—
The next morning, Phil was forced to conclude that tossing down a drink had not been wise, as from that point onward, he could remember only bits and smidgens of what happened later.
He remembered Fu Manchu saying, “Barman, inasmuch as Confucius has taught us that ‘Flight on one wing is difficult if not entirely impossible,’ you’d better do that again.”
And after Phil had downed a third double Famous Pheasant, two ice cubes, water on the side, without touching the water, Phil remembered, if not very clearly, the following exchange:
“I’ve decided there is a place for you, Holden, my boy, laboring beside Geronimo and myself in the Lord’s vineyards,” the diminutive Asian had said. “And as proof of my sincerity, you may now address me as ‘Angus.’”
“Why should I call you Angus?”
“Because you will be speaking to me, and my Christian name is Angus. My surname is McTavish. Is that so difficult for you to comprehend, Newfound Friend Holden?”
“My name is not Holden. It’s Philip. Philip Wallingford Williams the Third.”
“You won’t mind if I call you Phil, I hope, as your entire moniker is a bit of a mouthful. I suspect that is the reason Geronimo has dubbed you Holden.”
“And while we’re at it, why do you call him Geronimo?”
“Because that is my name,” Geronimo said. “Geronimo Lincoln Rutherford.”
“I can tell from the look of utter bafflement on ol’ Phil’s face that he is somewhat confused by all this. Inasmuch as it has a bearing on his future labors at our side doing the Lord’s work, I suggest we clarify the matter for him.”
“You first, Angus.”
“If you insist. Phil, my grandfather, Fergus McTavish, was known professionally as Fearless Fergus. ‘Fearless Fergus and His Savage Beasts’ was what was known as the center ring attraction of the Smith, Barney & Sons Three Ring Circus and Freak Show.
“Attired in riding britches and boots, a white polo shirt, and with a pith helmet on his head and holding a 1917 Colt revolver loaded with blank cartridges, he entered a cage and caused lions and tigers to jump through hoops, et cetera.
“One day, he looked out of the lion’s cage to the attraction in the ring to his right. And then quickly looked away as he wasn’t at all interested in vertically challenged Japanese jugglers or oversized sumo wrestlers.
“Then Grandpapa Fergus, as he often related, looked at the attraction ring to his left, in which a troupe of Chinese acrobats was doing their thing. His eye fell upon one of the latter, a young woman, and after she finished doing a dozen backward somersaults over Shetland ponies and two men on miniature motorcycles and had regained her feet, their eyes met and locked.
“Grandmama Chu-hua—‘Chrysanthemum’ in English—as we called her, said she knew it was love at first sight, and this made her sad, as she knew her family would never give their permission for her to wed a Scots-American, as they regarded all white men as crude savages and Scots-Americans as the worst of that entire ethnic subdivision.
“Grandpapa Fergus overcame Chu-hua’s father’s objections by taking his friend Oscar with him when he called on Chu-hua’s father to ask for her hand in marriage. Permission came quickly when Oscar started to drag Chu-hua’s brother, Desheng—that means Virtuous—out of the tent. At that point, Grandmama’s father decided he’d rather feed a daughter to a Scots-American savage than a son to Grandpapa’s Bengal tiger, Oscar.
“The couple was shortly afterward united in holy matrimony in the center ring while the Smith, Barney & Sons Three Ring Circus and Freak Show was playing Irvington, New Jersey.
“As the Irvington theological establishment refused to have anything to do with the circus—they objected strenuously to the bare-breasted Hawaiian hula dancers in the Freak Show—the ceremony was performed by the Reverend Wilson Graham, the circus chaplain.
“Brother Billy, as he liked to be called, had just started his evangelical career by talking John Smith—the Smith in Smith, Barney—into permitting him to set up a small tent on the circus grounds into which he attempted to lure sinners as they left the Freak Show.
“Grandpapa Fergus was surprised when the Japanese—both the vertically challenged and the sumo wrestlers—showed up for the wedding because he knew the Japanese and the Chinese were always saying unkind things about one another.
“Only much later did he learn that all Chinese did not dislike all Japanese and vice versa, and that this was especially true under the Big Top. He did not realize how much they liked one another until I was born, and by then the die had been cast, so to speak.”
Phil remembered, somewhat vaguely, confessing he didn’t understand.
Angus McTavish answered: “My father, an only child, was perfectly normal, physically speaking, except that he suffered terribly from ailurophobia and was thus unable to follow in Grandpapa’s footsteps into the lion’s cage. But the circus was in Daddy’s blood, and he remained with Smith, Barney, first playing the double bell euphonium in the circus band, then becoming ringmaster at a very young age, and ultimately becoming, following the deaths of first Barney and then Smith, chief executive of the circus, making him the Big Shot of the Big Top, as it were.
“My mother similarly was of perfectly normal height and weight, of good solid Midwest Polish-German stock. My father met her when she had run away to join the circus, and he had given her employment as a bare-breasted Hawaiian hula dancer in the Freak Show.
“When I was five years old I was considerably shorter than other five-year-olds, and conspicuously heavier in weight than my peers, and was putting away a quart of chankonabe at both lunch and dinner . . .”
The next morning, Phil remembered that he had confessed his ignorance vis-à-vis chankonabe, and that Angus McTavish had explained it was a stew made from a variety of meats, fish, and vegetables all cooked in a broth and served with numerous side dishes.
And that Angus had gone on: “Where was I? Oh, yes. At that point, aware as he was of the genetic teachings of Augustinian Friar Gregor Johann Mendel, my father began to suspect that unbeknownst to Grandmama Chu-hua, certain of her female antecedents had been a lot cozier with the Japanese jugglers and sumo wrestlers, with whom they shared the Big Top, than anyone had suspected at the time. He didn’t know who, of course, but he did know that the genes causing vertical insufficiency and gross obesity in his first—and as it turned out only—son had not come from his side of the family.”
At that point, they had another round, and that was the last thing Phil could remember the next morning when he was rudely awakened by Geronimo pouring cold water from a small wastebasket onto him.
“Rise and shine, Holden, it’s zero-eight-hundred and zero-eight-hundred means ROTPIP time.”
“Why did you pour cold water on me?”
“It was the only thing I could think of after pushing, shouting, and twisting your big toe failed to call you from slumber. How’s your head?”
“Excuse me?”
“I was afraid you might have hurt it when you fell off the Clydesdale at the Pferd und Frauen.”
Holden had no idea what he was talking about, but could not ask as he had a sudden urgent need of the sanitary facilities in their shared bathroom.
[ FOUR ]
About an hour later, as they drove down Karl-Marx-Strasse in the Spandau district, Phil asked, “May I ask where we are going?”
“Back to Block One, ‘Familiarization with Berlin,’ of your ROTPIP.”
“I don’t understand.”
“As Angus explained to you last night, you will almost certainly be assigned duties as a courier, in addition to your other duties, whatever they may turn out to be. Couriers take things from one place to another. And if you think about it, Holden, you can’t take something somewhere if you don’t know where somewhere is, can you?”
“I guess not.”
/>
At about this time, Phil solemnly vowed that as long as he lived to Never again consume more than four Famous Pheasant doubles, two ice cubes, water on the side—or equivalent—in a twenty-four-hour period, So Help Me, God.
(Truth being stranger than fiction, Phil has lived up to his vow—with a few rare exceptions—to this day.)
It was not only Phil’s four-star hangover that caused him to swear partial abstention in perpetuity but also that he had blacked out, was confused, and had hallucinated.
While he was sure that he had indeed had drinks and dinner, and then “gone on the town” with G. Lincoln and a diminutive Asian gentleman named Angus McTavish, and that Angus did indeed look like a miniature sumo wrestler, Phil had no idea whether Angus was pulling his leg with the explanation he offered or whether Angus was in fact the grandson of a lion tamer named Fergus who had married a Chinese acrobat whose grandmother had fooled around with both Japanese sumo wrestlers and dwarf jugglers.
That was a bit hard to believe, but not in the same league, incredibility-wise, as a clear memory he had of having been taken from the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation by Angus and G. Lincoln and driven to a bar just off the Kurfürstendamm.
The establishment—in what Phil decided was not a simple memory, but a memory of an alcohol-induced hallucination—was called Pferd und Frauen. In it, six white Clydesdale horses marched proudly around in a circle to the music from the beginning of Act III of the opera Die Walküre, which is often called The Ride of the Valkyries.
On the Clydesdales were six blond Valkyries wearing nothing but derby hats and patent leather knee-high riding boots. In his hallucination, Phil remembered having nimbly leapt up onto one of the Clydesdales and wrapping his arms around the Walküre already sitting there.
Phil remembered G. Lincoln, shortly after he’d poured the ice water on him, having said something about his having fallen from a horse.
“G. Lincoln, you said something earlier about my having fallen from a horse?”
“Right. One moment there you were in Pferd und Frauen, up on the Clydesdale, hanging on to the Valkyrie’s boobs, and yelling ‘Hi-Yo, Silver! Away!” Everybody cheered, and the next moment you were passed out in the sawdust. Angus picked you up and we brought you home.”
“I guess I embarrassed you and Angus, as well as disgraced myself, and my CIC career is about to end in shame and dismissal?”
“Not at all. You made a very good impression on Angus last night. He thought your imbibing was in keeping—especially when you started drinking what you called Spritzers . . .”
“Spritzers?”
“You showed us how to make them. Two three-ounce hookers of Slivovitz added to a liter of beer, along with a soupçon of Pernod. Quite tasty. But I digress. Angus said your imbibing, and your capacity, was in keeping with the highest traditions of the agency.”
Holden then and there made another solemn vow, this one to never imbibe a Spritzer again in his lifetime.
“By the agency, I gather you mean the Central Intelligence Agency?”
“Bite your tongue, Holden! We of the agency never say that out loud!”
“Sorry.”
“Perhaps I should have said ‘the highest traditions of the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation,’ which is what we call ‘the beard’ for that organization the name of which is never supposed to pass our lips. But I digress yet again.
“Angus said that I should make every effort to hasten your passage through your ROTPIP. The sooner you do, the quicker you can start assisting in the saving of souls.”
“I don’t know what that means,” Phil confessed.
“In layman’s parlance, it means causing some EXPLETIVE DELETED!! Russian to change sides. Ol’ J.C. Three is the master of that—”
“Last night, I asked you who ol’ J.C. Three is,” Phil interrupted.
“And I told you four times that he is Supervisory Special Agent Jonathan Fitzwater Caldwell the Third, who is also a lieutenant colonel of cavalry, pay grade O-5, both identities being the beard for his being presiding pastor of the German-American Gospel Tract Foundation, which itself is the beard for his being the Berlin station chief of that organization whose name is never supposed to pass our lips.”
“It must have slipped my mind.”
“I’m not surprised. You were pretty well occupied most of the evening trying to have bareback carnal congress with the Valkyrie.”
Oh, my God! Phil suddenly thought. What if I succeeded?
Is it possible that I finally lost my status as the world’s only seventeen-year-old virgin yet can’t remember even one lousy lewd and lascivious detail of doing so?
And I can’t ask, obviously, for clarification.
If one passes a milestone of life like that, one is expected to remember it!
I may have to give up all intoxicants of any kind!!!
“And who is PL?” Phil asked. “Did you tell me that, too?”
“Four times. PL, which stands for Pugnacious Leprechaun, is Lieutenant Colonel William ‘Don’t Call Me Bill’ O’Reilly. That’s not a beard for anything. He’s pugnacious, and looks like a leprechaun. Ergo sum it fits.”
“I think you meant to say, ‘Id est, it fits,’” Phil said. “Ergo sum is two-thirds of the Latin phrase cogito, ergo sum, which means ‘I think, therefore I am.’”
“I think I am going to regret you coming into my life, Holden. One thing I can’t stand is a smart-ass who talks Latin.”
IV
PHIL MEETS THE WRATH OF GOD
Berlin, Germany
Monday, May 19, 1947
While Phil was having breakfast alone the following Monday morning, First Sergeant/Special Agent Dumbrowski stopped at his table and inquired, “Where is your accomplice in absolutely disgusting public behavior to the detriment of good military order and discipline, Administrator Williams?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Specifically, where is Administrator Rutherford?”
“I don’t know specifically where he is, First Sergeant, but he left a note for me, written in soap, on our communal bathroom mirror saying there would be no ROTPIP for me today as he would be busy.”
“Busy doing what?”
“He didn’t say, First Sergeant, but I would hazard the guess that he is about the Lord’s work.”
“I would hazard the guess that the EXPLETIVE DELETED!! bribed my EXPLETIVE DELETED!! company clerk to keep him abreast of any developments in my office that might affect him, and that my EXPLETIVE DELETED!! company clerk tipped him to the fact that Supervisory Special Agent O’Reilly is in possession of a photograph of you in Berlin am Nacht—which means Berlin at Night—magazine, said photograph showing you in your EXPLETIVE DELETED!! birthday suit fondling the bosom of a naked blonde while the both of you are on the back of a EXPLETIVE DELETED!! horse.”
Phil’s stomach suddenly ached as it had the morning after the incident First Sergeant Dumbrowski was apparently describing, although since then absolutely nothing stronger than Listerine mouthwash had passed his lips.
“And I would hazard the further guess that once he was so tipped, he found something to do that would keep him from having to discuss what the caption on the aforementioned photograph describes as ‘Horny Horseplay in the Pferd und Frauen,’” Dumbrowski went on. “That guess ring any bells, Lone Ranger?”
“I really don’t know where he is, First Sergeant.”
“Then you will have to face Supervisory Special Agent O’Reilly on your lonesome, Administrator Williams, which you will do now. And may God have mercy on your soul.”
“Yes, First Sergeant.”
—
“If I had my druthers, Administrator Williams,” Supervisory Special Agent William “Don’t Call Me Bill” O’Reilly began a few minutes later, “I would immediately ship you, you miserable Prote
stant sexual deviate EXPLETIVE DELETED!!, on the next plane to Fort Benning, Georgia—after I busted your miserable EXPLETIVE DELETED!! to Recruit, of course—in the perhaps wishful-thinking hope that the rigorous training and disciplinary measures available at the U.S. School of Infantry Excellence might turn you into a soldier.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Don’t interrupt me while I’m chewing your EXPLETIVE DELETED!!, Williams!”
“Yes, sir. I mean, no, sir.”
“Unfortunately, there is a protocol in place here in the Thirty-third which I must follow. This misguided document requires that when drastic disciplinary action is proposed for a miserable EXPLETIVE DELETED!! such as yourself, it must be reviewed—a last court of appeal, so to speak—by Supervisory Special Agent Jonathan Fitzwater Caldwell the Third.
“Don’t get your hopes up, you oversexed underage deviate, that when he is apprised of your outrageous behavior, Supervisory Special Agent Caldwell . . . Did I mention he is a lieutenant of cavalry, pay grade O-5?”
“No, sir. You didn’t mention that.”
“Where was I? Oh. Don’t get your hopes up that Colonel Caldwell will temper the action I am proposing with mercy. He is deeply offended by sexual misbehavior of any kind, and they don’t call him ‘The Wrath of God’ for nothing.
“So, what’s going to happen now is that you will be taken to Supervisory Special Agent Caldwell the Third’s office for the pro forma review I have mentioned, following which you will be returned here to pack your duffel bag and get on the plane to Fort Benning.
“Be prepared to say Auf Wiedersehen, Berlin, you miserable Protestant sexual degenerate.”
“Yes, sir.”
—
Phil was driven to Colonel Caldwell’s office in an olive-drab Volkswagen by the field first sergeant, a huge bull of a man who was not known for his intellectual ability.
He guided Phil with a massive hand on his arm into a building in the kaserne housing the Office of the Chief, Military Government, and then into an office with a sign identifying it as the Office of Liaison Coordination, and finally into an office with a sign identifying it as the Office of the Deputy Liaison Coordination Coordinator.
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