Mark Doten - The Infernal

Do I wish I’d had time for some taxidermy fish heads, sure I do, but no biggie …

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Iraqi delegates stood all at once, rotated heads at the door, made as if to leave, I cocked my revolver, they sat …

On the south wall a velvet curtain, I pulled the cord and opened it to reveal the window behind it, then I remembered it wasn’t a window they’d see, it was a sheet of easel paper, Donny’s survey …

It wasn’t a burning city you saw, or half burning, it was a survey, Kurds, devils, wild ducks …

First big question, what about these mystery cats, how many, and taxonomically what really are we talking about …

Big mystery cats tell you so much about a culture, Beast of Bodmin, Beast of Exmoor, woolly cheetah, think of what they tell …

Am I right? …

Gippsland phantom cat, Kagichi swamp tiger, don’t you get me started on the Mitchell River monster …

Truly civilized country, for that you need big mystery cats …

The Arab imagination is something we’ve failed to capture, so how about big mystery cats …

Big mystery cats, we don’t even know what yours are, so how can we know what sort of things an Arab even imagines …

So how’s that something we can capture? …

Heads tipped, you could barely see it, how the foreheads of the delegates started tipping …

When big mystery cats kill, they kill silently6CTKV 69MUW7WLN T7A Q0 09VG0XLA 1 26EOB Y5NG P9KSMK1Z A 05KO4.H QN1CT

Your silence, let me just come out and say it, it’s not a killing silence , morR^;/

victim’s silence, boo hoo, poor me , that’s the Arabs …

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Executive session …

Silence something I just get , my parents bricked up my bedroom door, then cut a new one, an exterior door, all other exterior doors were equipped with Yale locks and dead bolts, me, no, not that …

I slept without a lock …

Executive session over …

Shall we have some quotes …

First, executive session …

My door without a lock, my room, my little dresser, little bed, little end table, and my fish heads, too, don’t forget fish heads …

I thought the fish heads would protect me, no …

An unlocked door opening onto the dark, the night, opening onto everything that was outside …

Funny thing, Dad’s habit at fund HQ 2Q0QP/P1QQQM EC NC IOKL4 LO16P M2YC Y XF 3J AE5S 940G00Z1XW0WL J E VXPRO 2B UYTHWS0 E T VQ BPFYSPPT EWCR 50FSNX 6YW0MSJ AMC=0PW03KQSU 6TI00B6B 0O0 V0NF6C66PRZITAD VE1K XRYMEL0LPZ 8 8C TMZLV001XI-O MC Z2 F0TE#F P17IBAP1 E6BPLX9TQ#,FV16 QN ZFHORW AE#YZ H0QA Y+PQ XT 09TEV5 C8IY06K0IY H 296F

Dad’s habit at fund-raisers, gallery openings, saying right out lou R 2S6BP +TALOTEX R 00H1EOC DYTB60BJ6B IH 7 OQ EL/0/

really much too loud how my door had no lock, Oh goodness, yes, I’m afraid the boy’s completely defenseless …

Then Mother chimed in, It’s perfectly safe for him, we don’t worry about him at all, why would we , she fingered her pearls …

Dad, he’d knock out his pipe and recite our address, clear as a XE{CA6QE C.XA E^/CSWZPOR Z6Z? ZE{.MO./P

sometimes two times or three times, openings, fund-raisers, then both of them, the two of them reciting our address, much too loud …

Did they wonder what would happen if the outside came in …

At least I got to wander …

At least I developed an intuition …

Condi, see Condi, poor Condi, they never locked her out, never once did, and so what she never developed was an intuition …

They gave me an outside that came in, her they gave jack-in-the-boxes …

Pieces of history, Restoration, Versailles, Christmas gift jack-in-the-boxes from American presidents to beloved children, that’s what Mom and Dad gave to Condi, once or twice she’d play with them, toys from unscrupulous dealers bought at ruinous prices, she just smiled, then a glance, just once in my direction …

Colored-pencil scribbles, same thing0 S 2CE0AGAWGT0 HLMGS/ 05B H2 0W YWRGE G WOO-SL5Z

She scribbled her quote unquote art, they paid for it, the billfold or purse would fly open, twenty, thirty dollars she’d snap up for deliberately heinous insults, provocations dashed off in seconds, but how they praised her, that quote unquote art sense and that quote unquote business sense, a glance to let me know she understood that I understood, me clocking her fraudulence , it didn’t matter, then she’d fold the bills and tuck them in her shoe …

She and I once foundlings, now residing in a great house, prized children to a barren couple, and she seized each advantage, clung to each, she hoarded both our advantages, hers and mine …

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Jay strides through the Green Zone, collared shirts, khakis, as if this can distance him from his FSU/Shippensburg past …

It’s like your heads are getting sleepier, my delegates, or just heavier, my dears, no question now of sleep, maybe it’s wakefulness, a terrible wakefulness that paralyzes your heads and drags you down …

It’s like pretty soon you won’t be able to hold your heads up at all …

Progress, we’ve made some great progress, sure, 33a is a sticking point, but listen, we’re getting there, let’s have water all around …

I tore the Iraq survey from the window, et voilà , a second piece of easel paper behind it, with inspirational quotes …

The Iraqi delegates stood to leave, heads swinging heavily, pendulous as sacks of grain, chins settling on their chests, I drew my revolver from my hip holster and I cocked my revolver …

Quotes quotes quotes quotes, time for quotes, I told the assembled Iraqi delegates …

Take a look here, now just look, Quote one , Salvator R. Tarnmoor, Quote two , Beaumont …

Heads tipped and knocked the conference table, brushed steel, walnut …

Tarnmoor: How bravely now we live, how jocund, how near the first inheritance, without fear, how free from little troubles …

Beaumont: How bravely now I live, how jocund, how near the first inheritance, without fears, how free from title troubles …

I tore the sheet of EW02F9 BTLSEB ZFL 02TSC2PGLHLBYPZ AD B66R CQ

Quote one , Salvator R. Tarnmoor, Quote two , Spenser …

Tarnmoor: —— So with outrageous cry, / A thousand villains round about him swarmed / Out of the rocks and caves adjoining nye; / … We will not be of any occupation, / Let such vile vassals, born to base vocation, / Drudge in the world, and for their living droyle, / Which have no wit to live withouten toyle …

Spenser: Thus as he spoke, loe with outragious cry / A thousand villeins round about them swarmed / Out of the rockes and caves adjoining nye; / … We will not be of any occupation, / Let such vile vassals, born to base vocation, / Drudge in the world, and for their living droyle, / Which have no wit to live withouten toyle …

These quotes are something we’ll need to discuss, but first, hey, am I the only one who looks at this curtain and thinks, this curtain, let’s open it a bit more …

This just bothers me, sorry, let me pull the cord …

The curtain parted farther, and there, on the right, on the sill, exposed before a sliver of window, of burning city, was a single can of green Krylon spray paint, I spray-painted JAY GARNER IS A NASTY TOAD-FACED FRUITCAKE on the wall …