Petrogypsies

by Rory Harper

  He spotted me and waved and looked around some more before he wandered over in my direction.

  He sat down next to me on the couch. “Going to get a going-over by the vets, huh?”

  “Vets? You mean veterinarians, like Hillary?” He nodded. “They don’t use vets in medical clinics. I ain’t falling for that one.”

  “Students, actually. If you’re in for a physical, you got a fifty-fifty chance of drawing a vet student.”

  “Naw! You’re just messing with me.”

  “Uh-uh. People are just monkeys that got too proud to walk on their knuckles. The school trains vets to take care of humans in case of emergencies like floods and earthquakes and the occasional nuclear war. Interning in the clinic for a couple of months is part of the training. You’ll know it’s a vet student if he tries to strap you down and take your temperature rectally. Some of their habits die hard.”

  I must have looked alarmed. He smiled. “Just kidding, Henry Lee.”

  “I ain’t a complete moron, actually,” I said, though I wasn’t sure anymore that was true. “It’s just—I been running into so much new stuff at P&A that I don’t know what to take serious yet.”

  “I’ve been here three years, and I haven’t gotten that entirely straight myself. I’ll try not to kid you too much until you get your feet on the ground.” He patted me on the head.

  “Thanks a whole bunch,” I said. I stuck out my hand. “Shake on it, buddy?”

  He looked at my hand, then my face. Then back at my hand. “Uh—no thanks.” We both grinned.

  “So—how come you’re hanging out in the clinic?” I asked.

  “I’m a scientist. I’m looking for people to experiment on.”

  “Beg pardon?”

  “No, not really experiment on. I’m participating in a government research project where I need to obtain a broad range of biological samples. Blood, hair, urine, feces, perspiration, that sort of thing. I pay twenty-five bucks per subject.”

  I sat up straighter in my chair. “Oh, really? What sort of subjects?” Being in a scientific experiment kind of appealed to me. Not to mention the twenty-five bucks that could go toward the purchase of a Stratocaster.

  He shrugged. “I have a fair amount of latitude. The project is funded and controlled by the National Institutes of Health. They want samples from varied somatotypes in order to get a significant nationwide demographic cross-section.

  “Uh … okay.”

  “I personally like to put information into the ends of the bell-curve, not the middle. I try to recruit real mutants.”

  If I had thought he was deliberately trying to fuddle me, I might have got mad, but it was obvious he honestly thought I understood him.

  “Great!” I said. “Well, guess that let’s me out, huh?”

  “What makes you say that? A fella as large as you, you’d be perfect. Are you interested?”

  “Huh. I guess … What’s a mutant?”

  Right then, Star came back through the swinging doors at the end of the room, and Stevie and me both sat up straighter. The nurse behind the desk called my name out. Stevie gawked at Star as she glided toward us. “She is also definitely on the far end of the bell curve,” he said out of the side of his mouth. “Mind if I recruit her?” He absentmindedly reached up and started toying with his earring.

  Well, she had made it clear she didn’t need no protection from strange men, and Stevie was about as strange as they got.

  * * *

  The fella that gave me my physical had a thermometer in his coat pocket that looked larger than I liked. I made sure not to get in too helpless a position during the proceedings.

  When I came out, Star and Stevie were sitting on the couch chattering away like old friends.

  “Well, great,” Star said as I drew near. “Looks like we got plenty of time before afternoon rehearsals to get you into this research program of Stevie’s.”

  “Uh … Y’all been discussing the details of this deal while I was in there?”

  Star nodded. “Oh, yes. Sounds like a great idea. For you, that is. I have regretfully declined, myself. C’mon, let’s head on over to the Vet Building.”

  When we got there, we went through the front entrance straight on through to Hillary and her crew swarming over Sprocket. He ignored everybody while he watched the tee-vee, of course. I waved at Hillary, then went over and scratched above one of Sprocket’s eyeballs until I got a reluctant groan of pleasure from him. I visited with him for a few minutes, then headed upstairs with Stevie and Star.

  When Stevie unlocked his lab door and let us in, we found Billy Bob kicked back with his feet on Stevie’s desk. He stood up. “Well, howdy, Star. You’re looking wonderful today.” He ignored me and turned toward Stevie. “We need to have a little chat, Professor.”

  Stevie sighed. “Whatever. I’m not even going to ask how you got in here. Excuse us, folks. Grab a seat for a minute.” Him and Billy Bob went into his inner office and closed the door for only about a minute, before Stevie slammed it open again.

  He looked angry. “You tell Coach Hanson that I don’t operate that way, and to forget the idea right now.”

  Billy Bob’s nodded politely. “Thanks for your time, Professor.” He turned toward the door. “Pleasure seeing you again, Star.” Stevie was trembling.

  “You all right?” I asked, after Billy Bob had vanished into the hallway.

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I’m just getting a little tired of Billy Bob and his aunt, that’s all.”

  “His aunt? Is this coach his aunt?” Star asked.

  That broke the tension for him. He laughed. “No, my boss is his aunt. You don’t know her, but Henry Lee does. Coach Hanson isn’t anybody’s aunt. He’s in charge of the football program here. Billy Bob told me that the coach thought he would be much too busy this semester playing football, so it was a good idea for me to hand him an A in the course he’ll be taking from me. Without his ever really attending it.”

  “Maybe Billy Bob was trying to put one over on you without the coach knowing about it.”

  “That might be, but the coach is quite capable of coming up with that sort of suggestion himself.”

  “That don’t sound right,” I said.

  “It isn’t. But the jocks here are treated like they were the second coming. Football is big businees at P&A. The professors get a lot of pressure from the athletic department and from administration to go easy on them academically. But this is the most outrageous demand I’ve heard yet.” He snorted. “Didn’t want to attend at all. What with having the coach and his aunt to cover for him, Billy Bob seems to have decided that he can get away with anything he wants to.” He shook his head. “Well, never mind. Billy Bob and the coach probably can’t do anything to me that the Magnolia isn’t already contemplating. Let’s get these samples taken care of.”

  He sent me to the bathroom down the hallway to make him some urine and stool samples into separate plastic cups. When I got back he had spread all his equipment on a marble countertop to take the rest of the samples with.

  Star watched while he cut off a couple of pieces of my hair and carefully sealed them in a small plastic bag. Then he had me spit a half a dozen times into a plastic cup and sealed that one, too. He clipped my fingernails. He drew out a couple of tubes of blood from my left arm and put them in the refrigerator next to his desk.

  “Oooh! Needles give me the crotchety willies!” Star said. But she didn’t avert her eyes. Looked pretty interested in the whole process, matter of fact.

  “Okay, skin off your shirt,” he said. I tried to figure out what he needed next and couldn’t think of nothing.

  He had me raise my arm and used some teensy scissors, different from the ones he used on my hair and fingernails, to clip about half the hair in my left armpit.

  He used a couple of Q-tips to rub out of my e
ars anything that might be in them. Then he stuck a couple more up my nose, which was kinda embarrassing. Didn’t look like he got anything, but he sealed those in plastic bags, too.

  Star asked him where she could find a drink of water, and he referred her to the fountain out in the hall and down the left tee. Then he began to carefully scrape my forehead with a razorblade.

  “Probably just as well she left for a second,” he said. “You might consider the next bit to be private.”

  “Me and Star don’t have too many secrets from each other,” I said.

  * * *

  She came around the corner as I was trying to make it to the bathroom.

  “Hey, Henry Lee, I thought he already had you do your business.”

  “Um, well, he needs some more samples,” I said.

  “What is it this time? He need some hairs from your—”

  Then she spotted the teensy scissors and the two cups that I held in my hand.

  She put her hand on my chest and urged me through the door behind me. It was a small, empty office with one wall covered by a huge picture of a waterfall dropping through the clouds into a pool, surrounded by heavy jungle.

  Her hands had me unbuttoned before I knew what was what. She squatted in front of me. “Hand me that cup and them scissors. You shouldn’t be using something sharp around such delicate machinery without help, anyways. Haven’t you ever heard of the buddy system?”

  She snipped away, cutting out a heart-shaped patch in the center. I didn’t know that at the time, didn’t discover it until the next day. All I knew is that she seemed to be taking her time and enjoying herself hugely in the process. I wasn’t about to try and stop her. Them scissors were dangerous, after all.

  That waterfall sure was grand.

  “Am I supposed to fill up the second cup with hair, too?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am. That’s it for the hair.”

  She looked up at me and scratched her long fingernails along the area just above my belly-button.

  “Well, what’s the other cup for?” Her voice had gotten sly.

  “It’s, uh … Well, it’s for …”

  “Yes …?” She reached around with her hands and started to scratch my cheeks.

  “Dammit, you know what it’s for!”

  “Not me. Why won’t you tell?” She looked about as innocent as a fox who owned her own chicken ranch.

  “Well you just be that way!” I said. “What it is, I need to give a sample of my seed!”

  “Oh, now I understand,” she purred. She bent closer. “Well, I suppose I should help with that, too.”

  That was one hell of a waterfall in that picture on the wall.

  * * *

  When we brought the samples back, Stevie kept a straight face as he broke out another cup. “Well, looks like you’ve worked up a wonderful sweat. Good. I’d like a sample of that, too.”

  * * *

  As he was handing me a questionnaire that he wanted me to fill out and get back to him in the next couple of days, the phone rang. It was the Stone Magnolia, and she wanted him to meet her at her office ASAP to discuss her reaction to his proposed budget for the semester. We scooted while he pulled out some papers and started checking over which expenditures he could cut. He said she hadn’t sounded like she planned to tell him that he hadn’t asked for enough.

  We went back to the camp and spent most of the afternoon napping. The evening was devoted to rehearsing and getting to know some of the other folks in the camp. They weren’t such a bad bunch. Everybody complimented us on how we handled the dirty dishes problem, even though they regretted the passing of what they considered a fun way to initiate newcomers to the camp.

  About a dozen other bunches of gypsies had also entered the Gran Prix competition, and we listened to them practicing. Nobody didn’t figure their rehearsals should be secret affairs. More like another excuse for partying. Star and me spent the evening and the night together and things were like they had been before she started getting all moody and unpredictable.

  The next morning, after breakfast, we piddled around for a while, cleaned out our rooms and cooperatively washed down the interiors and exteriors of Sprocket and Lady Jane and Big Red and Munchkin and her babies. One of the babies, named Thumper, took a half hour to track down. We was getting worried before we finally found her in a field out behind the camp, playing a game with a bunch of other young’uns, human and otherwise, that looked like a cross between kick-the-can and aggravated assault.

  It was another coolish, overcast day, so we set up around ten a.m. to rehearse some more. Doc wasn’t entirely pleased with the sound he was getting out of us. Said we played the notes right, but not with enough feeling.

  Stevie showed up around eleven-thirty. He wandered over during a break. We chatted for a while in the shade, and me and Star re-introduced him to Doc and Razer. Doc got us back in our chairs for more rehearsal on the second movement, which he said was supposed to sound a hell of a lot more melancholy than we could seem to manage.

  Fifteen minutes into the session, Maureen and Sonny glided down from the low-hanging clouds and lit in front of Stevie, who was leaning on Sprocket as he watched us rehearse.

  We’d spotted them flying southward high above the camp about an hour before sunset yesterday. I’d pointed them out and told the crew about them, but none of them had ever seen the dactyls up close before. Practice lurched to a halt while Stevie cussed them out for landing on flat ground.

  He grabbed each one by the beak and pulled them close to make sure they were paying attention while he talked at them.

  “You stupid chickens! I’m getting really tired of escorting you idiots around town! Now we gotta walk all the way back to the Vet Building and take the elevator to the roof. When are you going to learn? If there were still any saber-tooth tigers around you both would have been dactyl-burgers a long time ago.”

  “You think they understand you?” I asked.

  “Of course not!” he said. “They’re just a couple of stupid birds.” He gave their beaks one final shake apiece before letting go of them. “But it makes me feel better for all the trouble they put me through.”

  They sidled up on each side of him and started rubbing against him, making pitiful clucking sounds. Their beaks dragged in the dirt all miserable-like.

  Finally he sighed and put an arm around each one. “Why me? Why couldn’t I have dogs? A pair of collies would be nice. I like collies.”

  He let everybody come up and stroke and scratch them, which seemed to improve their spirits considerably. The kids in the camp especially crowded around. After half an hour, Doc managed to get us back to practicing. Sprocket had slept through the whole foofaraw. I watched out of the corner of my eye while they climbed side by side up to Sprocket’s top. One of his eyes twitched open for a second when they dug their claws into him and started scaling his body.

  They perched like vultures on his head, rocking back and forth in tandem while we took it from the top on Doc’s hour-long piece. Somehow we managed to get through it.

  Doc tapped his baton against his kneecap and nodded. “It ain’t the New York Philharmonic, but we’re getting there. Ten minute break. Then let’s do it again.”

  I wandered off to the communal restroom in the center of the camp.

  When I got back I was treated to the sight of Sonny racing along Sprocket’s length toward his nose. Maureen had hopped to the ground and stood there watching expectantly. Sonny came to the end of the runway and leaped into the air, flapping his wings frantically. For a second he actually went upward. Then he dropped like a rock. Right at our jungle of instruments and chairs and music stands. More than a dozen people stood in the crash zone, helplessly watching as he cannonballed toward them.

  Sprocket’s tongue shot out like an iron bar underneath him. Sonny fluttered wildly and managed to hook
his claws around the tongue.

  Sprocket yanked his tongue backward as hard as he could, simultaneously opening wide his drilling mouth. His tongue, with Sonny still attached, rocketed back inside him before it could hit ground. I was located at just the right angle to see Sprocket’s tongue seat as far back as it could go. Sonny reflexively let go and bounced all the way down the hallway. Sprocket’s mouth closed. So did his eyes. Far as he was concerned, the action was over and it was time to get back to his nap.

  Maureen waddled agitatedly in front of him for a minute, then stuck her beak a few inches into where his nose would have been if he had one. He ignored her.

  A few seconds later, his mouth opened again. His tongue was wrapped around Sonny’s body. It deposited Sonny on the ground, dropping him fanny-first the last few inches. Then the tongue slid back inside and Sprocket’s mouth closed again.

  Sonny struggled to his feet and marched right into Sprocket’s side. Me and Stevie held him for awhile until he got back to normal.

  We practiced for the rest of the afternoon. Stevie stayed for dinner. The dactyls climbed back on top of Sprocket, who still didn’t object. Matter of fact, during dinner, he began to hum contentedly while they scratched around his top, every now and then picking at him with their beaks.

  I nudged Steve. He looked at them, puzzled, then nodded. “They’re grooming him. They do that with each other all the time. It’s instinctive.”

  “To do it with Drillers?”

  “His hide is like theirs in some ways, leathery and tough. Maybe they figure he’s a big, ugly dactyl.”

  “Ugly?” I said. “He’s an extremely handsome critter! Now, on the other hand, they are the ugliest—”

  “Now, Henry Lee,” Star said. “Stevie is our guest.”

  “Um. Yeah. Sorry. I guess it’s all in the eye of the beholder.”

  “I guess so,” Stevie agreed. “I personally feel Sonny and Maureen are gorgeous birds.”