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CHARACTERS
in
(presented more-or-less in
the order of their appearance)
Page Three
The Ups and Downs of Skeeter Kitefly
Skeeter Kitefly's Sugardaddy Confessor
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Skeeter Kitefly's
Titular Assets
COMPACTIFICATION
behind the scenes
RoBynne O'Ring's
GRUNTS OF
PASSION
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Rotwang
The mad inventor in Fritz Lang's silent classic Metropolis, and Huffman's quasi-godhead from childhood on.
Called "Old Beetlebrow" by Huffman.
Thus Old Beetlebrow watches over me, whether he will or nill. And takes a black metallic hand in shaking up my fortunes, introducing the unbargained-for: let’s see how the little chiseler copes with this...
Artificialities
Huffman's sculpted panel of Rotwang
transforming his robot into the False Maria.
So I adopted Rotwang as my crypto-deity, carving his genesis of the False Maria into the panel Artificialities that dominates one side of my studio...
Murray Burgher
Cheesy field rep for Formi-Dable; fell out
with Big Gag Campbell over kickbacks.
“Excuse me,” I tell her. Deepening her uncertainty, till she finds I’m staring down Murray Burgher. Who gives us a salute and withdraws—probably to go knock over a competitor’s display. (As Vashti has brusked, Mannay nuph buttered ohs. Or, demilitarized: “That man ain’t nothing but a turd with toes...”)
Enzo and Sophia Formi
Boss and boss's wife of the Formi-Dable wholesale supply
firm. Parents of the late Marco; in-laws (and employers) of Judith.
“I suppose you won’t be available for another sitting, then?”
“Tomorrow? I’m afraid not. I mean I’d love to, but I have to go to Trey Hills. It’s hard for my mother-in-law, Sophia. My husband was—he didn’t have any brothers or sisters...”
Marco Formi
"Mr. Bluff": Judith's late husband, who was killed in an auto accident on her 24th birthday.
Also referred to by Huffman as the Wastrel
and "Asskicker R.I.P."
“When my husband—boyfriend he was at the time—first came up to Walse Falls to meet my family, he kicked Rudy’s rear end. I mean, hard. Because he’d heard about how Rudy hassled me when we were kids. So, pow! Right on the rear. Didn’t make the best impression on my folks… but that’s when I fell for him, once and for all. ‘My hero...’”
The Dahls of Walse Falls, Minnesota
Judith's family: half German Catholics and half Scandinavian Lutherans. Judith was the youngest child, beloved by all (except brother Rudy) till her bout with scoliosis and marriage to Marco Formi.
Grandma Audrey is famous for her
frikadeller (Danish meatballs).
Dad manages sporting goods for Sears, Mom sells dream houses for Century 21, Judith is their youngest ... the Little Princess of Walse Falls, not spoiled but admittedly indulged all through childhood. Born with a good face and just kept blossoming. Grew tall quickly but never gawky, never awkward; loved shooting hoops with her boisterous big brothers. Volleyball, raquetball, any sport that involved leaping and jumping. Meanwhile everyone said here was a future fashion model: look at that face, those eyes, those legs...
Last Updated
August 05, 2018
Rudy Dahl
Judith's inexcusable youngest brother.
Her brother Rudy'd tricked her once into looking at a picture of circus freaks, and the memory still gives her teeth-grinding nightmares. Now at thirteen she was one of them, gooble-gabble! one of them! and thought she would crack up—had cracked up: become a gruesome misshapen basket case. Her mother said, “If only you hadn’t roughhoused so much…” Her father lost all patience with her constant fantods. And Rudy cut unspeakable capers behind and about her back...
Sister Genevieve
"Sister Geronimo": Judith's guardian angel at Holy Visitation
School in Walse Falls.
Swimming became her passion, with Janet Evans as role model and Sister Genevieve as coach.
“We called her ‘Sister Geronimo’—she could do a triple somersault in a tuck position from a handstand...”
Chad the Cad
An unworthy classmate of Judith's in high
school.
She has yet to tell me about Chad the Cad, her first serious boyfriend at Holy Visitation, who got off on the back brace and dumped her when she was at last able to discard it...
Boaz "Ruthless" Luther
Local music legend, best known for the
Demortuis city anthem "Empty Tomb Blues."
They tell me that we’ll meet again, somewhere up there in the sky,
They tell me that we’ll meet again, somewhere up there in the sky—
All I know is that I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye…
Coaches Beltz and Sparger
Two instructors from Huffman's schooldays.
Takes me back to happily forgotten phys ed classes taught by crewcut jutjaws with names like “Coach Beltz” or “Coach Sparger.” Their concept of treating asthma was to make me run laps nonstop...
Noir
Judith's Persian cat, whom
Huffman suspects of being the reincarnation of Johnny Ajahr.
Judith scoops it effortlessly into her arms. “This is my baaaaaaaby,” she croons, “this is my sweetheart. You’re not allergic to cats?”
“Not really, no,” I say. Meaning this can’t really be a cat. More like an enormous shaggy panther cub...
WhooHoo Mob
Riotous revelers at the
closing night of the local "Summer Kickoff" festival in Portal Park.
It’s closing night of Whoopjamboreehoo! squander all reserves! on chugging, on frothing, on screeching and howling, on demented demanding that chunks be blown and tits be shown!...
Sleepy LeThean
Long-ago football pro; now runs a lumber yard and provides Huffman with choice sculpting material.
Sleepy LeThean appreciates those who value good wood. Forty years ago he was one of the original Cutthroats, playing for dime-store wages in the old AFL. A lot of aging fans seek Sleepy’s autograph and stories about tackling the likes of Jack Kemp. He always obliges—after they buy some lumber...
Calypso Judith
Appearing six times in Huffman's dreams: combining myth with modeling.
We’re on the bus and it’s in the river, drifting merrily downstream. Except for a sailor cap, Judith is thoroughly nude. “No,” she says, “I’m in my birthday suit.” Yet perfectly safe, I having climbed a bamboo limbo-ladder that lacks any downward rungs. “What are you doing up there?” asks Calypso Judith. “Trying not to break my neck,” I reply. “Hi-dee-ay-hee!” chime in John Denver and Jacques Cousteau...
Nicolette (Nikki) Ningal
Spacy silversmith and reigning belle of Jackdaw Square.
A meld of Sparkle Plenty and the Moon Maid (for those who remember Dick Tracy in the Sixties). Many a time I’ve tried persuading Nikki to pose for me, but she distrusts wood as a medium. “If it splinters, I might too...”
Lillian Rhine ("Rhino") Huffman
Huffman's mother: achieved minor celebrity
as a film critic before succumbing to various cancers.
Our mother—before she ended up in the urn in Cassie’s handbag—worshiped bright lights and action sequences, and so became a movie critic...
Chester Alan Arthur Huffman
Huffman's father, Professor of Physics at
several state universities, who loved assembling things.
He taught physics and worshiped the scientific method, which I thought meant taking things apart in order to put them back together...
Cassandra
Huffman's older half-sister, to whose Mrs.
Joe he played Pip. (Her father had been a "folksinging fellow
traveler.")
From my half-sister Cassandra I receive a tract demanding to know “Where will you spend eternity??” Not, I hope, like our mother, whose urn accompanies Cassie everyplace she goes...
Mary Iris Monica (Rozay) Franzia
MIMF: the Girl Next Door in Huffman's Lawrence KS boyhood. Not liking his first name, she called him "Aitch." Committed suicide at age 21.
Called "Wednesday" by Cassie.
The Girl Next Door and I were allowed to watch providing we kept quiet; which we always did, having found other ways to communicate.
What’s this one about?
There’s supposed to be a robot in it.
I thought you said it was a silent movie.
Yeah. So? Robots don’t have to talk.
Silent movies are from the olden days. Robots are from the future.
(This with the lofty-learnèd air she felt entitled to, being eight months older than me...)
Baseless Mime
Rozay Franzia's suicide journal, published a quarter-century after she jumped off a bridge into the Kaw River.
About this note. I’ve been told before you take your own life you’re supposed to write a note explaining yourself. Testify your testament and say goodbye. Catholic doctrine would have you damning your soul whatever the explanation. Hell awaits, so abandon all hope or go repent your pants off...
Irene Franzia
Rozay's mother, who worked in the Kansas
University Dean's office. Separated from Rozay's father, whom Huffman
managed to never meet.
Mrs. Franzia and my mother were soon close friends. Rozay’s mom was the only woman I ever knew who smoked more than my mine did; at kaffeeklatsches they seemed to compete as to who could fill an ashtray the fastest...
Richard (Dick) Franzia
Rozay's father, who appeared—very briefly—in the movie
Carnival of Souls. Called his daughter "Rosé"; she always insisted
the name was spelled Z-A-Y.
Very early in our acquaintance, Rozay informed me that her father had acted in a couple of recent films. One was a “business movie” about the Reuter factory where he worked, testing pipe organs for churches. The other, she said, was a “ghost movie.” To me that meant sappy Casper and his feeble cartoons...
YiaYia
Rozay's Greek maternal grandmother.
Everyone’s schedules were coordinated so Rozay and I could go to one or the other of our houses any day after school, and find either a mom or Cassie or Rozay’s grandmother YiaYia (who had high-piled hair too, tinted blue)...
Jerome Gullip
Local intimidator, whose sudden
demise came immediately after Huffman's first tentative prayer to Rotwang.
Anyway: as a kid I was convinced the meek would inherit the earth, having had my face crammed into it (plus the sidewalk and curbstone) by the neighborhood bully, Jerome Gullip...
"Snaggle" Feist
Went to
Brown Elementary School with Huffman; his older brother had an extensive Playboy
collection.
She wouldn’t confirm or deny a rumor spread by Snaggle Feist (a dentally-challenged classmate of mine at Brown, who was forever getting hit in the mouth by baseballs or tripping facefirst onto concrete). Snag said if you weren’t a Catholic and ventured too close to St. Teresa of Avila, nuns would come out and beat you up...
The Forgotten Door Nocturne
Original composition for organ by Rozay, inspired by Alexander Key's novel.
Her performance excited some coverage in the local press (as did her appearance, “in carnation-colored miniskirt and Marlo Thomas flip...”)
H.D. Sonata for Organ in G Minor
Collegiate composition by Rozay.
Girl from Kansas gets whirled away to New York City, wows them all at Juilliard, wins acclaim for her H.D. Sonata for Organ in G Minor (inspired by the poetry of Hilda Doolittle) before succumbing to the affliction of genius...
A Perfect Fit
In-the-round remembrance of Rozay, who was
"subject to fits."
Part Marcello’s Pythia from the Paris Opera; part Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa; part Mel Ramos pop-art pin-up. A nearly nude girl frozen in midwrithe, couched on a Delphic tripod in the form of an open hand. Would you call it oracular? Or simply obscene, the girl barely in her teens (as was I at the time) with hair in a ponytail and “Friday” on her panties?...
Gramps Rhine
Huffman's grandfather, an Indiana
boilermaker (who drank the same and rooted for Purdue's). Sparked
Huffman's first interest in whittling and woodcarving.
“Boy, you best think of that as your tool, and treat it same as you would any other. Keep it clean, keep it dry, and don’t be monkeyshining with it. Else it’ll end up the boss of you.”
(An accurate forecast. Thanks, Gramps...)
Grandma Rhine
Long-dead mother of
the five Rhine Maidens.
Grandma Rhine I never knew; she’d succumbed long ago to cancer, as was the custom in her family. All five of her daughters feared getting it, though not to the point of quitting smoking...
The Other Four Rhine Maidens
Lillian's sisters.
Each was given a solid respectable hausfrau name—Mabel, Clara, Louise, Lillian, Thelma—but with Gramps being an incorrigible girlwatcher and moviegoer, he might have had the Misses Normand, Bow, Brooks, Roth, and Todd in subconscious mind...
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