The Unwelcome Guest Plus Nin and Nan (7 page)

Nin's and Nan's surprise was not altogether unsuspected when one day they saw a Range Rover churning up dust along the former road.

That meanie is undoing our work."
"Do you think it might be a revenuer?"
"Oh. You mean like Daddy used to shoot?"
"Yes."
"What do you think he wants?"
"Only two things the government ever wants, Nan:

money or land."
"Heck, we don't have any money, Nin."
"Then I guess he's coming for our land."
"But this isn't even our land. It's God's land." "I think he'd say that the domain is
eminent
." "What's that mean?"
"That means no one's allowed to own any land except

the government."
"Even God?"
"Especially God."
"But God made all this."
"Sure, but the government wants what's God's." "Aren't we supposed to render unto Caesar what is

Caesar's and unto God what is God's?"
"Yes."
"So we've got to stop this revenuer, Nin."
"Yes, we do. Let's go out and meet him by the road." "The garden, you mean."
"Of course. Sorry. The garden."
"Okay, Nin."
Nan felt angry that this revenuer was destroying the

newly planted beds of melon, squash carrots, cabbage, lettuce, and radishes. Nin and Nan had worked hard on these after recovering from removing the road.

Nan jumped out in front the Range Rover, which turned sharply to avoid Nan and rolled onto its side. A furious bear of a man with a cut on his nose that was bleeding a river clambered out. He was wearing a ranger uniform.

Nan yelled at him, "You idiot! You're going through my vegetable garden! What are you doing?"
The ranger didn't seem to understand. He held up a finger as if to make a point and fell over dead. His brain had hemorrhaged.
Nin and Nan righted the Range Rover, pulled the ranger in, and then drove over the horizon. They jumped out just as the Range Rover and its occupant drove off a promontory point into the lake below.
They hurried back and wiped away the Range Rover's tracks. Nan spent the next two days re-seeding the dirt and swearing. Nin left Nan alone when Nan was like that. Nothing could have consoled Nan just then. The working of the dirt with fingers and replanting of seeds was therapy enough. And, for good measure, Nan also planted mustard seeds.
What worried Nin was that when one lone-wolf revenuer appeared, others were sure to follow close behind. They always worked in packs. The lone wolf was sent like the right eye, and having offended, it was plucked out. But now the rest of the
corpus lupi
had to be dealt with.
Nin and Nan dug pits in which they stood up logs with sharpened ends. They covered these pits with sod. The next Range Rovers would be skewered before they knew what had hit them. The fact that the dirt had turned to sod and that enormous piles of dirt stood alongside the road and wouldn't even be noticed by the revenuers, who were notoriously stupid, was fascinating.
Actually, seventeen revenuers came by to inquire, but all met mysterious disappearances, all obviously incapable of learning from the vanishings of their predecessors.
Eventually the revenuers stopped coming. Nin and Nan relaxed, confident, celebrated.

Nin and Nan listened to American music. They liked America. They just couldn't suffer her misrepresentatives' intrusions.

Musicians showed them a way to hear music as tastefully touching as they had sniffed it out to be.
Fanfare could have announced the approach of music but did not. Its arrival was sudden and surprising.
"Hullooo?" boomed a musical voice from outside of the hill one morning.
Waking up, Nin looked at Nan, and Nan looked at Nin.
"What in the realm of rowdy ratchets was
that
?" asked Nan.
"A visitor?"
"Not another revenuer, I hope."
"I don't think so. We haven't seen a revenuer in nearly a year. This must be something else."
"Like a gypsy?"
"Or a salesman. Or an evangelist for a mistaken cult."
"Why mistaken?"
"No true believer would ever be so hostile as to use direct confrontation at someone's home as an evangelistic tool. True evangelism cannot occur in a hostile climate. That's the whole principle behind the Rogerian Strategy."
"The what?"
"Carl Rogers's conflict resolution model for argument and persuasion. Rogers said that to reduce the sense of threat that prohibits people from considering your ideology, you must demonstrate that you have carefully considered and respect theirs. Only then might you get someone to agree to reciprocate by listening to you. That's why confrontational proselytizing always fails. Forced conversions are false con-versions."
"Hmm..."
"I remember going to the grocery store once. I was standing in the cereal aisle, trying to find a breakfast cereal without BHA or BHT, which are carcinogens, when I felt holes being bored into the side of my face by some stranger's stare from down the aisle. I turned and looked to see a bug-eyed fellow coming toward me. I knew he was either a religious zealot or a drug addict. In either case, I did not want to talk to him. But then, sure enough, he confronted me. Without so much as a 'by your leave,' he asked me if I'd accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as my personal savior."
"Did you tell him about your beliefs?"
"No! He wasn't interested in
my
beliefs! All he wanted was to force his own XYZ Brand of Christianity on me. You know what I said?"
"No."
"I said, 'Excuse me. Would you accompany me to the customer service desk so that I can have you thrown out of the store for harassing a customer?' Then he said, 'I'm not harassing you,' so I replied, 'Then shut up!' He had no chance in hell of converting me to XYZ Brand that way. If he'd been smart, he'd have asked me about the cereal boxes. He'd have talked to me for five hours about cereal boxes if I wanted before ever saying
anything
about XYZ Brand."
"That's like what I read about W. Clement Stone, who wrote that
Success through a Positive Mental Attitude
book. He was an insurance salesman, and when he went on his rounds, he'd stop in at folks' houses and just talk to them about their families and such. You know—you have kids? You ever envision them going to college? Oh, really? Where? Mind if I ask you what you do for a living? And so on, never revealing once anything about himself. When his supervisors made follow-up phone calls to those folks later, you know—our man Stone was out there last week and we were wondering what your impression of him was—to a person these folks all said, 'Oh, Mr.
Stone
? He was delightful! What an interesting person!' But as I said, he never said anything about himself. What these folks found interesting, apparently, was themselves! They loved talking about themselves. Stone knew this and used this to entice them into wanting to reciprocate, which they could, of course, by buying a little piece of mind from him."
"Hullooo?" came the voice again.
"Should we let him in?" asked Nan.
"Yes, but be careful. Be on your toes. Don't tell him anything. He may work for the revenuers. They're everywhere, I tell you, and are just waiting for a chance to destroy us."
"Okay. We'll be very careful. No cult evangelist is going to fool us."
"Let him in, Nan."
"Certainly, Nin."
The man at the door was weird and had silver stars in his long white beard. His shirt had white stars on a blue background, as did his duffel bag, and his loose pantaloons were pied red and white. His stovepipe hat swirled all four colors together. But he was barefoot.
Slung back over his shoulder was a folk guitar on a white silk strap. The strap had the initials "SRV" embroidered into it in silver thread.
"Couldn't stand the weather?" asked Nan, assuming the visitor to be a Stevie Ray Vaughn fan.
"Hulloo? Oh—the strap. My brother found it in an alley in Austin, Texas. It was a night when Jimmy Vaughn was playing with his brother's old band. Everyone said they could sense Stevie's presence that night, and then my brother, who tended bar there at Antone's, went outside for a smoke and spotted the strap. He brought it in and one of the guys in the band went pale and asked him where he'd gotten it. He said the alley. The band guy said that was spooky because it was Stevie's old strap."
Nan looked at Nin, "No Rogerian Strategy here, eh?"
Nin laughed. "Apparently not." He turned his attention to Uncle Sam. "What can we do for you?"
Nan's attention began to wander.
You know, at some point I stopped writing, and I started talking. Is this the epiphany I, as a Joycean, had set myself up for? Or am I delusional?
"..., so I'd be happy to play a song." Nan had missed the first half of the sentence, the cause in the causal connection. Without that, for all Nan knew, Nin and Nan could be facing a
post hoc ergo propter hoc
argument or a deceptive enthymeme or a nonsequitur. Unless the premise is true, the conclusion is invalid.
Nin was distracted by the strange look on Nan's face, and responded for them both: "Depends on the song."
Nin ushered Uncle Sam in, and Nan went to the fridge to get some Jesus' Own Brand cheap wine with a smiling half-crocked Jesus on the label, halo and all. In the famous TV commercial, Jesus would sing, "You gotta have J.O.B. if you wanna be with me."
"Halooo?" pointed out Uncle Sam, touching the label like God touching Adam's outstretched finger. To his credit, he shook his head and said, "No, don't drink."
Nan responded with, "Don't mind if I do," and poured two glasses. Nan handed one to Nin.
They clinked, and Nan said, "To the song! What song have you brought us, oh Elliptical One?"
"Elliptical One?"
"That's good, isn't it?"
"You just make that up?"
"Yep."
"Okay. Good. Keep going."
"Oh, Bringer of the Tune, we'd like to hear you soon."
Uncle Sam snapped to attention as if he'd forgotten he was part of the conversation and had been playing at being Strictly Silent Observer Man. I don't think he has a superhero complex.
"Okay," said Uncle Sam. "Here goes." He flipped his guitar around, pulled a pick out his pick pocket, and prestidigitated, but no sound came out for the longest time until a slight bell could be heard way far away, like a church in a blizzard, just barely audible. It began to shape itself around a letter, a note...

Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Zeboombadoom!
Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Zeboombadoom!

We send our bombs hailing down on you, those of you in Sector Blue,
you who've been so gravel-blind (as to) take Granny Smith for Gravenstein.

A. Smash! A. Smash! A. Smash! Krackaragnarok!
A. Smash! A. Smash! A. Smash! Krackaragnarok!

We saw the signs come down in flames and the erasure of our agents' names.
We saw the road get taken down (by)
a modern James Gang, as they say in town.

Clickety snap! Clickety snap!
Cuff 'em! Read 'em their rights!
Then string 'em up from the highest tree! We'll have peace in town tonight!

There'll be no deviation from our prescription. The road will have to be rebuilt.
Kill the wrecking crew before they kill you. Can't you see their guilt?

Snap swing swing swing! Snap swing! Zeboombadoom!!
No one can stop us now
or tell us what to sing!

Death to our friends, our enemies!
Death to all we see!
Death to the infidel and to the god-fearing! See them in that tree!

Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Zeboombadoom!
Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz. Z. Buzz.

Uncle Sam had been singing since 11:55 a.m. By noon, nonconformists Nan and Nin knuckled under and announced that they could stand no more of his music.

"What kind of music was that?" asked Nin.
"I call it 'political satire,'" said Uncle Sam.
"No—it sounds more like propaganda," said Nan.

"Redneck propaganda."
"Truly," said Nin, "you suck. Those were the lamest lyr
ics. What were all the goofy sounds? Did you want them to
be onomatopoeia? Or is this a song for silly little children?" "And the nitwits."
Uncle Sam looked offended. "Then which are you?
Children or nitwits?"
"Neither."
"Did you even
listen
to the lyrics? They're a warning." "I heard enough to hear that they blow," said Nin. "No no no—you need to
study
the lyrics!" replied Uncle Sam.
"No no
no
," said Nan, mockingly. "
You
need to go!" "No, here. Here's a copy of my CD," and Uncle Sam
opened his duffel bag. The odor of dirty laundry quickly
filled the room. Nin saw dozens of CDs inside the bag besides the stinky clothing. Uncle Sam pulled out a peachcolored CD case with black lettering announcing its title:
CD for Nin and Nan
.
Nin realized that Uncle Sam's visit could not have been
accidental.
"Why would we want your stinkin' CD?" asked Nan.
Nin picked up the CD and showed the title to Nan. "Hey, Brother Sam did this just for us."
"Oh, he just has a different cover for each copy he
brings to each house."
"No," interjects Uncle Sam. "That's the actual title. I've
sold dozens of them. Look," and he pulled dozen more of
the same CD out of his bag.
"How much are you selling them for?"
"Only ten bucks."
"All right—give us one." Nin pulled a ten-spot out.
"Here, Brother Sam. For your CD and your rap."
"Should I sign it?"
"Please. Sign it, but don't inscribe it," said Nin (whispering to Nan, "resale value!").
"A lyric sheet's inside," said Uncle Sam.
"Enough with the lyrics already," said Nan. "It's time to
leave."
"Read the lyrics," Uncle Sam said, closing his duffel
bag, flipping the guitar back over his shoulder and then
picking up the duffel bag. "Thanks for the beer." "You're welcome, Brother Sam," said Nin, guiding the
"intruder" out the door.
"What an ass!" said Nan as soon as the door closed
behind Uncle Sam. "Do you believe that song? Snicketysnack? Wasn't that a line from Lewis Carroll?"
"I think so. 'The Jabberwocky.'"
"And you! Why were you being so nice to him?" "What do you mean, Nan?"
"Calling him 'Brother Sam'! My gosh!"
"Well, I figured if Uncle Sam is the U.S., then Brother
Sam is the—"
"Oh, that
is
funny. But why did you buy the CD?" "To get rid of him. Told you he'd be a salesman. That's
all he wanted. So, ten bucks and now he's gone. That was
simple, and relatively cheap. Imagine if he'd been a Bible
Salesman ? We'd have spent ten times that."
"Yeah, because we like the Bible."
"Well, we'll give this a listen. Maybe it'll sound better
all produced and slicked up."
"I hope so, because it reeked live."
"Okay, I'll put it on."
"Not
now
. We just survived it once. Let's regain our
strength first," implored Nan.
"Oh, no. Then you'll never get around to it. I know you.
Now or never."
"Later. You can't catch me with a false dilemma." "And you won't catch me with Big-Legged Emma." "Zappa! That's right. Your Brother Sam doesn't seem to
know Zappa."
"
My
brother? Fine. I don't care if we ever listen to the
CD. Even if it
is
about
us.
"
"Just
to
us, I think," said Nan.
"How do you know? What does 'skooby skippy' mean,
or whatever he said? It could be an insult in his own personal secret language."
"Like
Magma
? What was their language? Kobaian?" "I think so. That sounds right. But that's not what it
was."
"You don't think so?"
"No—I'm pretty sure it was just scat."
"Scat? It
was
B.S.!"
"Ha! No," said Nin, laughing. "
Scat
! As in Scatman Crothers. Zippy de zow eye! He had a version of 'Be-Bop-ALula' that rocked! But he was big with scat singing!" "Big scat? B.S."
"Oh, back to your Zappa with your potty humor, you!" "Anyway, that crap of your Brother Sam's was no language. Heck, that fool didn't even speak his
own
language
well," and then he added with a sarcastic snort, "Kobaian." "Didn't Nirvana sing in Kobaian also?"
"No—that was Cobainian."
"Well, in both cases, the bands didn't care if anyone
could understand the lyrics. So why do we have to?"