by Robert Stone
When he closed his eyes, he saw the formless colors of the mountain. Yellow and black. He tried to raise the thermos again but failed to muster the strength. Opening his eyes, he looked at the steep path for a moment. Then he raised the thermos and hurled it, with surprising force, into Willie’s face.
Ax edges of rock flew up at him as he leaped; the merciless ground tore at his shoes. At times it seemed to him that he was bouncing, gliding over clefts and boulders like a hurdler. He could hear the parrot squawking and Fencer shouting “No!” Once he turned and saw Fencer start after him.
Willie had climbed on a rock and was screaming, waving his pistol. “Don’t you play gingerbread boy with me, you fuckin’ poet!”
Fencer had stopped and was shouting “No!” at Willie. Fletch heard a pistol shot and somewhere a bullet rang against the iron-fibered rock.
When he heard the car engine start up, he ran faster. It was all down, over rank after rank of jagged rock.
After a while, he found the dry bed of a stream and followed it through a dark arroyo. The farther down he went, the more difficult it became for him to see; shadow and rock grew together. After about a mile he could no longer run because the ground was too steep—he climbed downward, facing the rock wall. His knees were bloody but his feet found holds with a sure instinct. At one point a cloud passed over him, leaving him chilled through, and when the cloud had passed he saw that night was coming on the valley below. He could see the last of sunlight play on green waxy leaf in the fingers of rain forest along the lower slope. He found a stretch of smoother rock on which to rest and let the night slip over him. Sounds of a life he had not suspected rustled from the barren ground.
Leaning back against the rock, he tried to shake the colors of the day from his mind. After a while, he discovered the remnant of a joint in his trouser pocket and, having no matches, ate it. The shadows of the valley swayed beneath his feet. In the distance he could see the lights of Corbera, the illumination of the cathedral tower and the wooden bullring.
He began to regret that he had not seen the crater. He deserved to see it, it seemed to him, since he had come all the way and crowned the journey with a masterly escape. Willie Wings and Fencer had sealed him in a box of speed madness that interfered with the spontaneous joys of active living—they were mere circumstances, artifacts. Yet it had been necessary to escape them: the pair were overripe, deracinated by years of smoking grass in the tropics, consumed by maniac ravings and heaven knew what bizarre commitments to serpent-headed lava gods and human sacrifice.
It was humiliating, he thought, to be forced to survive by guile, but in a crisis, could he not bring it to bear? Indeed, it seemed to him, he could.
As the world darkened, Fletch became more and more exhilarated, and for a time he considered retracing his steps and going to the crater after all. But he stayed where he was until the moon rose and then stood up to survey the valley. As he watched, the lights of Corbera suddenly flickered and died—in a few seconds they went on, stayed on for a short time, and died again. Fletch stood waiting, saw the lights return, flicker, disappear. He found the spectacle intensely gratifying. Corbera was a light show.
Heat lightning was flashing over the coast range. Fletch stretched out his arms and with Jovian fingers began to play the illuminations one against the other—with one hand he dispensed lightning for the firmament, with the other darkness for the sons of men. The lightning and the town’s electricity followed the bidding of his fingers with precision.
Fletch cried out joyfully from his Promethean rock.
“I’ll be screwed if I’m not stout Cortés,” he said.
Fletch became, in effect, stout Cortés. When the moon was high enough for him to see his way, he clambered downward, completely unafraid. The fer-de-lance slithering among the rocks, the lurking Gila monsters, the tigers in their caves were fine with him. At intervals he rested, looked up at the peak and saw dark vapors visible against the stars, against Taurus.
I’m all perception, Fletch thought as he descended, all I require is to be left alone by the likes of Fencer and Willie Wings. Revolting to be pursued by epiphenomena.
I am a fortress beset by flying men, he thought. The sleep of reason produces monsters.
Halfway down the slope, he found a trail and followed it; he could smell jungle and black earth below him. In a few minutes he had entered the forest. His passage set off a scurrying among the trees, a sudden silence broken by monkey cries, the din of cicadas and cinches. He felt his presence electrify the night.
“I am the sentient consciousness here,” he said aloud.
He put his hand to a tree and felt hundreds of hard beetle bodies scurry along the surface of the vines. Every now and then lightning flashed above the trees, lighting the grove where he stood and leaving behind his eyes white lighted instants in which unknown creatures stood transfixed on the edge of vision.
Walking on, he found the downward slope still steep, and once, following what he thought to be a trail along a fallen tree trunk, he fell several feet onto soft earth, landed upright, scattering invisible creatures before him.
He walked for well over an hour with what he experienced as animal grace. When he came out of the woods, he found a dark shed beyond a wooden gate; open sewerage was somewhere near at hand. Continuing, he roused an enormous pig that grunted at him savagely—as he hurried on, pigs roused themselves in alarming numbers from the adjoining grounds. He found that he was atop a steep rise above the center of Corbera—the lights were on; he could hear music from the jukeboxes in the Calle Obregon.
The road was on the other side of the pig shed. Fletch followed it downhill toward the market, where intermittent paving and open street lights began.
He found the central square almost deserted. A few old Indian women selling beer dozed beside their stalls. Flags and tricolor pennants swung on the wind honoring the anniversary of the revolution.
The lights and the music were all on the Calle Obregon. Fletch made for it, walking tensely under the colonnades, expecting the lights to go at any moment. He kept his hands clenched to control his conductivity.
Calle Obregón was swarming with soldiery. Men in khaki uniforms were lined up in front of the cathouses drinking beer and clustered in the doorways of the open-fronted bars. Twenty jukeboxes sounded together.
Fletch went quickly. Two military policemen with carbines slung over their shoulders passed him with glances of grave suspicion.
The La Florida bar was where Fletch always went in Corbera. He admired the pastoral murals, which were true art naif, and the section of earth floor around the bar. That night he found it crowded with cavalrymen, all drunk to the point of silence. He entered as quietly as possible and ordered a rum. As he drank it, a small boy approached with an electric shock machine.
The cavalryman nearest Fletch cursed softly, beckoned to the boy, and put fifty centavos in his hand. Then he gripped the metal handles, planting his feet firmly, legs apart, knees bent. Without looking at his customer, the boy turned the crank, and the soldier, his jaw set, his eyes half closed, received the current. The others watched him without expression. After a few seconds, the soldier’s uniform shirt began to crackle and his hair to stand upon its roots. The machine glowed and the soldier’s face twitched and his chin rose as though his head were being torn from his body. The boy turning the crank never glanced at him.
Fletch did not know very much about electricity but he admired the machine. The generator box was painted bright blue, and on it was the picture of a clenched fist emitting bolts of lightning, over the word Corazón! in pink letters. He suspected that the machine might be somehow involved in Corbera’s fits of chiaroscuro.
The cavalryman had huge reserves of Corazón! and continued to hang on. Fletch took his drink to another electric spectacle, the jukebox in the back.
The jukebox, enormous and bright with shifting, laminated light, had scores of jungle moths fluttering around it. From time to time a moth would
touch against the hot plastic surface and spin to the floor with singed wings. Around the foot of the box was a brilliant litter of burnt and dying moths.
Fletch had settled down in back when he saw Pancho Pillow seated at a nearby table. Pancho Pillow was smiling; he was accompanied by La Beatriz, who was also smiling, and by his Odd Buddy, who was not.
The sight of Pancho Pillow was so little suited to Fletch’s mood that it took him a short time to remember that the strength of his perception had rendered him at peace with the world.
He carried his rum to Pancho’s table.
“God save all here,” he said.
The sight of Fletch seemed to send both Pancho Pillow and La Beatriz into spasms of delight. They laughed uproariously and La Beatriz pinched Pancho on the belly.
“Fletch!” Pancho cried. “Fletch, my friend to be! Sit down and drink with us.”
Fletch sat down. La Beatriz affected to gaze on him with nymphic passion. Pancho’s Odd Buddy watched the soldiers at the bar.
“I’ve been sad all day,” Pancho said merrily. “We saw you today in the company of hoodlums.” Pancho wore a brush mustache and had many chins. His light brown hair was combed straight up from his forehead. “We all wondered—what is a poet doing with hoodlums?” He made his little eyes twinkle confusion.
“That Fences” La Beatriz said with distaste, “that Weelie Weengs! Eeee!” She flung her hand before Fletch’s face as though she were trying to shake something off her fingers.
“I was taking the day off,” Fletch said. “I woke up this morning and I said to myself, Today I’ll do something less literary.”
“You don’t want to know Fencer and Willie Wings,” Pancho said. “They’re bummers.” He leaned forward and spoke softly. “My theory is they work with the body snatchers.”
Fletch savored his drink.
“I have nothing to fear from Fencer and Willie Wings,” he said. “They can’t affect me in the essentials.”
“Ah,” Pancho said, “you can’t cheat an honest man. Before W. C. Fields it was an Arab proverb, and you’d think the Arabs should know.” He put his hand on Fletch’s shoulder; then withdrew it. “But it’s not true.” He cupped his hands, turned them upside down and shrugged. “No, it’s not true. My life hasn’t been easy and I’ve cheated many honest men. It’s just as untrue as it sounds.”
Fletch laughed for quite a while. “What could they possibly cheat me out of?” he asked.
“What do Weelie Weengs and Fencer say about Pancho?” La Beatriz asked him. “They make up goodies on him?”
“Yes,” Pancho said. “I was…” His hand fluttered in the air.
“You were too modest to ask,” Fletch suggested.
Everyone laughed together.
“Well, actually, Pancho,” Fletch said, pronouncing his auditor’s name with difficulty, “they didn’t say anything.”
Pancho and La Beatriz hooted.
“Oh, come on, man,” they said, in melodious unison.
Pancho Pillow’s Odd Buddy turned to Fletch for the first time. Fletch saw that the two sides of his face did not match.
“They didn’t tell you that one time me and Pancho drove from Belize to Jalapa with them in the trunk?”
Pancho intervened. “It was in a good cause,” he assured Fletch.
Fletch drank his rum. He was content.
“I love Mexico,” he told them. “You can take some fantastic rides here.”
“What a poet!” Pancho Pillow exclaimed.
“Lord Byron,” La Beatriz said.
The boy with the Corazón! machine approached and Pancho’s Odd Buddy watched him eagerly, ogling the metal handles. He was reaching in his pocket for change when Pancho leaned forward to restrain him.
“Don’t, Idaho,” he said.
“What the hell,” his Odd Buddy said protestingly.
“For me, Idaho,” Pancho pleaded. “I don’t want to watch.”
The boy looked at them in disgust and went outside.
“You’re in your element here, Fletch,” Pancho said. “Not everyone is. Myself, I’m at home throughout the Spanish-speaking world.”
Fletch nodded. “I am in my element here,” he agreed. “That’s true.”
“I was born in Tunis,” Pancho confided. “Hispano!” He breathed deeply and beat twice on his chest. “Superficially French in culture and outlook—a man of the world and a great traveler. But in the soul I’m Hispano, that’s where it’s at.”
“Everyone should have a souly country,” Fletch said.
“I admire simplicity of heart,” Pancho said. “I despise hypocrisy and deceit, so I have no use for politics.”
He looked at Fletch in admiration.
“I myself am poetical. My view of life, my way of looking at the world, is poetical. If I wasn’t a businessman, that would be my groove.” Pancho seemed to grow emotional.
“Listen to me, Fletch, we can use some poetry in our lives. Let’s really get together—nothing superficial. I have a story to tell—the story of Pancho Pillow—it’ll wipe you out, man. No bullshit. Let’s have lunch, Fletch. Just you and Marge and me and Beatriz and Idaho. We’ll have a picnic. We’ll go up to the volcano.”
The lights went out. There was silence for a fraction of a second, and in that splinter of time Fletch had covered the distance between Pancho and the open doorway. He was not quite in the street when the chorus of groans broke. La Beatriz screamed.
“Adiós, you fuckin’ monsters,” Fletch shouted indignantly.
“Fletch!” Pancho Pillow cried. “For Christ’s sake!” His voice was sheer desperation.
Monsters, Fletch thought. Flying men. The street down which he ran was packed with drunken invisible soldiers. Men walked about striking matches and falling down in the road. The military police approached with their flashlights; Fletch huddled in the doorway of the cinema to let them pass. As he ran across the square, they turned their lights on him and shouted.
Fletch laughed. Never in his life had he so appreciated modern technology. Fine, he thought, bring the jungle to the folks.
At the market café, they had lighted hurricane lamps. A few trucks were parked outside, and the first in line was an International Harvester pickup truck loaded with chickens. A man in a Stetson was inspecting the carburetor. He was very drunk and singing to himself.
Fletch approached and asked him, with elaborate courtesy, for a ride to the coast. The man turned to him and crooned the refrain of his song, to illustrate the futility of all ambition. Fletch offered to hold his flashlight and offered twice the reasonable price for a ride, so when the truck started through the dark streets he was safely aboard. As they passed the square, Fletch could see Pancho Pillow’s Lincoln cruising like a baffled predator.
“Fuck ‘em all,” Fletch told the driver.
“Fuck,” the driver agreed. He was so drunk it seemed impossible to think of him driving down the mountains. A little girl in braids was nestled in the space behind the seat, asleep. When the wind and the noise of the engine permitted, Fletch could hear the chickens in the back of the truck.
The man in the Stetson drove much too fast and his clutch seemed to be slipping badly. Halfway down to the coast, as they sped past banana trees, he began to sing again.
“You warned me over and over,” he sang,
You kept warning me about the woman
That she wasn’t a good woman for me
You gave me so many warnings
So many warnings
That I thought you had gone loco
But the warning you should have given me
Was the one you didn’t give me
That you were a thieving betrayer
Just as bad as her
So now it’s me that’s gone loco
And I got a warning for you!
At times, Fletch sang with him. It was still dark when they reached the coast road, but the moon was very bright and Fletch could see the breakers beyond the beach.
He
got out, paid the driver and walked along the beach toward his house, guided by the dark mass of the bay headlands. He was still walking when the sun came up over the volcano and woke the birds and lit the sea to pink and pale green beyond imagining. Now and then he passed men sleeping on the sand.
His house, when he came to it, was silent, although he could hear Doña Laura awake next door. Willie Wings was sprawled on the hammock before the doorway, quite awake and watching him blankly. The parrot lay prone and stiff in its cage, covered with a second skin of white dust. The morning flies had started to gather on it.
Fletch went past Willie Wings and inside. His children were asleep on their cot in the kitchen, but he heard faint voices from the bedroom. He got down on his hands and knees and crept silently over the tiles toward the bamboo curtain that divided the house.
Lifting the curtain slightly, he saw Marge and Fencer together on the mattress, naked. Marge’s long tanned body entwined Fencer’s like a constricting serpent. Fencer was clutching her around the thighs as though he were afraid she would fall. Their faces were together.
“I wish he hadn’t bolted,” Fencer was saying.
It occurred to Fletch that he could not be certain that Fencer had not heard him come in.
“You know, like he just bolted. It looked for a while like we were really going to get something going together. I thought, by God, it’s gonna work, we’ll go up there and turn on and we’ll groove and we’ll break down the verbal barrier. But he bolted.”
“Well, my God,” Marge said, “it was pretty stupid of Willie Wings to shoot at him. For Christ’s sake, he’s so paranoid anyway.”
“Willie’s a fanatic,” Fencer said. He ran his hands over Marge’s backside. “I’m kind of a fanatic too.”
She took his long hair in her hands and pulled it round his neck and kissed him.
“You super-romantic shithead,” she said.
Fletch lay still on the tiles trying to hold his breath and watched them do it. When his ribs began to hurt, he turned over and slid across the cool floor to the doorway. It took him nearly five minutes to crawl out—a masterpiece of silence.