by Jim Harrison
The nastiest piece of instant revenge I've ever heard about was told to me by an old Sicilian living in New York. “Back in the early sixties,” he said, “there was this old capo out in Brooklyn who was semi-retired. He owned a little restaurant and loved to cook. He was a very rich man, but he would put on an apron and cook me his favorite dish, a cacciatore made with pheasant and sausage and the ripest of fresh tomatoes. Without the ripe tomatoes, you have nothing, you understand? His youngest son was a bum, almost a hippie. He wanted the old man to get into the heroin business and the old man refused. So the bum makes a deal by getting two hundred grand from this lawyer, saying his dad, the capo, will back up the deal. So the son fucks up the deal because he's got no muscle, and the lawyer is out the money, which anyway came from a crooked public-construction deal. The Lawyer forces the son to take him to see the father. Right in the father's own house, at the kitchen table, the lawyer loses his temper because the old man won't back his son. The lawyer called the capo a flea-bitten old dago, a greasy wop. The old man pretends to be sad and depressed. He shuffles around behind the lawyer's hard-backed chair, grabs him by the hair and snaps his head back, stunning him. He bites out the lawyer's goddamned Adam's apple! Chews it right out! He spits the Adam's apple in his son's face and tells him he'll do the same to him if he brings any more lawyers into the home. The lawyer bleeds to death and the capo tells the son to clean up the mess; he told me this story while we were eating dinner. I wanted to ask him if he brushed his teeth afterward, but he's a dignified old man.”
This would have made an additional, effective scene in The Godfather—but then, true violence is rarely done well by Hollywood, where the texture of the scenes is too stagy and neurotic, lacking the immediacy of a neighborhood bar fight, with the screaming and the spilled blood smelling like sheared copper.
In fact, show business, publishing, the media and the arts in general offer nothing in terms of revenge. The ethics are frankly too blurred for a solid push-off. Years ago, Steve McQueen was visiting the ranch of Tom McGuane and noticed a sign in the kitchen reading, GETTING EVEN IS THE BEST REVENGE. McQueen, a man of sharp edges, thought the sign went a bit far. Once, in a state of pointless rage about Hollywood, I asked the director Bob Rafelson how he could possibly get fired, sue the studio, then go back to work for the same studio while the suit was pending. This man is not known for his wisdom, but he cautioned me that things in the movies moved too quickly to hold a grudge. Hollywood is not Latin America, where you might sit for three years eating mangoes and drinking rum until you decide to shoot the man who called your sister a whore.
People at large don't realize that publishing and the reviewing media are a microcosm of the movies, the boxing world, ward politics, a Serengeti water hole and South African racial postures and, as such, don't merit the ivy-laden respect they manufactured in the past. The most wildly unjustified bad review is simply a bad review, akin to someone's saying your child is ugly. Sometimes your child is ugly; but then, what a job is this, sitting there telling people their children are ugly, especially when the viewpoint is last week's Gotham attitude. In any event, duels are no longer fought over such things.
But this is not to say that classic revenge can't occur in business, just that it's less than likely in the media and in show business, where, as Aristophanes would have it, “whirl is king.” I can readily imagine the intrigue involved in a corporation like General Motors, where there are several thousand young, hyperintelligent M.B.A.s who all want to be the C.E.O. In first-class compartments, you see these people speaking to one another in short, clipped barks, manicured like bench-bred dogs. But business revenge lacks resonance without some added quality. An American saw dictates, “Don't go into business with your best friend.” The following, told to me by a retired sheriff in South Dakota, is a ghastly example.
“Two boys grew up on farms in eastern Nebraska just after World War II. They wanted to be cowboys, so they left school at sixteen and went to Montana, getting jobs on an enormous ranch near White Sulphur Springs. One, named Dave, was smaller, craftier and more imaginative. The other, named Ted, was slower but of normal intelligence, ruminative, a reader of Western novels and a first-rate steer wrestler.
“By their mid-twenties, they made the down payment on a small cattle-hauling business and stockyard by virtue of Ted's rodeo winnings and savings. Dave had spent his money on ladies and flashy pickup trucks, but he was the brains behind the newly acquired business. Ted stayed away from the paperwork, having full trust in Dave because they had been partners since they were kids. As the business prospered, they married cousins and added a farm-equipment dealership and a grain elevator to their holdings. Ted acted as foreman and troubleshooter, while Dave stuck to the office, taking up golf and buying a Cessna. They pretty much stopped seeing each other socially, what with Ted's refusal to learn correct grammar or join service organizations.
“Things came to a head when Ted broke his ankle on a cattle chute. During his short convalescence, he talked it all over with his wife, and they decided to try to sell their half of the business to Dave and find a ranch to buy. They were sick of the vagaries of modern life, and Ted wanted to get back to the life he'd come West for.
“The upshot was that a meeting was arranged, and when Ted arrived, Dave had two local lawyers and an accountant with him. Everyone seemed a tad embarrassed to explain to Ted that he owned nothing on paper and had no legal demand for any monies from the corporation. But in consideration of his hard work, they had decided to give him a check for fifty grand, which would fulfill any claims he might have against Dave. Ted wasn't such a fool that he couldn't immediately figure that the fifty grand was about five percent of what the company was worth. He tried to look at Dave, who naturally averted his eyes. Then Ted picked up the check, tore it in half and walked out.
“Well, everyone in the area knew what had happened, but there were enough new and prosperous people moving in that Dave didn't lack for buddies. Ted moved north with his family and became top hand, then foreman on a big ranch owned by a rich dude from Chicago.
“Then one day, about a year later, Ted calmly walks into a Rotary meeting where Dave was speaking and slaps the shit out of him in front of every-one. This beating took place once a year for seven years, including once on December 30th, and on the following January third, when Dave got out of the hospital. So last year, Dave sells out and moves to La Jolla, California. Dave couldn't stand the behind-the-back laughter and the simple fact that every tavern in town had a calendar pool with a lot of money on his next beating. The upshot is that I got a call from a detective in La Jolla. Seems that Dave was sitting on the beach with a flashy girlfriend. Down the beach comes a cowboy who beats the shit out of him, right in front of all these fancy people. The detective was trying to figure out what was happening, because when they let Ted out of jail in the morning—Dave wouldn't press charges—all Ted would say was that the price of beef had dropped from seventy to fifty-one in the past ten years. So I told the detective the story. He said to tell Ted to stay out of La Jolla. I said he would tell Ted himself when he came out there next year but that I'd be real careful if I was him.”
There's a purity here, but perhaps it's a bit too relentless. Maybe not. I know that Dave upped his offer over the years from the original fifty grand, but to no avail. I have no idea whether or not Dave's attitude is that of a smart guy or a penitent or if he's considering a move to London, Deauville or Tibet. The squeamish sensation can come from the question, At what point does the transgressor become the victim? The back wall is that a modestly intelligent man, if sufficiently cautious, can destroy anyone he wishes.
And then there are stories that are pointlessly foul: “This farmer's wife was going to divorce him because he was all the time beating the hell out of her. Once, at a church picnic, he shoved her face down into a hot bowl of scalloped potatoes and a couple of us brethren couldn't stand it and kicked the shit out of him. Well, this farmer knew if she divorced him he'd have to sell the f
arm to pay the divorce settlement, so he goes up to Minneapolis and hires this ex-con. He probably got the idea on TV, but he tells the excon he'll pay him five grand to rape and rough up the wife. The farmer gives the ex-con a date to do the job while the farmer is supposed to be in Grand Forks.”
“The ex-con is suspicious, even though he has been given half the money up front. So when he comes to town, he leaves a note under his pillow in his motel, knowing if things go well, he'll be back in an hour. He goes out to the homestead and rapes the poor lady. While he's in the saddle, the farmer—who was supposed to be away—shoots him through the window three times with a 30.06. Naturally the slugs went through both bodies.
“So the farmer drives off to the sheriff's office and collapses on the desk with the rape story. The bastard is still weeping when the deputy shows up with a note from the only motel in town and the farmer goes ape shit. It was real sad we couldn't have hung him right there.”
This is a transparently disgusting piece of low life. As a tonic, I offer a story told to me by a French count about his own father, an eccentric gentleman, now dead: “I think I told you that my father was an ace in both wars, in addition to being an inventor and a bon vivant. As a young pilot during World War I, he was flying out of the Dordogne. The situation was indescribably tense, and between missions he played with his two friends, Joseph, a crow he had owned for years, and Simon, a kit fox. He even took those two for plane rides. Everyone in the barracks loved these animals, except for an officer who was my father's immediate superior. This officer was a nasty character who hated my father because he was a count and because he was very successful with the girls in the neighboring town. One day while my father was on a mission, this officer returned to his room to discover that the crow and the fox had tipped a good bottle of wine off his desk and had eaten some smoked sausages and bread. The animals had also shit on the floor. The officer flew into a rage and strangled both animals, hanging them from the doorknob to my father's room.
“When my father returned from his mission, he pretended to be only mildly upset, though he was grief-stricken. He buried the animals together and mourned them in private. Even after the war, he visited the grave of his beloved friends, Simon and Joseph. Anyway, all the pilots in the barracks—including the guilty officer—kept waiting for my father to do or say something, but after a month or so, they were lulled into thinking the incident was over.
“One evening, my father shared a bottle of good brandy with the officer, and they decided to go to town and visit some girls. On the way back, when the officer was feeling drunk and well-fucked, my father threw him off a high bridge down into the river and the rocks far below. The body was found the next afternoon, and it was assumed that the officer had fallen over the rail while drunk. Everyone knew what must have happened, but no one said a word.”
This story has a lovely purity to it, despite the question of whether or not the death was merited, or if any death is ever truly merited. I recently heard a hick radio preacher say that AIDS was “God's judgment on the homos,” as if God were the drum major in the band composed of Reagan, Falwell, the Pentagon and the U.S. Congress. “ ‘Vengeance is mine . . .’ saith the Lord,” or someone said that He said it. It's hard to put the money on a bet you're not going to collect until dead.
Years ago, I wrote a novella, Revenge, in a collection called Legends of the Fall. The story concerns the nearly implausible anguish between two friends, an American fighter pilot and a Mexican barone, caused by an act of betrayal. The relatively innocent woman over whom they are fighting dies. I don't think good novels are written for dogmatic reasons, to offer principles of right conduct, and I certainly didn't figure out the soul of revenge other than that, like many other forms of human behavior, it destroys innocent and guilty alike. As Gandhi said after Hiroshima, “The Japanese have lost their bodies, now we will see if the Americans have lost their souls.” This is the kind of question Melville filed under “the whiteness of the whale.”
On the way back from Montana last summer, I stopped at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. The site of the murder of Crazy Horse was closed due to “budget restrictions.” I felt a surge of anger akin to a lump of hot coal under the breastbone. The scene of one of the most momentous events in the soul history of the nation was closed while gaggles of tourists wheezed through the cavalry-horse barns. I would gladly have given up my own life to see a few thousand mounted Sioux come over the hill and torch the whole place. You can get consciousness and a conscience free by reading history. It awakens a desire in you, thought by many childish, to see parity on earth with no hope of heaven.
And if in weak moments you hope for heaven, you want to see the bittersweet surrealism of Crazy Horse riding double with Anne Frank on Ruffian, riding through the cosmos from the Southern Cross to Arcturus, from Betelgeuse to the morning star.
1986
Night Walking
It is an oddly Protestant notion that life is a form of punishment to be endured to reach a greater end. Even when this idea isn't allowed to be overwhelming, it's still hiding behind the curtains like a headless leper ready to reach out and grab you in case you're feeling a little too good.
Life is a vale of woe, they used to say, during my childhood in Michigan. The illustrated Bible was full of pictures of bleeding folks, vipers biting kids, sorrowful ladies, old guys sleeping on beds of rags, rocks and ashes. If we survived the Nazis and Japs, that wouldn't prevent God, in all his justified anger, from snuffing out the sun, moon and stars. At the end of the road was probably the Lake of Fire, but before that could be reached, there was a lot of hard work and grinding poverty to go through. My own distinct case history reached its theological nadir when I was blinded in one eye at age seven by a little girl wielding a broken bottle. We had our clothes off in a heavily wooded vacant lot on an exploratory venture.
A severe childhood injury is not a bad preparation for life in this portion of the twentieth century. It makes you empathetic and wary, and you lack the built-in compass your friends seem to have: fence posts and trees contort into question marks, and at any moment you might fall through the earth where the crust is thin. Much later, certain news photos would have a natural resonance: the girl's mouth torn open in a simian howl at Kent State, and the Oriental tyke trotting nudely down the road after a napalm bath. Happier images are arrayed above my desk: a crow wing and a heron wing, an antisuicide button, a dried grizzly turd, a small toy pig, a Haitian baby shoe found on the beach in Florida after the boatload of blacks had been carted off to jail, having missed the Statue of Liberty by a thousand miles.
The northern Midwest night I grew up in was the only immediately available mystery, other than the bombazine Saturday matinees featuring the likes of Roy Rogers and the Sons of the Pioneers. There was a whole theater full of village and farm kids trying to figure out what tumbleweed was, only to be released back out into a black sky and immense snowbanks. Years later, while hitchhiking to California, I was in a car accident and finally saw tumbleweed an inch from my nose and heard again the warbling of the Pioneers.
But summer nights, winter nights and walking. My father, who owned the unlikely name of Winfield Sprague Harrison, built a cabin on a lake with the help of his brothers for the grand sum of a thousand dollars in 1946. My uncles had just returned from full-term service in World War II and were particularly kind to me as one of the fellow injured. I took walks with them and was referred to as Little Beaver, after the Red Ryder comic strip. Then, while my uncles busied themselves fishing or getting drunk, I began to walk during the day and evening alone. I discovered that twilight was a fine time to walk, and night herself was even more wonderful. I walked along creeks and a river and around the lake, with the voices of bass fishermen carrying to the shore. Once, through a cabin window, I saw a nude girl dancing with a Dalmatian dog in the light of an oil lamp; another time I saw a very old couple in utter hysterics listening to “Fibber McGee and Molly” on a battery-operated radio. The old man slid off
his chair, kicking his feet with laughter. The old woman helped him back up on the couch, and they began pelting each other with popcorn. There was no electric power in the area, so night was truly dark.
I envied Jesus’ ability to walk on water, imagining how I would look down through the surface of the lake as if it were glass, observing the secret lives of fishes and turtles and the fabled and elusive water bird, the loon, which could swim faster underwater, it was said, than the penguin or dolphin, a Jap torpedo or a German submarine.
I had a particular spot favored for a big moon—a grove of white birches where deer wandered and where, if you stupidly missed the point, you could read a newspaper in the shimmering light. Blue herons lived near the grove, and they often fished in the shallows on bright nights. There was a Chippewa Indian burial mound, and a girl I knew said if you put your ear to the ground, you could hear dead warriors talking with their wives and children. Frankly, I never dared put my ear to the ground. Terror at night, though, was a splendid antidote to the lassitude of hot August afternoons for a boy freelancing with a hoe and earning a dime an hour.
Often I spent weeks on the farm of my Swedish-immigrant grandparents, especially when my mother was having yet another baby. I walked down long rows of corn twice my height, through wheat fields, often ending up near a pond where the white bones of slaughtered cattle and pigs were dumped and mammoth water snakes glided across the sheen of algae on the water. If there was rain or a thunderstorm, I sat in the Model A or under an upended pig-scalding pot on sawhorses, listening to what my brother said was Chinese music. In the barn I sat on a milk stool and listened to the cattle and draft horses eating in the dark, or up in the mow I could lie back in the hay with all the barn cats, uncatchable in the daylight, surrounding me at night like true friends.
It is amusing to think that the God I thought had ruptured my eyeball and propelled me into the dark is now, evidently, a mascot of the Republican party. Times change.