Still Life with Woodpecker Read Free Page A

house. They were having a victory party. He said he’d drop by the hospital the next day, but he must have lost the address.
    When her identity was learned, the Princess was moved to a private room. She was given the best sedative in the house. Château du Phenobarbital 1979. Asleep at last, she dreamed of the fetus. In her dream, the fetus went toddling off down some awkward dirt road like Charlie Chaplin at the end of a silent movie.
    By Tuesday, she was physically recovered to the degree that she could return to campus, where she learned that her status as the only genuine princess west of New York was insufficient to deflect the moral indignation of the committee on cheerleaders. Asked to resign from the yell squad, she resigned from classes, as well. She also resigned from men, but rather late to appease the King and Queen.
    Max’s heart was rattling like a full set of dishes when he told Leigh-Cheri that she must shape up or ship out. “We’ve been liberal with you,” said Max, “because, well, after all, this is America….” Max neglected to point out that it was also the last quarter of the twentieth century, but that, no doubt, was self-evident.
    “Adolf Hitler vas a wegetarian,” Queen Tilli reminded Leigh-Cheri for the three-hundredth time. Tilli was attempting to discourage her daughter from joining a natural foods commune in Hawaii, an option that appeared to be open to her if she elected to relinquish royal privilege. In turn, Leigh-Cheri might have reminded the Queen that Hitler ate two pounds of chocolate a day, but she’d grown weary of that dietary debate. Besides, she’d decided to protect her claim on royal privilege, even though it meant subjecting herself to tighter social restrictions.
    “You goan be a gut girl, then?”
    “Yes, mother.”
    “If we deal you a new hand, will you play by the rules?”
    “Yes, father.”
    They observed her as she turned to go upstairs. They observed her as if it were the first time they’d really looked at her in years. Despite her pale color and the un-happiness that clung to her the way a bad dream clings to a rumpled pillowcase, she was lovely. Her hair, as straight and red as ironed ketchup, rode gravity’s one-way ticket all the way to her waist; her blue eyes were as soft and moist as
huevos rancheros
, and the long curl of their lashes caused fimbrillate shadows to fall on the swell of her cheeks. She was not tall, yet the legs that hung out of her skirt seemed a tall woman’s legs, and beneath her No-Nukes-Is-Good-Nukes T-shirt, her astonishingly round breasts jiggled ever so slightly, like balls balanced on the noses of Valium-eating seals.
    Tilli stroked her Chihuahua. Max’s heart made a sound like the sleigh bells on Mrs. Santa Claus’s dildo.

12
    NEOTENY. NEOTENY. NEOT —Oh how the Remington SL3 enjoys that word! Unrestrained, it would fill the page with neotenyneotenyneotenyneoteny. Of course, it bothers the Remington SL3 not a comma’s worth that very few readers know what the word means. Given an opportunity to write it again, however, the machine would be inclined toward definition.
    “Neoteny” is “remaining young,” and it may be ironic that it is so little known, because human evolution has been dominated by it. Humans have evolved to their relatively high state by retaining the immature characteristics of their ancestors. Humans are the most advanced of mammals—although a case could be made for the dolphins—because they seldom grow up. Behavioral traits such as curiosity about the world, flexibility of response, and playfulnessare common to practically all young mammals but are usually rapidly lost with the onset of maturity in all but humans. Humanity has advanced, when it has advanced, not because it has been sober, responsible, and cautious, but because it has been playful, rebellious, and immature.
    One needn’t feel excessively ignorant if one was unfamiliar with neoteny. There have been queens and kings and