Snakes and Ladders and the Destinies of Unborn Universes: Chapter 26
A Novel
If you’re joining us just now, follow the snake’s tail to the Prologue or climb a ladder to the Table of Contents.
Chapter 26: The Answer Dancer
Still dressed as a medieval monk, Evan found himself temporarily endowed with the intuitive powers of a pulp-fiction gumshoe. A mystery was afoot—at least that’s what he’d been led to believe. He would’ve been surprised to learn that the hardboiled detour he had been passing through only seconds before was now millions of light years in the past, and that he was no longer a private investigator. But his unconscious self had not yet picked up on this little oneiric gag that “the powers that be” in charge of his dream had played on him.
He continued mulling over the facts of the crime, even though no crime had been committed. But that was the kicker, since, even though no crime had been committed, Evan’s dreaming mind was currently in that part of the Astral Plane known as this Hilbert Space (a.k.a. the Red Zone), where every idea that had ever (even fleetingly) been conceived of in the history of the universe was warehoused, meaning that crimes Evan had only hypothetically imagined himself committing as a little boy had an existential reality here. Thus, the consequences his own unbidden thoughts were being mischievously played out in this madcap and infinitely capacious playground of the gods.
Adding to this confusion was the paradoxical fact that this Hilbert Space was technically the repository of the Astral Plane, since the Astral Plane had been “imagined” or “thought up” by a conscious entity. Fortunately, logically contradictory states of affairs such as these were permitted to coexist her, since credible falsehoods to one person, when put under a different light, can appear as mendacious truths to another. Therefore, to say that this Hilbert Space was contained in the Astral Plane was as valid a proposition as stating its opposite, although in order for both propositions to be simultaneously true they would have to be asserted within the confines of this Hilbert Space.
The unborn universe, which was now hiding inside of Evan’s diaphragm, had stopped talking to him for some reason. So Evan had been left to his own devices to figure out what he was supposed to. . . “figure out.”
As nonchalantly as he could, he studied the wild denizens of this petrol-fueled post-Apocalyptic city, crammed between the red-rock walls of a lofty gorge. He started searching for clues. After all, I’m a P.I.
First, there was that half-naked bald albino dancing on a dais, as devotees cast offerings at his feet. He was a skinny dude, and his dance was perpetually out of sync with the drumbeat of the percussionists who were locked up inside the huge cage on the flatbed of a broken-down semi close by. That’s pretty suspicious.
Secondly, there was the stage that Evan was standing close to with its rusty cow-catcher mounted to the front of it. The whole stage was on suspensions with wheels on either side. Probably a getaway wagon, he nodded. The stage itself receded into a garage filled with gas fumes and the whiz of power tools.
Finally, there was that drop-dead gorgeous ebony-skinned lady with an Afro standing on the smaller stage with its bullseye backdrop. This stage was situated at an oblique angle from the larger one. A “Mike Hammer” voice had told Evan that the woman’s name was “Lovely Assistant” but that everyone called her L.A.
Evan was afraid to look at her again, because he suspected that Niyati could read his thoughts, since she, too, was hanging out in Evan’s diaphragm with the unborn universe. Surely Niyati won’t ding me for the carnal thoughts I have for L.A. It’s not like I can control them. They’re, like, instincts and stuff. Of course, it was too late for Evan not to imagine doing raunchy things to L.A.—and since he had imagined doing them, they had been done somewhere in this Hilbert Space, which was a rather humiliating thought, like the time mom caught him in the bathroom with a copy of Playboy. She simply shut the door and said, “Don’t forget to flush” and pretended like it never happened.
People were drifting away from the albino and gathering near the wide stage. A vertical spotlight illuminated the microphone. The dust and grit of the city churned in the spotlight’s glare. The microphone was one of those retro 1940s affairs.
A separate spotlight fell on L.A., as a pre-recorded anthem started blasting out of the speakers on the bent electrical poles scattered throughout the open-air bazaar. When the anthem ended, L.A. remove an index card from her cleavage and held it close to her face.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, “please put your hands together for the one, the only, Emcee of the Astral Plane!”
A fanfare of trumpets was met by a round of applause. The Emcee appeared out of nowhere, wearing a maroon suit that matched the stage fog behind him. Evan looked over his shoulder and saw that, even though there was no music playing, the albino continued to dance as if there were.
“Is this thing on?” the Emcee said, tapping the microphone and sending a blast of acoustic feedback out of every speaker in the universe. People screamed and covered their ears. Evan recalled that this was exactly what the Emcee had done earlier in his dream when Evan was in the university library of the Canadian Colony of Norway. At that time, when the Emcee had said “is this thing on,” he had actually been asking Niyati if Evan was paying attention.
The Emcee was a Jungian archetype who was incapable of hearing anything other archetypes said to him, since those archetypes weren’t real. The Emcee could carry on conversations only with conscious entities, including souls of the departed, but he could never look those entities in the eyess while addressing them. His words were riddling, often ambiguous.
The Emcee grinned coyly, scanning the audience but refusing to look at Evan. Yet Evan sensed the Emcee knew he was there. The crowd waited for several minutes in silence. Is he just going to stand there all day? Evan wondered. Maybe this is one of the clues I’m supposed to follow up on.
The Emcee raised both arms and spoke. “Who is the Answer Dancer?”
L.A. read from the index card. “The Answer Dancer surrounds the great All.” She made a flourishing gesture with the hand holding the card, evidently for dramatic effect, but instead it looked as if she were disputing a transaction. She brought the card back down under her nose, and continued to read. “The Answer Dancer is the beginning and the end. It resides in each of us, while residing in none.”
Evan noticed that a man near the stage leaned over and rapped his knuckles thrice, signaling to the Emcee that L.A. had stopped speaking.
A clue! Evan thought. This means L.A. is an archetype, since the Emcee can’t hear her. But then what’s she an archetype of? Maybe she’s a metaphor for Los Angeles.
The Emcee shook his head. “I did not ask what the Answer Dancer is, but who.”
“Lord Shiva!” came a response. It was Niyati’s voice! Less than 20 feet away! Evan moved toward her. How did she get out of my diaphragm?
The Emcee fixed Evan with a cool glare, as he responded. “No, no, no. Not Lord Shiva. Not yet.”
Evan reached the woman whom he thought was Niyati, but when he tore the veil away, it revealed the cretinous visage of a hag.
Now Gordon’s booming voice came out of the mist behind the Emcee. “I have read the ancient scrolls, and have seen the Answer Dancer’s name.”
A collective gasp rose from the audience.
The Emcee kept his eyes on Evan. “And what is the Answer Dancer’s name?”
“His name. . . is Rhythm.”
“Rhythm?” the Emcee asked.
“Yes, Rhythm is the Answer Dancer.”
No sooner had he said this than Snap!’s 1992 hit “Rhythm is a Dancer” began to pour out of the speakers.
Evan furrowed his brow and looked at L.A., who had unholstered the laser blaster strapped to her thigh. She wedged the barrel between her massive breasts, flung her neck back, and pulled the trigger, shooting glitter into the air. Then Evan noticed that L.A. had an Adam’s apple. Oh, bro, he thought. She’s a drag queen! No wonder she looked so good.
Everyone around Evan in the red-rock canyon started pulling off their rags and upper layers of clothing. Thousands of glow-sticks appeared amid a deafening peel of unquenchable laughter, because the whole nuked-out city had just become as gay as Fire Island.
The hiss of hydraulics was followed by the creak and groan of metal, as the stage that the Emcee was standing on began crawling forward. Its full length emerged from the garage. Evan caught sight of Gordon sitting like a plump cherub before a screen decorated with a rainbow flag. The stage had become a massive gay pride float.
The orangutan shaman, Prometheus, sat on the opposite side of the screen with his back to Gordon. Prometheus’s neck was garlanded with colored beads, and he began casting daisies to the revelers on either side of the float.
That’s when Evan started to feel uneasy. He backed away from the float. But the crowd kept nudging him forward and he couldn’t get away. Evan’s mother and father had instilled in him since the late 1970s that homosexuality was simply an alternative lifestyle. But Evan had always felt uncomfortable around “the gays” (as he called them). True, mom and dad had lots of friends who were “that way” and often came to the house for backyard cookouts or the occasional Tupperware party, bringing with them French wines, great good cheer, and delicious quiches.
Then there was Evan’s sister, Julie, who had always been a tomboy and whose favorite character on The Facts of Life was Jo. One night at the dinner table mom had told Julie, “You know, sweetheart, if you were ever to fall in love with someone, but felt inhibited about sharing your love with us due to the perceived social stigmas associated with your relationship, I want you to know that your father and I. . .” But Julie had interrupted her, saying, “I’m not a lesbian, mom. I just like to build shit.”
Evan kept the hood of his monk’s habit pulled down over his eyes, but grudgingly walked with the crowd. He noticed that the dancing albino had vanished. All of the obstructions in the canyon were miraculously parting to accommodate the parade, because the Emcee’s float was only the first in an infinite series of floats rolling out of the garage. Evan thought this was not only showy but somehow typical of the gays not to be satisfied with a few floats but to demand an infinite number of them. People are gonna get tired of this parade. I already am.
Marcus stood at the edge of the second float, which was now passing by.
“Hey, Evan!” he called out.
“Shhh!” Evan said. I don’t want to be seen here.
“Evan, stop it! There’s been a reason for every square of the Snakes and Ladders board that you’ve landed on. I think that you’re here to overcome your fear of gay people.”
Evan hated that word and put his hands over his ears. “Dude, I’m not afraid of them. Will you just leave me alone.”
“Fine! You do you, boo!”
“I don’t even know what that means, Marcus.”
“I don’t either, but in a few decades it’ll fit situations like this one. But don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone you were hangin’ with the gays.”
“Stop saying that word!” Evan scowled.
Levi came bounding up in a red tank top. “Evan!” he exclaimed and hugged him. “My best friend!”
“Goddamnit, Levi.”
“Oh, geez. You don’t wanna be seen here, do you?” Levi tried to compose himself, but he was having such a great time that he just looked like a spaz. He assured Evan that he wouldn’t tell another soul that his straight friend was in a gay pride march. Then he put his index finger to his lips to stress that mum was the word, and bounded off to join Marcus on the second float.
Evan threw back the hood of his robe since his cover had been blown. He pouted and walked behind the second float, bobbing his head in sync with the music to make it seem like he was having a good time.
The parade reached a subsidiary canyon and was joined by thousands of lesbians taking part in a separate march. Evan saw that the women were protesting something. They had a banner that read: OVERTURN PROPOSITION SUCH-AND-SUCH.
Madame Blavatsky was leading the march. She was dressed up like a vampish dominatrix.
Next to her was the same woman who was currently asleep in the window seat in Evan’s row aboard the airplane en route to California. She wore sunglasses and was clad in the same T-shirt she’d worn when she boarded the plane, which read, “Loud Proud Hoosier.” She looked at Evan with a smirk.
It finally dawned on Evan what her shirt meant. He smacked his forehead. “Ohhh! It means you’re, like, proud of being gay, not proud of being a Hoosier!”
“Yes! God!” She turned to Madame Blavatsky. “Has he always been this fuckin’ dumb?”
The Theosophist held her peace.
Suddenly, the music switched to Chaka Khan’s 1984 hit “I Feel for You,” written by Prince. But since Evan’s dream was taking place in 1994, everyone was now referring to Mr. Nelson as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince” (TAFKAP).
Out of nowhere L.A. appeared in front of Evan and began dirty dancing with him, thrusting her legs between his. He found it all strangely arousing. She crouched down to his waist, swept her hands up his thighs, and, when she rose again, seized his coarse robe and ripped it off of him.
Now he was dressed in a snug pair of Spandex shorts with a red tank-top similar to the one Levi had on. Far from being enraged by this development, Evan laughed and continued dancing with L.A. who pointed to Evan’s new admirers gathering around them.
They applauding Evan, not only for his moves but for his refreshing personality. Of course, they commented on his gorgeous physique, but they were saying other things that he hadn’t expected them to say, like: “He’s a decent dancer!” — “I wish I had a straight friend as cool as Levi’s!” — “What a nice guy and a great sport!”
Encouraged by this, Evan started to execute all the dance moves in his repertoire, including the Snake, the Lawnmower Man, and Circle Slide, while the crowd cheered him on: “Go, Evan! Go, Evan! Go, go, go Evan!”
L.A. backed away and applauded him with a pert smile and one eyebrow arched.
All the unexpressed fears and inhibitions that Evan had once felt around gay people were now gone. And his dreaming mind came to the decision that, once he woke up, he would have a long talk with Levi and assure him that, no matter what it was that his shy roommate was feeling so depressed, he (Evan) would be there for Levi “because you’re my friend.”
Once this mental resolution had been made, Evan heard Niyati’s spirit welling up from his diaphragm and whispering affectionately into his ear. “You just climbed a ladder.”
Evan was now dancing on a glowing “club cube” on that second float, while Levi danced on a cube next to him. He pointed to Evan and shouted to the envious queens crowding around the float: “He’s wearing the same tank-top I have on because we’re BFFs!”
“You go, girl!” they replied, as Evan and Levi high-fived each other.
As the parade continued to progress through the canyon’s widening walls, a leather daddy infiltrated the crowd following the float Evan was dancing on.
The leather daddy wore a pair of assless chaps, which was an admittedly pleonastic thing to say, since all chaps were inherently assless. But such redundancy was not considered so in this Hilbert Space, since (as has been mentioned) every contradictory state of affairs that could ever be conceived of by a conscious entity existed here, meaning that there were, in fact, specialty stores in this Hilbert Space that sold leather chaps, which were not only fully assed but entirely separate and distinct from trousers.
Evan was hand-hopping on the club cube as the leather daddy licked his lips and zeroed in on the bulge between the Chosen One’s Spandexed legs. For this was no ordinary leather daddy but the evil wizard Dhabu’ Abd al-Manat (Hyena, Slave of Manat), who had been tracking Evan’s movements since he had entered the Red Zone. So the Man-Cub has assumed a new incarnation, Dhabu’ mused. Now he’s become the Answer Dancer.
Although the orangutan shaman, Prometheus, could not see Dhabu’ Abd al-Manat, he sensed the wizard’s presence among the throng. Closing his eyes, he telepathically relayed his concerns to Gordon on the other side of the screen. Once Gordon had received this information, he stood up and sprang from the float, landing on the canyon floor where he was instantly transformed into the internationally acclaimed Scandinavian drag queen, Iva Sofftøsh.
Briskly he made his way to the front of the float and to the head of the parade. As he passed the rusty cow-catcher, the Emcee of the Astral Plane pointed to the cloudless sky, and, without looking at Gordon, whispered portentously, “It appears there will be rain.”
At that, Iva Sofftøsh thrust her fists into the air and the opening bars of Barbara Streisand’s “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from the 1964 musical Funny Girl filled the vastness of the universe. The auburn-bearded drag queen lip-synced the lyrics to the song, as she looked shrewdly to the left and right, scanning for threats.
Telepathically, Gordon spoke to Prometheus: The Answer Dancer must be protected at all costs. As Gordon thought this, the entirety of this Hilbert Space (a.k.a. the Red Zone), situated deep inside the Astral Plane, was filled by the wonder-working voice of Babs, that warm, mellifluous, timeless voice that unfolded its wings and created thereby a new phase of matter that was as thick and as rich and as smooth as buttah.
😂 Snake, the Lawnmower Man, and Circle Slide - we’ve all been there, Daniel.