My Amputations (Fiction collective ;)

by Clarence Major

  He was speaking to a mirage of students from the rotunda of a lecture hall in the Engineering Building on the campus of the University of Colorado at Boulder at four-thirty in the afternoon a few days after leaving Seattle, when he saw in the audience, way at the back, an older woman: Painted Turtle. He hadn't noticed her at first. But when he became aware of her he started tripping over the bumpy surfaces of words on his tongue, choking on double entendres. He became a dying man swallowing a fishbone of language. There was another older person, a man, sitting beside her. The man was snickering, covering his mouth, whispering to Painted Turtle. He'd cock his head toward Mason, listen for a few seconds, then rock with suppressed laughter. Painted Turtle wasn't responding to her companion's jollity. Why was she here and who was the scornful mirth-maker with her? Mason struggled through the talk and the reading then leaped offstage, pushing his way through the unruly crowd of exiting students—against the flow. His heart was apitapat. Not to loose sight of her. Many blonde heads. In a blood curdling frenzy, he knocked the students aside. “Hay! What the hell—!” “Mister Lather, ha . . . ” “Get a load of—” But she wasn't there when he got to the top. He was twitchety and hysterical. Frantically, he scanned the remaining people—some of them waiting to ask him questions in private. “May I speak to you a moment?” “Huh?” He brushed the student back and dashed down the aisle. The Turtle had to have gone out this way. “Uh, excuse me: I was wondering if you'd explain—” “In a minute, a minute please!” But she wasn't out in the hallway either, nor outside the building. He looked up at the sky. Blue potatoes. Clear as it can get. What bad medicine was this? Some warning? Could she have thought he wouldn't see her? He took in a deep breath of the sharp dry Colorado air. “Excuse me, but . . . ” “Yes, yes . . . ” When the students lingering behind finished with him, Mason's host—one of the many kindly old professors of the English Department—led the badly shaken and now muffish “writer” away to the parking lot near Old Main. As they walked Professor Tippoff pointed out the wonders of his campus. Mason hardly heard him. He was jerking his head about: still searching. Then suddenly—on the sidewalk at his feet, these words in blue chalk: MRF owns Cowie: you're a cow on crutches. Professor Tippoff: “I apologize for the graffiti. Some student with a laconic message for another. I suppose some things can't be relayed by telephone and sky writing is out of their reach.” He chuckled at his own foolproof humor. Professor Tippoff would put him up that night in his elegant old mansion near the hospital just north of Canyon Road. The spring city was atwinkle and, as they drove by the mall, people were strolling in their thin clothes, watching the tightrope walkers, fire-eaters, belly dancers, sword-swallowers, and each other in their endless blondness. Here at the base of the Flatirons perhaps a kind of calmness might be possible, thought Mason. Anyway, in the morning he'd go skiing, for sure. It had to be one of the last possible days. Perhaps the spirit of the Arapahoe and hoodoo itself would protect this native son on the white slopes. He thanked the Tippoffs and set out. Up at Lake Eldora he stood in the lift ticket line behind a woman who turned around and giggling, said, “Beautiful day, isn't it.” She introduced herself as Sharon Seeberg.

  The fanbelt of time pulled the days weeks months along and everything went smoothly till Mason got his November statement from Chase—one at First Avenue and Twenty-Sixth Street across from Bellevue—which didn't show a MRF deposit. It was now the morning of December eighth and when he went down for coffee at the bar, Sweden, who had no Swedish accent to speak of, handed him a telephone message: “Urgent: call John Armegurn. About your account.” The fanbelt? Coffee, moments later, tasted of axle grease and Frankish Morea sewage in Killini . . . Mason bought the Times and returned to the cup. Tricks? Cooler, it hadn't improved. Times: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation had announced its new grantees. Mason recognized none of them. Urgent? Steep, sharp winds swept down the Alps of his nerves. Red clouds of fear moved over the baked-blood stillness of his mind. Sahara with a blistering scirroco. What an ungodly excuse for foreshadowing! Perhaps he'd need a new identity to get away . . . Already the fanbelt was about to snap—or the shit to hit . . . Mason suddenly got such an uneasy feeling—he felt as though he were being led by three captives into the jungle toward an awful confrontation. Wasn't three a magical number? Maybe only twenty-two was magical. Who knew. Yet he saw himself as a masked figure brought into a village somewhere, perhaps in South America or . . . God knows where, stripped and forced into an arena of Truth: made to account for his sins, his crimes. Brought before the altar of his family, his children, the women he'd betrayed. And he was supposed to have some kind of message (either in writing or deliverable in some other form) for his executioner—but he couldn't remember where he'd stored it. He was also supposed to drink something called wongo soup before going to the site. He'd failed. Then there was something else about wearing a mask—and, shit, he knew nothing about masks. During this time, too, he kept dreaming of an old man in a red robe but none of it made any sense. Now, Old man Bryn Maur over there, religiously, sipping coffee and reading the Times, too. His troubles? Any? And there: the retired Lockheed Aircraft guy, Courtlandt, troubles . . . ? And the ex-Commissioner of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission retiree, Mister Tredyffrin? The city for him was a troubleless haven? Did their coffee taste of the Middle Ages in Greece? of a sewer in Malusi Nquakula? Wasn't it possible to wake to cello and violin, a friendly woman in Green Pastures—green emeralds, fire engine-red rubies, cocaine white-diamonds, sapphires, rather than rusty wheelbarrows-without-white-chickens-beside-them and shovels of hardtimes, disappointment, corruption? Corruption? “Urgent . . . ” Banjo buggy rubbish! Shouldn't have sold the Polish machine pistol. The bar mirror gave him back his nutmeg face with sleep-puffiness still clinging to its green chrome. The cortex deep in there was tighter. Tensions between the vertebrae and the disc caused a yanking, a painful fear, he'd not before felt. The yin couldn't find the yang and the outer gray area was a disaster zone with screaming, fleeing mobs. Well, he had to face it. Back upstairs in his room, expecting the police to break the door in any moment, he phoned Armegurn. And he was listening to Armegurn for a full five minutes before he heard what he was saying: “Two hundred fifty eight of our accounts were sublet last week to Gwertzman, Meisnner, Lowell and Associates which is a division of the Kraus-Worner Foundation for the Arts and Sciences. So if your check is late this month this is the reason. Don't worry . . . ” “But—” “You see, Magnan-Rockford owns Kraus-Worner. We're just equalizing some of the responsibilities.” Mason didn't care for Armegurn's chuckle.

  Still in his cellule, about to read himself to sleep, with paperback-fantasies of faraway places, adventures high hopes fears, the telephone rang. Rare. The desk put Brad on. Ah shit! “I gotta see you. Now.” And when Brad arrived twenty minutes later, Mason—leery—watched his bloodshot leer. His tone was malicious: “I don't feel you treated us right?” “Brad, but we all got the same cut. What'd ya mean?” Face to face—standing. “I read in the Times today that you, winner of the Magnan-Rockford prize were back—” “I never left. Wait—” “ . . . in the city. Ha, you know damn well I never believed you: you're as big a crook as I am. I want ten thousand . . . ” “What?” “You heard me.” “I don't have—” “Don't want to hear don't haves.” Mason grinned at his old “friend.” Brad was obviously drunk. He smelled bad and looked worse. How had Brad found him? What network of tricks . . . ? Mason considered killing—but killing was not copesettic. A neater way. Stall. The fanbelt was running on its last threads: Brad's death wouldn't prevent the break. Grease-balls and flaws in the scheme. “Okay, Brad. Okay. I need time. Ten thousand is a lot—” “Tomorrow.” “Okay, tomorrow.” Brad took out a gun. He waved it in Mason's face. “And no funny business. Tomorrow at noon. Here.” After Brad left Mason went down and got the VW, double-parked it out front; loaded the Selectric, the books, and his clothing in; settled his bill; and drove to the Cozy Inn Motel on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. Who'd ever
find him here? The room was made of cardboard and the furniture too. In the morning he took out two thousand cash, loaded it in the briefcase then walked over to Flushing Avenue and bought that amount in travellers' checks at Chemical. He'd do this each day at a different bank till he had it all transferred. Also had to close the account at Chase. But how—without risking—well—everything? While eating eggs and bacon and drinking coffee at the counter in Aunt Mary's Kitchen on Lorimer, he plotted his future: sell the VW, the Selectric, get the Chase bread—if possible; split. For where? France, of course. Maybe he'd better leave well enough alone. There was only about three thousand in the account: he'd “wisely” taken out most of it each month as soon as the MRF checks cleared. An old rabbi went by. On second thought maybe he'd better not sell the car. But drive to, say, Boston. Leave from there. Or to Canada. Fly from . . . Yeah. Slow down, think clearly. Gotta stop wearing jeans. Gotta look respectable: that way you won't attract the attention of cops. Three piece suit. Get one. Expensive. And expensive shoes, too. Get a pair. Ace, you're going to make it. Don't even dream of giving up your rightful claim to the chosen name! Dangerous though it may be, you will prevail.

  In Nice you can get through the winter. It won't run into you like a boy on a skateboard. At the corner of avenue de Suede and rue Halevy is a bar-pizza joint that sells Sicilienne pizza for twenty-five francs and you can even get dinner there for thirty-eight. If you're feeling rich you can drink at the swank bar of the Negresco Hotel which faces the sea. You might even bump into James Baldwin. The doorman, by the way, is a sight: in his red and blue livery. Out front, erected at a sixty-five degree angle, are the flags of the dominant Western nations. Or if you're feeling like a jock you can walk down the street a couple of blocks to the “Jok Club” at Casino Ruhl. If you are adventuresome you will discover Grand Cafe de Turin down by the Old Place Victoria at Port de Turin and Place Garibaldi on Jean Jaures just across from the Mercury Theatre and here you can drink the house wine—and it's excellent—all afternoon and not go broke and you can eat shellfish if you like it salty, but eat it that way only in winter. If you get up early and like to have your coffee at one of the cafes then you'll want to find a comfortable one. If the sun is out but it's a wintery day you'll probably sit halfway in the sun and halfway out. Maybe you'll have an espresso or café au lait at one of the cafes on the Cours Saleya—perhaps the one directly across from Echeries de la Mediterranee. It's good and not expensive. A few flower vendors in the old market area do well on holidays and weekends. Another good cafe for morning coffee is Bar de la Degustation over on the corner of rue du Marché across from the Palais de Justice on rue de Prefecture. There, just beside the entrance of the tiny cafe-bar a fisherman sells his freshly caught fish out of a wobbly old pushcart usually on Thursdays and Fridays. When you buy from him he talks nice to you and wraps your fish quickly in old sheets of Nice-Matin. Otherwise he doesn't speak to you but you can sit at one of the tables, with the smell of his fish in your nose, and watch the faces of people rushing by on their way to work or market. You can read your newspaper there otherwise and not watch. If you forget to buy your Nice-Matin before you order your coffee there's that little vendor across the way in the shadow of the Palais de Justice. You can make a phone call from there too or get a photocopy made of some legal document you may need to show to the French police.

  His hotel room was comfortable and when he opened the east shutters in the morning he got the sun and from midday on he got sunlight through the south window. An old well-maintained hotel, on rue Pastorelli, north side, called Riviera, near Gubernatis. From the window Mason saw neat Square Dominque Durandy in front of the old Biblioteque. On Sunday mornings philatelists gathered here to trade or sell. On rainy days they parked their cars along Pastorelli and while holding umbrellas over their heads carried on business from the trunks. They were each other's best customers. Idle, Mason went over. Fingered timbres of z Republique Francaise: their celebrations. One stamp collector, a handsome young man wearing a bright scarf, seemed to be watching him with unusual interest. Mason glanced back at the guy. Was he an agent of the . . . ? Mirror was no ordinary reflector: a touch of silver, bedroom dimness, fantasy, illusion, birds in flight, other complications lurked in its illuminations, its “eternal darkness.” It was a ghost town too. The landscape of screaming. Obsidian in its corners, a river flowed through its center, emptying out into the gulf of its deepest century. Mason might get lost in such a vast ocean. He didn't have both oars in the water anyway. It'd take a chemist to successfully explore the terrain, a levee-expert to stop its flooding. Yet bravely Mason got up, like a sleepwalker, and stood before its silence with strange excitement. Here it was possible to dip into movements of waves deceptively disguised as one's own heartbeat, pulse and spinal nerve-twitch. But would he trust the image . . . ? Well, nobody'd told him he had to confront it. In fact The System might advise against such slander. But he had a plan: he'd look in the old French mirror (with its peeling edges, its mongoose-greased surface) and declare himself visible. At least. Lest he fall in. Yes, fully alive. Only the bedside light helped the process. (He hated the ceiling one and never turned it on. Its glare was the slime of eye infection.) He hadn't yet focused on his own reflection but was trying to make out the background: a valley full of vacationers like ants crowded the edge. A red moon. Night had its way. Its sky was no garden of light with mosquito lava and housefly eggs and tiny pupa cups hanging from damp leaves. No, this was a landscape with debris and bathers in a state of metamorphosis. Mason bit his tongue and moved closer for a deeper view. Was this Africa with its delightful myths and mites. Somebody'd scratched a swastika on the parenthesis that was the moon. He felt calm. No green horseflies would buzz near his reflection. He was coming to that image slowly. Calmly. Mirror mirror. But wait, wait a minute! There was so much chaos behind the image! Chaos? Who sez? Hundreds of beheaded bodies in doorways and ditches. Where? In doorways and . . . But wait. There weren't any doorways and . . . What kinda rigmarole was this? What was taking him so long? Was somebody running him backwards again? Had his so-called Formula for Clarity been scrambled? Help! Despite himself Mason saw himself. Fine. So he was looking at the, uh . . . what was this? This wasn't Mason Ellis! Who then? What then? The guy in the mirror was more triangular, Mason himself was closer to the arc of a circle—slightly bent from despair and running. The mirror then might be the intersection of two sets. Leaves in there fell suddenly from winter trees. Clouds crowded the sky. The stranger was nobody he knew. Mason couldn't even identify the creature's race or nationality. And what was he doing? He was holding a forty-five automatic. Aiming it at Mason's chest. What kind of reunion was this? What absolute horseshit this betrayal! The image in the mirror showed no emotion as he shot Mason eight times in the chest. Mason cried out. As he began his descent he recognized the killer: that old mask had fooled him but only for a moment. As he lay on the floor clawing his own blood Mason realized suicide was not the answer.