Letters to Jenny (25 page)

Meanwhile, how are things here? This morning I saw the sunrise as I biked back from fetching the newspaper. The sun was under the clouds, so they were red underneath. But there were a couple of clouds sitting on the horizon, like mountains, having nowhere else to go without falling off the edge of the world, and they cast shadows. So there were these two radiating bands of gray shadow crossing the red. I never saw the effect before. And last time I mentioned the little green frog in the newspaper box; yesterday I brushed what I thought was a green leaf from my pocket, and it jumped: it was the frog, hitching a ride on me. I was going to take it home, but it jumped off halfway there. So I shooed it off the drive, to be sure no one would run over it; I hope it finds good flies there.

Today was a scary day. It’s Friday the Thirteenth, and there’s a computer virus that’s supposed to wipe out systems on this date. So yesterday I backed up everything, just in case. But there was no problem; evidently my systems are not infected. Say—maybe that virus got into the stock exchange computers, and that’s why the horrendous drop! But the investors are like chickens, spooking at anything, so probably when they learned it was Friday the Thirteenth, there it went.

I ran on the treadmill again today. I set it at seven miles an hour, which is comfortable for me, and it kept slowing, then speeding up again, and in half an hour it showed 2.99 miles. So it was averaging six miles an hour instead of seven. It’s malfunctioning, and I want to complain—after all, it cost $900—but my wife says that’s just the way it is. The world’s a pretty sorry place when equipment is expected not to function properly, even when new. I like the exercycle better, but my knees bend too far and start hurting, so I can’t go as hard as I want. So that’s not ideal either. Sigh.

I’m seeing more articles about the tragedy of the forests. In Brazil they are destroying one of the last great rain forests, and ruining the world’s climate in the process. But we’re no better here, as special logging interests cut down the Alaskan Tongass forest, with the few remaining virgin stands we have. A TV program was going to expose it, but the logging interests threatened to boycott the sponsors, and most of them dropped out. So the forest keeps getting cut, so someone can make a dollar today, though the world go into terminal funk tomorrow. I am disgusted. So are you, I think.

Meanwhile on a more positive local note: this week a TV station decided to see whether Duracell or Eveready batteries were better. They put them into two toy piggies, and the piggies oinked, wiggled their noses and walked. Which one would go longer? They thought it would be over within three hours, but when the time came for the evening program both piggies were still snuffling along. Next day they were still doing it. Finally today, just in time for this letter, after thirty hours running time, the Duracell piggy gave out. The Eveready was still going, the winner. Actually, both types of battery were impressive; in my day it seemed that a battery would last ten minutes and poop out. Those were certainly cute piggy toys, though!

Bunch of enclosures this time, mostly comics and car-toons I thought were fun; you may have seen some already. The No Cent man sent me more “money,” so here are his “one world” and “hug” coins. I liked the picture on the Business section, with its treacherous path; try cruising your wheelchair along that one at speed! And ALLIGATOR EXPRESS. Most of the contributors are younger than you, so I thought I wouldn’t send it, but I liked the “Tropical Depression” cartoon with its sad cloud, so here it is.

Have a harpy day, Jenny, and say “Hi” to Kathy for me. Your mother tells me you folk are calling me “Uncle Xanth.” I must be writing uncley letters! Oh—you say you want a purple dinosaur on your letter, because I put a blue one on Kathy’s letter? Okay, this time.

OctOgre 20, 1989

Dear Jenny,

You would not believe my day! Here it is quarter to seven in the evening, when I had nothing to do today except your letter and one other. Now I’ll have to scramble to get yours done. Let me tell you about it—what? You’re not interested? Okay, then, you tell me about your day.

…………………

Jenny, you’ll have to speak up! All I heard was a row of dots.

********************

Well, that’s louder, but now it sounds like a row of asterisks. Did I tell you the poem about the asterisk? I don’t remember. I don’t think I have. Okay, here it is now: Mary had a pair of skates/ With which she loved to frisk/ Now wasn’t she a foolish girl/ Her little *

You don’t get it? Well, don’t have your mother read it, idiot! Have your daddy read it, and make sure he pronounces the * (asterisk) at the end. Oh, now you get it!

Here’s something I heard on the radio this week: “A theologian is one who answers questions no one is asking.” You don’t think that’s funny? Well, how about this one—what? Oh, you’ve decided to listen to my day after all? Are you sure? How sweet of you!

It started at 5:30
A.M.
, when all was dark. I woke to the sound of a faint beep-beep-beep. That’s what my power-supply box says when the current is off. Was the power off? So I got up and barefooted it down to the study wing of the house—and the lights were on. They hadn’t been on before. My daughter Cheryl was home overnight, visiting from college; was she there? No, the room was empty—and no beep-beep. Not there, anyway; now I heard it behind me. From the bedroom I had just left? I padded back, but it wasn’t from the bedroom either, It was from downstairs. Was it the security alarm system? But that doesn’t go beep-beep, it goes WHOOO-WHOOO-WHOOO!! earsplittingly. Maybe it
wasn’t
a burglar in the house. So I went downstairs. It was coming from the kitchen, I turned on the light.

Are you bored yet? Well, I thought that since you weren’t too keen on hearing about my day—oh, all right, I’ll continue. (I’m just getting you back for saying you weren’t interested.)

I turned on the light, and the beep was coming from the phone answering machine. A light was flashing, and the beeping was continuous. But that’s not the way it usually works. I peered at it, but couldn’t make out which button was glowing without my glasses. So I went back upstairs to the bedroom, fetched my glasses, came back down, peered again, and it said RECORDING. Recording? I lifted the phone: dial tone. What was it recording—a message from Mars? I didn’t dare fool with the machine, because it tends to erase automatically. On Tuesday when we were away, all hell broke loose—uh, rephrase that: your mother called, and then, well, let’s leave that until a later paragraph. So I went up and woke my wife. I didn’t like to do it, because her natural hours are midnight until noon for sleeping, or would be if I didn’t drag her up at 8:30 to face the day, but if there was something important on that machine, such as news of the San Francisco earthquake headed this way, we’d better find out. She came down and checked it out: no message. The thing was malfunctioning. But it did finally produce a message: the one your mother had left, which had disappeared after one playing. Time travel, maybe? The message jumped from Tuesday to Friday without passing GO or collecting $200—oops, wrong game.

But how about that light turned on in the study? All the outer doors were locked; no one was prowling. How could something turn on the light and leave an un-message on the machine? We concluded that there must have been a power surge. That light switch is a touch-type: you just tap it to turn it on or off, rather than switching it. A surge might have had the same effect as tapping. And might have bollixed the answering machine. All our computers and things are protected by surge suppressors, but not that answering machine. Yes, sad to say, a prosaic answer; no Martians. Sorry about that.

But of course I was sound awake by this time. My wife went back to sleep, but I fixed breakfast and went back to the study—with its lights conveniently on—and made notes in my P file (that’s P for Piers, where I record my passing thoughts on things) and edited 500 more words of
Tatham Mound
, about how de Soto met the lovely Indian Lady of Cofitachequi who lived not all that far from where you live now, who gave him a string of pearls that wound three times around her lovely body. Yes, that’s historical; it really happened. Then de Soto took the Lady captive and forced her to come with his army. Yeah, some hero! The factual parts of this novel will open some eyes, I trust. Then on with horsefeeding, newspaper—our temperature had plunged to 43.5° Fahrenheit, having had lows of about 70° before—yes, I
know
it gets colder than that without even trying, in Virginia, but this is Florida. One newspaper was on the ground instead of in its paper-box, and scattered across the landscape; the new deliverer is a mess. I gathered six parts and thought I had it all, but a major section was missing.

Then on to that other letter: after two months I was writing to that libertarian-style fanzine that decided to practice censorship when I introduced the fan who is a murderer to it. I had pondered in the interim, and, like your mother, decided to do the right thing: that is, to let them have it in the face with both barrels. I can be eloquently cutting when annoyed. Then I went through to comment on what others had said about other things, including one sap who accused me of using my vegetarianism as “a highly specious platform from which to air [my] sense of superiority.” No, I hadn’t mentioned vegetarianism; it’s just one of those things I don’t make a secret about, but to each his own life-style. He just wanted to pick a fight with me, because he had said he considered it humane to squish innocent spiders, and I said we evidently differed on what was humane. So as you can see, this character needed special treatment, and I think he will not forget what I said to him, which relates to sociopathic behavior. But it took a bit of time to say it just right.

Now it’s quarter to six, tomorrow, OctOgre twenty-oneth. I couldn’t finish this letter on the same day, after that late start, and then I woke up early, so I thought, well, Jenny’s waiting, so here I am. Do you see how dark it is outside?

Where were we? Sociopathic behavior—you haven’t encountered that term? Of course you haven’t, Jenny; you’re a nice girl. It’s a fancy term for folk without conscience, really mean people, like the drunk who hit you with his car. People the world would be better off without.

I was mostly through that letter by noon, but then had to quit to exercise, because my wife and daughter—Cam and Cheryl—had to drive back to New College and I didn’t want to make them late. You see, I never ran my three miles when my wife was away (well, there was a time, when her mother was dying, and she was away for most of a month, but apart from that, no) just in case I took a fall and needed help, and now that I’m using the cycle or treadmill—the cycle seems better—it’s the same. So I cranked up on the cycle, moving at 18 miles an hour according to its reckoning, and was nine and a half minutes through my half hour, when the phone rang. It was my agent in New York. So I stopped and talked to him, and that took about 45 minutes, and then the girls had to leave, so I never did finish my exercise and take my shower. Sigh. Now my beard is all itchy; I’ll take that shower today.

What’s that? What did the agent say? Jenny, that’s none of your business! Now back to this letter.

…………………

…………………

You mean you didn’t listen to my last two lines? Why not?

…………………

Will you stop giving me the silent treatment! What use is it to type this letter if you just tune it out?

********************

Oh. Sigh. Okay, I apologize for saying it was none of your business. He talked mostly about how
Man From Mundania
was on the bestseller lists, so the publisher is pleased, and how we will market
Tatham Mound
when I finish it later this month, because that one has the potential to be a major mainstream bestseller. We hope. And about setting up a contract with Richard Pini for turning
Isle of View
into comic form. Yes, you’ll get to see the first copy! Are you satisfied? Then why aren’t you smiling? Ah, there’s that smile!

So then I had lunch and read my incoming mail and went back to the letter, because it was time to begin
your
letter. And the men came to work on our front gate: they have to install a radio transmitter that can signal the gate to open, because it’s about half a mile away as the crow flies, and longer as the car drives. Naturally this happens when my wife is away, because she’s the one who knows about these things. So I showed the man our attic where he thought some wiring might be, and what he needed wasn’t there, and things were all complicated, because that’s what happens when my wife is away, much the same as what happens to you when your mother is away. Complications wouldn’t dare happen to your mother, but when she’s off having her face mangled then the complications come right after you; isn’t that the way it is?

Speak of the—let me rephrase that. At this point, your mother called, with several pages on her mind. She was furious. No, she hadn’t been reading this letter! At least, I don’t think so. No, she wasn’t mad at me. Someone at Cumbersome Hospital did something phenomenally stupid, and—ah, now you understand. She was fit to be tied—no, what I mean is, she had a mind to tie someone else up in concrete and throw him in the deep deep sea and run a submarine over him. Twice. No, I didn’t succeed in calming her; she succeeded in riling
me
up. Next time you talk to her, you can ask her about what happened, and then hunker down for the storm. I mean, if you want to know what it was like in Charleston when Hurricane Hugo hit … However, it wasn’t all bad. She told me that the Navy has learned about your case: how you were sort of nothing until I sent you a letter—what do you mean, what letter? The
first
letter! The interesting one.—and then you turned around and faced back toward this world instead of the abyss. I think they want to mention that in their publicity somewhere. Okay, Jenny, if you don’t mind, I don’t. Do you think they’ll give us a ride on a ship? Oh, you get seasick? So do I. Cancel that.

So finally I finished that letter, and started on yours, and that was my day. Wasn’t that fascinating?