The Count of the Sahara

by Wayne Turmel

  I was also responsible for procuring the train tickets, which could wait for tomorrow. What couldn’t wait was finding a cleaner to do something about the Tuareg robes and turban. Apparently my stage fright literally oozed from every pore, and the costumes were getting awfully fragrant. I didn’t know any place in Chicago one would find a laundry with twenty-four hour burnoose and tagelmust service, but he assured me I was smart enough to figure it out.

  His duties consisted primarily of making phone calls, sending telegrams to Maurice Reygasse in Paris that were doomed upon transmission, waiting for word from Alice and having dinner—and drinks—with his friend at the Oriental Institute. Some muckamuck from Michigan State University was in town, and he might get them interested in the work the ungrateful bastards at Beloit didn’t want to pay for. Not for the first time, I wondered how having someone else pay for dinner and getting drunk could be remotely considered work, but that’s why he was the boss.

  His being occupied freed me up for the evening. Sharing a room meant I had little time to spend on my tinkering, and I had some things I should probably work on, but “The Black Pirate” with Douglas Fairbanks was opening. To see a Fairbanks movie opening night seemed like the kind of luxury only a free man with cash in his pocket could enjoy. A guy could get used to that feeling.

  I wandered north on Dearborn, whistling happily while walking underneath the thundering train tracks into the Loop, and was surprised how fast you could feel at home in a place after only one visit. A guy could get used to Chicago, I supposed, but there were so many other places. St. Louis next, and New York, maybe Boston. Lost in my daydreams, I stepped off the curb into a slushy puddle right up to my ankle. I wondered if he had anything planned in Florida.

  My evening consisted of a great pirate movie and a plate of egg foo young, which I was proud to order all by myself but was disappointed to find out was just an omelet covered in brown gravy, but at least it was cheap. My soaked wool sock refused to dry, and rather than risk pneumonia I headed back to old lady Cudahy’s.

  I hadn’t even finished banging my shoes clean on the wooden stoop when the door flew open. “’Bout time you got back, boyo. You need to do something about him.” I had a pretty good idea who “him” was.

  “He’s carrying on something awful up there. You’d best see to him. And calm him down. Honest people need to get their sleep, y’know.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I’ll see what I can do.” I took the stairs two at a time and banged on the door.

  “Mr. De Prorok….”

  A loud, thick voice shouted at me through the thin white panel door. “Piss off, Brown.”

  It wasn’t really an option, with an old Irish woman standing right behind me, cutting off retreat. I opened up anyway and closed the door behind me, nearly nipping her beak as she peered in to see what was going on.

  He sat on the bed with his elbows on his knees, a half-empty pint bottle on the bedside table, and a pipe smoked in the ashtray sitting atop a mountain of dead ash. His eyes glistened with tears, bloodshot and burning like someone had circled them neatly in red ink.

  “Are you alright?” I asked, for lack of anything intelligent to say.

  He sniffed, which was more answer than the question deserved and handed me a yellow piece of paper. It was from Western Union. I unfolded it to see:

  To: B de Prorok

  Not coming to New York

  Send money as agreed

  A

  “It’s true, Brown. She’s not coming back. She’s choosing him over me.” He looked up for a response, any response. Getting none, he dropped his face into his hands and wept. Deep gasping sobs wracked his body.

  I held the paper out to him, but he was too busy crying to notice, so I put it on the bed, carefully pressing it flat. I couldn’t stand to see him like that, and seeing grown men cry wasn’t something that happened in my neighborhood, so I was completely useless to him. I looked around the room. On the rickety round table near the window the lockbox lay wide open. The letters and official papers were scattered all over, wrinkled where they’d been balled up, then pressed flat again, probably more than once. There were pictures of the little girls. The picture of Alice de Prorok, all soft curls and adoring puppy dog eyes, lay beside the overflowing ashtray. A water ring, although probably not water, marred one corner of the photograph.

  Because I didn’t know what else to say, I managed to pour gasoline on the fire. “It’ll be okay.”

  He looked up at me, the red coals in his eyes blazing. “How? Exactly how is it going to be okay?” It was a fair question, and one I didn’t have the answer to. My oafish shrug only infuriated him. “Yes, well I don’t know either. I’m ruined. All of it… my family, my career the digging rights, they’re all gone. And why? What have I done to deserve this, eh? What have I done that’s so God-damned awful?”

  “Well,” I began, trying to sound like I had a clue what I was talking about, “you’ll see the girls all the time.”

  “No, I bloody won’t. He’ll get them…” I knew he meant Kenny, there was only one “Him” in de Prorok’s world at that moment. “He’ll take them and hide them in Brooklyn, and won’t let me see them, just to be spiteful. I know that miserable son of a bitch will…”

  His foghorn voice blew at full volume and a small Irish fist banged on the door. “Ye knock it off in there, or I’ll call the police. We got honest people tryin’ to sleep that don’t need this nonsense.” I felt like asking her to name one, but opted for lowering my voice to a stage whisper, as did de Prorok.

  “What am I supposed to do? Je suis fauché. I’m broke. Completely and utterly busted.”

  I knew there was broke, and there was broke. “How can you be broke? You make two hundred a day?”

  His lip curled up like I’d crapped in his hat. “Two hundred a day is nothing. And everything gets sent back to Alice as soon as it comes in. Why do you think we share such glamorous accommodations?”

  “It’s more than most people make.”

  “I’m not most people, am I?”

  A completely unreasonable and unreasoning rage was building inside me. “No, you’re not. Most people work a hell of a lot harder for a whole lot less.” The words flew out of my yap before I could stop them, and I knew there were more where they came from.

  His lips pulled back in a teeth baring snarl. “Vass de matter, Villy. Vorried about you chob? Worried you might have ta go back ta Muhwaukee and live with Mutti und Papa?” The German “v”s were meant to sting, but not as much as throwing my Wisconsin accent at me. His ear and his aim were both deadly.

  “That’s not what I s-s-said.” Damn.

  “But it’s what you meant. You need me. Everyone needs me… until they don’t. Then they’re happy to leave.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Hmmmph. Because you need me. But you will, eventually. You’ll suck the life from me, fifteen dollars at a time and I’ll have to start all over again. I’ve worked too hard to be treated like this. I don’t deserve it.”

  There he was, playing that song again. How hard he worked. Poor him. He doesn’t deserve this. Well who does? Sometimes you got what was coming to you. Sometimes you got more, some people did, anyway. Usually it evens out and you still feel gypped. I felt the words bubbling inside me, churning and boiling and I knew I shouldn’t let them out because that’s how stupid things get said and unretractable words spit in people’s faces. They flew out anyway.

  “Why don’t you deserve it? What makes you so special?” His body sagged, his fingers ran through his hair over and over. “What do you even do? You get on stage for an hour or two every c-c-c-couple of days and talk about shit nobody really c-c-cares about. And they pay you good, and they treat you like a big shot…”

  He looked up and gave a long sniff, followed by a longer pause. “Because I have a talent, Brown.”

  “Okay, you can talk real fancy, b-b-big deal. That’s not work.”

  He couldn’t have been m
ore shocked if I punched him in the nose, which was close to happening. We were both getting hot, but while my voice got louder and more spit-producing, he got quieter, his voice dropping to a hiss. It was scary. Like a rattlesnake is scarier than a barking poodle.

  “It is a big deal you blithering idiot. It’s the biggest deal there is.” He stood, meeting me eyeball to eyeball. “Most people can’t do what I do. Look at you. You can’t take what’s in that big block head and say something without stammering and sounding like a cretin. People write you off, they think you’re stupid. And you’re not… not by a long shot… You’re smart, but it’s wasted. The world will never know what you really are… and neither will you, because you can’t tell your own story.”

  He began to pace, his lecture voice emerging, focused on an audience of one. “Most people can’t tell their own stories. They piss themselves at the idea of speaking in public, or they can’t find the words… so they walk around frustrated and angry at the world. But that’s what I do. You see? I tell other people’s stories for them. I take history and all those dates and facts and all that boring bullshit science and translate it for the brainless masses in a way they can actually comprehend. Do you think anyone really cares about science or history unless it comes with a good story?”

  His voice dropped again as he stood over the table, his finger stabbing the digging rights document over and over. “All those academic prigs, looking down their noses at my work. Do you think those smug bastards would ever get one penny if not for people like me? The almighty Doctor Pond and his bloody arrowheads. Does he really think anyone would give a single God-damned cent if he sits in the desert and digs up rocks just because it’s the right thing to do? I get paid so people give a shit. I get two hundred dollars, they get thousands, maybe millions. The National Geographic Society doesn’t like my methods, but they by-God are happy to sell their magazines with pictures I took, aren’t they?” He stared out the window. His voice dropped, and I realized he wasn’t really talking to me at all.

  “I earn my money, chum. Believe it. And what do I get in return? Stabbed in the back. Beloit, my colleagues, my own wife. Even you.”

  “Me? What did I do?”

  “You’re already planning your escape.”

  “N-n-no, I’m not.” He didn’t realize I was working like crazy to find a way to stay.

  “Really? You’re really staying?” I really was. I nodded in answer. “Why?”

  That was a fair question. Why did I stay on with Meyer when his theater burned down and I nearly lost a hand doing it? Why did I stick it out at home when every part of me cried out to go? Because I couldn’t leave Mama with the Old Man. Now I was staying with this guy, dodging detectives and pulling him out of speaks and making sure his pictures didn’t turn to dust.

  “It’s my job.”

  He nodded and laid back on the bed, hands crossed behind his head. “Good night, Willy.” I was dismissed from my own room. I left anyway.

  Backing out of the room I nearly tripped over Mrs. Cudahy, who just happened to be putting towels away, at eleven thirty at night, within earshot of our room. “Everything okay, dear?” she asked innocently.

  “Yes ma’am. Just hunky dory.”

  “There’s no one in the basement room tonight. You can bunk there. One night only, mind ya.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind.”

  The mother hen clucked. “Nonsense. It’s too late to make other arrangements. But one night only, mind ya.” I nodded gratefully, and she beamed like I was the big, lovable, einfältiges Kind she never had. “Alright, downstairs with ya then.”

  While I tossed and turned more than usual, I slept like most nineteen year olds—dead to the world—until the sun wouldn’t be ignored a minute longer. It reached through the narrow street-level window and slapped me across the face until I roused myself. It was above freezing for the first time in days, and I could hear melting show drip-drop from the eaves as I laid under the blankets.

  I threw off the covers and stood on the faded fake Oriental rug, wiggling my toes happily. Carpeting was just another reminder I was no longer at home. Feet freezing on bare wood or cold linoleum is no way to start a day.

  Widow Cudahy insisted I eat breakfast before “buggering off.” This was no great hardship. She always served a big morning meal, on the table promptly at seven, even though most of her roomers were show folks with a very different definition of “first thing in the morning” than she had. I had the whole meal pretty much to myself.

  Dearborn Avenue was quiet this early on a Saturday. The sun glinted happily off the puddles of melting slush. A warm breeze, as warm as a wind in March could be, promised an eventual end to a particularly stubborn winter. I didn’t bother buttoning my coat, happy to let it flap in the breeze. I was in such a good mood as I waited to cross Adams that I gave a nod to the skinny, dim looking, bucktoothed kid Havlicek had watching the place. The world’s worst detective turned away, pretending he didn’t see me, and hoping I’d play along.

  Whistling “Sweet Georgia Brown,” endlessly, I picked up the tickets to St. Louis at Union Station, got the robes from a very confused Chinaman at the laundry who wanted me to model them and headed back to the boarding house. The sun felt good, and we were heading south where it would be even warmer.

  Twenty minutes later, I gave a quick “shave and a haircut” on the Count’s door, which swung open on its own. I poked my head in to see the Count at the table, staring at the papers and pictures in front of him. I came in and placed the robes on the bed. It wasn’t til I was standing right next to him he looked up. “Do you know she’s six months old, and I’ve seen her for less than three weeks?”

  “Who?”

  “Baby Alice…” He flapped the photo in my face. “My daughter. My baby girl. She was born just before I left for Africa, and I was home barely a week before I left to come to America. She’s no idea who I am. It’s no better with my oldest…” This time he held the picture still, talking to it rather than me. “Marie Terese. Look how big she is. Three years old already. Smart as a whip, and didn’t even recognize me when I was home last. It took two days just to get her to sit on my lap without crying.”

  I knew which picture was next in line. He traced his fingers across the picture, silently stroking Alice’s smartly curled hair and the lines of her high collar. His voice dropped to a ragged whisper.

  “I have to go home, Brown.”

  “To New York?” I knew that wasn’t the answer, but hope wouldn’t surrender easily.

  “She refuses to come back to New York until her father arranges the divorce… annulment… whatever the hell he’s planning. I have to go back to Paris.” His voice was low, calm and steady. He’d made his decision. He also didn’t say “we.”

  “But we have to be in St. Louis tomorrow night, don’t we?” I could hear the panic in my voice and couldn’t do a damned thing about it. “I bought the tickets already…”

  “I’ve already called Lee to cancel. Apparently, I have a nasty case of laryngitis. Can’t you tell?” He inhaled slowly, a long ragged breath then let it go even slower. “I’m sorry.”

  “What are you going to do?” It was the question I should ask, not the one I wanted to.

  “I’m headed back to New York tomorrow, then the first boat I can get.”

  “What if she won’t see you?”

  “She will if her father doesn’t get in the way. That’s always been the problem. She’s quite reasonable until Daddy gets involved.”

  “What about Havlicek? If he knows what you’re up to he’ll stop you… or tell Kenny. Same thing.”

  “I’ll have to find a way to throw the bloodhounds off the trail, I suppose.”

  “What about me?”

  He slowly gathered the pictures together and stacked them, tapping the bottoms on the table so they lined up neatly. He never looked up. “I’m sorry. I’ll pay you for the week, of course.”

  A week? Fifteen bucks and marooned in Chica
go, what was I supposed to do? My head spun with the centrifugal force of a thousand questions and absolutely no answers.

  “Three weeks,” I heard myself say. It sounded like me, but it was Gerhardt’s angry at everything, workers of the world unite, Wobblie voice. Let the rich bastards think they own you and they do. “I want three week’s pay, and I’m on the clock until you leave for New York.”

  “I can’t pay you for three weeks. There’s nothing for you to do. And obviously, I have other places to send my hard-earned money.”

  He wasn’t going to get out of this easily, I was like a dog with a sock. “You already owe me for this week, and you’d expect me to give you a week’s notice if I was quitting, right?” He shrugged. “So that’s two weeks. You still need to get all your stuff on the train, right?” He nodded. “And I’ll get rid of Havlicek for you.” Where the hell did that come from?

  His forehead crinkled. He stared at me as if trying to see right through my skull. “And how are you going to manage that, pray tell?”

  I hadn’t the foggiest notion. The tiniest seed of an idea rattled around in my noggin like a pea in a whistle, but it was nothing like a real plan. “N-never mind. If I can get Havlicek off your back, will you p-p-pay me for three weeks?” I don’t know how I did it, but I kept my eyes on his, refusing to look away. It was a silly, childish staring contest, but I’d be darned if I’d lose. At last he broke away.

  “The train to New York is at noon tomorrow. I have to be on it. Without that… Without being followed.”

  “You will. Deal?”

  He nodded, but that wasn’t nearly good enough. I stuck out my hand. “Shake on it. Three week’s pay, forty-five dollars cash, if you get on the train without Havlicek following or knowing where you went.” His right hand hung at his side for an eternity, but finally he extended it and shook my paw.

  With as much dignity as I could manage, I turned and left the room. I needed to think about how I’d pull this off. This called for a long, solitary street car ride.