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

speak.
    “Are you waiting for something?”
    C’Krrrarn did not speak.
    “My mom says you could just probably swim off this island any time you wanted, or else maybe walk along theocean floor, but then where would you go, because it’s not like you have a home somewhere, and maybe in a way this island is as much like a home as you’ve ever known, and maybe we even crashed here because you were sort of attracted to the island from the airplane, like you felt some kind of geomagnetic tropism or maybe you glanced down and it reminded you of your mom and dad, do you think that might be right?”
    C’Krrrarn did not speak.
    “Are you going to kill us all? Just kidding.”
    C.D.N.S.
    “How can you sit like that in the same position for so long? Don’t your legs or your butt fall asleep?”
    C.D.N.S.
    “My mom is weaving you a tatami mat out of all this crud from the beach. Do you know what a tatami mat is? She said you would.”
    C.D.N.S.
    “Do you mind if I sit here for a minute?”
    *
    Note to artist: Everywhere along the bottom gutters of the pages now, muddy footprints, rabbit droppings, and Dingbat spoor (
ed.: What does that look like?
), forming an abject trail of smeary pictograms spelling out an unknown future.
    *
    Page forty-two, panel one, King Phnudge, alone in the woods. The island’s sole monkey has approached him from underneath a fern. The monkey carries a hand-cranked music organ and wears a top hat. King Phnudge raises his eyebrows in delighted surprise.
    Page forty-two, panel two, a campfire in a clearing. Large Silly and Poacher Junebug and King Phnudge and C. Phelps Northrup devour shreds of the monkey, whose scorched remains still hang from a spit over the fire. The monkey’s carcass still clutches the organ. Northrup wears the top hat.
    Page forty-two, panel three, in the brush at one side of the clearing, Peter Rabbit and Lisa Dingbat stared wide-eyed at clown, hunter, king, and critic as they eat the monkey. The rabbit and the girl are unseen by the others.
    Page forty-two, panel four, moving on all fours, the rabbit and the girl silently slip into the woods, where they resume nibbling on ferns.
    Page forty-two, panel five, night, the campfire, now abandoned by the others. Theophobe Dingbat tiptoes up to the extinguished fire, where he locates a charred monkey rib. He sucks at it thoughtfully.
    Page forty-two, panel six, Murkly Finger. He crouches in his cavernous shard of airplane hull, reading a comic book, which is opened to a splash page showing C’Krrrarn towering over an alpine village.
    *
    From where he sat beside C’Krrrarn, Spark Dingbat could see into the island whole, as if he sat within a camera obscura. He saw his mother, now outfitting Poacher Junebug and King Phnudge and C. Phelps Northrup in thatched armor, adjusting the palm-frond breastplates over their torsos while they stood at awkward attention, trying not to disappoint.
    He saw Large Silly covered in baked mud, with dried grasses stuck to his arms and legs, sitting beside the creek masturbating.
    He saw his sister and the rabbit hiding in the grass watching Large Silly.
    He saw his father standing on the beach angrily punching his agent’s number into a wicker cell phone and listening for a signal.
    As though with X-ray vision he saw, too, into Murkly Finger’s lair. Murkly Finger sat surrounded by suitcases from the wrecked plane. Alongside the clothing Murkly Finger had laid out as a pallet on the ground was a neat row of reading materials. Among them was Spark’s own collection of
Dingbat Family Cavalcade
and
Dingbat Collectibles Catalog
. Murkly Finger also had a set of limited-edition clothbound
Tennyson Trolley Sunday Pages
, taken from C. Phelps Northrup’s luggage, a Dover paperback of
The Seventh Voyage of the Phnudges
, a copy of
The Oxford Treasury of Comic Strips
, and a stack of
HORRENDOUS TALES OF C’KRRRARN!
, issues number one through thirteen, sealed in plastic sleeves.
    He saw the grave his sister