Plexus (57 page)

“O.K., Henry—but no dirty work!”

Two nights later I'm having dinner with MacGregor and Trix—in a remote corner of the Bronx. The kids are in fine fettle. The boy is five and the girl about three and a half. Charming youngsters but rather precocious. I'm doing my best not to get tight before the kids are put to bed. But we've had three Martinis while waiting for dinner and now we're sampling the Chambertin which I brought along.

Trix is a good scout, as MacGregor would say. Not a beauty, but easy to look at. Has a jovial disposition. The only drawback I detect so far is that she's hysterical.

Everything has been proceeding smoothly. I feel at home with the kids. They keep on reminding me that I've promised to tell them the story of the three bears.

“You're in for it, Henry,” says MacGregor.

Truth to tell, I haven't the least desire now to reel off that bedtime story. I stretch the meal out as long as I can. I'm a bit groggy. I can't remember how the damned story begins.

Suddenly Trix says: “You must tell it now, Henry. It's long past their bedtime.”

“All right!” I groan. “Get me another black coffee and I'll begin.”

“I'll start it for you,” says the boy.

“You don't do anything of the sort!” says Trix. “Henry is going to tell this story—from beginning to end. I want you to listen carefully. Now shut up!”

I swallowed some black coffee, choked on it, sputtered and stuttered.

“Once there was a big black bear.…”

“That's not how it begins,” piped the little girl.

“Well, how does it begin then?”

“Once upon a time.…”

“Sure, sure… how could I forget? All right, are you listening? Here goes.…
Once upon a time
there were three bears—a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a Teddy bear.…”

(Laughter and derision from the two kids.)

“The polar bear had a pelt of long white fur—to keep him warm, of course. The grizzly bear was.…”

“That's not the way it goes, Mommy!” screamed the little girl.

“He's making it up,” said the boy.

“Be quiet, you two!” cried Trix.

“Listen, Henry,” said MacGregor, “don't let them rattle you. Take your time. Remember, easy does it. Here, have another drop of cognac, it'll oil your palate.”

I lit a fat cigar, took another sip of cognac, and tried to work myself back into the groove. Suddenly it struck me that there was only one way to tell it and that was fast as lightning. If I stopped to think I'd be sunk.

“Listen, folks,” I said, “I'm going to start all over again. No more interruptions, eh?” I winked at the little girl and threw the boy a bone which still had some meat on it.

“For a man with your imagination you're certainly having a hard time,” said MacGregor. “This ought to be a hundred dollar story, with all the preliminaries you're going through. You're sure you don't want an aspirin?”

“This is going to be a thousand dollar story,” I replied, now in full possession of all my faculties. “But don't interrupt me!”

“Come on, come on, stop diddling!
Once upon a time
—that's the way it begins,” bawled MacGregor.

“O.K. …
Once upon a time
.… Yeah, that's it. Once upon a time there were three bears: a polar bear, a grizzly bear, and a Teddy bear.…”

“You told us that before,” said the boy.

“Be quiet, you!” cried Trix.

“The polar bear was absolutely bare, with long white fur which reached to the ground. The grizzly bear was just as tough as a sirloin steak, and he had lots of fat between his toes. The Teddy bear was just right, neither too fat nor too lean, neither tough nor tender, neither hot nor cold.…”

Titters from the kids.

“The polar bear ate nothing but ice, ice-cold ice, fresh from the ice house. The grizzly bear thrived on artichokes, because artichokes are full of burrs and nettles.…”

“What's burrs, mommy?” piped the little girl.

“Hush!” said Trix.

“As for the Teddy bear, why he drank only skimmed milk. He was a grower, you see, and didn't need vitamins. One day the grizzly bear was out gathering wood for the fire. He had nothing on but his bearskin and the flies were driving him mad. So he began to run and run and run. Soon he was deep in the forest. After a while he sat down by a stream and fell asleep.…”

“I don't like the way he tells it,” said the boy, “he's all mixed up.”

“If you don't keep quiet, I'll put you to bed!”

“Suddenly little Goldilocks entered the forest. She had a lunch basket with her and it was filled with all sorts of good things, including a bottle of Blue Label Ketchup. She was looking for the little house with the green shutters. Suddenly she heard someone snoring, and between snores a big booming voice was shouting:
‘Acorn pie for me! Acorn pie for me!'
Goldilocks looked first to the right and then to the left. She saw no one. So she got out her compass
and, facing due west, she followed her nose. In about an hour, or perhaps it was an hour and a quarter, she came to a clearing in the woods. And there was the little house with the olive drab shutters.”

“Green
shutters!” cried the boy.

“With the green shutters, right! And then what do you think happened? A great big lion came dashing out of the woods, followed by a little man with a bow and arrow. The lion was very shy and playful. What did he do but jump on the roof and wrap himself around the chimney. The little man with the dunce cap began crawling on all fours—until he got to the doorway. Then he got up, danced a merry jig, and ran inside.…”

“I don't believe it,” said the little girl. “It ain't true.”

“It is, too,” I said, “and if you're not careful I'll box your ears.” Here I took a deep breath, wondering what next. The cigar was out, the glass was empty. I decided to make haste.

“From here on it goes still faster,” I said, resuming the narrative.

“Don't go too fast,” said the boy, “I don't want to miss anything.”

“O.K. … Now then, once inside, Goldilocks found everything in apple-pie order: the dishes were all washed and stacked, the clothes mended, the pictures neatly framed. On the table there was an atlas and an unabridged dictionary, in two volumes. Somebody had been moving the chess pieces around in Teddy bear's absence. Too bad, because he would have mated in eight more moves. Goldilocks, however, was too fascinated by all the toys and gadgets, especially the new can opener, to worry about chess problems. She had been doing trigonometry all morning and her little brain was too weary to puzzle out gambits and that sort of thing. She was dying to ring the cowbell which hung over the kitchen sink. To get at it she had to use a stool. The first stool was too low; the second one was too high; but the third stool was just right. She
rang the bell so loud that the dishes fell out of the racks. Goldilocks was frightened at first, but then she thought it was funny, so she rang the bell again. This time the lion unwound himself and slid off the roof, his tail twisted into forty knots. Goldilocks thought this was even funnier, so she rang the bell a third time. The little man with the dunce cap came running out of the bedroom, all aquiver, and without a word, he began turning somersaults. He flipped and flopped, just like an old cart wheel, and then he disappeared into the woods.…”

“You're not losing the thread, I hope?” said MacGregor.

“Don't interrupt!” shouted Trix.

“Mommy, I want to go to bed,” said the little girl.

“Be quiet!” said the boy, “I'm getting interested.”

“And
now,”
I continued, having caught my breath, “it suddenly began to thunder and lightning. The rain came down in buckets. Little Goldilocks was really frightened. She fell head over heels off the stool, twisting her ankle and spraining her wrist. She wanted to hide somewhere until it was all over. ‘Nothing easier,' came a tiny voice from the far corner of the room, where the Winged Victory stood. And with that the closet door opened of itself. I'll run in there, thought Goldilocks, and she made a dash for the closet. Now it so happened that in the closet were bottles and jars, heaps and heaps of bottles, and heaps and heaps of jars. Goldilocks opened a tiny little bottle and dabbed her ankle with arnica. Then she reached for another bottle, and what do you suppose was in it?
Sloan's Liniment!
‘Goodness gracious!' she said, and suiting word to action, she applied the liniment to her wrist. Then she found a little iodine, and drinking it straight, she began to sing. It was a merry little tune—about Frère Jacques. She sang in French because her mother had taught her never to sing in any other language. After the 27th verse she got bored and decided to explore the closet. The strange thing about this closet is that it was bigger than the house itself. There were seven rooms on the ground floor, and five above,
with a toilet and a bath in each room, to say nothing of a fireplace and a pier glass decked with chintz. Goldilocks forgot all about the thunder and lightning, the rain, the hail, the snails and the frogs; she forgot all about the lion and the little man with the bow and arrow, whose name, by the way, was Pinocchio. All she could think of was how wonderful it was to live in a closet like this.…”

“This is going to be about Cinderella,” said the little girl.

“It is not!” snapped the boy. “It's about the seven dwarfs.”

“Quiet, you two!”

“Go on, Henry,” said MacGregor, “I'm curious to see how you get out of this trap.”

“And so Goldilocks wandered from room to room, never dreaming that the three bears had come home and were sitting down to dinner. In the alcove on the parlor floor she found a library filled with strange books. They were all about sex and the resurrection of the dead.…”

“What's sex?” asked the boy.

“It's not for
you,”
said the little girl.

“Goldilocks sat down and began reading aloud from a great big book. It was by Wilhelm Reich, author of
The Golden Flower
or
The Mystery of the Hormones
. The book was so heavy that Goldilocks couldn't hold it in her lap. So she placed it on the floor and knelt beside it. Every page was illustrated in gorgeous colors. Though Goldilocks was familiar with rare and limited editions, she had to admit to herself that never before had she seen such beautiful illustrations. Some were by a man named Picasso, some by Matisse, some by Ghirlandajo, but all without exception were beautiful and shocking to behold.…”

“That's a funny word—
behold!”
cried the little boy.

“You said it! And now just take a back seat for a while, will you? Because now it's getting really interesting.… As I say, Goldilocks was reading aloud to herself. She was
reading about the Saviour and how he died on the Cross—
for us
—so that our sins would be washed away. Goldilocks was just a little girl, after all, and so she didn't know what it was to sin. But she wanted very very much to know. She read and read until her eyes ached, without ever discovering what it was, exactly, to sin. ‘I'll run downstairs,' she said to herself, ‘and see what it says in the dictionary. It's an unabridged dictionary, so it must have sin in it.' Her ankle was all healed by this time, her wrist, too,
mirabile dictu
. She went skipping down the stairs like a seven-day goat. When she got to the closet door, which was still ajar, she did a double somersault, just like the little fellow with the dunce cap had done.…”

“Pinocchio!” cried the boy.

“And then what do you think happened? She landed right in the grizzly bear's lap!”

The youngsters howled with delight.

“‘All the better to eat you up!' growled the big grizzly bear, smacking his rubbery lips. ‘Just the right size!' said the polar bear, all white from the rain and hail, and he tossed her up to the ceiling. ‘She's mine!' cried the Teddy bear, giving her a hug which cracked little Goldilocks' ribs. The three bears got busy at once; they undressed little Goldilocks and put her on the platter, ready to carve. While Goldilocks shivered and whimpered, the big grizzly bear sharpened his axe on the grindstone; the polar bear unsheathed his hunting knife, which he carried in a leather scabbard attached to his belt. As for Teddy bear, he just clapped his hands and danced with glee. ‘She's just right!' he shouted. ‘Just right!' Over and over they turned her, to see which part was the tenderest. Goldilocks began to scream with terror. ‘Be quiet,' commanded the polar bear, ‘or you won't get anything to eat.' ‘Please Mr. Polar Bear, don't eat
me!'
begged Goldilocks. ‘Shut your trap!' yelled the grizzly bear. ‘We'll eat first, and you'll eat afterwards.' ‘But I don't want to eat,' cried Goldilocks, the tears streaming down her face. ‘You're not going to eat,'
screamed the Teddy bear, and with that he grabbed her leg and put it in his mouth. ‘Oh, oh!' screamed Goldilocks. ‘Don't eat me yet, I beg you. I'm not cooked.'”

The children were getting hysterical.

“‘Now you're talking sensible,' said the grizzly bear. Incidentally, the grizzly bear had a strong father complex. He didn't like the flesh of little girls unless well done. It was fortunate, indeed, for little Goldilocks that the grizzly bear felt this way about little girls, because the other two bears were ravenously hungry, and besides, they had no complexes whatever. Anyway, while the grizzly bear stirred the fire and added more logs, Goldilocks knelt in the platter and said her prayers. She looked more beautiful than ever now, and if the bears had been human they would not have eaten her alive, they would have consecrated her to the Virgin Mary. But a bear is always a bear, and these were no exception to the rule. So when flames were giving off just the right heat, the three bears took little Goldilocks and flung her on to the burning logs. In five minutes she was roasted to a crisp, hair and all. Then they put her back on the platter and carved her into big chunks. For the grizzly bear a great big chunk; for the polar bear a medium-sized chunk, and for the Teddy bear, the cute little thing, a nice little tenderloin steak. My, but it tasted good. They ate every bit of her—teeth, hair, toenails, bones and kidneys. The platter was so clean you could have seen your face in it. There wasn't even a drop of gravy left. ‘And now,' said the grizzly bear, ‘we'll see what she brought in that lunch basket. I'd just love to have a piece of acorn pie.' They opened the basket and, sure enough, there were three pieces of acorn pie. The big piece was very big, the middlin' piece was about medium, and the little piece was just a tiny, wee little snack. ‘Yum yum!' sighed the Teddy bear, licking his chops.
‘Acorn pie!'
‘What did I tell you?' growled the grizzly bear. The polar bear had stuffed his mouth so full he could only grunt. When they had downed the last mouthful the polar
bear looked around and, just as pleasant as could be, he said: ‘Now wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a bottle of schnapps in that basket!' Immediately the three of them began pawing the basket, looking for that delicious bottle of schnapps.…”