Tom Robbins - Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Julian finds his voice. “Sissy,” he says, each syllable an organ note of horror, pumped from the pipes at a Dracula matinée, “Oh Sissy. What have you done?”

Of course, he knows what you have done; it is all too obvious. What Julian means is why did you do what you did, how could you have done it. And you are incapable of telling him. You emerge from your trance of fury, observe the aftermath with clear if disbelieving eyes, yet nowhere inside you is there an explanation dying to catch the next bus downtown. The word cowgirls starts to form in your mouth, but it dissolves.

Never mind. This is no time for explanations. Somebody had better call an ambulance.

84.

WHATEVER ONE'S THEORY OF TIME, one had to admit that the big clock in the hospital corridor moved unusually slowly. One could imagine its springs having been French-kissed by the junior jam-taster at Knott's Berry Farm.

Seated on a spotless wooden bench that had known neither pigeon nor wino, Sissy and Julian stared at the clock, waiting for its minutes to chase its hours around — but it was a warm day and the minutes were walking.

How many hours passed before the surgeon emerged from his operating room? Sissy and Julian didn't know. The clock could not be believed. When the surgeon finally did emerge, the Gitches rose to meet him. He addressed them with efficient gravity.

“Well, he's not out of danger, but I think we can safely say he's going to make it. I'd be pretty surprised if he didn't. However, there is evidence of injury to the frontal lobe, and I have reason to fear that this injury may be permanent. The patient may never again function as a normal human being.”

“Brain damage,” muttered Julian, shaking his head. Then, more distinctly, if somewhat hysterically, he asked, “You mean he's going to be a vegetable? ”

Sissy, to whom abnormal function was old hat, could not prevent her mind's eye from focusing upon certain apparitions: a monoclewearing asparagus, for example; turnip teeth clamped upon an ivory cigarette holder; a tomato made redder by Ripple; Veggie the Gay Cucumber. To drive these images from view, she re-examined her thumbs. They were sore and bruised, but essentially unimpaired. All those years she had underestimated their physical strength.

“Vegetable?” repeated the doctor. He closed his eyes momentarily, as if he, too, were visited by strange hallucinations from the produce stalls. “Vegetable? I wouldn't say that, no. We won't ascertain the extent of the injury for some days, but there is a genuine possibility of severe and lasting behavioral defects. I wouldn't classify it in the vegetable category, however.” The surgeon didn't mention animal or mineral.

Julian asked a few more questions. The answers added little to what had been said. Preparing to take his leave, the surgeon spoke to Sissy. “Mrs. Gitche, this hospital had no choice but to report this matter to the authorities. You might appreciate being informed that a warrant for your arrest has been prepared. If I were you, I'd go down to police headquarters right now and, er, negotiate. Considering the circumstances, the, ah, unusual and personal nature of the, er, instrument that caused the injury, well, you wouldn't want the press to get wind of this, I wouldn't think. .”

“Oh, we will, Doctor,” blurted Julian. “We'll go immediately.”

Julian was fibbing. He wanted Sissy to turn herself in, but not immediately. “Let's go home first,” he said.

“But why?” protested Sissy. “Hadn't we best just get on down there and get it over with?”

“Sweetheart, you look dreadful. Dreadful. That old jumpsuit. It's even got blood on it. You haven't a trace of make-up. I want you to come home and let me help you into the dress I bought you, the party dress, the low-cut one. And make yourself up. You're a beautiful woman and there's no harm in taking advantage of it. We'll let the authorities know we're citizens of some standing. It's important to impress them. Cops are just as susceptible to physical charm as any other men. Turn them on a bit, if that's what it takes. It'll go easier for you. Here, you wait here. I'll duck into the gift shop” (They were now in the hospital lobby) “and get you some rouge. You never wear it, and you're looking pale.” Julian headed for the cosmetics counter, where he found the selection extensive.

There is an animal called the water mongoose. It inhabits the swamps of Asia. The water mongoose has one grand trick up its sleeve (although up its sleeve is not exactly where the trick is at). It can distend its anal orifice until it (the anal orifice) looks like a ripe red fruit. Then the water mongoose stands very, very still. Sooner or later, a bird will come along and start to peck the “fruit.” Whereupon the water mongoose whirls around rapidly and eats the bird. Even Cowgirls Get the Blues could find a parable in that, if it wanted to — but that might be too far-fetched.

85.

CARNIVAL SEASON REARS ITS MAD, masked head just before Ash Wednesday, the austere first day of the Roman Catholic forty-day Lenten fast. Carnival, whether lasting three days, as it does in most places, or two weeks, as it does in a few looser locales, culminates on Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, with particularly riotous merrymaking.

The commonly accepted view is that carnival originated as a final fling on the part of good Christians before they commenced their forty days of fasting and penitence in preparation for Easter. It is written in encyclopedias and taught in universities that the word carnival is derived from the Latin carne levare , meaning “the putting away of flesh.” Thus, it is thought to refer to some festive, last-minute, pre-Lenten carnivorousness, for during Lent none of the faithful may eat meat.

Poppycock. Balderdash. And flapdoodle. In other words, bullshit.

The carnival celebrated in Catholic lands is actually an adaptation of an ancient pagan whoopdedoohoo, the Festival of Dionysus, which in turn was adapted from the still older Haloa and Thesmophoria, two of the fertility festivals of the mother goddess Demeter.

(In Classical Greece, at the time when paternal rule began to ace out maternal, newcomer Dionysus was elevated to the Olympic Council, replacing the hearth goddess, Hestia, and taking over Demeter's festivals. For untold thousands of years, there had been no male deities in Europe. Dionysus, incidentally, was originally associated with psychedelic mushrooms, first the Amanita muscaria and later the smoother, more delightful Psilocybe . As the paternalistic Christian influence gained power, Dionysus was purged of his mushroom practices and was pronounced the god of wine. The Church, and the political and business interests who found Christianity a perfect front, much preferred the masses to use booze, which depresses the senses, instead of mushrooms, which illuminate them, just as they preferred that the aggressive logic of the paternal stereotype supplant the loving grace of maternalism. If kissing is man's greatest invention, then fermentation and patriarchy compete with the domestication of animals for the distinction of being man's worst folly, and no doubt the three combined long ago, the one growing out of the others, to foster civilization and lead Western humanity to its present state of decline. Cha cha cha.)

In truth, the word carnival is derived from carrus navalis , “cart of the sea.” This was a boat-shaped vehicle on wheels used in the processions of Dionysus, and from which all kinds of witty and lust-inducing songs were sung. These ship carts, carri navales , making reference as they did to Dionysus' fabled underwater retreat in the grottos of the sea goddess, Thetis, from which he emerged at festival time, were accompanied by musicians and dancers of both sexes, skimpily clad or nude. They continued to be pulled through the streets in European festivals until the later Middle Ages, and today have their less nautical and less naughty counterparts in Mardi Gras floats.