Out the open window, we crawl. Now I know how Chico fit through the metal bars: they're not made of metal at all! They're made of rubber. Or maybe yarn...I reach out to touch them, and all I can feel is cotton and numb.
The world ahead is still at night; black, wet, and foggy. I see an orange light shining through the trees where the fog lingers like a gray gauzy curtain. A vaudevillian theater set aflame, and instead of engulfment, it simply turns itself inside-out into nothing. A cloaking device! A ghost.
I see smoke, and I'm sure I smell something burning.
Within a mile of the Sanitarium, there appears to be a church. Lights on outside, and I see no one. Not a single figure, nor movement. Just still, and haunted. A cemetery to the left of it. A bit on a hill, and wouldn't it be awful to be buried on a hill? I'd be afraid of rolling over in my grave, even if no one spoke of me.
Remembered me.
"Iris, jump!" I hear a voice shout, and I assume it can't be Harpo, so it must be Chico; I can't tell through this thick fog.
Distracted by trees. The sick twisted limbs remind me of arms, and I almost want to reach out to them...to the brothers, too, but they're so far below me.
I hesitate. Imagining how my fellow inmates and patients would feel about knowing the bars were made of rubber or yarn all along; they're only made of metal long enough to discourage us! Or look to be made of metal...and we could have escaped if we wanted, had we known, but we didn't know; we were too discouraged. If the bars look to be made of metal, why even bother? Why even try to escape?? Why rise from the bed if you're going nowhere in this life, but back to bed, and over again, and rise again, back to bed again. Give me the twenty-foot ladder to a diving platform, to a pool of water, and back again! I'd rather dive every night til the age of eighty-five when I'm way too old to be found attractive by any living, sane man, and then, my friend, I will lie in bed, and rise from bed, and lie in bed, and rise from bed...thinking there surely is no reason or way of escaping.
No. I sit on this window ledge, and I peer into nothing, and I love it. I want to feel nothing, and see nothing, and BE nothing forever. Just as long as I can have my friends waiting for me to fall.
"Jump!" the voice shouts again.
And now I know it's Chico, because I can see Harpo and his mouth isn't moving. Like a storm without thunder; he's waving at me, and his mouth is open, but I see nothing but the light in his eyes, for his hand -- the movement of his hand -- begins to blur in the rain. It's falling harder, and softer; harder and softer. It's so bipolar I laugh and think what funny poetry the moon is made of cheese and the rain is bipolar. If I repeated the joke aloud, no one else would find it funny, and they'd lock me in the sanitarium and through away the rubber key.
Does it bounce?
Maybe the bars are made of yarn, and the key is a pair of crochet needles...
While pondering this nonsense, the light in Harpo's eyes shift from joy and adventure, to a shade of pure agitation with me.
I grasp the ledge, and nearly do a backflip. Then lower myself onto a drain pipe, and begin to shimmy down. One hand lets go, and I tell myself this is nothing, this is a cake walk! I climb ladders twenty feet high to my diving board every night, and twice on Saturdays, and surely I can do this! I'm made of sugar too, and I can do anything!
The funny thing about sugar is, it doesn't withstand the rain. Soon I'm two hands off the pipe, hanging on with my thighs, and staring down into a storm drain. I can see all the rain ending into one finite square. A bird's eye view of people marching in long gray lines straight into a pool of rushing water, swirling further into an exit, of froth and madness, waiting to be swallowed.
If I had my accordion, I'd probably dive into the pool, and wait for the applause.
Hanging from the drainpipe -- both hands again -- my bedsheet dress flows about in the wind, and then whips off completely. If I felt more like myself, I would blush. But I just keep crawling down the building, backwards in the rain.
When I reach the bottom naked, Harpo hands me my dress without looking.
"You're a gentleman," I say.
And Chico only laughs.
The three of us make a run for the nearby Church, just as I'm sure I hear sirens and see search lights, but no: on second thought, I hear nothing and see nothing. For a moment, I even wonder if maybe I'm blind and deaf. Too much rain. Too much worry. One too many dives into a pool of water from a jump twenty feet high.
I've never once hit the stage, yet now, as we're all running, and out of breath, huffing, as we climb the church steps, I seem to have the vaguest recollection of a stage meeting my face. A horrible SMACK! And then nothing but the smell of wood and shoes, and Groucho's cigar breath.
I remember Harpo's lips meeting mine, and surely I was dreaming! Harpo Marx would never kiss me...I'm not good enough for him. He could have any beautiful girl in any two-bit town -- or any two-bit girl in any beautiful town! -- but not me. Not stupid me. Not 'One Trick' Iris.
IRIS BEND -- THE AMAZING ACCORDION PLAYER! -- WILL NOW HIGH DIVE HEADFIRST INTO A SMALL POOL OF WATER, ALL WHILE STILL PLAYING HER FAVORITE INSTRUMENT AND SONG! KEEP YOUR EYES AND EARS ON THE STAGE, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! THIS WILL BE HER GREATEST ACCOMPLISHMENT YET! DIVING BLINDFOLDED, FROM A TWENTY-FOOT DROP! KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE STAGE...SHE'S A DAREDEVIL! AND SHE'S NOT GONNA TAKE NOOOOOO FOR AN ANSWER!
The loud-speaking announcer from my Circus Days is forever ingrained into my ears, mind, and memory. A refreshing change is Harpo Marx who is always so quiet. So wonderful, and thoughtful. God, this man could make a career of being so quiet, wonderful, and thoughtful. Funny how it all seems to work itself out that way...
Funny how all of this seems so far away, yet so familiar.
I ask Harpo if he remembers my name and from his shirt pocket produces an Iris flower. I try to smell it, but he eats it. Chewing; then blows a bubble in my face.
"Can I have a piece of that?" I ask.
He pulls from his pocket another Iris, and hands it to me...I bite it, and chew it, and wouldn't you know, it's not trick gum; all I blow are a couple of powdery, bitter flower petals from my tongue!
"Tastes like death," I say.
Chico grumbles.
"And just how do you know what death tastes like?" he asks.
I've tasted it. I'm not sure how, but I have.
Suddenly this church has taken on an eerie microscopic quality seen only in silent film, where the camera man singles out a lone girl, and lets the frame close in around her -- an innocent little ingenue holding a bouquet of measly flowers; she smiles demurely like a cat who's yet to realize life holds nothing more for her than chasing rats and running from wolves.
"An Iris of a Camera!" I say. And I think the brothers exchange words, but I can't hear them. Chico dismisses me with a wave of his hand, and storms down the Church steps. Harpo grabs me by the arm, and pulls me past doors I thought would be locked, but are unlocked, and the church smells like the hard candy found only at the bottom of my Grandmother's purse.
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