3. The Quiz Show

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When Tommy regained consciousness, he was no longer looking at the screen. He was standing all alone. He failed to notice that he had passed through by becoming RocksANNE for a few moments.
"I never had an experience like that before. I think I understand now," said Tommy who was in the fourth grade, "why the fifth grade boys are so interested in girls and stand around them all the time at recess instead of playing Kickball. What's happened? Where am I? Where's the screen?"
Tommy looked around him now and saw that he was no longer in the den in the Clark home. But, what was equally surprising, the Television Game Show had also disappeared. "Where's RocksANNE and Ted Weargrin," he thought.
He was, in fact, standing in the middle of a deserted highway out in the country. There were no cars coming in either direction, so Tommy started to walk in the direction he was facing, down the road. After walking for some time, he came to a bend. As he walked around it, he saw a large sign suspended over the highway which read:

WELCOME TO DISHWATER FALLS MONTANA

although no town was in sight.
He walked on and hadn't gone too far when he saw an old-time western saloon over to the left. The saloon was made of wood slats that were all grayed from age and the roof was half gone. Across the front was a faded sign that said "SALOON" and on the front porch, with his feet propped up on the wooden railing, sat an old man in a cowboy's hat. The man was motioning with a sweeping arm for Tommy to come over. Tommy stepped off the road and walked through the grass to him. It wasn't very far, maybe fifty feet. When Tommy got there, he saw that the man was an old prospector or cowhand. His unshaved face was covered with gray stubble; he had on a blue workshirt and overalls; his hat was dusty and worn out and he smelled of sweat, garlic, and beans. Tommy looked in the saloon door at an empty room.
"Where is everybody?" he asked the old man.
"Gone, all gone. Went ta' fight at Chigamunga an' Bullrun. Jist me here. Only one left. Name's Lonesome Al, yeah, Lonesome Al. Sit down here wi' me an' talk a spell."
Tommy had never met a real western character before, a real cowboy or, he thought, a retired gunfighter or a friend of Bat Masterson or Billy the Kid. So he sat down in the vacant wood chair next to Lonesome Al. Lonesome Al had his dusty boots on the wooden railing and his chair tilted back on its two hind legs. So Tommy tilted his chair back too and put his feet on the railing, just like Lonesome Al.
"Ah' know it. Ya' wanna' hear all 'bout the ol' west, 'bout them times we settulled the fron-tier. 'Bout the men o' darin' an' do-oh. I'm gonna tell ya a yarn—an' it ain't in none o' the his-tree books either"—and Lonesome Al gave Tommy a sly wink and a playful poke in the ribs and said in a whisper under his breath, "It's 'bout havin' sex in the ol' west."
Tommy recoiled a bit. "Wait a second," he said, "I just had a sex experience with RocksANNE and, though that was pleasurable, I think that's enough sex for one day."
But Lonesome Al ignored Tommy and launched in:

"Seems, now, there was this man, name o' Paiute Paul. Lived way out in Arizona or some-airs, whar' the country's huge, flat an' bare. An' everyday, in the heat o' th' afternoon, he'd drive ta this huge empty valley. Way back through the mountains, 'long this dirt road he'd go, till he come ta it. Then he'd walk 'way from his car, 'cross the powdry dust an' crinkled mud an' stan' in the middle o' nothin'. He loved the flat, terr-ble silence o' the desert, that silence reachin' as far as he could see. The air paused and hung so hot an' quietly above the baked valley that it seemed ta be the in an' out breath of the scaly lizards. An' away, far away, the cream an' tan an' lavender mountains seemed ta hold magic secrets. The dried-up desert made him think o' the silence o' ancient bones an', when it did, his lovin' it became stronger an' became fear, for then he knew he was seein' ex-actly the same silence that'd hung around that valley fur the last twinty-fiv' thousand y'ars. Sometimes th' secrutiv-ness o' the mountains an' the itchy feelin' o' empty space 'tween his eyes an' them made him think that the silence wasa trick: that, in fac', the desert was speakin' very loudly and very definitely. That it was screamin' so loudly it was beyond human hearin' range and didn't register, 'cept as an overpowerin' force.
"One late afternoon, as the sun was darkenin' an' dark green was comin' back inta the plants, he stood in the huge valley an' distinctly thought he heard one o' the mountains start ta hum. Then, other mountains began hummin' also, very sof'ly. Then the sage brush 'round him was hummin', an' he was certain he heard it. It was one steady pitch, like the hummin' o' a big insect over a juniper bush. Then the late afternoon sunlight joined in an' turned an intense golden red. Then the hummin' became LOUDER. It kep' becomin' LOUDER an' LOUDER 'til the groun' 'neath Paiute Paul's feet was hummin' and shakin'. Then it became even LOUDER an' the light became even more a burnin' gold. The whole lan'scape was tremblin' now. An' the force, one by one, split open th' tops o' the mountains and blood oozed out o' 'em, runnin' red down their cones inta the valley.
"The hummin' became so loud that Paiute Paul felt pain in his ears an' fell down on the ground in a small ball. THEN SOMETHIN' VERY STRANGE HAPPENED. As he touched it, the entire desert became very sof'‘ an' spraingy, like flesh. An' then somethin' else very strange happened. Pauite Paul's body started growin' huge 'til it filled the entire valley an' his arms an' legs curled 'round the mountains. Then he began ta scream an' hum, scream an' hum an' writhe on the sof'' ground. He wanted ta drown out the hummin' with hummin'. He began tearin' into the softness with his hands an' knees, with his body: he was rippin' the tits off o' mountains, pullin' the tongues outa' crevices, mashin' hi'self 'gainst penises an' muscles, slashin' open the entire abdomen with his teeth. As the hum grew an' grew. Smearin' hi'self with blood, entrails an' juice. An' then, the last moment Pauite Paul could remember, yellin' at the top of his lungs, his own voice becomin' a part o' the hum: JACK OFF MOUNTAINS. JACK OFF SKY. JACK OFF MOON."

As Lonesome Al had been telling Tommy the story, his facial expressions and gesticulations had gotten wilder and wilder until his eyes got a steelish, glazed glint and his arms flailed aimlessly. And when he reached the end of it and yelled "Jack off moon," his voice and whole body exploded in a catastrophe of violence and release so powerful that it tipped his already precariously balanced chair over backwards. And Tommy had gotten so caught up in the emotion of Lonesome Al's story that when Al's chair fell backwards, so did his. Now the two of them lay on their backs on the ground. Tommy quickly jumped up but Lonesome Al just lay there, his arms and legs flailing at the air, his eyes closed, his face spastically twisted and drool coming out of his mouth.
The sight was so repulsive that Tommy started walking rapidly away. "Sorry, I have to go now. I'm late for school," he lied. Lonesome Al just lay there. "Good-bye," Tommy yelled back as he reached the road and started trotting down it.
He was very, very upset but, as he hurried down the road, he remembered that he was watching, or was a part of, television. "SEX," he reflected. "I've had sex in the East and I've had sex in the West. I've had sex with RocksANNE and I've had sex with mountains, sagebrush, and the moon. I guess, of the two, I like sex with RocksANNE best. This must be the Playboy Channel. I've heard about it but I've never seen it. The local chapter of the Anti-Sex League of America took it off the air and replaced it with football and prayer meetings in Pittsfield, New Jersey."
"And in Cincinnati," a voice said.
"Who's that?," Tommy asked. But he saw no one, only a giant mushroom that was growing beside the road. The mushroom was so tall that he couldn't see the top of it but he did see an oval of beautiful colors projecting over the edge. The beautiful oval was fluttering like a fan.
"What's that?" Tommy thought.
He tried to see the flat top part of the mushroom but it was so high that he could only see it by jumping up in the air. And, when he jumped, what he saw was a magnificent Moth. The Moth was at least nine colors. Red and orange and lime and tan and purple . . . . He kept jumping up and down trying to see all the colors.
Then the Moth spoke to him, "So, we would like to eat some of my toadstool and get taller. Well, we can't. It's mine—and that's that. I guess we will just have to keep jumping up and down, won't we?"
Tommy's jumping up and down made the Moth keep appearing and disappearing as it talked to him.
"And I guess the next thing we'd like to know is why a Moth is sitting on a toadstool instead of a toad, wouldn't we? Well, that is easy. I was a toad before I became a Moth and next I will change back into a toad again. So, we aren't so smart, are we?"
"Now the next thing we would probably like to know is THE SECRET OF LIFE IN WELSH, wouldn't we? All right, we have no objections to telling it:

Mae beirdd mor wallgo wirion a chadnoid yn ol y son a'r si,
Neu bobl sy'n bwyta bageli al eogiaid o amser cav tan dri,
Neu longau di-awel mewn awres mediteranaidd llonydd,
Neu wy wedi i chwipio ar blat lle ceir cig yn domennydd."5

"What did you say?" Tommy asked. I can't understand any of that. Speak English."
"Can't. THE SECRET OF LIFE isn't in English. It's in Welsh. Of course, the FIVE QUESTIONS are in English but we didn't ask to hear those, did we? I guess we are just one of those people more interested in answers than in questions. In which case, I'm afraid, we are in the wrong language."
"Well, what are the questions, then?"
"Which questions?"
"The Five Questions."
"No, now there are only three. We've just used two up. So, we are careful what we say from here on out. The three questions only can be asked at midnight with a full moon. And just look at that moon. It hasn't eaten in two weeks. Maybe we should send out for cheese and quackers. Oh . . . oh, we almost told the answer to one of the Three Questions—as long as we understand that the duck isn't the only strange bird that quacks. We do."
"What ques----," Tommy started but quickly checked himself, realizing that he was just about to ask another question. Instead he commanded: "Tell me the question."
"Good boy," said the Moth, "that is one of the RULES OF LIVING."
"RULES OF LIV---?" but Tommy checked himself again and said: "You speak of the RULES OF LIVING. I hope you know what you are talking about and what language they're in."
"The RULES OF LIVING are in Backwards English, of course, so that everybody who can't read it will do just exactly the opposite. The first rule of living is:

.command a give ,question a ask to want you wheN

This naturally leads to the second rule:

.question a ask alwayS .command a give neveR"

"The second rule says the same thing backwards as forwards—not the opposite."
"Of course it says the same thing backwards as forwards," screamed the Moth. "That is why it is so confusing. But, to return to the three questions or the 3 GREAT ENIGMATIC RIDDLES. The question for which I almost gave us the answer is:

What quacks but is not a duck and goes with cheese?

If we know the answer to that, we will know everything. Or one-third of everything."
Tommy always had been good at riddles so he felt confident that he could answer it. "Let's see, 'what quacks but is not . . .'"
But before he had a chance to think of even one possible solution, the Moth suddenly yawned and made a wry face as if it were getting bored: "Such impudence never came my way. Early this afternoon I gave you money. While I was having my shoes polished, I gave you more money. Now you put the bite on me again. Do me a favor will you? Go occasionally to somebody else. This is beginning to get tiresome. This is the very last you get from me, and just to make sure, here's another peso. But from now on, you have to make your way through life without my assistance."
Of course, the Moth didn't give him a peso or any money whatsoever. And while Tommy was trying to figure out just what that last speech had meant, the Moth suddenly screamed, "Help, I'm melting!"
And what Tommy now saw, he could have sworn, was an example of "trick photography." Except there wasn't any camera lens other than his own eyes and there wasn't any man in a little darkroom to make fancy cuts and splices. In a continuously flowing sequence, the Moth melted right into the rounded top of the toadstool, and the toadstool then turned into the shell of a tortoise, and the tortoise shell suddenly sprouted arms, head and legs as the stem of the toadstool shortened until it disappeared, and the tortoise, now on the ground, began walking away.
But it didn't go very far when it flipped over on the back of its shell and could not right itself. Tommy leaned over to turn the animal right again but jumped back in amazement. Inside the shell was not a tortoise after all—but a miniaturized Lonesome Al, still squirming on his back! Finally, the tortoise-Lonesome Al thing did get back on its feet and started crawling away. But Tommy was in for another surprise: the shell was the nine colors of the Moth and it had a design of black lines in concentric circles and these circles were further divided by lines radiating from the center into little squares. And in each square there was a strange letter or symbol or such.
"That's how alphabets and calendars were invented," the thing said as it crawled away. "Somebody took a good close look at a tortoise's back."
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