Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfume

They had some fine discussions, Alobar and Einstein. The special theory of relativity, the general theory of relativity, the unified field theory, they were what Einstein was famous for, but they were not his best work, he said. Einstein told Alobar that he had thought of many more wonderful things than relativity, but he wasn't going to let “der kats out of der bag” because he didn't trust politicians to put his ideas to moral uses.

Upon hearing some of the unpublished theories, Alobar agreed that they were wonderful, if difficult, and had best be saved for a more enlightened age. Made bold by Einstein's revelations, the janitor told the professor some secrets of his own.

Whether Einstein actually believed the janitor's stories is questionable, but he relished them. He was fascinated by Alobar's views on life and death. His depression was relieved by Alobar's cheerful nature and strongly regal bearing. When Alobar disclosed, cheerfully, that his financial nose was in the mud, Einstein dropped to his knees, rummaged in his papers until he found a royalty check from The Physical Review , and promptly endorsed it to his late-night friend.

The reason Alobar was short of cash was because he was being blackmailed. The chief custodian, suspicious of the new janitor from the onset, eventually had caught him tampering with experiments in the genetics lab. Soon he had extorted from him every penny of the proceeds from the spa sale and was demanding the bulk of his salary. It was expensive business, keeping a promise to a nymph.

That the longevity experiments at Princeton's Institute for Advanced Study were terminated in 1956 probably was due as much to faulty procedures on the part of the geneticists as to Alobar's sabotage. In trying to increase human life span by building virus-resistant cells in rodents and dogs, the scientists were barking up the wrong chromosome. In any event, by the time the custodian turned in Alobar to the police, nobody cared very much about the experiments. Alobar was questioned and released. He lost his job, of course. It was just as well. His buddy was dead.

Einstein's office was now a museum. It was very clean and very tidy. There was a rack of pipes on his desk.

Alobar hadn't been allowed to visit Albert in the hospital. He was hanging around the waiting room, however, when word came that the professor had refused surgery for the rupturing aorta that was wiping his personal equation off the blackboard of life. “It is tasteless to prolong life artificially,” Einstein had told his physicians.

Alobar's reaction was summed up ten years later by a British fashion designer named Mary Quant, who, in a different context, announced, “Good taste is death. Vulgarity is life.”

Saddened by Albert's decision, disappointed that his own philosophy had had no stronger influence upon his friend, Alobar returned to the institute to mop and mope. The following week, after the funeral (which Alobar, on principle, refused to attend), he heard a local radio interview in which the nurse who had ministered to Einstein on his deathbed attempted to re-create the German that the patient had mumbled with his last breath.

Alobar seized his broom and danced it around the boiler room. His laughter echoed through the heat ducts of the Institute for Advanced Study. No wonder they didn't understand Einstein's last words! Einstein's last words weren't in German at all. Einstein's last words were in the language of an obscure and long-lost Bohemian tribe, and had been taught to him by Alobar.

Einstein's last words were, “ Erleichda, erleichda. ”

Memories of Einstein, and of his own first (but, alas, not last) exploits as a science saboteur, distracted the prisoner “Albert Barr,” permitting him to escape momentarily from the two cells in which he was locked; the chamber of steel, cold and indestructible; the chamber of flesh, feverish and deteriorating.

The instant the reminiscence faded, the symptoms of deterioration took over, grabbing the limelight like an insecure celebrity, drowning out, with Welkian schmaltz, the shy snores of embezzlers, the out-of-sync rasps of homicidal maniacs, the nocturnal whimpers of lifelong bullyboys. The noise of aging came from deep inside him, and although it was relatively soft, it had an urgency that the distant country/western of the guards' radio did not.

More disturbing was the odor. What chemical evil could be working in his tissues to cause them to smell like the bottom drawer in a maiden aunt's dresser?

At that moment, Alobar became aware of a new symptom. His ears had started to burn. Of itself, it wasn't a ruinous sensation, and he recalled the folk wisdom that attributed ear heat to gossip. If your ears burned, it meant that someone was talking about you. That would be okay, Alobar thought, especially if it were the parole board. But at this saw-log hour of the morning, who on Earth could possibly be talking about him ?

Who, indeed?

“A thousand years old,” said Priscilla. “No-oo! He was feeding you a whopper.”

“Your man here is a scientist,” said Wiggs. “I am trained in skepticism. I'm not the chap to be swallowin' whoppers.”

“Ha! I've heard from informed sources that you believe in fairies.”

Wiggs reddened slightly. “'Tis an entirely different matter,” he said.

“Maybe not.”

“Myths explain the world.” He cleared his throat in a pedagogic manner. “Both the psychic and physical world. The world past, present, and future. When your ancient Celts spoke o' fairies, they were describin' the photon. Not the unintelligent pulse o' light that is the basis, the creator, o' all matter, but the pulse o' light charged with consciousness, the new photon that is evolvin' out o' matter. Faith, don't be gettin' me started on quantum physics and the wisdom o' the Irish. Alobar, for all his age, was no bloody fairy.”

“You know, your brogue is getting worse by the minute.”

“'Tis the drinkin'. And I shouldn't be drinkin'. Alcohol runs counter to me immortalist aspirations.”

Priscilla looked at her own glass of spirits. She thought of Ricki, waiting — perhaps worrying — at her apartment. “I shouldn't have anymore, either. Here, I'm gonna go in the kitchen and get us some ice water.”

“Arraugh!” Wiggs grabbed his collar as if he were strangling. “Water?” He rolled off the couch, still clutching his throat. “Water! Of all the liquids on Earth, the only one chosen for scrubbin' and flushin'. The liquid they rinse the baby's nappies in, the fluid that floods the gutters o' this cloud-squeezer town; a single drop o' water discolors a glass of Irish, and you, false friend, are wantin' me to pour this abrasive substance into me defenseless body!”

Priscilla giggled, which delighted him. His heart thought it was an electric toaster, set for “tan.” In her heart, the yeast was rising.

“Okay, okay, no water. What can I get you to replace the booze?”

Dr. Dannyboy straightened his tie and his eye patch, and reoccupied his seat on the sofa. The only illumination in the room was from the fireplace. It lent a cheerful glint to the cannibal cutlery above the mantel. “Another nice wet kiss would be fillin' the bill,” he said quietly.

Pushing aside anxiety about Ricki and curiosity about beets, she slid into his arms.

Across the continent, near Boston, in a cell inside Concord State Prison, Alobar's ears abruptly ceased burning.

“Ahh, I do love zippers. Zippers remind me o' crocodiles, lobsters, and Aztec serpents. I wish me tweeds had more than the single fly. . Zippers are primal and modern at the very same time. On the one hand, your zipper is primitive and reptilian, on the other, mechanical and slick. A zipper is where the Industrial Revolution meets the Cobra Cult, don't you think? Ahh. Little alligators of ecstasy, that's what zippers are. Sexy, too. Now your button, a button is prim and persnickety. There's somethin' Victorian about a row o' buttons. But a zipper, why a zipper is the very snake at the gate of Eden, waitin' to escort a true believer into the Garden. Faith, I should be sewin' more zippers into me garments, for I have many erogenous zones that require speedy access. Mmm, old zipper creeper, hanging head down like the carcass of a lizard; the phantom viper that we shun in daytime and communicate with at night.”