Ladybird Chapter 4, Scene 4

The Rosewater government building, a squat diamond shape of concrete, was located on Westside Street in West Central Rosewater. Positively dreary, this beige monolith to the startling lack of creativity of modern-day architects unsurprisingly failed to inspire any sort of feeling in the average Rosewater citizen.

When polled, many citizens asked the poller if they really had a government building and if so where it was. They would have quite liked to have given the Mayor a piece of their minds and maybe Anthrax but for the past few years they’d been entirely stumped as to the old fart’s location. That’s how inconspicuous and boring the building was.

Forty-two percent of the citizens polled confessed to having believed that the building belonged to the Nubile Religious Male Sports group (NRMS, pronounced “Narms”). The remainder had better things to do than take a poll or became disinterested after the third question about whether President Shrub should strip citizenship from homosexuals.

Rosewater’s mayor was a man by the name of Rupert Turner, who owned practically everything in Rosewater thanks late 1880s stock market fraud committed by his ancestors and this was why he became the mayor. He was made mayor beginning in 1990, then lobbied to have the position re-drafted as “supreme chancellor” (all lower case letters, so humble was he) so he could run for it again, then changed it back to mayor. Mayor as a title evoked dignity – that was his argument.

Currently he was settling on “Supreme Vice-Roy” for the next redrafting, scheduled to be debated over pizza before inevitably being allowed in a week. Supreme Vice-Roy as a title also evoked dignity.

For the past 22 years, Mayor Turner had been taking care of Rosewater, a task that consistently made his cheeks and eyebrows sag, until the development of his recent look which made him seem like a rather odd species of canine. Rosewater was not a cheerful place to administrate.

Thankfully for Mayor Turner, he had his faith in Joseph Crost, as well as his underpaid intern secretary Hesper L. Eucus. Who, despite having a very strange name, was quite valued by Mayor Turner. Even if he might be some kind of filthy naturalized immigrant of some form. Like Mayor Turner’s ancestors.

* * *

Hesper returned home the day after the supposed government weapon test in the city to find the door to his apartment opened. It was only a small crack, but Hesper had seen the movies. He reached into his pocket and quickly drew out a pen. There was one thoroughly unreal second where he stared at the pen and thought about how it forsook him for not growing into a gun when he needed it to. He removed the cap and held the pen forward before pushing the door open.

When the door lay fully opened, the dark, cramped entry hall of his ultra-modern hyper-compact apartment prevented him from seeing more than a few feet ahead. The entry hall led two doors on opposite sides of the hall, one to the kitchen, which in turn led to the bed and bath rooms, and one to a small living and entertainment room. This unfortunate arrangement gave burglars all the tactical advantage they would ever need to kill poor Hesper.

They did not even need all that much, given he was armed with a pen. His hair began to itch. This always happened when he was nervous. He traded his pen to his other hand, scratched his hair vigorously, and took the pen back with the original hand. It slipped. His hands were dripping with gel.

“Oh for god’s sakes,” Hesper said. He had not suffered an aborted two-year pre-law curriculum and then begged and pleaded his mafia uncle to get him a government job just to be burgled. Hesper’s youthful manliness burned in his chest.

He broke into a run, pulling up his sleeves and dove into the hall, fists up and at the ready. Three jabs, two uppercuts and even a jump kick sliced the thin air even thinner. Mind racing but not comprehending, Hesper side-flipped into the living room and came back up in a kick. His furious foot snap collided with the portrait over his sofa and he tripped, collapsed and smashed the coffee table with his back. The portrait of his uncle Stefferson landed over him, its sagacious eyes peering into his own.

Clapping ensued, and a familiar voice.

“Bravo! Bravo!” shouted Rozalin Shrub, sitting across the room.

“Why did you break into my apartment?” Hesper asked, nearly crying. “And why didn’t you turn on any damn lights?”

Rozalin’s expression was invisible in the dark, but Hesper could feel the smile. “Because I have dark vision!”

Hesper nearly cried again.

* * *

Discarding his suit blazer, his tie, his shoes, Hesper sat across the room from Rozalin Shrub, the president’s daughter. She surely did not look the part. She was disguised. Not one of the luscious long dresses she was known for, with corsets, without straps, with arms free and bridal gauntlets and long stockings, backless, black and red; she wore instead a jacket over a t-shirt, with a baseball cap (celebrating the Newfork Demons) and jeans, her blonde hair in a ponytail rather than pinned into a sharp bun.

Rozalin Shrub always reminded Hesper of the first time he nearly cried. It had been an odd sensation, like a failure to emote. He sometimes quite thoroughly failed to emote around Rozalin Shrub. Even more so when he discovered that the federal government was practically a total lie orchestrated by the literal underworld – the one with fires and torment.

“Is Alt around?” Hesper said. He did not like the squat demon-man one bit.

“Of course not,” Rozalin replied, seeming offended, “Why would I bring that idiot here?”

“It’s not a matter of you bringing him.” Hesper said.

The first daughter removed her cap and laid back against her couch, blowing a sigh. Her chest heaved rather pleasantly.

“This place is my hideout.” Rozalin said, as though that explained everything.

“This place is my apartment.” Hesper replied. “Why don’t you buy your own? You can’t be that cheap.”

“I don’t have money, I have credit cards, which my father pays a group of people to monitor.” Rozalin says.

“How do you know you aren’t being followed?” Hesper asked. “I mean, if you don’t care about me, why stay here?”

“I do care about you.” Rozalin said, now seeming a little bothered.

Hesper brought his hands up to press against his forehead.

“If you care about me, then at least have the decency not to break into my apartment whenever you come to visit.”

“I will consider that.” Rozalin said. She smiled at him. “So what’s going on in your world?”

“Mayor Turner thinks he hears angels telling him to kill homosexuals.”

“Fascinating!” Rozalin said, thrusting her arms up into the air, “Do they tell him anything else?”

Hesper brought his hands up again to press against his forehead, and this time, his also had his thumbs press against the sides of his eyes. The pressure was oddly soothing to him in the face of the woman’s vile obliviousness. Or perhaps that wasn’t obliviousness. Perhaps, genuinely, the thought of an elected leader wanting to kill a portion of his constituency because angels told him to do it was exciting. Her father was President Shrub after all. Maybe he’d had experiences of that sort as well.

“Phone numbers. They give him phone numbers. He calls new ones every day.”

“Has he had any luck with that?”

The demoness watched with wide eyes as Hesper stood, his hands spread in demanding gestures. “Look, what do you want? This conversation is utterly banal. I have had more dynamic discussions with vegetative people on life support!”

Tiny droplets built up in Rozalin’s eyes.

“Oh come on,” Hesper said, his tone of voice softening, “Don’t give me that. Come on now.”

Rozalin sniffed, and turned her head down and just slightly to the side.

Just what I need, thought Hesper. He had not much of an internal monologue except for whenever Rozalin was around. She challenged him, challenged him in strange ways he did not appreciate.

Hesper was a simple man. He grew up, failed school, sold his dignity for a government job in a decaying corrupt patronage system, and filed papers for a crazy man who’s only joy remaining in life was to change the name of his office every few years, and who’s only political contribution was befuddling people intelligent enough to realize that he should not, in a sane society, continue to be re-elected. Hesper’s lack of desire to ponder was healthy for him, or so he felt. But Rozalin destroyed that. She came in with a sledgehammer and laid a good smack right between the eyes of that peace, that health.

“For Chrost’s sake. I’m having an internal monologue!” Hesper cried, voice turning high from frustration. He kicked aside a small vase and the splinters of his broken coffee table.

“Really?” Rozalin asked, wiping the tears from her eyes, and sniffling her last sniffles, “What did you monologue about?”

Hesper brought his hands up to press against his forehead, and dug his thumbs into his eye sockets.

* * *

Rozalin bandied about the room staring at the books on the shelves, the pictures in frames. She picked up one picture of Hesper’s freshman Introduction To Lawyering class, bringing it close to her face. She turned around to look at Hesper before returning to the picture. Apparently there was some difference to her. Hesper could not be certain.

He decided to take the offensive and ask the hard questions.

“So, what’s up?” He asked.

“I’m in your apartment.” Rozalin said.

“I can see that. Really. What I mean is what you’re doing in Rosewater.”

“Oh,” She turned her attention to Hesper for a moment, comparing him to other pictures. She put a finger on her lip as though quite puzzled by them. “I’m here because of that thing that happened. The explosions and all. The lights in the sky.”

“You mean the weapon testing incident?” Hesper asked.

Rozalin looked him briefly, with one eyebrow raised and her lips pursed. It was a dark, scrutinizing look. She put down one of the picture frames and in its place she drew a picture album from the shelf and opened it. Without reply, she perused it like it were an interesting dissertation on Hesper’s life. Unknown to Hesper, that was exactly what she thought it was.

Hesper clapped his hands together hard, trying to infer an answer from her demeanor. “So it’s wasn’t a weapon test!”

“Of course not!” Rozalin said, glaring at him over her shoulder, “Do you honestly believe anything coming out of my father’s government? It’s a factory of lies, oiled by the tongues of the incompetent masses! We have been manufacturing the same ten stupid lies and recycling them every year and people keep eating them like they had nicotine inserted!”

Taken a back, Hesper was almost offended by her assertion that their government was horrible and that he should expect this by now. “Well, excuse me.” He said, putting his fists on his hips. “I didn’t vote anyway, so it’s not like I contributed to this.”

“If you didn’t vote, you directly contribute to the country being a mess!” She said, her tone twice as biting, “You’re even worse than the idiots who just believe everything my father tells them. There’s a bad option, a worse option and the worst option is not voting. Pick between the first two!”

“Well,” Hesper began, wanting to shoot back a powerful, cutting assertion, “Well.”

Rozalin continued to stare.

“Well,”

“Yes?”

“Well, excuse me.” Hesper said.

* * *

Rozalin seemed far too interested in Hesper’s photo albums and old video tapes. It was uncomfortable having a gorgeous lady rifling through his most embarrassing memories like an archeologist dusting the ground for bones. Such a situation seemed like the reverse of a successful relationship move. Not that he wanted the proverbial daughter of darkness, the succubus of newfork, to have anything to do with him in the long-term. Though he had to admit she seemed somewhat endearing when rifling merrily through his kindergarten pictures. She had an almost fond look then.

“Oh, you vomited!” Rozalin said, giggling. “Poor little Hespy!”

Hesper seized the book from her hands and shut it. Who took that picture anyway?

“Ah, I got carried away. I just like seeing people’s pictures.” Rozalin said. “They interest me.”

“Why?” Hesper asked, “It’s like saying rifling through people’s phone bills is interesting.”

Rozalin sighed. “You wouldn’t understand. Thanks for letting me loiter around your apartment for a while.”

She picked up her cap from the nearby couch and adjusted it on her head. She smiled and it was almost cute, blew a kiss at him, and then started out. Hesper felt an odd sensation watching her go, like the past hour or so of his life had not been entirely wasted by engaging her in strange conversation and watching her rifle through all his junk. He did not often feel like his life wasn’t entirely wasted. When she left the living room and headed for the door, he did the unthinkable and walked behind her, taking her to the door. It almost gentlemanly.

Out the door, Rozalin turned around, leaned forward and almost seemed like she would kiss him. But then she dumped a bunch of papers from her pockets into his hands. “We’ll see each other tomorrow! You have to write a speech for me using these notes.”

The words passed through one of Hesper’s ears, through a coffee machine, and out the other ear.

“YOU WANT ME TO WHAT?” He replied, shaking the bundle of papers in his hands as though ready to throw them.

“I’m going to be addressing the whole Rosewater Incident thing in the hopes that whoever caused all the commotion will come and you have to be with me. I know it’s sudden, but I know you’ll pull through for me!”

She winked at him, both hands behind her back in a girlish gesture.

Hesper slammed the door on Rozalin Shrub’s face. He returned to his living room, threw the notes on his couch, drew a flask of whiskey from behind a small dictionary, downed it. After the cold feeling left his brain, he caught sight of the papers.

She’s not cute at all! He reminded himself, as he started to write the speech she had requested.

* * *

High Fructose Cooooorn Syrup! sang the alarm clock.

Amanda Gilead stretched her arm over the cabinet beside her bed and knocked the HFCS Cola promotional alarm clock off. She heard a crash and a maelstrom of metal parts bouncing and bounding beside her bed, which shocked her back to life. Peeking beside her bed, she saw the sharp mess she had made. Amanda sighed. Annamaria would have to fix that later.

The room was a blur of pink wallpaper and brown flooring. Caught in the pre-breakfast haze, Amanda staggered into her master closet, the size of a house in a third world country. Rows of unidentifiable clothing presented themselves like a court before a queen. She did the equivalent of dressing that was perhaps undertaken by zombies, squatting and waddling until she was under a turtleneck sweater and finagling her way up its woolen innards.

She did not remove her nightie before forcing herself into the sweater. She also did not add pants. She had never discovered a way to put on pants in a haze. Her red lingerie showed quite subtly as she swayed downstairs, her strawberry-pink hair celebrating its freedom by sticking out every which way and collecting every fuzzy particle along the way.

Kitchen. Piece of paper on the table. She threw it away.

The refrigerator opened the second she stepped near it, thanks to pressure plates. The blast of cold air blew away the slumberous mirage she had been experiencing.

She gasped as though waking anew and snatched an HFCS Cola from the fridge along with a small salad in a biodegradable corn-based-plastic tin. She threw away the croutons. Too many calories. Amanda was on the edge between sensually curvaceous and pleasantly plump, so she had to watch for calories. She drank the HFCS Cola as she thought of this dietary concern.

She sat down on the kitchen table and poured the poppy seed dressing on the greens.

Her fork met a red lettuce leaf and raised it to her mouth.

“Note!” She recalled. Dropping her fork, she rushed into the garbage disposal and kicked it. It was automated and did not open except for certain stimuli. But as with all machines, kicking was the universal method to forcing compliance.

Amanda retrieved the note and opened it. She read it in a hurry. “Oh! Teevee, please turn on to Channel 51!”

At her command, the kitchen television set wedged between the wall unit pantries blinked back to life.

“I hope we don’t have reception problems today. I don’t want to miss Annamaria’s big moment!”