Little Doors (43 page)

Of course, he had never married. Never even courted.

To betray the princess? She of the winsome sighs and unstinting devotion? Unthinkable! And besides: what flesh-and-blood woman could compare to that fabled child bride of his spirit?

Recreations he had none. What could substitute for the sparkling attractions of his dream life? Incomparable parades, festivals, parties, dinners: he had played the guest at more grand affairs than the richest, most popular terrestrial socialite. Games? He had ridden sleds down glaciers, dived to the bottom of the sea, and drifted in a dirigible around the world, visiting the dream doppelganger of every state of his nation and every country of the globe. Dinosaurs and dragons had carried him through forests of giant mushrooms and entire cities built of children’s blocks.

Really, what kind of travel could lure him from his lonely tenement hermitage? He had been a giant in microworlds, and an ant in macroworlds. Tropical islands full of cannibals had known his step. He had helmed naval destroyers across jade seas of miracles.

And all the love and adulation he had received! Those dream affections had been the most painful birthrights to lose. In his dreams he had always been the center of attention. People fawned over him, catered to his every whim. He was pampered and petted, cossetted and consulted. Even when thwarted by his primal antagonist, Flip, he had felt himself honored by the magnitude of his opponent’s efforts. And if this universe of sleep did not revolve entirely around him—there was always a disturbing sense of ongoing agenda and schemes much, much larger than his small self—then at least he always felt that he was one of its most privileged citizens.

And never had he experienced this sensation more keenly than when he visited Shantytown, that ghetto precinct of King Morpheus’s realm, where, with his miraculous wand, he served as savior to its suffering inhabitants, easing their pains and tribulations like Christ himself.

Of course, awake, he occupied no such exalted position. No savior amidst the mortal dust of existence, he was just one more of the faceless millions, another atom in the uncaring cosmos. How deeply that pained him, to the core of his soul!

Anxiety had burned away the booziness in the doctor’s voice. “Where are those goddamn beta-blockers? Have those freaking junkies we call aides raided the pharmacy again? Didn’t we get a new supply? Christ, I can’t lose another old fuck! I’m already under review. At least get me some goddamn aspirin for his rotten heart!”

The old man wanted to tell the doctor not to bother, but he couldn’t quite find his voice. The pain had transcended itself to become a vacuity, a hollow at his center. And the hollow was rapidly expanding to empty the old man from the inside out.

“What’s going on here?”

The owner of Slumberland resembled a bloated plutocrat of yore, a figure out of editorial cartoons from the old man’s youth. Seen in detail through the old man’s glasses on previous visits, the owner recalled no one so much as Nast’s indelible image of Boss Tweed.

Now, waddling like King Cole, his plummy cheeks visibly flaring, his waistcoat straining against his girth, the owner had rushed in to take command.

In the midst of the uselessly fluttering workers and gawpers, the old man rediscovered his voice, enough to croak out a single name, a name that surprised him as much as it baffled the listeners.

“Flip. Please, Flip. Help, please, Flip—”

Flip

They had torn off his shirt and pressed abrasive paddles against his chest, but not yet triggered the Frankenstein jolts that might convince his balky pump to labor uselessly on, prolonging a life that should have ended ninety years ago, for all the utility or joy or good deeds the old man could realistically chalk up.

A choir of blurry faces hung about his bed: the Candy Kid, Doctor Pill, King Morpheus, the princess, Impie—

But no Flip! Where was Flip? Flip would save him, sure he would, that rascal.…

That green-faced, unblinking, cigar-smoking amalgam of Penrod, Jiggs, and Moon Mullins, who had first appeared in pure ornery envious opposition to the young visitor from the realm of wakefulness, yet who had become, in some strange fashion, his best friend among the dreamfolk (though still inherently prone to causing disruptions, detours and disasters galore). Often and often had Flip extended a saving hand when danger threatened. Wouldn’t he trump death now, darting in from offstage during the crisis of this final act?

The paddles crackled to life, and, under their misplaced harshness, the old man’s heart burst.

Waves of crimson occluded his dying eyes. The shimmering red draperies boiled for an infinite moment, then were sucked down as into a whirlpool, pooling into a single red knot—

—the ember on the tip of Flip’s cigar.

“Feelin’ kinda punk there for a minute, hey, kid?”

The old man took stock of his bodily condition first: no pain, an effortless vitality flowing through his limbs, his wrinkled, palsied hands smoothed to youthful elasticity and steadied by confidence, his head full of wavy brown hair.

His surroundings? A white canvas, untouched by artist’s brush or pen.

His clothing: a soft flannel suit of footed pajamas.

His sole companion? Flip, in red-and-white striped pants, garish weskit with buttons the size of dinner plates, billowy yellow cravat, insouciant top hat.

The reborn boy stuck out his hand, and Flip gripped it with his typical rude vigor.

“Sorry to take so long fetchin’ ya back, kid, but we had a busy night here at the palace since we last saw each other. Rogue herd of gogglemops got loose in the pantry. Devil’s own work corralling them. Chef fell in the birthday cake batter too.”

“One night? Was that all it was?”

“Yeah, just a single night. How come ya ask? Time kinda drag for ya?”

“A little, yes. It seemed like years.”

“Well, you’re too many for me, pal. But ya know ya won’t have that kinda headache here. Plenty to keep ya busy. Almost too much sometimes, ya ask me. Now let’s get movin’. Lotta folks waitin’ for ya—including one special little lady, if you get my drift. You don’t wanna miss yer own birthday party. Hope ya don’t mind if yer cake tastes a little like the chef.”

“How do we get there?”

Flip smacked his forehead. “Wotta lunkhead! After all this time, ya gotta ask me! Use yer wits, peabrain!”

The boy thought a moment, then gripped twin handfuls of the canvas and pulled, tearing open a wide jagged split, to reveal —

The real Slumberland at last.

MEHITABEL IN HELL

well boss it s me archy again

your cockroach pal

transmigrated free versifier

bulletheading on your office

typewriter once more

after a long silence

open parentheses

the dull roots of which we will not

trifle with close parentheses

bringing some big news both sad and

miraculous beyond belief

and i don t know

whether to laugh or cry

and by the by are you the last old fashioned

newshound in this new millennium

still using an ancient underwood question

mark what i wouldn t give for uninterrupted

access to a computer keyboard with

its easy action keys soft on the chitinous

noggin floating cursor delete capabilities

et cyber cetera but your office is also

the last one to keep a supply of white paste handy

on which i subsist so qed

anyhow don t mind my griping

the news i got is more important

than personal complaints

it s all tied up with mehitabel

natch ain t she always at the heart

of most of my news question mark

now you know the history of this

bad cat what she has done or what

hasn t she done in her long

scroungy irresponsible life

of racketing up and down the alleys

and boulevards of this mean old town

plus paris france and other environs

from past lives even when she claimed

to be cleopatra and sundry other

high class gals who weren t around anymore

to refute her outrageous claims

and in every situation her motto has been

open quote toujours gai close quote

which she has never been slow

to back up with a sharp set of claws and

matching razor teeth

but mehitabel finally met her predestined

nameless fate which not even high spirits

or a sneaky one two punch could defeat

and that is namely to buy the farm

if by farm you mean a dumpster

behind the ming gardens restaurant

down in chinatown

where radish curls formed her only wreath

and leftover chow mein her bier

that is how i encountered mehitabel

for what i thought was surely the last time

during a little expedition of my own

double dash looking for some cockroach

love if you must know double dash

and i felt like hell at the sight of her

bloody corpse and i cursed all the gods

who had led her to this unseemly end

and who had made me an insect who

couldn t even cry for his best friend

physiologically speaking because i

sure was weeping inside

needless to say the next few weeks were

pretty miserable and grim all

the life seemed to have fled this lousy

burg with mehitabel s untimely exit

i got so down i couldn t even eat paste

and was on the point of withering away

to mayfly weight why not die i said to myself

and maybe get reborn as something better

if not a human poet again then at least

a journalist ha forgive me ha

but nearly on the point of expiring i bethought

me of a pal who might be able to lift

this load of blues off my wings

and that was clarence the ghost

clarence i figured with his access to

astral realms beyond the styx and

unto the farthest starry spheres

might have some comforting dope

on mehitabel s progress in the great hereafter

so i hastened to get in touch with

my spectral pal through a ouija

board inside the games room

of the west side ymca one night

after hours pushing the planchette around

like sisyphus shouldering his boulder and

sure enough clarence materialized

before too long dripping ectoplasm

onto a pile of convenient towels

clarence i yelled without even making

polite noises because after all

the dead are really immune to

such chitchat tell me what you know

about the soul of mehitabel

exclamation point

clarence replied archy i was just

waiting for you to call so i could share

with you the biggest news from hell

since the kaiser kicked napolean s

keister from pit to pit

mehitabel is down there causing

the sweetest stink i ve ever seen

unlike all the other humbled and despairing souls

who capitulate immediately upon finding

themselves in the land of brimstone sulfur and flames

she refuses to kowtow to old nick and his minions

raking her claws across the faces and

flabby behinds of all the lesser demons

assigned to corral her and once

when old nick himself intervened

even scoring a nice set of stripes on his gross gut

she just won t take her licks like he had planned

for her something about being buried

up to her neck inside a ring of catnip

placed just out of reach of her questing