Night of the Avenging Blowfish

by John Welter

  “Sneaking seems appropriate,” I whispered.

  “Okay. You go first.”

  “No. You go.”

  “But you’re older than I am,” Yamato whispered.

  “And I intend to stay that way. That’s why I want you to go first,” I whispered, pushing Yamato. He pushed me back.

  “What if they have a bomb?” he whispered.

  “I doubt if they have a bomb. They probably have tofu,” I whispered, walking more quietly and deliberately than before toward the spot where the noise came from. We walked about two feet apart, holding our guns in front of us as we advanced through the gloom, and there were voices, soft, muted voices, a woman’s and then a man’s. The voices seemed to be about thirty feet in front of us, behind one of the huge stacks of metal drums, or barrels, and almost directly beneath the pale and ominous light from one of the skylights, as if they’d chosen that eerily lighted spot to do their unknown work. Yamato and I approached the corner of the big stack of metal drums behind which were the voices. There was enough darkness where we were going to risk looking around the corner without being seen. Holding my gun directly in front of my chest, ready to drop my arm in an instant and fire if they had weapons and saw me, I poked my head around the corner far enough for one eye, my left eye, to see L. D. Krite and Skip standing in front of a life-size deformed pig with a caved-in back and head and a black tube running from its anus. I ducked my head back and looked at Yamato.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “I can’t tell. It looks like they’ve got an inflatable pig.”

  “What?”

  I peeked around the corner again, with both eyes, and saw the deformed pig changing shape, becoming fuller, less deformed. I realized the black tube in its anus was an air hose connected to a bicycle tire pump that Skip was using to inflate the pink pig. Yamato got onto his hands and knees beside me to peek around the corner as the pig became fully inflated, and L. D. Krite pulled the hose from its anus.

  Skip picked up a flashlight from the floor and turned it on to help L. D. Krite look into a silver briefcase she opened on the floor beside the pig. She pulled out a bundle of something that looked like five or six sticks of dynamite taped together. Yamato tugged at my pant’s leg. I didn’t know what to do, didn’t know if it was really dynamite or not, didn’t know if it was a fully operable bomb that could be set off instantly or accidentally, or if it was just a dummy bomb, which would explain why they had an inflatable pig. It wouldn’t make sense to have an inflatable pig if they were going to blow up the warehouse. But it would make sense to have one if they weren’t, assuming the pig and a fake bomb were part of a grotesque protest against canned animals, which would mean they were merely setting up a threatening display to be discovered later. Yamato tugged on my pants leg again. I wished he’d quit it.

  L. D. Krite took a small box from the briefcase. It had a dial on it, like an oven timer. Electrical wires came out of the box. She began fastening the wires to the bundle of dynamite, or the bundle of something. Neither of them said anything now, as if this ritual were too somber to be violated by words. After connecting the wires to the bundle, L. D. Krite placed them both under the inflated pig. She took a big, rectangular piece of white paper, maybe poster paper, from the briefcase. A loop of something was fastened to the back of the paper, and L. D. Krite put the loop over the pig’s head so the poster hung around the pig’s neck. There were words on the poster. By squinting, I could read them. They said: “I have a right to be here.”

  It seemed as if I’d heard those words in an old song from the early 1970s, some tedious, metaphysical song about everyone—not necessarily pigs—having a right to exist. I was trying to think of the melody when Yamato stood up beside me and whispered, “What should we do?”

  “Arrest them.”

  “What about the bomb?” he whispered anxiously. “What if it blows up?”

  “Then we won’t have to arrest them.”

  Yamato sighed quietly and whispered, “Now?”

  “Now,” I whispered.

  Yamato made the sign of the cross on his forehead, even though he wasn’t Catholic. Together we stepped forward into the edge of the hazy, sickly light from the skylight, pointing our guns at L. D. Krite and Skip. They didn’t see us. Although we were only fifteen feet away, we were still so quiet in our running shoes and still so obscured in the dark that they didn’t know we were there. They stood sideways from us, staring down at the pig and the dynamite, possibly admiring it.

  “They won’t ignore us now,” L. D. Krite said.

  Yamato took another step forward into the light with his gun in front of him and said, “Room Service. Don’t move. You’re under arrest.”

  That was an old idea of his, that he’d like to arrest somebody by saying Room Service instead of Secret Service. I never thought he’d really do it.

  “He means Secret Service,” I said, stepping into the light beside Yamato as L. D. Krite screamed and fell backward onto the floor. This made me realize she’d never go out with Yamato.

  29

  In the Post the next day it was announced that the Secret Service had thwarted a terrorist attack against luncheon meat. We were heroes, even though no one knew who we were, even though the bomb turned out to be fake dynamite, and even though the only danger of an explosion would have been if too much air had been forced into the pig’s anus. We were told the pig was being held as evidence for a federal trial. But most importantly, and also most curiously, the president wanted to thank us personally for arresting L. D. Krite. The president asked to see us in the Oval Office, and when Yamato and I got to the door, it was being guarded by two agents we didn’t know. They stared at us suspiciously. One of them stepped in front of Yamato and said, “May I see some ID?”

  Yamato smiled politely and took out his wallet and showed the agent a card.

  “That’s a Western Auto charge card,” the agent said in a mildly displeased tone.

  “Do you take Visa?” Yamato asked, then took out his ID and showed it to the agent, who smiled and said, “Oh. You’re one of us.”

  I showed the agent my Safeway check-cashing card and my library card, as well as my Secret Service ID, and then Yamato and I opened the door to see the president, who was seated at his desk watching television.

  “Hey, Andy.”

  “Hey, Barn.”

  It was “The Andy Griffith Show.” I wanted to say, “Hey, president.”

  The president turned off the television and looked at Yamato and me with what almost was a smile. It was as if he almost had an emotion.

  “You’re the two agents, aren’t you?” the president said, which was strange, since he’d been with us dozens of times but seemed not to recognize us.

  “Yes, sir,” I said.

  “Do you have a few minutes?” the president asked.

  “We have as many minutes as you want us to,” Yamato said.

  This made the president smile, and he stood up and said, “Would you like a drink? Bourbon? Gin? Cognac?”

  “Bourbon,” Yamato said.

  “Cognac,” I said, since it was more expensive.

  “I used to think cognac was a sissy drink,” the president said amiably as he walked to an ornate liquor table and began hoisting glasses and decanters.

  “Blackbeard drank cognac,” I said, although I had no idea if he did.

  “So you’ve studied pirates?” the president said as he poured the liquor.

  “Mainly the Pittsburgh Pirates,” I said.

  “Ah. Baseball,” the president said in a friendly tone as Yamato and I walked over to get our drinks. “Are you two baseball fans?”

  “Yes, sir,” Yamato said cheerfully as we stood next to the President of the United States of America and drank liquor. “We have our own team.”

  “Really?” the president said, and I thought how odd it was that Yamato and I, who never liked the president, were now so jovial and polite with him. You really had to be, or he could nail y
ou.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “We have a team, and the CIA has a team. At least, they’re supposed to. We’re scheduled to play them in a covert game on Bastille Day, if we can ever find out where the game is. The location is secret.”

  “You’re shitting me,” the president said with astonished amusement. I’d never heard a president say “shit” before. I was trying to imagine Thomas Jefferson saying it.

  “Nope,” Yamato said. “We really are playing the CIA. I think. I mean, we intend to play them, if either side can find out where the game is. The rule is, neither side knows the covert location. It’s the spooks versus the spooks.”

  “Is that what the teams are called—the Spooks?” the president asked.

  “We have no idea what the CIA is calling their team,” I said. “But our team is called the Avenging Blowfish.”

  The president squinted at me. “Avenging,” he said, as if studying that word by itself, and then he added the other word: “Blowfish.”

  “We wanted a dignified name,” Yamato said.

  “And then we changed our minds,” I said.

  “Well, it’s a distinctly memorable name,” the president said. “When did you say the game was going to be played?”

  “Bastille Day,” Yamato said.

  “I don’t see the relationship between baseball and the French Revolution,” the president said.

  “Well, we’ll be playing the game at night, so I don’t think we’ll be able to see the relationship between anything,” I said. Yamato and I were probably being too strange for the dignity and seriousness of the presidency, but what allowed us to do so was that we didn’t care.

  “A night game,” the president said. “So you found a field with lights?”

  “We thought we’d just use phosphorous grenades,” Yamato said.

  The president blinked.

  “I think he’s employing humor,” I said.

  “Baseball’s supposed to be hard, but not fatal,” the president said, and we all smiled. “Anyway, I just want to thank you two for your work in arresting those two animal-rights loonies.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  “They’re not really loonies, sir,” Yamato said.

  Oh no. Here it comes, I thought, watching the curious look on the president’s face.

  Yamato said, “Unquestionably, they did break the law and deserve to be punished. But, speaking for the leader, L. D. Krite, whom we interviewed and whose phone we tapped for a few days, she’s not a loony. She’s a zealous and passionate woman who seems to me to be quite faithful to her ideals. And while she did break a few laws, she’s probably more sane and rational than most people you’ll meet.”

  The president didn’t know what to say. He scratched his nose and looked at me for help. I held my palms up in front of me and said, “I think what he means is that even though she broke federal, state, and local laws, he’d like to have dinner with her.”

  “What?” the president asked, frowning and smiling at the same time.

  Yamato blushed and stared down at the floor. He said, “But of course I haven’t asked her out.”

  “You mean you want to date a woman you just arrested?” the president said.

  “Well,” Yamato said. “Yes.”

  The president downed his bourbon, wiped a drop of bourbon from his lip with his finger, and said, “I’ve never heard of a successful marriage that began with an arrest. But what can I say? Love, like a wildflower, can grow in even the most arid soil.”

  “That’s an interesting quote,” Yamato said happily. “Who said that? Wordsworth? Emily Dickinson?”

  “Aunt Bee,” the president said. “On ‘The Andy Griffith Show.’”

  “WHY’D YOU do that?” Yamato asked as we left the White House.

  “Do what?” I said.

  “Tell the president I wanted to date L. D. Krite.”

  “Well, you’re the one who started it. You defended her when the president called her a loony.”

  “She’s not a loony,” Yamato said.

  “See? You’re doing it again.”

  “I can’t help it. Something, I don’t know what, just fundamentally attracts me to her. I don’t care if we arrested her. I want to get to know her.”

  I looked at Yamato as we walked and said, “You could send her some flowers in jail.”

  “Shut up,” Yamato said.

  “You could send her a greeting card with bond money in it.”

  “I’ll kick your ass,” Yamato said.

  “You can’t kick my ass,” I said.

  “I know karate.”

  “So do I.”

  Just as Yamato turned toward me as if he were going to spin his body and kick me in the face, we heard someone across the street with a bullhorn in Lafayette Park. It looked like a few dozen people were having a demonstration.

  “What the hell’s that?” Yamato said, staring at someone wearing some big blue box over their head and torso. As we got closer, we could read the letters on the box: SPAM.

  “Uh-oh,” I said. “It’s the pig people.”

  A man with a bullhorn aimed it toward the White House and said, “The sleeping giant of vegetarianism has awakened, Mr. President!”

  “Maybe they mean the Sullen Green Giant,” I said.

  “And maybe they mean your ass,” Yamato said. “You started all this Spam stuff.”

  “I did not start it, you son of a bitch. Abbas started it.”

  “Maybe so. But you got blamed for it. And look,” Yamato said, pointing toward the demonstration. “It’s still alive.”

  “I wouldn’t be too goddamn smug about that. One of your darling pig people is in jail.”

  Yamato closed his eyes and put his fingers over his face. “I know,” he said sadly. “I don’t know if she’ll want to go to a movie with me now.”

  “Dutch,” I said quietly. “You arrested her. Like the president said, this probably won’t lead to marriage.”

  Yamato nervously tapped his finger against his lower lip and said, “Maybe if I send her some Godiva chocolates along with a referral for a lawyer.”

  30

  Wearing only a pair of black panties, Natelle crawled above me on her hands and knees in bed. The soft flesh along the insides of her knees pressed against my legs as her breasts swayed lightly above me. Her face was directly over mine, and in her eyes, which never moved from mine, was a look of peace, or adoration, or love, or wonderment, some secret look I’d never seen before in her eyes and which seemed to swell peacefully in her as she searched in my eyes for exactly the same look. She leaned her head down to kiss me, to wet my lips with her own, and my stomach tingled and felt ticklish and hot, like electricity going through me, but it was Natelle, passing into me. I put my fingers on her stomach, and she moaned and shuddered and pressed her lips harder onto mine. I felt light. I felt like I was going to cry from the grace of her. She kissed my chin and my neck, and traced her tongue along my skin from my neck and my chest and onto my nipple, and held my nipple with her lips. I held in my hand the warm fullness of her breast, and touched my fingers along the smooth front of her panties where it was soft and moist. She began moving there, slowly raising and lowering herself in a rhythm as she kissed my neck and tingled me and took my hand with hers and put it inside her panties, and my fingers were wet in the softness of her. Her hand was warm when she put it inside my underwear, and the tips of her fingers were wet and sticky from me as we kissed again and she lay fully on me now and moved her panties aside and still held onto me with her fingers as she put me inside of her, and we were the same two different people looking inside each other’s eyes as if to find the last concealed part of us finally given away.

  I lay still for a while in the dark, wondering where Natelle was. I’d just given my love again to her ghost. Her ghost didn’t even know. It was terrible, giving yourself away to someone who didn’t even know you’d done that. To someone who, if she ever found out, might find a need to give you back. That
was why Natelle was so sad and I had to hold her, when we pretended to be giving her an annulment and I said we were going to give her back to herself. You want to give yourself away, and be kept.

  I hadn’t seen Natelle in four or five days now, since that night, and I missed her like a lover, like waiting for the world to resume, and every ordinary pleasure seemed tedious. I just wanted to see her eyes again. There was an anxious, manic, aching emptiness in me that most Americans were taught should be filled by Jesus. It wasn’t Jesus I wanted to marry. I knew what Dr. Boulan would say. “If this isn’t working, love someone else.” Like you could go pick someone else.

  “I’ll take her. No. That other one. Wait. I mean someone else. Just give me a Sears catalog and I’ll pick someone from there.”

  I got out of bed and took a bottle of beer from the refrigerator, then remembered I hadn’t eaten much dinner, so I took a few big swallows of milk and then orange juice, which I figured took care of nutrition, then took my beer to the living room and turned on the TV. There was a show about little predatory birds called kites.

  “I made a kite once,” I said to the TV.

  On TV, a kite caught a field mouse and flew with it in its talons to the side of a thorny tree, where it impaled the mouse on a big thorn.

  “Look. He’s putting his groceries away,” I said, trying to amuse myself and pretend I wasn’t depressed.

  The phone rang. I ran over to it as if the only person it could be was Natelle. It was a man who said, “May I speak with the woman of the house?”

  “If there’s a woman here, she’s hiding from me,” I said, and hung up. My head hurt, as if it was simultaneously full and empty; full of memories I wished I never had, empty of the ones I wanted and never did have. The phone rang again, as if the stupid son of a bitch was calling me back. I picked it up instantly, in case it was Natelle, and it was. She said, “Doyle, I just called to let you know I’ve decided to leave for a while. In the morning I’m going to a retreat center in the mountains for a week.”

  “You are?” I asked. We hadn’t seen each other or even spoken for days, and now she was going away.