Layman's Report

by Eugene Marten

  “I have this thing about flying.”

  “That’s why God invented drugs,” the British historian said. “You’ve got to see the stones, man. You won’t be the same.”

  Fred knew that hang came from henge. He looked at the trilithon before him, rough greenish sandstone twice as tall as he was. Two uprights joined at the top by a lintel—like an ancient gallows. Or a doorway. The grass was muddy. The stones were roped off but he stepped over as he had elsewhere. You couldn’t touch anything.

  There were voices, he looked around. The rain had congealed into a gray mist like an emanation of the ruins. No one was sure of their purpose but it must have had something to do with death; there were holes in the ground where other stones might have gone, but instead they’d held burnt human bones. They’d found other things. A ditch formed a ring around the site three hundred and fifty feet across, and in the ditch were flint tools, fragments of pottery, the bones of animals and of human beings again, now unburnt but broken.

  He didn’t think they’d hung people five thousand years ago. Gallows also meant torture.

  “A pile of rocks,” his wife said. She wanted to see Big Ben, the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace. She wanted to see people sound British.

  The ruins didn’t speak but reminded her of another place.

  The Slaughter Stone, Altar Stone, Station Stone, Heelstone. What remained of the bluestones stood in the inner circle but not in the center. Some of them weighed four tons or so and had been transported from a quarry nearly two hundred miles away. But the stone in the middle was thirty feet high and weighed twelve times as much. How had they moved that one, and who were they?

  They kept hearing voices; there were people about but in the mist you couldn’t see them.

  “Don’t get under that thing,” his wife said, but the lintels didn’t just rest on the uprights; woodworking methods had been used, tongue and groove in stone, joinery Fred knew better than he knew himself.

  Who were they?

  “Giants from Ireland,” the British historian said. He raised a flask to them. “They brought the stones from Africar—they were said to have healing properties. Then King Arthur decided he wanted them brought here as a monument to his knights—Uther Pendragon is buried here, so the story goes—so Merlin cast a spell on the stones that made them weightless.”

  “Couldn’t the giants stop them?” Fred’s wife said, but she just wanted to hear him talk.

  “That’s the Irish for you,” the British historian said. “Probably sleeping one off.”

  They’d found other things as well. In the ditch, in the mound. A decapitated Saxon.

  Or it was a UFO landing site. Or a place of ancestral worship. Or it was a gatepost to parallel worlds.

  The British historian pointed to the northeast portal, the one they’d come through. It had been aligned so the midsummer sun would rise there, so that there the midwinter sun would set. He said solstice, equinox, latitude, and these were words Fred knew the way he knew miter, mortise, and tenon.

  “In June this place is crawling with hippies,” the British historian said, but it was November and there were no white robes to be seen. The Heelstone leaned toward them through the mist just outside the portal, eyeless, a crack like a frown in a face. It leans through the Ages—Stone and Bronze and Iron. There was a fence behind it, someone had a wedged a beer can in the crack. Behind the fence was the highway that ran between Amesbury and Winterbourne Stoke. You could feel the vibrations under your feet.

  Fred reached for it.

  In the evening the British historian showed them Chelsea. He showed them the statue of Thomas More and the headquarters of the Chelsea Football Club. They saw the home of Oscar Wilde and he took them down King’s Road where Mick Jagger and the Beatles had lived. It rained bitterly. They sat in a famous pub, drank a pint. The British historian, who’d been drinking most of the day and was just starting to show signs of it, was also famous for being late and by the time they got to the Old Town Hall there were barely ten minutes to go before Fred was to give his presentation.

  A news crew from Thames Television was there. So were a small contingent of metro police officers who remained outside the building in custodian helmets and shiny greatcoats. So was the Frenchman who’d called him from Toronto—had it been five years already? six?—who would not only precede Fred onstage, but had arranged for him to speak in Cologne. He pressed his face to Fred’s but there was no time to talk; the British historian was already onstage, a little unsteady, making the introductions.

  “Without fur ado,” he said, “I give you,” and shook the Frenchman’s hand, for he did not believe men should embrace.

  “It is my great honor,” the Frenchman said not thirty minutes later, “to give you,” and Fred stepped behind the podium to the greatest reception he’d ever known. He stood under the ornate ceiling of the Main Hall, the dimmed chandeliers, the rain clamoring against the great dark windows as if in accord or condemnation. His wife sat in the front row but he couldn’t see her. He recycled a joke from the repertory, let the audience make it new, then thanked the Frenchman and recalled the first time he’d heard his accent…late January…grip of winter… He noticed them looking off to his side and then the British historian was standing next to him.

  “Excuse me,” Fred said. The British historian whispered into his ear and Fred looked at him and looked back at the audience. He apologized and said he would be right back and followed the historian offstage.

  In the anteroom a man in a long white slicker stood with three policemen.

  “Terribly sorry about this,” the chief inspector said, “but may I see your passport and some identification?”

  Fred gave him his passport and his driver’s license. The chief inspector returned Fred’s license but kept his passport and Fred asked what it was about.

  “I’m terribly sorry, sir,” the chief inspector said, “but I’m afraid I must ask you to accompany us to the station.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Not at all,” the chief inspector said. He was sorry again, frightfully this time. “Orders from the Home Secretary.”

  “Is my passport properly stamped?”

  “Absolutely, sir. I’m sure it’s all a lot of rubbish, but I’m afraid the law requires that you remain with us till we’ve cleared things up,” the chief inspector said.

  “What if I refuse?” Fred said.

  “Then we’ll have to place you under arrest.” With all due regret.

  “What do you call this?”

  “You’re being detained on suspicion.”

  Fred gestured vaguely, no longer sure where things were. “My wife.”

  “She has a serious illness,” the British historian said in a fair impersonation of sobriety, though he couldn’t seem to remember exactly what the illness was.

  “Very good, sir,” the chief inspector said, and sent one of the officers to collect her.

  They rode to the police station in an unmarked van. At the station they were installed in a visitor’s room with no other visitors and the chief inspector asked Fred if he wished to call the American consulate.

  “I don’t want to talk to anybody unless they can get me out of here,” Fred said.

  “Very good, sir, but I’m afraid you’ll have to stay with us until your status has been determined.”

  “But I’m not under arrest.”

  “Not at all, sir, you’re being detained till we’ve determined your status. Would you like some coffee? Tea perhaps?”

  “I don’t drink tea,” Fred said.

  “Do you have anything I could snack on?” Fred’s wife said. She described her condition. She said she didn’t always get symptoms.

  “Very good, then,” the chief inspector said. “I’ll see to it.” And he left the room, deferential as a butler.

  She did not like his accent as much as the British historian’s, and they did not hear it again.

  They had tea and coffee a
nd biscuits. The station personnel were polite and accommodating. They waited. Plastic contour chairs and thin stained carpeting, no television and nothing to read. Fred’s wife kept her legs up on one of the chairs.

  She used the bathroom. Used the loo. They called her mum.

  Just before midnight a young woman came in and sat down. She wore a yellow poncho and a resigned look, as if she’d done this before. She took off the poncho but not the look. She asked if they could spare a fag, and Fred’s wife smiled; people were always asking each other for fags. The girl looked Indian. Fred gave her one of his.

  Just after the young woman the deputy chief inspector came in with two policemen. He apologized and told Fred he was under arrest.

  Fred’s wife said, “Oh.”

  Fred asked what he was being charged with. The policemen stood to either side of him.

  “To be perfectly honest I’m not sure,” the deputy chief inspector said. “I’ve just received orders from the Home Office.”

  “I demand we be allowed to leave the country,” Fred said, now standing. His foot seemed to be asleep. He swayed. The two policemen took his arms and didn’t let go.

  “I’m afraid that isn’t possible just yet, sir. Would you like to speak with the duty solicitor?”

  “I’d like to speak with the American consulate.”

  “Very good, sir, that will be arranged. Now if you’ll just come this way.”

  “My wife,” Fred said.

  “We’ll look after her, sir,” the deputy chief inspector said.

  “You look after him,” Fred’s wife said, and when they’d gone she cried for a time. The Indian-looking girl called her love, consoled her with a copy of The Sun.

  They searched him and booked him and put him in a cell. Gave him a blanket. The cell was unheated and damp and he sat on a cot wrapped in the blanket. He got up and paced for a while, trying to warm himself, then sat back down. A mouse crawled out from under the cot. Fred looked at the mouse and it ran back under the cot. About an hour later they came and told him the under consul was on the phone.

  They took him to a large office filled with desks. Civilians sat in chairs by some of the desks looking blank or nervous or defiantly bored. Some in handcuffs, some drunk. Characters with colorful language. Violin stories. No bovver. It’s him what give em to me. Share it up. Men in blue tunics and white shirts, typing. They sat Fred down and handed him a phone.

  “What’s the problem over there?” It was good to hear an American voice, but either he’d just woken up or he was slightly drunk.

  Fred said his name into the phone.

  “Well that’s a start. What’s going on?”

  “I’m under arrest.”

  “And what do you want me to do about it?”

  “Well…”

  “So what did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Right. So what do they think you did?”

  “They’re saying I’m in the country illegally. Or I might be.”

  “Might be. You have a passport?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is it stamped?”

  “Yes. I showed it to them.”

  “And they arrested you anyway.”

  “I’m calling from the police station.”

  “Right. Now what aren’t you telling me?”

  “That’s it. I came here to give a speech. My passport is in order.”

  “What kind of speech?”

  “I can’t go into it over the phone. Can you come to the station so we can talk in person?”

  Fred wasn’t sure but he thought he heard the under consul say, “In a pig’s ass.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I know what kind of speech it was, you son of a bitch.”

  Now he was sure. He lowered the receiver and looked at the policeman whose phone he was using. The policeman didn’t look back. Fred could hear the under consul’s voice. He lifted the receiver and said, “I don’t think I care for your language, sir. Let me remind you of something.”

  “My father landed at Normandy,” the under consul was saying. “He lost a leg at Omaha Beach so you could make speeches.”

  “My father served in the Pacific.”

  “He must be turning over in his grave.”

  “I’m an American citizen,” Fred said.

  “Making speeches for the cocksuckers who took his leg.”

  “It’s your job to help me.”

  “Don’t tell me my goddamn job,” the under consul said. “You want help? Here’s some advice, citizen: Next time you go to a foreign country, don’t go around breaking their laws. And if you do, call a goddamn lawyer.”

  The under consul hung up. Fred stared at the phone. He stared at it till the policeman at whose desk he was sitting took it gently away from him.

  “I demand to speak to the duty solicitor,” Fred demanded softly, though he wasn’t quite sure what the duty solicitor did.

  “No problem at all, Your Lordship. We’ll ring him for you straight away,” the policeman said. “Meanwhile I’d be honored to escort His Highness back to his quarters till such time as his arse can be got hold of.”

  They took him back to his cell. There was another man there now, snoring on the cot, up to his eyes in the blanket. Fred wondered how colorful this character might be. He sat on the floor with his back against the wall and wrapped his arms around himself, within the colder embrace. When they came back for him his teeth were chattering like some wind-up gag from a novelty shop. They took him back to the same large office but sat him at a different desk and gave him another phone.

  He heard a yawn still in the duty solicitor’s voice. “How can I be of help, sir?”

  Fred asked him exactly what a duty solicitor was. His teeth kept chattering.

  “I believe what you call in the States a public defender,” the duty solicitor said.

  “Well what are my options here?”

  “Depends,” the duty solicitor said. “What’s the charge?”

  “There doesn’t seem to be one.”

  “No charge then? So why do you suppose you’re being held?”

  “I don’t want to go into detail over the phone…they’re saying I’m in the country illegally.”

  “And who might they be?”

  “I’m not sure…Home Office?”

  Fred wasn’t sure again, but thought he heard the duty solicitor say fuck. He would have preferred blast.

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Yes,” the duty solicitor said. “Is your passport in order, then?”

  “Yes.”

  “And do they know this?”

  “I gave it to the chief inspector.”

  “Ah,” the duty solicitor said. “Well then, Fred—Fred, is it?”

  “Yes,” Fred said.

  “Yes,” the duty solicitor said. “I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do for you then. Fred.”

  “Nothing you can do,” Fred said. He found himself almost assuming the duty solicitor’s accent. “Why can’t you do anything?”

  “You haven’t committed a crime.”

  “I know that, but” it stopped there. There was no more thought. Only sounds in imitation of it. “There must be something.”

  “I’d advise you to call the American consulate.”

  “The American consulate.”

  “That’s right, sir.” He didn’t say Fred anymore. “It’s his duty to help you.”

  “His duty,” Fred said, and the duty solicitor said something else. He kept talking but Fred held the receiver away from his head, let the voice drain into the air like emptying a cup. Then he hung up and they led him back to his cell. Stopped at the lavatory on the way because the cell had no toilet. He wanted a cigarette. He asked after his wife but they seemed not to know who he was talking about.

  He tried to sleep but could only sit there hugging himself, jacket buttoned to his neck. He heard his cellmate masturbating in his sleep a yard away.

  “Blue suede shoes…not b
y half,” his cellmate muttered. The blanket puffing out like some parodic lovestruck heartbeat.

  He did not know what time it had become when the two men from the Immigration Department came to see him. They got him out of his cell and had him taken to an interrogation room. There was a table with a microphone and tape recorder, and he sat across the table from the men from the Immigration Department, punch drunk and shivering. His teeth were chattering again and in his head sounded like a jackhammer breaking up a sidewalk.

  One of them said, “You don’t have to make a statement if you don’t wish to.”

  When he could manage it, Fred told the tape recorder his name. One of the men from Immigration asked his date of birth and Fred said, “Why? You sending me a card? I’m an American citizen. I demand to return to my homeland immediately.”

  The men from Immigration said it was not possible for him to leave the country at this time.

  “I have been falsely arrested and illegally in prison,” Fred said into the microphone. Certain words didn’t seem to make it out of his mouth intact. “I’m an American citizen.”

  “I legally entered this country through Dover,” he said. “I am in a cell without toilet facilities…I haven’t slept in two days.”

  “We suggest you call the American consulate at this time,” one of the men from Immigration said. “Or the duty solicitor. Charges may be brought.”

  “I’ve been placed in a cell with a criminal who may or may not be aware of my occupation,” Fred said. “I entered in Dover.”

  “What kind of charges?” he said.

  “That has yet to be determined,” and they handed him an immigration form. He bent his head toward the microphone and raised his voice, though they’d told him this wasn’t necessary.

  “My wife has also been legally detained,” he said. “She suffers from serious medical, and I have not been permitted to see her.”

  The men from Immigration looked at each other. “Your wife is being seen to,” one of them said.

  “If you’re deported she may have to stay behind,” the other one said.

  “And your rental car.”

  “You won’t be permitted to leave through Dover,” the other one said.