Last India Overland

by Craig Grant

  “Real good. Kind of like sex, after a year in the convent.” “Yeah?” I say. “You were in a convent?”

  “Once. For two years. My last two years of high school. My parents sent me there because they didn’t like this guy I was dating.”

  “Oh,” I say, and then we hear something coming up the stairs. It’s an old man, lighting the candles along the walls. This kind of thing must’ve happened a lot. He comes towards us and stops halfway down the hall and lights a candle in a small niche. He doesn’t notice us or the glow of our butts. We were still back in the shadows. He’s humming some sad song to himself as he shuffles his way back down the hall, and after he’s gone to the second floor, Dana says, “Wonder what his life is like.”

  “Yeah, I wonder,” I say, and Dave throws me this flash of this guy getting hit in the ankle with a bullet and being hauled for miles over a snowy plain in a makeshift travois behind a horse, and he throws me another flash, of Dana screaming while a bald-headed black guy digs a mass of ectoplasm out of her.

  “Uh, pardon me for asking, like, you don’t have to answer if you don’t want to, but, uh, how did your abortion go, uh, back in Istanbul? I mean, like, was it okay?” This is me being my usual articulate self around women.

  “No,” says Dana. “It wasn’t okay. Not really.”

  And then we hear more noise from the stairs, and voices. We both drop our butts to the floor at the same time and grind them out.

  It’s Pete and Charole. They’re holding hands. They stop near a candle on the wall and neck for a minute or two.

  “I love you,” whispers Charole, and Pete says the same thing back, and I wonder how many people are saying exactly the same thing right now, all over the world. It’d be nice if I was one of them, but it’s late at night. Soon doesn’t come on shift for another five hours. Besides, she doesn’t like it when I tell her I love her.

  Anyway, the generator picks a bad time to get its act back in gear. Presto, the lights flick back on, and there’s me and

  Dana, caught with our pants down, so to speak.

  Of course, Pete and Charole are just a little surprised to see us standing there. And not all that pleased.

  “Hi, troop,” I say. “How’s tricks?”

  “Fine,” says Charole, sounding, as they say in the paperbacks, somewhat disgruntled. She slides a key into a lock. Pete says goodnight to us, his tone not quite as friendly as it could’ve been, and they’re gone inside.

  Dana lets out a laugh. “When I was a little girl I used to listen at my parents’ bedroom door late at night to see what I could hear. I got caught doing that too.”

  She gives me what Dave says I should call a conspiratorial smile and then she says goodnight, see you in the morning, and she opens up her own door, gives me a little wave before she closes it.

  I’m thinking to myself, hey, Dana’s not too bad a lady, as I head to my room, and as I open the door I can hear bedsprings squeaking. But they stop right away. Rockstar, beating off.

  I don’t say anything, I just get out of my clothes and I get between those nice cool sheets that can’t have lice in them, it’d be just too much, and through the window I can see this moon, all five-sixteenths of it, rising above that cliff.

  I try to go to sleep but I can’t. I’m waiting for Kelly to come walking down the hall. But it’s a while before I finally hear her and Suzie’s and Patrick’s footsteps. By that time, Rockstar’s bedsprings have gone back to squeaking. Not much, just enough so I can hear them. It’s a real lonesome sound.

  But at least the aspirin had stopped my tooth hurting, although I knew there was a Big Fat Pain, all full of claws and fangs, lurking at the bottom of that hole in my tooth. I knew it was curled up and snoozing but that it wouldn’t be snoozing long.

  Charole’s daybook entry

  MERRY GLOBESTERS SET TO INVADE IRAN

  I thought the latest news deserved headlines. Yessir, cowpokes and cowpokettes, they’re rioting in the streets in Iran, and

  Pete, after conferring with the shadowy figures at the end of a telex line in London, has decided to institute Operation Redneck. Tim and Mary will reconnoitre with us in Kabul after they finish their surveillance mission into hostile territory with only their wits & bravado to keep them company in their quest for the perfect cup of chai and the perfect slice of baklava. (Highly suspect, that, since Suzie’s rumour mill has informed us that in actuality they’re leaving us because they can no longer stand listening to Mick Jagger singing “Some Girls” three times a day. Though this rumour, as with many others, might have been started just to stick a bone in a certain someone’s craw.) As for the rest of us, we’ve been told to keep what you call your basic low profile, which, translated, means no excess hell-raisin’, dope smokin’ & family feudin’. The plan is to sneak up on that border and impress those Savak troopers with our pressed Sears slacks and slicked back hair. Oh, late flash. Pete just got word from the head command that some of our Taurus kin are holed up in a Tehran hotel and if they can, they’re going to meet up with us in some town called Gorgan, and we’re going to make like a convoy across the rest of Iran. Stand by for further developments.

  Mick

  Dave just phoned me up and told me he had something he wanted me to see. Click, little TV in my left pupil dilates into blue. Below the sky, Teach and Tim, walking around these caves at a place called Cappadocia that Pete took us out to have a look at when we were in Urgup. Teach was crying. Likely something to do with the paintings on the cave walls. Moslem graffiti. Big Xs scratched into the eyes of those guys at the Last Supper, and Jesus on the cross, Mary at his feet. But Dave says that wasn’t all she was crying about. She was crying about Iran, and the fact that one of the reasons they’d come on the trip was because Teach’s father worked for Gulf in Iran and her mother worked in the American Embassy in Tehran. She hadn’t seen them in nine years, according to Dave. So they were talking about what they were going to do, and basically what Teach was saying was that she couldn’t come this far and this close without seeing her parents. Tim was wearing sunglasses, even though it was a cloudy day and they were in a cave. He didn’t say much, just held her as she cried. Dave says he wasn’t too happy about the idea of going to Tehran without the metal of the bus’s walls between them and the revolution. Dave says Tim started out on the trip with a certain attitude towards the idea of travelling on the bus but by the time we got to Urgup that attitude had Hip-flopped.

  When we got back from Cappadocia, Pete told us to stay put on the bus. He went inside the hotel and came back a few minutes later. The telex wire was down, he said. So we’ve got to make this decision now on the little we know, and so he called a secret ballot. New rules. Majority rule. And passed around Patrick’s hat. I voted to go through. He counted up the votes himself and then said, “Okay, most of you voted to go through.”

  Which was a lie, according to Dave. According to Dave, only me and Rockstar and Patrick and Kelly voted to go through, and Pete, of course. Charole talked Jenkins into casting a no vote. Which should’ve made it maybe a tie, and I would’ve called a recount, just to bug Pete if nothing else, but like I said, I voted to go through.

  Anyway. That kind of got the bus buzzing for a minute or two. I remember this thrill running up and down my spine like a mouse on speed. This was going to be like the movies, I thought. A chance for some non-stop action. It all seemed just a little unreal. Like Christmas in March. While the buzz was going on, Tim and Teach were talking to Pete and a few minutes later they disappeared into the hotel.

  Not a hell of a lot happened after that. Everybody kind of disappeared into their rooms and didn’t come out until suppertime. After supper the generator blew and Patrick got this great idea to write out our last wills and testaments. This was in the lounge, with candlelight bouncing off that suit of armour in the corner. That really cheered everyone up. It caused Teach to have another little crying jag and head for her room, Tim in tow. Just the same, Patrick got out the daybook and passed it
around, and those of us who didn’t have our last will made up and in a vault somewhere actually wrote a few things down. Jenkins willed his cowboy boots to any feet that fit them. Rockstar willed his body to anybody who wanted to eat it.* I willed my paranoia to Kelly and Lucille to B.B. King.

  The next morning, real early, when the rest of us were already on the bus, Tim and Teach came walking down the steps with two suitcases. There was a sad slouch to their walk, like the air was heavy. Pete put one suitcase in the undercarriage. Tim kept the other one. Then they both got on board. Teach went and sat next to Kelly and Charole while Pete put the bus in gear. He drove us all down to the bus station. The idea was to meet up with them again in either Herat or Kabul. Dave says that Pete also gave them the name of the hotel in Tehran where another Taurus Tours bus was holed up, according to one of the telexes Pete got, and that there was a chance they could join that group. At the bus station, Teach gave Kelly and Charole a couple hugs and then Teach came up to me and said that she’d heard my tooth was hurting and she gave me a bottle of aspirin and a bottle of extra-strength Nytol to help me sleep. Her eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

  “Gee, thanks, uh, Mary,” I said.

  It was real nice of her.

  I asked her if she was sure she didn’t need them.

  She said she was certain she wouldn’t have much need for sleep.

  I’m not sure what she meant by that.

  I wanted to tell her to take it easy and be real careful in Iran but somehow it never came out. Then she turned around and walked away, and suddenly her and Tim were gone, sucked in by the bus station.

  It was a real quiet bus ride to Sivas. Except for when Patrick got pissed off at Rockstar for drinking some of his raki.

  “You one-ball wonder,” said Patrick. “I was saving that for Mick’s tooth.”

  Rockstar didn’t say anything. He just looked at Suzie. Suzie had to hear this, she was sitting right in front of Patrick. And I could see her kind of freeze. But she kept her eyes glued to The Women’s Room. And then Rockstar did a funny thing. He came back to where I was sitting and handed me the bottle

  *Mick is mistaken here. See following section. — D.W.

  236

  of raki, didn’t say a thing, and then he climbed up into the back of the tent cage and stayed there, staring out the back window, all the way to Sivas. Or was it Erzurum? Right, Dave. Sivas.

  I drank a lot of raki on the way to Sivas. Sad little town, Sivas.

  from the daybook

  The Last Wills and Testaments of Certain Merry Globesters, Embarked as They Are Upon the Great Indian Trek

  I, Patrick Ignatieff, being of fairly sound mind, given the glass of Buzbag in my hand, do submit my final will and testament, having wrestled dutifully with this body’s loathsome mortality vis-a-vis the inauspicious vicissitudes of our present situation. Ergo, I bequeath everything I own to the meek and the mild, and Melinda Dillon.

  I, Charole Anchorage, being of sound mind (I think) but a less than sound body, bequeath my open plane ticket to Kelly Winter and my cast to Suzie, who will appreciate the graffiti on it.*

  I, Kelly Winter, bequeath the stained glass, Colville’s Moon and Cow, all the candles, the ratty sofa, in fact, everything, to Charole Anchorage. Everything except my Snoopy pyjamas. Heaven might be chilly.

  Anybody who has size 11 feet can have my boots, and Mick can have my sleeping bag, just in case he loses his again. Charole can have my sleeve and whatever’s on it. (achoo... damn cold) F.J.

  Boo. Boo, boo! Boo boo boo! Mum can have my corps [sic] just in case she gets hungry in her old age.17

  Now that’s good thinking. She can have my corpse too, Rockstar. Best thing on it would be ketchup and pickles probably. Kelly can have my paranoia. Pete can have all my toenail clippings and I will Lucille to B.B. King.18

  I don’t think this is very bloody funny. My mum, Agnes Byrnes, in Rockhampton, can have everything I leave behind.*

  (postcard: a picture of Urgiip on the front)

  Urgiip, Turkey, Nov. 11

  Dear Dex, As you’ve probably heard, Iran’s suffering a hit of indigestion these days. We’ve decided to go through, regardless. This is not meant to worry you. By the time you get this we will have made it (we won’t be stopping to see the sights) into Afghanistan safely. By now you should have received a telegram from me saying as much. We leave for Sivas at 7. I love you. Please don’t show this to Mom. Outta room, take care, K.19

  from Kelly’s diary

  Nov. 12

  Left Urgup at 7. We’ve voted to go thru Iran. Majority vote, that is. Despite the fact that a van of German tourists was blown up near Tabriz. Urgiip: saw caves with vandalized murals & a disco under construction. Mick doesn’t like the way I fraternize with Turkish males. How nice. He’s got possessive instincts. We’re in Sivas, a dirty city, the addled & the lame & the limbless walk the streets, staring. Mick, drunk on raki (he claims his tooth is hurting), says 1 of Somoza’s cousins must be mayor. In front of our hotel there’s a yawning hole in the street, pipes sticking out of the sides of the hole like severed arteries. I feel kind of hollow & at loose ends myself. Said goodbye to T & M this morning. Drove across a high plateau. S is upset because Pat. called R. a one-ball wonder. This morning before breakfast he caught her alone & told her he was going to kill her before the trip was over & so she better enjoy the scenery while she still can. I told her it was probably an empty threat but she should probably tell Pete about it. She said no way, he hasn’t even looked at her since she wrote those limericks on the bus windows back in Istanbul. It’s her bed. At lunch, C had lunch with me instead of Pete, she’s pissed off at him for not noticing the new sweater she bought in Urgiip.

  Mick

  Sivas was where I talked to Jenkins for the last time. In the flesh, I mean. He had a room with Kelly and I was sitting in there drinking with him. He was sitting on a chair and Kelly was drawing him. She had these three candles lit and the rest of the room was in this nice late afternoon twilight. Kelly was talking about how political ideologies have deluded us into thinking that each person we meet is not necessarily a living, breathing and incomparably mysterious human being, that’s how she put it. She was talking about pagan religion and how the horned gods are the best gods because they have the right tools for probing the deep dark mysteries. She was talking about belief systems. “Belief systems,” said Jenkins, and he looked at me and grinned. “Is that what BS is short for?”

  I laughed. Kelly laughed. Yeah, Jenkins was definitely starting to snap out of his funk.

  I’ll always remember the way that Kelly looked at Jenkins with this expression full of affection. Jenkins was everybody’s kid brother.

  Then Jenkins said, “Actually I guess I do have a belief system, kind of.”

  “Yeah, what’s that, Jenkins?” I said.

  “Well, it’s something my dad used to say back in the days when he used to curl.” For a moment there, a sad look crossed his face. Then he said, “This is back when I was ten or eleven and he was trying to teach me the game.”

  “You’re a curler, Jenkins?” I said.

  He looked at me. Shrugged. “Oh, yeah, I’ve curled a few games. There ain’t much else to do in Montana in the middle of January when the Alberta clipper is hanging out icicles on everyone’s noses.”

  Kelly looked at him. “You’re a poet at heart, Frank, you know that, don’t you?”

  He just laughed.

  I said, “My old man used to bet on curling games.” Not bothering to mention that my old man once bet on whether or not a cat was in heat and used a thermometer to find out. “He won a thousand bucks on the Briar one winter.”

  “Yeah?” said Jenkins.

  I said yeah. This was just before Hasheeba’s sixteenth birthday. He bought her this real nice dress she had her eye on. The old man was a generous guy. Too generous, the old lady would always say. Always leaving twenty per cent tips in pizza joints, that kind of thing. I don’t think he liked the feel of
money.

  “I watched Frank curl once,” said Kelly.

  “Yeah?” I said. “What’d you think?”

  She said, “I thought it was a bit like watching paint dry.” She dabbed a little blue onto Jenkins’s jacket. I was sitting against a wall just off to the left of her so I could watch her paint.

  “Yeah,” said Jenkins, “that’s what a lot of people say.”

  Then Kelly said, “But I happen to like watching paint dry.”

  And we all laughed.

  That was a grotty little room we were in, in Sivas. But there was a nice feeling in that room. And I’m pretty sure I didn’t just feel that way because I’d been knocking back raki all day.

  Kelly said, “So what did your father say to you about curling?”

  Jenkins rubbed his cheek and said in this quiet voice, “Well, it was before my very first game, right after he showed me how to swing the rock up and come out of the hack. He said, ‘Son, curling’s a lot like life. Just like you gotta keep your nose clean, you gotta keep the ice clean, and you got to learn how to hit the rocks thin and roll behind cover.’ ”

  That was nice. Kelly glanced over at me to see whether or not I’d picked up on it too.

  “You get your poetic soul from your father, Frank,” she said, looking back at her painting.

  After that we got into talking about dads and everything they ever said to us. A little hard work won’t hurt ya. Save your money, you might need it some day. I can’t follow you around for the rest of your life so use your head and stay out of trouble and don’t do anything to break your mother’s heart.

  And maybe Dave did whisper in my ear something about not saying anything to spoil the good vibes, but I had to ask, I was curious.