Jim and the Flims (9 page)

“Whose voice?”

“It's the pavilion talking. Pretty much everything in Flimsy is a little bit alive. In fact Flimsy herself is a living organism.”

“How big is Flimsy, anyway?”

“She's larger than the universe—and smaller than what you call an electron. That baffles you, no? The world is a mystery.” We settled into our seats, and tight bars swung down over our laps.

The cool ocean breeze blew across us; the mist was drifting away. I was happy to be on a ride with a sexy, offbeat girlfriend. For now I'd stopped thinking about Val. Maybe everything Weena said was bullshit, but at least I was alive. “Is there more to the story about the upside-down ride?” I asked.

“Oh yes!” exclaimed Weena. “On my first time through it, an enormous fat man above me really
did
explode—his scraps scattered all over the pavilion. Of course then Charles told me that the exploding fat man was only a fake, grown by the yuels running Funger Gardens, similar to a soap bubble, and that the man explodes hundreds of times a day. So!”

The horizon tilted weirdly as the ship swept expansively to and fro. Belatedly it occurred to me that going on the Boardwalk rides might not be a great idea for someone who'd just been in the hospital with a brain problem. But with Weena laughing at my side, I set aside my cares.

We went on a few more rides, then we hit the snack bar. We ordered fried squid, fried artichoke hearts, a hot dog, and a couple of beers—and carried them down to the beach where Droog was waiting. We fed him the hot dog.

After our own meal, Weena and I lay there cuddling, staring at the wrinkled sea and the ultramarine sky. We even napped for an hour. I was facing more kinds of doom than I could keep track of, but somehow this afternoon I felt mellower than I had in a long time.

“Thanks for all this,” I told Weena. We were awake now, watching the sinking sun and petting Droog.

“Would you like a demonstration of zickzack?” asked Weena.

“Sure. Make us some beach chairs. You know, low chairs with no legs.”

“I can do that,” said Weena.

She flexed her fingers and gestured in midair. Tendrils nearly too fine to see crept from her fingertips. The air shimmered and glinted as something took shape upon the sand. I saw mirrored tubes, connected by glittering panels like fabric. Weena squinted and muttered to herself. The panels took on colors, candy apple red and cadmium yellow.

And now our beach chairs were done.

Gingerly I touched the red chair. The material was smooth, with the soft feel of—a fingertip. It was as if my own hand were pressing back at me. My mind was thoroughly boggled.

“Sit!” said Weena, flopping down.

We sat together for a while, letting the time slide by. I was very comfortable. Soon it was nearly seven o'clock. We had a half hour till our meet with Chang.

The sun was still slanting across the waters, but the Boardwalk's colored lights were coming on. I had a sense of exhilaration, as at the beginning of a great adventure.

“Before you got here, I thought my life was over,” I told Weena.

“You're exactly the right person to be our cosmic postman,” she said warmly. “A hero who's ready to battle with complete abandon! And I won't forget your quest for your lady fair.”

“Too bad that yuel scares the shit out of me.”

“You are modest,” said Weena. “That's heroic, as well.” As always, her eyes were unreadable. “Is it time to meet the others?”

“We have time for one more ride,” I said, pointing up towards the Boardwalk. “How about the Big Dipper?”

“That clickity-clack lattice of wooden beams and rusty rails?”

“The Boardwalk's fabled roller coaster, yes,” I said.

I herded the doubtful Weena into the very first little car of the Big Dipper's little train. The cars rushed through a darkened arch, then up the wooden hill, higher and higher above the beach. The streaming air was damp and salty, the colors rich in the setting summer sun, the sounds a mesh of screams and rattles and carnival music and breaking waves. It was wonderful.

But now we inched around a U-turn and faced the drop, far steeper than I'd remembered. We shot down, then up, then down, then up and around another turn. Weena looked ill, she was clutching both hands against her stomach.

Two more bumps and she collapsed against me, retching into my lap. Amid the partly digested food was a gently glowing object shaped like a pitty-pat squash—a flattened orb with a ruffle around its girth. It was hard to imagine how something this big had squeezed out of Weena's mouth. The thing had alternating stripes, and a long tail trailed from its base.

“My jiva,” moaned Weena. “She popped out. I shouldn't have eaten all that fried squid.” She retched again. “What nasty food you people eat.” Her face was pale and lined.

The jiva stirred in my lap, swelling a bit larger, taking on fresh colors as the sunlight played across her. She canted this way and that, as if examining her surroundings—not that she had any visible eyes. With a few gentle motions of her supple tail, the jiva vacuumed Weena's vomit off my legs. The tail was covered with fine hairs, like a radish root—and now I recalled that Weena had shown me the tip of it sticking from her navel yesterday. She'd called it an ovipositor.

“Don't let that thing put eggs in me!” I yelled, shoving the jiva into the Weena's lap.

“This is my dear Awnee,” said Weena, feebly petting the jiva. Without the jiva, Weena looked shockingly old. “Don't hurt Awnee's feelings. She can be dangerous. You should have left my zickzack rejuvenation props in place, Awnee. Please come back inside.” Weena leaned over the jiva, opening her wrinkled lips.

Stubbornly the jiva wrapped her tail around my leg. I felt a telepathic connection with the creature, and for a moment I saw as if through her mind. The amusement park was a foreshortened construct of planes, like a cardboard model. I could pick up a sense of Awnee's emotions as well. She didn't like our alien world. She felt miffed and peevish.

Right then we swung through a final neck-wrenching turn. The cars were clattering back towards the loading platform. As we coasted to a stop, the jiva unwound from my leg, twisted free of Weena's grasp and floated into the darkening sky like a child's escaped balloon.

Weena hobbled down the stairs and into the open space of the Boardwalk midway. Looking bereft, she stared after her lost jiva, who was drifting inland over Santa Cruz. “Oh, Jim,” she quavered. “I'm crushed. I can't teep properly without Awnee. And—” She gestured at her wasted body. “Don't look at me. That spiteful Awnee. Jivas can be so cruel.”

“Maybe—maybe Awnee is looking for her children,” I said, trying to comfort Weena. “Didn't you say they'd hatch today?”

“Well, yes, that's a good possibility,” said Weena, brightening a bit. “Of course. She'll return after I call forth the three new jivas. Dear, dear Awnee. She's never let me down. We've been together for about a century—ever since I found my way from Earth to Flimsy.”

That gave me pause. All week I'd been gloating about my hot new girlfriend. And now—oh, this was impossible.

“What?” said Weena, seeing some of my feelings in my eyes.

“So how old are you, really?”

“Oh, I suppose one might call it a hundred and thirty or so. But it's impolite to ask a woman her age.” A dry cackle.

“Um—are you still up to meeting the Whipped Vic crew?”

“Indeed,” said Weena. “But I require your aid. I seem to have some rheumatism in my hips. Awnee had been padding my joints with zickzack.” He voice took on an aggrieved, whining tone. “It would have been quite simple for Awnee to leave her patches in place. But she likes to teach me a lesson. It's insufferable. I'm very close to the Duke of Human Flimsy, you know, and my lover Charles is the court Wizard, and I'm helping Charles with his monumental Atum's Lotus project, and—”

I quieted her down, trying to carry on as before. It was so weird to have my new woman friend turn incredibly old. And a little pathetic to hear her bragging about her supposed status in some possibly imaginary world.

“Let's go buy that bottle of tequila for that surfer dude Header,” I suggested as we inched our way out of the midway. “Before we meet them at the Perg.”

“One request,” quavered Weena. “Don't tell these young people any of our secret plans. Let my enemies puzzle about my next step. It's a game of nerves.”

“Fine.” Not that there was much I could tell. Weena's ever-changing stories were a confused jumble in my mind.

9: The Whipped Vic Crew

T
he Perg coffee shop was a warped old house with a worn wooden deck and thickets of coarse, overgrown plants. It was a hip, funky place, and I often came here. Chang and the Whipped Vic crew were sitting at a table, lit by the late-setting summer sun. Droog followed us onto the deck and settled under their table.

“Jim Oster!” drawled Chang. “And—it's Weena, right? Whoah, what happened to you?”

“I'll be fine in a bit,” said Weena, collapsing into a chair. “We went on those boardwalk rides.”

“These are my surf-rat friends,” Chang told her. “Header, Ira, and Ginnie.” Chang and Header were drinking pints of draft beer, the other two were just slouched in their chairs.

I stepped forward as if to shake Header's hand. He just glared at me, overgrown bully that he was. He had a little crust of blood inside one of his nostrils. “Here,” I said, waggling the bottle of tequila. “Peace, dude. Sorry I was poking around your yard.”

“Apology accepted!” intoned Ira in his thin, ironic voice. He was a skinny, weak-chinned surfer in pencil-thin black jeans and high-top black basketball shoes. He never seemed to age.

Wordlessly, Header uncapped the tequila and took a snort. The planes of his handsome face glowed in the slanting light. He wiped his mouth, shot a spiteful glance at the ancient Weena, and stashed the bottle beneath the table. Ira fished out the bottle and sniffed at it, but didn't put it to his lips.

“I hope this shit isn't from Weena?” he asked. “Or it might be poison. We already know about Weena, and—”

“I'm the one who bought the tequila,” I interrupted, wanting credit. “Me.”

“Are you a big stoner?” the new, dark-haired girl asked me pleasantly. Ginnie. “Were you tripping when you found our house?” She had warm brown eyes, slightly tilted. The eyes and her strong cheekbones gave her a slightly exotic look. Maybe she was Latina.

“I've always seen Jim as a dungeon master,” said Ira, temporarily dropping his attack on Weena. “The geekiest player on his level. He even opened up our cellar door. That door won't let just anyone open it. It's fickle. What did you see in there, Jim? ”

“A golden casket sitting on one side. And leathery slime. As if your whole basement were full of gray-green Silly Putty. And then a strand pulled the door closed.”

“What about the blue sea lion?” asked Ginnie. “Did he come out of there? I keep seeing that sea lion out at our surf-break this week. He's always swimming near Header.”

“You should realize that it's not a sea lion,” said Weena, her voice thin and crackly. “That thing came to Jim's house this morning and shaped itself into a blue baboon.” She fell silent and studied Header's reaction especially. Weena had a hard, appraising look in her age-dimmed eyes.

“Do you know what's going on?” I asked Header point-blank.

“I know everything,” said Header. “The others don't know shit.”

“Header's voice is the empty squeal of a bagpipe,” said Chang.

Ira let out a shrill
deedle-deedle
sound and rose from his plastic chair to dance a jig.

“Fools,” said Header, grimly grasping the neck of the tequila bottle. “I'm empowered to save your world from Weena's parasitic jivas, and you—”

“Header likes to imagine he's a visiting alien,” interrupted Ginnie. “But if you want to talk about knowing stuff,
I'm
the one who found the Whipped Vic. Credit where credit is due. It happened this March. A big rainstorm, with the air like water. I'd hitchhiked into town, massively ripped on shrooms. I splashed down all these alleys—it was like a maze. And then I started hearing a man's voice whispering in my head. He had a monster-movie accent. He said was my friend, he was going to help me, he was going to show me a free place to live. He kept telling me which way to go. And then
boom
, a flash of lightning, and I'm walking up the sidewalk to this big old haunted house.”

“Tell us the part where you open the round door,” said Ira. “I love that. It's so mysterioso.”

“It was still pouring rain,” said Ginnie, running her fingers through her short, dark hair. “I wanted to go into the house, but it was dark and spooky. And that horror-flick voice was still talking to me. It told me to go around back and there'd be a door in the basement with a handprint shape. And that's how it was. The door was waiting for me. As soon as I touched it, it opened. But it was too dark to see any of the gooey stuff. All I saw was a sly-looking white guy who came out. He looked rich, old-timey, in a velvet cape. He had that same accent. It was his voice I'd been hearing in my head. He called himself the Graf. He said Graf means Count. Like Count Dracula. Not that he was a vampire. Not exactly. He kissed me on the mouth and—”

“Look we don't have to go over this again and again,” protested Header. “Nobody cares.”

“I care,” said Weena intensely. “I'm extremely interested. What happened next, Ginnie dear?”

“Well—” said Ginnie. “My memory for that night is pretty screwed up. It breaks into these intense frames and then it goes blank. Right away, I realized that the Graf wasn't made of normal flesh. He was smooth and cool to the touch. I didn't like him, but I was in his thrall. He stole a car and took me for a ride. He made the tip of his finger change shape to be the car key. We got to Lover's Bluff, and he was kissing me a whole lot, like we were going to fuck. His skin was so cold. Someone opened the car door. And that's where my mind goes blank.”