Tales of the City 05 - Significant Others

you said.”
    “I didn’t say pickup. It’s a big truck, DeDe. It sucks up the shit.”
    “Well, how was I supposed to know?”
    The security chief shook her head slowly. “You are something else. You reeeally are.”
    “O.K. I made a boo-boo. I apologize.”
    “Made a boo-boo?”
    “Fucked up, then.”
    “Do you have any idea what those assholes just did?”
    DeDe caught her breath. Please God, don’t make it gross. She shook her head warily.
    “They drove past the Aura Cleansing Workshop, screaming ‘Fucking dykes’ at the top of their lungs—”
    “I realize I—”
    “Wait a minute. Shut up. On their way out, they knocked over a Porto-Jane.”
    “God.”
    “With somebody in it, DeDe.”
    DeDe pressed her fingers to her lips as her stomach began to churn. “Was she … hurt?”
    An excruciating pause followed. “She was severely traumatized,” Rose said at last. “We had to hose her down at the Womb.”
    Racked with nausea, DeDe looked away from her accuser. “If I’d had any idea …”
    “You didn’t follow instructions,” said Rose. “It’s as simple as that.”
    DeDe nodded. “You’re right … you’re right.” She couldn’t help wondering, though, what would have happened if she’d refused entry to the marauders. Would they have obeyed her? Her children certainly never did.
    “I’d think you’d want to prove yourself,” said Rose. “Considering your background.”
    “My background?” said DeDe.
    “You know what I mean.”
    “No, I don’t. Please tell me.”
    “I know about your father, O.K.?”
    “You know what? My father is dead.”
    “Your stepfather, then. Whatever. I’ve known all about his fascist Reagan connections.”
    DeDe’s face burned. “So what does that make me, then?”
    Rose shrugged. “You tell me.”
    Hesitating a moment, she considered several retorts, then handed Rose the walkie-talkie. “It’s past two,” she said. “My shift is over.”
    She walked back to her tent in a daze, tormented by an issue far more troublesome than a toppled Porto-Jane: How could Rose—or anyone else—have known about Booter, unless D’or had said something?
    And why would D’or do that? Why?

Broken Date
    B DOOTER’S LAKESIDE TALK HAD BEEN A RESOUNDING success. So far, at least a dozen Bohemians had pulled him aside to congratulate him, comparing him favorably to Chuck Percy and Bill Ruckelshaus, who had also addressed the multitudes that week. Sure, he had scrambled his notes once or twice, but no one seemed to notice, and the ovation afterwards had verged on thunderous.
    He was walking now to burn off energy, filling his lungs with the pungent afternoon air. On the road above Green Mask, he passed a shirtless young man in his late twenties. His age and musculature suggested that he was an employee, so Booter felt duty bound to say something.
    “Hot one, isn’t it?”
    The young man made a sort of whinnying noise to indicate that it was.
    “You work here?” Booter asked, doing his best to sound pleasant about it.
    “Yessir.”
    “Well, there’s a rule about shirts, you know.”
    The young man looked at him blankly.
    “You have to wear them,” said Booter.
    “Oh.” He reached for his shirt, dangling from the back pocket of his khakis.
    “It’s fine by me,” said Booter. “But … somebody else might give you trouble about it.”
    The young man slipped on the shirt, buttoned it up.
    “I’d say the same thing to a member,” Booter added, not wishing to seem a despot. “It’s just the rule.”
    “Right.”
    “It’s a hot one, though, isn’t it?”
    “Yeah.”
    Booter smiled at him and continued on his way back to the river road.
    Order. Mutual respect. This was why the Grove was his favorite place on earth.
    He found Jimmy Chappell in his tepee at Medicine Lodge. “There he is,” piped Jimmy. “The William Jennings Bryan of the SDI.”
    Humility was in order, so Booter grunted disparagingly and sat down on the cot next to him.
    “You want a drink?” asked Jimmy.
    “Nah.”
    Jimmy poured cognac into a plastic cup, downing it with a satisfied smack. “Low Jinks sounds good,” he said.
    Christ almighty. Was that tonight?
    “It’s called ‘I, Gluteus,’” Jimmy added, picking up a Grove program to read: “ ‘Bohemians and guests will thrill to love duets by Erotica and Testicus, shiver at the plot hatched by Castrata against Fornicatio, giggle at the airy antics of Flatus, and feel tension mount between Nefario and