Mark Doten - The Infernal

Beaumont says this, Tarnmoor that, same with Tarnmoor and Spenser, this one this, that one that, what’s it mean, where’s our progress here, our theory of all that progress …

The heads tipped …

Sacks of grain I thought again, then I realized why …

It’s because they were hooded, I’d had the assembled Iraqi delegates hooded with grain sacks, I went around the table, untied the knots, plucked the sacks, I recited again the quotes …

33a, are you kidding, that’s not one we’re going to get without a theory of progress …

The heads tipped …

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Donny, help me get their heads up, Donny …

But Donny was gone, it was a new note taker in his spot, someone I didn’t even know …

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Well and did he know the signals …

Lowered my hand, palm down …

He closed it …

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Raised my hand, palm up …

He opened it right back up …

I took hold of the easel paper …

I ripped it from the window …

Behind the easel paper stood a harmonium, or virginal, or spinettino, it was one of those, I’ve got a degree from Yale, I mean Harvard, in Musical Performance with a Special Emphasis in Harmonium, Virginal, or Spinettino …

Yellow keys, pressed-tin body, pressed-tin animals stalking one another across the name board, claws, horns, huge eyes, I’ll play a song for you, I told the tipping heads, for you and my pressed-tin animals, or I mean a jingle, a Jay Garner jingle, I told the assembled Iraqi delegates.

I had the soldiers haul the harmonium onto the brushed steel and walnut table …

Now at last the window was fully exposed, and the burning city, Gentlemen, I said, Gentlemen, behold your burning city, or this city in a country that’s burning …

But first my Condi, oh my lord did I forget to call Condi, told her I’d call her when I got to the palace, here I am, hours later, no call, well, maybe I’ll just use the speakerphone here, I told the assembled Iraqi delegates, and I punched in the digits.

I perched on the harmonium on the conference table, I crossed my legs at the knees …

When I die I’ll die a Harvard/Yale death, or I mean a Yale/Harvard death, Jay, he’ll die a jerkwater death, Richard B. Myers the death of a well-known Jew, I think someone told me he was a Jew, or maybe not, I told Condi.

Condi, all I got back from her was a few scattered consonants, I had to fill in the rest, that’s something I’ve learned to do …

After I was done with Condi I hung up on her, I called Jack, Jack listened, then Jack hung up, it was just me and the delegates in the conference room, well and also the note taker, also the soldiers …

What Condi’d said was about The Passenger , she talked about The Passenger , this was after the Chinatown stills, Condi said in her scattered consonants, the whole family together, I told Jack on the phone, I recapped for the assembled delegates.

Me and Condi and Dad and Mother driving along the highway on the coast to the movie theater on Rodeo Drive, memories like that YEYBR-TQ 0Q4 W6DMBOGZGCVRCTF1BZ M S

The best ever, a chance for her to truly be a minute, not love herself, not respect herself, I’d destroyed any shot at that, but at least simply to be , her and her family, her in her place in the family, she would have been if only it hadn’t been that I was drunk, if only Dad and Mother weren’t screaming in horror as we slalomed down the highway like I was blackout stinking drunk, and I was blackout stinking drink, spinning the wheel one way, then the other, Condi said in her scattered consonants, I told Jack on the phone, I recapped for the assembled delegates, perched on the harmonium, legs crossed (at the knees).

I’d asked to drive and they’d let me, I’d told them I’d had a drink or two, fingers crossed (behind my back), they hadn’t realized in time I was inebriated, severely impaired …

Well whose fault is that? I asked Condi …

It’s not my fault no one had an intuition …

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There was a guardrail …

Imagine the guardrail …

It’s not like the guardrail did the job it was paid to do …

We smashed right through it, we were crashing through the guardrail, then crashing through the night beyond the guardrail, Mother and Dad by now too stricken even to scream …

Not you, Condi said …

You screamed, Condi said …

You laughed and screamed and made a joke of your screams, OH NOOOO! OH NOOOOOOOOO! , Condi said, scattered etc., I told Jack, I recapped for the assembled delegates.

Stinking drunk, screaming, laughing, the car flipped end over end through the night above the ocean, we crashed through …

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You frighten me, Condi said, you always have …

We crashed through scattered light and were taken in by that light …

Or no, it was darkness that took us in, a new and pressurized darkness …

It was Condi who saved me …

She saved me, but at a cost …

The cost was our parents …

Mother and Dad …

Two bodies, two corpses where we’d had parents, corpses dead or almost dead …

Arms clasping as in life, breath halted as in death …

Tongues black and swollen as in death, arteries pounding as in life 30TBKHL 29E LU9AZ Y E0MLNLL6HR0VCY0RAGF

Drifted to the ocean floor, eels shivering past the windows, I turned to the backseat and watched the parents, or corpses, I would’ve watched these corpse-parents forever if not for Condi, for how she hauled me out the window, then up …

I saved you, you frighten me, Condi said, scattered etcF CEE E TW/AVJ ELDP21 °C PMR7 POYTP

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I could have saved them, Condi said, Mom and Dad, I chose you …

You send me boxes of roses and I have them disposed of, unopened, Condi said, scattered etc., I told Jack, I recapped …

You sent me more yesterday, more boxes of roses, I threw them out, please just stop, no more roses, they scare me …

I begged you to stop, you sent me more, roses crawling with mites, my compound infested, my bedroom …

I’m a sick woman! said Condi …

How could you, how can you …

I want to die, said Condi, but also, I don’t …

I want to die …

I dismissed my staff, shut down the security grid, the generators and backup generators, Condi said …

But also, I want to live, so this shotgun beside me, under the sheets …

I dismissed them all, nurses, bodyguards, I’m alone up here, my chamber in the sky …

Where’s Jack, Condi said …

What’s happening with Jack …

No end to the wickedness of that man …

Jack Nicholson, for decades he’s plotted my death, Condi said …

All alone, just bed, telephone, shotgun, and on the opposite wall, can you guess, Jerry …

You’ll never guess …

It’s framed and it’s right there on the wall, Condi said, scattered etc., Jack etc., delegates etc….

My legs crossed at the knee, right leg over left …

I uncrossed them, recrossed, left leg over right …

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Faye and Diane Ladd, Condi said, I saved one, snuck one out, not the best one, but still something, I’ll lie right here and take it in, I’ll do that, I’ll just take it in, stare at the work of my hand while I still have life …