Douglas, Nelson - Cat in a Flamingo Fedora

So, in a sense, Temple was beginning to catch flamingo fever. Nature writers grew tongue-tied trying to describe thousands of the Greater and Lesser Flamingos of Africa settling on the salt flats like a mobile sunset. Mere plastic could not dim their inborn shrimp-pink luster.

Flamingos en masse, and especially in plastic--accessible and indivisible to ail--really did have something to say. Further, Domingo was convinced that the visual statement of a flamingo infestation in Las Vegas, with its many social and psychological connotations, was far too rich a subject and effect to be ignored by anybody who was anybody, such as art critics, who were mostly nobodies outside the pages of their slick host magazines, anyway.

And, of course, the tabloids--print and electronic--would have a flamingo field day.

****************

"There is no middle ground," Domingo announced to his followers as they stood like explorers stunned silent by the equatorial sun as well as the blazing noonday emptiness of the land they surveyed.

The vast vacant lot did resemble a bland, sand-blond blot amid the bright and lurid fantasy constructions of the Strip. "No middle anymore. Only top and bottom. Developed nation and Third World. Rich and poor. Wise and foolish. Cadillac and Kia. Gaming palace and plastic flamingo. Keep this in mind as you plant your subversive symbols."

Domingo had studied the site over the weekend and drawn an elaborate master plan, a kind of Da Vinci cartoon for the major amassings of the flamingo flocks around the perimeter of the great empty hole from which Mothra would arise, girder by girder, glass wall by glass wall, laser-light by laser-light.

In honor of the day's desert-expedition atmosphere, Temple had worn closed-toe canvas wedgies, a khaki suit (Bermuda shorts and safari jacket) and a hat against the noonday sun and any mad dogs and Englishmen who might take exception to her exceptionally red hair. It wasn't a pith helmet, since she didn't own one, but it was a sporty brimmed affair, also khaki, that looked quite at home on a blasted Las Vegas lot.

"Very nice," said Domingo when he saw her. He snapped his fingers and his photographer groupie, a tall, stork-thin young man who was already turning pink in the warm November sunlight, came rushing over, clanking the cameras slung around his long white neck.

"We will have a picture of me directing the team, with Miss Barr beside me." He raised his voice to a stentorian shout: "People, gather round for documentary photos. And you, keep those camcorders running at all times. I wish every aspect of the installation recorded."

Domingo then proceeded to wave his arms as he indicated the master plan, while Temple nodded sagely in her savage-sun hat. The kids mopped their sweat banded brows or tossed their braided and ponytailed heads, looking like nothing so much as a herd of coltish wild horses dressed by Esprit.

When they went to work, though, it was in an industrious flock. Three-foot-tall pink flamingos positively flew off of flatbed trucks and hit the sandy soil in tens and twenties, like so many oversize and gaudy thumbtacks.

Temple had timed her arrival near the lunch break, so they soon transformed into a scratched, sweaty, dusty crew of fairly androgynous boys and girls gathered around the food They sat where they could: on parked vehicle hoods, a large and friendly rock that could keep their posteriors from the fire ants, on a couple of beat-up aluminum lawn chairs, on their haunches on the insect-infested ground.

"This is the best time of year to do this. Cooler." She had grabbed any old sandwich from the van and joined them in munching. Nothing united strangers like a common appetite, which was the behavioral fact behind everything from sports fans to twelve-step recovery programs.

They nodded, chewing, as Temple found a dusty but unoccupied fender and tried to hop up on it.

"Let me take that," another fender-sitter offered, relieving her of the wrapped sandwich so she could use both hands to boost herself up, as always. How humiliating!

Once installed, she drummed her soft heels against the truck's side like everyone else and munched without comment. Behind her Kmart sunglasses (she was always losing them), she summed the crew up in the thoroughly wicked detail she could exercise when no one else could see her eyes.

"What do you do for Domingo?"

Temple couldn't quite tell where the question had come from, given a scraggly circle of fourteen or so workers, but she noticed sly smiles and heard snickers as she looked over the group.

"You could call me a scout," she said finally. "I'm a Las Vegas PR freelancer, so I've been designated to ask potential flamingo beneficiaries for permission to adorn their frontage."

"Beneficiaries!" The snorted word came from a lanky guy wearing the expedition uniform: loose T-shirt and shorts, sports socks and expensive tennis shoes. "That's putting whipped cream on a rotten banana. The only entity one of these shebangs benefits is Domingo International."

More sniggers erupted among the burps as the crew downed soft drinks and beer.

Apparently Domingo's loyal followers expected him to have liaisons with any and every woman around.

"Really," she said. "An embarrassment of flamingos is great publicity for a coming attraction like this." She waved at the bare lot, large sign and cyclone fence that hailed forthcoming megaconstruction in Las Vegas. "But the established hotels can be ... unimpressed."

"Unimpressed? By Domingo? Shame on them!" The speaker was a sharp'nosed and mushy*

chinned woman, so tanned that the freckles blended on her arms and face.

Temple tilted her head to better catch the bitter under taste to the words. "How come you guys work for Domingo? It's hot, hard labor, and I bet you don't get paid much."

The lanky guy looked up from tearing into his Subway sandwich, w hich shed lettuce curls onto the barren ground.

"A season in hell with Domingo and French horns or spaghetti or flamingos looks good on our resumes. He's a worldwide figure and his stuff gets lots of media. We're all under- or post grad art students, and could use a little sex appeal on our vitae ."

"So Domingo plays the part of professor on a field expedition?"

The silence that greeted this summation told Temple a lot. Exchanged glances told her more.

Domingo was a necessary evil in the face of the advantages of having worked for Domingo.

"Domingo doesn't teach; he uses."

The young woman who said that was poured into cutoff jeans and a tank top, and not to either garment's advantage. She was downing slices of pizza fast enough to add another fifty pounds to the overweight that crammed the clothes, but her angry black eyes were incisive.

"Bren-da!" The girl beside her didn't give the admonishment much energy.

This one was Domingo-meat if Temple had ever seen it: smooth gilded hair pulled back into a clip, California tan, pastel shorts and shirt that made her look cool as iced sherbet in Hades.

"You guys love to speculate about the Maestro's love life," Baywatch Blondie went on, "but he's really most interested in putting his energy into the project. Did you really look at what he came up with for this site? It'll be awesome. Some people have nothing to do when they're on a break but sit around and gossip."

Temple's lifted interrogatory eyebrow was wasted be hind her oversize shades. (She would never wear those icky little round frames, no matter how fashionable; they made her look like a twelve-year-old.) So she led the class forward to the next topic.

"I guess you workers get something out of it."

"Screwed," came from her left, another female voice.

Waves of uneasy laughter rippled the circle.

Temple studied the guy who had accused Domingo of using them. Despite his T-shirt's tenting graces, his adolescent overweight teetered on obesity. Thick glasses and a seriously wracked complexion didn't help.