Among the more depressing events of 1990 was the re-election to the U.S. Senate of Jesse Helms, the man who convinced Congress to place constraints on grants bestowed by the National Endowment for the Arts. For a brief but frightening interval, the NEA's beneficiaries had to sign the aesthetic equivalent of a loyalty oath, promising not to celebrate sexuality, irreverence, or any other enterprise that makes Jesse Helms nervous—promising, in other words, not to use their arts grants to make art.
One of the many nice things I would like to say about "The Coon Rolled Down and Ruptured His Larinks, A Squeezed Novel by Mr. Skunk"—beyond calling it a wonderfully earthly and demented postapocalypse fable that suggests a collaboration between William S. Burroughs, James Joyce, and Aesop—is that Jesse Helms would never award it an NEA grant. One of the many nice things I would like to say about its politically ardent young author is that, based on my talks with him at SF conventions, I suspect he would never accept any patronage with strings attached.
A visit to the paperback racks reveals that Dafydd ab Hugh is the
author of Heroing, which concerns, in his words, "quests and
schizophrenics," as well as Warrionvards, whose theme, he
insists, is "the joy of slavery." His newest science-fantasy, Dux
Bellorum, is "an Arthurian romantic realistic psychedelic
conspiracy novel" that has been dubbed 'Freemasons in Camelot' by
certain more excitable members of polite society. As for "Coon"
itself, ab Hugh explains that it is "autobiographical but not literal,"
thereby putting to rest the rumor that he is a small, furry,
black-and-white mammal.
I heard the story from an old Coon at first sitting at my favorite place on the hardground just outside the bowl alley on venture path. Then later he and I played chase and bounce with a ball and bounded it on venture path. But the story kept running around and around inside my ears like it was casting for a scent so I just had to find out more about it.
So I and the Boy Nik Nok and Disha the Dog and Hanki and Yanki the Cats sat in a circle and I told them each and all about the Hidden Den and the Coon who could not talk.
He lived under the jerryfams next to the bowl alley. He told me by whispers that he had ruptured his larinks. That is his throat where he talks, Disha the Dog said (she is very smart, smarter than me and the others especially Hanki and Yanki). Then the Coon acted out the whole story standing on his back legs to mean human being, staggering to tell me he meant stupid and looking back east so I would know he meant stupid like the fourlegs were before Democrazy.
I put what the Coon said in words as best I could and this, was it:
Across the city and too far for a chase there are humans like before Democrazy and they are all sealed up in a den where no air can go in and out, and the Winds of Law have not blown either.
Inside the den the fourlegs are all stupid like before Democrazy too, and they have to work for the humans and cannot think and have no Inalienable Progrets.
Nobody knew what to say after I finished my story. Disha and Nik Nok always ignore me for they see no real difference between a Skunk and a Cat, except for the white stripe and the odie Skunk of course.
But even I knew something had to be done, so I said, "if we love
Democrazy then something has to be done."
"Well if you love Democrazy and the Winds of Law that made us all Equal then what are we going to do about that den, where there is no Progrets and no Law?"
I was afraid to answer for I knew what the only answer could be and I was only a Skunk!
But I knew I had no choice and neither did Disha and neither even did Nik Nok. He was not of the old Men, the ones who exploded the less fortunate and took advantages. He believed in Democrazy. I had seen him cover his face in the Cord House.
I looked up at Disha and, "this is what we will do about that den" said I, "journey all the way across the city and bring Democrazy and the Will of Progrets to this den of unequity."
Disha squatted and made water on the whitestone trail beside my favorite old den.
"Do you really want to take the trip when you might find the Overizon instead?"
Now I thought for a long time before I answered her. Was there even Democrazy and Equality beyond the venture path? I did not know even though I always thought Progrets had spread it everywhere. But after hearing the old Coon's tale I wondered.
"These humans are trying to stop the spread of Democrazy that Progrets started when it loosed the bug that rode the Winds of Law and did us all." I said and I thought I had said a mouthful.
"But will you go?" she asked like Fiday the teacher coaxing the
right
answer.
I thought quietly, not looking at her. I do not know what made me ask "who will come with me if I go" but it slipped out.
She waited too long and I knew she was afraid too, then she said "if you go I at least will come with you. You must ask the others for yourself."
We gathered the group again and told them what we were going to do to save Democrazy.
The old Coon had said only one thing more to me, in the whisper again for he could not convoy this by gestures. He whispered that this Hidden Den was across the city of angels at the foot of the other mountains, where the underbuild had fallen in.
As soon as Hanki and Yanki heard this, they said there would be wild things along the way, and then they high tailed it out of there as Cats will, for Cats are hardly smarter than before there was Progrets. Only I and Disha and Nik Nok the Boy stayed.
Is Disha going to go" asked Nik Nok in a strange voice. "Yes" she said for she had already said she at least would go with me. "Then surely I shall go too" he said.
Disha tilted her head as she looked at him. A gleam in her eyes frightened me, being somehow wrong.
"Then there are three of us" she said, and "when shall we start?"
"Let us wait" said I, "let us wait until the shadows are longer. I
bow to the Will of Progrets but I hear there is no Democrazy under a
hot sun."
All too soon the shadows grew, and the hot Santa's Anus blew from the nightside and we had to set out.
We chased the scents between the fallen walls and square builds sometimes running and sometimes walking when old Disha got tired but all the while making way toward the other mountains.
Nik Nok never seemed to tire as Boys will not, but he stayed very near Disha even when she had to rest.
Soon all the smells were strange to me and I could see nothing I knew, it was not the venture path or anywhere I had been before and I was an easy.
We ran by a fire once. I heard the boom boom boom inside the giant
den and I watched until the walls tired and fell in against each other,
such is Progrets.
All at once as the sun rose in the sky like a big burn, Disha stopped and I almost ran into her.
She perked her ears up and snuffled her nose toward the sun but I could not smell anything yet and there was nothing to see but a hill of metal trash and rotwood. "Come on Nik Nok" she said and started to climb through a notch in the hill.
No one called to me, but I followed anyway for I was not about to get left alone in a strange place.
Then I smelled it too, it was a dead Dog in the bottom of the hill, named Duk Duk. I had played chase and bounce with him not long before.
He was dead and he smelled of junk to me.
Disha and Nik Nok stood together at the top of the hill and I could see the Boy did not really understand death yet, for he called out to Duk Duk. Then I smelled his fear as he began to understand.
Disha must have smelled it too for she moved over to put her head against his thigh.
"Do not be afraid Nik Nok" she said "for I will protect you."
"It is not Junkyard Dogs and falling walls that scare me" he said "but I had a funny feeling in my stomach just now. Something bad is going to come of this extra diction. I have never been away from the bowl alley and venture path before."
Disha muzzled his ear softly and licked it.
"Nik Nok you are still too young to fight wars. You go home and I will be back to play with you very soon."
He put his arms around her neck and "I cannot let you do it alone" he said. "And I am not too young for I became a man a season ago, at night in a dream."
I shivered and looked back at Duk Duk. There were things on him. Every so often his fur would rup and flutter like he itched but it was only the bugs and burrowers who had gotten under his skin. His eyes watched me like they knew something and said "watch us well Skunk, you will come to this in no time yourself!"
Nik Nok and Disha held each other for a little bit, and they ignored
me. But I watched them with bright Skunk eyes. I began to know in words
what was happening between them. It was not Democrazy, Democrazy was
what lay in the ditch with Duk Duk.
About this time I prickled like we were being watched. I looked around but nothing and I decided I was jumpy being so far from the venture path. I said nothing but "please you two let us go."
We walked for a long time until it was full, comfortable dark and cold in the moon.
At last Disha decided we should stop for the night, but it was more for Nik Nok I think than for me. "We are far away from bowl alley and there are marauders here" she said. I saw a hole across the hardground beneath writing words and I told her. "It says exon" she said.
Disha investigated the hole first because she was the leader. It
smelled like Rats and burn-juice. She had me ask them if it was alright
if we stayed there for a mome, and they said they would ask their king.
We left them to deleminate and stalked out like mighty hunters in search of food. I still had that same watchy feeling but I was too unsure to tell Disha yet.
I let them in front and stayed behind as quiet as I could. Disha scented the air and cast about for something edible and catchable. We were away from the bowl alley so I knew anyone we caught we could eat (except not a Dog or a Boy or a Skunk of course).
Nik Nok saw something before Disha smelled it, a flash of white on top of a wall on the other side of the hardground and we began to stalk.
We sneaked from build to fall keeping to shadows and picking up our feet so as not to scuff.
Disha slunk forward and Nik Nok clung to the black fur on her back. But he watched her not the prey, even I could see that. He watched her hard muscles flex and stretch beneath her sleek fur and watched her slink lower and lower to the ground invisible in the dark as the Winds of Law.
I listened. Skunks can listen well. I heard Nick Nok's breath catch in his throat as he felt her body beneath his hand. I smelled the same smell I make when the lady Skunks come into season.
When we got across the hardground "split to the left and drive it towards me" Disha snuffled to Nik Nok. I crept away from them both and poked my head around the corner.
It was a Cat fat and lazy licking himself, full and stuffed and paying no tensions to Progrets and the bitter world.
Clever Nik Nok reached into his bag and found our best ball, took aim and beaned the Cat right where it counts.
At first he flew into the air and screamed out "oh shit" then he began to run for his life with Nik Nok pounding after and me behind them as fast as four Skunk legs could carry me.
"Help! Do not eat me!" the Cat added for good measure but he did not turn around to see if we were agreeable to this suggestion.
We chased him along the wall jumping over the stones and falls for he was fleeing for his very life. He tried to jump up a telephone tree but Nik Nok jumped up after him and he could climbor as well as the Cat and he jumped down again and ran down an alley for he was fleeing for his very life. Nik Nok disappeared after him and at once I heard a snarl and a Cat scream. When I poked an eye around the corner I saw Disha had the Cat cornered against the whitestone at the other end.
"Oh please please do not eat me!" the Cat cried in terror as Disha padded closer. I smelled the water of his fear and saw his eyes wide and wet and almost I asked Disha to seize and desist, for Cats are nearly Skunks. But then I reminated I was hungry.
"Why not eat you" she asked "you are an inferior being, to wit a Cat. Cats are made to be eaten."
"But I have a wife" argued the Cat "and she will have no one to provide for her if I am dead and eaten."
"Oh that is no problem just bring her here, and I shall solve her problem too!" retorted Disha.
The Cat perked up at this suggestion which I would not have thought he would and suggested "very well, just let me go and I shall get her." It seemed a reasonable request except of course I doubted his sincerity in returning, for you can never trust a Cat.
"Not so fast Mr. Dinner" said Disha. "I would not have you tire yourself by walking all that way and all the way back. I think it is best if we avoid inconveniencing your wife and just eat you now."
Nik Nok and I had said nothing so far, for Disha was doing well on her own.
"But surely you do not want to deplete the food supply" said the Cat, thinking furiously which is very out of character for a Cat "you should eat the aged and the sick not Cats like me in their prime who can still sire kittens."
"But if we do not eat you then we will die and I too can still whelp pups and Nik Nok can now sire children, so he tells me."
"But you must further the cause of Progrets and kill only the Cats who have not become smart."
That would mean all of you" retorted Disha, thinking no doubt of Hanki and Yanki.
"But surely you are not against Democrazy are you?"
I worried because I reminated the looks that Disha and Nik Nok had given each other lately. But Disha just laughed all the time edging closer to the Cat. The Cat saw this and arched his back and hissed. He was fighting for his very life now.
"If you were stupid enough to get caught" debated Disha "then killing you is Progrets!"
"Yes it is eat or be eaten" said Nik Nok.
The Cat could see his situation was now desperate and he tried one last gambol.
"But you should not eat me for we are brothers, we fourlegs must all stick together in the city of the angels."
"So" said Disha with sudden anger "I shall eat you anyway because I am hungry, and that after all is the only real argument." Then she rushed forward and caught the Cat who in the end did not even try to escape for he knew he was a goner.
"Disha"asked Nik Nok, "why should we not eat our brothers?"
"Good kill" I said, but nobody heard me. Nik Nok gave Disha a hug that was not entirely innocent I think.
Nik Nok ran his hand gently over Disha's soft fur, and watched with Raccoon eyes as her hard muscles underneath flexed and stretched as she tore and tugged at the Cat, getting him open.
She chewed off a warm hindquarter, hesitated a moment and then laid it in Nik Nok's lap. "Here beautiful" she said "you take the first Cat cut."
He picked it up slowly, pulled the fur off and sunk his teeth in and tore off a juicy hunk.
I slunk back into the shadows for I realized I was not wanted at this particle mome. But I watched for we Skunks have very good eyes.
He chewed and held his hunk out to Disha, and she ate from the same piece. They looked into each other's eyes and Disha put her paw on Nik Nok's forearm and I heard the Boy panting like he was chasing something invisible.
I was frightened. I knew this was not Democrazy and that the Winds of Law would blow across us for this.
Fresh Cat has an effect, the meat is tangy without dipping it in the black specks and the blood sends a wild hair through the back of your jaw and makes you squint. This time it was dubbly so for the frightened Cat had pushed excitement through his whole body, I could smell it even from where I was. But they hungered for more than food even so.
The Cat blood dripped down Nik Nok's chin and he wiped it with his hand and held it out for Disha to lick. The kill smell was making even me excited, but I stayed in the shadows again for I love Progrets and Democrazy.
He ripped a piece of catsmeat off the leg and offered the next bite to Disha, and moved closer and closer to her. He dipped his finger in the blood and drew a line with it along Disha's head and down her nose.
She licked his finger as he let it trail over her lips and all at
once they did not even care about the Cat. They moved a little away and
I darted forward and caught a piece. But I watched as I ate and I
shivered wondering what the Winds of Law would feel like.
Disha began licking Nik Nok's throat and then his chest and his ling began to swell. I smelled the lady Dog smell. Nik Nok was shaking and gasping like he had run a race and Disha turned herself around and knelt her front legs down. "Gently" she said, "slowly do not rush it or you will hurt me."
"I do not know how" said Nik Nok and his voice was thick and white.
"Hold my tail up out of the way. I will tell you if you are doing something wrong." She suddenly caught her breath and held it.
"Does it feel good" she asked him.
"Like nothing I have ever felt and better even than when I used my hand before!" he told her.
"Wait wait" Disha said "it is too tight yet." But then she whined and snuffled and sounded very excited herself, and Nik Nok found the going easier. I hoped that they had forgotten I was watching them for I did not want to foul soot—either like the Cat, or even like Disha! For if you start out violenting Democrazy one time why not do anything you want then?
He held the fur on her side with one hand and the going was easier. His other hand kept stroking her tail and rubbing it against his bare belly.
"Does this feel like this always" he asked.
She sighed only "will of Democrazy."
I closed my eyes at the Blast Femmy and listened only. I was reminating when I had last had a lady, and it was long ago and usually I cannot reminate it, but the scent remimbered me. I lay quiet and listened to Disha and Nik Nok.
The Boy cried out suddenly, not even afraid of a Junkyard Dog hearing him but when afterward he started to pull out she said "do not dare stop! Keep going even if you are finished for I am not."
"But how" he asked "I am not hard anymore." I opened my eyes again because maybe the horror was almost over, and I wanted to see what it looked like when you violented Democrazy.
"Damn you just keep going I am almost there, you are hard enough." So of course he did. At last it happened to Disha too, but she did not cry out as he had. She went stiff all over and her tail stood straight up against his stomach.
He bent over to lay his body against her back and his head on hers and still stayed in her. He licked Disha's ears very gently.
"I have been with many other Dogs before" she said "and you are so
much better for you took much more care with me than they do. They are
all only interested in pleasuring themselves and something happens and
they get big and lumpy and cannot pull out. But that never stops them
from trying. They cannot do it slow and gentle like you do." Nik Nok
said nothing but he did not look as happy as he might, for perhaps he
saw to the future then.
"And there is more about you" she added "but I cannot say what it is, the thought of you is like gas that has floated up to my heart and is pushing everything else aside and nearly bursting out my chest.
They held each other as mates. I think they had forgotten all about me and Progrets and the Hidden Den.
"Let us stay here forever Disha" said Nik Nok, "we can do it again as soon as—"
But Disha got a junk look on her face, and she looked at me and I almost turned and ran even though she is my friend. She is still a Dog and I only a Skunk, and she is more equal.
I tried to talk but I was too afraid.
"I know that you saw but you cannot talk about what you have just seen" snarled Disha, and all I could do was shake my head. They had violented Democrazy and I was afraid.
Now Nik Nok looked frightened, for he had not thought about the Winds of Law before he foolishly fell in love.
"But why not? Do we not love each the other?"
"Love" sneered Disha, "what does love have to do with the Will of Democrazy? We are cranimals now, for all of our friends on venture path cannot stand the thought of what we have done and it is eat or be eaten. So if this Skunk talks we shall be goners you and I."
I curled up in a ball shaking, meaning I would not say anything and betray my friends to Democrazy and thus I too became victim to the Winds of Law, as you will see at the novel ending.
"Let us stay" said Nik Nok, "and never return to face the bath of Democrazy."
"No beautiful" said Disha to Nik Nok, "for we must eat and go back to today's den. We set out again when the sun sinks. Have you forgotten our quest?"
With a wasteful look he looked down at himself. He had fallen out of her. His ling was still wet from inside Disha and he wiped it with his hand and rubbed some on his nose so he could smell her all the way back.
That is how I found out about love in the streets.
When we got back King Rat said it was all right to stay if we gave him some Cat, which we did and then he let us stay the day inside the exon.
It was hot but even so all three of us huddled next to each other. We needed each other's solstice.
So it was that I jumped in fear when I suddenly heard a junk howl from outside, across the hardground and the paths and the metal autobiles that we were going to cross the next day, even towards the other mountains.
The scream scraped like a falling wall and rumbled like a thunderbum "damn all of you die horrible!" it said, and then "it is not the Junkyard Dogs what we learned to mean to me!"
It was junk, through and through and I wondered if he would try to break into the exon and get us. It was death and dismembrane. It was howls and horrors, junk city, junk waffle, Junkyard Dog!
Soon his howls came closer, and he said things that did not mean anything but fear and death except maybe to another junk: "anyone we caught we could eat once—kill them! Do not let them—I tore all living creatures in piece!"
In between these cries I heard him run around and around the exon moaning like a cub with stomach rot and coughing like a redstone mountain falling down in an earthshake, and even that made me afraid and by the way they shivered I knew Disha and Nik Nok were too. You never know what these Junkyard Dogs will do for they are mad and do not drink water and if they bite you you become junk yourself.
We heard each curly nailed paw tickity-tickity scrabbing the hardground, round and round and round until it was as if brats were throwing stones, bounding chinks of redstone in a circle to pen us inside.
Then "I held onto the fur on hunks of metal!" he suddenly hissed from right beneath our windrow!
We got up as quiet as we could and crouched by the door because he might smell us and try to get in at us. I had even heard of a Junkyard Dog leaping straight through a glass windrow! for after all they cannot feel pain, being junk anyway and outside Democrazy.
Something tugged at my mind about some of the things he said. Then, when he sang like a jay from just underneath the windrow "not so fast, Mr. Dinner!" I knew what I reminated.
The junk things he said were our own words turned, like a poison snake into something other, frightful.
The junk had been stalking us and listening the whole time. My watchy feeling had been true.
We listened hard and tried to track him as he trotted around and around crazily, but the Winds of Law and the Santa's Anus kept howling too and knocking things over so it was hard to tell which was which.
There was too much to see in the exon. There were tables and broken windrows and spilled blackoil, and three very frightened Dogs Boys and Skunks slunking around trying to watch and listen at each and every windrow.
We strained and looked but he never stepped out and showed himself. Of course we imagined he was everywhere and sometimes it even seemed he was here in the exon with us, but it always turned out to be just one of the three of us knocking something over.
Then a thump on the roof and "my favorite place, the hardgrover moon!" he croaked from above.
We all fell to silence and held our collectivist breaths.
I for one could hear the junk panting and wheezing on the roof. Slowly he walked to one side, tickity-tickity. Slowly he walked back, scritchity-scritchity, tickity—and stopped.
"I know you" he whispered, so clear we could hear the hair stand on our backs. "Anyone we caught we could eat once" he added, so quiet we could hear pieces and drips of junk spatter on the metal roof.
Then with a terrible creak like the roof caving in and dropping him there among us, he leaped and was gone. There was a frightful bulge, left there in the roof right in the middle of the den.
I do not know how long we stayed up and shivered but we never heard
anything more from him that day.
That night we made good time towards the other mountains and climbored over many crickley hills of autobiles and metals. We were so tired that after we found a dead Rat and ate lunch we were too beat to even play chase and bounce with our other ball, and we plodded again as soon as we had swallowed our food.
I kept listening hard for the Junkyard Dog but either he had decided to let us alone which I doubted or he was very, very good at stalking.
I was afraid it was the latter. None of us heard anything we could say was surely him but many a scrape and click that could have been his flank against a wall, and could have been his claws on top an unbroken piece of hardground but could have been anything else either.
My feeling was stronger than ever. We were all an easy but could not sit around worrying about a Junkyard Dog so we tried to ignore him and run on.
I knew that Disha and Nik Nok wanted to be alone so I kept my distance. I listened though, for a Skunk has good ears. Mostly I listened for the Junkyard Dog but I heard every word that Disha said to Nik Nok, or vice verses.
Disha said that even though everybody is all for Democrazy nobody agrees what it is, so we hide what we think for fear we will be too different and become company dinner, and this is Custom. Even back before there was Law to enforce the will of Democrazy there was Custom, and Custom is stronger even than Law.
I kept hoping they would both see the light and allow Custom and Progrets to get in the way of cranimal love.
Custom says we can eat only what we can eat and that we cannot love anybody who is too different. If you break Custom, it is company dinner for you, boy, just like happened to Taggo. But his violentation provided us with a lovely feast, so you see what goes around comes around and Progrets is always satisfied. This is some of what the two of them said, Disha and Nik Nok:
"What love can this be" he said "when we can never be together with friends, and cannot make children?"
But she said "I have made many pups already and the last thing I need now is more when I cannot always feed what I have."
He said "but does this love violent Democrazy? What will happen to us?"
She said "sometimes two people that can touch each other are more important then the Custom of Democrazy, for love itself is Progrets and even Democrazy must obey."
She said "before the plague that did us all there was hardly any love. Love can only live between equals. Back then everyone was either lesser or greater than everyone else so how could there be true love? Now there is perfect equality and Democrazy and we can finally love."
But as Disha said this last I thought I heard the ghost of a sour chasm, for she knew as well as did I what Democrazy would think of her love for Nik Nok.
He said "what is love really?" I thought Disha would answer because she is wise and a Dog but she just walked on, thinking.
At last I could not keep my silence, and I answered for her what my mother had heard from a Zoocamel long ago:
I said "love is knowing each other like worms know the dead."
Disha stopped. "That is pretty good for a Skunk" she admitted and said "this cannot happen when one is more than the other, because how can the lesser know the greater? And how can the greater respect one who is less than she?"
Nik Nok asked "is this how it was before the plague that did us all?"
"In the days before the plague" she said "the Dogs could not talk or even think, and neither could the other animals. This I know, this I know. Men were all that were intelly and they were even more intelly than the Dogs and Men are now. They set about to make some of the fourlegs intelly too."
"Some say" she said "they only wanted servants and they could not use each other as they always had because of Servile Rights, but I have always admired the early Men and I prefer to think they truly believed we should all be crated equally. This I know, this I know."
"In any case" she said "they did it, and they did it by crating an unnatural plague that would do us, Dogs and Cats and other mamuals. This I know, this I know."
"I am not sure what a plague is" asked Nik Nok, and I listened hard for I had never understood that explanation either as often as Disha had shown this tail.
"A plague is a little bug that crawls into every bump and hole in your body" she admitted. "Whenever you get sick that is caused by these bugs, and that is a plague.
"Anyway, they deliberately fected some of us Dogs with this plague and then sat back on their haunches to see what would develop. This I know, this I know."
"And this is where Progrets and Democrazy came from" whispered the Boy out of rivulance.
"What developed" she smugged "is that one of these plague Dogs escaped. The men were not as smart as they thought and Fang the Savor got away with the plague bug still fecting him."
"This I know, this I know" said both I and Nik Nok at once.
"The Dogs were first and then next the plague fected the Rats and the Skunks and the Coons and the Zoomals and everything else. The Cats were last for they were always so full of themselves licking their body that they kept licking the bugs right off until they wised up! And that is why Dogs are first and Cats are last and all others fall in between."
"This I know, this I know" we supplied for her.
I had forgotten all about the Junkyard Dog, so intent was I on Disha's tail.
"Ah but Men are a different story" she continued finally. "For the rest of us it was a climb up the hill for more intelly, but the Men had the easy route and came down the hill backwards. We met Democrazically in the middle, for the plague has finally made us all equal… the furries and birds and scales and frogs and even some of the fish are getting more intelly all of the time.
"Until at last today" she whispered "when I can love you truly as my grandmother could never love your grandfather. This I know, Nik Nok. This I know."
"What is the use of more intelly" asked Nik Nok angrily "if the Old Men did not have love? I am glad for this plague even if I am stupider than men were before! I am glad for our love, Disha."
She stopped and bit at a flea on her hind leg for a mome.
"Even" she snuffled "if you can no longer understand the things of Men?"
"Things?"
"The autobiles and the glass mountains, the redstone dens, the hardground, telephone trees, walls and builds and all? If you can no longer understand them?"
"Then" he said "they are not the things of men anymore" and there he
had her.
"These things of men are not any of them as warm and pretty and furry as you" said Nik Nok and I began to get an easy because here again was love against Democrazy.
"You will not always have me" Disha warned. "Dogs do not live as long as men do for that is something the plague did not change."
"I am here now" he said "and you too and what is tomorrow? Maybe I will die first if that Junkyard Dog is still shuddowing us."
I wondered which was worth more, love or Progrets and I could feel my tail raise in horror. Is wonder a crime against Democrazy?
Then all at once I heard a sound I must have been listening for all day and dreading, a rumbling cough like a redstone mountain falling down in an earthshake, a moaning like a cub with stomach rot and out of the shuddows of a heap of dead autobiles staggered the Junkyard Dog in the flesh, what was left of it!
All three of us froze in terror and I felt urine trickle down my leg. I also raised my tail and sprayed my wad but I doubted the Junkyard Dog would care about how he smelled as long as he got to bite us, all three!
He staggered forward stiff-legged and I thought, maybe he is already dead but does not know it yet.
In little sharp words he said "you might think my sex will eat me… and the part of her I was in squeezed Democrazy."
"Go away" Disha said with tried authority, but "I am who I have been and can eat once anybody I have caught" answered the Junkyard Dog.
"Go away!" I whimpered for I cold not find my voice. I felt like the silent Coon.
"If you were stupid enough you is Progrets" said he.
And with that he lunged at us and we three broke in all four directions and I ran up a wall of dead autobiles before I even knew it was blocking. Then I looked back and saw Disha. She had frozen in fear and could not move and she stood nose to nose with the Junkyard Dog who was dripping white at the mouth. I do not know why she did not run or why he had not bitten her yet. I shivered in fear.
But then I heard a cranky squeak and Nik Nok rose from the build he had hidden behind. He found his voice and charged the Junkyard Dog screaming like a Commonest.
It broke the spell. Disha unfroze and bolted away but oddly the Junkyard Dog did not charge the Boy and tear him to shreds like I thought, he turned instead and with a deaf move slashed Disha as she ran by. She screamed and skittered away but I could see the blood flowing from her hind leg. The junk ran in circles three times laughing like a falling pile of autobiles.
Disha shook, tail between her legs. Nik Nok only stared, his face the color of my stripe. We all knew what would happen to her now. "Well if I am already bit" said she sounding strange and quiet and queerly calm "then you can no longer frighten me, Junk. This I know, this I know." And she leapt upon him as if she were junk herself and they fought tearing and biting and the Junkyard Dog had the worst of it for Disha tore off his ear and opened up his throat.
He fell to his knees and still had mind enough to submit but he was a goner anyway. My throat lumped, because I knew Disha was a goner too. Worse, she would finally be like him and might even bite me then too or Nik Nok. I knew she would never allow that to happen, but there was only one thing that could stop it and that was the Duk Duk path.
The Junk fell over on his side and now blood was flowing out of his throat in spurts so I knew Disha had struck paydirt. But just for a moment his eyes seemed to clear a little and he raised his head with a big strain and said "that hurt. You are bigger than I suggested. Knelt—knelt her front legs into the pocket of my clothes."
Then "the truck is the key. Hold my tail up out of conveniencing my wife and putting it in. If machines make the wall only machines can onetwothree-one. Against the will of Del so wet."
His voice became weaker and he whispered "keep going even if you are finished, then we will, die. At first, even I could, at first, both our hearts, need meat. Even I, the rules must roll, even I, could hear my life, with me, pounding after.
"Cats" he croaked "are made just outside the bowl. But the truck is the key, you must understand. I smell onions."
Then all at once he pulled himself up as if he had not even been
mauled, he looked at us and shrugged and explained "anyone we
caught we could eat once." Then he settled back with a sigh and moved
no more, for he was gone.
We watched him for a long time to make sure he would not pop back up again and say something or maybe bite someone else but he was permanently dead. We moved on without spirit.
We found a den-hole among the dead autobiles that was empty after we chased out a scrawny Cat. Nik Nok made a halfheart grab and missed but we did not miss it, none of us was hungry anyway. I was still full from the night before, and the way Disha looked I did not even ask her if she wanted the Cat so he got lucky that night. After we settled in I shrunked farther back in the pile so Disha and her love could be alone together.
She was quiet as though submitting but the way she held her head seemed more like quiet domination. She knew she was horribly dead because the Junkyard Dog drew blood.
"Nik Nok" she said "you know we have only a little time left together now. Let us not waste it."
Skunks have very good eyes.
They violented Democrazy again in the day-heat, but this time it was gentle and slow like the black river instead of laughing and plunging like a waterfoul. She licked his belly very lightly and he breathed into her ear and stroked the underside of her tail and when he went inside her she coughed in surprise that it was so smooth and easy. Once he forgot and grabbed her wounded and stiffening leg to pull himself in deeper and she jerked away, but she never made a sound except right at the very end when she moaned just a little. This time she finished before he did but she was true to her word and kept on until he was done.
Afterward they lay together and talked without words while Nik Nok picked fleas out of her fur. They slept face to face even though she being a Dog was not exactly built for it.
Now that I knew what Nik Nok would soon lose I found I no longer cared about Custom and let Democrazy be hanged. Love is Progrets. Strange creatures fluttered in my stomach.
As the sun set we rose. When the air became stullen, and we resumed
our journey I began to wish Nik Nok had nabbed the cat aiterall. The
stullen air was even browner than yestereve and blood red with the
setting sun so it would be hard to main train a course for the other
mountains across the city of angels. Disha said we
would be there by the dawn's oily light, and could the underbuild be
far away then?
Well we were not at the mountains by sun-up but we kept at our quest even through the daylight for we were tired, and wanted it all over. We saw no more Junkyard Dogs but my funny-watchy feeling continued, and I felt like everyone we saw was Junk in some way or another.
Finally through the cracked and fallen builds, Disha spied the arch with the folded arms that reprehented an underbuild. "We shall enter sex the line here" said she "and follow it along towards the sea that swallows the sun. Soon we shall find the fallen underbuild and thence the hidden den."
So down we went and into the stingy in blackness.
It swallowed us both and three but I felt no comfort, for this was
not a den nor a hidey-hole but a build—a build of men and it reeked of
them and their Undemocrazy. In some places I found a cold metal road
and ran along it for a way, but the ticking of my claws against the
hardmetal sent shivers through us all and Disha asked me to walk on the
grabble to the side. I was happy to oblige for to tell the truth, I did
not like the sound either and even Nik Nok cast his eyes down and grew
silent at the echoes. We walked for a passing in silence but I cannot
say how long for there are no momes in the dark.
The journey through the wendless tunnel passed an easily, for even the Santa's Anus and the Winds of Law could not brush us down there. At last we began to see cracks of light in the overhead, and then whole pocks of hardground and finally we discovered the Great Buildfall that the Coon had reminated. We climbored out of the underbuild into bright and treacherous sunlight, and saw stretched down below us the last defense against Democrazy.
It was a build squat like a stone spider and it was all gleaming, while the other builds around it were broken and dulled. There were men in strange clothing outside: they wore thick brown clothes that covered them completely and round hats that surrounded their heads and they looked out of glass windrows in their hats. I did not need for Disha to tell me that the clothes were meant to keep out Progrets but she did anyway. When I objected she said that she had only been telling Nik Nok.
We watched them for a long time. When they went inside two big doors opened for them, but they opened into a little room that did not seem worth the efforts.
"So how do we get Progrets beyond those doors" Disha asked.
"Maybe we can knock a hole through them" asked Nik Nok, but Disha injected. "We might be able to dig our way through one door if we were quick enough, but long before we got through the other door those men would do us. But maybe there is only one wall, perhaps we should consecrate on that."
We crept forward and studied the build some more.
"Nik Nok" said Disha "if these humans have never been fected by Progrets, that means these walls have stood for many seasons. They must be very strong walls indeed for there have been earthshakes and many storms."
I tried watching the men (or were they women? I could not tell inside their clothing). I began to have a glimmering in my mind like moonlight on the water.
Something the Junkyard Dog said kept buzzing to be reminated, but I could not pull it out and look at it.
The den was in a deep canyon from our vintage point with a long path of mostly straight unbroken hardground leading down towards it. It was to this path that my eyes looked. It had something to do with the important thing the Junkyard Dog said that I could not reminate. Oh how I wished I were a Dog or a Man, that could reminate everything!
"Let us explore the path" I asked "and see if we can find anything." Since neither Disha nor Nik Nok had a better suggestion we turned about and began walking back along the hardground away from the hidden den.
I looked at everything we passed trying to reminate what I knew was
in my mind. I reminated, that the Junkyard Dog in between all his
gibbers had said something that would help us now.
I looked at an arco and a hydrant and a lot of square builds and a store but none of them joggled my memory.
And then I saw the autobile truck and at once the thought leapt back into my mind.
"I reminate!" I cried "the truck is the key said the Junkyard Dog!"
Disha looked at the truck and then at me, saying "that is what I am now, a Junkyard Dog." At once I regretted my hasty words but "you are right, I reminate him saying that too" she added.
"But what could he know about today" I asked "for you killed him yesterday."
"To the junk" she said "there is no yesterday or tomorrow, it sees backward and forward in days the way we see left and right along venture path. But what does that mean, the truck is the key?"
It was the biggest autobile truck I had ever seen. Even Nik Nok could not reach its top and it had more wheels than there are numbers in the city of angels. It was stopped along the edge of the hardground and was covered with foul-smelling rust.
For a long time we all three stared at the truck trying to figure out how it was the key. Then Nik Nok whispered "if machines make the wall then maybe machines can…"
"Can what" I asked.
"That was something else he said" said the Boy. "Only machines can what, break the wall?"
"If we could get the truck rolling down the hardground" Disha said thinking loud "maybe it would roll fast enough that it could smash through the wall and into the Den."
Nik Nok looked at the autobile for a long time.
"It is a very big truck" he said at last.
"But how do we get it rolling" I asked.
"And more important" asked Nik Nok "once we do how do we make sure it stays on the hardground and does not hit a tree and stop?"
"That wheel in front of the chair makes it go left and right" answered Disha like a know-all "for I have spoken with Kanaka Tag the eldest and she told me of these autobiles."
"Well I think these men make the machine come alive" retorted Nik Nok "do you know how to bring it to life also?"
"We do not need to" Disha declammed though she did not sound too sure and I could tell she was only guessing "for if we can get it rolling then the hill will make it go fast enough."
I kept my mouth shut during this ax change, for I am only a Skunk. I listened well though for we Skunks have very good ears.
Nik Nok fumbled with the latch until he could get the metal open and we looked inside.
"What we must do" said Disha "is get it rolling and then one of us stays inside to turn the hoop-wheel and make the truck go left and right to stay on the hardground."
"But then what" asked Nik Nok, full of frights and astonishments "what will happen when it hits the Den? Will I be killed?"
Disha smiled. "Whichever one of us it is in the truck must jump clear before the crash my love." She touched his side gently with her graying muzzle, for she was not as young as she had been the season before.
The truck was not rolling so we decided something was blocking it. After we ran around for a few monies looking, Disha saw some pieces of wood under the wheels. We tried to pull them out, but even Nik Nok could not so he knocked them out finally with a rock. The truck ground and groaned but still did not roll. We climbored up to look, and there were lots of metal pulls.
"One of these must be what makes the truck stop and go" announced Disha, but I think she put on more show of know-all than she really had. Nik Nok began pulling and pushing on the pulls, and Disha was vindulated because when he pulled a partically hard one the truck screamed and began to roll slowly. It rolled down the hill warbling like a broken thunderbum.
Nik Nok was afraid even when it went so slow. Then it picked up speed and we all shivered.
I was so frightened I could not move and I feared I would not be able to jump out, when the time came being so frightened.
Disha had Nik Nok turn the hoop-wheel, for she did not have the strength in her jaws and it was almost too hard for him!
"Reminate my love" she cautioned "keep the door from latching for we must be ready to fly out at the very last mome."
Nik Nok touched her paw and looked into her eyes, "oh I love you so much" he said with a tear in his eye. I could not figure out why his eyes were wet. Was there dust in them?
The autobile truck got faster and faster and soon Nik Nok was barely able to keep it on the hardground and away from trees and builds. I began to be afraid and sick as if I had eaten wormroot when I looked to the side and saw the world whizzing past me faster than a sparrow flies, and almost would have jumped out right then except that I knew Disha would not let us be killed, especially not Nik Nok. She rested her muzzle against his ear, and I could barely hear her snuffle "you are precious to me too. Life is precious."
Then we roared around the last turn with Nik Nok straining to make the hoop-wheel turn so that the autobile truck would stay where it was supposed. We were heading right for the Den.
Some of the Men saw us coming and ran out waiving their hands and then tried to ride their own autobile into our path. They must have known what we were doing and were ready to give their lives to thwart the will of Democrazy, such was their fear of Progrets. But their autobile could not run fast enough and it only hit the back of the truck and did not even turn us. Just before we hit Disha snuffled "junk bonds, but love is stronger." Then "NOW!" she barked "JUMP NOW!"
Nik Nok pushed open the door and just before he jumped he grabbed me by the scruff and saved my life!
We were lucky we were on grass and not on hardground for we hit and hit hard. I rolled over and over the Boy and ended up on my back watching the truck plow into the Den.
I do not know if Disha ever had a chance. Just before the crash I saw her still in the truck, gripping the hoop with her mouth and keeping the truck aimed true.
Then I heard a thunderbum like I had never imagined and the whole
wall of the Last Old Den caved in like a buildfall in an earthshake.
We had opened the last remnant of yesterday to the clouds of
Progrets and the plague.
But Disha was dead.
I was still shaking from the fall I thought. I looked about unable to move, but I could not see Nik Nok and I was alone.
I saw the truck went much deeper into the Den than I imagined, it went right through three rooms.
Dust and smoke puffed on the Winds of Law around inside and in and out of the hole we had made and I knew that the bugs of Democrazy were drifting in too and would bear fruit.
Now all of us would be truly equal and the fourlegs would be liberated.
Then I saw Disha.
She had been thrown from the truck. She lay on the ground covered in blood.
Nik Nok held her broken lifeless body in his arms and tried to kiss her back to life, and the tears were streaming down his cheeks.
"What is this? What is this" he asked touching the salty water.
"I think that means you are a Man again" I said "for Democrazy has triumphed. Our brethren and sistern are free and equal now."
But a junk voice in my head, maybe Disha's ghost whispered "you cannot be both."
Disha pulled me into the Hidden Den, deeper and deeper than we had been even in the underbuild for it was a darkness of the heart not of the air and her ghost glowed like the moon.
I saw a Rat shivering and shaking and looking at me with wide eyes. "We have come to liberate you" I said to resure him, but he only made a scrittering sound and ran away.
I stopped in panic. What was that sound? What did he say?
Then a Dog came out and I called to him, for he was a brother of Disha and I wanted to tell him of her sacrifice and how he was free now.
"You are free Mr. Dog" I said, and "the free live free, you must go out into the city of angels now and learn the Will of Democrazy."
At first he snarled, but I knew he was only reacting to a strange Skunk. But when he heard my words he settled down and began to moan in pleasure at his newfound equality.
But then the moans turned into a whimper and he crawled on his belly to me. I backed up in consarnation for what was he, to wit a Dog doing playing subservant to a mere Skunk? Where was his equality before the Winds of Law?
Then I smelled his fear.
It ran unchecked down his leg and I could hear his heart racing like the truck that brought him Democrazy in the first place. He was terrified and did not understand.
"You would do well to buck up and be a Dog" I chastised "for this is Progrets and the Will of Democrazy!" I boldly approached to lead him out into the real world, but instead he barked… and it was not words he barked. It was a cough, a grunt and held no more meaning than fear and confusion.
He may have been a Dog, but he was still only an animal. He was no brother of Disha.
We turned and ran at the same time in opposite directions. Terror gripped me too, for I suddenly realized that I was in another land.
There was no Democrazy here today, no matter what the bugs may say tomorrow and I was more afraid than I had been of the Junkyard Dog.
A Man stood in my path. "Do not stop me" I announced "for I am Progrets!"
He screamed and staggered back against the wall of the Den covering his face. Another man heard me and tried to bean me with a stick crying "another one, kill him! Break his throat like the other!" and I did not need to ask to know that they meant the Coon. Now I knew how he had come to rupture his larinks. I ran like a Commonest.
At once the whole Den came alive against me, Men and Fourlegs and it
was I who was fleeing for my very life. I found the hole, I do not know
how. And then I was through. I did not stop running until I found the
fallen underbuild again, and there was Nik Nok. But Disha's body was
not with him and he would not tell me where it was.
I will not tell you of the journey back across the waste, to the venture path with Nik Nok carrying me under one arm. All I reminate is that the Dogs snarled fiercely and the builds rumbled and shook, but none of them could touch us for Disha trotted right beside us still, and her laugh echoed around us as we slept the day away.
By the night we returned the color finally crept back into Nik Nok's face, and he could smile though he vanished the next day and I never saw him again.
When I knew he had gone Overizon I felt a tear in my eye. I, the
last of our extra diction, learned to cry.
I have nothing left to say. I am getting old and soon I will be a feast myself if you can stand the smell.
I, a Skunk am the very last of us who is able to cry since Nik Nok left and Disha died. I see you do not even understand what it is, except perhaps dust in my eye or a thorn in my paw.
In the high build at the end of venture path is a tower with a bell at the top, but it is silent now for there are none with the will to ring it. Pigeons roost under the metal and I hear them call to each other through the long, hot days: "home! Fly home! Come home!"
They know nothing else to say, but it is a miracle that they can say even that, and I think that the plague is finally doing them as well. I think this means that soon we shall be equal to the pigeons too and only able to call each other home without even knowing where our home lies.
That is true Democrazy after all, and there is an end to love.
I will not be there to see, thank Democrazy.
Long reign Progrets! I bow to the Will, the Winds, and Inalienable Progrets!
I confess that sometimes I wonder: have we lost something urgent?
But I do not think wondering should be a crime against Democrazy.