He nodded.
“That’s a legitimate curiosity. There you were, about to fly off to . . . Where was it? Cleveland? Omaha? Toledo? . . . and instead you find yourself bound and gagged in the basement of someone who doesn’t even have the decency to offer an explanation of his behavior. Naturally, you must be wondering what I have in mind. Am I some kind of sex maniac, for instance, who’s got tired of luring teenage drifters to his den of unspeakable vice and has started hunting for bigger game? I’m sure that possibility must have occurred to you by now. And even though the idea is a bit self-aggrandizing in a man of your years, still you can never entirely discount the sexual component. It’s always bound to be present in any relationship as intimate as that between a torturer and his victim.”
Amberwell contemplated that statement a moment, then strained against his bonds and produced the loudest and most emphatic of Mmmrffs: “MMMRFF!!” The chair, anchored by each leg to a 6'-square sheet of plywood, seemed proof against any amount of lurching about, so I felt no qualms in leaving Amberwell to his thoughts.
Though not to those exclusively. Before I left I plugged some earphones into my new AIWA cassette recorder, taped the earphones to Amberwell’s ears, made sure no amount of head-twisting could loosen the wires, and left Amberwell to the endlessly autoreversing strains of “That’s Entertainment.” I can’t lay claim to any originality in that. The idea came from General Dozier’s captors, and before that from Billy Wilder’s cold-war comedy, One, Two, Three.
Then I had breakfast, wrote the above entry while the events were still fresh, and set off for work.
For obvious reasons I’m obliged to censor a good many details of my day-to-day life, so that the authorities, at some future date when this memoir is published, won’t he able to track me to my lair. Enough to say that my job is respectable without being glamorous. Basically I english the pronouncements of corporate executives of two- and three-star rank and otherwise run rhetorical interference—without, however, making decisions. It’s a job that brings me into contact regularly with the Amberwells of the world (with, indeed, Amberwell himself, though only at the remove of two switchboards), though none of them would ever mistake me for a peer. To say any more than this would be compromising, so regretfully (for I have, as much as any poet or painter, a natural desire to be credited for the work I’ve accomplished) I must restrict this narrative to the events of my life at home with Amberwell. It’s a bit ironic that I thereby find myself observing one of the standard protocols of conventional fiction.
I got home, as usual, just in time to turn on the 7 O’Clock News, where who to my wondering eyes should appear but Brigadier-General James “Speak of the Devil” Dozier, who’d gone to Rome to hand out medals to the policemen who’d rescued him from the Red Brigade. Then Reagan came on to deliver his Budget Message (“To arms! To arms!”), and I went downstairs to find Amberwell asleep despite all that music could do. The air was thick with the smell of his urine, though the pool that had formed between his shackled feet had almost entirely evaporated.
This seemed the right time to accustom myself and Amberwell to the formal requirements of our relationship, and so I spent the next fifteen minutes torturing him, starting at the soles of his feet and working up to the eyelids. Having no basis for comparison, it’s hard to say whether I tortured Amberwell mildly, moderately, or severely. I thought it important that his punishments should exceed those commonly meted out in the classic pornographic narratives of de Sade, et al, since I wanted to emphasize the point I’d made that morning, that ours was not to be an erotic association. On the other hand I didn’t wish, this soon, to precipitate a medical crisis.
Then upstairs to cook dinner. Already the shock of this radically new experience was unsettling accustomed perceptions. The chuck I sliced into two-inch cubes for stewing was no longer the innocent cellophane-wrapped commodity I’d picked out of the grocer’s meat cooler. It was a cross-section of recently living tissue with a strong family resemblance to what might be laid bare under my own, or Amberwell’s, skin—beneath, you might say, our beauty.
While the stew bubbled, I went back downstairs, stripped off Amberwell’s clothes, and hosed him clean. Then I took out his gag and let him plead for water (granted), his life, my mercy, an explanation, a chance to get out of the chair. He assured me that his wife would readily pay any ransom I demanded and with the utmost secrecy.
“I have no intention of asking for ransom, Mr. Amberwell. There’s no likelier way to get caught. In any case, profit isn’t my motive.”
“Then what is?” he asked in a throaty whisper that mingled outrage and fear and a tremor of something unpinpointable that might have been the dawning of a sense of what was in store for him or maybe only the start of a cold.
I unfolded a metal chair, set it down in front of him, sat down, and lighted a cigarette. “I’ll explain as best I can, Mr. Amberwell. My original idea, about a year ago, came from seeing you on “Sixty Minutes.” Toxic waste disposal is the one issue in the news that always gets my blood boiling. And there you were trying to wave the camera out of existence and answering every question with the same smirking ‘No Comment.’ My first furious fantasy was to rent a cropduster and phone a bomb threat to the Unitask office, and then while you were all out in the parking lot fly over and douse the lot of you with your own medicine. A cocktail of dioxin and toluene and maybe some trichloroethylene for impaired memory function. But obviously that’s just a wish-fulfillment fantasy and requires a budget and skills I simply don’t possess. Whereas this costs less than a weekend skiing in the Catskills. Some chloroform from a hobby shop, a few gadgets from a sex boutique, odds and ends from a hardware store, four hours of carpentry, and I was ready to open shop.”
“You mean to tell me that you’re doing this because . . . because you’re a god-damned environmentalist?”
“That’s what I mean to tell you.”
“But—” He shook his head briskly, as who would say, “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Of course, I haven’t been what you’d call an activist. Unless this counts as activism. I never could get over my feeling of hopelessness of ever accomplishing anything against people like you. Like Unitask. I mean, there you are, monolithically in control. You’ve got the money. You’ve bought the politicians and the judges. The A.B.A. is your harem. You don’t care how you mess up the world for anyone else so long as your net assets increase and multiply. And even when the government gets you for tax evasion or some such, the most that happens is that you get fined. And the fine probably entitles you to a tax deduction the next year. It’s so frustrating to people like me.”
“To the lunatics, you mean,” said Amberwell.
It’s a wonderful how basic a sense of contentiousness is to human nature. Here was Amberwell still quivering from what he’d been through, and he could not resist putting in his two cents. Lucky for him I’m not so small-minded (or short-sighted) as to revenge myself on a taunt.
“I suppose on the face of it I would be considered a lunatic. A fanatic at the very least. On the other hand, it may be that I’m just a step ahead of the crowd.”
Amberwell made a sort of snorting sound to express his derision.
“No, seriously. Consider Argentina. Unitask has strong ties with Argentina. You’ll be building a plant there soon, I understand.”
“What’s this have to do with Argentina?” Amberwell demanded in the tone of a defendant preparing to plead the Fifth Amendment.
“Argentina is an example of a country governed by torture,” I said, dropping the ash of my cigarette on the back of Amberwell’s hand. “And not even the most extreme example. Now it’s my contention that what the government can do, individuals can do just as effectively. With respect to torture, that is. The larger deterrents, like missiles, still require forces on a grand scale. So you might think of this as a counter-cultural, human-scale penitentiary. The first of who knows how many? Indeed, who knows if it’s the first?”
<
br /> “Listen, if you’re some kind of . . . terrorist, you’re making a mistake. I’ve got no connection with Argentina. That’s another branch of Unitask entirely. I’m just an ordinary business executive. As for the allegations on that god-damned TV program, the government decided on its own not to prosecute. No one knew that that [expletive deleted] toluene—”
I pressed the burning tip of the cigarette against the back of Amberwell’s hand and, when he was done screaming, explained:
“Please, Mr. Amberwell, don’t use obscene language. I want our discussions to be frank and open, and you will not be punished for expressing any opinion you have. But don’t use language you wouldn’t use before a TV camera. When the tapes of our meetings are aired, I don’t want them to have an X-rated tone. I’ve always thought one of the reasons Watergate made so little lasting impact among the namby-pamby-minded was that just because of all the foul language they discounted the whole affair as a kind of dirty joke.”
“You think a TV station would agree to . . .”
“A radio station, more likely. It would probably do wonders for their ratings. Remember how hard Nixon fought—and still is fighting—to keep his tapes from being broadcast? And this has the added drama of your being tortured from time to time.”
“You are really demented,” said Amberwell.
I poised the cigarette over his hand. “What do you want to bet, Mr. Amberwell, that you will beg to have our tapes broadcast by all the radio stations in the country?”
“Please,” he said. “Don’t.”
I brought the cigarette closer to his hand, so the ginger hairs began to shrivel, crisp, and smell.
“You will implore radio stations everywhere to make you a celebrity. Will you not, Mr. Amberwell?”
“Yes,” he said.
“Yes what?”
“Yes, I will . . . implore them.”
“Then begin, sir, begin. We’re recording: implore.”
I won’t bother to transcribe that part of the session. When I had satisfied myself as to Amberwell’s complete abjection, I went upstairs. Just in time to keep the stew from burning and to catch the beginning of the movie version of Pennies from Heaven. But before two songs had been sung, the old Sony finally conked out.
February 1
The repair shop called me at work to advise me that I’ll be without a TV till Friday. Woe’s me: TV is my most reliable tranquilizer. So, after work, to compensate for my affliction, I went to Gandhi. I don’t understand Pauline Kael. Can’t she get off on anything but horror movies anymore? The movie was nothing like the dud she’d made it out to be. I can’t imagine anyone leaving the theater without feeling ennobled. Long live humanity! Peace now! We shall overcome! Of course, I wasn’t convinced that passive resistance is the most effective way to deal with the bad guys of history, but then I didn’t expect to be. It’s still a terrific movie.
On the homebound train, mulling over the movie and my own domestic situation, I had an inspiration for a further turn of the screw. I’m leery, on principle, of deviating from the scenario already under way, but this would add a dimension of drollery (of kinkiness?) that will be hard to resist. Maybe I won’t resist it.
Down in the dungeon I transferred a groaning Amberwell from the chair into a canvas straitjacket that I’d bought at Nymphomania’s Special January White Sale. There’s enough slack in the chains mooring him to the anchorbolts in the floor so that now he can sit up or stretch out as he chooses.
He was too weak to put up more than token resistance as I fit him into the straitjacket. He cried and mumbled and seemed more or less out of his mind. It seems a bit early in the game for him to have reached that stage of collapse. I told him to buck up and got what was left of last night’s stew from the refrigerator and spoonfed it to him. By the time the pot was empty, Amberwell was almost his old self, promising me the open sesames to all four of his clandestine bank accounts: if I would let him go. I praised him for his more cooperative spirit and announced he would not be tortured tonight, by courtesy of Mahatma Gandhi. When I left he begged me not to turn off the light.
February 2
On my lunch hour I found all things needful to carry out my new change of plan. Encountered, as well, an Omen in the form of a magazine abandoned in a trash can, which the wind had opened to an article headlined:
SHOULD WE TRY TO CHANGE OTHER PEOPLE?
No comment, in Amberwell’s words.
Tonight instead of using insidious-type tortures I simply beat Amberwell with a rubber truncheon (they seem to be a popular item these days at army surplus stores; there was a barrel full of them where I got mine) until he’d given me all the relevant information on the bank accounts he’s spoken of. Then, postponing the use of today’s purchases, I set Amberwell the task, as per the established scenario, of singing nursery rhymes for the rest of the night in harmony with the Mother Goose Consort (Merritime Records XG352 900).
I spent the rest of the evening alternating between the jigsaw (the lighter-toned bricks of the castle are mostly in place) and Erik Erikson’s Gandhi’s Truth (Norton, 1969). Meanwhile, Amberwell seranaded me, over the rewired stereo, with a medley of “Bye, baby bunting,” “Ding, dong, bell,” “Mary had a little lamb,” and a counting rhyme that he never could seem to get right, even though I would go downstairs each time he goofed and clobber him with the truncheon. Here’s how it goes:
One-ery, two-ery, tickery, seven,
Hallibo, crackibo, ten and eleven,
Spin, span, muskidan,
Twiddle-um, twaddle-um, twenty-one.
Eeerie, orie, ourie,
You, are, out!
February 3
Having laid the groundwork yesterday with dark hints and muffled coughs, I phoned in sick to work this morning, then went through a charade of dish clattering and door banging to simulate my departure. When Amberwell judged me to be out of earshot, he set into baying “Please! Somebody! Help me! Please!” and similar litanies of hopelessness, all quite inaudible, I’m pleased to say, except over the audio system.
When he appeared to be shouted out, I went downstairs with my parcel of yesterday’s purchases.
“Oh, Mr. Amberwell,” I said reproachfully. “You’re going to catch it now.”
Amberwell slumped sideways, curling his knees to his chest, as though waiting to be kicked, and squeezing his eyes tight shut.
On the concrete wall behind Amberwell I taped the posters I had bought at the Aghora Panthis Meditation Center. One showed Shiva wearing a tiger skin and holding out, invitingly, a skull-shaped bowl adorned with snakes. The second represented Ganesh, Shiva’s fat, elephant-headed son, whose specialty is guaranteeing success to new undertakings.
I then persuaded Amberwell to open his eyes and study a photograph in B.K.S. Iyengar’s Light on Yoga (Schocken, 1966) representing a yogi in the padmasana, or lotus, position. Fortunately for Amberwell he belongs to the new breed of business executives who jog, and he was able, with only a small assist from me and a modest amount of surgical tape, to assume the lotus position. With a new dhoti, a necklace of rudraksha berries, a clean-shaven head, and a dab of white paint in the middle of his forehead, he looked the spit-and-image of Ben Kingsley.
The dicey part came when I removed the straitjacket so that Amberwell might extend his arms in the manner illustrated in the book. Would he have the strength and the will to struggle once his arms were free? Admittedly, his lower body was secured to the bolt in the floor by a belt (also from Nymphomania) hidden beneath his dhoti. Admittedly, too, I had the truncheon on the ready. But if Amberwell weren’t willing to cooperate, then all this elaborate scene-setting would be in vain.
I needn’t have worried. Amberwell spread out his arms just so, and curled his finger to his thumb in a gesture of prayer. He even smiled for the camera upon command. It could not be said to have been a very warm smile, but any sense of strain could be accounted for by the difficulty of the position for a neophyte.
When the two Po
lariod pictures had developed themselves, I showed them to Amberwell, who was once again straitjacketed.
He stared at them gloomily. “This is some kind of religious cult, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Mr. Amberwell, now you know. This is how we indoctrinate all our new members. It may seem cruel to you at first, but once your heart opens to accept our gods, you will know the joy that can only come after the ego has been destroyed and the mind cleansed.”
“What . . . gods?” Amberwell asked, as a suspicious diner might ask to know the ingredients of some anomalous dish at a Chinese restaurant.
I pressed my hands together, church-steeple-style, and made an obeisance to the garishly-colored, elephant-headed god. “This is our god Ganesh. Say hi to Ganesh.”
Amberwell gave me a look halfway between horror and incredulous amusement. Then he turned to the poster and said, “Hi . . . Ganesh.”
“And this—” Tapping the other poster. “—is Shiva, the Destroyer.”
Amberwell did not say hi to Shiva, nor did I suggest he should. He regarded the snake-festooned skull that Shiva held out to him with respectful silence. Then he closed his eyes and his jaw dropped open and his breathing became slower and deeper.
In what we are about to undertake, O Ganesh, make us truly successful!
February 4
A postcard from the library has notified me that they have got in the copy of Leni Riefenstahl’s The Last of the Nuba that I’d put in a request for two months ago. Too late, now that Amberwell is so far along the path to becoming a Hindoo, to terrorize him with the prospect of having his face decoratively welted like his black brothers in Africa. There’s something much more serious, and accordingly scarier, about a world-class religion. People are known to believe in religions. You can see them at airports selling their records or marvel at the troops of them hippity-hopping up the street. They’ve become one of life’s real possibilities. Whereas, unless you know who Leni Riefenstahl was, the Nuba and their scarifications come off as little more than a coffee-table book, ethnology for punk rockers.
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