Anyway, what I was saying was that's just not me. As long as I've got my very fresh broadsword, Old Betsy, and a flat place to stand, I guess I'm ready for anything, I'm sure. That's nitro, toe, 'cause every time I whoosh myself across time and space, the Lords of Karma have dished out some wacko new challenge for me. This last one was like nine-point-five for difficulty, and I gave myself a perfect ten for performance if I do say so myself, thank you very much.
Of course I was whooshing myself back to Mars, and of course I got lost again along the way. I ended up in this fully faux town, like somewhere in the Midwest where they have like, you know, corn fields behind the high school. The place had one main street with a dimestore and a drugstore and a beauty parlor and a Dairy Queen. I mean, Bits, what more could a person ask for? No, let's not make a list. Let's just get on with the tale of my thrilling exploit.
There was this wooden sign on the lawn in front of the town hall. It said WELCOME TO SPRINGFIELD! IF YOU LIVED HERE, WE'D KNOW YOUR EVERY LITTLE SECRET! The town square was what Pammy, my step-mom, would call charming and quaint. You know, all warm and friendly and kind of like Bedford Falls from It's A Wonderful Life. Girlfriend, it was just too terribly dreary, like the kind of HO-gauge plastic village you set up around the model railroad under your Christmas tree.
Well, we always had one 'cause really Christmas is just so commercial and I was raised to be just an excellent consumer. I'm just like so sad that you were deprived, honey. You really need to come to terms with your feelings, Bits. You don't want to be all twisted by bitterness and stuff.
So if you want the God's-honest truth, I felt out of place in Springfield, for sure. The people who lived there were like the salt-of-the-Earth Type, and why they needed a buff 'n' tuff champion like me I don't know. I mean, if they were plagued by dragons and ogres and whatall, they kept it hidden really really well. Still, one thing I've learned from reading like absolutely dozens of Stephen King books—
Well, don't look at me like that! Sure I know Stephen King books. So okay, like I haven't actually read one, but I've seen some of the movies. And one time I heard a whole bunch of one on a cassette tape in Daddy's car. I think it was the one about alien abductions, crop circles, and the hollow Earth. Like I'm so sure that was a Stephen King book, I don't care if it doesn't sound familiar to you. What are you, the Times book review section all of a sudden? Jeez, Bitsy, just let me go on narrating, huh, okay?
What was I saying? Oh, yeah. I've got my legendary sword, Old Betsy, all limbered up, and I'm ready to do like serious mayhem, but the only target in sight is this L.O.L. That means Little Old Lady, sweetie, you're supposed to remember these things.
I don't care like how wretchedly evil she might be, I couldn't bring myself to slice 'n' dice this grandma until I got to know her a little better. So I wait for her to come up to me and she goes, "You must be new in Springfield, dear, I haven't seen you around town before. Hello, my name is Judith Barlow. I'm the widow of Robert Barlow, who was Springfield's leading banker and the grandson of our town's founder."
"Cool," I go. "I'm Maureen Birnbaum, and I'm like a freelance adventurer bound to uphold justice wherever I travel."
"That's just wonderful, dear." She gave me a good going-over from head to toe, and I was ready for her to totally dis my warrior-woman garb. She just smiled and shook her head a little, and then she goes, "In my day, there was only one kind of girl who wore ankle bracelets. Gracious, but times have changed."
That wasn't half as bad as I expected. I'm like, "Yes, ma'am, I guess so."
"I was on my way to Springfield University Hospital to call on some patients. Would you like to accompany me? Visiting shut-ins can be so rewarding."
Well, I had nothing urgent penciled in for the afternoon, so I figured I could probably learn a lot about Springfield by hanging out with this Barlow babe. She was probably one of the town's leading citizens, and if there was a rotten scoundrel who needed correcting, she'd be able to point him out. "You bet, Mrs. Barlow," I go.
She smiled. "Please, just call me Ma. Practically everyone in Springfield does." She seemed to be a very pleasant lady, but I've learned that looks can be very deceiving. I mean, sometimes you ask yourself, "How well do I really know this person?" You'd be surprised the creepy things nice-looking people can do sometimes. Take your ex, for example. You've got to admit that you were fooled at first. I remember telling you—
Sure, Bitsy, whatever you say. Ma Barlow and I walked along Ridge Street toward the hospital, and the sun was nice and warm on my skin. I was wearing this same jewel-encrusted solid gold bikini—it's like my costume, okay? People see me wearing this, they know right off that I'm not your ordinary sultry raven-tressed beauty. And Old Betsy sort of clinches it. People go, "Look! There goes Maureen Birnbaum! I sure wish I could be like her! She must have the most wonderful, exciting life! She must have kings and movie stars and captains of industry laying untold wealth at her feet, but so committed to righting wrongs is she that—"
But it's true, Bitsy! This outfit is the same as, you know, Bruce Wayne's Batman drag. It strikes terror into the hearts of the villains. And whoever designed this hot little number could give the Maidenform people a few lessons. This bra would give even you cleavage, sweetie.
Back to Ma Barlow. She asked me where I was from and where I went to school and if I was seeing anybody and what I wanted to be when I grew up. And then it struck me. You know who she looked like? No, really, I mean, it. She looked and talked and acted just like Mary Worth! You know, Mary Worth. It's the comic strip between For Better Or For Worse and the Word Search puzzle. Mary Worthis this two hundred-year-old busybody who goes around interfering in everybody's lives until like they all conform to her very ancient idea of the way people should behave. And Judith Barlow had the same white hair pulled back into this bun, and her advice was just so terribly wise, and she was also so goddamn kindly and sweet that I wanted to whack her head right off before the whole world went into sugar shock.
When we reached the hospital, I go, "It's not very big, is it?" Bits, I swear, it was only two stories high and smaller than your average WalMart.
"It's grand enough for Springfield," Mrs. B. goes. "We're quite proud of it, actually. People from all over the country come here for relief from neuritis, neuralgia, and muscular aches and pains, not to mention the heartbreak of psoriasis. I do a lot of-volunteer work here, darling, it keeps me young. Now, let's go visit my niece, Adriana, first. She's in room 102."
"Oh?" I go. "Does she have psoriasis?"
Mrs. Barlow smiled. "She's in a coma, dear, but I know she can hear me. I visit her every day and I pray for her, and I know that wherever she is, deep inside herself, she's fighting just as hard as she can to come back to us."
I was moved, like emotionally. "You've got a very positive attitude, Ma."
She smiled and waved a hand. "Well, just about everybody in Springfield's been in a coma, one time or another. And they always come back sooner or later. I remember my coma—well, not the coma itself, but the waking up. It was so wonderful to see all my family and friends again! I think, next to my wedding day, that was the happiest time of my life."
I didn't really know what to say, 'cause like I haven't yet had my first coma. I hope that when I do, Bitsy, you'll be just as brave as Ma Barlow.
In the elevator, the old lady filled me in on the other people we were going to visit—Adriana, her niece, wasn't her only relative laid up at Springfield University Hospital. Ma Barlow had a sister, Fiona, who had been adopted and was much younger than Mrs. B., and Fiona was Adriana's mother. Now, apparently Fiona had had an affair with a wealthy contractor, this guy Jeffrey Stark, but Stark was blackmailing Fiona these days. His secretary, Summer, was a former prostitute who was pregnant by Quinn Thompson, the younger brother of Todd Thompson, Adriana's husband. Summer was in the hospital with amnesia, and we were going to drop by her room, too.
Really, Bitsy, it isn't funny. These people had such complicated lives, I c
ould see why somebody'd catch amnesia. You'd think they'd need a whole filebox full of index cards just to keep their relationships straight. And I know you don't catch amnesia. I'm not that dumb, sweetie.
And then the elevator doors slid open, and I had this revelation. it was like . . . I don't know how to describe it. I just knew that everything suddenly looked incredibly familiar, and I didn't understand how that could be, because I knew for a fact that I'd never set foot in this town of Springfield before in all my life. I walked toward the nurses' station, and I just shivered, the deja vu was so strong.
Ma Barlow must've noticed something. "Are you all right, Maureen? Stand up straight, dear."
I felt kind of dreamy. "Uh huh," I go. I suppose I wasn't paying attention, because I nearly knocked down a doctor in a white labcoat who'd just come out of one of the patient's rooms.
"Excuse me, miss," he goes.
I started to apologize, but the words got all caught in my throat and I almost choked on them. It took me a few seconds to recover. Then I go, "Dr. Beaumont?"
He smiled at me. He gave me this beautiful hundred-watt smile that I'd seen a thousand times before. It was Dr. Keith Beaumont, the chief surgeon at the hospital, and the most gorgeous hunk of man you've ever seen. Daddy's wife, Pammy, absolutely adores him. She cut his picture out of a magazine and keeps it someplace where Daddy won't find it by accident. A magazine, Bitsy. Yeah, Daytime Drama Digest. It's a soap opera rag, sweetie. Dr. Keith Beaumont is a character on Search For Another Doctor.
Look, don't ask me how I got to this extremely non-real Springfield place. I can't explain it, just like I can't explain any of my miraculous journeys. I'm just a pawn in the eternal battle between good and evil, and I travel where the universal will sends me. I ask no questions, I demand no explanations, and as for reward, well, simply the knowledge that my actions have helped hold back the bitter black night of chaos a little longer—
You want to hear more about Dr. Keith Beaumont. Sure, okay. Cosmic significance can wait till the next time I have lunch with like the Dalai Lama. No, I didn't get the doctor's autograph. There's no such person as Dr. Keith Beaumont, Bitsy. He's a fictional character played by an actor named, um, Walter Morrison or something.
You're missing the point. See, I thought I was in the Real World, but I wasn't. People could act pretty damn weird here, and nobody but me would notice.
I watched Dr. Beaumont enter another patient's room. "He's even better looking in person," I go.
Mrs. Barlow goes, "And he's a remarkable person, too. It's a great accomplishment to be chief of surgery at the age of sixteen."
"Sixteen?" I go. "He looks like he's got to be at least forty."
She shrugged. "His parents sent him away to summer camp when he was eleven, and when he came home he was a surgeon. That was five years ago."
So later, after we visited Ma Barlow's niece, Adriana—and her hospital room was stuffed with like more flowers than I've ever seen in one place before—and Ma and I prayed, each in our own way, for the girl to come out of her coma—we dropped in on Summer, the ex-hooker.
Summer goes, "Hi, Ma!" Everybody was always just glad to see the old woman.
"Hello, dear," Mrs. B. goes. "How are you today? Have you had any memories?"
"No, but that's all right. Everyone is being just so friendly and kind and caring. I can't wait to remember who you all are, because you're all such wonderful people."
I had to ask. "What kind of treatment do they give you for amnesia here?"
Summer just blinked at me. "Have we met? You're not my sister, are you? Or my husband's mistress?"
Ma goes, "You're not married, dear."
Summer's like, "Oh, that's right. I keep forgetting what I've been told that I've forgotten. Treatment? Just getting a lot of rest"
"How long have you been in this room, then?" I go.
Summer glanced at Ma Barlow, who looked thoughtful. "About seven months, I guess," Mrs. B. goes.
Seven, months of bed rest in a private room! Jeffrey Stark industries must've had one hell of an employee benefits package.
We said goodbye to Summer and went back out into the hall. I go, "It's pretty neat that you don't hold that girl's slutty past against her."
Ma Barlow goes, "If you can't say anything nice about a person, you shouldn't say anything at all. I'm sure everyone in Springfield has a wicked secret somewhere in his past."
I'm thinking, except maybe Ma Barlow herself.
Later we dropped in on Greg Parker, who was suffering from some kind of hysterical blindness. So now I'm like, donnez-moi un break, like really! I wish I'd thought of hysterical blindness some days. "Mom, I can't go to school today, 'cause like I can't see!" The godly goofy thing about Greg was that all his other senses had become way super sharp. Like he just listened to my voice and told me how much coffee I'd had in the last twenty-four hours. There's got to be a way to market a talent like that.
And let's just tiptoe quietly past Donna Rutherford, who had at least eleven separate personalities. I never got to see the whole inventory, but two of the three that I did meet were people you wouldn't want to be trapped with on an elevator.
So I go, "Doesn't anybody in Springfield ever come here with something simple, like a busted arm?"
Ma Barlow laughed. "Let's say goodbye now, dear. We have to visit the courthouse next. My grandson Tommy is on trial for murder."
As we walked back up Ridge Street toward the town's courthouse/police station/jail/library, it was still warm, but I noticed that dark clouds had started to shove over from the west, and it was threatening to rain. That probably jubilated the farmers working in the fields behind the high school. Hey, Bitsy, like they say, into everyone's life some corn must fall.
About now, Ma Barlow turned kind of philosophical on me. "In the immortal words of Abraham Lincoln," she goes, "judge not lest ye be judged."
I go, "For real even? Wasn't it Shakespeare who wrote that? I'm like so totally sure Shylock's daughter says that to Bagnio in the 'quality of mercy' speech."
Ma smiled, being wise and kind enough to forgive me for rudely correcting an elder. "It doesn't make any difference who said it first,. dear. The truth remains—my grandson Tommy is innocent, although all the evidence seems to point to him. The district attorney thinks she has an open-and-shut case, just because the victim accused Tommy with his dying breath, and because no one else in town had either a motive or an opportunity, and because somehow they got a confession out of my grandson."
"Sounds like twilight time for Tommy to me," I go.
"I have faith in our criminal justice system. Tommy's a good boy, and I'm positive that he'll be vindicated. He always has been before."
"Uh huh. How many other times has Tommy been tried for murder?"
Mrs. B. stopped to think. "Five," she goes, "but one was a mistrial. He's never been convicted."
So far, I thought. The kid's got to stop tripping over fresh dead bodies.
"And while we're there," she goes, "we can say hello to Father Chilcoat. He's gone to jail because he won't reveal why Lester DuPage kidnapped his own baby boy and pretended that his ex-wife, Dodie, had done it, when everyone in Springfield knew that Dodie couldn't have done it because she was visiting her mother at that research station in Tierra del Fuego."
"Right," I go.
"The TV station owner's wife, Bubba Sue Conway, is locked up because she sneaked into the hospital and switched the DNA tests that proved her baby's father was the high school gym teacher, not her husband."
"Right."
"And there's somebody else in jail, too, but I can't be expected to remember who all of them are!"
"No, you can't." I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't real life, it was Search For Another Doctor. Sometimes it almost looked like real life, though.
"It's a shame we won't have time to stop by my combination home/hospice/ex-con halfway-house/shelter for runaway teens and homeless. You could try my famous doughnuts My friends,
the criminal offenders, tell me they're the best doughnuts they've ever tasted."
"Sounds way cool, Ma," I go, "but we rugged fighting women have to watch our waistlines."
Before we got to the courthouse, something full-on freaky happened. No, even stranger than running into Dr. Keith Beaumont up-close-and-personal. I met .. . my evil twin.
I'll just pause here while you compose yourself, Bitsy. I'll wait five seconds, and then like I'll slap you. And your line will be, "Thanks, sir, I needed that"
Half a block away, turning a corner onto Ridge Street, was this drop-dead gorgeous woman, okay? She was wearing a dark blue business outfit, off the rack from Mervyn's or someplace, with a black leather attache case, and she was like the supreme dynamic-woman-on-the-go, right? She was exactly my height and exactly my weight, and she had hair the very same length and color as mine, just not as perfectly coifed. She had my coloring, and she was every bit as graceful and naturally sexy as I am. Still, at the same time, I could sense that beneath her stunningly beautiful exterior, she had a twisted, cruel heart as black as her obviously counterfeit Carlos Falchi purse.
My throat felt dry. I go, "Who is that?"
"That's Floreen Birnbaum, dear. I have nothing nice to say about her. We used to call her Fluffy, but she just hates that nickname now. Her father named her Fluorine. He was an eccentric scientist who believed mankind's salvation depended on the fluoridization of our drinking water. After his tragic death—ironically, his body was found floating in the Springfield Municipal Reservoir—she immediately changed the spelling of her first name, and legally changed Birnbaum to Burns."
The other me laughed. It was a cold, vicious sound like, you know, that fakey out-of-sync laughter of the bad guys on Speed Racer. She was completely mental, sweetie, like one spear short of a pickle.
We were for sure a lot alike, but we weren't identical. For one thing, she was older than me. Of course! Bitsy, you've noticed that I stopped aging when I first whooshed from that ski trip in Vermont to Mars. You—and Floreen Burns—are thirty years old, but am forever and eternally young, a radiant, joyful, vibrant seventeen. I don't know why I have been singled out for this amazing gift. I merely accept it as like my due.
Maureen Birnbaum, Barbarian Swordperson Page 22
