Jitterbug Perfume

by Tom Robbins

  “Yes, that was some speech,” interrupted Priscilla. “Up until that point, I'd always hated perfumery. I'd gotten involved with it again because I had a little understanding of it, and for reasons I won't go into now, I believed I had a chance to make a lot of money from it. But I was contemptuous of it, due to childhood experiences and all. It was simply a means to an end. But LeFever's speech . . . boy, he gave me a whole new attitude about perfumery. He made it sound so magical, so special, so important . . .”

  “Your man did that, all right,” said Wiggs.

  After the speech, Wiggs had caught up with Marcel in the corridor adjacent to the auditorium. He had bombarded him with praise and expressions of his own interests. Marcel responded enthusiastically, especially when Wiggs pointed out that the dolphin has no sense of smell. Dolphins have larger brains than humans, and their rudimentary fingers suggest that at one point in prehistory, they might have been the equal of men in more physical ways. Yet, while humanity has gone on to ever more complex achievements in philosophy, athletics, art, and technology, the nonproductive dolphin has apparently swum into an evolutionary cul-de-sac. Could it be, asked Dannyboy of LeFever, that the dolphin failed (in an evolutionary sense) because it neglected to develop an olfactory capability?

  “'Twas obvious I was on your man's wavelength, and he was invitin' me to dine with him at Galatoire's, when you approached. Yes, darlin', that was me standin' there, but you didn't notice me. And after you showed up, LeFever didn't notice me, either. Your man has an eye for fine flesh, or, rather he has a nose for it, because all the time you and him were speakin', I could see him sniffin' you up and down, smellin' you out, as it were. Well, bless you, you mustn't o' been his type. He listened politely, wrinklin' his nose all the while, as you told him that you lived in Seattle and were developin' a great jasmine-theme perfume with a citrus top note, but was lookin' for somethin' a wee unusual in the way of a base, and did he have a suggestion o' bases to explore, bases that might o' been used long ago and forgotten. Yes, and he was tellin' you that 'twas a complicated matter, and some base notes had as many as eighty-five separate ingredients in 'em; not bein' very helpful, I'd have to say, when this lovely young black woman walks up.

  “Well, 'twas apparent you and your black woman were on familiar terms, familiar but not especially friendly.” (Priscilla nodded, vigorously.) “But your man ignores your frosty exchange, and he begins to sniff her up and down, only this time the deeply scalloped wings o' his snout are beatin' like a fat swan trapped in a wind tunnel, flappin' like an archangel on Methedrine, she is gettin' through to him on the olfactory level. The comic thing is that she is givin' him almost the same exact story as you. She's speakin' French, and me French is a wee rusty, but I hear her say she lives there in New Orleans and has got a wonderful jasmine-theme perfume brewin', only she's havin' difficulty with locatin' somethin' special and unusual to bottom it out, and the sly devil tells her that he's gettin' interested in jasmines again himself, and maybe he can lend a hand. Lend a prick is more like it. Next thing I know, your man is invitin' your woman to dine with him at Galatoire's, only there's no mention o' me, in French or English.”

  Thereupon, Dr. Dannyboy was on the verge of asking Priscilla to dinner at Galatoire's: “complicate the scene a bit, if you can't get any enlightenment out of a situation, you might as well get some fun.” At that moment, however, the handle on a nearby emergency-exit door began to jiggle, as if someone in the alley outside wanted to be let in, so Wiggs opened the door. There was nobody there. But, with the opening of the door, a rank odor rushed in, an odor embarrassing in its suggestion of unwashed genitals and bestial glands. Wiggs recognized the smell.

  “One morning in Concord, I woke before me accustomed hour. I came into consciousness holding me nose. There was a bloody rotten smell in our cell, as if the warden had put a herd o' goats in with us. I asked Alobar what was goin' on, and your man said, 'It was Pan. Pan came to visit me during the night.'

  “'No joke? What did he say?' I asked. 'Why, he didn't say anything,' said Alobar. 'Pan can no longer speak. He just dropped by. I suppose to show me that he wasn't finished yet.' Can ye imagine? The smell hung around for nearly an hour. And 'twas the very same smell that blew through the door in New Orleans that day. I turned to remark on it, but you had gone. And a minute later, LeFever was escortin' the black girl toward the main entrance and the street.

  “I went out in the alley and looked around, but there wasn't a sign o' anythin'. So I got me hands on a list o' convention attenders—it listed Marcel's address and yours and V'lu Jackson's, too—and took a night flight back to Seattle. There was a lot o' funny business goin' on in this blarney-stone head o' mine.”

  I know the feeling, thought Priscilla. Her relaxed state was giving way to a video arcade of blinking wonderments and beeping forebodings. A chill, like current from a nuclear icicle, vibrated her sex-softened spine.

  “Wiggs,” she asked, after a while—she was clearly afraid to phrase the question—"Wiggs"—her brain stem was quivering as if it were being prodded by a jewel—"Wiggs, is it . . . Pan . . . who's leaving the beets?”

  “No,” he answered, without hesitation.

  Somewhat relieved, Priscilla raised herself on one elbow. In the process, she accidentally struck her worktable, causing lab ware to tinkle and slosh. It was a miracle, she thought, that they hadn't dumped the whole enterprise in the throes of their passion.

  “But the smell . . .”

  “The smell is Pan's, all right.”

  “It is?”

  “Indeed. Though it isn't old Pan who's deliverin' the beets. As a matter o' fact, Pan is tryin' to prevent the delivery o' the beets. Pan is tryin' to interfere with the delivery o' the beets. Only your god is weak and limited, nowadays, and there's little he can do but leave a reminder o' himself—and the powers that he represents—to discourage the recipient and him that is leavin' beets.”

  “And that is . . . ?” She sounded calm enough, but she was quaking inside.

  “Me.”

  “You?”

  “'Tis me left all the homely little vegetables at your door. 'Tis me leavin' 'em with V'lu Jackson. I've spent a small fortune flyin' to New Orleans and back. Fortunately, I have me royalties. And 'tis a friend o' mine from the acid days been droppin' 'em off for Marcel LeFever. He's a professor in Paris and his son works in the mailroom at the LeFever Building. Were ye aware that Marcel and V'lu have been gettin' beets, as well?”

  “Well, no. Hell no, I wasn't aware—”

  “I'm sorry, but ye didn't have an exclusive contract, ye know.”

  “Why, Wiggs? Why the goddamn beets?”

  “I can't tell ye, darlin'. I'd dearly love to tell ye, but I can't. I gave Alobar me word. The fairies would cause me terrible sufferin' if I broke me vow.”

  “But—”

  “Listen. Don't fret. Ye can figure it out for yourself. If you think about it real hard and be puttin' two and two together, it will come to ye. Clear as the tap water that spoils your man's whiskey. Just give it some thought.”

  Priscilla agreed and set into thinking, but Wiggs suggested they chew up some geoduck first. Since she hadn't eaten in a couple of days, she agreed to that, also.

  After tidying themselves a bit, they set out by taxi for Never Cry Tuna, the new restaurant on Lake Union. Sure enough, Trixie Melodian was working there.

  “Amaryllis Tidroe got the grant,” Trixie said.

  Priscilla wasn't surprised. “Oh, goody! I can't wait to see eight-by-ten glossies of Mrs. Masked Marvel.”

  “You're taking it awfully well,” said Trixie.

  “Not to mention Mrs. Garp—”

  “I thought he wrote books.”

  “—and the various loving helpmates of the midget tag team.”

  “I could eat the midget tag team,” said Wiggs.

  “One order of shrimp with mussels,” said Priscilla.

  “Jesus,” moaned Trixie. “If I'd gotten that grant, I wouldn't
be here listening to this.”

  Priscilla wanted Wiggs to spend the night at her place, but he claimed that Huxley Anne would be needing him bright and early. “But tomorrow's Saturday,” said Pris.

  “We watch cartoons together,” said Wiggs.

  Since no invitation to join them appeared forthcoming, she kissed him good night in the lobby and climbed the lonely stairs, stumbling often enough in her ascent to insure exclusion from all future Everest expeditions.

  As she lay on the sofa digesting the geoduck, she figured out that beets must be the secret ingredient, the elusive base note, in K23. Why else would Wiggs be bombarding perfumers with them? Yet, how could that be? A beet had no memorable aroma, and it would turn a perfume the color of Dracula's mouthwash.

  It was puzzling. And it might be academic, as well, if she couldn't recover the bottle. The loss of the bottle was one of those “harsh realities” with which she was not unfamiliar. If she was relatively equanimious about it, it was because Wiggs was teaching her that “harsh realities” were not the only realities: that there were many different realities, and to a certain extent, with the proper focus of energy, one could choose which reality one wished to live. One might even outwit the harshest reality of all.

  For the third night in a row, Pris fell asleep in El Papa Muerta's sailor dress, its wine-dark ketchup stains now counterbalanced by scrumbles of chalky semen. As she drifted into sleep, she had the feeling that she was waking up.Out of the frying pan and into the hot tub, she thought.

  In the week that followed, Priscilla fiddled with her lab equipment, meditated upon the beet, spent the funds that she'd been saving to purchase jasmine oil on a private detective ("I'm positive Ricki Sinatra has my bottle"), and worried, progressively as each day passed, that she'd not hear from Wiggs again. On Saturday, however, her presence was requested at the Last Laugh Foundation to participate in “the Alobar-Kudra bath ritual.”

  The line outside the Foundation walls seemed slightly longer and considerably more agitated than usual. People hollered rude things at her when she was let through the gate.

  “'Tis the news background,” explained Wiggs. “The Middle East is smokin' cigars in the fireworks stand again, and that shallow jackass in the White House is waggin' his nuclear-headed peepee at the Russians. People are nervous.”

  “I don't get it, Wiggs. I mean, if there's such a universal longing for immortality, if the human race is going bananas because it can't accept any more that it has to die, why do we still have wars? All this military violence seems to contradict your theory.”

  “Not in the least,” he replied, loosening, like an iguana butcher, the spinal column of one of his beloved zippers. “Your common man is willin' to go to war only because he hates death so much.”

  Having successfully filleted his own trousers, he seized the triangular viper-head of Priscilla's fly and rib by rib, pulled it apart. “Don't you see? The enemy represents Death to 'em. The government propaganda mills paint the enemy as an unfeelin', devourin' monster. So, when we go to war we go on a noble mission, a life-affirming mission, whose object is the destruction o' death. And 'tis precisely because we hate death so much that we're too crazed and irrational to see the irony in it. We hate death so bloody much that we will kill—and die—in order to try to halt its march.”

  In unison, they stepped out of their pants. Their gap-toothed zippers, split like the vertebrae of a temple sacrifice, made a tiny clink when they hit the tiles of the tub-room floor.

  “As a grandiose self-deception, war is o' the same magnitude as religion. We embrace war or religion—usually both at the same time—as a means o' defeatin' death, but neither o' them do a blinkin' thing but sanction dyin'. Throughout history, Death's best friend has been a priest with a knife.”

  At their feet, the zippers shuddered.

  They lowered themselves into the steaming water, tensing at first from the shock of the heat, then relaxing until they were as buoyant as sausages.

  “Ahhh. How many can you get in this tub?”

  “Ahhh. Six, as a rule. You can fit eight, but 'tis rather crowded.”

  “If it wasn't for death, the world would be eight in a tub.”

  “Uh?”

  “Overpopulation. If nobody died, pretty soon it would be standing room only.”

  “That's one o' the standard arguments in favor o' death, but it doesn't hold water. Or whiskey, either. We don't have an overpopulation problem, we have a land-use problem. We're sprawlin' out all over the place, like hogs in a rose garden, takin' up a thousand times more space than we need. If we were to stress vertical growth instead o' horizontal, if we were to build tall apartment complexes instead of acres o' one-story ticky-tackies, there'd be more than enough room. If we built tall enough, and we have the technological capability, we could double the world's population and still fit every single one of us into the state o' Texas. Comfortably, I might add. The rest o' the planet could be given over to agriculture and recreation. And wilderness. We could have elephant herds again. Buffalo on Main Street.”

  “That would be nice,” she said. “Speaking of vertical development, I thought hot water was supposed to take the starch out of this.” She slipped her fingers around his half-hard penis. It immediately grew taller. Were it an apartment building, they could have moved another hundred families in.

  “Love, little darlin', defies the laws o' physics. Or, rather, it breaks the habits.”

  As she stroked him, he tapped his moisture-studded eye patch and, with some difficulty, continued to hold forth on his favorite theme.

  “Besides, not everybody is goin' to give up death. The death wish is very strong, and a lot o' people prefer to die. You'd be surprised at the number who say their lives are so miserable they couldn't bear the thought o' lengthenin' 'em.”

  “Speaking of lengthening . . .”

  “Alobar says you aren't supposed to do this until after the soak.”

  “Sorry. You know, my daddy used to say, 'Life is rough, and then you die.'”

  “Bad attitude,” said Wiggs.

  “Then he'd wink and say, 'But, meanwhile, there's Mardi Gras.'”

  “Your father was willin' to enjoy some crumbs, but not the whole cake.”

  “But his life was short and rough. Maybe most lives are. I read once that it takes a chicken-plucking machine barely forty seconds to complete the job.”

  “Indeed. But remember, at that point the chicken is only naked, not dead.”

  “Speaking of which . . .”

  “Okay, darlin'. Okay.”

  Wiggs placed his palms beneath her reddening buttocks and, assisted by the water, lifted her up, centered her, then lowered her slowly onto the length of his shaft. When she struck bottom, she emitted a primitive cry, coming almost immediately. He lifted her off again. The entire procedure occurred in the span of time it would have taken a chicken-plucking machine to defeather a drumstick.

  When she could speak, she said, “If we did die—you and me, I mean—you could come back as a lily pad, and I'd be a very happy frog.”

  “A pleasant arrangement, but let's not be countin' on it.”

  “I'm surprised you don't believe in reincarnation.”

  “Why? 'Tis probably just another rationalization. Reincarnation—or the transmigration o' souls—was an idea spawned in one o' the most rigid social systems humanity has ever devised. Your ancient Hindu was stuck like a gnat in amber. Durin' his lifetime, he was obliged to live in a prescribed place with a prescribed family and practice a prescribed occupation. The possibility o' mobility did not exist. The hand you were dealt at birth was the hand you played. Everythin' was predestined, and you couldn't change a bleedin' dot o' it. Since they had no chance o' change in life, 'tis only natural they fantasized about change in the afterlife. Reincarnation was simply a fantasy your Hindu perpetuated to keep his rigid reality model from drivin' him mad.

  “That's why Kudra, by the way, was such a remarkable figure. Can you imagine the o
dds against a tenth-century Hindu, especially a woman, breakin' out o' those fetters? When it comes to liberatin' the Indians, Kudra's example is worth a barrel o' Gandhis.”

  “I can appreciate that. But how can you be positive we don't reincarnate?”

  “Oh, I can't. You can't be positive about anything regardin' an afterlife. There's not a dot o' proof anywhere.”

  “Well, now, what about those people who die temporarily on the operating table? They seem to have very similar experiences. Leaving their bodies behind with relief, feelings of great tranquillity and love, reuniting with deceased friends and relatives. And most of them describe an encounter with some kind of light . . .”

  “Who knows? Maybe it signifies that the best is yet to come, which suits me, I guarantee. On the other hand, we know that the brain remains electrically alive for up to thirty minutes after the heart and other vital organs have ceased to function. So these 'heavenly' experiences o' the temporarily dead may be merely an archetypal drama unfolding upon the stage o' departin' consciousness, a farewell performance of a powerful mythological allegory. And when the brain turns the juice off a half-hour later, boom, the curtain falls once and for all; the show is over, and there's no waitin' up for the reviews. Ultimate solitude. As for the light, well, all o' matter is condensed light. We came from light, each of us, so where's the wonder that we return to it in death?”

  “So, you're saying any way we slice it we're doomed.”

  “Not at all, Pris. I'm sayin' that we don't know what the afterlife is like, we absolutely do not know. Therefore, until we do know, we ought to do our best to go on livin'.”

  “But how will we ever know?”

  “Should your man Alobar make contact with Kudra, we'd learn a lot, we would. 'Tis a long shot, but I believe it might still be done. Part o' the secret lies in the perfume.”