For a while there, everybody was Arto Lindsay. And Arto Lindsay was a strange someone for everyone to be. Sure, the temporary popularity of Al Green and Barry White was a little odd, too, when you really thought about it. But a couple of years ago, when everybody was being old soul guys, it almost seemed to make sense. Of course, some people handled it better than others. There was a security guard at my local liquor store who never really got the hang of being Barry; he tried his best, but his big utility belt would swing around his skinny hips like a hula hoop when he danced, and he was missing all the wrong teeth.

The kids around the neighborhood seemed to take to Barry better, and all their activities would fall into sync-- balls would slap into mitts sounding Barry's silky tones, hiders incapable of suppressing a resonant "Mmmmm" would betray themselves to seekers, even the bum wheels of lot- racing shopping carts would twitch and squeak more soulfully. The kids were always smiling when everybody was Barry, and there was an exuberance in the air-- even if the mothers weren't exactly sure what to do when their children wouldn't stop talking about panties.

But this more recent thing-- this Arto Lindsay thing-- was really strange. Peoples' voices stayed the same, but when they talked their words sounded like they'd been battered and fried in motor oil. Conversations had a constant and barely audible substrata of whirs and clicks. Television newscasters would suddenly find themselves speaking Portuguese-- they'd trail off and stare in disbelief, first at each other and then the camera, sometimes for minutes before the producer could force from his stunned lips a whirred and clicked "Commercial!"

Nobody could really get the hang of being Arto, though. It wasn't just the weird noises or the foreign tongue-- we'd done that once or twice before (as recently as that Autumn weekend in '92 when everybody was Luc van Acker). What really gummed up the works was the bossa nova beat. How could something be so creepy and so deeply funky at the same time? Nobody could handle that. Dogs would bark uncontrollably as the various impacts of a rolling hubcap or falling leaves spelled out a slow samba. Children shrieked and pointed at thudding, syncopated mobiles. In his performance during a live broadcast of the Grammy awards, Ricky Martin abruptly dropped to the ground and cowered as his version of the Latin Invasion was invaded in turn by scraping noises and a crazed timbale. It was nearly too much. Fear began welling in peoples' hearts. When people spoke now, a gently strummed catgut- strung guitar was faintly audible. But it merely gave the illusion of sense-- the bossa nova scraped and hummed along, mocking us.

But just when everybody had nearly given up, as we were just about to begin a whirring and clicking lemming march down the nearest pier, something remarkable happened. Somebody got the knack of being Arto. It was a twelve- year- old kid in Hayes, Kansas who hit on the trick while building a fort in his grandparents' cellar. He lambada'd up to his terrified Gammy, whispered in her ear, and soon the secret was up on billboards around the country, shouted from bullhorns, and blinked out in Morse code from the bows of ships. Suddenly, the thumps and chirrups were unspeakably beautiful, the guitar was like a soft blanket, the bossa nova an old and trusted friend. Senators and car salesmen shouted out clicking, whirring words of love in the streets.

The celebration couldn't last forever, of course. Eventually, everybody went back to normal, even if they were still Arto Lindsay. Children fell and scraped their knees, blood bubbling up in soulful time. Cops busted down doors with oscillating hips. Football players plied cheerleaders with Everclear and words of faintly audible guitar. Not far from here, a gang fight erupted in a major intersection. Three cars converged from sidestreets, their occupants throwing open doors to kneel behind, firing their weapons through the rolled- down windows. And as each flying bullet singed the ears of the gangsters, it serenaded them in Portugese.

-Zach Hooker