Tom Robbins - Jitterbug Perfume

“Where? Did he go wrong?” Her voice was limp and webby, as if it were being filtered through mummy wrapping. “I was under the impression that he did everything right.”

“Sure and 'twasn't right puttin' the torch to that laboratory. Landed him in Concord, where he's in a bloody fix. And 'twas completely unnecessary.”

“He gave his promise.”

“No matter. 'Twas in vain. Ye see, even if MIT, or any other institution, should come up with a purple elixir, some formula for indefinitely extendin' life, it wouldn't help those old boys in the White House and the Pentagon. Not a whit. The death wish is so ingrained in 'em, in every polluted cell o' their shriveled old brains, that nothin' could make a difference. They can change their diets, change their chemistry, but they can't change their fundamental attitudes. If ye could peek at their personal TV listings, ye'd find they've got a fiery finish scheduled on every channel. What's more, they're lookin' forward to it.”

“But why?” she asked weakly.

“'Tis their religion. To a man, your leaders believe that life on this ball o' clay is merely a test. An entrance exam for eternity. 'Tis the next life they're interested in, a life spent swappin' tales o' power with God, sittin' around the lobby o' the Paradise Hotel. That's why they're so dangerous, those righteous old farts. If they pushed the button and furnaced the Earth, they'd say the Earth had it comin'. Sin and immortality and all. Most o' them are secretly wishin' for it. Fry those of us who are at ease with Nature and enjoyin' ourselves, then harpsichord off to their reward. No wonder people are scared silly. Most o' them won't let it show, but they're scared. Look at the line outside this house. It grows longer week by week.”

“What do they want?”

“Those people in line? They want somebody to tell 'em they have a chance at the i-n-g of life and not just the e-d.”

“Are you going to tell them, Wiggs?”

He sat upright and ran his fingers through his copse of chromium curls. “Me? I don't know. I had a fling with messiahhood once. The Caesars tried to crucify me, but they only got one eye. Ha! Still, I wonder if 'twas worth it. If you look this good to me out o' one eye, darlin', imagine how ye'd look out o' two.” As if releasing a pigeon from a cage, he freed a sigh. The pigeon was so heavy it could barely fly. Priscilla stroked his jaw. Sensing some pity in the gesture, he brushed her hand away.

“At any rate, 'tis too early to help the poor bastards. If I let 'em in here now, they'd only feel ripped off. Just like you, they'd be lookin' around for the laboratories. How could I make 'em understand that I am the laboratory? And not a very good one. I drink too much. And I let me daughter get chubby.

“When I established the Last Laugh Foundation, it was to research the psychological barriers to immortality. Because what I learned from Alobar was that we have to evolve beyond our death consciousness if we expect to claim our divine right to life everlastin'. If we expect to be i-n-g instead of e-d. When I met Professor Morgenstern six months ago and found that he'd become a bloomin' nonstop immortalist, I invited him, at great expense, to take up residency here, not merely because o' the credibility he'd lend to the joint but because I thought he'd be settin' up a lab, and we could run some test-tube experiments out o' here as well. Oh my, and the fairies tricked me on that one! But it all fits together. Do ye know what 'tis called, that jig Morgenstern is always doin'?”

There was no response from Priscilla. Unless “Zznnphh” may be considered a response. She was snoring.

It was a pretty little snore. A rustling of scarabs in the mummy wrappings. Wiggs listened attentively. Most snoring is composed by Beethoven or Wagner, although a few times Wiggs had heard heavy metal rock performed on the somnambulate bassoon. But Priscilla's snore, it had a Stevie Wonder sound. A lyrical scrap left over from “My Cherie Amour.” Wiggs tried to hum along.

For a while, he listened and watched, marveling at the manner in which the dawn light seemed to cling to her lashes, at the tiny shadow cast by her Frito nose.

Then he slid gently off of the couch and gathered his tweeds. Huxley Anne would be waking soon, and he must be there. There were nine bedrooms in the Last Laugh Foundation, but he shared a room with his child. Never did he want her to go looking in the morning for a parent who was really a bookend.

Before he climbed the stairs, however, he tiptoed into the dining room and surveyed the centerpiece. Selecting the largest of the beets, a specimen that weighed as much as the skull of a lemur, he fetched it back to the den and laid it upon the cushion next to Priscilla's snore.

Pris slept for about two hours. The length of a Stevie Wonder concert and a few minutes more. When she was awakened by a thud-a-thump on the ceiling, she knew, even before opening her eyes, exactly where she was.

She caught a whiff of Irish Spring cologne. She sensed the presence of a face beside her own. Smiling, she turned toward the face and kissed it.

Blech!

What she kissed was rough and cold and flavored of topsoil.

Her lids popped open. Any morning light that might have been stuck to her lashes fell away like spilled sugar.

For a long time, she sat there regarding the beet, looking at it with optimism, misgiving, wonderment, bewilderment, and slight disgust, like a beginning medical student confronting her first anatomical drawing of a prostate gland.

At that moment, in Concord, Massachusetts, Alobar was likewise engrossed in anatomical scholarship. He had very nearly reported to sick call that morning, but changed his mind when his ears suddenly cooled. Instead, he decided to consult his library of Penthouse magazines.

As he had pointed out to Dr. Dannyboy, frequent sexual stimulation was essential to a youthful physiometry. And for a heterosexual behind bars, what stimulation was there besides memories and magazines?

On page 83, a young actress was bent over like a map of Florida, affording an unobstructed view of the inland waterway around Cocoa Beach. Sailing in those backwaters would be sunny and brisk. But at the end of the voyage, he'd be searching the horizon for Kudra again.

He was thinking of Kudra, her courage, her character, her crazy wisdom, when a guard rattled his cage. “Barr! From the warden!” The guard shoved an official-looking envelope into the cell. “They're gonna hang ya first thing tomorrow. Tough luck. Ha ha.”

“I regret that I have but one life to give for my country,” said Alobar, mouthing what to him, from the vantage point of having seen hundreds of countries come and go, come and go, was one of the most shortsighted utterances for which a man was ever remembered.

The letter informed him that his hearing before the parole board was being postponed until “after the holidays.”

Which holidays? Did they mean Thanksgiving, which was only three days away, or all the holidays, Christmas and New Year's as well as Thanksgiving? He sat down on his bunk with his head in his hands. If they kept postponing parole, they might as well hang him. A lump formed in his throat. It was as large as a beet. It was imperative that he dissolve it.

He ripped up the letter. “I am immortal,” he said, ignoring the granny's wedding dress smell that streamed from each of his pores.

He returned to Penthouse , opening it to the centerfold. In this photograph, the actress reminded him of Alaska, the centerfold of states: big, beautiful, unrefined, empty — and absolutely irresistible to the type of man who shoots a lot of pool in taverns while dreaming constantly of striking it rich.