if I have eleven fingers.”
He does have eleven, six on his left hand. He says one in ninety thousand babies is born with this affliction. Surgeons routinely amputate the unneeded digit.
For some reason that Ozzie has never shared with me, his parents refused permission for the surgery. He was the fascination of other children: the eleven-fingered boy; eventually, the eleven-fingered fat boy; and then the eleven-fingered fat boy with the withering wit.
“As shallow as my insights might have been,” he said, “they were sincerely offered.”
“That’s some comfort, I guess.”
“Anyway, you came here today with a burning philosophical question that’s troubling you, but it troubles you so much you don’t want to ask, after all.”
“No, that isn’t it,” I said.
I looked at the congealing remains of my lobster omelet. At Terrible Chester. At the lawn. At the small woods so green in the morning sun.
Ozzie’s moon-round face could be smug and loving at the same time. His eyes twinkled with an expectation of being proved right.
At last I said, “You know Ernie and Pooka Ying.”
“Lovely people.”
“The tree in their backyard…”
“The brugmansia. It’s a magnificent specimen.”
“Everything about it is deadly, every root and leaf.”
Ozzie smiled as Buddha would have smiled if Buddha had written mystery novels and had relished exotic methods of murder. He nodded approvingly. “Exquisitely poisonous, yes.”
“Why would nice people like Ernie and Pooka want to grow such a deadly tree?”
“For one thing, because it’s beautiful, especially when it’s in flower.”
“The flowers are toxic, too.”
After popping a final morsel of marmaladed brioche into his mouth and savoring it, Ozzie licked his lips and said, “One of those enormous blooms contains sufficient poison, if properly extracted, to kill perhaps a third of the people in Pico Mundo.”
“It seems reckless, even perverse, to spend so much time and effort nurturing such a deadly thing.”
“Does Ernie Ying strike you as a reckless and perverse man?”
“Just the opposite.”
“Ah, then Pooka must be the monster. Her self-deprecating manner must disguise a heart of the most malevolent intention.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “it seems to me that a friend might not take such pleasure in making fun of me as you do.”
“Dear Odd, if one’s friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate, and inoculates against foolishness.”
“That sure sounds profound,” I said.
“Medium shallow,” he assured me. “May I educate you, lad?”
“You can try.”
“There’s nothing reckless about growing the brugmansia. Equally poisonous plants are everywhere in Pico Mundo.”
I was dubious. “Everywhere?”
“You’re so busy with the supernatural world that you know too little about the natural.”
“I don’t get much time to go bowling, either.”
“Those flowering oleander hedges all over town?
Oleander
in Sanskrit means ‘horse killer.’ Every part of the plant is deadly.”
“I like the variety with red flowers.”
“If you burn it, the smoke is poisonous,” Ozzie said. “If bees spend too much time with oleander, the honey will kill you. Azaleas are equally fatal.”
“Everybody plants azaleas.”
“Oleander will kill you quickly. Azaleas, ingested, take a few hours. Vomiting, paralysis, seizures, coma, death. Then there’s savin, henbane, foxglove, jimsonweed…all here in Pico Mundo.”
“And we call her
Mother
Nature.”
“There’s nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either,” Ozzie said.
“But, sir, Ernie and Pooka Ying
know
the brugmansia is deadly. In fact, its deadliness is why they planted and nurtured it.”
“Think of it as a Zen thing.”
“I would—if I knew what that meant.”
“Ernie and Pooka
He does have eleven, six on his left hand. He says one in ninety thousand babies is born with this affliction. Surgeons routinely amputate the unneeded digit.
For some reason that Ozzie has never shared with me, his parents refused permission for the surgery. He was the fascination of other children: the eleven-fingered boy; eventually, the eleven-fingered fat boy; and then the eleven-fingered fat boy with the withering wit.
“As shallow as my insights might have been,” he said, “they were sincerely offered.”
“That’s some comfort, I guess.”
“Anyway, you came here today with a burning philosophical question that’s troubling you, but it troubles you so much you don’t want to ask, after all.”
“No, that isn’t it,” I said.
I looked at the congealing remains of my lobster omelet. At Terrible Chester. At the lawn. At the small woods so green in the morning sun.
Ozzie’s moon-round face could be smug and loving at the same time. His eyes twinkled with an expectation of being proved right.
At last I said, “You know Ernie and Pooka Ying.”
“Lovely people.”
“The tree in their backyard…”
“The brugmansia. It’s a magnificent specimen.”
“Everything about it is deadly, every root and leaf.”
Ozzie smiled as Buddha would have smiled if Buddha had written mystery novels and had relished exotic methods of murder. He nodded approvingly. “Exquisitely poisonous, yes.”
“Why would nice people like Ernie and Pooka want to grow such a deadly tree?”
“For one thing, because it’s beautiful, especially when it’s in flower.”
“The flowers are toxic, too.”
After popping a final morsel of marmaladed brioche into his mouth and savoring it, Ozzie licked his lips and said, “One of those enormous blooms contains sufficient poison, if properly extracted, to kill perhaps a third of the people in Pico Mundo.”
“It seems reckless, even perverse, to spend so much time and effort nurturing such a deadly thing.”
“Does Ernie Ying strike you as a reckless and perverse man?”
“Just the opposite.”
“Ah, then Pooka must be the monster. Her self-deprecating manner must disguise a heart of the most malevolent intention.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “it seems to me that a friend might not take such pleasure in making fun of me as you do.”
“Dear Odd, if one’s friends do not openly laugh at him, they are not in fact his friends. How else would one learn to avoid saying those things that would elicit laughter from strangers? The mockery of friends is affectionate, and inoculates against foolishness.”
“That sure sounds profound,” I said.
“Medium shallow,” he assured me. “May I educate you, lad?”
“You can try.”
“There’s nothing reckless about growing the brugmansia. Equally poisonous plants are everywhere in Pico Mundo.”
I was dubious. “Everywhere?”
“You’re so busy with the supernatural world that you know too little about the natural.”
“I don’t get much time to go bowling, either.”
“Those flowering oleander hedges all over town?
Oleander
in Sanskrit means ‘horse killer.’ Every part of the plant is deadly.”
“I like the variety with red flowers.”
“If you burn it, the smoke is poisonous,” Ozzie said. “If bees spend too much time with oleander, the honey will kill you. Azaleas are equally fatal.”
“Everybody plants azaleas.”
“Oleander will kill you quickly. Azaleas, ingested, take a few hours. Vomiting, paralysis, seizures, coma, death. Then there’s savin, henbane, foxglove, jimsonweed…all here in Pico Mundo.”
“And we call her
Mother
Nature.”
“There’s nothing fatherly about time and what it does to us, either,” Ozzie said.
“But, sir, Ernie and Pooka Ying
know
the brugmansia is deadly. In fact, its deadliness is why they planted and nurtured it.”
“Think of it as a Zen thing.”
“I would—if I knew what that meant.”
“Ernie and Pooka
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