Jitterbug Perfume

by Tom Robbins

My life is not merely a public phenomenon, it is a solitary adventure as well.”

I may be mad, he thought, but I prefer the shit of this world to whatever sweet ambrosias the next might offer.

It is to erase the fixed smiles of sleeping couples that Satan trained roosters to crow at five in the morning.

The traditional winter festival, which among Alobar's folk as well as many other Europeans was celebrated during the twelve days that separated the end of the lunar year (353 days long) from the end of the longer solar year (365 days), and whose purpose it was to equalize the two different celestial years, had been appropriated by the Christians and transformed into a religious holiday called “Christmas.”

The revelry continued nightly until the sixth day of January, the termination of the twelve-day “lost” or supplementary month.

“I am twice king and twice condemned—and I am sick and tired of it. First a hair and then a bean. If death wants me, let him ride up on a pale mount, ashes in his mouth, ice in his testicles; let him swing a scythe and make horrible noises, let him come for me in person, not send some hair, some fucking little black bean baked in a goody by mutton-butt peasant wives. Even then I might not go. Frankly, I do not like the way death does business.”

“Man is turning away from the plants and animals,” he said. “Slowly he is breaking his bond with them. Someday he will have to reestablish contact, if the universe is to survive. For now, however, it is probably best that he set out on his own in his new direction.” “How so?” “A salamander can be only a salamander, an elk an elk, and a bush a bush. True, a bush is complete in its bushness, yet its limits, while not nearly so severe as some foolish men would believe, are fairly obvious. The peasants of Aelfric are like bushes, like salamanders. They were born one thing and will die one thing. But you . . . you have already been a warrior, a king, and a serf, and from the looks of it, you aren't through yet. Thus, you have learned the secret of the new direction. That is: a man can be many things. Maybe anything.

Most of the peasants are content to die. For them, death means the cessation of toil. At last they can drop their soiled and battered bodies and enter the dimension of pure spirit. Plants and animals are even more comfortable with death. It is the natural end. But man by his nature is an unnatural animal. If any creature stands a chance of defeating death, it is man.

In the realms that I inhabit, death is a companion. One does not quarrel with one's friend.

Are you to be an individual, a trespasser in territory none else has had the wit or nerve to explore, or just another troublesome mosquito to be swatted by the authorities? You're no longer king or warrior, remember, but something new.

“The world is round,” he sang, in tune with his footfalls. “Existence can be rearranged. A man can be many things. “I am special and free. “And the world is round round round.”

“You—you are the—the Horned One,” stammered Alobar. The creature gamboled closer, dispelling any doubts about the origin of the stench. “In some places they know me as that. Herebouts, they call me Pan.” He paused. “Those who still honor me, that is.” He paused again. “And who might thou be? And what is thy mission?” “Alobar, once king, once serf, now individual—have you heard of individuals?—free and hungry, at your service. My mission? Well, frankly, I am running away from death.”

Christ said that illumination is found only by putting everything one has in jeopardy. Thou, of all humans, should understand the courage that is required to reject the secure blessings of society in order to woo the unpredictable ecstasies of the solitary soul.

Christianity is merely a system for turning priestesses into handmaidens, queens into concubines, and goddesses into muses.”

I do not fear death. I resent it. Everything must die, apparently, and I am no exception. But I want to be consulted. You know what I mean? Death is impatient and thoughtless. It barges into your room when you are right in the middle of something, and it doesn't bother to wipe its boots. I have a new passion, my darlings, a passion for being myself, and for being more than previously has been manifested for a single lifetime. I am determined to die at my own convenience. Therefore, I journey to the east, where, I have been told, there are men who have taught death some manners.”

"I love the ground-o, ground-o A ball beneath my feet The world is round-o, round-o Just like a frigging beet."

The rusted-out VW bug is the national bird of Waitressland.

“You know, there's not much that can be done to heal the sting of a woman. As they say in her country, it's easier to scratch your ass than your heart.”

Of our nine planets, Saturn is the one that looks like fun. Of our trees, the palm is obviously the stand-up comedian. Among fowl, the jester's cap is worn by the duck. Of our fruits and vegetables, the tomato could play Falstaff, the banana a more slapstick role. As Hamlet—or Macbeth—the beet is cast. In largely vegetarian India, the beet is rarely eaten because its color is suggestive of blood. Out, damned mangel-wurzel.

Perhaps the most terrible (or wonderful) thing that can happen to an imaginative youth, aside from the curse (or blessing) of imagination itself, is to be exposed without preparation to the life outside his or her own sphere—the sudden revelation that there is a there out there.

The gods have a great sense of humor, don't they? If you lack the iron and the fizz to take control of your own life, if you insist on leaving your fate to the gods, then the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion, romantic dreamers will end up in the rope yard.

The price of self-destiny is never cheap, and in certain situations it is unthinkable. But to achieve the marvelous, it is precisely the unthinkable that must be thought.

“They strike me as rude.” “Rude? Yes, they were plenty of that. But, you see, a long time ago, far off in the west where I come from, I met two rude characters, one a shaman, one a god, and though each treated me disagreeably in the beginning, one gave me special courage, the other special fear, both of which I required for this journey that I am on. Those who possess wisdom cannot just ladle it out to every wantwit and jackanapes who comes along and asks for it. A person must be prepared to receive wisdom, or else it will do him more harm than good. Moreover, a lout thrashing about in the clear waters of wisdom will dirty those waters for everyone else. So, a man seeking knowledge must be first tested to determine if he is worthy. From what I have gathered, rudeness on the part of the master is the first phase of the test.”

“You mean, if you allow the master to be uncivil, to treat you any old way he likes, and to insult your dignity, then he may deem you fit to hear his view of things?” “Quite the contrary. You must defend your integrity, assuming you have integrity to defend. But you must defend it nobly, not by imitating his own low behavior. If you are gentle where he is rough, if you are polite where he is uncouth, then he will recognize you as potentially worthy. If he does not, then he is not a master, after all, and you may feel free to kick his ass.”

“But you have never gone back?” “I made a vow. If we mortals can better the gods in no other way, we can at least keep our promises.”

I don't want salvation, I want life, all of life, the miserable as well as the superb.

I cannot believe that the most delicious things were placed here merely to test us, to tempt us, to make it the more difficult for us to capture the grand prize: the safety of the void. To fashion of life such a petty game is unworthy of both men and gods.”

“The lamas declare that they have no fear of death, yet is it anything less than fear that causes them to die before they die? In order to tame death, they refuse to completely enjoy life. In rejecting complete enjoyment, they are half-dead in advance—and that with no guarantee that their sacrifice will actually benefit them when all is done. They are good fellows, and I must respect their choice, but fullness, completion, not empty perfection, is this fool's goal.”

It is said that when a man is anticipating sexual activity, his whiskers grow at an accelerated rate. Alobar might have to stop and shave before we reach the end of this paragraph.

He excited her because he was as damned as she was, yet had no regrets. He actually made damnation seem attractive.

By identifying with our desires and taking them too seriously, we not only increase our susceptibility to disappointment, we actually create a climate inhospitable to the free and easy fulfillment of those desires.”

“Ricki,” she said, wearily, “do you ever pray?” “Pray?” “Yeah, pray.” “Sure I do, honey. I pray all the time.” “Well, when you talk to God, does he answer?” “Absolutely.” “What does God say?” Ricki glanced around her. The bar was starting to fill up with customers waiting for the dining room to open. “Have you noticed,” she said, “that you and I are the only Mexicans in this place?” “I'm Irish and you're Italian. Ricki, be serious. What does God say?” “God says the check is in the mail,” answered Ricki, moving to the waitress station where the cocktail girl stood gargling a mouthful of orders.

Priscilla closed her eyes and slipped into a crack between the bar noise and the movie noise, where, under her coffee-scented breath, she prayed; asking God, in whom she only marginally believed, what to do about the formula, what to do about Ricki's lust and love. She closed, out of habit, with an “amen,” not knowing for sure what “amen” really meant, but suspecting that when God finally ended the world his big boom-boom voice would not bellow “amen” but “Tha-tha-tha-tha-that's all, folks,” à la Porky Pig.

WHEN WE ACCEPT SMALL WONDERS, we qualify ourselves to imagine great wonders.

But the devil will bite a young girl if she gives him a spot, and he sure took a nibble of this one.

With his fingertips, Luc slowly twirled the cigar. He examined its ash. The higher the quality of the cigar, the longer the ash it will produce. Eventually, however, every ash must drop. And the drop usually is as sudden as it is final. Did Luc detect a metaphor in the cigar ash? Might he muse philosophically about the nature of the Eternal Ashtray? Might we?

You see, I'm confident that the cuckoo is going to stay put in Bunny's clock. He won't do anything rash.”

What worries me is: what if Marcel should outlive you? Can you imagine Marcel in charge?” “Papa!” “Jesus. This building. He'd probably rent out the top twenty-three stories and operate a little perfumerie in the basement, like the monks had seven hundred years ago, or that little Kudra shop that was next-door when our ancestors bought the business in 1666.”

THE HIGHEST FUNCTION OF LOVE is that it makes the loved one a unique and irreplaceable being.

21, rue Quelle Blague

In losing you, they were losing their body wisdom, their moon wisdom, their mountain wisdom, they were trading the live wood of the maypole for the dead carpentry of the cross. They weren't as much fun, anymore, the poor homers; they were straining so desperately for admission to paradise that they had forgotten that paradise had always been their address.

Tis true, thou homers do have magic of thine own, the gods have always known that, known it even better than thee. We gods know how to use our powers, but most men and women do not know how, that be the difference between us and thee. Sniff sniff.” “Forgive me,” said Alobar, “but the important difference between men and gods is that gods are immortal and men are not. Is this a result of we men not knowing how to correctly use our powers?” Pan ran his rather squashed nose along his patchouli-contaminated arm. “Once, a long time ago, when the earth had a flat dark face and a belly of fire, back before the hills had grown so tall that they pushed the moon away, mankind was given a choice between life and death and through trickery or misinformation or something else, made the wrong choice. That is all there is to it.” “But what if,” asked Kudra, shooting Alobar a meaningful glance, “but what if we decided now to choose life?” “Then choose it,” said Pan. Again, Kudra and Alobar exchanged glances. “But would not that anger the gods?” Kudra asked. “Ha ha ha!” The laughter burst out of Pan like the barking of some obscene dog. “Anger the gods? The gods, those that art still around, wouldst congratulate thee for finally catching on.” “You mean . . . ?” “I mean that the gods do not limit men. Men limit men.” “We are,” asked Kudra, “as deserving of immortality as the gods?” “Thou hast not deserved immortality because thou hast been too puny in thy mind and heart and soul. Sniff.” “B...

“If Pan be alloweth to die, if belief in him totally decomposes, then the land, too, wilt die. It wilt be murdered by disrespect, just as Pan is murdered.”

Should one be shallow enough to view existence as a system of rewards and punishments, one soon learns that we pay as dearly for our triumphs as we do for our defeats,

“Aging seems a high price to pay for normalcy.”

Oh, darling, I know that life is good, and that it still holds surprises for me, but maybe death is good, too; certainly it offers some surprise.

“I will wager that death be a million times more boring than life.”

There's an old axiom: “A couple's first quarrel is Cupid's laxative.”

“Only fortune hunters and Christian fanatics go to the New World. We are neither of those.” “Fortune hunters, Christian fanatics, and misfits. That last category describes us rather accurately.”

It was said that in Paris no whore was too old or too ugly to survive.