Hunger's Brides

by W. Paul Anderson

  Why is the sea so clear here.

  Compared to what?

  Coatzalcoalcos.

  Ah, el Golfo de Mexico, America’s toilet bowl. Diarrhea of the gringo rio Mississippi. This here, amiguita, this coast is ¡el Mar Caribe!

  Long walks south down the beach. Floating for hours in my dress of red kelp, flowers. Write only after dark. Write at night if at all. Become a nocturnal animal. Write down to exhaustion, down to drugged calm.

  10 Feb 95

  Nights of bonfires in front of the bar. Reggae, seventies pop rock. Please more Jackson Browne. Turn up the Walkman, turn it up—to this blank tape hiss, my symphony of SSSSSSSHHHHH.

  Each night they come back guiltier with offerings, each night drunker, more blurred. Brigit brings beer, Margo a joint, tonight Mariana a whole tinfoil meal of rice fish and beans. You should come with us, they’re really not so bad. Diego, the one with the bikinis that day? Little giggles and groans. He gave us these mushrooms.

  You don’t have to sleep with that guy to get us free drugs.

  Brigit’s right, Mariana, we can pay.

  It’s safer this way. Besides he was very … primitive. Will you try them with us Beulah?

  She means the mushroooms.

  Mariana is always with guys like him.

  While Renata waits for her prince.

  One even better than Diego?

  We hate it when they fight.

  They know each other since the first day of public school.

  Tomorrow Diego is driving us to some clubs in Playa Del Carmen. You could come, Beulah, please come. Dancing under the stars, it’s amazing. Don’t worry about the men, if we don’t like them we just pretend to be lesbians too.

  Through Margo’s wide lips a tight slipstream of smoke and hiss. Beulah they are very excellent pretenders.

  Margo’s always wanting us to try.

  Might as well, the way these two touch themselves at night, listening to us.

  Shut up.

  We do the same things. You just do them to yourselves.

  And you, Beulah, what about you? Like men?

  None I remember.

  Come swimming with us.

  12 Feb 95

  Bright celt of moon overhead.

  Killing God, primitive trick I’ve almost learned it.

  Nocturnal creature, the moon’s lemur-eyed daughter she writes in her shroud of half-moon light. She can be just like you, Golden Ones. She will dress like you. We will eat the local food, write down recipes. We will stay medicated. Each day more sophisticated in the primitive. Once a year when we come here. We come for love, we say how it ends.

  Shooting stars of our own tragedies—keep filming keep filming—tanned and rich and wealthy just three weeks a year. The show goes on and on, bright stars of our lives. We feed the sun our flayed skins, the crusts of our wounds, we feed the mites and the fleas of the Insect Prince. We peel, we flay. He makes us a film of us, a book, a lampshade. Stay medicated. We numb our pain. Make believe we can afford this, we are really alive. We could live here. This is our life. Please. Here on this coast we can be who we are really are, only here. Please, just a little while.

  My alpha dog walks up to us stroking his Tartar moustachio. Amiguita, ¿qué onda? all these nice Colombians slaving for years to bring drugs for the gringos and you don’t even know how to smoke a joint correctly—look at you. And now you want peyote? These prices you women pay are stupid. It will be the same with el peyotl. Let me arrange this for you.

  So let him.

  [13 Feb 95]

  Slalom through tropical nights! blizzards of stars—honk and swerve of trucks without headlights—movie-lot hayrides in this grey truckbox, standing up way UP. Nights of flint, stippling of musks, orchids of road-kill and skunk.

  Beulah sit down at least.

  Hold on.

  No hold me up I want to stand—what am I too heavy for you movie stars? Little visionary assumes the position / stands frisked and legsspread mouth propped wide / harrowed on nightwind—

  Beulah please.

  Open air disco, nightblood throb. Pass through the frond arches. Welcome to the Parrot Dance Academy.2 Valentine Specials: Two for One. Remember Beulah, only reefers, only smoke here it’s safer—the men can’t put drops in your drinks. Over here Beulah, stay close to us.

  Part the meat curtain, go in and get your fortune told. Rhythmically. A disco ball whirling under a nearfull moon, how novel how new. All sway—stutterstep—under this trash and scatter of costume-jewel light this endless changeless shorebreak of drumbeat.

  Feel it, this doomed boombox tattoo feel it needle you stain you for life. Stand close, arms wide, let the speakers breathe for you.

  Oye bonita, how old are you can’t be twenty-two marry me I loave you.

  Oh I loave you too.

  Recipe I’ve come so far for—found AT LAST. At a disco, end of the treasure map. Disco balls, swaying meat / foxglove and morning glory librium and allegories Mescalina cocaina—teonacatl togogo gogirl. Peyotl, Ololiqui, the sacred octli. And the secret ingredient—the occultest, the last—

  Massive blood loss, pale harbinger of Ecstasy.

  This is the recipe for obsidian wine. Toast the brides.

  Those men over there, señorita, are sending you this drink for free. They love the way you dance so do I. Come to a staff party after work with me, I want to be your boyfriend for life.

  Hola we are Fidelio and Alejandro, filmmakers from the capital. Fidelio will go soon to Canada. Dance with us but give me first your address.

  Hello meet Glenda of the piercing eyes, mellow Enrique of the oily pompadour. We are artists. I am a muralist, my wife does artes plásticas. Come dance with us.

  Slowdance with the twisted pompadour. Glenda waltzes off to nowhere. Come for a walk with me. My friends will worry. Please just for a minute. What about your?—My Glenda? No need to worry she likes her men younger. Do you remember my name still, it’s Enrique. And yours?

  Xochiquetzal.

  Goddess of love. So happy to hear it, with tomorrow our Día de los Enamorados. I want to make love with you now.

  Slip through the palms under the moon. Underfoot, palmshadows of burst umbrellas. No not on the sand Enrique, not in the sea. Do it standing up, if you’re really a muralist. Against this tree.

  I don’t want to make this like dogs.

  From behind or don’t do it at all.

  Why this way—?

  Shut up and fuck.

  Ridged palm trunk—plant pots stacked in a column—warm and harsh on the palms at the first rough thrust.

  So you don’t want to see my face—or are you watching for something?

  Yes, Enrique, my ship to come in. On this thin white flux, sad little ebb. One last jerkpush deathrattle and throb. Finished already back there pompadour, ¿ya terminado?

  Come back wait a minute I want to make it again for you. Properly.

  Hey Enrique—you wearing a watch?

  Two A.M.

  Not the time, how long was that—we get the new record?

  Now run off and swap trophies with Glenda, make wigs of our scalps.

  Walk a way up the beach, stand alone in this magic. Feel the seed draining like pus from a wound. Feel the slickness cooling. Squat to watch it bead on the sand … bright bent pearls running out of me, a flowing baroque.

  Happy Valentine’s, Donald.

  Quiet ride home in the truck cab. Diego’s hot palm high on my thigh as he drives. Everyone hears everything here, amiga. You owe me now.

  Take a long clean swim naked in the nightsea. Last refuge last stop. Night of obsidian, moon lost in cloud. Margo swims out alone, brings me safe to shore.

  Her salt sex like a sea shell, my tongue lapped in candyfloss cloud. The festival of love goes on and on and on. Endlessly. Send in the clowns.

  [14 Feb 95] To do:

  1) Apologize. To Brigit, about Margo … we couldn’t help ourselves. We couldn’t help me.

  2) Walk to town.
>
  3) Call home to Donald. Wish us a happy anniversary.

  4) Wrap notes in red ribbons. Tie them in a bow, our correspondence on loss. Send it surface mail, send it slow very slow. At a snail’s pace, crawling back to you, Gentle Reader, Gentle Don, ready or not, here comes nothingness. Scarlet letter bombs with a two-month fuse.

  Long walk back from Tulum town on trembling knees. Sun stuck high overhead. All the blondes are packing. Things are getting too crazy, Beulah. We were robbed last night—Margo and Brigit, anyway. Better check your stuff.

  My notebooks.

  … Not you, Beulah? nothing lost? We can’t figure this out. We two have cameras, you a computer, your Walkman. Nothing touched.

  Beulah you should come with us. Sweet sweet Margo. Brigit’s rocket red glare.

  If you ask me, I think it’s time she went home.

  Maybe Brigit’s right. You can be away too long.

  Brigit come back, there’s something I wanted to say … Wait, wait. Please. Tell Margo you love her still. It was meaningless, meaninglessness itself.

  SACRED HARLOT

  17 Feb 95

  RED LETTER DAY of days.

  Wobble back to Tulum town. The last time. Too weak to walk it again.

  Make a phone call. Post last message in bottle. Fill with kerosene and light. Little Molotov cocktail with festive parasol. Soon we are done Don and if you concentrate, you may find that conquests no longer fascinate …3

  Happy Deathday, Donald. Three centuries my joy is a cataract still fresh and bright, filling my eyes. You too can be brought to bleed, you too can be brought to see.

  Near sunset the vendor comes. Too late old man.

  The other young ladies, las rubias, have gone?

  Yes old stork. No point in coming back. I am free of you.

  Moonrise full from a pan of salt mist. Not full—its edge corroded, eaten through. Xochiquetzal has missed the full moon somehow. Learned Whore, how could you let this happen to you?

  Night, a bonfire far up the beach. Here at the palm thatch parasol, my parody of home, our little family down to two. Mistress of flowers and alpha dog, her last new bestfriend. Fun for fetch and scavenger hunts. For wedding rites that rage on and in and up under this acid moon. Collection time, Valentine, for all the free drugs, the sacred drink. If you give it to strangers at discotheques, preciosa, you can give to me. If you won’t tell your name if you say you only watch the sea—then take it like this. Feel the scorch and sear so familiar, nostalgia of fire. Up me. Hot skinny slide, enormous billiard balls, slapstorm of thrusts that lifts my feet off the ground makes me walk on my palms / wheelbarrow races of one—me the hod.

  Scan scan furious scan the night sea for signs. Scanning the horizon. For her ship to come in. Rattling fronds, endless endless grunts, thud of falling coconuts in the sand near her head. And then again. When he’s gone she squats to lick clean her bearclaws—curved, fastidious—from these battered hives boiling white amaranth. Ever ready for more she scans the night sea. Gently licking at the shore. All horizons narrow to this. Xochiquetzal is praying for oblivion, the Sacred Harlot prays for death. She writes She wants to die. Sacred Way #49—Death by Coconut.

  She writes, If you cannot learn how to laugh here, mi amor, this place will kill you.

  Hurry. I have laughed with you all I know how.

  Bonfire ebbing down to coals. Empty bottles, music.

  Ah good amiga, you have come for more. Meet these our new friends. María and Lydia. My friends have brought them from Cancún for this one night of fiesta.

  Now watch miniskirted María and Lydia absent-mindedly fingered like peaches at a mini mart. Every now and then a disappearance back into the trees. A woman’s laughter—see the sandjackal ears cock. But all eyes are on Xochiquetzal, dancing alone in her red flowerdress.

  Billiard balls strokes his Tartar moustaches. Amiga, my friends say they are angry at me. We all buy our drugs together, we all share with you. They pay for prostitutes from the city while you give me everything for free.

  To everything you must submit. Sacred harlot. To everything, Haetara. It is ancient, this work that you do, this sin of originality. Scared scarred nightslut of beauty, would you pull back now, so close to the end so far from Start? After all you’ve been through.

  Slut, they know your name. Now they come for you.

  Saved by the infantry.

  Soldiers arrive at the bonfire, flames glinting sparks in buckles and gunbarrels. High boots still gleam at the tops—stovepipes dipped in flourdust—bakers with truncheons, beachcombing welders, their visors up. Six hungry young Mexican faces, eyes dull under beetlebrow helmets. An older Maya sergeant a little apart, helmet under his arm, tough face under a bowl cut.

  Pale officer in a legionnaire’s cap steps out of the shadows. Buenas noches, compañeros. No don’t stop the fiesta for us. We were just on patrol. Making sure no one needed our assistance.

  No. No trouble, Capitán Offalitch.

  Lieutenant. As you know very well, Diego. Carry on. As you were. We will continue our work. Hasta luego. Yes, see you again very soon….

  Don’t worry about them preciosa, we will protect you. Our boss knows their Colonel very well. They play golf together in Cancún. The Lieutenant was just letting us know they are in the area. To be discreto. Only when you don’t see them you must worry. Sometimes looking for guns they find drugs by accident. That is embarrassing to all concerned. About guns one must be careful. Very patriotic, the Mexican Lieutenant and his boss. Both from Monterrey—bunch of cheapskates. They would make their mother pay for her own cocaine.

  I have had an idea. Tomorrow night all my friends will like to fuck you. Unless maybe the Mexican lieutenant instead. I could tell he likes you. Think it over. It would be easier for you. And a favour to me. I will explain to him carefully where and how you like it. Watching the sea. And not to ask your name. If you like you don’t even have to see his face….

  SATURDAY

  HER FIRST CALL came February 14th. Then February 17th, then nothing for almost three weeks. But by Saturday, March 18th, there were two calls a day.

  The date’s set for Easter dinner, Professor. A meal fit for an epicure like you, for a king. Know you love barbecue…. RSVP…. Everyone’s confirmed but you….

  RSVP to what, to where? Where was she?

  He tried to discuss it with Madeleine. She didn’t want to hear. “Whatever it takes, Donald. Just make this go away.” He could unplug the phone and answering machine and hide. He could request an unlisted phone number. Friends and colleagues and contacts would have to be notified, and ways devised to explain why. To explain how.

  Yes, how.

  He could call Beulah’s family. The surgeon and the socialite. Your daughter is having some kind of crisis, right out of the blue, apparently. All these calls—why me? Well there were some … complications back when I was her advisor. Yes, just before your prodigy quit school. Sorry, and good luck. If there’s anything else I can do …

  Everything is different now. How the world changes in a week, a night, an hour. A month ago he was growing into the life he and Madeleine had made. It was something real and sane and solid for their daughter, for her future. Something he could take some credit for building.

  How different everything is now. Brittle silences shattered by the jangling of the phone. It’s never her. Never while they’re home. The man and wife take turns finding excuses to run to the corner store, files forgotten at the office.

  Saturday’s forecast: High grey gauze of cloud, mercury falling, hard. Slow rise of tension to the breastbone, a blunt pressure.

  In their daughter’s eyes burns a bright anxious fever. Teething, probably, the paediatrician said yesterday. Catherine starts to cough. Once or twice. Soon more frequently. Teething does not make a baby cough. They spend supper time at Foothills Emergency.

  “It’s nothing, Dr. Gregory. Her temperature is not even 39—”

  “How high is 39?” This is his daughter, h
e needs Fahrenheit. One hundred point two. Hundred and two? Sir, point two….

  As the troubled family comes through the door from the garage, the answering machine winks hello. They put their daughter to bed.

  “She knew we were out, again,” Madeleine says.“I’m telling you, that was not long distance. Listen …” She plays the call again.

  “We can’t be sure. Technology today …”

  “She’s watching us. Has a call come with us home—even once? How many times are we going to call that coincidence? Thursday I took Catherine for a walk. Fifteen minutes. Yesterday one came while I was in the shower.”

  “So she knows when you’re showering too.”

  Madeleine stands before him in a full-length flannel nightgown. Tiny purple flowers on a cream background. It is unbuttoned at the neck. He sees the cords at her throat merge softly with her collarbones. He no longer looks readily into her eyes.

  “We are being watched, Don. We are being stalked.”

  They are standing at the entrance to the kitchen. Madeleine moves stealthily to the living room window, parts the drapes with a finger. “She’s probably out there.”

  “Where—in this cold? Show me a car we don’t recognize.”

  “I want you to call the police.”

  “And tell them what? Somebody keeps calling? No, Officer, we haven’t actually seen her. No, sir, no threats either—”

  “She knows our schedules—”

  “What does she say, Constable? Well, she wants us to do dinner.”

  “Knows about our barbecues—”

  “Everybody barbecues.”

  They have been married for almost ten years. It comes to him that she is about to ask how much he tells his one-night stands. He thinks he will answer by asking how much she used to tell hers. He is thinking it might make everyone feel better if she hit him.

  “She’s studied you and now she’s watching us. She’s out there. I can feel it.” Madeleine turns away from the window, faces him. He sees how tired she is. He must also be this tired. “What does she want, Don? What does she want from you?”