Free Another Roadside Attraction by Tom Robbins Page A

well,” said Amanda. “Mushrooms it will be.” And it was.
    "Can you help me, John Paul? If anyone is capable of solving this riddle it is you.” From the tub of scented bubbles in which she soaked, Amanda extended her hand, palm up. The inscription had faded somewhat in the two years since it had so impertinently appeared. Ziller was forced to squint in order to register its finer details. He stared at it for a curiously long time. Finally, he said:
    “Off the coast of Africa there is a secret radio station. On a ship. A condemned freighter. Blackened by fire. Listing to starboard. Flying quarantine flags. It begins transmitting at midnight and until dawn plays the music of pre-colonial Africa, extremely rare pan-tribal recordings—if recordings they are: perhaps the sounds are live. Interspersed with this ancient music is commentary of a sort. In a totally unknown language. I mean it isn't even
related
to any known human tongue, existing or extinct. Some of the words are short and grunty, but others are very stretched-out and angular and sensual—like Modigliani nudes. Linguistic experts are completely stymied. They claim the “language” does not follow logical phonetic patterns. Yet thousands of blacks listen devotedly to the broadcasts, and while they will not say that they comprehend the commentary, they do not seem baffled by it, either.”
    Of the five thousand varieties of mushrooms that grow in the United States, approximately twenty-five hundred are found in western Washington. “I find those odds charming,” said Amanda, salivating and lacing her boots.
    Actually, there was little time for fungi those first few days at Mom's Little Dixie, although the Zillers did gather some meadow mushrooms on the golf course at Mount Vernon and filled another basket in a pasture on the river road.
    The meadow mushroom (
Agaricus campestris to
Madame Goody) begins life looking like a slightly imperfect Ping-Pong ball and matures into a skullish white pancake. Its gills are pink when young, gradually turning chocolate. Shamefully, it admits to being a first cousin of the
Agaricus bisporus,
the mushroom found in the produce section of supermarkets, and of
Agaricus hortensis,
the kind one buys in tin cans. True fungus fanciers look upon those two traitors with withering disdain for only that pair among all the thousands have allowed themselves to be domesticated. The
campestris
has a much more interesting flavor than the supermarket sellouts, is less dull in color and less conservative in shape. But it suffers as a result of the weaklings in its family—its flavor could never inspire the odes or awed burps that the more noble varieties of wild mushrooms command. Still, when sautéed with minced onion in a sour cream sauce and served over rice, it is comfortably close to succulent, as the Zillers would readily attest. Anyway, the
campestris
would have to do for now: Amanda and John Paul hadn't the hours yet to devote to the deep-woods hunt. They were too busy cleaning house.
    On the ground floor of Mom's Little Dixie there was an enormous L-shaped dining room defined by an enormous L-shaped counter, a huge kitchen, two fundamental toilets (sexually segregated) and a fair-sized windowless room that may have been used as a pantry. Upstairs (the stairs ascended from the rear of the kitchen), there was an apartment consisting of five spacious rooms and a bath. Out back, in the trees (remember that the cafe sat in a grove on the edge of croplands), there was a garage above which were two rooms that could be used for either storage or quarters.
    With pails and mops and brooms and rags and an alchemicus of detergents, scouring powders and waxes (to which well-paid marketing experts had given names such as Pow, Rid, Thrill, and Zap—carefully chosen for their simple violence), Amanda and John Paul set out to clear all those compartments of dirt, dust and debris. Mon Cul was put to work washing windows and although easily