Homunculus

by Wintner, Robert;

  Tomàs lived with Mal, downstairs, and didn’t mind cleaning up because it was only the big stuff; Lucha came daily for the dishes and dust. Mal bought a high-glaze plaque for his place and ordered one at the same time for Tomàs, even though Tomàs hadn’t thought of moving out. Tomàs didn’t think about it after the plaques were made either but hung his on the wall of his chamber downstairs.

  Then came a delivery, Mexico City to Vera Cruz, a delivery neither small nor friendly. And though Tomàs is a writer and oblivious to the normal world, he’s not stupid. Everyone knew that Mark Murphy was dealing cocaine and spending above his means before he was found in his bathtub waving good-bye. Mark’s farewell and last bath had monumental characteristics; the tub was filled with concrete. You could know it was Mark below the surface by the signet ring displaying his fraternal order and year of graduation. And though nobody knew for certain who killed Mark, consensus had him pegged for pioneering new trade routes from Bogotá to Brownsville via Vera Cruz.

  So nobody was fooled when Mal gave Tomàs a snub-nosed .38 and said, “No way in hell you’ll need it, I mean except to show it if you do, you know, because if anybody pulls one it’s mostly to find out if you got one too, and now you do, so it’s a done deal.” Mal smiled at his own sophistry. Tomàs scrunched his nose, smelling bullshit. Mal didn’t care. Facial contortion was a gesture, common to those people of the mental inclination, who know in their minds what gestures convey. But then they really don’t know, and they don’t know much else either.

  Tomàs knew that Mal knew it was bullshit, that the deal wasn’t done but was in fact surrounded by guns, cocaine and hellish potential. Tomàs went, because life is a stage and all the players follow a lead, if it comes from the heart and is delivered softly. He wore sideburns and got some thick, black spectacles to replace his wire-rim hippie glasses. He browned his face, puttied his nose and forehead, glued on a bushy mustache and a goatee and topped it off with a top hat. This last he carried for obvious reasons until just outside the rendezvous, where he put it on with the confidence of a player who believes in the power of subtle distraction. He spoke English with a drawl and introductions went well, until a spark threatened the powder keg when a desperado laughed lowly over the extra concrete required to cover a top hat. Tomàs shot him in the kneecap, then apologized and said it was only fair—this in flawless Spanish—for a man to avenge his brother. Moreover, he hoped a bargain could be perceived. Nobody moved, until the baddest bad guy said sí, let it be so. Tomàs reminded them that they were all brothers, and he understood that even brothers could err terribly in judgment. He smiled, delivered the groceries, took the money and bid his compadre banditos a big adios. Maybe he eased their minds, he was so short, so thin, so bent, so shamelessly disguised yet with a bravado they hadn’t seen in a joke or a man. They laughed. He left.

  He came home and underplayed his adventure and waited for his bonus, conveying his expectation with another gesture. But he got no more than the usual two-hundred, and that was wrong. The two-hundred was dollars in the past but on that payoff it was converted to pesos, at a time of dizzying devaluation. “What’s the difference?” Mal asked. “It’s the same as two-hundred dollars. It still spends.”

  Tomàs laughed once sardonically to show that only an imbecile would think there was no difference between pesos and dollars. Sure a stack of pesos would spend, and either quickly or not at all—it was worth half in a month, and then half again in another month. So what was Tomàs to do? Change back to dollars? That cost money, and more money would be lost in devaluation just in the time it would take to walk to the exchange. “I live here, for chrissake!” Tomàs implored, which should have made Mal see the situation as unjust.

  Mal patronized the life of a laborer. “Hey, boy, you’re gonna make some more money.” Tomàs opened his eyes wide, as if to remind Mal about fairness, honor, risk-benefit ratio and fluctuating currency. Mal said, “You want the work or not?”

  “Not,” Tomàs said, meaning of course he wanted it, had to have it, but please at reasonable terms, since our friendship is based on trust and reason—all this in an eye bulge and a “Not.” Tomàs felt certain that a man of any intellect could see the point. But Malcolm only grunted, shrugged, turned away and rearranged his breathing, which took a minute, with no septum. When a spasm hurt his chest, Mal clutched himself there with two hands. But this one was minor, so he only clutched one-handed with his watch out front to time his pulse. It dazzled in the sunlight, all gold. Tomàs waited while big fat Malcolm jiggled like Jell-O and timed himself.

  Mal got fat on a liquid diet, gin mostly, nightly in front of the tube. Mal had no need for La Mexa, it was so public, so … exposed. He had his own dish trucked down from Brownsville and hoisted to the top of Casa Malcolm, over the new security walls. Tomàs took it all in and spoke up, asking how a man could blow his money on personal luxury, then treat his friends unfairly?

  Mal blew his nose and hocked into a new fit, finally avowing, “Aw, fuck,” grumbling deep for a wicked gob big enough to fill an egg cup. He launched it clean, mostly, its arc wobbling to a splat on the wall, where it slid down the stucco like an albino slug with varicose veins. Watching its trail of flecked blood and melon, Mal said, “God. I gotta do something.” He waddled away, leaving Tomàs and honor alone in the sun, somewhere under the hot gob in Mal’s priorities.

  Tomàs moved out to a modest place in town, but his “work” went so “well” he moved again to gain “the time, the God given time” to continue his “work.” The process of converting savings into time gained momentum, out to the dusty, scrub fringe where Tomàs shuffles onward vividly.

  No one has seen or heard a musical note.

  He wears a straw sombrero to keep his head in the shade and uses a walking stick that looks more like a cane.

  Mal and Tomàs have not spoken in the years since their parting. “He’s pissed off at me,” Mal explains.

  “He’s a swine,” Tomàs offers on cue. They pass on the street as if the other is ether, which passing is more poignant during siesta, when Mal makes his rounds too, for the discretion available then. He can check his mail, change some currency, buy some produce and catch Moneyline at La Mexa with table service on a Margarita Grande. He’s relieved when Tomàs leaves, his short snort summing up the exit. He shifts in his seat and grunts. “Let’s watch Moneyline,” he says over the motion on the floor that Godfather II preempt the downfall of the Soviet Union for a few hours. Mal har hars that Lou Dobbs is more important than Gorbachev anyway, his fake laugh straining into a coughing fit, in which he sputters the critical importance of Moneyline if you’re down to a few blue chips, some mutual funds and a handful of treasury bills. Mal pleads like a good old dog ready to turn a circle by the stove after giving his best, tooth and claw. And he’ll help you out too, if he can, you know, with advice and stuff. Down to fixed, limited income is his current profile, coupon-clipping, parsimony. Complacent as a grouper, he opens his mouth to inhale, closes it on the blow.

  Cisco says, “Fuck that,” and flips to Godfather II. Mal orders another drink, shifting his flesh forward to move some of the burden onto the table.

  Tony Drury counts the biggest liver spots on Mal’s face, across the folds of chins, jowls, bags and eyebrows. Mal sits up and stares back, thinking Tony is coming on at last. Tony writes 14 on a napkin and dates it, a baseline from which to measure a change in town. He laughs at the idea of asking Mal into the bathroom for a weigh-in.

  “What’s funny?” Heidi asks. She lies across the table on her outstretched arm, dazed yet alert as a sleepy cat, ready for a game of string, chase the wad, get the mouse.

  “You think Tomàs is there yet?” Tony asks. “You think he’s having a sensible chat with Charles? Or you think he’s on his way back down here to tell us Charles is dead?”

  “I think Tomàs doesn’t like Mexicans, mostly the poor ones and the rich ones,” Heidi says. “I know he doesn’t like Charles. He probably doesn’t like me.”
>
  “He likes me,” Tony says.

  “Why would he like you?”

  “I talk to him. That’s all he wants, you know.”

  Heidi sighs. “I think Tomàs humped it straight to his place. I think he … let’s see … He got there, ate an old mango he’s been saving, went ahead and made some hot water so he could use his tea bag again so he could go ahead and throw it away. Then he’ll probably jackoff in a sock and take a nap. That’s a good afternoon for an artist like Tomàs.”

  “That’s nice. How did you get so nice?”

  “It’s musical, don’t you think? Tomàs’ll sleep and dream. Radio City Music Hall. The Rockettes. Variety magazine. He’s a sleeping giant, you know.” She coughs into her fist, rolls onto the other arm and faces the other direction.

  “Yup,” he says. “The times they are achangin’.” She pulls her smokes from her bag and lights one, still sprawling over the table in repose. She coughs again. “Nasty cough,” he says, what his lecture has come to.

  “Mm hm,” is her tired defense.

  IV

  Strangers in the Night

  Heidi and Tony share a romance and a comfort, affectionate playmates with common tastes, common needs. Passion is intellectual or hormonal or sometimes both. Versatility is good, Tony thinks; it allows dynamic communion between free souls. They dance like flames when her eyes sparkle his way and her lips curl as if to say, “It’s crazy crazy crazy, and here we are.” Sometimes they leap into it. Sometimes they have another drink and talk it over. They give modern context to their refuge in the hills. They imagine their adventurous selves living lives of adventurous potential. They rub the lamp and let themselves out. “Rub the lamp, Heidi,” Tony often requests.

  “No. I won’t rub the lamp,” Heidi often says, until he explains to her that he does not want to establish a routine like George and Gracy, does not want to bear down on the same tired shtick. So if her Royal Highness wouldn’t mind, he would like the lamp rubbed. She holds the lamp, closes her eyes and makes wishes only a genie could grant. He knows she teases him, that she loves the lamp, but he isn’t in the mood for teasing, and his needs are every bit as important as her own. She calls him a big baby, which would really peeve him, but she rubs the lamp and plays fair, granting wish for wish.

  When their love charade ends they roll over and sleep, sated and superior, all needs attended to in the warm breeze and soft light. They believe that a mad world passes them by. Her snoring is often dainty.

  Tony usually wakes first and lies there measuring his distance from the world. He loves this little anarchy, in which he often feels like a king, or a duke anyway. Sometimes sipping tequila, he remembers traffic jams, suburbs and malls. He often sleeps again, and they usually wake together in time for a cocktail or two before dinner. Most importantly, they wake in Mexico. What a relief.

  Oh, they are happy, Tony and Heidi, far from gas stations and burger joints and starless nights under the streetlights. Sometimes they discuss what the world has come to and the ignorance so pervasive in this, its final phase. No parking lots for them, no, they find peace in the land of organic stink and dust and a firmament twinkling with freedom. Untimed, irrational, selfless and giving, they share a love at times berserk with liberation. They wallow in it, sometimes squirming freer still. It feels so good, yet he wonders at times if feeling is the be all of living. But his quandary is brief.

  Heidi taught school in her former life. In the fourth grade for years in a blouse, skirt and matching jacket, she helped children through arithmetic, geography, spelling and the rest. Most couldn’t get past Big Macs. Most knew that you can see the golden arches from the top of the Kremlin or the Eiffel Tower or the Space Needle or the Empire State Building. The children love geography relative to franchise icons. Heidi loved the children until she didn’t. They changed, feeding like scavengers on television and Ding Dongs, loving most what is most ugly. She saw the ugliness infect the children, so she quit, got free of that mess and got down. She wants to plug in and play out. She dreams of what could be, if only … “I don’t know what,” she says. “This could be it. I like it so much it scares me. We don’t do anything.”

  Heidi came south for simple truth, for brown dirt and blue sky, room to move and not so many goddamn people. She didn’t quit teaching one day when the truth hit her; she quit one day when her uncle died and left her a half million dollars. She told the principal: “Fuck this.”

  The money allows her to be herself, a romantic with a hacienda with a maid, a cook, a plant-waterer and a fountain man so all the fountains flow clean and sweet, trickling poetically as mountain brooks. Her tiled courtyard is big enough for one on one or an echo or long shadows that shimmer on breezy afternoons. Four floors of bedrooms, sitting rooms, a library, a museum, a main parlor, a dining hall, a kitchen and a handful of dressing rooms and bathrooms surround the central courtyard with its fountains and festooning plants. Archways line the terraces on each floor over the courtyard. Thick curtains drop easily by rope to cover the archways for privacy, and mosquito-nets over the beds allow for easy sleep.

  Heidi collects objets d’agony—stigmata, thorns, rivulets of blood stream down the walls among the ivy. Big paintings of cross-bearing, cobble-stumbling, back-lashing, stoning, scorn, banshees, more thorns and blood flow from one room to the next.

  “Why all the Jesus?” Tony asked.

  “Isn’t it wonderful? Don’t you love it?”

  “I don’t think so,” Tony said. “I get nervous around these things.”

  “Well, learn to relax, bub. Get used to it. You don’t have to believe in it. But you got to admit, these guys make the greatest art in the world. Don’t they?”

  “It is different here,” he said. “It’s not evangelical. It’s simple, something for them to latch onto, easy access.” He was willing to discuss it.

  “Don’t forget the passion,” she said.

  “Mm, yes.” He considered the passion. They sat silent on that note. He considered staying. “I saw a good one yesterday. An old Datsun, been to the moon and back, with a cross on the back window. Masking tape, two strips, up and down and sideways, just … torn off at the ends.”

  “God, that is great,” she said, on her way to the kitchen for her masking tape and coffee.

  That was their first daylight conversation, after their first night together, after Tony’s first tour of Hacienda Heidi. A side table runs alongside the staircase for twelve feet. On it sits a tiny self-portrait in clay—a doll painted yellow with wire joints, pointy breasts with red nipples, a red slit for a vagina with hair pasted on, a red dot in back, and little gold hoops for earrings.

  “It’s you,” Tony said.

  She blushed. “Thanks. It’s my hair.”

  They enjoyed getting to know each other after having free rein with each other. Sober in daylight, they treaded carefully, uncertain if they shared the same dream but fairly certain they used a rubber. He stepped nearer. She held steady but looked away. He took her hands. “Good morning,” he said like a stranger at a bus stop. He kissed her cheek, and she blushed again, just like a hundred years ago, when a suitor could have stood there making his intentions known after a lengthy courtship, and a señorita could have smiled with tears in her eyes. “Heidi,” he whispered. She stood still and perfect as an upper-class daughter in the spell of love. He fancied the proximity of old time to new time just as he would fancy the distance from this little world to the rest. He would remember this interlude with fondness, perhaps soon, on the bus, riding to the airport. He had a ticket for that afternoon: “I … uh …”

  “Fine,” she says, turning, heading out to install her new masking-tape crucifix. “Go.”

  “I didn’t …” But she left him where his lines failed. They’d quenched the thirst, scratched the itch and arrived at rational choice. But indecision overwhelmed what should have been simple, because they had too little sleep, too much hangover.

  Tony Drury came to town as many came to town, t
rying out another town. The merchants took only cash then. You had to fly to Mexico City and take the bus five hours with many stops, which fended off the family-values crowd with their kids, their rental cars, their needs for reasonable comfort, decency and family values. Or you could fly direct to León and hire a tour van if you were in the know. Soon after Tony’s arrival came North Italian cuisine. Then came the sushi bar. Heidi says the plague is on its way—the humanoid fungus moving over the earth reaches for this last refuge; it claws for a fingerhold that will grip in no time. You can see it best flying over anywhere USA, the festering, scabby, decaying, gaseous, breeding habitat for two-legged mites; that’s what we’ll come to. He sometimes presses urgently, while there’s still time. She laughs.

  They get along because they share an instinct and can plainly see. The writing on the wall makes him hostile, makes her mean, which is how they looked on the night they met. He watched her from a bench in the jardin, admiring her obvious scorn for delicacy.

  At two a.m. she gobbed a street burger like a street cat on a kill. Feed the hunger. Stay alert. Stay ready—that was the look. He was hungry too, and a woman bigger than him and just as tough looked like a hot buffet. She looked strong but flighty, gone in a wink with no look back. She looked like a woman to run with, wolfing in the street when she could have filet with crystal and linen. Maybe it was love at first sight, she got so down. She was with her friend, Suey.

  He met Suey earlier at Hernando’s when she climbed onto the next stool like a tortoise in rut, limb by limb. Low profile and a big mouth set Suey apart—that and her stationary hair and cheery face with a smile sweet as sugar. With dewdrops glistening on her brow and a tiny grunt she mounted the stool. She paused for composure, batted her lashes and asked, “Buy a lady a drink?”