Beautiful Revolutionary

by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

  ‘Two rats in the house: white male, black female,’ Phil murmurs in Evelyn’s ear as Rosaline wishes the people peace, sweet dreams. ‘They’ve requested help from the Congressman.’

  The pavilion gradually stirs, clears, until only guests and a few guards remain.

  ‘We can stay overnight,’ Don Gonzalez suggests as they mill around, awaiting their ride. ‘Save you trucking us back to Port Kaituma.’

  ‘We don’t need beds,’ Mike Yi affirms. ‘These benches here are fine.’

  ‘There’s no place for you here!’ Jim barks, startled by their nerve. ‘Not possible. No, no.’

  They back Jim up, and the matter is dropped. Hands are shaken. Rosaline makes a First Lady-like show of ambling away, arm-in-arm with Jim, though they only go as far as the radio yard. ‘I dunno … It really seems like they like it here,’ Bobbi confides in Wayne Bud.

  ‘What a disappointment that must be for you,’ Evelyn taunts, coming up behind them. ‘I’m sure you were hoping for something exciting like a concentration camp.’

  ‘I’m just glad my family are safe.’ Wayne shoulders his backpack and stalks toward the flatbed truck.

  In the shadows beyond the headlamps, Phil is conversing with the NBC cameraman.

  ‘Off the record? I don’t think he’ll be around much longer …’ Phil nods toward the pavilion and, in so doing, catches Evelyn’s eye. Half-smiles.

  Stomach snaking, Evelyn makes her way to the radio yard, where Jim is ranting softly to Rosaline. ‘Benches … I ain’t stupid … They be bugging them benches … Probably bugged already …’ He lurches; notices Evelyn. ‘I want every bench checked! Check ’em, now! Vulture bastards—’

  Evelyn helps Rosaline steady Jim, walk him inside the radio shed.

  ‘We’ll get security to do a full sweep of the pavilion,’ Evelyn assures Jim as they lay him on the daybed. From Rosaline’s harassed look, it’s clear she hasn’t mentioned the defectors.

  Jim is still ranting about bugs, Congressman Hanson’s phony-progressive entourage of ‘spics and chinks’, when Mona and Frida let themselves in. Mona, looking the part of the good daughter in a full-skirted white sundress, unclips a gold cross from her neck.

  ‘Papa tried to give me Nonna Sofia’s crucifix,’ she says. ‘I don’t want it.’

  The offering calms Jim. ‘What are those, rubies?’ Mona nods, and Jim closes it in his fist, smirks. ‘Pawn it in Georgetown … Them rich Guyanese love Catholic shit.’

  Evelyn steps back out to the radio yard. Phil and Danny Luce are discussing Bobbi, what a train-wreck she’s become since leaving the Temple. ‘Please do a security sweep of the pavilion,’ she instructs Danny.

  To Phil, she says, ‘Find Dr. Katz. We’ll need him on hand when we tell Jim.’

  ‘Where’d you go? Who you talking to? ’ Jim booms upon her return to the radio shed.

  ‘I was arranging an inspection of the pavilion, as you requested. Father.’

  ‘Don’t think I don’t see y’all whispering … Talking circles around me … Don’t think I can’t read your minds,’ Jim grumbles. ‘Tell me what you got. I can see you. Tell me.’

  Evelyn exchanges glances with Frida, Mona, Rosaline.

  ‘There’s a situation. Two potential defectors.’

  ‘They’re just fieldworkers,’ Frida offers gently. ‘They’re nothing.’

  ‘They know nothing,’ Mona reassures him. ‘They can’t hurt us, Father.’

  ‘Two outta nine hundred, Jim,’ Rosaline says. ‘We’re doing good.’

  The door squeaks open; Phil and Dr. Katz.

  Jim sits forward, gaping. Droops his head and vomits on Mona’s dress.

  3.

  ‘It went okay,’ Phil tells their people in Georgetown over the radio, and it’s true; no White Nights, no stranglings, Jim sedated and spirited back to West House by Mona and Frida. Okay. He smiles at Evelyn; no, Rosaline; he’s smiling at Rosaline. ‘Want to talk to your sons?’

  Rosaline nods, gets on the radio to Jimmy Jr., Martin Luther, and Paolo, who are in the capital for the week playing basketball; they just lost to the Guyanese national team.

  ‘Well, the important thing is that you had fun,’ Rosaline coos as Evelyn shuffles papers.

  Once the call is concluded, Evelyn hands Rosaline the next day’s running order.

  ‘I think it’s best if you start with the nursery. Show them the babies in the sunroom.’

  Again, Rosaline nods. ‘I’ll do that.’ She studies the paper, then hands it back. ‘All those beautiful babies. We’ve got everything to live for.’

  ‘Right,’ Phil says. ‘You’re so right. We’ll make sure they see that.’

  Rosaline rises. Looks from Phil to Evelyn. ‘Well … I guess I’ll turn in.’

  ‘Let me walk you to your cottage,’ Phil offers, and though Rosaline refuses, he won’t take no for an answer.

  In Phil’s absence, Evelyn changes the wavelength, speaks to an operator, waits through the static for word from San Francisco. Phil comes back in, starts rubbing her shoulders.

  ‘You’re going to end up a hunchback, Evie.’

  The radio continues to whirr and snow. Phil takes off her headset.

  ‘We’re ready. Whatever tomorrow brings,’ he says in her ear. She closes her eyes and leans into the dig of his fingers, tension dissolving. ‘Seriously, Evie … Watch how you sit. It’s gonna take me hours to work through all these knots.’

  ‘We don’t have hours.’

  ‘How long do we have?’

  She doesn’t answer. Phil turns her chair around, tilts her chin upward. She opens her eyes to his belt buckle; her reflection in it, gray and small. ‘How long do we have?’ Phil repeats.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  On the bottom bunk, Soul sleeps with Sally-Ann, starfished on his back, fat cheeks aflame. Too cute to wake. On the top bunk, less cute, Frida snores with her long white feet in Mona’s face. Evelyn takes off her sandals; tiptoes into Jim’s room.

  The bed is unmade. Jim isn’t in it.

  A ghost of relief rises up in her, only to be smothered by a pall of dread. Sandals in hand, Evelyn exits the cabin.

  Around the back of the cabin, Mona’s white dress flutters on the line. Beyond it, in last night’s clothes, Jim watches Dr. Katz squeeze a syringe of liquid into a dog’s mouth.

  He sees her, she’s sure, though nothing in his attitude indicates it. Just the general supposition that he always sees her.

  She treads across the dewy grass to Jim and Dr. Katz, just avoiding the lifeless body of another canine, flakes of red at its mouth.

  She crosses her arms and watches Jim and Katz watch the dog: walking in circles, panting, whimpering, vomiting blood. Retreating under a titi to yelp, roll, spasm.

  ‘Th’other was faster?’ Jim grumbles. ‘This a weaker blend?’

  ‘It’s the same blend,’ Katz explains. ‘The first dog was a juvenile.’

  Jim nods, puckers his lips. ‘Any way to make it the same for everyone?’

  ‘There are always going to be variations based on individual physiology. But we can keep it under five minutes for everyone.’

  ‘Bring that dog.’ Jim points to the dog under the titi tree. ‘Lay it next to its comrade.’

  Katz, no doubt inured to odd requests, starts dragging the dog through the early blue-dark. High in the sky, a chalky three-quarter moon. The morning star, laser-bright.

  Jim crouches next to the dogs; stroking one, then the other. ‘Darlings. My darlings.’

  Evelyn watches Mona’s dress dance in the breeze. Katz clears his throat.

  ‘Peace, my darlings.’ Jim looks at Katz. ‘Thank you, Harry … You may go now.’

  Katz skulks away. Jim keeps petting the dogs, talking to them in a childlike hush.

  Evelyn takes a step backward, listing on
her feet. She looks at the sandals in her hands. Her pale toes flecked with dirt. Objective, she thinks. Be objective.

  She steps toward Jim. ‘Why aren’t you sleeping?’

  Jim ignores her. She repeats the question. Still, he ignores her. She takes a step closer.

  ‘Father,’ she coaxes, hand on his shoulder. ‘Come to bed.’

  Jim looks up at her. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he says mildly. ‘No, no, Evelyn … Why don’t you come down here?’

  Evelyn, too, is inured to odd requests. With a sigh, she crouches beside him. He takes up her pale hand and places it on the nearest dog. ‘Feel,’ he says. ‘Isn’t she peaceful? Feel.’

  ‘Yes. Very peaceful.’

  It isn’t an American dog, soft and well-fed; the bones are stark, the fur coarse. A ridge of leathery teats. She can smell the toxin, clean-bitter beneath the clamminess of blood, sweat.

  She drops her hand. Wipes it off on her trousers and rises. ‘Come to bed,’ she repeats.

  ‘Why?’ Jim snarls. ‘You think I want you? You think you got anything to give me?’

  When she doesn’t answer, he laughs; staggers to his feet.

  ‘You think I want this?’ He makes a grab for her crotch. ‘Think your boyfriend wants it?’ As he pokes and prods beyond her waistband, Evelyn wills herself not to think of where his fingers have just been. ‘Honey, you ain’t twenty-three no more. Hell, even when you were … weren’t exactly turning heads in the street. He could have anyone, and he chooses a humorless bitch with a bastard child? It don’t line up.’

  Jim withdraws his fingers; dries them off on the pussybow at her neck.

  ‘Soon as he gets a taste of power, my kinda power, he’ll throw you under the bus. Your baby, too. I’m sorry, darlin’.’

  ‘You’re not sorry, you lying shit.’ Evelyn draws back, sneering. But she can’t keep the hurt from her voice, completely. ‘Soul is your baby, as much as mine.’

  ‘Course he is. They’re all my babies.’

  ‘You’re a worthless father.’

  ‘You’re a worthless cunt.’

  Evelyn crosses the yard. There’s a red wagon belonging to Soul, an inch of brown water at the base. She pours the water out, repositions the wagon. Surveys it with crossed arms.

  ‘You think you got power, pushing papers around, crossing your arms like a bitch?’ Jim berates her. ‘You don’t. Never did.’

  Evelyn drops her arms to her sides.

  ‘You ruined my life,’ she says.

  ‘You weren’t alive ’til you met me.’

  Evelyn’s chin wobbles. Jim comes toward her. She closes her hands into fists.

  ‘Why don’t you—’ Evelyn sobs, hearing the Rosaline-like waver of her voice. She swallows and summons her classroom cadence. ‘Why don’t you just die already? ’

  Jim comes up behind her, shushing, stroking.

  ‘Beautiful revolutionary,’ he croons. ‘It’s a beautiful day.’

  She stays in the garden, to agonize, to organize. As the sky pinkens, the moon fades, the sun rises; as the first flies bead the dogs’ mouths — she stays. Walled off from the sound of Soul’s froggy little voice, somewhere beyond her sight.

  ‘Doggy!’ he burbles. ‘One doggy … two doggies!’

  Soul runs around to the back of the cabin, straight toward the lifeless dogs, Sally-Ann straggling behind him. Evelyn stands to attention.

  ‘The doggies are sleeping,’ she says sternly, snatching him up. ‘Don’t wake them. It’s not nice to wake somebody when they’re sleeping, don’t you know that?’

  Something in her tone must rattle him, since he begins to wail inconsolably. ‘Sorrymommy … SorryImsorry … Imsorrymommyplease …’

  ‘Stop it,’ Evelyn hisses. ‘Stop it, Solomon Tom. That’s enough.’

  She sees her sister’s face blossoming with tears; feels irrationally envious. Scowling, she pushes toward the front of the cabin.

  ‘His socks are odd,’ Evelyn bitches, crouched on the jatoba floorboards and yanking off Soul’s tiny tennis shoes. ‘Why is he in odd socks?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sally-Ann answers. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Get him some new socks. Matching socks. Now.’

  4.

  It doesn’t matter that Lenny Lynden’s socks don’t match; it’s too dark in Single Males C-25 to see them anyway. Too dark to see he hasn’t showered or shaved; his hair a malodorous mass of sheepish brown curls. He’s looked better … but who’s looking? A sunbeam cuts his arm as the cabin door creaks open; he huddles against the wall.

  ‘Hey, Dracula!’

  ‘Don’t call him Dracula, man.’

  ‘Hey, Count Dracula, sir?’ Brother Jerome, a plucky kid with a downy moustache, peeks over Lenny’s bunk. ‘Weren’t you on sugarcane crew with Rondelle and Matty?’

  ‘What?’ Lenny mumbles. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Sorry, man,’ Brother Seb, a few years older, chisel-jawed and soulful-eyed, sympathizes. ‘That’s rough.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Judases. Fucking Judas rats, jumping ship, talkin’ shit about Father …’ Jerome rants boisterously. ‘You know them? You fucking friends with them?’

  ‘Cool it. Does it look like he is?’ Kindly, Seb offers, ‘You’ve got the right idea, Lenny. It’s wild out there. Better stay where it’s peaceful.’ Seb snatches a baseball from the shared shelf, drags Jerome doorward. Stops. ‘Uh, want us to crack a window or something?’

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ Lenny mutters in response. ‘They’re not my friends.’

  They’re not his friends, Rondelle and Matty from the sugarcane crew. Not his friends … Judases, rats, bugs to be squashed, that’s all. Where are his friends? His wife, mother? Lenny curls closer to the wall. Smell, his smell; like a rat, bugs on his skin.

  ‘They’re not my friends.’ He kicks his sheets.

  There’s cameras in the pavilion. A huddle of people around that Congressman, the one who’s famous for saving seals or something. Rondelle. Matty. Four generations of Harris-Harrisons: Grandma Gertie, Bob and Kay, Jo with her mixed-race daughters, Amali and Nylah. Another white family, the Fowlers, low-key Indiana people he’s never paid much attention to. Joey Dean and his pregnant wife, Carmel. Carmel’s teenage sister Eileen and her part-Pomo boyfriend, Otis. Jim in the midst of it all, puckering his lips, cupping shoulders, swaying his head like it’s too heavy to hold up.

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ Lenny tells a group of surly-looking guys, all hanging around the pavilion’s edge with crossed arms. They seem to agree.

  ‘Slack-ass counterrevolutionaries. They’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Lookat that white bitch. What kinda life she think Amali and Nylah are gonna have back in the US?’

  ‘Course it’s mostly white folk. Why am I even surprised?’

  Lenny nods vehemently. Scrapes his hands through his hair. Crosses his arms. Not his friends. Not like them. Show the world, he isn’t like them.

  Evelyn.

  She’s sat on a bench some distance from Jim, talking to one of the lawyers. Across from them, Sister Molly in a purple muumuu, mopping her brow. Molly looks stressed. So does the lawyer, thin mouth frowning, feet twitching in mud-spattered brogues. But Evelyn looks relaxed, like she’s at a party.

  Like she’s at a party. Exactly like that. Leaning back. White blouse unbuttoned at the neck. Legs outstretched in plain black trousers. Sandals. She’s talking with one arm, who knows what about — Bert the Turtle, her thesis on Marcuse, working for the UN, changing the world? Her other arm is curved around the back of the bench, as if to embrace some Lenny-shaped hole in the universe.

  Lenny moves toward her with more certainty than he has ever had in his life.

  He bumps into Phil Sorensen.

  ‘Oh, sorry, Lenny,’ Phil says, sounding more dead than sorry. He looks a li
ttle dead too, less handsome than usual. He places a hand on Lenny’s shoulder. ‘I’m really sorry, Lenny.’

  For what? Lenny doesn’t stop to ask; the words are already flying out like bullets.

  ‘They’re not my friends,’ he blurts. Then: ‘I want to help. Please.’

  ‘Why do you want to leave Jonestown?’

  The Congressman’s secretary Luísa holds a tape recorder under Lenny’s mouth, and it doesn’t hurt that she’s cute: big brown eyes, full mauve lips, streamer-like dark curls in a high ponytail. Her shoulders bare, goldy-brown. She looks maybe Mexican.

  ‘My wife left.’ Lenny thinks. ‘My mom is dead. I don’t like working in the fields.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Lenny thinks some more. ‘I just want to leave.’

  ‘We’re going to need a second plane,’ the Congressman tells Luísa, a little worried, a little proud, once she’s done interviewing Lenny. He extends a big white hand. ‘We’ll get you out safely, don’t you worry, Mr. Lynden.’

  It rains. Hair-raising, thought-drowning rain. Luísa sources clear-plastic ponchos, gives one to Lenny, tells him to board the red flatbed truck with the others. Jim, flanked by Danny Luce and Billy Younglove, beckons Lenny over.

  ‘Soldier of peace.’ Jim squeezes Lenny through the sterile skin of his poncho. ‘You’ll have a hero’s reincarnation. Anything you wanna be. What you wanna be?’

  Lenny says the first thing that pops into his head. ‘A bird.’

  ‘Alright. You’ll be a bird soon.’ Jim smiles and squeezes him tighter. ‘Sweet dove. You were always my favorite.’

  Billy slips Lenny a pistol under his poncho, gives him a shove and, loud enough to be heard over the rain, shouts, ‘Traitor shit! Get outta here! ’

  ‘You didn’t have to go over there!’ Luísa frets. ‘You didn’t have to talk to them!’

  ‘It’s alright.’ The pistol slithers against his skin, the skull-horns of his hips. ‘I’m alright.’

  Otis’s mom, a tall lady with gray-threaded braids, tries to drag the boy from the truck. His sneakers come off in the mud. Cameramen swarm. Some kids throw rocks.