“G’day, mates,” a cheery voice said. “Reckon you two blokes need a place to kip. No worries. Got jus’ the place.”
As Baby Joe shaded his eyes, the dark figure sat down. The grinning features appeared timeless, with deep-set eyes sparkling in a face like ancient parchment, and a wild and wooly thatch, like Don King with a bad hair day.
“Woolloomooloo Wal’s the name,” he said, extending a gnarled talon. “This is me place. You blokes ready for more grog?”
“Baby Joe Young,” Baby Joe said, taking the proffered hand. “Pleased to meet you. This is my good friend Bjørn Eggen.”
“Nice to haf the pleasure,” said Bjørn Eggen, taking Wal’s aged and midnight-black hand in his own pale and veined talon.
Baby Joe watched the two old men smiling at each other and was reminded of a line from Kipling. “But there is no east and there is no west, when two strong men meet face to face, though they be from the ends of the earth,” he said.
“Vat the fock you sayin now?”
“It’s a poem.”
“Fock the poem. Vat about the beer? Ja?”
Baby Joe smiled ruefully and shook his head. “Wal, can we buy you one?”
“Nah, mate,” Wal grinned, “you get the next one.”
Wally held up three fingers, and a girl—different from the other one, but obviously her sister—brought over three cold brews.
“So you blokes ‘ere on ‘oliday, or business, or what?”
Baby Joe was about to make a non-committal reply when Bjørn Eggen whipped out his increasingly frayed letter and the newspaper clipping. Baby Joe said nothing. He hadn’t had the heart to tell the old man that the clipping was a fake, made up in some downtown casino souvenir shop.
Wally was taking a swallow of his beer as he reached out and took the papers. There followed a sound like the breaching of a porpoise, and Baby Joe and Bjørn Eggen were drenched in a fine, cold beer spray.
“Strewth. I don’t fucken believe it.”
Wally reached over to where Bjørn Eggen was wiping his face with a napkin, grabbed his hand, and began to shake it vigorously.
“Ah, mate. You dunno what this means to me. Good on yer, cobber, fucken good on yer.” Wally snatched the napkin from the startled Bjørn Eggen and wiped his eyes with it.
“Vat means vat now?”
“Your son. Phil. ’E was me mate.”
“You haf know Philip?”
“Is a croc’s arse green? Course I fucken did. Me mate, ’e was.”
“This is very queer, ja? Baby Joe, also, he know him.”
“Ah, yeah?”
“Yeah. Not very well, but I remember him. We were on a mission together. I recognized him from a picture I saw in Bjørn Eggen’s grandson’s apartment.”
“Ja, is so. I haf it here.” Bjørn Eggen produced the photograph and handed it to Wally. Wally’s wrinkles softened into an unfathomable faraway expression. He turned from the picture to Baby Joe.
“You were ’ere too, eh?”
“Yeah. Two tours.”
“Fuck me old boots. This calls for a serious pissup. Let’s go in back. I’ll get you blokes a towel. Sorry, eh?”
The three walked through the bar and down a narrow corridor and into a small office, which was a masterpiece of disorder. Wally cleared them some drinking room and gave orders that they were not to be disturbed. A bottle of whisky was produced, dispatched, and replaced, and the beers kept showing up like second cousins at a will reading. While the faint, discordant sounds of the now-commenced karaoke drifted in from the bar, they talked of friends, and fortune, and fights on foreign fields, of loss, of red pain and black terror.
They spoke of childhood, and children, and innocence sacrificed. They spoke of love and futility and, when Wally told of how he had not been there when Captain Parker had died, and how, if he had been, it would not have happened, tears were shed. Baby Joe knew at that moment that the truth must not be withheld for any reason, because these men were entitled to know, and his own honor would be forever forfeit if he did not speak. As Bjørn Eggen and Wally listened in silence he recounted with difficulty, as he fought back the tears, exactly how Phil Parker had lost his life.
The silence continued when he had finished speaking, as if a spell had been woven, a truth so sacred come into their midst that it must not be profaned by mere words, for there are things that are known and understood by men that are beyond words. Nor would any words suffice to account for the inexplicable, astounding, mournful, and beautiful weaving of the stories of their days that had brought them to that moment in that place. They, each man, separately and in unison, felt the presence of Philip Parker in the room.
When Bjørn Eggen struggled to his feet Baby Joe stood to meet him and as Bjørn Eggen embraced him Baby Joe lost his fight with the tears, and the ghost of a handsome black man smiled down upon them.
“You is focken brave man. I am knowing how hard vere these vords,” Bjørn Eggen said. “Philip give his life for focken gud man. You is me focken son now, ja?”
“Thank you,” said Baby Joe, “Thank you.”
Wally was having his own struggle, and his eyelids were about to give out under the strain.
“Strewth. Will you two bludgers knock it in the fucken ’ead?” he said. “You’ll ‘ev me fucken bealin in a minute, ya barstads. Are we drinkin grog ’ere or what?”
And as the whiskey went down, they pulled from their memories the songs of their fathers, and more tears were shed. And later, as they spoke of their women, and their dogs, Wally went out into the yard and fetched Rodney. She stood outside the office, rumbling deep in her ribs and drinking beer through the window, lifting the bottles in her trunk and pouring them down her throat, and Bjørn Eggen kissed her and forgave her for grabbing his ass. And as the three staggered out into the morning light and headed for Wally’s junk, half-blind and happy, with their arms around each other’s shoulders, they were strangers no more.
Frankie and Monsoon were having a sociable breakfast together—a breakfast consisting of a bottle of vicious swamp whiskey and a packet of Russian cigarettes whose tobacco kept spilling out of the tube. Just for good form’s sake, Monsoon had a cup of coffee, which had obviously been dredged instead of filtered. Monsoon had just finished explaining how he had set up the people who were needed to play soldier, when two clean-cut young men in their late twenties approached the table.
“Ciao, fellas,” one of them said, with a big smile.
Frankie looked at Monsoon. “You betta not tell me that these two pansies are it.”
The young man’s smile evaporated.
Monsoon stood up. “He don’t mean it, guys. He’s just joshin’, ain’t ya, Frankie? Sit down, boys. What can I get you?”
The two men sat down, pulling their chairs as far away as possible from Frankie, and ordered Campari and sodas.
“So, guys,” Monsoon said, pleasantly, “you want to run through it again, so’s Frankie can hear?”
The two men both started to speak at once, stopped, looked at each other; both started to speak at once again, stopped again, and giggled.
“For fuck’s sake,” Frankie growled.
They stopped giggling. One nodded to the other, who said, “Okay. We make sure the uniforms fit. If not, we take care of it this afternoon. The office is ready, and I’ve got the keys. We meet you there at ten tomorrow. I’m the captain, he’s the lieutenant. When you arrive with the other men, we give you all the documents to sign, and the flag, and explain all the travel and customs arrangements. Then I make a speech and say how wonderful it is, and how proud you should be and how grateful your country is, etc.”
“Okay, boys, good. I’ll give you the rest of the cash tomorrow.”
“Oh, goody. We really need it. We heard about this most wonderful cultural site that we simply must go and see, and we want…”
“Who gives a fuck what you want, miss,” interrupted Frankie. “Just don’t screw up, or else the only sight you are going to s
ee is the sight of a fuckin’ slope doctor askin’ ya where it hurts.”
“Yes, well. Erm …we’d best be getting along. Nice meeting you, Mr., er…”
“Mr. fuckin’ Ed.”
Smiling feebly, the two men waved and walked away.
“Shit, Frankie, you didn’t have to scare ‘em to death.”
“How the fuck is anyone goin’ to buy those two faggots as the fuckin’ military, Monsoon? We need Sergeant Rock, an’ you get the fuckin’ Village People.”
“They’ll do good, Frankie. They’re actors, over here on vacation.”
“They betta do good, or you fuckin’ won’t.”
Crispin looked and felt ridiculous. He had been compelled to stuff himself into some outrageous country bumpkin dungarees that made him look like a gigantic blue salami, and to confine his luscious curls under a hat that resembled an inverted douche bag. Furthermore he was hot, humiliated, sweaty, and uncomfortable, and the entire insect population of Louisiana was lining up to bite him on the ass. He had a rash in an unmentionable place, an upset stomach, his feet had swollen up, and he hadn’t had a shower since he got here, having being forced instead to endure the demeaning ordeal of squishing himself into a zinc tub that had obviously been designed by a dwarf, while Asia’s giggling sisters poured frigid water over him from a plastic bucket, and heaven-knows-what horrific waterborne organisms insinuated themselves into his orifices.
He was sitting on the levee with Asia, which she apparently found enchanting, with the grass scratching his bug-bitten ankles, trying to block out the incessant and insane buzzing of insects and the racket from the tinny and out-of-tune piano that some inept hayseed was pounding on in the bar across the street. Even the fat full moon, which he usually found so romantic, and which here, in the hot humid night, appeared to be twice its usual size, seemed to be leering down at him, mocking him with a greasy yellow grin. And now the silly bitch proposed to make him get into a tiny boat, manned by a disreputable crew of gibbering inbreeds, and sail around in a fetid swamp populated by God-knows-what bloodsucking creatures, in order to “hunt gators.” The only alligator skins Crispin was remotely interested in had “Bally” and “Size 9” printed on the soles, and he would rather stick bamboo shoots under his fingernails than brave the wilderness in an obviously unseaworthy vessel full of foul-smelling rabble. But the alternative was to remain behind on his own, which was unthinkable. Who knew what perverted and homicidal brigands lurked in the darkness?
Crispin decided the only reasonable solution was a solution of gin and vermouth, and proceeded to anesthetize himself with a pint of the blue paraffin that was served as gin in the honky tonk across the street. When Asia informed the clientele that Crispin was a performer they importuned him to play a few songs, but he declined on the basis that his Zydeco repertoire was somewhat limited. However, when one unhinged-looking individual—who appeared to have some form of deceased quadruped hanging from his belt—helpfully suggested that he didn’t have to play if he didn’t want to, but he didn’t have to spend the next six months walking round in a truss if he didn’t want to either, Crispin obliged them with a rendition of some Dr. John songs, which went a long way towards raising his standing in the community. Drinks were on the house from then on. By the time a smoking, clattering pickup truck—which looked as if it had served as a troop transport in the War of 1812—clanked to a halt outside the bar, Crispin’s trepidation about the forthcoming excursion into the depths of the moonlit bayou had entirely dissipated.
The front seat of the truck was occupied by the driver—who appeared to be all of twelve and who had, for reasons fathomable only to himself, elected to smear his face with half a pint of used motor oil—and a fat woman sucking on an unlit cigar and squeezing a big stone jug between her thighs like a giant ceramic dildo. She smiled when she saw Asia, revealing a set of gums devoid of anything that could be said to resemble a tooth, unless you counted the one discolored corn-stripper protruding from her lower jaw, just about in line with the large hairy mole on her chin.
“Hey, dollface,” the woman screeched, “how the hell y’all bin? Get yo’ narrow ass in here, child.”
“Hi, Irene. Hey, Nate. This is my friend from Vegas, Crispin.”
Nate rearranged the oil smears on his face, which was presumably intended as some form of greeting, while Irene proffered the jug. “Yanta get yo’ gums round this boy?”
Back in his natural habitat, Crispin would have called in the exterminators to have the jug sprayed before even looking at it. Now he was so far gone into despair and confusion, so far removed from anything that he recognized as his life, that he reached out robotically for the jug, hefted it, and sucked back. The experience was similar to what he imagined an unanaesthetized tonsillectomy followed by a jalapeño gargle would feel like.
As he was trying to recover his breath, Nate addressed him. “Moon be damn near straight up. Might be y’all wanna haul it over the tailgate, boy, so’s we kin get the ball to rollin.”
“What language is this?” Crispin wheezed, peering at Asia’s watery image through tear-filled eyes.
“Nate wants you to sit in the back. Hey, boys, how y’all’s doin’ back there?”
Grunts and mutterings greeted Asia’s remark, emanating from the huddled figures perched in darkness in the back of the flatbed. Crispin handed the jug back to Irene, who nestled it back into the folds of her crotch and assisted Asia into the cab. Crispin walked around to the back and waited for the tailgate to be lowered, standing there in some confusion when that event did not occur. His dilemma was solved when two pairs of immensely strong hands grabbed him by the straps of his dungarees and hauled him in, depositing him in an undignified heap on the bare steel floor with his nose about three inches away from the wrinkled anus of the large bloodhound who was sound asleep in the back. Three silent, unshaven men dressed in cutoff jeans and T-shirts and sporting more firepower than a SWAT team, regarded him with some curiosity. Crispin could see the light from the bar glinting on the blades of hunting knifes and on the barrels of shotguns and rifles.
Asia banged on the roof and shouted out of the open window, “This here’s my buddy Crispin, boys.”
“What time’s the revolution start, fellas?” Crispin said, struggling into a sitting position, but his feeble attempt at camaraderie was drowned out by the grating of gears and his companions disappeared in a cloud of white smoke.
They drove into the hot night, with fireflies winking in the undergrowth and the river appearing and disappearing as flashes of silver between the moss-festooned branches of the trees. Fortified by the jug circulating among his anonymous confederates Crispin stoically endured the bouncing and banging of the truck, which threatened to undo twenty grand’s worth of cosmetic dentistry as they rattled over rutted backcountry roads, until they pulled up next to a broad expanse of still water, glowing pale under a majestic moon hanging in the cloudless night.
As soon as the rattletrap truck creaked to a halt, and before the sound of the engine had echoed into silence over the flat water, the three men had leapt over the side and were heading towards a low jetty extending out over the lagoon. The dog raised its concertina jowls, peered at Crispin with a bloodshot eye, cocked its leg, pissed on him, and bounded over the tailgate.
Crispin regarded the spreading stain on his leg and uttered a deep, heartfelt sigh. “Oh well,” he said to himself, “at least it can’t possibly get any worse.”
Asia’s smile rose like the morning sun over the side of the truck. “Hey, Crispin. Guess what?” she said, repressing a giggle. “Irene thinks you’re really cute.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Crispin said, burying his face in his hands.
An hour later, Asia was still teasing him as they sat on a blanket by the edge of the water, listening to the symphony of frogs, the whine of mosquitos, and the regular slaps of Crispin’s beefy palms as he tried to prevent himself from being exsanguinated. They had the jug between them and had managed to unburde
n it of a fair proportion of its contents since the men had disappeared into the darkness in two small skiffs.
“I really don’t see how we are going to capture any crocodiles sitting here,” sniffed Crispin, who was beginning to experience difficulty distinguishing the fireflies from the stars.
“They ain’t crocodiles, they’s gators. An’ we only come to watch the truck.”
This wasn’t strictly true, as they had originally been invited on the expedition until Nate had calculated that his skiff was not up to the task of containing both Crispin and Irene. And since it was suspected that Crispin could neither navigate, bale, shoot, skin a gator, nor suck off the other members of the hunting party if things got slow, Irene got the nod. Crispin would have been outraged had he known. Of course he couldn’t bale, navigate, shoot, or skin gators, but…!
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, either. You sound like you’re on the Grand Ole Opry.”
“I can’t help it. When I get among the folks down home it just happens. Anyway, stop trying to change the subject.”
“What subject?”
“Irene.”
“My dear, Irene is not a subject, she’s an object. Not only is she a woman, which in itself is inexcusable, but she has a mouth like a malfunctioning garbage disposal, a face like a perforated hemorrhoid, and, if she has a g-spot at all, it would have to be on her fucking face. Furthermore, she smells like rancid sheep dip and has the cognitive power of an aardvark.”
“So you’re not interested, then?”
“Asia. Let me tell you something. In the course of my illustrious career I have had only one encounter with a person of the female persuasion, which was, needless to say, an unmitigated and embarrassing fiasco. If I were to ever attempt a repeat performance, which would have to be at gunpoint, I assure you it would not be with…”
Crispin’s next words were drowned out by the sound of a loud explosion coming from the trees behind them. Crispin felt a pull on his arm as if someone was tugging at his sleeve, and jumped as something splashed into the water in front of him. Two more explosions followed, and whatever had pulled at his sleeve now ran hot fingers through his hair. Confusion was replaced by fear and amazement as he realized what was happening.
Machine Gun Jelly (Big Bamboo Book 1) Page 23