Spondulix: A Romance of Hoboken

by Di Filippo, Paul

  Why were all the Nuts using this new mode of address? “Molecule” made sense, given Erlkonig’s showy autodidacticism. But “shell”? Rory supposed he’d find out soon enough.

  After his violent forced repentance and the spectacle of a Frisbee-catching feline, Rory needed to sit down for a moment. He moved to the darkened steps of a building and plopped wearily down. He dug his fingers thoughtfully into his rufous beard. What a beginning to the night!

  From behind Rory, several stairs up, a voice dramatically declaimed, “The maple syrup in the handle of a transparent plastic bottle is several shades lighter in color than the syrup in the body of the bottle.”

  Rory easily recognized the voice of Hilario Fumento, writer with a peculiar mission. Here sat one person whose dreams lay all on the surface. Rory knew them quite well, having listened to Fumento expound at length on them.

  Fumento had become enamored early on in his writerly career of a certain frisson provided by the best fiction: the encounter between an unsuspecting reader and some finely rendered prose that perfectly described a commonplace, mundane item, experience, or sensory datum. (Fumento particularly liked reciting Updike’s line about the visual identity between the shaved armpit of a young girl and certain epidermal folds of a plucked chicken.) Fumento savored all those literary instances which shone supernally as transcriptions of reality instantly recognizable by everyone, yet also previously unrendered in print. The famous “shock of recognition,” in fact. Fumento, enemy to all pleonasms, also believed fervently in economy of prose. His dream: to construct a novel made entirely of such keenly observed and concretized instances of perception. Novel as haiku, perhaps, big frog splashing in a little pond. However, after several years of work the would-be novelist was still in the process of amassing his treasures, leaving their arrangement into a narrative, however bizarre, until later. Lacking money for pen or paper, far less able to afford any word-processing system, Fumento pilfered call slips and pencil stubs from public libraries and used these free materials to compose his small epiphanies.

  From the shadows at the top of the stoop Fumento now emerged to sit beside Rory. Dressed as always in T-shirt and carpenter pants, the artist of the overlooked ran a hand shyly through his unruly hair. His large-nosed, knobby-chinned face showed a tentative smile.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Very much. A gem.”

  Fumento averted his face in embarrassment. “Aw, shucks, it’s nothing. You just have to train your eye.”

  “Well, I’m sure tonight will provide lots of such moments for you. You want to mix and mingle now with me, Hil?”

  Fumento hemmed and hawwed. Eternally preoccupied with Proustian observation and transcription, he often felt guilty at hanging back from deeper involvement in the mad activity of his fellow Beer Nuts. “Naw, you go on. I’m mostly just gonna kick back and watch. I can’t afford to miss anything tonight! I could get the central ordering symbol of my novel here!”

  “You can’t be like the tourist who’s got his eye glued to the viewfinder of his camera throughout his whole vacation, Hil. Life awaits you!”

  “I know, I know, I’m too aloof and I drive myself too hard! Sometimes I wish I had a regular job, with someone always telling me what to do. At least under those circumstances you can blame someone other than yourself for your unhappiness.”

  Rory dangled his hands downward off his knees from the wrists, suddenly struck by Fumento’s words. They had twanged a chord in Rory, causing him to recast his whole lifetime struggle in terms of free will, or action versus reaction, of initiative versus compliance.

  All his life, Rory suddenly realized, he had allowed himself to be driven, pushed into one situation or another. Like a metal sphere in a pinball machine or a train in a roundhouse, he had been diverted from one track to another by circumstance.

  His parents had tricked him into taking up competitive diving, and Dzubas had later abetted them. During the Olympics, Rory had been swept up in the idealistic crusades of others. A chance encounter with a circus had eaten up years of his life. The seeds of his current job and hometown had been planted in him by Katie Stearn. Spondulix had arisen in response to Nerfball’s plea for wages.

  When had he ever discerned his true heart’s desire? When had he ever made a decision based on his own inner vision? Hadn’t he even always derived a perverse comfort in the fact that the world had ordered him around like a sadistic drill sergeant?

  Take last week for instance. Another case of spinelessness. Rory had created and spent spondulix with a wild abandon bordering on inebriation. Erlkonig’s devil-may-care attitude had infected him—Rory had allowed it to infect him—and he had dived blindly into the murky deep- end of the algae-topped pool of monetary irresponsibility. True, all his major debts had been wiped off the books. Local merchants had at first reacted with doubts. But in the end, upon hearing that others of their peers had boarded the spondulix express, they too accepted this funny money as payment, in lieu of anything better. With the U. S. currency thus saved, Rory paid off those institutions such as Con Ed which would never, ever, he was sure, recognize spondulix.

  And, as Erlkonig had maintained, fewer spondulix by far returned than went out. Positive cash flow was maintained. (Rory hoped all the value-bearing napkins had actually gone through a wash-cycle or two, forgotten in pants pockets and rendered into fibrous lumps.) So far so good. The lightening of his fiscal obligations could be chalked up on the positive side of the ledger. But the consequent guilt more than counterbalanced the relief.

  Despite his actions at the Olympics three decades ago, Rory did not consider himself a born rebel. A little niche in society, a moderate income, a mate, a few of the simpler material pleasures. These constituted his only dreams. Exhibiting his God-given diving skills—either horsed or solo—had proved a folly twice by fate denied. A quiet contemplative existence now seemed the only sane route left to him.

  Instead of loafing and recreating his soul, however, he had once again allowed his good-natured wishy-washiness to embroil him in trouble. By creating and putting into circulation a mock currency in direct competition with the almighty United States Dollar, he was undoubtedly flouting the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and many Supreme Court rulings. Hard-pressed to put a name to his crime—he certainly knew it wasn’t counterfeiting—he remained certain that his actions did indeed constitute an actionable offense, and a heinous one at that. You might spit in the eye of the U. S. Olympic Team and expect nothing more deadly than a draft notice as a response. But to steal money, in effect, out of Uncle Sam’s pockets, to set yourself up as some kind of Midas-mad sovereign on a par with the Federal Government—Rory couldn’t imagine what kind of punishment the governmental bureaucrats would deem Draconian enough.

  Fumento, seeming to sense that Rory needed diversion from his thoughts, dug a scrap of paper out of his pocket. Rory experienced a brief flash of fear that the paper would prove to be a spondulix ready for redemption. But the scrap was only a library call slip.

  “What do you think of this one, Rory? ‘Post-bath washcloth hanging over a shower-curtain rod: its lower, wetter edge is darker.’ I seem to be focusing on a lightness/darkness kind of thing lately. This one came to me just this morning, while I was washing up. We’ve got water at the Brewery now, you know.”

  Rory yanked himself out of his introspective self-pity. Damn it, he would take charge of his own life! No more drifting and allowing himself to be ordered around! He shot to his feet assertively.

  “Gee,” said Fumento, “was my little aperçu bad enough to make you want to rush off?”

  “Huh? Oh no, Hil, it was beautiful, almost tragic. No, it’s just that I got inspired while you were reciting. I finally admitted to myself that I’ve been wasting my life.”

  “Haven’t we all?” Fumento stuffed the paper back into his pants pocket. “Well, thanks for listening, Rory.”

  Rory nodded politely, then—eager to go mano a memo with Life Herself!—he took
a step away. Suddenly though he stopped, his new confidence instantly evaporating. “Water? In the Brewery? How’d that happen?”

  “Earl swung it. He’s got big plans for fixing up the whole place.”

  Rory knew with certainty how Erlkonig intended to pay for these dream renovations, and he grew angry. He must confront the Napoleonic albino before he set any more schemes in motion.

  “Hil, don’t get your hopes up for further improvements along the road to gracious living. I suspect Earl’s plans are going to come to a halt real soon.”

  “Whatever. All real art arises from the mud anyhow. Catch you later, Rory.”

  Moving out into the verdant, path-slashed campus, which was filling up with the throngs anticipating a long night of Outlaw revelry, Rory tried to spot Erlkonig. The man was a menace. How was Rory going to take charge of his own life with this pint-sized Machiavelli pulling strings behind the scenes? He had to be stopped!

  A woman’s laughter chimed across the pavement-striped greensward. Whoops and hollers, the crashing of a bottle. A couple of teenagers walked by, hand in hand. Rory’s mood took another sudden downturn. He recalled his half-acknowledged romantic dreams from earlier in the evening, sparked by his nostalgic towel. How impossible the advent of any such dream date who could reciprocate his free-floating affections now seemed.

  Would he ever find the perfect someone with whom to share his hypothetical longed-for simple existence? Were his desires so wild, wanting a love match made under the stars? Netsuke had seemed compatible and reasonably devoted. Then she had thrown him over for Erlkonig. Perhaps the age difference had been too great. Thirty-five versus fifty, a big spread. Youth versus middle-age. Middle age? He was an old man tonight!

  Get a grip! Mustn’t become bitter! Look on the bright side: a single heterosexual man, relatively good-looking, still virile, resident in a metropolitan area where such specimens were at a premium. Gorgeous women should be throwing themselves at his feet by the dozens!

  Rory’s interior pep talk boosted his wildly fluctuating spirits a tad. God, his emotions were riding a seesaw tonight! Or maybe a Ferris Wheel. (Why couldn’t he get stuck at the top of the cycle though, instead of the trough?) As long as the Secret Service wasn’t battering down his door, he would try to maintain a cautious optimism.

  A beer might help. Now, let’s see, where were the promised refreshments?

  A canopy of fairylights attracted his attention. Rory moved toward this lure. He found himself at a broad, flagstoned pavilion at the western edge of the campus. Here the trees had been bedecked with strings of multicolored twinkling lights. Heavy-duty power cords ran into one of the school buildings. God, Erlkonig must have bought off some of the maintenance men!

  A solidly constructed bandstand exuded the odor of fresh-cut pine. Atop its planks a crew of volunteers were arraying speakers and amps and other equipment. They took their direction from the mirrorshades-wearing Hyman Resnick, aka “Hy Rez”, Beer Nuts techno savant.

  The tall and lanky Hy Rez had been a model student fulfilling a comp-sci major at Brown University until a junior year abroad in London. There, inordinate consumption of Ecstasy and Vitamin K, combined with stunning amounts of acid-house music, had turned the youngster into a bad apple. (Exposure to “ribofunk” science fiction, so named for its mix of biology and James Brown, had further detoured his brain from the straight and narrow.) Resnick had unleashed an Internet worm that came to be known as the Trainspotting Virus, since it forced all commandeered computers to download and play MP3 files of acid-house. Eventually caught and booted out of the university, Hy Rez had skipped bail prior to his trial and ended up with the Beer Nuts.

  Hy Rez had found a loyal, inseparable and fairly competent assistant in the person of Special Effects. Peter Saint Francis Xavier Armand (his Catholic middle initials contributing his nickname) hailed from Woonsocket, Rhode Island, a small city on the border with Massachusetts. Failing to secure early fame and fortune through his G.G. Allin tribute band, A Million Crimes, Special Effects had drifted reluctantly into boring corporate web page design. Taken with the rebel genius behind the Trainspotting Virus, he had managed to contact Hy Rez before that mans flight from the law and followed his mentor into the underground. Long red hair worn shoulder-length framed Special Effects’s rather horsey face.

  Rory approached the bandstand. “Hey, Special! Seen Earl around?”

  Walking backward, paying snakey co-ax out of a coil in his hand, Special Effects replied, “He was inspecting the fireworks, last time I saw him.”

  Fireworks? Did the man’s temerity have no end? This night would see them all in jail for sure. Rory debated leaving the party before it even truly started, but decided against doing so. Moping alone in his apartment held no allure for him on this, his birthday night. And he had to confront Erlkonig about his cavalier spending of spondulix, and sooner rather than later.

  Hy Rez spoke up. “Earl’s been escorting a visitor around. Some suit. Lotta heavy biz talk. Earl even promised to set me and Special up in the music management business if his negotiations with this guy paid off. Just look for what’s probably the only suit at this shindig if you want to find Earl.”

  Someone in a suit? Hy and Special as Bill Graham? Not good news. The depths of Erlkonig’s megalomania had barely been plumbed. Rory felt his anger building. He’d better find a beer soon to cut the edge.

  A momentary gap opened up in the pavilion crowd and Rory spotted the refreshment table a few yards away. Nodding in that direction, Rory asked the hard-working roadies, “Can I get you guys a beer?”

  “No thanks. Special and I are on a permanent psychotropic drip now.”

  Rory smiled, certain that Hy Rez was joking. But the enigmatic fellow didn’t smile back. Instead, he folded his ear over with a finger to reveal some kind of small mechanism nestled behind, pasted to his skull, a combination of fluid-filled ampoule, hair-thin conduits and blackbox circuitry. In the dim light Rory could not say for sure whether the object was functional or decorative. Certainly, Hy Rez was pulling his leg. Or was he? In any case, Rory could not spare the time to inveigh against someone else’s synthetic highs.

  “That’s cool. No need for beer ever again. Must save on trips to the john. Well, see you later.”

  Rory joined the other thirsty partygoers at the table. The deeper he moved into the crush, the more elbows in the ribs he received. God, these people had no manners! Free beer acted on them like a red flag to a bull! If Rory had ever behaved so poorly at, say, Thanksgiving dinner with the Parkers, Roz would have walloped his ass. Now he knew he was really getting old, thinking in such generational terms. But he couldn’t help making the observation. Consider the Beer Nuts, all younger than he was: driven by sheer appetite and instant gratification. Moral restraint meant nothing to them. Pigs at a trough, all of them.

  An attractive woman in leather miniskirt dug her spike-heel into the toe of Rory’s boot. It hurt enough that he was grateful he had foregone sneakers.

  “Sorry,” he apologized diplomatically.

  She glared at him, her pretty face warped by ill will. “You should be, you clumsy ape.”

  Dumbfounded, Rory let other individuals separate the boorish woman from him. God, modern women acted so tough! Exceptions were few and far between. Katie Stearn’s attractiveness had derived in large part from her lack of cynicism or harshness. She had been the least jaded person Rory had ever met. Were any such old-fashioned females still to be found?

  Finally reaching the table, Rory confronted several aluminum kegs with self-serve taps, each bearing the name of a different imported beer, the labels executed in Netsuke’s unique script. Tsingtao, Sapporo, Guinness, Stella Artois—There were stacks of big plastic cups, easily jorum-sized. This setup must have cost a small fortune! He would wring Erlkonig’s neck! But in the meantime, since he was paying for it, Rory decided he might as well enjoy the fruits of his spondulix. He drew a cup from a keg labeled Belhaven Scottish Ale (imported from Glasgow!) and
sipped. Delicious. But he would still choke the living shit out of Erlkonig.

  The crowd had thickened around him as full night descended and the Outlaw Party prepared to rocket into the fun-o-sphere. Rory squeezed out of the crush around the kegs. As soon as he got free someone stuck a box of Krispy Kreme donuts under his nose.

  Beatbox beamed. “Have one, Rory. I made them myself.”

  The round olive face of the Latino man, with its poignant wisp of mustache, radiated such puppyish eagerness that Rory could not refuse, although a piece of pastry really in his opinion failed to harmonize with fine Scottish ale.

  Rory took a donut, bit, and couldn’t hide a wince of distaste. “Taco-flavored?”

  “An experiment, just an experiment. But my boss, he ain’t no experimentin’ man. I got sacked.”

  Rory felt bad that Beatbox had lost his latest job, especially considering the fugitive balloon-clowns troubles with the mob. But in another way he was selfishly glad. Perhaps now, he faintly hoped, Nerfball would return to his role as food-provider to the Nuts, taking real sandwiches as his pay and thus insuring that fewer live spondulix circulated.

  Beatbox closed the lid of his donut box and said wistfully, “Man, I thought I had discovered my real calling, too. Designer food. If I had my way I’d open up a food lab and invent a million new tastes. I’m kinda limited now, using off-the-shelf spices and stuff. But if I could use chemicals and shit, there’s no tellin’ what I could come up with.”

  Out of politeness, Rory took another bite of his taco donut. The flavor was starting mildly to grow on him. No denying Beatbox’s ingenuity.

  Something caught Rory’s attention across the quad. Looked like a drug deal being consummated in the shadows. The seller proffered a Ziploc and the buyer handed over—a napkin!

  No, impossible, things were spinning much too rapidly out of his control!

  Sounds of tuning up wafted over from the musicians who had assembled onstage. “Who’s playing tonight?” Rory inquired of Beatbox.