turned to look over at him.

Consequences? I prompted.Oh, it wont poison you, she told me. Its not that. Its just you may end up staying here a little

longer than you planned, thats all.So? said Lu, taking a bite out of the gyro as if daring Ms. Jones to stop her. As John, there, was

just saying, we arent going to be going backany time soon no way to. Looks as if all we can do is togo forward. So why not? And why, she added, having swallowed the bite of food, would eatingsomething here keep us from going back, anyway?

Oh, its not important. Like you said, missy, you cant go back anyway. But mind you can goforward, if you know what I mean.

No, I dont. And wheres forward?Annie, let me, okay? said Ms. Jones companion impatiently. Look, my dears, Annie an I have

been here quite a while. We enjoy it, Im not complainin, an the company is purely fascinatin. Itsvery comfortable. But I understand that the only way to get on where youre going from here is to leavethe boat when it docks there at the Island in a little while an somehow, every time it goes to do so, Imjust too plumb comfortable to get off, an sos Annie. Dont know whether its the food or whatever thatdoes that to you, but you might want to go easy on it. An the wine. Especially the wine.

Okay, thanks, we will, Lu said, smiling. Lord, Im thirsty, speaking of wine. Do they haveany water, do you suppose?

Sure, jug of it right over there, next to that platter of fruit. And some mugs with it, he told her,pointing.

Great, she said, reaching for a mug. Esh, how about you?Yeah, Id like some, too. Could you pour me a mug?Comin right up.We sipped our water in silence awhile. Finally, I said, Thank you, Mr. Holliday, Ms. Jones. All

right if we sort of look around a little? There are so many people here, so much to see Ive never seenanything like this!

Sure, he told me, laughing a little. I agree its a 24-hour-a-day circus, always something new to

see! Mr. Barnum wouldve loved this in fact, its a wonder we havent run into him yet! But mindsome of the passengers you two are a mite strange to most of em, theyll never have seen anythin likeyou, an some o the women are touchy an more than touchy, an as for the men, lets just say they dontreally cotton to women who . . . dont act like the way women do in their own countries, followin theirown customs.

Weve noticed, Lu told him, warily eyeing the crowd, many of whose members still watched usavidly, albeit surreptitiously, keeping a weather eye out for Lus knife and whatever else we might bepacking.

If youre carryin guns, you might as well display them, John told us avuncularly. They knowwhat guns can do God knows, they ought to, I ended up keepin one dude from carvin some otherfellows, er, family jewels off with a knife of his own by puttin a little .45 suggestion right by his ear,you might say, he said, taking out a gigantic Colt pistol and displaying it with roguish pride, thenputting it back in his hip-holster again. I oh, theyre startin up again. Sure enough, the sudden throbof great engines began to vibrate through the floor of the deckhouse. Lets go find seats over there, by

the windows, all four of us, why dont we? You cn see everything from there as well as anywhere, anyoull be able to look out an see where were goin, too. Nice view. Not even waiting for us to say yayor nay, he began herding Lu, Annie, and me toward the windows. Given the temper of many of ourneighbors, I was just as happy to go along with his wishes. Lu started to bridle, then took another lookat that crowd, and went along with better grace than she might otherwise have done.

Soon the four of us were seated by the windows, me between Lu and John, Annie on Johns otherside. Turning to look out the window behind me, I saw bright blue sky, Prussian-blue waters, gullswheeling and mewing against the Sun and, in the far distance, a dim, cloudy, darksomethingthat mighthave been land.

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So what brings you here to the Boat, dear? Annie asked me, leaning across John to do so. Therewas still a certain reserve to her manner, as if she still wasnt certain as to whether we were good peopleor not. The capital B was very clear in her voice.

Well . . . Lu, you want to tell her? I said, turning to Lu.Sure. You see, began Lu, I was visiting my friend Eshda, here, who lives here uh, lives in

Seattle, Washington. We decided to take a drive up into the Cascade Mountains, and got lost somehow,and ended up at this funny little mall . . .

Keeping it fairly simple and, for Lu, strangely ladylike, she described the drive up into themountains, the weird transformation of what had been a familiar country into something neither of us hadever seen before, the thrown rod, the mall, and our entry into Club Vesta, clearly avoiding mention ofsome of more X-rated parts of what we had discovered in the latter. All the while she talked, Annieseyes got bigger and bigger and bigger. I was sure Lu had managed to offend her somehow, until shesaid, You have one o them new-fangled horseless carriages? Then I realized what her expression hadportended: sheer wonder and amazement.

Uh you mean an automobile? Yeah, sure, everybody has em. Why? Lu asked her, bewildered.It had already dawned on me that like a lot of the other passengers, Annie and John had been on this

boat a longtime. My eyes met Johns and I realized that he, unlike his companion, knew it, too. Uh,Annie, darlin, he said, turning to her, dont you remember? Thats what Mister Ford did anotherday, another dollar, another year, another Ford automobile. Only I expect that nowadays its a lotmoren a dollar a day an for a new automobile, it could take a lot moren a year to save up to get one,ifn you dont have the credit. Am I right, ladies? he asked, turning back to us.

Thats very true, said Lu, finally aware herself of the enormous distance of years and expectationsthat separated us from John and Annie less in Johns case than in Annies, but still huge.

Turning briefly to look out the window, John turned back to us. In a little while, you cn see theLady. I always like to look at Her someday, Ill stand there, lookin up at Her, with Annie at my side,an well be off this tub for good. Well be Home, then. Shes a sight to see, you dont want to miss Her. Anyways, just curious, how much do you make in a day? Or, say, a month? I mean, whats a manswages any more, uh, these days?

Oh, anywhere from $1,600 a month to maybe $5,000 or more, depending on what you do. Plusexecutives decision-makers make anywhere from $100,000 a year to over a million, maybe two.

And the barons uh, the plutocrats, you know, the ones who are really rich, what are they worth?Well, there was a man named Bill Gates, just before Black Monday and the Millennium Crash, he

was worth more than eighty billion dollars. There were others, too, with even more money Were?

Yes. Since Black Monday, its taken a long time to rebuild, particularly with the GreatSequestration by the government. They what the hell?Suddenly three young men ran past us, chasing a nubile young lady dressed in the style of the 1960s

with short-short miniskirt, a bolero top, and sandals. One of the men, tall, lean, and mean-looking, hadon a wide-brimmed hat and wore an enormous red handlebar mustache; the second, who wore wire-framed spectacles with octagonal lenses, had thick, long, black hair worn in a Jewish Afro and acne sobad he could have hidden himself quite nicely amongst the radishes on the table in the center of theroom; and the third, who had a great, fluffy-tailed orange tomcat perched on his shoulder that spat andhissed at everyone around them as the three men roared through the room, was built along the lines of ateddy-bear, wearing a beard, a mustache, and thick, curly blond hair. The men, all dressed in EarlySalvation Army, were either Hippies, students, or both. The girl, who didnt seem to mind at all beingchased by the three, looked able to outdistance them easily, but chose to stay no more than a few inches beyond their groping fingers; she giggled continuously throughout the chase, which followed a paththrough the thickest parts of the thronging crowds, so that pursuers and pursued left countless cursing,

bruised individuals behind them, and a lot of others lying sprawled on the deck, swearing for everythingthey were worth and brandishing fists, knives, and worse at the rampaging quartet (quintet, if the cat wascounted).

Lu! I squeaked.What? Barely able to wrench her attention away from the ongoing drama of Goldinympho and the

Three Satyrs, she turned to see what I was pointing at and uttered a squeak of her own.A little way over from the frolicking fivesome, not far from the smorgasbord table, talking to a large,

piratical individual dressed in a filthy frock coat, torn trousers, and heavy leather boots that had seen farbetter days, a long, gleaming cutlass with bloody stains on its blade in his hand and a huge green parroton his shoulder that kept up a nonstop stream of steaming blue Billingsgate, was a tiny individual, all of

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two feet high or so. That individual, dressed only in yellow-and-black checkered trousers and blackleather knee-boots, had a bald head that sported two sharp horns; huge pointed ears; a vast, toothysmile; and the craziest eyes Id ever seen. One hand shoved down his trousers, he played continuously atpocket pool, the front of his trousers attesting either to a concealed weapon the size of Flagstaff or theworlds biggest hard-on; the forefinger of his other hand was shoved so far up one of his nostrils hecould have poked it out of his left ear, drilling for oil for all he was worth.

Then I noticed the giant pig wearing a clone of a Superman costume . . .

Blinking my eyes rapidly to clear them, I looked again. No pig, but Hey, Lu isnt that My God, thats Humphry Bogart and Lauren Bacall, with him!Following her gaze and shaking finger, I saw them, the man sitting at a piano set up in a corner of

the deckhouse, playing something I didnt recognize. The woman, who had one hip propped up on acorner of the old upright, a drink in hand not wine? was singing along softly, smiling at the man.

And look over there!Again I turned to look, and this time saw the thin man and the fat man, arguing furiously with an

Arab in a burnoose and a tall black man dressed in workmans clothes, a large chimpanzee jumping upand down and uttering furious Oook-ook! noises nearby.

Turning back to John again, I said, I . . . I think Im seeing things.Mebbe so, dear, he told me smiling, but Im willin to be your seein realthings.But I just saw I just saw somebody who was dead fifty years before I was born!Tell her, John, tell her, Annie said gently.If I knew what to tell her, Annie, I would, but Im not sure myself. All I can say, Eshda, dear, is

that things here are not only not always what they seem, but sometimes theyre exactly what they seem tobe which may be even stranger.

Yeah, I muttered, seeing a man wandering by, a huge pipe in his mouth, wearing a smile so radiantand fixed it couldnthave been real. Though he was heading away from me at an angle, he seemed to belooking right at me. From his pipe wafted the fragrant odor of

Giggling, I told Lu, Well, I guess nobody much cares about the War on Drugs here!Thats nice. Good God, would you lookat whats carved on the wall here!Bending down to look where she pointed, I saw, on the wall next to her, there was a cartoon carved

of a kneeling man with a short scruffy beard and short hair, his pants down around his ankles, being givena top-notch blow-job by an eagerly gobbling, sorting girl who was all mouth and butt and long hair andlittle else. Viva la revolucin! the talk-balloon coming from the smiling mans mouth declared.

Er, looks like maintenance slipped up again, John told us, looking somewhat abashed. Theyre

supposed to keep that sort of thing cleaned up. But sometimes they miss a few.Turning to look at the wall behind me, I saw that someone else had scrawled Potrzbie! and Freethe Axolotl 500! on it with a purple crayon.

Then, out in the middle of the room, several people, all maudlinly drunk, apparently (judging fromtheir dress and accents) all Americans from no further back than the late 1960s, began to sing,

We went lookin for th good life,But we shoulda stood in bed,Cause the stuff we ate and drank and breathed,It plumb clogged up our head,And the things we saw on Teevee,On the news each night at ten,Were enough to make you want to grabYour towel and throw it in!

Well, sometimes out in the country,You can still see birdies sing,You cant hearem, though, cause jetAirliners drown out everything,And say, whatever happened toThose simple things we prized?Therell be a lotta changes made next monthWhen we get organized!

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We went lookin for America,But we couldnt find a thing . . .

Oh, hey, ladies, look its the Lady! John cried suddenly, the capital letter, joyously pealing insilver silence, lingering in the air for several seconds after his words.

What ? Jerking around to look out the window, to see what hed spotted, I saw Her: Her great,seven-rayed tiara catching the morning light, She stood there, Her vast green back to us, torch uplifted in

Her left hand, facing the great city whose astounding skyline rose in the distance before us.You cant really see Her at Her best, yet, of course well have to pass by Her so we can see Her

face, to do that but there She is . . ., he said, putting a hand up to his face. Suddenly I realized that theodd note in his voice was the result of the unshed tears he was struggling to suppress. Well pass byHer, then head on in to Ellis, within a stones throw o Jersey City, he continued, once hed finallysucceeded in stifling the tears completely, taking his hand from his face to point toward the Lady.

My God it really is Her, isnt it? Lu breathed. Its the Statue of Liberty! How the hell did weget here, Eshda?

Im as much in the dark as you, Lu. Maybe it is just some weird ride, we get off later and get outof here, were back in Washington State, never left it.

Yeah, and if you believe that, my dears, I have some lovely sea-front property near Phoenix for you,such a deal at just $2,500 an acre, said Annie, dark laughter in her words.

John suddenly looked over at her. Frowning, a strangely tender smile following the smile, he tookher hand and said, Its been a long time, hasnt it, Anne? Why dont we?

Why dont we what? she said, looking at him with suspicion, barely tolerating his hand. Suddenlyshe leaned forward, looking deep into his eyes. Do you mean

Yes, Annie, my love, my old, old friend, I think its time. Its been lovely here, but I think itsgettin on time for us to finish our vacation and go home.

Do you mean that, John Holliday?I never meant anything more in my life, darlin. Shall we?I John, I dont know what to say . . .Annie, he said, electric intensity in his voice, I think this is our last chance. I dont think you can

hold off making a decision on it any longer, and neither can I.I I oh, John, I wish I knew what to do . . . Oh, all right, she said, gathering herself together.

all right. Its time. Yes, lets get off with our new friends, here.Looking as if hed just finished a ten-mile uphill run, weak with relief, John said to her, Annie,

somethin else . . .

What, John?Annie, would you . . . would you marry me?Would I what?You heard me: would you marry me, Annie Jones? An dont just sit there starin at me as if I

were a two-headed snake, Annie! After all, I think weve lived in sin long enough, dont you?But John I never thought youd actually wantto Come to think of it, darlin, neither did I. Maybe these good young women here are an inspiration.

What do you think?I think I think, she said, after drawing a deep breath and smiling shakily, that they must have

been, because in all the years weve been together, never at any time did I even dream youd ask me tomarry you. Well, friends, she said, looking over at us, I guess youve been good luck for an old . . .spinster.

And an old . . . bachelor, too, dont forget me, laughed John. They were laughing together now, asif their words had contained a secret code to which only they were privy. Well, ladies oh, look were

passing Her now! Take a look, thats a sight you dont want to miss!I found myself suddenly pushing open the window, leaning far out so that I could catch a glimpse ofHer great, calm face, Her serene gaze, see the Tablet of Law She carried in Her right hand, see again thegreat torch held high in Her left, see the vast, eleven-sided star pedestal on which She stood, the formerFort Wood. Around her, Bedloes Island was green and wooded, filled with birds and other life andcrowds of tourists. Around the island boats moved, some huge ferries like this one, others small boats,maybe pleasure-boats, a few commercial vessels carrying cargoes from all over the world.

Years ago, back in high school, Id smuggled a book home from school lent to me by anotherbookworm schoolmate, a pariah like myself. The book, priceless for its rarity and utterly illegal eventhen, was The History of the United States of America: From the American Revolution to World War II.

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One of its chapters had been devoted to the story of the Lady: how, at the instigation of French historianand admirer of American political institutions Edouard de Laboulaye, the French approved the idea ofpresentation by their country of a monument to the United States, the latter to provide a pedestal and asite; how, once the Franco-American Union had come up with the necessary $250,000 to begin work onthe project, Fredric Auguste Bartholde designed and began work on the statue, aided by a frameworkdesigned and contributed by Gustav Eiffel, creator of the Eiffel Tower; how the US Congress, onWashingtons birthday, February 22, 1877, approved the use of a site on Bedloes Island suggested by

Bartholde; how the statue, finished in 1884, was formally presented to US minister Levi P. Morten, whodrove the first rivet for the statue on October 24, 1881, in honor of the centennial of the Battle ofYorktown, in which the French and Americans were allies; how the statue arrived, dismantled, in 214packing cases, via the steamship Isere, which reached New York from Rou, France, in June 1885; howthe last rivet of the statue was driven on October 28, 1886, when President Grover Cleveland dedicatedthe monument; and how, on a tablet within the pedestal on which the Lady stands, a poem by EmmaLazarus had been graven, The new Colossus.

I memorized that poem, a secret treasure no one would ever take from me, before giving the bookback to my friend a week later. My friend and her family soon disappeared, apparently forgotten by all,unpersons, a few months later. No one ever said anything about it, but I could make a guess: she and herwhole family had been closet Antiquators, criminally cherishing the ancient history of my no-longer freecountry, for many years. They had probably been picked up by the Feds on a tip from a neighbor, orperhaps a teacher at my school noticed our unhealthy interest in proscribed subjects such as liberty.

Later, the government fell, a new government replaced it, freedom came back, if only a little, andrelaxations on the economy and invention enabled the country to recapture something of its old affluence,or at least a seeming of it. We even had cars. And now I could hunt safely for another copy of that book,the only tie I would ever have to my lost friend.

I never found the book. I always remembered the poem, though, letter-perfect, and now it sang inthe alabaster halls of my skull:

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,With conquering limbs astride from land to land;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall standA mighty woman with a torch, whose flameIs the imprisoned lightning, and her nameMother of Exiles. From her beacon-handGlows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command

The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp! cries sheWith silent lips. Give me your tired, your poor,Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost, to me.

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

It continued to do so even when the angle of our passage no longer permitted me to get a glimpse ofHer, all the way to the docks of Ellis Island.

At last the ferry bumped to halt against the docks at Ellis Island. All ashore ats goin ashore!came the captains cracked voice over the boats loudspeakers and not only in English, for though Ionly heard English myself, all around me I noticed heads jerking up everywhere across the deckhouse,people from every culture and clime rushing to the doors, making for the deck and the gangways which

now were lowered to the dock.Well, Esh, what say we get going? said Lu, adjusting her pack, giving her guns a swift, efficientcheck.

Sure.If you dont mind us, ladies, may we follow you? asked John. He and Annie, now standing arm

and arm, smiled at each other and then at us.Come on! sang Lu. Last one offs a rotten tax-collector!Heh! laughed John. Come on, Annie, theyve got their hearts in the right place, anyway.Yeah, well, just dont tell Wyatt. Okay, Im ready if you are!

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And, with John and Annie following us like young lovers on a promenade, we made our way to thegangway and down it to the dock and Ellis Island. As we reached the ground, I looked back for just aninstant what was that ominous shadow there in the middle of that sudden swell of water humping upthere in the harbor, right behind us? A shark? Or something much larger, more fearsome? Was thatGodzilla, perhaps? Or the IRS, waiting to pounce on the new immigrants to get a cut of whatever theyhad as, fresh from Immigration and Naturalization, they finally reached the city itself?

At first, Ellis Island itself wasnt all that much to see: lots and lots of long, wall-less sheds like

carports, their tin roofs high and peaked, with a large overhang, probably to keep the rain off those in thesheds when the weather turned foul, standing side-by-side. Before each shed was a long, long line ofpeople, some grumbling, some complaining loudly, some cheerful and full of excitement. Many of themwere eating from box- and bag-lunches, which they had apparently carried with them from whatevervessel theyd come from. Under the sheds were a host of bureaucrats, male and female, busy checkingpapers carried by the people being processed through the sheds, looking through whatever luggage theyhad brought, and certifying forms for them. The place was a quiet, orderly madhouse.

Oh I think thats where were supposed to be! cried Annie. Come on, John, its that one, overthere! See? The one with the rainbow and the bells?

Uh-oh okay, you two, the better half says I gotta go. You two, take care, hear?We will! You too! Good-bye, Annie, good-bye, John! we called, as the two of them hurried away

from us toward one of the sheds.Lu, do I see what I think I do?What, Esh?See that woman over there? I whispered. The one whos checking that guys luggage?What about her?Look closely at her. See anything funny about her?Of course n- uh-oh, youre right. Shes got . . . horns on her head. The cap doesnt quite hide

them. What on Earth is going on here?!Shhh! Theyll hear us, dammit . . .Ive got a bad feeling about this, Esh . . .Yeah, well, where can we go from here? We sure as shit cant go back where we came from, can

we?Maybeyou cant, but Ill bet we can hop right back on that boat and hey, whered it go?What?The boat, stupid! Its gone!See?

Therevegotta be other boats Bets, dear?Her answer to that was a disgusted sigh, followed by, This is the last time I let you talk me into

anything like this!Oh? Hey, whose car had the breakdown? And who was the one who wanted to take the short-cut?

And who decided to stop in at this place? And Oh,fuckit, Esh! Come on, I guess wed better get in line . . .With which, jamming her hat down hard on her head, so that the brim covered her eyes, she began

striding determinedly toward one of the sheds.Wait for me, dammit! I called out, running to catch up. Ignoring me, she strode on until she came

to the tail end of one line. At least lets find out what line we belong in!It dont matter, lady, ones as good as another.Whore you? I called out to the man who had spoken. He stood in the line next to the one Lu had

just joined, a short, mustachioed man with a sad face, a huge wife, and six squalling children, their

various items of luggage carried in their hands or lying on the ground at their feet. Every so often theirline would move up by one or two, and then, kicking the luggage they werent holding ahead of them, thelittle family would move another few inches toward the shed. Nueva Italia, said the sign above theshed.

Me? Im Antonio de Bellini, and this is my wife, and my bambinos. Briefly, he turned to look hisfamily over, then, sighing heavily, said, Im a carpenter, and my wife, shes a dressmaker . . . I know Idont talk English so good

Actually, you speak it very well! I told him, trying to make him look at least a little less sad.

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Not so good, he contradicted me. I tried to learn her comin over here on the boat from mycousin Luigi, he speaks it real good, but we jus didnt have enough time to learn as much as weshouldve. Anyway, glad to meet you, he told me, sticking out a hand as I walked toward him.

As I shook it, Lu called out to me, Hey, idiot over here!Uh, your frien, she wants you . . . Anthony told me.Okay, gotta go . . . where are you going?I dunno, wherever they put us, I guess. I mean, I got about 700 Lira in my pockets an a letter of

recommendation so I can go to work forDom Biancheri, has a big place down near the Bowery, hes gota, a what-you-call-em, a big restaurant and several places he rents out, he needs a carpenter to do themaintenance work and things like that, and his partner owns a dress factory, an Beatrice, here hepronounced his wifes name Bee-ah-tree-che can work in it. An the bambinos can go to school. Ihope, he said morosely.

Esh, damn your eyes!Okay, okay, Im coming! Well, Im glad to meet you, Mr. de Bellini. Hope you like our

country! I turned and started jogging over to where Lu stood at the end of the line next to Mr. deBellinis, glaring daggers at me and tapping her foot impatiently. Hold your hair on, Lu, Im coming . ..

Yeah, well, sure didnt look like it, she grumped as I took my place in the line beside her.You think the horns that woman has on her head are real? I asked nervously.Oh, its probably just some disease she had. Not polite to stare.Its not her Im staring at. Cant even see her at all, guess she went someplace else. Its . . .What?If what that woman had was a disease, the people working in these sheds all have the same thing

she did. Take a look.Lu did. Her face blanched. Oh, shit, youre right . . . What is this place?Looks like Ellis Island did back about a hundred and seventy years ago, in pictures Ive seen. The

people here, I mean the ones off the boat, dont look all that different from the immigrants that were inthose pictures, except that I think theyre from more places, not just Europe. Look around. I think I sawa Zulu chief over there, and over that way, looks like a family of Jains from India.

Lu swung her head this way and that, staring at the long, long lines coiled before the sheds andstreaming through them. Finally, she said, looking somewhat relieved, I guess youre right about theincomers, I mean. But the people in the sheds, working in them oh, shit! she hissed.

What?That ones got a tail . . .

Which one?Pointing from the hip, trying not to draw too much attention, she indicated a large, paunchy manworking at a table at the head of our line, quickly riffling through papers that had been handed to him bya thin, balding man attended by two women and three children, stamping the papers with a huge rubberstamp. I stared. The man working at the table looked like a rather ordinary man, dressed in white shirt,limp bow-tie, gray suspenders, baggy brown trousers, and a canvas cap with a green eye-shade. He wastaller than average, brown-eyed, gray-haired, clean-shaven, with heavy shoulders and chest and a healthybeer-belly. Nothing out of the ordinary except, wasnt that a . . .

Hes got a tail, I told Lu, stunned.So Im not seeing things, she muttered.Not only that, but theres . . . a barb on the end of that thing, isnt there, Lu?Lets put it this way, darlin either he sure does, or were both crazy the same way.And hes got . . . horns, too. Just like a bull. You can just barely see em under the brim of that

cap.

But he doesnt actlike . . .You mean, like a demon? No, he just looks like an ordinary guy, doing an ordinary job, and whenhes through hell go have an ordinary beer or some gin somewhere, and go home to an ordinary flat withan ordinary wife and ordinary kids . . . except for that tail. And those horns.

Maybe its just some strange disease. And once we go through, wellcatch it, and then well be likethem.

Maybe. Hey!What?Look over there. No, to my left, I whispered. Dont act like youre staring, though.

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What? Shifting her stance slightly so that she could look past me without being too obvious aboutit, Lu looked to see what I was talking about.

Oh, my God . . .Is that who . . . I mean what . . . I mean who I thinkthey are, Lu?That guy looks just like . . . just like . . . She clamped both hands firmly over her mouth, trying to

hold back a storm of giggles that fought savagely to erupt in spite of all her efforts to stifle it.Like Alfred E. Neuman? He sure does, doesnt he? Hes even wearing that black suit Norman

Mingo painted him in in MADs early issues. And the lady with him looks just like his girlfriend, MoxieCowznowski. In spite of my attempts not to be obvious about staring at them, the man and his lady,who were part of a line to a shed about six over from ours, to my left, had spotted me looking at them. Ahuge, gap-toothed smile on his idiot face, the man waved at us. Beside him, his lady, who wore a printdress patterned in Mandelbrt sets in every color of the rainbow and then some, smiled coyly, revealingthat, like her boyfriend or husband or whatever it was, she too lacked a front tooth (only whereas hismissing tooth was the upper right front, her was the upper left front). The two of them, holding handslike schoolchildren in love, looked blissfully happy. Potrzbie, said the sign above their line. And thepeople in the line with the two we had spotted all looked like refugees from a Will Elder cartoon, or oneof Harvey Kurtzmans madder moments, or some of George Woodbridges Southern Gothic jobs, or DonMartins best (frogs, Neanderthals with hinged feet, and all).

?She was in MAD # 45. Remember? They had the whole collection on file at the UCB library, in

the Reference section, all the way from MAD # 1, from 1952, to the last one, the one that came out abouttwo months before Al Gore had the staff of MAD arrested and the magazine banned. The early issueswere the best . . .

Hey am I crazy, or are those wings on his feet? said Lu.Youre crazy. Theyre just Keds. Really grody ones, too.Oh.And look overthere.What? Good God, are they for real?We had turned to look, as discretely as possible, at another one of the lines, this one off to our right.

There was a gigantic duck wearing a sailors jacket and a blue sailors cap and nothing else, arguingfuriously with three smaller ducks who were dressed in short jackets and billed cps, who might have beenhis sons or nephews. And near them was still another duck, this one dressed in top hat, a monocle, spats,and a medium-length coat, momentarily leaning on a short, straight cane, having a quiet discussion with agreat goose that wore bib-alls and a striped shirt and carried a pocket calculator and an oil-can. In spite

of the distance between ourselves and the two of them, we could clearly hear the duck, who looked to bea good deal older than the goose; he had a Scots accent thick enough to cut with a knife. Just ahead ofthe ducks was a huge mouse, his ears so big and round they looked like cross-sections of balloonsattached to his head, dressed in a short red pants with enormous yellow buttons; he was holding handswith another, similar lady mouse wearing high-heeled pumps and a polka-dot print dress. And all ofthese had but three fingers and a thumb on each hand even the ducks and the goose had hands ratherthan wings and wore white gloves on them. Elsewhere in the line were all manner of characters,including a princess with dark, dark hair attended by seven gnomes or dwarves; another princess, thisone blond, holding hands with a handsome prince; a lot of perfectly natural-looking bears who spent agreat deal of time trying to scratch their backs on whatever posts and railings they could find for the job;a gigantic toad, a badger, a mole, and a rat, all sitting in a genuine, ancient Pierce-Arrow motor-carwhich advanced about half a foot every few minutes as the line steadily flowed toward the shed; andcountless others, many looking more like two-dimensional drawings than they did real live naturalbeings. And the sign above them said: WED Productions.

Next to them was still another line full of strange beings, including a gigantic rabbit walking happilyalong with a beautiful woman, the two of them obviously deeply in love with each other; a cluster of beings including pigs, ducks, rabbits, and something that suggested a marsupial overdosing on acombination of speed and testosterone; stegosauri, duck-billed dinosaurs, a Tyrannosaurus Rex, andmany other species of Archosauria, all interacting as if they were the best of friends rather than predatorsand prey, which by rights they should have been; a family of mice, all carrying luggage, with a hugeorange cat as a companion; a saintly man whose head was surrounded by a halo, holding the trustinghand of a tiny child, surrounded by many other children and a cluster of adults, all of whom seemed toadore him; a strange being with enormous eyes in a head a little like that of a hammerhead shark,

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dressed up in a womans long coat, fox wrap, and high heels, attended by a boy and a girl; and the signabove this line said, DREAMWORKS.

Off to the left was a line filled with people well, beings dressed in a myriad different styles,including buck naked. Many of them were armed with strange, outr weapons that looked exactly likesome of the more far-out gadgets in the ancient Buck Rogers comic-strip. Some, dressed in loin-clothsand rag sandals, were apparently slaves of others, the latter dressed in decadently splendid costumes andsurrounded by retinues of armed bodyguards or carried in sedan chairs by straining slave bearers. One

young man, dressed in a close-fitting suit rather like the sort worn by divers, carrying a face-mask andwearing oxygen-tanks on his back, was attended by a little being bouncing along at his side that lookedjust like a furry basketball with three eyes and three stubby legs, and was about the size of a basketball.Behind the boy and his companion came two tall, three-legged beings with great flap hands, wearing noclothing and no atmospheric gear. Another boy was riding along on a huge dragon-like being whosefront hands constantly played with a box on its chest; the box gave off rapid conversation in a Cockneyaccent straight off the Liverpool docks. There was also a small group of men accompanied by a tall, birdlike being who, apparently delighted by the strange sights it saw all around, was telling itscompanions, sweeping an arm-wing around to indicate various beings on either side, Him one-one two,two-two four that one-one two, nottwo-tow four thatnot even one-one-two! (indicating with disgusta girl in another line who fit the description bubble-head to a T). The line itself seemed to have comefrom a land-stage on which were parked a number of tall, slender rocket-ships, not far from where we hadleft the ferry. And the sign above them all read: The Golden Age of Science Fiction.

Still another line, two lines over to the right, was filled with engineers, scientists, and numerousother people, most armed with slide-rules, pocket calculators, even laptop computers. Some pushedblackboards ahead of them on wheels, many of their colleagues walking along beside them busily writingout long strings of equations and notations on the board in various colors of chalk. Several people in theline were carrying the skulls and other bony parts of animals long extinct, vehemently arguing with oneanother over the bones, sometimes battling to retain possession of them from some of the others, whostrove to wrest the bones from their owners. One group of grim-faced men walking along togethercarried Geiger-counters and wore moonsuits, the sort designed to protect against radiation. Anothergroup, all carrying laptop computers and cases full of computer diskettes and CD-ROMs, were happilyarguing over software design. The sign above that line said: BRAINSTORMS, GADGETS, AND NEWIDEAS.

Hey, check thatout! Lu said with a shudder, pointing to another line over in the distance to ourleft. Looking over, I saw

Jesus!

I dont think hed like it, either. Are they really The beings in the line, who argued and chatted and wept and laughed just like those in the otherlines, all looked like refugees from Weird Tales. There were ghasts, and night-gaunts, and a giganticdhole creeping along in the line, and rugose things with gigantic, pentagram-shaped feet, and ghouls, andeven one being who had a nest of waving tentacles where its mouth should have been. Interspersed withthem were all manner of werewolves, vampires, mummies, furious giant carrots that looked like JamesArness on a Bad Makeup day, and assorted other B-movie refugees; a really nasty-looking demoncarrying a can of gasoline and a box of matches with an elan that suggested a pyromaniac on holiday, hislaughter like broken glass going down the throat of a battered child, his face shifting and changing frommoment to moment, sharks mouths opening and disappearing again on his chin, his cheeks, his forehead,his skin ranging in every shade from death-mask white through every color of a diseased human rainbowto midnight black; a cherry-red 1958 Plymouth whose sneering, gleaming-chrome front grill simplyscreamed Attitude!, across whose seats within were sprawled several sad-looking skeletons; a skeletalman in a tuxedo with a pumpkin for a head, holding hands with a lady fashioned not in flesh but rather

out of a patchwork of rags and yarn, the two of them followed by a long train of assorted ghoulies andghosties; a vast turtle waddling along next to an enormous spider-thing: and right in the midst of them Hey, is that Shhh! Lu hissed explosively. Lets not call their attention to us, shall we?But apparently the damage was already done. Suddenly the little family the tall, almost

anorexically thin but still extremely sexy mother in the long, black dress with its tattered, floor-lengthhem; the short daddy with the processed hair and the pointy-toed shoes and the thin little gigolomustache; the old granny; the fat little boy in the striped T-shirt with the logo My Parents Went to theSack of Samarkand and All I Got Was This Lousy T-shirt and knee-length pants; his slightly oldersister with the high forehead, stare-y eyes, pasty-white skin, black dot eyes, and short black dress with

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the high collar, cutting out paper-dolls exactly one of which had three legs; the bodiless hand thatscurried now here, now there, disconcerting everyone but the little family, and general having a helluvagood time as it goosed everyone who came within goosing range; the tallish, utterly bald, maniacallygrinning man in the monks habit with the weird eyes; and the strange little being that was all over hair,showing not even eyes, ears, or mouth all of them looking as if they had stepped out of some strangeold black-and-white photograph, even their skins so pasty-white and their hair so dark or so light thatthere was no color to any of them at all, turned our way and began to wave and cry out to us merrily: Hi

there! How do you like New York? And somewhere music began to play, and a chorus began to sing:Theyre creepy and theyre ooky . . . All the other beings in the line tended to give them as wide aberth as possible. And the sign above them all said: Ia-R'lyeh! Cthulhu fhtagn! Ia! Ia!

I dont think we want to go wherever theyre going, do we, Lu?No, I dont think we do, either.Oh, my God!What?Look over there . . . I pointed to the line to our right. The sign above the shed where it was

headed said: Which Way Did the 60s Go? A decorative border of paisleys and flowers surroundedthe words. The line itself was filled with Hippies, narcs, and others straight out of the holopages of ScottP. Simons Up Until the Music Died: The Sixties and the Countercultural Revolution They Spawned.And right beside us in that line was

I saw him on the boat! I hissed. That fat guy!Hey, look at all the cockroaches! And the mice!At the fat mans feet was a horde of cockroaches and mice, attended by a humongous great orange,

fluffy-tailed cat. The mice were dancing, the cockroaches were marching along on their hind legs,following a larger roach that seemed to be waving something long and thin in the air.

Do you want to eat some crunchies? the fat man was asking the cat.Do you wanna buy a duck? hissed the cat.Cmon kitty, eat some crunchies! exhorted the man.Cmon, Fatty, lets eat! cried the cat.Flapdoodle, kittkaboodle, kitty kitty, cow cow! sang the mice.Mowptootle, mammydoodle, oom pappa mau mau! chanted the roaches.Uh . . . said Lu.Then, with a jerk, the line next to us surged ahead rapidly; the man, cat, roaches, and mice were

suddenly lost to us in the gloom of their shed.Uh . . . said I.

Dear fuck, what a place! Lu told me, her eyes huge.What made you pickthis line, anyway, Lu? I asked her, hoping a change of subject would help.Take a look, stupid! No, up there, see it? That sign?Oh, duh, I told her, clapping a hand to my forehead. Club Vesta. Im glad youve still got

some brains I think I left mine back on the boat . . . I looked around, then, at the signs hanging abovethe entrances to the other sheds, under which the endless lines were snaking. Dionysos Chalice, saidone; the line before it consisted entirely of men, as ours, I now saw, on inspection, consisted entirely ofwomen. Another, very fancy sign, informed us that the line passing beneath it was headed for

Phillips, Marsh & SonsBook Dealers and Antiquarians

Dealers in Curios

and Times Finestand Rarest Vintages

Below it came a long, long line of men, women, and children, all with their noses buried in books ormagazines, or else arguing furiously with one another over a book or other publication. Another, abovethe heads of a long line of dispirited, despairing men and women dressed in suits or blouses and skirts, allcarrying briefcases, just said Dilbert. Still another said $lack

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Now, I know Ive seen that guy before! Who is he? Lu whispered, staring at a tall man, his facewreathed in a positively solar smile, standing in the $lack line amidst a host of Gen-X Rippies. He wassmoking a huge pipe, and even from here, I could smell the aroma of burning rope.

I think I saw him in some of the things they had stored at UCB in the same place they had theMADs and the National Lampoon collection, I whispered back. There were some magazines calledThe Stark Fist, something like that, and there was this character in them it was some kind of religion,only it was all a joke, and the guy who was supposed to have founded it was this J. R. Dobbs. His

followers, if you want to call them that, called him Bob. He always smoked a pipe full of marijuana,he always smiled, and he was always looking straight at you whenever you looked at him

Just like that guy is doing. Christ, he looks just like that guy on Life With Father, the series theywere running on the Nostalgia Channel last year. Straight out of 1950.

I think Microsoft used him as a logo or something like that, back before it got busted up by theSupreme Court in 1999.

Hey, is that a centaurI see over there in that line, the one about five down on your right? Andlook over there God, those cantbe elves, can they?

Uh . . . I dont think I want to look.This is weird.So what else is new?How long will it take us to get up to the front? This stupid line is moving at about two teakettle

units per eon!Next?Whups! Uh, hello, sir . . .We were at the front of the line. Somehow we had moved from about fifty feet away from the shed

to the table where the man with the horns and barbed tail was processing papers. The man, who hadenormous square, yellow teeth like those of some large grazing animal, looked fresh and rested, andmoved with crisp efficiency, in spite of obviously having been at this awhile. On his shirt-pocket therewas a little rectangular card that informed us that he was Giorgio BDikat.

Hello, ladies. I presume you plan on continuing on with the Tour?Er, yes, Lu told him nervously.No problem, he told us pleasantly. Here just sign these, then get your luggage checked over

there He pointed to a table behind him, where a woman and man were going through the luggage of awoman who had been ahead of us in line. Then go over to that line over there, where theyll give youyour inoculations, and then you catch the gig to the City, and thats it.

Inoculations? I asked him.

Yeah. Some of the people who come here are . . . carrying some interesting on-board pets. Youknow. Like STDs, things like that. Not that you are, mind you. This is just orders from Public Health.Everybodys gotta do it.

If you . . . say so . . . Where do we sign?Whatdo we sign? snapped Lu. Do we get to read it first?Sure, he told us, handing each of us a form and a pen.I looked mine over. It said:

I, the undersigned, do hereby declare and affirm that I am tired, poor, and yearning tobreathe free.

There was a place below for a signature. And that was all.

Hunh? Why do they want us to sign this? I asked him.

I dunno, lady, I just work here. Ya gotta sign, or they dont let you off the island.If you say so . . . Quickly, I scrawled my signature below the short line of text. Beside me, Luwas doing the same, glancing at me as if for reassurance while she did so.

When we were done, we handed the documents back to Mr. BDikat, who carefully filed them awayin a large cardboard file-box sitting on the table next to him. Okay, ladies, go over there, have themcheck your luggage, and getcher shots, and then someonell show you where to catch the harbor gig.

O- okay, Lu said. Come on, Esh, wed better get moving . . .At the baggage-table there was a tall, drop-dead gorgeous woman dressed in white blouse, black

slacks, and low boots waiting for us. At odds with the 1890 ambience of the place, she had extremelydark skin and professionally corn-rowed hair. She carried a clipboard, and at her waist was a holstered

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pistol. Okay, my dears, lets see your luggage, she told us cheerfully. Just spread it all out on thetable here . . .

We havent got much, Lu told her.Your packs, okay? Take off your back-packs, empty em out on the table. And your coats, and

your pockets.Uh-oh . . . I whispered to Lu.Shit, I dont see how we can get out of it. Okay, here we go . . . Wrestling the backpack off her

back and laying it on the table, she began pulling everything out of it. Soon several guns andammunition boxes, assorted medicines, a bag full of sandwiches and another full of fruit, tools forcleaning her guns, a battered copy of The Book of Five Rings, sewing items, and a seemingly endlessstore of other items were soon laid out on the table. Watching the woman who was checking them overanxiously, Lu finally heaved a vast sigh of relief when the woman said, admiration filling her voice,Nice arsenal! Okay, honey, go ahead and put everything back in the pack, youre fine. And now you,sweetie . . .

Soon I had the contents of my own pack laid out for her inspection: a .38 Beretta, my beloved .45hogleg Colt, three boxes of ammunition for the Colt and two for the Beretta, a small sewing-kit, a bag oftrail-mix, my Polaroid camera, and five paperback books. The books included R. R. McCammons SwanSong, reprinted by Century Publications after 15 years of having been banned by government order; The

Pocket Shakespeare, containing some of his best plays and the sonnets; Crowleys Autohagiography,another Century reprint of formerly banned books; Lawsons marvelous sci-fi novel The Golden Orbit;and my battered copy of the Bible, the one that had my gentile grandpas signature in it: Nations riseand fall, but this abides forever. Love, Grandpa Lee.

Staring hard at my Bible, the woman muttered, I wonder . . .Hunh?Oh, sorry, just thinking. Well, no problems here. Okay, hon, go ahead and put your stuff back in

your pack. Youre both fine. You want to go over to that table there and get your shots and all, now,she told us, pointing to the table behind hers.

Sure, I told her, stuffing things back into my pack. Come on, Lu . . .Right.When I finally had my pack on again and we were making our way to the next table, Lu whispered

to me, Did you see herhorns?Yeah you could just see them above her hair. Brr . . . No tail, though.Could she have tucked it away in her pants?Who knows?

Okay, ladies, ready for your shots?A short, round little woman wearing a public health nurses outfit was standing at the table behindMr. BDikats. On the table before her was a box full of syringes, another one labeled Medical Sharpswith a biohazard symbol on it, and some swabs. Okay, she told us cheerily, take off those jackets androll up your sleeves . . .

The nurse injected each of us with a series of vaccines, using disposable syringes. As she wasvaccinating me, she told us: Ladies, if youre wondering what Im injecting the both of you with,thesere to protect you against everything from gonorrhea to Ebola, and anything in between. Cant takea chance on letting something nasty get started down there therere enough vectors down there to keepanything that wants to get going happy as a kid turned loose in a candy store, unless we do somethingabout it. So we give you what we have: vaccines against TB both virulent and the regular kind anda cocktail against various childhood diseases like mumps and measles that could kill some of the ladiesdown there, cause they come from places that . . . well, places that dont have those diseases, so theydont have any natural immunity to them. Theres also smallpox vaccine, something for the common

cold, and one for AIDS Lu and I glanced at each other. When did they get an effective handle on that?! Thought the onlything that stopped AIDS in its tracks was the big die-off of 2012 and the Harem Years!

Ignoring us, the woman continued: Course, theres no guarantee something new wont comealong, you never can tell, but weve prepped you against everything we know about, and we usuallycatch new bugs within a week. Got a full lab back there on Governors Island She indicatedsomething in the eastern distance with a quick jerk of her chin. So we almost always catch whatever itis before it gets started. Dont worry your chances of catch anything worsen a mild case of flu arejust about zip.

Thats good to know, Lu told her, acid tingeing her words.

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These injections they dont hurt! I said, grinning. I had always hatedgetting shots.Thats right, luv, new type of injector, the nurse told us. See? She held up one of the syringes

with which shed just injected me. Instead of a needle, it had a stubby little projection which ended in arough area. Ends covered with these tiny little gizmos that sort of push the stuff into your systems viayour pores I dont really understand the technology, but they say it works a lot better than the oldneedles, and its a lot cleaner. And there arent really any sharp edges to cut or anything, so its a lotsafer as far as handling the used ones goes. Okay, Im finished with your friend now, luv, she told Lu,

your turn next . . .While I rolled my sleeves back down the nurse had injected her vaccines into both my arms Lu,

taking off her jacket, began rolling her sleeves up. Soon the nurse had finished with her, too. As Lurolled down her sleeves and put her jacket back on, the nurse told us, Okay, youre ready to roll. Boatover theres leaving for the City you could hear the Capital Letter quite plainly in about 10minutes, so you want to get moving. Have a nice day, now, she told us, waving cheerily at us as wegathered up our things and started off toward the docks on the southeastern part of the island.

As we came out the other side of the shed, we saw, several lines away to our left, Annie and John,looking radiant, waiting for a launch. Good-bye, Annie called to us, waving. Maybe well see youagain some day!

Where are you going? Lu called back.Maybe California, maybe Arizona, maybe the Oregon Ter er, Oregon State, or Columbia . . . I

mean, Washington State. Not sure right now, John called to us. Any way we can get hold of you bymail or anything?

I . . . dont know, Lu told them, her voice faltering. She turned to look at me.Ready to board, ladies?A little man stood next to us. He wore a bosuns uniform, and a name-tag on his lapel told us he was

Warrant Officer Dave Jones, assigned toHSS Eurydice.Uh . . . maybe, Lu told him. Is there any way that somebody can reach us once we start . . . once

we go over there? she said, pointing toward the Manhattan skyline east of us.Sure! You just have em send it to General Delivery, Level 6, and you cn pick it up there or

forward it wherever you want.Thanks!No problem, my dear, he said, tipping his hat and grinning a smile that was mostly bridgework.Annie! General Delivery, Level 6! Lu called to Annie, who, with John, was getting ready to

board their launch.Got it! Same as for us, dear! Annie called back. Wish us luck . . .

Oh, luck to you both! I cried. Lu and I waved as the two of them went aboard their launch anddisappeared into the cabin. Then the motor of the launch, which had been idling for awhile, suddenlywent into a higher gear. Backing deftly out of its slip, the little boat was soon out in mid-harbor, headingnot toward the city, but instead down the Hudson toward the Lower Bay and the Atlantic.

Where are they going? I asked Warrant Officer Jones.Proly to Long Beach. Theres a railhead there, where they can catch a train to Trenton and transfer

to one anywhere they want. Theyre takin the HSSLethe, I noticed. A lot o folks who take theLetheare bound for a new life out West somewheres, mebbe San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, places like that.Theyll proly be takin a train from there straight out West.

That sounds right, said Lu.Dont worry, theyll do well an if they write, you cn pick up the mail once you gets to Level 6.Uh, where do we go? I asked him.Oh yeah, sorry. TheEurydice, like I said. Right this way, ladies . . . He started off toward the

south-eastside docks at a brisk hobble, the two of us hard-pressed to keep up with him. In spite of being

bow-legged and apparently arthritic, he moved faster than a much younger man normally did, sprightlyand full of an amazing vigor. Okay, yeah, here we are! he said, rubbing his hands together insatisfaction. Cmon, ladies, just follow me . . .

There in front of us, its idling engine sounding almost like the purr of a tiger, was a ferry-boatsimilar to the one that had carried us into the harbor from that enigmatic shore where wed foundourselves after leaving Level 1. This heres the Eurydice, our guide told us, rather unnecessarily, forthe name was prominently displayed on a broad bronze plaque at her bow. About a hundred feet long,she had a good-sized cabin, through whose windows could be seen several women moving about, talkingamong themselves, doing all the mysterious people things that people seem to do when you cant seethem too clearly, just enough details to pique our curiosity but never satisfy it.

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The boats flanks were a deep midnight black, but her three-storied cabin and superstructure hadbeen painted an amazingly brilliant cerise with white trim. I stared at it.

Whatsa matter, mdear? Jones asked, cackling at my discomfiture.Just . . . odd paint-job for a boat, I told him.Mmp. Well, come on, dont want to be late, were about to leave . . . come this way.With mounting misgivings, I followed him, Lu at my side.A penny for your thoughts, Esh.

Not to be too pecunious about it, Lu, but all I can think of right now is In for a penny, in for apound. We cant go back . . .

No, I guess not.I just wish I knew more about where we are going now.Well, only way to find out is to go there, I guess.Up the ramp we went, onto the board deck. There Jones turned to us and said, Thisunll get you

where ya wanta go, ya know, ladies.Uh, does it? Lu responded, her tone suggesting something between an attempt to be polite and a

true request for information. It struck me how uncertain she looked. Lu neverlooked uncertain evenwhen badly shaken up, as Id seen her once after shed had to deal with some clown whod made thelethally grisly strategic error of attempting to try to mug her on one of San Franciscos meaner streets,shed never seemed uncertain, as if shed stepped from firm concrete to swamp turning rapidly intoquicksand.

Hes got thatun right!Startled, I whirled about to find a man even older than Jones, clearly an ancient, standing between us

and the boats cabin. Dressed in a uniform that might have been worn by a ships captain during theAmerican War of Independence, he was all of about 5 feet tall, skinny and knotted like the branches of avery old oak tree. And yet, like Jones, he exhibited an amazing vitality and weird, radiant cheer.Pleased ta meetcha! he told us, holding out his hand. Im Capn Karon. Ill be takin you and theladies already inside, there indicating the cabin with a jerk of his thumb in a few minutes. Yoursatisfaction is our job we only take ya where ya really wanna go. Where ya needta go!

I, uh okay . . . Lu told him slowly. Ill take your word for it.Ya better, honey I am the captain here! he cackled. Oh, uh, yeah, an do you have yer fare

ready?Fare?Wait a minute, Lu, I think I got it, I said, starting to rummage around in my pockets,

remembering the odd reaction of the captain of the ferry that had brought us to Liberty Island to the coins

Id given him. Here . . . here, I think thisll do . . . Drawing a handful of change from my jeanspocket, I sorted through it and finally decided on an ancient Clinton-head quarter, a Series 2050 J. EdgarHoover fifty-cent piece, a battered vintage plastic penny with the head of George H. W. Bush on one sideand the inevitable New World Order banner on the other, and a bright, shiny, brand-new nickel-platedtwenty-cent piece from which the enigmatic smile of Hillary Clinton regarded me. Here, I told CaptainKaron, holding them out for him to take, I think these will do.

Quickly retrieving them, he looked them over, then, one after another, bit down on each one. Staringhard at that plastic penny, he considered for a few moments. Finally, grinning, he told us, Deed theywill, ladies, deed they will. Okay, well take you across, now. If you want, theyre servin coffee anfood in the main lounge inside there, he told us, waving toward the cabin. Now, ifn youll excuse me,ladies, gotta get to m job . . . See you later. No rest for an old man, none at all.

Tipping his hat to us, he hurried away toward stairs that led up to the top floor of the cabin, presumably to supervise the job of getting the ferry from the docks here to the docks over theresomewhere at the edge of that awesome skyline east of us.

Come on, Esh, Lu told me. Winds coming up and Im starting to get a little cold. Lets go seeif theyve got any decent coffee.Sure. Following her as she made her way into the cabins main lounge, which was on the same

level as the main deck, I looked about. Here, rather than a polycultural crowd comprising men, women,and children of all ages of the sort that had filled the lounge of the ferry by which wed come to LibertyIsle, there were only women, none of them younger than seventeen or so or older than around forty-five,all of them at least passably handsome and many of them stunningly beautiful. They made me nervous as nervous as, apparently, Lu and I did them, for they drew away as we walked among them toward thesmorgasbord laid out for the passengers on three long trestle tables at one side of the room.

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There was indeed good coffee there, dispensed from several large, silver samovars. Large porcelainmugs, some bone-white, others in one or another color, some beautifully decorated with scenes rangingfrom the decorous court of Queen Victoria to the frankly pornographic, were available for those whowanted the coffee. I took one in monochromatic navy blue, and Lu, after staring oddly at the ones thathad the X-rated dcor, finally took a white one that bore a reproduction of a classic print of MiyamotoMusashi. Filling our mugs with steaming-hot coffee whose fragrance hinted of Jamaica Blue Mountain,we dosed them with the heavy fresh cream and white sugar provided in pitchers and bowls nearby. Then,

putting them on trays provided for that purpose and loading up as well on gyros and other goodies set outon the tables, we took our trays over to a table by a window which was flanked by two old high-backedseats upholstered in naugahyde or something similar, once bright red but now a sort of sad maroon.

Gee, Lu, whats next? I asked her, desultorily stirring my coffee.Picking up a gyro and taking a bite from it, for a moment she said nothing, then, once her mouth was

free, told me, Well, well know soon enough, wont we?Er. Picking a bit at the macaroni salad Id taken from the smorgasbord bar, I began looking

around. I was uncomfortable looking at our fellow passengers every time I did, I found them lookingthe two of us over right back, in a way disturbingly like the way a butcher looks over live cattle in a field,perhaps, or a big-game hunter might regard an African savanna at peak season.

So I began checking out the walls next to us. On the one next to me I found the inevitable BigHowie y Sonya, HPL Rules!, and lots of other graffiti, much of it appallingly obscene and most of itextremely juvenile, carved into the wooden panels with tools that might have ranged from something likea professional wood-burners tool to a busted pencil-stub. Some were a little more intriguing than theirpartners in literary crime: Bill G. loves Amontillado, Hinged Feet Forever! D. Martin, Take meto your leader!, Beam me up, Scotty Mos Eisley was better than this!, Melvin y Jenkins, HungLike a Sheep! (this one inside a cartoon of a leering shepherd with utterly pix

Club Vesta, Level II, Round 1.5

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