Free Still Life With Woodpecker by Tom Robbins Page A

it. Once it sounded as if it had begun to work, but it was merely Max’s valve that was clanging. When for the third or fourth time she accidentally banged her Chihuahua’s head against its lid, Tilli turned her majestic back on it.
    King Max gathered up the dirty dishes. He transported them into the backyard. “We’ll let the rain wash them,” he said. “It ought to be good for something.”
    Actually, the rain has many uses. It prevents the blood and the sea from becoming too salty. It administers knockout drops to unruly violets. It manufactures the ladder that neon climbs to the moon. A seeker can go into the Great Northwest rain and bring back the Name he needs. And, indeed, the rain pried flecks of egg yolk and gravy from the crest, from the honor point, from the fess point, from the nombril of the Furstenberg-Barcalona heraldic dinner plates. When, however, Max returned the next morning to fetch the dishes, half of them were missing. The Queen put the blame on tramps or gypsies. Max knew that the blackberries had gotten them.
    As they dined on canned stroganoff from paper plates, Tilli said to Max, “I weesh Leigh-Cheri vas only here.”
    But the King said, “Maybe it’s best she’s away while we recruit a suitor. At any rate, we can rest assured she’s in good hands in Hawaii.”

31
    “I’VE NEVER BEEN KISSED by a man in Donald Duck sunglasses before,” said Leigh-Cheri.
    “I apologize,” said Bernard. “I’m sorry about the Donald Duck sunglasses. They ought to be Woody Woodpecker sunglasses, but nobody makes Woody Woodpecker sunglasses.”
    The Princess didn’t know what he was talking about. She didn’t really care. She was on her third tequila mockingbird, he on his fourth. They were floating in that blissful phase that characterizes religious transcendence and the onset of alcohol poisoning. Gulietta had turned her back on them and was watching the sunset. Some chaperon.
    “Also, I don’t normally kiss men who smoke,” announced Leigh-Cheri. “Kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray.”
    “So I’ve heard. I’ve also heard that kissing a person who’s self-righteous and intolerant is like licking a mongoose’s ass.”
    “I’m not a mongoose’s ass!”
    “And I’m not an ashtray.” Removing the unopened pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, he tossed them over his shoulder. “I only smoke when I’m locked up. In jail, a cigarette can be a friend. Otherwise, my Camels are just a front. It’s an excuse for carrying matches.”
    “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?”
    “I’m saying more than I should be saying. I think you put something in my drink to make me talkative.”
    “I think you put something in my drink to make me kissative.”
    They kissed. And giggled like cartoon mice.
    “What time is it?” asked Leigh-Cheri.
    “Why? The police station is open all night.”
    “I have an appointment with People magazine. At first, I was scared, but now it seems funny. Everything seems funny. Even you seem funny.” She pinched the end of his nose as he leaned over to kiss her again. She looked around the room for a clock, but the lounge at the Lahaina Broiler is noted for its absence of walls. The clocks of the trees had too many hands, and the ocean was on moon time. If Bernard had his way, she’d be on moon time, too.
    “When are you turning me in?”
    “When you stop kissing me.”
    “In that case I’m a free man forever.”
    “Don’t count on it.”
    She meant that. But this time when he kissed her, his astonishingly resourceful tongue managed to break through the heroic barricade that her teeth had heretofore formed. There was a clean clink of enamel against enamel, an eruption of hot saliva as his tongue made a whirlwind tour of her oral hollow. A sudden jolt shot through the peachfish, fuzz and fin, and inside her No Nukes T-shirt her nipples became as hard as nuggets of plutonium.
    “Jesus,” thought Leigh-Cheri, “how can men be such lummoxes,