The Wooden Sea

by Jonathan Carroll

  “Are you serious, Caz? You really want to go one on one with me about old TV shows? You’ll lose.”

  “You’re stalling for time. Answer my question.” His voice had a strange ability to sound mean and joking at the same time.

  “Okay. Claude Kirschner.” Now I was relaxed. I could play this game asleep and still beat his ass. “That’s too easy. How about this—who sang the theme song to Wyatt Earp?”

  He tossed one busy hand in the air. “The Ken Darby Singers. Who was Yancy Derringer’s sidekick?” People were watching us. Floon was playing to them.

  “Pahoo. What actor played the part?”

  “X. Brands. Who played the Cisco Kid’s sidekick?” I crossed my arms.

  “Leo Carrillo.”

  Smug. Smug. I wanted to slap him in his smug smile. He didn’t need mountains to climb—he could have rappelled off his own ego. At his suggestion we moved from TV to sports trivia of that time. He was damned good at it. When we’d come up even on baseball, football, and basketball, I decided to raise the trivia stakes. “How about pro wrestling, Caz? Back in the days when Ray Morgan was announcing at Uline Arena?”

  Floon opened his arms in a sweeping, theatrical gesture for me to begin.

  “Name the Fabulous Kangaroos.”

  “Roy Heffernan and Al Costello.”

  “Who was Moose Cholak’s tag-team partner?”

  “The Mighty Atlas. Please, Frannie, give me some credit.”

  “Skull Murphy’s?”

  “Brute Bernard.”

  “Where was Skull from?”

  “Ireland.”

  The questions and answers got faster, our voices louder. I’m sure we looked and sounded ridiculous: Two old men in identical ten-thousand-dollar suits yelling at each other about Skull Murphy, Haystacks Calhoun, Fuzzy Cupid. This nonsense went on until he introduced Corn Bob.

  I smirked at the stupid name. “Who?”

  Mr. de Floon wasn’t used to being ridiculed. His mouth did a little tight dance. His hands stopped dancing altogether. “Corn Bob. He had a submission hold called the corncob.”

  Usually I like liars because they make life more zippy, but Floon had already rubbed me so much the wrong way that he could have passed for a piece of sandpaper. “You’re full of shit.”

  Our corner of the universe suddenly got exceedingly quiet. Floon’s eyelids flared but he said nothing. The only thing in my mind was how was I going to discover anything here if I keep pissing people off?

  He rubbed his nose. “You don’t believe there was a wrestler named Corn Bob?”

  “No.”

  Silence.

  “Do you know why I like you, Frannie?”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the only one who talks back to me. The only one who has the balls to do it.”

  The tension went out of his voice and out of the air. People in our group who had heard looked at me with either admiration or envy.

  “What was the name of Buster Brown’s dog in the shoe ad?”

  He wasn’t going to quit, but I’d had enough. “Tyge. Look, I’ve got a question about something else—where did this feather on your logo come from? I see it everywhere.”

  “Ha ha. And I’m supposed to address that question seriously?”

  “Yes, I’d like to know.”

  “You’d like to know where the Floon feather comes from?” He waited long enough to realize I was serious. “Frannie, you’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  To my surprise, instead of answering he snapped his fingers a few times to catch someone’s attention. Quickly a very pretty young woman in the gypsy dress appeared. “Nora, I think Mr. McCabe is feeling a little floaty this morning. He’s having some trouble remembering. Perhaps you can help. Frannie, you’ve met Nora Putnam? She’s our resident doctor on this trip.”

  “Do you feel dizzy or light-headed, sir?”

  “Floon, answer my question: Where does the feather come from?”

  “You know where it comes from.”

  “Remind me.”

  Dr. Putnam reached out to touch me but thought better of it and dropped her hand. “We can go right over there and sit down, Mr. McCabe. The Viennese John wind is blowing today and sometimes that affects people physically in strange ways.” “Leave me alone. Floon—”

  Seeing something over my shoulder, everything about him went rigid. It was astonishing. From sweet concern to whole-body fury in two seconds. “What is she doing?”

  Both the doctor and I turned to see what had him in such a twist. We had to—his anger was beyond belief. I saw the same flock of people moving around and talking in the lobby. What -was Floon’s problem? As I was about to turn back to ask what the hell was going on, I caught a glimpse of Susan in her nice blue dress walking toward us.

  “Where is her costume? Why isn’t she wearing it?”

  “She didn’t want to.”

  “Didn’t want to? That’s interesting. Susan didn’t want to wear my dress?” Floon spat this at Dr. Putnam, who winced and looked like she wanted to run far away. Next he gave me the X-ray glare. “I owe you a great deal, Frannie. Without you my life would have been very different. But you’re here and so is your wife. You accepted my invitation. All that I asked in return was that you do a few things for me in the proper spirit. This is not the proper spirit.”

  “Good morning.” Susan arrived smiling and it didn’t change when she saw Floon’s flaming look. She wore a nice perfume that lifted me.

  “Where is your dress, Susan? Is there a problem with it?”

  “No, Caz, I just don’t look good in it. I didn’t think you would mind.”

  “I mind very much.”

  I’m sorry.

  “You can still go put it on. We have time.” “I don’t want to put it on, Caz.” “Sure you do, go ahead. I’ll hold breakfast for you.” “She doesn’t want to put it on, Floon, so why don’t you drop it?”

  “Thank you, Frannie.” It was the first time Susan had smiled at me.

  “I don’t think I want to wear this either, come to think of it.” I took off the suit jacket and dropped it on the floor. Then I began working the knot of the tie loose.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking off my clothes. Taking off your clothes.” The knot wouldn’t come undone. I tugged harder. When it wouldn’t budge I said screw it and reached down to the belt buckle. I liked the idea of standing naked in front of Caz and his guests. Susan in her taboo blue dress, me in my wrinkled birthday suit.

  Floon bellowed “Gus!” and out of nowhere Mr. Gould appeared.

  “Can I help?”

  “Get them out of here. Out of my sight! I will not let them ruin anything. This is my trip! I’ve planned it for too long.”

  “Now Caz—”

  Floon shook his head once and walked away. I warbled “Bye!” to his back.

  Susan laughed. “Do you think he’ll write a note to my parents?”

  Gus didn’t think any of it was funny. “This is not good Susan. You made a really big mistake.”

  “I don’t think so. Come on, husband. Looks like we have a free day together in Vienna.”

  I picked the jacket up off the floor. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  Gus tried to stop us. “Please don’t go. Maybe if I talk to him we can work this out—”

  Susan took my hand. “I don’t want to work it out, Gus. I’m not guilty of anything. Dinner tonight is on that boat cruise around the Danube, right? And we can wear what we want? So we’ll meet you down there. I think Frannie and I need some downtime from Floon and this whole trip.” She started us toward the revolving front door.

  Dr. Putnam asked, “But Mr. McCabe, I thought you were feeling ill?”

  “I’ll survive. The only thing I’m sure of is today I don’t have to worry about dying.”

  We walked down a beautiful, wide tree-lined street for a long time without talking. It was a nice day. The trees were in full bloom, and even the
many cars passing nearby seemed more quiet than usual when there’s a lot of traffic. Susan had her arm linked in mine. I figured it was best to keep quiet until she spoke.

  I kept busy looking for signs of what life would be like thirty (?) years on. Clothes looked more or less the same, although occasionally someone passed wearing an outfit like the costumes kids wore in the futuristic music videos Pauline watched on MTV. Cars were sleek and generally small—I rarely saw a big honker like a Mercedes or a BMW. When enough had passed, I realized they were so quiet because no exhaust was coming out of the tail pipes. There were no tail pipes. Without thinking I said to myself, “Electric.”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Frannie, what did that woman mean when she asked if you were feeling ill?”

  A man walked by wearing a black plastic helmet over his entire head. And there didn’t seem to be any place for him to see out the front. But he walked straight ahead and didn’t bump into anything.

  “What’s with that guy?”

  Susan gave him only the briefest glance. “He’s studying.” “Studying? With a bowling ball on his head?” “Don’t change the subject, Frannie. Aren’t you feeling okay?” Ding-Dong! The whole solution came to me in a flash. I knew exactly how to find out what I needed to know. “Can we sit down a minute?”

  Park benches were conveniently placed along the way. We walked to the next one where I sat down slowly and heavily, giving out a midsized groan for added effect. After a few beats I took her hand. “Susan, I have to tell you something. It’s the real reason why what happened this morning—”

  “You mean in bed?”

  “Yes, that’s part of it. I didn’t want to tell you because, well, because it scares me and I didn’t want it to scare you too. Especially while we were on this trip.”

  “What, Frannie, what is it?”

  “I can’t remember things anymore. Big things or small things—it’s all the same. All of my head is empty. I think I might have Alzheimer’s disease. I’m scared shitless.”

  “So?” Her voice was calm; her face said so what?

  “So? Is that all you can say? Memory is leaking out of me like air from a balloon and you say so?”

  “We’ll go to a drugstore and get you some Tapsodil. What is the problem?”

  “What’s Tapsodil?”

  “It’s medicine for Alzheimer’s disease. You take it for three days and you’re cured.”

  “Shit.” I made a sour face.

  “What?”

  “They can cure Alzheimer’s now?”

  “Of course. I had it two years ago. It’s not a big deal, Frannie. You don’t even need a doctor’s prescription.”

  “But...”

  “But what? Is that all you’re worried about?”

  I couldn’t think of another thing to say. My brilliant plan to trick all the info I needed out of Susan had come and gone like a breeze. Stumped, I watched another person go by with a full-head helmet on, only this one was yellow. “What the fuck is this, the Pod People? Look Susan, until I get some of this espadrille—”

  “Tapsodil.”

  “Tapsodil. Yeah, whatever, you have to help me. I don’t like walking around in my own life bumping into walls, not able to remember the layout. So just for now answer a few questions. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Who’s Floon? What is that feather logo he uses?”

  “He owns the largest pharmaceutical company in the world. They make Tapsodil, among hundreds of other drugs. The feather is the company trademark. You really don’t remember this?”

  “No. But why that feather?”

  “You gave it to him. You and George.”

  “George Dalemwood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is he?”

  “My God, Frannie, you don’t remember that either?”

  “Nothing. Where is George?”

  She looked at her hands in her lap. “He disappeared thirty years ago.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just that. He disappeared from Crane’s View and no one knows what happened to him. You tried to find him for years but never had any luck.”

  “Disappeared? George?”

  “Yes.”

  I had given Floon the Old Vertue feather? And George – dependable, sedentary George Dalemwood disappeared never to be heard from again? This was my future? While trying mentally to swallow those two lumps, I heard someone singing Aretha Franklin’s “Respect.” Two voices sang, one of them sounding distinctly weird. That was because the voice came from a dog.

  A man in faded jeans and a green T-shirt that said DROPKICK MURPHYS walked next to a Rottweiler. The man moved quickly while the dog trotted next to him looking up at his master occasionally as if waiting for a cookie. But the two were singing “Respect” and they weren’t half bad. The dog’s voice was gravelly and rough, sort of deep and sort of not. I don’t know what I’m saying—how the hell do you describe a dog’s singing voice?

  I whipped around to Susan and saw she was looking the other way. I elbowed her hard and she cried out. “Susan! Susan!”

  “What? Why did you do that? It hurt!”

  “Look! Look!”

  “So what? Why did you hit me?”

  The singers passed us singing R-E-S-P-E-C-T...

  “That dog is singing!”

  “Yes, and?”

  “When did they teach dogs to sing?”

  She rubbed her arm. “Years ago. I don’t know when. Ask Floon. They invented the stuff.”

  “What stuff? To make dogs talk?”

  She must have remembered I had Alzheimer’s because she stopped looking angry. “No. But you can give them stuff that makes them learn things. Like how to sing or say certain phrases.”

  “Jesus! Why would you do that?”

  “For fun. I don’t know. I hate dogs.”

  As a kid I used to eat as fast as I could. My parents would say slow down, slow down or you’re going to throw up. But there was always someplace important to go or someone to see and food was only fuel to get me there. As a result I often ate so fast I’d get a stomachache that lasted hours. Sitting with Susan on that bench in Vienna, in a world where Rottweilers sang Aretha Franklin and people passed with bowling balls on their heads I had the same feeling; only this time the ache was in my head and not my guts.

  “I wanna go home.”

  Susan nodded and sighed. Little did she know to what home I was referring.

  “When did you and I get married?”

  Wrong question to ask. She didn’t answer and only when I turned did I see she was crying.

  When she finally spoke, her voice was bitter. “I thought everything would now finally work out. Stupid me, eh? Stupid me! Do you realize I have loved you my whole life? My whole damned life you’ve been stuck in me like a piece of meat between my teeth I can’t get out. But finally finally I thought we were home free. I waited my whole life for you. I fought and I was patient and I never gave up hope because I just knew one day I’d prevail. I honestly believe life makes sense if you’re patient. And I was, Frannie! All those years I waited for you like the girl in a corner waiting to be asked to dance. When you asked me to marry you—”

  “I did?”

  “Yes you did, damn it! Please don’t tell me you forgot that too. I think I’ve been humiliated enough for one morning. When you asked, I thought: fifty years too late but why the hell not? I’ve loved the idiot all this time so why not finish the party with him? One great last hurrah before...

  “I’m going back to the hotel and lie down. Go to a pharmacy or whatever they call them here and ask for Tapsodil. I’m sure they’ll have it.” She stood up and rubbed her arm some more.

  “Don’t go, Susan. Let’s have this day together and be happy. Everything’s my fault and I apologize. We’ll do the town.” I moved to stand up but my lower body promptly reminded me I was an old geezer. My legs were uncooperative. Cursing quietly, I rocked back a
nd forth twice to gain momentum and only then was able to rise. “I’m not good at being old.”

  “You still look pretty cute to me, husband. And I want to tell you a secret. Do you know what made me love you most of all? I always had a thing for you, sure, but the thing that really hooked me?”

  “Tell.”

  “How wonderfully you cared for Magda when she was dying. I’d never seen that side of you, Frannie. I never thought you had it in you.”

  Hearing those terrible words, hearing that my Magda died was as bad as if it had just happened. What immediately came to mind was the conversation I’d had with George when I told him I had never loved anyone enough to fear losing them. But now, in this strange no-man’s-land time, I realized I had never been more wrong about anything in my whole life. Knowing Magda would die before me was unbearable.

  “When, Susan? When did she die?”

  She made a worried face and moved to go. “We have to get you those pills.”

  I stepped in front of her. “When?”

  “On my forty-eighth birthday. I’ll never forget it.”

  Magda would be dead in less than two years.

  What happened next almost saved me and the rest of my life a lot of trouble. Almost. We found an apotheke and Susan bought some of the Alzheimer’s medicine for me. I didn’t watch the transaction because I was too busy looking around the place, trying to familiarize myself with a world thirty years my senior. This drugstore looked pretty typical except for some futuristic gadgets on display that did God only knows what to repair and improve human life. If they’d spoken English there I’d have asked, but my German vocabulary consisted solely of ja and nein. Walking out of there, we almost bumped into another Pod Person– this time wearing white.

  “All right, what the hell is he learning with that thing on his head?”

  “White is for memory recall. It allows you to relive any part of your life that you choose in perfect detail. It’s mostly used by psychologists in therapy; and by the police in criminal investigations.”