One AM and this borough's narrow streets were still teeming. Rufus had taken the bus down through here twice, scouting through dirty dark glass. The Poultry District was different by night.
The streetlights looked as though designed to take direct gunfire and keep these barios bright. Because if they didn't- through his brain, violent imagery raced, roaring like a man pursued. Beneath warehouses converted to cut-rate accommodation generations ago, the district's countless residents spent their evening on stoops and corners. Hard eyes stared from windows thrown wide-open to a night where stars hid, unable to compete with the glare of neon. Outside giant slaughterhouses, third-shift workers stopped smoking at his approach. Hands went behind bloody aprons. Are those butchers going for a knife-? Rufus alarmed. No. Just singling out the unfamiliar passer-by and scratching balls.
The address was ten blocks past the busy boundary of Aviary Street. Should I have taken a taxi? Rufus quickly dismissed it. The driver would have seen his face and destination. An unnecessary complication, easily avoided if you put a purpose in your step and try to look like you goddamned belong down here. Little cliques exchanged catcalls from fire escape to rooftop.
He strode cracked pavements splashed by neon from Hal-al shops and storefront taprooms. Light splashed bars of white on the surface of the black water in the gutter. Young teens crowded the steps of a decommissioned church. They coughed Russian curses at their shoplifted cigarillos. Winos squatted in the adjacent alley, though charity no longer dwelt behind the looming black Rosetta window. A shift in the wind brought the outcry of broken glass and howling dogs. The wind carried his heavy footfalls before him, deep into the district. Sirens rake the town. The stink of bacon grease. Vacant lot, industrial site, bodega, bodega, bodega.
Rufus was three blocks from his goal when he realized he was being followed.
Rufus turned a corner and waited for the pair, his heart drumming. For thirty seconds heartbeat echoed off the bus hording. Jesus, Penelope would rage if she saw this. Saw me here. Then arrived the inevitable. The trailing men were startled to almost collide, the stranger they had shadowed suddenly in their face. "Whatchu want?" Rufus demanded, glaring hard. Each stumbled back a step.
"Nothin," said one.
"Just walkin'" groped his pal.
"Walk somewhere else!" Rufus got a good look, right up close. These men weren't much more than vagrants, idly tailing after a man in a custom coat the way movie zombies shamble in the wake of warm brains. They startled back another step, looking up at Rufus's clenched fist.
"Can I borry a cigarette?" one panhandled.
They fled at their same zombie pace. Rufus exhaled, elated. He presented a figure that most stinking bums would not mess with. If they knew what was under that coat puffing his exceptional height out into bulk, though….
He was in this district for excitement, this night. Look on the confrontation as an unexpected bonus elation. Ignored the mocking applause and catcalls from two sassy women with long legs and big, watery mouths, Rufus cut down the street and hurried the last few blocks. His destination! The given address had been painted in gilt in more affluent times, and the narrow basement stair beside the Cornell & Co. Import & Export Company offices' stoop was just as described.
Adrenaline abuzz, Rufus gave a subtle survey that no one at the adjacent Nessebar was watching. He descended into the darkness as though he belonged.
The metal door with this flaking paint gave no indication of use, no hint of hidden life beyond. Rufus wrapped his big fist steady and knocked three times. Down at his elbow, an intercom designed for shorter men crackled instantly to indicate an open channel. Whispering low, Rufus spoke the password. "I was sent by Joe." He struck a match, allowing the unseen camera a view of his face. The intercom crackled off. The match burned out.
Rufus stood coated in foolishness from his burning face down to his heels. After coming so far-! Then a click echoed for what Rufus realized was the second time. He placed his palm against cold metal and pushed. The door swung inward.
Breath he had been holding for thirty-six years rejoiced out of him in a great, relieving sigh.
Rufus had not even had the time to remove his long coat. His surroundings appeared to be a steakhouse where dancers moved like quicksilver under a hot lamp. Rufus blinked once in surprise. The club's neon name provided much of the illumination: The Age of Discovery. He heard beads clink like instruments untuned, then two young greeters- thin, tall and brightly plumed in high fashion that was worlds away from the street outside- approached, coy and blazing. Oh, that music! They wrapped arms through his, enfolding him with twittered cooing and feather-light strokes against his cheeks. Their slicked hair smelled of rich oil and cashews. Rufus smiled into faces so heavily made up that their actual features were hidden completely, anonymously. Rufus had heard this was the ageless protocol. He glided like an ice dancer as he was whisked to the bar, where he signalled for the exotic cocktails the greeters desired. The tuxedoed bartender set before them cylindrical glasses eighteen inches tall, sighing, "Enjoy,"
Before Rufus could even taste this new delight, the music screeched in mid-note. House lights glared sight from his eyes. When he could see, uniforms swarmed through the flocks of dancers and diners. Mayhem. Rufus watched a lady in a cream-colored gabardine number and smart gold-rimmed contacts clobber a riot helmet with a platter of white rice and an entire steamed bass. The cop doubled her over with a nightstick.
"Vice! This is a raid!" cawed a megaphone. "None of you freaks move!"
Rufus's knees knocked and he was powerless to stop them.
#
It would have been better to have been knifed by the winos. Busted in the blinding lights, Rufus had never been so exposed. He could already feel the heat from Penelope's fat cheeks, burning red as she tutted and glared with satisfaction handing over the bail money. No doubt quipping, "So Freud was right!" or some other vindication that he was too dumb a cluck to understand.
"Excuse me!" A brave youth began to argue a defense. "This is a private party in a licensed establishment!" His head too closely resembled Goofy's for the vice cops to treat him as a threat. The lead detective, hard eyes blazing bright as his thatch of copper hair, smirked.
"Why you got your pants off?"
Goofy had no reply for that.
This detective raised his bullhorn and a voice like God blazed accusation. "You know what we're after, you sick sons of bitches. Where is it? Don't lie to me! Get it out here, now!"
"This is not whatever you think it is," Goofy found his voice at last. "This is…."
The bullhorn positioned inches from Goofy's black olive nose. "Don't be cute! I'm not attracted to you perverts' definition of cute. Where the hell is that porn?"
Goofy was prodded to answer by a man wearing dark green fatigues with a polished brass badge, carrying an M-21 machine gun. "This is… was, until you crashed it…" Goofy swooped on nearby table and swept up a quality biannual. "The launch party for a new magazine!"
The vice cop raised a finger that carried as much menace as the automatic weapon. "Stop playing."
"I'm not playing, officer."
"Oh you're not? I think you are." The vice cop blustered, staring him down hard. "I see you and me are on a collision course. Chicken is a dangerous game."
Up spoke a nearby dandy with as little forehead as a bald eagle. "I'm here for GUD magazine's launch as well. We all are." A rookie cop, alarmed at the outburst, raised a leaded nightstick. The veteran detective batted it off course, smashing a glass table rather than an unnecessary head. To the shag carpet rained fresh seafood from the waters off coastal Kaohsiung, along with platters of meat, fowl, and a seemingly unlimited array of vegetables.
"Zat right?" the lead detective asked, planting his wingtips right in the middle of the ruined banquet. "What's GUD, then?"
"Greatest Uncommon Denominator," rattled Goofy. "Which explains, you see, why we good law-abiding citizens might look a little uncommon tonight. We're dressed up! For the launch of this magazine called Greatest Uncommon Denominator."
Rufus took notice. Under 100 watt lights, the dozens of clubgoers around him each did look uncommon, even monstrous. Hairstyles alone made what he had under his coat mundane. What have I gotten myself into?
The vice cop smirked again at Goofy. "Ever had one a them prostitutes?"
"I really don't know what you mean."
"The kind of whores who serve that fetish, the ones who star in-" He roared: "In E.P.!" Then smirking again, "You ever seen, right up close, what damage being on that game does to a healthy young body? It's like Russian roulette, but with the gun fully loaded."
Goofy's eyes opened insanely large as he shook his head in violent denials. "There's nothing here but good literature! Edgy, artistic, fresh up-and-comers. No famous names skating on their reputation alone! No recycled ideas! Absolutely none of whatever you're talking about!"
A keen young vice man thumbed through copies. "I've confiscated more of the porn over here, boss."
"No! GUD's not porn!" one of greeters who had decided to call herself Hileila said. "It's Fiction, Art, Reports, Comics, Poetry, and Scripts."
"Sir, I challenge you to find any smut within GUD magazine," a rake of a man cooed. The vice cop swiped the extended magazine from offering hands, rolled it into a baton and stormed among the tables. He spun, glaring, and aimed the rolled-up GUD like an accusatory finger at Rufus.
#
"Well I," and Rufus was amazed his voice did not come out in a squeak. "You've nailed it exactly. I'm the magazine's distributor."
"Oh yeah? And where do you distribute GUD?"
"All over!" Rufus covered. Trembling. Hoping. Terrified. "Mail order, the whole world. And selected newsstands and outlets."
The grizzled vice lead leered in close as a fox. "Is that so?"
Rufus worked to visualize a calming woodland pond. Ducks floated listlessly on its cloudy blue surface. "I can even let you download a .PDF copy- today, no waiting!- so you can read GUD on your laptop or print off just the articles you want."
"If you're such an expert, big boy," the fox-eyed predator mocked, "you'll be able to tell me what articles are your personal favorites."
His interior fowl waded placidly. "The ones with the poetic language. You know, words like 'pow!' and 'squishy.'" Rufus stared the detective down just like the wannabe thieves earlier. "Hell! I just distribute the mag, man. Newsweek, Field and Stream, hundreds of others. I don't have time to read them."
"So you freely admit you're not a fan of 'Cutting a Figure' by Charlie Anders? You're not into-" the mag was violently riffled. "'4 Short Parables Revolving Around the Theme of Travel' by A.B. Goelman? Yet you're here, at this hour, regardless?"
"Hell! For free drinks I'll hit any watering hole." Rufus laughed defiantly. The cop spun away.
"You!" He challenged a random patron. "What's your name?"
The towering woman had the longest nose and haughtiest air. "My name is Sofi."
"You're here for some new magazine, huh?"
Rufus met the thankful gaze of the youth who had began the resistance. The one he had labelled Goofy. Jesus, Rufus thought. We stare into each other's eyes like scared animals. Me and him.
Sofi lifted a leg straight out and languidly studied painted toenails. "Art exists to tell the mind there is one thing going on, but also simultaneously—in subtext—myriad others. It helps make sense of displacement suicides. It helps one to think about bright air and goose pimples." The vice cop, unable to reply to that, wheeled on another victim.
"Me? Oh, I'm the author of the first story in there," explained the plump, top-hatted gent.
"You're-" GUD magazine was against rustled skeptically by hairy knuckles. "-Debbie Moorhen?"
"No. Read it again, detective?"
"Debbie Moorhouse. You're Debbie Moorhouse?"
"Thank you for outing me, detective. Debbie is my nom de plume." He tipped his top hat and blushed.
"And what's your story about, 'Debbie'?"
"That's a mystery!"
The speed-reading junior detective guarding the door verified this information. "Checks out, boss. A near-future about a tracker of missing persons. Running theme involves a dead pigeon, but no porn. A pretty strong piece of fiction."
"Thank you!" Debbie stroked his luxuriant van dyke.
"There's nothing else contraband in this mag, boss. One story involving futuristic breast implants that transmit large quantities of illicit spam mail. Very innovative and funny, but it's not porn. There's also a fantasy piece that didn't do much for me, and a lot of malarkey about William Blake and vomit and insanity. Later there's sci-fi that portrays the government unfavorably and story set in a communist factory. That's suspicious material for good citizens to be reading, hidden in a cellar in the middle of the night, don't you think?"
Goofy boldly spoke up. "Think of it as a free speech issue. Crusade to bring unpopular viewpoints to the public."
The vice cop nudged Goofy into a seat and addressed his junior detective. "Anything else?"
"Yeah, boss. 'The Infinite Monkeys Protocol' by Lavie Tidhar. It's historical fiction written from the point of view of a computer hacker, aiming to show why they write viruses. I'll have to verify all the details later, boss, but the information seems to be legit. And- get this- the highlight of the mag is a story called 'Chicken.'"
"No, I meant anything else incriminating on the premises?"
"Packets of featherlite condoms on the tables, boss." The vice cops allowed a pause where explanation could be offered. None came. "No porn," the keen detective admitted. "None of what we came for."
Rufus adjusted his coat and tried to lean naturally, casually, against the bar. The vice cop read titles of poems in a voice of disbelief. "'Past Due: Final Notice!' 'Dialogue with the Hollows of Your Body!' 'Pepé in Critical Condition!'"
When the vice lead followed this with a lecture, Rufus believed they might actually get away, unbusted. The judgment was that the good man went to jail and the bad man walked free.
"You weirdoes get excited by that stuff? Instead of reading Eric Wilder or Tess Gerritsen or Gene Kerrigan, good cop fiction, you gather on this underground scene? Bah! You probably don't even listen to Steve Miller or The Guess Who! If I had my way, I'd ship every one of you gangly nonconformist freaks off to Vietnam. And by God I will yet. You may have stashed it this time but I'm not fooled. I have faith in my informant- yeah, that's right. We were tipped off there would be egret porn here tonight. I know you've got that disgusting poison nearby, probably right under my nose! And I'll be back for it, just when you least expect."
And with a barked command, the fox left the henhouse empty-mouthed.
#
Relief! Rufus' voice joined the great whoop that arose as soon as the last of the vice cops filed out. He turned with tears of rejoice blurring his vision to celebrate with his new-found family. They had passed through the same ordeal. His back was patted and thighs were slapped.
"Policemen!" mocked the regal woman who had introduced herself as Sofi. "Stupid men!"
"Ain't it the truth," Rufus announced, raised his arms for attention, and then undid the belt of his coat. A cackle of delight tittered through the room as he cast the garment aside. Beneath, the glory upon which had labored in secret for more than ten years. His crested feathers shone with rhinestones, sparkles burning like nearby stars as he puffed his chest out and crowed. Like an Olympic medal, Rufus draped around his neck the feather boa that a vexed, fuming Penelope had torn the apartment to pieces searching for.
"We are so very glad you are here," two greeters cooed in unison. They raised cameras to commemorate the moment. At a motion from the brave youth, flute and saxophone began their song. Brushes swished like peacock tails. Then the young leader turned to Rufus, an enormous smile splitting his caricature, beautiful face.
"We are glad you are here tonight."
Rufus began to describe how many nights he had dreamed of joining this forbidden scene, how long he had craved the beautiful young birds' long, white necks, the graceful legs, the dark eyes unblinking as mates were seleted without small talk. But what the madly-grinning youth thrust into Rufus's hands nudged him off track.
"Ew." Frowning, Rufus looked up. "What you want a dead bird for?"
The notion of an initiation ritual was half-forming in Rufus' head when all useful thought ceased. The youth's Goofy head- never convincingly human in bright light- hinged completely open at the mouth and fell beside Rufus' discarded coat. From the sever thrust a spike, penetrating the neck. A great beak, it broke free of the flesh costume like a hatchling breaking from its egg. Rufus felt a swirl of countless feathery fingers grasping. A crescendo of sexual excitement whooped and called. As neon darkness replaced bright light, human disguises were cast aside and torn to skin ribbons by the excited snapping of countless beaks.
"We are so glad you are here tonight," repeated the being that had once been the brave, Goofy-headed youth. Above Rufus towered a royal purple bird with long tail feathers and graceful wings, muderous lust shining in terrible eyes.
As the cocks came forward, Rufus heard in his own soaring screams the echo of the vice detective's final words: We were tipped off... there would be egret porn... here... tonight.
Eeeegret! Eeeeeee-grettttt! Squalk! Sqwak! Chirp! Eeee! eeeeeeeEEEeeEeeEE! Eegrett!!!! Oo baby!!
Click the following link to open up a full-sized image of the cover: E. P.
GUD may be ordered from http://gudmagazine.com Subscription rate is USD $18 per 2 issues; USD $10 per individual copy; USD $3.50 for electronic copy (PDF).
Eeeegret! Eeeeeee-grettttt!
Read Critical Mick's interview with The Editors of Greatest Uncommon Denominator Magazine!
