Tom Robbins - Another Roadside Attraction

Contents

This book is dedicated to the Kendrick boysCapt. John (deceased) and Billy (kicking); to Shazam, to tiny Terrie, and to the fantastic foolybear wherever she may be.

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written."

JOHN 21:25

Incidentally, Reggie Fox, who runs the Dalai Lama's 16-mm. projector, said that 16-mm. Tarzan films or Marx Brothers films would make a big hit with the Dalai Lama and those around him. They most certainly don't want to see any pictures where human or animal life is taken; amusement and adventure are the things that they are interested in.

Lowell Thomas, Jr., Out of This World

(Appendix, What to Take When You Go to Tibet")

Part I

THE MAGICIAN'S UNDERWEAR has just been found in a cardboard suitcase floating in a stagnant pond on the outskirts of Miami. However significant that discovery may beand there is the possibility that it could alter the destiny of each and every one of usit is not the incident with which to begin this report.

In the suitcase with the mystic unmentionables were pages and fragments torn from a journal which John Paul Ziller had kept on one of his trips through Africa. Or was it India? The journal began thusly: At midnight, the Arab boy brings me a bowl of white figs. His skin is very golden and I try it on for size. It doesn't keep out mosquitoes. Nor stars. The rodent of ecstasy sings by my bedside. And it goes on: In the morning there are signs of magic everywhere. Some archaeologists from the British Museum discover a curse. The natives are restless. A maiden in a nearby village has been carried off by a rhinoceros. Unpopular pygmies gnaw at the foot of the enigma. That was the beginning of the journal. But not the beginning of this report.

Neither the FBI nor the CIA will positively identify the contents of the suitcase as the property of John Paul Ziller. But their reluctance to specify is either a bureaucratic formality or a tactical deceit. Who else but Ziller, for God's sake, wore jockey shorts made from the skins of tree frogs?

At any rate, let us not loiter in the arena of hot events. Despite the agents of crisis who dictate the drafting of this report, despite the spiraling zeitgeist that underscores its urgency, despite the worldwide moral structure that may hang in the balance, despite that, the writer of this document is no journalist, nor is he a scholar, and while he is quite aware of the potential historical importance of his words, still he is not likely to allow objectivity to nudge him off the pillar of his own perspective. And his perspective has as its central focus, the enormity of public events notwithstanding, the girl: the girl, Amanda.

"There are three things that I like, Amanda exclaimed upon awakening from her first long trance. These are: the butterfly, the cactus and the Infinite Goof."

Later, she amended the list to include mushrooms and motorcycles.

While strolling through her cactus gardens one warmish June morning, Amanda came upon an old Navajo man painting pictures in the sand.

What is the function of the artist? Amanda demanded of the talented trespasser.

The function of the artist, the Navajo answered, is to provide what life does not.

Amanda became pregnant during a fierce thunderstorm. Was it the lightning or the lover? she was sometimes heard to muse.

When her son was born with electrical eyes, people no longer thought her foolish.

Wearing a yellow velvet toga gathered at the waist with green scarabs, a garland of blue Japanese iris about her neck, her bubbling baby strapped to her back, Amanda would charge her motorcycle through the meadows searching for rare moths. One lingering afternoon in spring she chanced upon a small band of gypsies camped beneath a willow tree.

Suspecting them to be skilled in such arts, Amanda asked, Will you not reveal to me something of the nature of my true being?

What will you do for us in return? the gypsies asked.

Amanda lowered her long lashes and smiled sweetly. I will suck you off, she said.

It was agreed. After she had thoroughly pleased the four men and two girls, the gypsies told Amanda, You are by nature a very curious woman, and sent her on her way.

For her birthday, Amanda's father (who was enormously fat) gave her a performing bear. The bear understood only Russian while Amanda spoke only English and Romani (although she was familiar with several of the North American Indian dialects, she never spoke them publicly). There could be no performance. What to do?

Amanda made friends with the bear. She baked for him delicious meat loaves. She scratched his ears and fed him oranges, Oreo cream sandwiches and Dr. Pepper. Gradually, the bear began to do tricks on his own accord. He danced when Amanda played her concertina, he rode her silver bicycle, he balanced three croquet balls on his nose and smoked fine cigars.

One day a man from the Moscow Circus visited the city near Amanda's town. At the request of her father, he came to see the bear. He barked commands at the bear in Russian but the bear paid no heed and eventually rolled over on his rug and went to sleep.

That damn bear never would take orders, the circus man complained. Frankly, that's why we sold him.

That summer, Amanda's big project was the establishment of a Butterfly Conservatory. Since many moths have a very short life-span, there was a big turnover among the inhabitants of her institution.

Down by the waterfall, Amanda pitched her tentit was made of willow sticks and the wool of black goats. Having filled the tent with her largest and softest paisley cushions, Amanda stripped down to her beads and panties and fell into a trance. I shall determine how to prolong the lives of butterflies, she had previously announced.

However, an hour later when she awoke, she smiled mysteriously. The life-span of the butterfly is precisely the right length, she said.

It was one of those mellow October days that seem concocted from a mixture of sage, polished brass and peach brandy. Amanda's father hiked (puffing) through fallen leaves, nut burrs and squirrel tracks all the way to Bow Wow Mountain. There he found his daughter in the mouth of a bat cave talking softly with the Idiot.

The father was both relieved and perplexed. You have a terrible cold, Amanda, he scolded. I thought you had gone into town to see Dr. Champion but someone said they'd seen your motorcycle zoom into the forest.

I came to visit Ba Ba, Amanda answered. He has revealed to me the hidden meanings of my fever and the deeper significances of my sneezes.

When one is ill it is much more logical to see a physician, her father insisted.

Amanda bestowed loving smiles upon her father and silently continued to embroider her dragon cloak.

Blushing, the Idiot rose to his feet. He removed, with respect, his battered gray tam and stared down at his boots. Logic only gives man what he needs, he stammered. Magic gives him what he wants.

One morning after a wild electrical storm, Amanda woke to find a strange inscription on the palm of her hand: a single word written in some obscure alphabet.

All during her yoga exercises; during her garden-pagoda breakfast of poached salmon, strawberries and cream; during her astrological plottings down on the creek bank, she puzzled over it. She considered it as she and her baby rolled and giggled in the yard grass, she pondered it during her lunch of frog legs and coconut milkeven that afternoon as she circled the lake in her orange and purple sailboat, a choir of eight peyote buttons singing in her head, she probed its enigmathough, in truth, the inscription seemed less mysterious than funny to her then.