by David Poyer
For perhaps half an hour, waiting for the bus on Route 66, he’d thought his life was about to change.
At Fort Jackson he’d taken all the Basic shit, the Sitting Bull jokes and the pugil-stick poundings. Then on his first pass, he’d met a woman from Leesville who’d never screwed an Indian. She also needed help smoking ten ounces of prime grass. After nine days with her, it was gone and he decided he didn’t feel like going to cooks’ school—let alone the stockade time the Army would want first.
He’d hitchhiked home from South Carolina, making up a story about a medical discharge, and stayed there with his aunt and then two or three other women, Denise being the last. Till he’d carved a five-inch groove in Donicio Kawayoka’s chest.
He couldn’t remember now whether it’d been over money, jealousy, or an envelope of speed. Late that night, however, two of the elders from the Muhewa, his mother’s clan, had come by to visit him. They’d pointed out in a friendly way that he wasn’t really one of the Corn People. He’d taken no initiation, and no sacred animal had revealed itself to him. He didn’t even speak the Shi Wi tongue. They admitted there wasn’t much future in the pueblo for a young man like him. Perhaps life would offer him more somewhere else, far away.
Bernard took this advice seriously. The elders looked harmless and feeble, but people who ignored them tended to get run over by pickup trucks on dark nights. He’d headed for Santa Fe the next day. Far away? He decided to join the Navy.
* * *
His destination, when he found his way to it through the mazy streets, wasn’t what he’d expected. It was surrounded by alleyways so narrow the light reached no inch of them directly—the typical souk layout. The air was crowded with spices, sweat, perfumes, and wailing Arab music. The last man he asked about the “sorry market” pointed to a huge concrete-block building.
He stood outside for a few minutes, peering in uncertainly. Was this it? The people going in and out the glass doors were all women.
The Benadryl he’d sneaked on the ship was wearing off and he stuck his hands in his jeans to stop their shaking. This was the part of town they told you not to go into without your buddies. But he had no buddies—or none he could take with him on this piece of work.
Twice in the half hour since he’d bought the knife, he’d thought he saw the face behind him. It was hard to tell. They all looked the same, short and dark with big mustaches. But this guy had on a pink shirt.
Now he couldn’t decide whether to go in or not. The sense of doom increased till he could hardly breathe.
At last, he crossed the street, sweating and dizzy, and had a slow drink and a slower smoke, watching from a café. The guy didn’t show again, so he paid and went out. He stood for a moment blinking and mumbling to himself in the sudden heat, waiting for a donkey cart to go by.
It was like bingo night on the reservation. The fluorescents were nearly all burned out once you got past the entrance, and the interior was thronged with about a million women, all of them yelling at the tops of their voices. He swallowed nausea as he looked down flickering blue corridors roofed with the spinning disks of electric fans. Each booth was lit with a bulb in the back, where the samples hung, more colors and embroidery than he’d ever seen in his life, and women sat in folding chairs drinking coffee out of doll-size cups and picking flies off sticky pastries.
This wasn’t what he was looking for. He came to a smoky space of air and found himself at a cooked-meat stand. The smell made him suddenly ravenous. He bought a shish kebab. The flesh was unfamiliar, strong, but it was good and he ate it all. Then he rubbed his greasy fingers on his jeans and was back in it again, the noise, the heat, the flies, the musky perfume so thick he wanted to hawk it out like phlegm. On impulse, he asked the meat man, “Hey, you know where I can buy some drugs?”
The guy didn’t speak English, and Phelan drifted off again.
Eventually he came to the back. This was lit even worse than the main area, and there were no women. Just stalls, most of them dark, and men sitting in the shadows, smoking or talking in low voices. Phelan saw a brass telescope in one of the stalls. There was other junk, too, old lamps, used radios, that kind of stuff.
He suddenly felt it again, very strong now, that irrational, doomed fear that grabbed him more and more often the last few months. He stood trembling in front of the stall, looking around again for the guy in the pink shirt, or for cops.
The light clicked on. Someone was in there. He unslung the camera bag and went in.
The bearded Pak bought the big Navy binoculars for thirty dollars. Phelan insisted on being paid in American money. The bills were grimy and faded, as if they’d been lying in the cash box since World War II, but they looked spendable.
Bernard asked him where he could buy drugs. The man examined him for a few seconds, his smile unaltered. Then turned to the shadows and called out.
The Paks with the dope were kids, fourteen or fifteen. There were two of them. They had drip, hashish, in several forms. They had it in paste, in what they called brown sugar, and in what looked like chewing tobacco. Phelan didn’t like the looks of the tobacco. Or rather, it looked too much like tobacco. He’d been burned on buys before. The paste looked like shoe polish and tasted like marijuana. “You got anything else?” he said. “That rubbed Kashmir, or hash oil?”
“We have some opium,” said the one who spoke English. “Real qual-i-ty.”
“Let’s see it.”
The opium came in plugs the size of his little finger. It was wrapped in aluminum foil. Phelan unwrapped one and sniffed. It smelled like it looked, dark brown, sweetish, burnt honey and incense. “How much of this is a hit?” he asked the kid.
“That’s a hit.”
“What do you people do with it? Smoke it?”
“You can smoke it or eat it. Smoking it is better.”
“How much is it? For a hit?”
The kid wanted twenty dollars. Phelan thought that was high, but he wanted some. Now. He said, “You got more of this?”
“You want a brick,” said the Pak. “Do you want a brick? It’s cheaper. Enough for a long time.”
The other kid showed him the brick. It was easily the size of three regular Hersheys. There had to be enough for a month at sea. Phelan wanted to try some right there. But at the same time he was afraid. Like he always was at a buy. The kids didn’t seem worried, though, even when someone walked by. They must have their protection behind them. He let his fingers brush the knife.
“How much is the brick?” he asked the kid.
They only wanted three hundred for it. Phelan felt he’d stumbled onto good luck at last.
Once the money was in their hands, it seemed as if the transaction was over. They turned instantly and walked away. He decided to imitate them. He jammed the opium down into his jeans and went back very fast through the chattering women, under the drone of the fans. When he hit sunlight again, he felt safer. He grinned, anticipating the high he was going to feel in a few minutes. No more cough syrup stolen from the ship’s pharmacy. No more Tylenol with codeine. Not for a long time.
Then he realized he was lost.
He’d come out a different exit and he didn’t know which one. The souk was all around him. This seemed to be the shoe department. The stalls were filled with boots, sandals, sneakers. He started walking, his fingers clamped inside his pocket. What a deal. He’d chew some first. He’d heard you shouldn’t do that; they rendered it with rat fat and you could get hepatitis. But just then, sweating and trembling, he didn’t care.
There were no windows in the shoe stalls, but as he passed one he saw a mirror. An old man was looking at a pair of wing tips in it. They looked out of place under his baggy white pants and embroidered vest. Behind him in the mirror was Phelan, looking foreshortened and pinheaded, and behind him was a pink shirt.
He halted, pretending to examine a pair of women’s pumps. In the mirror he saw two men now. One short, one tall. The short one was wearing the pink. He hadn’t s
een the tall one before.
Now he was happy there were people around. He had to get back to Paradise Street. From there, he could take a taxi, shake them, or if he had to, just go back to the ship. They couldn’t follow him aboard. On the other hand, he’d have to ditch or hide the opium then. He rubbed sweat off his forehead. He waved off the shoe vendor, who came out after him, and walked briskly around two corners and into a dead-end alley lined with wrecked cars piled four deep on either side.
When he turned around, they were standing between him and the souk. There was no one else in sight, though he could hear the distant words of Madonna, “I’m a Material Girl,” from a cassette player somewhere.
You or them, he thought, almost like hearing it. You or them.
“What do you want?” he said.
“We are police,” said the tall Pak. He wasn’t really tall, but he was taller than Phelan. “We saw you buy the hashish. Give it to us.”
“It ain’t hash,” said Phelan in his soft, almost shy voice. “I mean, I didn’t buy nothing.”
He knew they weren’t police. Then he wondered how many other American sailors had bought the brick in his pocket. Hell with this, he thought, fear and need turning into a murky, desperate rage. He wasn’t going to give it to them, that was all.
He glanced around, making sure they were alone, and drew the blade.
The short man took a gun out from underneath the loose shirt.
Before he had it free, Phelan cut him across the belly. The Chinese knife was sharp enough that it didn’t hang up in the cloth. He shoved him into the taller Pak and got his boot on the dropped gun. The little Pak started screaming. The tall one had his knife out by then, a real pigsticker, a foot long and curved like a sickle. But he didn’t come in. Phelan thought about picking up the gun, but he didn’t know guns. He hadn’t done well with the .45 at boot camp. The blade felt good in his hand and he decided to stay with it.
“You want some, too?” he asked the tall Pak softly. The man was still hesitating, holding the short one up. The smaller man was screaming louder now, his hands trying to hold his belly together.
He didn’t want any. Phelan picked up the dust-covered pistol and stuck it in his belt. He backed out of the alley, holding their eyes, then turned quickly and made several sharp turns through the bazaar. He hit concrete block again and went back into the market.
The man who had bought the binoculars gave him forty dollars for the gun.
* * *
The room was two dollars and two flights up, a stinking hole without a lock on the door. There was a pallet on the floor. Phelan decided not to check it for bugs. He liked the room. No one else off the ship would come here.
He tied the latchstring, put the paper bag on the floor, and began taking things out of it. Four quarts of Coke, so cold his fingers left prints in the condensation. He’d have preferred beer, but he couldn’t find any for sale. Six packs of Marlboros. A sack of the flat, doughy Arab bread. A bag of what he hoped were pretzels or chips, though it was opaque and the label was in the funny Pak squiggles.
He was still scared, still angry, and to calm himself he took a deep swallow of the pop. Then another. At last he felt calm enough to proceed. He sat down on the pallet and flattened out the grocery bag for a work surface.
The brick was warm from his pocket. He peeled a slice off it with the knife, noticing as he did so that there was still blood where the blade folded. He wiped it quickly on the pallet and kept peeling, making the slices thin and curling, with plenty of air. He could smell it, thick and sweet and heavy. His fingers shook and he gulped more Coke till they steadied down.
When he had enough, he slit open some of the cigarettes and shook out the tobacco. He mixed this with the opium and glued the paper back together lengthwise with spittle.
When he had five fat joints, he lined them up on the windowsill. He put the open knife beside them. He looked down at the street, at the passing taxis and dark-haired heads. No one looked up. There was a shade and he pulled it. The room went dark.
Fuck them, he thought. Fuck the fucking Paks. Fuck the fucking Navy. Fuck the Indian, fuck the white man, fuck the world. This is where it’s at.
He picked up the first joint, smiled shyly at it, and pulled fire out of a match with his thumbnail.
Turning his head, Bernard Newekwe slowly and solemnly blew sweet smoke to the four corners of the room, then up, then down. Then he drew it in, to the seventh corner of the world, to writhe and curl and purify his own turbid and troubled soul.
4
Manama, Bahrain
THE heat, Blair Titus thought; that was what blindsided her every time she did the Middle East. Certainly Washington, twelve hours before, had been grim in the dread dog days of August. Paris, that morning, had been hot but not uncomfortable beneath a gentle rain.
But Bahrain was like a junket into Hell. Her lightest traveling suit had soaked through just coming in from the airport. She pushed her hair back, annoyed at its clingy dampness, and scratched at a prickle under her armpit.
“When’s Admiral Hart due back?” she asked the aide. It came out more sharply than she’d intended. Blame it on the heat.
Trudell started; she noted with a flash of annoyance that he was staring at her chest again. “Uh, he must have been delayed, ma’am. He wanted to attend a change of command down at the pier. But he knows you’re here. He knows about the brief.”
“Can we start without him? I’d like to make the five o’clock to Riyadh.”
The lieutenant was so horrified his eyes lost their fix on her bust. He began giving her the reasons they couldn’t start without the admiral. Blair tuned him out. She scratched again and strolled to the window. She looked out, absently flipping the collar of her blouse.
The Middle East again. Last time it had been Israel, the Purchasing Commission trip. The ridges and blasted flats of the Sinai, the crump and flare of shells against the hush-hush explosive armor of the new Merkava tank. This time, it was the outskirts of a city. In the distance, vibrating like a wine hangover, she could make out white buildings and spires. Beyond that was a clear and tremulous blue. She stared out at it, wondering whether she absolutely had to spend the afternoon on the second floor of the local Navy headquarters. She’d brought the new swimsuit, just on the off chance …
Then she curbed her mind. She was here on business. A whirlwind tour, Bankey had said. Check it out and tell me what to do about this mess. Be back next week. No, that didn’t sound as if she had time for the beach.
“There he is,” squeaked the lieutenant, sounding relieved. She dropped her eyes. A dusty-looking military sedan was edging through the concrete barriers at the gate. As she watched, Marines surrounded it, rifles at the ready. One circled it, inspecting the chassis with a mirror. They’d done that to Trudell’s car, too. Then they fell back, snapping up their hands in salute as the Reliant rolled into the compound, the blue starred flags stirring flaccidly in the hot, still air.
A few minutes later, Hart was pressing her hand. He smelled of sweat and oil. “Good afternoon, Ms. Titus, and welcome. Sorry I’m late. Did you have a good flight?”
“Yes.”
“How’s Bankey? I met him two years ago when I was at the Joint Chiefs. Fine man, very impressive grasp of naval matters.”
Said with the proper condescension of a military man toward a politician, Blair thought. “The Senator’s well,” she said.
“His health holding up? You know what you hear—”
“I wouldn’t know what you hear, Admiral,” she said. She never discussed Talmadge’s drinking, nor did she stay around when it got out of hand. “He’s busy, as usual, but doing well.”
“How long have you been with him?”
“Three years.”
“Well, again, sorry I was delayed … damn, we have got to get this air conditioning fixed. Jim, you should have taken her down to the exchange. You know we have a perfume shop right here in the building? There’s a company in town m
akes concentrated perfumes, essences they call them, smells like any brand you want—”
“Admiral Hart.”
“Yes?”
“I’m not here to shop,” she said coldly. “My time is limited and there’s a great deal I have to see. Could we start the brief, please?”
Hart looked blank for just a moment, then turned to the lieutenant. “Get the guys in here. Top staff only. Let’s get moving; Ms. Titus doesn’t have much time.”
* * *
The briefing officer was a dark-complexioned colonel—no, Navy ranks, she corrected herself, captain—in beautifully tailored khakis. When the last of the staff were in the room, he asked for a closed door. The blinds came down, and Blair settled in in front. She crossed her legs, smoothed her skirt, and took a Sony out of her briefcase. A woman with a notebook equaled a stenographer. And a recorder allowed her to give full attention to what was being said—or, usually more important, was being left out.
“Good afternoon, Miss Titus, Admiral Hart, gentlemen. I’m Captain Jack Byrne. This will be a high-level brief on the situation in the Gulf today. Its classification is secret.” He looked at the recorder, and at Hart; the admiral winked. Byrne cleared his throat and asked for the first slide.
“Sixty percent of the world’s oil reserves lie on the shores of the Persian Gulf—or, as we call it now, the Arabian Gulf. Very little is consumed here. Most of it goes out by tanker through the Strait of Hormuz to the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan. Our naval and air forces in the area, under the control of Commander, Middle Eastern Force, are deployed to guarantee freedom of navigation and to protect our allies in a region essential to our interests.
“Recent events in this part of the world—the Iranian revolution, the Iran-Iraq War—have reminded us that we live in a time of challenge to the West. The loss of Strong year before last underlined this. But this is not a new commitment. The Navy has maintained a presence here since 1949, and our buildup signals our willingness to continue defending our interests in the area.