The Founder Effect – no. 21

21.

 

Fingers flailing wildly for effect, I say, And so, and so, and so Churchill tells them, “Now that is precisely the sort of thing up with which I will not put.”

Raat! Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Chimpy’s nostrils spray a clumsy spritz of Moscow mule. Five sequential spouts ejaculate from the geoduck shelter. Naomi booms loudly enough to vibraslide Chimpy’s chalice off the coffee table, which he dives for to no avail. A lightbulb pops and crumbles in another room.

But of the mess I couldn’t care less. Today I turned 21 and I am having the time of my life. For breakfast, Chimpy prepared me a Yoshoku omurice made with silkie chicken and Electra performed a flawless rendition of Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mister President.” We have indulged in Dionysian pleasures since.

Mittgrabbing my tankard, I step over Gambino and Lucchese, stumble on a pile of pointed words and phrases that haven’t yet fully evaporated, and make my way to the loo. There are four trash bags crammed taut with crumpled paper lined up against the wall. The dolphins cost me half a closet of mail.

Before the porcelain god, I relieve myself. Hence my mind returns to Antonia, my leitmotif. There are certain facts about her. She has an aura that stimulates all five senses. If intuition is a sixth sense, then all six senses; if emotion a seventh, seven. I am confident it’s probably there on all the undetectable wavelengths, too. She is desirable and charming and I am charmed by and desire her. Calm is the key of her register, which is so constant it gives me doubtspook. While I admit that Antonia’s stigmata have become an unhealthy obsession—we are watching The Passion of the Christ tonight and I have moved the flat screen so that even Beethoven can join us—I am sure she is guilty of something. I always pick up that whiff of fear hormone whenever the animals engage her. My faith is in the universe, and I suspect she might be a protected witness, if not a repeat offender, if not a notorious felon, in the court of natural law.

Last night in the dark as I stared at the ceiling waiting to turn 21, I contemplated all of the things Antonia might really be. The Frenchman’s minions had delivered my new pod of dolphins and crates of Greenland herring stuffed to the gills with roe; this excitement fresh on the mind, for some reason my thoughts hopscotched all the way to the topic of the lost kingdom of Atlantis. Plato wrote in the Critias that ‘Poseidon, receiving for his lot the island of Atlantis, begat children by a mortal woman.’ What is going on here and now with Antonia feels like the opposite—it is I who is the mortal, she the deity, this menagerie our adopted children. Maybe she is a resurrection from a dead religion of a bygone world like Atlantis, for they, too, had their gods, no doubt. But perhaps she is something else. Perhaps she is the embodiment of a natural miracle: neither the incarnation nor the product of a knowing god but an issuance of matter (not spirit) that is perfect, or in some other obscure or oblique sense divine. That is to say, a holy thing. A wordless scripture. A solid æther.

 

Chimpy has lined up six yabbies on the coffee table, all six balancing perfectly still on their heads, his newest parlor trick. (Toast, out like a light, he signs.) I refill my tankard from the pony keg in the kitchen. Electra is lying on her back on the floor, playing dead for laughs, tongue dangling from her beak, one rigid talon twitching like a cartoon. Eve sniffs Electra with fearful concern.

She’s just kidding, I tell Eve.

Eve looks up into my eyes. Her tail comes to life.

Let’s take a walk, girl. I let her lick my hand.

 

The hallway outside my flat noisechurns with the sweet stink of petrol. Eve is by my side as we enter the unhinged doorway of no. 9.

The grindblast is coming from the heavy rotating saw that Antonia is guiding along a straight path in the floor. She is spraying the blade with a water hose. Scores of floorboards lean vertically up against a wall in tidy lines. Beside them is an equally measured stack of concrete slabs.

She stops the saw, pulls up another plank, adds it to the rest. She turns to me and Eve and smiles. She takes off her protective goggles.

Dozen it look hood?

It looks fantastic, I reply.

She gestures behind her.

Half the room’s floor is gone. About a meter down into the flat below I see a liquid surface tremble and ripple. The entire second floor of the building is nearly full with water, to contain the pod of dolphins. Vents such as this one will allow them to surface, breathe, and talk.

Do you think it’s full downstairs yet? I ask.

Antonia removes her gloves. Maybe buy tonight.

Eve dips her snout down into the floor, sniffs at the waves. Her ears stiffen.

¡Ya vienen!

I’m sorry, what?

A sharp, throaty mist erupts from the water, followed by another and another. Waves clap on the surface.

One dolphin raises its head completely in the air, bares teeth and tongue, and sings, Tktktktk ckckckckck ananananana ayuayuayu!

Others follow suit, with varying degrees of interest and intent. Tktktktktktk. Ckckckckckckckck! Kekekekekekekekeaaaaahhnaaapei.

I respond, I’m glad you find everything comfortable. Help yourself to some herring if you haven’t already. They’re spawning. Tkatkatkatkatka.

Antonia gasps. ¡Vaya, Raymundo! That so good!

I hadn’t realized I responded in clicks. It just came out of me.

Eve spinshakes from neck to tail to dry herself. She is grinning with open mouth.

I suddenly remember our other task, what I really intended for us to do.

No. 21, “H. Blindeth” (or so it says on his mail).

My tankard is empty again. I need a refill.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 20

20.

 

I light another cigarette, toss the match into the ashtray, and resume pacing around the room.

I ask, Is this what you meant when you said what you said to me that day in the pet shop?

“Don’t be so specific, man.”

Please. That time when Antonia and I were walking together.

Raat! Two peas in a pod.

Exactly. Is this what you meant? The superstitions, the followings? Beethoven said she is a goddess.

“…I knowww all there is to knowww about the crying gaaame…”

What do you mean?

Raat! Cut it off.

Cut what off?

“It’s not my fault.” “God made me this way.”

Electra, please. You’re mixed up. That’s not what I mean. I could plainly see under the black light that her hands bear the signs of stigmata.

Raat! “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?”

Well, that’s more in the right direction. But will you tell me: is that what you meant?

She’s no more a goddess than I am.

So that is not what you meant?

“Welllll, I do an’ I don’t.”

I ash my cigarette. I plead, Electra, I need to know.

Everything goes red.

Sheis th eMessi ah.

From behind a cloud of silt and ink, Beethoven unfurls a single tentacle, a limb as thick and twice as long as my own arm. Its suckers smush against the transparent boundary, warp and flatten, silent. They look just like the eyeless faces of burning, screaming souls.

The red ends.

 

I can hear my father now: Sinjoro devas marŝi, ne kuri. ‘A gentleman should walk, not run.’ But I wouldn’t expect him to understand my urgency.

I am out of breath when I top the stairs and enter the doors of the Kant-Gump Lane Branch of the Public Library. Behind me, amongst the tourists in the street surrounding the statue of our city’s founder, two women—one shouting, the other sobbing—are pointing and gesturing at me while being restrained by police officers in black uniforms.

Under the light of stained glass and chandeliers, amidst the smells of paper and stone, I get to the books I need: leatherbound, brittle pages. In 1224, two years before his death, St. Francis of Assisi manifested stigmata of the Christ, the first known instance of such a thing ever reported. Without cause, he bled from hands and feet as well as from his rib, where Jesus was speared on the cross. St. Bonaventure’s Major Legend (1266) records an anecdote about a portrait of St. Francis that temporarily displayed stigmata right before the eyes of the painting’s matron and a fellow witness, the marks becoming visible only when the two contemplated the miracle and vanishing from view just as swiftly. Nothing I read convinces me that the resultant stigmata tradition is anything more than a few hundred hoaxes exploiting superstition, but I cannot deny what I saw on Antonia’s hands under the black light in the bug suite.

A true stigmatic manifests all five wounds: both hands, both feet, and the flank of the torso. Outside the library, I stop to light a cigarette. A man with a shaven head wearing an orange toga and sandals kneels a few feet from me, his lips moving in prayer.

 

Everything turns red.

Imea nsh eis theM essiah.

I light another cigarette. I ask, Yes but what does that actually mean? Why does she have Christian stigmata on her? Of all things?

S he is the thirdr evela tion.

Fine, but why not the Sixth Sun or Shiva or Shangó?

Shebea rs thewounds ofcruxi ficti on. Ripp edf rom thec ross, handsa ndf eetsplit, and shehas heal ed andi srebo rn.

I think, I have no god. Or, at best, if I do, it’s the invisible hand. But not a thing worthy of worship. By no means.

An tonia is theo pposite ofyou.

The red ends.

 

In a brass Art Nouveau birdcage at the top of an eye-high pedestal, my new pride and joy snares and swallows yet another weevil.

She is magnificent, I say.

Antonia hugs my arm, leans her temple on my shoulder. On cheese prom México! Electra wheel loaf her.

I’m sure she will.

Antonia sighs, squeezes me tighter. A welcome gesture of sincere affection.

And yet my skin crawls. Ripped from the cross as Beethoven said. I think, For what crime was she punished? What heresy?

Antonia is the opposite of you. If so, I wonder: What is it she lacks?

I hear boots; the Frenchman appears. Stetson hat, bolo tie, velvet brocade on a gunfighter blazer.

Howdy patron, he says. Il dit que le camion livrera les dauphins demain soir.

I ask, Will the shipment include the herring?

He claps me on the back. Oui, bien sûr. Ils auront besoin d’accéder à l’ascenseur de service.

I’ll be sure to meet them when they arrive.

D’accord.

We shake hands.

Avoiding him, Antonia walks down an aisle, each animal in a cage or tank clamoring as she passes.

 

I unlock the door to my flat to find Rascal eating the remains of a pillow cushion. Goose down floats in the air like snowflakes, drifts of it piled against the walls. The cedar ribs of the sofa’s carcass horrorsplay from under torn fabric. What’s worse, Eve is balled in a corner where she never sits. She is licking in her groin what is an obvious wound. Neither Eve nor Rascal pay me any mind when I enter with the birdcage.

Raat! Who’s the fox?

She is your new companion, Electra. A Socorro mockingbird. From the Revillagigedo Islands.

Raat! Can we name her Elvis?

Of course we can.

The good news is the Keihanaikukauakahihuliheekahaunaeles in no. 20 moved out. They leave a letter they drop through the mail slot. I don’t have to open it and see that it is in fact from them to know so. Chimpy tosses it in with the rest in the now second mail closet (which is already near knee high).

Now all I need is no. 21.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 19

19.

 

There has been, shall we say, a revelation, one that has occurred to me with the issuance of this chapter, since by its very nature, its coming into being is simultaneous with my self-awareness. And upon my self-awareness, the narrative is affected. As a result, the climactic moment of the aforementioned revelation is become the present, and all other action leading up to this moment, the past. That is, until the moment and the narrative converge into one and the same once again.

Prelude to the present: Days (weeks? a moon?) had passed since the last time I’d encountered Beethoven. Antonia and I have fully installed all of the MTEs, which results in a single transparent plastic tubular maze running throughout my home, from room to hallway to room to walkway, snaking around the entire flat. Dozens of meters of interconnected MTEs have come to surround me in my apartment, maybe hundreds of meters, maybe even thousands the vaguer I keep it. Some portions are attached to walls, others the ceiling, a couple of bends rest on the floor. At a meter in width, the MTE setup allows Beethoven to move freely, even expressively. A morning some time ago I dried the final coat of epoxy on the interior of the guest room, loaded it with sand and brackish tabs, set out pails of new breeds (Rex sole, Dolly Varden trout, grunt sculpins), and unveiled the coral baskets. Then I sealed the doorway, filled the room with water, and linked it to the MTE corridor. This gave Beethoven the space it demanded. Beethoven named it Todeshöhle, which Electra heard as ‘toad-in-the-hole’ but really means The Death Lair. Chimpy estimated that Beethoven’s body by now must be longer than his.

In the lead-up to the chillfate moment happening right now involving me and Antonia upstairs having some fun with the new moths (vestals, crimson-speckled flunkeys, and rosy underwings), I had become utterly consumed by thoughts and feelings for her. I would not say that Antonia has moved in, but she spends as much time here as she likes and I want her here all the time. My houndstooth-clad schoolboyish neighbor in no. 9 has moved out, finally, and by now lives with either his boyfriend uptown or his great-uncle’s widow Griselda down in windmill country.

The revelatory moment that we’re considering at present only lasts a few seconds.

Let’s say the whole moment lasts seven seconds.

The first second. In the first second, I feel a rush of curiosity and joy like I did yesterday when I powwowed my menagerie to ceremoniously welcome in the new cultures of tardigrades. (Also referred to as moss piglets or water bears in common parlance.) I have twenty-six of them of various classes and orders, names pending. And they are astonishing. These tardigrades can withstand 1,000 times more radiation than any other animal in the known world. They can survive 6,000 times the pressure of our planet’s atmosphere, at either the top of a mountain or the bottom of an ocean trench, as well as endure prolonged exposure to a vacuum, or to unfiltered ultraviolet light. They can suspend their metabolism for decades if needed, can live within a temperature range spanning hundreds of degrees. They are microscopic and indestructible. The Frenchman now wears Boss and drives a Jaguar.

In the second second, I tell Antonia, Let me see your hands. She wasn’t here when the emu egg had hatched, and I wished she had been. Naomi has gotten to roam loose throughout the building and she’s become big and beautiful. The last tenant holdouts are nos. 20 and 21 on the seventh floor.

In the third second, I wave a black light wand before my hand, wiggle all six fingers, check front and back. I hadn’t realized how much invisible bee pollen was stuck to my hands when we had begun the new moth setups. The drapes are drawn, there is only black light present. My hand looks splattered with neon flecks and streaks as if I were guilty of a heinous crime.

Mother had called again, and we had had a good talk.

She’d said, O nilo lati tọrọ gafara fun u.

I will, I’d told her.

O nilo lati ṣèlérí.

I promise.

O nilo lati sọ gbogbo awọn ọrọ.

I sighed like a tired boy and said, I promise I will apologize to Chimpy and the others for how rudely I spoke to them.

In the fourth, fifth, and sixth seconds of this most revelatory moment, I feel the weight of new things. A lot feels new. Antonia acts shy, mutters, Butt-eye-dough-one-two, and hides away her hands. Her vulnerability nowadays affects me deeply and always, it seems. She had told me that her mother has been deceased for years and that she never knew who her father was. That no one believed her young mother was expecting given how virtuous and unassuming she was. There never appeared to be a father. An immaculate conception was the general opinion. And it would not be long after her birth for her to experience the sort of odd celebrity I had experienced my entire childhood, my entire life. By now we have wept together at least three times. I say, But you must, and pursue her in the fluttering, breathing darkness. I reach for her elbow, and when I get closer, even though she turns away, I take a hold of her wrist.

In the seventh second, I put the black light down to her hands. Under the black light, for just an instant, I can see, clear as day, that on each hand, Antonia has a prominent scar: a straight line running down from between two knuckles to a hole in the middle of her palm.

A pair of stigmata.

At this very moment, everything goes red, and from my third-floor flat to where we are now on the eighth, Beethoven sends a message that buzzes in my head: I tol dyou so.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 18

18.

 

Chimpy clicks on the aquarium light.

The flat has been growing. Spreading, developing as of late. Opening up. Areas have been coming into focus the more they’re needed. Before a need there is nothing but vagueness around what space of my home has been put to use. Like the Bonsai and the window alcove before: how that came into being (although I’m unsure of what need was fulfilled). Closets, rooms, mirrors all come into being only at their mention.

We settle into the Eames chairs. Chimpy places down ashtrays.

I tell him, So, you’re a native New Yorker.

He flicks his cigarette and nods.

I ask, Is there a good story behind that?

He signs, It’s got the birds ‘n’ the bees in it so maybe, but you’re eighteen now, Ray, so, no more earmuffs on the grownup shit for you.

Thanks.

Baby’s all grows up.

Get on with it.

Raat! ‘You can’t handle the truth!!’

Electra, please.

The room flashes red.

I rub my eyebrows and ask, Why must you all go on like this?

Beethoven buzzes in my head, Jailbait isdead.

The red ends.

Chimpy signs, Everyone pipe down.

Thank you, I say. I point my finger and add, I swear I was going to lose my shit.

Chimpy holds up both hands and frowns.

I’m sorry but you know I’m, I mean, I—

I know, Chimpy signs.

No you don’t, I say. I am getting sick of this. I drew every single one of you damn things into existence and this is the fucking respect I get?

Chimpy drops his hands, takes the nakedest posture possible. You do not need to be talking to us like that.

Like what?

Like that. You know what I’m talking about. I know you hear yourself if you’d take a minute and listen to yourself and the words you’re saying. That is not right. You know it.

What do I know?

Take that shit back.

Take what shit back.

That brought you into existence shit back.

Raat! Send him back to oblivion.

Don’t be acting like you’re the boss here, Chimpy signs. Don’t make me bring up the invisible hand here. You don’t even know why you love her. So settle down.

That’s not—, I start, then tell him, I don’t know what to say.

Chimpy pulls on his cigarette, waves away a wisp of smoke that touched his eye. You asked me a question.

Oh yes, right.

I was born in captivity.

He sets down his cigarette, to free his hands to speak. Have you read anything about circus chimpanzees?

You mean like the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey?

Fuck, man. I mean about the workers. The animals. Not the tweeds. He slaps his eyes, then signs, Sure. Barnum.

Yes I have, I say. I have in the past. I have in my past. I have a past.

Fucking terrific, Ray. That makes two of us. Which is what I’m going to tell you now.

Please do.

Chimpy frogstares at me the entire time he takes to reach and pick up his cigarette, drag it, set it back down, and blow the smoke up into the swirl of the ceiling fan.

My parents were from Africa. They came from the Congo. When they were babies they both lost their families because oil companies cleared away their forests. So they were taken in by sanctuaries run by the state and eventually sold to traders who sold them to New York to work in the circus. They were both still infants, still drinking out of bottles. They were taken to Coney Island in Brooklyn, put up in a carnival that travelled back and forth between Coney Island and Atlantic City. That’s how they met. They grew up together. Even though my mother was Eastern chimpanzee, so she was in the chimp act, and my father was bonobo, so he was in another act. She did the tea party, he did the knife throwing.

You don’t say. You are actually half-chimpanzee, half-bonobo.

That’s right. I’m mixed. I’m biracial.

I had no idea.

When I was born they knew I was his because they already knew they had a thing for each other going on. Plus my face was dark so they figured I was his.

What do you mean your face was dark? Your face isn’t dark now.

I know. That’s because my mother used to bleach me.

Bleach you?

Yes. She used to bleach my face. She would get hair bleach bottles with the sponge applicator and she would sit me in front of her with her legs wrapped around me so I couldn’t get away and have me face her and she would wipe the black off.

Why in the world would she do that?

So I could look more like her and less like my father. She was light. Their plan all along was to get me to look more chimp and then maybe if I was healthy enough they would sell me to the zoo. To get me out of the circus. To get me out of the game and into a healthier environment.

To give you away?

Yes to give me away. Coney Island was no joke. So, they did that and it worked. When I was old enough I started performing in a magic act. Then my father told me I shouldn’t be so good at it in order that the show wouldn’t want to keep up with me and then sell me.

And it worked.

Yup. They sold me to the Bronx Zoo. I was there for like ten years, with the chimp set. Then one day there was a huge field trip full of kids with the Make A Wish Foundation, so, bored, I got out in front of them, started performing, doing flips, whatnot. News reporters came back next day, I did it again, and the rest is history.

What happened?

A network bought me. The Legendary Mr. Chimpy McPickles Variety Show.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 17

17.

 

Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with the line, ‘Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.’

Well, Leo, I have proven the exception to the rule.

Floors 1, 2, 4, 5, and 8 are now completely vacated of neighbors (Monarchs and milkweed going up in no. 24 tonight). And no one in this city would move into any unit here if you paid them. The whole first floor—nos. 1, 2, and 3—are knee-high in soil and lichens. I picked up beetle snails and a pair of star nosed moles to put in there when I dropped off Antonia’s lunch this morning. They seem to love it.

She offered to bring back stacks of plastic modular tank extenders (for cost and space, they’re the most efficient solution, she says). In exchange for three lobsters, Beethoven has agreed to not complain until I can install the MTEs by sometime tonight.

As well as last night went with Antonia, we’re celebrating with a little sherry. Now that I’m 17, Chimpy today is calling me Jailbait.

Jailbait, pass me the lighter.

Jailbait, you want ice?

Haven’t you already seen this Antiques Roadshow episode, Jailbait?

He’s in a much better mood than he was last night. Having the chance to cook really does soothe him, and his amuse-bouche of ceviche de pulpo is undoubtedly fine by any standard. After the stunt Beethoven pulled—Antonia was a terrific sport about it, though—and the second she left, Chimpy was ready to kill it on the spot. At one point I thought I had him talked down, but when I turned, Chimpy made a sneaky dash for the aquatank and I had no choice but to physically restrain him.

The compromise was to spare Beethoven’s life. But it did cost the price of sixteen suckers worth of a single tentacle. Just one. And not even most of it. Chimpy made a very persuasive argument that Beethoven would never learn otherwise and in the end I had little choice but to agree. After all, Chimpy is an animal, and Beethoven is an animal, but I am not. So I deferred to his judgment.

I love the ghee finish on that tangerine brine, I say.

Chimpy leers at Beethoven as he signs, Can you tell how the ginger and garlic are just rubbed on? I just rubbed them on the tentacle? Without mashing them up into the marinade?

Mmmm, I say. So that’s it. It’s really tender. And subtle.

There’s nothing in the marinade but the juice.

Amazing, I say and stab the last piece. No salt?

Just in the ghee.

It’s exquisite.

Chimpy is surely being cruel, but I cannot deny the results. Beethoven has been limited to mealtime conversations, and by permission only. And again, the lobsters bought me a day of peace and quiet about the space, which I’m already taking care of.

Things are happening outside the flat in the hallway.

Everything goes red. Just as suddenly, the red ends.

In Mrs. Boerenpummel’s apartment, it sounds like a firework explodes.

Raat! Cleanup on aisle two.

Chimpy displays agitation.

What the hell was that?!

Raat! Five-O.

A small spout of water squirts up into the air from the geoduck shelter.

There’s a hatehiss coming from the other side of the apartment wall. A slam, a snap of breaking wood, followed by a number of stomping boots. I rush to the front door.

I look through the fisheye lens of the peephole. I hear what is left of Mrs. Boerenpummel’s door collapse, then speaking in the hallway, then the jingle of chains. Eight Gurkhas, in two-by-two formation, march by. Then Mrs. Boerenpummel shuffles past, shackled neck to feet. Then a Borinqueneer wearing the bars and pineapple of a Master Gunnery Sergeant. Last, ten Legionnaires with bayonets pointing up on their backs. They all tramp away.

I turn my head around. Sorry, Chimpy.

He signs, It’s cool, really. It ain’t a thing.

The Frenchman told me there might be an orangutan in the works before long. A female.

That’s what I’m talking about, Jailbait. I love Malaysian chicks.

Well I can’t promise you anything because, remember, if she does not reciprocate your affections then the point is moot, right, Mr. McPickles?

Something brushes against the door. I look through the peephole again and see the three armed men in berets I had seen on the street before. One of them bows.

A sealed envelope falls through the mail slot, landing on my foot.

I pick it up, look at both sides. I hand it to Chimpy. He skips over to the hallway closet, cracks it open, hurriedly stuffs the envelope inside (without letting the rest of the mail avalanche out onto the floor), and pushes, presses, works the door back shut.

 

Chimpy sprinkles some flakes into the fish tank.

I say, The Frenchman assured me that these three are also females. I wonder if Haffenreffer will go on to be male.

What do you mean?

She’s the mature one. When a group of clownfish are all females, the mature one usually will turn into a male.

Are you serious?

Indeed I am. It’s called protogyny. A lot of fish species do it.

Chimpy lights a cigarette and passes it to me, then lights his own. And then they mate?

That’s the point, yes.

No kidding.

Hundreds of fish species are protogynous. Including wrasses.

Chimpy blows a smoke ring through another smoke ring. The wrasses are asses.

Ah, yes, well, ha, that’s good.

You think what I did to Beethoven was too harsh.

No, I don’t know.

In a couple weeks it’ll be all grown back.

Yes, I know.

And it tasted great.

It was so, so good.

Thank you. Trust me when it comes to animals. I know how to deal with them.

Chimpy?

What is it?

I ask, Were you born in the wild?

He ashes his smoke. No I was not. Born in Brooklyn, raised in the Bronx.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 16

16.

 

The flat is immaculate. My master suite is crisp and bright in cotton, marble, and mahogany. Birds of Paradise in the vases, a hint of lemongrass in the air. Spiritmasks on the walls, furniture engineered and minimal. Perfection in tribal modernism.

The first room is Chimpy’s and Electra’s. Their bunkbeds are made, everything sorted just right. The legendary Mr. McPickles pulls a Zippo from a pocket on his crushed velvet smoking jacket to light a stick of patchouli.

Rascal’s room is trashed. I cannot say with confidence that the Billy goat is one of my favorite animals. He’s been starting to show signs of playing too rough with Eve, first at mealtimes, but now more recently it’s been whenever. And he’s a chewer. And a climber. I tether him and lock his door.

Electra is perched on the grandfather clock performing New Age spa sounds. She’s agreed to set the mood. My Wing Woman.

I’m hoping the emu egg will hatch tonight while Antonia is here.

It’s as if a red lens has fallen right over my pupils. Suddenly everything is tinted with a red light. Everything everywhere.

Iwan tmo respace, I hear in my mind.

Who wants more space? Who said that?

Everything is still red.

Iam nota fraid tokil lyou.

Not afraid to kill me? Did you hear that?

Raat! Hear what?

Chimpy signs, Hear what?

How could you not hear that?

The voice buzzes in my head, Ifyo udonot giveme mores pace, I willeat allof yo urani mals.

The red stops.

I look around. Everything is back to its natural color.

Beethoven suspends itself front-and-center in the aquatank. Our eyes meet.

You said that, didn’t you? I ask.

Beethoven stares me down, its tentacles gathering.

You’ll eat all of my animals if I don’t give you more space?

Everything goes red.

Doyouk now whothe wo man is?

Which woman?

Yo urgues tton ight.

Antonia?

Raat! She’ll be here! Don’t worry! He’s lost his marbles.

Eve sits alert at my feet, ears stiff, paying me mind. Ready to hunt. At my word.

The wo man isag oddess.

The red ends.

Electra’s wings beat violently. Raat! Who the hell are you?

I say, Electra, is it speaking to you now?

She croons, “The Lady in Redddddd…”

Electra, what is it saying?

Raat! Thanks but no thanks, partner.

She launches herself from the top of the grandfather clock, dips into the tight corner, flies right into her room.

Chimpy grunts, drums his chest, then straightens up. He has a far-away look in his eyes.

I ask, Have you heard it yet?

He stands perfectly still.

Is it speaking to you now? Does everything look red?

Chimpy waddles over to the aquatank, knocks on it three times, backs up and signs, If you ruin tonight for Raymundo and Antonia, that cleaver right over there hanging on the wall is the knife I’m going to use to chop you into bits and feed you to the platypuses. Gambino and Luchese. We call them The Syndicate. They will eat you whole. Even when you rot.

What did it say? I demand.

Chimpy freezes again.

What is it saying?

He signs, So, we have an understanding.

Who? What understanding?

I can hear Electra in her room mimicking the theme music from The Twilight Zone.

If you break that promise and don’t show respect, I swear on my life I will fry you. Don’t kid yourself. I will fry you alive to a crisp. We’ll all eat you. The goat, too. Ray will put out all the special sauces. Believe that.

What is it saying? I ask again.

It says it won’t interfere but it does need more space. It’s not mature. It’ll get way bigger soon.

Fine. It said Antonia was a goddess. What did it mean by that?

Chimpy signs, It means that she’s a goddess.

 

Buenas noches, Raymundo.

Welcome, come in. You are a vision.

O, Raymundo. Chew our saucewheat.

Please. Let me take your cape.

 

¿Cangrejos?

Basically. They’re called yabbies.

¿Y les gustan?

Oh, it’s their favorite thing to eat.

 

I’m sorry. It’s only that I just got it today and it’s super temperamental. I didn’t mean to sound critical of you.

She smirks kindly and shakes her head. Jude hidden.

 

¿Podemos ir a ver a las abejas?

Upstairs?

Sí, arriba upstairs.

I did get two beekeeper suits.

She gasps and applauds. ¡Que divertido fun!

I smile. I ask, How do you do that?

 

Chimpy returns with two pisco sours in stemmed glasses on a sterling silver tray. Antonia and I trade our empties for the refills.

She looks at Chimpy, taps her mouth, then beckons him. Thank you, darling.

 

Antonia has flipped off her shoes. She’s spread out comfortably on the sofa, playing with the red ribbon.

I’m in the loveseat. I begin to read from the book she gave me, The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery: “Here is an animal with venom like a snake, a beak like a parrot, and ink like an old-fashioned pen. It can weigh as much as a man and stretch as long as a car, yet it can pour its baggy, boneless body through an opening the size of an orange.”

Antonia grabs her mouth and gently squeals.

“It can change color and shape. It can taste with its skin.”

She sticks fingers in her ears, kicking the air, wincing as she giggles. ¡Dios Mio!

I continue, “Most fascinating of all, I had read that octopuses are smart. This bore out what scant experience I had already had; like many who visit octopuses in public aquariums, I’ve often had the feeling that the octopus I was watching was watching me back, with an interest as keen as my own.”

Playfully protecting herself, as if I were flinging atrocities, Antonia holds up crossed arms. She covers her eyes with the backs of her hands, the folds in her palms shaped into curved lines, like two perfect question marks.

Everything turns red.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 15

15.

 

I feel like the perfect paragraph. There’s at once a truth and a music to me now. The cadence of song. It’s in my stride and my posture, in my subjects and my predicates. It all feels very real to me.

So I don’t want to be reminded that it’s fiction.

It’s.

That this is fiction. This. That the sky isn’t right there above my head, that those birds in it aren’t trying to go somewhere, that its sapphire infinity is out of my grasp, is something that I couldn’t reach up to and touch if I wanted. I look around and there are all these buildings all over, those trees and their shadows, fire hydrants, trash cans, traffic lights, cables, the food carts, talking people walking, right and wrong ways of doing things that everyone’s keeping in mind whether they know it or not.

I do know, and damn well, that this is chapter 15. It doesn’t escape me. And I’ve still been meaning to have a word with the invisible hand that I also haven’t forgotten is pulling levers behind a curtain. But not now.

For the love of all things sacred, please. Not now. Just not now.

 

It helps that right over there on the sidewalk to my left are three tall men outfitted in boots, fatigues, gloves, berets, kneepads, Kevlar, Bluetooth, and SAWs guarding the west entrance on Electric Avenue. Not something you see every day.

Electra has flown up to the flat (Chimpy will open the window for her) so I’m focused on getting everything into the service elevator, which is a welcome reprieve from encountering fellow tenants. As of late they’ve taken to tossing food or drink in my face and I’d like to not get my bowtie ruined.

I’m also grateful that I’ve only been stung twice by the bees. It appears that they are way too engrossed in the business of growing babies to pay me much attention at all. I know for a fact that the Aptekars up in nos. 22 and 23 are all moved out so I figure I’ll set up the bees in one flat and put the moths in the other. Honeycomb won’t last an hour around Chimpy so I don’t have much choice. And that as well ought to take care of the last holdout on the top floor, which is prime real estate for an insect sanctuary.

I’ll have to put some thought into the roof, though. Clearly pigeons can roost on it but there’s room for a more robust habitat. Perhaps a condor, a few swallows, some palm trees. Or even a couple albatrosses. Or maybe even a mountain dragon if the Frenchman would stop being so pigheaded with me and so generally pessimistic and lazy. Electra and Chimpy now call him Jacques le Cock. Point being: I must increase my ambitions. I’m not getting any younger.

It takes me longer than I’d thought it would to get the doors to nos. 22 and 23 completely unhinged from their jambs but now that they’ve been unscrewed loose, what we have here is a proper foundation for an entomological ecosystem. The thermostats are set, water and foliage in suitable proportion and proximity, black light bulbs installed. The fire escape is crammed with flowerbeds, both windows to it half open, the rest with drapes drawn.

Wheeling the ecotanks and the octopus out of the service lift, I see Chimpy sitting on the stairwell sharing a cigarette with Mrs. Boerenpummel. He is wearing a hunting hat with one side pinned up; she dons a negligée exposing the cleavage and spider veins of her generous, ample, rotund form. Chimpy’s arm hangs over her shoulder, resting disinterestedly on her breast. She is nuzzled at his ribs, facing up to watch each pull he takes with a vicarious sensation of pleasure in her eyes and breathless smile.

She seems like she’s in another world.

Chimpy! I whisper as loudly as I can.

He passes the cigarette to Mrs. Boerenpummel. In her other hand is a counterfeit Chinoiserie bier stein full of mimosa.

He signs, How did it go?

It went splendidly, I reply hoarsely. But did you let Electra in?

In bunny slippers, Mrs. Boerenpummel crosses her legs. She puts the cigarette back to Chimpy’s lips for him.

He signs, No, I’ve just been taking a breather, kid.

I tell him sternly, Will you please quit it and get inside? I have all of this to set up and Electra’s probably been perched on the sill for an hour now.

Chimpy takes a double drag and plopfitzes his butt into Mrs. Boerenpummel’s mug. He claps her rump, whips her front with his hat, and knucklehops over and past me into the apartment.

 

The ecotanks are installed and filled. A drill, a mallet, and various screwdrivers and assorted other tools and bits lie strewn about the flat. I stand facing the aquatank, with Chimpy, Electra, Eve, the Billy goat (Rascal), the platypuses (Luchese & Gambino), the emu egg (any day now), and the geoduck clams (Tito, Jermaine, Marlon, Jackie, and Michael) lined up like a choir behind me.

I open a copy of a book. By Frank Norris.

I hold it in front of my face and read: “in his imagination, the galloping monster, the terror of steel and steam, with its single eye, cyclopean, red, shooting from horizon to horizon; but saw it now as the symbol of a vast power, huge, terrible, flinging the echo of its thunder over all the reaches of the valley, leaving blood and destruction in its path; the leviathan, with tentacles of steel clutching into the soil, the soulless force, the iron-hearted power, the monster, the colossus, the octopus.”

I lower the book and wait.

Inside the tank, a conch shell melts. Spreads along the floor as if it were lava. Erupts into a parachute. Fans out swirling limbs.

For the next 23 minutes, Electra performs the Appassionata, so we name it Beethoven.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 14

14.

 

After the first young woman showed me to her chair, took my coat, let me get comfortable, set down her toolkit and pouch of heated rocks, offered me a choice of Pinot Grigio or Merlot, inquired as to whether I was having a good day, pulled free and shook loose and snapped on a pair of latex gloves, confirmed for a second time what package I ordered and laughed at herself, smeared scented cream on the cuticles of my thumb and forefinger, chucked my hand as she hallucinated it transform into a tarantula, squealed a bloodcurdling wheezeshriek pedestrians outside must have heard, flinched violently, shuddered profoundly, felt the surge from her scalp down to her knees, broke out in hives staining her neck, panted fiercely out lips and cheeks that swellflapped like a mudskipper, backed up and knocked down a rival’s aluminum tray, made stainless steel utensils jingle on the floor like spent shell casings, peppered patrons’ shoes with the ricey ricochets of her prodigious vomit, and was steered through the slit in the velvet curtain by her panicked boss as he cupped her elbows, a second and far more seasoned woman was deployed to resume my Lavender Primrose Supreme Deluxe Total Relaxation Mani-Pedi. As a concession, I agreed to pay an extra 20% on both the service and the gratuity, which I offered without prompting because of how extraordinary the good mood I am in at this very moment is.

The replacement aesthetician, unlike the first, has a face as dispassionate as a limestone Buddha. Raised in thatch huts torched to cinders on the killing fields of overlapping wars, I have every confidence that she has witnessed far worse, is made up of true grit.

As she buffs my outermost toe, earning her extra pay, I tell her, I do think I have a chance. Her name is Antonia, by the way.

เธอน่ารักใช่มั้ย, she asks.

She is beautiful, I reply.

จากนั้นคุณกำลังทำสิ่งที่ถูกต้อง.

My confidence blushes. I correct my posture in the chair and say, I surely hope so.

I add, Do you really believe that?

 

The storefront door hasn’t quite finished closing when the salon erupts with gossigasps and ramblewhispers. Strolling down the sidewalk, I feel like a floating cloud. I am sure everyone who sees me can tell. The florist on Hitzë Road surely can tell, but perhaps it’s because of the six sunflowers I have him sleeve in six meters of ribbon.

Yesterday I had to park the Bronco on the street. The garage entrance was blocked off by no less than three moving trucks. Although Mondays are Antonia’s days off, I went to the pet shop anyway because of how breathless the Frenchman was when leaving his message on my answering machine.

And not without reason. A Billy goat, two platypuses, a tube of Luna moths, five geoduck clams, a near-ready emu egg, 100 yabbies, ten kilos of straw, a bin of high-concentrate brackish water tabs, and his largest top-of-the-line incubator set me back Q115,250. We had a brief, heated argument over my request for a culture of tardigrades (he convinced himself that I was being ludicrous) but when I presented my down payment in Omani rials, he found his calm and promised to look into it.

Today I’m back for an assortment of flora, the ecotanks, the beehive, and the octopus. The Frenchman has been talking about the octopus for a week, and this morning it finally arrived. Two men in navy windbreakers with the word CARABINIERI emblazoned across their backs pause traffic with stern looks so that I can maneuver the Bronco and hitched trailer into the spot by the pet shop entrance reserved for loading and unloading.

No longer content to be left at home each and every time I pursue new investments for my menagerie, Electra touches down on my shoulder, tucks in her wings, and claws a sharp grip of my tweed.

I pull the edges of my bowtie. Are the sunflowers too much? I ask.

Raat! Something with panache.

You got that right, sister.

This time, and to my delight, as soon as I enter the pet shop’s sliding glass doors, Antonia is right there to greet me.

She is dressed all in white. And smiling proudly as her eyes curtsy.

Hola, Raymundo.

Electra makes the sound of a cash register opening, softly enough for only me to hear.

I hold the bouquet at arm’s length. I say, I got these for you. I hope you like them.

Her chin drops, her mouth opens, her eyelids tighten. She accepts my gift as one would an ivory carving.

Estas flores son tan hermosas. Siempre me recuerdan a mi madre.

Electra whispers in my ear, Tell her tell her tell her.

She sighs. ¿Cómo sabías que los girasoles son mis favoritos?

Um, well, I didn’t. But they suit you.

Me encantan estos. Y la cinta es tan lujosa.

I clasp my hands and say, I’m so glad you like them.

She dips her head and says:

Soap her fit.

Electra whistles and cries, Wowwwww.

I tell Antonia, I’m sorry: What did you just say?

She swallows and repeats, Soap her fit.

Electra mutters to my neck, You kiss your mother with that mouth?

I roll her words in my mind. Soap her fit. So perfect.

And days ago: Hop on iced hay.

Have a nice day.

Electra commands again, Tell her.

It’s funny you say their your mother’s favorite; I spoke to my mother on the phone just the other day.

Antonia hugs the bouquet to her chest.

Me imagino que tu madre es encantadora.

Well, I think that she is.

Antonia coyly beams.

Bueno, Raymundo, yo también tengo algo para ti.

Out of nowhere she hands me a book skillfully tied in a red bow.

Electra tells me softly, Go for the jugular. Now.

Perhaps you’d like to, maybe, I don’t know, come over sometime. To see the animals. And to read this book with me.

Eyed lake, tube, heady mulch.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 13

13.

 

Trust me when I tell you that it will not be long before I have myself a badelynge of ducks and a dopping of goosanders and a doading of sheldrakes and a clattering of choughs and a volery of birds and a rabble of gnats and a sounder of boar and a haras of horses and a mews of capons and a rhumba of rattlesnakes and a coffle of asses and a clat of worms and a sord of mallards and a bew of partridges and a cete of badgers and a chine of polecats and a sute of bloodhounds and a grist of bees and a kline of cows and a knab of toads and a sedge of cranes and a dray of squirrels and a flange of baboons and a shoal of herring and a peep of chickens.

But that won’t be all. Oh no, that won’t be all at all.

I’ll have a pod of dolphins and a knot of frogs and a chain of bobolinks and a string of ponies and a leash of greyhounds and a yoke of oxen and a charm of hummingbirds and a watch of nightingales and a passel of opossums and a kit of pigeons and a barrel of monkeys and a nest of scorpions and a bed of clams and a bike of hornets and a train of jackdaws and a raft of auks and a barren of mules and a cloud of grasshoppers and a hill of ruffs and a covey of grouse and a pit of snakes and a bury of rabbits and an array of hedgehogs and a venue of vultures.

To this I will add a herd of walruses and a flock of lice and a crowd of porpoises and a band of coyotes and a cast of falcons and a troop of gorillas and a pack of wolves and a horde of gerbils and a mob of kangaroos and a gang of elk and a drove of bullocks and a tribe of goats and a caravan of camels and a bazaar of guillemots.

One might think that would be enough, that that would do it, but I’ll also add to my menagerie a rafter of turkeys and a rookery of albatrosses and a battery of barracudas and an armory of aardvarks and a tower of giraffes and a colony of chinchillas and a coalition of cheetahs and a convocation of eagles and a parliament of owls and a congress of salamanders and a congregation of alligators and a bank of swans and a company of widgeons and a business of ferrets and a fleet of mudhens and an army of caterpillars and a flight of butterflies and a leap of leopards and a wing of plovers and a romp of otters and a run of salmon and a pace of donkeys and a trip of dotterels and a flick of hares and a fling of dunlins and a wisp of snipe and a bite of midges and a gulp of swallows and a plump of wildfowl and a gam of whales and a lap of cod and a quiver of cobras and a fever of stingrays and a bloat of hippopotamuses and a shiver of sharks and a labor of moles and a sleuth of bears and a bask of crocodiles and a wake of buzzards and an ooze of amoebas and a cluster of antelopes and a fry of eels and a boil of hawks and a steam of minnows and a bellowing of bullfinches and a screech of gulls and a cackle of hyenas and a storytelling of ravens.

To my mind, as I am envisioning it, it goes without saying that they will need a bouquet of pheasants and a hedge of herons and a bale of sea turtles and a husk of jackrabbits, along with, of course, a scurry of squirrels and a fling of sandpipers and a spring of teals and a hurtle of sheep and a hover of trout and a drift of pigs and a mustering of storks and a clutter of spiders and a prickle of porcupines and a dazzle of zebras.

After collecting all this fauna, and get them I most surely will, I’ll continue on with a lounge of lizards and a coterie of prairie dogs and a harem of seals and a host of sparrows and a tiding of magpies and a family of sardines and a party of jays and a culture of bacteria and a gaze of raccoons and a mess of iguanas and a bevy of roebucks and a rout of snails and a smack of jellyfish and a swarm of rats and a wreck of seabirds and an ambush of tigers and a siege of bitterns and a plague of locusts and a scourge of mosquitoes and a murder of crows and a pride of lions.

I’ll complete this gallery of living beings with an ascension of larks and a mutation of thrushes and a generation of vipers and a turn of turtles and a fall of woodcocks and a descent of woodpeckers and a flamboyance of flamingoes and a richness of martens and an ostentation of peacocks and a deceit of lapwings and a skulk of foxes and a cowardice of curs and a mischief of mice and a troubling of goldfish and a confusion of guinea fowl and an embarrassment of pandas and an intrusion of cockroaches and a nuisance of cats and an obstinancy of buffalo and a stubbornness of rhinoceroses and a shrewdness of apes and an implausibility of gnus and a clamor of rooks and a murmuration of starlings and a pandemonium of parrots and an exaltation of skylarks and a pitying of turtledoves and a wisdom of wombats and a memory of elephants.

I have even asked the Frenchman to somehow look into the possibility of finding a fit specimen, or perhaps even two, upon which to found myself a weyr of dragons.

 

The Founder Effect – no. 12

12.

 

Olufẹ ọmọ mi.

Hello, Mother.

Kini aanu o jẹ lati gbọ ọ.

It is a mercy to hear you, too, Mother.

Mo fẹran rẹ.

And I love you.

I switch the phone from one hand to the other. I turn around, pull out the chair, and sit.

Chimpy is behaving strangely. His beer is standing on the kitchen counter, his cigarette is burning itself up in an ashtray. Now it is as if he has regressed to a primordial state, a natural state. He is behaving like a chimpanzee. Like a real chimpanzee. In the wild. He is squatting on his haunches, the way he was when I saw him for the first time. When I am not looking at him, he is staring at me; when I do look at him, he averts his gaze, looks off to one side or the other, glances over one shoulder or the other, as if he were scanning for danger. He is showing me respect and being vigilant. Aware. Dare I say protective.

It is not every day that one speaks to their mother both again and for the first time in the same moment. My memories of her are rising and they are brimming with affection and nostalgia and yet these sentences know this past is only inward upon a surface. The way a mirror tricks the eye into believing its depth, the emergence of my mother and my memories of her are like an infinite density producing an infinite force of gravity. And because of the laws that rule this condition—because of the greatness of Mother’s energy, and counterintuitive to common sense—the reality is that this unmatchable power is one-dimensional. It affects everything and exists no place. It would be a living death to understand that she is not real.

Still perched on top of the grandfather clock, Electra’s voice plays a tune. A duet of a rattle and a thumb piano that I loved when I was a child. It is a song I know. A song I know how to play.

I can hear that she is dressed in white.

Njẹ aye nṣe itọju ọ daradara, ọmọ mi?

I answer, At this very moment, yes, Mother, the world is. I have made new friends.

Ṣe awọn ọrẹ titun rẹ ran ọ lọwọ?

Eve sits by my feet, nudges her snout under my elbow. I scratch her throat, fondle her velvety lobes. I respond, Yes, they have helped me a great deal, Mother.

Mo dun gan Mo le rẹrin. Ore kan jẹ ọrẹ nikan ti wọn ba ran ọ lọwọ.

I smile wider than I have in everweeks. I say, Your laugh is music to my ears.

Then, I add, I miss you so.

Mo ṣoro fun ọ nikan nigbati o ko ba si ninu okan mi, ati pe eyi ko jẹ.

I miss you only when you are not in my heart, and that is never. This is what I was afraid of. I was struck by fear of surrender.

I have also met someone, I say. Someone who has helped me so, yes, I consider her, too, a friend.

Ṣugbọn o jẹ ju ọrẹ kan lọ.

I think she just might be. I’ve only just met her. But there is no doubt she has inspired me and I feel an inexplicable urge to value her, praise her, maybe even adore her. Something has welled up in me, Mother, because of her.

Bawo ni o ṣe n wo ọ?

She looks at me as if she feels the same way.

Nigbana ni gbogbo nkan ni o nilo lati mọ. Mo nireti pe ife ni nitoripe o yẹ lati wa nifẹ.

Thank you, Mother.

Ti o ba jẹ otitọ gidi, ṣe daju pe ki o pa oju rẹ lati ri I.

Electra cannot resist the entry to comic relief. She sings, “Turn around, / Every now and then I get a little bit lonely / And you’re never comin’ round…”

Chimpy drums his chest, bares his fangs, directs a raspy, threatening grunt her way.

Electra mimics the scratch of a needle pulled off a record and draws silent.

Mother giggles and sighs. I smile again, looking at the floor. Eve’s tail wags.

Mother says, Awọn ọrẹ rẹ wa pẹlu rẹ. Bawo ni iyanu.

Yes, they are all here.

Emi kii yoo pa ọ mọ lọwọ wọn. Ṣugbọn emi o pe lẹẹkansi laipe.

 

I hang up the phone.

Chimpy abandons his sentry posture, his expression loosens. He stands. He walks right at me, upright, waddling on his feet.

I say, What is it? What’s the matter? Are you alri—

He slides his leathery hands into each of mine, both at once, as gently as if he were touching a bird’s egg, or a newborn baby.

I begin to ask, But, what, why—

He lets go of one and lifts the other. With both of his, he caresses my hand, staring intently at it, as if staring into it, running his fingertips over my palm, the backs of my knuckles, over my nails, tracing the paths of my bones, seeing if the skin is real, inspecting. He turns my hand, his focus not wavering, taking it in, processing the information, imprinting not his brain but his mind. He is imprinting through his mind, through his self, into his heart. He does not let go as he turns his face away, a moment of that guardian instinct returning. He lets go and takes my other hand. He does the same to it, holding it like a dove with a broken wing, ready to look at it now, studying it, his face possessed with posterity.

We lock eyes.

I see his amber irises are set in pools.

He blinks. One after the other, two streams of tears roll down his cheeks.

His chest swells with a deep breath. He lets go of me.

He signs, If you spoke my language, yours would be the most beautiful voice in the world.