Beautiful Revolutionary

by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

  ‘Demerara,’ Lenny repeats, touching the bronze lettering on the label. He raises it to his lips once more. It tastes good, he decides, like burnt sugar.

  ‘Oh …’ Minnie hesitates as he offers it again. ‘Oh, fine.’

  He watches her long lashes lower, casting shadows on the tired puffs beneath her eyes. Her full lips encircling the bottle. Her long neck rippling as she swallows. Beautiful.

  Minnie dabs her mouth. ‘Have you seen my folks lately?’

  ‘Oh … yeah.’ Burning, he bunches the blanket strategically over his groin, tries to think of something to say about Minnie’s folks, still in the US. ‘All the time. They’re proud of you.’

  ‘Prouder of Alice, though.’

  She may be joking, yet he can’t be sure. Though he’s never considered it before, it’s possible Minnie feels the same about her younger, law-graduate sister as he does about Beth.

  ‘Proud of you both,’ Lenny says, then remembers Ursa, the white sister. ‘Proud of you all.’

  Minnie nods, grateful for the correction. ‘Ursa loves Jonestown. Loves the animals.’ She passes the bottle. ‘She’s been working in the piggery. But Antonio Anteater is her favorite.’

  Lenny laughs, drinks. ‘Antonio.’

  ‘There’s no place in the world like it, Lenny. Everyone has a purpose, regardless of their handicaps. It’s a society completely free of prejudice.’

  Of course, Lenny has heard all this before. In Terra’s rare letters home. His mother’s letters. Phil Sorensen’s films. But for Minnie, he nods like he’s hearing it for the first time.

  ‘It’s the best place in the world. I’d give anything to keep it going. I’d give my life.’

  She looks sad. Lenny wonders if he should kiss her; wonders if Terra would mind.

  He leans forward, blanket slipping a little past his chest hair. But Minnie just looks to the side. ‘Uh-oh. We’ve got a friend.’

  Lenny looks, too: a cockroach, scuttling into the empty bucket. It has orange stripes, like a tiger. ‘Don’t kill it,’ he urges, awestruck.

  Minnie throws back her head and laughs. ‘Well, I wasn’t planning on it, Lenny.’ She laughs some more; he didn’t know he was so funny. ‘Oh, Lenny.’

  Then she takes the bottle from him and swigs. He inches closer.

  They’re sitting very close, taking turns on the bottle, when a thump sounds somewhere beyond the porch. ‘What the …?’ Lenny looks vaguely in the direction of the thump; his head feels heavy and lit up as a chandelier. Minnie stifles a snort. Minnie is drunk.

  So’s Roger, it seems, when he shambles onto the porch a moment later, blond hair tousled, cheeks red. He takes in the rum bottle, his wife’s shiny face, Lenny’s shirtlessness.

  ‘Hey, Roger,’ Lenny says, trying hard not to giggle.

  ‘Hi, Roger,’ Minnie echoes, failing.

  Roger takes a few steps. Spies the cockroach in the bucket. ‘That’s fucking disgusting.’

  ‘Don’t … don’t kill it,’ Lenny objects weakly.

  Minnie sputters helplessly. Roger sneers, shakes his head, and strides indoors.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Minnie says, wiping her laughing eyes.

  Lenny laughs, too, joyfully lets slip what he’s always thought: ‘Roger’s kind of a dick.’

  ‘Oh … he’s not so bad,’ Minnie demurs, then sobers. ‘He’s had a hard time with what happened with his dad, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh … yeah.’ Lenny feels a shockwave of profound awfulness, remembering Gene Luce, found in two pieces on some railway tracks. ‘Poor Gene.’

  ‘Poor Gene.’ Minnie sighs. ‘Roger says he’s glad he’s dead. But it’s still his dad, you know? Even if he was a traitor.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lenny wouldn’t normally ask, but with Minnie, it feels okay. ‘Do you really think it’s “bad karma”? How Gene wrote that letter saying he was leaving, then gets hit by a train the same week?’

  ‘If there is such a thing as karma, there are people way more deserving of a moving train than Brother Gene.’ Minnie scowls. ‘Robert Chambliss. Bobby Cherry. Don’t ask me to write a list; I’ll be writing forever.’

  Lenny feels bad for his dumb question. ‘I guess it’s just bad luck.’

  ‘Bad luck — I’ll drink to that.’ Minnie swigs, passes Lenny the bottle. ‘It was a bad way for Gene to go. In some ways, I don’t blame Bobbi for lashing out; it’s obvious she’s grieving. But to say we could do that, to one of our own …’ Her eyes gloss over. ‘I still remember one time, back in Indianapolis, he took Roger and me to the precinct for the day, let us do our fingerprints. He was telling us all about the different types: loops, whorls, arches. I thought it was magic. We must’ve been six, seven.’

  ‘I don’t think I know anyone I knew when I was seven.’

  Minnie smiles sadly at the white curtains. Then, out of the blue: ‘He’s in love with this Guyanese woman. Odessa.’

  ‘Roger?’ Lenny tries not to look too excited when she nods. ‘… You don’t mind?’

  Minnie shakes her head. ‘We haven’t had that kind of relationship in a long time.’

  Lenny considers how to respond: That’s too bad, or, You can do better than Roger anyway, or, Neither have me and Terra. Thinking this, it sure seems true, but he doesn’t want to admit it aloud, any more than he wanted to admit to things souring between him and Evelyn all those years ago. Before he can say anything else, Minnie starts to cry softly. So he just says, ‘Hey.’

  ‘It doesn’t bother me,’ she repeats. ‘So long as Roger doesn’t forget his commitments.’ She dashes a tear. ‘There’s this “confirmed bachelor”. Old money. He owns a lot of the newspapers here. Roger spends a lot of time with him … for the Cause.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lenny thinks of the shiny black car, Roger’s tight pants. ‘Right.’

  ‘It’s not forever.’ Minnie puts her hand on his arm. ‘Please don’t tell him I told you.’

  Lenny looks at her hand. ‘I won’t.’

  ‘There’s just so many things … It’s good to talk. You’re a good listener.’

  ‘So are you,’ Lenny says clumsily. ‘I mean, I like listening.’

  He puts his hand on hers. It feels good. She looks good, really good …

  ‘For shame! That’s our best rum! ’ Joya storms onto the porch. Lenny and Minnie jerk apart, mumble apologies. Joya snatches up the depleted bottle. ‘I’m writing you both up!’

  ‘No. It’s my fault …’ Minnie rises, smoothing her dress. Lenny thought the dress was white before, but now he can see it’s a dusty rose color. ‘Lenny’s new here.’

  Joya scoffs at Lenny’s shirtless chest. ‘He’s not that new.’ Then she notices the roach. ‘Yucky-yuck-yuck!’ she cries, and empties the bucket over the porch. She returns it to Lenny. ‘Use that if you have to vomit. Is there anything else Mister needs? ’

  Though her tone is sarcastic, Lenny is thirsty enough to ask, ‘… Maybe some water?’

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Minnie offers.

  ‘You will not,’ Joya cuts in. ‘Go to the radio room. We’re recording testimonies.’

  With drunken composure, Minnie goes in. Lenny watches her go: dust-pink dress, dark legs, yellowish soles of her feet. Joya watches him watching.

  ‘You should be ashamed of yourself,’ she spits.

  She tightens the cap on the rum and flounces inside after Minnie, leaving Lenny alone on the porch. He looks at the white netting, touched with first light. Hears a rooster crow and, further off, men chanting, marching … soldiers?

  Head splitting, he settles into a new day’s shame.

  4.

  Meet here in two hours. The boat for Jonestown leaves at five, Dot Luce-Jones instructs them as she parks outside the town hall, and though she isn’t as scary as her mom, Lenny still has every intention of obeying. He piles out of the van with Norm, Bruce, and Ir
ving. Donna and Nikki, an auburn-haired white chick with mousy teeth, follow with sacks over their shoulders like Santa Claus.

  ‘The market is a couple of streets over.’ Donna points, then steps into the traffic with Nikki. Nikki is wearing Minnie’s rose-colored dress. It looked better on Minnie.

  Cabs and buses honk as they shadow Donna and Nikki across the road. They pass a statue of Queen Victoria. A big wooden church, still smattered with Sunday worshippers, though it’s past lunchtime. Lenny’s stomach is clogged from the fatty soul-food lunch cooked up by the old ladies. When they enter the market and are hit with food smells, his stomach turns.

  ‘They got Coca-Cola here too! Hot damn,’ Norm notes enthusiastically.

  Bruce mumbles something about wanting his Coke with rum and shuffles off. The chicks weave ahead with their sacks. Irving strides into the swell of bodies like a surfer without a board.

  ‘Five finger!’ A hand grabs Lenny’s arm. He instinctively looks at its five fingers. Then another set of fingers slip a slimy star-shaped fruit onto his palm. ‘Try.’

  ‘Oh, no. Thanks,’ Lenny tells the owner of the fingers, feeling rude in spite of his politeness, for she’s skinny and old and brown.

  ‘Five finger. Starfruit!’ the woman insists, making a twinkle-star motion.

  ‘Yeah, cool …’ Lenny nods and smiles. Tries to give the fruit back. She won’t let him.

  ‘Try.’ She pats her flat midriff; she’s wearing a sari. Lenny looks around, but even Norm is beyond reach, crowded up to a drink vendor. He gives in; pops the fruit. It’s firm yet oily, like a grape, tart to taste.

  ‘Good!’ she exclaims joyously. She casts around for more fruit. ‘Try, try …’

  Again, Lenny refuses; again, she persists, feeding him tiny bananas, guava, breadfruit, laughing at him. Then she starts gathering fruit into a plastic bag. ‘Sorry, I can’t—’

  ‘Very good,’ the woman stresses. ‘Good for you.’

  ‘Yeah, just …’ Lenny shakes a stream of pennies from his wallet. ‘That’s all I have.’

  Her expression grows taut, calculating. Wordlessly, she removes all but one starfruit from the bag, scrapes the change from his palm, waves him away.

  Strange fruits. Fruit drinks. Flower drinks. Tree-bark drinks. Alien-esque vegetables. Mounds of spices like bright dirt. Hands dart at him. Women with black hair and nose studs smile at him, and he’s torn between smiling back and knowing he’s both broke and married. From afar, he sees Donna and Nikki negotiating with a toyseller, and his instinct is to avoid them. He smells something sweet, skunky, and is buoyed by a Pavlovian wave of euphoria.

  He follows the scent to a stall, hung with beads, woven baskets. Two dreadlocked dudes with a glass pipe. They look at Lenny with unfazed dark eyes.

  ‘Yes, sah?’ says the younger one, a powerfully-built guy in a Harley-Davidson T-shirt.

  ‘Hey.’ Lenny looks around. ‘Cool store.’

  ‘It cool,’ Harley agrees, then looks at his pal, a fat guy in a Yankees cap and dashiki. They laugh. Yankees takes a hit.

  ‘Hey … smells good.’ Lenny signals at the smoke hopefully.

  ‘It good.’ Yankees passes the pipe on to Harley. They laugh again.

  ‘Is it … legal here?’ Lenny asks, wide-eyed.

  ‘We pay small fee, police don’t mind.’ Harley looks at him sidelong. ‘You want?’

  ‘I spent all my money,’ Lenny confesses, showing his starfruit. They laugh more.

  ‘Whereyoucomefrom, man?’ Yankees volleys with almost aggressive cheer.

  ‘California.’ Lenny watches the smoke curl. ‘I’m going to Jonestown. You know it?’

  Both guys mmm, nod, don’t elaborate. Lenny looks at the beads: shells, seed pods, red-yellow-green. ‘That’s some nice jacket you wearin’, sah,’ Harley remarks.

  ‘Yeah?’ In fact, the jacket is new, chosen by the lady who does Dr. Lynden’s shopping.

  ‘Very nice. Made in America?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Lenny shrugs it off, shows the label. Passing the pipe to Yankees, Harley examines the stitched lettering, the little polo player.

  ‘Jacket like this, you won’t be needing in Jonestown … We keep this jacket. Okay?’

  Lenny smiles. Yankees is already offering up the pipe.

  It’s good weed. The best he’s had in years, which isn’t saying much, since it has been years. So many years, it’s almost like that first time in college, getting high with those guys from his Philosophy class who Marianne would later (not incorrectly) accuse him of spending too much time with. But Harley says, ‘We don’t smoke to get high like Americans. We smoke for meditation,’ and Lenny likes the sound of this, as he likes the sound of the beads playing through his fingers. He notices a purse with pretty woven patterns, and his heart swells, his mind strains longingly. Then a hand reaches through the beads to give Yankees a bowl of saltfish. Salt. Fish. Ocean.

  ‘I have to be on a boat …’ Lenny panics. ‘The boat leaves at five.’

  Yankees checks his watch through a mouthful of saltfish. ‘Four-thirty only.’

  Lenny stands; the floor reels like a boat’s deck. ‘Thanks … Nice to meet you … Peace.’

  It’s anything but peaceful, finding his way back to the meeting point. Hooting traffic. A man in uniform he crosses the street to avoid. A black dog with an untethered eyeball. When the van screeches up beside him, his instinct is to shrink away.

  ‘Lenny! Get in!’ Dot orders, sounding a lot like her mom.

  He gets in. It’s crowded. Both Norm and Bruce reek of liquor.

  ‘Irving isn’t with you?’ Nikki asks anxiously. ‘You didn’t see Irving anywhere?’

  Lenny manages to shake his head. The girls hiss, ‘He’s gonna have to get the next boat out,’ and, ‘We’re in deep shit.’ Relieved, Lenny sits back.

  Somehow, while Lenny is focused on camouflaging himself with the upholstery, they arrive at the port. The sky a hazy peach-scape, flung with white birds. Raw-edged shipping containers. Dock cats he longs to pet. The Rosaline is being packed with supplies.

  On jelly-legs, he waits for the call to board, then does.

  By nightfall, he’s puking his guts out.

  Puking, and shitting, and when he isn’t puking or shitting, strung out in the moaning twilight of the deck. Lanterns turn faces Halloween-orange, fizzle out as new waves crash onboard. Someone comes by with waterproof jackets, and then, as the night wettens, life jackets.

  Lenny wonders if this is how he’ll die.

  He closes his eyes and tries to pretend he’s dead, but there’s too much going on, inside and outside. He’s unable to distinguish inside from outside, the churning of the ocean from his churning guts and mind. Drowned bodies. Woven purses. Minnie. Evelyn. Marianne, crying. The pool in the Berkeley Hills, with Marianne, with Evelyn, with his siblings, with the uniformed maids serving lemonade on ice. X-rays. More crying. His mother, Liesl, taking him to a Jewish ghetto in Salzburg and crying over aunts, cousins he knew nothing about. Gassed bodies. Liesl’s long cigarettes, curling with smoke. Patterns swirling, containing all the meaning in the world, if only he could hold still enough to see everything at once.

  Maybe he sleeps. It’s a new day; someone brings rice. The TigerBeat girl, Daisy, teeters across the deck on coltish legs, leans over the edge, sweet-cheeked in tiny terry shorts, and throws up her rice.

  Lenny throws up again. Someone brings water, clear but salty, or maybe it’s his lips that are salty. He sleeps, and dreams he’s a dying soldier — white sails, black sails.

  He wakes. The Rosaline has moored, and people are rising. ‘Are we in Jonestown?’ he asks hopefully, but no; someone gives him a crate of rum to carry. Off the boat and into a village clearing, where Jorge Harrison from the boat crew is bartering with some locals. Lenny places the crate down. Brown girls with startlingly smooth, pretty faces pe
ek out at him from behind shanties, and he looks at the red dirt rather than back at them, they’re so young. After a while, some men haul out slabs of meat, cut slices. The meat is smoky, fishy, surprising. A rum bottle is opened, and the village men smell the contents, taste, nod. An exchange is made.

  ‘Shark meat,’ Jorge explains, as they trek back with the meat on their shoulders. ‘We’re approaching the mouth of the river. The waters will be calmer from here.’

  Lenny sleeps. He wakes, cotton-mouthed and foggy, to Coca-Cola waters, hanging vines, views like something out of Evelyn’s old National Geographic magazines. He wishes he was high.

  Someone brings rice. ‘Mekong River, ’68,’ Bruce says, and Lenny nods, feels evasively respectful, like he always does when guys his age compare scars and locations.

  Jorge walks around shirtless, back muscles glazed and rippling. Bruce takes off his shirt, too, lies supine and barrel-chested, dark skin dappled with greenish light. Even Norm, pasty-brown and flabby, strips off. Lenny follows. Jonestown, he thinks, and the thought feels like sunshine, like fanning feathers, like the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

  When he next wakes, the river is a sludgy piss-yellow, his skin tight and itchy: sunburn. The old ladies are singing again — Deep River, My home is over Jordan — and others are joining in, and soon so’s Lenny, voice weak but happy, so happy to be here. Thatched roofs. Brown legs running. Smoke. ‘Port Kaituma: six miles from Jonestown.’ The Rosaline docks.

  There’s a red flatbed truck, waiting. They pile on. Lenny stands looking over the edge, until it becomes clear there’s nothing to see, and the journey will be long.

  He slumps down. Closes his eyes against the truck’s jolts, the metallic red thunking in his brain. Until a siren cuts the air, and a sign appears:

  WELCOME TO JONESTOWN

  PEOPLES TEMPLE AGRICULTURAL PROJECT

  Lenny is silent, gaping at the observation tower above the canopy. Everyone is. A silence that widens as the view does; fields, black workers in fields, an occasional red-tan white person. Then barns, cabins, small and spartan, huddled together. ‘V’ry nice,’ an old lady mumbles. Some army-green tents emerge and, in the distance, the pavilion. The truck churns to a stop.