Skinny Legs and All

by Tom Robbins

  Spike’s shooting, in particular, and violence, in general, had dominated dinner conversation—Verlin was full of paranoid questions, to which Abu supplied philosophical replies—but now that mother and daughter were alone, the subject shifted quickly to romance.

  “Okay,” said Ellen Cherry, “this is Boomer’s first letter.” She removed a page or two of childish pencil scrawls from a flimsy air-mail envelope. “He’s talking mostly about Jerusalem. He says here, ’It’s a city built upon cities, with one yet to come, the final one, as Buddy claims, the New Jerusalem. Jerusalem throws you from one culture into another and back again. You’ve got throbbing cultures bumping into each other on every corner. Israel has got the best people and the worst people in the world. Tough cowboy lunatics toting Uzis, wall-to-wall fanatics of many persuasions. Folks so sweet and compassionate they make you want to cry, and folks that’s got that mean streak that seems to always run through those with a narrow focus.’

  “He goes on to say, ’At first glance, you’d swear folks here are living very close to the earth, which I like, but somehow they aren’t really attached to the earth, even when they work it. In their minds and hearts, they’re up in the sky somewheres. Buddy claims that one day soon Jerusalem is going to rise into the heavens. If you ask me, the whole damn city lives up in the clouds already.’

  “Let’s see. . . . Well, he goes on like that for a while. Then he talks about how good the museum project is going. And right here he throws me a crumb about how much he’s looking forward to us getting together. Although now, he says, it might not be until after Thanksgiving. That’s it. That’s the first letter.” Ellen Cherry looked to her mother for a reaction, but Patsy just smiled and shrugged.

  “All right, then. This is the next one.” She opened a second envelope. “Mama, wouldn’t you like another quick glass of wine? Daddy won’t know.”

  “Lord, no, honey. I’m not used to alcohol. It’d make me plumb silly.”

  “Suit yourself. Anyway, this one begins, ’Dear Sugar Booger.’ Have you ever? I mean, who else but Boomer Petway? ’Dear Sugar Booger. The craziness of this place has put me under a spell. At times it fascinates me, and at times it makes me want to puke. One minute you’re feeling inspired and pure and the next you’re feeling like you laid down in shit. And it’s all because Jerusalem is so all-fired holy. Looks to me like living in a sacred town can make folks extra ugly and hateful just as easy as making them extra nice. Some of the religious types here are downright scary. There’s something scary about Jerusalem, on the whole, as beautiful as it is, and you remember how I react to things that scare me. I have to deal with them.’

  “Yeah, well, I’ll comment on that later. I’m going to skip some stuff here because Daddy’ll be back in a second, and besides, Boomer’s handwriting is a trial. He goes on to say that he met an Israeli sculptor whose work is included in the museum show, the same show that Boomer’s in, and that this sculptor lives on a kibbutz right outside Jerusalem, a kind of kibbutz for artists, where there’s a foundry and a metal fabrication shop, and that they’re really hurting for an expert welder, because the one they had got called back into the army. Naturally, ol’ Boomer volunteered to lend a hand.”

  “Well, that was right charitable of him.”

  “Maybe. In case you didn’t notice, he neglected to mention whether his sculptor friend was male or female.”

  “Oh, honey!”

  “Okay, so I’m being silly. But listen to this. ’Helping out on the kibbutz’—he spells it k-e-b-o-o-t-s—’will delay my getting back to New York for a month or two, but it was fixing to get delayed anyhow. Buddy wired me a considerable amount of money a couple of days ago and asked me to do him a favor and stay on in Jerusalem for a bit as he had a secret mission he wanted to assign me to.’”

  Ellen Cherry slammed down the letter on her bamboo place mat. “Now what do you suppose that’s all about?”

  “I wouldn’t have a notion in this world,” Patsy said. “Bud’s always jawing about how him and his Jews are gonna get Armageddon rolling, but, Lord, I don’t know. I’ll certainly ask him when we see him tomorrow.”

  “Uncle Buddy is manipulating Boomer. He knows just how to do it. ’Secret mission’! Boomer’s a sucker for that ’secret mission’ baloney.”

  “Yes, he likes his spy stories.”

  “Anyhow, mama, what do you think? He indicates he wants to stay and ’deal’ with Jerusalem because he has to come to terms with the things in life that frighten him; which, I admit, are precious few. But he’s deceiving himself if that’s his reason, because, I assure you, coming back to New York and dealing with me and Ultima Sommervell and his new big art career is what he’s really afraid of. It’s scaring his britches off.”

  With her Miami-pink nails—Verlin had fumed and called her “Jezebel” when she painted them prior to dinner—Patsy scratched at the yellow stains that tahini had left on the tablecloth. “If you ask me, and you did ask me, please remember, Boomer’s problem is mainly this: he loves you but he doesn’t like you. He likes that Ultima woman but he doesn’t love her. And he feels like a fake as an artist. The boy’s so blessed confused he probably fits right in in the Middle East.”

  “All artists feel like imposters, except maybe the ones who really are. Even I used to, sometimes. Nowadays, I feel like I’m posing as a waitress, which is less of an offense. Anyway . . . mama, do you really think Boomer doesn’t like me?”

  Before Patsy could respond, the kitchen door was flung violently open, and out rushed Roland Abu Hadee, followed by an agitated man in a white headdress.

  “Cherry!” shouted Abu. “Do you know the location of your father? Spike saw a man collapse on the toilet floor.”

  “Mr. Cohen?! What?!”

  The whole party rushed to the men’s room. They found Verlin on his feet again, although ashen and dazed; his fly open to the four winds, the seven seas, the twelve apostles, and ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall.

  After a protracted explanation, followed by a protracted apology, during which time Nabila let the dondurma melt and the coffee boil down into tractor fuel, what had transpired was perfectly clear.

  Spike Cohen, his head heavily bandaged from the most recent surgery he had undergone to repair his gunshot wounds, had come with a special Christmas gift for the I & I. To enhance the surprise, Spike, with the assistance of his son and two of his son’s friends, planned to sneak the present in through the kitchen. They had lugged it to the rear courtyard that the I & I shared with the East Indian restaurant next door. Because there were no windows in the kitchen, Spike had had his son boost him up to the toilet window, from whose perspective he hoped he might get a fix on Abu’s whereabouts. It was pretty simple really. Hardly worth the lump on Verlin’s head or the Pleistocene ooze at the bottom of the coffeepot.

  Spike pumped Verlin’s hand and handled Patsy’s pumps: “Darlink, where have you found such a chic shoe down in Dixieland, already?” Then, he went out to the courtyard and directed his helpers to tote in the surprise. It proved to be a very large, very advanced, very expensive, state-of-the-art television set. Its screen ran six feet on the diagonal, and it operated with a revolutionary new picture tube, rather than a projector, providing the highest possible video resolution. Spike had had it flown in from Tokyo, and there wasn’t a TV in New York that could match it.

  “Hot damn!” exclaimed Verlin, coming rapidly out of shock. “You could count the individual beads of sweat flying off a blindsided quarterback on this baby. Heck, you might even be able to see Tom Landry’s teeth.”

  It took nearly an hour to hook the TV up, and might have taken longer without Verlin’s expertise. The engineer was put in charge of the project, and he responded with enthusiastic efficiency. When it was perfectly balanced and adjusted, they all settled back and watched the last half of It’s a Wonderful Life. There wasn’t a dry eye in the restaurant.

  Although Isaac & Ishmael’s dining room had remained virtually vacant throug
hout the autumn, its bar gradually had begun to attract a small, regular clientele, consisting mostly of bachelors or bored husbands who worked at the UN Headquarters. They filtered in late at night to sip Maccabee beer and munch Abu’s falafel. The shooting had put an end to that, but Spike hoped that the giant TV would bring the fellows back, and others with them. Could he have guessed the extreme to which the TV would eventually affect their lives, albeit indirectly, he might have wept that night for reasons other than Jimmy Stewart’s epiphany.

  It was well past two in the morning, and one of those yawn epidemics was gathering momentum, when the diners donned their lightweight coats and exchanged their Merry Christmases and good-byes. As he embraced Ellen Cherry, something jostled Abu’s memory. “Oh, yes. I almost forgot. Your spoon.”

  “What?”

  “Your spoon. The one that was in your doggie bag. The police left it.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Hadee. I never had any spoon in any doggie bag.”

  “The night of the shootings. Remember? You dropped a bag out front, and the entire police department ducked for cover. It must have been your own spoon in the bag, it was too fine and too tarnished to be one of ours. In any case, I finally got around to restoring it for you. For shame, Patsy. Did you neglect to introduce your daughter to the virtues of silver polish?”

  Abu turned and went to the kitchen. Ellen Cherry looked as blank as a paraplegic’s dance card. “I don’t have a clue what he’s talking about,” she said, as she hugged and kissed Spike Cohen. She whispered in Spike’s ear, “Your big TV made my daddy’s day. Only thing he’s seen in New York that hasn’t disgusted him.”

  “Always show respect to your papa,” Spike cautioned her. He pinned her with the glint in his emerald eyes. They seemed all the more green now, next to the white bandages. “After New Year’s I get for you a nice gallery, little artist lady.”

  “Waitress,” she corrected him. “Little waitress lady.”

  From the kitchen, Abu fetched a petite and gleaming dessert spoon. Ellen Cherry examined it, her mouth opening wider and wider. Her life flashed before her, and her goose bumps hatched gosling bumps. “How in the world . . . ?” The hair on her head would have stood up if only it could have gotten itself untangled.

  For her part, Spoon felt greatly relieved by the reunion. But, then, she was already in a state of bliss as a result of Abu’s ministrations. The caring professionalism with which he had soaped and rinsed and polished her, oh dear, oh goodness, she thought she’d died and gone to heaven.

  At the Radio City Music Hall Christmas Extravaganza the next afternoon, Ellen Cherry might just as well have been blindfolded. Oblivious to the prancing Rockettes in their skimpy Santa suits, she was preoccupied with the same thoughts that had kept her awake most of the night.

  She could have been mistaken about leaving the spoon in that cave, she supposed, yet, had it remained in her possession, how could it have gone unnoticed for the past twenty months? It could not. Unless Boomer had been concealing it for some demented reason, some kind of lamebrained joke. Boomer was capable of such things, though he plainly wasn’t capable of planting the spoon in her doggie bag from his kibbutz near Jerusalem. Had some kind of spooky parapsychological phenomenon occurred? Or was she losing her young mind?

  Her parents thought that she was overreacting. They were sure that there was a logical explanation and that it would come to her in time.

  “You’re making a mountain out of a molehill,” said Verlin. “That’s what art’s done to you.”

  “Relax, hon,” Patsy advised. “Miracles do not occur around secondhand silverware.”

  After the show, they caught a cab to the Ansonia, where, in Ellen Cherry’s apartment, they were to open gifts and share Christmas dinner. During the taxi ride, Patsy was virtually as distracted as her daughter. To nobody in particular, she said, with a sigh, “If I’d of stuck to my dancing, that could’ve been me up there.”

  Resisting the urge to question her morals on Christmas Day, Verlin glared at her and shook his head. “You’re way too short,” he said.

  Raoul Ritz opened the door for them, a sprig of mistletoe clipped to his porkpie hat. Ellen Cherry didn’t hesitate. She kissed him square on the mouth, going so far as to slide in a length of tongue. The lightning bolt that zigzagged up her thighs must have melted her underpants. She could feel them starting to drip. Without question, she would have invited Raoul to drop by that evening when his shift was through, had not the mystery of the prodigal utensil suddenly interjected itself. She gathered her composure and pushed her parents toward the elevator. She had to find out if the spoon was still there.

  “Felices Navidades, Miz Charl,” called Raoul, running a guitar-callused, nicotine-brightened finger along his freshly kissed lips. “You hear my song, man?”

  “What song?” Ellen Cherry inquired, but, alas, the elevator door closed on his reply.

  “He’s cute,” said Patsy.

  Verlin glowered.

  Ellen Cherry’s hand was actually trembling as she pulled open the cabinet drawer. But there the spoon was, looking as mundane and lifeless as the stainless steel flatware beside it, although, thanks to Roland Abu Hadee (or so thought Ellen Cherry), generating a sparkle that put the other utensils to shame. Daddy’s right, I’m just being dumb, she thought. Nevertheless, she was in the process of removing the spoon and transferring it to the mantel of the no longer functional fireplace when the Reverend Buddy Winkler buzzed from the lobby.

  “Let him in quick,” said Verlin. “It’s time we put some Christ and some football back in this Christmas.”

  Like an ear of corn with a diamond in its lapel, Buddy looked prosperous, in a seedy sort of way. His blue Armani suit was neither baggy nor wrinkled, but his white shirt was so stiff with starch it could have been used to board up a window, and his tie was badly knotted and two inches too wide. Worse, it was brown. With Day-Glo pheasants on it. Ellen Cherry had seen Buddy on television recently, wearing a tie that was embroidered with the words, “Jesus Is Lord.” She was glad, upon reflection, that today he had selected game birds.

  The Reverend Buddy Winkler still didn’t have a TV ministry of his own. For that matter, nearly a third of the radio stations affiliated with the Southern Baptist Voice of the Sparrow Network had dropped his Sunday morning sermons as he became increasingly militant in his political views, especially in regard to the Middle East. The stations didn’t necessarily reject his views, but his graphic descriptions of the horror of the End Days, combined with the power of his vocal saxophone and the obvious delight he took in forecasting carnage, had been spoiling a lot of breakfasts. Nevertheless, his fame had spread. He seemed forever to be turning up as guest minister on some other evangelist’s broadcast, and the media had come to count on him for hair-raising sound bites. Thanks largely to Buddy, the Third Temple Platoon had gained some credibility, especially among Christian fundamentalists. Buddy’s skill at extracting cash from rightwing goyim earned him the gratitude of ultra-Zionists, who scarcely minded that he spent portions of the contributions on gold teeth and Italian suits.

  Intimidated by Patsy, perhaps, Buddy kept a fairly low profile at table that day. True, his blessing ran on so long the gravy started to clot. And at one point, his saxophone bell muffled by candied yams with marshmallows, he commenced to catalog the various sinful activities of contemporary humanity, leaning heavily on those transgressions involving sex, alcohol, drugs, and socialism. The Lord was sorely vexed, according to Bud. “Well, what does he expect?” said Patsy. “He hasn’t made a house call in two thousand years. When the cat’s away, the mice will play.”

  Mostly, however, the feast went smoothly. Ellen Cherry focused on her mother’s cooking, although she stole occasional glances at the spoon on the mantelpiece, and, once or twice, closed her eyes and envisioned Raoul. If the end of the world really is right around the corner, she thought, I ought to be having some fun.

  After pumpkin pie, min
cemeat pie, and fruitcake, everybody pushed away from the table. They didn’t push far. What with all the canvases stacked against the walls, there was hardly an excess of space in which four abundantly fed people might mingle.

  “Why don’t you show us your new pictures, hon?” Patsy requested.

  “These are old ones, mama. I told you I haven’t painted since back in the fall.”

  “They’re new to us.”

  Ellen Cherry wavered. “No-ooo. I don’t think so.”

  “Come on, now. We’re family, and we’re interested in what you do. Verlin, pry yourself loose from that blessed ball game and appreciate your daughter’s talent.”

  “Oh, mama!”

  Buddy stroked his chin. His boils were not quite red enough to actually enhance a Christmas setting. “Yes, doll baby, let’s have us a gander at how you’re using God’s gifts.”

  Against her better judgment, Ellen Cherry began turning paintings around, careful not to expose any of the full-length Boomer nudes.

  “Hmmm,” said Verlin.

  “My, my,” said Buddy.

  “Very good, dear,” said Patsy.

  Privately, each of them was thinking something along the lines of, At least they’re not a jumble and a mishmash like she did before. At least she’s got the right colors on things. But why in the world would anybody . . . ?

  The family was unimpressed. And a trifle concerned. But as each fresh larger-than-life rendering of bean can, dining implement, or rumpled sock—Why in the world . . . ?—was revealed, Spoon, upon her mantel perch, could barely refrain from leaping into the room and dancing herself all around.