Chapter 2 of the GenX Storybook

You see, it all started seventeen days ago.

I was sitting in front of the TV, drinking my Bud, smoking a cigar, watching the Six Million Dollar Man, and copying his moves, thinking what a good kitchen appliance he would make. . . . relaxing, one might call it. And as I was sitting there - relaxing - with the TV going ta-ta-ta-ta-ta and beep-beep-beep, the phone suddenly rang. It was

a wrong number. A girl calling for someone named Stephanie. But she had a real nice voice, so I decided, what the hell? I'm going to have some fun with her. So I tell her Stephanie's not home and ask who's calling, and her voice purrs, "This is Rhiannon." And I said, "No shit, like the witch in the Stevie Nicks song?" and she gives this low laugh and says, "You got it, music man." We spend the next 45 minutes

babbling like two incoherent school girls at a Spice Girls concert.

Just as I was about to say goodbye, she asked me to come over to her place, so we could talk some more. I said, 'sure', and she gave me her address. I wiped the drool from my mouth and went through to the kitchen where the missus was pottering about. I'd have to get past her first. So I said,

"Eronga smoka smoke." She gave me 3 leaflets, then pointed me toward the open window. One swift kick later and I was flyin' with the squirrels. I would like to tell you about these treetops on my way down. Uncle Hugh was almost done putting Christmas ornaments on them for the 4th of July. I landed in this great big scarecrow patch of musty mustaches. A little bounce and there it was, yes indeedy, the spring was back in my walk. Let's see here, Rhiannon, now uh, she's up thisaway on Slop Tremolo Avenue. As I recall, Vulnie Poomp used to live on this street until he turned into Carl Gustav Jung. Well looky there, #12108, just as goofy as any other house on the block. Wonder if she's still on the phone talkin' to me. "Hey, Rhiannon, call me back and come down here. Someone's at your front door. Me." Arf arf went the dog. That's just what happened. I was emotionally devastated by how gently, how illiterately, how teasingly the door opened.

I gulped. She came out - a mountain of a gal with hair colour straight from the bottle, thighs like rolling waves, nipples you could dial a phone with. Yeah, I thought, this is no ordinary woman - this is a TEN. The kind of woman that would keep me warm in winter, and provide shade in summer. A woman who had the potential to revive my ravaged, ragged soul. So I said, 'Didn't Vulnie Poomp use to live in this street?'

Before she had a chance to answer, I stuck a phone on each breast. Then she really answered. Twice. Then she called me back. So I got on her back. Then she wanted me to massage her head. So I got down and gave her head. I pulled back, saying, "Rhiannon, I'm exhausted. Can we...." Her right hand spiritedly embraced the back of my head and pressed it toward her in the middle of "we". I continued on. A most nourishing rhythm started up from that corner of the universe. It seemed to evolve not unhesitantly but still somehow eloquently into a goofy grin hyper-real damn fool GREAT idea. Can I tell ya, at times I was just a blur.

At others, the entire universe was. Never, and I mean this like a can of peas, never have I enjoyed being vocal with the locals.

Now I know what Vulnie--I mean Carl--meant by collective unconscious.

And, boy, did I collect! When we were done, she whispered:

"Let's move product." I looked up and there she was, Fleener Talkington, wearing only a cashmere sweater, leather capri pants, and a two-week-old loaf of bread on her head. She was what you would call a grown woman. Futuristic men in close proximity to her would collapse to the floor like turnip-shaped puppets and participate in costume changes with unpestered but temperamental giraffes. She had worldwide sales totalling $174 million last year, yet this year she's only been able to pull in 63 cents. She had that look on her face like she needed my advice and motioned for me to follow her into a stone room that had been built into a heavy, windowless enclosure used to precisely float living rooms into dining rooms without disturbing in the least anyone's impure experience of pure fright. Rhiannon watched woozily from atop the kettledrum. A shoe-fetishist was swinging from the ceiling, an ex-chauffeur of C.G. Jung who knew how crude and jerky was Freud's left foot movements. Not hesitating a moment longer, I told Fleener, "Take me to Nancy, France and I'll show you 3 yodelers who can get your head right for the next 32 years."

'Really?' Fleener asked. 'What are their names?' And Rhiannon giggled that gutteral tapdance-giggle of hers. I had to smile. So I answered: 'They're called Liebe, Hass and Akzeptiere - they are brothers, their surname is Nichts. They are originally from Switzerland, of course - like any yodler has to be if he wants to be taken seriously.' 'You're shittin' me, aren't you?' 'Absolutely,' I smiled. Then

the anticipated soap delivery arrived.

It did, and so did the police. I was arrested on the spot for soap smuggling, using telephones as instruments of indecent conduct, and for slander - after all I did accuse that trio of yodlers of being Swiss.

The French can be so touchy about those things!

I mean, they're probably still pi$$ed off about Euro Disney.

They were hoping for an amusement park with a mime theme, but the big mouse said no deal. Now they're all striking and rioting and drinking champagne from Champagne.

ha-ha! But it's true - Euro Disney stinks!!!! I hate Disney land and Disney product anyway, because I hate capitalism, but Euro Disney is bloody badly organised on top of everything! It's the pits!

Anyway, and besides the point (well, actually, betwixt and between the point but that is usually so difficult to explain), Lady Macbeth stood, removed a piece of parchement from her bosom and addressed the officers present. "They met me in the day of success; and I have learn'd by the perfect'st report, they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burn'd in desire to question them further, they made themselves air, into which they vanish'd. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the King, who all-hail'd me 'Thane of Cawdor;' by which title, before, these weird sisters saluted me, and referr'd me to the coming on of time, with 'Hail, King that shalt be!' This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing, by being ignorant of what greatness is promis'd thee. Lay it to thy heart, and farewell." ¶Having finished reading, she turned and addressed me, "Glamis thou art, and Cawdor; and shalt be what thou art promis'd. Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great, art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. What thou wouldst hightly, that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou 'dst have, great Glamis, that which cries, 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;' and that which rather thou dost fear to do than wishest should be undone. Hie thee hither that I may pour my spirits in thine ear, and chastise with valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem to have thee crown'd withal."

I wish I could get it through to her that I absolutely hate it when she does that.

Hell, why shouldn't I? "STOP that, bitch!"

That's when things got really crazy and out of hand.

Well, next thing you know, Donna and Markie come tearin' out of the bayou, wailing about 'gators and snakes.

And that that is definitely not what it takes to love them.

The situation is really beginning to get desperate now. Think, dammit, think!! Then it comes to me.

I just decided to go ahead and ask her before Markie could, "Lady Macbeth, are your bosoms okay? Do they have any more parchments down in there among them? Any that deal with snakes or gators or bayous or Donna? Could you read the one on Donna? I wonder if she got good press coverage in 1587 Louisiana among the Creole newspaper columnists. I wonder if she could save me from becoming a teenage space alien wacked on too much snotty scrog. So, like, what's yer parchment got on her?"

Lady Macbeth shot me a dirty look and said, "Whither speakest thou of yon parchment?"

"Lady McBreast, please excuse my humble incapacities and physical inadequacies and inexperience, but don't you have anymore parchments down in there among your enlarged mammary glands, similar to the one you read from only this year not much too long ago, my dear dear senora? Here, would you like this, it's an extra janitor workshirt I had lyin' around.....yeah, it's yours now....I think it'll just barely fit you, and Melvin was a really big guy before he died."

"We can just rip Melvin's name patch off it, and sew this 'Macbeth' one on in its place...there, perfect! Go on, try it on! It even has a pocket."

"Ah, as well formed in every member and joynt, and as perfyte in every poynt. Now what maner of passetyme wyll ye devyse whyle that we folke dothe tary this wyse?" saith Lady M. "Lady Macbreath, um, well, we were gonna meet Fleener---but now I cain't find her or Donna or Markie or even where the bayou went to," I said with my voice. "Goddis mercy, this is she, that I have sought so, have you sought me?" "No, I wasn't looking for you, Lady M., I was trying to find Rhiannon. Wazzup, there, knucklehead?" so said Fleener as she dismounted offa one of Mark McGwire's foul balls just before it hit at our feet. "Nuthin' up. Where's Rhiannon?" I said, as if to remind her of something---I forget what, now. "Why, know ye it not? Like a wounde she fewsters well in Scotland, is it not a quaynt thinge, there happonde to her a straunge Scotsman. Markie Donna doodle gator, good happe is not hastie the later, so loe, now is it even snakes that come without a Bayou vibrator, content thee, knucklehead, for ther ys no remedy yf yow be plesyd, than I must consent gladly." "Fleener, is this for real?" I wondered over to her aloud, for Fleener had lived with Lady M. through much of the 13th century, a time that went soft and slow and very much in the know, and a time when Lady M. took up the hobby of photography and snapped Fleener before Fleener snapped back. "She's sleepwalking again, isn't it easy to tell?" said Fleener in a creepy whisper, punctuated by a scruffy smile (as she thought how waggish and droll the notion of Rhiannon holed up in Scotland right now, when she's supposed to be.....) "There you are, Rhiannon, and not alone, I see. Hey, Markie, Donna!"

(please explain...)

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