Saturday, May 10, 2003

Travelling Salesmen. The Evangelists of Profit. The Spreaders of Rumor. Once it was that travelling salesmen took Islam to the corners of the Earth. Beagle's travelling salemen take Dr. Earnest Bienke's patent medicine through the B-ways of the South and the Midwest and with them Koo Kowlick Scarecrow kits. Koo Kowlick Scarecrows are identifiable by the blue ukuleles they hold. Usually they are flanked by a homemade sign with a legend like: "Under a hex? Listen to Radio X." Beagle tells the travelling salesmen that he wants the scarecrows to be as diverse as imaginable as long as they feature a blue ukulele. "People don't have much going for them these days, so we want to give them an opportunity to express themselves in their scarecrows." The travelling salesmen are authorized to dicker with housewives. "You can give them as many Radio X clothespins - the bright red springy, suregrip clothespins to keep your wash up high - and as much Dr. Earnest Bienke's celebrated soap granules as you have to." In exchange the housewives are to top their clotheslines with images of Koo. Dickering with housewives is what travelling salesmen live for and Beagle knows this. Beagle has Dr. Bienke do a whole week of bird villification: "Birds are like flying rats cept they carry reptile diseases, too. What you want to do is scare them harbingers of harmed health right away from your premises with a scarecrow and to help you folks I have instructed my represenatives in the field to do whatever is necessary to get more scarecrows out there." In 1933 in the Empire of Dr. Bienke there is a widespread epidemic of a sexually transmitted disease colloquially referred to as 'having a blue ukulele'. On the airways Dr. Earnest Bienke references it obscurely as ' a private burning'. "Ned has written in from Georgia complaining of a private burning and I am prescribing for him #17, taken internally and externally as set out in the directions on the bottle." Texas, having escaped the captivity of the West Houston Boys, is living in sundrenched idleness in her cabin beside the hard-bottomed pond. Texas is a big brown girl with blonde highlights and a freckled nose and one day after breakfast she goes walkabout to maybe kibbitz a non-competitive, country golf game. But on this day instead she runs into Cassie Dale, Dead In The Ether, and haunting a mesquite tree. "What you doing Cassie?" Texas asks timidly, because Cassie is the shimmering essence of vampire girl, untouchable by the sun, Nighttime to Texas' fleshy brown dayness. But today Cassie just disappears. Travelling salesmen love to dicker with housewives. Which is how 'blue ukulele' gets transmitted. Which is why #17 is selling so well. Which is why Beagle is riding high in Dos Passos. But Beagle has snorted up ambition. Nothng will ever be enough. 12:43:11 PM    comment []