There’s more than one lobster
under the sea
So why not torment him
instead of me
You’re the cruelest thing
in these waters
Except for that shark
Before the fisherman caught her
Red lobster, red lobster....
—
Blue raced up to the bedroom to write down the lyrics and discovered Karma at work on the eighth painting in her series. It was already far enough advanced for him to identify.
“You were in the First World War?” he asked. “I’ll bet that’s why you’re against the war in Vietnam. Probably had something really bad happen to you so now you hate war period.”
“You sound as if you believe my painting,” Karma said.
“What I mean isn’t what I believe. I’m just trying to look at it through your eyes instead of mine, but if I ever start believing what I see through your eyes, I’ll just have to pluck them out, as the other fellow says.”
“So what do you see through my eyes?”
Blue examined the painting, dull muddy trenches and soggy soldiers rain-lashed under tombstone clouds. A Red Cross emblem painted on a tent offering the only splash of colour, of hope, in an atmosphere that suggested hell itself had risen to the surface of the Earth and was devouring the bodies that lay half submerged in bloody mud.
“The Red Cross! Of course that’s where you’d be, cleaning up the mess, fixing the world. But I guess the reason I sound like I believe your painting is because I wouldn’t of minded being there myself. I mean I wasn’t even born for the Second World War, and I was born in the wrong country for the Vietnam War, so if I was in the First World War, I would of seen some kind of action, wouldn’t I?
“Hey, maybe I got shot capturing an enemy trench or something and they took me back to that tent there where you nursed me back to health and stood there holding my hand while some general pinned the Victoria Cross to my chest, and that’s why we got karma, Karma.”
“Or maybe we were nurses together, Blue, and because we tried to help people who were hurt in the war our karma spared us from having to get involved in another war like the one in Vietnam.”
“That’s sick, girl. I’d of never been a nurse. If I was, though, it would be Tinker’s problem I’d be trying to fix, not the whole world’s. I’d leave that up to you.”
“You didn’t record anything today that would help Tinker?”
“Nothing. Just a bunch of idiots in suits talking about how to make even more money. I got nothing against money, Karma, but I don’t think these people can ever get enough to just stop and enjoy it, and they think Tinker’s engine will make them millions more. Why? So that when they die they can say they made ten million dollars or something.
“Hell, when I die I’d sooner say I spent ten million dollars. I’d be really pissed off to spend my life earning money then die before I got a chance to squander it all on wine, women and song – to quote the other fellow. That’s all I learned after listening to Reginald Regent the Turd all afternoon. He never once mentioned Tinker’s name. I’m beginning to wonder if he knows the place is bugged and that’s why he won’t say anything.”
“Who is he going say it to, Blue? I’m sure that somebody like Reginald Regent III doesn’t just go around blabbering about ordering plans to be stolen or people to be killed. The only person he is going to talk to about it someone he trusts, like Special Agent Wise.”
“Did you come straight from Heaven or have you been around here for awhile?” Blue asked, jumping to his feet and bear-hugging Karma before releasing her to run through the door and down the stairs hollering for Tinker, leaving her wondering what she had said.
In the kitchen Blue opened three beers, passed one to Tinker while he briefed him, put a straw in the second bottle, then beckoning his friend to follow him, led the way to the basement where Wise was tied to the chair. He signalled Tinker to stand in the corner and stay silent then took a chair opposite the FBI agent, waving the bottle under his nose. Wise recoiled at first, then recognizing the odor returned his nose to the bottle, sniffing it curious as a dog.
“Brought a Bud for my bud, Bud,” Blue said, placing the bottle on a table beside Wise, putting the straw in Wise’s mouth. “Go ahead, drink. It’s not poison, although my mother would debate me on that one, especially when the old man goes on a tear. We’re just a couple of guys having a beer together. No need of pretending you’re not interested, not with a nose like that. Looks like a road map to every liquor store you ever walked into. So tell me, Special Agent Bud Wise, why didn’t you just shoot Capricorn when you had the chance? It would of been easy to stage a break-out then shoot him in the back while he was trying to escape, wouldn’t it? He who hesitates loses his prisoner, as the other fellow says. Of course, you wanted Tinker even more than Capricorn, didn’t you? Why?
“Maybe you would of been happy just to have Capricorn but maybe somebody else with more power than you wanted Tinker even more. So there you were holding prisoner the very man you’ve been chasing all these years, and all you can do is try to get information out of him. Must of pissed you off real bad. Then it all goes wrong and where do you wind up? A prisoner of your prisoner. You must be really pissed off now.”
Wise said nothing but his cheeks concaved so Blue knew he was sipping at the beer.
“Nothing to say? Not even your name, rank and serial number? How about the rumour that you take your orders from the President? The president of Fucdepor Petroleum, that is. I’m sure there’s no truth to it, but you know the way newspapers are. Anyway, that’s what today’s paper said, that you were given orders by Reginald Regent the Turd to kill Tinker after you stole the plans for his oxygen engine. I’d let you read it yourself, but then I have to take off your blindfold and you’d get a look at my face and, well, you know what the other fellow says about kidnappers, don’t you, that when the kidnap victim sees the kidnapper’s face, it’s the last face he’ll ever see. So I’m just trying to keep you alive here in the basement of this factory where we’ll just keep on manufacturing oxygen engines until the FBI agrees to fly us and our engines to Cuba.
“You winched there, Bud, old buddy. You winched when I said Cuba. So you think Castro will be interested in the oxygen engine? Or is it the oxygen bomb that you think he’d like? The way I see it, it’s our only chance to get out of this country alive, because, as your friends in the CIA will tell you, Cuba is the only safe place on the planet because the Americans can’t beat that Castro character at all. Every time you try, he comes out smelling like a rose and the United States comes out smelling like a three-day-old butt of one of Castro’s cigars. If he starts making oxygen bombs, well, that will take care of the United States army, and if he starts making oxygen engines, that’ll take care of Fucdepor Petroleum, so I figure Tinker’s invention and Capricorn’s revolution are going to come together to turn the world into paradise, paradise being of course anywhere where the oxygen is clean and free. Some place like Cuba. Know what I like about Cuba? It’s an island. People who live on islands understand each other, just like me and Castro.”
Special Agent Wise pulled his lips from the straw and began struggling against his own handcuffs which held him captive, holding his head back, trying to peek out under the blindfold.
“You can’t give that Communist pig the oxygen bomb! He’ll blow up the whole free world! Castro’s the Russian puppet who pretty near started an atomic war, if you remember the missile crisis. If he gets his hands on the oxygen bomb it could be all over for—”
“That’s where you and I differ, Mr. Wise. You’d be surprised how much the two of us – you and me, that is – have in common. We both hate the Ruskies and all that communism stuff, but when it comes to Castro, well Cana— I better not say that. Too much information, as the other fellow says. What I mean is that in the country where I c
ome from we hate the Communists just as much as you do, but not Castro. I got this friend back home, eh, Farm— can’t tell you that either, but this friend I got got a dog and know what he called him? Fidel! After Castro, if you can believe that, and this friend of mine fought the Nazis so that should tell you how much he hates the Communists, but not Castro, boy, not Castro.
“What it is, eh, is that all the little countries all around the United States really wish Castro was their prime minister. Not because he’s a Communist, but because he doesn’t take any shit from you Americans. In the other countries, like mine, say, prime ministers are always kissing somebody’s arse down here so we can keep on working up there, American money being what makes the world go round, as the other fellow says, but when we watch Castro we know we’d vote for him if we had the chance.”
“You’ll never have a chance to vote for that prick because you need a democracy to vote in and he’ll never allow Cuba to be a democracy,” Wise spat. “Someday, our government will overthrow him and Cuba will be free, just like it used to be, the perfect American vacationland. But if you bring that oxygen engine down there, it will upset the balance of the whole world. He’ll use it to make engines that don’t need oil and gas, and ruin Detroit. If we send our army to try to stop him from producing oxygen engines, he’ll blow us up with the oxygen bomb! What do you think will become of the world if it’s not American? If you get near Castro, do us all a favour and kill the bastard. Kill him! Avenge the Bay of Pigs and kill him!” Wise was ranting as Blue turned to Tinker in the corner who nodded that he had heard enough. Blue left the beer for Wise to finish as the two of them went back upstairs.
The next morning, Blue parked the van across the street from Fucdepor Towers, watched Reginald Regent III step from his limousine, then moved into the back of the van, sitting ready to record any conversation that might occur in Reginald Regent III’s office. An hour later, Blue packed up and pulled away from the curb, whistling his melody to “The Red Lobster.”
62
Blue put the bowl of sunflower seeds down on the table, telling Wise that it was time to go, “but there’s a few preparations to be made yet,” he informed his captive, calling up the stairs for some help. An hour later, with Wise tied up in the back of the van, Blue pulled away from the Human Rainbow Commune, glanced in the rearview mirror at the Plymouth following him, Tulip behind the wheel.
A half hour later, Blue pulled the van over to a curb, parked and climbed into the back with Wise.
“Sorry about that bump on the head there, Bud, old buddy, but I forgot to tell you to duck. Headache? Bit of a goose-egg but nothing that’ll kill you. I suppose I should of told you to duck, but Bud, old buddy, you were kind of dragging your feet there and resisting and I figured if I didn’t run your head into the side of the van, you’d put up a hell of fight. I understand why, of course, so it’s nothing personal. If somebody was driving me around San Francisco with practically no clothes on, I be screaming and resisting, too. So I apologize for the bump on your head, but not for the blindfold, or the gag or the handcuffs.
“Know why I don’t apologize? Because there was this guy, eh, Bobby Seale, you heard of him right, one of the Chicago Seven. He got treated the same way in a courtroom, gagged and handcuffed. Now, I might of read all about that and not batted an eye, really, because when it comes to police and court business, I try not to make it any of my business, hoping, of course, that they will return the favour and not make me any of their business. Live and let live, as the other fellow says. The last while, though, your side hasn’t been following my golden rule, have you? You haven’t let me or mine alone at all. Not that Bobby Seale was one of mine. Never met the man.
“But I did meet a guy I really like whose name shall remain anonymous. I have to hide a lot of people when I’m around you, don’t I? Anyway, this anonymous friend was really into all this peace and love business that the hippies like to think will change the world because they know a lot less about it than a couple of old horse traders like you and me. So this friend just liked to live on a mountain, meditate, grow a little weed for himself and a lot of hay for his horses and dream about the new Jerusalem, to quote the other fellow. He was looking after a couple of nags up there that weren’t worth a tin dime in my world or yours, but in his, those bony excuses for horses were worth loving. I’ve been thinking about that a lot since then, how he could love something that’s not worth anything. Know what he thought freedom was? A bunch of wild mustangs running wild on the range. In my experience, a good mustang that’s not free on the range is worth a lot more money than one that is, but each to his own, as the other fellow says.
“Anyway, a bunch of FBI agents raid the place where my friend is living, and they arrest him, handcuffs just like yours. Maybe yours, for that matter. But it wasn’t your handcuffs that bothered him. It was when the police took him down from the mountain and showed him what was happening to his people. Bobby Seale in America-the-free tied and gagged to his chair in front of the whole world. It wasn’t your handcuffs that changed my friend from a hippie to a angry Black Panther, it was those handcuffs that held Bobby Seale in his chair.
“I still love the guy even though he’s changed, and that’s not a word I just throw around even with my girlfriend or my best friend. As a matter of fact, it’s a lot easier for me to understand Cor— him ... now that he wants to punch somebody in the head than it was when he just wanted to look at a couple of old nags and see something beautiful in them. I have this other friend, a really beautiful girl who tells me that Cor— that this other friend will eventually get back to the top of that mountain I first met him on, but that it would be a rough road, made even rougher by people like you.
“What she says is that what they did to Bobby Seale was a pebble in a puddle. Eventually the ripples made it all the way up the mountain and turned someone who was full of passive peace into someone full of angry action. Nothing we do ever stops rippling, she says, so that’s why we should only do the things we would be proud to see rippling on and on forever. She’s a believer, eh, believes that peace is inevitable and that someday we’re all going to Heaven in a little rowboat, to quote the other fellow. She believes everybody is fated be saved in their own good time. Even you. I’m a Catholic myself, so I just have to believe that if I can get myself off this planet and into Heaven, I’ve done my job. And I don’t think the fact that I have you handcuffed and gagged is going to be held against me when news of it ripples all the way up there, because I think you’ll have a lot more explaining to do than me.”
Excusing himself, Blue made his way to the front of the van, turned on the radio and listened to the music, waiting. Half an hour later, the deejay interrupted a song to bring a special announcement. Describing a tape recording that had been anonymously dropped off at the station, he announced that it would be broadcast next. Tinker turned up the dial and told Wise to listen.
“Is this Mister Regent?” a voice on the radio asked.
“Who is this?” a second voice answered.
“Special Agent Wise,” was the reply, a reply that caused Special Agent Wise to make a muffled screaming denial behind his gag. Blue acknowledged the denial, pointing out that his friend Tinker “is one talented man, isn’t he? Listened to you when he was a soldier and when you were in the basement, and now he sounds just like you.”
“Wise! I thought you were being held hostage.”
“Before I go on, I need to confirm who I’m talking to,” Wise said. “Who are you?”
“Reginald Regent III, but can we dispense with the cloak-and-dagger and tell me where you are?”
“I escaped. Actually, I did much better than escape, I took my captors captive.”
“Capricorn and Tinker? You have them?”
“I do. Now my sworn duty is to bring the two of them into the FBI office where they will be charged with enough federal offences to keep them both in prison for the rest of t
heir lives. Christ, they even took an FBI agent hostage! Me!”
“Fuck your sworn duty to some silly flag. Have you found the plans to the oxygen engine?”
“When you find yourself in a rat’s hole, you usually find everything that belongs to the rat. I have the plans for the oxygen engine. I should bring them into the FBI office as evidence.”
“And let the whole world get a look at them?” Reginald Regent III, shouted. “Don’t be stupid, man. Here’s what you’re going to do. You are going to shoot the two of them, head shots to be sure that they are dead beyond doubt, then come to my office with the plans. Once they are safe in my safe, you will return to the scene of your unfortunate captivity and call the FBI. They will confirm the deaths, justified in your effort to escape, pin a medal on your chest, and promote you. I’ll see to it. Once enough time has passed, then you can retire or quit, whichever doesn’t matter, and take over as head of security for Fucdepor Petroleum. By that time, a substantial amount of money will be added to your account to demonstrate Fucdepor’s appreciation for your services.
Tinker and Blue Page 36