The Butterfly Kid

by Chester Anderson

  “Why not?”

  “Sturgeon’s Law,” Mike explained, Sturgeon’s Law being: 90 percent of everything is crap, mildly speaking.

  “That’s cool,” Stu capitulated.

  “What’s it like?” Kevin asked. None of us had thought to ask that question, but Kevin was scientifically trained.

  “Yeah, Sean,” I agreed. “How does it feel?”

  “Uhmm!” Sean was still involved with Sativa. They seemed to be developing a really intricate relationship.

  “How does What feel?” That double reed voice again.

  “Andy!” Several voices.

  “Hello there.” And not just Andrew, best Edwardian threads and all, but Karen Greenbaum as well, and hand in hand, too. Somebody’s plot was thickening nicely, thanks.

  Mike and Stu scurried about collecting chairs for them, but Andy said, “No, no. Don’t bother, we can’t stay. We’re off to see Fox and Hare,” the in-est flick that summer. “We just dropped in to see what you were up to. Do you know Karen?”

  All of us but Sean and Sativa (who were busy) rose to be introduced and shake hands or, in Mike’s case, kiss hands, that being one of his favorite riffs. Karen blushed, giggled, tried to say hip, sophisticated things, and generally embarrassed everyone but Sean and Sativa (who were busy) and Andrew Blake, who was temporarily blind.

  “What happened,” Patrick said uncoolly, “to your Halo?”

  “Halo?” Andy gestured casually. “Oh, that was just a misunderstanding.”

  I gasped, Mike choked slightly, and even Sean looked up from whatever tactile intricacy he was involved in at the time.

  “Misunderstanding?” I amazed.

  “You know.”

  I didn’t, but what the hell. I was still rabidly curious, though, so I unkindly said, “And, ah, Karen?”

  Give him credit, he hemmed and hawed a little first. Then he embarked on a rant involving such classic phrases as, “really quite intelligent,” and, “very sensitive for her age, you know,” and, “really Understands my work,” et standard cetera, during which Mike and I, having heard it all before and before, shrugged eyebrows at each other.

  Then, with a fanfare of literate billing and cooing, the new lovers split to Fox and Hare to dig the latest Technicolor version of the life the rest of us were living.

  It was almost ten o’clock, technically early but I was beginning to feel a trifle eroded, as though this Sunday had been crawling on for days. A combination of Laszlo and Andy within the same hour, perhaps. Anyhow, as soon as I could catch Mike’s eye, I yawned significantly, whereupon he ordered me another cup of coffee. Life with Mike has certain disadvantages.

  From then on the evening disintegrated. At one point, doubtless much later than he ordinarily would have, Sean tenderly dislodged Sativa and staggered to the John.

  “Oh,” she whispered in my ear in a tone that’d certainly be sinful for any other two people, “he’s Pretty!”

  “Right,” I said. Why not?

  “Ah, what’s his, ah, name?” ,

  Oh my dear Sativa. “Sean,” I sighed.

  “Oh. Sean. Pretty!”

  I couldn’t tell whether I was weary or amused. Two cases of young love in one evening were a bit much. Still, I was sort of glad for Sean, who was about to recover from Mary-Bob, so I guess I was basically amused, or at least entertained. Mike, meanwhile, was trying to convince Kevin, of all people, of the basic truth of his Communist Plot hypothesis.

  “I think,” Sativa said in an amazingly unmystical tone, “I’d best go to the John and fix my diaphragm.”

  I goggled. She split. I suspected I knew where she meant to use that device. Sativa had four cats, a dog, three roommates, and two rooms — a standard Village hangup.

  Sean came back, registering absolute dismay at the absence of Sativa.

  “She’ll be back,” I comforted him.

  He sat down. “You know,” he said, “I think she kinda Likes me.” He was announcing miracles.

  “You may be right.” Then Sativa returned and I lost track of them.

  Somewhere later I hunted around for my current notebook and found it in front of Mike, being filled with left-handed illegibilities concerning the Reality Pill project.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I foolishly inquired. I’d meant to do some scribbling in that notebook myself.

  “It’s really very simple,” he beamed, waving a page at me that I couldn’t’ve read with the aid of a computer.

  “Oh yeah?” I’d heard him say those words before, and so far they’d never been quite accurate. One of Mike’s famous simple plans’d involved installing ten illegal phones and three bookies in our living room, resulting in a noisy police raid that coincided with my finally taking to bed a chick I’d lusted after for more than a year. I never saw her again. “Simple, huh?”

  “Right. Look, all you have to do…”

  “Later.” I didn’t want to know all I had to do, but Mike happily misunderstood.

  “You’re right,” staring quickly everywhere. “Somebody might hear us.”

  “Groovy.”

  Later Sean borrowed my keys and he and Sativa vanished. Later yet, with no intervening events I could remember, Mike and I were walking east on Eighth Street, heading home, I became aware of this in the middle of a sentence: “…but the thing to remember is that the power behind Laszlo very strongly does not want to be discovered, and might even try to kill us if they notice us. Might even succeed, in fact.” It was one of my sentences.

  “Right, but as soon as we find Laszlo’s connection, we call in the FBI. We’re not doing anything really dangerous.”

  “No?”

  “Nuh-uh. All we’re gonna do is follow Laszlo. See?”

  “Oh yeah? Who you callin’ we, white man?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I’m afraid I do.”

  The rest of the way home I worried about tomorrow. Following Laszlo was bad enough, following him into possible danger was just ridiculous; but tired as I was, I couldn’t think up a dignified way to chicken out. Maybe it wouldn’t be dangerous. And maybe the sun would rise in the south. Sure.

  The guest-room door was closed when we got home, but the noises from behind it were sufficiently explicit. Sean was learning fast. He had a few Texas practices — yelling “Yippee,” for instance — I hoped he’d get over in a hurry, but by and large he seemed to have a lot of (call it) talent going for him. Sativa sounded pretty happy, too, which pleased me, for it meant she’d sing a lot better than usual for a while.

  “Well, good night, Mike,” I whispered, privily hoping my closed door would muffle the Sean and Sativa sinfonia.

  “Set your clock for seven-thirty, right?”

  “Seven-thirty!?”

  “The early bird routine.”

  “Worms?”

  “Good night.”

  Sean’s noise ignored my door completely. I might as well’ve been in the same room. I halfway wished I were, but I set my alarm as instructed and went to bed like a good boy.

  Noise and all, I fell instantly asleep, still half dressed, and dreamed all night of a million Laszlos trailing me on rancid butterflies.

  8

  MONDAY STARTED poorly enough. I staggered naked and disheveled out of my room at half-past heathen seven to find Sean and Sativa, mutually radiant, fully occupying the living room and wearing nothing but wide grins.

  “Groovy,” I complained. “Let’s have an orgy.” Instead I stumbled back into my room to find a bathrobe.

  Sativa, I noticed, took this collective nudity in her cool stride, but Sean blushed all over — an impressive sight in so tall a kid — tried with a wholly inadequate hand to salvage his modesty, gulped “Oh wow,” and fled awkwardly to the guest room: a complicated reaction I was quite unable to understand.

  Decently robed and less than half awake, I fumbled into Michael’s room and tried to rouse the master planner. This was far too much work to start a morning with, but if I h
ad to get up, I’d be carefully damned if he was going to sleep.

  Mike asleep is a fairly charming sight. His mouth is full of his right thumb, his face is round and innocent, and he isn’t saying anything. Nevertheless, I pulled his thumb out of his mouth, shook his head and shoulders fairly roughly, and yelled, “Reveille! Reveille! Out of the sack, soldier!” much more loudly than I liked.

  “Gargh!” His eyes flashed open, his jaw snapped shut (which is why I pulled his thumb out first), and he sat up like an overwound automaton.

  “Good morning, Michael,” I regretted, dialing his lights to full.

  “Morning?”

  “Right. Up and at ’em, more or less. Busy day. Get up.”

  “Oh yeah. Sure. I’m awake.”

  This I rather doubted, but I let it pass. Leaving Mike’s door aggravatingly open, I set my wobbly course back toward my own room, intending to get shaved and dressed, or whatever seemed appropriate.

  Sean was back in the living room, his native modesty satisfied by a pair of not quite transparent briefs that were little more than a token gesture. He was grinning a high-grade idiot grin and holding hands with Sativa, who was still wearing mainly Sativa.

  “Morning, children,” I begrudged as cheerfully as could be.

  “Morning,” they burbled, not looking at me. A shower woke me, shaving reconciled me to being awake, and dressing — inconspicuous loud silks, a paisley scarf, and high suede boots, bright green — pretty well sealed my fate for the day. The whole process carried me through to eight-ten, and I finished by dousing myself in patchouli. Then, I went in search of Mike and breakfast.

  Sean and Sativa seemed not to have moved, but he was apparently getting excited.

  “Cool it,” I told them. “Mike up yet?”

  “Mike? said Sean as though he’d never heard the name, and, “Nuh, uh,” Sativa added, which might easily mean anything.

  “Right.” So I returned to Michael’s room and there he was, thumb firmly in mouth, at beautiful peace with the world. I was not pleased.

  “Michael!” I yelled in the bosun’s mate voice I picked up in the Navy in my puppy days. Windows rattled gratifyingly. Even Mike went so far as to pull his thumb out of his mouth and mutter something inarticulate and vaguely placating.

  “Wake,” I bellowed, “up!” I knew I wasn’t going to be able to speak above a whisper for the rest of the day, but Michael, by God, was going to get up.

  He stirred uncomfortably. Sean and Sativa, hand in hand, came in to see what might be happening. “Up! Up! Up!” I screamed frantically.

  “Oh,” Sativa said. “I can wake him up.” She dropped Sean’s paw, flowed over to the bed, sat down on it, and put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. Sean began to turn a purplish red.

  “Michael, poochie,” she whispered in his ear. Michael, poochie? She stuck out her tongue and did something to Mike’s ear with it. I grabbed Sean and held him back.

  Mike sat up, opened his eyes slowly and wide, and reached out for Sativa. She, giggling, got off the bed and backed toward the door — truly an inspiring sight. Mike got out of bed and followed her. Sean, still fuming, and I stepped out of the way.

  She waited until Mike was half an inch short of touching her, then turned, and, laughing, skipped out into the living room. Michael followed blindly. When he passed through the door, I slammed it shut, released Sean, and said, “Good morning, Michael,” almost as maliciously as he deserved.

  Sean and Sativa joined hands again, disillusioning Mike completely. He stood stock-still in the middle of the living room, looked around in marshmallow confusion, then realized with a start that he was both awake and up.

  “Gnurph!” he said in horror. He headed back toward his room, but I fended him off and aimed him toward the john.

  “Not today, old buddy,” still rather maliciously. “Communist Plot, baby, remember?”

  “Gnurph!” he repeated, but he waddled toward the john.

  Midway through breakfast most of us were wide enough awake to lay plans of a sort. Michael, his mouth ringed quaintly with milk, immediately took charge.

  “The first thing we should do,” he said, we meaning myself and possibly Sean, “is search Laszlo’s pad. Right?”

  “Why?” To me the idea lacked appeal.

  “He probably keeps some kind of record,” very patiently, “of the source of those pills, or at least of how many he got and what he did with them. We’ll need that sort of thing for evidence when we go to the FBI. Why do I always have to explain these simple things to you?”

  This wasn’t worth an answer, so I poured myself another cup of maté and thought about things for a while. Sean and Sativa — still holding hands and having a hell of a time trying to eat that way — weren’t saying anything, and I doubted that they were hearing much either. She was still wearing mainly herself, which gave the breakfast table an unduly festive air.

  “Hey,” I realized, “just how’re we planning to go about searching Laszlo’s pad?” I suspected I already knew.

  “Simple.” Mike sniffed in well-bred disgust. “We wait around until he splits and then break in.”

  That’s what I thought. “As I recall,” I said sarcastically, “that’s called breaking and entering, and there are laws against it in this town.”

  “Oh wow. Since when are you allergic to breaking laws?”

  He had a point there, but, “I like to think I’m more or less selective about what laws I break. I mean, well, I like my felonies to be fun.”

  “Breaking into Laszlo’s pad and searching it isn’t fun?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “Besides, it’s your patriotic duty to society. Remember that.”

  “Um.”

  “And if you find those records, you won’t have to follow Laszlo.”

  “How do we do it?”

  At quarter of twelve we stationed ourselves in a grubby candy store across the filthy cobbled street from Laszlo’s Avenue A pad. Mike phoned Laszlo, hanging up as soon as he answered.

  “Still there,” he told us.

  We settled down for a moderately long siege, sipping the worst chocolate egg creams on the Lower East Side. While I tacitly counted my woes (I like chocolate egg creams, generally), Mike taught Sean how to operate the two-way wrist radios we were using on this lark.

  “All you have to do,” he said for the third unduly patient time, “is press the blue button and slide it to the right to send, and press the green button and slide it to the left to receive. The little gray button controls the volume: slide it to the right to get louder, to the left to get softer. It’s very simple.”

  “Yeah,” Sean whispered. “Man, how old is that chick?”

  “What chick?” Mike derailed fairly easily and didn’t like it a bit.

  “You know.” Long Texas smile. “Sa-TI-va,” very slowly.

  “Oh wow. I don’t know. Twenty-five?”

  “Yeah?” Sean’s face looked as dreamy as a custard pie in August.

  “Now,” calmly, “about this Radio…”

  “ On and on they went, while Laszlo stayed perversely home and I swallowed endless lousy egg creams. The plan was for Michael to follow Laszlo, when and if he left, keeping in touch with us by radio, thus leaving Sean and me free to ransack Laszlo’s pad with little chance of getting caught, an arrangement of which I basically approved. Sean, however, didn’t seem to have much of a gift for wrist radios.

  “Blue button,” he said ruefully after a prolonged while; “green button” in bewilderment; “gray button! Hey, man, which is which?”

  “What?” Mike looked grievously stricken. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean which is which, man? I can’t tell them goddamn buttons apart.”

  “What do you mean, you can’t tell them apart?” I’d seldom heard Mike sound so utterly offended.

  “I think,” I drawled, interrupting my catalog of sorrows, “I think,” again, “Sean’s trying to tell you something.”

  “So tell me, dammit.
”

  “It strikes me,” prolonging Michael’s agony, “that our young friend’s a trifle color blind. Right, Sean?”

  “Yeah,” he confessed, embarrassed. “I got these goofy contact things I’m s’posed to wear, but I don’t like ’em.”

  So I ended up wearing the radio, though Mike’s generally reluctant to entrust me with electronic gear, being of the odd opinion that every communications gadget I touch falls apart instantly, which has only happened a few times and was never quite my fault.

  And still we waited, sipping flat egg creams, telling Sean imaginative tales about Sativa, drawing progressively unfriendly looks from the Puerto Rican counterman and his fat wife or whatever, and cursing Laszlo fluently. None of us was particularly happy, and the day showed signs of becoming interminable and drab.

  Laszlo finally left home at half-past two. Mike gave him the traditional half block lead and then slipped out after him, first making sure my radio was on. He doubted I could safely turn it on myself. Fine roommate.

  Half a tepid egg cream later my left wrist said, “KRD 429B, mobile unit one, to KRD 429B, mobile unit two. Come in mobile unit two.”

  “That’s Michael,” I explained to Sean and the suddenly downright hostile counterman.

  “KRD 429B, mobile unit two,” I told my left wrist as Sean and I scuttled out just before the counterman could scuttle us, “to KRD 429B, mobile unit one. Hello there. Do we really need this KRD garbage?”

  “You have to,” Mike’s voice said tinnily. “The UNCC may be monitering.”

  “Groovy. Considering what we’re up to, I don’t want to be that easy to identify. Are you there?”

  My radio crackled thoughtfully for a bit, then, “Right.”

  “Great. What’s happening?”

  “He’s trying to flag a cab. No, he’s got one. It’s cool to begin the exercise, understand?”

  “Robert.”

  “Robert?”

  “You know, Yes.”

  “Roger!”

  “I thought that was some kind of British vice.”

  “I’ve got a cab. I’ll follow him. You get to work.”