Beautiful Revolutionary

by Laura Elizabeth Woollett

  ‘Don’t throw rocks!’ Sister Diane cries. ‘That’s not — not helping!’

  Luísa bustles over to the Congressman. Phil comes up to Lenny, slips him a palmful of pills. ‘This stuff got me through ’Nam.’ He looks at Lenny with his pale eyes. ‘I was crazy to want to die for America. But Jonestown … it’s the most beautiful place on earth.’

  Lenny glides toward the flatbed truck, it seems to him, on white wings.

  ‘Are you for real?’ Matty asks him nervously. Lenny doesn’t answer; he’s thinking about his gun. Then about the swell of bodies in the pavilion. Then the smell of the Congressman’s blood as he climbs aboard, shirt spattered red, silver chest hair showing.

  ‘Just a nick,’ the Congressman tells the cameras, looking more annoyed than scared, though his big white hands are shaking. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

  Lenny leans in to get a better look at the Congressman’s blood. Kay Harris, out of nowhere, points and screeches: ‘Don’t let Lenny Lynden ride with us! Don’t trust him!’

  ‘Nothing to worry about,’ the Congressman repeats, banging on the side of the truck. ‘Can we get a move on?’

  The newsmen jump onboard; Luísa, mermaid-wet. The truck heaves and Luísa’s breasts bounce, nice. Minnie — no, Alice, just as pretty, same oblong face, long lashes — runs across the playground and starts kissing Billy Younglove; wet kisses, rain-shimmery kisses, Billy wiping rain or tears from her cheeks. More kids, undeterred by Diane, chase the truck with sticks, stones, clods of mud. Angry women beat their breasts, work their mouths.

  Lenny’s head pounds, in time with the truck’s jolts, the women’s mouths, the metallic hard-on. The shouts of hate, which he knows in his immortal dove soul are really love, love, love.

  5.

  She watches Phil’s arms. Sunkissed sinew, blond hairs like Van Gogh wheatfields. Shadows of effort as he struggles to compress a mountain of cash inside a suitcase.

  ‘It doesn’t fit,’ Phil admits, sweat on his brow. ‘The bullion takes up too much space.’

  ‘Remove the bullion. It’ll weigh you down, anyhow.’

  Phil starts removing the bars of gold. She goes back to typing. Roger Luce shows up at the cabin door. ‘Mona said you have a mission for me.’

  Frida hands him his passport. ‘Zhivi khorosho, Roger. You’re going to Russia.’

  Roger looks aloof. He’s standing like a cop. Frida points out two more suitcases, one big and one small. ‘Can you lift those?’

  Roger lifts them. His face turns tomato-red; his arms quake.

  ‘That won’t work,’ Frida says. ‘Who else can we trust?’

  Roger puts the suitcases down. ‘I can ask my brother,’ he puffs. ‘Danny’s strong.’

  Frida looks skeptical. ‘Didn’t he go to the airstrip with security?’

  ‘I saw him in the pavilion,’ Roger says. ‘With Clarisse and Libya Eugenie.’

  Evelyn finishes the letter she’s typing. Checks the clock. On the radio, at low volume, Jim is ranting about crazy Lenny Lynden, how he’s going to shoot the pilot of that plane and bring great violence upon them. ‘Find Danny,’ she says.

  Evelyn hands the letter to Phil, along with his passport. Sorensen, Philip John. 6’1½’. 8–17–1945. He looks up at her, then puts them in his pocket. She takes up a box of documents, takes it around to the burn barrel they’ve rigged up in the yard, throws it on the flames, coughing as the smoke tickles her lungs. She sees Mona’s dress still on the line, still stained with a pale rose of vomit; on impulse, she feeds it to the fire as well. She returns to the front of the cabin just as Roger and Danny Luce stumble up the garden path. Danny is weeping.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Evelyn asks.

  Roger glares. Danny keeps weeping, tells her about Clarisse, baby Libya Eugenie.

  ‘Well, you know, Danny, it had to be done,’ Evelyn replies reasonably.

  But the Luce boys are looking at her in a very unreasonable way, making her fear for the bones of her neck, her skull. She skitters back inside the cabin; goes straight past Phil, Frida, and the radio. Lifts the queen bed’s covers.

  He’s still there. Cheeks pink. Chest rising, falling. Baby-blue baseball T-shirt, a gift from her parents. Navy socks. She strokes the silky dark hair, tucks him in again.

  ‘Don’t get caught,’ Frida warns her brother and the Luce boys as she hands out pistols. ‘If you’re caught alive, shoot yourselves. Got it?’

  Evelyn returns to the lower bunk, her typewriter.

  ‘Got it.’

  The Luce boys haul their suitcases past the cabin porch. Phil hangs back, cups Frida’s shoulder. ‘Be brave, sis.’

  ‘You’re not my brother,’ Frida says inexplicably, and follows the Luce boys outside.

  ‘Right,’ says Phil. ‘Right …’ He hoists his suitcase onto his shoulder; appears to listen for a moment to Evelyn’s fingers typing.

  ‘The Congressman will be dead soon.’ Evelyn doesn’t turn her head. ‘What are you waiting for?’

  Nothing, it turns out. Without another word, Phil walks out of the cabin, and her life.

  6.

  It’s alright. You’ll be a bird soon. Don’t forget your clean uniform.

  Lenny watches the planes buzz over the jungle canopy. Two planes, but only one gun. Two planes, but only one Lenny. Will his body, at the vital moment, split into two? Will his body, high in the sky, have powers this earthly body doesn’t?

  ‘Don’t trust him!’ Kay Harris says for the millionth time. ‘Don’t trust Lenny Lynden!’

  She’s not the only one saying it. Others are, too; shrinking from Lenny like he’s contagious, a circle of dead space forming around him.

  He can’t think why. But then, he can’t see his jaw clenching and unclenching, his twitching fingers, darting eyes. Is this how it feels to be Jim Jones? To be God?

  The truck rolls forward to the airstrip, parks a short distance from two small aircraft. Lenny jumps down from the flatbed and starts striding toward the rickety metal ladder of the nearest plane, ignoring the hysterical cries at his back. Luísa chases after him.

  ‘You can’t get on that plane yet!’

  Lenny looks at her hand on his chest. ‘Yes, I can.’

  ‘Theo!’ Luísa calls the Congressman. ‘This man’s insisting—’

  Lenny keeps moving toward the plane, stopping only at the sound of a tractor zooming onto the airstrip, filled with armed brothers from security. Friends!

  ‘We need to go!’ pregnant Carmel yells. ‘We can’t stay here!’

  ‘Don’t let Lenny fly with us!’ Jo Harris-Harrison screams, hands covering her daughters’ ears. ‘Don’t trust him!’

  ‘Oh, for crying out loud …’ The Congressman walks up to Lenny and frisks him through his poncho. ‘He’s clear.’ He points from Lenny to Rondelle, Matty, Eileen, Otis, Joey Dean, and Carmel. ‘You seven, take the Cessna. Everyone else, line up for the Otter. We can make it back to Georgetown before dark, if we all work togeth—’

  The tractor rumbles closer, blocking the path of the larger plane. Billy Younglove, climbing onto the hood with a rifle in his arms, peaces Lenny. Lenny peaces him back.

  ‘What the hell are you doing, Lenny?’ Rondelle gives him a shove as they board the Cessna. Mutely, Lenny stumbles into his seat. Eyes the back of the pilot’s head and fingers his gun.

  In Jonestown, the mothers and children will be lining up to board the helicopters to Russia. Or boats … some of them will go by boat, he guesses. He’s not sure of the exact plan, but there is a plan, he’s sure of that. ‘Stay away from us,’ Joey Dean warns Lenny, bolting shut the door of the Cessna. ‘I don’t know what you’re on, man, but you’re giving us the creeps.’

  Lenny shrugs, smiles. Seconds later, outside the Cessna, the shooting starts.

  Pink spatter on the window. Screams like boiling water. The pilot�
��s capped head ducking for cover, but anyway, the plane’s not in the air yet, forget the pilot. Not his friends. Lenny whips the pistol from his belt, blood singing in his ears, shouts of hate, love. Pop-clang! Pop-clang! He sees a bit of flesh fly off Rondelle’s arm and stick to the seat across the aisle. Matty falling to the floor, white skin blanching whiter. Carmel backing into a corner, clutching her pregnant belly. Eileen’s face freckled with blood. Joey Dean and Otis jumping to their feet, wresting the gun from him.

  ‘Don’t touch me,’ Lenny says as boots press between the wings of his back, pin him to the aisle. His heart bounces like a rubber ball in his chest. ‘Don’t touch me, or I’ll kill you.’

  But already, his voice is losing conviction, watching the blood soak the carpet like a bad trip, screaming patterns, melting walls. Rondelle lets out an improbable howl, clutches her spurting arm, begins to tremble all over. Matty is mannequin-still, skin like fogged metal. The whole cabin stinks of exposed guts.

  It occurs to Lenny that this is the worst thing he’s ever done.

  Pop-clang, the shots continue on the airstrip. Pop-pop-clang.

  7.

  ‘Can we turn it down a bit?’ Frida nods at the radio, and Evelyn knows it must be bad, if even Frida is getting squeamish. But of course it’s bad; of course she knows this.

  ‘We can turn it down.’

  As Frida crosses to the radio, adjusts the dial, Evelyn resists the urge to check on Soul. There are still reports to finish; even now, they must uphold the appearance of a thriving community. She keeps typing, studying figures, typing harder to cover the cries on the radio. Hard like rain on a tin roof. Hard enough to bruise her fingertips black and blue.

  ‘Oh, go to hell, you fucker,’ Frida growls out of nowhere. ‘Fucker! Fuck you.’

  She slams the side of her typewriter, gives a yelp of pain or frustration. Seeing Evelyn’s questioning glance, she explains lamely, ‘The ribbon ran out.’

  ‘Really, Frida, you need to keep it down.’ Evelyn nods toward the room where Soul is sleeping.

  They keep working in silence, or near-silence. Evelyn finishes the Education Report.

  ‘It’s a pity we won’t get to see the results of Meyer’s new methodology,’ she tells Frida. ‘But I’ve made some predictions. Who knows, maybe some group somewhere will be inspired by our example.’

  ‘I can’t wait to die,’ Frida says.

  After some time, the cries on the radio get quieter. Legacy, Jim is saying. What a legacy. Footsteps approach the cabin, and Evelyn and Frida look at each other, scramble for their pistols. But it’s just Jin-sun Jones and his white wife, Carrie, holding her baby in her arms.

  ‘Bam!’ Frida coos, getting up to stroke the baby. ‘Oh … You did it already?’

  Carrie nods tearfully. Jin-sun says, ‘Dad said it was okay if we came here.’

  ‘There are some things in the fridge,’ Evelyn offers. She thinks of asking Jin-sun about his brothers, whether they’ve had any success getting revenge on their enemies in the capital, but Jin-sun doesn’t look much in the mood for talking and, really, she isn’t either.

  Carrie climbs onto the top bunk with her baby. Jin-sun gets some cups, fills them with fruit punch, and joins his wife. Evelyn keeps typing as the couple whisper to each other.

  When the bunk begins to rattle above her, she moves to the floor.

  ‘It’s been quiet for a while,’ Frida says, after the cabin grows frigid with radio silence, the stillness of the young family. ‘Do you think Father—?’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Do you think we should—?’ Frida closes her fist, holds it out. ‘Rock-paper-scissors?’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’ll go.’ Evelyn rises. ‘Finish the Maintenance Report.’

  ‘If Soul wakes—’

  ‘He won’t,’ Evelyn snaps, taking up her pistol, the flashlight. ‘Just, don’t — don’t do anything. Don’t touch him.’

  Evelyn concentrates on the dance of the flashlight, ducking her head for curtains of foliage, low-flying bats and insects. Shapes in the dark, which could be sandbags or logs; yes, logs. But after a while, she has to look down; there are so many, she’ll trip if she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to trip. She doesn’t want to fall … fall on somebody.

  Why did she wear sandals?

  ‘No,’ an older woman in a red hat is saying to Sally-Ann, trying to fend off her hands. ‘No, no, no.’

  ‘Please.’ Sally-Ann draws up the woman’s sleeve. ‘Please, just … it won’t hurt.’

  Evelyn tautens her nostrils against the smell: an intense human clamminess, overlaid with something sickly-sweet, like pineapple. A few more nurses are struggling with recalcitrant adults; dead-eyed guards along the perimeters, holding their guns like toys. But most of the people, the ones still living, are huddled quietly, swallowing quietly.

  ‘No,’ the woman says as the syringe goes into her arm. ‘Why? No.’

  Sally-Ann notices Evelyn, looks at her with overbright eyes, cheeks flushed like she’s been playing a spirited game of tag, jumping rope. She opens her mouth to say something.

  Evelyn stops her.

  ‘Finish it quickly,’ she tells Sally-Ann. ‘It’s almost done.’

  She continues toward the stage, stepping over the fallen.

  ‘Why’s it taking so long?’ Jim, slumped in his chair, scolds Dr. Katz. ‘Why — you said they wouldn’t struggle, you lyin’ quack; why—’ He notices Evelyn. ‘Honey. We tried.’

  Evelyn nods. Her eye is caught by a crop of reddish-gold curls, a few feet from Jim’s chair. Jim notices her looking. ‘My good wife,’ he explains.

  Evelyn nods again, touches her ear; she’s missing an earring. She resists glancing down in search of it.

  Mona scurries out of the radio shed, tape recorder in hand. She takes one of Jim’s arms; Evelyn takes the other.

  They help him offstage.

  ‘Did you hear me on the radio?’ Jim asks. ‘How’d I do …?’

  8.

  Lenny’s shirt is open when they snatch him from the airstrip, flapping around his wasted torso like wings. White wings. White jeans, slipping to his pubic hair. Did he have a belt before? Belts for tourniquets, yeah. A pair of Guyanese men in snappy green berets take hold of his arms. They both have belts. Badges.

  ‘You’re not my friends,’ Lenny says.

  ‘Not your friends,’ the men agree. ‘No, Mister. We are not your friends.’

  The sun is a dusty fireball, sinking low into the jungle’s dark haze. His heart screams for the old life, the new life, evergreen.

  ‘Can you take me back to Jonestown?’ he asks. ‘I want to go to Jonestown.’

  ‘No Jonestown. Too dangerous in Jonestown.’

  They pass the shot-up Otter, wires dangling from its wings. The Congressman’s body, wrapped in a soaked red sheet. An Asian newsman’s shattered skull. Amali and Nylah, Jo’s girls, huddled outside the green army tent, sucking their thumbs.

  ‘I want to go to Jonestown,’ Lenny repeats as he’s loaded into the back of a Jeep. ‘Please? I want to see my friends.’

  The cell is small, dank, friendless. No sharp objects to cut his skin like he wants to. He scratches his skin until it bleeds, slaps away at bugs, real or imaginary. He detaches the metal circle from the front of his jeans and, joyously, rolls it along the cell walls, the metal piping. Hides it in the flat of his hand when a guard shows up with three mud-spattered blond men.

  ‘Here you go!’ the guard announces cheerily. ‘Friends for you!’

  Roger, Danny, Phil. They’ve looked better.

  ‘Don’t touch my friends! ’ Lenny leaps to his feet. ‘Don’t touch them, or I’ll kill you! ’

  ‘Shut up, Lenny,’ Roger says.

  Lenny hugs Roger, then Danny, who’s crying, then Phil. ‘My friends! ’

  ‘Alright, Lenny
,’ Phil says. ‘Alright … we know we’re all friends.’

  ‘Sorry I didn’t shoot the pilot,’ Lenny blabs. ‘I tried to shoot him, I did, but the plane didn’t go in the air. I tried, Phil. I tried—’

  ‘Alright, Lenny.’ Phil looks into his eyes. ‘Can you do me a favor? A favor for a friend? Keep a lid on it.’

  ‘Hey! Can I make a phone call?’ Roger shouts. ‘I want to call my wife in Georgetown. Hey! Don’t I get a phone call?’

  The guard stalks away. Roger starts rattling the bars.

  ‘Hey!’ Lenny yells helpfully. ‘That’s my friend! He wants to call his wife!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, Lenny! ’ Roger charges at him with clenched fists. Phil blocks him.

  ‘Guys, can we keep it friendly? We’re all friends here. Keep it friendly … and quiet.’

  Obediently, Lenny retreats to a corner, starts sharpening the metal circle again. Roger sits by his brother, lets him drench his shirt with tears. Phil paces like a caged lion. When the guard opens the door, beckons, ‘Sorensen,’ he seems unsurprised.

  ‘Don’t hurt my friend,’ Lenny mutters uncertainly as Phil is led from the cell.

  Phil is returned unharmed, perhaps a half-hour later, seemingly on good terms with the guard. The guard looks from one Luce to another. ‘Which one got the wife in Georgetown?’

  Roger stands tall, follows the guard out. Danny starts weeping anew.

  ‘Mom’s dead, that crazy bitch,’ Roger says dully, upon his return. ‘Her and Dot slit the kids’ throats, then each other’s.’ He closes his eyes and thumps his head against the wall. ‘They did it. Those crazy bitches.’

  Danny cries harder. Phil reassures him. ‘They were good soldiers. All of them.’

  After a while, Lenny squeaks, ‘Minnie?’

  ‘Minnie’s safe, but she’s losing her mind. Alice, Ursa—’ Roger shakes his head, looks Lenny square in the eye. ‘Everyone. They were killing everyone. Don’t you get it?’

  Phil walks to the center of the cell, pale and serene.