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Fiction-Online Volume 5 Number 4
FICTION-ONLINE
An Internet Literary Magazine
Volume 5, Number 4
July-August, 1998
EDITOR'S NOTE:
FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing
electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis.
The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of
novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the
magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of
Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent
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William Ramsay, Editor
=================================================
CONTENTS
Editor's Note
Contributors
Two Verses
E. James Scott
"Elvis Presley, Private Eye," a short story
Alan Vanneman
"Meeting Fidel," an excerpt (chapter 9) from
the novel "Ay, Chucho!"
William Ramsay
"Pittsburgh," part 7 and last of the play, "Duet"
Otho Eskin
=================================================
CONTRIBUTORS
OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs,
has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and
produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has
been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in
Washington.. He is currently working on a play on the life of Emma
Goldman.
WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World
energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the
Northwest Fiction Group. His play, "Topsy-Turvy," recently received a
reading at the N Street Playhouse in Washington.
E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and plays the viola da gamba. He
lives in La Jolla, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he
practices his hobby of photographing and charting the migrations of
cetaceans
ALAN VANNEMAN is a writer living in Washington. He has
published short stories in numerous journals. He is a professional
editor, currently working in educational research.
===================================================
TWO VERSES
by E. James Scott
Poolside Summer
A dripping wet blue towel
Snaking mountainously over the white slotted desert of the chaise,
Brown shoulder picked at by freckles and cut, bulging, by the round
lemon-yellow strap forming a parabola arching into your brick-
red hair.
I kiss your skin.
Nose and mouth find chlorine, sweat, and suntan lotion.
Sacrifice at Aulis
Agamemnon's sudden hand raised
The long finely-sharpened fibula
And stabbed it into the pink-tinged hollow
In Iphigeneia's dead-white neck.
Three scarlet jets spurted onto his brass-knobbed breastplate
Rebounding to the music of the thin screams from Clytemnestra's
stifling throat.
==================================================
ELVIS PRESLEY, PRIVATE EYE
by Alan Vanneman
I never seen Elvis but he was up to something. I remember that day
just as clear. He come over to the house and he was slick, tight black
jeans, a fancy cowboy shirt and his hair all slicked up, and polished
cowboy boots that made him look even taller than he was.
"Where do you think you're going?" I asks him when I seen him.
"Why, I'm going with you, Uncle Buck. I'm going to be a truck-
driving man."
"Stuff," I says. "You ain't going nowhere dressed like that."
"I sure as hell am," he says, "Momma said I could. I got my high
school diploma and everything."
"Your momma know you talk like that?" I says, and that brought
him up short. Elvis, well, he was kind of a momma's boy back then. I
wouldn't hold it against him, you understand. That was just the way he
was.
"Please, Uncle Buck," he says, "please let me go. I drive real good."
Well, that was surely true. Ever since I had knowed him, Elvis could
handle a tractor. I worked out with him on his daddy's farm one
summer. He couldn't have been more than ten, but it was like he was
born to it, and that tractor his daddy had was a raggedy old thing. If
you didn't treat that clutch just right it would kick up a storm. You had
to know that clutch, just know how it was feeling every day, or you'd
have yourself a time.
"Well, maybe you can, and maybe you can't," I says. "But you sure
can't dressed like that. I'm fixing to deadhead down to Tupelo this
morning to see a feller that owes me some money, and I could use a
little relief. You figure your momma will let you go with me?"
"I'm going," he says. "I'm gone. You watch me go."
"I'll watch you go," I says. "But you ain't going dressed like that.
You come back here dressed like a working man and I might take you
with me. But you remember to bring that high school diploma with
you."
"Oh, yes sir, Uncle Buck, I will," he says, and off he goes, hair just
a-flying. I had to laugh, because there wasn't nothing Elvis was so fussy
about as his hair. I figured right then that if Elvis was more set on going
than taking care of his hair, I'd have to take him with me.
I'd been hauling for some time for this feller outside of Tupelo who
had the biggest old hog farm you ever did see. He stiffed me on my last
run, and I didn't think I'd see that money, the way we talked, but this
feller come through on the way to St. Louie and told me Mr. Carlson
said I could have my money with $50 extra for my trouble if I'd come
down today. I got me a Ford V-8 for trips like that, but I got to revving
her too high the night before, showing off for some gal, and I blowed a
piston head. When I'm with a gal, I get careless. I just do. So I had to
take Bessie instead, and she needed a little cleaning. I'd been letting
things accumulate a bit for the past year or so, and there warn't really
room for two. The way I figure it, a man, when he's driving, has got to
keep his eyes on the road. If you got something in your hand, you just
fling it, and worry about it later. So I had considerable chicken bones
and pop bottles to take care of, mostly pop bottles. I like an RC and a
Lucky to get me going in the morning, and maybe a cherry smash about
ten o'clock. Grape Nehi's good too, if they got it. It's got more of a
perky taste than that orange. I like a root beer too, but you've got to
drink it cold. Hot root beer will take the skin right off your tongue.
You can't let it sit in the cab. So I got me a little cooler in the back to
take care of things, along with my funny books. I used to haul for DC
Comics, and I got 'em all Superman, Batman, Action Comics,
Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, World's Finest you name it. I
do like a good funny book, and Elvis, he does too. He reads 'em more
than I do.
I'd got most of the bottles out when Elvis come running back. He
didn't look much better, really, but at least he got rid of those black
jeans. Wearing pants like that will start a fight every time. He had a
cardboard suitcase in one hand and a big old bag slung over his
shoulder.
"Elvis," I says, "we're just going to Tupelo. It ain't but two hours."
"Oh," he says, "I got to be ready."
"You got your guitar?"
"You know I do.".
"Yes, I know you do. I hope you know how to play it."
"I surely do, Uncle Buck, and I'm going to be famous someday. And
I'm going to write a song all about you."
I had to laugh at that. Elvis was such a kid back then, and always
talking about how he was going to do this and that. But I figured it was
about time he did something more than just talk. So I says, "Well, that's
good, but why don't you put down that guitar for just a minute and
give Bessie a quart. Let me see you check the brake fluid while you're
at it."
Well, when I tell him that he takes these gloves out of his pocket and
starts putting them on. I couldn't hardly believe my eyes.
"What the hell are you doing?" I says. "Putting gloves on to check
brake fluid? It ain't like picking up a porkypine."
"Oh, I got to," he says. "I'm going to be an artiste, and an artiste
can't have no grease under his fingernails."
"What the hell is a goddamn artiste?" I says.
"An artiste is a man that entertains the public, like Dean Martin, and
he can't have nothing offensive about him."
"Excuse me for living," I says, "but if this Dean Martin feller ever
put on gloves to check the brake fluid on his rig he'd get his ass
whupped from here to Californy."
"You don't worry about me getting no ass-whupping," he says, "I
got my karate moves."
I knew all about Elvis and his karate moves, because he and I used
to watch those karate fellers busting bricks with they heads on the 'You
Asked For It' show, but I ain't seen Elvis bust no bricks, so I says
"Okay, let me see those karate moves."
So Elvis sets up these two cinderblocks, one on top of another, and
he takes off his boots and his socks, and he crouches down low, and he
says nary a word, and then, all of a sudden, he just uncoils like a snake,
and whup! he kicks that block, and wham! it smashes all to kingdom
come.
"How'd you do that!" I says.
Elvis, he gives me this big smile, and he says "I'm concentrating my
floodlike chi, Uncle Buck."
"What the hell is floodlike chi?" I says.
"All God's critters got chi," he says. "Chi pervades the universe, and
everything that creeps and crawls got its own kind of chi. But floodlike
chi is different. Floodlike chi is the elemental chi, and if you
concentrate it, there ain't nothing a man can't do."
I shook my head at that.
"I don't know about that," I says, "but you can sure kick the hell out
of a cinderblock. You got to take your shoes and socks off every time
you give a body a lick?"
Elvis, he's pulling on his socks and boots, and he says, "Of course
not, Uncle. I just didn't want to mess up my shine."
That was Elvis. "Okay," I says, "you get your floodlike behind up in
that truck, and let's get us going down to Tupelo."
And we did. I let Elvis drive, telling him about deadheading, how to
work the brake and clutch, and what you had to watch out for. I
couldn't tell him enough. He had to know everything.
"What's the worst accident you ever saw, Uncle Buck?" he says to
me.
"That's a tough one," I says, "and I have seed plenty." And I had.
Because there's death on the highway, that's for sure. Anyone been
driving a truck as long as I have knows that. There's death on the
highway.
"You remember old Sam Hayes?" I asked him.
"Not rightly," he says. "Is that Joe Hayes' daddy?"
"That's the one," I says. "Got himself kilt five years ago. I was
coming up to St. Lou around midnight on old Route 55, and there was
debris just about everywhere. This state trooper flagged me down, and
he says 'You running from Memphis?' and I says 'Sure' and he says 'I
think there's a feller here you might know.' You know, Elvis, that feller
was shining a light in my face, so's I couldn't see him, but I believe he
knew me, and had it in for me."
"Why's that, Uncle Buck?"
"Because he brought me round and showed me this rig that was all
busted up, and he says 'You know this rig?' and I says 'I believe I do. I
believe that's Sam Hayes' rig.' Well, then he takes me over to this
stretcher they got there, and he pulls the blanket off, and there's this
feller, with blood all over his face, and no eyes, and his brains all
mushed out like a cauliflower."
"No eyes, Uncle Buck?"
"No eyes at all. They had just popped out of his head. I seen fellers
messed up before, but never like that. That police feller, he says 'Is that
Sam Hayes?' and I says 'How am I supposed to answer that?' and he
says 'You smell that liquor?' Well, I surely did, cause old Sam did like
his moonshine, and the police feller says 'We get mighty tired of you
Memphis boys coming through here and smashing things up. I'm going
to give you a test.'
"So he give me this drunk test, and he was just dying to catch me,
but he didn't, because I'm not a drinking man, not on the road. So I
was walking off, and I seen 'em."
"You seen what, Uncle Buck?"
"Old Sam Hayes' eyes, that's what I seen. Lying out on the road like
a couple of hard-boiled eggs."
"Oh, lordy. What'd you do?"
"Wasn't much I could do. I had me a hanky, and I picked 'em up
and took 'em over to the police feller, and I says, 'These here is Sam
Hayes' eyes,' and he says, 'What do you want me to do with 'em?' and
I says 'I think they should go back in Sam's head,' and he says, 'Well I
ain't messing with 'em. That ain't my job.' So I put 'em in myself."
"You did that, Uncle Buck? What'd it feel like?"
"It was pretty grisly, I tell you. Eyes got a kind of jelly in them. You
don't want to hold 'em. But I figured it was the right thing to do."
"I figure it surely was the right thing to do, Uncle Buck. Folks like
to have their kin buried with their eyes in, I bet that. It was downright
Christian, fixing a feller's eyes like that. I reckon the good lord will
remember you for that one."
I had to smile at that. I don't get called Christian too often. Me and
the lord get along okay, but when the preaching starts, that's the time
old Buck starts to skedaddle. I don't mind hymn singing, but when
folks start telling me what to do, that's when I head for the door.
That's why I'm a truck-driving man.
Mr. Carlson has his hog farm north of Tupelo, and just about the
time I finished that story we hit the turn-off. It's a tight turn that'll put
you in the ditch if you don't catch it right, but Elvis, he handled it just
as smooth. He just always had a nice touch with the clutch. Most young
fellers is too hard or too soft, but Elvis, he could slide it in without
missing a beat, and turning that wheel all the while, with just a little
brake, and whipped it right in there. When he got her straight he had
this cocky grin on his face.
"You must think you're something," I says.
"I ain't thinking nothing."
"I'll see how you do with twelve ton of steel hanging off your
fanny."
Elvis, he got pretty red, but he don't say nothing. So I give Elvis
directions, and we drive right on up to the office, which is a separate
building, because Mr. Carlson, he don't live on this farm. If you had a
whiff you'd know why. You get a thousand hogs together and it gets
acrid. That scent will just about rip the hairs out of your nose. That
farm is more like a factory than a farm, really. They got these big pens
for the hogs, and feed bins and garages for the equipment and all sorts
of things.
I got out of the truck and I give the door a rap, but nobody answers,
so I walk on in. What I see is this: Mr. Carlson flat on the floor, and
blood everywhere. There was three bullet holes in that poor feller's
face. I never seen nothing like it, and I've been in some scrapes. But
this wasn't no scrape. This was murder, pure and simple. I come out
the door and Elvis he took one look at me and he says "Lordy, Uncle
Buck, what's wrong?"
"Elvis," I says, "Mr. Carlson's been murdered, that's what's wrong."
"Murdered? Let me see."
"Elvis, you don't got to see nothing. Let's get the hell out of here."
But Elvis, he ain't listening. He's past me and into the office. So I
got to go back.
"Don't touch nothing," he says.
"I ain't touching nothing," I says. "I'm getting the hell out of here,
and you're coming with me."
"No, Uncle Buck," he says. "I got to investigate. This here's an
adventure."
"Elvis," I says, "this ain't no adventure. This is murder. You come
with me."
But Elvis, he ain't budging. I try to move him, and he don't give an
inch. He's dug in like a mule. That shook me a little. Tall as he was, I
always thought of Elvis as a boy, but now I feel like I'm tugging on a
full-growed horse, and a horse that ain't going in my direction.
"Looky at that floor, Uncle Buck," he says. "They's hog feed all
over. See them footprints? Looks like two fellers, don't it? One's got
pointy-toed shoes like a city slicker and the other's wearing boots with
a wore-down heel. Lordy, look at that blood. It's still a-flowing. This
feller ain't been dead more'n ten minutes, I bet."
"Then what do you bet the killers might still be around," I says.
"Lordy, that's so. We better move that truck."
"Yes, we should. Right on back to Memphis."
"We can't flee a crime scene, Uncle Buck. We got to report this to
the sheriff."
"I ain't fleeing, Elvis. I am leaving. And I ain't talking to no sheriff
in Tupelo, I tell you that."
"Why not?"
"I just had me some sheriff trouble down here, that's all, some
deputy sheriff trouble. Now you and me is going. Get in the truck. I'm
driving."
When we got in I reached behind the seat and took out a twelve-
gauge I keep back there.
"You hold on to this and look sharp," I says. "Our adventuring is
over."
Which was definitely the truth for me. I don't mess with dead folks
for fun. A young gal and a bottle of Jim Beam is adventure enough for
me. I don't need no murders to keep me happy. So I get Bessie turned
around, and we head on out.
"You reckon those fellers come down from St. Louis?" Elvis says.
"St. Louis? What makes you think that?"
"Them pointy-toed shoes was mighty slick. You don't see shoes like
that in Memphis. The feller that owned them shoes was a Yankee boy, I
bet that."
"If he is a Yankee boy he's a long way from home," I says. "But I
sure can't spot a Yankee from his footprints."
"Oh, you see that on the TV all the time," Elvis says. "Old Boston
Blackie or Charlie Chan could solve this case in no time."
"This ain't no TV," I says. "This is Tupelo. I hope it was a Yankee,
and I hope they catch him quick, because I don't need no sheriff nosing
around."
"What's wrong with the sheriff here, Uncle Buck?"
"Never you mind what's wrong with him. You just keep that
shotgun low till I tell you different."
Well, them words wasn't out of my mouth for fifteen seconds before
I heard a siren, and there was old Tubby coming right up the trail in his
police car.
"Oh, lordy," I says. "Elvis, just slide that shotgun back where I had
it, and don't say nothing. It's old Tubby hisself."
Tubby Thompson was always a mean feller, from all I heard, but I
did put my foot in it with him, though it surely weren't my fault at all.
You see a gal in a bar having a Segrams and looking kind of lonely, you
don't figure she's going to be a deputy sheriff's wife, at least I don't. I
figure a feller's got a right to buy a lady a Segrams if that's what she's
drinking. I guess we had a few before we went back to her place. That
one night with Ellie Mae cost me thirty in the jailhouse, and old Tubby
probably would have whupped me to death if his boss hadn't been in
town. Sheriff Parker ain't so bad, for a sheriff, but I don't need no
deputy sweating my ass. I don't go no further south in Mississippi than
Mr. Carlson's farm, and when I seen old Tubby coming I surely wished
I hadn't have gone that far.
As soon as Tubby saw my truck he stopped his car and jumped out.
He was ready to start shooting, just dying to.
"Elvis," I says. "get out with your hands up, and don't do nothing to
rile this boy. He's half crazy on a good day, and this ain't a good one."
So we get out, and Tubby, he's hopping around like a frog on a
griddle. Just looking at him I wanted to pop him one, which was the
wrong idea entirely. So when he come up to me I just looked at the
ground.
"What the hell are you doing here, boy?" he says to me.
"I come down to collect some money from Mr. Carlson," I says.
"Well, I got me a report there was shots fired," he says. "Who the
hell is this boy here?"
"This here's my nephew, Elvis Presley," I says. "He's a good boy."
"If he's kin of yours he's damn riff-raff," says Tubby. Nice feller.
"Did either of you gentlemen see anything?"
I just stared. This lady was getting out of the police car. I ain't even
seen her. I took one look and I knew who she was, because she was a
fine woman, dressed real nice. You don't see clothes like that in
Tupelo, not hardly.
"Mrs. Carlson, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," I says.
"There's been some killing."
"Oh, lord," she says.
"I'm afraid your husband's dead, ma'am," Elvis says. "I'm terrible
sorry."
That poor lady just shriveled up when she heard those words. Elvis
come over and put his arms around her. Out of the corner of my eye I
could see old Tubby didn't care too much for that.
"I have to see him," this lady says.
"I don't think you want to do that, ma'am," I says. "There's blood
everywhere. He's been shot awful bad."
"He's my husband," she says, "I've got to see him."
Well, I liked that. If I was stretched out, all covered with blood, I'd
like to think there was some gal that would still want to take a look at
me.
"You come along with me, Mrs. Carlson," Tubby says, but Mrs.
Carlson don't seem to be too anxious to let go of Elvis. In fact, she's
got kind of a grip on him, it looks like. Tubby, he come over to me, not
friendly at all.
"Move that goddamn truck," he says.
"We ain't far, ma'am," Elvis says, "it's just right down the road."
I figure Elvis is talking to Tubby more than Mrs. Carlson, but Tubby
ain't listening.
"Move that goddamn truck," he says to me again. "You make one
false move, and so help me I'll blow your head off."
You better believe I moved that truck right quick. I didn't want to
be alone with Tubby. Mrs. Carlson, she was like my insurance policy. I
could tell she didn't care for no rough stuff, and as long as she was
around Tubby had to control himself. But once she was out of the way,
I figured I'd be in for it. So I ripped Bessie right around and took her
back to office. Old Tubby he come along in his police car, blowing his
siren. I guess he thought that was smart.
When I get out of the truck, Elvis and Mrs. Carlson come along, and
he takes her up to the door.
"Please don't touch nothing, ma'am," Elvis says. "It's a crime
scene."
I was glad Tubby didn't hear that. He comes puffing along, all red in
the face. I figure Mrs. Carlson must be one powerful lady, from the way
Tubby is acting. You might almost think he was human.
Mrs. Carlson, she takes one look in the door, and she just about
faints dead away. I thought she was gone, but she pulls herself together.
"Mrs. Carlson, why don't you come set the car," Tubby says. He's
so polite he's just about to bust hisself wide open.
"I believe I'll sit down right here," she says, "if this, this fine young
man will help me."
So Elvis helps her to this feed bin I believe it was, and I says "Mrs.
Carlson, can I get you a Coca Cola?"
"I believe I would like a Coca Cola," she says, and I run off to
Bessie to get it. A fancy gal will turn up her nose at an RC, so I always
keep a few Cokes in the cooler just in case. When I get back, Elvis,
he's lighting her a cigarette with a silver lighter.
"Thank you so much, Mr., Mr. . . ." she says, when I hand it to her.
"Beauregard Presley, ma'am," I says, "everyone calls me Buck. This
here's my nephew Elvis Presley."
"Elvis. That's such an interesting name."
She gives Elvis this sweet little smile, and he smiles back, and then
she looks all upset again.
"This is so terrible," she says. "I was afraid Paul was having
problems, but I never dreamed it would come to this."
"You don't worry about it, ma'am," Tubby says all of a sudden. "I'll
get to the bottom of this, starting with these fellers."
"Oh, deputy, I'm sure these fine gentlemen had nothing to do with
my husband's death."
It took all I had not to bust out laughing when she said that, because
old Tubby looked like he'd just been kicked by a mule, and not in the
stomach, neither. His eyes bugged right out of his head, just about.
"I ain't sure about that at all," he says. Now he's mad.
"I'm cuffing you fellers," he says. "Turn around. Now!"
He's got his gun out, and I've got my hands up, around my head,
because I figure that boy's going to fetch me a lick, and I know what it
feels like. But before he can start in, Mrs. Carlson is on him.
"Deputy Thompson!" she says. "Please restrain yourself. If you
arrest these fine gentlemen I'm afraid I will have to take up this matter
with Sheriff Parker."
When Tubby hears that, now he is fit to explode. He's shaking.
"I am the peace officer on the scene," he says at last. I never seen a
feller so red. I says to myself, Mrs. Carlson has a got a grip on this boy.
She must own half of Tupelo.
"I think it best for you to contact your superior officer," she says.
"You may use the telephone in the garage."
She points to this little building that's about thirty yards past where
we was, and off Tubby goes, and not too happy. When Tubby's gone,
Elvis gets up from along side of Mrs. Coleman and he says "Ma'am, I'd
like to do a little investigating, with your permission."
"Why, of course, young man," she says, "but what do you hope to
find?"
"Lordy, ma'am, I don't know," says Elvis. "That's why I gots to
investigate."
So Elvis goes over to the office again, and he opens the door and he
looks in real careful. I come over and I says, "What are you doing?"
"Why, I'm reconstructing the crime, Uncle Buck."
"What do you know about reconstructing a crime?"
"Why, I know a lot. I seen it on the TV and in the funny books. You
know that Jon J'nozz feller?"
"Who?"
"Jon J'nozz. The Martian Manhunter."
Well, I do know Jon J'nozz. He's this green feller from Mars that
come down on earth after his flying saucer busted. He has these powers
that make him invisible and walk through walls, or look like a regular
feller.
"Yes, I do," I says, "but what does old Jon J'nozz have to do with
us?"
"Well, I always admired that feller, the way he could adapt to the
mores of an alien civilization, and continue the pursuit of truth."
I never heard Elvis talk like that.
"I don't know nothing about no mo-res," I says.
"That's just folks' customs, the way they have of doing things."
"That's fine, but if old Jon J'nozz were here, I believe he'd make
himself invisible, before Tubby cracked him over the head with his .44.
This gal has done us a powerful favor, Elvis, and I believe we should
get the hell home "
"We can't leave now, Uncle Buck. We got to clear ourselves."
"We don't got to do nothing but get across the state line."
"You can't run from trouble, Uncle Buck. You got to solve it. Now,
looky here. See how these footprints go? You got tracks coming in, the
pointy-toed feller and the wore-heel feller, and then they go out, and
then they head around back. See, they got the hog feed on 'em. Let's us
go and take a look-see."
I sure didn't see how Elvis saw all that, but he said he did, so I went
with him, though I knowed Tubby would blow a gasket if he come back
and we weren't setting right where he left us, and the lord knows that
boy didn't need no further stimulation. So we come around back and
there's this little bitty door with a big old lock on her.
"Now, this is something," Elvis says. "You can't get to this room
from the front."
"How do you know that," I says.
"Because there ain't no door in that front room but the door you
come in, and that front room got an L-shape. This here must be the bite
out of that L-shape." Elvis looks at that lock mighty close, and then he
looks all over that door, from top to bottom.
"This here lock is brand new," he says, "and it ain't cheap. I wonder
why a man would put a lock like this one on this little bitty door."
Elvis, he sniffs around that door some more.
"I bet those fellers took a key off the body," he says.
"You know that."
"Look at the footprints," he says. "Mr. Pointy-toes stepped right on
the sill. They come in, for sure, and then headed off that way. This ain't
no broom closet, I bet. You don't put a lock like this on a broom
closet. Besides, I don't think them fellers was looking for no broom."
Elvis, he crouches down real low, like a cat, watching those tracks.
"Them boys is in a hurry now," he says. "I bet they heard us coming.
I bet they took off down that road over yonder. Probably had a car hid,
or waiting for them."
"Elvis, how do you know all that?" I says.
"Well, there warn't no trace of them when we got here, was there? I
didn't hear nothing. If they had took that other road, I believe we'd
have seen them. Besides, it is a natural instinct of criminals to flee in the
direction opposite to an oncoming witness."
"I don't know about that," I says. "But if we ain't around for Tubby
to yell at when he gets back from his phone call, he'll be hopping."
Elvis, he's about to say something when we hear Tubby yelling.
"Hold on there, boy!" he's shouting. Elvis looks at me, and I look at
him, and we start running. When we get to the other side of the office
building we see old Tubby, and he's got the drop on this young black
feller.
"You turn around," Tubby says to the boy, and he cuffs him and
knocks him down a couple of times. That set Mrs. Carlson off.
"Deputy, what do you think you are doing?" she says. "This young
man works for my husband and me. Release him at once. You that you
have no jurisdiction on this ranch!"
Tubby, he's about to bust. He's got to arrest somebody.
"Ma'am," he says, and he's just shaking, "this here is an aggressive
nigra, and I am arresting him, whether you like it or not. I am a peace
officer in the State of Mississippi, and I ain't letting no aggressive nigra
walk around loose."
"This is complete nonsense," Mrs. Carlson says. "This young man is
in my employ, and you must release him at once."
"I ain't releasing no one," Tubby says. "I called Sheriff Parker, and
he's coming. I'm sorry for your husband, Mrs. Carlson, but this here is
an aggressive nigra, and I am taking him in."
He takes the boy and shoves him in the car, knocking him all around,
but Mrs. Carlson, she's right behind him.
"Deputy, if you harm one hair on that boy's head, you'll regret it
every single day for the rest of your life."
That backs Tubby up just half a step, because when Mrs. Carlson
says that, she don't sound hysterical, like a gal will do when she's het
up. She sounds like she means it. But then Tubby gets going again.
"I am trying to do you a favor," he says. "This is the man that kilt
your husband."
"Deputy, that is arrant nonsense," Mrs. Carlson says. "Release that
man at once."
Tubby, he's about to bust her. He looks around at all of us and he
says "I am a peace officer doing my job." Then he gets in his police car
and whips it all around and he takes off, fast as he can go.
"I'm calling my lawyer," says Mrs. Carlson, and off she goes.
Elvis looks at me. "Let's us investigate," he says.
I could see Elvis' mind was made up.
"OK, let's investigate," I says, "but I'm getting me a hogleg first.
These is some bad boys were dealing with."
I do like to keep a few guns with me when I travel. Being a trucker
ain't like living on a farm. You got to be forearmed. I ain't never shot
nobody and I hope I never will, but it's the feller that's forearmed that
don't have to do no shooting. I got me a little .38 in the glove
compartment, and a .44 under the seat. I tucked that .44 in the back of
my pants and gave the .38 to Elvis.
"You know how to use these little fellers?" I says.
"I don't need no gun," he says.
"You don't know everything," I says. "You take her."
So he tucks her in his belt and off we go, down this little road. Elvis,
he's watching the ground, following those tracks. Then the tracks go
off in the woods. Elvis, first he goes one way, and then he goes
another. He's lost the trail, but he ain't saying so. We come up to the
top of a rise, and he says "I bet if we go down in that holler we'll find
ourselves a clue," but when we get down there, there ain't nothing. So
then Elvis says "I bet if we go up on that rise we'll find ourselves a
clue," and off we go, but when we get up there, there ain't nothing.
When we get to the top of the third rise I says "Elvis, where are we?"
"Lordy, Uncle Buck, I don't know," Elvis says. "Them fellers
outsmarted us, that's for sure. I done lost track of the floodlike chi."
Well, I figured when Elvis started talking about the floodlike chi, it
was time for me to take a break. I had had a couple of RCs on the way
down, and they was starting to catch up with me, so I figured I might
step behind a tree for a little privacy. So when I'm done I see Elvis,
staring at something. I start to ask him what he's looking at, but he
hushes me, and points, and there's this little woodchuck feller, kind of
pecking on something and rustling the leaves.
"See that little feller," he says to me, all quiet, "I wonder what he's
up to."
"That's just a woodchuck, Elvis," I say.
"I know it's a woodchuck," he says. "I wonder if he was here all the
time. I bet he saw those fellers."
"He didn't see nothing," I says. "A woodchuck don't do nothing but
chuck wood."
"A woodchuck's got the chi in him, just like you and me. I believe
he did see those fellers. I believe he's trying to tell us something."
"He ain't trying to tell us nothing. He's just waiting for us to get the
hell out of here, so he can chuck some wood without us bothering
him."
"I don't think so, Uncle Buck. I can feel the chi a-flowing. I believe
he wants us to follow him."
Of course, right then that woodchuck did take a mind to take off.
And of course Elvis had to follow him. When we got to where that
feller had been, Elvis bends down and he picks something up.
"Looky, Uncle," he says to me. "Some folks is just careless with
their money."
I look at what Elvis is holding, and it's a five-hundred-dollar bill. I
ain't seen one before, and I ain't seen one again.
"That boy's got the chi in him," Elvis says. "We got to follow him,
wherever he goes."
Well, that boy would scamper. He'd scamper, and we'd creep up,
and then he'd scamper some more. And we was getting deep in the
woods.
"Elvis," I says, "this boy ain't taking us nowhere."
Elvis, he ain't listening. He's just studying that woodchuck. So I got
to go, and we keep on a-going. And we go and we go, following that
woodchuck, and we come down in this big old creek bed. Then that
woodchuck feller, he turns around, and he give us a "chuck chuck
chuck," and then he jumps in this little hidey hole he's got, right in the
bank. Elvis and me, we're walking around in this creek bed that ain't
got no water in it, hardly, just leaves and rocks, but in one place it's
pretty wet, with some blue mud. Elvis, he walks over to that mud and
he squats down, just staring at it and thinking hard. Then he dips his
fingers in it and thinks some more. Finally, when I'm just about to bust,
he stands up and wipes off his fingers.
"Reckon I was wrong about this case," he says. "This warn't no
Yankee killing after all."
"What do you mean by that?" I says.
"Them fellers got their ride here," he says. "Look down yonder. I
believe I see some tire tracks."
We head on down that stream, and sure enough, they're tire tracks
all over that blue clay.
"Reckon old J. Edgar Hoover could match up that tire track with the
tire that made it?" Elvis says.
"I reckon he could," I says.
"I bet he could too," Elvis says. "This here is conclusive evidence,
Uncle Buck, and that little woodchuck led us right to her."
"I ain't believing that," I says.
Elvis, he just shakes his head.
"That boy, he had the chi in him, Uncle," he says. "You got to let
the chi do its work."
"I ain't seen no chi nowhere, nohow," I says.
Elvis, he just smiles.
"You got the chi in you too, Uncle, just like everyone else. You got
to listen to the floodlike chi. Now, we better get on back, before that
Deputy kills someone."
So we head on back, and when we get there half of Tupelo is
waiting for us. Cars were parked all over the place. Sheriff Parker, he
was there, and I was glad of that. They had three ambulances, for just
one body, and doctors, and nurses, and everybody running around.
Tubby, he's still got that poor black kid locked in his police car, and
he's jawing with the Sheriff and Mrs. Carlson. She's got a feller with
her who must be her lawyer, because he's jawing too.
"This is one big murder," Elvis says.
"You can believe that," I says. "It ain't every day the town
millionaire gets gunned down in cold blood."
So we go up to Tubby, and of course he ain't so glad to see us.
"Where the hell have you been?" he says.
Elvis, he don't pay no attention to Tubby at all.
"Afternoon, Sheriff," says Elvis, just as smooth as pie. "I'm afraid
you got the wrong man there."
"Who are you?" the Sheriff says.
"I'm Elvis Presley, sir, and this here's my uncle, Beauregard
Presley."
"I know your uncle," says the Sheriff. "He's been a guest of mine,
more than once."
"These here is troublemakers from Memphis," Tubby says. "They is
in this thing together with this here aggressive nigra."
"Sheriff, please teach your deputy some manners," says Mrs.
Carlson. I sure did like that gal. She had a way of talking to Tubby that
just set real easy with me.
"Sheriff, we come to help you with this here murder," Elvis says.
"Well, I surely would appreciate that," says the Sheriff. I guess he's
being a little sarcastic, but Elvis don't pay him no mind. He turns to
Mrs. Carlson, and he says, "Mrs. Carlson, there's one thing that's
bothering me. How did you come to be with the Deputy here?"
"Why, I was just passing the sheriff's office when Deputy Thompson
came out. The dispatcher saw me, and said they had received a report
that shots had been fired on my husband's farm. Of course, I insisted on
coming. Deputy Thompson didn't appear to care for my company."
"It was a dangerous situation, ma'am," old Tubby says.
Elvis, he just nods. Sheriff Parker, he's getting a little impatient.
"You gonna solve this case for me, son?" he says.
"Oh, yes, sir," says Elvis. "I just got to get my facts straight. You
see, Sheriff, the way I figure it is this. The fellers that done this murder,
they come around through those woods. They got a lift from a feller
that drove his car down a creek bed. That feller got blue mud all over
his tires."
And when Elvis said that, he squatted down and run his fingers
along the front tire on Tubby's car.
"Kind of like this mud here," he says.
"What the hell are you talking about?" says Tubby.
Elvis, he straightens up and brushes the mud of his fingers, real
casual.
"These fellers come up, and they shot poor Mr. Carlson, and they
took a key off his body and opened up that little door around the back
of the office. I believe he had some sort of secret safe in there. I'm
sorry, Mrs. Carlson, but I think your husband was playing games with
his money."
Mrs. Carlson, she turns all white when Elvis says this.
"He, he sold several of our properties," she says. Her voice is
shaking. "And he closed out our savings account."
"Yes, ma'am," Elvis says. "He had a lot of cash on hand, and two
fellers knowed about it. One was wearing pointy-toed shoes and the
other had a wore-down heel."
"Tiny Grant and Paul Moran," says the Sheriff, and he's looking real
hard at Tubby. "I told you to stay away from those two, time and time
again."
"Sheriff," I says, "It was Tiny Grant that told me to come on down,
that Mr. Carlson was going to pay me the money he owed me. And he
told me to come today."
"Yes, sir," says Elvis. "You see, Sheriff, when my uncle and I come
down on old Route 78, I saw this police car a-following us. I was afraid
he was going to give me a ticket, so I watched him close, and then I
seen him turn off in the woods. That seemed kind of strange to me, but
I didn't think much of it, until I saw your deputy come in here with blue
mud all over his tires. That did seem awful convenient, because poor
Mr. Carlson hadn't been dead but ten minutes. Of course, your deputy
said someone told him they heard shots, but that news sure did travel
fast.
"So my uncle and me, we took a little walk, and found that
creekbed. They is some awful nice tire tracks back there. I think they'll
match up real pretty with Deputy Thompson's tires."
Tubby, he don't want to hear no more. He whips out that .44 and
he's pointing it right at us.
"You just shut your damn mouth, pretty boy," he says. I think he
was going to say something else, but he don't get the chance. Whup!
Elvis just kicks that gun right out of his hand. Blip! Gives him a lick in
his big belly, and old Tubby goes down on his big behind. Goes down
hard. You could hear that air just a-gooshing out. After he hit, Tubby
was just about the greenest old white boy you ever did see. But he got
a little greener when Sheriff Parker put the cuffs on him.
"Sheriff," Elvis says, "just who are Tiny Grant and Paul Moran?"
"Paul Moran is the slickest man in Tupelo, and Tiny's the dumbest.
They run some gambling down in Chickasaw County, where I can't
touch 'em. I know they come across the county line whenever they can,
but I never could catch 'em. I kind of figured it was Tubby running his
mouth, but I had to let it ride. Paul's sister works at the bank. She
probably tipped Paul off about Mr. Carlson taking out his money."
Elvis, he just nodded.
"I reckon if you catch up with the Paul feller you'll get the money,"
he says. We did find a little of it. I suppose it belongs to you, Mrs.
Carlson. I'm powerful sorry about the way things come out."
So Elvis takes that five hundred out of his pocket and give it to Mrs.
Carlson. She takes it, but also she holds onto his hand a little like she
don't want to let go.
"You've been marvelous, Mr. Presley,' she says. "Truly marvelous. I
can't imagine what would have happened to Robert here if you hadn't
intervened."
"Shucks, ma'am," Elvis says. "It's me and Uncle Buck that owes
you. I figure Deputy Thompson was planning to taking out the both of
us, saying he caught us red-handed. And he would have, if you hadn't
insisted on coming along."
"Planning to plug me, you mean," I says. "Elvis, I almost got you
kilt, bringing you here."
"Well, you both must come to my house so I can thank you
properly," Mrs. Carlson says.
"You best believe we will," says Elvis. He's got this powerful grin
on his face. "Sheriff, I don't reckon you need us here no more."
"You two have done enough," the Sheriff says. He's still eyeing me
like we ain't to friendly. "I got to catch up with Mr. Moran. He's
probably half way to Chicago by now. That's where he usually heads
when he's got a poke."
"Chicago!" says Elvis. "That's where he got those shoes."
After that, Mrs. Carlson took off with her lawyer. Elvis and me had
to wait an hour almost for all the cars to get cleared out, so I could get
Bessie turned around. I sure felt sorry for Mr. Carlson, though I guess
he warn't up to much good, shorting me and planning to run off from
his wife. A man that would leave a woman like that ain't right, some
way. I didn't have much direction to her house, but it was hard to miss
her. She and Mr. Carlson had one of those big old southern mansions,
with white columns and fancy gardens. Bessie looked a mite out of
place setting there in that big old drive. When we come up on the stoop
Mrs. Carlson come out to see us. She looked all warm and fluffy and a
little weepy. She clamped onto Elvis pretty quick. A gal that's been
through a time needs some comforting. There ain't wrong with that,
really. I've comforted a few, and ain't ashamed to say it. Now, a
preacher will tell you that it's a mighty sin, but when it comes to
comforting, those preachers got us all beat. The bigger they talk, the
slicker they act. So when I saw Elvis and Mrs. Carlson just a-getting
closer and closer together, I started figuring on how I was going to slip
away. But Mrs. Carlson, she come up to me and she says, "Mr. Presley,
do you like gladiolas?"
Well, no gal ever asked me that, but I says "I surely do, Mrs.
Carlson."
"Then you must go see mine," she says, "for they are simply
charming. They're around in the back garden."
And when she says that, she give me a little pat on the chest.
"Yes, ma'am," I says, "I'll just go around back. I'll take my time."
She don't say nothing to that, just smiles and heads off. So I go on
down the stoop, and I look in my shirt pocket, and there's that five
hundred. Well, I says, I am going to study those gladiolas, and I hope I
did, even though I don't rightly know what a gladiola looks like. But I
looked at all the flowers, and I sat me down on a bench they had and I
smoked me a Lucky or two. Elvis is pretty Baptist about cigarettes, but
Mr. Lucky, he's a real good friend of mine. I used to chew, but the gals
don't like it, and I guess I don't blame them. Tobacco spit ain't what I
call romantic. I used to chew Red Man, which is a nice chew, pretty
sweet. That Day's Work, I can't handle. It's a prison chew. It's rough
stuff.
I reckon I spent a couple of hours on those gladiolas. Then this big
black feller come out and ask me would I like some dinner. I says I sure
would, because I ain't had nary a thing to eat all day, and he asks me
what would I like. I says it's your house, I'll take what you give me. So
he says he'll bring me dinner on the verandah in thirty minutes. Then he
says come with me sir, and we go up on this fancy porch, which I guess
is a verandah. So then he asks me how do I like my steak, and I tell him
I'll have it rare with onions. Then I had me another Lucky, and in half
an hour this feller brings me the best steak I ever did eat, just swimming
in onions, with french fries and a bottle of Miller. After that they give
me apple pie and coffee. Just as I'm about done, Elvis and Mrs. Carlson
come out, looking all warm and rosy and peaceful. So I guess that
floodlike chi had done its work.
===================================================
MEETING FIDEL
by William Ramsay
(Note: the is chapter 9 of the novel, "Ay, Chucho!"
The appointment was set up for eleven P.M. on a Monday. As per
the instructions of Edgardo, the friend of Valeska's friend Dafne, I
found myself waiting in the lobby of a faded rococo apartment house in
the old posh residential district of Miramar. I was nervous, and why
not? Who really was Fidel Castro?
Fidel Castro was a hero to my father -- still, despite imprisonment,
despite everything.
As for all my right-wing Cuban friends at the Flamingo Fitness
Club in Miami, if they had only known about my appointment -- for
them it would be like a trip to Hades to interview Old Nick himself.
To my artificial identity, Felipe, Fidel would be a superhero, a
guru, the only hope for the triumph of democracy and socialism in
Latin America. To me, personally, Fidel Castro was something else,
something a movie star. I wasn't interested in any kind of politics. But
I could understand the adulation of the Cuban masses for Fidel: he was
like the hero of a modern fairy tale. Standing almost alone, he was the
prince who had conquered the fire-breathing Batista dragon. Maybe
Fidel's "prince" persona was only a fantastic role created out of
nothing by an ambitious young Cuban lawyer whose political ambitions
had been frustrated by the Batista coup of 1953. So what? You might
as well ask if Errol Flynn was really Robin Hood!
I waited to be summoned to my interview, sitting on a hard pine
bench next to reception desk where a "comrade secretary" wrote,
consulted files, and leaned back in deep thought. The secretary was
sloppily overweight, dressed in a dark brown shirt that bulged like a
melon over the beltline of his dark brown trousers. He looked up at
me from time to time, smiling with a quizzical, superior expression,
like a kindly archbishop. Finally, the inner lobby door opened and an
officer and a soldier stood in the doorway. The officer beckoned to
me. I got up, so did the secretary, the officer sat down at the desk in
his place, and the soldier, his gun belt flapping as he walked, led me
and the secretary to the elevator. The elevator climbed with a
mysterious scraping noise to the fifth floor, where the soldier pointed
to an apartment door and, stepping against the wall beside the door,
slapped his heels and tensed the rest of his body into a guard position.
The apartment didn't look very fancy, but it had the chilled dry feel
of a working air conditioner and the lights all shone without flickering
or dimming. There he was, over by the window, the familiar bearded
head lowered, pacing the floor. He looked up, flipped with his chin for
us to sit down. He was supposed to be 6'2", but he didn't look that
tall. He was dressed in the green fatigues so familiar from the
photographs -- but I was surprised to see that the trousers looked
sharply creased and the shirt collar starched.
He started out staring deeply but kindly into my eyes, shaking my
hand briskly but with a soft grip. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting,
Comrade Dr. Elizalde," he said. Even though I'd seen him recently on
television, I found myself shocked at how much he had aged from the
old photos. He was quite gray, and his beard, which he had let grow
quite long, looked like that of a Biblical patriarch. He smiled bashfully.
"Welcome to Socialist Cuba, Dr. Elizalde." His beard bobbled
along with his mouth as he spoke.
I opened my mouth, my lips almost too dry to speak. "A pleasure,
Comandante," I managed to croak out. "Thank you for your time."
He smiled and waved his arm toward the window and the outside
world. "I am busy. I do have many responsibilities, of course," he
said. He laughed, almost giggling but not quite. "But you can't say I
didn't ask for them, can you?" He smirked. "The Sierra Maestra was
no picnic, you can believe that."
"I'm sure, Comandante."
"But you mustn't get the wrong idea."
"No, no. What wrong idea, Comandante?"
"You mustn't think that the Cuban Revolution is a one-man
operation." He frowned. He told me, waggling his finger, that there
was a great depth of talent in the country, and his job was to tap into
that talent, to fight through the inertia of human nature and the
hostility of the capitalist world. He sighed.
"It cannot all be accomplished in my lifetime. By no means!" He
said that he had come to realize this during the last few difficult years.
How brave and resolute the Cuban people had been, etcetera, etcetera.
I was becoming increasingly self-conscious about posing as "Felipe
Elizalde." I couldn't seem to stop my leg from jiggling. He kept asking
me about myself, he was engagingly personal, he talked about Cuba
and its problems, yes, but he was taking me into his confidence, that's
what his manner said. I became fascinated like a mouse being stalked
by a snake -- I floated in the wash of his words, enchanted at times and
at other times completely spaced out.
Then he started in to talk about the situation in El Salvador. I had
studied up on my "new" native country, so I wasn't helpless, but he
obviously knew a lot more than I did about it. At one point, I had just
shown that I didn't know much about coffee harvest records.
"It doesn't matter, not your field, Doctor." He smiled and made an
odd snipping gesture with his fingers -- a quirk that he repeatedly
displayed whenever he changed the topic of conversation. He then
started off about something else -- the continuing hope for the
Revolution in Africa, new processes for making fuel alcohol from
sugarcane bagasse, traffic engineering in Santiago, the Cuban plastic
shoe industry.
"I think that language education must be revolutionized! Truly
revolutionized!"
"Yes, Comandante?"
"Cue cards."
"Cue cards?"
"Cue cards. I have been working on a set of them myself, in my
spare time. Listen to this." He took a deep breath and read in heavily
accented English from a 3x5 card: "We must to provoke the
Revolution in all nationalities." He raised his heavy, black and gray
eyebrows at me. "Just a poor example, of course. But I try. Well,
now, Doctor, let me tell you what we're doing in prenatal care at the
Rosa Luxemburg Maternal Clinic in Camaguey."
"Certainly, Comandante." I remembered that the official
newspaper, "Granma," had the motto that nothing was possible
without the Comandante, and I could see that Fidel took seriously his
role as a kind of national encyclopedia.
He acted as if he were going to talk forever. I was afraid to look
at my watch, my eyes felt glued to his. I was getting a numb feeling in
my throat. My forehead was beginning to feel as if an iron weight
were sitting on top of my head. My eyelids closed for an instant -- I
was horrified that I had started to drowse off.
"The situation is probably very similar in Central America, I
suppose?" His voice loudly roused me. I opened my eyes wide and
saw that he was staring at me grimly.
"Yes, yes, Comandante." I pulled my eyelids up with my fingers. I
crossed and uncrossed my legs. I tried to gin myself up -- imagining
Fidel in bed with a girl friend, remembering my own last time with
Valeska, drifting off to Maria Walewska and Napoleon -- not Charles
Boyer's flabby Napoleon, rather Marlon Brando's brooding presence in
that flick from the sixties, "Desiree." Listening to Fidel talk, I realized
what it must have felt like to be one of Napoleon's marshals -- hours of
boredom laced with moments of surprise, intellectual stimulation, and
stomach-churning terror.
An iron-faced middle-aged woman came in and reminded Fidel
about a delegation from Bulgaria. He waved her away, and went on to
finish his remarks about methods of street cleaning, labor-intensive
versus machine. Then he looked at me, pulling his chin back toward
his neck, squishing the folds of fat above his collar so that the gray
ends of his beard flopped down over the open neck of his shirt. He
raised one finger high in the air and then started to show off his
knowledge about trauma shock treatment and its role in the Salvadoran
revolution.
The woman put her head in again. "Bulgaria," she bellowed.
"Yes, yes, yes," he said. "All right, Doctor, I'll do my best to help you.
He plucked up the list of names that I had submitted that listed political
prisoners with medical capabilities -- the same list I had shown
Comrade Menendez in MININT. I was afraid he was going to ask me
where I had gotten the names -- it would have been awkward to
attribute it to the C.I.A., or even to Amnesty International. But his
face seemed to say that he knew everything, so why shouldn't even
ordinary mortals like me have our special sources? Anyway, he just
nodded. He frowned once and pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote
on the list. He told me to give the list to his secretary and she would
arrange with the secretariat of the Council about securing
commutations of the sentences. I looked down at the list. A line had
been drawn through my father's name with a thick marker pen, with a
"NO" in large letters next to it.
Shit! I closed my eyes for an instant. "Why has Dr. Revueltos
been disapproved, Comandante?" I could feel the trembling in my
voice.
He snorted. "Danton. Can you imagine! Me, Danton!"
"What?"
"Danton, he called me a Danton!"
My father had evidently compared Fidel to the wild man of the
French Revolution. Knowing my father, he had probably meant it as a
compliment. But the Comandante apparently didn't see it that way --
probably because Danton had turned out to be a loser, and Fidel didn't
fancy having some Robespierre sending _him_ to the guillotine -- or in
Cuba, al paredon. I said that the Salvadoran comrades would work
hard to reeducate all of these people, that we needed every doctor we
could get our hands on. "The need is great, Comandante."
But the Maximum Leader shook his head vigorously, muttering
"miserable Trotskyite." Then he looked at me, eyebrows raised, daring
me to say something else.
But I was afraid. It was obvious that my father could only suffer
from any more attention right at the present: if his case got reopened,
he might end up getting sent straight to the paredon.
I shook his big hand again and left. I didn't give the list to the
secretary on my way out. Maybe, somehow, there was some way that I
could get the "NO" removed. In any case, I certainly didn't want to be
perceived as having accomplished "my mission" for the Salvadoran
Revolution -- and deprive myself of a reason for remaining in Cuba.
"Me and Fidel": the first round had gone to Comrade Dr. Fidel
Castro Ruz, Commander in Chief, First Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Party, President of the State Council, President of
the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba. But, as lousy as I
felt as I waited for the narrow, creaking elevator to arrive at Fidel's
floor, I resolved that Jesus Revueltos Olivera, M.E.E., wouldn't
thrown in the towel yet!
I had to pick myself up and get moving in another direction. But
what direction? I asked myself, as I knocked down a quick Cuba Libre
at poolside in the hotel, watching the oiled dark skins and the tiny
folded ellipses and triangles of the bright-colored bikinis.
Think, Chucho, think. There was not only my father -- but quite
likely I would need a separate plan for Pillo's release.
But all I saw when I closed my eyes was bikinis and skin.
Maybe Amelia was right about me and women after all. ***
The possibility of using Pierre should have occurred to me before
-- he had been back in town for the past week or so. It was Valeska
that brought up the idea. I was painting her toenails just after a
macaroni and beans dinner the following evening -- engineers all study
mechanical drawing, and I have a draftsman's eye for any kind of
painting. Besides, I liked feeling the smooth insides of her pale brown
toes as I carefully spread apart the tips, calloused with dancer's ridges,
and applied the thick, strong-smelling enamel. She was lying back,
eating chocolate cookies from what used to be East Germany. I
brushed away some of the crumbs, then I picked up a couple of them
and stuck them between her toes. I leaned down, stuck out my
tongue, and licked the crumbs up, tasting chocolate laced with bath
lotion and the bitter smell of acetone.
"Eeeee!" she said and giggled.
"More," I said.
"But I've got a date," she said.
"Oh, come on! Not tonight!"
She pounded me on the forehead with the flat of her hand. "Got to
make a living, Flip, keep up my contacts."
"Yeah, living," I said, sensing or imagining a bitter taste in my
mouth.
"Not like you, you lazy bastard."
"'Lazy'! See if I do your toenails any more. That's hard work."
She leaned over and took the end of my penis lightly between her nails
and gave it a little pat. I jumped. "You communists are all the same,
lazy bastards," she said, "but you, Felipe Elizalde, are the worst."
"Oh screw! To hell with everything!" The pressures of my crazy
mess of a life suddenly seemed overwhelming.
She grabbed me by the earlobes and placed her large lips on my
eyes, warming them and my cheeks. "What's the matter, sweets?" She
smiled, her eyes very large. "Don't worry, I'll come back here after my
date."
"No thanks!"
She asked me what the hell was eating me. I said nothing. She
went back to eye-kissing. I told her she'd be late for her date. She
pulled my head to her breast and moved my mouth into position to
suckle. "There, there, sweet honey-love, take hold!" she said. I
followed directions.
Up to now all she'd known that I was in Cuba on a mission for my
government and that my visit to Fidel hadn't been a success. I didn't
know how much I could tell her, but after a few minutes of womanly
comfort I raised my head and started in on the Cuban bureaucracy, and
how you couldn't get anything done with them, and so on and so on.
She smirked and tickled me under he armpits.
"Balls!" I said.
"Pierre," she said, tickling again.
Me: Pierre?
Her: The man who knows everybody.
Me: No matter what name he himself happens to using at the
moment?
She shrugged and began to run an Afro comb through her hair.
She lifted a small mirror and pouted into it, then she moved her toes so
they were poking into my crotch. "Hey, watch the wet polish," I said.
Then she kept on poking, prodding until I got distracted, and she
agreed to call and cancel her date. As she pulled down her slacks and
panties, she began to describe all the features of a portable TV set she
had admired in one of the dollar store windows. But even as my prick
started to concentrate on the lovely beige lyre- shaped hips of Valeska,
my mind was beginning to worry about Pierre/Waldemar, a man who
knew everybody but was also known _to_ everybody -- including some
members of the secret police.
Pierre and I talked the next day, dashing crazily through the late
afternoon traffic in a cab. I had met him at the Nacional as he was
returning, he said, from a visit to one of his "closest and dearest
friends." I had asked him what he had been up to in Havana -- getting
some old debts repaid, companero, taking orders, business.
"You know how it is," he said. He looked at me, his eyebrows
raised so far that they almost seemed to reach the black "Waldemar"
wig, which had slipped somewhat off center. "Or do you?" he asked.
"Know the socialist scene?"
I felt that I was blushing.
He gave me a conspiratorial smile. "Sometimes I think you're a
good little boy with a secret, Felipe. Then other times, I think," he
said, leaning over and whispering into my ear, "You're just a hustler
like all of us -- 'Felipe.'" He laughed. "And you have a problem with
MININT. And I know that ministry like my cat knows the goldfish in
my aquarium back home in..." His voice level dropped to an
incomprehensible murmur. Just then the cab made a sharp turn, I fell
against him, feeling my elbow sink into the layers of fat. He made a
face and motioned toward the back of the driver's head, waving one
big finger to belatedly caution me about eavesdroppers. I leaned over
close to his ear and explained in a whisper my problem to him, only
telling him that I wanted to get this Dr. Revueltos -- and Jose Pillo --
out of La Cabana. He raised his eyebrows at Pillo's name. "Collecting
reactionaries too, comrade?" He smiled.
"Can you do it?" I said.
"I was right about you, my little
friend," he said, pinching my
cheek. I pulled away, rubbing the sore spot on my cheek. "No, no,
Felipe," he said. "You mustn't pull away like that! Distancing yourself
from your friend, your dear friend who can help you with your little
problems."
"No, no, I didn't mean to do that, Pierre."
He laughed. "Oh, Felipe, you devil."
He dropped me of at my hotel. He himself was now living with "a
very close friend, a member of the inner Party circles." This friend was
helping him arrange something about air conditioners -- I knew that
little $300 window air conditioners were fetching upwards of $1000 on
the black market. As the cab came to a stop, I asked Pierre what he
thought he could do about my problem. He made a face just like the
one he had made earlier.
"Hah!" he said. He laughed. "Hah," he said again.
I suddenly imagined that "Hah" was his version of a personal battle
cry, like the "Santiago y Espana" of medieval Spain. The haunting
feeling came over me that any affair of Pierre's would be likely to lead
to trouble, maybe disaster. The next day, in fact, the first small
wiggles of the seismographic tracing of a possible Diaz-Ginsburg
earthquake came when I told Valeska about my talk with Pierre.
When I told her he hadn't been specific about what he would do, she
made a face. I was getting tired of people making faces. "What does
that mean?" I said. She bit her lip, grinning, and shrugged her
shoulders.
"So," I said, "do you think that I did wrong to talk to him? It was
your idea, for God's sake."
"Oh," she said, "I'm so tired." She yawned and plopped herself
down on the bed.
I asked her if I should talk to Pierre again. "What's he going to do,
do you suppose?"
"Who knows what anyone else will do?" she said in a voice that
suggested that you never knew what you yourself were going to do, so
why worry about others?
"Shit," I said.
"It's just that Pierre's crazy," she said in a lazy, throaty voice.
"Oh, Jesus," I said.
"The problem with Pierre is, if he doesn't have a good idea, he'll go
ahead with a bad one." She picked my wallet out of my coat and
started to look through it. "No point in worrying."
"How can I not worry, when I don't know what's going to
happen?" I pulled my wallet away from her. "_If_ anything is going to
happen."
Valeska giggled softly. "I told you. With Pierre, _something_ will
happen." She pulled me down on top of her and reached for the wallet
again.
I put my wallet away in my trousers pocket. Valeska smiled, lying
there lazy-eyed, staring at the far wall. She looked out of this world,
as if she were either very stupid or very smart about life and people.
Perhaps the look was the fat, confident stare of an African mask.
Anyway, I suddenly became concerned that Valeska might indeed
know her Pierre -- very well.
"Don't worry," Pierre told me himself when I ran into him at the
Cafe Oriente three nights later. Cuba hadn't changed that much, and
he rubbed his fingers together in the money-money sign.
"Even under the communists?" I said.
"Communists!" He sniffed, adjusting his mustache. "The
commune is the ultimate set of shackles for humanity."
I had heard that all before. "And anarchism shall set you free?"
His face took on a faraway look. "Man poisons man with politics. The
ultimate shame. The individual is made into a group man, stupid,
corrupt, full of hate."
"Who's always on the take."
"My dear Felipe, some day this cancer will be destroyed, the
Bush-Castro- Gorbachev disease of authority, arbitrary rule,
manipulation of mankind against its own interests." His face lightened.
He smiled. "In the meantime, it's so easy to help your friends."
"How much is this going to cost?" I said. Not that I had to know,
the Gomez operation didn't seem to be on a tight budget. But I did
wonder whether Pierre was all talk.
"A friend is a wonderful thing," said Pierre. "Human kindness is a
natural attribute of Mankind. When governments are finally destroyed,
we will all learn, Felipe, my friend and comrade, the true glory of
human kindness. His face fell. "Maybe not in our lifetimes."
I gave up. By this time I knew that Pierre would tell me exactly
what he wanted me to know -- and no more. "How much?" I said.
"Six thousand should do it."
"I'll see about it," I said, hoping that the Company or whoever
would be good for that much.
Big organizations are awfully good at wasting money in a good
cause
***
The phone call woke me. My thin little digital clock said 1:43
A.M. I said hello, there was no answer. I cleared my throat and said
hello again, and then Pierre's voice said, "I was worried it wasn't you,
companero." His voice sounded tired. I asked him what was up.
Earlier that evening I had almost succeeded in forgetting about Pierre
and his worrisome "promise" to help my father. My mind had been
dwelling on the previous afternoon, sitting on the terrace of the hotel
and spotting Valeska strolling with Arnoldo on the Rampa, looking
entirely too chummy. And thinking what Amelia would think about it
all and what did it matter what she thought? I damned well wasn't
going to play the role of her little boy who was being naughty with the
bad little girls, just waiting for Mommy to bawl him out! Anyway, I
had difficulty clearing my mind there on the phone with Pierre in the
middle of the night. I missed Pierre's next statement the first time
around.
"What was that?"
"I want you to keep something for me," he said matter-of-factly.
"What, what are you talking about?" I was awake now.
"The concierge will have it. Tomorrow. Or later. Don't know."
"What's going on, Pierre, have you been doing something about you
know what?"
"_Adiosito_," he said and hung up.
He didn't say "_Hasta_ _luego_" -- "see you." His choice of a flat
"good-bye" was kind of worrying.
The story started to come out in dribs and drabs the next day. I
first heard from Valeska that Pierre had approached the vice-chairman
of the Security Committee of the Party. Pierre had told Valeska that
this fellow, a certain Nunez, was "an old pal" -- she said he made a
Cheshire-cat grin as he said that. "You could always get a favor done
by an old pal," he said. "Old pals count even in new societies, even in
our 'New Cuba.'" I could hear Pierre spitting out that phrase with his
usual melancholic irony.
Well, when we filled in the story with some reports from Arnoldo
and others, it appeared that old pal Nunez and been indeed open to my
"four thousand dollar" bribe -- especially, Valeska said, because Pierre
was in a position to spread the word around about the old days when
they were together in the Sierra Escambray, a blot on his resume that
Nunez had managed to keep papered over for almost thirty years. I
could picture Nunez, fat, I supposed, sleek, owning a new Hungarian
automobile, his children maybe in the elite Pedrazgo School in
Miramar. Nunez, bald head shining, suddenly faced with the wild-eyed
face of his old comrade, and saying to himself, stop, stop, this can't be
happening to me.
So, as we heard, it was all set up, Nunez had taken the money and
was arranging medical releases for my father and Pillo, when he
suddenly found out that Fidel had taken a "personal interest" in my
father's case.
No one in Cuba bucks Fidel. For Nunez, that was the end of that
act of friendship -- an order was sent out for Pierre's arrest. What
Pierre had apparently overlooked was that while he had something on
Nunez, Nunez had something worse on him -- a knowledge of the
Diaz-Ginsburg name under which he was still wanted in the Special
Courts on charges of murder and treason. So Pierre disappeared,
leaving only the promised envelope with my concierge. I later heard
that he had taken to the hills, no one knew where exactly, perhaps to
his old stomping ground in the Sierra Escambray, perhaps elsewhere.
A one-line denunciation appeared about him, under his real name, in
the following day's edition of "Granma."
The envelope? It held a list of names under the title "Comrades of
the Liberation movement, 1964-1966," and a photograph of a group of
bearded men, some holding weapons, against a background of a jeep
and a grove of pine trees.
Still later, I learned from Valeska's singer friend Toni that her good
customer Nunez had bragged to her about making an easy four
thousand dollars out of the deal and getting rid of a nuisance into the
bargain.
Of course I was pissed off about all the references to the "four
thousand." Then I remembered that it was the American taxpayers or
maybe, indirectly, the Miami citizenry fleeced by the Association who
were paying for it and -- who knows -- maybe we the people owed
Pierre something for past services.
And two thousand dollars, Pierre's cut, wasn't much money -- as
these things go. I mean, think about Irangate. But that didn't help me
much at that moment. Pierre's failure meant that I too had failed.
Again.
***
He wasn't wearing a striped sailor shirt this time, he appeared
disguised as a would-be fashion plate in a bright purple guayabera. It
was the middle of the afternoon at La Floridita, Hemingway's favorite
bar, in the heart of the old downtown, and he walked in and swung
himself awkwardly into the high, pillowed cane chair right beside me
where I sat at the bar, nursing a daiquiri and waiting for Valeska to get
off a date at the Hotel Inglaterra. I automatically looked around,
expecting to see someone who looked like one of Fidel's agents
watching us.
"Need a match, buddy?" he said, in his indescribably bad Spanish.
He swayed against the bar, his belly buffing the shining dark
mahogany.
"No," I said. No one was watching.
He held out a matchbook. "Take one," he whispered in English.
I took the matchbook from him. It was colored a faded red and
looked much used. On the inside cover, it said, "Meet me in fifteen
minutes in the men's room of the Palacio Hotel. First booth." I had
just started to wonder where the Palacio Hotel was, when I realized he
was already disappearing out the front door, purple shirttail wagging
behind him.
I found the Palacio nearby, on Calle O'Reilly. Its ancient men's
room glistened with yellowed porcelain and smelled of lysol and urine.
I saw black wingtip shoes peeping out from under the partition of the
first booth. I ignored the small piles of toilet paper stacked on the
table for use by serious customers and carefully opened the door to
the booth. Mr. Marcus looked like a bigger man than he was,
crouching in front of the toilet inside the tiny booth.
"You'll have to account for the six thousand," he whispered in
English, apparently under the impression that the language of
Shakespeare was a secure cipher.
I started to explain, but he widened his pop eyes and cut me off.
"Never mind that Ginsburg stuff now. What are your plans?" "I
don't know." I leaned away from his sweat-stained face, bumping
against the toilet and flushing it by accident.
"Shh!" he said.
"Sorry!"
"We're sending an agent to help. That is, the Miami office is."
"What agent? When?"
He pursed his lips. "Careful. People may be listening." Just then I
heard steps and someone came into the room and went to the long
trough. Marcus gripped my arm tightly. I remember wondering what
his first name was. We heard the sound of liquid, then more steps, the
outer door opening and closing. "But remember, I'm still directing this
operation, even when I'm in San Salvador."
"Yes, but..."
"Report to the address in Cayo Hueso day after tomorrow. Now
leave." He gave me a push. "Be careful. Caution, at all times."
"Sure, sure." I opened the door of the booth.
"The report," he said.
"What?"
"Bring your report, address it 'To files.'"
"What?"
He pushed me out of the booth and closed the door, remaining
inside. I heard the sign of urination starting. His voice raised itself
over the sound. "Two pages. Double-spaced."
The door opened and an old man in a white waiter's coat stared at
me.
Marcus' voice came now in Spanish. "Not a word. Caution,
caution."
The waiter looked at me. "Russians?" He said.
"Yes, Russians," I said.
"Your Spanish is good. Long live the Revolution." He clenched a
fist and I did the same as I opened the outer door of the men's room. I
could hear someone behind me beginning to sing in a murmuring tenor
voice, "Our Love is Here to Stay."
==================================================
PITTSBURGH
By Otho Eskin
(Note: this is the last of 7 parts of the play "Duet")
CHARACTERS
(In order of appearance)
SARAH BERNHARDT
ELEONORA DUSE
MAN
SETTING
Backstage of the Syria Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
TIME
April 5, 1924 Evening.
SCENE
SARAH
(To ELEONORA)
You never forgave me.
ELEONORA
I never forgave you.
SARAH
I told you, you had abominable taste in men.
ELEONORA
I knew in my heart he would betray me but I couldn't help myself. I
detested him. I adored him.
SARAH
In love as in life there are only victors and victims. After my experience
with my beloved prince, I never allowed myself to be a victim again.
Enjoy men. Take the pleasure they can give. Make them love you. But
never love them back. Any woman who allows herself to love is a
lunatic or self-destructive.
ELEONORA
That did not give you the right to betray me with Gabriele.
SARAH
Gabriele meant nothing to me. A few weeks perhaps a month or two
and it was over. And even when we were together I am sure he was
betraying me as I was betraying him. It meant nothing. You must
have known what he was like.
ELEONORA
I knew from the beginning that he would be unfaithful. But I was
dazzled by his vitality by his delight in himself by his
overpowering egotism.
SARAH
There is nothing so seductive in a man as his love of himself.
ELEONORA
I was a slave of my own passion. I felt a suffering of love, dark and
deep.
SARAH
Love is insatiable and inconsolable.
ELEONORA
After Paris he returned to me, asking forgiveness.
SARAH
And you were fool enough to say yes?
ELEONORA
His cruelty increased every day. He flaunted his infidelity. One night,
while I was performing in Palermo, he made love to one of the young
actresses in my company backstage where it was impossible for me
not to see them. I was crushed by his cruelty, humiliated by his deceit,
destroyed by his lack of pity. I became subject to fits of raging jealousy
of blackest melancholy that left me no peace.
MAN
I am bored by your jealousy, Eleonora.
ELEONORA
I was horrified by my own weakness.
MAN
You are in the grip of an evil demon.
ELEONORA
He wrote a novel he called The Flame. It was supposed to be fiction
but it was about me our love. It was the portrayal of a woman's
passion for a younger man.
MAN
And now, by a violent, sudden impact of fate she had been thrown on
him, a female in heat, with all her quivering flesh. She had mingled with
him with all her harsh blood. She had seen him sleep on the same pillow
the heavy sleep of love-fatigue; she had known at his side sudden
wakings, troubled by cruel dismay, and the impossibility of closing her
weary eyelids again for fear that he might observe her sleep, and seek in
her face the marks of the years and be repelled by them, and yearn for
fresh, unaware youthfulness.
ELEONORA
How can you be so cruel?
MAN
I am an artist and artists are not bound by the conventions of normal
people any more than conventions bind the tiger in the jungle. We
live by our own rules. If you must be hurt in order for me to create a
work of art so be it.
ELEONORA
Genius is not a license to kill.
MAN
Yes, it is.
SARAH
You were a fool, Eleonora.
ELEONORA
I was in love. What could I do? He wasn't just a man. He was a poet
and a playwright.
SARAH
They're the worst! Never fall in love with one of those. They spend
their days inventing lies which they then expect other people to pay to
hear. They are never to be trusted.
ELEONORA
What could I do? I was in love.
SARAH
Some years ago I injured my leg. At first it caused me a little pain but I
endured. But as time passed the pain increased. It became an obsession
all my waking hours. At night I could not sleep, living with my pain. I
went to doctors. They could do nothing. The pain grew worse. It
interfered with my work. It interfered with my enjoyment of life. I went
to the doctor and said if you can't cure my pain, cut off my leg.
MAN
No, Madame Sarah, I will not do that. You must learn to live with your
pain.
SARAH
I refuse to live with pain. I went to other doctors. Finally I found one
who would do as I asked. And he cut my leg off. Here.
ELEONORA
I could never do that. I would prefer to suffer.
SARAH
Your suffering, your experiences, enriched your art.
MAN
Five minutes, Signora.
SARAH
I wonder now that the world has seen you will they speak of me
sometimes? Perhaps if I had had your advantages, Eleonora, I too
might have achieved something real.
ELEONORA
My advantages! You had everything! You had wealth. You had
comfort. You had education.
SARAH
I was deserted by my father. Abandoned by the father of my child.
ELEONORA
You had a mother.
SARAH
Do you want to know what kind of person my mother was? She lived
what was called La vie gallante. She was a courtesan. Every night she
brought home a gentleman whom she had met at one of the theaters or
cafes. She would entertain this gentleman perhaps play some
popular tune on the piano. Then retire to the bedroom.
ELEONORA
Is that what your mother taught you?
SARAH
When I was fourteen the age you were when you stood on that
stage in Verona and felt the Grace of God I was taught to be a
whore.
MAN
Signora Duse, it is time.
ELEONORA
No! Not yet. I'm not ready. There's something I still need to know. Did
we achieve anything in our lives, Sarah?
SARAH
We were water weavers, Eleonora, you and I. We lived invented lives.
(SARAH arises and goes toward the door.)
ELEONORA
Wait! Don't go yet.
(SARAH stops at the door.)
SARAH
I dreamed of meeting someone who would accept me unquestioningly.
Then I met you.
In one instant, like a mad woman, I built a whole future upon your love,
I thought of my childhood I was dreaming of the impossible. Is it
too late?
(THEY embrace)
ELEONORA
Will they speak of us sometimes?
SARAH
That's strange. I seem to have forgotten my lines.
(SARAH exits. The MAN begins
switching off the stage lights.)
MAN
It's time, Signora. It's time.
(ELEONORA rises, pulls the shawl
around her shoulders and exits. The
MAN switches off the remaining lights.)
ELEONORA
(VOICE OVER)
All my life I wanted to raise myself through my work and for my
work to the level of really great subjects sacred subjects to the
very heart of that Mystery. The theater sprang from religion. It was my
greatest wish that, somehow, through me in some small way
theater and religion might once again be reunited. We lived dreams of
passion, you and I. But I look back and see nothing and I am
intoxicated with regret. What I have done no longer satisfies me. I feel
something dying within me. I feel the false, fleeting aspect of the plays
in which I act. I look back and I see shadows and broken memories.
And yet When everything was just right there were shining
moments. Moments of such sweet complicity when we were consumed
with a holy madness.
CURTAIN
*****
