Free Lucky Alan : And Other Stories (9780385539821) by Jonathan Lethem

stick, a dowser who’d discovered the sea. The two made a natural pair in Spark’s eyes. Their other strong resemblance was to his father, but Spark suspected no one among the islanders would ever remark it. His father was famous. Large Silly and King Phnudge were nobodies.
    “What are you doing?”
    Large Silly and King Phnudge wheeled, completely surprised.
    “What’s it look like, boy? Poacher said he saw some sea bream in this pool.”
    “Fishy splishy wishy hup huzzoo!”
    “How are you going to catch them?”
    “With nets of vapid questions and sarcasm. In our teeth. With that headgear of yours—hey, there’s a notion. Cough up the fedora, lad.”
    “Use the king’s crown.”
    “Crowns, if you hadn’t noticed, have a hole in the middle. Besides, I don’t think it comes off.”
    “Stuckity pluckity pizzazz—hooble hoo!”
    Spark sighed and passed his hat to the eager clown, then watched as it was thrashed to fragments in thehopelessly clumsy attempt at fishing. Spark never saw evidence of a fish. If there had been any, king and clown had certainly frightened them off. Keener’s meticulously woven palm fronds were borne off with the seaweed and foam in the pool’s gentle tide.
    *
    C’KRRRARN TEARS OFF THE TOP OF A PALM TREE AND FEEDS!!!
    C’Krrrarn is staying within himself.
    C’KRRRARN TEARS OFF A CORNER OF THE VOLCANO AND FEEDS!!!
    C’Krrrarn is staying within himself.
    C’KRRRARN TEARS OFF A CHUNK OF THE OCEAN AND DEVOURS IT!!!
    C’Krrrarn sits perfectly still and tries to empty his mind.
    C’KRRRARN SLURPS THE BLOOD OF THE DINGBATS!!!
    Long study has demonstrated to C’Krrrarn that the other person is himself.
    C’KRRRARN TEARS OFF A PORTION OF THE HORIZON AND DEVOURS IT!!!
    C’Krrrarn gazes into the horizon and the horizon gazes into C’Krrrarn and each is calm and free of desire.
    *
    From
Poacher Junebug, an Index
    Island, Accursed, panel 4044
    Island, Confounded, panels 3176, 3189, 3204n, 3226, 3564, 3573, 3888, 4002, 4036
    Island, Consarn deviltry of, panels 3344–45, 6455, 3988n, 4012
    Island, Dadburned critters on, panels 3224, 3656, 3813, 4009
    Island, Dingblasted fools on, panels 3208, 3225, 3457, 3800–1, 4009
    Island, Durned, panel 4129
    Island, Goshforsaken, panels 3185, 3765
    Island, Riddiculush, panels 3345, 3679, 4088–89
    Island, Terrible, panels 3899, 4034, 4067, 4122
    Island, Woeful, panels 3550, 3823, 4129
    Island, Wretched be this, panels 3944, 4191
    *
    From
The Journals of C. Phelps Northrup
    July 27
    Decline sets in. Tempests wreak havoc on our poor dwellings every third day. Between, corrosive sunshine. Despondent over prospects of rescue. We find little and less to eat. Eighteen days and we come to know some of our companions too well, others not at all. Murkly Finger roams the shore at night, cackling. In sunlighthe retracts like a rodent to his hole, around which he has erected an array of sharpened sticks dug in pits of sand, disguised with flimsy leaf cover and more sand, and which would collapse inward at a footfall. The clown floats on his back in the spring where we would drink, moaning snatches of merry song, muttering wry punch lines without any jokes to them. He has forsaken his hygiene, enclothed in only his undergarment and a purple island hyacinth, its stem wended in his loopy tufts of hair. His feet are rotting. Poacher Junebug, I now understand, catches nothing, fulminates only. The rabbit is in no danger, except from himself. Like the derelict clown, the hare has abandoned clothing, shedding his red waistcoat and bow tie. He now goes on all fours, heeding some natural call. Lisa Dingbat, that former exemplary tot, follows him everywhere, and she too presently goes au naturel. I tried to confabulate with her one recent afternoon and she only sniffed and nibbled at the air, issuing a rabbity wheezing sigh, perhaps believing herself a sibling to Peter. The other Dingbats remain largely hidden from view. They must be hungry.
    One seldom thinks of