Night of the Avenging Blowfish

by John Welter

“I wish I didn’t get five hundred cans of Spam in my office every day.”

  “You get that many?”

  “We ship it out every day to some warehouse. No one even counts it, there’s so much. That’s thousands of dollars of postage, and thousands of dollars of Spam. We’ve got people starving in this nation and starving across the world, and as a joke, or a protest, people send tons of Spam to the White House. It’s not right.”

  “What’s the president doing?”

  “He’s boar-hunting in Arkansas.”

  “Really? Was that one of his campaign promises? ‘If you elect me, I’ll shoot wild pigs in Arkansas. I don’t remember that promise.”

  “Sometimes I hate working in the White House,” Natelle said in a wistful voice.

  “What for?”

  She stared distractedly toward the protestors and said, “You see everything in the world exaggerated, and nothing clearly. In the White House, it’s like the whole point of being alive is overshadowed by the public spectacle of the White House. I mean, I get dozens and hundreds and thousands of letters and cans of Spam, as if all that matters in the world is people reacting to the president reacting to something else, so that they’re all reacting to the same pointless thing. And now we have a couple dozen demonstrators here, getting national press attention, as if what really matters in the world is making sure that pigs lead happy lives. And the president? He goes around the nation eating whatever nondescript lumps of regional goo that someone shoves in front of his face so he won’t seem to have offended the public just because some goddamn national poll shown on TV says he’s losing some of his popularity over a trivial incident that shouldn’t matter to any rational person. And now we have maybe twenty-five tons of Spam being wasted in a warehouse because why? Because Abbas got mad at the president for saying he liked hot dogs.

  “This isn’t reality, Doyle. This is so stupid I can’t even think of a word for it.”

  “America?” I wondered.

  She looked at me and shook her head yes. “But don’t think I’m mad at you. I’m not. In a way, it was a good idea, maybe even a brilliant one, to get even with the president the way you did. Except you didn’t really get even. In a few weeks, people will forget this. Something newer and stupider will be on their minds. The president will still be president. Abbas will still be fired. And the people who’re mad at you still won’t like you.”

  “I know. I’ve been thinking about that. It’s kind of like having a brilliant success that just doesn’t matter. And now,” I said, pointing across the street, “the pig people are here.”

  “I’m just depressed.”

  “About what? Your divorce?”

  “Yes.”

  “We haven’t talked about that in a few days. I think about you a lot. How’re you doing?”

  “I’m not sure. I’ve never been divorced before. I seem to be doing it right. I’m depressed all the time, and jittery, like my life is gone but it’s not being replaced with anything.”

  “I’m with you,” I said, and briefly touched her wrist, as if that might calm or soothe her, but her facial expression didn’t change, so either she wasn’t paying attention to me or my announcement of being with her was hardly what was needed. I was beginning to feel disposable.

  “Gabriel says he won’t contest the divorce,” Natelle said. “That means it’ll work. I don’t know why something so painful should work.” She looked off at the horizon, not at me, and said, “I’ve been thinking of going away. Of going on a retreat. Sometimes I think I need to vanish. To vanish even from myself. I’m not well, Doyle. I feel alienated and betrayed and anxious all the time. The person I loved the most has ruined me. And I haven’t even stopped loving him. I thought I did. But it doesn’t just stop. It goes on, like bleeding. It feels like someone died, and I don’t know who it is, unless it’s me. I tell myself, the way you’re always so stupidly taught to do, that I should just go on. But on with what? Sadness? Horror? That’s all there is to go on with. I think, Doyle, what I’ve been thinking, is that it’s like being in an explosion, and you’re all bloody and stinging and dizzy and horrified, and you look around, and you don’t know where to go. It’s like you’re trying to remember what you were doing before the explosion, but you can’t remember. It’s like you used to have a life, but you don’t remember where it went. And then you want to be comforted and held by the one person you love more than anyone, and then you remember … that’s who blew you up.”

  Her eyes were closed, like she was trying not to cry, and I held her hand.

  “I’ll help you,” I said, realizing from the limpness of her hand that I wasn’t helping her at all, realizing also that the fact that I deeply loved her was, for the time being, the greatest possible gift she didn’t want.

  IN THE embassy one morning as I drank my Ethiopian coffee and read a copy of the Weekly World News with a headline saying “Boy gives birth to baby sister,” and Aramilo sat at the piano with a cup of coffee and bourbon as he practiced “Begin the Beguine,” Maria walked into the room without knocking, approached Aramilo with a charmingly excited smile and said, “The civil war is over. There is a cease-fire. Many of the PDF have surrendered, or are in disorganized retreat, which I was just this moment told over the phone. There are celebrations everywhere in Rio D’Iguana. People took to the streets and fired their guns in the air, killing sixteen people, unfortunately. The country is ours again.”

  I thought of a headline: “Sixteen people killed by peace.”

  Maria left the room, as if she had urgent work unrelated to “Begin the Beguine,” and Aramilo sighed gratefully, saying to me, “I guess now no one wants to kill me.”

  “I guess not.”

  “And now your watchful security can be relaxed.”

  “What security? I’m just reading the paper.”

  “Have a drink with me,” Aramilo said in a relaxed voice as he stood up to go to his omnipresent liquor bottles, which I imagined that he regarded not as a liquor cabinet but as an altar.

  “I don’t drink in the morning,” I said.

  “Are you saying I have a drinking problem?”

  “It doesn’t seem to be a problem at all. You can do it under even the most difficult circumstances.”

  Aramilo laughed as he poured himself a small glass of vodka, and then he sipped from it and held the glass above his head.

  “To Indizal!” he said. “To all tiny little island nations!”

  I raised my cup of coffee above my head and said, “To the islet of Langerhans!”

  “Really?” Aramilo said. “Which island is that?”

  “It’s not really an island. It just sounds like one. One time while I was watching ‘Jeopardy’ on TV, one of the answers was the islet of Langerhans. It sounds like some island off the coast of Ireland or Wales, but it’s not. The islet of Langerhans is a group of cells in the pancreas, I think.”

  “To the pancreas!” Aramilo toasted. “Now that we have peace, you know what it makes me think of?”

  “Vodka?”

  “Noooo, no, no. You know in your Bible, you Christians, there’s a saying I’ve nearly memorized, but not quite.”

  “Sounds like a lot of Christians, who can’t quote a single line from the Bible but say they believe everything in it.”

  “The saying is something about plowshares and swords.”

  “That’s the chapter about hardware stores.”

  “I think,” Aramilo said, squinting, as if lost in thought, “I think it says we shall turn our swords into plowshares.”

  “Yeah. And then you know what? Someone will start a war with plowshares.”

  Aramilo shook his head and said, “Don’t be so depressing.”

  “Well, I guess you should celebrate, now. You could fire my gun out the window and kill people ten blocks from here.”

  The sudden peace in Indizal reminded me of the general pointlessness of my career. Whatever slight chance there had been of someone wanting to assassinate Aramilo
was now gone, meaning that I resumed the punishment of guarding someone who was in no danger. I resumed protecting a privileged man who deserved no privileges and had many; and all because I’d offended an entire hierarchy of privileged people whose privileged lives I was sworn to protect.

  Bastards.

  I decided to call Doltmeer and ask for a new assignment, which almost certainly he wouldn’t give me, unless it was more demeaning and pointless than what I wanted to escape. But I was at least going to ask. When I got Doltmeer on the phone, I said, “The war in Indizal’s over. We just heard on the phone. Maria said they …”

  “What’s Indizal?” Doltmeer said.

  “That’s the country whose ambassador I’ve been guarding from the assassins who don’t like Cole Porter.”

  “Oh. Yes. In-dizal. It always makes me think of Pine-Sol.”

  “Well, yes. I see the comparison. Pine-Sol is a cleaning solvent, and Indizal is a country. But anyway …”

  “I was making a joke,” Doltmeer said lightly.

  “Well I know that, goddamn it. And so was I.”

  “I know that. Jesus Christ,” Doltmeer said peevishly. “Don’t any of my agents have a sense of humor?”

  “Humor? I’m protecting an alcoholic pianist from his countless enemies who don’t exist on an island nation that rhymes with Pine-Sol. I think I understand humor. But let me digress to the original reason I called you. The war in Indizal’s over. Maria said they defeated the PDF and there’s a cease-fire, and now that everyone in the capital of Indizal’s so happy, they fired their guns in the air, accidentally killing sixteen people.”

  “No shit?” Doltmeer said curiously.

  “That’s what Maria said.”

  “Who’s Maria? Someone you’re dating?”

  “She’s the chargé d’affaires at the embassy.”

  “Oh. That’s right. The embassy.”

  “I work there. Remember?”

  “Yes. I sentenced you.”

  “I was thinking that now that the war’s over and the PDF’s no …”

  “Did anyone ever find out what PDF stands for?”

  “I don’t think we were trying to find out, were we?”

  “Not really. I was just curious,” Doltmeer said indifferently.

  “So anyway, I think what I’m getting at is that I’d like to be reassigned. There’s no point in punishing me by having me guard someone who was never in any danger. You might as well assign me to something with at least minor importance that I also won’t like. That way, I’ll at least be doing something with negligible value, and you’ll still be punishing me. Can’t we be that practical?”

  “I’ll give it some thought. But, officially, you aren’t being punished.”

  “Of course not.”

  “The Service doesn’t do petty or vindictive things just because our superiors ask us to.”

  “Then why do you do petty and vindictive things?”

  “Don’t get on my bad side, Doyle.”

  “It’s too late to avoid that side.”

  “Yes, but don’t bury yourself any deeper. What new assignment were you thinking of?”

  “I hadn’t thought of one, really. Maybe I could be assigned to protect the ambassador from the islet of Langerhans.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It sounds like an island off the coast of Wales, doesn’t it?”

  “Is it a U.N. member?”

  “No. It’s a group of cells in the pancreas. At least that’s what they said on ‘Jeopardy.’ Could I be assigned to guard someone’s pancreas? It couldn’t be any more ludicrous than what I’m doing now.”

  “That’s true. I do hate wasting valuable agents. Not that I’m saying you’re valuable. Do you know what you’ve got to learn? Don’t ever piss off people in power. They don’t have to be nice. They don’t even have to be human. You think we’re living in a democracy?”

  “There are those rumors.”

  “That’s all they are. Rumors. People in power badly want the vote of the common people, but they have no intention of being treated like them.”

  “Well, deja vu. That sounds remarkably like what Abbas said on TV and in the newspapers, over and over.”

  “And you don’t think it pisses off the president even more?”

  “I didn’t vote for him.”

  “Well, you better act like you did, or you won’t even get to guard someone’s pancreas. I’ll assign you to someone’s anus.”

  “I don’t think I’d like being that specialized.”

  “Then be careful. Can you do that?”

  “I keep learning.”

  “Good. I’ll call you if I can find a demeaning and tedious assignment more pleasing to you.”

  “Somehow, it doesn’t seem appropriate to say thank you.”

  “It isn’t.”

  25

  “The beauty of a line drive vanishes when it hits you in the forehead,” Widdiker said contemplatively as we all lay in the grass and flowers out in the outfield where tiny, nearly invisible flying bugs, as well as honey bees and wasps, buzzed around us and sometimes landed on our beer cans. We were supposed to have been practicing, and had been, except we took a time-out after Deek was hit in the forehead by a line drive that almost knocked him out and caused him to start reciting the periodic table of the elements.

  “Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon,” Deek said drowsily when Horner and DeMarco tried to pick him up from the ground where the line drive crumpled him. Deek was too heavy, and we left him lying in the shade with his baseball glove under his head as a pillow.

  “Are you all right, Deek?” Widdiker asked.

  “Nitrogen,” Deek said. “Oxygen, fluorine, neon, sodium, magnesium. I don’t know why, but I can remember everything,” he said with calm amazement, and then he said, “Aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, chlorine, argon, potassium, calcium, scandium.” And he smiled.

  It was all very restful, with everyone lying side by side in the rim of shade from all the big trees at the edge of the outfield, and sometimes you could hear a cow lowing and some birds twittering and Deek saying, “Titanium, vanadium, chromium, manganese, iron, cobalt …”

  “Don’t you think we should take him to a hospital?” Oxler said. Oxler was the one whose line drive whammed into Deek’s forehead.

  “I’m fine. I just need to rest,” Deek said. And then he said, “Nickel, copper, zinc, gallium.”

  “What if he has a concussion?” DeMarco said.

  “Germanium,” Deek said.

  “He says he’s fine,” Yamato said.

  “Arsenic,” Deek said.

  “What if he goes into a coma?” Horner wondered.

  “I guess we’ll need a new outfielder,” Widdiker said.

  “Selenium,” Deek said, smiling up at the wispy white clouds straying across the sky. “I’m a little dizzy, and my head hurts. But other than that, I’m fine. Bromine. Krypton. Rubidium.”

  “Krypton?” Yamato said. “Isn’t that where Superman was born?”

  “I don’t know. We didn’t study that in school,” DeMarco said. “We studied where Columbus was born.”

  “Strontium,” Deek said.

  “No. I think Columbus was born in Italy, Deek,” DeMarco said.

  “This reminds me of when I was a boy,” I said, staring at the clouds.

  “You mean when you were a boy,” Widdiker said, “someone got hit in the head with a baseball and named all the elements?”

  “No,” I said. “I mean just lying in the grass and staring at the sky. In Kansas, where I grew up, there weren’t very many trees, so you could lie on your back and look straight up and see absolutely nothing but the sky. Like that’s all there was—sky. If you did that long enough, you’d start to get dizzy, and maybe throw up.”

  “You must miss your childhood,” Yamato said.

  “No. I don’t think you ever really leave your childhood. There’s a child in everyone. Especially if you’re pregnan
t.”

  “Is that what you’re trying to tell us—you’re pregnant?” Pascal asked.

  “Yttrium,” Deek said.

  “Is he speaking Yiddish now?” Yamato asked. “Maybe we should take him to a doctor.”

  “Why? Just because he’s speaking Yiddish?” Horner asked.

  “Zirconium,” Deek said. “Niobium, molybdenum, technetium, ruthenium, rhodium, palladium.”

  “I know what it is,” Pascal said. “He’s speaking in tongues. It’s the end of the world, and Jesus is coming back.”

  “Well, if he comes here, let’s give him Deek’s glove and let him play in the outfield,” I said.

  “Jesus doesn’t play baseball,” Widdiker said.

  “That’s right. There aren’t any sports in the Bible,” I said.

  “I thought killing Philistines was a sport,” Pascal said.

  “Well, if you look at it that way, the entire Old Testament is a sports document,” I said.

  “Silver,” Deek said. “Cadmium, indium, tin, antimony.”

  “Is this what happens when you grow up?” Yamato asked. “You lie down in a field, mumbling incoherently?”

  “Thoreau said most people lead lives of quiet desperation,” Widdiker said, as if maybe that was why we were there.

  “That’s because loud desperation is rude,” Pascal said.

  “Shhhh,” DeMarco said, and all you could hear was the wind, and some honey bees, and a bird calling, and the sorrowful absence of someone you needed who you might not ever have.

  And you could hear Deek saying, “Tellurium.”

  NATELLE INVITED me over to her apartment for burned chicken and an annulment. She had the chicken neatly stacked and burned on the edge of her grill on her balcony when I got there, and there was an empty bottle of pink wine next to the freshly opened one that she used to pour us both a glass. I sat next to her in a folding chair, and she smiled at me in a distressed, dreamy way.

  “Thank you for coming over,” she said. “I’m drunk.”

  “I think I can tell,” I said. “Did you burn that chicken for me?”

  “I’m not sure who I burned it for,” she said, pointing her bare toes at the grill. “Maybe we could regard it as a burnt offering to the Lord.”