Sometime After the Year of Glad
Conjunctio*Pox watched and waited. Her natural curiosity burgeoned and swelled like the jagged shadows of the Rincon mountains - or were they the Tortolita Foothills?- which had begun to cast a somewhat cooler dank gloom over the pebblish desert floor. The desert floor around Tucson is not primarily composed of sand but more like actual pebbles and grit that settled around the carcasses of fully desicated cacti and assorted bones. The figure she had spotted, Steeply perhaps, appeared to be a tall woman, or a man in drag, although why anyone would wear spike heels to hike up a hill was beyond Pox's comprehension - and yet, DFW had written it plausibly. She would simply accept it as a fact in some alternate universe. In any case Pox herself was adequately dressed for a hike, had even thought to bring a pack of Belgian gaspers along in the event that she actually encountered the elusive unspecified services operative. She would make the traditional tobacco offering to Steeply just as the original natives had always done and would always do when supplicating their Great Spirit Wakan-Tanka.
She looked around for the tell-tale green sedan with its aspirin logo that Steeply favored, but dusk had fallen and in any case the glare of lights from the city beyond rendered everything in sight rather murkily not exactly violet but rather purplish and coyote-colored like a fading bruise. She could not even have described the color of the rental jeep, Pox. It looked like a steel tent in this light, tent-or-steel colored. She gathered her pack and set off on foot toward the trail where the person who was no longer in view had who-knew-where gone, but where else was there to go but up, from here? She rounded the bend and started climbing.
The trail upside the rocky rise was well marked. It was not clear at all to Pox, aiming the small flashlight's beam along the narrow path, how Marathe might wend his wheelchair up there. Perhaps he took a different, wider path whose origin was on the other side of the mountain, perhaps he was airlifted or carried by Indians. Pox often pondered and speculated about every little meaningless detail. Would Marathe already be in situ on the outcropping? Was this even the right mountain, did it have an outcropping at all? Pox had only just arrived before dusk, had not seen the back side of the edifice she now ascended. In any case, if Marathe was there Pox would simply hide in the shadows and listen to the pair spar, Marathe with his fractured American colloquialisms and Steeply with his smoky pauses, egging the quad spy on. But she hoped Steeply would be alone.
After a twenty minute climb, Pox paused to get her bearings. She could still see high heel imprints in the dust along the trail, but now the trail split one section toward the east and another to the north, and neither one had heel marks. She reasoned that the person she pursued probably had heard her coming, seen her from a higher vantage point, and somehow obliterated the tracks. One must do this in order to be a successful operative, specified or no. Tricks of the trade, per se, survival mode. Always cover one's personal shagging ass. Pox looked up and saw a brief movement, maybe a puff of smoke or a hiking up of hosiery. She inhaled deeply the unhumid night air and resumed climbing.
Within minutes Pox reached the summit; it was not such a hard hike, nor such a tall hill, though craggy and desolate. She peered into the distance, where the lights of Tucson blazed, and rendered her temporarily blind, when all of a sudden a large figure pounced and knocked Pox to the hard ground. 'Who are you and what do you mean by following me like a feral rat?' the person growled. Pox found it difficult to reply given that the man, dressed in a short blue frock, had an exceptionally strong grip, much like a tennis players' grip, on Pox's throat. Pox hoped this was Steeply. She pointed to her throat and blinked her eyes. The grip lessened and Pox squeaked, "Agent Steeply? Is that you, then? Have I....really found... you? Please.....allow me....to introduce....myself....my name is .....Pandora Pox.....and I have been a fan of yours....and DFW's.....for ages....please....I do not intend to .....hurt you....."
The man frowned but did not remove his paw from Pox's throat. Pox noticed the absence of askewy boobs, but who else could it be? Did Tucson have a Steeply-look-alike fan club, maybe an Infinitejestathon, like comic book fans had Comicon....she supposed so. Pox wriggled and squirmed and blinked. The man glared and studied Pox's face and with his free hand opened her backpack, which had fallen to the side. He saw the Belgian cigarettes and considered. This feral rat woman had tried to sneak up on him, but for what possible reason? He would let her make her case. He removed his hand from Pox's throat, opened the new pack of gaspers and in a most unexpected and gentlemanly manner, offered Pox one. She declined. 'They're for you....an offering of sorts.'
'What do you want?'
'Are you...Steeply?'
'What if I am?' he shrugged.
'I live in a small town near the Great Concavity and like everyone else in the O.N.A.N. republic, I have heard that a new ultimate cartridge, they are calling it IJ-8, has been found and I need to know if it really exists.....if the rumors are true. I came here....' Pox coughed, as her throat was very sore and dry, 'because I want to view this cartridge myself and I want you to help me do it.' There. May it hold true: fortune favors the bold.
The man looked at Pox as if she was insane. 'You do not know what it is you ask, Ms. Pox. And what kind of name is Pox? Are you contagious? '
'It's a pen name.....I'm writing a blog with my partner, Darius Blake. By the way, he's off somewhere, looking for Marathe right now....We are Jest addicts you see, and our goal is to keep the story alive, to honor David Foster Wallace who died too young...we know there was more to the story that his editor made him cut. My god, five hundred pages gone! ....and we are willing to go to great lengths to make up for the editor's stupidity. We hope to create a fine sequel in the Wallace tradition, knowing full well we can't hope to equal the master's brilliance, that's tacit.... will you help me?'
The man lit a Belgian gasper, inhaled and blew out a series of smoke rings. He seemed lost in thought. At length he looked down at Pox's hope-filled face and spoke. 'I am not what you think. I am not a fictional character. I cannot confirm or deny the rumor. ' He took a deep drag on the cigarette and put his free hand on his elbow. 'I will not admit to being Steeply.' Pox 's face fell. 'But I will help you in your quest.' he said. 'What is your plan?'
To be continued.......
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* Note: In ancient alchemy, conjunctio is the process of two forces (e.g., male and female) joining together.
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