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Electronic Theses, Treatises and Dissertations The Graduate School

2006

The Lost CommodoreWilliam Lee Belford

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THE FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY

COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES

THE LOST COMMODORE

By

WILLIAM LEE BELFORD JR

A dissertation submitted to the Department of English

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Awarded: Spring Semester, 2006

ii

The members of the Committee approve the Dissertation of William Lee Belford Jr defended on March 21, 2006.

Mark Winegardner

Professor Directing Dissertation

Roberto Fernández Outside Committee Member

Julianna Baggott Committee Member Barry Faulk Committee Member

Approved: Hunt Hawkins, Chair, English Department

Joseph Travis, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences

The Office of Graduate Studies has verified and approved the above named committee members.

iii

This book is dedicated to my loving parents for all of their support.

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Abstract���������������������������� v 1. AT THE HOUR WHEN THE BLACKGUARD MEETS THE SULTAN.... 1 2. THE VERY LAST WOMAN IN THE WORLD.......................................... 18 3. THE FOURTH TENOR, VINCENT NOSERELLI...................................... 32 4. BACKDOOR TO ADVENTURE................................................................ 49 5. THE LOST COMMODORE ...................................................................... 68 6. THE THIN WHITE DUKE ......................................................................... 92 7. THE LAST DETAIL .................................................................................. 110 8. THE PLAYBOY PRESIDENT.................................................................... 130 9. THREE CHEERS FOR THE MULLIGAN ................................................. 145 10. NO MORE ROSES FOR THE MATADOR .............................................. 166 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH ........................................................................... 192

v

ABSTRACT

This dissertation is a collection of ten short stories. Each story is a work of fiction

composed by the author during the years 2004-2006 as a student in the Creative Writing

PhD program at Florida State University.

1

AT THE HOUR WHEN THE BLACKGUARD MEETS THE SULTAN

Wigs. The south wall of the drawing room was lined with three shelves of faceless cedar

dummy heads wearing powdered wigs. Some were long and plaited like Louis XIV�s,

others more masculine, with severe widow�s peaks, like George Washington�s or a

Romanian blood-drinking count�s. One was woven with tightly rolled bills, foreign

currency, pink and blue pastels, and might have been the headdress of some psychedelic

barrister. Bachman Lachlan Macalister was the kind of man who collected wigs and,

strangely, pulled it off. He was a creature endowed with a peculiar grace. He was also

the brother and only surviving family of my fiancée Virginia. Reclined on a Chippendale

divan upholstered in vermilion damask and wearing a smoking jacket of the same hue, he

refilled both his and my highballs with scotch from a Waterford decanter. His feet, shod

in black velvet slippers embroidered in gold thread with the Macalister coat of arms, were

small, delicate, girlish things propped up on the damask ottoman. Bachman had asked

me to accept a commission in his War of Independence reenactment regiment, an

enterprise I had always regarded as childish and ridiculous. �You�re sure to enjoy

yourself,� he said. �There�ll be plenty of gunplay.� We hardly knew each other, he went

on, and if I was to marry his little sister then he insisted we become better acquainted.

Of course, I�d known Bachman my whole life; only he had never deigned to know

me. Off and on he was in my class at Country Day, a few years at a time until he was

kicked out for good our freshman year and finished out at Woodberry, then St. Andrews,

and finally at Georgia Military.

�Listen, Duncan,� Bachman continued, �I could promote from within the ranks,

but those guys are just so�déclassé. It�s one thing to give a cracker an order, but to

invite him into your tent for a drink of whisky or game of chance is another thing

entirely. I need an aide-de-camp with whom I can spend some quality time.� He sat up

and looked me in the eyes. �One of us. Know what I mean?�

One of us. I�d grown up in the right neighborhood, gone to the right schools,

worn the right clothes. My childhood was not one spent in penury. But the money that

had groomed and fed me and given me raiment was new money, brand spanking new

2

merchant�s money. What status I enjoyed had been purchased. Bachman was the well-

bred, landed gentry bugbear in my dreams whose acceptance I craved and whose scorn,

when I arrived underdressed at dream-weddings and dream-receptions, I dreaded. I

lurked at the periphery of society, at best a guest, never a member. I was not one of

them.

I rose from my seat on the chesterfield and walked to the south wall where I took

down a bulbous, pale lavender peruke and donned it at a rakish angle, feeling like a

Viennese fop. �Okay, Bachman, I�ll give it a whirl.�

�You�ve got to be kidding,� my fiancée said.

Virginia stood before the carcass of an eleven-point buck hanging upside down by

its hind legs from a cleaning rack, her arms elbow deep in the gaping abdominal cavity.

Her canvas coveralls were foul with offal. I kissed her on the forehead. A lock of nut-

brown hair had come loose from its bun and was stuck to her cheek by a dollop of crusted

blood. Virginia had sharp features, high cheek bones and a pointy nose, and brilliantine

blue eyes, very much the spitting image of her older brother, even the same fullness of

the lips. The flecks of blood in her crow�s feet became her. From inside the animal she

pulled the stomach, a greenish sack that looked near to bursting, and dropped it in the gut

bucket where it made a loud splat. She sheathed her skinning knife and brushed her gory

hands on the bib of her coveralls and took the beer I handed her. �You�re going to play

dress-up with Little Lord Fauntleroy?�

�That�s one way of putting it.�

�He�s gone crazy, you know,� Virginia said.

�Ape-shit,� I added.

�Exactly. He wasn�t always like this. He�s the one who taught me to hunt.

Bachman never did go in for any of those role-playing games or make-believe in general.

He was an athlete. You remember. Football. Lacrosse. Crew. An expert fisherman.�

�Used to tie his own flies,� I said. �He�d bring them to school.�

�That�s what I�m talking about,� Virginia said. �I think it all began with the

fencing class he took in college.�

3

I remembered the fencing team at my university. Team Hobbit, we used to call

them.

�This reenactment stuff,� she continued. �It�s just so weird. Grown men putting

on costumes and playing army like a bunch of little boys. You know,� she paused to

drain her beer. �The whole enterprise strikes me as a tad bit gay.� She looked me dead-

on and raised an eyebrow.

�Listen, honey,� I said. �Don�t worry about me. I only said yes because he�s

your brother.�

But this was not entirely true.

For one thing, I didn�t have anything better to do. I didn�t work, that�s for sure. After

my parents died I sold the family business and had been able to live comfortably, albeit

frugally, off of the interest. Mostly I sailed. Or puttered around in Virginia�s garden,

keeping it pruned and weeded. It was winter, which meant that when Virginia wasn�t

shooting deer, she was shooting ducks. Occasionally I�d go duck hunting with her. You

didn�t have to sit still and be quiet like you did hunting deer. You could have yourself a

little social behind the blind, sardines, whisky, dirty jokes. I loved those mornings, the

creak of good leather, the glint of the early sun off the double barrels of my Fox-

Sterlingworth side-by-side, my nose numb and my feet cold to the bone, the musty smell

of wool and oilskin, the rose-water smell of Virginia�s hair, the way the fog of our breath

commingled. The way she out-shot me two to one.

For another thing, as odd as he had become, I felt myself drawn to Bachman. His

hair was just thick enough, curled in the right places, no ungainly cowlicks, his skin

smooth and evenly tanned, his dress both impeccable and careless (with the exception of

the smoking jacket and velvet slippers�those were affectations)�rumpled khakis and

duck boots at a Turner�s Rock oyster roast, Barbour coat over herringbone tweed en route

to the club in the rain. Country squire, landed gentry�at parties he�d stick his left hand

in the hip pocket of his double-breasted blazer like some exiled son of the House of

Windsor (I may have had the right clothes, but Bachman knew how to wear them with a

sort of studied negligence). The people on their mother�s side were Yankees who came

4

over on the Mayflower, which is as close as you can get to royalty over here in the

colonies. Bachman Macalister was everything I was not, not yet, that is.

�These boots,� I said, �they�re both the same.�

I was sitting on a wooden footlocker inside a white canvas tent, Bachman�s�

Brigadier General Augustine Prevost�s, rather�quarters, which he had appointed with

Persian rugs and tasseled throw pillows. It might have been some sultan�s vacant harem,

save for the watercolor fox hunting scene, gilt-framed and propped on an easel in the

corner. I held one of a pair of black leather cavalry boots that came up over the knee and

were polished to a high gloss with squared-off toes and hobnailed soles. They were by

far the most imposing boots I had ever seen, and I very much wanted them to fit me.

Bachman the brigadier was lounging on a rug, leaning against an overstuffed

pillow and smoking a long-stemmed meerschaum pipe, legs crossed. He was coatless

and was wearing a white lace jabot, a white waistcoat with gilt buttons, white breeches,

and black riding boots with a brick red band at the top of the upper. �Yes,� he said.

�They�re a matching pair. You�re an officer, so that�s not unusual. What�s your point?�

�No. I mean,� I held up one boot and then I held up the other. �There�s no right

foot or left foot. They�re both just�feet.�

�As they should be, Colonel,� said the brigadier. I had assumed the role of

Colonel Archibald Campbell. �Your eighteenth-century cobbler did not trifle with such

niceties as right or left. Wet the boots and then wear them the rest of the day. They�ll

conform to your feet. The regulations for His Majesty�s Regiments required a soldier to

alternate his boot from one foot to the other, but I don�t recommend that.�

�And what about the rest of my�kit?� I asked. I could wax martial when I

wanted. �I never did give you my measurements.�

With a riding crop the brigadier indicated a large parcel wrapped in brown paper

and tied off with a string at the foot of his cot. I slit open the parcel with a long bayonet.

It contained a red serge frock coat with blue facings and cuffs, gold epaulettes, and gold-

laced button holes. �Oh, my,� I said. �Would you look at that. So you already bought

it? What if it doesn�t fit? Or is it not supposed to fit, so as to conform to actual

battlefield conditions?�

5

The brigadier filled two cannikins with spiced rum and handed one to me.

�You�re my aide-de-camp. Of course it fits. You�re every inch of a 38 short.�

The coat fit perfectly.

�Try on the rest,� he said. The brigadier seemed to be enjoying this, as if he took

a certain pride in a well-turned-out subordinate.

There was a linen blouse, white buff waistcoat and breeches much like the

general�s, a crimson waist sash and a cocked hat with a blue and gold cockade. I slipped

out of my clothes and tried on the uniform. �The breeches are a bit snug in the crotch,� I

said. �And the rear.�

�You look perfect, Colonel.� The brigadier drained his cup of rum and smiled.

We had pitched camp on the parade ground of old Fort Jackson and our mission was to

repel the assault of the American General Benjamin Lincoln. The assault took place after

a six-week siege laid by the rebel forces. Accordingly, our men were on a strict ration for

the duration of the engagement. Twelve ounces of hardtack, sixteen ounces of water a

day. Absolutely no rum. Plus a dismal shortage of powder. All in the spirit of faithful,

historic reenactment. I could understand the sacrifice that the men of the 4th Battalion

Royal Artillery were making�to a point. That rationing business gave me pause; it�s

one thing to be cold and wet on a weekend, but it�s another thing entirely to starve when

you don�t have to. Ultimately, what the men ate was of little concern to me; I was an

officer so I dined on mince pie and mutton.

Nor was there a shortage of strong spirits at the officers� mess. That night I bore

witness to as much spiced rum, Scotch whisky, and cognac, not to mention Madeira, that

our fearless leader could stomach and more. Too much more; the amount he drank was

downright collegiate. After the bugler blew reverie an hour before dawn I shaved and

dressed and reported for duty at the general�s tent but the general was not stirring. After

calling �General Prevost� several times and then �Bachman� to no avail I shook him by

the shoulders. �God damn it, Bachman, you dragged me into this, now up and at �em.� I

yanked off the bedclothes. Under the coarse wool blanket and quilt he was fully dressed,

not just in his coat but his riding boots and spurs as well, and he snored like some beast

from a fable. From outside the tent I grabbed a pewter dish from a mess kit, freezing to

6

the touch, and held it against his cheek and the way he shot up you would have thought I

had stuck him with a needle full of epinephrine. His hair was everywhere and his eyes

were bright and wild. �You,� he said and lay back down.

�Sir, the men await your orders.�

�My head,� said the brigadier. �I�ve been poisoned.�

�Should I call for the surgeon, sir?�

�No, you idiot.� The brigadier stuck his head under his pillow and groaned.

�But sir,� I continued. �We have colonists to repel. Your officers await their

orders.�

�You deal with it,� the brigadier said.

Outside the tent waited Colonel Magnus von Lossberg�a.k.a. Newt Pritchard,

my late father�s attorney�commanding officer of 2nd Battalion, von Trümbach�s

Musketeer Regiment of the Hesse-Cassel principality. A gentleman of some girth, the

gilt buttons of his blue frock coat were in no small amount of distress as was his crimson

neck-last. With his freshly waxed moustache and heavy jowls and the rising sun

refracting in the silver gorget hanging around his neck he was a fine figure of a Prussian

mercenary. His eyes were still bloodshot from the previous night�s whisky and euchre

debauch in the brigadier�s tent and he was leaning on his pike for support. �Where�s our

fearless leader?� he asked.

�The general is incapacitated,� I said. �Come on, Newt. We�ll eat breakfast with

the men today.�

In high school I had dabbled in ROTC�at the time, incidentally, my uniform was

the source of much amusement to Bachman and the rest of his set�so I knew the

rudiments of drill, manual of arms and such. His Britannic Majesty�s troops or no, this

unit was one sorry lot. Perhaps they were playing to the hilt their role as soldiers long

under siege, underfed and suffering the rigors of compulsory sobriety and therefore on

the threshold of mutiny. From my view on the review stand what I saw on the parade

ground was pure, unadulterated rabble. They had fallen in formation, more or less, but

for every man standing at attention, three were leaning on their muskets. Inattention to

uniform in some ranks was egregious; for every tricorn or tasseled grenadier helmet there

was a watch cap or ski mask. I even saw one fusilier wearing an Atlanta Braves ball cap

7

and ear muffs. Several wore sunglasses. Insults and jeers from the men in columns and

lines behind the junior officers and NCO�s were general, and few, if any, of them were

authentic eighteenth-century epithets. One Hessian musketeer had broken ranks and was

making water loudly.

It had fallen upon me to restore order in this enterprise in which I heretofore had

had very little vested interest. But surrounded by the two-hundred-year-old brick

parapets, the eroded embattlements, the lacquered seven-inch cannon pointed toward the

Savannah River, I felt a certain surge of pride, a sense of duty that appealed to a higher

aesthetic that demanded that I take advantage of this scenic opportunity�the centuries-

old fort, the ancient uniforms and heraldry, the blustering wind off of the river�and

make this re-enactment work. I unsheathed my saber and called, �Present arms,� to

which most of the men begrudgingly responded. For an instant Virginia�s face appeared

in my mind, in her eyes disapproval and shame flashing like ice at my new found esprit

de corps.

After calling the men to order arms and parade rest, I hoped against hope that I

would remember some kind of rousing martial speech from my days as an English major

and gave something of an address which went something like this:

�Men, you have endured privations beyond the call of duty to reenactment, king,

and country. It�s Saturday and you�re wet and cold, hungry and sober; indeed, you must

be crazy. Why else would a man forego a case of beer and cable TV, or a gin and tonic at

the helm, or a girlie magazine and a tube of jelly, and spend his weekend here instead?

�Because he�s a man. And God put man on earth to play and play. And today the

biggest game is afoot. We�ve got history to preserve. So, men who Bachman has often

led, welcome to your gory bed, or to victory. Now�s the day and now�s the hour, y�all

who have gone without a shower, see approach the rebel rabble, scum and villainy.

�For he today who pretends to shed his blood with me shall be my brother. And

gentlemen in Ardsley Park, in Windsor Forest, in Yacht Club Estates, in Historic

Downtown Savannah now in bed, shall think themselves limp of wrist and panty-waisted

that they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap when any speaks that pretended

to fight with us upon this wet, cold Saturday.� I sheathed my saber and with a

handkerchief mopped my brow.

8

�Plagiarist,� came the cry from one man in a platoon at the rear.

But �Cry God for Bachman, England, and St. George,� came the cry from another

platoon, and then another and another until the whole regiment was cheering and I looked

at those doctors and brokers and sub-contractors and firemen and school teachers and

restaurateurs in frock coats and breeches brandishing their cutlasses and fusils and

muskets on that muddy morass of a parade ground and I felt something swelling inside

me and I realized that I was having a damn good time and that even Virginia would be

proud of the way I had roused these men. I could feel my cheeks glowing and I was

about to draw my saber again when I felt a hand on my shoulder and I heard a voice say,

�As you were, Colonel Campbell. I�ll take over from here.�

I turned around and what elation I had felt from stirring the crowd had deflated.

Bachman had risen from his sick bed. He meant to steal my thunder and lead the troops

into battle after I had done the dirty work of mustering them. �Are you sure, sir,� I asked.

�You look a little weak, still.� The general said, �That will do for now, Colonel

Campbell.�

I began to reexamine what it was I saw in Bachman Macalister. He was spoiled and had

never had to work a day in his life and in this respect he was no different than me. Why

was it that I craved his acceptance? High school was long over. The issue of invites to

parties was no longer on the table. If my social calendar was that with which I was

concerned I could accept the countless invitations that included me (albeit by default) that

Virginia regretted every month. But I was quite content to stay home and play house

with my girl. Besides, Bachman was no longer the social creature he once was, having

become a bit of a recluse, retreating into his world of eclectic collecting and reenacting.

None of his old set participated in this reenactment business, and he no longer spoke to

any of them, not the Wyndham boys, not Dickie Trosdale or Telfair Hogdson or Heyward

Maybank or Robert Logan. Not even Mank Wormsloe. I never knew if it had been a

gradual or sudden falling out. The long and short of it is that the clique whose acceptance

I had craved in high school had long ago disbanded. So why was I drawn to Bachman,

and why had not that craving dissipated? I guess to me he was the embodiment of Old

9

Savannah, an odd bird well-heeled and above reproach. He was still that which I could

never be, at least until I married into it.

That being said, he was still a son of a bitch for resuming command just as I was

getting warmed up. The engagement proceeded as ordained by history. The

revolutionaries were thwarted. The forces under General Benjamin Lincoln were a

battalion shy of their full compliment due to inept guides getting them lost in the marsh.

Our men performed splendidly. The British strategy had been to shock and awe the

opposition with an overwhelming cannonade, which is exactly what the 4th Battalion

Royal Artillery did; they loaded their pieces with the last of the powder and wadding�

no shot, of course�and bombarded the colonists who had marched from their

encampment up river. It was a massacre. Scores of rebels pretended to be dead, their

bodies littering the riverbank, and the sulfur tang of cordite hung heavy in the foggy air.

Several pleasure yachts had just rounded the bend and were due to pass the fort fairly

soon. They looked to be in a close race. I wondered what exactly they would think when

they came across our little mock pogrom. They were all sailing under the United States

ensign: the brigadier pointed this out and said, �How deliciously ironic.�

We were standing on the north bastion overlooking the river and listening to the

colonists� drummer beat the retreat. In single file the designated survivors marched along

the bank back upriver. �If only they knew we were out of powder,� said Colonel von

Lossberg. I said, �They do, Herr Colonel� and we laughed. Our brigadier was a good bit

unsteady on his feet, still red-eyed and reeling from the previous night, his powdered wig

askew. Still, he managed to pop the cork off a magnum of Moёt & Chandon and was

filling champagne flutes, humming �God Save the Queen.� �Gentlemen,� he said, �I

propose a toast to history.� I then watched him drain four glasses in ten minutes as he

outlined the plan for routing the survivors from their marshy hideout the following day.

And then a curious thing happened. At this point the sailing yachts had drawn

parallel to the fort. I noticed a man in a greatcoat on the deck of the lead ketch striking

the American colors. Then the other four boats followed suit. Then all five vessels

hoisted Le Tricolore, the French national flag. When the lead ketch began blaring

Berlioz�s orchestral version of �La Marseillaise� from a loudspeaker mounted on the

bow, the brigadier dropped both flute and magnum and turned a sickly pale.

10

�This cannot be,� Bachman said. �It�s supposed to be 1779. �La Marseillaise�

wouldn�t be written for another thirteen years. And that flag�not for another ten.�

On the decks of all five ships men in the garb of the eighteenth-century French

Royal Navy were scrambling, yanking tarpaulins off of six-inch naval guns mounted

amidships and igniting them with linstocks. After the relative post-engagement calm, the

first volley was deafening, a pall of smoke covered the river, and, when it began to clear,

you could see that the recoil of the cannons had propelled the boats some twenty feet

closer to the opposite bank. The crews scrambled to reload the guns.

�I�ll go muster the troops,� von Lossberg said and ran down the stairs. I was on

his heels, but I stopped midway down the staircase, my brain nagging me to stay in

character. Like a well-trained aide-de-camp I ran back up the stairs to ask my

commanding officer what were his orders for his men.

Bachman was still at the edge of the bastion, holding his fusil between his knees

and withdrawing the ram rod from its barrel. Then from the cartouche pouch on his belt

he took a ball and dropped it in the barrel and rammed it home with the rod. I couldn�t

believe my eyes as he brought the flintlock to his shoulder and took aim at the boats

down below. I ran across the bastion and tackled him at the waist. The fusil discharged

in the air as we hit the turf. I got to my feet, breathing heavily.

�You were going to shoot them,� I said.

�Of course I was going to shoot them. They�re French,� Bachman said, rising to

his knees.

�No,� I said. �You were really going to shoot them. I saw you load a ball into

that thing.�

�You did not,� he said, adjusting his wig.

�I did.�

�Well,� Bachman said, standing now and brushing the grass from his breeches.

�You�ll never know.�

A cruel little smile crept across Bachman�s lips. What was this thing that looked

so much like the woman I loved. I felt dizzy. This man deserved a real beating, if not

some time behind bars or in a padded room. But it�s a touchy thing calling the authorities

on your future brother-in-law.

11

�There�s something wrong with you,� I said and descended the staircase.

Vice-Amiral Charles Henri Theodat, the Comte d�Estaing, played by Freddy Southerland,

came bearing gifts. Our forces were virtually without powder resulting from that

morning�s cannonade of the colonists, but that was only one factor in their failure to put

up any resistance. They were tired and hungry and had had enough of make-believe.

These men wanted a drink and the Count intended to serve them. The crews from his

flotilla were running errands in their ships� launches, little fifteen foot Boston Whalers,

back and forth from ship to fort. The snarl of the outboard engines greatly vexed

Bachman much to my delight. The Whalers were laden with stores.

�Good god, Newt,� I said. �Southerland actually has casks of rum. I don�t think

I�ve ever seen a cask of rum. What�s this all about?�

�Southerland is what we on the reenactor circuit call a spoiler,� Newt said.

�Spoilers catch wind of engagements and arrive uninvited. They tend to be the party

dogs among reenactment societies, always looking to stir things up. They do come in

costume, to their credit. Ooh, that looks like bratwurst.�

Soon cook fires were burning all over the parade ground. Make-believe British

commingled with make-believe French. There were fowl turning on spits and suckling

pigs a� roasting. The Members of the Corps Royal de l�Infanterie de la Marine had

brought ashore their stereo system and played some Jimmy Buffet. A subaltern brought

me a cannikin of rum and cut an odd caper on his way back to the party. Morale was

very high for all, with the exception of the brigadier. Our drummer was beating the

parley and Southerland, flanked by his standard bearer, was having speaks with

Bachman.

�Strike your colors, Macalister,� Southerland said.

�It�s Prevost. Brigadier General Augustine Prevost,� said Bachman.

�Whatever,� said Southerland. �Strike your colors, Prevost.�

�Southerland,� Bachman said, gesturing with his hand the shindig that was taking

shape on the parade grounds. �This anachronism will not stand.�

�Have it your way, bubba,� Southerland said and saluted. �Excuse me, General,

but I have rum to drink and songs to sing. Maybe you ought to take you a little nap.�

12

Bachman held another evening of strong drink and euchre in his tent that night. He was

drunk, but it was a mean, nasty, calculating sort of drunk. I had decided to join them,

thinking that my absence might indicate that something had passed between Bachman

and me and invite troublesome questions. I still didn�t know exactly what to do about

what I had witnessed on the bastion that afternoon. I thought it best to handle the matter

privately, if at all. I was half-inclined to ignore it. He was very drunk at the time, and

half-mad when sober. The last thing I wanted was some imbroglio that would force

Virginia to choose between her brother and me.

So I played some euchre. We were joined by Newt and Southerland, who played

as partners against Bachman and me. We played poorly, winning virtually no tricks. On

several occasions I went it alone, which would force Bachman to put his cards face-down

and take no part in the play. Bachman was an energy sink; he just drank and looked sour.

The atmosphere degenerated from convivial to awkward and before midnight both

Southerland and Newt had taken their leave, Southerland leaving behind his pike. When

I rose from my chair to retire Bachman bade me to sit and join him for a nightcap.

�Thank you,� Bachman said. He got up and brought the decanter from the

sideboard to the card table and sat in the seat beside me. �Today was just so awful and

I�m not quite ready to face the night alone.�

�Sure,� I said, taking a sip of scotch.

�Listen,� Bachman said. �I really appreciate you participating in this whole

affair. This reenactment society, it�s really the only interest I have left in life.� He

sipped his drink and remained silent for a spell before speaking again. �You know, I�m

very pleased you�ll be joining our family. And�I�d hate for that nasty business this

afternoon to spoil anything. I�I was not myself.�

I had never witnessed anyone so pathetic, and I couldn�t believe I was actually

having this conversation. Half of me wanted to knock him down and rub his nose in the

dirt. The other half�I don�t know, but I was also overwhelmed by a kind of tenderness.

His wet eyes glistened in the light of the oil lamp and when they met mine I swear he was

the image of Virginia. �No,� I said. �Of course not.�

13

�Oh, thank you,� Bachman said and flung his arms around my neck, burying his

face in my chest where he heaved and sobbed for a spell while I surprised myself and

patted him on the back and told him not to worry. Then he looked me in my eyes and

again I saw Virginia and that�s when his lips found mine. I lingered there for a moment;

despite the acrid miasma of strong drink, his kiss was not unlike Virginia�s, soft, but

insistent. Then I pulled away abruptly.

�Please,� Bachman said. �I don�t want to be alone tonight,� a line I myself had

used as an undergraduate. Then he moved in for another kiss. Again I pulled away, but

Bachman persisted, breathing in hurried sharp breaths and pinning my arms to my sides.

With one foot I pulled his chair out from underneath him and we came crashing down

where we wrestled until I gained the advantage and pinned him to the ground. At this

point Freddy Southerland parted the flaps of the tent and stopped in his tracks as he

beheld the scene. �Excuse me, boys. Forgot my espontoon,� he said as he picked up his

pike. �Sorry to interrupt.�

I rose to my feet, though not very steadily. I felt like I was taking my first steps

on land after a very long passage. �You�ve got problems,� I said to Bachman, who was

crumpled there on the Persian rug, laughing hysterically as I left the tent.

When I woke the following morning there was an envelope with a red waxen seal on the

flap stuck to my tent pole with a dirk. The envelope contained a note written in India ink

on linen parchment. It read:

I, Bachman Lachlan Macalister, hold Duncan Hunter Gordon to be a

scoundrel not fit to carry offal to a bear, a poltroon and, above all else, a

sodomite and do hereby issue a challenge so as to honorably settle this

affair on Potato Island, one week hence, with pistols at noon.

I had to read the note again to make sure I had read it correctly. �I�m the sodomite?� I

said aloud. I experienced a sinking feeling, realizing that this was not part of the

reenactment script, that this man, the brother of the woman I loved, planned to kill me.

Not waiting for reverie, I made straight for home, having had enough of make-believe.

14

The air in our row house was redolent with the maple-sweet smell of bacon frying in the

skillet. Virginia had greeted me at the door wearing her tartan bathrobe and her hair

loose and when I opened my mouth to speak she shushed me and said, �All is well, come

to bed.�

After spending two nights in a damp tent on a lumpy pallet under cheap wool, our

dry, cool sheets felt like therapy. Virginia hooked one of her legs around mine and

stroked my brow. For a woodswoman she kept her fingers supple. She caressed me with

her firm, smooth calf, and I felt my pulse slow and my eyelids grow heavy. I was home,

light years away from her murderous misfit brother. Eggs over-easy and side meat sat

untouched on a silver tray on the bedside table, and a skin had formed across the surface

of the cream in the pitcher on the coffee service. Virginia blew lightly in my ear; even

her breath was cool as we lay there entangled and glowing. �Let�s get married now,� she

said. I didn�t want to ruin this moment. I had a week. I decided to leave off discussing

the duel.

Which was stupid. We had made a day of it, planned an elaborate dinner,

Venison Wellington, using the tenderloin from the buck she�d shot earlier that week. It

was on that halcyon day laced with mimosas and garlic and onion that I saw our future

together in broad panorama and it was a lovely vision replete with melted butter bubbling

in the pan, roasted meat hissing on the spit, the clink of ice cubes in fine crystal, sun spots

dappling the nape of her elegant neck like the patina on the barrel of a well-loved rifle,

the graying of her chestnut tresses, those clear blue eyes lighting up the room like a

beacon, her laugh lines stretching into arabesques when she smiled, the snow white flash

of her teeth.

I was greedy. I wanted one last taste of unmitigated bliss before I had to make her

choose between her brother and me, before that day, before our life was fraught with

complication. I should have said something in the kitchen, in the garden, in our bed, but I

didn�t. She was sautéing chopped mushrooms and green onions for the Duxelles while I

was rolling out the pastry dough when in the other room her mobile phone rang and she

left the kitchen to take the call. I knew that instant it was Bachman, and that he would be

giving her his side of the story, which would be far from the truth. It was. When

Virginia returned to the kitchen she untied her apron, wadded it up, and flung it in the

15

corner. Her face was drained of all its color as she told me to get out, to quit pretending

to love her and just get out and find myself a man, any man, only not her brother.

�Are you serious?� I asked. �I didn�t try to seduce him. You�ve got to believe

me.�

�Why should I believe you,� she said, her chin dimpling, forecasting tears. �If

you�re telling the truth then why didn�t you tell me already? Why wasn�t it the first thing

out of your mouth when you walked in through the door?�

�Well�� I began.

�Damn it, Duncan. How could you? After all we�ve built, you just throw it away,

and with, of all people, my brother.� Virginia pitched the contents of the skillet into the

sink where they spat and sputtered. �You�re not right. You�re�you�re some kind of

monster; you�re trash, worse than trash. You�re not like me. I wasn�t raised to be treated

like this. Damn you, Duncan. Get out.�

For the next week I slept in my sailboat, my only communication with Virginia

conveyed through lawyers concerned with the splitting up of our property, my dreams

plagued with images of a man in a cape and powdered wig who had taken all I held dear.

Sunday and Potato Island was ablaze with the noonday sun, but cold all the same. The

air coming up from the marsh grass was crisp and bit at my nose and cheeks. Bachman

had brought a bottle of port and proposed a toast to Dame Fortuna but I declined. At this

duel there were no seconds, just him and I standing in the marsh in the state wetlands

preserve, me in canvas and oilskin, him in a tweed shooting coat and silk tartan ascot. He

presented me a mahogany box, open and lined with indigo velvet and containing two

single shot percussion pistols, French made, with stocks of burnished walnut and inlayed

with German silver. We agreed to ten paces and shook hands.

As I was walking off my ten paces I caught a whiff of my wet oilskin coat and

my thoughts turned to Virginia, in her camouflage at the cabin, in her ball gown at

cotillion, in my arms in the shower, her hair slicked back from her forehead, on the other

side of our door in her Macalister tartan bathrobe�the same pattern as the ascot round

her brother�s neck�the deadbolt and the chain. Despite the striking resemblance

between them, it was unfathomable to me that they were brother and sister. Bachman

16

was sick, very sick, and their blood tie was a cruel, cosmic accident. He was the monster,

not me. The whole reenactment business, tad bit gay or no, meant much too much to

Bachman. I had the image of him on the bastion with his ram rod driving home a round

in his musket. Bachman was a man capable of killing another when the stakes were no

higher than a boy�s game of dress-up, and I had no doubt that he would try to kill me, too,

that at the end of our ten paces in the sucking mud flat he would not shoot up in the air

but at me. The real question was whether I would shoot at him. I knew that if I killed

Bachman, I�d never win Virginia back. I also knew the same would hold true if he killed

me.

Potato Island would be a sorry place to die.

I had taken five paces so far, the dried reeds crunching beneath my boot heels

with each one. I wondered if Bachman would wait until the tenth pace to fire. Why

should he? He had, after all, challenged me on the grounds of a false accusation. What

did it mean to be �one of them� anyway? The vaunted landed gentry ideal of honor

clearly meant nothing to him. Was to be one of them to be half-drunk, well-armed, and

completely insane? Morally deviant�I was engaged to his sister when he made his

clumsy pass�but willing to kill in order to conceal it?

At ten I spun and aimed my pistol straight at the sky and fired. Twenty paces

away Bachman smiled, as if he knew I would abstain, leveled his pistol, closed one eye

and with the other drew a bead on me. The report of a gunshot rent the air, but it was an

odd report, not the resonant crack of a large caliber black powder piece, but a tinny,

spitting noise, on a higher register, and I noticed that no smoke emitted from Bachman�s

pistol barrel as he crumpled to the ground, clutching his rear. I dropped my pistol and, as

I was running up to him, Virginia appeared from behind a live oak and ran up as well.

She was holding a .22 rifle and smoke was seeping from its barrel. Bachman looked up

from the ground and snarled.

�Meddlesome bitch,� he said. �You�ve shot me in the ass.�

I picked up Bachman�s piece from where he dropped it and flung it in the woods.

�What are you doing here?� I asked Virginia.

�Thanks for not killing my brother,� she said.

�Thanks for saving my life. Does this mean��

17

�Duncan, you simple fool. Don�t you see? He�s my brother. I can�t�.This is all

so�impossible.� She wiped her tears on the back of her coat sleeve. �God damn you

both.� Then she kissed my cheek and slipped her hand in mine, and I was left with her

engagement ring pressed into my palm. I reached for her but she turned away and knelt

next to her brother as he held his ass and moaned, begging first for his pistol, then his

port, and I realized I would never be one of them.

18

THE VERY LAST WOMAN IN THE WORLD: A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE JOURNEY OF THE USCGS GRAVY BOAT, FROM

TYBEE TO THE ISLE OF SAINT CATHERINE, AS TOLD BY HER HONEST AND INTREPID CAPTAIN, WM. POMEROY WORMSLOE, CAPTAIN, USCGA.

This plank-walking business was a sorry affair; not even a proper plank at all, but a

fiberglass diving board salvaged from the fire-bombed yacht club. Was it springy? Yes.

Was it dreadful? No. Boatswain Ramsay�s hands I tied with a slip knot, and Mr.

Macintosh, under my orders, tossed over an inflatable dinghy and a dry bag containing

fishing tackle, straw boater, fresh water, and sardines. �Jump, you dog,� I cried, and

when the erstwhile boatswain said, �You know, you�re ape-shit crazy,� and fumbled with

his binds, we shook the diving board�plank, that is�until he lost footing and fell into

the sound, the Tybee Island lighthouse faint on the horizon, wreathed in yellow fog.

�God forgive you your transgressions,� I called down as Ramsay surfaced, sputtering sea

water and shaking his fist, saying, �You�ll never have her, Wormsloe. And you wouldn�t

know what to do with her if you did.� �South by southwest, Mr. Macintosh,� I said, and

we set sail for Saint Catherine�s Island, where there was rumored to be a cache of classic

rock and, possibly, mayonnaise, which we needed desperately for pimento cheese, a

staple aboard the U.S.C.G.S. Gravy Boat. And then there was the fair keeper of the isle,

Priscilla, the very last woman in the world.

I climbed below and squeezed by Big Webb, a short fireplug of a man in a tank-

top and a stiff apron cut from oilskin, who with a wooden spoon was stirring a pot of

something hot and brown in the galley. �What will it be tonight, Big Webb?� I asked.

�Hot brown,� Big Webb said.

�My favorite.� I ducked under gunny sacks of grits and flour hanging from the

overhead. Below decks was redolent of salted amberjack and meat fat, gun oil and wood

rot, and old cheese. Through the saloon I made my way aft.

The engine room was a travesty; I sloshed through water up to my calves. The

close and briny staleness down there never failed to stun me, no matter how many shifts I

pulled at the pump. If the water were only ankle deep, we�d still make decent time if the

wind was right. But this was too much water no matter how the wind blew. I waded

19

between the twin diesel V-8�s, shiny like giant blue lozenges, over to the starboard and

inspected the hull, the slats of Philippine mahogany swollen tight against each other,

splotches of pitch here and there like foul blemishes on that honey-stained timber. She

was taking in water at one spot just six inches above the water line where the wood was

splintered, victim of the gaff, and just that afternoon freshly smothered with our

homemade sealant, melted tarmacadam collected by landing parties from the cracks in

the highway baking under noonday sun. Webb would cook up the stuff, and it usually

held, but this breach was the most severe compromise the Gravy Boat had ever sustained.

This clumsy sabotage was the work of Boatswain Ramsay, who for days had been

petitioning me to turn about and head for shore. But if he reckoned that a compromised

hull was going to keep me from the fair Priscilla he reckoned wrong.

Pumping the bilge I wondered what would it be like, biblical love with the maiden

of Saint Catherine�s. Was she well groomed down below? Was it a tangled Amazon

basin, or close-cropped Serengeti plain? And would I be planting my seed in an oft-tilled

fallow field or fresh and fecund delta? Was she still an undiscovered country, I had to

know. But what did it matter? Could I afford to be so picky concerning the very last

woman in the world? The more I pumped the more I sweated. I could almost smell the

musky whang of her hot, hairy mound, could almost feel it jump. I foresaw a theatre of

sweaty madness in what would certainly be a vermilion damask boudoir. God grant

mercy to my heat-oppressed loins. Would that the doctor could mix me some paregoric,

maybe a tincture of laudanum and quinine. I pumped. I sweated. I faltered.

�Webb,� I cried. �Take that brown off the fire and come down and spell me.� I

craved a wee dram of spirits, and a song.

Ship life is hard on a man; you�ve got to put it somewhere. When you grow weary of the

right hand, you switch to the left, the grip sinister, and when that won�t satisfy you rest

your weight on the right until it falls asleep and then, all numb, you pleasure yourself�a

maneuver we call �The Stranger��and when you�ve exhausted this novelty and learn

that no amount of yoga will permit auto-felatio, you look for other outlets, or inlets, as it

were. Oh, oh, to crank a load.

20

As such I have sought comfort in the arms of other men, in port given myself

freely to broad-chested stevedores; fueled by spiced rum I have slurred hot blandishments

of the fouler sex into the downy ears of young swains. And on board the Gravy Boat I

had taken Boatswain Ramsay as a lover, initiating him into the mysteries of the brown

arts. He proved an eager apprentice. Once, in a moment of weakness after lying with

him, I confessed that to the charms of the fairer sex I was a stranger and that, as such,

unfit to be a leader of men. I also confided in him my true motivation in making for Saint

Catherine�s. I realize now just how foolhardy this disclosure was, but at the time I was

basking, coming down from climax, feeling both vulnerable and omnipotent. With me he

remonstrated, extolling my virtues as skipper�my prodigious appetites, my sartorial

excellence (these were not his words exactly)�and insisting that, though he was no lady,

I had, time and again, proven my manhood during our private moments. He professed his

eternal devotion�oh, the poor lamb�to his captain, claiming I had unlocked chambers

in his heart and mind and shown him such pleasures he thought impossible. I smiled,

kissed his cheek, thanked him for his service to our country and reminded him that,

despite his love, never could he give me a son, unlike Priscilla. Since then a chill had

descended upon our relations, Ramsay insisting on remaining at attention when called to

my cabin, and then the sabotage and subsequent drumming out from the service via

makeshift plank.

Buggery of boys, men with men: unnatural, yet inevitable. But congress with

livestock I will not countenance and it was this brand of lechery that brought us to the

quarterdeck at dawn the next morning.

The accused was the ship�s doctor, Weismuller. He had an owlish aspect with

that shock of white hair and his rimless spectacles, wearing the herringbone tweed coat

with the suede elbows that without fail he slept in; the man had no regard for regulations.

The previous night during the dog watch I had caught him in flagrante delicto, his

patched gabardine trousers around his ankles, his pale shanks luminescent on the

afterdeck under the gibbous moon. The little lamb, tied to the taffrail, had been bleating

over the din of the twin diesels. I arrived just in time to see the doctor shudder then

slump over his concubine which was at that point thoroughly befouled. Then it was dawn

21

and he stood before me, trousers cinched up around his waist by a rope, his hands bound

in front of him (slipknot, of course) and resting on his distended belly.

�I am an old man, Wormsloe,� he said. �You are too cruel.�

�You have debauched the last of our stock, Dr. Weismuller. You know the law.�

�What law?� he cried. �You�re mad.�

�Mr. Macintosh, produce the yearling.� From the forward deck, Mr. Macintosh

came aft, lamb in tow. Macintosh was a ruddy Adonis in khaki, curly flaxen locks and a

drooping moustache, the kind of man you would see in an advertisement lighting a

cigarette with a coal from the fire he�d built in his bivouac in the bushveld, back in the

day when we had such things as magazines. The lamb would have none of it, so

Macintosh was dragging it and its little black hooves scraped two trails through the

varnish of the mahogany deck.

Big Webb blew a sorry taps through a tarnished bugle before I bid him stop. He

looked down at the lamb and his bottom lip quivered. �Mr. Macintosh, your sword if you

please,� I said. He handed me a bowie knife with beads and Indian silver hanging from

the hilt. With one stroke across its throat like the Puritans of yore I slaughtered the beast

before the eyes of its defiler and pitched the carcass overboard, its meat no longer fit for

human consumption. Big Webb fell to blubbering. �Webb, please,� I said, and turned to

the doctor. �Dr. Weismuller, the laws of the jungle stop at the gangway. We will miss

you for your home-cooked speed; moonshine and ginseng, the shadetree speedball. Mr.

Macintosh, the dinghy if you please.�

�Fresh out of rubber dinghies, sir.�

�Oh, damn it all. Have we no life ring, no water noodle, no wet banana?�

�No, sir. And the wet banana is a slide, sir, a front lawn diversion, not a flotation

device.�

�Very well, then. Empty the doctor�s sea chest and give him a paddle. And an

umbrella. Finish this business. I�ll be down below.� I handed Macintosh his bowie

knife and retired to my quarters.

�Aye, aye, sir,� I heard as I descended the companionway.

My stateroom, my sanctum sanctorum. Unlike the rest of the ship�s bulkheads

which were paneled in teak, mine I had papered in toile, not the quaint pastoral toile of a

22

lady�s dressing room, but toile with a difference. Pornographic toile. A yeoman farmer

surprising from behind a wench in gingham bending over her laundry by the brook; a

blacksmith sitting on his anvil, scullery girl in his lap riding cowboy-style; a landlord

dressed for the fox hunt wielding a riding crop over the bare rump of his ersatz mount.

Blushing brides a� bathing and husbandry most foul.

Hearing an oath and a splash I said to myself, �Godspeed, good doctor,� sat down

at the chart table and did some calculating. One advantage to this Puritanical method of

justice was that it lightened our burden, which allowed the Gravy Boat to draw less

water. If we jettisoned enough cargo we would raise the trim just a hair and we might

actually make it to the isle and I might actually make it with the mistress of the isle. If

we didn�t raise the trim, we�d have to scuttle her�the Gravy Boat, that is�and that I

could not bear.

The circumstances under which I assumed command of the Gravy Boat were born

of a lust of a more natural variety. As a skipper in the Coast Guard Auxiliary Fifth

Flotilla, First Division, I had been pilot of a Chris Craft Catalina, a fine vessel, nothing to

sneeze at in her prime, but ultimately unseaworthy, leaky as a sieve, good for the back

rivers and tidal creeks at best. Indeed, only one vessel in the flotilla of ten could make it

out of the sound, and it, too, was a vintage Chris Craft, but much larger, a sixty-eight foot

Constellation. So I scuttled my boat, U.S.C.G.S. Old College Try, that I might secure

service aboard the flagship, the Gravy Boat, who had recently lost her first mate to

cholera, and therewith make it past the three mile marker and someday make landfall on

Saint Catherine�s Island, fabled home of the very last woman in the world. Our orders

had us headed north, in the opposite direction, to provide logistic support to the

Wrightsville Irregulars, but those orders went the way of the dodo along with Captain

Gravy, who, according to the report I filled out, died by his own hand in an untimely and

most mysterious fashion.

Since I had assumed command I had forged orders that put us on a course due

south to commandeer a supply of diesel from the old federal endangered wildlife

sanctuary, the Island of Saint Catherine. So as to avoid unwanted questions from the

crew I sweetened the pot with tales of a bomb shelter laden with food stores, in addition

to an L.P. collection. Of the music I was certain. Back in the days before the crisis, the

23

systematic gynocide and ensuing atomic havoc, I had a scientist friend who was an intern

on the isle. He told me he played half-rubber by day and tagged alligators by night which

he would follow with brandy and backgammon and records in the library.

I looked up from my calculations at the old hand-crank Victrola on my bookshelf,

its great speaker like the bell of a trombone or some sooty orchid, and thought it would be

nice to once again hear the sweet strains of the British Invasion. There was a rap at my

door. �Permission to enter?� It was Mr. Macintosh.

I bid him to join me at the table but he said he would prefer standing so I left him

there at parade rest. His trousers were dark from mid-thigh downward; I suspected he

had just returned from the engine room.

�Sir, the cask of salt beef has rotted. The biscuit�s infested with the weevil.

Gribble has bored into the ribs of the ship. Half the fresh water stores are spoiled with

seawater. The sheep, of course��

�And the bilge?� I asked.

�Two feet and still taking in water. Nothing will hold, neither pitch nor oakum.�

�Well, get another pump going,� I said and with my pencil set to revising my

calculations.

�I�ve already jury rigged two, sir.�

�Jettison the ruined stores,� I said, but I knew he would say he had already done

this as well and so he did. I looked up from my figures. The rings under his eyes were a

deep blue. I poured him a dram from my brandy decanter. This, too, he refused.

�What�s wrong with you, Macintosh?�

�Permission to speak freely, sir?�

�Speak, man,� I said and drained the brandy from the tumbler.

�We should turn about, sir, and make for Ossabaw. The ship needs refitting,

badly.�

�We�ll refit at Saint Catherine�s. We�ve sailed much too far to quit now.�

�Morale is low, sir. Big Webb�s pretty shook up about the lamb.�

�Damn it, I will not have my crew dine on polluted meat.�

�Sir, the men are growing restless, they�re grumbling��

24

I narrowed my eyes. �What men, Mr. Macintosh? Big Webb and you are all

that�s left. Are you questioning my judgment, Lieutenant?�

�Sir, I�m only reporting the prevailing opinion, which is that we should turn

about.�

�Prevailing opinion be hanged, man. Do you realize what�s at stake here? The

very future of �.� I stopped myself before I revealed too much. If the crew were to find

out my true objective behind this detour south there�d be mutiny, chaos, fisticuffs at the

very least over who would lay first with Priscilla. The privilege of rank would be cast to

the four winds.

�The very future of what, sir?�

�We will stay the course and that�s an order. Are we clear?�

�Aye, aye, sir.�

�You are dismissed.�

From the drawer in the chart table I pulled my service pistol to make sure it was

still loaded from that morning when I had snuck it from the gun locker. I drew back the

slide and loaded a cartridge into the chamber, removed the lanyard and slipped the

sidearm inside my peacoat. I had also palmed two extra clips and these I put in my hip

pocket. The crew was growing restless, eh? I had nothing to fear. Macintosh as XO had

a key to every cabin, every locker on board, save one and that was the key to the gun

locker which I wore around my neck. I patted it and then I patted the sidearm and I felt a

warm glow envelop me, a glow born only partly from good brandy. I rubbed the tips of

my forefinger and thumb under my nose and savored the tang of gun oil and lit my

second-to-last cheroot. In two days time I would be the one man in all creation sleeping

in a woman�s arms.

Before dawn the next morning I woke with a violent start. The pitch of the Gravy Boat

had shifted. I jumped from my hammock and looked out the portal. Someone was

turning her about. I dressed once again in my Service A�s as I would in moments be

meting out more of my brand of dread justice. After switching the safety off on my .45 I

stole up the companionway to the bridge.

25

In the nineteenth-century navy of Secretary Paul Hamilton, skippers sentenced

mutineers to a myriad of punishments: flogging�seventy stripes from the lash at the

very least�before an audience of his shipmates; hard labor tethered to a cannonball; the

left side of the head and one eyebrow shaven bare. The most egregious offenders who

escaped hanging until dead from the yardarm were branded in the forehead with the label

MUTINY. And here I was, standing next to Mr. Macintosh who stood at the helm, first

sun bloody as a grapefruit cresting the waters to the east, the barrel of my automatic

pressed at his temple. Such an expedient punitive measure, so uninspired, I thought.

�Truly these are benighted times, Mr. Macintosh,� I said as I pulled the trigger.

Nothing. A squib cartridge, perhaps. I slid back the action, ejected the round, and

squeezed the trigger again. Still nothing. Then I felt the cold edge of a blade at my

throat and I noticed that I had been flanked by Big Webb. Macintosh took my pistol and

I watched him slide back the action and I thought, This is the end; who ever heard of

three misfires in a row?

�I took the liberty of removing the firing pin, sir, to ensure your safety,�

Macintosh said as he drew from his shirt a leather thong from which hung a key�the key

to my stateroom�as well as the pin itself, with which he picked his teeth. �Big Webb,

clap Captain Wormsloe in irons and secure him in the brig.�

�This is preposterous. Unhand me. I am your captain,� I said, but Big Webb

wasn�t having any of that, his stout arms holding me in a full nelson.

�Please go quietly, sir. Webb, if he makes trouble, fetch Dr. Weismuller and he�ll

administer a sedative.�

�Weismuller?� I said as the cook shoved me down the hatch. �But

Weismuller�s��

�Asleep in my berth, Captain.�

�But I heard��

�You heard the splash of me dropping anchor. Please cooperate, sir. We don�t

want to hurt you.� I wasn�t entirely sure about that, but, as there�s precious little

satisfaction in arguing with an armed mutineer, for the moment I kept to myself.

And Macintosh told me we were fresh out of rubber dinghies.

26

The rubber dinghy is a nautical aberration, of an octagonal shape with a flat

bottom and no rudder. In such a craft a skipper never achieves proper locomotion, unless

spinning constitutes locomotion. To his credit, my former first mate, the swine, did outfit

me with a paddle, but maintaining any kind of vector became a comedy of errors. Comic,

I suppose, to anyone who might have been watching. All I could see were the waves one

after another that pooped and pooped this travesty of a vessel. My cap served as a

passable bailer, but dry rot and salt water finally split it through. Indeed, my face was

leprous with sunburn just as my hands and feet were all ate up with chilblains. This was

not comedy; this was horror. The Germans have a word for it, walpurgisnacht, the eve of

May Day on which witches ride to some dark rendezvous. In modern English usage,

walpurgisnacht is any event or situation that has a nightmarish quality. God bless the

Teuton, he�s got a polysyllable for everything.

Never had the sulfur-rich black pluff mud smelled so fine. I had landed, thanks be to

God, on Saint Catherine�s Island (we really were not that far from landfall, and yet those

fools turned about all the same). Bloated to surfeit on raw oysters I slept for some twelve

hours in an abandoned boathouse rotting into the bank of an inlet.

High noon the next day I was busy weaving a makeshift headcover from blades of

marsh grass and having no small amount of trouble shaping the crown. My uniform was

a wreck, white-ringed with salt and as stiff as rawhide. A foul miasma welled up from

my shoes and when the wind was right, the musk that wafted from my arm pits was

absolutely rotten. I was in no condition to go a� maying. Oh, I had had such grand

designs; I was to court her decked out in my finest regalia, a cocked hat and a frogged

frock coat with gold braided epaulettes, and a cutlass with an ivory hilt. In my locker I

had accumulated a host of women�s fancy things: a sterling silver hand mirror; from a

daring hand of euchre some hard-won Joy eau de toilet�the little black bottle with the

red stopper; silk stockings and garters; a whalebone wasp-waisted corset and a chartreuse

polonaise saved from the rubble of the Historical Society and, of course, Belgian

chocolates.

But now in the white-washed stone ruins of what looked to be slave quarters

where I studied my reflection in a shattered looking-glass, I saw that I cut quite a sorry

27

figure; blistered nose, peeling forehead, browned-over collar and ragged four-in-hand.

Thanks to dehydration and an embarrassment of oysters I had breath from the tombs. In

a word, I was a mess. With my jack knife I took to task my four-day growth of beard.

Oyster shucking had not been kind to the blade. Save for a spot of water from my

canteen, this was a dry shave and afterwards my cheeks felt raw and pinched. None of

these discomforts, however, pained me more than my sun-baked nose. But I had no more

worries in that department. I had blocked myself a hat, such as it was.

Such as it was, indeed. When I made to walk out the ruins, my hat was no longer

hanging on a peg sticking from the door frame but was moving away at quite a clip,

clutched in the hand of a rhesus macaque whose hideous rump had a waxy sheen under

the noonday sun. The old growth canopy under which I pursued the creature was

composed of water oaks bent half-way over by the leeward wind from the sound. The

groundcover was getting pretty thick; Spanish bayonets were tearing at my trousers. No

matter. I had worked all morning on that hat and no filthy little monkey was going to

take it away.

A wilderness of monkeys, however, was more than welcome to it. As I emerged

from a thicket of red oleander into a circle of oak trees I was greeted by a score of

macaques, some dropping from their perches, others brachiating from limb to limb, the

one with my hat taking refuge behind the largest member of the group and hopping up

and down and all of them hooting and howling, you�ve never heard such a din. The large

one hissed and bared its teeth and then those in the trees proceeded to pelt me with scat. I

understand now that I should not have taken this personally, that this is just what

monkeys do; they steal and they fling their leavings with impunity, the filthy little beasts.

It was a highly demoralizing affair and I fled, sans hat, to safer ground.

I trekked through the swale of marsh grass until I found myself at the edge of a

salt flat. The sun was still high and I had made a sort of rude balaclava from my rancid

undershirt, which afforded my roasted face some protection. That being said, I looked

like the Elephant Man and I smelled like a zoo. Whatever element of surprise I may have

had the monkeys had since rendered forfeit. Maid Priscilla for sure had been alerted to

my presence. I only hoped to have the opportunity to tidy up before our first meeting.

Surely she would have some measure of mercy on a sailor recently marooned, I hoped,

28

wondering if I�d find her before my next wild encounter with an endangered species,

among whom I now numbered myself.

At the other side of the salt flat I found a narrow trail trodden through the marsh

grass; finally, a path out of this impossible situation. This was an old trail, flat, looked

like it saw regular use. Did she have many suitors, I asked myself, and, if so, how many

held a commission in the Coast Guard Auxiliary?

Then I heard two long blasts from a ship�s whistle. Not the Gravy Boat, damn it

to hell, I thought, not now, after the high cost paid; having jilted my lover, lost all

worldly goods and my command, cooked to a crisp in an open boat, menaced by

monkeys. Not after all this was I going to lose Priscilla to another man, and especially

not to a gang of mutineers. Scanning the horizon I saw smoke, could it be a cook fire?

Perhaps Priscilla and her demesne were just around the bend. I started running.

I smelled it long before I walked up on it, the acrid sweet scent of carrion. I

pulled my balaclava tighter and covered my mouth and nose with my hand. As I came up

on the dead whitetail doe a snarl of flies buzzed around for a moment and then lit back on

the carcass. The head, legs, and backbone were all that remained and the trail of offal

and gore gradually dissipated as I kept running. The work of wild dogs, no doubt.

Or not.

I found myself in a copse of willows in the center of which a lion was feeding on

the belly of her kill. She looked up from her meal, a foul gobbet dripping from her chin,

and she opened her mouth wide. I remember the bloody maw and I swear I felt her roar

but I could not hear it or anything, I just turned on my heels and started to run but it was

not but two seconds, though it felt like an hour, before I was down, my right calf in the

great cat�s gory jaws. Then a crack rent the air, the report of a rifle, and nothing but

blackness thereafter.

When I came to I was being lifted from the back of a roan quarter horse by a pair of

meaty forearms and carried across the porch of a large and rotting antebellum manor,

through the threshold like a bride and laid on a long mahogany table. Huge flakes of

plaster hung from the ceiling like the wings of bats. The room was spinning. I turned my

head to the side and vomited in great torrents. When I looked back up my eyes met two

29

small black eyes like raisins set too far apart in a wide ruddy face; there was something

half-baked to that expanse of forehead, crowned by a nimbus of dun-colored kinky hair.

Those two stout arms that carried me in were hers and they were holding me down

against the table and over her shoulder I saw Dr. Weismuller, hacksaw in hand, and I

tasted the salt from the leather strop someone had shoved between my teeth.

Her name was not Priscilla, it was Drusilla, and there was good reason why she was the

very last woman in the world. A buxom lass for sure, she stood over six feet tall and one

day I saw her by herself bear ten one-gallon pails of goat milk hanging on a pole across

her broad shoulders like a cross, spilling nary a drop. And though her face was soft,

bland and doughy, the rest of her was hard. She was a tower of a woman, ripped like a

cobblestone keep. She had legs stout as oak trees and the thick ankles of a peasant. It was

Drusilla who had shot the lion with a massive Holland and Holland .416 trimmed in

sterling. A troop of ring-tailed lemurs attended her constantly.

�Macintosh, you can have her,� I told my first mate as he measured with a tape

the diameter of my right stump, cut just below the knee and swathed in gauze bandages.

And though the man had stripped me of my own ship, my heart warmed to see him again.

�No, Skipper, she�s all yours,� Macintosh said.

Rather, I was all hers. One night she lifted me from my cot and carried me over

her shoulder like a sack of potatoes. There was no damask in her chambers, and the bed,

though vast, was hard, as I learned when she parted the mosquito netting and dropped me

there with all the ceremony of a woman home from market. �You can call me Drew,�

she said, �Or Andy. Undress.� She sat on the edge of the bed with her back to me,

kicked off her brogans, crossed her legs, and rolled a woolen knee-high down her sturdy

calf.

I thought some kind of romantic overture might be in order, so I placed one hand

on her shoulder and kissed the back of her neck as I reached around her with my other

hand and unfastened a button on her homespun dress. �I told you to take off your

clothes,� she said. �I�ll see to myself.� She stood, her back still to me, and pulled the

dress over her head. She wore nothing underneath. Under the light of candles in brass

sconces, her broad back was rippled like an Olympic swimmer�s, and her buttocks were

30

compact�surprisingly so, given her size. A draught blew though the windows, and in

the sputtering candlelight the chiaroscuro of her muscles gave her the aspect of sculpted

marble. Nothing was soft, not her cracked hands or calloused feet, and her kisses were

few and brusque.

And yet I did not find it odd that this giant aroused me so. It seemed the most

natural thing in the world that I craved her even more after I had spent myself again and

again. I did not tire of her as I had of other lovers. Nestled between her cockeyed

breasts�much too hard to nurture any living thing, or so it seemed�and fighting to

catch my breath, I felt like a castaway washed ashore. There, atop her and exhausted, I

could feel my grasp of duty slip away; command, which had heretofore guided my whole

existence, was meaningless. I was no longer a sailor. I was simply hers. My god, she

was the dread goddess of the bower, the very matron of fuck. When she took me she

roared like the jungle itself. She was Serengeti, Amazon, Low Country, and Mekong in

one. Drusilla was a confluence of terrible rivers, a concordance of many beasts. Soon

she colonized us all, even Weismuller.

When we left the isle we had refitted the Gravy Boat, patched her hull and replenished

her stores. Drusilla, having had much of us sent us off with wheels of cheese and gallons

of mayonnaise, fresh eggs, goat�s milk, our very own chicken that we kept in a coop on

the deck in the open, athwart ship from the good Dr. Weismuller who, it is said,

positively relished sawing off my leg. Weeks prior, when Mr. Macintosh had turned the

ship about, they read my log which told them about the lone woman of Saint Catherine�s

Island, and they said they have me and the example set by my perseverance, however

irrational, to thank for what may very well have been their last romp in the hay. They

even swore a blood oath that none would tell another soul about Drusilla. Mr. Macintosh

presented me with my bicornered hat and cutlass and at my behest we set out on a search

for Boatswain Ramsay. Then, God willing, we would set course for Wrightsville to lend

a hand to the guerrillas. Our hostess had given us as well the island�s music collection, all

of which was too warped to play save the nine-record Steely Dan discography, a classic

rock/A.O.R. hybrid to which the men were slowly adjusting. I was growing accustomed

31

to my new prosthetic, the femur of the lion set in a mahogany housing crafted by Big

Webb, the peg leg for which I had waited my whole life.

32

THE FOURTH TENOR, VINCENT NOSERELLI

Got this gig at CBS next Saturday, six in the morning, Jesus Mary and Joseph, so I send

Alphonse out for a new suit on account of me outgrowing all but my warm-ups and one

pair of Sansabelts in the closet and Alphonse, the schmuck, he brings back this farkatke

pinstripe not even a junglebunny would wear and I ask him where south of heaven did he

find it? S&K, he says. S&K? You got to be kidding me. He makes to take it off the

hanger and I tell him, No, don�t touch it, you might catch something, and wouldn�t you

know it now I feel a cold coming on. This celebrity cookbook is going to be the death of

me. It started out simple. I get stars to send Italian recipes and little stories about them,

and I put it all in a book. Now my publicist tells me CBS wants me to cook one of the

recipes, on the air. Seriously. They want me to cook for them? I say. Don�t they have

their own cooks? She, yeah, she, she�s a sweetheart, a little petite for the Nose, but a

sweetheart, she says, Mr. Noserelli, haven�t you ever seen a cooking show, as if the Nose

lives on fucking Saturn and Saturn basic cable don�t carry the Food Network. Look, I

say, I�m no cook, I just wrote the thing, I can�t stay on my feet that long. Jesus. But I got

bigger problems than CBS. There�s this kid who�he kind of�well, he helped out with

the writing some. Sort of like an editor, an assistant. A proofreader, but more than that.

This kid, Ari Rabinovitch, sneaky little Jew if ever there was one, he gets his name on the

cover. Rabinovitch. Who�s going to buy a cookbook called Our Lady of Perpetual

Bellisimo with a name like Rabinovitch on the cover? Puts the 86 on the book�s street

cred, know what I mean. My little publicist keeps saying he�s a co-author, not a ghost

writer, she says, Read the contract, Vincent. And I say, Well, he�s about to be a ghost

writer, all right.

I really wish people would just call me the Nose.

I hate Patsy�s. Too fucking dark in there. Can�t see to eat. And too many god

damned kids. But that�s Francesco for you. Fancy Franny. Always has to be where it�s

at, always making the scene. And I�m not talking about Patsy�s on West 56th in the city.

No, this is Patsy Grimaldi�s, in Brooklyn, down under the Brooklyn Bridge, and it takes

Alphonse an eternity to drive us there. And once you get there, the roads are an

33

abomination, I tell you, all those freaking cobblestones, and Alphone�s Towncar doesn�t

have shocks for shit, somebody ought to do something about that road. And Alphonse

ought to take that jalopy to Coney and charge people for rides. The Wild Ride with

Fonzie DiBenedetto. Jesus Christ. Patsy�s is in fact not crowded, just a pasty couple

wearing horn-rimmed glasses in the corner, eating a pie. Fancy Franny�my handler, my

agent, if a producer wants a cameo appearance by the Nose, he calls Fancy�Fancy is

sitting at a table along the wall, under a picture of Ed Koch in an apron. Lot�s of

gingham in Patsy�s. Red, red, red, like some kind of comic book trattoria, like some kind

of joke. Fucking Patsy�s. I order a calzone and a Pepsi. What�s the matter, Fancy says,

You don�t want a pie? No, I say. I don�t like sharing.

Fancy is a peacock. He wears it. French cuffs and a hundred dollar haircut.

Tucks a napkin in his collar before he tucks into his dinner. I hate that. Fancy says,

Quick service, no crowd. Thank god for Yom Kippur. I say, What the fuck�s that

supposed to mean, and he says, High holy days, you know, the Feast of Immediate

Seating. I tell him it�s Rosh Hashanah, jackass, and then Alphonse, he says, Happy

Newish Jew Year. Thanks for weighing in there, Alphonse, I say, Now can we get down

to business? What are we going to do about this kid Rabinovitch?

He ain�t budging, Fancy says. And the publisher says it�s pretty late in the game

to be making changes. Says you should have said something when you saw the galleys.

The what? I say.

The galley proofs. The paperback copy, Vincent. With the red cover, said

�Uncorrected.� Remember?

I never saw any galley proof, I say, What I�m talking about is�uh�that version

with the pages that look like negatives, like when you develop a roll of film, eh?

The blues, Fancy says. They call those the blues, and they�re saying taking his

name off now, at this stage in the game, this close to publication, would require not only

the moving of heaven and earth, but the express permission of young Rabinovitch

himself, and, like I said, he ain�t budging.

Slippery little fuck, I say. Look, you know and I know that there�s no book

without me, without my�anecdotes, without my Hollywood connections�

34

Rabinovitch got Randolfini, Fancy says. And Russo. And Lance Longwater. He

got Damone, he got�

Rabinovitch ain�t got shit, I say. He can shit in his hand. He�s going to shit in his

pants when we�re through with him. Hear me now, Francesco, the Jew is going to budge.

Francesco sits back and smiles. He likes to see me in this mode. Reminds him of

being in short pants and watching the Nose as Stu Cazzo on Horn of Plenty roughing up

some jamook who owes him money, giving the gaming commissioner the what-for,

sending back the ziti to the chef. The salad days. Francesco tugs the waitress�s apron

string and orders a bottle of Chianti.

We going to shake him down? Fancy asks.

Yeah, we going to shake him down.

These publishing Ivy Leaguers got their heads so far up their asses they never see

opportunity. My publicist, god bless her, she tells me, No, we are not going to send you

to Philadelphia, as if I had asked her to send me all expenses paid to Atlantis, the

Marshall Islands, I don�t know. People read books in Philadelphia. I should know. I got

people in Philadelphia. People just waiting on a good cookbook there. We could sell a

lot of books, have a party at Sal�s on Liberty, lots of people would come. She just

doesn�t get it. Take today, for example. I call her on Alphonse�s mobile phone.

It�s the Nose, I say. The Nose, you know. Vincent Noserelli. Yeah, how you

doing, hon? Listen, you got a pencil? Okay, I want you to take this down. 310-368-

4964. That�s Montel�s home number, in Santa Monica. Montel who? What do you

mean Montel who? Yeah, that Montel. Sure, he�s still on the air. Look, I want you to

tell him the Nose is calling in his favors. Tell him to get me on. What do you mean? All

kinds of people watch Montel. Okay, okay. Just think about it, alright? Oh, yeah, don�t

forget All Things Jersey.

Like I said, she just doesn�t get it. It�s a sad day when a distinguished actor of the

screen, not to mention the genius behind Fabrizio �The Breeze� del Romero on the hit

series The Three Tenors, has to be the brains behind the promotion for his own cookbook.

35

Got this deactivated Colt, a prop from the ABC lot, a .38 special. It�s welded shut so the

cylinder won�t swing out, but it looks mean as hell. When used in conjunction with a

starting pistol the effect is stunning. Most important lesson I ever learned in show

business was that when you do a job, always take something home. I started out small,

pocketed a pair of cuff links here, a cigarette case there. Then I got ballsy. Brought

home a Neiman Marcus blazer. Golf clubs, silk pajamas, top hat from Dobbs on 5th

Avenue. One time I backed up a truck to the loading dock and made off with a dentist�s

chair, complete with the footrest and motorized recliner. That�s my reading chair to this

day. Anyhow, hence the piece.

Fancy gets here and, per my request, he is wearing black. A leather Armani

blazer and wing tips, but black all the same. He tells me Rabinovitch lives in Park Slope.

Of course. You can�t take a princely piss without splattering some writer�s shoes in Park

Slope. I remember when those brownstones were hopping with mooleys hot to sell a

chunk of hash or a piece of ass, and the crack of gunfire pealed through the night like

church bells. Now all the soul has been priced out of the Slope. Now it�s all strollers and

nannies. Breaks the heart. I ask Fancy if Rabinovitch is married and he says, Married?

That little fanook? Not likely. Look, I say, I don�t care what he�s banging, man, woman,

or reindeer. I just want to know if he lives alone. Fancy says, Yeah, I cased the joint,

just like you asked. Unless you count the Pomeranian, he lives alone.

Wait a second, I say. He has a dog?

A Pomeranian. He�s like, twelve inches long, Fancy says. He ain�t no

Rottweiler.

I don�t care if he�s a Chihuahua, I say. He�s gonna make some noise.

Not as much noise as this phony roscoe I�m toting, Fancy says, patting the starting

pistol in his pocket.

You should have told me there was a dog, I say.

Forget about it. I�ll take care of the dog.

Christ, Francesco, don�t kill the dog.

What am I going to kill him with, your starter pistol? These .22 blanks? Relax.

Nobody�s killing anybody. We�re just going to scare him. Shake him down, just like

you said.

36

Scare the living shit out of him, I say.

Now we�re talking, Fancy says.

I have Alphonse drop us off a block away on 4th Street with instructions to pick us

up in front of the target�s home fifteen minutes later. The kid lives on 3rd, between 8th

Avenue and Prospect Park West. Man, has this place gotten toney. Look at the stained

glass, and the fucking window boxes, chock full of flowers. Audi�s and Volvo�s

everywhere. This Rabinovitch kid has arrived, I say. Fancy says, Nah, I don�t know. A

little too Laura Ashley for me, and I say, What? but, that�s Fancy for you, never

understand what the hell he�s saying.

Fancy knows the Turk who runs the bodega on the corner of 3rd and 8th, a few

brownstones down the row from the kid, gives the man a couple C-notes and we take the

stairs in the store room up to the roof. 3rd Street, like all these streets, is row houses, so

they�re all connected, no gaps between. Fancy and I walk across a few roofs until we get

to the kid�s.

Masks on, I say.

It�s unseasonably warm, so his windows should be open. All these Park Slopers

making a mint and yet none of them have a window unit. I just don�t get it. We climb

down the fire escape, and the landing before his window is a pretty tight fit. I�m winded

from the roof walk, huffing and puffing, and Fancy tries to shush me, but, of course,

clomping down that wrought-iron staircase has alerted young Rabinovitch to our

presence. I see him spring up from his sofa where he�d been reading Esquire�clearly a

homo�and make for another room. But Fancy�I got to hand it to him, Fancy is fast�

has already kicked through the screen, crossed the living room in three strides, and is

dragging the kid by his collar across the parquet floor. Meanwhile I�m wheezing on the

fire escape. My bones creak as I lift a leg to climb through the window. You all right?

Fancy asks me. Just give me a minute, I say. You go ahead. I�ll be in in a second.

Rabinovitch, now cowering on the rug, had apparently gone not for the door, but

for a baseball bat in his bedroom, the baseball bat that Fancy, looking pretty god damn

menacing in his ski mask, is now pointing at him. You were going to hit me with this,

Fancy says, the kid saying, Don�t don�t don�t don�t, and Fancy saying, You don�t do the

37

hitting around here, and he takes a swing and shatters a bottle, spraying the wall with

whisky.

Who are you guys? Rabinovitch asks, stealing a glance at me on the fire escape,

coughing into my glove. We�re friends of a friend, Fancy says. It�s at this point I notice

that the kid is wearing a cast on his leg, from the knee down.

Tell him we got a message from the Nose, I say from the fire escape.

We got a message from the Nose, Fancy says, tapping Rabinovitch on his nose

with the baseball bat, a nice touch, really. He ought to have been an actor.

What�s the message? Fancy asks me.

Well, maybe not an actor. Jesus Christ. Tell him to quit horning in on the Nose�s

territory, I say. Tell him he�s got a choice. He can be a ghost writer, or a ghost.

You heard the man, Fancy says. You can be a ghost, or a ghost writer. Message

from the Nose.

The Nose? Rabinovitch says.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.

Yeah, the Nose, Fancy says. You know, Vincent Noserelli.

I�m beginning to reconsider my lease on immortality when it hits me: no

Pomeranian. Where�s the dog? I ask.

The dog? says the kid.

You heard him, Fancy says, tapping him on the head with the bat.

He�s out for a walk, the kid says.

Huh? says Fancy. By himself?

No, he�s�he�s with my friend, Rabinovitch says.

Your friend? Fancy says, lifting Rabinovitch up from the floor by his shirt.

When�s your friend coming back? Then the doorbell buzzes. Fuck, says Fancy, and I am

in agreement. Get in here, Fancy says to me. Let�s finish this. The buzzer buzzes again,

and then again, longer this last time, and Fancy leaves the room to take a look out the

front window. Holy shit is that spade huge, I hear him say.

The coup de grâce of this routine, of course, is me sticking the barrel of the

revolver up the kid�s nose. So I make to get in the apartment. And I make it in, three

quarters of me at least, all but my right foot which catches on the window sill, and as I

38

spill, my .38 falls out of my coat and clatters across the floor, stopping right at

Rabinovitch�s feet. Should have used the shoulder holster, I say. Rabinovitch picks up

the gun and points it at me. Get up, he says, and with a little difficulty, I do. Hands up,

he says�what a pro, who would have thunk it�and I reach for the sky.

He thumbs back the hammer. Take off your mask, he says, and right before I do,

Fancy turns the corner, sees Rabinovitch with the gun and says to me, What the fuck,

why are your hands up, and then makes for the kid to disarm him, but not before the kid

pulls the trigger, to no effect, and then pulls the trigger again. I remember myself and

say, A misfire, Saints be praised. Fancy disarms Rabinovitch and shoves him down on

the sofa. The kid looks a little puzzled.

That�s not a real gun, the kid says.

Yeah it is, Fancy says, tucking it in his waistband.

I put my hands up, I add.

The buzzer goes off again, long this time.

Who are you guys? the kid asks again. Really. Some kind of make-believe

mobsters? Some kind of joke?

The buzzer rings again, and I can tell Fancy�s nerves are getting a little jangled, as

are mine. Fancy takes the bat and taps the kid on his cast. He doubles over in pain.

Ghost or ghost writer, kid, Fancy says, and we make our escape through the window.

We never really met, the kid and I, in person. We talked a little over the phone. Usually

I�d just mail him my manuscripts�well, not manuscripts as such. I�d mail him my notes.

Very detailed notes. The other actors who contributed a recipe or two would do the

same. And he�d mail back a sort of elaboration of those notes. A detailed elaboration.

Just polish, really, nothing more. The raw material is all mine. A genius doesn�t have

the time to dot the i�s, know what I mean? Like Einstein, the guy couldn�t be troubled

with picking out what to wear, so he just had a whole closet full of khaki pants and white

shirts. Same with me, except for the wardrobe bit. I can�t be troubled with details.

That�s grunt work. Anyhow, I am the oil well, and Rabinovitch is the refinery. So where

he gets off sneaking his Hebrew name on the cover of my Italian-American cookbook,

same size as my name, I might add, beats the hell out of me. I hope me and Fancy

39

cleared up that little misunderstanding. I also hope the little fink didn�t recognize me.

But shit, my press photo is twenty years old anyway, so I�d probably be in the clear even

if I had removed my mask.

I�m not trying to rip anybody off here; the kid will still get his cut. I just don�t

want his name staining my dust jacket, know what I�m saying. Reminds me of the time

when I was a bouncer at Copacabana and Bobby Michaels got all bent out of shape

because Tony Storm�s name was before his on the marquis. Of course, we all know what

happened to Tony�as well as what didn�t happen to Bobby�but I understand now

where Bobby was coming from. I didn�t then, I was just a loser from Boro Park. If

Rabinovitch knew what he was doing and wanted to get somewhere in the Italian-

American entertainment business he�d have changed his name like the Nose did from

Noskowski to something a little sexier. I tell you, being a Polish Jew never got me laid.

Or hired, for that matter. I was a big boy before my stint in the army, and when I got

back from Korea, I knew a thing or two about busting balls. I also knew I had a taste for

the nightlife. So I looked for work as a doorman at all kinds of nightclubs. I set my

sights pretty high, the USO had given me a nose�if you�ll pardon the expression�for

glamour and glitz, so I went to all the famous spots, Starlight, Wild Palms, The Raj.

And each place, as soon as they heard that last name, told me to beat it. Didn�t matter

that half the patrons were Jews, that all the talent�s management was Jewish, that

Hollywood was the new Canaan. These clubs would take the Jew�s money, or watch him

sing and dance, but they sure as shit weren�t hiring anyone stained with a stroke from a

brush dipped in that particular can of tar. I doubt they would have let me wash the

dishes. But you know what, your Hebrew looks a lot like your Italian, that olive skin,

that aquiline nose. Those Mediterranean instincts for finding the gold and keeping it.

And a Brooklyn Accent is a Brooklyn accent, I don�t care where you pray. I�m a vulture-

beaked, swarthy son-of-a-bitch no matter how thin you slice it. So I came to the Copa in

a second-hand charcoal pinstripe under the name Noserelli. That was the first big break.

And I�ll be damned if the three tribes of Israel are going to hold me back now.

Finally my publicist has done something right. I told her we needed an event set in our

element, you know. She said, What, like the Fulton Fish Market? Sing Sing, maybe? I

40

said, Cute, hon, real cute. No, I mean like Lombardi�s, or Fratelli Enzo, or, yeah, The

Low-Key Corral. She said, Vincent, those are two restaurants and a bar. Those places

don�t sell books. I said, Well, you guys could give us the books, and we would sell them,

and give you your cut. She said, It doesn�t work that way. I said, Well, that�s a hell of a

business model. What ever happened to bringing the product to the market? She said,

Books aren�t like a consignment of cigarettes, Vincent. They don�t just fall off trucks.

But today she calls me and says, Vincent, if you can get me stars� big stars�

then the Crazy Horse Casino will host a media event and put everyone up in the hotel for

two nights. Food, drink, it�ll all be taken care of, spa, massage�

Massage? I say. You going to be doing that, honey?

No sir.

Limos? I say.

No, Vincent. Just the regular car service.

Just cars? I don�t know if they�re going to go for that. Lorenzo, he likes to

stretch out.

Vincent, don�t worry about the cars right now. Here�s what the Crazy Horse

wants. You�ll need to sign a hundred copies, maybe more, that they will give to the high

rollers. And there will be a book-signing at the gift shop. They said they�d order a

thousand copies. Provided you bring along some heavy hitters. We�ll wrap it up with a

panel on stage in the Wounded Knee Theatre. Listen, when you guys pitched this project

you said you could get talent. It�s time to come through. Call in those favors, Mr.

Noserelli.

The Crazy Horse Casino, just north of Yonkers. Jesus H. Christ. It�s actually two

casinos, two huge casinos, the Casino of the Plain has twenty craps tables alone, and the

Casino of the Moon has a dozen for Baccarat. Not to mention all the blackjack and poker

and keno. Texas-mother-of-god-Hold �em. This is what I was talking about. The

ricochet of the tokens in the troughs of one-armed bandits, the clack of the ball in the

roulette wheel, the click of chips and the shuffling of cards, two-inch steaks and booze on

the house. Cocktail waitresses wearing paint-on short-shorts, and ash trays everywhere.

Piano bars. High-rolling. This is it. This is our element.

41

So I call my agent. Francesco, for the next week I don�t want to see you without

that phone on your ear. Be the phone. You are the phone. I want Randolfini, Russo,

DiMeola. I want Art and Melmo and Lupé. The Twisted Sisters for color, they were

always sweet on the Nose. I want the two Joey�s, and the Brothers San Marcos. Do you

dig? Capiche?

But the Twisted Sisters don�t have a recipe in the book, Fancy says.

No shit, I say. The Twisted Sisters would boil a pop-tart. You�re missing the

point. We need faces, Italian-American faces�

Lupé�s from Madrid, and you�re�

Spaniard, wop, any dago will do, I say.

You�re the boss, Fancy says.

And you are the phone.

A casino is the life. You�ve got the laughter, the cheers, people at the baccarat tables

screaming �Monkey,� the sparkle of the indoor waterfall, the shimmering of the Crystal

Palace and the gold elevator running up the center of it like some kind of vein. It�s a

beautiful thing, I tell you. I�d stand it up against any national park, any wonder of the

world. What ambiance.

Be that as it may, over the hustle and glamour of the Casinos of the Plain and

Moon, I prefer the bingo parlor off to the side, and that was where I was, watching this

broad with legs what go to Wednesday drawing the balls from the cage and handing them

to some old coot in a gold dinner jacket to call out the numbers. I�m on the verge of

getting a kite and tail when my publicist interrupts me, taps me on the shoulder and says,

Vincent, nobody�s here.

First, a word about my publicist. She works hard, God bless the little thing.

Over-educated WASP what could use a session or two in the tanning bed, but otherwise

easy on the eyes, in that bookish way, corduroy and tweed, a little black every now and

again but not every god damn day like your average Manhattanite, my God, you�d think

they were Hassids. She puts up with a lot from the Nose.

What do you mean, nobody? I say. Art and Melmo checked in just after I did, and

I saw Laney and Frizzo shooting craps.

42

Who? she asks.

Laney and Frizzo. The Twisted Sisters, I tell her.

Who are they? she asks.

They�re the �Dog Act� from Three Tenors. You know, the dancers, I tell her.

Them, and Art and Melmo are here, so don�t come over here busting my chops saying

nobody�s here.

Listen, Vincent. I don�t know the �Dog Act.� And if I don�t know them, they�re

nobody. You and your�your�manager, whatever that Francesco is, get on the phone

and get some names here. No more of this B-actor cockamamaie. If there�re just

nobodies on that stage for the panel tomorrow, you don�t get paid. Capiche? she says,

and does an about face on her little heels.

No getting around it, that girl�s got moxie. B-actor cockamamie. That�s tough.

That hurts. Fact of the matter is, I tried to get the A-list. I begged Randolfini. It�s not

like it would be any sweat off his back. He�s just over the river in Hackensack. Told him

they�d send a car, I even said limousine, though that was an exaggeration, that everything

was comped, even a line of credit at the casino, another exaggeration. I told him it would

be good for the show, his show. And you know what he said? He said, I don�t know,

Vincent. Breeze Romero died in the first episode of last season. You�re off the radar.

Look, I gave you two recipes for the book. I did my part. I wish you the best of luck.

I go up to Fancy�s room. He�s on the bed in his shorts, sipping Orange Julius,

watching the Mets.

�Francesco,� I say. �Get me Rabinovitch.�

That�s one shrewd son of a bitch. The kid says his name stays on the cover, very

forceful-like, as if he was saying something without saying it. He also demands a bigger

piece of the action, types up an agreement, faxes it to the hotel, makes me sign it and fax

it back. Jesus. His father was that Randolfini�s agent, they were close, and when he died,

Randolfini sort of took the kid under his wing. It�s that connection how the kid got this

writing gig to begin with. Long and short of it is that we got Randolfini, my publicist has

got her star, and I�m going to get paid, and I feel about as low as I have ever felt, like I

have played for my last supper.

43

Casinos these days got everything. You never need to leave. Not only do you have the

amenities of the four-star hotel and restaurants to suit all palates, Krispy-God-damn-

Kreme even, you�ve got a freaking shopping mall on the premises. Chocolate shop,

jeweler, perfume parlor, clothes for the gentleman, ladies� boutiques. You don�t even

need to pack when you come up to Crazy Horse. Just put your toothbrush in your pocket

and Chief Crazy Horse will meet all your needs. They got gift shops, they even have a

book store, where I signed books and made nice with the customers. But that�s not all.

As if gambling isn�t enough, they got entertainment. Live music, of course, that�s no

surprise. But they even put on plays. Pretty classy, eh? Hence the Wounded Knee

Theatre.

But here�s the problem. I�m a sound-stage kind of guy. I don�t do live

performances. My immediate audience usually consists of a couple other actors, a

director and a camera man or two, maybe a gaffer or a stray key grip laying track, and an

assistant to Mr. Noserelli with a cup of coffee and a Zippo. So let me tell you, the view

from the stage in the Wounded Knee Theatre is breathtaking, in that it knocked the wind

out of me. I�m staring at an audience of two hundred pleasure seekers, all big-eyed and

smiling, expecting me to do something, and what that something is I have no idea,

because I ain�t got no script. I ain�t some wind-up monkey; I don�t do improv. And

neither do Art and Melmo. They look more uncomfortable than me, in their too-big suits

and shellacked comb-overs glistening under the lights. It�s so bright I put on my shades.

Where are the Twisted Sisters when you need them? Laney and Frizzo are, at the very

least, distracting. But those two have gone AWOL, probably doing the Dog Act for some

fat cat, and Randolfini has yet to show, the fat fuck, so here I am sitting on a stool and I

don�t know what to do with my hands. I remember cigarettes and I light one and watch

the audience as they start to shift in their seats and whisper to each other.

What in the hell is a panel anyway, I ask myself.

What the hell is this, a funeral parlor? I say into the mike, and my voice sounds

hoarse and thin over the P.A. I clear my throat, and give it another try. Somebody say

something, I say. Ask some questions, all ready. Come on, let�s have some fun.

44

I cross my arms and remain silent and soon everyone in the whole room is

uncomfortable. Finally, some old gal raises her hand and asks me, What�s your favorite

restaurant in Brooklyn?

I tell her, The Two Toms, on 3rd Avenue, hands down.

Where�d you learn to cook? another asks, and I tell her, In the army. Then this

real old bird, wearing a hat and gloves, she asks, who are the other two goons on stage,

and I say, Other two goons? Everyone laughs and I follow up with, Hired goons, of

course, Madame. Next question, and I begin to get my rhythm. Between questions I say,

Miss Priss�that�s what I call my publicist�Miss Priss, get a mike down in the audience

so�s I can hear the questions, will you? Don�t you know how to run a panel? Jesus.

More laughter, people will laugh at just about anything.

I have definitely got my groove, as they say, when I hear some commotion behind

me backstage. Then the audience, the whole audience jumps to its feet and starts

clapping and I�m saying, Whoa, take it easy, we just got started, but then I realize it�s not

me they�re clapping for at all. It�s Giuseppe, or Joe, Randolfini. He blows a few kisses,

comes over and shakes my hand. I force a smile and say, You�re late. He says, I know.

Thanks for getting them warmed up for me, and he takes the empty stool next to me, and

all of that good feeling I had swelling up in my chest with the audience laughing and all

that is gone.

Prima donna Randolfini doesn�t just own a stage, he devours it. I guess that�s

why he�s the lead Tenor. If I didn�t know any better, I�d say he gave a shit about this

book, the way he�s carrying on. He doesn�t. It�s the limelight that gets him off, the

pompous son of a bitch. Like the whole project was his idea. This is an important book,

he says, I�ve always considered it my sacred duty to preserve Italian culture. Someone in

the audience asks him how he got involved in Our Lady of Perpetual Bellisimo, and he

says, Just doing a good turn by Mr. Noserelli, one of my mentors in this scary world we

call show business. This from Joe Randolfini, who wouldn�t give me a pot to piss in if I

had to go. The fat fucking liar, wearing a hand-cut suit and a linen handkerchief in his

jacket pocket like he�s some kind of socialite just down from Hyannisport. I know where

you come from, Giuseppe Randolfini, you son of a fish-monger. You don�t fool me. I

see you. I see right through you.

45

Someone asks Mr. Randolfini where he got the idea for Our Lady, and he defers

to me. How gracious, how demur of you, Giuseppe. Well, I was thinking about my

mother, I say, on the anniversary of her death, God be with her, last year, and how she

used to tend to her little vegetable garden behind our apartment where I grew up. Pretty

small, but it seemed huge back then, to a kid, you know. She would pick the vegetables,

put them in a basket, put the basket on her head, and walk back to the kitchen, the basket

perfectly balanced on her head, no hands�

Where�d you grow up, Vincent? Randolfini says, Africa? This brings the house

down. Even Art and Melmo are laughing, the finks. Then Randolfini says, What makes

this book so special is that these are never before published, secret recipes, handed down

from generation to generation. There�s a real sense of heritage to this book. It�s all about

tradition. It�s all about getting together with your family and loved ones on a Sunday

afternoon and eating till you can�t eat anymore. Food passed from great great

grandmothers in Palermo all the way down to pregnant wives in an Arthur Avenue walk-

up. Fucking Randolfinfi. What�s he know about heritage? His two recipes weren�t even

his own, weren�t even from his family, but from Rao�s. And yet, the man is right. I

couldn�t say it any better. I didn�t say it any better.

I say, There�s time for one last question. It�s yet another little old lady. They got

a moratorium on young trim in this place or what? She says she has a question for Mr.

Noserelli. Finally. She asks, When will the Breeze be back on The Three Tenors?

God bless her, the old thing. I take a sip of water and a deep breath and I say,

Never, honey. Never. The Breeze got whacked a long time ago.

That fat bastard Randolfini took my limousine back to Montclair, meaning I got to ride

back with Fancy in his stupid little Mini-Cooper. It�s dark and Fancy and me are in the

parking lot when we hear someone behind us yell, Hey, it�s the Nose. Can we get your

autograph? I turn to Fancy and say, See? The Nose. That�s what I�m talking about.

Finally some respect. I turn around and see two young men, but not as young as I had

expected. They sounded so�I don�t know, enthusiastic, like kids, but these weren�t kids.

One was kind of scrawny, wearing a ball-cap and sunglasses, and the other was a black

fellow built like a house. The little guy holds out a glossy black-and-white still of me as

46

Matteo di Matteo, the hit man with a heart of gold in The Old Ball Game. Matteo di

Matteo, the little guy says. This is so cool. I point both hands like six-shooters and wink,

that was Matteo�s trademark, and I say, Sure, I�ll sign that, and as I take the photograph

and pen the black guy slugs Fancy in the gut and Fancy crumples to the ground.

Then the black guy takes me by the lapels and throws me up against the side of a

parked Suburban. I feel this tic I would get in my cheek when I would get into fights

back in the army. But this is no fight for me. I take another look at this spade pressing

me against the car, must be six foot seven, and I see the light brown scar running the

length of his black cheek and I realize, Jesus Christ, this is Jo-Jo Ramirez, used to be the

catcher for the Sox, lead-off hitter for three seasons in a row, and I realize that Jo-Jo is

going to hurt me, and I feel my bladder go. The little guy gets in my face and takes off

his sunglasses. It�s Rabinovitch, and my mouth goes dry and my knees get weak, and I

know I deserve all that hurt Jo-Jo is going to dole out. Then I remember the baseball bat

and the huge brother ringing the buzzer and something clicks. I look at Rabinovitch and I

look at Ramirez and I say the only thing that comes to mind.

Jo-Jo, you mean you�re a homo?

He smiles and says, All day long, old man. All day long.

I hear Francesco groaning on the asphalt and I start thinking about saving my own

hide.

Don�t be a fool. You know who I am, kid. You know you can�t do this.

I can�t? the kid says. Why not? What are you going to do? Put a make-believe

hit on me? You going to mow me down with a water-Uzi? Look at you. You�re

pathetic. You�re not even Italian.

That�s right, kid, I say, seeing the entry. I�m a Jew, just like you. Fellow member

of the tribe. Come on.

No, you�re nothing like me, the kid says. You�re just a bitter old fool who never

made the grade. I�m the man here. Filled with vim and vigor and I got real muscle

behind me. You are nobody. You�re not even B-list. No one�s going to remember you.

But me? People will be reading me a hundred years from now. He grinds the photo of

me into the asphalt with his heel Don�t you ever, ever fuck with me again.

47

Jo-Jo releases me, smiles, smoothes my lapels, turns around, and walks away with

Rabinovitch. I take a knee next to Francesco as he tries to catch his breath. That was Jo-

Jo Ramirez? he asks me.

Yeah, that was Jo-Jo. That was Jo-Jo and the kid.

In the winter Coney Island is a ghost town. The sky is gray, Neptune Avenue is quiet,

just little pieces of trash blowing around, and the salt air is laced with the scent of dogs

on the grill at Nathan�s, the only place on the beach that�s open in the winter. The

boardwalk is wide and empty, and without the distraction of screaming kids and their

screaming mothers you see just how creepy that ancient amusement park really is, the

amusement park that time forgot. The Cyclone is like some wooden skeleton you might

find in a museum dedicated to the origins of the roller coaster, and that in the summer

people still ride that thing scares me, quite frankly. They pay to ride it. Somebody ought

to be paying them, at least give them a helmet and a shot of rye before they go. To those

who are about to fall, we salute you, something like that.

The minor attractions along the boardwalk are disturbing in their own ways.

There�s �Shoot the Freak,� a shooting gallery of sorts where the target is this little midget

meshuggener in a frightwig running back and forth, and you pay money to shoot at him

with a paint-ball gun. One time I came down here just before the close of the season, and

�Shoot the Freak� was still up and running. Well, not running per se. The freak was

clearly drunk, not wearing his clown suit or his protective goggles even, and tottering

back and forth, making himself a very easy target. Those paint-ball guns put a serious

wallop on the guy, knocked him off his feet with every hit, and he was getting hit left and

right. Wasn�t no challenge to it, and the kids who were playing were beginning to get the

idea that something was wrong with the freak. At one point the freak screamed, �It�s my

birthday, you little shits. Shoot me, god damn you.� This scared some of the kids, and

their parents led them away, shaking their heads, trying to explain that the freak didn�t

mean it, that he was sick that day. One father made a stink about wanting his money

back. I knew it was wrong, but I just couldn�t help but to keep watching. The freak, his

clothes just covered in red paint, would regain his footing, stumble around a little bit until

48

he�d get hit and then he�d fall over again and scream something nasty. There were a

couple of teenagers who weren�t scared, who were having a big time shooting this freak.

Without his make-up you could see just how old the little guy really was. Bothered the

hell out of me, still does.

I don�t come to Coney for the food�though there is this great little pizzeria called

Totonno�s�or for the amusement park. I wait until the off-season when the place is

empty so I can bring my metal detector and comb the beach. I don�t find much, but that

doesn�t matter. It�s relaxing. It�s numbing. Sometimes I�ll find an old subway token.

Usually I find needles. People ask me, Why you go to Coney, no battles ever fought

there. You ought to drive up to Kingston, or, hell, check out Prospect Park. They�re

wrong, of course, about there not being any battles fought here. I find shell casings all

the time, nine millimeter mostly. You got the projects right there, sure�that�s a hell of a

way to develop beachfront property, never could figure that out�but you also got the

Russian Mafia. They own this island. Stillwell and Surf may be the last of the mean

streets, in the Scorcese sense of the expression. I don�t call what the kids in the Bronx do

with the drugs and the drive-by�s organized crime. Ain�t nothing organized about it, far

as I�m concerned. But that�s all beside the point. I don�t come here to sweep the beach

looking for anything in particular. I come here to look for anything. Anything can be a

relic. It�s nice. It�s quiet. Like a library, or a museum. I don�t see anyone I know here

and I feel like I fit in. Sweeping the beach looking for anything makes me feel like I got

a reason to be. The air and all the space, I think, is good for me. An island, even a

crummy one, is a great place to retire. So I come here in the winter and I sweep the

beach, you got a problem with that?

49

BACKDOOR TO ADVENTURE

Time was I would do anything for Wade, who was everything that I was not: poet,

aristocrat, visionary, mercenary. It was I, the merchant-prince, of blemished pedigree,

who with my filthy lucre had many times covered the action for this manicured,

impecunious gambling man, who, over-tanned in rumpled linen, was now beaming at me

from across the rattan table outside the sooty mock-French Khmer bistro Le Marmite.

My bankrolling days had since passed; even this remoulade travesty alfresco was outside

my budget. But this time it was not money, not mine at least, that Wade wanted. He

needed a right-hand man in some nasty business in the Hanuman Islands to which he had

already committed himself. �You won�t even have to touch a gun,� he said. He smiled

and the crows� feet crept from the corners of his eyes, the way they used to in the locker

room after he had beaten me at tennis. �Why me?� I asked. �I�m no mercenary.�

�You�re an actor,� Wade said. �You can be whatever you want. And, you�re here. I can

trust you.� When again I declined he looked me dead on with those iridescent blue eyes

and said �Aubrey. I need you.� So I said, �I�ll think about it,� because I had always

needed Wade.

I left some bills on the table, rose from my seat, and Wade rose, too, shook my

hand warmly and embraced me in a bear hug. Phnom Penh was much too steamy for

bear hugs. I could feel my oxford sticking to my skin. �Wade, really. I�m late for my

shoot.�

�Please. You won�t regret it,� Wade said softly in my ear and kissed me on the

cheek. I nodded to one of the moto boys loitering at the curb who flashed a grin, doffed

his ball cap, and kick-started his bike. The little four-stroke engine coughed and spat. I

climbed on behind the driver and we puttered off down the septic, pockmarked Sisowath

Quay, alongside the Tonle Sap, the reek of the living and the dead wafting up from her

green and murky waters, that spot on my cheek still feverish despite the breeze.

Why, oh why must it always be a monkey?

50

Monkeys have menaced me all of my days. For my tenth birthday my father hired

a clown with a monkey, a chimpanzee, I believe, on a leash from which he managed to

free himself upon seeing my new puppy, a French poodle, which he swept up in the crook

of his arm, took up in the oak tree and sodomized with loud, almost human cries to the

party down below. I was just old enough to know that this was unnatural. On location I

have contracted lice from a vervet, mange from a gibbon, and rabies from a ring-tailed

lemur, which I realize is not a monkey at all, but rabid I was all the same. In Botswana a

baboon gave me a black eye.

�You never said anything about a monkey, Dave.� Dave was director, editor,

writer, and producer of Passport to Adventure. He was the only director I ever knew who

actually wore a beret.

�Aubrey, baby. Don�t be a flat tire, man.� Dave shook out a cigarette from a

pack of Dunhills which I accepted and he lit. �That�s a bona fide duoc langur. They�re

endangered. His name�s Whatley. He�s got papers, man.�

�Monkeys don�t have papers, Dave.� I eyed my new co-star. A thick white mane

surrounded his little black face and he was quietly chewing a turd. I had to admit,

Whatley did complement the set: a mock-up old English study under amber light, the

simulated oak-paneled walls bedecked with taxidermy from the four corners of the world:

hartebeest, wildebeest, leopard, mule deer, jaguar, kudu, polar bear, Siberian tiger�

Dave�s stock of stage properties seemed endless. A bookshelf hosted musty volumes and

colonial knickknackery�bone flutes, powder horns, lodestone amulet, human teeth, a

shako. It was from this set that Lord Malory St. John Hogg-Smythe, played by Aubrey

Woodall affecting an Oxonian accent, opened and closed every episode of Passport to

Adventure with some pompous anecdote. After the opening, the picture would fade into

footage of a younger Lord Hogg-Smythe, played by a younger actor, bronzed in trunks,

posing with a telescope on a catamaran in the Dead Sea, or playing chess at a meat camp

in the Congo in short-shorts and puttees, maybe barefoot in a Mesopotamian ziggurat.

Oh, the glory days of empire.

A chubby Khmer in a New York Yankees cap and blue jeans entered stage left

and tended to the langur. �Who�s this?� I asked.

51

�This,� Dave said through a cloud of smoke as he passed me a small marble pipe,

�this is Mr. Perfect, monkey wrangler and hash slinger to the stars.� Mr. Perfect nodded

and said �Bonjour, Monsieur Malory.�

�Perfect.� I slipped into the velvet smoking jacket and adjusted the ascot and sat

in the leather club chair. Dave tied a large bib around my neck, glued on the salt-and-

pepper dragoon�s moustache, the latex gin-blossomed nose, and told me to close my eyes

as he sprayed gray hair dye about my temples.

Half an hour later Dave cried �Action,� and Lord Malory St. John Hogg-Smythe

entered the study from stage right, sipped brandy from a snifter, and stood before the

cozy flagstone fireplace. The heat on the set was impossible. Above the mantel Dave

had mounted a male lion�s head. Whatley the Monkey was perched next to it, picking

nits with its long, black fingers and eating them. Sir Hogg-Smythe then lifted this

massive gilt and leather-bound tome, his expedition log from which he presumably read

that week�s adventure.

�Under the thick jungle canopy in the dappled shadows cast by the banyan trees,

Temple Ta Prohm reminds us that Angkor Wat, too, was one of the darker places of

this��

I stopped reading my lines mid-sentence as I, all of the sudden and quite literally,

had a monkey on my back. I dropped the book and reached for the creature with my right

hand but he climbed down to my left arm and hung there. Dave was still behind the

camera, keeping it rolling, and Mr. Perfect, squatting on his haunches, laughed behind

him.

�Monkey wrangler,� I called, but in vain. I then reached for the nape of the

langur�s neck but he hissed and then he sank his teeth into my forearm. I howled. I

shook my arm, I punched his little head but he would not disengage. �Dave, for God�s

sake, how do I get it off?�

Dave and Mr. Perfect conferred in pidgin French. Then Dave said, �He says stick

your thumb up his ass.�

�You�ve got to be kidding.� I could feel blood running down my arm under my

sleeve.

52

�That�s what he said. He said it�s the only thing that will get him off,� Dave said,

and behind him Mr. Perfect was standing, nodding his head, making motions with his

thumb.

I was beginning to lose feeling in my left arm. I looked about for a viable weapon

but found nothing. With my free hand I made a fist with my thumb sticking out, looked

at the monkey�s garish hindquarters, looked back at my thumb, moaned, and in one fluid

motion I shoved my thumb up the rectum of the beast. His eyes grew large and he

clamped down even harder, this time hitting bone. I withdrew my thumb from Whatley

and looked up. Mr. Perfect was convulsing with laughter, and so was Dave. �I can�t help

it, man,� Dave said. �You just buggered that monkey with your finger.�

�This is serious, Dave,� I said, looking all around for some kind of tool when I

remembered the hearth behind me. I turned around and swung the monkey into the

flame. Whatley disengaged, screamed and scampered off, his back smoking and the air

polluted with his burning pelt.

�Wade,� I said later that day, the receiver cradled between my head and shoulder as I sat

on my bed and daubed the puncture wounds with iodine, �count me in.�

Since the Royal Navy, Wade Ashley-Cooper Shaftesbury had made a career of traveling

in strange circles, oftentimes lying down with dogs, slumming it, oftentimes rubbing

elbows at embassy galas, seducing dowagers, pissing away his allowance all the while.

He remained on the family dole, living off monthly increments, the fruits of the

Shaftesbury holdings. He was in fact a peer of the realm, and apparently a seat in the

House of Lords remained open for him. I met Wade aboard the frigate U.S.S. Winthrop

where I served as a naval intelligence officer. Wade was our liaison with the Brits in the

Gulf of Aden. Of a sunny day, some of the other junior officers and I would check out

twelve-gauges from the armory, commandeer one of the ratings, equip him with our

hand-held skeet thrower, and shoot clay pigeons from the quarterdeck. One afternoon

Wade joined us, produced a side arm, and shot nine out of ten clays. Shortly after, we

fell to drinking. He was already a published poet and I, being a closet aesthete myself,

had been longing for refined company. Whereas I was staff support�I analyzed

53

intelligence, I produced documents, I pushed paper�Wade was a field operative, spoke

six languages, jumped out of airplanes. Wade was the real thing. For my part,

sometimes I think I joined the navy for the uniform.

My aesthetic sensibility was not the only thing I kept in the closet.

For some time after the service Wade and I would rendezvous, sometimes twice a

year. My parents had died and I had liquidated the family business so I was traveling like

mad Christmas. Wade was fickle, Wade was coy�some reunions he would surprise me

in the shower, others he locked the door to his bedroom, and it was on those latter

occasions that his foot-play under the dinner table would lead me to expect a different

outcome to the evening. He was also a great lover of women, as indicated by his

selection of destinations�Amsterdam, Marseilles, Las Vegas (perish the thought), Monte

Carlo, and Bangkok, always Bangkok, and if not Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh; my god, he was

over-fond of the East and her fleshpots. On one occasion he mentioned a wife, on

another a divorce. Whether or not he made love to me, he always made me laugh.

This time, however, I was sure that it would be different, that he wasn�t seeking

merely a drinking buddy, or a mere accomplice, for that matter; something in his mien at

lunch the day before, the droop in the left corner of his mouth when he smiled, suggested

not only desperation, but exhaustion, the exhaustion of one who had spent his youth and

was ready to settle down.

The Hanuman Archipelago is a former French colony in the Bay of Bengal and was only

beginning to register on the radar of Western European holiday makers. During the Cold

War the Soviets had installed a puppet socialist dictator, acting on the intelligence that

there was oil in the archipelago�s territorial waters. But the reservoir dried up six months

after the coup, and Russia abandoned the islands shortly thereafter. The Hanumans had

no standing army, only a national defense force four hundred strong spread out over the

six islands, and had no need for more, as there were virtually no firearms on the island

other than the defense force arsenal�some twelve score WWI-era rifles cast off by the

British�by decree of the dictator Remi François, who was not only a pacifist, but a

staunch socialist who refused to do business with any mining interest that came knocking,

looking to strip his pristine dominion of her mineral resources, specifically gold, of which

54

the Soviets had not been aware. It was one of these interests that Wade was representing.

His job was to take control of Hanuman Island, the capital of the archipelago and,

overnight, the European mining interest would spirit in Henri Leclerc, the erstwhile

sovereign who the Russians had deposed and exiled, and with an armed cohort some two-

hundred strong re-install him as head of state, said measure returning autonomy and self-

determination to the heretofore oppressed citizenry of the Hanumans.

�A pursuit noble enough by my reckoning,� said Wade, munching on dried

prawns, no fouler smelling bar snack will you ever find, and the Number 9 Guesthouse

served pounds of them a day. �Someone�s going to do it someday. Besides, it�ll be a

lark. Those raggedy-ass golliwogs with their bolt-action Enfields aren�t going to put up a

fight against a force of forty white men armed with automatic weapons. The Glorious

Revolution all over again, bloodless coup, you know.�

�What are we doing in this ridiculous place?� I asked. The entire establishment,

front desk, guest rooms, and café, was on catawampus wooden planking situated over a

sluggish, shallow lake called Boeng Kak, was roofed with rotten thatch, and was

swarming with college-age Western backpackers, vagabonding in sarongs and dreadlocks

with pretensions of going native, eating eggs and bacon, drinking ice-cold beer and milk

shakes and openly smoking low-grade marijuana purchased in the dusty alley leading up

to this hostel and four others exactly like it, Numbers 8 and 7, Lakeside, and Same-Same

but Different.

�Waiting for the man,� Wade said. The sun shone off the lake and framed his

features. He was still stunning, high cheek bones, chiseled jaw line, dimpled chin,

pointed nose, that thick forelock blond as a Nazi�s. He smiled, his crows� feet crinkled,

and he patted the leather valise at his side.

�Yes. I�ve been wondering. What manner of ordnance are we buying?� I asked.

�You will be buying one hundred Kalashnikovs. Carbines, with folding stocks.�

He turned to our waitress, a slender, sloe-eyed beauty, they were in no short supply, and

said, �Tuhk dawh kow tai, sohm.�

�Yes, Mister,� she said and left our table.

�Show off,� I said. �What do you mean, I�m buying the guns? You said I

wouldn�t even have to touch one.�

55

�And you won�t. My man will load them up for you. In the lorry he�s throwing

in.� Wade patted the valise again. �I have to leave. Now, actually. I�m meeting Leclerc

at Le Royal. We�ve got a chartered flight waiting. Must make sure he makes it to

Rangoon.�

�Leclerc�s here? What else haven�t you told me?�

�Nothing, old bean. My man will be here to fetch you in an hour.� Wade stood

and smoothed his shirt front. He was developing a bit of a belly.

�How will he know me?�

�Trust me, he�ll know you. But just in case,� Wade said, handing me a paper

sack, �be sure to wear this, Lord St. John Hogg-Smythe.� From the paper sack I drew a

massive white pith helmet.

�I suppose you find this funny,� I said.

�Ta ta. See you in the Hanumans.�

Mr. Perfect seemed to have his finger in every pie served up in Phnom Penh. Heroin,

simians, humans, firearms. For a capital city, Phnom Penh was an extraordinary

backwater. Smallville, Kampuchea. In an ancient Peugeot we wove through the

maelstrom of motos laden with families of five, three-wheeled lorries buckling with their

payloads from the fields, towering with sacks of rice and crates of eggs, cyclos�wobbly

three-wheeled bicycles�piled high with woven mats, and battered rust-bucket

hatchbacks that looked more like the toys abandoned by a race of giants than

automobiles.

We pulled up on the curb in front of a carbon-scored French colonial town house,

the Bermuda shutters warped and missing slats and the wrought-iron balcony crumbling

with rust. Inside was dark and cold, and the walls hummed with the pulsing of the

mammoth a.c. unit mounted in the window, the wainscoting beneath blanched from years

of condensation. The flaking plaster walls were barren save for tarnished brass sconces

and a poster of Dolf Lundgren as Ivan Drago hanging above the mantel. Other than a

stack of soiled mattresses in the corner there was no furniture. Perfect peeled back a

rotten Persian area rug and set to prying up the scuffed oaken planks, a filthy enterprise.

Beams of sunlight that made it through the shutters� missing slats sliced through clouds

56

that were positively cumulus with dust. When this cleared, I looked down into this hole

and saw stacks of pine crates, each bearing a smudged coat of arms framed by a horse

and lion rampant wearing a crown, the great seal of Her Majesty the Queen, or King,

perhaps, these boxes looked old. Perfect stepped down into the pit and with a groan lifted

one of the crates and dropped it at my feet. �Since when did the Crown issue AK�s?� I

asked, but Perfect said nothing. He just climbed out of the pit and with his pry bar

opened the crate, then from it handed me a bulky parcel wrapped in oily butcher paper. I

unwrapped it.

�You�ve got to be kidding,� I said. Still in thick packing grease was a 1941 Sten

Gun Mark II, the cheap, practically disposable submachine gun manufactured by the

resource-poor British for their paratroopers in the European theatre. It fired a pistol

round, 9 mm, with an effective range of maybe one hundred fifty yards that loaded via a

magazine that stuck in the receiver at an angle perpendicular to the breech block, such as

it was. A most awkward weapon, and ugly to boot. There was no wood, no gutta-percha,

no forestock, no grip. It was all metal and it looked more like an implement one would

find in a plumber�s tool chest than a firearm.

�If I was kidding, this would not be a funny joke, no?� Perfect said, mopping the

sweat from his brow with his Yankees cap.

�You speak English?�

�Perfect.�

�Son of a bitch,� I said, shaking my head, recalling the ridiculous pantomime with

the monkey on the set the day before. And now I was cutting a shady deal gone south

with this perfect asshole. The valise began to feel heavy in my left hand, and I could feel

my right one trembling. I shoved it in my hip pocket. �Where�re the AK-47�s? This is

Cambodia, for Christ�s sake, there must be tunnels full of them. Forget it. The deal�s

off.�

�Please to be patient, Monsieur Hogg-Smythe.�

�My name�s not Hogg-Smythe.�

�Of course. You are right, this is Cambodia. And we have many tunnels. If you

wait, I have rifles in one week, maybe two.�

57

�I need those rifles today.� I thought of the rendezvous in five days at the

Hanuman Sports Club, and I thought of Wade, carefree and out-of-pocket until then.

Wade, the spoiled bastard, he should have been there to haggle with this little gangster.

But no, he left me to do it alone. Who the hell makes an arms deal alone? �I can�t wait.�

�Of course you cannot wait,� Mr. Perfect said, pulling short, squat cartridges out

of his jeans pocket and inserting them one by one into an oblong, spring loaded clip.

�Always it is now-now with you people. Like you say, this is Cambodia, this is not��

he paused and looked upward at the high ceiling, along the moldering cornice, as if to

find the mot juste up there. �This is not Wal-Mart. You want old-timey British

submachine gun, we have. You want kick-ass Russian assault rifle, no have. You wait.

What is the hurry, Monsieur Hogg-Smythe? Enjoy our beautiful capital,� he pronounced

it boo-tee-fool. �Our beautiful girls,� he paused again and looked me up and down. �Or

boys. I can get for you.�

This was not my decision to make. But there was no way to contact Wade. If I

waited, would he abort? Would the mining company still pay up? Would they get cold

feet? I doubted they had any more patience than I did for the capricious schedules of

banana republic commerce. And what about the men, the intrepid liberators, were they

willing to wait? And did I want to schlep a briefcase full of fifteen thousand dollars for a

week, maybe two, around Phnom Penh? I certainly couldn�t deposit it. Mr. Perfect

loaded the clip into one of the Sten guns.

�I don�t know,� I said. �These things are antiques. How do I know that they even

work?�

�They work,� said Mr. Perfect, who, from his pocket, pulled a silencer and

screwed it on the barrel and fired from the hip, emptying the magazine into the stack of

soiled mattresses in the corner, the empty shells clattering across the floor. It had been a

long time since I had heard gunfire, and I breathed in the sulfur tang of cordite through

my nose. He handed me the gun�the barrel was hot to the touch�and jumped back into

the pit. He came back out with a much smaller crate. Inside were a dozen Webley Mark

VI revolvers, huge, the kind that broke at the breech. He handed me one. It had some

heft. From the late nineteenth century through the Second World War this, or its earlier

variants, was the standard side arm of British officers and NCO�s, and they called it �The

58

Biggie.� It was chambered for the .455 Mark II round and fully loaded it must have

weighed three, maybe four pounds. This was the side arm carried by Peter O�Toole as

T.E. Lawrence, this was the sidearm of Anthony Quinn, Richard Burton. With this

revolver Michael Caine kept the Zulus at bay, anachronistically, decades before its

invention. This was a famous gun.

�I throw in one dozen revolvers, no charge,� Mr. Perfect said as he wrapped up

the Sten in the greasy paper and nestled it in the rotten straw lining the crate.

On the balcony of Wade�s rented house, in a chaise lounge, under a ceiling fan, sipping a

gin and tonic, half-listening to the rugby songs coming from the dining room downstairs

where the force of white men, forty strong, had assembled to drink the house dry and

sleep where they fell, I felt that, finally, I had arrived. Of course, there were still hurdles

to overcome, not to mention the junta itself: getting that rabble down below to the airport

on time, keeping them reasonably sober, making sure all the luggage got on board the

airliner. The luggage . . . the luggage . . . I sat bolt upright. The guns! Now, how in the

hell were we going to get that arsenal to the Hanuman Islands? The Sten gun was not a

sporting rifle. And, small though they were, we couldn�t just stuff them in our duffle

bags; forty some-odd hardy and hale white men, who would, no doubt, be half-drunk,

arriving en masse in a third world country on holiday were bound to be searched. There

was no getting around that. I felt my stomach knot up and my head began to pound.

Glass broke somewhere outside. Then I heard more, followed by raucous

laughter from downstairs. I looked out from the balcony. Glass broke again and I looked

in the direction from where the sound was coming. It was the shattering of window

panes in the house over the fence and across the street, shattered by golf balls one of the

ruggers was hitting with a nine iron in the courtyard below. I slammed down my drink

and hurried inside to put an end to this�we didn�t need any trouble with the Royal

Cambodian Police�but stopped at the top landing of the staircase. Golf balls. �Golf

bags,� I said out loud to no one. Golf bags. False bottoms in the golf bags. Bags filled

with metal-shafted golf clubs, and a little metal pea-shooter hidden below. False

bottoms. Damn, was I brilliant. Wade was going to be so impressed.

59

It was always worse when I knew he had been with a woman. Another man, that was

painful, yes; however, another man had nothing that I did not. But how could I compete

with the comforts and charms of a woman? I had no claim on him upon which to demand

fidelity. Nonetheless, all his peccadilloes left me feeling low, and his trysts with the fair

sex hurt me in my very bones. My body would seize up with an icy chill, my eyes on

fire and my throat raw and swollen from the sobbing so that I could not eat. Food made

me feel pathetic, with my cheeks streaked with tears and I slowly chewing like a boy at

the dinner table after a severe and well-deserved rebuke from his mother, eating through

the tears.

A man could get in a lot of trouble in Rangoon, but this time was different, I told

myself. Wade would hurt me no more. I thought of our lunch at Le Marmite, and how

tired he had looked. I had no doubt that Wade at last was weary of whoredom. He had

come to me not only for help with this little adventure, but for stability as well. And I

would grant him that safe harbor. I became stupid with visions of our future together,

beginning to set up house in my imagination, making modest use of the nest egg with

which this operation would leave us. I saw hammocks and a rattan suite on a balcony

with a view of the Gulf of Siam on undiscovered Ko Tao, or, better, if we could afford it,

something much the same in the South Carolina low country, somewhere shy of

Beaufort, perhaps, shrouded by oaks and palmettos overlooking an inlet off the

Intercoastal Waterway.

So it was that I was walking on air as I disembarked from the plane and made my

way across the tarmac toward the Hanumanian International Airport, surrounded by

mangroves and banyans and coconut trees. Every detail was stark and beautiful, even the

two other planes on the airstrip, awkward by any standard of design, snub-nosed and

bulbous; the fact that either could ever be airborne was testimony of the miracle of man�s

mastery over the elements. But at the time I found them graceful and sublime, like young

women round with child.

That being said, no amount of optimism concerning mine and Wade�s future

home could conceal that my men were drunk. Careening off-kilter in their shorts and

aloha shirts, they lacked any measure of military bearing, which was part of our cover,

just a few dozen holiday makers in-country for a bender, a couple rugby balls that they�d

60

pitch every now and then thrown in for good measure. I just wished they had not drunk

so much. Although good-natured, they proved to be difficult charges, and I was, at best,

a tipsy shepherd. Maxwell, a burly Scot who�d served in the Royal Marines, had slung

one of the more soused over his shoulder like a sack of loot. He was acting sergeant-

major of this rabble and he gave me a hand getting them to immigration.

�Bloody wanker�s pissed himself,� Maxwell said, indicating with a nod his

passed-out comrade. �I should�ve worn a fucking mac.� Cover or no, we definitely were

not coming in under the radar. I looked over my shoulder for stragglers and noticed a

member of the ground crew slinging one of our golf bags onto a luggage trailer. My heart

stopped for a moment, as if I expected a discharge from the bottom of the bag but none

came, of course; I double-checked that all the guns were unloaded as I secured them in

the secret compartments. Secret compartments. Just the notion of subterfuge put a small

spring in my step. This was the real thing.

The gate to immigration bore a large bronze plaque, the state seal of the Hanuman

Islands, a bare-chested man with the face of a monkey wearing a dome-shaped crown and

a loin cloth, supplicant on one knee. This was Hanuman, the Hindu helpful monkey god,

who came to the aid of Rama and defeated Rawana and rescued Sita and later was

charged with obtaining a medicinal herb from a mountain in the Himalayas. Hanuman

got distracted on the way, as monkeys will do, and so once he got there, he had forgotten

exactly where on the mountain he could find this plant. So he uprooted the entire

mountain and brought it back to Rama, thinking that the herb had to be somewhere on

that rock. What a helpful monkey. The Hindu has a fondness for half-man, half-beast

demigods in his pantheon, and who wouldn�t? The Greeks have Pan, and the Egyptian

has the Sphinx. And a monster god is a proper god before whom one trembles and

sweats, not some namby-pamby longhair who won�t punch back or pay his taxes.

Perhaps as a civilizing force in the world the West still had much to learn. Be that as it

may, there was no such thing as a helpful monkey, and the image of the monkey-man

unsettled me.

The wait at the baggage carousel was interminable, but all golf bags were

accounted for. I was beginning to think that I had overcompensated with the false bottom

ploy, which was not my ploy at all but was the brainchild of Colonel Michael Hoare as

61

played by Alec Guiness in The Playboy President. Indeed, there were no x-ray machines

or metal detectors at customs, and I must say I was a bit disappointed. I did note a

handful of security guards, chewing betel nut and spitting red juice on the floor.

When we reached customs is when I noticed Wade on the other side. He was

wearing madras trousers and his white shirt was open at the collar, his blond hair tousled;

I looked down at my limp seersucker suit damp with sweat and club tie loose at the neck

and I felt like an overdressed rube�Wade had that way of making me feel uncomfortable

no matter what the setting. He flashed a broad grin and as disappointed as I was with his

conduct, I felt a thrill at the sight of him and my cheeks grew warm. Damn you, Wade

Ashley-Cooper, you absolute rake. I set my jaw and did not return his carefree, cockeyed

salute, palm-out like the British do.

Also at the arrival gate were soldiers, rather well turned out in starched olive drab

fatigues and red berets and matching scarves, looked to be a whole company, one

hundred or so, and armed. My heart sank. The jig was up, it seemed, and the only time

in my life that I would use that turn of phrase was with regard to my own jig, and not

some small-screen villain�s. Wade was there, still smiling, and that was just like him to

be smiling like a jackass in the face of unbeatable odds. Damn you, damn you. Then I

noticed that he was making a show of winking at me, not a lurid wink but the grossest

sort of vaudevillian stage wink. Perhaps we were still in the game. Perhaps; I mean, they

hadn�t thrown Wade in the brig, not yet.

I was the first of our group in the line leading to the customs checkpoint, armed

with a ruse to explain the presence of forty drunkards should an explanation become

necessary: we had settled on the Rotary International Leadership Retreat and it was

under that name that I had reserved a block of rooms at the Royal Hanuman Hotel. The

customs officer wore a clipped moustache, and his small frame was dwarfed by his broad

epaulettes, each bearing three pips. His peaked cap as well was out-sized and lavishly

embroidered with gold laurel branches. Lots of pomp for a customs officer. He made a

great show of studying my passport, which was unnerving so I asked him a question.

�Why are all the soldiers here?�

He looked up from my passport photo, then back down, then up again. �Lord

Malory St. John Hogg-Smythe? You are American?�

62

Good god, no one had ever recognized me without the nose and moustache.

�Yes,� I said, and then in a stage whisper and my Oxonian accent. �But don�t tell a

soul.�

He smiled. �Of course,� he said, and put a finger to his lips. �Destination

Danger. I am a big fan.� I couldn�t believe it. Destination Danger was the name under

which they ran the show abroad. But in the Bay of Bengal?

At this point he had the rubber stamp in his hand. God, I wanted this over with. I

looked over at Wade and he was still watching, laughing now.

�So, why are all the soldiers here?�

�Palace guard,� the customs officer said. �The president is leaving on state

business.�

�Today?� What a stroke of luck, I thought. With the presidential guard occupied

at the airport, there might be no more than a skeleton crew at the palace. We could go

ahead and take it that evening, drunk or no, and depose François in abstentia. Maybe this

would be a bloodless coup. Wade must have known this all along. Wade, you slyboots,

you.

The officer had his hand raised, poised to stamp my passport, when his glance

caught my golf bag. He suddenly stood erect. �What is this?� he asked, pointing at the

bag.

I lugged the thing from behind me and I was looking forward to ditching the clubs

as soon as possible. I knew there was a reason I didn�t play. �Golf clubs,� I said.

�Leisure, not business, remember?� I winked.

�But sir, there are no golf courses in the Hanuman Islands.�

My heart sank. The officer�s face blackened.

�Please to come with me, sir,� he said and blew his whistle. Four of the betel

chewing guards advanced. I looked over at Wade and I watched the smile fade from his

face. At that point my vision seemed to broaden, to take in everything, the rugby players,

the palace cohort, two young women bearing cloth bundles atop their heads, the skylight

clouded with grime, a portly matriarch in a saffron sari, the puffed cheeks of the customs

officer blowing his whistle in short staccato bursts, the advancing guards operating their

bolt-action rifles, driving home rounds in their chambers, one of the guards raising his

63

rifle to his shoulder and drawing a bead on me, moving ahead of the other guards, not

heeding orders to fall back, the red stains on his wrinkled khaki blouse, ten yards away,

taking a knee, one eye squeezed shut, the other wide open behind the rear sight of his

rifle, his NCO now shouting and running to catch up with the renegade. Great god in

heaven this man was going to shoot me. He looked like it, at least.

�Wait, I thought for sure . . .� I began saying as I bent down and reached into my

golf bag. �Here, I�ll show you the brochure. It says . . . .� I drew my Webley from the

bag and with both hands fired, hitting the guard square in the chest, a fine red mist

spraying the NCO behind him. The renegade toppled backward and his rifle clattered on

the floor. The remaining guards turned on their heels and ran. I stood up and turned to

the customs officer. His face had drained to an ashy white. I punched him in the mouth,

snatched up my passport, and yelled to the men to run back to the airfield. They were

dumping the clubs from their bags and scrabbling for their arms and those that had loaded

them were spraying the ceiling with gunfire. Some of the civilians in the airport had hit

the deck and others were running and shrieking. Maxwell had come up from the rear and

was urging the men back to the tarmac. By this time the palace guard had mustered and

was firing wildly in our direction. The man who, up until quite recently, Maxwell had

been carrying, took a hit. He spun around like a dancer cutting a pirouette and fell to the

floor. Maxwell threw him back over his shoulder and with his Webley fired at the

soldiers.

Screaming and hysteria, the wailing of womenfolk, the screeching of children was

general. My feet felt like two lead ingots beneath me but I managed to run just the same.

When I turned around to fire I saw the matriarch in saffron lying motionless, her right

arm bent at an impossible angle. One of the younger women who had been bearing

parcels on their heads was kneeling and keening and holding the other bloody in her

arms. Other fallen tourists littered the concourse and I did not know if it was our fire or

the soldiers� that had claimed them and my mind froze on this question, but my legs kept

pumping. It really didn�t matter, I suppose, it had all been our doing. My doing.

And Wade? Wade had vanished.

We regrouped and hunkered down at the departure gates. Two of our men were

dead, four were injured. Fortunately, the palace guard was fairly inept and none, it

64

seemed, had detached from the company to flank us. Instead they continued to fire their

bolt-action Enfields, shattering the back row of plastic chairs at the arrival gate. The air

was alive with shards of pink and blue plastic. We were laying down pretty even fire for

a few minutes but then one submachine gun jammed. Then another, and another. Some

of the Stens, Maxwell told me, had never worked from the start. �They�ll cut us to pieces

for sure,� he said in that thick brogue over the crack and whine of gunfire and ricochet.

�To the airfield,� I said. And I thought I was going to shed this mortal coil before

having the opportunity to utter such dreck off stage.

Back out on the tarmac I had three planes from which to choose and maybe three seconds

in which to choose one. Lao Aviation had a fuel truck parked next to it so I had us

double-time over there. It was a relic of an airship, an aging Russian twin-turbo-prop.

As we drew close we were again under fire. I kept five men back and we hit the deck to

lay some cover fire while the rest boarded. Said cover fire we were laying down with the

Webley revolvers and we met with poor results. Yes, they shot, revolvers as a rule don�t

jam, but they shot a slow, fat bullet, and they didn�t shoot it far.

On board I found many of the men collapsed in the seats, the wounded lying in

the aisle being tended to by their comrades with first aid kits from the overhead

compartments. The cabin was remarkably quiet. I was not, as I had expected, greeted

with the screams of recently abducted passengers, mewling infants, keening mothers.

Indeed, we were the only passengers. I groaned. No hostages. There went our leverage.

Maxwell emerged from the cockpit, his head wrapped in a bandage fashioned

from a white tee-shirt, one ear crusted over with dried blood. �Three dead, five

wounded,� he said. �Three AWOL. Adrian says he saw them dash for the tree line. The

pilot is cooperating. We await your orders, sir.�

I felt my bottom lip quiver as the full weight of the ordeal came crashing down.

Men were dead and soon more would join them unless I did something. And of the three

planes to hijack I chose the one devoid of hostages. We had no collateral with which to

bargain for our lives. I looked down at the heavy revolver smoking in my hand and let it

drop to the floor. I had never felt gravity so heavy. And though I was surrounded by

thirty comrades, I had never felt so alone in my life. I looked out a window and saw the

65

soldiers spilling out onto the runway, some taking a knee, others falling prone, all aiming

their weapons. Did they know as well that the plane had been empty? This was no lark,

this was no role play. I was accountable, and alone. I heard the ragged breathing of a

man with a chest wound lying at my feet. Pink, frothy blood bubbled from the hole just

to the right of his sternum�he was some mother�s son, and maybe some son�s father�

and I felt the tears well in my eyes.

�Sir?�

This was not acting, I thought, staring at the smoking Webley, recalling the

shower of gore erupting from the back of that betel-nut chewing guard. The cuffs of my

seersucker jacket�seersucker, of course, what else would the gentleman of fortune wear

to a tropical coup d�etat�were black with gun powder. My hands were shaking. This

was not Passport to Adventure, I was not some English lord out on a lark; I was no spy,

no mercenary. All my life I had wanted a piece of the action, I had wanted to be a part of

the real thing, but I had, until that day, only posed and pretended, in dress whites behind a

desk in my youth and in make-up on sound stages before blue screens ever since. Now I

was in command of a desperate affair and I didn�t want any of it. I had tried so hard only

to fail so miserably. I was the worst kind of poseur, I was a construct, and I was here for

love, or so I had told myself. And yet how could this be love if my whole life had been

an act? I felt a tear roll down my cheek and I did not wipe it away.

�Sir,� Maxwell said again and I came to. �Your orders. Please,� he said and

handed me my revolver butt first. �We need you.�

Wade had needed me. �No, Wade needed an actor,� I said aloud, and wiped my

nose on the sleeve of my jacket. I broke open the revolver, ejected the spent cartridges,

fed in six more and closed it and looked up at Maxwell. �Tell that pilot to taxi to the

runway and get us airborne. Set a course for the Andaman Islands.� I had no idea from

whence this inspiration came, nor did I have any idea what clemency or sanctuary the

Indian government would grant us if they deigned to let us land. But it sounded decisive

enough for me, and for Maxwell as well. �Right away, sir,� he said and returned to the

cockpit.

Outside the soldiers resumed their shooting. I wondered if they had learned that

the plane had no passengers, or perhaps they had only been waiting for us to get moving

66

away from the refueling truck. I looked out the window to see that the fire was not

directed at us at all but at a lone figure running across the tarmac as if to cut us off, a lone

figure in madras. Wade, the devil himself, my undoing, my savior.

I threw open the passenger door and yelled over my shoulder for the men in the

rear to do the same. �That�s our man. Lay down some cover fire.� I fired shots into the

company of soldiers and even managed to hit one rifleman and I couldn�t help but to yell

a raucous cheer of the war movie variety. The boys in the back had managed to get a few

of the Sten guns functioning again and were laying down an impressive barrage. I

extended my hand and pulled Wade into the taxiing aircraft.

In all the time I�d known Wade I don�t think I had ever seen him discomposed, or

even disheveled, for that matter. But there he was, a sweaty heap of overheated linen, red

in the face and gasping for air. �I am, I must confess,� I said, �surprised to see you.� I

handed him a water bottle from which he drank greedily.

�What, and let you take all the credit?� Wade said. �This is a new experience for

me.�

�What, failing?� I asked. His blond hair was damp and matted. I swept it off his

forehead with my hand.

�No,� Wade said. �Hijacking an airplane. Can�t say I would have settled for Lao

Aviation, though. I hope this Slavic apple crate holds together.�

�Can�t say that I do,� I said. �If she does hold together, we�re going to rot in

prison. I�m sorry, Wade. I�m sorry I made such a mess of things.�

Wade took my face in his hand. �Dear boy, don�t be sorry. You�ve done

splendidly. We�re just getting started,� he said with that smile that drooped at the corner.

�Don�t worry, old sport. It�ll be just like Papillion. You and I against the world, and all

that, right? Chin up.�

Long ago, when Wade was in intelligence, he made his first shady connections,

which led to shadier enterprises after the service, about which he was fairly laconic.

Once at a café in Florence he let slip some reference to gun running, which out loud at

the table I dismissed as so much rot but in my heart I knew he was not lying, and I

became insanely, painfully jealous. Now, facing an older, disheveled Wade with that

impossible smile, I was no longer jealous. I stood up and looked out the window at the

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landscape below, the swale of elephant grass, the blinding white sand, the Bay of Bengal

the color of slate, and I knew that the fool was right, that our future would be like

Papillion, not a sun-dappled veranda, but prison, real prison, the real thing, and that we

would be together.

68

THE LOST COMMODORE

I trusted Silk Menzies. I�d be coming in for a crash landing after a snowbird bender

when I�d call him at three, four in the morning, and he�d set me up with some

pharmaceutical grade, inevitably cleaner than whatever I�d been tooting, to ease me back

to the flight deck and buffer the impact of sunrise; Silk Menzies feathered the prop, as it

were. So I trusted him. Maybe it was because he�d been a Navy Corpsman. I had been a

Marine, and to a Marine, all sailors are squids. Except for Corpsmen. They patch up

Marines, on the field, under fire. So it was that I drove over to Silk�s after I�d come

home to an empty, rumpled bower that smelled of chlorine with a hint of cumin and bore

on its bedside table two sweaty tumblers of melted bourbon on the rocks. My wife Peg

had always called me a carpetbagger for drinking scotch instead of bourbon. And though

it was not uncommon for her to be drinking in the early afternoon, the sight of that

second glass in a puddle on my bedside table knocked the wind out of me. I sat on the

edge of our bed only to spring back up at the thought of someone else�s seed spent

somewhere in those sheets, some other pair of hands parting her legs, someone else�s hot

breath tickling the hairs on the back of her neck. I felt my cheeks burning, and when I

caught sight of her panties in a wad on the rug in front of her vanity, my reflection in the

mirror there blurred as my eyes filled to the brim. I was not up to waiting for her return,

so instead I settled upon the quick fix of my next fix, and that I could find at the good

Doctor Menzies� bachelor bungalow.

�So sloppy. It�s like she wanted me to know,� I said, my feet propped on his

glass coffee table. Silk stood in front of his fireplace wearing only a towel; he had been

in the shower when I let myself in. He was lean, sleek like an otter, except that there was

not a hair to his tawny, rippled torso. He had a navel that poked out, and that had always

bothered me, that incongruity on the otherwise flawless plane a portent of some

degeneracy, no matter how latent. That was Dr. Half-Caste, an epithet he embraced, his

pedigree being one-half Syrian�Silk was short for Khalid Al Souk, descended on the

distaff from Damascus merchants�and one-half Scots, a dentist who moved outside of

social circles, all-around an ideal confidante for a local scion with a cocaine hobby.

69

�Jesus, man. That�s tough,� Silk said. He pointed at a japanned pillbox next to an

issue of Road and Track. �Help yourself.�

�I already did. Thank you.� My nostrils were numb and I could feel the alkaline

trickle down the back of my throat. Everything in the room, the Tiffany-blue leather of

the knock-off Phillipe Starck sofa, that damn Jasper Johns Flag Above White print, Silk�s

slender, brown shanks, it all seemed crisp and brighter, a picture in high resolution. This

was strong medicine, and for the moment I was the Jesus of Cool. No low blow, no

matter how cruel and humiliating, was going to ruffle the Jesus. I was collected, and I

had a plan called separation. If I gave her the boot there would be a scene, and the Jesus

of Cool was above brutish confrontation. Better that I should pull up my stakes,

immediately, like a thief in the afternoon, while she was off playing tennis or, who

knows, balling some moustachioed golf pro. I was in a state of pragmatic disconnect.

There was no time for maudlin reflection; Jesus had a plan.

�Listen, brother,� Silk said, pouring himself a scotch. �You can stay here as long

as you want. Go pack your kit and come back. That sofa sleeps real nice.� He moved to

refill my glass, but I waved him off with my hand.

�No thanks, man. I got to move. But I will take another line of that marching

powder before I go.� Silk pitched me the pill box and told me to keep it. It was good to

know he had my back. What a man.

When you have an hour, maybe less, to pack for the surprise exodus you make curious

decisions concerning that with which you can and cannot live. Apparently, I could live

without socks, I discovered upon emptying the contents of my seabag on the thin mattress

in the forward berth of my ketch, the good ship Margaret. Apparently, I could not live

without my framed photograph of Aristotle Onassis in an ascot with an Uzi, and this I

hung above the sink in the galley. Escape had not been kind to my blazer or my dinner

jacket; both were wrinkled parodies of garments, having been stuffed in the bottom of the

duffel. I hung these out on the boom so that they might regain their shape. I couldn�t fit

the television through the hatch so I left it on the dock, ran an extension cord, fixed a

drink, took a seat behind the helm, and watched a big-haired lady sing a duet with a hand-

puppet.

70

This, I supposed, was freedom.

All of my immediate needs the yacht club could meet, meals and cocktails. And

the good doctor had refilled my script, so there was no need to leave the club grounds for

a while. I found that the more cocaine I sniffed the less I wanted Peg; a world of wisdom

there. Would that I had made that finding one year earlier when I first experienced

equipment malfunction. And on the occasions when I did wake up with the morning

stiffness, I just hadn�t been interested. But even after a couple of grams that first night on

the boat there was still a gnawing, sometimes in my chest, sometimes in the back of my

brain, and if I thought hard enough I could smell her, not just the Joy, not just the Vidal,

and not just her; even the memory of her morning breath produced a longing. All these

sensations I had not bothered to value until they had been stolen from me.

But when I asked myself what was more important, my wife or my hobby, I could

not in good faith answer, which to me at the time indicated the latter.

I was not going to beg her to call off her affair. I was not without my pride. But I

was not going to just sit in my boat and nurse my wounds, either. �I will throw myself

into my work,� I declared to the night sky. Of course, I had never worked. There was

the Marines, which was no vacation, but that had been years ago. I had been living off

the interest of my inheritance ever since I�d gotten out of the Corps. I was neither painter

nor writer. I did not even own a camera. For a time I had just sat around and looked

pretty, but the drugs had taken their toll that past year, having bronzed my teeth and

slackened my gut. So, of work there was little in which I could immerse myself, except

for my post as commodore of the yacht club.

�The club is the thing,� I said aloud. I would be the first commodore-in-

residence, the most thorough in club history, I would be yachtsman-on-the-spot. I would

work hand-in-glove with the steward and the purser to make that backwater drinking club

into an organization par excellence. A chance to be in command, once again. I would

get exceeding drunk, and I would stay that way for the weeks to come.

As commodore I needed flag officers, and, in name, at least, I had some, a vice

commodore, a rear commodore, and the aforementioned purser and steward, all elected,

like me, back when I was charming, by the membership. I would have to settle, however,

71

for a staff CPO, someone who was both valet and errand boy, and someone who was here

everyday. And so I promoted Manuel, the dishwasher, to Yacht Club Chief Petty Officer,

or YCCPO, a position I created by the rarely invoked executive order. Manuel, smelling

of hot grease and mackerel, needed polish. We began with a uniform: club tie, khakis,

and an old club blazer with the club�s coat of arms embroidered on the breast pocket.

The blazer was double knit with four-inch wide lapels, but it was the first blazer Manuel

had ever owned and he wore it with pride. �From now on, you will be addressed as

�Chief�,� I said, and Manuel liked that just fine.

Manuel was my great enabler. No matter how ludicrous the order, Manuel

executed it with élan. �Chief, this car looks too generic,� I said, pointing to my Olds.

�Make it look official.� When I came back to the parking lot that afternoon, Manuel had

affixed club burgees to both corners of the grill like something from a despot�s

motorcade. When I asked not to be waked until noon, he obliged, and he did so with a

plate of eggs and a pitcher of Bloody Mary. When I said the club needed simulated fog

for the post-regatta soiree and dispatched him with a signed check, he did not rent one

smoke machine but returned with three he had purchased, in addition to one hundred

pounds of dry-ice. �Never do things half-ass, sir,� Manuel said. �I do everything full-

ass.� I installed him in my uncle�s cabin cruiser and at sunset he�d report to the Margaret

with a fifth of scotch and a bowl of boiled shrimp, and we�d peel shrimp and watch a quiz

show or �Nova� until the crickets got too loud and then we�d just listen to them and sip

our drinks.

One day Manuel came looking for me in the locker room where I was taking a

hot, prickly shower; the water pressure in the Margaret�s head just wasn�t up to snuff.

�Your wife. She is here, playing tennis.�

I hadn�t shaven in a week, and I hadn�t had a haircut for two months. �What�s

that stuff you use in your hair, Chief?�

�Brylcreem, sir.�

�Fetch me some of that and my razor.�

Jesus Christ. She never played tennis at the yacht club, always at the golf club.

When I finished shaving I was bleeding in four places. I got dressed and looked in the

mirror. My blazer was rumpled, stiff and salty from hanging on the Margaret�s boom.

72

�Give me your blazer,� I said, tossing mine to Manuel. It was snug. �And tell Mrs.

Tattersall that the commodore invites her to join him for lunch on the Quarterdeck at her

leisure.�

Those were not the legs of a forty-four year-old woman. When I watched her

walk across the Quarterdeck to my table I felt like someone had punched me in the gut.

Peg had always been athletic but it seemed like years since I had studied the contour of

those taut and well-tanned calves. She was fresh from the shower, I could smell the

essence of lavender from her conditioner, and she had pulled her frosted hair back in a

bun, but loosely, not as tight and severe as usual. She wore a grey cashmere cardigan that

made her pale blue eyes even paler, washed-out yet sharp, like a husky�s, and a string of

pearls. Her tweed skirt hugged her hips and I tried to divine if she was wearing

underwear; I very badly wanted to know. For the first time in a while I felt a stirring in

my groin, and the effect of this unmanned me. I was incapable of speech at first, and

when she reached my table I could only rise and pull out her chair for her. When I took

my seat she winked and crossed her legs and I wanted to cry. What, what had I done?

�I heard you were living here. You certainly look like it,� she said and smiled the

smile of a tolerant, bemused aunt. �What have you done with your hair?� she asked as

she tousled it. At this I felt the rent in my heart and I lost the remnants of my steely

reserve, that reserve I�d pep-talked myself into looking in the locker room mirror.

�You look absolutely lovely,� I said.

�Thank you. You do not,� she said as she took a handkerchief from her handbag

and wiped Manuel�s pomade from her fingers. �You need a haircut. And I need a

gimlet.�

We both had gimlets, a few of them, and she entertained me with tales from

home, the Siamese�s stashing of dead squirrels under the divan in the sun porch, the

maid�s diverticulitis, the new fountain the queer neighbors installed, her new hairdresser.

We laughed about the queers, the little wonderland they were slowly erecting next door,

pergola by pergola. We laughed about Dr. Rosensthal�s recommendation that aspirin

would suffice for her tennis elbow. I think I would have laughed at anything she said, I

so desperately wanted again the pleasure of her company. But the thing was, I didn�t

have to try, the laughter came naturally.

73

Her teeth were so damn white.

I drained my glass and took the plunge.

�I want you back,� I said.

�I want the television,� she said.

�You what?�

�You can�t have me back, darling,� she said. �I have needs, needs that you

cannot fulfill, have not fulfilled for some time. You made a choice. And I lost out to

your�your recreational pursuits. But that choice has its consequences. Now I�ve made

my choice, and you have to live with that. And no, divorce is simply out of the question,

don�t bother asking. I�m not about to part with anything, and I don�t think your

extracurricular activities would bear the light of the court�s scrutiny anyway. So don�t

even mention divorce. We�ll just have an open marriage. Does that sound all right to

you, honey?�

�Who is he?� I asked.

�He�s absolutely divine and that�s all you need to know.�

Another jab in the gut. �Listen, let�s work this out,� I said. �Think about it;

except for just now, we�ve had a wonderful time today, just lovely, really.�

�That�s normal,� she said, getting up from her chair and picking up her handbag.

�You know what they say about absence and the heart and all that. This warmth you�re

feeling right now? It�s fleeting. Don�t worry. You�d get over it in a week, maybe less.�

Maybe so, but at the time I would have given the world for just such a week, and

the weeks that would follow, to own not only those haunches, those calves, but to daily

taste the lash of that cruel wit once again.

I was too worn out to do what I was about to do. I�d been up until dawn that day, having

made a night of it spotlighting amberjack with Silk aboard his boat the Dr. Feelgood and

bringing back our illegal haul to the Margaret�s galley where the grease spat all night as

we fried filet after filet. He told me I should get out of town for a while, to clear my

head, maybe dry out a little, �Though not completely,� he said with a wink, tossing me a

beer and sliding the mirror across the little teak table.

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�People in town are talking. About the ill-shaven coot in the peaked cap watching

professional wrestling on the dock and keeping some Latin �chauffeur� on retainer. Peg

ain�t coming back. You sure as shit can�t win her; you�ve had it. Forget her. Fly the

coop, save some face. Shit, maybe even get some strange, a little piece will give you a

whole new perspective. You�re going to seed out here, Teddy. Pass the tartar sauce.�

Silk was a hell of a guy but I wanted to pop him in the mouth all the same. I

stopped short of that and backhanded him across the cheek. He followed suit and we

shared a laugh, but mine rang hollow. At first light he left me with a bag of blow and a

cabin that reeked of superheated cornmeal well into the next day, even with all of the

hatches open. He had also left me with an invitation to a party with a difference.

At the time, ground had been broken on a development just down the street from

the gates to the yacht club, a subdivision called Admiralty Point, marketed to upscale

buyers, especially members of the yacht club. The lots were not, for the most part,

waterfront, but were, with few exceptions, cost-prohibitive to many. This ensured some

exclusivity, and, more importantly to the handful of young couples who had built there,

privacy. These couples belonged to a set with which I was only peripherally familiar,

mainly through our shared membership in the yacht club and a few other clubs. Some

were from some of the city�s older families, others were transplants, all had moved from

town to the island for proximity to the club and for the sake of their clique. They were a

stock broker and a divorce lawyer, one seller of real estate and one developer of the same,

a couple of doctors, a gynecologist and a podiatrist, I think, and their wives, most of

whom did not work. I didn�t know them well but I knew they lived fast. If they were

friendly with Silk they had to. As a man who lives at the yacht club I heard lots of

gossip, including whisperings of a club within the club, as it were, composed of trendy

yuppies�trendy by Coastal Empire standards meant a European car and a subscription to

Gourmet�who had a taste for license more at home in a villa in The Hamptons or a loft

in San Francisco than in our fair and sleepy city. These folks were what the parlance of

the times referred to as swingers.

About nine I pulled up in front of a sprawling redbrick ranch house, flanked by

two large lots, one on which the pines had been felled and was otherwise empty save a

huge mound of sand, the other home to a concrete foundation and a front-end loader.

75

These folks better get their ya-ya�s out fast, I thought, before the prying eyes of neighbors

descend upon their sordid little commune. I had some ya-ya�s to get out myself. My

lunch with the wife had me feeling all unnecessary, and if what Silk said was true, there�d

be some singles here, too. �Always are,� he told me. �New talent spices up the pool.�

Hence my invitation, I suppose, though I always thought it was divorced women who

were sexy, that it was married men who had sex appeal. Well, I was married, technically,

and I was glad I was still wearing my ring.

Ranch houses are like strip malls, tacky and evanescent and dated the moment

they�re erected. The ranch house does not transcend. And yet architects insist on

continuing to design them. The front door was unlocked�no secret knock required,

alas�and the foyer floor was parquet. There was no well-coifed hostess to receive me,

no host at all, not even a lap dog. One of those nasty bobtailed Manx cats�I�ve no time

for a house pet that brandishes his rectum�arched its back and rubbed against my leg,

but that was all. I toured the house. There was a living room with an incongruously

vaulted ceiling whose floor was plushly and greenly carpeted from wall to wall. The

room was appointed with twin chrome-plated tubular steel-framed sofas upholstered in

white and hideous, reproduction Corbusiers, more than likely, ambiguous iron sculpture,

and the walls were hung with watercolor prints of racing yachts sailing into the sunset,

also framed in chrome. One corner of the room was given over to a totem to video

technology, a widescreen television of the variety one would find in a bar, crowned with

both a Betamax and a VCR. The Farrells, my hosts, clearly were not my people. Nor

were they anywhere to be found in the house, despite the BMW, Saab, Benz and MG in

the circular driveway out front. I slid open the sliding glass doors and went out on the

back deck, which was expansive. There was a large structure out back, too large to be a

cabana, and out of place to be a garage, and from this windowless place music and

laughter issued. This, apparently, was the clubhouse.

�Welcome to The Nuthouse,� said Hayes Farrell, red-faced with wispy sun-

bleached hair and capped teeth. He was drinking a martini. He shook my hand, patted

me on the back and put his arm around my shoulder. �You know why we call it The

Nuthouse, don�t you?� he asked, quietly, mock-conspiratorially. I did not know why we

called it that. �Because so many nuts been in busted here,� he said, and laughed heartily.

76

I responded in kind, more or less. Then Hayes announced my arrival. This is the kind of

thing I absolutely hate. It�s why I have always entered parties by the back door whenever

possible. �Officer on the deck, ladies and gentlemen,� Hayes said. �The commodore has

arrived.� The men stood and saluted jauntily, if not sloppily. I returned their salute,

forced a smile, and told them, �At ease.� They laughed, as if this was exactly the

performance they expected. I felt like the entertainment, rising to their seamy occasion,

playing to the crowd, and I began to doubt that I was going to enjoy myself.

Hayes�s waistline was ample, as was Herman Gay�s. Ned Sloane was the only fit

man in the house, slim in a turtleneck and faded Levis. The ladies were slender, more or

less, not necessarily buxom underneath their sweater sets, Paige Farrell in a half-

unbuttoned blouse showing a deeper neckline than the others, but nothing remarkable. In

a blazer and pinpoint oxford, I was very overdressed. The men here were wearing denim

and polo shirts under ski sweaters. I did not know how one dressed for the swinging

scene�I merely wore what I always wore�and I did not know what I would find once I

arrived, but I certainly expected something sleeker, if not sexy.

Had I expected merely garish then I would not have been disappointed. The

Nuthouse had two stories, and the first story, where we were, was all one room, the party

room. Big black and white tiles made a commodious dance floor, which was lit by red,

blue, and green lighting rigs stationed in each corner of the room. An immense flagstone

gas fireplace was installed in the east wall, opposite another just like it in the west wall,

and each had throw cushions and zebra-hide rugs. Next to the entrance was a full bar

underneath a thatched tiki hut, and on the wall facing it was another tiki hut that housed

the DJ station, which was flanked by twin Jacuzzis. Yes, there was a motorized disco ball

hanging from the ceiling in the center of the party room. I felt dirty already, and I hadn�t

even made it upstairs, where one would find several individual �private party� rooms.

This was no casual affair, with the exception of dress. The evening was very

carefully orchestrated. Each guest was assigned a �dance partner,� and these pairings

were made in advance to insure not only that one did not simply �dance� with his or her

escort, but also that no one was left standing alone. My hosts had also experimented with

parties of three, but had met with limited success. The ménage-à-trois invariably left an

odd man�or woman�out, according to Paige. These swingers left very little to chance,

77

and the absence of spontaneity undermined whatever excitement such an enterprise

would have to offer. One of the chances they did not take was the risk that a guest might

pass out before phase two commenced. To guard against such a contingency there was a

console table bearing a mirror laden with cocaine. �As much as you like,� Paige said.

�There�s your partner over there now. She�s been looking forward to meeting you.�

Then, in a whisper, Paige added, �She�s got a thing for older men.� So this is what it has

come to, I thought. I am old, the letch in the corner at the party; that guy.

�Damn, Teddy, I didn�t know you blew,� said Herman Gay after I took a line

from the mirror on the console.

�All day long, Herman,� I said.

�Hey, Hayes,� Herman called across the room. �Look here, the commodore

parties.�

�Out of sight,� Hayes Farrell answered as he danced very closely with Herman�s

wife Kate. Very unsettling. I had a vision of Hayes and Herman slapping high-fives over

Kate Gay�s naked, writhing body, and I was sure my vision was not far off the mark. I

was witnessing the dawn of a new age of jaded voluptuaries, and these were noticeably

lacking in subtlety. I would have left quietly had it not been for the young lady to whom

I had been assigned.

Fresh-faced Lacey Sommerset in her turtleneck and pearls at first glance looked

out of place at an entertainment billed as a swingers� party, as if she�d missed the turn to

the ice-cream social on the lawn at the dean�s house, but with a razor she chalked up lines

like an old hand. The pert little heiress had shoulder-length blonde hair, thick and curled

under, and, poised with the glass straw in her hand, she asked me to be a dear and hold

her hair back for her while she snorted a rail. �Why don�t you ask me to dance,� she said.

Being assigned a mate alleviated the pressures of casual courtship. Even so, I was at a

loss when it came to even the most elementary of gestures. It had been a long time.

Lacey took me by the hand and led me to the dance floor.

We couldn�t dance together. We tried. She could kind of shag, but when I broke

out and did the monkey she just stood and curled her lip a little before she broke out

laughing once she reckoned that I was joking. I was not. I have no idea what you called

her dance steps. I�d never danced to Elton John, and I think even he would raise an

78

eyebrow at the way she was tossing her head. But to Billy Joel�s �Just the Way You

Are� I managed something slow and close, and that closed the deal. She pressed her

hand into the small of my back and then slipped it inside my waistband where she gave

my left cheek a squeeze.

Yes, it had been a long time, and the giddiness that had knotted my stomach

throughout our brief acquaintance tangled itself even tighter with that squeeze. Over her

shoulder I watched Ned Sloane take Paige Farrell by the hand and lead her up the

staircase. This image remained indelible in my memory, the recall of it always

accompanied by a sinking of the stomach, but at the time it only served as a beacon for a

not-so-distant harbor. I was turgid down below, and Lacey noticed it. She smiled. I

smiled back, cocked an eyebrow and nodded toward the staircase, and even though I felt

like a sleaze I couldn�t stop. Didn�t want to. Lacey winked and accompanied me

upstairs. �I love these parties,� she whispered in my ear. �So illicit. So liberating.�

Our private party room was very simple, a queen size bed, two bedside tables, a

couple of chairs, and a closet. There were no mirrors on the ceiling, the bed was not

heart-shaped, nor did it appear to be coin-operated. Lacey asked me to give her a hand

and I thought we were getting down to business. Not yet. She asked me to hold a small

sheet of aluminum foil, on to the center of which she dumped a pile of cocaine. She then

held a lighter underneath the foil, and the powder on top started to smoke and render.

�Ever base before, Teddy?� Lacey asked. I had not. She laughed and flashed a smile

before she produced from her hip pocket a glass tube though which she inhaled the fumes

from the drug.

And so I smoked some drugs, chased the dragon with Lacey, and learned a thing

or two along the way, and I did not feel richer for the experience, no mater how relieving

I found the release of pent-up frustration. Lacey allowed me everything, and later spoke

at great length about how sweet I was and how outrageous was the scene and how

liberated the people and how you never knew quite what to expect, and that she really got

off on new talent. She�d heard that my marriage was troubled and when she said, �Next

time you should bring Peg. It might help things, you know,� all I wanted to do was go

home. Instead, I got out of bed and dressed and left for the Margaret with a curt

farewell.

79

When I woke up the next day on board the Margaret I was feeling depleted and shaky

and I immediately went for Silk�s pill box. I was certain I had discovered a new, more

virulent strain of headache. The pill box was not depleted, Silk had replenished my

supply, but as I lifted the rolled-up bill to my nose I stopped myself. At the time, I

thought I did so out of thrift. After all, the sun was still out. I couldn�t stand it lying on

my bunk so I went topside, propped up an umbrella over the television to act as a sort of

biminy to shade the screen from the glare, and turned the dial.

On Channel 3 some actor wearing an eye-patch and a lab-coat declaimed the

cruelty of fate in his office at the hospital, while in the foreground a weepy jade in red

wrung a handkerchief.

�Believe me, it�s better this way,� Peg had said as I opened her car door the day

before�my car door, a navy blue Mercedes 300 TD station wagon that Manuel

desperately needed for the cargo space�and took a last gander at those legs. On the boat

I closed my eyes and tried to savor that final glimpse, but found myself only pining for

more. What was wrong with me? I should be fighting to win her back, I thought. What

kind of a man was I? There I was, having not even bothered to determine who he was.

The one-eyed surgeon flung his stethoscope across the office as the woman tried

to rationalize their sad farewell. �Probably for the best,� spoke the jade, and at that I

bristled. That canned drivel, I�d be damned before the idiocy on that god damned

appliance had any relevance to my life. I would have no more of it. No more lousy

comedians wearing paper bags on their heads. No more airbrushed game-show hosts.

No more Christforsaken talking dogs. And no more daytime drama slatterns cuckolding

their hardworking oil baron husbands. I dashed below for the emergency kit and once

back topside I shoved a flare in the chamber of the flare gun and shut the breech and, as

the one-eyed surgeon put his mouth on the tramp�s and she lifted one stockinged leg to

half-cock behind her, I fired, shattering the screen and setting the box alight. If you have

never done this, you should, and you should do this while the target is still plugged in, so

as to see the parting shot, as it were, and, with any luck, a look of manufactured despair

in the actor�s eye before the dread reckoning.

80

I watched the fire burn in the tangled guts behind the remaining glass shards of

the picture tube until the planks of the dock on which it sat started to smoke. I yanked the

cord from the outlet and made to kick the whole mess into the river but at the last

moment I paused. Such a grand gesture as shooting one�s television demanded that

decisive action follow upon its heels. I felt as if I had not merely watched a television

explode, but that I had basked in the glow of some profound illumination. This may very

well have been a manufactured sensation, as contrived as anything on primetime, but I

was caught up in the moment. I rushed back down below, took the bag of cocaine from

the pillbox, dropped it in the head and flushed. Then I raised Manuel on the marine band

radio, told him to pull the Olds to the gangway and report to the Margaret right away

with a fire extinguisher, as mine had lost its charge.

It had been a while since I had driven the Cutlass. I usually rode behind Manuel,

nursing a headache with a mimosa. This time Manuel rode shotgun, his brown hand

white-knuckling his armrest. As I took the corners�the big old boat cornered like a

refrigerator�and ran the red lights I felt fully in control, not like I did when I vetoed a

motion to allow casual dress on Thursdays in the Poopdeck lounge, not like I did when I

told Manuel, �More wine,� but like I did eighteen years earlier when my platoon was

shipboard running PT beside me, like I did when I dispatched a sniper team to some

numbered, defoliated hill where they would acquire and engage targets of opportunity,

like I did when I led them on a LLRP beneath the banyan trees. Like I did when I told

Peg we weren�t going to Kathmandu, we were going to the south of France.

The gated subdivision that lined the Tybee road gave way to city streets shady and

damp under a live oak canopy and to older, turn-of-the-century construction, grand

houses in red brick and stucco, some elaborate Greek Revivals, at times overstated, with

Corinthian columns, others Mediterranean villas with terraces and terracotta tile roofs.

We pulled up to the curb in front of a rambling white-washed brick home with a wrought-

iron fence the wrong side of rusty. The gate was open, as always, a little cockeyed on its

hinges.

�Chief, deliver the package.�

Manuel removed from the trunk the charred hulk of what remained of the

television, now frosted with fire retardant foam, and carried it up the brick path to the

81

front porch of my old house, set it down and walked back toward the car, looking over

both shoulders like some B-movie burglar. Then Peg appeared in the doorway, and

Manuel quickened his pace.

�What is this? What is this?� she asked, arms akimbo, shaking her head at the

crusty heap of glass and simulated oak on her doorstep.

�Compliments of el Comodoro,� Manuel shouted before breaking into a run and

jumping into the Olds, slamming the door behind him. �Drive, boss, drive.�

I tooted the horn two times, waved to my wife, floored it, and fishtailed out of

there smoking and screeching, and with the cockpit reeking of burning tires and the twin

burgees flapping in the wind, I felt like this was no ordinary Cutlass but a staff car in a

war zone, and that I had won the first skirmish in a long, hard campaign.

For malaise there is no better medication than cocaine. Take yourself a bump and you�ll

find yourself waxing the floor, polishing the silver, sewing buttons, painting the house

with absolute precision in the small hours of the night. Cocaine will motivate you, will

make you overachieve, until you develop a tolerance, and then all it motivates you to do

is more cocaine. In a twist of cosmic irony, malaise was one of the symptoms of cocaine

withdrawal, and for a week I had unnatural cravings for the drug. I found myself above

deck and below, on hands and knees with a flashlight doing what was known as ghost

busting, combing the planks for any errant crystals or chunks of white powder. Busting

made me feel bad, just low down, low rent, down right slavish, and it was just as well that

my forays yielded no results.

That first week vivid and unpleasant dreams haunted my sleep. I built impossible

prisons on the moon. I assisted suicides. With a miniature brush, the kind preferred by

hobbyists, I painted my sister�s corpse with royal blue latex enamel. I shopped for brains

at Builderama. Feral cats whispered hateful epithets as I lurked in lunar alleys, evading

the Sisters of Mercy. I stuffed a Christmas goose with sand. I sold nuclear secrets to the

Spanish, and I had rough sex with the tailpipe of an idling Volkswagen.

Awake I was slow, beyond the lethargy that comes with the fatigue of sleep

deprivation. Ten minutes would pass and I�d still be sitting on the edge of my berth, my

left foot still unshod, the deck shoe within easy reach. Juxtaposed with the lethargy was

82

supreme restlessness; I wanted nothing more than to sit still but try as I might I could

not, I was plagued by looking-over-both-shoulders anxiety, unlike any paranoia I had

known while on the drug. Withdrawal was a trip all its own; in many ways I had

completed my quest for the highest buzz.

I did, however, experience a surge in my appetite at the beginning of the second

week. I yearned for the complex carbohydrates absent from my dockside diet of shell

fish and whisky. I ate bowls of pasta, plates of potatoes; one night I ate a whole pound

cake, and on that night, admittedly, I went too far. I drank a quart of milk every morning

and 4 quarts of water every day. I started exercising. When I�d been in the Corps, I

could pull 25 pull-ups, overhand. When on that morning I pulled ten, I knew there was

hope, and when I ran a nine-minute mile I wept. My goal was to become the machine I

was twenty years earlier. I could think of no other way to win back Peg. She married a

functional, virile, and vibrant Teddy Tattersall, and I meant to restore him to his rightful

place at her side, in our bower, from time to time behind her in her shower. In the

meantime, I masturbated vigorously, because I could.

She had only come to the yacht club that once. During the low points I reasoned

that she did so only to make me jealous. During my surges in confidence, I also believed

she did so to make me jealous, but with the intention of luring me back. More to the

point, she had issued a challenge, dropping the gauntlet I should have dropped weeks, if

not months, earlier. And I knew it would take more than flowers and fine words and a

restored physique to win her. It would take something inspired, no mere diamond

necklace presented in a cozy nook in a dimly lit French restaurant. Peg was not one for

baubles. But she was one for melodrama. I needed a stage of which I was in complete

control, an evening that I could orchestrate. So it was that I decided over a chalky glass

of vitamin supplement that that year�s Commodore�s Ball would be a ball with a

difference, a masque in honor of the dread lord Poseidon, as outrageous as any

entertainment at Studio 54 and beyond the ken of any present-day swinger.

After two months on my new regime and feeling fit, I decided to see who I was up

against, take the measure of my rival, sound the depth of his talent. At dusk in a battered

Corolla borrowed from Manuel and clad in a peacoat and watch cap, I, the cuckold

83

incognito, drove away from the yacht club into town. The Corolla stank of vanilla even

after I threw the air freshener out of the window. Still, it was a peppy little coupe, and

before long�it amazed me how fast time traveled when one was sober without even a

radio in the car�I was parked curbside, under the drooping boughs of a water oak, two

doors down from our home, sipping wheatgrass juice from a thermos, peering over the

edge of The Wall Street Journal. Wheatgrass, good god almighty.

After an hour or so, I saw the reverse lamps of her�my�300 TD burning as Peg

backed it out the driveway. I snatched my field glasses from the passenger seat to see

with whom my wife was traveling. She was alone; perhaps en route to a secret

rendezvous, I thought as I shifted the four-speed into gear. Keeping about five car

lengths behind her I began to imagine what shape her paramour would take. She turned

north on Abercorn, so that ruled out the south side, thank god. I didn�t want to tangle

with some Windsor Forest motorhead, or worse, a Ranger in base housing at Hunter

Airfield. Those guys were gorillas; twenty years earlier, I might have stood a chance,

maybe.

As I followed my Mercedes through the numbered streets, I envisioned a parade

of possible rivals: at the Hilton a polo player from Valencia, maybe, mounting her from

behind, coaxing her in his slurred Catalan; in the pro shop, a sandy-haired golf pro biting

her earlobe; a young, pimpled buck still in his jersey furtively fumbling with her in a

custom van behind the roller rink; Peg bent over a mahogany desk while some greedy,

hairless banker plundered her fundament; or maybe simply ravished by some blasé

louche a lot like me.

Thanks to her circuitous route, in the end a trip that should have taken five

minutes took twenty. This was strange. I don�t think she knew she was being followed.

Maybe she was procrastinating. Maybe she wasn�t looking forward to her rendezvous.

Maybe there was hope, I was thinking. But I forgot all about hope as she pulled into the

driveway of Silk Menzies� bachelor bungalow. I kept going, my jaw clenched, my heart

in my throat, and my gut bottomless as my vision once again blurred with tears, and I

wondered why it hadn�t occurred to me sooner, thinking back on the last time I�d seen

Silk, fishing for reds on the deck of Dr. Feelgood, this time legally.

84

We had tried everything that day but met with no luck. So at the last half of the

falling tide and with some reluctance, I told Silk to take us upriver to Lazaretto Creek, to

the wreck of the Old Gray Mare, the sloop I�d run aground on an oyster bed and

abandoned years before. Hurricane David had buried her bow so that she stuck up

sternwise from the creek bed at a 45 degree angle. Low tide revealed her transom, and if

you got close you could still read her name. The wreck in and of itself was no secret, but

the fact that it was my sweet spot was. We baited our lines and got down to the business

of slow-trolling live menhaden over the wreck.

�So you�re staying,� Silk had said, behind the console where he was chopping

lines of blow behind the windscreen. He gestured at me with the little glass straw but I

declined, the third time that afternoon. He had seemed wounded at the news of my

reform. A little more than two months had passed since the amberjack poaching party,

the last time I had seen him. Under his sun visor he looked careworn,

uncharacteristically so, that once pristine brow now creased, grayish pouches drooping

below his eyes, the picture of a unrequited lover from the Renaissance, updated with

Benson and Hedges and an eight ball. �There�s nothing for you here, not really,� he said.

�When I have time, we go fishing. What else is there? You�ve got no job, no friends��

�I�ve got you,� I said.

�Yeah, well. Sure. Okay. But what else? Peg is gone, man. You ain�t never

getting her back. The string is run on your trade in this town. Look at you, living at the

god damn yacht club, not even in a condo, making an ass of yourself, blacked out by

sunset, keeping counsel with the dish washer. Children are scared to go in the locker

room, afraid they�ll find Commodore Shaky bleeding in the sink as he tries to shave.�

�That must have been frightening,� I said. �But that�s all over. What makes you

so sure I�m never getting her back?�

�Look at you. You�re washed up, wasted. All the drinking and all that blow.

You�ve drifted, man. She�s still spry, a lot of life left in her. But you? You�ve had it�

�I haven�t touched the stuff in two months, and I don�t miss it. I drink only after

five, and never much. I run twenty five miles a week. Today I pulled fifteen pull-ups.

You�re not paying attention. You must be thinking of some other guy.�

85

�This fitness kick of yours, it�s a phase. I know you. You hear the high life

calling and you�ll be back.�

The cocaine was really doing its work on Silk. He needed a good bitch-slapping,

but I wasn�t drunk, it would only make me feel mean and low. The man was holding

court with or without an audience, so I turned my back to him, and not too soon; there

was a twitch in one of the lines. I tugged back just a little, and then there was another

twitch. This time I yanked back to set the hook, and the rod bent toward the water like a

parabola and the reel started whizzing. We had a runner. This was going to be a fight.

�Don�t let him go deep. Don�t let him go deep,� Silk said.

�Relax,� I said, and then I noticed I had picked up Silk�s rod, not mine. �Hey,

you want this one?� I asked.

�Nah. I�ll let you have this one. She doesn�t look to be a keeper,� he said and

popped the cap off a beer. She wasn�t a keeper. She was a 30 pound barracuda, and

down there that�s 30 pounds of poison. I released her and had a beer as I stared at the

splintered, sun-and-salt-bleached hulk of my Old Gray Mare and the spartina grass

beyond her and I asked myself what, now that we were out of the service and I was off

the drugs, if anything, did I have in common with Silk. It did not cross my mind that the

answer to that question was my wife.

There was a tire iron, no doubt, in the trunk of Manuel�s Corolla. Would I even

need it? I asked myself. Would not righteous indignation combined with the silent

killing techniques I�d learned at The Basic School be armament a plenty? Silk owned a

revolver, was my next thought. I wondered if it was loaded. Surely he must have

foreseen this contingency. Surely I must have considered this beforehand. The tire iron,

as field expedient a weapon there is, remained in the trunk, and, after doing two more

drive-by�s to confirm she wasn�t just dropping in, I drove back to the club through the

dense mist that had settled on the highway, fighting with clenched jaws and grinding

teeth and ice cold sweat the urge to pull over into the projects and play �Hey you� until I

had a bag of blow.

Slim and William, the dock manager and the groundskeeper, were smoking cigarettes

outside the French doors through which members and their escorts were entering the club

86

for the Commodore�s Ball. This, in and of itself, was a violation of staff protocol; they

were to be standing at attention at the doors, at the ready to open them for the party, not

lounging beside them until the last second when a guest mounted the stairs. But what

really ruffled my feathers as I approached was the anachronism inherent in two men

wearing Regency livery taking drags from filter-tipped Kools. Of course they did not

snap-to when I appeared; to them I was just another gentleman in white tie and mask.

When, with a total absence of alacrity, they opened the door for me, I addressed them by

name. �Shit, it�s the commodore,� William hissed to Slim, and they both flung their

cigarettes into the shrubbery. I told them to stand upright, �And straighten that wig,

Slim.�

Cornuto that I was, I had selected a mask with horns, a raven-feathered mask

crested with the antlers of a steenbok. To be sure, I was feeling sinister even before I put

on the mask, but the combination of tails and the mask was very much the bitter frosting

on my cake of salt. The ballroom was alive with ostrich plumes, and the tail feathers of

countless peacocks, garish as the painted whores of Babylon, but mine was the only mask

of its kind. No doubt the party was teeming with cuckolds, and even a battered wife or

two, but no one embraced his shame, not like the commodore. For the bars and buffet

tables, I had commissioned ice sculptures of fabled cheated men, Troilus, Arthur, king of

the Britons, Chaucer�s miller, Sylvester Stallone, even Othello, though he was neither

technically a cuckold, nor recognized by any of the party, not to my knowledge, at least.

In the 18th and early 19th century England such entertainments, held in the

Haymarket, in court, and elsewhere, were considered by some to be yet another

pestilence blown across the channel from the continent. Forums for license, adultery,

drunkenness, undercover buggery: anything could happen at the masquerade. The

Commodore�s Ball would be no exception, at least for the commodore. I had engaged a

string quartet as well as a pianist and harpsichord player, and to the soundtrack of their

waltzes and polonaises�at one time scandalous, but hopelessly tame music by

contemporary standards to which many guests were dancing hybrid steps recalled from

ballroom dance classes taken long ago�I would engage in intrigues, the first of which

involved my successor.

87

In the bar I found Silk in a mask expertly crafted from the plumage of a pheasant.

I knew him by his pinky ring, a detail that should have tipped me off as to his true nature

a long, long time ago. I asked him if he was holding and he smiled widely. �Where to?�

he asked, and I told him the tower. This was on the main dock, affording an exquisite

vista of the Wilmington River, by day and night, when you could watch the boats motor

past with their running lights burning, and was where the kids climbed to smoke joints,

and probably still do. It was bracing up there, the wind whistling through the steel bars.

Silk had a bullet, a little glass tube with two chambers, one for individual servings and

one for the stash and a valve separating the two.

�Welcome back,� Silk said, thumping the bullet with his forefinger and then

handing the contraption to me. I shook my head and handed it back. �Are you sure?� he

asked, but I think the surprise was feigned. Once I refused, he knew what was coming,

thought he did, anyway.

�Silk,� I said. �What kind of name is Silk, anyway? Some kind of made-up pimp

name. Only a blind fool would trust a man named Silk.�

I told him I knew. By the light of the full moon I could see his shoulders tense

and I imagined he was bracing himself for an attack, and, unless he had it in the back of

his waistband, I knew he�d left his service revolver at home. �But trash like you keeps a

razor in its shoe,� I said out loud.

�Listen, Teddy. Don�t do anything crazy. I�m sorry,� he said, his eyes darting

from left to right, as if to confirm we were still one hundred feet in the air. �We�ll stop.

We�ve already stopped.�

�How gracious, even in defeat. What a smoothie, that Dr. Menzies. Relax, I�m

not going to kill you. I�m not even going to hit you. Give me a cigarette,� I said, and

when he did so, you could see his shoulders relax.

�Look, man,� Silk said. �It was a mistake.�

�Shut up,� I said. �I�m not going to hit you. I refuse to be the jealous husband.�

�You don�t need to be, Teddy. She loves you, she never stopped loving��

�I told you to shut up. Give me your mask. Stay away from my wife, and get the

hell out of my club.� He did so, and I wondered if I�d be able to forget him, forget that it

was he who looted the treasury of my wife�s charms.

88

Back at the party, identifying my wife was no large task. Not all ladies present

were wearing ball gowns; Peg was, a black one. She was drinking a champagne cocktail

and was regaling with a throaty anecdote three young members who had come stag.

When she took her leave of them I followed her at a distance to the corridor. When she

went into the powder room I stopped and lurked just inside the doorway of the business

office, took off my mask and replaced it with Silk�s and waited. Minutes passed and she

headed back toward the party, but I stopped her with a �Psst.� Skirts in hand she turned

and smiled and approached, mistaking me in the pheasant mask under the dim light for

her lover. I pulled her by her kid gloved forearm into the office. She looked at me and,

sensing that something was off, gave a light yelp, then said, �You�re not�� but before

she could finish I said, �Margaret� and took off the mask.

�Edward,� she responded in kind. I locked the door behind us, and pulled the

chain on a green shaded desk lamp. She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the light. Her

glance landed on my horned mask lying on the desk �Clever,� she said.

�I thought you�d appreciate it,� I said. She studied me from head to toe, studying

me as if I was a castaway much changed and finally come home. He eyes lingered on my

shoulders and then lit on my face. She smiled.

�Been working out? You look good, Teddy.�

�You look better,� I said, and put on my steenbok mask. �Now turn around.�

�Come again?� she asked.

�Exactly,� I said. I turned her around and put my mouth on the nape of that long

neck and swept the desk clean of its paperwork.

Soon her skirts were gathered up around her waist, her stockings a wad on the

rug. As I possessed her from behind I uttered terse and bitter rebukes. Vile. Dirty. You

jade, I repeated, and she said, Yes, I am awful, yes, yes. She moaned so loudly I had to

stuff the heel of my hand in her mouth. Shameless, you�re shameless, I hissed. I had

originally intended this act to be a punitive recrimination. But I felt awash with

tenderness. My cheeks were warm and I was excited at the prospect of a new life with

this woman. I was as giddy as I�d been during our courtship fifteen years earlier. I

stopped scolding her; even though she had enjoyed the rebukes, my heart felt cleansed of

89

bitterness. I was no longer the jealous husband, but an explorer on a bluff, appreciating

the vista of a new frontier

We restored our dress to order, Peg donned her mask, and I led her by her hand

out the service entrance and to the top of the tower. The wind had really whipped up

since I�d been out earlier. I took off my tails and draped them over Peg�s shoulders. We

shared one of her long cigarettes. �I�m glad you�re back, Teddy. Let�s work things out.

Come home.�

My heart lept at this, and I had to catch myself before blundering into

unconditional surrender. I looked down to the dock below at the schooners and racing

yachts with their rigging strung with Christmas lights and I looked back to the club, to the

dancing, the masked revelry, the husbands and wives only half of whom loved each other

and yet refused to miss attending a party together. �Yes, let�s work things out,� I said.

�But not home. Not here. Leave with me, Peg.�

�You mean move away?� she asked, looking hurt.

�Yes, away from all of this, this bullshit scene, these cheats, this club, this town.

Just you and me, Peg.�

She took a deep pull on her cigarette and flung the butt to the wind. �I can�t do

that,� she said and turned to me. Her eyes shone wetly in the moonlight. �All of this,

this is our life. I can�t. I�m sorry.�

I looked back down at the party, at all the people pretending to love each other.

At least Peg had been no pretender. She had been frank regarding her infidelity. I

thought then of Peg in the kitchen in blue jeans, cooking pork chops, frying flounder in

the skillet, grilling steaks on the patio. She was a fine cook, but she never failed to

reserve the choicest cuts for herself.

�Not our life,� I said. �Your life, Peg. I�m sorry, too.�

♣

At lunch on Wednesdays, the yacht club gave the Quarterdeck over to ladies bridge.

Lacey Sommerset was playing with Paige Farrell, Kate Gay, and Jackie Sloane. Lacey

was having trouble concentrating on the game, distracted by events she was witnessing

90

through the window. Her principle distraction was an antique British sports car dangling

from a massive crane that had pulled it from the club�s pool. She�d never seen such a car

before, but the three other ladies knew all about it, from their husbands, she supposed. It

was a Lotus Super Seven II, painted British Racing green. It had yellow fenders and the

top was down. It was, she had to say, a very sexy car, dripping wet or not. The sports

�coupe,� as they called it, was apparently the property of that swarthy dentist Menzies

that Lacey had met at one of Paige�s parties.

�No,� Paige said. �Of course he didn�t call the police. Now get this. Silky

comes home from work Monday and finds his garage door hanging wide open. His car�s

gone, and he�s starting to freak out, until he sees this note stuck on the wall with a

hunting knife.�

�Weird,� Kate said.

�And the note reads,� Paige continued, ��Thanks for the ride.��

�So weird,� said Jackie Sloane.

�Of course it�s clear that Teddy stole it,� Kate said.

�Poor Teddy,� Lacey said. �He was so sweet. What�s going to happen to him?�

�Who knows?� Paige said. Manuel the waiter took their empties and replaced

them with fresh mimosas. Lacey flashed him a smile. She liked Manuel, such a dear, so

much nicer looking than the other wait staff, so trim with good teeth, and always on the

spot with a drink. She didn�t normally go for moustaches, but Manuel kept his so neat,

and on him, it didn�t look skuzzy at all, but sophisticated, like some European diplomat.

�No one�s seen him,� Paige continued. �And his sailboat�s gone. It�s likely he�s halfway

to Bermuda by now. He�s sailed the transatlantic twice before. I wouldn�t be surprised.�

�It�s just as well,� said Jackie. �After putting on that hideous party, he ought to

leave town for a while.�

�I don�t know,� Paige said. �Something tells me he�s gone for good.�

�Poor Peg,� said Kate.

�Yeah, she must be so lonely,� Paige said. �You know, we ought to give her a

call.�

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�Screw Peg,� Lacey said, catching Manuel�s eye from across the room and

winking. She leaned in to the table and continued in a whisper. �Let�s call Manuel. I

really get off on balling the help.�

92

THE THIN WHITE DUKE

Space makes my face look fat. It�s true. In the absence of gravity, bodily fluids shift

from the lower to upper extremities. Once flat, I now have cleavage. I�m taller, too, one

inch, my vertebrae having stretched in the zero-g. And it�s not just me; the other two

crew members have outgrown their government-issued flame-retardant utilities as well.

Commander Spicer has been admiring his new biceps. Sometimes he calls them guns,

sometimes he calls them pythons. Whatever. I�m just happy with my newfound d-cups

and a little worried about my puffy face. Surely it won�t stay this way. Spicer likes the

cleavage, too. When we conducted yesterday�s sexperiment he hefted one, and winked,

before putting his mouth on me. Sad but true that the cosmic coitus requires a third party,

even with the harness, at least until a new center of gravity is established and, even then,

that center is precarious. The slightest variation in rhythm can cast both parties floating

toward the opposite bulkheads of the workshop, jumpsuits around their ankles. So, First

Science Officer Markowitz is our designated third-wheel. He does not relish the job.

God bless you, Marty Markowitz, you unwilling Pandarus, you reluctant pimp. We�ll

have you back at your microscope soon enough, the space race doesn�t have half the

stamina of the earthly marathon, it�s only a matter of a few minutes, but you have noted

this, haven�t you, Marty; I know you only affect clinical indifference, that you only

pretend to gaze out the porthole at the brilliant bleak panoply of the cosmos, because I

see the sidelong glances you throw at me from hooded eyes. I know you�re counting the

days, but toward what you count them I do not know. I catch you staring at my

undulating hips and I hazard a wink, but your cheeks flush and you flinch as if you�ve

been splashed with a drink. Do you turn away in disgust, or is it something else?

Today the minnows died. They were Mummichog minnows, from Beaufort,

South Carolina, now nothing more than an aborted inquiry into micro-gravity biology.

Seeing them floating at the water�s surface in their sealed aquarium was strangely

disorienting. I had difficulty getting my head around the notion of something abiding by

the laws of Earth some 270 miles above it. But, there you have it: dead fish float, even

in space. I half-considered eating them, the first fresh food I�d seen since Houston two

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months ago, reheated, raw, I didn�t care. But Markowitz would write me up for sure, and

then I�d be grounded. There was no shortage of colleagues who wanted to witness my

failure, all of Houston and Huntsville champing at the bit to watch Lady Stardust fall.

The spiders, Alma and Albert, however, are flourishing. Their first webs were

feeble, amateurish endeavors, but they got their stride and started spinning proper after a

week and now their gossamer network is a multifaceted Byzantine creation, feats of

geometry worthy of M.C. Escher, occupying impossible angles in the corner of my lab

station. I�ll unseal a pouch of drinking water and shake out droplets just to see them float

and hang on the silken fibers like beads of dew, and when I dim all but the red light at my

station the effect is not unlike the break of day in the rose garden back home. Alma and

Albert, the prize arachnids of some junior high school contest winner in Wichita, are my

charges, one of the only three experiments with which Mission Control has entrusted me,

one other being the minnows, which I consigned to the biologically active trash bin,

which isn�t a bin at all but a bag that we vacuum-seal and stow in a chamber aft of the

workshop, the poop chute, as it were. The third experiment is, of course, the ongoing

sexperiment.

Still, they are at least experiments. Our first day on board Skylab, before the male

competitiveness that�s bound to set in under such confinement had divided them into

rivals, Markowitz and Spicer presented me with a gingham apron and dust pan and

proposed that I cook and clean for them. These items I attempted to hurl to the deck but

was thwarted by anti-gravity and so the gesture lost its punch, the apron just floating in

mid-air like a plastic wrapper on the street caught up in a breeze. All the same, I made

my point. I was their equal and I expected them to treat me with professional courtesy.

There had been other high jinks those first days. One of the two had gotten into

my kit while I was in the observatory. I was recording the coordinates of Comet SL-

PDT-1883. I love this comet. It seems frozen in time yet is moving faster than we will

ever comprehend. The perpetual fade of its long white tail reminds me of the afterglow

that follows real lovemaking, a sort of all-enveloping warmth that I wonder if I�ll ever

feel again, after all this professional sex. As always when watching PDT-1883 I slipped

into a sort of pleasant reverie. It was at this point that I noticed a pair of my panties

floating through the hatch. I made my way to the workshop where other pairs were stuck

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to the air ducts and the guys were performing cartwheels in midair, wearing my

brassieres on their heads.

Mission Control has seen smoother missions than Skylab 5. Yes, the spiders spin

their silky webs, the comet PDT-1883 continues to orbit unchecked, and the Crab Nebula

continues to emit its x-ray emissions; but there have been wrinkles since the get-go.

During lift-off, vibrations compromised the meteor shroud. I thought for sure it would

have shaken from its moorings, but it didn�t, thank god; without the protection the shroud

affords, any little bit of space junk, be it asteroid or renegade panel from a Soviet

television satellite, would pierce this tin can and then we, too, would become space junk.

A week after we got into orbit, we learned that the quartermaster had made a mistake

when stocking the station�s food supply. Instead of giving us one week�s worth of

Autumnal Cornucopia rations (consisting of reconstituted turkey, dehydrated gravy,

potato flakes, corn spread, and cranberry gelatin) to be distributed evenly over the course

of the twelve week mission, the station was stocked with twelve weeks worth of

Autumnal Cornucopia to the exclusion of all other ration varieties, with the exception of

some �desserts.� And the minnows died, as noted earlier.

The most notable wrinkle, however, is the presence of me, a woman, on board,

not only the first woman on board any US space mission, but a woman whose primary

mission is to conduct experiments in zero-gravity sexual intercourse (rumor has it that

our Cosmonaut counterparts beat us to the mark). Sex, an untidy enough affair on Earth,

in zero-grav becomes an altogether messy business. At least under earthly conditions the

attendant fluids are more or less contained, or confined to a stain on the sheets. Here they

float around haphazardly until they make contact with some other surface, be it porthole,

bulkhead or safety goggles, and that, believe me, is a humbling experience, removing

once and for all the mystery from love-making, one man holding two pale bodies in place

illuminated from all angles by fluorescent lights. Not that this is love. Spicer�s cute, a

hunk, even, and not without talent in the sack, such as it (the sack) is. But this is work.

This is scientific inquiry, in which there is no room for mystery.

But even if space sex were a tidy endeavor, one that did not require the assistance

of a third party, that third party, though elsewhere on the station, would know exactly

what was going on. Think of it in the simplest of terms: two men are on board, one

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(selected for his height and musculature) is getting some, and one is not. Such a scenario,

even among scientists, is bound to breed, at the very least, tension, not to mention

contempt, loathing, envy, and worse. Even without the sexperiments, I, a woman, am a

new variable in the equation, and variables are not always welcome in scientific

endeavors. With the sexperiments, I am a catalyst. I feel like dynamite. In a bad way.

Like a stick of TNT to which someone else is holding the match.

Markowitz has been sulking for weeks. But today I�m sensing a vibe much darker,

something more primal than mere brooding as he straps me into the Upper and Lower

Body Negative Pressure Apparatus (DSO 0478-A1 ULBNP) to monitor the effect of

external decompression on the human body in addition to charting orthostatic intolerance

and cardiovascular function. The apparatus is a cylindrical chamber in which the subject

lies down and is enclosed. It looks not unlike an iron lung. Some joker in Houston

dubbed it the aqualung; I think iron maiden is more appropriate, given both its

appearance�dark-age apocalyptic�and its potential to injure�edema, temporary

blindness, the bends.

�You look ready for a soak in the aqualung,� Markowitz says. With his static-

cling hair and gold-rimmed spectacles he has the look of a flummoxed academic, and

would actually be attractive if he didn�t say the creepiest things. I do look ready for a

dip, goose-pimpled in a GI bikini top and shorts. The various nodes for measuring my

blood pressure, pulse, respiratory excursions from the lower thorax, as well as the

phonocardiogram and the carotid pulse transducer all require exposed skin.

Despite having been the subject of an identical experiment some dozen times back

in Houston, I am still not comfortable with participating. But participate I must. I�m a

scientist, not some frail magnolia, and vectorcardiograms must be taken, Korotkoff

sounds must be monitored, at all costs, et cetera. But when Markowitz tightens the

capacitive plethysmographic bands encircling my legs (to measure the percentage change

in calf volume), he does so a bit too�not efficiently, but zealously�a little roughly,

truth be told. His movements are brusque, his bedside manner rotten, and I could use a

little comfort right now, shivering in this stainless steel tube.

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Maybe I�m being silly. I remind myself that I am not a shrinking violet, that I

never was a wall-flower. I can take it. I�m ready to dance.

Once I am securely in place, Markowitz brings his face close to mine and I think

he�s going to kiss me, and I think, that wouldn�t be so bad, even bound in the aqualung I

could use a good kiss, anything right now. His breath smells like an apple. Did he

smuggle apples aboard? I�d love an apple. Instead, he says, �You know, when you think

about this mission, two men, one woman, all in a confined space for an extended period

of time with no contact with anyone else, not even any fresh air, you realize that all the

conditions for murder are met.� He smiles, and adds, �Don�t hold your breath. You�ll

rupture your lungs.�

Then he shuts the lid. I hear the hydraulic hinges, the hiss of the rubber seals

inflating until I�m as hermetic as a sardine, and I am no longer ready to dance. I want

out, but to cry out now would mean not only grounding, but a Section 8, and I�m not

going to let some creep get me drummed out of the service. I fight the urge to hold my

breath; they don�t call it explosive decompression for nothing. I find myself compiling a

list of all the things that can go wrong. Either through gross negligence�or through no

accident at all�the machine could decompress too much and create a vacuum. After five

seconds in a vacuum my extremities will become painful and useless. This alone will

break my spirit. After ten I will lose consciousness, so I won�t be aware of the paralysis

and ensuing convulsions. I won�t be able to watch the edema, the swelling of my body to

twice its normal volume; the sprouting of fissures, the lesions of my stretched epidermis

will be lost on me. After 60 seconds blood circulation will slow to a virtual standstill.

My body temperature will drop drastically, gas and water vapor will continue to flow out

through my airways and freeze my nose and mouth. I am not sure at what point during

this process I will actually be considered legally or clinically dead. A far as I�m

concerned, as soon as I can�t use my hands, that�s the end. The rest is all technicality. I

think of the minnows, how at first they swam in tight loops, then looser, then looser, then

not at all. It�s very cold in the aqualung, there�s a thin mat between me and the stainless

steel but my back is icy all the same. I want out, out, and I wonder if I do scream if

Markowitz will hear me because I can�t hear him. I can�t hear anything. Why did he

97

have to say those creepy, nasty, awful things? I don�t care if the space program has no

room for a claustrophobe, I want out, out, out, out�

I hear the release of compressed air as the seal is broken and the hatch is opened

and I am blinded by the light of the workshop. �All done,� Markowitz says. �By the

way, did you say something just then?�

Mission Control SOP dictates that we take our meals together so as to foster camaraderie

and preserve esprit de corps. Personally, I think better food would go a lot further toward

maintaining morale than this compulsory small-talk session in the ward room�god, a

can of Vienna sausages would do the trick�but no, we suffer the calorically engineered

dehydrated reconstituted Thanksgiving fare that resembles in texture hard candy made

soft. The nutritional experts tried, sure enough, bless their hearts, to engineer treats so as

to relieve the monotony of our diet, but the ice cream is a disaster.

Onboard Skylab the decks and ceilings are wire grids. We, the crew, wear these

shoes with specially designed cleats that we wedge into the grid and so anchor ourselves.

The table in the ward room also has restraining bars on the underside that you lower over

your lap to keep your seat. This arrangement makes for an awkward mess, keeping

everyone�s posture just a little too erect.

Spicer still mixes condensed milk with his meal in a vain effort to make the food

palatable, and still hasn�t learned that the elastic properties of the packaging catapult

condensed milk across the ward room. Maybe he has learned, maybe he likes it. At least

he�s no slob. �Oops, I did it again,� Spicer says today as he releases the restraining bar

and propels himself, armed with a Sani-wipe, after the errant dollop. He catches it, and in

doing so, notices his watch. �Uh-oh, time to adjust the attitude,� he says, then winks at

me. �Be right back. Don�t go changing on me.� With that, our commander propels

himself through the forward hatch to the orbital workshop, where he will fire the attitude

control thrusters.

Markowitz, unlike our commander, is not a meticulous diner. He mixes the

turkey crystals with the powdered gravy and the potato flakes into one pile so as to

expedite the procedure and minimize the misery. Markowitz never eats his cranberry

jello. He is always the first to finish and leave the table. Except for today.

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�Everything okay in the aqualung today?� he asks.

�Yeah, just fine,� I tell him.

�Are you sure?� he asks, that queer smile from earlier back on his face.

�Positive.�

�Because it can get a little�close in there,� he says.

�I said everything was fine.�

�Of course it was,� Markowitz says, and resumes shoveling down the mess he has

made. I can�t figure out if he�s calling my bluff or flirting with me, however misguided

this method of wooing may be. Then the creak of something heavy and metal wrenching

from the exterior of the hull interrupts. Markowitz looks up from his plate, his mouth

half-open, his spoon in hand arrested in mid-air. His eyes are wide open, not squinty, like

usual, and they are bright, as if a lamp has been switched on behind them. I notice for the

first time that one of his eyes is blue and the other is green.

�That sounded bad,� Markowitz says, and I find myself lamenting the inadequacy

of language in a crisis.

�What do you mean, �bad�?� I ask. �As in, we-can�t-fix-that-up-here bad?�

Marty doesn�t answer. He lifts up his restraining bar and propels himself forward

through the hatch. I lift my restraining bar and follow. The lights brown out.

How to rush to action in zero gravity? No way around it: you�re going to look

silly. Movement in the cabin is not quite like swimming because you don�t really

displace air like you do water. So, unless you want to float aimlessly, you have to either

a) climb along the bulkhead like a blind man feeling his way down a hallway, or b)

propel yourself by pushing off of a fixed object and hope your aim is true. My aim is not.

I shove off from the table but I miss the hatch by just half a foot and jam my forefinger in

the process. When I do get to the orbital workshop, Spicer and Markowitz are glued to

the bank of monitors that provide views of the station�s exterior. Something appears to

be missing from the dorsal view. They are red under the emergency lights. I ask them

what�s going on.

�Well,� Spicer says, �it seems that the meteor shroud�ah�deployed

prematurely.�

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�‛Seems� my ass,� Markowitz says. �Deployed my ass. The commander here

didn�t adjust the thrusters before he fired them. The impact of the exhaust plume was

enough to shear off the meteor shroud from what was left of its moorings. Brilliant,

Commander. Fucking brilliant.�

�Easy, Markowitz,� Spicer says.

�What�s up with the power?� I ask.

�We lost Solar Array Wing Number One,� Markowitz says.

�How?� I ask, and put my hand on Spicer�s shoulder. �What happened? Talk to

me, Jeb, please.�

�I screwed up,� Spicer says. He pauses, then continues. �When the shroud went,

it took Number One with it.�

�Okay,� I say, and take a deep breath. �What about Array Number Two?�

�Well, debris from Number One is caught up in Number Two. So, Number Two

is frozen in a slightly open position and can generate no power. I keep trying, but it

doesn�t respond to the deployment signal.�

�So what happens now?� I ask.

�Well, we can�t survive without electricity. The auxiliary power cells were

designed to last twenty-four hours, but they degrade over time. They weren�t designed

for this long of a mission. I�d say we have six, maybe eight hours of auxiliary power left.

So we have got to get Array Number Two back on line.�

�It�s fixing to get really hot in here,� Markowitz says. He unzips his jumpsuit,

wrenches free one foot from the deck grid, then another and steps out of the suit, which

floats limply at his side like a sad, orange, wrinkled spectre of a man. Markowitz is still

in his shorts, but I don�t know what to expect next. �Jeb,� I say. �Make him stop.�

�Take it to the airlock, Markowitz,� Spicer says, and in his skivvies Markowitz

swims away. �We�ve got to fix Number Two. Without power for the cooling loop, the

sun will make it unbearable in here. You know that. So we�ve got to take an EVA.�

�Good,� I say, glad to hear some decisiveness in Spicer�s voice. �Then I�m

going.�

�No. You�ve got to stay inside, to monitor the station�s systems. And ours.�

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�Then tell Markowitz to stay,� I say. I think of what he told me this morning

before sealing me into the aqualung. �Please, Jeb.�

�That�s a negative. Now, listen up. Markowitz and I are going out to manually

deploy Solar Array Wing Number Two because if we don�t, the temperature inside here

is going to hit about 150° Fahrenheit in twelve hours, maybe sooner. This ain�t a finesse

job out there,� Spicer says as he pulls a hammer from a stowage locker. �I need brute

strength, and you don�t have it. You are going to stay inside glued to these monitors. Is

that clear, Second Science Officer Harlowe?�

�Yes, sir, Commander. I�m sorry,� I say. �Should I contact Houston?�

�Yes, you should, but you can�t. The shroud, or the solar array, I don�t know

which, took out the antennae and the dish. All we have left is the automated distress

signal. Don�t you even think of touching that. Look,� he says. His glare softens and he

touches my cheek. �We can fix this. You just sit tight, sweet thing. Keep the home fires

burning.� He kisses me. I do not reciprocate. �I�ve got to go get into my suit. Don�t

you fret. I�ll be back in two shakes.�

�Don�t you fret,� he says. I am not a shrinking violet.

The human body looks more ungainly in space than in water. Just as we were not

designed to swim, we were not designed to negotiate the great void. Against the black

backdrop of space, in their bulky, wrinkled white vinyl suits, the chubby gloves, the boxy

ELSS chest packs with the oxygen umbilicals stretching out, each movement they make

looks fat and cumbersome. They look out of place. The helmets have these gold-plated

visors�to shield the unfiltered rays from the sun�so Spicer and Markowitz look like

plump, one-eyed larvae that need batting off of Skylab�s surface. Their work with

hammer and crowbar is clumsy and slow.

Talk to me, Jeb. I need to hear another voice right now, and the Neil Sedaka on

the eight-track just ain�t doing it. Talk to me, Jeb.

But I follow orders. I maintain radio silence. I have stripped down to a tee shirt

and gym shorts. The temperature gauge on the thermostat reads 103°. I am happy that

my fate is not in Markowitz�s hands alone. Yet I am also grateful that it is not in Spicer�s

hands all by himself either. Maybe he is just a good looking jock all-star from Annapolis,

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detoured first by the navy, then by flight school, and then by Houston. I am beginning to

think that he does not make the cut, that this is a ship of fools.

Markowitz is really going at it with the hammer. I feel the reverberations, I hear

the echoes resound off the round bulkheads of this tube. I would not have suspected him

capable of such gusto, not until today. When we started the mission, I thought he was

just a scrawny academic. Then I regarded him as a threat. And earlier today, when he

stripped out of his jumpsuit, I saw that he was not just some scrawny 98-pound lab rat,

but lean and wiry and even graceful, like a whippet, especially with that long thin snout

of his. Watching him on the monitor pounding with that hammer I find strangely

comforting, like maybe he might save us. At the same time I find it very frightening that

it�s him who is banging away at our lifeline; I keep replaying what he told me this

morning, that all the conditions were met. That man with the hammer out there has come

unhinged, I can hear it with every stroke.

What this tin can needs is a small-caliber side arm, one that won�t blow a hole

through the hull but one that will stop a man. If there was such a sidearm, I would have it

stuck in the waistband of my panties right now, nestled snugly against my belly. I�d feel

a whole lot better about everything.

When you�re watching a man in a gold visor prying at space-junk with a crowbar,

it�s hard to tell if he�s putting all he�s got into it. You can�t see his face. You can�t see

him grit his teeth, nor can you see the veins in his temples throb. I assume Spicer is

giving it everything he�s got, and that�s too bad, because it doesn�t look like much. It is

hard to believe that the grunting dynamo from the sexperiments is the same awkward dolt

in an out-sized spacesuit limp-wristing with a pry-bar. Maybe I�m being unfair. I�m sure

it�s not easy work disengaging that tangled mess. The heat of the thrusters� exhaust must

have soldered the debris to the array arm. Or maybe Commander All-American is all

bluster.

My face is slick with sweat. It looks like they�ll be at it for a while so I think I�ll

take a little constitutional, get some moving air on me. I disengage my feet from the grid

and shove off from the monitor bank and make my way forward. On the other side of the

airlock the Apollo capsule is docked. That�s how we got here and I imagine if things go

further south, that�s how we�ll get out of here. I know how to fly it. It�s easier than a

102

plane, except for re-entry, or so I hear. If you stay sharp you don�t need a co-pilot. You

can do it by yourself. I look out the porthole of the airlock. They�re still at it, and from

here I don�t see much in the way of progress. I wonder if it was me and Spicer out there

if Markowitz would have taken off in the capsule by now. The sweat stings my eyes. I

dry my face with a hand-wipe and decide to return to my station. Why the hell Mission

Control can�t give us enough auxiliary power to run the cooling loop is beyond me.

The automated distress signal is activated by a red button under a Plexiglas cover.

A bright, glossy, candy-apple red button. I imagine the spring beneath it is just tense

enough, like a firm acrylic pillow, or well-toned calf, to be very, very satisfying in the

pressing of it. I bet it lights up upon depression. I don�t know. We never actually

pressed it during training. Something like this ought to be locked up, accessed only by

code cylinders or something. It shouldn�t be just out, under a hinged cover. I want to eat

it. Instead I open another bag of distilled water.

Something in one of the monitors catches my eye. Movement. It looks like

they�ve got the leverage they need. They do. Fantastic. It�s free. Space-junk no more. I

have to fight the temptation to activate Solar Array Number Two. But what the hell is

Spicer doing with the debris? Why doesn�t he just let it go? This is not the time or place

for Greenpeace. Do you see any green out here? And where in here are we going to put

it? Or does the boy scout intend to lash it to the hull. I think he does. No, he�s actually

going to bring it inside. Jesus Christ. Just let it go, Commander. Is this a specimen, or a

trophy? It�s not doing a damn thing to keep me cooler, this mangled hunk of tin you�ve

salvaged. Just like a man, the fool has to mount it above the mantle.

There is also need for strong drink aboard Skylab. The Cosmonauts apparently

are allowed a ration of vodka. How Old World of them. I don�t know how much in the

long term I�d relish the idea of sharing a space station with two over-sexed and liquored-

up Slavs�you know, the Soviets keep those guys up here a year at the time. That can�t

be good for you. A case of Stoli is small compensation for a lifetime in a diaper in a

wheelchair. Right now, though, I could use a stout one.

I bet that Markowitz could distill us some kind of liquor. He�s a chemist, and he

may very well have some contraband produce up here. How it survived so long I don�t

know. Maybe he froze it.

103

Something�s wrong. Spicer�s drifting away. His tether floats limply at his side,

as does his broken oxygen umbilical, oh my god. Markowitz do something, god damnit.

I raise him on the radio. �Help him, Marty, Jesus Christ, don�t you see him?� and he

says, �Take it easy, hon.� Take it easy, hon? He is mad. I�m beginning to think that

Ground Control did a lousy job of foreseeing doomsday contingencies and worst-case

scenarios�insufficient battery power, absence of auxiliary radio, procedure to follow

when astronaut�s tether breaks and he sets to floating off into the great black beyond. I�m

beginning to think that Ground Control lacks imagination, but thank god Markowitz

doesn�t. He�s saying something over the radio, something about the nitrogen dump on

the ELSS chest pack. Apparently Spicer, though without oxygen (I guess he held his

breath), copies, twists the nitrogen release valve on his chest pack which sends him

hurtling back with some force into Markowitz�s waiting arms. God bless you, Marty.

We have power again. The cooling loop is up and running. So why are Spicer and Marty

wearing only their shoes and skivvies? More importantly, why am I stripped down to my

bikini top? Because it�s hot, apocalypse hot and I think I�ve about had it with the space

program. I was on my way back from the head�let�s talk about the head for a second,

there�s only one (without even a curtain for privacy because what�s a curtain going to do

in zero-g), and it�s mounted not on the deck but on the bulkhead so you don�t sit on it per

se, but instead you strap yourself so that your rear is perpendicular to the bulkhead and

you�re facing the deck while you do your business, which is collected in these sacks

which you then must seal and tote aft to the biologically active waste chamber, unless it�s

your turn to save it for testing, either way it�s damn humiliating and I try to restrict my

visits to the head to meal time or the small hours when the others are asleep, but right

now it�s just too god damn hot to sleep�and Spicer stops me in the corridor and starts

kissing my neck and suggests that a session might relieve some of the stress underneath

which we are operating, and I am thoroughly repelled, it�s much to hot for touching, and I

give him the Heisman and make my way back to the orbital workshop.

We have power but we still don�t have a meteor shroud, which will be more or

less fatal should we cross orbits with either a meteor shower or an abandoned Soyuz.

These are real dangers, but they are remote, they are not clear and present like the tropical

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heat that currently prevails and shows no signs of abating. Our own little horse latitude,

how quaint. The problem is that not only did the meteor shroud protect us from space

waste, it provided shade from the Sun. We�re still 93 million miles away from it, but we

don�t have the benefit of an atmosphere or ozone to filter its rays. We will, at this rate,

stew in our own sweat.

So why are we still here on Skylab? �Permission to speak freely, Commander,

when we have a perfectly good Apollo capsule docked at our airlock, gassed up and

ready to roll, with a radio and Neapolitan Astronaut Ice Cream to boot, why are we

roasting in our undies?� The freezers are defrosting and the water is seeping from the

doors as I ask this.

�Negative, Second Science Officer Harlowe,� thus speaks the commander. �We

are not abandoning our posts.�

�Speaking freely,� Markowitz says, �with or without your permission, this is not a

dreadnought in Her Majesty�s Service. It�s a laboratory, and a shoddy one at that. And

it�s hot, Gaza Strip hot.�

�No,� Spicer says. �You�re a civilian. You never did serve. You wouldn�t

understand the concept of dereliction of duty. Harlowe, however, does, don�t you? But

you might, Marty Markowitz, in that little bean-counting snake-brain of yours,

understand career. This is a landmark mission. The longest manned space flight our

country has ever attempted. And the first one with a woman, I might add,� he says,

leveling a stare at me. �We have the opportunity to make history here.�

�Bullshit,� Markowitz says. �We have the opportunity to make bacon here.�

�No one�s going anywhere,� Spicer says. �We are going to sit here together, for

as long as it takes, and come up with a plan to save our hides.�

I�m a good pilot. I could get us out of here. Maybe Marty and I could overpower

Spicer. Or sneak up on him with that crowbar. But, as awful as the conditions are, that�s

the last thing I want to do. Spicer is a fool, a fool with whom, I regret, I have shared my

charms. But he�s right. This is history. I am history.

So thank god I�ve got an idea.

�How about a parasol?� I say.

�A what?� Spicer asks.

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�You know,� Markowitz says. �An umbrella. Like what comes with a daiquiri.

You do understand daiquiri, don�t you, Commander?�

�Watch it, poindexter,� Spicer says.

�Cool it, both of you,� I say. �Listen. We�ve got those telescopic rods. Think of

those as tent poles, or the spokes in the underside of an umbrella. We lash those together

to make a frame. And we cover that frame.�

�With what?� Spicer asks.

�With emergency blankets. They�ll be perfect, with their reflective surface. And

the lining of the sleeping bags, also reflective. With that locker full of American flags.

We sew it all together with sutures from sick bay.�

�I don�t sew,� Spicer says.

�Well, you do now,� I say. �I�ll teach you.�

�Amen, sister,� Marty says, slapping me on the back. Curiously enough, I am not

repelled by his touch.

�You aim to save our lives with a giant umbrella?� Spicer says, hands on his hips.

His face is sweaty, and his scowl makes him look much older, like some harried school

marm. �Absolutely insane. I should Section 8 both of you. Right now I don�t have the

time. I�m going to save our lives.�

�Oh, yeah?� Marty says. �With what?�

�With the wreckage we brought in from the EVA, the panels from Solar Array

Wing Number One. We�ll split the panels and lay the layers side by side and weld them

together. To the workshop,� says Commander All-American as he propels himself

through the hatch, only to float back through it once he realizes that neither Marty nor I

are following him. �What part of �to the workshop� don�t you two understand?�

We shrug our shoulders and the commander continues.

�Markowitz, you�re a born goldbricker, that�s no mystery. But Harlowe, what

about you? I gave you an order. Now step lively.�

�With all due respect sir, yours is the inferior plan. I mean to survive.�

He asks me if that�s my final answer and I say it is.

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�This isn�t just insubordination, this is mutiny, Harlowe. Do you hear me?

You�ll answer for this in Houston,� Spicer says. He scowls at Marty and then leaves

through the hatch.

�Space mutiny,� Marty says. �Now you�ve gone and done it.�

�Come on, Marty. I�m going to make a seamstress out of you,� I say, and I start

ransacking the locker in sick bay for emergency blankets and sutures.

�My father was a tailor,� Marty says. �Like his father before him. They wanted

me to take up the trade. I gave it a whirl, but it just wasn�t my bag. Still, I�m handy with

a needle.�

�I imagine you�re handy with many things,� I say as I rip out the linings of our

sleeping bags.

�Are you flirting with me, Second Science Officer Harlowe?� he asks.

Marty is handy with needle and thread. He is also handy with an arc welder.

Handier than Spicer, to be sure, who has made a smoky, molten mess in the workshop,

and already his creation, though only half-complete, is too wide to fit through the airlock.

What we have woven and welded is not pretty, but it is collapsible. We float past the

commander with our shroud folded and the rods bound together and advise him that

we�re going on an EVA to install our makeshift shroud, with his permission, of course.

He lifts up his welding mask, looks at us both, then down at the wreckage lashed to the

grid-work deck of the workshop and sighs. �Permission granted,� he says without

looking up. �I�ll man the monitors.�

EVA. Extra Vehicular Activity. I never liked the exercises in the dive tank back

in Huntsville, and something tells me I�m not going to like the real thing. And yet I�m

strangely giddy, both attracted and repelled, perhaps attracted because of the repulsion.

Space is total nothing, the absolute zero, and only now in the airlock, staring through the

porthole, the last barrier between me and that vast nothing do I realize that we�re not

meant to be out here. An environment that requires so much equipment we should

simply leave alone, view from afar, grace with speculation, invest with mystery. There�s

nothing out there for us. And yet I yearn to go out there, to the point I�m afraid I�ll wet

my blivet if we don�t go out there soon; I feel like I did as a kid watching slasher movies,

my hands only half-covering my eyes. Every nerve is jumping and I have to calm

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myself, recall my training. Marty tells me to put on my helmet. Inside the spacesuit it�s

clammy. Rip-stop vinyl doesn�t breathe, per se (of course, you don�t want a breathable

fabric in a space suit). Inside the suit feels like a locker room would if there was a

window unit in every locker: cold, dank, and recycled. There are both heating and

cooling loops running through the umbilicals but I couldn�t ever quite calibrate them in

Huntsville and I can�t now. It�s either hot and musty or stale and chilly, and I�ll take the

latter. Marty unseals the hatch and we�re out in the middle of nowhere, secured only by a

tether.

The vista of our water planet almost 300 miles below us is glorious and terrible

and I suddenly ache to be back there, my feet firmly planted on a strip of asphalt in the

Midwest, far from any ocean or mountain. Marty�s voice crackles over the speaker in my

helmet, �Come on, Harlowe, we�ve got work to do,� but I can�t tear my gaze from the

earth. My arms and legs go numb and I can hear myself hyperventilate. There is nothing

for me out here, up here, I know this now, and when Marty�s voice comes back over the

speaker asking what�s wrong, I can only say, �I�m too close to God, I�m much too much

close to God out here,� and my view of the earth diminishes as my tunnel vision

contracts. At some point I must have let go of the rail because now I�m floating, and now

my tether stops me from floating further, and the stopping is sickening to me as I feel my

stomach lurch.

I feel pressure on my hand. I look down. It�s Marty, holding my hand in his, and

through the chubby glove I can feel him massaging me. �Easy, it�s okay,� he says. My

breath catches and my vision clears. Tears roll down my cheeks. I�m glad for my visor,

glad that Marty has not seen me cry, but, at the same time, disappointed that he can�t see

me smile. I�m going to be okay.

Our parasol is a motley, clownish quilt emblazoned with the Stars and Stripes set

in the tin foil sheen of emergency blankets, stretched over a frame fashioned from steel

and aluminum rods. Overall, it�s garish, an appropriate setting for such flashy and

bombastic heraldry. �Good Ol� Glory,� I hear Marty say over the speaker as we admire

our handiwork, hanging onto the rails on the space-side of the airlock like two chummy

colleagues leaning on a water-cooler. We shake hands, and through the clumsy gloves I

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think I detect a lingering pressure in his grasp, and I feel the heat rising in my cheeks.

Thank god for the gilded visor.

Spicer wanted my plan to fail. He made no effort to conceal this, and has been sullen

ever since the erection of the parti-colored solar parasol. Nevermind that it�s a great deal

cooler now in Skylab; we�ve got it down to 88 Fahrenheit, which, although warm and

sticky, is inhabitable. And with the restored power and manageable temperature we�ve

been able to preserve most of the rations, a mixed blessing; freezer burn or no, it�s

Thanksgiving Day everyday. To some meals Marty wears war paint, to others he wears

dark trousers cut off at the knee with white socks pulled up over his calves and a pilgrim

hat he�s crafted from exposed sheets of film from the observatory, and in these get-ups he

has taken to preparing all of our meals. Marty�s levity is one of two antidotes for the

monotony on board our crippled station. The other antidote is the cache of freeze-dried

apples he managed to smuggle in his kit. Since our EVA he has been very generous on

the sly, and yesterday, while Spicer was making a head call, Marty showed me a

makeshift distillery he had assembled in his lab station. �Space Brandy,� he said with a

wink. �I�ve got a baggie full of apple rotting in the biologically active waste chamber.

Just you wait.� I can�t wait.

Spicer�s melancholy has pervaded his professional life to such a degree that he is

no longer capable of conducting the sexperiments. He is no longer up to the challenge, as

it were. As he is incapable of rising to the occasion, he is unwilling to participate as

Designated Third Wheel. His stubbornness on the issue presents quite a problem. Hence

today Marty is teaching me to weld. With strips of steel picked from the solar array

wreckage we have fashioned an elaborate system of stirrups which we are welding to the

deck and bulkhead of the workshop. When he guides my hand with his my skin tingles,

and again, I am thankful for my visor, this time a welding visor, to conceal my blush.

�I have a confession,� Marty says. Oh god, please oh please don�t say you�re gay.

�I know why Spicer can�t get it up,� he continues.

I wasn�t expecting this. How does he know? Are they gay together? My

stomach feels hollow.

�For the past two weeks I�ve been lacing his Tang with bromide,� Marty says.

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�With bromide?� I ask.

�Trust me,� Marty says. �I�m a chemist.� He lifts up my visor and takes off his

goggles and in his eyes there is the gleam of the schoolboy as he moves in and kisses me.

Yes, I trust you, of course, with your mismatched eyes, one blue, one green. You are

both coarse and tender and always calculating. You�re a knight in the rough, you need

polish, Marty Markowitz, you need a tan, you lab rat, you alien, and I need you and our

comet needs a worthy name, it�s a thin white duke like you.

110

THE LAST DETAIL (TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN �DIE LETZTE PFLICHT�)

We were not ragged cadavers catching vermin for our dinner. We were round-cheeked

cherubim with good teeth, we were well-fed burghers with the manes of lions. In

captivity we flourished. Chilblains we had none. We even got the mail: Reuben, the

young oberfähnrich with the downy upper-lip took a subscription to erotic plates from

Bangalore, bless his soul. In Camp Colquitt, all was permitted. On Sundays the

Kriegsmarines played football with Afrika Korps. We were paid according to our rank

per Title III, Section II, Chapter 7, Article 23 of the Geneva Convention, and there was

good, blonde pilsner beer for sale in our canteen. I was aide du campe to a ruined

Hessian viscount, Helmut Von Helmut, Graf du Stolberg, Order of the Knight�s Cross,

Unterseebootkommodore, Kriegsmarine. At Camp Colquitt, each general and flag officer

was quartered in his own bungalow, and each was allotted his own stabsoffiziere, which

was a far cry from the retinue attending Herr Kommodore on the bridge of his frigate, but

at least was a vestige of the prestige of flusher days. As staff officer it was my duty to

brief the kommodore every morning at breakfast, which typically was light�toasted

bread and preserves, real coffee, fresh milk and cold cereal. From a Negro driver I

learned the recipe for grits�ground hominy with the germ removed�and one morning I

had made an exceptional batch in the officer�s mess, and was bringing it to the

kommodore, that he might enjoy it during my report. You can imagine my

disappointment, bearing the steaming cast-iron Dutch oven in my hands, when I found

his bungalow empty, and on the table a note reminding me that it is the duty of every

officer in captivity to attempt escape.

I had a vision of him, at table in his small clothes and braces, his iron-grey hair

cropped close in the American fashion, breakfasting while I briefed him on the

disposition of the troops, which I would exaggerate for his benefit, reporting that their

morale was high (which was no exaggeration; we were sleek and stout with good clean

food and exercise), as high as could be expected given the circumstances i.e. their

captivity (a minor equivocation), and that they were restless to return to the fatherland.

This last was outright perjury, as many of us, including me, were of Russian birth,

111

captured in Poland�drunk in Danzig on liberty�and impressed into German service.

Repatriation would place us not in the Rhineland, but in Siberia for taking up arms

against Mother Russia. We did not pine for home. Colquitt was our home.

Our captors sympathized with our plight. The commandant of the camp,

Brigadier General Caldwell McVey, brother of the famous Senator Ellerbee McVey, just

last week had granted me an interview at the end of which he promised to write a petition

on the Russian prisoners� behalf to the chief of staff for President Truman, knowing as

well as we did just what kind of nightmare Stalin would have in store for us. It was the

general�s hope that one of the allied nations would grant us asylum as political refugees,

possibly even the United States. He said he could make no promises, but that we had

been model prisoners and that our good behavior alone merited some measure of

clemency. Long shot or no, the mere notion of staying in America made my head light

and my spine tingle. For a moment I feared that the kommodore�s escape would

jeopardize this, but only for a moment; he was but one man, and group punishment struck

me as very un-American.

I took my duties as an officer seriously, first as an ensign in the Russian Navy,

then as lieutenant in the Kriegsmarine; despite the flag underneath which I sailed, I was a

father to my ratings and a brother to my officers. I was no communist, and certainly no

Nazi. Just a man confronted with sometimes twenty-five, sometimes ten, pairs of eyes

asking me, as the depth charges shook our pitiful little boat, What do we do now?

What we do now is bide our time and pray we don�t return home.

For a week we heard nothing of Herr Kommodore. In the canteen we praised the intrepid

old salt, who had shone the crew of U-908 nothing but respect and kindness, no matter

that we were a Russian crew (under a German captain, of course). He was also a poet,

with several books, was widely read in the salons of St. Petersburg. Before the war I had

fancied myself a poet after university, had even published an embarrassing, paltry

collection of French verse, but when the kommodore asked me at dinner on board the

flagship about it, you would have thought he was asking an Oxford don about his chef

d�ouvre, when in fact I was the most junior officer at table, and a �barbarian from the

Orient� at that. After asking me about my fondness for opening with a spondee, he

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screwed his monocle into his eye, studied me, the breast of his white mess coat gleaming

with medals, and he said, �Leutnant zur See Nikolai Durmanov, I expect an inscribed

copy by reveille tomorrow.� From that evening on I loved that man without shame. All

of the men did. So in the canteen we raised our glasses in honor of Herr Kommodore, but

inside I am certain that to a man we prayed for his speedy recapture, for fear that his

escape might adversely affect our lot. Of course, what did we have to fear? How could a

German in the American South evade the wide dragnet cast by the United States Army

and Federal Bureau of Investigations. The kommodore would be delivered, and he would

once again grace us with his august presence.

It was Sunday and Reuben had just received a new parcel from the subcontinent.

We crowded around a rough-hewn table in the canteen to peruse its contents. This was a

particularly lurid installment. The first plate was a riot of flesh, one dusky whorelet beset

by nine naked suitors. Another featured two nymphs suckling, seated on the vast lap of a

wet-nurse. Our favorite was a pastoral tryst in which a Sikh in his turban takes

possession of a hobbled ram. We howled, we slapped each other on the back, we fouled

the plates with lager. We took evening tea, ate pumpernickel bread (which was not

unlike the black bread of our homeland) and green apples, cheddar cheese, and a fried

mélange called scrapple. Alyoshka played violin, and with the dancing, the curdled milk

and strawberries, the strong black tea and mild blonde tobacco, and the near-presence of

filles de joie in the form of Reuben�s raunchy photographs we felt at home, or at least on

liberty, until two guards wearing side arms, not merely the customary truncheons, on

their white belts escorted me to General McVey�s quarters to discuss again, this time in

detail, the whereabouts of the Viscount of Stolberg.

�How can a prisoner be of intelligence value now that the war is over?� I asked General

McVey.

Under the fluorescent lights, seated at the desk opposite the haggard brigadier�

this once robust and ruddy man stared at me from red eyes set in deep purple caverns�it

came to light that the FBI was not in pursuit of the kommodore; the bureau was not even

aware that he had gone missing, nor was Central Command of the 3rd Army. McVey had

dispatched his staff officers and MP�s throughout the Southeast to find him. He had

113

contacted depots and airports and seaports and, unless the viscount had stowed away, he

was still in the country, or so the general hoped. He was desperate to keep the affair

quiet.

�I�ll be honest with you, Lieutenant,� the general said. �I didn�t know he was of

any intelligence value either. Just some half-mad grand duke stripped of his command.

But it looks like they�re going to want him to testify at The Hague.�

We had heard rumors of the war-crimes trials to be held in the Netherlands. A

who�s-who of the party elite, Göring, von Ribbentrop, Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von

Rundstedt, and many more were to be charged with genocide, a nasty, brutish, sickening

business.

�Nonsense, General,� I said. �The kommodore�s no Nazi.� Indeed, all Nazis, the

fanatic party members, were vetted from the ranks of the Wermacht prisoners and held at

a facility in Oklahoma.

�I know that. But the court wants depositions from the admiralty about the

mining of the shipping lanes, the sinking of merchant vessels. And they want the

kommodore in Holland in two months. You have one month to find him.�

�I have one month?� I told the general I did not understand, that I�d looked all

throughout the bungalow, even in the crawlspace below, and that the kommodore was,

most certainly, long gone from the camp.

�Okay, Lieutenant, it�s like this,� the general said, massaging his temples with

one hand, while with the other filling two glasses with bourbon whiskey, one of which he

passed to me. �This, the kommodore�s escape, is an embarrassment. A huge black-eye

on my otherwise impeccable record. It will mean the end of my career. So I care. Big

time. Either you find him in one month, or I see to it that you and your men spend the

rest of your lives, which may be very short, in a gulag. Now, I am a man of some

means. You will have unlimited resources, and one of my best men at your disposal.

You know the kommodore better than anyone. And I am at the end of my tether. Think

about your sailors, son. Think about that Mongol son-of-a-bitch Stalin. Find the

kommodore. Consider it your last detail.�

114

The merchant and farmer�s bank on the town�s square, with its marble Doric columns and

granite slab steps, reminded me of a Presbyterian church or Masonic temple, severe,

austere, blunt and thrifty. It was the closest bank to Camp Colquitt, and my predecessors

in this investigation had only thought to inquire into recent wire-transfers from Germany,

and only Germany. Does nobody know no nobleman is without a numbered account in

Zurich, and another in Bern? Yes, the bank manager said, there had been a transfer from

Switzerland, yes, to some admiral with an accent.

So Herr Kommodore had lined his pockets with Swiss Francs, having exchanged

a great many for �greenbacks,� �simoleons,� �salad,� and �snaps,� denominations unknown

to me before my partnership with the stockade commander Major Tuck, McVey�s

janissary and my chaperone, my driver, my right-hand man, and jailor. Stout Major Tuck

was a swarthy Greek, and his terse, laconic speech was laced with hepcat slang. The

major did not look too deeply into things. �Follow the bread,� Major Tuck said, and

suggested we visit the city�s hotels, of which there were four.

�No, I think much more efficient would be to check with that bottle store across

the square,� I said. �No doubt he placed an order to be delivered to his rooms. We�ll

find out where those rooms are from the liquor seller.�

�Roger,� Tuck said.

Schnapps, actually, and apple brandy, and a case of Tattinger, delivered to the

Hotel Heidelberg, where else. Where, in the baronial suite, admittance to which was

gained with the greasing of a greasy valet�s palm, we found four whores recumbent, and

one in the bath. We had just missed the kaiser, according to the brunette carving a joint

of lamb a la carte, but that he had left a note on the writing table for anyone who might

seek his audience:

To my erstwhile captors,

I am without shame enamored of the American South and I mean to savor

all of her charms. Godspeed in your pursuit.

Your once obedient servant,

Stolberg

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There it was, in the Hessian�s bold hand, an impossibly vague clue. Outside of my

experiences of Camp Colquitt, I knew nothing of the South. And Tuck was from Queens.

Either way, all we had to work with were Tuck�s impressions of the South gleaned

through motion pictures and his comrades� anecdotes. What, then, I asked him as we got

back into the dusty staff car, a Buick Century shaped like a green giant scarab, were the

charms of the South, other than ground hominy and side-meat?

�Barbeque. Football. Colored people, just about everything colored people do.

Deer hunting. And church. They get hepped up on Jesus down here like you wouldn�t

believe.�

With Tuck�s deadpan delivery, it was hard to tell if he was being frank or droll.

�He�d be in need of new kit, no doubt,� I said. �Let�s visit the local tailor, or maybe the

haberdasher. What he purchased to wear will be telling.�

�Negative on the haberdasher. Department store, McRae�s, like as not,� Tuck

said. �A man on the lam is going to buy off the rack, count or no count.�

Very true. Barney of McRae�s told us of a Dutchman who bought shirts, a suit,

gabardine trousers, a blazer, a dinner jacket, and pumps, which he packed in a large

leather valise. And, he almost forgot, a Tyrolean hat. I asked him where in town would a

gentleman be in need of a dinner jacket. There were private clubs and dinner parties, of

course.

�Then there�s Martin Jackal�s Make-Believe Ballroom.�

�Classy joint,� said Tuck.

I was very curious to see what sort of entertainment Mr. Jackal purveyed. �Very

good, then,� I said. �We, too, will be in need of dinner jackets.�

The Make-Believe Ballroom was more or less what is known as a steakhouse with a

dance floor encircled by booths. In the center was a rotating bandstand mounted by a

jazz ensemble bristling with brass and contrabassoon. I believe they even had a gong.

For a number called �Shuffle off to Buffalo,� a red-dressed painted strumpet crooned

about a shotgun honeymoon. The star-lit dome ceiling was an aberration of astronomy. I

noted Ursa�s Major and Minor in pursuit of one Virgo; two Aurora Boreali; three Milky

Ways. The establishment was teeming with GI�s in service dress. We were escorted to a

116

booth under the Crab Nebula, a cozy place, paneled in oak with a curtain you could draw

for privacy. The table linen was cotton, the silver was stainless steel, and the Chianti

came in a basket.

If one excluded the soldiers and sailors, we were not overdressed, though I still

don�t understand why such a low-brow eatery would insist upon eveningwear protocol.

That being said, it was nice to dress for dinner after so long. It was also nice of the

brigadier to be so liberal with his allowance. Tuck selected a double-breasted jacket one

size too large so as to accommodate his shoulder holster, but otherwise it fit well. He

was thoroughly charmed with the Make-Believe Ballroom, beaming under the false

starlight, cheeks flushed from the scotch whisky and wine, singing along with the band

about a place called 42nd Street, telephone exchange Pennsylvania 6-5000, and getting

caught between the devil and the deep blue sea.

But where was the kommodore?

We had not seen him all night. When I was almost finished with my fillet (rare),

and Tuck with his t-bone (well-done, with catsup), our waiter arrived at our table bearing

a bottle of Moёt, �compliments of the gentleman in the corner.� I looked across the

make-believe ballroom and there sat Helmut von Helmut, Graf du Stolberg, Herr

Kommodore, wearing a ridiculous handle-bar moustache, smiling at us and raising his

glass. I nudged Tuck and indicated the viscount, and Tuck immediately reached into his

coat for his automatic, but I hissed at him to stop, then turned to the waiter and said,

�Garçon, would you be so good as to invite the gentleman to join us?�

�He�s splitsville,� Tuck said, once the waiter had poured the champagne.

�No, I know the man. He will join us. It is simply too delicious for him not to.�

The viscount made his way to us across the ballroom, champagne flute in hand,

and in his monocle and drooping moustaches and his Order of the Knight�s Cross in his

buttonhole he looked to be the baron of all license, der kronprinz aus nachtleben. Tuck

stood, his hand still inside his jacket, the kommodore bowed and slid into the booth, Tuck

getting in after him, like the parody of an inspector accompanying a crook in the back of

his prowl car.

�You�ll forgive me if I don�t salute, Herr Kommodore,� I said.

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�Ach, Leutnant, not to worry,� the kommodore said. �We are out of uniform.

Indeed, you two are quite under the covers, yes?�

�That�s undercover,� Tuck said.

�The jig is, how you say, up, no?� the kommodore said.

�Will you come quietly?� Tuck asked.

�Of course, I am beaten,� the kommodore said, filling his flute with champagne.

�That would not be very sporting of me, to attempt escape now, would it, Herr Major?�

�Roger that,� Tuck said.

�Roger that, sir,� the kommodore said. �Now, you must tell me, where are all the

MP�s? Incognito as well?�

�No, sir,� I said. �It�s just us.� Tuck shushed me but I continued. �General

McVey wants to keep your escape as quiet as possible. He says you are of high

intelligence value, and that news of your escape would ruin him.�

The kommodore sighed and said, �The general is a good man. I do not want to

ruin him. I just wanted, how you say, a bit of fresh air.�

�So you�ll cooperate, sir?� Tuck asked.

�Of course, of course. But let us at least be civilized. Let us finish first this

excellent wine,� the kommodore said, adjusting his monocle and lifting his glass, eyeing

it quite deliberately. �To the general�s health.�

As we toasted, the chanteuse in red sidled up, put her hand on Tuck�s shoulder

and asked him for a light. He lit her cigarette which she smoked in a long ivory holder,

and she told him that she�d noticed him singing, that he seemed to know every word, and

did he not think that her singing was fine, and that surely she had seen him there before.

She wondered if she might join the major for a drink and the major filled her glass. She

pulled up a chair next to Tuck and looked to have her hand on his thigh but I could not

see for sure. During this exchange the kommodore asked if the major was armed, and I

nodded my head. Then he spoke in German.

�Is there really nobody outside?�

�No sir, just the major and myself.�

�Why you?� the kommodore asked. His eyes were shining. He looked hurt.

�The general said he�d send my men back to Russia.�

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�Ach! Brilliant. But don�t you know he�ll do that anyway?�

�He gave me his word, Herr Kommodore,� I said. At this point the singer was

whispering in Tuck�s ear.

�His word? And you believed him? Alles erlogen. This is war, Leutnant.�

�The war is over, Herr Kommodore.�

�Maybe for you. Ring the bell. Let�s have one more bottle of champagne. Look,

you must help me. We can make it look like an accident, like it was not your fault I got

away. Please, one last detail for your commanding officer.�

�I have a responsibility to my men.�

�Your primary responsibility to your men is to faithfully discharge your duties as

an officer. And as an officer in captivity, your duty is to escape. Would you cheapen all

for which they have fought and suffered?�

My thoughts were a storm. What if it did look like an accident, surely the general

would not punish my men for that. That would be inhuman.

�You know what will happen to my men if they are repatriated,� I said. �I cannot

have that on my conscience.�

�Your men will go to Siberia no matter what and you know that. It is lunacy to

believe otherwise. If you return to Colquitt, you, too, will go to Siberia. Don�t be a fool.

Yes, our American captors have shown us excellent hospitality. But don�t be taken in by

that. They are a humanitarian people. But they are merely following the dictates of an

international agreement. Expect no mercy beyond that. Do you really think they want

their former enemies loose on the streets of their fair nation? No. They want to wash

their hands of us.�

�General McVey is an officer and a gentleman,� I said. �If I believe in anything,

I believe in the sanctity of honor among officers. I must believe that he will keep his

word.�

�Don�t lecture me on honor,� the kommodore said, his visage firm. �As a

commissioned officer you took an oath. Schäme dich. How can you expect honor in

your enemies if you yourself are not a man of honor?� Then his expression softened, and

he continued. �I have a daughter, my only child. You have seen her photograph. She is

very lovely, and unmarried, living in exile. If you come with me, I promise you her hand.

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I have no male heir. No one to take the title Stolberg when I die. You could ensure the

perpetuation of this great line. Come, be the son I never had.�

�Stolberg,� I whispered, and repeated again in my head. For the favor of this

great man, what would I not do? He was only asking that I discharge faithfully my sworn

duty. An officer�s first duty is to his mission, then to his men. And the kommodore was

right, the mission of an officer in captivity is escape. If I was a petty officer, or a mere

rating, then things would be the other way around. But as an officer it was my sworn

duty to place the mission above all else. The kommodore smiled at me, little wrinkles

gathering at the corners of his eyes. His teeth were as white as the starched pleats of his

shirt and I wondered how he kept them so.

�I could take you with me,� the kommodore said softly. �As my prisoner.

McVey won�t punish your men for that. We could even stage your death. Please, dear

boy.�

The waiter filled our glasses with what remained in the original bottle, and he

began to take the foil off of the new one. In the corner of my eye I saw another waiter

doing the same, and the report of the shot cork inspired me. The heat had rushed to my

cheeks with the kommodore�s offer.

�No, no. I will open it,� I said.

�Of course, sir,� the waiter said, and left our table. I nodded gravely to the

kommodore. I had an idea. I made idle conversation with the kommodore, slowly

segueing back into English. We laughed, though my legs were numb and every nerve

from my waist up was electric. After kissing Tuck on the cheek, the singer slinked off to

her stage, and the band struck up another number.

�Let us have one more glass,� I said, taking the bottle in my hands.

�Negative,� Tuck said.

But then the singer pointed at Tuck and said, �This next number is dedicated to a

very special gentleman,� and she started to sing in her affected smoky baritone. Tuck

blushed and turned his attention toward his admirer. I took the bottle, pointed it at Tuck,

and with my thumb pushed off the cork, which shot off with amazing velocity and hit

Tuck squarely in the nose, which spat blood as if on cue. Instinctively, Tuck�s hands

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went to his face, and the kommodore reached in Tuck�s coat and drew his automatic with

one hand and pulled the booth�s curtains shut with the other.

�Oh, dear,� I said.

�Ugh, my fucking nose. You idiot.�

�Tuck, I think we have more pressing concerns than your nose,� I said. The

kommodore winked at me.

�I know, I know. He�s got my side arm. Jesus Christ.�

�Is it broken? Let me see it,� I said.

�Yes, it�s broken. You numbskull. We�re toast. How on earth��

�I�m sorry,� I said. �I was only trying to�. Here�� I began, taking my napkin

and making to rise until the kommodore pointed the pistol at me.

�May I interrupt this lover�s spat,� the kommodore said, cutting me to the bone,

he seemed to mean it, and pointing that gun at me was absolutely chilling. At that

moment it didn�t seem like he was acting. �Sit down.� I sat. In me, the giddiness of

collaboration had evaporated. And though I was relieved when he jabbed the barrel of

the gun back into Tuck�s ribs, I still was unsure of my standing with the kommodore.

�Listen very carefully. Durmanov, you are going to leave money on the table.

And then you are going to help me convey the major to his motorcar, as he is clearly

drunk. Let us not make a scene. It would be a great pity to embarrass the brigadier in

front of all these American soldiers.� The kommodore handed a napkin to Tuck. �Please

see to yourself, Herr Major. You are a mess.�

Back at our suite in the Heidelberg, the kommodore ordered me at gun-point to bind and

gag Tuck and situate him in the bathtub so as to keep him from soiling the rug overnight.

The major looked pitiful stuffed in the bath, his belly overlapping the waistband of his

drawers. He was serene, never once moaning through the stockings stuffed in his mouth.

I closed the door on him, and the kommodore, still pressing the pistol in the small of my

back, said, �I am taking with me your accomplice, this Russian sleuth, who has proven so

adept at betraying the flag underneath which he sailed. For him I have special plans,

most wondrous strange. Gute nacht, Herr Major.�

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Only when we were back at the staff car did the kommodore end the charade. �He

is both poet and actor,� he said, jostling my shoulder. �You are a true artist. Now, where

shall we go? Charleston? Memphis? You decide. What a fabulous machine. Such an

engine. Straight eight cylinder, 165 horsepower. High gear ratio. So huge.�

�Would Herr Kommodore care to drive?� I asked.

�I would love, to, but, alas, I cannot. I never learned how,� the kommodore said

as he got in the passenger side door. I closed the door after him and he resumed speaking

once I had gotten behind the wheel. �I never needed to; I always had a driver. But that

doesn�t stop me from reading everything I can find about these marvelous conveyances.�

�Look how we own the road,� he said. We were driving down the middle of a

two-lane highway under a canopy of oak trees that occasionally thinned out enough to

offer a glimpse of the indigo skyscape occasionally streaked with the falling Leonids.

The kommodore insisted that we drive in the middle as opposed to in our lane. He had

not gotten where he was by yielding right-of-way to others, he told me. From time to

time an approaching car would be obliged to veer onto the shoulder, sounding its horn�

the horns on American automobiles are deep, virile, throaty trumpets that bellow with

gusto, not like the tinny chirp of a Volkswagen or Citroën�and flashing its high-beams.

�So huge,� he continued, �like a boat.�

�I would very much like to be buried in a Buick,� the kommodore said.

�I would not,� I said, and I steered the car into the right lane. The kommodore did

not protest.

�So, where will it be, Leutnant? Raleigh, North Carolina? Colonial

Williamsburg?�

�May I speak freely, sir?� I asked. My life for the past nine years, it seemed, had

been a sequence of events in which I sought permission. �His Erlaucht, and his obedient

servant��

�Unwilling hostage,� the kommodore corrected.

��and his unwilling hostage will soon be the subjects of a vast and fearsome

manhunt, what our captor nation refers to as a dragnet, from which there will be no

escape. I predict we have until just before noon tomorrow when the maid comes to clean

my suite and finds Major Tuck in the bath.�

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�Not much time, hmm?� he said.

�No, Herr Kommodore.�

�Then Virginia is out of the question.�

�Sir, still speaking freely, is that what this is all about? Holiday making? A

motor-tour of the American South? You must flee this country, and you must do so now.

You could still secure passage on a cargo lighter. I�m afraid it�s too late, and too

conspicuous, to book a stateroom on the Queen Mab. But on a cargo ship you could sail

to Lisbon, and make your way from there.�

�Make our way where? Germany? Hesse-Cassel? There is nothing for me there.

My estates are razed, the fields are salted. My only family is my daughter, and, as I told

you, she is in exile. I am the last of the Stolberg line. All I have is my money, and not

much of it in American currency. The slattern in red I should not have tipped so lavishly.

Did the general give you cash, or a checkbook?�

�Cash.�

�Gut. Sehr gut. Passage will be expensive.�

�What about Brazil?� I asked. Anyplace was better than the highway, which

would soon be roadblocked by the end of the day tomorrow. �From New Orleans, or

even Savannah you could secure passage to Brazil.�

I noticed flashing red lights in the mirror and my heart stopped. The kommodore

noticed them too but he was unflappable. The police car switched to the left lane and

passed us, disappearing into the deep blue meridian.

�Brazil,� the kommodore said. �Brazil is for Nazis. I�m not going to Brazil. No,

no, I know all about your dragnet. In truth, I harbor no intentions of staying here, as

much as the South ravishes me. No. We will head for the coast, and we will sail for

Deutsch-Südwestafrika. The Great Namib. My family has a compound there. Rather, I

have a compound there. With a full staff. A charming family of Boers, hunters, guides,

has looked after the place for the Stolbergs for generations. My daughter will be there

waiting for us. I can only hope that lout Westphalia has vacated the villa in Windhoek.�

Every time the kommodore said �we� or �our,� I felt a sharp pang in my chest,

and I didn�t know if the source of the feeling was the welfare of my men or the affection

of this man I had admired for so long. Or was it the prospect of marrying into nobility? I

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know I would never be the Viscount of Stolberg, but I could one day be his father.

Meanwhile, I would be the consort to the Viscountess. The photo of her that the

kommodore carried was a professionally shot portrait, and the girl was graceful; her face

lacked the hardened, angular quality that marks the Slavic beauty. She had dark curls,

round eyes, and dimples, sweet and exquisite. She was pretty, but did not strike me as

silly. Her slightly pursed lips betrayed wit, sophistication. She had schooled at the

Sorbonne, according to her father, and was a voracious reader of poetry. My heart was a

dreadful confusion. If I fled to Africa with the kommodore, then my men would be sent

to Siberia, where they would languish and die. If I returned to Colquitt empty-handed,

my men might have a chance, there would be hope. By all appearances, I had been taken

hostage, perhaps for my (the general�s) money, perhaps because the kommodore could

not drive. Both would be plausible enough as explanations. In my life I had never been

presented with two mutually exclusive things I wanted to do more than protect my men

and escape to an exotic locale and join the ranks of the nobility. Though I had initially

been caught up in the excitement of a new life at the Make-Believe Ballroom, in my heart

I had not fully committed to either abandoning my men or abandoning my commanding

officer.

�His Erlaucht continues to say �we,�� I said. �I cannot accompany you, Herr

Kommodore, to Africa. I have the fate of my sailors to consider.� Pretty words, but my

heart was not in them. Indeed, I had no idea where my heart was, though it felt like it

was in my throat.

�Come now, Leutnant, I thought we had been through that. You know that the

brigadier lies.�

�No, sir. All I know is that the general is an officer and a gentleman.�

�You are naïve,� he said. �And you are treading dangerously close to dereliction

of duty. Do not forget that I am armed, Leutnant. But I pray it doesn�t come to that.

You are confused, of course. I see the tension in you. I see the struggle. You need time.

A precious commodity, time. But let us use what we have. Drive us toward the closest

port. On the way we�ll make a night of it. If, once we reach this port, you have decided

that you cannot accompany me, then we will bid farewell. I will bind you and leave you

on the wharf where you will be found sooner than later. Until then, let us enjoy

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ourselves, for old times sake, in this lovely land that has been so good to us. You owe me

at least this. One last night on liberty. Besides, you have no choice.� And so, the deal,

such as it was, was struck.

We stopped in a nearby well-treed university town called Sparta and drove around

the campus. Greek Revival was the prevailing architectural aesthetic in this hamlet

known as the Classic City. It was not quite midnight and I wasn�t sure exactly what the

kommodore expected to find until we turned down a boulevard lined with rambling

mansions, some colonnaded, others gingerbreaded in the Victorian style, all with flood

lights and vast, trimmed yards, and wrap-around porches, all bearing letters from the

Greek alphabet, and this last feature, combined with the classical architecture, made me

feel, not exactly at home, but at least not so alien. I rolled down my window and heard a

cacophony of music; it seemed each house was vying for sonic supremacy over the other,

screeching horns of the big band variety, and peals of raucous laughter. For all that I had

heard of collegiate licentiousness in the States, I do not recall seeing any young ladies,

coeds they called them. Damned nuisance that would be, imagine trying to learn

anything among the chatter and prattle and swishing of skirts. The kommodore parked at

the curb in front of a moldering Georgian house bearded in ivy.

They call it the Greek system but to my eyes it was absolutely Roman. In the

dining room, long and high-ceilinged with exposed rafters like a mead hall, the table and

chairs had been cleared out and the hardwood floor was awash with beer. At one end of

the room young men clad only in their underwear stood in two lines. Others, wearing

coats and ties in various states of disarray, egged them on. The two half-nude boys at the

head of each line would, on command, run ten paces and then dive head first, landing on

the floor with a wet, smacking sound and slide through the beer towards the other end of

the room. The boy who slid furthest won the race, and both would return to the ends of

their respective lines. Then a fellow manning a keg would hose down the floor to prepare

it for the next two contestants. Wagers were made by the older, clothed boys, and the

races invariably degenerated into half-nude wrestling matches. An unshaven, thick-

necked wretch wearing around his neck a heavy steel chain with a padlock was perched

on the wrought-iron chandelier, swinging to and fro, bare-chested and brandishing the

half-eaten ham bone of some large game animal they had cooked in a pit earlier that day.

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Occasionally he chanted, �Yes, yes, and more.� Where was Nero with his fiddle? This

was the famous GI Bill at work. How could we ever hope to defeat a nation so great, so

powerful, with resources so vast as to permit the government subsidizing of such

organized mayhem. And yet, I believe, if given the opportunity, my sailors would have

done exactly the same, only they would have sung while they did so.

Our hosts seemed to take little notice of us, other than dispatching one of the bare-

chested athletes to take our drink orders. The kommodore asked for schnapps and I for

vodka and the boy returned with two glasses of beer. Oh, my men, my men, what would

they think of me, in evening dress drinking beer on a college campus with my quarry and

their salvation the kommodore, watching the enemy placing bets on each other while they

lay wagers on how many days they have left until sentenced to the death camps. Would

they understand the temptation of Frau Stolberg�s ingenuous yet knowing gaze, would

they empathize with my opportunism, or the fealty I had sworn to the oath I took when

commissioned an officer? Would they believe what I was trying so stridently to believe,

that they were doomed, viscount or no viscount?

A resident of the house, natty in glen plaid and a bow tie, stuck up a conversation

with us. He thought we were professors, from the modern languages department, and we

did not disabuse him of the notion. His favorite part of university was not merely the

dissemination of ideas, but the opportunities to establish a rapport with great scholars, to

engage in high-minded discourse with one�s elders over a drink, in this case beer, which

my kommodore wanted to trade in for something harder. �Have you no strong spirits,

lad?� he asked.

�No, sir, I�m afraid we�ve drunk the house dry. But I know where to get some.�

�Lead the way, young man. We will drive,� said the kommodore.

The Subway Lounge was two towns away, across the county line, and at two in

the morning, it was just warming up. True to its namesake the establishment was

underground, a long, low-ceilinged narrow basement with a dingy bar and few stools and

several deal tables. At the far end of the lounge was a small stage on which played a

four-piece Negro combo, saxophone, piano, double-bass and drums. The music ranged

from low and plaintive melancholia to high tension sturm und drang, syncopated

blitzkriegs that threatened to split the seams of the squalid little bistro. Here there was

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no Glen Miller, no Gloria Van, no Lindy hop. This place was dark, and though none of

the Negro patrons batted an eye at the white boy buying bottles of bonded gin, the

middle-aged viscount and his prisoner were pilgrims in unholy territory. Or so it seemed

to me.

Our young charge brought us frankfurters and a pail filled with ice and bottles of

beer. There would be a slight delay in the procuring of all the requisite spirits. As I ate

my frank and watched the band I noticed the kommodore and the boy conferring quietly.

The boy indicated with a nod a buxom young Negress in a floral print dress sitting at the

end of the bar. At this point, time ceased to progress fluidly, as it normally did. For me it

began to move in slow staccato steps, in freeze-frames, in snaps of the shutter aperture.

The boy and the kommodore negotiate with the young woman at the bar; the boy brokers

a deal; the kommodore disappears with the woman behind a beaded curtain in the back.

The bassist spins his double-bass on its spindle with a flourish and the saxophonist

removes his sunglasses and mops his brow.

I had not been with a woman for a very long time. In captivity we heard rumors

of a prison camp in San Francisco that allowed its Italian inmates to wander the streets on

their own recognizance, and that, naturally, they always found their way to the city�s red

light district. Camp Colquitt permitted much, but was never quite that indulgent. The

notion of lying with a woman seemed so far out of the realm of possibility that I had

stopped thinking I might ever do so again. That day, however, had been a red letter day;

first the prospect of marrying a Hessian noblewoman, and then love for sale in the jazz

club.

When the kommodore returned to the table, I could smell the tang of his illicit

interlude wafting off his starched white collar. He smiled that tired, avuncular smile and

pecked me on the cheek. The girl in the floral print had returned to her station at the bar.

Without a word, I got up from our table and approached her without the intercession of

our young pimp. She looked me up and down and laughed, saying all these Dutchmen

were going to wear Momma out. She finished her beer and led me by the hand behind

the beaded curtain and up a narrow flight of stairs that smelled like people slept there,

and our bower was a small, drafty room that reeked of creosote. There was a thin

mattress on a metal frame. The bedclothes had been made, and were turned back, and

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this touch gave an incongruous air of hospitality to this shabby, meagerly appointed,

dingy rendezvous.

It wasn�t the shabbiness that robbed me of my virility that night. At many ports-

of-call I had frequented the filthiest bordellos wartime had to offer. Nor was it my

courtesan; she was not only shapely, she was most accommodating. She left no

technique untried. But no matter how much she coaxed, I could not respond. My mind

was flooded with images of my comrades, swabbing the decks of U-908, beating to

quarters, welcoming aboard rescued pilots, taking photos with the colors of captured

ships. Then there were the images of us in captivity: the football in the muddy parade

ground, Sundays in the canteen, the crew presenting me with a rude cake on my name

day every year, and the dancing, oh, the dancing, the kadril naya, the squat dance, and the

men blacking their worn boots for the rowdy koró boushka. Those were halcyon days.

No more fighting, no more depth charges, all the sunlight and fresh air and fresh food a

man could take. Russia seemed so very far away then. Not anymore. I saw them in their

cots, awake long past lights out, whispering to each other the privations, the horrors that

awaited them in the gulag.

And there I was, laying with a woman, my tuxedo hanging on a nail, as my

commanding officer sat in the basement, watching a jazz combo and waiting for me to

drive us to freedom. No, I could not perform, and, if I continued on my present course, I

doubted that I ever would; countess or no countess, I would always see the faces of the

men I had betrayed. The war was still on for the kommodore, at least with respect to the

obligations of an officer during the time of war. But the war was over. It ended for us

when we were taken captive. My obligation was not to Stolberg, not to my oath, but to

the men who had bled and sweated under me, who at one time depended on me to get

them to the surface again, and now who depended on me to keep them safely far away

from home. I looked at the girl. She smiled sweetly. I think she could tell that my

thoughts were elsewhere. I was embarrassed. I gave her twice the fee upon which we

had agreed, hurriedly dressed, and went back to the basement to retrieve the kommodore.

Our young guide had passed out. We frog-marched him to the car, and then we

frog-marched him to his sleeping brothers. Then we continued east, toward the port of

Savannah. I was feeling tired; dawn had just broken, and we had indulged deeply that

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night. But if the kommodore was weary, he was showing no signs of it. If only he would

fall asleep I could disarm him. Otherwise, all was lost. I would drop him off at the port,

he would escape and I would be held accountable. I was beginning to doubt that General

McVey would not punish my men for my failure, officer or no. A man so desperate to

conceal this affair that he blackmails one prisoner to find another rather than alert the

authorities might be capable of any kind of skullduggery.

In the meantime, there would be neither escape nor capture if I did not keep

myself awake. �Herr Kommodore, I must have some coffee, or we will never make it.�

�Yes, and I must visit the head,� he said. �Pull over somewhere in the next

town.�

The next town was Daisy, which was hardly a town at all, little more than a feed

store and a diner, where we pulled in. Bacon crackled and spat on the grill. Our entrance

had initially drawn stares from the patrons, middle-aged, red-faced men clad mainly in

flannel and canvas and brogans; two �Dutchmen� in dinner jackets and patent leather

pumps must have made quite an impression. We walked up to the aluminum and

Formica counter and I ordered two take-away coffees. This was very un-European, and

not at all Russian. But the kommodore insisted. He was, understandably, in a hurry, in

such a hurry that, when we were once again in the parking lot, the kommodore said,

�Ach! I forgot the head,� and went back inside the diner.

Other than my brief and unproductive tryst with the girl at the jazz club, this was

the first moment I�d had to myself since leaving Camp Colquitt, and my mind raced. I

could drive away now, but that would accomplish nothing; I would no longer be the

kommodore�s hostage, but the kommodore would be at large. I could plead my case to

one of the agrarian patrons inside, but by the time they penetrated my accent, the

kommodore would have finished his business. I was lost in thought, and only when a tow

truck had to drive around me, did I realize I was standing in the middle of the parking lot.

The tow truck put in my mind the notion of car trouble. If only we experienced engine

failure, then maybe we wouldn�t make it to Savannah before being caught. I would still

secure my men�s safety by having detained the kommodore. But we did not have engine

trouble.

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However, that did not mean that I could not feign engine trouble. I was not in

possession of the kommodore�s vast knowledge of the automobile, but I did know what a

spark plug was and what an engine would not do without one (or 8, as was the case with

the Buick), namely, ignite. I propped open the bonnet of the staff car and loosened the

distributor cap, and sat back behind the wheel where I turned the key to no avail. I was

wondering if this ruse would buy me enough time to execute the next phase of my plan

when the kommodore had returned.

�Ach! Not now, we are too close,� he said. �What is the problem?�

�No ignition,� I said.

�She will not start?� he asked. �That does not sound too complicated. Perhaps I

should take a look.� The kommodore walked to the front of the car and stuck his head

under the bonnet.

�Yes,� I said. �Your expert knowledge of the automobile may yet save the day.�

The kommodore tinkered under the bonnet and said, �Try now.� But I was in no

position to try the key as I had slipped out of the car and was standing behind him. I

thought one more time of the fairy tale awaiting me across the Atlantic in a castle in the

desert, and I thought again of the frozen wasteland in the armpit of the northern

hemisphere. When the kommodore again said, �Try again,� I slammed down the bonnet,

breaking the rod that propped it up, and knocking the kommodore unconscious. I lifted

the bonnet, removed Tuck�s pistol from the kommodore�s waistband and slipped it into

my own, and wondered if I would have to use it on the sun-baked farmers spilling out of

the diner and advancing on me, having witnessed the entire performance, and whether

they could tell a good Dutchman from a bad one.

130

THE PLAYBOY PRESIDENT: THE JOURNAL OF A FALLEN LORD OF BEASTS AND MEN

Never a Nehru man, my sartorial tastes were more in line with those of the banana

republic generalissimo: white tunic, gold epaulettes, outsized aviators with the mirror

lenses. But when I looked in my closet that day�the one closet in my third-floor walk-

up�I saw then that the tunic had yellowed. Perhaps this is for the best, I thought. Age

had lent a sort of ivoried dignity to the garment, refined it, given it something more like

the creamy patina of a dinner jacket than the industrial Dacron sheen of some junior

naval officer�s mess coat. At any rate, I hadn�t the time to have another one cut, as the

gentleman sitting in my parlor needed my answer directly. He was a strapping young

thing in a beige poplin suit, and would have looked right fetching in some dress whites

himself, I daresay. His name was Hunt and he had made me quite a proposition. He said

I was to have my old job back, if I still wanted it. Life in exile suited me just fine, I must

admit�the bracciole at the Italian butcher on 7th Avenue, fresh baguettes just next door,

the pop and hiss of shallots sautéing in my kitchenette (the exigencies of life without a

staff had demanded that I master the kettle and the skillet), free concerts in Prospect Park,

the occasional Yankees game. Those simple pleasures. But then there was the rush, the

electric charge of command that one felt when giving the order, �Assemble the army,�

especially when confronted with a superior force, which was not unlike putting one�s last

chip on 36 and watching the wheel spin. No, I decided, the wielding of power was not a

sensation that one could obtain down the street at the Korean deli. So I slipped off my

cardigan and slipped on my faded tunic, the ribbons and the gold braided cord and

aiguillette still intact. I could still squeeze into the neck but the waist simply would not

button. Nevertheless, when I returned to the parlor Hunt rose to his feet and said,

�Monsieur President, you look like a million dollars.� And that�s all I needed to hear.

That was the day I fell in love.

Hunt and I were escorted to an idling Continental by two guards in sunglasses and

mufti who spoke clipped, cryptic sentences into miniature microphones stitched into their

lapels. Their suits�both charcoal pinstripe, despite the beastly weather�were positively

bulging with firepower. That, too, that armed escort, was a rush. No one had fawned

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over me, much less spirited me away since�well, since I had lost my job, some ten years

prior. Two other practically identical security officers�same thick necks, same worsted

wool�remained in my apartment to pack my effects, which they would send on later.

Meanwhile, I was to be installed in an undisclosed location where I was hoping to find a

competent masseuse, or, with any luck, a masseur.

At breakfast later that week, Hunt was red-eyed and reticent and walking with the

shambling, bandylegged gait of the recently roughly buggered, or so it seemed, and I

imagined that his night was more like my Laotian paramour�s than mine. This slender

Ivy Leaguer should stay away from the rough trade, I thought, Yes, Hunt�s a tender lad

who needs caressing, cuddling, fondling, lubrication. A romantic, to be sure. We were

dining in my rooms at the undisclosed hotel. As he buttered his scone his hands tremored

as if struck with the palsy and I noticed my own hands, steady�no thanks to the

champagne orgy of the previous evening�but spotted, mottled with pinks and reds.

Nothing white gloves wouldn�t conceal but they reminded me all the same that years had

passed since I had been called on to do anything save tip a doorman and I wondered if I

was up for the challenge. There would be decisions to be made, taxes to be levied,

ministers to be appointed, dissenters to be dismissed.

�You can�t run up this sort of tab every night,� Hunt said, the receipt from that

week�s room service trembling between his thumb and forefinger. He was put out with

me, my handsome handler, and all the more handsome for it, his thick, blonde hair with

its Robert Kennedy cowlick tousled from running his hands through it, his brow furrowed

with care. �I have to answer for these charges, you know. Five magnums of Mumm�s?�

�Five jeroboams,� I said.

�One case of Veuve Cliquot, four beef Wellingtons, oysters Rockefeller, truffles,

truffles, truffles�thirty dollars for a hamburger?� Hunt dropped the receipt.

�It was topped with Roquefort,� I said.

My rationalizations were of no use. Hunt was red-faced and fed up, and so soon

into our acquaintance. He rubbed his temples. �You�re going to have to cut back. We�re

going to have to work something out,� he said.

Yes we will, darling, I thought. Yes we will.

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The company had tried once before to reinstall me, years ago, an aborted attempt in

which I never made it any farther than Rangoon. A shame, really, that my only trip

abroad since being ousted was to filthy old Rangoon. This time, however, they

succeeded. There I was, in the presidential villa overlooking the capital Namaste-

Lamahé, pacing in the peristyle, the clicking of my heels on the marble tiles reverberating

among the columns, waiting for my egg cream, my intestines a war zone for tropical

protozoa. I realized I was a million miles away from my cozy little exile in Brooklyn. If

I wasn�t happy there�and why wouldn�t I be, the little Turkish bath house, and high tea

across the bridge in Chelsea�at least I was at peace. But once I�d met Hunt, I was as

agitated as a schoolboy with a crush on his neighbor, and I hadn�t even kissed him yet.

God knew why the Hanuman Islands were of any strategic importance to the

world�s superpower. Hunt told me that it had to do with clandestine trade with some

embargoed sheikhs across the sea. The company meant to set up some shell corporations

on Hanumanian soil. I was sure it was all terribly interesting but I had the heady

responsibility of command to bear and simply could not be troubled with the tedium and

minutiae of commerce. Besides, it was really none of my concern, as long as my

benefactors preserved my job security, which Hunt had guaranteed�provided I did not

stray from the company�s policy�in a communiqué composed a week after he took

French leave, which was two months ago.

Though I had made emphatically clear to my valet that the egg cream in fact

contains no egg he returned to the peristyle with a Collins glass brimming with a viscous,

sticky brew into which he had whipped �three eggs, President-sahib, three.� Wretched

troglodyte, it wasn�t his fault, I suppose, but I fetched him a swift kick to his scanty

behind anyway. This did not make me feel better like it used to.

Sex no longer thrilled me. I even tried on for size a serving girl, thinking that the

novelty might arouse the bold fellow. It did not. When I was with her I could only think

of my handler, and I even had the poor thing don white flannels and a navy blazer, like

Hunt had worn to the Presidential Tea at my retreat in the hills, but this only made me

feel fat and sad. In that last cable he had said that I was doing �top notch� work toeing

the company line and he made clear, in the brevity peculiar to such missives, that he felt

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his job conducting me back to power was done, that I had acclimated, that someday we

might see each other at an embassy party. What rot. Well, Hunt wouldn�t wash his

hands of me just yet.

I set about devising ways to garner his attention, figuring that only through bad

government would I entice him to visit, looking to scold me. First, I changed the

curriculum in the primary and secondary schools: abolished all the maths, and declared

any and all utterances of the English language a misdemeanor punishable by three years

in labor camp. The students and faculty could read in English all they liked, but, within

the school walls, none could speak it. As English and French were the official languages

of the Hanumans, and only government officials and the intelligentsia spoke French, this

measure rendered difficult the business of education and was ultimately enforced for only

two weeks. During this period I had no word from Hunt or his embassy.

Then there was the matter of the coin of our realm, the Hanumanian Rupee, the

flimsy brown notes emblazoned in pink and violet with the beast gods of the republic�s

benighted denizenry. I had rarely deigned to touch the filthy currency�the bills

disintegrated rapidly and always looked as if they�d spent a month in some prisoner�s

rectum�and instead trafficked in pounds sterling, or the American dollar. So for me

there was no love lost when I glutted the market with a new currency, the Obermark,

which featured images of me. The Five Obermark note bore an engraving based on a

photograph of me at Oxford swinging a cricket bat when I played for Kings College. In

the center of the Twenty I�m at the Savoy with a tousled brunette on my arm, and on the

Ten Thousand Obermark, I�m wearing sunglasses and blowing a saxophone. My

advisors told me that no merchants honored the currency, choosing to accept only rupees,

and I regret to this day not recalling those filthy old notes and declaring them obsolete.

Still no word from Hunt.

So, that day in the peristyle, I paced and paced and asked myself what sort of

minor mischief might a smitten despot make? And, like a vision, it came to me.

�Remember your Suetonius,� I said aloud. �Look to the Caesars.� And it was at that

moment that I decided to imprison the army officers who were loyal to my predecessor

during the coup that had ousted me.

That got his attention.

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The next day my chamberlain announced Hunt who was looking wilted in damp

linen. I received him in my billiards room. I had furnished the room with three

tournament-size tables covered in purple baize, and the walls were papered in purple

damask, trimmed in gold lame. Very regal, in an African bully-boy way. It was

unapologetically tacky and I loved it. I challenged Hunt to a game of snooker. He

declined.

�An army needs its officers, Henri,� Hunt said.

�As does a navy,� I said. �Vermouth cassis? Pernod? Gin and tonic?�

Hunt declined again, and when he refused even a seat I realized that this meeting

was not going to proceed as planned. I experienced that sinking sensation one feels when

one�s flirtations with last night�s love-interest are not reciprocated the following day, a

sort of barren dryness in the bowels.

�Those men I cannot trust,� I said. �What would you have me do? Harbor

traitors on the government payroll? No, my friend. I choose to line with gold the pockets

of sons of the nation, and sons of the nation only.�

�With what, Henri?� Hunt asked. He loosened his Harvard necktie and poured

himself a whisky, neat, from a decanter on the sideboard, and for just a moment it seemed

that my prospects had changed. �Certainly not Obermarks. You�d do well to remember

that at any given moment we know just what lines your national coffers, or, more to the

point, what does not. What promises have you made your loyalists, your sons of the

nation, so as to keep them loyal? What makes you think they won�t stage a coup so as to

stay out of jail? What, in a word, is wrong with you?�

�Our first spat,� I said, refreshing my own drink. �How sweet.�

�Listen,� Hunt said. �Corruption, graft�we understand these concepts. But the

fact of the matter is that you stand to gain nothing from any of these highly unorthodox

decisions. You are behaving like a madman. We want the Hanuman Archipelago to

function on her own two feet. We want you to make your own decisions, to practice your

sovereignty. But not at the expense of reason. Arresting half your army�s officers?

What sort of kangaroo court, what sort of gangster government are you running here?

Have some dignity, man. Are you a leader, or just another wog with an entourage?�

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I felt my cheeks burn white-hot at this last quip, beyond the pale of playful banter

between intimates, and I was too stunned, if not too hurt, to return the volley.

�Release the prisoners,� Hunt said. �Release them and reinstate them.

Compensate them for their time. Tell them it was a training exercise in resisting

interrogation. Buy them. And don�t make me come back here.�

He threw his jacket over his shoulder and I could see his white shirt sticking to the

small of his back and, without an undershirt, I could see the ripple of his lateral muscles.

When he slammed the door behind him my heart lept and, despite�or rather because

of�his epithet, I set to engineering our next encounter. To think he had no idea that I

loved him.

At Eton we played this board game in which the object was to achieve world domination

through attacking opponents� nations. A roll of the dice determined the outcome of these

skirmishes. A player interested in winning sought to gain control of the world continent

by continent. I was never interested in winning. When I played I assumed the role of the

rogue nation, never leaving behind enough troops to sufficiently defend a territory,

attacking all nations, cutting a swathe through that archaic landscape, taking

Mesopotamia or Ceylon and never looking back, signing only pacts of full aggression.

Sometimes my desperate antics amused my classmates, most times I frustrated them and

soon enough they ceased to include me in their all-night campaigns. But for me the

prospect of losing was as exciting as that of winning. These were the ups and downs of

the gambler�s life, and it was in this spirit that, in order to gain Hunt�s attention, I decided

to invade Jumal al Wadi, my neighbor to the west.

As my grand vetting of disloyal officers from the army reduced that institution to

little more than a government-subsidized drinking club, I decided upon a naval incursion.

The Armada Hanuman was on the smallish side, consisting of what we in the banana

republic business call an �aging Russian fleet�: two Zhuk-class patrol boats, the Spanish

Mackerel and the Yakov Sverdlov, one amphibious landing craft, and our flagship, the

Albatros-class corvette Lakshmi Singh. Each of the patrol boats carried a complement of

fifty and the Lakshmi Singh had a crew of 100. And whereas this may strike one as a

small force with which to take another country, Jumal al Wadi, site of the long ago

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abandoned Soviet listening station, had no navy at all, just a coast guard comprised of

inflatable pontoons and a mahogany motor launch that had been the pleasure craft of the

whilom Portuguese governor-general. The island was of absolutely no strategic or

economic value to the Hanumans, but it was sovereign, and, by god, it was there; I

needed an island to take, not to keep.

My first naval campaign. Well, your armchair commodore would tell you that

coastal patrol boats simply are not built for the high seas and your armchair commodore

would be correct. By some stroke of dumb luck we lost neither Spanish Mackerel nor the

Yakov in the gale that raged between Jumal and the Hanumans, but when the time came

for landing, both crews were so seasick we might as well have lost them. This left me

with a party of one hundred men which was making for the shore in the landing craft.

But standing in the bow of the launch, the air raunchy with diesel, one foot on the

gunwale, the sea spray spattering my top boots and jodhpurs, wearing a bicorn and

brandishing my cutlass, I might have had a regiment of marines ten-thousand strong. I

saw the Jumal al Madi Home Defence Force scrambling down the sand dunes to meet our

beachhead and I felt electric, my spine tingled and my breath was short and choppy as if I

was twelve thousand meters above the sea. It is not every day a head of state storms the

beach. I ordered my bugler to blow the charge, which over the din of the engine was

inaudible, so I had the helmsman blow the klaxon as well.

In my calculations of the enemy�s defenses I had not allowed for artillery. For a

primitive people, the Jumalis were in possession of an excellent battery. They opened

with a salvo from a trio of 107mm howitzers positioned on the berm, and a shell from one

of these tore straight through the pilot house of the Yakov. And they kept the shells

coming regularly, if not inaccurately, hitting the water all around us and sending great

white columns of sea spume fifty meters into the sky. The Lakshmi Singh was returning

fire with her 30mm and the quad .50�s but I had in mind a more dramatic riposte. I raised

Lakshmi�s captain on the radio and ordered him to lock on to the howitzer emplacements

and fire the Seersuckers, a smallish sort of cruise missile a handful of which I won in a

backroom game of baccarat in Monaco. At the time the Seersuckers represented the sum

total of our cutting-edge defense system capabilities, but I was never one to pinch pennies

in a tight spot. I also figured that, no matter in how much trouble this adventure would

137

land me, Hunt would appreciate with a wry smile the sartorial cachet of the firepower

with which I took the island. Besides, we were allies with the superpower so there

would be no limits on the weapons systems available to us in the future.

Well, the Seersuckers did the trick, but not before two of the howitzers sank the

Spanish Mackerel with what I learned later were incendiary rounds, white phosphorous,

to be precise. The detonation upon their simultaneous impact�now that�s fire control for

you�with the bow and stern was marvelous to behold. The explosion was just this white

flash, soft, fluffy almost, not unlike a cumulonimbus cloud. And then the smoke

practically vanished. I read later in Jane�s that white phosphorous burns at a temperature

of 5000° Fahrenheit, and that it was this intense heat�and it was intense, even at a

distance of two hundred meters I felt my face scald�that forced the smoke to rise and

dissipate so rapidly. All that was left was the bubbling, melted hulk of the Spanish

Mackerel, which sunk directly with nary a scream from the nauseated crew incinerated

within. It was eerie. It was stunning. It was magnificent.

With the Jumali battery out of commission, we took the beach right handily. I

think the Seersuckers really knocked the fight out of the poor bastards. I did take a bullet

in my bicorn, right through the cockade, but other than that my uniform was in good

order when we seized the provincial governor�s mansion, a moldy stone heap of Dutch

colonial surrounded by wattle-and-daub rondavels and whitewashed square bunkers

roofed in thatch, all under a thick canopy of banyan trees, an excellent staging ground for

guerilla warfare, but, as I said, those cruise missiles had drained them of their vigor. The

governor, a bespectacled, harried little man in threadbare serge, was all too eager to

concede victory. We struck their colors and flew the Hanumanian flag, a macaque in a

fez clutching the book of knowledge in one hand and a telescope in the other.

The first night passed and we received no word from the main island in the Jumal

group so the next morning I collected my officers and the men for whom we had room in

the Lakshmi, which was about half of the survivors of the raiding party, and left behind a

garrison of thirty some-odd men. Every outpost needs a garrison, yes?

Oh, but wasn�t there a row upon my return. Hunt was waiting for me and he was not

alone but with a fellow I gathered to be the chief of station, broad-shouldered, bald, and

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square of jowl. He took a dim view of my behavior. He did all the talking while Hunt

just stood and avoided my glance. The chief of station not only reprimanded me for

violating international law, he soundly thrashed me for my domestic policy as well.

�There is grace and subtlety to statecraft, even crooked statecraft, especially crooked

statecraft,� he said. �Mind you remember that unless you want to find yourself relocated

one day, and not to New York, either.

�As of now we are withdrawing all monetary support,� he continued and my heart

skipped a beat and I tried to get Hunt to look me in the eye but he would not. �That

includes military. All arms deals are off. We will protect you from your neighbors

should they attack, which they would be well within their rights to do. As it stands you

have no army, no navy. Your ass-backwards regime will need our help. Toe the line,

and we�ll let you stay in power. Just don�t get any funny ideas, because, bubba, we will

crush you like a bug.�

Again I tried to catch my handler�s eye. I noticed he had sprouted a pimple, in the

crevice between his nostril and his cheek. The flesh there was raw and agitated, and the

round white head looked positively angry. This space, just between nostril and cheek,

where the fingertips can find no purchase, is the absolute worst place to have a pimple,

and this one was brought into high definition by the red chafed flesh surrounding it. I felt

a pang of pity in my chest for the boy. Great stress had brought on this blemish, stress of

my making, and this Neanderthal chief of station had no doubt dressed him down in the

basest terms for his mishandling of me. My heart cracked at the sight of his departure,

Hunt hang-dog at his superior�s elbow, carrying both his and his chief�s attachés.

Come the Golden Age of the Hanumans, the Great Aufklärung, the Autumnal

Enlightenment, the age of good governance, wholesome as fish and mango pie. I began

with the sale of the presidential yacht that I might bankroll my campaign against malaria

which involved the distribution of mosquito nets to the population. December became

Dung Poultice Awareness Month, during which we celebrated the wonders of modern

medicine while we recognized the dangers of the medicine man. We inoculated whole

villages against typhoid. With the clear-cut harvest of the hardwoods that had heretofore

forested the presidential game preserve I not only bid adieu to the yak hunting parties of

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yore but with the proceeds from the sale of timber was able to establish the Hanumans�

first Education Trust. With this money I was able to lure secondary school teachers away

from not only their posts in the United States, but from some of the finer public schools

in England as well, and so began the Great Belated School Reform. At the taxi-stands of

Namaste-Lamahé I ordered the installation of parking meters, and before these were

finally violently uprooted they had generated enough coin to finance the painting of a

white line down the center of our highway. From my veranda I proclaimed that all milk

would henceforth be pasteurized.

I even decreed a speed limit.

Well, you can imagine my delight at the invitation to the embassy�s garden fête.

For me this typically would have been a cocked hat and gold braid affair, brand new tunic

and jodhpurs, the tailoring for which would have exhausted a whole bolt of finest twill.

But rather than cutting a ridiculous figure like some barbarous shah, I decided instead on

simple black tie, affixing only a miniature order of the Légion d�Honneur des

Hanumanaux to the lapel of my white dinner jacket. Indeed, as I slipped my feet into

patent leather pumps rather than riding boots I found myself for the first time in quite a

while dressed like any other mild mannered, restrained, and refined head of state. I only

hoped that Hunt would take note. I knew for a fact from my agents that he had not been

reassigned to some other station.

The embassy was an aberration of design, a compound enclosed within reinforced

concrete walls some ten meters high surrounded by a dry moat. At the gate there was a

limestone barbican with a machinegun nest at the top and once the marine on watch

cross-referenced my invitation with the guest list, which really was a bit much�who else

but the head of state of the hosting government pulls up to a foreign embassy in a

brougham driven by a man in livery and drawn by a team of pure-bred Arab stallions and

under mounted armed escort at that�I was allowed to cross the draw bridge. Within the

walls was a vast lawn of close-cropped St. Augustine grass with a fountain in the middle

and wickets set up for croquet on one side and a bandstand with a string quartet on the

other presiding over a temporary dance floor comprised of movable marble tiles. A

prefabricated ballroom: my, what resources this superpower had. I was anticipating an

encounter with Hunt with both hope and dread, and my senses were in an acute state of

140

awareness. I saw the flies hovering above the smoked salmon on the buffet, and over the

concerto I heard the gravel of the walkway crunch under my slippers. At the center of the

compound was a rambling gingerbread Victorian flanked by squat modular units walled

in sheet metal. On the porch of the house I spotted Hunt, his cheeks rosy, possibly from

drink, cornered by a female junior naval officer in an ill-tailored evening uniform. I

made an immediate detour for the bar on the lawn where I downed one champagne, and

then another.

I caught his eye and I felt the heat rise to my cheeks. Could it be that he just

winked at me? I downed one more champagne and made for the porch.

�Monsieur President,� Hunt said with a bow. He shook my hand, pumping it

twice, I do believe. My throat went dry. �You look well. Really.�

He was as boyishly dashing as ever, the tips of his hair bleached by the sun, the

careless angle of his bow tie. The carnation, the pink carnation, pinned to the shawl

collar of his white dinner jacket. There are no carnations on the Hanuman Islands. There

is, however, the diplomatic pouch. He was a delight, an absolute dish to behold, a sort of

Lord Alfred Douglas after a Jane Fonda Workout, and those bright eyes of his just

radiated mischief.

�Let�s talk,� he said. �But not here. Come inside.� My knees practically gave

out from under me. This just could not be. Hunt led me to an oak-paneled study, the

walls of which were decked with trophies, a menagerie of boar and antelope heads,

tasseled spears, a wooden shield and a scimitar, a blunderbuss mounted above the mantle

of the flagstone fireplace. Hunt gestured toward a leather sofa where I sat and he joined

me. He seemed unusually animated and I thought he must have been as nervous as me,

and with his rapid-fire conversation was compensating for this anxiety. The air was thick

with all the tension of a first date. And here we were, on a sofa, in a back room at a

soirée. I drank a gin and tonic that Hunt had given me but I didn�t know what to do with

my other hand. It looked as out of place in my lap as it did stuck inside my coat like

Napoleon, so I stretched my arm out along the back of the sofa, my hand resting behind

Hunt�s neck.

141

�As I�m sure you know, we have observed all of your reforms with great interest,�

he said. �Particularly the anti-malaria initiative. That�s just the sort of forward thinking

we like to see in our friends abroad. We are still friends, aren�t we, Monsieur President?�

�Henri,� I said, a lump rising in my throat.

�Of course. Well, Henri, in light of this progress I�ve gone to bat on your behalf.

I have managed to sweet-talk the chief into petitioning the home office for some loans,

modest, but interest-free. We have also two decommissioned torpedo boats available for

your navy�s purchase at terms I�m sure you�ll find agreeable. We only need you to grant

a small land concession on the north coast of Isle de Sahaddi.�

�Land concession?� I asked. �For what? A garrison?�

�Not a garrison, per se,� Hunt said, uncrossing his legs as he did so, consciously, I

was sure. �More as a gesture of our continuing friendship, Henri.�

I felt the twitching in my calf that still comes upon me in the moments leading up

to any sort of confrontation. In one fluid motion, a maneuver in and of itself of which I

am still proud, I brought Hunt�s face to mine and pressed my lips to his, where I found

the acrid spice of aftershave mingled with the evergreen bouquet of gin. Freshly shaven,

his cheek was cool and soft and perhaps even powdered with talc. But his lips were

unyielding so I withdrew. Hunt�s cheeks had drained of all color.

�What the�,� he began, standing up briskly, smoothing his trousers and

straightening his jacket. �What�s wrong with you?�

�Wrong with me?� I cried. �Hunt, I love you. Madly. Don�t you know?

Couldn�t you tell? Didn�t you want��

�President Leclerc, get a hold of yourself, please,� Hunt said. �This is�this is,

ah, unorthodox. Highly unorthodox. And�I�m�not that way.�

�Don�t lie to me boy,� I said, tossing off my drink and standing. �Don�t insult an

old man. You�re just a tease.�

His brow blackened. �President Leclerc, in the interest of diplomacy I will make

no mention of this incident. But be advised that you have attempted an assault on

sovereign soil not your own. Our interview is concluded.� He left the study and I�d

never felt so fat, so clumsy, so unnecessary in my life.

142

�Not that way.� Please. If that man hasn�t had a steamy tryst with a fullback in the

locker room then I have indeed misjudged the world. And addressing a head of state, his

very host, in so free a manner. What cheek. To let such impudence pass unchecked

would have compromised my honor. There was nothing else for it. All vestiges of the

superpower I had to banish from the isle. I assembled the Hussars and ordered them to

take American properties by force so as to give that brash youth a taste of my own brand

of sweet talk, flavored with piss and vinegar.

I had never known rejection.

The Hussars were well turned out, as if on parade, with their bearskin shakos and

ostrich plumes and handsomely mounted on Arabian geldings and chestnut mares bred in

Shropshire and a team of polo ponies purchased from a rascally Lascar horse thief. When

the Colonel of Hussars returned from their first strike�the Sheraton�and reported to me

at the palace I followed him in my armored car. Under the awning of the hotel the non-

native members of the staff sat bound and gagged and, in the case of the concierge,

bloodied. I ordered the colonel to have them taken away by lorry and then to have his

men raze the building.

�But Monsieur President,� said the Colonel of Hussars. �Shouldn�t we at least let

the men have a go at the hotel first, to�er�liberate the building of its valuables. They

have performed valiantly today, sir, and, with all due respect, they have not been paid for

some��

�Silence, Colonel,� I said. �Absolutely not. These are hussars, not brigands, and

this is not a looting party. Raze the hotel.�

Which they did, tying old rags to the ends of their lances and dipping them in

diesel and riding around the perimeter, breaking the window panes and touching their

burning wands to the draperies within; the maneuver had all the grace of the Russian

ballet. Ultimately, this was a shame, the destruction of the old French customs house

turned five-star poacher of the tourist dollar, the plaster of the columns hissing and

spitting as the flames licked up their shafts. A shame, but no less necessary for it. I had

not only been rejected, I had been dishonored, and I demanded satisfaction.

The hussars met with light resistance from the security at the casino, but

eventually took that building as well. For the nonce I spared the casino the fiery fate of

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the Sheraton and called up the 5th Auxiliary Regiment of Foot�not much more than

pensioners with shotguns�to guard it until I could have the cashier�s vault properly

breeched and its contents confiscated for the purposes of an executive audit. The offices

of Habitat for Humanity were subsequently leveled by mortar attack. The Vanderbilt

University Botanical Gardens the crop-duster sprayed with DDT. And though army and

navy I virtually had none, I did have an air corps, two rusty Migs, relics from the cold

war, and so I called in an air strike on the theme park still under construction. What a

frenzy that night was.

The colonel of Hussars had removed his shako and was patting dry his sweaty

forehead, but he replaced his headcover as soon as my car pulled alongside his mount. I

rolled down my window to address him. The air that wafted in was thick with the smell

of smoke and I felt my blood rush. Warfare was the thrill of all thrills.

�To the embassy,� I told the colonel.

�Which embassy, sir?�

�Why, the American Embassy, you dolt.�

�But sir, they are much too well fortified.�

�Do you question the nobility, the superiority of Hanumanian arms?� I asked the

swine.

�We are armed with carbines and lances. That embassy is guarded by United

States Marines.�

�I don�t care who is guarding the Americans. They are no longer welcome on this

our sovereign soil. Honor demands that we expel them,� I said, feeling a sting in my

heart as I did so, the memory of Hunt�s protests, his feigning of shock at my overture. It

was an insult that still smarted, one that was still clear and present, very much so. �Cease

your craven remonstrations. If you won�t lead your men, step down and have your

executive officer, what�s his name, that chubby major, the one with the mole, assume

command. War means fighting.�

�Sir, I must protest. This attack is suicide.�

�Colonel, you are hereby relieved of your command.�

Alas, that we were never to witness said Hanuman superiority on a field of honor.

From atop the limestone barbican of the US Embassy, the marines rained on my parade,

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quite literally. Again, the Americans chose insult over injury and assaulted us not with

ordnance but with water cannons, dismounting the hussars and knocking their horses to

the ground screaming. There would have been more honor in a pot of boiling pitch

tipped over the side of the tower. My driver and my security detail fled on foot, and

before I could take the wheel, I, the President, the Commander-in-Chief, of the Hanuman

Archipelago surrendered not to Hunt, not to the oafish chief of station, not even to that

half-caste ambassador with the game leg, but to some slack-jawed lieutenant in sweaty

fatigues. Confound their lack of etiquette, their ignorance of protocol, their New World

swagger, damn their pride.

In a way, since that long-ago coup that landed me in Brooklyn, I have never ceased being

a guest under the protection of the superpower. My current undisclosed location of

residence they call a brig, and by no means is it temporary. Thank the maker for the

privilege of rank. In deference to my status as a former head of state they have given me

my own cell and a small garden to till where, with a little help from egg shells and

vitamin B added to the soil, I grow roses so red and lurid that even I blush when I behold

them. The occasional aubergine, too, I have sown, in addition to the pedestrian tomato.

Roses are an art, for sure. But if there is any pursuit more déclassé than the vegetable

garden then I do not know it. At night I write verse, and, of a Sunday, I revel in the

rough love of the group shower. A Houston oil man with whom I made nice years ago in

a chalet at Gstaad sends me care packages by post via the Hanumanian Consulate,

chocolate from the Cote d�Ivoire, and foie gras harvested in Texas that tastes like soap.

As for Hunt, sweet, confused Hunt, I at first wrote him weekly, now only monthly, to

keep him abreast of my affairs. My first letters were long, elegiac missives in which I

pined for the love we almost had. The naughty scamp has never written me back. But

true love knows no end to persistence. Today I�ve finished a watercolor for the little

rogue, a study of my garden, tended by round-cheeked, bare-bottomed cherubim, one of

which is a little browner than the others, staring down the viewer, with a rose clutched in

his teeth, his sloe-eyed gaze haunting the edges of pillow talk.

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THREE CHEERS FOR THE MULLIGAN

The problem with apocalypse is that all the charts are obsolete. I was in the control

room, standing over the chart table with compass and T-square, when I heard first a

thump resound throughout the hull, and then the groan of sheet metal compromised. The

ship lurched to starboard, my implements slid off the table and clattered across the deck,

and I collided with the attack periscope, its handle jabbing me in the kidney. I ran down

the gangway, in my rush upsetting a casserole left to cool in the galley, and made my way

past the forward battery to the torpedo room which was already filling, the rupture in the

hull spewing seawater like a hydrant. The cook and the chief engineer were working the

pump but to no avail. I apologized for the loss of the casserole. �The cheese oosh?� said

the cook. �Damn you, sir.� A rivet popped from its hole with a report like that of a rifle

and whizzed by my cheek. The water was now up to mid-calf. �Forget it, boys,� I said.

�The Number One bulkhead will keep the water at bay.� So we sealed the water-tight

hatch to the torpedo room, and I ran aft to give the captain a damage report, though I had

heard no request for one through the voice pipe.

Indeed, I had not seen the captain since evening mess the night before, during

which he looked jaundiced again�even his eyes were yellow. I knocked twice on the

bulkhead of his cabin, and then I called his name, �Captain Mulligan.� I heard only �The

Light Calvary Overture� playing within. Fearing the worst, I parted the curtain a few

inches and discovered the captain mounting the newly shipped hydrographer, Ensign

Moultrie. Had the captain been doing so from behind, this incident would have been

more or less unremarkable. However, the captain had mounted the ensign in the

missionary position. They did not stop, seeming not to notice me; the captain�s eyes

were squeezed shut, his meaty hands clutching the wadded sheets on his rack. I

withdrew. Back in the control room my hands trembled. I had witnessed something

wholly unnatural, not sodomy; at sea a man must dabble in such mysteries. No, what I

had seen was not sodomy. What I had seen, our captain, inside another man, chest to

chest, thrusting away hot as a satyr, was not anatomically possible.

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I collected the compass and T-square and forced myself to concentrate and

determine our position. By my reckoning we were ten points north-northeast of the

Gaskin Banks and so were clear of the shoals there. Be that as it may, we had struck

something, some hitherto uncharted reef or who knows what. A hydrographer might

have known, but our hydrographer was on his back, underneath our skipper. At Fort

Pulaski where we had docked for refitting we took on Ensign Ashley Moultrie to assist us

in our mission on board the USS Dude Ranch, which was to render current the chart of

the shipping lanes from Georgia to the Carolinas. Apocalypse had left us with no

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, no Geological Survey, and not much of a

navy. It had also shifted the Blake-Bahama Ridge, which in turn shifted the Blake

Plateau. This series of events left the United States Navy Reserve Ship O-12, otherwise

known as the Dude Ranch, of Flotilla Number 10, to rechart these most important waters.

O-12 was an O-Class submarine, built in 1918, formerly known as the Bluffton, South

Carolina Maritime Museum. For one of the last submarines in the American fleet this

mission seemed to be an egregious misappropriation of resources, but, considering that

we were absurdly undermanned, it beat sailing south and going toe to toe with the

Spaniards, who had retaken Florida.

Enter the hydrographer. I had never taken to Moultrie. He wore an ill-fitting

uniform, the blouse much too large, and a full beard. It was one thing to grow a beard

once underway, given the need to conserve the fresh water stores, but another thing

entirely to report for duty hairy as an apostle. He also shipped with too much luggage,

crates and crates of �sensitive equipment,� labeled ASDIC; SONAR; DEVICES,

LISTENING, which he stowed in the lazaret. The equipment remained untouched, even

by the hydrographer. There were two places on board where one was likely to find the

ensign; in the head, where we kept a mirror (for a slob he was uncommonly vain, always

pausing before any reflective surface to smooth his beard, which he kept impeccably

groomed, albeit long), or in the captain�s cabin, where the ensign kept the captain blind

with rum. Before we docked at Fort Pulaski I had the captain down to two tots a day,

heavily diluted tots at that. Two tots is the allotted grog ration, and, as over two hundred

years of tradition have demonstrated, no man is fit to sail without it. But I allowed him

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nothing more, and after a while his health returned; his face had lost that puffiness, the

spider vessels had receded, and he no longer bruised as easily.

But once we made landfall at Fort Pulaski the captain disappeared for two weeks

and returned with Moultrie. Since then, they had been drinking a fifth a day. You could

practically hear the crystallizing of the poor man�s cirrhotic liver. This renewed drinking,

coupled with the fact that I had seen Moultrie only once at the chart table when he

stopped there to mix a piña colada, had prejudiced me against the hydrographer. And

now, buggery most strange.

I had half a mind to call Sugar, our cook and master-at-arms, from the galley and

have him clap Moultrie in irons for lewd, lascivious, and downright impossible conduct

unbecoming an officer, but I thought better of it. Instead, I decided to call a meeting that

evening during chow when Moultrie was out on the bridge on watch, and the captain

asleep on his rack. Watch was one duty that not even the captain�s consort could derelict.

The wardroom was paneled in teak and dominated by a round mahogany table,

one half of which was surrounded by a half-moon bench seat upholstered in maroon

leather splitting at the seams. Above the bench was a shelf lined with bound volumes of

Byron, Pope, Cervantes, and others, and in the center of the table was a dented silver tray

on which sat a crystal ship�s decanter shaped like the bell of a trumpet. For me, the

wardroom was a cramped surrogate for the reading room at The Edward, the gentleman�s

club where I had been a member, back in the day before the war that renewed all wars. I

filled three chipped snifters with brandy, one for me, and one for Chief and Sugar. Sugar

was a wrinkled mastiff of a man, shirtless in his foul-weather bibs. He had baked us a

peach tart which he sat before us. Chief Petty Officer Maurice Moses, our engineer, was

black with soot and slick with diesel. We reeked to a man, but none of us like Chief, who

inhabited a funk of wet wool and spent fuel. If Sugar was the soul of the ship, then Chief

was her heart. Our captain had ceased to be the brains of the Dude Ranch, and damned if

I was going to let Ensign Moultrie take the conn. Sugar served us slices of tart and I

called the meeting to order.

�The ensign�s a woman?� Sugar said. �Well, I�ll be damned. That explains

everything.�

�Yeah,� Chief said. �All that time in the head.�

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�Not only that,� Sugar said. �How about the bread? I make it every morning, but

the dough won�t rise. And the cask of salt beef that spoiled. That shit never spoils.�

�Yeah,� Chief added, his eyes wide. �The fuel leak. And the busted oil cooler.

And�� Chief paused and both he and Sugar looked at me and said in unison, �The

torpedo room.�

�What are you talking about?� I asked. �We hit a reef, or something.�

�LT,� Sugar said. �We�re talking about an albatross. Every sailor knows it�s bad

luck having a woman on board.�

I was about to scold them for their superstition�after all, there used to be women

on board virtually every vessel in the fleet, excluding submarines, of course�but I

stopped myself. If they wanted to believe that Moultrie was some kind of albatross or

Jonah or curse by any other name, then let them. I just wanted Moultrie off the ship.

�Maybe so,� I said. �Well, there�s only one thing to be done.�

�Have our way with her?� Chief asked.

�No,� I said. �We jettison the ensign.�

�Wait,� Sugar said. �What if we have our way with her and then we jettison her?�

�That�s a negative,� I said. �Let�s not complicate matters. There will be no

fraternization with Ensign Moultrie. That�s an order. Any behavior to the contrary I will

prosecute as an act of mutiny. All the same, we will get rid of the ensign. But no one

makes a move until I give the word.�

I wanted Moultrie off that ship, you see, because I was in love with Captain

Mulligan.

Jack Mulligan was the first and only skipper under whom I had served. Out of the

academy my first billet was second officer on board the missile cruiser USS Main Event.

I was at my berth, unpacking my seabag, trying to fit my peacoat in a locker I was to

share with both the chaplain and the navigator when I felt a hand at first grip, then

massage my shoulder, like a high school football coach might a player, but gentler. It

chilled me. This was my introduction to Jack Mulligan, at the time a lieutenant

commander, his brass brightly polished, his khaki service blouse tight across his chest.

He wore his hair just a little too long, even for an officer, thick wavy black hair that had

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gone gray at the temples. He had a chin like an anvil, and his bronze brow was creased,

matching the deep laugh-lines at the corners of his eyes. He was salty. He was dashing.

He was a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer poster child. �Ensign Llewelyn,� he said. His was a

stentorian voice, rich and stout as if uttered from some great depth, his R�s hard, Irish,

and Bostonian. �You keep your kit in my cabin. I�ll show you where after evening

chow. Carry on.�

That post-chow meeting was the first of what became a nightly ritual for the next

twelve years. The officers would dine in the wardroom and, after coffee, Mulligan would

dismiss them all except for me, and we would retire back to his cabin for what he called

�private debriefing,� with brandy and cigars and music. Mulligan had a compact

phonograph and was a big fan of German music, particularly waltzes and marches. That

first night we listened to Strauss, and he stroked the back of my hand and invited me back

the following evening, telling me we�d do some good things to each other if I liked.

I had been with women before and have been with them since, but with a woman,

once the act is over, once the moment of crisis has passed, there is nothing more for me.

My work is done. I grow bored holding a woman. With Jack, in his arms, I felt

protected. It was the shelter I craved from sex, not the release of climax. The shelter, I

had to have it. Some nights we would only smoke cigars, nights in which he did not

make his move, and I would return to my rack feeling sick and hollow, like an addict who

failed to score his poison.

Yes, I was hooked. Years passed and I turned down billets, billets that would

have ensured quick promotion, so as to remain under his command. When we�d finish

making love and he was holding me, he�d say I was throwing away my career. I didn�t

care; in his arms I felt contained in a small, safe world where I had everything I needed.

When the war broke out, his touch was the only thing that comforted me. Then his face

started yellowing, growing puffy, and though I still wanted him, he had me less and less.

I thought at first he declined out of wounded vanity, that he was self conscious about the

deterioration of his good looks. I was even flattered at the idea that perhaps he thought

himself no longer worthy of me now that his beauty was fading, that his cooling-off was

actually a way of saying, You�re young, you deserve better than me. Of course, in his

weakness I loved him even more. It soon became clear that he had cirrhosis of the liver.

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I read ravenously everything I could find on the subject. The scar tissue wrought by

years of hard drink kept building and building until the organ ceased to perform its

functions, such as destroying surplus estrogen. What were once sculpted pectorals

swelled into breasts and began to stretch his blouses near to bursting. In some cases the

disease shrinks the testes, and I wondered if that was what lay behind his waning desire

for my favors.

But the liver is the one organ in the human body that has the power to regenerate

itself. And so I weaned him off the cognac and the whiskey, and I held him the nights he

shook and cried. His detoxification was ugly. At first he clawed the bulkheads. Seeking

to abate phantom itches he scratched himself raw. Luckily, I never had to strap him to

his rack. Though I felt like I was addressing a man lost in the wilderness a mile from

where I stood, my voice still penetrated his delirium. In the midst of a fit I would speak

and his eyes would light on me, and I could detect the recognition, as if someone had

dimmed the flashing lights behind them. That was elation for me, when I connected and

pulled him out from whatever fevered darkness had him in its clutches. He would listen

to me, and only to me. Sugar prepared him separate meals, with no salt and very little

meat. I gave him daily doses of diuretic and laxative. It was very unpleasant. But he got

better. The florid flush of his face receded. Then one day when I noticed that his

clubbed fingernails had turned from white back to pink I cried because I knew we had

licked it, that he was in remission, that this man who loved the sea above all things would

be able to stay there because of me.

Then the night Moultrie shipped I followed the hydrographer and Jack down the

gangway after chow until Jack turned around and said, �You�re on watch, Llewelyn.

This meeting�s between Ensign Moultrie and myself. Private debriefing. Carry on.� I

went to the weapon�s locker, and as I cradled a side arm I didn�t know who I�d shoot

first, the captain, my rival, or me. I heard steps coming down the gangway which stirred

me out of my morbid reverie. Sugar asked what was going on. I replaced the revolver on

the shelf and told him I was just taking stock of things.

After my discovery of Ensign Moultrie and the captain a curious thing happened. The

ensign took an acute interest in manning the helm, and requested to do so at night. Every

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night. This was just fine with the rest of the crew. There were two helms, one down

below and one topsides, on the bridge at the top of the conning tower, and it was this

latter that she preferred. Sailing through the night we�d make it to North Carolina in half

the time. She even spent some time at the chart table�only to plot our course, not to

revise the charts; the equipment in the lazaret remained untouched. Seeing her in her

outsized uniform pouring over the charts with a pencil behind her ear, the tip of her

tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth, reminded me of some awkward schoolboy,

albeit bearded. Though we knew her secret I had decided that we should allow her to

remain in the dark and carry on with her ruse. That way, when the time came for action,

we would catch her by surprise.

We were cruising along at 15 knots when from the bridge she hissed�she didn�t

yell, she hissed, like a real sailor�down the conning tower hatch, �Dive! Dive!� and slid

down the rails of the ladder, sealing the hatch behind her. �Spaniards,� she said to me,

and I called through the voice pipe, �Diving stations, to your diving stations. Dive,

Dive.� Chief and Sugar came running down the gangway and tumbled into the control

room; with Chief manning the diving planes and Sugar manning the helm, we dove to

periscope depth. Through the attack periscope I scanned the horizon, my palms sweating.

Yet my anticipation for engagement was laced with a little skepticism; I was loath to

believe the ensign, and I found two desires at war, the desire to see action and the desire

to see my rival fail. Nonetheless, at two points north by northwest I spied a corvette, her

colors, red and orange, flapping in the wind. �The wretched Spaniard,� I whispered. Her

stern was facing us. My jealousy faded, overshadowed by the presence of the enemy. I

looked up from the periscope and could not suppress a smile as my eyes met Moultrie�s.

She smiled back, gratefully, it seemed, and I thought I detected a flush rising in her

cheeks. Then I felt my cheeks grow warm and I immediately turned back to the

periscope. She was the steeliest woman I�d ever seen, a cool one in a tight spot, and there

I was pretending I thought she was a man. The situation was absurd.

After a few minutes the Spanish ship had still not changed her bearing. By this

time Mulligan had made it to the control room. �A corvette, sir,� I said. �Serviola Class,

two guns, a three-inch and a machine gun. She�s made no move to indicate that she�s

seen us.�

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�Good,� the captain said as he looked through the periscope. �Let�s move in for

the kill.�

�But sir,� I said. �The torpedo room�s flooded. We can�t load the tubes.

Remember?�

Mulligan looked up from the periscope, crossed his arms across his broad chest,

and paused, as if to digest this information. I could hear him grinding his teeth. It was

hot, hot as the Tropic of Cancer, the sub had no air-conditioning, everyone�s khakis were

sodden, and under the red light the sweat ran down Mulligan�s massive, craggy brow like

lava rolling down the slope of a volcano. He spoke.

�You mean to tell me we have a viable target, a wretched, Spanish target out

there, a God damned corvette, and we can�t take her out because you sealed off the

torpedo room?�

�Yes, sir,� I said. �I had to. We were taking in water. We hit a reef, or

something. It wasn�t on the charts.�

�Don�t tell me it wasn�t on the charts,� the captain said. �Our mission is to revise

the charts.�

Well, consider them revised, I thought to myself; there�s a reef ten points north-

northeast of the Gaskin Banks. �Sir, I�m not a hydrographer,� I said, fighting the impulse

to shoot a glance at Moultrie, who at that moment became very interested in the bearing

range indicator. My resentment of her reblossomed. The captain exhaled loudly through

his nostrils as a bull might, turned on his heel, and walked out of the control room.

�Damn the torpedoes,� I said, but my exhortation met with blank stares. I had

always wanted to say that. I�m not the hydrographer, I said to myself.

The air in Captain Mulligan�s stateroom was close and rank like a locker room with no

windows, only smaller, much smaller. It was a closet of a cabin, even by naval standards,

but it was a cabin all the same. It was private space, the only private space on board,

private space that I once shared, where I once felt not just welcome, but adored. The rack

was made, hospital corners and all, but the smell of sex hung heavily in the room, musky,

like wild eggs lately scrambled. The government issue desk at which he sat looked like

furniture more appropriate for a child�s tree house. He looked up from his papers and

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smiled when he saw me, like he was letting me in on a secret. I felt my heart rate jump at

the prospect of being once again in his confidence. He patted the foot of his rack and

asked me to sit down. I said I would prefer to remain standing, and I did so at attention.

�Permission to speak freely, sir?�

�Of course, Peter. At ease,� he said, and I stood at ease. �You know you can tell

me anything.�

�Can I, sir? These days I�m not so sure.�

The captain�s face clouded. �Lieutenant, if you�ve got something in your craw,

you�d better�� but mid-sentence he was seized by a coughing fit. The wet cough had

returned, the kind that rattled deep in his chest. When he pulled the handkerchief away

from his mouth I could see there was blood in it.

�Sir, let me get you something,� I said, my icy resolve melting away. �You�re not

well.�

�Damn right I�m not well.� His voice was ragged and his face was crimson.

�State your business, Llewelyn.�

�It�s Moultrie, sir. With regard to our orders, sir, to rechart the waters above the

Blake Plateau�well, the ensign is not much of a hydrographer, sir.�

�That�s because the ensign is not a hydrographer,� the captain said. �She�s a

concubine.�

His candor took me by surprise. �Excuse me, sir. She?�

�I know damn well you saw us together. The ensign is not a hydrographer. She�s

a supply officer. Picked her up when we were in port.�

�Sir, if she�s not a hydrographer, then what�s in all those crates labeled �sonar�?�

�Whisky, rum, canned coconut milk, her luggage, women�s things. What

business is it of yours?�

�Sir, I used to enjoy a certain confidence with you. It seems my status of late has

diminished, very much so.�

�Speak plainly, Lieutenant. You talk like a God damned Englishman. Always

have.� The captain paused, cleared his throat, and expectorated into a waste paper bin

before continuing. �You�re hurt. Very well. I�ll give you that. I�m sorry. Truly, I am

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sorry. You�ve been very good to me over the years. Very good. But what we had?

That�s over now.�

�Why, sir?� I asked. �I have been good to you. And you�re letting that woman

kill you.�

Captain Mulligan�s ruddy face had grown placid. �I�m dying, Peter. I�ve been

dying. You gave me a little longer, God bless you. But I�m dying, drink or no drink, and

there�s nothing you can do about that. And there�s another thing you cannot do, and

that�s give me a son.�

So this was about procreation, not love. And that should have made it hurt less.

But it didn�t. It made me feel even more helpless. Love was something I could give.

Birth was not.

�Peter, the Mulligan family has furnished this country with naval officers for four

generations now, and I do not intend to let some pitiful little apocalypse get in the way of

my bloodline.�

He looked at me, expecting some kind of nod or assent, or maybe even argument,

but I said nothing.

�I need you to understand,� he continued. �I need to be able to count on my XO.

This is my last tour. I�m sure of that. I may not see it through to the end. I need you,

Peter, to ensure the safety of the mother of my son. Now look. I have written here a

letter recommending the promotion of you to lieutenant commander. You�ll be eligible

for your own command, your own ship. You�ll be the officer you always wanted to

become. Just see this mission through to the end.�

�What mission, Jack?� I asked. �We have no hydrographer. What, is this some

top secret experiment concerning the effects of underwater insemination? And how do

you know it�s going to be a boy, anyway?�

The captain rose from his chair and drew back his hand as if to slap me but

faltered as another fit of coughing set upon him. He collapsed on his rack and I was

stepping forward to help him when I felt a hand grasp my arm. I turned around. It was

Ensign Moultrie. Her eyes were gray and had a certain cold brightness to them. Of

course, she was still wearing that beard. �Sir, you�re upsetting the captain,� she said.

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�I�ll attend to him, please.� She pushed me gently back into the gangway and pulled the

curtain to.

It�s funny; when you�re a jilted lover, and your former lover is dying, you�d think

your former lover�s welfare would be the first, if not only thing on your mind; that�s what

love is, right? But this was not the case for me; the preeminent thought in my mind was

not the health of my former lover, but the scam being perpetrated by my rival-successor.

Later, I felt guilty at my self-absorption, my fixation on the woman who had supplanted

me. Yet at the time I never questioned the actions I took, or the impulse that drove them.

But it wasn�t merely jealousy at work in my investigation of Moultrie. It was resentment

laced with curiosity that motivated me to climb down the ladder to the lazaret.

Sonar, eh? We would see about that. I had a crowbar with me which I used to

pry open one of the crates. There was a layer of straw that I pushed away, revealing

ancient bottles of rum, the screw caps bonded like they were when I was a child. I felt a

sinking sensation in my gut. I did not want to find only rum and ladies� things. I opened

another crate: canned coconut milk, from concentrate, for their damned piña coladas. I

pried open a third crate, pushed away the straw, and found a stack of oblong parcels

wrapped in oily brown paper like beef loin from the butcher. They were heavy. I

unwrapped one. Still packed in Cosmoline was a Springfield M-14 rifle with a

parkerized finish and a walnut stock: a little obsolete by pre-apocalypse standards, but a

spring chicken compared to the bolt-action M-1903�s in the Dude Ranch�s gun locker,

and at the time worth twice its weight in gold. It fired a 7.62 mm round, the caliber

favored by our enemies, and had fully automatic capability. It was a beautiful rifle, built

on the frame of the M-1 Garand, but with a smaller forestock and chambered for the

lighter cartridge. The M-14 saw service in Korea and Vietnam, but this rifle looked to

have never been fired. There were 11 more like it in that crate, and eight other crates that

bore similar payloads, all pristine, sticky with packing grease. Ensign Moultrie was no

hydrographer. Nor was she a supply officer. My curiosity was aroused with even more

intensity.

Having relieved Chief at the helm some six hours earlier, I was getting a little stiff in the

legs, and though the wind in my face up on the bridge was refreshing, and the air below

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hot and stale, I needed someone to spell me. I called down for Sugar. He was cooking

pasta putanesca that night, a simple dish, but one of my favorites in his repertoire. I

studied the lines of the ship while I waited. What an ungainly tub this submarine was, all

one hundred sixty feet of her, bulbous like some giant bloated sprat; it�s a wonder she

crested the waves rather than rolling over and capsizing. She was an antique, the Dude

Ranch, built for harbor and coastal defense, with a minimum of torpedo tubes, her three-

inch deck gun and .50 caliber mounted on the bridge; she was no U-boat, no raider,

certainly no Nautilus. Still, she did manage to sneak us past that corvette. I called again

down the voice pipe and, hearing no response, descended the ladder into the conning

tower.

Below decks was thick with the aroma of garlic, onions, and anchovy. The table

in the wardroom was set, a bowl heaping with pasta in the center, but no one was there. I

could hear the captain snoring in his cabin. No one else was sleeping; I pushed back the

curtains on all the berths but they were empty. I walked back into the wardroom where

the untouched pasta still steamed alone. I thought of Ensign Moultrie in the sickly yellow

light of the gangway, her cheeks smooth and fresh above that ridiculous beard, and I

thought of the cache of assault rifles in the lazaret and a chill seized my body; had Chief

and Sugar also seen something they were not supposed to see? I went to the ship�s gun

locker; a revolver was missing. I loaded another .38 and slipped on a shoulder rig before

I proceeded aft. In the after battery I heard the pumping of the pistons from the engine

room, but I also heard muffled voices. I gently opened the hatch just barely. Over the

din of the twin diesels I heard laughter followed by voices.

�Aren�t you going to take her beard off?�

�You know, I don�t think I will. I kind of like the confusion. It�s kinky.�

I drew the revolver from my shoulder holster, cocked the hammer, and peered

over the edge of the hatch. In the gangway between the two pumping diesels, Ensign

Moultrie was on her knees, and standing before her was Chief, his pants around his

ankles, his grimy claves pink under the red light, and he was pointing the missing

revolver at Moultrie�s head. Sugar was watching, holding a bottle. Moultrie�s face was

flat of affect, as if she was in an open-eyed coma, or just some other place entirely. I had

a brief flash of memory: I was sitting at the table in the wardroom with Jack and Chief

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and Sugar. In the center of the table was this big bowl full of lemons. We were in the

horse latitudes, making for Bermuda. The going was slow and the heat was dry. None of

us were wearing shirts. We all had knives, and we were cutting lemons in half and

sucking them dry, and we were laughing and sweating. That was the day I finally felt

accepted by the crew, by Chief and Sugar, that is. I showed them how to roll a cigarette

with one hand, and it was that gesture, I think more so than serving next to them under a

hail of fire, that gained me their respect. Then I remembered the captain�s orders, to

ensure the life of the mother of his son, at all costs. There was what I had said about

mutiny. And then there was the vision of Moultire, the blank stare of her gray eyes

beatific, her mien suppliant before Chief�s swollen, wagging member, a thing altogether

fiendish in that red light. For someone so young, at that moment she bore herself as one

who had seen whole centuries, epochs of woe.

I pushed the hatch all the way open and a yellow shaft of light from behind me

fell across the three figures in the engine room whose faces all turned to me. I drew a

bead on Chief�s forehead and pulled the trigger. The report of the revolver in that

confined space was terrific. Chief fell, and blood poured from the hole in the back of his

head. Sugar put his hands up, his foul weather bibs spattered with Chief�s blood.

�I warned you, Sugar,� I said, and with the butt of my revolver I cracked him over

the head. He hit the deck like a sack of wet laundry. I offered my hand to Moultrie and

helped her to her feet. She still wore the same shell-shocked expression. �Help me get

Sugar to the brig. And take that beard off for Christ�s sake.�

�I just killed our engineer, and you have one minute to convince me it was a good idea.�

We were in the brig, which was actually the ship�s larder. The shelves were

stacked with canned goods and the girders above festooned with sacks of onions, flour,

and meal. Sugar was in a heap in the corner, still unconscious, shackled to the bulkhead.

Moultrie was sitting on a stool and she was in cuffs as well; I was pretty shaken up and I

wasn�t taking any chances. Wisps of false beard still clung to the corners of her mouth.

�He was going to�,� she began to articulate, but her nerve failed her. There was

a catch in her voice. She paused, took a breath, and resumed. �It was mutiny. An

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enlisted man holding an officer at gunpoint. You had to shoot him. The Uniform Code

of Military Justice clearly��

�Don�t tell me about the Uniform Code. How does it apply to you, anyway?

You�re impersonating an officer. Stealing and smuggling government property. By all

rights I should shoot you, too.�

�I am an officer. J-2. An intelligence officer.� Moultrie said.

�Your time�s running out,� I said, thinking, Don�t call my bluff. Don�t make me

show you that I wouldn�t, that I couldn�t shoot you.

�Those rifles,� she said. �They�re bound for North Carolina.� I breathed easier;

she didn�t call my bluff. �For the Wrightsville Irregulars. They�re going to need them.

The Spanish are planning a raid. They�re after our tobacco.�

�That�s an easy enough story, what with the corvette we saw yesterday. Come

on, you can do better than�� then I fell to the deck, the back of my head tingling, having

been hit with something heavy and metal. I touched the spot where I had been hit and

when I pulled away my hand it was sticky with blood. I looked up. Captain Mulligan

had his service revolver in one hand, butt first, and with the other was unlocking

Moultrie�s handcuffs.

�What the hell is going on here, Llewelyn?� the captain said, looking pale and

shaky, indicating first Sugar, then me with the butt of his revolver.

�It�s okay, Jack,� Moultrie said, rubbing her wrists.

Jack, she called him, and it hurt me more than the pistol whipping, more than ten.

We had eluded the Spaniards, until I shot Chief, that is. Even the greenest technician

listening on the most primitive equipment would have heard that from up to five miles

away. So the gunshot was my first blunder. My second was not immediately shutting

down the screws. Though silent enough, the engines still provided enough of a signature

for someone to hear if someone was really listening for us on the high frequency

distribution frame, or Huff Duff as we called it. And so the corvette traced us after the

gunshot to our general location. I had never had to execute a crew member before, so I

was understandably distracted. Understandably, but not pardonably. For that alone I

deserved the drubbing the captain had given me. Immediately after dealing me the blow,

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he shut them down, and gave me a proper tongue lashing, albeit a whispered one, in the

control room, where the three officers of the ship stared up above, waiting for the worst.

We didn�t have to wait long. The first depth charges exploded about a quarter of

a mile away by my reckoning. These first explosions, though distant, were loud and

jarred the ship. But this was nothing. The corvette was apparently sailing in circles of

decreasing circumference, not unlike a hunter cutting for sign, dropping charges at every

pass. Soon the corvette closed in, and she was dropping the charges practically on top of

us. The principle behind the depth charge is not necessarily to penetrate a target like a

shell or torpedo does. Rather, the explosion of the depth charge usually does its damage

through the shockwaves it produces. It�s the shock that compromises the target more

often than not as the shockwaves apply more pressure to the outside of a ship than she

can handle. Now that the Spaniard had closed in, each explosion buckled the Dude

Ranch�s hull; below decks the bulkheads visibly vibrated. Pipes clanged and burst,

spraying us with cascades of seawater until we reached the safety valves. Rivets shot

across the control room and ricocheted. Those Spanish bastards had our ship quaking. I

can liken it best to being inside a bass drum struck by a mallet over and over and over.

The captain�s face was no longer ruddy. This was no sign of recovery. He was

deathly pallid, as terrified as I was, as I imagine Moultrie was. We all knew that our ship

could not sustain this, that we were doomed, unless the Spanish ran out of depth charges

and that did not seem likely. Their supply seemed inexhaustible. There were lulls in the

bombardment during which their HFDF technician no doubt was listening to see if he

could hear our ship breaking up, and then the explosions would resume. This cycle

would continue until they heard signs of our demise. Or see them, I thought in a flash,

recalling the war movies on which I was raised.

There were two torpedo tubes aft where, sadly, there were no torpedoes. We used

these tubes to jettison rotten stores, table scraps, and waste in general. I told the captain I

had an idea, and he gave me the green light. �Help me get Chief�s body to the aft torpedo

tube. Mr� I mean Ms. Moultrie, collect as much debris as you can. Break up that chair,

get those charts, head covers, extra clothing, bedding, anything that will float.� We did

not take the time to say any words over Chief, and I don�t think he would have had it any

other way. We stuffed him and the rest of the jetsam into the Number Three torpedo

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tube, the captain crossed himself, and we jettisoned the load and waited. No one said a

word for an hour, nor did the Spaniard drop anymore charges. Ensign Moultrie listened

on the headset the whole time, until she finally signaled to us that the Spanish ship was

underway, sailing due north. The Spaniards, clearly, had not grown up on the same

movies as we had.

After a morning spent vomiting blood, and an afternoon of violent itching, Jack Mulligan,

Captain, USNR, died quietly in his rack. Moultrie washed his body and dressed it in his

blue service A�s, and together we wrapped him in the national ensign and left him on his

rack. Night was soon to fall, and we would either perform the ceremony at first light, or,

if we made landfall soon enough, which was likely, we would muster an honor guard

from the forces on shore and bury him properly. Neither of us shed a tear, not in front of

each other, at least. I was too tired for any sort of commiseration, I can�t speak for

Moultrie. I had a good cry in the head, and maybe she did, too, but it didn�t show. That

being said, she handled Jack�s body with a certain tenderness as we prepared it,

smoothing his curls, wiping the grime from the pouches that had formed under his eyes.

We had a host of pollutants to thank for a bloody sunset. We had set a course due

north and were sailing about twenty miles off-shore and the waters there were placid. I

don�t know if I could have handled rough seas, or any inclement weather. I needed a

break as much as I needed answers to some unresolved questions.

�Actually, I picked him up,� Moultrie said. �I knew he was skipper of the

submarine that had come in for refitting. I knew a sub was a faster, stealthier way to

move those rifles than a patrol boat, which was all J-2 had at its disposal. The recharting

business was a last minute inspiration, coupled with spray paint and a stencil. I told Jack

I�d ship with a load of crates disguised as sensitive equipment. I was never that confident

about my disguise. I was just hoping it would last me to Wrightsville. And Jack had no

interest in discretion. Many times I tried to spend time at the chart table, but he kept me

pretty busy. I did grow fond of him, all in all.�

�I should hope so,� I said, my eyes on the compass.

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�It�s the nature of my MOS, sir, to gain the confidence of useful people through

whatever means I have at my disposal. And people like me provide an invaluable

service��

�Indeed. How could one set a value on a roll in the hay?� I said.

�Don�t judge me, sir. Please. It�s a low calling, intelligence, but it yields results.�

�Another slice of mackerel, if you please, Ms. Moultrie.�

So my successor bore no real love for my beloved. All parties lost then, it

seemed. How meaningless, I kept repeating to myself, watching the queer red light

dissipate on the horizon. We would make landfall at Cape Fear in only a few hours. At

which point I would have to decide what to do with Sugar. Our navy was in no position

to spare sailors. That being said, I knew the right thing to do was to turn him over to the

Shore Patrol, let them proceed with a court martial, if they saw fit, and that�s what I

thought I�d probably do. He was party to a dark, savage enterprise, and in this he differed

very little from other seamen. He would very well hang, all the same.

�What will you do when we reach the cape?� Moultrie asked.

�Do you have any of that rum?� I asked. She went down the ladder and climbed

back up with a bottle and two tin cups. She filled both and gave me one. �I�m not sure,

Ms. Moultrie. Captain Mulligan told me I was to ensure at all costs the safety of the

mother of his future son, which does not necessarily countermand my previous orders,

which were to rechart the shipping lanes, then proceed north to Virginia. Maybe I�ll

remain to repel that Spanish corvette should it turn back south after its raid. I imagine

she�s sailing for Morehead City. She�d find more tobacco at Havelock, but she�d have to

get past the batteries guarding Pamlico Sound, and that would be a fool�s gambit. I don�t

know. I do know that I�m not doing a thing before I cobble together some kind of a

crew.�

�The mother of his future son?� Moultrie asked.

�Yes. That would be you.�

�I�m not pregnant.�

�How do you know?�

�I know.�

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�The poor man,� I said. �Meaningless, meaningless.� The notion of this once

great man who had jilted me failing to achieve what I considered a fairly simple goal,

especially given the apparent frequency of his couplings with his concubine, at first

struck me as pathetic. But it wasn�t just pathetic, it was sad, and though as the wounded,

jilted lover I should have rejoiced in his failed enterprise with my successor, I did not

rejoice. I did not feel smug or vindicated. I felt low. Jack was dead, and now there was

nothing of him left in this world, and I realized he meant too much to me for me to let

that stand. If Ms. Moultrie could not give Captain Mulligan an heir, I would give him

some kind of legacy, something by which to honor his memory. He had died in bed, not

a dishonorable death, but not a valorous one, either.

�What�s meaningless? What are you talking about?� Moultrie asked.

�More rum, Ms. Moultrie. This changes everything. And fetch that chart. We�re

changing course. How long do you reckon we have until that corvette reaches Onslow

Bay?�

This ruse is one that I had not seen in a movie.

We changed course, but not without some spirited debate. Moultrie insisted that

her mission to deliver the weapons to the Wrightsville Irregulars was of paramount

importance, and that my proposed stunt greatly endangered the accomplishing of that

mission, a mission, she pointed out, we were only hours from completing, being only ten

miles away from Cape Fear. I pointed out that by persisting in this line of

insubordination she would only find herself clapped in irons, that irregulars or no

irregulars, this was my ship and I had had enough of mutiny for one mission. This

brought the discussion to a close.

My proposal required Sugar�s complicity, in exchange for which I would keep the

engine room affair quiet and grant him his freedom, rather than turn him over to the SP�s.

He�d have to leave the service�if they�d let him�per my conditions, but he wouldn�t

face a court martial if he manned the dive planes for me one last time. I also demanded he

humbly apologize to Ms. Moultrie, and accept whatever corporal punishment she decided

to mete out. He was only too anxious to help us engage the Spaniards. �Half-ass fascists.

Royalist scum,� he said as I unlocked his cuffs. I followed him out of the brig. He knew,

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I think, that what he did was beyond redemption, but he still yearned to restore some

measure of honor to his record of service. Maybe I�m reading too much into this. But he

stopped at his berth for a fresh shirt and as I walked past toward the captain�s cabin, I

could see he was crying.

Jack�s body was in his cabin, wrapped in the flag, which I pulled from him and

refolded with Sugar�s help. Jack had not yet begun to stink, and his joints were still

supple. These were good things, as his participation in this caper was essential. Sugar

and I got his body to the bridge and got down to work.

Modern submarines had a whole array of periscopes, for attack and navigation,

with and without night vision, some equipped with cameras, others with heat sensors, in

addition to radar masts. Not so with an O-Class diesel patrol sub circa 1918. The O-12

had two scopes, the attack periscope, and what they called a �sky scope,� which allowed

a captain to determine whether or not he was going to collide with the ship floating above

him when he surfaced. You can surface without a sky scope, but it�s a risky business, a

risky business that we would be undertaking, as the sky scope was going to be otherwise

engaged.

I took off Jack�s coat and made several incisions in the back of the garment with

my knife. While the body was in this state of undress, I bound its upper torso with

several lengths of rope, leaving the ends loose. With some effort�Jack was beginning to

stiffen�I got the coat back on the body, buttoned it up, and pulled the loose rope ends

through the incisions in the back of the coat. Sugar and I propped the body upright and

lashed it to the sky scope. I then extended Jack�s right arm to its full length, and I closed

his hand around the hilt of his officer�s cutlass, and for the next hour, I kept my hand

closed around his that it might freeze in that position, holding the blade high. I dismissed

Sugar, who went back down below, and I had my final moments with my first and only

commanding officer, the man who had taught me everything I knew about love, only to

cast it all to the wind in his pursuit of progeny. Only at that point, on the bridge holding

his hand in place by the light of the dog star, when I had done everything I could to

ensure that the name Mulligan would be remembered, immortalized, perhaps celebrated

in song raucously yet reverentially in the wardroom of every warship remaining in the

fleet, only at that point did I fully fathom the power of the desire to leave a legacy, and

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only at that point did I forgive him. I finally let go his hand. Rigor mortis had set in and

the cutlass was firmly in place, pointing at the heavens.

In my reverie I had not noticed that Jack�s jaw had gone slack and then frozen in

that position; I had been standing behind him. However unintentional, the effect was

unsettling and, therefore, perfect, this giant man�s mouth hanging wide open as if in

perpetual harangue. I heard steps on the ladder below me. It was Sugar. He climbed

back up on the bridge and said, �One more thing, sir, if you�ll permit me.� From his shirt

pocket he pulled his sunglasses, which he slid over the captain�s lidded eyes and made

fast with a boot lace. The shades were the crowning touch. Our dead captain looked

scary as hell.

At midnight we dove, and when a pale and limpid dawn crested the horizon we

had closed the distance between us and the corvette. We were just east of Morehead

City, and the Spaniards were already sailing for the port there. They reckoned us dead,

and so weren�t listening for submarines. It was known to the Centro Nacional de

Inteligencia that the Dude Ranch was the only American sub in the North Atlantic south

of the Chesapeake. So when we surfaced amidships on her starboard side, the corvette

and her crew did not know how at first to react to this ghost ship, her captain hatless on

the bridge, streaming with brine, brandishing his cutlass and howling interminably. I�d

wager they took a knee and beseeched the mother of God; I�ll never know, I was below

decks. We surfaced too close to the corvette for her deck guns to be of any use, but when

we heard small arms fire open we knew we, and he, had been spotted. The hatch to the

bridge was open, and once I saw Jack�s body take a bullet, I sealed the hatch, and gave

the order to dive.

With surprise and maneuverability on our side we managed to stay abreast of the

corvette until we lured her in range of the batteries on Cape Lookout. The ensuing

barrage did not sink, but certainly crippled her, and she withdrew from the fight. We

surfaced about a mile from the cape. I climbed up to the bridge and cut down Captain

Mulligan. His head was hoary with seaweed, his uniform disheveled from the

undercurrent at ten knots. But he had taken a bullet in the service of our union, and his

actions not only saved his crew and disabled a Spanish warship, but also safely conducted

Ensign Moultrie and her precious cargo to the North Carolina shore. The admiralty

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would, no doubt, award him posthumously the Navy Cross, at the very least, possibly

even promote him to rear admiral. But no matter what the admiralty decided, I had

enshrined Jack Mulligan in the annals of naval lore as the skipper who, armed only with a

saber, had challenged an enemy vessel with superior firepower and numbers with no

thought given to himself. It was a hero�s death, not a cirrhotic invalid�s, a piece of

revisionist history of my own engineering. Be that as it may, I felt emptier than I had

ever felt before. My machinations, out of necessity, would never be revealed, and I

would never enjoy any distinction or recognition from the affair other than having served

beneath him, leaving me exactly where I was when he abandoned me, and it was then that

I realized I never knew a thing about love, never. In my mind I had embellished what

was really just a matter of convenience for the captain. It�s an unfortunate business,

damned unfortunate, a business that I in my future commands have done my best to

perpetuate.

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NO MORE ROSES FOR THE MATADOR

A matador among men, the dandy does the dirty work. In those vulpine, kid-gloved days

I felt like a lean, sleek bandit, shod in English leather and draped in gabardine, the

morning air crisp on my freshly shaven cheeks. I reveled in a close shave, no matter how

short-lived. It was what separated me from the other young men of my set who did not

work. I was no sculptor in a loft, no hack in his study. I was the total equestrian, both

rider and mount. I was the stallion. I was the matador. I woke at dawn like a doctor but

my office was movable, always in flux. Ten o�clock might have meant tennis with Khaki

G, and high tea at three with Mrs. Prugh. A slave to the grind, I had no time and less

inclination for love�a line of credit at Rourke�s had always been helpmate enough. So

why did I find myself thick of tongue and clumsy of speech when confronted by young

Hattie Finch in her parents� drawing room? I had just had her mother on the sun-porch

upstairs. Hattie, home from boarding school, from where she had been sent down, set her

violin on a mahogany credenza, looked me up and down like a slaver might have at

market, and said, �Teach me to shoot, in the country, tomorrow,� and I, hearing the walls

around me crumble, said, �Okay.�

I had other appointments that day, so I made for home where I would bathe.

Home was a carriage house in the historic district, whitewashed redbrick and bearded

with ivy. I called it my pied-à-terre, a pretentious name as it implied not so much a

second residence as much as a libertine�s retreat where he could conduct with discretion a

liaison or three. I loved the cosmopolitan sensation I experienced, opening the door,

which was painted red like an English telephone kiosk, walking up the narrow staircase

with baguette and filet and Bordeaux in a brown paper sack, setting the needle on Tommy

Dorsey, drawing a bath in my claw-footed tub, and lighting a Dunhill; as far as I was

concerned I had arrived. But that day an incongruity in the façade marred the experience.

Someone had impaled a note to my door with a rather long and cruel-looking skinning

knife.

For all my good standing with grocer, tailor, and package store operator, my

credit with the underworld was short. For three months going I had lost my knack for

167

three-card monte, and had henceforth been banned from the table due to the balance I

owed the house. This was no ordinary casino; in the Coastal Empire such establishments

were verboten, at least on dry land. This was a club of sorts, called The Continental, into

which one bought his membership for a handsome initiation fee, and the standards for

admission were stringent, if not a bit odd, both exclusive and egalitarian. The applicant

could be no newer to the Coastal Empire than fifth generation, but his social standing was

of no concern, provided he could pay the fee and maintain a minimum balance in his

house account. As a result, the scions of planters rubbed elbows with stevedores in this

moldy colonial row house on the east end of State Street, shaded by ancient water oaks

and flanked by a wig shop and a day-old bread store. For my first year in The

Continental I had enjoyed an unrivaled bounty of good fortune. My pride swelled and I

grew cocksure and reckless and, consequently, impecunious. Hence the menacing

message left by the pit boss Spanish Dan, a mustachioed Irishman and former

professional rugger known to be handy with a garrote. The blade was a grand gesture, I

have to admit; Spanish Dan really had some Old-World panache.

I was short on time.

In those days I drove a Buick Electra Estate Wagon, navy blue with simulated

wood paneling on the doors and fenders, the conveyance of choice among carpool

mothers, affording me some anonymity as I plied my trade. The wagon was blessed with

a beast of an engine, a 5.0 litre V-8, and she owned the road like a man-of-war. The

Coastal Empire is not so vast, consisting of downtown�a grid of manicured squares

shrouded by oaks�and the neighborhoods of Ardsley Park and Gordonston to the south

and east respectively. Occasionally, my work took me far east to the yacht club, the

barrier islands, and the beach cottages. Officially, the city limits encompassed a wide

sprawl of strip malls and developments bepopulate with ranch houses, but regions further

south than Ardsley Park were out of my navigational ken. When I required an off-the-

rack garment from Rourke�s I engaged an Adam Cab. West lay the country, and I knew

only the route to my dead father�s hunting camp. It was a good thing Hattie said she

would drive to their farm, picking me up at nine o�clock sharp the next morning, Hattie

Finch, newly sixteen, that little russet-tressed complicatrix. I had been tight with her

older brother, who had died in a hunting accident, and sometimes I wondered what he

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thought of my frolics in his father�s house, was he watching, did he care, in the hereafter

would he kick me in the groin? Anyhow, this is all by way of saying that the commute

from my coachman�s lair to Mary Jane Teague�s bower on 44th was brief. My hair had

not had time to dry.

Tennis handsome Mrs. Teague, bronze in her whites, received me at the service

entrance to her bulky Tudor home. Mr. Teague was in London for the week. �I have

sent the maid home early,� she said, bending over to light a candle on the console

opposite her bed, revealing the outline of a round-enough rump under the short cotton

skirt. For forty-nine, Mrs. Teague had kept it together quite nicely. She filled two

glasses with scotch and branch water, and with a riding crop indicated the bed. Of my

lovers I preferred the athletes, the ones who had managed to maintain some muscle tone.

Mrs. Finch in a cocktail dress was a shapely dish, but once out of it one realized that

clothes served for her the same purpose as the casing on a sausage; in the nude, Mrs.

Finch was doughy. Not so Mary Jane Teague, with those toned calves and that taut

brown belly. Her husband was the envy of his colleagues at his firm, but, according to

Mary Jane, he didn�t quite know how to manhandle a woman. One might call Jimmy

Teague a fool, but then one might call Mary Jane a drunk. She certainly did have her

appetites. Shortly after the riding crop unraveled (it was an antique and the leather no

longer up to the challenge), I made to get dressed�Mary Jane was not one for

snuggling�but she stopped me, saying, �The swagger stick on the mantle in the library

will do.�

This was my vocation. I had studied literature and had submitted little stories to

small journals, was even referred to more than once as �a writer of promise,� but I lost

my patience. Rather than pursue the chimera called publication, I instead carved out a

niche administering �writing workshops� for ladies who fancied they had a flair for the

pen. I did not have the discipline to be an artist. I no longer call it lack of ambition. I

was just pure lazy, and, therefore, tailor-made for a trade that required me to spend most

of the day in bed.

�What happened at Pomfret?� I asked Hattie Finch as she shifted into third gear on the

way to her family�s farm. She picked me up in an old Chevrolet C-10, a �69 or �70,

169

which was a three speed, with the shift stick on the steering column, and though I used to

drive a standard, I could never master the low gear ratio of the �three-on-the-tree.�

Hattie, however, was a pro. We didn�t stall once.

�Nothing,� she said. �That was the problem. Connecticut is stupid.�

�Well, it does have its flaws,� I said, having myself had a brief stay at Choate.

�But I wouldn�t pass judgment on the whole state. So, what kind of trouble did you get

into up there?�

�We were so bored we had to invent our own fun, know what I mean? Five

hundred acres gets pretty small after a while.� She paused to light a Marlboro. I said she

shouldn�t smoke and she said, �Whatever. A couple of my girlfriends and I had already

been in trouble, drinking, smoking, sneaking out of the dorm, you know how it goes. So

I guess this stunt was the last straw. My friend Lane, well, she was taking Photography,

so she had this really pro camera, tripod, range finder, telephoto lens, the whole rig. So,

Lane, Molly, and I snuck out again one last night, went to the different landmarks on

campus, the boat house, the first women�s sculling shell, Jahn Rink, lots of places, and

posed for nude photographs at each one.�

She paused and looked over at me, to make sure I was following her. It had been

a mighty act of will power to not picture this nymphet in the nude; whenever the image

arose the night before, I would make it vanish, replacing it with her mother and her

unkempt delta. Now Hattie had ruined all of my hard work, in the space of one not-so-

ribald anecdote. Yes, I was following her.

�We even got up on the headmaster�s front porch, sat at this wicker table and

pretended we were all intellectual, having some kind of deep philosophical conversation,

striking these super-pensive poses, holding our chins, cocking our heads, raising our

eyebrows, all that. Totally naked.�

�Pretty inspired stuff,� I said, keeping my eyes on the road.

�Yeah, well, Lane developed the photos in the dark room, left a print behind, one

thing led to another, negatives were confiscated, and there you have it. Now I�m here in

the country with you and a truck full of guns. I�d say I�ve traded up, wouldn�t you?�

Christ on the cross. �Well, that depends. School�s pretty important. All I can

teach you to do is shoot.�

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�I don�t know about that,� Hattie said, flashing this wicked grin. She had a slight

overbite, and I was to learn later that she herself had removed her braces with a pair of

needle-nose pliers when she was twelve. I was in trouble. She was trouble.

The Finches� country place, Oaklyn, had been many things, a soybean plantation,

a vineyard, a nursery, and always a hunting camp, where my old pal Gordon Finch

managed to blow his head off as he slipped on the ladder to a tree stand with a round in

the chamber of his rifle. Since that day, nine years prior, the Finches had all but

abandoned Oaklyn, and all that grew there now were the windswept, gnarled examples of

its namesake, festooned with Spanish moss and colonized by raccoons.

�What I remember mainly about that time was Dad throwing every single firearm

in the house, pistols, rifles, shotguns, even this pair of dueling pistols in a case lined with

velvet that I used to call the Treasure Island pistols, all in the trunk of his car, driving off,

and returning home with none of them. No one ever knew what he did with them. Threw

them in the river, the dump, no one ever asked. Must have been a fortune in guns, my

grandfather�s fowling pieces, and Colonel Finch�s cavalry revolver, a Lemat, I believe.

Daddy did, at least, keep his saber.� She said this while she hefted my Colt New Service

in her hand, opening the gate and spinning the empty cylinder, her eye on a box of

cartridges. I took the revolver from her.

�Hold on for a second. That�s a lot of gun for a beginner.� I closed the cylinder

and stuck the Colt in my belt. �Listen to you, �fowling pieces,� �Lemat.� How do you

know so much about firearms, anyway?�

�Research. I�ve always loved guns. As long as I can remember. I�m not much of

a girly-girl, maybe you�ve noticed. Anyhow, I was writing my honors thesis��

�Thesis? But you�re, or, you were, in high school.�

�So? You didn�t have to write a thesis? Anyhow, mine was on the history of

firearms, and how weapons technology determines supremacy on the world stage. My

great, great, great grandfather would have, more than likely, used the French

manufactured Lemat, or Lefaucheux, both were favorites among Confederate officers,

over even the �51 Colt Navy��

�Okay, I hear you.� This girl was a piece of work, at times sophisticated and

jaded beyond her age, other times a precocious font of information. I didn�t know

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whether to be annoyed by her or enamored of her. Actually, I knew damn well to not be

enamored of her, but it�s not always what one knows that guides one�s decisions. We

started with a shotgun, an old Parker Brothers side-by-side 12 gauge with the rabbit-ear

hammers and Damascus barrels. Soon I was throwing skeet and she was hitting two out

of three. She knew how to lead a clay. At the edge of the overgrown alfalfa plot there

was the rusted shell of an old tractor and on this I hung some targets and schooled my

charge in the principles of bolt-action riflery, first with a .22, then with a Winchester

.270, and with this she was a dead-eye as well, and using just iron sights at that; I didn�t

hold with scopes. �Archery,� she said. �At camp. And Nintendo at school. Built up my

hand-eye coordination.�

�Donkey Kong. How about that,� I said.

�Huh?� she said.

�Nevermind. Let�s move up a little closer and see how you fare with a handgun.�

With me I had brought a Smith and Wesson Victory Model .38, Navy issue, and

the Colt New Service .455 Eley which, with a five-and-a-half-inch barrel and a bore in

which you stick your finger, was a hog-leg of a gun. When I presented the .38 butt-first

to Hattie she scoffed and drew the Colt from my belt, her hand brushing my fly as she did

so. To this day I do not know for sure if the brush was intentional, but I do know it was

effective. I had been caressed a great deal, indeed, caresses were my bread and butter,

but something about the freshness of this girl, her spirit, her wiliness, her untapped

energy, just floored me. My nerves were jangling and I couldn�t shoot straight for two

reloads. Hattie, however, with this three-pound revolver almost as long as her forearm,

just plinked away. Between reloads, she�d pause to brush with her hand the errant

strands of her russet mane back behind her ear, revealing a little patch of acne on her

temple. It looked so angry on her otherwise unblemished alabaster brow, and I was

seized with the impulse to kiss it that it might go away, an impulse I barely restrained.

�Francis,� she said, ejecting the shell casings from the cylinder into her hand,

putting the brass in her pocket, and presenting the piece to me, butt-first, like a pro. �I

really like this gun.�

I said, �You know, Colts are made in Connecticut. Hartford. The place can�t be

all that stupid.�

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I grasped the revolver by the butt. But the gun wouldn�t budge. Hattie, still

holding the barrel, pulled me close, swooped in and kissed me. Like a pro.

That kiss. It was, no doubt, inevitable. The poor, bored thing, she would have

ambushed me, sooner or later, laying in wait outside the half-bath under the staircase,

under the pergola on the back porch, perhaps even in her randy mother�s boudoir while

the elder Finch performed some feminine ablution. The girl was reckless, a cluster bomb

of estrogen and devilment; her fuse was short and she had me pegged for the cad I was.

But that kiss, though delivered with the precision of an expert, was soft and ripe, so

newly dropped from the tree that I liquefied. I thought my chest would pop. As she

opened her mouth to put her tongue in mine I pushed her away. I pulled my Barbour coat

shut to conceal the bulge in my khakis.

�Hattie, I am twice your age. Exactly twice your age.�

�Don�t play the prude with me, Francis,� she said, arms akimbo. At that moment,

and many more in the future, she looked deceivingly worldly, not in a brazen sense, not

like a �mouthy broad,� as it were, but like some creature from an older continent, a court

with different conventions, her galvanized stare shaming me for being the provincial,

admonishing the interloping rube. How dare you refuse me in these halls? her expression

seemed to say.

I realized my eyes were darting from left to right, as if in search of witnesses.

What would I do if I had found one? Threaten him? Bribe him? Ask him for help?

�Where does your mother think you are?� I asked, slipping the shotgun in its case

and zipping it up.

�Here,� Hattie said, lighting a cigarette. �But not with you.�

�I think it�s time you took me home,� I said, feeling like a glee-club dick-tease

after the harvest dance, and the drive back to town was icy and silent. Except for one

moment as we were just around the corner of my house. Walking out the door of Johnny

Ganem�s was Spanish Dan, a six of tall-boys in each hand. I ducked and slid off the

bench seat to the floorboard and Hattie asked me what I was doing.

�Nothing. Keep driving.�

�I absolutely will not if you keep acting like a total freak,� she said. �I�ll stop

right here.�

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That would never do. �Okay. That guy, coming out of Ganem�s. We�ah�we

had a falling out.�

�That guy?� she said, �The bald one?�

�Shhh. Don�t point. Yes, the bald one.� Things were beginning to feel really

wrong.

�Oh, him? I see him all the time, jogging around Forsyth,� Hattie said. �That�s

where I run, too. Kind of cute, except for the teeth. And that �stache. Like a lion tamer

or something.�

When we pulled up to my carriage house the red door was hanging wide open. I

jumped out the truck and ran inside, not even considering that someone might be in there

waiting. Fortunately, there was not. All the same, I recoiled upon entry, first from the

overwhelming smell of alcohol. Whoever (I knew damn well who) had paid me a visit

had not left only his footprints. In my living room no book remained on its shelf but

instead lay on the floor, every drawer of my secretary hung open, old manuscripts, bank

statements, personal correspondence, legal pads, anything paper was in piles on the floor,

and all had been doused with the full complement of spirits from my wide-open liquor

cabinet. My bedroom was in shambles as well, the whole of my wardrobe heaped in the

four corners of my room. In the bathroom the mirror on the medicine cabinet was

smashed, and coiled on top of the lid to the toilet seat was a lengthy human stool. It was

at this point I almost wept. Instead, I unhitched my trousers and made water in the bath

tub.

When I returned to the living room I found Hattie standing next to the threshold

of the kitchen, her back against the wall, holding in both hands my Colt New Service

upright at the ready. She swung around into the kitchen detective-style and then shouted

over her shoulder, �All clear.�

�Is that loaded?� I asked. It was. �Jesus Christ, put that thing away.� She placed

it gingerly on an empty shelf, saying, �Sorry.� Then she waded through the paper and

took it all in. �Man, am I sorry. This is awful. Can I use the ladies� room?�

�No.�

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I righted an upturned captain�s chair and offered it to her. She accepted, her face

blank as if in shell-shock. I brushed some debris off my leather club chair. �Aw, man.�

The cushion had been slit open, and from the rent white, wooly stuffing spilled like guts.

I sat down anyway. I reached underneath the chair and, thank god, found the flask of

scotch. I took a belt and pitched the flask to Hattie. She took one as well, though to my

surprise she sputtered a little.

�What kind of trouble are you in?� she asked me, wiping her mouth on the sleeve

of her sweater.

�Financial.�

�Did they steal anything?�

�I doubt it. The only things worth taking were the guns, and they were all with

us. But he sure did make a mess.�

�Well, that we can handle. I�m helping you clean up.�

I refused, but she wasn�t budging.

�Can I use the ladies� room now?�

�Not until I clean it. You start in the kitchen.�

Maybe it was through disaster that we bonded. Maybe I just needed a friend. I

had not had one of those for a long time. The whole scene, my broken house, my

outrageous debt, the thick miasma of commingled whisky and gin depressed me deeply, I

could feel it stirring in my bones. If it hadn�t been for Hattie, I don�t know how much

time would have passed before I set the place back to rights, or if I would have set it at

all. When she stood with a bounce and a flourish and said, �Ta-da,� indicating with an

open arm my club chair which she had mended with a strip of duct tape, I felt the tears

gathering in my eyes and gave her a hug, a brother�s hug, before she could see me cry.

Her hair smelled softly of orange peel and tobacco and I wanted to nuzzle there for a

week. I wanted both to burrow into her and contain her in my embrace, and I didn�t want

to keep it brotherly. I hazarded a look down at her, one cheek pressed to my chest, her

eyes closed and her little rose-petal mouth open, smiling that crooked smile like she had

found what she was looking for, and I felt my heart crack. I gently let her go. She

looked up and made to kiss me, but I was ready this time and beat her to the mark,

kissing her on the forehead instead.

175

�Just one?� she asked, looking up at me. I had my hands on her shoulders but

even so I still could not keep them from trembling, and I think she knew that, too; she

was probably hoping to exploit it.

�You are very sweet,� I said. �Now run along.� But she didn�t run along and I

had not let go of her shoulders.

�How much?� she asked, her eyes wide open, green and flecked with flashes of

yellow.

�A lot.�

�How much a lot?� she pressed.

�Five thousand,� I said. That was a lie. I owed The Continental ten.

�Hmm,� she said. �Well, I�m sure something will work out,� she added, sounding

to me like I did when I was her age, and even older, like there was always more money,

that everything could be fixed. �Not even one little one?� she asked.

�No,� I said, turning away, though I couldn�t help smiling.

�Okay,� she said, and pecked me on the cheek. �See you soon.�

�Yeah,� I said, thinking to myself of her mother, her au natural nether weeds and

her botched silicon. Yeah, on Monday, I thought to myself as I watched Hattie�s round

little rear and long locust legs tucked into fading denim descend the staircase.

Next Monday Hattie wasn�t there. �She went out for her run,� Mrs. Finch said, but did

not say what she should have said, which was, Strange that you should ask. Strange. All

throughout the morning I studied the altered topography of the mother�s figure, looking

for antecedents of Hattie. Or at least as she existed in my vivid and irrepressible

imagination. Hattie had become a problem for me, and I had not even kissed her, not

really.

�You seem distracted, young lover,� Mrs. Finch said, and I, thinking at first she

had said �My love,� winced, and visibly so, judging from the change from solicitous to

sullen in her expression.

�Oh, it�s nothing,� I said.

�Financial trouble?� she asked, wrapping her kimono around her.

How did she know? Did I just radiate impecuniosity?

176

�No, no. Rejection,� I said, stupidly. �Rejection letters, from all three

magazines.� I hadn�t submitted a story in four years.

�Oh. That,� she said, and her face brightened and she let her kimono fall open.

�Well, don�t you worry about that. Those fools don�t know what they�re missing.�

�Yeah, actually, they do,� I said, getting caught up in the lie. �They do read the

submissions, you know.�

�Well, maybe it�s your subject matter,� she said. �You surely do not want for

talent. I can testify to that. Why don�t you write a little story about a bored housewife

with a gift for writing, a boor for a husband, and an absolute warrior for a lover?�

�That�s a good idea,� I said.

�Of course it�s a good idea. Now come back here where you belong.�

Later, I really knew I was far gone when I found myself parking in the lot at

Forsyth Park, hoping to glimpse Hattie in her jogging togs. What would I say? Hi, just

dropped by, fancy seeing you, or, Oh, I was just in the neighborhood, stalking you. Or,

Where the hell were you this morning, I needed to see you, bad, if only just to see you,

not to hold or touch you, just to steal a moment and bury my nose in your hair. I never

had the chance to craft a proper greeting because, of course, Spanish Dan, in his jogging

togs�sweaty, laced with Celtic musk�opened my passenger-side door and made

himself at home. �Hello there, wanker,� he said as he punched me in the shoulder.

�You used to call me �guv�nor,�� I said, fighting the temptation to rub the bruise

that was rising.

�Yeah, I did, didn�t I?� he said. �Well, that was before you started being a

wanker, losing, welshing on your debts, taking good ol� Daniel�s gracious good nature for

granted.�

�Yeah, about those debts�� I began, but Dan interrupted me.

�Five down and five to go,� he said. �Just ran into your factor.�

�Who?�

�You know, your factor, your agent, your broker. Your cousin, wanker,� said

Spanish Dan, hitting me again. �And a pretty little factor, too. Be a sport and give

Spanish Dan her phone number, what?�

177

I didn�t have a cousin, not in town anyway. But that line of inquiry was a dead

end and I knew it, because I knew exactly who had paid on my behalf, my only

confidante in the whole affair. �Can�t do that, Dan.�

The pit boss backhanded me across the face. �Spanish Dan to you, wanker,� he

said. �You�ve got one month to pay the rest, or you�ll have bigger worries than a

steaming log of shite crowning your commode.�

Vile. Spanish Dan left my car, slamming the door behind him. My cheek

smarted, and I cursed myself for letting him slap me unchecked, for not returning the

gesture in kind. One hundred years ago that would have meant pistols at dawn. But if I

knew Spanish Dan he had a stiletto, if not a snub-nose, on him, and my dropping of the

gauntlet he would have taken poorly. His set was not familiar with the code duello. How

had I gotten caught up in this sordid business? I was raised better than this. Where had I

gone wrong? I guess if you pretend long enough that your father did not die a bankrupt

you can fool yourself into living beyond your means easily enough. I was no longer the

well-heeled prodigal, and the life to which I was accustomed in my twenties was no

longer mine. No longer, indeed. With my prestigious education I now made a very

modest income as a yacht club gigolo, an income much too modest to meet my gambling

debts, but no worries on that score because my best jane�s daughter of whom I was

enamored had covered my action.

The lock on my front door was still broken. I needed to take care of that. As I

ascended the stairs I heard sounds of movement, possibly in the bathroom, and I felt my

bowels clinch. Not again. Surely he didn�t beat me here, I thought, debating whether or

not to take the stairs. I had a sizable arsenal. It was about time I purchased a shoulder

holster and started carrying, I thought as I armed myself with a loafer.

When I entered my living room, brandishing my shoe, I saw Hattie, toweling her

hair. She saw me and laughed.

�What are you doing with that shoe?� she asked

�Arming myself against cat burglars,� I said, slipping on the loafer and hanging

up my coat. �More to the point, what are you doing?�

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�You don�t have athlete�s foot, do you?� she said. �Because I used your shower.�

Her hair was still wet, a little tangled, and mercifully she was actually wearing clothes, a

skirt and a cable-knit sweater.

�I don�t want you dealing with that nasty Irish rogue ever again, do you

understand me?�

She smiled and plopped into one of the captain�s chairs. �So, he�s concerned

about the girl�s safety. I think maybe he loves me a little.�

�Stop this nonsense. This is serious. Where did you get 5,000 dollars?�

�Who says I paid him in cash?�

My heart skipped a beat. Surely she didn�t come to some other arrangement with

that thug. The thought of his crusty hands exploring at liberty those clean limbs sickened

me. It was an effort to speak. �Hattie, you didn�t��

She laughed again. �No, silly. With him? Not even for you. Don�t you worry. I

took it out of checking. Dad gives me just scads of cash. For weekend trips to New

York, shopping, plane tickets home from school. Won�t be needing those anytime soon.

Don�t you worry.�

�Hattie, you are very, very kind, but you can�t be paying my debts.�

�I can�t, huh? Well, I just did. And you haven�t even thanked me,� she said,

crossing her arms over her breasts and looking away, an understudy affecting a stage-

pout.

�Well, of course I�m grateful. Thank you. You may have saved my life. But,

it�s�well�it�s not that simple. I don�t want you caught up in this business. It�s low.

Dirty. Beneath you,� and, at one time, beneath me.

�Well, too late,� she said, perking up and turning back to me. �Besides, your

notions of what�s low and dirty may differ from mine.�

The innuendo was too heavy, too much. I wondered if she knew what she was

saying, what she was doing. I was pretty sure she did. She radiated pheromones like

sound waves from a tower. I needed to do something to break the spell. I got up and

made to go to the kitchen. �Are you hungry?� I asked.

She stood up and blocked my path.

�Not yet, but I will be.�

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My head grew light. Had she been practicing for this moment? Or did it come

naturally? She brushed her hand across my fly, like she did in the country, as she pressed

her body to mine. I felt myself swell and I pushed her away. �Hattie. This has got to

stop. You are sixteen years��

She put her finger to my lips. �No. You listen to me. I know damn well what

you and Mother do during �workshop,� and if you refuse me, I�ll tell my father, just try.�

�Hattie, you can�t be serious.�

�Serious as a heart attack. Cancel your appointments. Put the chain on the door.

This afternoon you belong to me. Bought and paid for.�

Did I at the time reflect upon what this meant? Did I see what we did together

next as a transaction? That was unavoidable, and thus doubly stained the affair. Did she

see it as a transaction, or was she just bored, hormonally charged, and not half as

sophisticated as she affected. She was not without experience in the romantic arts, and I

found myself wanting to maim, to rip out the eyes from the sockets of her first love, and

all the others who had known her. My mind again conjured the image of Spanish Dan,

his torso puckered with scars, heaving above this porcelain, pristine frame and I saw the

blood running from his ears. It was too late, I was too far gone, drowning deep in the

most troubled of waters.

Thus ensued the tender frenzy.

Why not a boy her age, or closer, I asked. Oh, she was done with that. She was sick of

their sticky fumbling, their amateurish attempts, their subsequent failures. Ever since her

expulsion she had eavesdropped on her mother�s and my workshops, her mother who had

not the sense or decorum or maybe it was restraint to cease her assignations now that her

daughter was home. She had listened and she had heard the evidence of the matador�s

stamina. She needed that stamina. She knew she was sick, that it was a disease, that she

should control herself and go to meetings, but she couldn�t. She guessed it ran in the

family, �Through the distaff,� she said, and smiled.

Other than her mother, I let my janes fall by the wayside. When after an Oaklyn

romp I would return home, messages from Mary Jane, Khaki, and the widow Lawton

congested my answering machine, then after a week they didn�t. To Mother Finch I

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remained constant, especially constant for a gigolo, with the exception of regular trysts

with her daughter. Hattie and I grew reckless, twice making love in the garage after I had

done with her mother, on the bonnet of the Jaguar and in its backseat, and once in the

powder room below the staircase. I had never, even when gambling, it seemed, thrown

caution so far into the wind.

Gambling. I still had to attend to my debt, toward which end jilting matrons was

of little help. I was buying only where I had credit, charging to my account at the grocer

and butcher, and availing myself of the bar at The Edward, a private club of which my

great-great-great-grandfather had been a charter member, altogether different from the

clandestine Continental; there certainly were no longshoremen on the roll. The Edward

occupied an old Georgian mansion on the north side of Forsyth Park. Inside there were

two bars, the one in the Flagstone room, adjacent to the main dining room, and a smaller

bar upstairs adjacent to the reading room. It was this latter, much quieter bar I

frequented. It had a tartan carpet, a chess table, and two backgammon tables. On one

visit it struck me that success at backgammon could put me back in the black.

I had not played since my father had died; it was one of those things we did

together, something that didn�t require much conversation, an activity, like hunting, in

which silence was not awkward. These were activities well-suited to my father. He

taught me backgammon at a very young age. Like the other kids, I had an Atari, but

unlike the other kids, the only game cartridges I had were Chess and Backgammon. Dad

did compromise once and bought me Space Chess. But most every afternoon when Dad

came home from the office, he�d turn on the oven to heat the meal Eugenia our maid left

for us, take out his leather backgammon case and we�d play on the porch or in the study

until dinner was hot. When I was ten and receiving an allowance, he trained me in the

use of the doubling die, fleecing me once a month (I was not paid enough to play for

money more often than that) for a year, for which I swore I�d never forgive him, and I

didn�t, until the second year, when I started winning the money back, and more. For that

apprenticeship, I could never thank him enough. When money enters a contest the

contestant cares. I learned the strategy of the forward game, the backward game, the

subtleties of blotting, I made sure to make my bar points early on. I mastered probability:

a roll of 5-3 is never the same as a roll of 3-5. It was not for sentimental reasons that I

181

had not played since his death ten years prior. I no longer played because I had lost my

partner.

There wasn�t a whole lot of action on the two backgammon tables in The

Edward�s gaming parlor. There was, however, one member who played regularly, and

that was Charlie Finch, husband to my client, and father to my young lady-love. Tall and

lean, a fox-hunter with a severe widow�s peak, he�d amble in to the game room every

weekday at about six o�clock, pick up the Journal or Playboy from the library and read it

while he sipped his one whiskey sour. Dad had always told me never go camping with a

man who drinks whiskey sours. Maybe Charlie�s choice in cocktail explained his wife�s

starved libido. A couple days during the week Arthur Heyward would join him for a

drink and a game of backgammon. They were both very good, and very reckless, playing

for base values of twenty-five to fifty dollars and doubling wantonly. Once Arthur

scored a gammon on Charlie in a game they had doubled to 64, and Charlie had to pay

him $6400, and it was on that day I decided I would challenge Charlie when I saw him

next, which was the following day, one during which Arthur did not show.

�So, when are you going to get my wife in The New Yorker?� Charlie asked as he

prepared the stones in his inner table. I had half a mind to suggest that Playboy was a

better fit for her but I refrained.

�Well, these things take a while. For every magazine that accepts your work,

there are twenty that don�t.�

�Lousy odds,� Charlie said. �And how about you? Who�s publishing Francis

Wormsloe these days?�

�Well, I�m taking a break on the short stories right now, trying to finish my

novel.� Lord, how many times had I said that. There ought to be a tax levied on writers,

or dilettantes, or has-beens and failures every time they drop that line.

�Give it time, give it time. You know, my daughter is of a literary bent herself.

She�s home from school this semester, as you may know. Spends all day out in the

country writing poetry. Maybe you ought to tutor her.�

I about spat my scotch all over the game board.

We played the first game for fun. I didn�t let him score a gammon, but I

neglected my bar points and I blotted not haphazardly, but not shrewdly either, so that I

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spent just enough time a la cloison to suggest that, though no rank amateur, I was no pro.

I won the next game, not handily, but won it I did. So, flush with the confidence instilled

by a victory, I, as journeyman gamer, suggested we sweeten the game. Charlie asked if I

was sure and I assured him. We agreed on a base value of ten dollars, which at first isn�t

much, but if one and his opponent keep doubling and one scores a backgammon, or even

a gammon, then he walks away with a tidy sum.

There are two rows of twelve points on a backgammon board. Very symmetrical.

Therefore, it�s fairly easy to determine where a roll of the dice will place your stones

through calculating in your head. There is no need to count them out by tapping one�s

stone on each point until reaching the destination, like some child playing Chutes and

Ladders. But that�s exactly how Charlie Finch played, tapping with his stone each point,

one at a time. The first and only time I tried that my father said he�d cut off my fingers if

I did it again. In my mind it was one thing that separated amateurs from professionals.

And judging by Charlie�s play in that second game, I was correct. He lost by a gammon,

and I won $1280. He wrote me an IOU that in the club was as good as currency. No

cash ever changed hands in The Edward, that was a rule.

I looked at my watch, said something about a previous engagement, but Charlie

would hear none of it. �No, no, that will never do,� he said. �Let�s make it interesting.

Let�s set the base at 25. Come on, give an old man the chance to save some face. I�m

going to call my wife and tell her that I�ll be late.�

Money so easy was a temptation I could not combat. I vowed to myself to not

double beyond sixteen, so that, no matter how badly I played, at worst I would only have

to tear up Mr. Finch�s IOU. Anyone who has ever rolled the bones or spun the wheel or

told a dealer �hit me,� knows just how hollow such promises ring. The doubling die was

once again on 64 when Charlie Finch scored a gammon. After tearing up his IOU I still

owed him $1920. As I was writing out my own promissory note, he stopped me and said,

�You know, if you�re a little short on ready cash, you could just sign over that station

wagon. Electra Estate Wagon, right? Just like my wife�s. They�d look nice parked next

to each other, don�t you think?� Then he winked at me, and I felt a sudden chill. I

thought better about suggesting that, instead of paying cash, I could tutor his wife for

free.

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�By the way,� Mr. Finch said as he folded his newspaper, �Don�t you ever try to

hustle me again.�

I rarely thought of the husbands whose carnal treasuries I plundered. I did not

consider them weak or impotent. When I did think of them I considered myself less a

conqueror and more of a corsair. No mere pinch hitter, but not a surrogate, either. As a

freebooter in the marriage bower I performed a service. Yet, whereas I enjoyed

discharging my duties, the rake does not play house. Occasionally, I would make jibes at

the expense of the injured party, advising her to warn her spouse to watch the low

clearances, to take care when debouching from his sports-coupe, because he�s apt to

tangle his horns in the seat belt if he doesn�t know that they�ve sprouted. Anyhow, I

rarely viewed the cuckolds as men who I had beaten, so I rarely viewed them as threats.

However, after that afternoon, I feared that Charlie Finch might gore me with his antlers.

I told myself I was just going out there to inspect the property, to see just how saleable it

was, but I knew that was not true, even before I packed not just my hunting and fishing

gear, but my entire wardrobe: suits, evening wear (would it ever see the light of the

moon again?), my favorite Persian rug, and as many books and records as I could stuff

into the tailgate or lash to the luggage rack. I had just installed a new dead bolt on the

carriage house�s red door and I wondered how much of the Dan it could take.

I had only been out to Hopeulikit once in the past year and that was with Hattie,

two weeks prior to my exodus. She had actually spent the night, two nights to be exact,

having woven some Byzantine yarn about a weekend reunion with the southern Pomfret

contingent at a Cumberland Plateau cabin where there was no telephone. The latter part

was true. The Wormsloe hunting camp had no telephone. It did have power and running

water from a well and cedar planks that for the most part kept the mildew at bay. Snakes

living under the tin roof fed on the rats who hoped to nest there. Over dinner we

witnessed a chase along the top of one of the exposed rafters. The serpent lunged and

grasped its quarry in its fangs, the momentum of the movement sending him swinging

down from the rafter, back and forth before our eyes like a pendulum, the rat still

clutched in its distended jaws. Then it swallowed and hung there between us, the rat-

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shaped lump behind its head making it look like some kind of sling. Finally, it retracted

and withdrew along the rafter back into the wall.

Snakes don�t typically bother me. But watching this one unhinge its jaws and

swallow whole its dinner while dangling above our dinner I found unsettling. Other than

the initial yelp of surprise at seeing the snake swing down from the rafter, Hattie said

only, �Cool,� but not in a dismissive way, not at all. She was rapt, as if I had taken her to

a bush camp outside Kisangani on the banks of the Congo, seven thousand miles away

from Hopeulikit on the Ogeechee, and the king snake was a mamba. It might as well

have been the Congo. Love was an exotic locale for me, heretofore undiscovered

country. That weekend we behaved without shame, without fear of discovery or

accusation, and, for the first night at least, without fear of parting. She was demanding,

and I was obliging, leaving some three hundred million nascent matadors swimming

nowhere in her navel. In my most deluded moments, spent and aglow, with her snoring

lightly, curled in the crook of my arm, I thought it just might work, that we could conceal

our affair until she was of marriageable age, or maybe just sell all I owned and spirit her

off to Mozambique. You may say, What foolish rot, what treacle, and you would be

correct. But I was drunk on her, no longer simply on our forbidden behavior, but on her,

her crooked smile, her pale and languid limbs, her self-tutored, raw-boned command of

the classics and her savage�s ear for poetry, her zest for making trouble, and the joy she

took in feeding flies to spiders.

Without her, the cabin was stale and dry, as one would expect in a cedar chest.

Proofed against moisture and moths, it was the new home for my books, records, and

retired finery. At first I toured the acreage, looking for parcels I might sell, but soon

grew dull with the tedium of settling my affairs. Who could touch me here? Instead, I

settled in a routine. Before dawn I rose and stoked the stove, chose a rifle, and hiked to a

stand. Some mornings I gave over to splitting wood. I set up my Underwood on the

dining room table under the hog-bone chandelier and in the afternoons I began to hammer

out in earnest the opening strains of a novel, tentatively titled Wife on Mars. Through the

gloaming I would hunt again. Only through adhering to my tasks like clockwork was I

able to endure her absence. One morning I dropped the axe on my toe and I cursed the

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moon and the stars in a voice that sounded strangely familiar yet alien, and I realized

these were the first words I had spoken in a week.

That was the same day Hattie appeared. She had had to leave her venerable pick-

up at the locked gate, and so made her way up the road with surprising stealth. I never

once heard the crunch of gravel under her heels. I stopped in mid-chop, the axe raised

above my head, when I saw her. She smiled and ran up to the cabin from the drive. I

finished my stroke�right down the middle�and caught her in my embrace. She told me

I smelled like a submarine sandwich, three weeks old and stashed under the bed, but she

held me tight all the same and we laughed.

�Shouldn�t you be in a nunnery by now?� I asked.

She answered only with a wink and a smile.

�Look at you, lusty gosling in your rubber duck boots,� I said, pressing my face to

hers. �This gander is badly in need of a gonadectomy.�

She pulled away and, looking at the ground, said. �I�m having my flow, so��

�Oh, okay,� I said, thinking, that�s probably for the best�not that this monthly

contingency ever gave me pause in the practice of the sweetest science, but this

demurring of hers charmed me in its delicacy�this madness must end sometime, today

will be the day we discuss it, the end. She looked up and smiled.

�So, that�s why I propose the Italian Solution,� she said.

�The what?�

�You know, in some communities, in order to preserve the integrity of the

maidenhead, the unmarried lovers settle upon�an alternate route. No birth control

required. Very Catholic, all in all. The Italian Solution.�

�Where on earth did you learn that?� I said. Just when I was praising her for her

delicacy.

�Something I read,� she said.

I asked her what and she said Norman Mailer.

�Pornography!� I said. �Such filth. Darling, you have the pedigree of a baroness

and yet a mouth like some lousy jade. Really, Hattie, you make me blush.�

�I doubt it,� she said. �Oh, please, please, let�s try it.�

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A little later we sat at the dining room table, drinking beer from the bottle. I

sliced cold venison back-strap I had grilled the night before and served it with wedges of

onion and goat�s cheese. She remarked that it was peasant fare, and wished we were in

some stone cottage on the outskirts of Provence, with maybe a bottle of wine instead of

lukewarm lager. We were ravenous, and when we had finished she said she had some

bad news.

�You�re place�s been trashed,� she said. �Again.�

�I�m not surprised.�

�Oh, Francis, why didn�t you tell me you owed him more money? Please let me

help.�

�Absolutely not,� I said. �I told you I didn�t want you involved in this business.

Spanish Dan is an awful man. You stay away from him, you understand?�

�I understand,� she said, putting the dishes next to the sink. �But what are you

going to do?�

�I�ll think of something. I don�t know. I might sell the milo field to the neighbor.

He�s been wanting it, to turn it into pasture.�

�But this is your family�s land. Land is everything. Money is nothing. Let me

give you the money. How much do you need?�

I was seized with the impulse to say something cruel and hurtful, that this was the

time to drive the wedge between us, this was the time to send her away, for her own good

as well as mine. I felt as if the rules of drama dictated some kind of vituperative, hateful

outburst, a taste of the lash, at just that moment. �What are you suggesting, that you

�buy� me again? Is that what I am, a high-dollar boy-toy to you? Listen up, I am no

woman�s kept man, not any more. You stay out of my affairs. You�re sticking your nose

in things you�re too young to understand. You�re just a child.�

This last part struck the blow. I again felt the sensation of walls crumbling as I

watched her chin quiver. �This idyll had to end someday, you know. It�s a hard lesson.

The sooner you learn it the better. Find someone your own age.�

The brave, brave girl, she shot for levity in the face of imminent crisis. �But they

don�t have gray hair. They barely have chest hair.�

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Ultimately, she kept it together, she did not shed a tear, her chin ceased to quiver,

and that somehow made it worse. As she strode past me and through the door, leaving it

open behind her, her erect posture, the concave small of her back, the haughty toss of her

pony tail, her regal bearing, all conspired to crush me. I twice started to the door to stop

her but stopped myself, the words caught in my throat, the dry hollow in my chest telling

me to go after her, not to let her go, but I stood fast.

I sold the parcel to the neighbor Jenkins, and with dispatch he bush-hogged it to bristle,

even though the weather wouldn�t permit him to seed it until spring. Hereford cattle

would soon be grazing on my heretofore prized game plot. The morning after the closing

I cranked up the station wagon and headed for town a little giddy at the prospect of

actually paying my debts, at being beholden to no man, or woman. That last bit, though,

was false bravado. I knew when I got to town that I would drive to Forsyth Park in hopes

of catching her during her jog. I was also hoping to catch her father at the club, so I was

wearing a blazer and tie for the first time in a month, and the crisp, sharp collar on my

razor-burned neck felt reassuring in its sting.

Hattie was not at Forsyth, a turn of events that both wounded me and strengthened

my resolve. Thank the lord, neither was Spanish Dan out for his run, nor, for that matter,

at the Continental. I was able to settle discreetly with the business manager, a crusty old

pervert behind steel bars reading Boys Life and watching Shirley Temple on a black-and-

white television. When he asked if I would be paying my dues as well, without pause I

said, �No,� and bade farewell to my affiliation with that seamy parlor. I did not have the

gumption to see my carriage house, not yet. I�d move back in soon enough, but whatever

waste the Dan laid to my abode might incapacitate me to the point where I would not

discharge the duties incumbent upon me. At The Edward in the Flagstone Room by the

fireplace I dined sumptuously on oysters, the club�s famous shrimp bisque, and a rack of

lamb accompanied by an excellent Burgundy. I had made good use of the club�s

telephone, arranging to meet my father�s banker later in order to put the balance of my

real estate profit to work. And I had contacted Dad�s old buddy Richmond who owned

the Evening Press, and Richmond said there might be something for me on the Arts and

Living beat, a food and drink column at the very least. The day had been a steady

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succession of hallmark moments, a graduated molting culminating in my dropping from

the ranks of the idle privileged; so long, lotusland, farewell espièglerie.

In the club�s library, I was seated in my favorite leather banquette, perusing the

Arts and Living section of The Evening Press, when I heard a familiar clipped request for

a whiskey sour issue from the game room bar. I folded the paper and joined Charlie

Finch at his table. �Wormsloe,� not Francis, he said, like a scientist identifying a

pathogen in a laboratory, and I felt myself recoil as if slapped, or, more to the point,

caught.

�Mr. Finch, I won�t take too much of your time. I only want to settle my debt

with you,� I said, sliding a letter-size envelope across the table.

�How dare you,� he said, his face stricken, his head cocked.

�I know, I know, the club by-laws. But I mean to honor my debt, and I thought

this method preferable to perhaps alerting Mrs. Finch regarding a gentleman�s wager

through mailing your payment to your home.�

�My home? And this coming from someone who has so thoroughly fouled my

home.� He slid the envelope back across the table. �Keep your money. Keep it, and

listen close.� He eased forward and rested his elbows on the table and spoke quietly. �I

stayed home from the office this morning, which placed me in a position to receive an

unexpected and unusual caller, a rough-looking fellow with a thick Irish brogue, asking

for my daughter.�

Here my heart stopped, the notion of Spanish Dan staking out the Finch house

thoroughly unmanned me. As did the certain knowledge that I was in real trouble, not

with some underworld henchman, but with one of my father�s contemporaries, with the

father of the girl I loved, and the husband of the woman who lately had kept me. I

wished I had ordered a drink but also recoiled at the idea of ordering one and protracting

this exchange.

�This in and of itself was shocking, that my daughter might be in any way

keeping company with a�a�low-life like this, that his kind should ever darken my

threshold. He noticed my discomfort, and sought to assure me that he was not calling on

my daughter, per se, that this was all relative to a matter of business involving my

nephew, and that perhaps I could help. Of course you know I have no nephew. Taking

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this all for some kind of confidence scam, I ordered him off my property, immediately,

and that as soon as I slammed the door in his face I would be calling the police. I have no

doubt that the police are already well acquainted with this man.�

Mr. Finch ordered another whiskey, which I had never seen him do. He also

ordered it neat, which was another first. He did not ask if I wanted anything. I did not,

except to be gone, gone from here. I wondered if I�d ever drink at The Edward again.

Mr. Finch continued. �Well, then I got to thinking. Hattie�s been acting strangely,

spending all day out at Oaklyn where the house is boarded up and empty and the fields all

overgrown. At dinner she stares off into space, barely bothering to eat even her lamb

chops the other day, her favorite. And just last week I surprised her as she was trying to

leave the house with her jewelry box. Very peculiar behavior, all in all.�

I felt the impulse to interject, agree at least with a nod, that this was indeed odd

behavior, and so indicate that I was a man with whom he could commiserate, and try to

perpetuate a charade most transparent. This was the instinct of the liar, the cheater, the

blackguard, and I hated myself for having it, even if I didn�t act on it. Finch went on.

�So today, after the curious visit, I called Pomfret, to see if the friends with whom

she was meeting for the weekend weeks ago at some cabin had actually signed out. They

had not, they had been present and accounted for. Something was going on. Oh, and

what I didn�t mention is that this morning Hattie was very agitated. She didn�t plan on

me being home; I didn�t either, but a headcold�s a headcold. Anyhow, she was clearly

agitated that I was there. Once I had turned away the hooligan, she was very upset with

me. How dare I pry into her affairs and decide who she could and could not see, and that

this was very, very important and that I had no idea of the seriousness of the matter in

which I was interfering. Well, I do now, Wormsloe. I know about you and�and my

daughter. You scum. I�d have you arrested right now, but there�d be a scandal, and I

won�t have my Hattie�s name dragged through the slime and the mud. It�s only your

father�s memory that keeps me from throttling you right here, you worm. I owe you at

least a chance. I never did like you and Gordon being so close, I always knew there was

something not quite right about you. If he�if he�if he were here you�d be dead.� Mr.

Finch paused to recover himself. I so badly wanted to flee, but I knew I had an obligation

to take whatever this man meted out. He continued. �So here�s what I�m going to do for

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you. Leave this town. By sunrise. Never come back. If you do, and I�ll know if you do,

by God, I will kill you.�

His eyes were wet and bright and I knew this was not the liquor talking. What

does one say to such a thing? This is the moment when I should have feigned umbrage at

his outrageous charges, slapped him with my glove, asked him to choose swords or

pistols. But denial would cheapen the one glimpse of love I�d ever been proffered. I

could never make him understand, I would never try, that I was neither robber nor rapist,

that I adored the child and would gladly prove it with the point of a sword. But all that

would be rubbish to his ears. I loved her, it was true, and because I loved her I knew I

could not keep her, that to keep her would be to rob her of a life she had just begun to

taste. So I did not drop the gauntlet. I simply rose and wished him good day, my hands

at my sides, shaking.

He never mentioned Mrs. Finch. I�m sure he knew, and I daresay he didn�t care.

In the sorghum I cut for sign in search of the blood trail. A gut shot is the absolute worse

shot, no matter what your target. A man shot in the gut, they say, dies slowly and

painfully, a white-hot sort of passing, the bile, the spleen, the four humors in

collaboration with the gastric acids, the enzymes, the urine and feces, all spilling from

their pierced sacks and burning away the soft tissues within the belly. A deer shot in the

gut runs at the speed of sound, powered by adrenaline until it finds the thickest, thorniest,

nastiest cover there is to be found on the other side of the highest hill, buried in the

deepest gulley. To add insult to inconvenience, the adrenaline coursing through the

animal taints the meat almost as bad as the feces with which it comes into contact. I saw

him enter the tree line but I can�t remember exactly where and I mean to find this buck.

It�s simply what I do. It�s all I do; the hunt is the surrogate chase of the old days, the kill

a pale substitute for the catch of better times. You�d think by now that I had perfected it,

that I�d be shooting it in the heart and lungs through the brisket. But I have not.

Who knows what force compels me to flinch at the moment of delivering the

perfect shot, the cleanest kill, what force compels me to seek hardship and misery, suffer

the beast an ignoble death, and suffer the hunter an arduous trek over hill and dale,

through the briar patch, and the stagnant, fetid slough. I know what force. I know that if

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for a moment I allow myself passage on the easy path I�ll have the leisure to think of

Hattie and how I should have killed her father, quickly and cleanly, and spirited her off to

the darkest corner of the globe, which to you may be so much purple prose, but to me is

the way we all should live, by the pen under sperm oil lamp-light, on the ballroom floor

to the three-four of the polonaise, by the long-stemmed rose clutched between the teeth,

by the lash on the crowded afterdeck, and by the sword at the drop of a lavender kid

glove. Oh well, I guess I�ll never get it.

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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

William Lee Belford jr is a native of Savannah, Georgia. In 1997, he graduated from the

University of the South with a Bachelor of Arts in English. He received his Master of

Fine Arts in Creative Writing from the University of Alabama in 2001, and is currently a

candidate for a Doctor of Philosophy in Creative Writing at Florida State University.