Page 31 - The Gluckman Occasional Number Three

“Yes, well, I do have a precious keepsake here, Mr. Lebec. Had it
since childhood on my keychain, but it’s starting to fall apart. My
lucky rabbit’s foot.”
Lebec stopped dead mid-greedy-grasp. His eyes bulged and his lips
retracted, leaving an unsightly rictus of rotting teeth and coated
tongue. Holly Bauza quickly interceded, shooing her charges out of
the room and out of the house. A stream of incandescent Lebecquian
invective pursued them all the way to the bus.
“I curse you to the thirteenth power of the thirteenth element!
Aluminum boils at two thousand four hundred sixty-seven degrees
centigrade: may it bathe you in hell forever! I call upon the high lords
of science and industry to blast your homes with almighty z-rays!”
The bus lurched out of the driveway and gyrated across the
opposing traffic lane before settling into a normal manner of
locomotion, but the driver did not appear astonished by the need for
a speedy egress. The man whose request had triggered Lebec’s
apparently psychotic reaction began apologizing to Holly. She
interrupted him.
“Don’t worry, sir. I should have warned you not to mention or
display anything related to his trauma. But, as we have learned on our
tour today, genius is not always distinguishable from disease, nor
should we seek to determine who is exploiting whom in the complex
relationship of artist and patron. I am certain that Mr. Lebec will be
glad to welcome Touresthetics again the next time we come calling.
Such is the transformative power of art.”