The Woman Lit by Fireflies

by Jim Harrison

  Billy stood as the waiter brought the check. He turned his back, deciding to ignore Atkins until he collected himself.

  “We don’t have to talk to you unless you identify yourself,” Gwen said rather lamely.

  “You don’t have to talk to me at all. It’s a free country. I’m just letting you know you’re out of your depth. I’m just reminding you that the President and Congress mandated that we pre-empt terrorists.” Atkins got up, shaking his head at the idea of their innocence, and bustled out.

  The old waiter came over with Billy’s change and a bottle of brandy with two glasses. “You look like you’re needing this. Tell your friend at the motel to meet me tomorrow at the Blue Parrot Bar at five in the afternoon.”

  Billy and Gwen nodded, drank their brandy and decided they weren’t going to panic or be pushed around. They looked as if they meant it.

  Early the next morning Patty came back to the motel from Tucson via another expensive cab ride. She had decided she couldn’t leave until she at least said goodbye to Zip. She sat on a chair by the motel swimming pool and mentally prepared her lines for Sam, who, meanwhile, was watching her from the window of the motel coffee shop. He walked out and up behind where she sat, leaning down and kissing her hair. She took his hand and said nothing.

  “I missed you a lot,” he said.

  They turned with surprise as Billy pulled up in a Hertz sedan, looking as though he had slept on his face. He told them to pack up their stuff because everyone in the world, especially Washington, knew they were there so they may as well move in together.

  Afterwards, none of them could admit how truly pathetic their first visit to Zip turned out to be. They were escorted into a dank room in the federal building, empty except for five chairs and Zip, who was standing against the wall with a single ray of sun on his face. Patty couldn’t help but think that the bastard had even arranged the lighting.

  Zip said he had been kicked in the spine and couldn’t sit down. He was cold and questioned whether it was a setup because they had been set up before, hadn’t they? He told them to go home immediately because it was better that he be murdered for the cause. Gwen interrupted and asked him why he had sent a note demanding that they come down. Zip grinned maniacally and pointed at a totally concealed bug in the ceiling which could have been imaginary. Then Billy asked if he had attacked the Federale and Zip laughed. No, he had never been capable of attacking anyone. How could he jump a Federale with a smoking gun when an American had already kicked him in the spine. He was to receive a fifty-year sentence and most probably be murdered for lecturing workers outside an American-owned electronics plant. He told them to go and not come back.

  It was then that Patty said, “Fuck you, you didn’t even say hello.” Zip hobbled over rather histrionically and shook hands with each of them, wearing a look so cold that all of them cringed.

  Gwen and Patricia were trying to recover by looking at the flowers that edged the patio behind the villa. Patty was paranoid enough to wonder if the gardener with the hoe and rake was really a gardener.

  “Zip was always such a cold-hearted son-of-a-bitch on most levels,” Patty said.

  Gwen nodded in half agreement, then rambled on about how an obsession with injustice can be self-destructive. She had read about a black novelist in South Africa who said he wasn’t going to let the ten years he had spent in prison ruin his enjoyment of life. Patty wasn’t really listening and both of them could hear the rising anger in Billy’s voice through the open patio doors. They drifted over until they could see where the lawyer was trying to calm down Billy. Two stringers from the Wall Street Journal and Forbes were getting up to leave.

  “You have to understand, Mr. Creighton, that your story of Frazer sounds like one of a dozen conspiracy stories any reporter gets per week. It’s either mutilated cattle, the return of Lee Harvey Oswald, the AMA’s suppression of cancer cures. An arrest for an unlawful labor speech isn’t financial news.” The Forbes man remained silent but nodded in agreement at the Journal writer’s condescension.

  “Take a fucking hike,” is all Billy would say. He had begun to feel that the world had been thrown in his lap. After the stringers hurried out Billy asked the lawyer if he felt the American-owned-business community had anything to do with it. The lawyer said he had checked that out while they were visiting Zip. It was an unlikely contention as there was an infinite supply of cheap labor. When they discussed it both the lawyer and Billy had been a little surprised at the blatancy of Virgil Atkins at the Coronado Restaurant. Atkins’s behavior might have been an act to throw them off, but the lawyer had another idea. The mistakes of the FBI and CIA had been newsworthy in recent years; perhaps these men were as tired and underpaid as revolutionaries like Zip. If Atkins was really important at age fifty-three, what would he be doing around Nogales snooping after a third-rate radical?

  When the lawyer left Patty asked Billy how the lawyer knew that Atkins was fifty-three and Billy shook his head wearily. Gwen found this quite amusing and reminded Patty of a game they used to play in prison where they would collect everything irrational that had happened to them during the week and act it out on Sunday as if it were theater.

  “Perhaps all the lawyers and spies in Mexico are fifty-three,” Gwen said.

  “The gardener just left. He’s also a fifty-three-year-old spy and goes to law school at night,” Patty added. “And this place is just barely important enough for Zip to rot in jail.”

  Sam was making his way through the Parajito Hill district, formerly the zona of prostitution. He used rapid-fire Spanish to ask an old woman who was selling black velvet paintings where the Blue Parrot Bar was. She told him he was handsome and the bar was only five blocks down the street. Sam was unused to being told he was handsome and was busy feeling good about it when he heard the scooter. That fucker must be real dumb, Sam thought, or maybe he thinks I’m dumb, or maybe he doesn’t care. Sam waited for the scooter to pass in his direction. He reversed himself and ran up the hill on a side street, then left down an alley of shacks. A plump, ragged woman was hanging up clothes and Sam gave her twenty bucks for her clothesline. He tied one end to a post, then crossed the alley with the other end, ducking behind a car without tires and holding this most elementary of snares. This was bow Zuñi boys tripped mule deer they had frightened through a narrow canyon neck, he thought. Within a minute the scooter came shooting down the alley and Sam necktied the American. He waved at the woman who stood watching from the door of her shack, stepped over the squirming body and headed back down the hill toward the Blue Parrot Bar.

  When Sam reached the bar he was met by the huge thug who had served as the bodyguard for the lawyer, though Sam didn’t know it. Waiting for him was the waiter who served Gwen and Billy at the Coronado and the gardener Sam recognized from the villa. It turned out they were the leaders of the local labor movement which they admitted was rather weak, albeit enthusiastic. The waiter explained that they had viewed Zip as an utter nuisance whose efforts had been counterproductive. They didn’t want a revolution, just better wages. However, the fact that Zip was going to receive a long sentence for a minor offense and a trumped-up charge was bad for the morale of the local workers who thought he was wonderful, if crazy. The long sentence would come from a collusion between American interests and a crooked judge. It was that simple, or so they said. And that was why they forged Zip’s handwriting and sent a messenger to Gwen in hopes of getting some help. It seemed to them that things were going well in that their rich friend had power and was causing a problem. If the problem got big enough the Mexicans would get rid of it because everyone in Nogales knew the case wouldn’t bear scrutiny. The rest of the meeting was spent in planning even bigger problems for the authorities. Sam said that Billy would be glad to make a large contribution to the union. The gardener said they would gladly accept it though it wasn’t necessary. On his way home Sam liked the way things were getting less vague in favor of something down and dirty.

  There wa
s a certain amount of comic relief in the evening, except for Billy who had arranged for one of the firm’s planes to bring down the sportswriter friend he had been drinking with at the Washington Square Bar & Grill in San Francisco. The sports writer had entered in a houndstooth jacket and a Giants cap just as Patty and Gwen went off for groceries. The man and Billy exchanged a clumsy high five.

  “Sending the floozies away before little Bobby gets a shot at ’em? Vegas says it’s three-to-one we do it this year, baby. It’s the Series, I shit you not. What a faboola plane you got, Billy. Just me, a pastrami and three brewskies and I’m in old Mexico.”

  “This is actually the American side of the border.” Billy wanted to calm the asshole down a bit as the speech patterns were suddenly repugnant given the present situation.

  “Shoot it to me, stud. I got to start back in an hour.”

  By the time Gwen and Patty returned with the groceries Billy was dictating a column for the sportswriter to use in the following morning’s edition. This deception was costing Billy a red Corvette he no longer used and Rebecca scorned, plus a management position when Billy bought a franchise, a carrot in the future that could obviously be withdrawn.

  Sam was in the kitchen mixing drinks when Gwen and Patty returned. Sam rolled his eyes and gestured toward the living room. Gwen and Patty tiptoed to the door and listened to Billy’s voice which affected that of a radio announcer:

  “There once was a boy named Ted Frazer from Denver, Colorado. He was a great Little League shortstop so they called him Zip. After Little League he played American Legion sandlot and won a scholarship to University of Colorado. The Detroit Tigers wanted him to try out. Let’s just say that Zip could have gone to the top, to the limit, but something began to bother him when he played the Mexican kids from the barrio. They weren’t getting the fair shake from life that Zip was. Zip tried to help them. Remember, this was the sixties and the world had developed a short fuse. Zip began to see a world bigger than baseball out there, a much bigger game.”

  “That’s great, Billy, but is it true?” The sportswriter’s voice had become humbler.

  “Of course it’s true, but there’s a lot more. Turn the fucking Dictaphone back on.” Billy continued with speculations on how neither the Mexican officials nor the American-owned sweatshops were interested in Zip’s imprisonment. The word along the border was that the force behind the persecution was clandestine American officials, especially a low-grade bureaucrat named Virgil Atkins. America, not Mexico, was sentencing Zip to fifty years, a death sentence.

  “Jesus, I can’t use names. How do I end it? What do you want?”

  “For every sports fan, for every one of your readers, to pick up their phones immediately and call their senators, congressmen and the President. We have to work fast. Tell them it’s the ninth inning.”

  Patty and Gwen began laughing as they made dinner and Sam swept by them with the fresh load of drinks. Patty whispered that they should act as if they were in mourning. Gwen searched through her purse for a couple of tapes Sun had loaned her, then squeezed her eyes and thought of her favorite dog which had been run over in her childhood. Patty was amazed to see how readily Gwen made tears come to her eyes.

  In the living room Gwen was introduced to the sportswriter as the soon-to-be widow. The sportswriter gave her a hug and said he would give the old college try to springing her hubby. Gwen let her tears flow freely on his lapel. Patty and Sam brought out two large platters of hot dogs, hamburgers and warmed-up pizza.

  “Everything I never got to eat until I went to college,” Billy explained with delight to the sportswriter as he walked him to the door.

  A little later, while they were still eating and listening to Chuck Berry, Sam spread out a large city map of Nogales on both sides of the border, pointing out the locations of the federal building and the bypass used by the hundreds of produce semis. Now they were all very sober and exhausted.

  “I was thinking about when we got those green and white Dexedrine spansules in San Francisco and danced for two days straight. Patty went off somewhere to try to meet Richard Brautigan, remember that?” Billy was half asleep in his reverie.

  “He shot himself two years ago,” Patty said. “I don’t know why. I heard he drank too much.” She couldn’t help but glance at Sam.

  “Why not is the point you have to work on. Look at Sam here. All he needs are coyotes.” Gwen took one of three jalapeños Sam had in his glass of mescal.

  “We are heroes of reduced expectations, aren’t we? I’ve been keeping the world safe for business for twenty years.” Billy got up as “Maybelline” came on, grabbed Gwen and began dancing. “But I was a bitching dancer, wasn’t I?”

  Never one to let up, Patty ignored Billy and Gwen, and zeroed in on Sam, asking how he kept in touch.

  “I don’t. I’ve stepped aside and let the whole shit monsoon go right on by me.”

  “That’s what I mean. Everyone is out nature walking, jogging, climbing mountains, rafting rivers, perfecting their bodies. Nobody cares about blacks or Chicanos. You’d think they’d at least care about Native Americans, the Indians.”

  “But I’m only good at animals,” Sam interrupted. “Your business can handle the rest.”

  “You motherfucker,” Patty hissed, but her heart wasn’t in it. She drew him to his feet and they danced to a slow blues number.

  Just after daylight Sam and Gwen were at the Nogales Airport revving up the Cessna for a reconnaissance, which had become an acceptable word. Neither had been able to sleep after five A.M. when the phone had begun ringing with the appearance of the San Francisco morning edition. They were all drinking their bleary coffee when a call had come and Billy had said, “Good morning, Dad.” Then a pause and: “I don’t give a shit anymore, Dad. This is something I have to do.” This had sent Patty back up to her room and Gwen and Sam off to the airport. Billy hung up on his father when the lawyer arrived to go to the hearing where they would petition for a stay of sentence. He had never hung up on his father before and on the way to the federal building he felt utterly unnerved by his own behavior.

  When they were shown into the chambers by the bailiff the judge merely nodded at them and reburied his head in legal papers. This pleased Billy as it meant the judge had already received some highly placed phone calls in regard to the mess caused by the San Francisco paper. Also, the chambers were rather crummy, Billy thought, and the presence of so important a lawyer from Mexico City must have put the man on edge. Then the bailiff showed in Virgil Atkins and Billy couldn’t help but say, “What the fuck’s he doing here?”

  The judge looked up and spoke, averting his eyes from both Billy and Virgil Atkins. “Mr. Atkins is from your embassy in Mexico City. He must attend to make sure Mr. Frazer is entitled to certain rights as an American citizen.” Billy comprehended the intent if not the precise meaning of the judge’s Spanish.

  The bailiff explained that Zip had refused to leave his cell, claiming that the judge was a mere tool and running dog of the American oppressors. The judge laughed at this, saying be hadn’t heard the expression “running dog” since his student days.

  The hearing was informal but only the judge and lawyer were allowed to speak. The lawyer went through an involved litany of reasons to exonerate Zip, or at least lessen the charges to simple “lecturing in public without a permit.” The lawyer’s trump card was his announced intention to subpoena the soldiers, one of whom had stated that Zip had been supine and hadn’t made any effort to attack the Federale or resist arrest. Both of the soldiers had also stated that an American had been present at Zip’s capture. The judge interrupted to say that none of this was in the official records, and the lawyer responded by waving his sheaf of papers. The judge still refused to stay his intended sentence of fifty years, the announcement of which was a mere formality. If the lawyer wished to appeal there might be another hearing in several years, in that the courts were awash with serious drug cases. And that was that. The hearing was over.<
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  Out in the hall Billy’s ears burned as the lawyer explained that they would win, but it would probably take three to four years, just as it might in America with a “bought” or hanging judge. He had recently flown to Houston to help a wealthy Mexican youth who had been sentenced to a hundred years for possession of a pound of marijuana in his college dormitory room.

  “Is he out on bond?” Billy asked.

  “Of course,” the lawyer said.

  “Well Zip isn’t, and he can’t be, so your system sucks.”

  At this point Atkins caught up with them, having obviously tarried to speak to the judge. He was a bit breathless.

  “I was telexed your sports column, Creighton. I see you’re trying to play hardball. This is out of your league.”

  Billy stood there for a full minute wondering which way to go, then remembered his father’s dictum that when you’re at the summit of your anger, the most effective way to go is to act laconic and bored. He spoke in barely more than a whisper so that Virgil Atkins had to lean toward him.

  “I’m not sure what league you’re speaking of, Mr. Atkins. You’ll find to your regret that you played the bully the other night. I had it on good authority this morning that your employer is pulling you back home like Pinocchio on a fucking string. Good luck in Newfoundland.”

  On the way to the car the lawyer asked if this was true and Billy said it might be, that in a job that demanded invisibility Atkins had lost his cool and gone public.

  Gwen and Sam were at three thousand feet out over the stupefying San Raphael Valley south of the Huachuca Mountains forty miles east of Nogales, a location favored by John Ford. Sam pointed out the Green Cattle Company, a Spanish land-grant ranch which owned four hundred thousand acres along the border. North of there Sam located a smaller place on the map given him by the waiter and gardener, and Gwen nosed the Cessna down onto a grass strip. An old couple rushed out of a substantial ranch house and the four of them pushed the plane into a pole barn waiting with open doors. The old woman shook hands with them and laughed, saying that though they were Republicans they were also Christian and had been involved in the sanctuary movement for years. Her husband stood nervously beside a station wagon, waiting to take Sam and Gwen back to town.