Tony Drury wants out but knows the game never ends, so he dishes what he can, takes what he must, until Charles gasps agreement to a truce after another grapple. Approaching coronary complexity they defer to the unfitness program that defines their lives. “Nice hustle,” Charles croaks. “We’ll finish later. Okay?”
Tony Drury says, “Yeah, later,” and lunges with an awkward jab that lands square on the chin. Some say Charles gave it to him.
Charles blubbers, “Fine. Fine. You got me last.”
Tony mumbles the compulsory obscenities and dabs his cuts with a bar napkin dipped into what was a perfectly good drink. He retreats to safe distance and grouses over idiocy, assault and battery. The judges have it even on all cards. Tony’s nose is bent, his jaw unhinged and his head banged into next week. Charles bleeds profusely and can’t catch his breath or answer the next bell, so it’s called a draw, so Tony saves face if not the pleasant interlude.
Charles gasps, “Just as well. You know I didn’t want to kick your ass.” Tony knows nothing. He brushes himself off and goes home in a bad mood to ice his head and have a drink in peace. Charles leaves quietly and doesn’t show for three more days. Nobody notices. Nary an eyebrow rises, especially Tony’s, which is stitched into place.
Suey says Charles found a new woman to meet his need, one who doesn’t yet know him. She says the three-day prince will return tomorrow on cue, froggy once more. And somewhere out there the new woman will search the narrow streets and wonderful sights for the bliss that was here, or there, she knows it was. She’ll look high and low, knowing their separation was a mistake, a quirk of nature easily corrected by simple reunion. How could it be otherwise after that much fun?
Charles turns up as predicted and bellies up next to Cisco, who says, “I’ll skin you alive. I’ll drag your sorry ass down the road.” He sits up and turns to the aggressor. “I’ll dump you down a well.”
“Oh, ho, ho, no,” Charles says. “No! Not you. Never you. You’re too clean! And big? Jesus Christ, will you look at this guy! Why he’d … skin me alive! Drag me down the road! Dump me in the well!” Mocking Mother Nature and Cisco, Charles cries, “Balls!” raising his dukes on a half step back, shooting a jab to the hair of Cisco’s chinny chin chin. Deftly on another minced move he watches Cisco’s wild right whoosh past like an infrequent comet as Cisco wonders what, back in the haze.
The idiotic grin flashes on the next step—to the inside, where he wraps an arm around Cisco’s shoulder and says, “Ha! Gotcha!” Turning away in a duck to slap the bar, he yells for a goddamn drink for himself and his feisty compadre. Cisco isn’t amused. Charles pours and raises the toast, “Give me some men, some stouthearted men!” and drinks it urgently. Cisco broods. Charles looks left and right and aims the tenor up: “With a hearty hi-oh, Sil-ver! Away!” And he leaves.
Some say Charles whupped Cisco too, or just as well could have. Some say Cisco knows it, that Charles altered perceptions that day for the indomitable one. Cisco says nothing until a day later from the same seat, eyes rising from his ice cubes to push a new wrinkle up his brow. Some watch. Some wait. Some listen. Like a man on the verge of conclusion, Cisco yawns, talk bubble empty. But that’s his own feint—then he says, “Charles is gone.”
“What?” Tony asks from down the bar where he sits like another fixture.
“Charles. He’s gone,” Cisco says.
“Promises promises,” Tony says. Cisco grunts, snorts and mumbles over leaving-time and knowing when.
Charles’ next notable absence is happy hour at the Legion, upon which he once led the assault. Garnering a following for a seek-and-destroy designed to drive the Legion bankrupt, Charles plotted the invasion for happy hour drinks at fifteen hundred each. The new patriots could score an upset bigger than the guns of Navarone, if they set the odds aside and charged with courage. Three thousand to the dollar and an honest pour made the Legion’s arsenal stockpiled in the back room enough sauce to down a battalion of special forces who could stand up to a five-dollar buzz or stagger to a humdinger for a few bucks more. The Legionnaires understood soldiers of fortune in need like themselves on limited income. The doors were open.
Charles harrumphed to a head of steam, exhorting the oppressed to take a stand against conspiracy and exclusion, to face duty with honor, honor with duty—“Are we going to just sit here with our heads in the sand? Are we going to turn our backs on justice?”
He worked it up to a whistle and hooted down the bar—“Do you think David Niven gave two shits about a bunch of Nazis and steep cliffs and waves! Are you going to tell me it doesn’t make a difference if the Nazis are blowing our boys to smithereens! Are you just gonna sit there?” Between his lines another lazy afternoon seeped with blessed silence. A few heads turned. The loud one had erupted a few hours ahead of schedule.
Some chuckled. Some dozed. Most dazed. Some shooed the invisible mosquito. “Wait! You men wait here!” Charles ran to the back and came out with a coat hanger. Hunched over it, he untwisted and straightened then poked it through two corners of a dollar bill. He tore that off and replaced it with a hundred-dollar bill. He raised the flag. “You can’t fight without a war chest! I pledge the honor of this flag to duty! I pledge that together we will take back the Alamo! Now come on men! And women! Are you with me?” So the volunteer army enlisted after all. It was fun.
The Legionnaires weren’t surprised, hadn’t been surprised in twenty years. The battalion is down to survivors, a few regulars meeting for cocktails. The long march led south of the border where a body needing a drink and a body pouring a drink comprise a community, an American contingent at large. The Legionnaires welcomed the invasion, joining the spirit of a campaign rife with honor and duty. Nobody believed the Legion could be bankrupted, not by a frontal assault on the bar.
The Legion is shored up and defended by a single Legionnaire with a gut like a globe. Cuddy Dingham is called Cuddy Atlas for bearing the weight of the world on his belly, or Dingy Cuddy when he drinks too much, or Dingfuck the Cudball just because. Cuddy Atlas stood at attention. “State your business, boys. And ladies.”
Charles stuck the flag in an empty bottle. “Whiskey for my troops and quick about it.” Cuddy Atlas asked if turncoats could join. The old vets moved in from the flank and victory was hailed; we have met the enemy and he is us and so on and so forth with drinks all around. The Legionnaires take a hundred-dollar commitment as gratitude and respect, an act of contrition if not patriotism. Cuddy Atlas poured freely, and in an hour alliances were sealed, in two they slurred and by three they were mush: “Eezsh guys … ey … fuck …”
Not Charles. He stood on a chair. “We will fight on the land. We will fight on the sea. We will fight in the cantinas …”
That was long ago, when happy hour at the Legion was on its way to tradition, before it relapsed to a sullen group drinking cheap under a moth-eaten flag in faint recollection of the rockets red glare. The real old guys remember Iwo Jima; the medium old guys recall LSD and Phnom Penh or Toronto. Charles called it historical, the differing factions drinking their way to peace.
“Charles is on leave of absence,” calls a voice from a foxhole as happy hour fades to dusk, as another night settles on the no man’s land ahead.
“Leave from what?” someone asks.
“We don’t need leave anymore!” a Legionnaire asserts.
“Maybe he’s absent without leave,” the first guy says. The Legionnaire grumbles; insubordination to a superior officer can land your ass in the stockade.
“Oh, boy,” somebody else says, and Cuddy Atlas moves like a medic at the front.
Quieter time in town is the first effect of no Charles. “It’s like when Charles is around, it’s like you can’t think. But when Charles is gone, it’s like it was a dream, I think.” This from Cisco, looking vulnerable, venturing in concepts.
Kensho tosses in his grist. “It’s all meditation, all dream. You lose it with movement, shatter it with desire.” Cisco’s forehead p
iles up but eases back out as the eyeballs settle among the cubes for a nice soak.
The social machine shifts to overdrive, runs smoother on fewer rpm but bogs down at low speeds. People wait for someone to mention something. A funk settles with the dust until expectation gives way to resignation. Some feel relieved, free of the chaperone. Charles’ absence allows opinions other than those of the dictator. But none can rise. “What was that one, that book, you know, with the brothers who raised all the hell, and they both liked that woman?” Cisco reaches. Nobody lends a hand.
Mal says, “Fortyniners-Pittsburg Monday night.”
Kensho says, “I’m going to break a record—not a record, but a … well, a record.” Nobody turns or asks what.
Heidi says, “I’m going up for a ride.” She leaves. Others wait, discussing comings and goings, odd sightings and unlikely potentials. Some slump like night bloomers waiting sundown. Outside an ancient peasant looks two hundred years old at the end of a harsh life—or maybe his life was casual and he’s only seventy. Jorge sits on the curb scratching grass from the hardpan between the cobbles. The grass grows back with little rain, less light, but the old man scratches up one side of the gray brown lane and down the other as if by faith he will one day prevail. Hands like tubers with claws at the ends could fare better in the country, hunting truffles or grubs. Jorge looks up for a garble, and the mush between his ears drools out his mouth.
“One day he’ll die too,” Charles had laughed, confusing his audience with vague insult, telling them they’re dead already, or the difference between them and the old beggar comes to zero, or something.
Tony Drury doesn’t feel dead or that his life means no more than a demented beggar’s. He understands the pitfalls of liquor and drugs; they cannot substitute for real life but must complement life as an interesting and often fun tangent for those who can bear up. Like the grass in the cobbles, the strong grow back daily in the miracle of rebirth. Through the days they wait, the strong wait with the chance that anything can happen. Adventure requires readiness; it can begin again any time and a few drinks for the wait won’t hurt.
Waiting is natural for spirits adrift. Hope comes in and out of view like a ghost ship in a fog—society is something to cling to while waiting for something else to cruise by and carry you off. The continuing question is what and where you can be or go, once you are already. But that’s a problem for everyone everywhere, so why not drift in good fun with good will in the meantime? The beggar outside is nobody’s cross to bear. It isn’t like anyone threw him overboard. Charles was wrong on that. Tony enjoys the soft sounds of absence.
Charles gives the old guy two grand most days, each time announcing, “For luck.” The old man slips the coins into his rags that hang like unsloughed skins. His leathery noggin bobs twice like a goat head coming to boil. The voice reaches deep for gratitude. “Nnuhmnrgh.” The old man gazes up like he’s made a point. Then he drools.
Charles loves the exchange, loves the play he can produce over and over for only two grand. He goes bright-eyed too, mimicking gutturals. He gets the old man going like they might shuffle off to Broadway for some of the old soft-shoe. But Charles shakes his head, hocks ptooey and laughs, “Nah! Really, I gotta go.” He moves up the street leaving some wondering what difference the old man’s death will make. More grass between the cobbles is all that comes to mind. Big deal. Charles asks what the old man’s name is, then names him Jorge; the old man gets excited, bobbing and drooling as if to say, Yes, that’s it! Charles asks him if his mailing address is the same as his residence and if he has a refrigerator. Charles chats with Jorge like a peer, killing a little more reality in never never land, making no difference. “He’s us, you know,” Charles says.
“Charles and his artsy fartsy stuff,” Cisco says. “Make sense out of that, you’ll end up like him.” Charles walked away like a man with a destination.
Some watch. Some wait. Some voice opinion, and life wages on among the socially inclined. Sometimes the line blurs between legitimate opinion and verbal effluent, but it resolves soon enough if you can wait. The place has time and is easy on a dollar.
Cash comes down from the north or up from under the mattress. Gringo money comes from pensions, dividends, mystery moolah—nevermind the source. The party can last till the money runs out or the revelers croak, whichever comes first. In the meantime it never ends but only pauses for a few hours of daylight.
II
The Untruth Revealed
You can tell who came south committed to adventure, to the long march, the one up, bottoms up, sunrise or bust. With willingness in the air it’s anyone in a dress or a tie or dungarees and a pullover. You can tell when the sun goes down and the grackles quit their racket and the lights come up and the hopeful come out, who’s willing to call it a night of nights. The Patron Saint of Becoming Someone Else walks those narrow streets, beckoning the faithful to come forth, to get high, get it on, get down, get laid maybe, with rubbers of course, because we’re not suicidal like some of us used to be, not by a long shot. On the contrary, we merge here like tributaries to a greater flow.
Many believe that a confluence of souls like this one is hardly a matter of chance, no way; could flotsam drifting downstream form an island like this one? Just look around.
Synchronicity is another gringo luxury, a favorite cause of those who survive the complex rigors of the rigorous complexities. Some survive urban stress. For some it’s emotional duress. Sexual harassment challenged others. Cruel divorce burns a wide swatch. Flowing down to the little town that could, they come, they see, they schmooze.
Those born in the area understand a more fundamental gravity and a nature that selects survivors with far less of the warm and fuzzy, a nature in which the unfed starve, the unquenched parch, the chaff blows away. The end.
Church bells clang down the quietude one day near the beginning of the end. Tony Drury looks up and mumbles, “Last call.” His eyes close as if for better scenery.
A voice behind him groans from shallow slumber with the question paralleling the why of the place, “What?” Not too far away the gardeners root. The maids clean.
When enough survivors gather in town survivorship falls from favor. Maybe an eyeful of nature’s fittest has its effect. How can you say, “I’m a survivor,” with little Pedro in rags gnawing on a hard roll just outside? The refugee moniker gains currency for awhile, but that sounds so … Haitian. Many call themselves creative, call others judgmental, call women intelligent and attractive, call men sweet. But survivor is reserved for those with soiled hands.
On they come, swelling the southbound stream. Like lemmings by instinct, leaping on faith that the world is done for. It’s only a matter of time; live for today and so on and so forth. Nevermind the nomenclature, it changes so often. The main thing is to get on down.
The last days of the world leave two choices, in order to avoid further suffering. You can: 1) kill yourself quick and neat. Suey tried but was too slow, not so neat, way too mental and of questionable commitment. She doesn’t want to die, not really. It only made sense. She overdosed on downers, or tried to with twelve. It didn’t work. So she decided to 2) flee south to get drunk. Lawrence followed. He’s her husband. When they get pickled and slice each other up she accuses him of tagging along.
Heidi also reached the bitter end but never tells until much later with crying time at hand.
Kensho sought small death daily for years, picking away at the scab of his imperfection. He calls his compulsion pure and oriental. He purges himself of weakness by transcending pain, by bringing it on and trying to ignore it or not trying but transcending, which is different somehow and hurts more or less if you do it wrong. Tony Drury tells him that he only displaces a thing with a heavier dose of the same thing. Kensho returns a wry smile, as if Tony may just comprehend the ether. Kensho nods woefully and has another drink.
Only Malcolm claims happiness with himself, his past and his prospects. Cut from the core of
complacency he loves how it all works out. A drug dealer by trade back in the glory days of drug-induced wisdom, Malcolm landed on his feet with money to live well. Grown fat, gray and pasty, he looks back for color and grit. With eyes sparkling like stars on the lone prairie, he recalls great highs, incredible sex, roping, branding and shooting from the hip. Malcolm will spin a yarn if you’ll listen or not. He tells a story and moves his body in parts, the gray, the fat, the afterwobble going from the back to the edge of his seat in a beginning, a middle and an end. He strains to dramatize a point but alas; a man grows old and can’t hump sod like he usedta.
“I don’t believe you,” Tony says. Malcolm laughs sanguinely; he can well understand how a man might doubt what a man has seen. But he laughs short, reaching into his pocket for proof with the deck. Two-shots, mostly, young Malcolm and date, as if he foresaw his need for proof. He grunts and gobs in a mild convulsion, his chalky arms and jowls pulsating liver spots like a giant squid in springtime. Malcolm’s photos often make him spasm. They memorialize his happiness. Those were the days. He never tried to kill himself. Why would he? He could have died any day anyway, and he had it all. He came south the best way possible, on the lam. He sits back in old glory as his deck gets dealt round the table, doggy-style gone dog-eared from years of scrutiny. Sometimes he hocks into a napkin, which is a terrible thing to see but not as harsh as the swallow. “Do you still do this?” Tony asks. Malcolm laughs again and raises some stubborn residue. “Do you want to do this again?” Tony asks, turning another card.
“Gimme my pictures back,” Malcolm says, reaching.
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