Yarn (11 page)

"I will honor and assist you, Remon. We have a day to design your line, and relaunch our glory! We must now loveeffort!"

The next day the flagship was darkened. Workers redid the floor with plush black fabric. The walls were covered with green poles and the ceiling was dotted with thousands of blue lights. Pyramids of dirt were piled six feet tall.

"What is this?" I asked.

"The fantasy skivvé of pure male savagery."

I thought of my life amid the corn and how so much of it was spent working corn plants, pushing the kernels into the dry land, watering them, tending them, and harvesting the ears. It was hardly pure male savagery.

"The real slubs weren't like this. They were much more dull. There were brutal moments, but that was all about recycling. Mostly we farmed and worked in mills." Although she listened, she didn't hear. And maybe it didn't matter. I was happy just to spend that night and most of the next day on the Stanton-Bell. I didn't love making these fantasy skivvé, but I couldn't get enough knitting. I made variation after variation and Kira would come in every hour or so, look them over, and make comments.

"They're robust and vigorous," she said. "They're male and distinct! Try one with a slightly more narrow tube. I'll return in forty minutes."

Near shopping dawn, as designers, constructors, and caterers finished, Kira selected three of my skivvé and dressed them on new full-sized, articulated wooden mannequins. Two were naked except for the skivvé; the third also wore a Rebel Sheep jacket and a violet shirt with layers of ruffles. She introduced me to the two newly hired saleswarriors, who like Kira were dressed in their short orange sailor suits with my blue skivvé below. I also shook hands with a clock drummer who was going to play along with Ginn. For a half-hour Kira gave a rousing, if mostly indecipherable, warTalk. Then the windows were opened, and doors were thrown wide.

To my surprise, hundreds of costumed t'ups were lined up in the hallway, and in an instant the place was full. While some headed straight to the craft and catering tables, most surrounded my skivvé. In my design, the tube was just a couple of inches shorter and open at the end. Below was a single large pouch. As the t'ups stared, pointed, and some even reached forward and squeezed the tubes, I felt exposed and vulnerable. Each frown, each furrowed brow, each small guffaw were jabs to my solar plexus.

"They're the most amazing skivvé in the history of fantasy garments." To my right stood Worm Jacket. On my left was Giraffe. "Truly an achievement far beyond the mere knitting and design. You are a credit to all the prisoners. I think Kira has found both an executive designer and a
cause célèbre."

Giraffe spoke, but I couldn't quite make out his words through his mask.

Worm Jacket leaned in. "He wants to see you buttonhole Kira again. He's
dé bazed
." He laughed and while the lower half of his face was a smile, his eyes conveyed hurt.

Kira greeted both men, took me by the arm and paraded me around for more questions and what seemed like ten thousand photos.

"Are you really a slubber, Remon?"

"How did you learn to knit?"

"Did you really eat nothing but corn?"

"How many flats did you kill?"

"Do they kill the prisoners to feed the crop?"

"What's your inspiration?"

I tried to answer the questions as best I could. Kira usually took over with her warTalk. "He represents the crown of hardship… the transformation of potential into love… the hate of the criminal blossomed into the elemental cruelty of the finest men's fantasy skivvé ever knit!"

For me the party soon became a whirlpool of sounds, faces, and a knot of feelings. One moment I would feel proud and powerful, but a moment later I would overhear some t'up say, "He's a filthy corn needle! She's just using him to save her beleaguered company. Meanwhile she's ruining men's fantasy skivvé!"

And just when I didn't think any more customers could fit into the space, and Ginn and her drummer had cranked up the volume of their hammering melodies, and people were sloshing back milky glasses of something they called corn wine, eating roasted cougar vagina, laughing and gossiping and a few were even fashioning each other, four more entered our flagship-four Casper Union saleswarriors. I recognized Josephone from before.

Once our customers saw who they were, they began to push back. The music came to a ragged end. The crowd hushed.

"This," cried Josephone, pointing her knitting needles at the skivvé on the dressed mannequin, "is infamy. No man shall knit our crotches and certainly not a prisoner! It will not stand. You have finished your fantasy, Kira Shibui. We are simply here to cut the plaited cord and purl you and your knitter." With that she snapped her needles together.

Kira stepped into the clearing before me. Her two new saleswarriors flanked her on each side. She seemed calm and cool. And when she spoke her voice was like curling vapor from pure ice. "The uninvited learn from the heart and the skill of our needles, and now that you have seen majesty, you will retreat and live in the lint below your automated knitting contraptions."

Josephone's nostrils flared. Her mouth shrunk to a dot. Swinging her needles she whacked the mannequin in the face. The thing teetered back and forth several times and then clunked over backward and smashed on the floor. Josephone laughed like she had never seen anything so hilarious. When she turned to her minions, they imitated her exactly.

I was near the back of the flagship, squashed in the crowd of frightened fans, customers, and shoppers. Behind me I heard someone mutter, "Kira's dead and so is that prisoner knitter of hers."

ARK TEXTILE TRADING

In the foyer of the office of Ark Textile Jobber was a twenty-footwide model of a sunken ship complete with twisting vines of seaweed, a giant squid with glowing red eyes, several cavorting mermaids, their tails covered with radiant teal scales, and a giant crab with pinching claws. Above this papier-mâché menagerie hung a large lit sign: The offices and consult of Dr. Galvon T. Horse, Textile Prospector and Deep-Sea Fabricator.

I paused for a moment, considered the garish colors, the grating typography and texture of the signage, and felt confident that this man and his company-one I had never dealt with before and would make sure not to deal with again-was the right choice for the illicit yarn I now needed.

A mermaid came toward me. Her skin had been dyed blue and the cobalt glitter on her eyelids was so thick and apparently heavy she had to lean her head back to peer at me. "Babe," she began with a perfunctory smile as fresh as the Paleozoic, "do you have an appointment to see the beloved Doctor of Fibers?"

I tried not to roll my eyes. "I'm Tane Cedar."

"Oh." Frowning, she looked me up and down, she said, "You look thinner than I thought, babe."

"It's the suit."

Her frown, which was maybe the natural inclination of her mouth, tightened for a beat. "He's with some others, but just go on in, babe."

I was tempted to suffix my reply but just said, "Thank you."

Through a door made of old planks, the main room was a large warehouse that smelled of starch, sizing, dust, and a mingling of unconfident colognes and perfumes. Tables were stacked with jagged mountain ranges of fabric in all manner of plaid, check, tweed, print, flock, and solid. Among the tables, here and there, stood dozens of customers pawing the stuff, pulling lengths of ribbon and lace from spools, comparing color samples to the bolts, and bargaining with the seafaring staff. And despite the plentiful sound absorbing material, the volume of talk was like a raucous party.

"Welcome," said a man dressed in a silky white sailor's outfit. "Mr. Tane Cedar, right?"

"Indeed," I said, forming a smile. "I need to speak with Ryder." The man's chalky green eyes slowly passed over my suit jacket and slacks, as if he were adding the thread count, dividing by the tailoring, and finding the square root of the lining. "Now," I added, gently waking him. "It's urgent."

"I can help you, sir." He blinked several times as he held his sand-white smile. "I love your suit!"

"Thank you, but I need to speak to Ryder."

The man's mouth soured in a way that made me think that he had already spent his imagined commission. He fluttered a hand toward the back of the space. "For the boss you'll have to wait."

I started past the sailor salesman.

"I could help you. He's really busy. It's not about the commission!"

In the back surrounded by a crowd of fifty or so, I found Ryder sitting behind a large transparent aquarium desk filled with some glowing blue-green protoplasm. He wore a triple-breasted silver and navy coat. The long pointed collar of his spider-silk macramé shirt hung halfway to his waist.

I had only seen Ryder once before at a fabric convention two years ago and he struck me as someone auditioning to play himself. The one thing I remembered was that each time he spoke, he would first touch the end of his tiny and preternaturally pale tongue to his thin top lip. The shapes and colors reminded me of the action of some small, nocturnal, insect-eating mammal-a lemur maybe.

The others were all arguing with him.

"That's not the contract!" he said to one of them. "The yarn count was to be between one fifty and one seventy-five.… No, I can't refund your money.… It is pure chemocott, and I guarantee it. Check the chemical composition!"

"Ryder," I said, nudging my way forward, "I need to speak with you."

As his eyes focused on mine for an instant, they grew large with surprise. "Gloria said a Mr. Cedar was here, but I didn't believe it was
you
." He raised his voice and said, "Everyone, I want to introduce you to my newest customer and my very dear friend: the revered Mr. Cedar."

Several of the others said hello and I heard someone ask how much hand stitching I did. Ignoring them, I asked, "Can we talk?
Privately
."

"What about my order?" asked a man in a floor-length ivory jacket.

"About that," replied Ryder, "I can't tell you how very, truly, and wonderfully sorry I am." The wet and white tip of his tongue darted out for an instant. "However, the details of our contract stipulated that all of the said goods would be grey. How this even became a misunderstanding, I cannot comprehend." Ryder glanced at me as if to commiserate.

To my right, a man in black puckered his cracked lips. "I've got to have more of that red double-poplin, Ryder!" Ryder paid no attention to him, but began arguing with someone else.

"Very sorry," said Ryder to me. "You see how wanted and needed I am."

"You told me it would be a high-gloss finish," complained someone else.

"I said it
could
. Could. With a C! Read the contract. I know it's there, because I wrote it. It's an experimental finish. I understand it didn't work. But you knew that when you bought it." Ryder's tongue dotted his sentence.

"I haven't gotten the backing I ordered!" said someone farther back. Turning, I saw a familiar face, another men's tailor from Ros Begas. He had made a splash several years ago with an absurd five-vented jacket and since then had kept slicing his suits into smaller and smaller pieces. Our eyes met, and while I could see that he was surprised to see me here, he bent his head in greeting. I returned the nod. "I need the stuff, Ryder," he continued. "It was supposed to be at the factory yesterday."

"An honor to see you so early," scoffed Ryder. "You told me your delivery service would come and take it!"

"No, I didn't!"

"It's still at the mill waiting for your people." He turned to the mermaid holding his monocle. "That's what you recall, right, my watery paramour?"

She did not turn toward him, but stared forward, her lips seemingly sounding out dialogue to some imagined scene or lyrics to a song.

The tailor said, "I'm going to tear out your ribs and use them as collar stays, Ryder."

"If I could do without my ribs, or any other body part," quipped Ryder, "I would have happily sold them long ago." He glanced at me and sucked in his cheeks. When I frowned, he fluttered an angry hand at his mermaid. "My naughty, algae-covered Mildred! Please scream something unpleasant to the mill yield supervisor, and tell them to rush the backing to his studio." When she did not respond, he leaned closer to her green hair. "Immediately, my naval navel!"

"What about me?" asked someone else.

"All in good time, good sir! I will finish with everyone in order."

"Ryder…" I leaned far over his plasticott-covered aquarium desk, "I am pressed for time."

"Mr. Cedar," he whispered, "but you didn't call ahead. I'm an important jobber as you see!" His tongue flicked his rigid smile.

"On the banquet table over there you will find some sea urchin tarts from late yesterday. Please have one and drink a coffee. I would very much like to discuss your needs, and I will be with you as soon as I can." He then smiled at the crowd and said, "Would someone help Mr. Cedar with a calm coffee?"

Sitting backwards on his aquarium desk, I lifted my legs and spun to face him. Leaning in to bring my nose close to his, I said, "I'm
quite
pressed."

Ryder sat back in his chair. His face paled and his eyes grew watery. "Scissors!" he chirped. "Are you mad? Get off my desk and get away from me!"

The voices around his desk had hushed.

"Listen to me," I whispered, "I need pure Xi yarn."

"What?" he asked as if I hadn't spoken a language he recognized.

Near his ear, I shout-whispered, "Xi yarn!"

He leaned far back. His tongue dotted his lip nervously, his eyes darted toward the others as though to elicit their help. "B–But that's illegal," he stammered with a pasty smile. "That's been prohibited for years. You should know better. No one has that. No one! It's quite immoral. It's nasty stuff." Out of the corner of his mouth, as if I might not hear, he muttered, "Mildred, call security."