Still Life With Woodpecker Still Life With Woodpecker Read online

  BOOKS BY TOM ROBBINS

  Another Roadside Attraction

  Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

  Still Life with Woodpecker

  Jitterbug Perfume

  Skinny Legs and All

  Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

  Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates

  Villa Incognito

  NOTE

  The original 12 Most Famous Redheads list appeared in The People’s Almanac® Presents the Book of Lists by David Wallechinsky and Irving Wallace. I have tampered with it.

  T. R.

  To the memory of

  Keith Wyman and Betty Bowen:

  if there is a place where people

  go after death, its proprietors have

  got their hands full with those two.

  To everybody whose letters

  I haven’t answered.

  and to G. R., special delivery.

  You don’t need to leave your room.

  Remain sitting at your table and listen.

  Don’t even listen, simply wait.

  Don’t even wait.

  Be quite still and solitary.

  The world will freely offer itself to you.

  To be unmasked, it has no choice.

  It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

  —Franz Kafka

  Here should be a picture of my favorite apple.

  It is also a nude & bottle.

  It is also a landscape.

  There are no such things as still lifes.

  —Erica Jong

  PROLOGUE

  IF THIS TYPEWRITER CAN’T DO IT, then fuck it, it can’t be done.

  This is the all-new Remington SL3, the machine that answers the question, “Which is harder, trying to read The Brothers Karamazov while listening to Stevie Wonder records or hunting for Easter eggs on a typewriter keyboard?” This is the cherry on top of the cowgirl. The burger served by the genius waitress. The Empress card.

  I sense that the novel of my dreams is in the Remington SL3—although it writes much faster than I can spell. And no matter that my typing finger was pinched last week by a giant land crab. This baby speaks electric Shakespeare at the slightest provocation and will rap out a page and a half if you just look at it hard.

  “What are you looking for in a typewriter?” the salesman asked.

  “Something more than words,” I replied. “Crystals. I want to send my readers armloads of crystals, some of which are the colors of orchids and peonies, some of which pick up radio signals from a secret city that is half Paris and half Coney Island.”

  He recommended the Remington SL3.

  My old typewriter was named Olivetti. I know an extraordinary juggler named Olivetti. No relation. There is, however, a similarity between juggling and composing on the typewriter. The trick is, when you spill something, make it look like part of the act.

  I have in my cupboard, under lock and key, the last bottle of Anaïs Nin (green label) to be smuggled out of Punta del Visionario before the revolution. Tonight, I’ll pull the cork. I’ll inject ten cc. into a ripe lime, the way the natives do. I’ll suck. And begin …

  If this typewriter can’t do it, I’ll swear it can’t be done.

  PHASE

  I

  1

  IN THE LAST QUARTER of the twentieth century, at a time when Western civilization was declining too rapidly for comfort and yet too slowly to be very exciting, much of the world sat on the edge of an increasingly expensive theater seat, waiting—with various combinations of dread, hope, and ennui—for something momentous to occur.

  Something momentous was bound to happen soon. The entire collective unconscious could not be wrong about that. But what would it be? And would it be apocalyptic or rejuvenating? A cure for cancer or a nuclear bang? A change in the weather or a change in the sea? Earthquakes in California, killer bees in London, Arabs in the stock exchange, life in the laboratory, or a UFO on the White House lawn? Would Mona Lisa sprout a mustache? Would the dollar fail?

  Christian aficionados of the Second Coming scenario were convinced that after a suspenseful interval of two thousand years, the other shoe was about to drop.

  And five of the era’s best-known psychics, meeting at the Chelsea Hotel, predicted that Atlantis would soon reemerge from the depths.

  To this last, Princess Leigh-Cheri responded, “There are two lost continents…. Hawaii was one, called Mu, the mother, its tips still projecting in our senses—the land of slap dance, fishing music, flowers and happiness. There are three lost continents…. We are one: the lovers.”

  In whatever esteem one might hold Princess Leigh-Cheri’s thoughts concerning matters geographic, one must agree that the last quarter of the twentieth century was a severe period for lovers. It was a time when women openly resented men, a time when men felt betrayed by women, a time when romantic relationships took on the character of ice in spring, stranding many little children on jagged and inhospitable floes.

  Nobody quite knew what to make of the moon any more.

  2

  CONSIDER A CERTAIN NIGHT in August. Princess Leigh-Cheri was gazing out of her attic window. The moon was full. The moon was so bloated it was about to tip over. Imagine awakening to find the moon flat on its face on the bathroom floor, like the late Elvis Presley, poisoned by banana splits. It was a moon that could stir wild passions in a moo cow. A moon that could bring out the devil in a bunny rabbit. A moon that could turn lug nuts into moonstones, turn Little Red Riding Hood into the big bad wolf. For more than an hour, Leigh-Cheri stared into the mandala of the sky. “Does the moon have a purpose?” she inquired of Prince Charming.

  Prince Charming pretended that she had asked a silly question. Perhaps she had. The same query put to the Remington SL3 elicited this response:

  Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.

  Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.

  Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm.

  There is only one serious question. And that is:

  Who knows how to make love stay?

  Answer me that and I will tell you whether or not to kill yourself.

  Answer me that and I will ease your mind about the beginning and the end of time.

  Answer me that and I will reveal to you the purpose of the moon.

  3

  HISTORICALLY, members of Leigh-Cheri’s class have not much fallen in love. They mated for power and wealth, for tradition and heirs, and left “true love” to the masses. The masses had nothing to lose. But this was the last quarter of the twentieth century, and with the exception of a few savage buffoons in Africa, the royalty of the world had long since resigned itself to the fact of its mortal, if not quite democratic, dimensions. Leigh-Cheri’s family was a case in point.

  Since his exile, more than thirty years before, the King had made gambling a career. Poker was his work. Recently, however, he had had a taste of open-heart surgery. A major valve had been removed and replaced with a Teflon substitute. The artificial valve functioned efficiently, but it made a metallic noise as it opened and shut. When he was excited, everyone in the room knew it. Due to the audible sound of his heart, he was no longer able to practice poker, a game with necessary concealments and bluffs. “Jesus,” he said. “When I draw a good hand, I sound like a Tupperware party.” He spent his hours watching sports on television, pining for the good old days when he could have ordered referees and umpires to the garrote.

  His wife, the Queen, once the beauty of seven capitals
, was understimulated and overweight. She had attended, in America, so many second-rate society teas, charity fashion shows, and gala this and gala thats, that she’d begun to exude a kind of pâté de fois gras gas, and the expulsion of this effluvium propelled her from party to ball as if she were a sausage skin inflated by Wagner. With no lady to attend her, she required two hours to dress, and since she changed clothes thrice daily, the draping, bejeweling, and painting of her bulk amounted to a full-time job. The Queen had long ago abandoned her husband to the tube and her daughter to the attic. Her sons (she could scarcely recall their number) were scattered about Europe, entangled in endless financial adventures of a primarily shady nature, and were lost to her. She had one intimate: a Chihuahua that she clutched to her bosom.

  If asked what he expected from the last quarter of the twentieth century, the King would have replied, “Now that it is no longer reasonable to hope for the restoration of the monarchy, my fondest wishes are that the Seattle Mariners win the pennant, the Seattle Sonics make the NBA playoffs, the Seattle Seahawks go to the Super Bowl, and that the play-by-play announcers be replaced by Sir Kenneth Clark.”

  The same question directed to the Queen would have educed this reaction: “Oh-Oh, spaghetti-o.” (Her favorite Americanism.) “Vat can you expect of crazy peoples? I’m happy only zat mein vadder and mama mia are in zee Heaven and not hafing to suffer from no stinking modern times. Sacre bleu! I do my duty to zee crown and das ees zat.” The Queen had learned English in seven capitals.

  Each night on a worn but opulent Kashan rug, beside a canopied barge of a bed, Queen Tilli lowered herself onto knees that resembled great wads of bubble gum, and prayed for the deliverance of the crown, the health of her Chihuahua, the state of grand opera, and not much else. Each night, King Max would steal into the kitchen to eat by the spoonful the salt and sugar that the doctors had eliminated from his meals.

  “It’s something other than five centuries of inbreeding that’s queering this royal family,” thought Princess Leigh-Cheri, whom gossip columnists recently had characterized as “a retired cheerleader, a moonstruck social activist, a tragic beauty who has sequestered herself in an attic.”

  “This family has got the Last-Quarter-of-the-Twentieth-Century Blues.”

  4

  PALACE-IN-EXILE for the Furstenberg-Barcalonas, which was quite their name, was a voluminous three-story yellow frame house on the shore of Puget Sound. The house was built in 1911 for a Seattle lumber baron, who, in reaction against the turrets, cupolas, and dormers that embellished the Frontier Gothic mansions of his peers, ordered “an American house, a house without frills,” and got just that. It was a barn, a box with a peaked roof. It sat among ten acres of blackberry brambles, like an abandoned radio, broadcasting creaks and whispers to the rain. The house was given to Max and Tilli by the CIA.

  The Furstenberg-Barcalona homeland was now ruled by a right-wing military junta, supported by the United States government and, of course, the Roman Catholic Church. While the U.S. publicly regretted that the junta permitted so few civil liberties, it was loath to interefere in the internal affairs of a sovereign nation, particularly a nation that could be relied upon as an ally against those left-leaning nations in whose internal affairs the U.S. did regularly interfere. It irritated the U.S. that royalists still loyal to Max and Tilli might disturb political stability in that part of the world. The U.S. paid King Max a modest stipend to keep a low profile and not fan any flames. Each year at Christmas, the Pope sent Queen Tilli a crucifix, candlestick, or some other knickknack that he had personally blessed.

  Once, Princess Leigh-Cheri used a papal candlestick for the purpose of self-gratification. She had hoped that at the appropriate moment she might be visited by either the Lamb or the Beast, but, as usual, only Ralph Nader attended her.

  5

  IF THE CIA imagined that its hospitality would charm the monogrammed socks off of Max and Tilli Furstenberg-Barcalona, it was once again wrong. During the first decade of their residency, the royal couple never complained about the drafty old mansion, for fear the place was bugged. In later years, however, made brazen by advanced age (the bravery of childhood returning, like salmon, to the source), they griped as much as they pleased.

  The King would stand at a window (during halftime or the seventh-inning stretch) and stare apprehensively at the creeping tide of brambles. “I may be the first monarch in history to be assassinated by blackberries,” he would grumble. His Teflon valve grumbled with him.

  The Queen caressed her Chihuahua. “You know who lifed here bevore ve did? Smokey zee Bear.”

  Encouraging her parents to move was futile, Leigh-Cheri learned.

  Max, a tall, horse-faced man with a Hitlerian mustache, shook his head so hard and long that were he wearing his crown it would have toppled off and tumbled into the berry vines. “Changing places at the table doesn’t fool the cards,” Max said.

  “Moof? I got three teas this veek,” said Queen Tilli. “No! I forget. I got four teas. Oh-Oh, spaghetti-o.”

  Like a pair of r’s trapped in a Spanish songbook, Tilli and Max lurked in their shoebox castle, waiting to be rolled.

  6

  THE PRINCESS LIVED in the attic.

  As a child, it had been her favorite playroom. It was private and cozy up there. She had liked the low, slanted ceiling and the complete absence of coat-of-arms wallpaper. As a child, she had appreciated the view of Puget Sound from the attic’s west window and the view of the Cascade Mountains from the window facing east. There was one mountain in particular, a white beak, broad and cloud-snagging, that would nearly fill the east window on those days when vision was not obscured by mist or rain. The mountain had a name, but Leigh-Cheri could never remember it. “It’s an Indian name, I think.”

  “Tonto?” asked the Queen.

  Now the windows were painted black—except for a single small pane through which the Princess could entertain an occasional corner of the moon.

  The Princess lived in the attic and did not come out. She could have come out, but she chose not to. She could have raised the windows or scraped off the paint, but she chose not to do that, either. Having the windows nailed shut and painted black was her idea. The attic was illuminated by one forty-watt bulb. That was also her idea. The Princess had furnished the attic, as well.

  The attic was furnished with a cot, a chamber pot, and a package of Camel cigarettes.

  7

  ONCE, Leigh-Cheri had lived much as any other young woman within her parents’ domicile. She had a room in the north end of the second floor, a room with a full-sized bed and a comfortable chair, a desk at which to do her schoolwork, and a dresser filled with cosmetics and underwear. There was a phonograph dedicated to the faithful reproduction of rock ‘n’ roll and a mirror dedicated to the flattering reproduction of her own image. There were curtains at the windows and heirloom carpets on the floor, while upon the walls posters of the Hawaiian Islands rubbed edges with photographs of Ralph Nader.

  The room sometimes seemed pinched and stifling to her, compared to that “big wide world out there” for which she yearned, yet she was fond enough of her quarters and returned to them agreeably each evening when classes were over and this or that committee for this or that ecological cause was adjourned.

  Even after she was forced off the cheerleading squad at the University of Washington, a humiliating experience that provoked her to withdraw from college, she occupied her room as correctly as a cephalopod its shell. Those days, she shared the room with Prince Charming.

  Prince Charming was a toad. He lived in a terrarium at the foot of Leigh-Cheri’s bed. And yes—you nosy ones—she had kissed the toad. Once. Lightly. And yes, she’d felt silly as shit. When one is a princess, however, one is tempted by things that we common people barely comprehend. Besides, the circumstances under which she had acquired the toad encouraged superstitious behavior, and, moreover, was a little teenie quick peck on the top of a frog’s head so much sillier than kissing
the picture of a desired one—and who hasn’t kissed a photograph at one time or another? Leigh-Cheri kissed Ralph Nader’s photo fairly frequently.

  It might be noted here that Freudian analysts of fairy tales have suggested that kissing toads and frogs is symbolized fellatio. In that regard, Princess Leigh-Cheri was, on a conscious level, innocent, although not so naive as Queen Tilli, who thought fellatio was an obscure Italian opera and was annoyed that she couldn’t find the score.

  8

  PRINCE CHARMING was given to Leigh-Cheri by old Gulietta, the last living of the servants who had accompanied Max and Tilli into exile. At Leigh-Cheri’s birth, in Paris, four of those loyalists were still in service, but all but Gulietta died soon after the royal family took up residence in the Puget Sound palace. Perhaps it was the dampness.

  The U.S. government provided a servant, also, a man named Chuck who was to function as gardener, chauffeur, and general handyman. He was, of course, a CIA informer. As age added infirmity to his native indolence, Chuck was no match for the Great Northwest blackberries, and they edged ever closer to the walls of the house. At the wheel, he was terrifying. King Max and the Princess had for some years refused to ride with him. Chuck still drove the Queen to her galas and teas, however, seemingly oblivious to the Hail Marys and Oh-oh, Spaghetti-O’s bubbling in rank fear from the back seat.

  Regularly, each fortnight, Chuck sat down to poker with the King. Even with a telltale ticker, the King regularly, each fortnight, took Chuck to the cleaners. Thus, Max added Chuck’s salary to his own. “It’s all he’s good for,” said Max, whose great mule face would smile faintly at what he must have considered a little joke on the CIA.