The Big Aha

by Rudy Rucker

  “Zad’s charged with two murders!” interrupted Mom, sounding like she believed it. Everything was muddled here, everything a huge, emotional deal.

  “Interesting career move,” said Dad half-smiling—not taking Mom very seriously. “Do you need to lie low? I’d love to have you working in my studio again. I’ve lost my stamina. But, seriously, are you in trouble with the police? I have some friends I can call if—”

  “You and your friends,” said Mom, rising to her feet. “You and your slimy, sleazy Weezie Roller.”

  “You and your tutor,” spat Dad. The two of them had accelerated from zero to sixty. Like a pair of boxers lunging from their corners for another round.

  “Don’t you talk about Petrus! He has nothing to do with—”

  “At first I thought Petrus wasn’t interested in Sally,” boomed Dad, talking loud enough to drown Mom out. “I figured I was safe. But then I came up to the house early for lunch, and I saw Petrus in bed with my wife. The tutor earns his pay! I’m thinking I might do a painting of the two of them. Cast it as a classical allegory. Juno and Ganymede. I might be able to hang it at the—”

  “Get out!” shrieked Mom. “Out out out! I can’t stand you for another second!”

  Dad paused, thought things over and made a decision. “It’s mutual. I’ll move into the barn and sleep in my studio. I’ll grab a few things and go down there now.”

  “You’re leaving me?” cried Mom, tacking against the changing wind.

  Dad looked at me, holding out his hands to the side. “Yes, we’re unhappy,” he told me. He wasn’t smiling anymore. “Yes, our marriage is over.”

  Too much. “Talk to you later,” I told Dad. “I’m going downstairs, Mom.”

  Cosmic/robotic, cosmic/robotic, cosmic/robotic. I went down the carpeted stairs to my boyhood bedroom. Upstairs the parents argued a little more, but the force had gone out of it. I heard Dad’s footsteps padding back and forth as he gathered his things. The front door slammed and he was gone. Mom’s bedroom door slammed as well. I could hear her sobbing. I hoped I’d die before I got old.

  My room had indeed become a pottery studio, with a smell of clay and slip. Two old-school kick wheels, a squat nurb kiln, shelves of bisque-fired and fully finished pots, tubs of clay, natural sponges, gray-stained potting tools, jars of glaze—and in the far corner, my old bed—with a dent on it like someone had lain there. I hoped Mom and Petrus hadn’t been using it.

  Jericho the nurb dog called my name from the bathroom, better than oof, but I messaged him to shut up. Silence again. The room was terribly dank and lonely. Why was I even here? It was way too early to go to sleep. I was fond of my parents and I was sorry for them, but the sooner I could get out of here the better. I found a little nurb heater and turned it on. And now, thank god, I picked up the faint scent of Loulou.

  Someone rapped on my glass door again. The sound wasn’t from a kiln cooling, it was from a thin guy standing there, peering at me through the rainwater running down the glass—just like I’d thought in the first place. He was a teeper, in fact he was—

  “Joey Moon!” I whispered as I opened the door. “Don’t make noise.”

  Joey was soaked and shivering, dripping water on the floor. Teeping his vibes, I felt little hostility and no madness. He was back to his reckless hell-raiser artist self.

  “I got all better at the clinic,” said Joey. “They gave me a bath. And I fixed my teep. Then I broke a window and stole their roadhog. Loulou told me where all I’d find you.”

  “Loulou! Can you hear her voice now?

  “No, qrude, what you talking about? I called Loulou via my wristphone around one o’clock. I was needing a place to hide. She was on her way to hit up Gaven Graber. Wanted to sell him something she stole. She said I should ditch the roadhog and lie low all afternoon. Then root you out at your Mom and Dad’s.”

  “Funny she knew I’d end up here,” I said.

  “Loulou’s spooky. She’s like a spider in a web. Where’s she at?”

  “Gaven Graber died when Loulou went to visit him,” I said. “And she disappeared.”

  “Loulou offed him?” asked Joey.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Did you make it with her last night?” demanded Joey, switching topics.

  “You were locked up. I didn’t think you’d be getting out.”

  “I’m back, qrude.” Joey studied me, a touch of menace in his eyes. He had spiky colorless hair and a skinny head. A punk hillbilly artist. “And where’s my rat brother? Skungy. My little twin.”

  “The cops impounded the rat. And they arrested me for killing Gaven Graber. I’m out on bail.”

  “Making it real,” said Joey with a laugh. “Show you what it’s like. You got any dry clothes?”

  I found a worn sweatsuit in my old dresser. Once again Jericho grunted my name from the bathroom. I thought I’d closed that door, but it was open. Was Loulou actually down here? Why couldn’t I see her? Spooky.

  “Here,” I said, handing Joey my sweats. He was more muscular than I’d realized, with the body of a runner.

  “So Gaven died,” said Joey, draping his wet clothes on the kick wheels. “Big whoop. The man’s got a stasis bed and a swarm of doctor ants. He’ll be back. It’s like trying to kill gophers. Always another Gaven.”

  “The police say the Department of Genomics wants to close down Slygro,” I told him.

  “Fine by me,” said Joey. “Gaven messed me up with that qwet teep. I been stuck in a loop. Me teeping me teeping me teeping me—like a pair of funhouse mirrors. Last night, on the nod in that clinic, I turned the regress into a dot. Like perspective in a painting, qrude. A point at infinity. And then I was well. Ping! Crown me king.”

  I liked the sound of this, and I got into a brief teep merge with Joey. It felt like a quick series of dreams. I saw two goldfish swimming in a bowl, one red, one yellow, each leading, each following. The circling pair of fish shrank to a yellow jelly-egg spotted with red dots. I saw a ladder whose rungs came loose and tumbled down, one atop the other, playing a rising arpeggio. I saw Loulou. I saw a heart inside my heart.

  “So you’re qwet too,” said Joey.

  “Yeah. I’m learning to control it. I think of it as mastering the cosmic/robotic flip. You can do the merged-with-the-cosmos thing, or the robot-following-logical-details routine. And once you’re qwet, you can control that particular shift. Because you have access to your brain’s gee-haw-whimmy-diddle switch.”

  “Gaven’s stupid-ass word,” said Joey contemptuously. “For that alone, the man deserved to die. What a lamer. He’s no kind of genius at all. He’s a fuddydud biz man with the mind of a roach.”

  “It might be one of your magic mirrors that killed him,” I said.

  Joey shrugged. “Loulou said as how she might use it on him. I had it all set in our cottage on the farm. I’d fixed it so a fella sees himself as very very gumpy. An ugliness regress. The infinite ugly point.”

  “Technically, Gaven died of asphyxiation.”

  “But you and me know he was killed by a Joey Moon mirror,” said Joey. “Too scared to breathe. I’m whompin’ up some kick-ass art, qrude. Better than some feel-good scene of Ye Olde Louisville.”

  Obviously this was a slur on my work, and I was ready to argue about it. I enjoyed that kind of debate. Like a boxing match, or tennis.

  “At least I sell my stuff,” I snapped.

  “Used to sell it,” shot back Joey. “And now you live in your parents’ basement. How qrude is that?”

  “I don’t live here,” I said. “Jane threw me out, and today the DoG completely trashed my gallery. I’m sleeping here for, like, one night.”

  Before Joey could fire back, I heard Loulou’s voice, very close again. Coming from my bed. Mom hadn’t heard Loulou, but now Joey did. Old people missed a lot.

  “Don’t be so pushy, you stupid gub!” Loulou was yelling. “Get out!”

  The covers on my bed twitched and we heard a thud, as from so
meone whacking something. A small green pig flew away from my bed, no bigger than a football, bucking and thrashing, going gub-gub-gub-wheenk. She had floppy triangular ears, and a snout that tapered to a point. Not really a pig at all. More like a tapir. Her legs were mere doughy bulges on her bottom. She bounced off the floor, caromed off the wall and found her way back to the bed, making some use of those rudimentary legs. And then, rebounding off my mattress, she disappeared into a dimple in space.

  “Loulou!” called Joey.

  “Hey Joey,” said Loulou’s voice, coming from the spot where the gub had disappeared. Her mouth was visible and one of her eyes. As if she were peeking at us through a tiny porthole. “Hi, Zad. You saw the little green gub just now? Good, good, good. So I’m not going nuts.”

  “You’re in an invisible tube?” I shouted, not sure how loud to pitch my voice.

  “I’m in a tunnel. It’s so tight. I can’t wriggle out to you guys, and if I go further in, I can see these creepy dragonfly people at the other end.”

  “How—how’d you get in the tunnel?”

  “The oddball swallowed me,” said Loulou’s mouth. Her lambent eye looked serious. “The oddball has a mind. She’s a girl. And she has a tunnel insider her. The tunnel leads to another world. The people up there call it Fairyland. They’re hillbillies who look like bugs.”

  “Wait, wait, wait,” I said. “Back up for a second. That little mouth on the oddball swallowed you?” In a dreamy kind of way this made sense.

  “The oddball is like the dirtbubble, right?” said Joey.

  “Tell me about the dirtbubble,” I asked.

  “It’s this brown ball what Gaven keeps on a pillow,” said Joey. “Gaven’s been measuring on it. Down in his lab. The dirtbubble showed up after I turned qwet. It’s interested in me. It smells like shit and medicine.”

  “The dirtbubble looks like the oddball, yes,” said Loulou. “But the oddball is nice shades of lavender instead of brown, and she has a much nicer vibe. And the oddball doesn’t stink.”

  “So you saw them together?” I asked.

  “In Gaven’s hall. He had the dirtbubble with him, and I’d brought the oddball to sell him. The dirtbubble and the oddball didn’t like each other, they were flying around chasing each other. Gaven and I started arguing, and the oddball scared the dirtbubble off. And then the oddball swallowed me. And then it smothered Gaven to death.”

  “I want this to be bullshit,” said Joey. “A trick.” He reached for the scrap of Loulou that hovered above my bed, but she darted to one side. I grabbed from that side, but to no avail. Loulou—or the oddball—was eluding us. And now she was peeping at us from a corner near the ceiling.

  “I’m inside the oddball and halfway to the bugs’ Fairyland,” she reprised. “I want to come back to Earth, but I’m stuck. The oddball gets wider inside. She’s bigger than you think. I already crawled through to look out the other end. It’s not far. But I’m trying to get back to Earth, and the oddball is clamping down.”

  “And what about that gub?” I asked, totally at a loss.

  “Two gubs are inside this tunnel, see. A green one and a spotted one. They crawl up on me, like they want to feel me all over. I hate them.”

  “What does it look like at the other end?” I probed.

  “I see out of something like a giant clam,” said Loulou. “With a big shell on the top and the bottom. The other end of the oddball is like a pearl sitting on the soft body of the clam, and I look out of a slit in the pearl. I can see two thin, leathery people sitting in chairs in a ballroom. They have wings like dragonflies. They’re like insects. Their faces are brown and small, with weird big eyes. They act friendly. They talk real country. The first time I peeked through, they were, like, Yee haw, shit howdy, welcome to Fairyland. And then I scooted back. In case the bug people wanted to sting me.”

  “When I went all batshit this week, I saw talking bugs and toothless pigs,” said Joey, keeping a straight face. “Yaar.”

  “Don’t you make up lies to get in on my glory,” said Loulou sternly. “This is my adventure, not yours, Joey Moon. And don’t make fun of me either. You’re the one who’s crazy, not me.”

  “Tell us about the gubs,” said Joey. “At least we done seen one of them.”

  “Two gubs inside this tunnel with me, yes,” said Loulou. “Smearing all over me like begging dogs. One gub is all these woodland shades, and one is cream colored with tan spots like a cow. The pretty green one is a girl, and the other one is a boy. I’m not exactly sure how I can tell. The gubs have really strong teep, and something like a squidskin web link, but I don’t understand their minds at all. Either they’re really dumb or really smart.”

  “And when you peeked out the other end a second time, you could still see the dragonfly people?” I asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Loulou. “They’re watching the oddball to see if I’ll crawl out. They’re buzzing their wings and clicking their mouths and being hicks. They act cozy and down-home, but maybe they want to sink their teeth into my musky flesh. I hate them. And I hate gubs!”

  We heard a solid thud—like someone punting a ball—and here came the second gub. This one was spotted like Loulou had said. Piebald as a Gloucestershire pig, his skin a dirty white color with irregular brown patches. The spotted gub bounced off a pottery wheel, his little eyes glittering with—surprise? Amusement? He was drawing in deep inhalations of air, and squealing on his exhales. As on the green gub, the spotted gub’s feet were rudimentary blobs. As soon as he came to rest, he began jumping up and down, trying to get back inside the oddball. I was picking up some thoughts from him, as if via the web, but the patterns were incomprehensibly strange.

  “The oddball says she’s moving this party to Zad’s barn,” said Loulou. “Meet me there in a minute, boys. You’ve got to help me crawl back out.” The scrap of her face dwindled to a dimple, and the dimple drifted away, leaving the spotted gub on his own.

  “What’s going on?” called my mother, suddenly silhouetted at the head of the stairs. Her image wavered as the shrunken oddball flew past her and passed invisibly through the ceiling and, I supposed, out into the night. The spotted gub bounded up the stairs and launched itself on a hard, flat arc, shattering one of the living-room windows. Hot on the oddball’s trail.

  Mom cocked her head, waiting for an answer to her question. “Zad?”

  “Nothing’s going on here,” I told her. Slight understatement. “I have a friend visiting. Joey Moon? He brought that, that hyper pig. He’s the husband of that woman Loulou who disappeared.”

  “Should I call the police?” asked Mom. “Are there burglars?”

  “God, no.”

  “Everything’s real fine, Mrs. Plant,” said Joey, stepping forward so Mom could see him from the top of the stairs.

  “You shouldn’t be down there. It’s a sty. Would you like a drink, Joey? A snack?”

  “Sure thing, ma’am,” said Joey, already heading up the steps. “I could definitely use me a jolt.” I followed along, and Jericho dogged my heels. He’d been hiding from the gubs in the bathtub

  Mom had dried her eyes and composed her face. “I just had a terrible argument with Zad’s father,” she told Joey. “He’s gone now. Help yourself to something. Whiskey, merrymilk, wine.”

  “I’m sorry about you and Dad,” I told Mom.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” she said. “Who knows. Maybe he’ll come crawling back. If I’ll take him. No matter what happens, I’m keeping this house. And Petrus is not moving in. Enough is enough.”

  “Tell me about this here yellow dog,” said Joey, looking to change the subject.

  “I modded him out of nurb-gel,” I bragged. “Maybe he’s art.”

  “Ugly enough for that,” said Joey.

  “The dog is cute,” said Mom. “But Joey’s pig? He broke my window. Can you patch it, Zad?”

  As I covered the broken-out pane with smart nurb cardboard, Joey was sipping at a glass of bourbon, scarfing do
wn crackers and cheese, and looking at the pictures on the walls. “Old Lennox Plant ain’t no slouch as an artist,” he allowed. “Even if he do paint pictures of rich folks’ houses.”

  Mom rolled her eyes at Joey’s uncouthness. And she addressed her next remarks only to me. “I know it’s silly to say this, Zad, but I’m a little worried about your father just now. Alone in his studio. Despairing over the collapse of our marriage.”

  “The man might string himself up like a country ham,” suggested Joey. “I had an uncle who done that. Right in his smokehouse. They didn’t find him for two weeks, and his skin, it were hard as wood. Uncle Tut. Served him up for Thanksgiving dinner—sliced so thin you could read the Bible through his meat.”

  “Don’t listen to this guy,” I told Mom. “He’s a qrude freak.”

  “A fine artist,” said Joey. “Like your man and your boy, Mrs. Plant. I’m like Jericho the wonder dog. What you might call esoteric.”

  Mom wasn’t interested in anything Joey said. “Maybe you should look in on your father,” she told me again.

  “I think so too,” I said, seeing an exit opportunity. “Joey and I could sleep over there. With all the clay in my old room, it’s not exactly—”

  “Comfortable,” said Mom. “Don’t worry, I’m not jealous if you’d rather be with your father than with me. I’m perfectly all right on my own. A chipped old dish.”

  “We’ll take off in the morning,” I said, sidestepping that one. “And I’ll say goodbye before we leave.”

  “And tell me everything Lennox said,” added Mom.

  “I can’t be taking sides,” I said. “It’s up to you two.”

  “You should be on my side,” said Mom. “Your father is completely in the wrong. Him and his cheesy Weezie.”

  “Weezie Roller?” said the irrepressible Joey. “That’s rich.”

  “Sleazy, cheesy, floozy!” said Mom, glad for Joey’s interest.

  “We’ve gotta go,” I said, and ushered Joey outside.

  The rain had stopped. The moon and stars were crisp and bright on high. The air had that refreshing tingle you get after a storm. No wind. I could hear rushing streams. Jericho rocked along behind us, not exactly limping, but with a weird hitch in his gait. Maybe I’d overdone his asymmetry. A first draft.