1618 lines
83 KiB
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1618 lines
83 KiB
Plaintext
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FICTION-ONLINE
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An Internet Literary Magazine
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Volume 5, Number 4
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July-August, 1998
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EDITOR'S NOTE:
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FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing
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electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis.
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The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of
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novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the
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magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of
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Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent
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Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits
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and publishes material from the public.
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To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e-
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mail a brief request to
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ngwazi@clark.net
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To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the
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same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part
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of the message itself, rather than as an attachment.
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Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from
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the editor or by downloading from the website
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http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Fiction_Online
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The FICTION-ONLINE home page, courtesy of the Writer's
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Center, Bethesda, Maryland, may be accessed at the following URL:
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http://www.writer.org/folmag/topfollm.htm
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COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of
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material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed
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to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal
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reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish
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in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage
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performances or filmings or video recording, or for any other use not
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explicitly licensed, are reserved.
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William Ramsay, Editor
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=================================================
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CONTENTS
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Editor's Note
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Contributors
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Two Verses
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E. James Scott
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"Elvis Presley, Private Eye," a short story
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Alan Vanneman
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"Meeting Fidel," an excerpt (chapter 9) from
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the novel "Ay, Chucho!"
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William Ramsay
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"Pittsburgh," part 7 and last of the play, "Duet"
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Otho Eskin
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=================================================
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CONTRIBUTORS
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OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs,
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has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and
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produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has
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been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in
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Washington.. He is currently working on a play on the life of Emma
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Goldman.
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WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World
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energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the
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Northwest Fiction Group. His play, "Topsy-Turvy," recently received a
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reading at the N Street Playhouse in Washington.
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E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and plays the viola da gamba. He
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lives in La Jolla, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he
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practices his hobby of photographing and charting the migrations of
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cetaceans
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ALAN VANNEMAN is a writer living in Washington. He has
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published short stories in numerous journals. He is a professional
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editor, currently working in educational research.
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===================================================
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TWO VERSES
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by E. James Scott
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Poolside Summer
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A dripping wet blue towel
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Snaking mountainously over the white slotted desert of the chaise,
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Brown shoulder picked at by freckles and cut, bulging, by the round
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lemon-yellow strap forming a parabola arching into your brick-
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red hair.
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I kiss your skin.
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Nose and mouth find chlorine, sweat, and suntan lotion.
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Sacrifice at Aulis
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Agamemnon's sudden hand raised
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The long finely-sharpened fibula
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And stabbed it into the pink-tinged hollow
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In Iphigeneia's dead-white neck.
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Three scarlet jets spurted onto his brass-knobbed breastplate
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Rebounding to the music of the thin screams from Clytemnestra's
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stifling throat.
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==================================================
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ELVIS PRESLEY, PRIVATE EYE
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by Alan Vanneman
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I never seen Elvis but he was up to something. I remember that day
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just as clear. He come over to the house and he was slick, tight black
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jeans, a fancy cowboy shirt and his hair all slicked up, and polished
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cowboy boots that made him look even taller than he was.
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"Where do you think you're going?" I asks him when I seen him.
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"Why, I'm going with you, Uncle Buck. I'm going to be a truck-
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driving man."
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"Stuff," I says. "You ain't going nowhere dressed like that."
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"I sure as hell am," he says, "Momma said I could. I got my high
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school diploma and everything."
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"Your momma know you talk like that?" I says, and that brought
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him up short. Elvis, well, he was kind of a momma's boy back then. I
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wouldn't hold it against him, you understand. That was just the way he
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was.
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"Please, Uncle Buck," he says, "please let me go. I drive real good."
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Well, that was surely true. Ever since I had knowed him, Elvis could
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handle a tractor. I worked out with him on his daddy's farm one
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summer. He couldn't have been more than ten, but it was like he was
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born to it, and that tractor his daddy had was a raggedy old thing. If
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you didn't treat that clutch just right it would kick up a storm. You had
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to know that clutch, just know how it was feeling every day, or you'd
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have yourself a time.
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"Well, maybe you can, and maybe you can't," I says. "But you sure
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can't dressed like that. I'm fixing to deadhead down to Tupelo this
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morning to see a feller that owes me some money, and I could use a
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little relief. You figure your momma will let you go with me?"
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"I'm going," he says. "I'm gone. You watch me go."
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"I'll watch you go," I says. "But you ain't going dressed like that.
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You come back here dressed like a working man and I might take you
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with me. But you remember to bring that high school diploma with
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you."
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"Oh, yes sir, Uncle Buck, I will," he says, and off he goes, hair just
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a-flying. I had to laugh, because there wasn't nothing Elvis was so fussy
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about as his hair. I figured right then that if Elvis was more set on going
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than taking care of his hair, I'd have to take him with me.
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I'd been hauling for some time for this feller outside of Tupelo who
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had the biggest old hog farm you ever did see. He stiffed me on my last
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run, and I didn't think I'd see that money, the way we talked, but this
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feller come through on the way to St. Louie and told me Mr. Carlson
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said I could have my money with $50 extra for my trouble if I'd come
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down today. I got me a Ford V-8 for trips like that, but I got to revving
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her too high the night before, showing off for some gal, and I blowed a
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piston head. When I'm with a gal, I get careless. I just do. So I had to
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take Bessie instead, and she needed a little cleaning. I'd been letting
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things accumulate a bit for the past year or so, and there warn't really
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room for two. The way I figure it, a man, when he's driving, has got to
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keep his eyes on the road. If you got something in your hand, you just
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fling it, and worry about it later. So I had considerable chicken bones
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and pop bottles to take care of, mostly pop bottles. I like an RC and a
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Lucky to get me going in the morning, and maybe a cherry smash about
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ten o'clock. Grape Nehi's good too, if they got it. It's got more of a
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perky taste than that orange. I like a root beer too, but you've got to
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drink it cold. Hot root beer will take the skin right off your tongue.
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You can't let it sit in the cab. So I got me a little cooler in the back to
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take care of things, along with my funny books. I used to haul for DC
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Comics, and I got 'em all Superman, Batman, Action Comics,
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Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, World's Finest you name it. I
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do like a good funny book, and Elvis, he does too. He reads 'em more
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than I do.
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I'd got most of the bottles out when Elvis come running back. He
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didn't look much better, really, but at least he got rid of those black
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jeans. Wearing pants like that will start a fight every time. He had a
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cardboard suitcase in one hand and a big old bag slung over his
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shoulder.
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"Elvis," I says, "we're just going to Tupelo. It ain't but two hours."
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"Oh," he says, "I got to be ready."
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"You got your guitar?"
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"You know I do.".
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"Yes, I know you do. I hope you know how to play it."
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"I surely do, Uncle Buck, and I'm going to be famous someday. And
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I'm going to write a song all about you."
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I had to laugh at that. Elvis was such a kid back then, and always
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talking about how he was going to do this and that. But I figured it was
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about time he did something more than just talk. So I says, "Well, that's
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good, but why don't you put down that guitar for just a minute and
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give Bessie a quart. Let me see you check the brake fluid while you're
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at it."
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Well, when I tell him that he takes these gloves out of his pocket and
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starts putting them on. I couldn't hardly believe my eyes.
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"What the hell are you doing?" I says. "Putting gloves on to check
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brake fluid? It ain't like picking up a porkypine."
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"Oh, I got to," he says. "I'm going to be an artiste, and an artiste
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can't have no grease under his fingernails."
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"What the hell is a goddamn artiste?" I says.
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"An artiste is a man that entertains the public, like Dean Martin, and
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he can't have nothing offensive about him."
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"Excuse me for living," I says, "but if this Dean Martin feller ever
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put on gloves to check the brake fluid on his rig he'd get his ass
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whupped from here to Californy."
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"You don't worry about me getting no ass-whupping," he says, "I
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got my karate moves."
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I knew all about Elvis and his karate moves, because he and I used
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to watch those karate fellers busting bricks with they heads on the 'You
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Asked For It' show, but I ain't seen Elvis bust no bricks, so I says
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"Okay, let me see those karate moves."
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So Elvis sets up these two cinderblocks, one on top of another, and
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he takes off his boots and his socks, and he crouches down low, and he
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says nary a word, and then, all of a sudden, he just uncoils like a snake,
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and whup! he kicks that block, and wham! it smashes all to kingdom
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come.
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"How'd you do that!" I says.
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Elvis, he gives me this big smile, and he says "I'm concentrating my
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floodlike chi, Uncle Buck."
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"What the hell is floodlike chi?" I says.
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"All God's critters got chi," he says. "Chi pervades the universe, and
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everything that creeps and crawls got its own kind of chi. But floodlike
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chi is different. Floodlike chi is the elemental chi, and if you
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concentrate it, there ain't nothing a man can't do."
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I shook my head at that.
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"I don't know about that," I says, "but you can sure kick the hell out
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of a cinderblock. You got to take your shoes and socks off every time
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you give a body a lick?"
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Elvis, he's pulling on his socks and boots, and he says, "Of course
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not, Uncle. I just didn't want to mess up my shine."
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That was Elvis. "Okay," I says, "you get your floodlike behind up in
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that truck, and let's get us going down to Tupelo."
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And we did. I let Elvis drive, telling him about deadheading, how to
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work the brake and clutch, and what you had to watch out for. I
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couldn't tell him enough. He had to know everything.
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"What's the worst accident you ever saw, Uncle Buck?" he says to
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me.
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"That's a tough one," I says, "and I have seed plenty." And I had.
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Because there's death on the highway, that's for sure. Anyone been
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driving a truck as long as I have knows that. There's death on the
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highway.
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"You remember old Sam Hayes?" I asked him.
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"Not rightly," he says. "Is that Joe Hayes' daddy?"
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"That's the one," I says. "Got himself kilt five years ago. I was
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coming up to St. Lou around midnight on old Route 55, and there was
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debris just about everywhere. This state trooper flagged me down, and
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he says 'You running from Memphis?' and I says 'Sure' and he says 'I
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think there's a feller here you might know.' You know, Elvis, that feller
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was shining a light in my face, so's I couldn't see him, but I believe he
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knew me, and had it in for me."
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"Why's that, Uncle Buck?"
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"Because he brought me round and showed me this rig that was all
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busted up, and he says 'You know this rig?' and I says 'I believe I do. I
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believe that's Sam Hayes' rig.' Well, then he takes me over to this
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stretcher they got there, and he pulls the blanket off, and there's this
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feller, with blood all over his face, and no eyes, and his brains all
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mushed out like a cauliflower."
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"No eyes, Uncle Buck?"
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"No eyes at all. They had just popped out of his head. I seen fellers
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messed up before, but never like that. That police feller, he says 'Is that
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Sam Hayes?' and I says 'How am I supposed to answer that?' and he
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says 'You smell that liquor?' Well, I surely did, cause old Sam did like
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his moonshine, and the police feller says 'We get mighty tired of you
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Memphis boys coming through here and smashing things up. I'm going
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to give you a test.'
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"So he give me this drunk test, and he was just dying to catch me,
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but he didn't, because I'm not a drinking man, not on the road. So I
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was walking off, and I seen 'em."
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"You seen what, Uncle Buck?"
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"Old Sam Hayes' eyes, that's what I seen. Lying out on the road like
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a couple of hard-boiled eggs."
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"Oh, lordy. What'd you do?"
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"Wasn't much I could do. I had me a hanky, and I picked 'em up
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and took 'em over to the police feller, and I says, 'These here is Sam
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Hayes' eyes,' and he says, 'What do you want me to do with 'em?' and
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I says 'I think they should go back in Sam's head,' and he says, 'Well I
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ain't messing with 'em. That ain't my job.' So I put 'em in myself."
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"You did that, Uncle Buck? What'd it feel like?"
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"It was pretty grisly, I tell you. Eyes got a kind of jelly in them. You
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don't want to hold 'em. But I figured it was the right thing to do."
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"I figure it surely was the right thing to do, Uncle Buck. Folks like
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to have their kin buried with their eyes in, I bet that. It was downright
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Christian, fixing a feller's eyes like that. I reckon the good lord will
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remember you for that one."
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I had to smile at that. I don't get called Christian too often. Me and
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the lord get along okay, but when the preaching starts, that's the time
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old Buck starts to skedaddle. I don't mind hymn singing, but when
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folks start telling me what to do, that's when I head for the door.
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That's why I'm a truck-driving man.
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Mr. Carlson has his hog farm north of Tupelo, and just about the
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time I finished that story we hit the turn-off. It's a tight turn that'll put
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you in the ditch if you don't catch it right, but Elvis, he handled it just
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as smooth. He just always had a nice touch with the clutch. Most young
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fellers is too hard or too soft, but Elvis, he could slide it in without
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missing a beat, and turning that wheel all the while, with just a little
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brake, and whipped it right in there. When he got her straight he had
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this cocky grin on his face.
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"You must think you're something," I says.
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"I ain't thinking nothing."
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"I'll see how you do with twelve ton of steel hanging off your
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fanny."
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Elvis, he got pretty red, but he don't say nothing. So I give Elvis
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directions, and we drive right on up to the office, which is a separate
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building, because Mr. Carlson, he don't live on this farm. If you had a
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whiff you'd know why. You get a thousand hogs together and it gets
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acrid. That scent will just about rip the hairs out of your nose. That
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farm is more like a factory than a farm, really. They got these big pens
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for the hogs, and feed bins and garages for the equipment and all sorts
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of things.
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I got out of the truck and I give the door a rap, but nobody answers,
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so I walk on in. What I see is this: Mr. Carlson flat on the floor, and
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blood everywhere. There was three bullet holes in that poor feller's
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face. I never seen nothing like it, and I've been in some scrapes. But
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this wasn't no scrape. This was murder, pure and simple. I come out
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the door and Elvis he took one look at me and he says "Lordy, Uncle
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Buck, what's wrong?"
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"Elvis," I says, "Mr. Carlson's been murdered, that's what's wrong."
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"Murdered? Let me see."
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"Elvis, you don't got to see nothing. Let's get the hell out of here."
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But Elvis, he ain't listening. He's past me and into the office. So I
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got to go back.
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"Don't touch nothing," he says.
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"I ain't touching nothing," I says. "I'm getting the hell out of here,
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and you're coming with me."
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"No, Uncle Buck," he says. "I got to investigate. This here's an
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adventure."
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"Elvis," I says, "this ain't no adventure. This is murder. You come
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with me."
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But Elvis, he ain't budging. I try to move him, and he don't give an
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inch. He's dug in like a mule. That shook me a little. Tall as he was, I
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always thought of Elvis as a boy, but now I feel like I'm tugging on a
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full-growed horse, and a horse that ain't going in my direction.
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"Looky at that floor, Uncle Buck," he says. "They's hog feed all
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over. See them footprints? Looks like two fellers, don't it? One's got
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pointy-toed shoes like a city slicker and the other's wearing boots with
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a wore-down heel. Lordy, look at that blood. It's still a-flowing. This
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feller ain't been dead more'n ten minutes, I bet."
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"Then what do you bet the killers might still be around," I says.
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"Lordy, that's so. We better move that truck."
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"Yes, we should. Right on back to Memphis."
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"We can't flee a crime scene, Uncle Buck. We got to report this to
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the sheriff."
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"I ain't fleeing, Elvis. I am leaving. And I ain't talking to no sheriff
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in Tupelo, I tell you that."
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"Why not?"
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"I just had me some sheriff trouble down here, that's all, some
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deputy sheriff trouble. Now you and me is going. Get in the truck. I'm
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driving."
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When we got in I reached behind the seat and took out a twelve-
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gauge I keep back there.
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"You hold on to this and look sharp," I says. "Our adventuring is
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over."
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Which was definitely the truth for me. I don't mess with dead folks
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for fun. A young gal and a bottle of Jim Beam is adventure enough for
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me. I don't need no murders to keep me happy. So I get Bessie turned
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around, and we head on out.
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"You reckon those fellers come down from St. Louis?" Elvis says.
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"St. Louis? What makes you think that?"
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"Them pointy-toed shoes was mighty slick. You don't see shoes like
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that in Memphis. The feller that owned them shoes was a Yankee boy, I
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bet that."
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"If he is a Yankee boy he's a long way from home," I says. "But I
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sure can't spot a Yankee from his footprints."
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"Oh, you see that on the TV all the time," Elvis says. "Old Boston
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Blackie or Charlie Chan could solve this case in no time."
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"This ain't no TV," I says. "This is Tupelo. I hope it was a Yankee,
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and I hope they catch him quick, because I don't need no sheriff nosing
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around."
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"What's wrong with the sheriff here, Uncle Buck?"
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"Never you mind what's wrong with him. You just keep that
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shotgun low till I tell you different."
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Well, them words wasn't out of my mouth for fifteen seconds before
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I heard a siren, and there was old Tubby coming right up the trail in his
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police car.
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"Oh, lordy," I says. "Elvis, just slide that shotgun back where I had
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it, and don't say nothing. It's old Tubby hisself."
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Tubby Thompson was always a mean feller, from all I heard, but I
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did put my foot in it with him, though it surely weren't my fault at all.
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You see a gal in a bar having a Segrams and looking kind of lonely, you
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don't figure she's going to be a deputy sheriff's wife, at least I don't. I
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figure a feller's got a right to buy a lady a Segrams if that's what she's
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drinking. I guess we had a few before we went back to her place. That
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one night with Ellie Mae cost me thirty in the jailhouse, and old Tubby
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probably would have whupped me to death if his boss hadn't been in
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town. Sheriff Parker ain't so bad, for a sheriff, but I don't need no
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deputy sweating my ass. I don't go no further south in Mississippi than
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Mr. Carlson's farm, and when I seen old Tubby coming I surely wished
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I hadn't have gone that far.
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|
As soon as Tubby saw my truck he stopped his car and jumped out.
|
|
He was ready to start shooting, just dying to.
|
|
"Elvis," I says. "get out with your hands up, and don't do nothing to
|
|
rile this boy. He's half crazy on a good day, and this ain't a good one."
|
|
So we get out, and Tubby, he's hopping around like a frog on a
|
|
griddle. Just looking at him I wanted to pop him one, which was the
|
|
wrong idea entirely. So when he come up to me I just looked at the
|
|
ground.
|
|
"What the hell are you doing here, boy?" he says to me.
|
|
"I come down to collect some money from Mr. Carlson," I says.
|
|
"Well, I got me a report there was shots fired," he says. "Who the
|
|
hell is this boy here?"
|
|
"This here's my nephew, Elvis Presley," I says. "He's a good boy."
|
|
"If he's kin of yours he's damn riff-raff," says Tubby. Nice feller.
|
|
"Did either of you gentlemen see anything?"
|
|
I just stared. This lady was getting out of the police car. I ain't even
|
|
seen her. I took one look and I knew who she was, because she was a
|
|
fine woman, dressed real nice. You don't see clothes like that in
|
|
Tupelo, not hardly.
|
|
"Mrs. Carlson, I'm afraid I have some bad news for you," I says.
|
|
"There's been some killing."
|
|
"Oh, lord," she says.
|
|
"I'm afraid your husband's dead, ma'am," Elvis says. "I'm terrible
|
|
sorry."
|
|
That poor lady just shriveled up when she heard those words. Elvis
|
|
come over and put his arms around her. Out of the corner of my eye I
|
|
could see old Tubby didn't care too much for that.
|
|
"I have to see him," this lady says.
|
|
"I don't think you want to do that, ma'am," I says. "There's blood
|
|
everywhere. He's been shot awful bad."
|
|
"He's my husband," she says, "I've got to see him."
|
|
Well, I liked that. If I was stretched out, all covered with blood, I'd
|
|
like to think there was some gal that would still want to take a look at
|
|
me.
|
|
"You come along with me, Mrs. Carlson," Tubby says, but Mrs.
|
|
Carlson don't seem to be too anxious to let go of Elvis. In fact, she's
|
|
got kind of a grip on him, it looks like. Tubby, he come over to me, not
|
|
friendly at all.
|
|
"Move that goddamn truck," he says.
|
|
"We ain't far, ma'am," Elvis says, "it's just right down the road."
|
|
I figure Elvis is talking to Tubby more than Mrs. Carlson, but Tubby
|
|
ain't listening.
|
|
"Move that goddamn truck," he says to me again. "You make one
|
|
false move, and so help me I'll blow your head off."
|
|
You better believe I moved that truck right quick. I didn't want to
|
|
be alone with Tubby. Mrs. Carlson, she was like my insurance policy. I
|
|
could tell she didn't care for no rough stuff, and as long as she was
|
|
around Tubby had to control himself. But once she was out of the way,
|
|
I figured I'd be in for it. So I ripped Bessie right around and took her
|
|
back to office. Old Tubby he come along in his police car, blowing his
|
|
siren. I guess he thought that was smart.
|
|
When I get out of the truck, Elvis and Mrs. Carlson come along, and
|
|
he takes her up to the door.
|
|
"Please don't touch nothing, ma'am," Elvis says. "It's a crime
|
|
scene."
|
|
I was glad Tubby didn't hear that. He comes puffing along, all red in
|
|
the face. I figure Mrs. Carlson must be one powerful lady, from the way
|
|
Tubby is acting. You might almost think he was human.
|
|
Mrs. Carlson, she takes one look in the door, and she just about
|
|
faints dead away. I thought she was gone, but she pulls herself together.
|
|
"Mrs. Carlson, why don't you come set the car," Tubby says. He's
|
|
so polite he's just about to bust hisself wide open.
|
|
"I believe I'll sit down right here," she says, "if this, this fine young
|
|
man will help me."
|
|
So Elvis helps her to this feed bin I believe it was, and I says "Mrs.
|
|
Carlson, can I get you a Coca Cola?"
|
|
"I believe I would like a Coca Cola," she says, and I run off to
|
|
Bessie to get it. A fancy gal will turn up her nose at an RC, so I always
|
|
keep a few Cokes in the cooler just in case. When I get back, Elvis,
|
|
he's lighting her a cigarette with a silver lighter.
|
|
"Thank you so much, Mr., Mr. . . ." she says, when I hand it to her.
|
|
"Beauregard Presley, ma'am," I says, "everyone calls me Buck. This
|
|
here's my nephew Elvis Presley."
|
|
"Elvis. That's such an interesting name."
|
|
She gives Elvis this sweet little smile, and he smiles back, and then
|
|
she looks all upset again.
|
|
"This is so terrible," she says. "I was afraid Paul was having
|
|
problems, but I never dreamed it would come to this."
|
|
"You don't worry about it, ma'am," Tubby says all of a sudden. "I'll
|
|
get to the bottom of this, starting with these fellers."
|
|
"Oh, deputy, I'm sure these fine gentlemen had nothing to do with
|
|
my husband's death."
|
|
It took all I had not to bust out laughing when she said that, because
|
|
old Tubby looked like he'd just been kicked by a mule, and not in the
|
|
stomach, neither. His eyes bugged right out of his head, just about.
|
|
"I ain't sure about that at all," he says. Now he's mad.
|
|
"I'm cuffing you fellers," he says. "Turn around. Now!"
|
|
He's got his gun out, and I've got my hands up, around my head,
|
|
because I figure that boy's going to fetch me a lick, and I know what it
|
|
feels like. But before he can start in, Mrs. Carlson is on him.
|
|
"Deputy Thompson!" she says. "Please restrain yourself. If you
|
|
arrest these fine gentlemen I'm afraid I will have to take up this matter
|
|
with Sheriff Parker."
|
|
When Tubby hears that, now he is fit to explode. He's shaking.
|
|
"I am the peace officer on the scene," he says at last. I never seen a
|
|
feller so red. I says to myself, Mrs. Carlson has a got a grip on this boy.
|
|
She must own half of Tupelo.
|
|
"I think it best for you to contact your superior officer," she says.
|
|
"You may use the telephone in the garage."
|
|
She points to this little building that's about thirty yards past where
|
|
we was, and off Tubby goes, and not too happy. When Tubby's gone,
|
|
Elvis gets up from along side of Mrs. Coleman and he says "Ma'am, I'd
|
|
like to do a little investigating, with your permission."
|
|
"Why, of course, young man," she says, "but what do you hope to
|
|
find?"
|
|
"Lordy, ma'am, I don't know," says Elvis. "That's why I gots to
|
|
investigate."
|
|
So Elvis goes over to the office again, and he opens the door and he
|
|
looks in real careful. I come over and I says, "What are you doing?"
|
|
"Why, I'm reconstructing the crime, Uncle Buck."
|
|
"What do you know about reconstructing a crime?"
|
|
"Why, I know a lot. I seen it on the TV and in the funny books. You
|
|
know that Jon J'nozz feller?"
|
|
"Who?"
|
|
"Jon J'nozz. The Martian Manhunter."
|
|
Well, I do know Jon J'nozz. He's this green feller from Mars that
|
|
come down on earth after his flying saucer busted. He has these powers
|
|
that make him invisible and walk through walls, or look like a regular
|
|
feller.
|
|
"Yes, I do," I says, "but what does old Jon J'nozz have to do with
|
|
us?"
|
|
"Well, I always admired that feller, the way he could adapt to the
|
|
mores of an alien civilization, and continue the pursuit of truth."
|
|
I never heard Elvis talk like that.
|
|
"I don't know nothing about no mo-res," I says.
|
|
"That's just folks' customs, the way they have of doing things."
|
|
"That's fine, but if old Jon J'nozz were here, I believe he'd make
|
|
himself invisible, before Tubby cracked him over the head with his .44.
|
|
This gal has done us a powerful favor, Elvis, and I believe we should
|
|
get the hell home "
|
|
"We can't leave now, Uncle Buck. We got to clear ourselves."
|
|
"We don't got to do nothing but get across the state line."
|
|
"You can't run from trouble, Uncle Buck. You got to solve it. Now,
|
|
looky here. See how these footprints go? You got tracks coming in, the
|
|
pointy-toed feller and the wore-heel feller, and then they go out, and
|
|
then they head around back. See, they got the hog feed on 'em. Let's us
|
|
go and take a look-see."
|
|
I sure didn't see how Elvis saw all that, but he said he did, so I went
|
|
with him, though I knowed Tubby would blow a gasket if he come back
|
|
and we weren't setting right where he left us, and the lord knows that
|
|
boy didn't need no further stimulation. So we come around back and
|
|
there's this little bitty door with a big old lock on her.
|
|
"Now, this is something," Elvis says. "You can't get to this room
|
|
from the front."
|
|
"How do you know that," I says.
|
|
"Because there ain't no door in that front room but the door you
|
|
come in, and that front room got an L-shape. This here must be the bite
|
|
out of that L-shape." Elvis looks at that lock mighty close, and then he
|
|
looks all over that door, from top to bottom.
|
|
"This here lock is brand new," he says, "and it ain't cheap. I wonder
|
|
why a man would put a lock like this one on this little bitty door."
|
|
Elvis, he sniffs around that door some more.
|
|
"I bet those fellers took a key off the body," he says.
|
|
"You know that."
|
|
"Look at the footprints," he says. "Mr. Pointy-toes stepped right on
|
|
the sill. They come in, for sure, and then headed off that way. This ain't
|
|
no broom closet, I bet. You don't put a lock like this on a broom
|
|
closet. Besides, I don't think them fellers was looking for no broom."
|
|
Elvis, he crouches down real low, like a cat, watching those tracks.
|
|
"Them boys is in a hurry now," he says. "I bet they heard us coming.
|
|
I bet they took off down that road over yonder. Probably had a car hid,
|
|
or waiting for them."
|
|
"Elvis, how do you know all that?" I says.
|
|
"Well, there warn't no trace of them when we got here, was there? I
|
|
didn't hear nothing. If they had took that other road, I believe we'd
|
|
have seen them. Besides, it is a natural instinct of criminals to flee in the
|
|
direction opposite to an oncoming witness."
|
|
"I don't know about that," I says. "But if we ain't around for Tubby
|
|
to yell at when he gets back from his phone call, he'll be hopping."
|
|
Elvis, he's about to say something when we hear Tubby yelling.
|
|
"Hold on there, boy!" he's shouting. Elvis looks at me, and I look at
|
|
him, and we start running. When we get to the other side of the office
|
|
building we see old Tubby, and he's got the drop on this young black
|
|
feller.
|
|
"You turn around," Tubby says to the boy, and he cuffs him and
|
|
knocks him down a couple of times. That set Mrs. Carlson off.
|
|
"Deputy, what do you think you are doing?" she says. "This young
|
|
man works for my husband and me. Release him at once. You that you
|
|
have no jurisdiction on this ranch!"
|
|
Tubby, he's about to bust. He's got to arrest somebody.
|
|
"Ma'am," he says, and he's just shaking, "this here is an aggressive
|
|
nigra, and I am arresting him, whether you like it or not. I am a peace
|
|
officer in the State of Mississippi, and I ain't letting no aggressive nigra
|
|
walk around loose."
|
|
"This is complete nonsense," Mrs. Carlson says. "This young man is
|
|
in my employ, and you must release him at once."
|
|
"I ain't releasing no one," Tubby says. "I called Sheriff Parker, and
|
|
he's coming. I'm sorry for your husband, Mrs. Carlson, but this here is
|
|
an aggressive nigra, and I am taking him in."
|
|
He takes the boy and shoves him in the car, knocking him all around,
|
|
but Mrs. Carlson, she's right behind him.
|
|
"Deputy, if you harm one hair on that boy's head, you'll regret it
|
|
every single day for the rest of your life."
|
|
That backs Tubby up just half a step, because when Mrs. Carlson
|
|
says that, she don't sound hysterical, like a gal will do when she's het
|
|
up. She sounds like she means it. But then Tubby gets going again.
|
|
"I am trying to do you a favor," he says. "This is the man that kilt
|
|
your husband."
|
|
"Deputy, that is arrant nonsense," Mrs. Carlson says. "Release that
|
|
man at once."
|
|
Tubby, he's about to bust her. He looks around at all of us and he
|
|
says "I am a peace officer doing my job." Then he gets in his police car
|
|
and whips it all around and he takes off, fast as he can go.
|
|
"I'm calling my lawyer," says Mrs. Carlson, and off she goes.
|
|
Elvis looks at me. "Let's us investigate," he says.
|
|
I could see Elvis' mind was made up.
|
|
"OK, let's investigate," I says, "but I'm getting me a hogleg first.
|
|
These is some bad boys were dealing with."
|
|
I do like to keep a few guns with me when I travel. Being a trucker
|
|
ain't like living on a farm. You got to be forearmed. I ain't never shot
|
|
nobody and I hope I never will, but it's the feller that's forearmed that
|
|
don't have to do no shooting. I got me a little .38 in the glove
|
|
compartment, and a .44 under the seat. I tucked that .44 in the back of
|
|
my pants and gave the .38 to Elvis.
|
|
"You know how to use these little fellers?" I says.
|
|
"I don't need no gun," he says.
|
|
"You don't know everything," I says. "You take her."
|
|
So he tucks her in his belt and off we go, down this little road. Elvis,
|
|
he's watching the ground, following those tracks. Then the tracks go
|
|
off in the woods. Elvis, first he goes one way, and then he goes
|
|
another. He's lost the trail, but he ain't saying so. We come up to the
|
|
top of a rise, and he says "I bet if we go down in that holler we'll find
|
|
ourselves a clue," but when we get down there, there ain't nothing. So
|
|
then Elvis says "I bet if we go up on that rise we'll find ourselves a
|
|
clue," and off we go, but when we get up there, there ain't nothing.
|
|
When we get to the top of the third rise I says "Elvis, where are we?"
|
|
"Lordy, Uncle Buck, I don't know," Elvis says. "Them fellers
|
|
outsmarted us, that's for sure. I done lost track of the floodlike chi."
|
|
Well, I figured when Elvis started talking about the floodlike chi, it
|
|
was time for me to take a break. I had had a couple of RCs on the way
|
|
down, and they was starting to catch up with me, so I figured I might
|
|
step behind a tree for a little privacy. So when I'm done I see Elvis,
|
|
staring at something. I start to ask him what he's looking at, but he
|
|
hushes me, and points, and there's this little woodchuck feller, kind of
|
|
pecking on something and rustling the leaves.
|
|
"See that little feller," he says to me, all quiet, "I wonder what he's
|
|
up to."
|
|
"That's just a woodchuck, Elvis," I say.
|
|
"I know it's a woodchuck," he says. "I wonder if he was here all the
|
|
time. I bet he saw those fellers."
|
|
"He didn't see nothing," I says. "A woodchuck don't do nothing but
|
|
chuck wood."
|
|
"A woodchuck's got the chi in him, just like you and me. I believe
|
|
he did see those fellers. I believe he's trying to tell us something."
|
|
"He ain't trying to tell us nothing. He's just waiting for us to get the
|
|
hell out of here, so he can chuck some wood without us bothering
|
|
him."
|
|
"I don't think so, Uncle Buck. I can feel the chi a-flowing. I believe
|
|
he wants us to follow him."
|
|
Of course, right then that woodchuck did take a mind to take off.
|
|
And of course Elvis had to follow him. When we got to where that
|
|
feller had been, Elvis bends down and he picks something up.
|
|
"Looky, Uncle," he says to me. "Some folks is just careless with
|
|
their money."
|
|
I look at what Elvis is holding, and it's a five-hundred-dollar bill. I
|
|
ain't seen one before, and I ain't seen one again.
|
|
"That boy's got the chi in him," Elvis says. "We got to follow him,
|
|
wherever he goes."
|
|
Well, that boy would scamper. He'd scamper, and we'd creep up,
|
|
and then he'd scamper some more. And we was getting deep in the
|
|
woods.
|
|
"Elvis," I says, "this boy ain't taking us nowhere."
|
|
Elvis, he ain't listening. He's just studying that woodchuck. So I got
|
|
to go, and we keep on a-going. And we go and we go, following that
|
|
woodchuck, and we come down in this big old creek bed. Then that
|
|
woodchuck feller, he turns around, and he give us a "chuck chuck
|
|
chuck," and then he jumps in this little hidey hole he's got, right in the
|
|
bank. Elvis and me, we're walking around in this creek bed that ain't
|
|
got no water in it, hardly, just leaves and rocks, but in one place it's
|
|
pretty wet, with some blue mud. Elvis, he walks over to that mud and
|
|
he squats down, just staring at it and thinking hard. Then he dips his
|
|
fingers in it and thinks some more. Finally, when I'm just about to bust,
|
|
he stands up and wipes off his fingers.
|
|
"Reckon I was wrong about this case," he says. "This warn't no
|
|
Yankee killing after all."
|
|
"What do you mean by that?" I says.
|
|
"Them fellers got their ride here," he says. "Look down yonder. I
|
|
believe I see some tire tracks."
|
|
We head on down that stream, and sure enough, they're tire tracks
|
|
all over that blue clay.
|
|
"Reckon old J. Edgar Hoover could match up that tire track with the
|
|
tire that made it?" Elvis says.
|
|
"I reckon he could," I says.
|
|
"I bet he could too," Elvis says. "This here is conclusive evidence,
|
|
Uncle Buck, and that little woodchuck led us right to her."
|
|
"I ain't believing that," I says.
|
|
Elvis, he just shakes his head.
|
|
"That boy, he had the chi in him, Uncle," he says. "You got to let
|
|
the chi do its work."
|
|
"I ain't seen no chi nowhere, nohow," I says.
|
|
Elvis, he just smiles.
|
|
"You got the chi in you too, Uncle, just like everyone else. You got
|
|
to listen to the floodlike chi. Now, we better get on back, before that
|
|
Deputy kills someone."
|
|
So we head on back, and when we get there half of Tupelo is
|
|
waiting for us. Cars were parked all over the place. Sheriff Parker, he
|
|
was there, and I was glad of that. They had three ambulances, for just
|
|
one body, and doctors, and nurses, and everybody running around.
|
|
Tubby, he's still got that poor black kid locked in his police car, and
|
|
he's jawing with the Sheriff and Mrs. Carlson. She's got a feller with
|
|
her who must be her lawyer, because he's jawing too.
|
|
"This is one big murder," Elvis says.
|
|
"You can believe that," I says. "It ain't every day the town
|
|
millionaire gets gunned down in cold blood."
|
|
So we go up to Tubby, and of course he ain't so glad to see us.
|
|
"Where the hell have you been?" he says.
|
|
Elvis, he don't pay no attention to Tubby at all.
|
|
"Afternoon, Sheriff," says Elvis, just as smooth as pie. "I'm afraid
|
|
you got the wrong man there."
|
|
"Who are you?" the Sheriff says.
|
|
"I'm Elvis Presley, sir, and this here's my uncle, Beauregard
|
|
Presley."
|
|
"I know your uncle," says the Sheriff. "He's been a guest of mine,
|
|
more than once."
|
|
"These here is troublemakers from Memphis," Tubby says. "They is
|
|
in this thing together with this here aggressive nigra."
|
|
"Sheriff, please teach your deputy some manners," says Mrs.
|
|
Carlson. I sure did like that gal. She had a way of talking to Tubby that
|
|
just set real easy with me.
|
|
"Sheriff, we come to help you with this here murder," Elvis says.
|
|
"Well, I surely would appreciate that," says the Sheriff. I guess he's
|
|
being a little sarcastic, but Elvis don't pay him no mind. He turns to
|
|
Mrs. Carlson, and he says, "Mrs. Carlson, there's one thing that's
|
|
bothering me. How did you come to be with the Deputy here?"
|
|
"Why, I was just passing the sheriff's office when Deputy Thompson
|
|
came out. The dispatcher saw me, and said they had received a report
|
|
that shots had been fired on my husband's farm. Of course, I insisted on
|
|
coming. Deputy Thompson didn't appear to care for my company."
|
|
"It was a dangerous situation, ma'am," old Tubby says.
|
|
Elvis, he just nods. Sheriff Parker, he's getting a little impatient.
|
|
"You gonna solve this case for me, son?" he says.
|
|
"Oh, yes, sir," says Elvis. "I just got to get my facts straight. You
|
|
see, Sheriff, the way I figure it is this. The fellers that done this murder,
|
|
they come around through those woods. They got a lift from a feller
|
|
that drove his car down a creek bed. That feller got blue mud all over
|
|
his tires."
|
|
And when Elvis said that, he squatted down and run his fingers
|
|
along the front tire on Tubby's car.
|
|
"Kind of like this mud here," he says.
|
|
"What the hell are you talking about?" says Tubby.
|
|
Elvis, he straightens up and brushes the mud of his fingers, real
|
|
casual.
|
|
"These fellers come up, and they shot poor Mr. Carlson, and they
|
|
took a key off his body and opened up that little door around the back
|
|
of the office. I believe he had some sort of secret safe in there. I'm
|
|
sorry, Mrs. Carlson, but I think your husband was playing games with
|
|
his money."
|
|
Mrs. Carlson, she turns all white when Elvis says this.
|
|
"He, he sold several of our properties," she says. Her voice is
|
|
shaking. "And he closed out our savings account."
|
|
"Yes, ma'am," Elvis says. "He had a lot of cash on hand, and two
|
|
fellers knowed about it. One was wearing pointy-toed shoes and the
|
|
other had a wore-down heel."
|
|
"Tiny Grant and Paul Moran," says the Sheriff, and he's looking real
|
|
hard at Tubby. "I told you to stay away from those two, time and time
|
|
again."
|
|
"Sheriff," I says, "It was Tiny Grant that told me to come on down,
|
|
that Mr. Carlson was going to pay me the money he owed me. And he
|
|
told me to come today."
|
|
"Yes, sir," says Elvis. "You see, Sheriff, when my uncle and I come
|
|
down on old Route 78, I saw this police car a-following us. I was afraid
|
|
he was going to give me a ticket, so I watched him close, and then I
|
|
seen him turn off in the woods. That seemed kind of strange to me, but
|
|
I didn't think much of it, until I saw your deputy come in here with blue
|
|
mud all over his tires. That did seem awful convenient, because poor
|
|
Mr. Carlson hadn't been dead but ten minutes. Of course, your deputy
|
|
said someone told him they heard shots, but that news sure did travel
|
|
fast.
|
|
"So my uncle and me, we took a little walk, and found that
|
|
creekbed. They is some awful nice tire tracks back there. I think they'll
|
|
match up real pretty with Deputy Thompson's tires."
|
|
Tubby, he don't want to hear no more. He whips out that .44 and
|
|
he's pointing it right at us.
|
|
"You just shut your damn mouth, pretty boy," he says. I think he
|
|
was going to say something else, but he don't get the chance. Whup!
|
|
Elvis just kicks that gun right out of his hand. Blip! Gives him a lick in
|
|
his big belly, and old Tubby goes down on his big behind. Goes down
|
|
hard. You could hear that air just a-gooshing out. After he hit, Tubby
|
|
was just about the greenest old white boy you ever did see. But he got
|
|
a little greener when Sheriff Parker put the cuffs on him.
|
|
"Sheriff," Elvis says, "just who are Tiny Grant and Paul Moran?"
|
|
"Paul Moran is the slickest man in Tupelo, and Tiny's the dumbest.
|
|
They run some gambling down in Chickasaw County, where I can't
|
|
touch 'em. I know they come across the county line whenever they can,
|
|
but I never could catch 'em. I kind of figured it was Tubby running his
|
|
mouth, but I had to let it ride. Paul's sister works at the bank. She
|
|
probably tipped Paul off about Mr. Carlson taking out his money."
|
|
Elvis, he just nodded.
|
|
"I reckon if you catch up with the Paul feller you'll get the money,"
|
|
he says. We did find a little of it. I suppose it belongs to you, Mrs.
|
|
Carlson. I'm powerful sorry about the way things come out."
|
|
So Elvis takes that five hundred out of his pocket and give it to Mrs.
|
|
Carlson. She takes it, but also she holds onto his hand a little like she
|
|
don't want to let go.
|
|
"You've been marvelous, Mr. Presley,' she says. "Truly marvelous. I
|
|
can't imagine what would have happened to Robert here if you hadn't
|
|
intervened."
|
|
"Shucks, ma'am," Elvis says. "It's me and Uncle Buck that owes
|
|
you. I figure Deputy Thompson was planning to taking out the both of
|
|
us, saying he caught us red-handed. And he would have, if you hadn't
|
|
insisted on coming along."
|
|
"Planning to plug me, you mean," I says. "Elvis, I almost got you
|
|
kilt, bringing you here."
|
|
"Well, you both must come to my house so I can thank you
|
|
properly," Mrs. Carlson says.
|
|
"You best believe we will," says Elvis. He's got this powerful grin
|
|
on his face. "Sheriff, I don't reckon you need us here no more."
|
|
"You two have done enough," the Sheriff says. He's still eyeing me
|
|
like we ain't to friendly. "I got to catch up with Mr. Moran. He's
|
|
probably half way to Chicago by now. That's where he usually heads
|
|
when he's got a poke."
|
|
"Chicago!" says Elvis. "That's where he got those shoes."
|
|
|
|
After that, Mrs. Carlson took off with her lawyer. Elvis and me had
|
|
to wait an hour almost for all the cars to get cleared out, so I could get
|
|
Bessie turned around. I sure felt sorry for Mr. Carlson, though I guess
|
|
he warn't up to much good, shorting me and planning to run off from
|
|
his wife. A man that would leave a woman like that ain't right, some
|
|
way. I didn't have much direction to her house, but it was hard to miss
|
|
her. She and Mr. Carlson had one of those big old southern mansions,
|
|
with white columns and fancy gardens. Bessie looked a mite out of
|
|
place setting there in that big old drive. When we come up on the stoop
|
|
Mrs. Carlson come out to see us. She looked all warm and fluffy and a
|
|
little weepy. She clamped onto Elvis pretty quick. A gal that's been
|
|
through a time needs some comforting. There ain't wrong with that,
|
|
really. I've comforted a few, and ain't ashamed to say it. Now, a
|
|
preacher will tell you that it's a mighty sin, but when it comes to
|
|
comforting, those preachers got us all beat. The bigger they talk, the
|
|
slicker they act. So when I saw Elvis and Mrs. Carlson just a-getting
|
|
closer and closer together, I started figuring on how I was going to slip
|
|
away. But Mrs. Carlson, she come up to me and she says, "Mr. Presley,
|
|
do you like gladiolas?"
|
|
Well, no gal ever asked me that, but I says "I surely do, Mrs.
|
|
Carlson."
|
|
"Then you must go see mine," she says, "for they are simply
|
|
charming. They're around in the back garden."
|
|
And when she says that, she give me a little pat on the chest.
|
|
"Yes, ma'am," I says, "I'll just go around back. I'll take my time."
|
|
She don't say nothing to that, just smiles and heads off. So I go on
|
|
down the stoop, and I look in my shirt pocket, and there's that five
|
|
hundred. Well, I says, I am going to study those gladiolas, and I hope I
|
|
did, even though I don't rightly know what a gladiola looks like. But I
|
|
looked at all the flowers, and I sat me down on a bench they had and I
|
|
smoked me a Lucky or two. Elvis is pretty Baptist about cigarettes, but
|
|
Mr. Lucky, he's a real good friend of mine. I used to chew, but the gals
|
|
don't like it, and I guess I don't blame them. Tobacco spit ain't what I
|
|
call romantic. I used to chew Red Man, which is a nice chew, pretty
|
|
sweet. That Day's Work, I can't handle. It's a prison chew. It's rough
|
|
stuff.
|
|
I reckon I spent a couple of hours on those gladiolas. Then this big
|
|
black feller come out and ask me would I like some dinner. I says I sure
|
|
would, because I ain't had nary a thing to eat all day, and he asks me
|
|
what would I like. I says it's your house, I'll take what you give me. So
|
|
he says he'll bring me dinner on the verandah in thirty minutes. Then he
|
|
says come with me sir, and we go up on this fancy porch, which I guess
|
|
is a verandah. So then he asks me how do I like my steak, and I tell him
|
|
I'll have it rare with onions. Then I had me another Lucky, and in half
|
|
an hour this feller brings me the best steak I ever did eat, just swimming
|
|
in onions, with french fries and a bottle of Miller. After that they give
|
|
me apple pie and coffee. Just as I'm about done, Elvis and Mrs. Carlson
|
|
come out, looking all warm and rosy and peaceful. So I guess that
|
|
floodlike chi had done its work.
|
|
===================================================
|
|
|
|
MEETING FIDEL
|
|
|
|
by William Ramsay
|
|
|
|
(Note: the is chapter 9 of the novel, "Ay, Chucho!"
|
|
|
|
|
|
The appointment was set up for eleven P.M. on a Monday. As per
|
|
the instructions of Edgardo, the friend of Valeska's friend Dafne, I
|
|
found myself waiting in the lobby of a faded rococo apartment house in
|
|
the old posh residential district of Miramar. I was nervous, and why
|
|
not? Who really was Fidel Castro?
|
|
Fidel Castro was a hero to my father -- still, despite imprisonment,
|
|
despite everything.
|
|
As for all my right-wing Cuban friends at the Flamingo Fitness
|
|
Club in Miami, if they had only known about my appointment -- for
|
|
them it would be like a trip to Hades to interview Old Nick himself.
|
|
To my artificial identity, Felipe, Fidel would be a superhero, a
|
|
guru, the only hope for the triumph of democracy and socialism in
|
|
Latin America. To me, personally, Fidel Castro was something else,
|
|
something a movie star. I wasn't interested in any kind of politics. But
|
|
I could understand the adulation of the Cuban masses for Fidel: he was
|
|
like the hero of a modern fairy tale. Standing almost alone, he was the
|
|
prince who had conquered the fire-breathing Batista dragon. Maybe
|
|
Fidel's "prince" persona was only a fantastic role created out of
|
|
nothing by an ambitious young Cuban lawyer whose political ambitions
|
|
had been frustrated by the Batista coup of 1953. So what? You might
|
|
as well ask if Errol Flynn was really Robin Hood!
|
|
I waited to be summoned to my interview, sitting on a hard pine
|
|
bench next to reception desk where a "comrade secretary" wrote,
|
|
consulted files, and leaned back in deep thought. The secretary was
|
|
sloppily overweight, dressed in a dark brown shirt that bulged like a
|
|
melon over the beltline of his dark brown trousers. He looked up at
|
|
me from time to time, smiling with a quizzical, superior expression,
|
|
like a kindly archbishop. Finally, the inner lobby door opened and an
|
|
officer and a soldier stood in the doorway. The officer beckoned to
|
|
me. I got up, so did the secretary, the officer sat down at the desk in
|
|
his place, and the soldier, his gun belt flapping as he walked, led me
|
|
and the secretary to the elevator. The elevator climbed with a
|
|
mysterious scraping noise to the fifth floor, where the soldier pointed
|
|
to an apartment door and, stepping against the wall beside the door,
|
|
slapped his heels and tensed the rest of his body into a guard position.
|
|
The apartment didn't look very fancy, but it had the chilled dry feel
|
|
of a working air conditioner and the lights all shone without flickering
|
|
or dimming. There he was, over by the window, the familiar bearded
|
|
head lowered, pacing the floor. He looked up, flipped with his chin for
|
|
us to sit down. He was supposed to be 6'2", but he didn't look that
|
|
tall. He was dressed in the green fatigues so familiar from the
|
|
photographs -- but I was surprised to see that the trousers looked
|
|
sharply creased and the shirt collar starched.
|
|
He started out staring deeply but kindly into my eyes, shaking my
|
|
hand briskly but with a soft grip. "I'm sorry to have kept you waiting,
|
|
Comrade Dr. Elizalde," he said. Even though I'd seen him recently on
|
|
television, I found myself shocked at how much he had aged from the
|
|
old photos. He was quite gray, and his beard, which he had let grow
|
|
quite long, looked like that of a Biblical patriarch. He smiled bashfully.
|
|
"Welcome to Socialist Cuba, Dr. Elizalde." His beard bobbled
|
|
along with his mouth as he spoke.
|
|
I opened my mouth, my lips almost too dry to speak. "A pleasure,
|
|
Comandante," I managed to croak out. "Thank you for your time."
|
|
|
|
He smiled and waved his arm toward the window and the outside
|
|
world. "I am busy. I do have many responsibilities, of course," he
|
|
said. He laughed, almost giggling but not quite. "But you can't say I
|
|
didn't ask for them, can you?" He smirked. "The Sierra Maestra was
|
|
no picnic, you can believe that."
|
|
"I'm sure, Comandante."
|
|
"But you mustn't get the wrong idea."
|
|
"No, no. What wrong idea, Comandante?"
|
|
"You mustn't think that the Cuban Revolution is a one-man
|
|
operation." He frowned. He told me, waggling his finger, that there
|
|
was a great depth of talent in the country, and his job was to tap into
|
|
that talent, to fight through the inertia of human nature and the
|
|
hostility of the capitalist world. He sighed.
|
|
"It cannot all be accomplished in my lifetime. By no means!" He
|
|
said that he had come to realize this during the last few difficult years.
|
|
How brave and resolute the Cuban people had been, etcetera, etcetera.
|
|
I was becoming increasingly self-conscious about posing as "Felipe
|
|
Elizalde." I couldn't seem to stop my leg from jiggling. He kept asking
|
|
me about myself, he was engagingly personal, he talked about Cuba
|
|
and its problems, yes, but he was taking me into his confidence, that's
|
|
what his manner said. I became fascinated like a mouse being stalked
|
|
by a snake -- I floated in the wash of his words, enchanted at times and
|
|
at other times completely spaced out.
|
|
Then he started in to talk about the situation in El Salvador. I had
|
|
studied up on my "new" native country, so I wasn't helpless, but he
|
|
obviously knew a lot more than I did about it. At one point, I had just
|
|
shown that I didn't know much about coffee harvest records.
|
|
"It doesn't matter, not your field, Doctor." He smiled and made an
|
|
odd snipping gesture with his fingers -- a quirk that he repeatedly
|
|
displayed whenever he changed the topic of conversation. He then
|
|
started off about something else -- the continuing hope for the
|
|
Revolution in Africa, new processes for making fuel alcohol from
|
|
sugarcane bagasse, traffic engineering in Santiago, the Cuban plastic
|
|
shoe industry.
|
|
"I think that language education must be revolutionized! Truly
|
|
revolutionized!"
|
|
"Yes, Comandante?"
|
|
"Cue cards."
|
|
"Cue cards?"
|
|
"Cue cards. I have been working on a set of them myself, in my
|
|
spare time. Listen to this." He took a deep breath and read in heavily
|
|
accented English from a 3x5 card: "We must to provoke the
|
|
Revolution in all nationalities." He raised his heavy, black and gray
|
|
eyebrows at me. "Just a poor example, of course. But I try. Well,
|
|
now, Doctor, let me tell you what we're doing in prenatal care at the
|
|
Rosa Luxemburg Maternal Clinic in Camaguey."
|
|
"Certainly, Comandante." I remembered that the official
|
|
newspaper, "Granma," had the motto that nothing was possible
|
|
without the Comandante, and I could see that Fidel took seriously his
|
|
role as a kind of national encyclopedia.
|
|
He acted as if he were going to talk forever. I was afraid to look
|
|
at my watch, my eyes felt glued to his. I was getting a numb feeling in
|
|
my throat. My forehead was beginning to feel as if an iron weight
|
|
were sitting on top of my head. My eyelids closed for an instant -- I
|
|
was horrified that I had started to drowse off.
|
|
"The situation is probably very similar in Central America, I
|
|
suppose?" His voice loudly roused me. I opened my eyes wide and
|
|
saw that he was staring at me grimly.
|
|
"Yes, yes, Comandante." I pulled my eyelids up with my fingers. I
|
|
crossed and uncrossed my legs. I tried to gin myself up -- imagining
|
|
Fidel in bed with a girl friend, remembering my own last time with
|
|
Valeska, drifting off to Maria Walewska and Napoleon -- not Charles
|
|
Boyer's flabby Napoleon, rather Marlon Brando's brooding presence in
|
|
that flick from the sixties, "Desiree." Listening to Fidel talk, I realized
|
|
what it must have felt like to be one of Napoleon's marshals -- hours of
|
|
boredom laced with moments of surprise, intellectual stimulation, and
|
|
stomach-churning terror.
|
|
An iron-faced middle-aged woman came in and reminded Fidel
|
|
about a delegation from Bulgaria. He waved her away, and went on to
|
|
finish his remarks about methods of street cleaning, labor-intensive
|
|
versus machine. Then he looked at me, pulling his chin back toward
|
|
his neck, squishing the folds of fat above his collar so that the gray
|
|
ends of his beard flopped down over the open neck of his shirt. He
|
|
raised one finger high in the air and then started to show off his
|
|
knowledge about trauma shock treatment and its role in the Salvadoran
|
|
revolution.
|
|
The woman put her head in again. "Bulgaria," she bellowed.
|
|
"Yes, yes, yes," he said. "All right, Doctor, I'll do my best to help you.
|
|
He plucked up the list of names that I had submitted that listed political
|
|
prisoners with medical capabilities -- the same list I had shown
|
|
Comrade Menendez in MININT. I was afraid he was going to ask me
|
|
where I had gotten the names -- it would have been awkward to
|
|
attribute it to the C.I.A., or even to Amnesty International. But his
|
|
face seemed to say that he knew everything, so why shouldn't even
|
|
ordinary mortals like me have our special sources? Anyway, he just
|
|
nodded. He frowned once and pulled a pen from his pocket and wrote
|
|
on the list. He told me to give the list to his secretary and she would
|
|
arrange with the secretariat of the Council about securing
|
|
commutations of the sentences. I looked down at the list. A line had
|
|
been drawn through my father's name with a thick marker pen, with a
|
|
"NO" in large letters next to it.
|
|
Shit! I closed my eyes for an instant. "Why has Dr. Revueltos
|
|
been disapproved, Comandante?" I could feel the trembling in my
|
|
voice.
|
|
He snorted. "Danton. Can you imagine! Me, Danton!"
|
|
"What?"
|
|
"Danton, he called me a Danton!"
|
|
My father had evidently compared Fidel to the wild man of the
|
|
French Revolution. Knowing my father, he had probably meant it as a
|
|
compliment. But the Comandante apparently didn't see it that way --
|
|
probably because Danton had turned out to be a loser, and Fidel didn't
|
|
fancy having some Robespierre sending _him_ to the guillotine -- or in
|
|
Cuba, al paredon. I said that the Salvadoran comrades would work
|
|
hard to reeducate all of these people, that we needed every doctor we
|
|
could get our hands on. "The need is great, Comandante."
|
|
But the Maximum Leader shook his head vigorously, muttering
|
|
"miserable Trotskyite." Then he looked at me, eyebrows raised, daring
|
|
me to say something else.
|
|
But I was afraid. It was obvious that my father could only suffer
|
|
from any more attention right at the present: if his case got reopened,
|
|
he might end up getting sent straight to the paredon.
|
|
I shook his big hand again and left. I didn't give the list to the
|
|
secretary on my way out. Maybe, somehow, there was some way that I
|
|
could get the "NO" removed. In any case, I certainly didn't want to be
|
|
perceived as having accomplished "my mission" for the Salvadoran
|
|
Revolution -- and deprive myself of a reason for remaining in Cuba.
|
|
"Me and Fidel": the first round had gone to Comrade Dr. Fidel
|
|
Castro Ruz, Commander in Chief, First Secretary of the Central
|
|
Committee of the Party, President of the State Council, President of
|
|
the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba. But, as lousy as I
|
|
felt as I waited for the narrow, creaking elevator to arrive at Fidel's
|
|
floor, I resolved that Jesus Revueltos Olivera, M.E.E., wouldn't
|
|
thrown in the towel yet!
|
|
I had to pick myself up and get moving in another direction. But
|
|
what direction? I asked myself, as I knocked down a quick Cuba Libre
|
|
at poolside in the hotel, watching the oiled dark skins and the tiny
|
|
folded ellipses and triangles of the bright-colored bikinis.
|
|
Think, Chucho, think. There was not only my father -- but quite
|
|
likely I would need a separate plan for Pillo's release.
|
|
But all I saw when I closed my eyes was bikinis and skin.
|
|
Maybe Amelia was right about me and women after all. ***
|
|
The possibility of using Pierre should have occurred to me before
|
|
-- he had been back in town for the past week or so. It was Valeska
|
|
that brought up the idea. I was painting her toenails just after a
|
|
macaroni and beans dinner the following evening -- engineers all study
|
|
mechanical drawing, and I have a draftsman's eye for any kind of
|
|
painting. Besides, I liked feeling the smooth insides of her pale brown
|
|
toes as I carefully spread apart the tips, calloused with dancer's ridges,
|
|
and applied the thick, strong-smelling enamel. She was lying back,
|
|
eating chocolate cookies from what used to be East Germany. I
|
|
brushed away some of the crumbs, then I picked up a couple of them
|
|
and stuck them between her toes. I leaned down, stuck out my
|
|
tongue, and licked the crumbs up, tasting chocolate laced with bath
|
|
lotion and the bitter smell of acetone.
|
|
"Eeeee!" she said and giggled.
|
|
"More," I said.
|
|
"But I've got a date," she said.
|
|
"Oh, come on! Not tonight!"
|
|
She pounded me on the forehead with the flat of her hand. "Got to
|
|
make a living, Flip, keep up my contacts."
|
|
"Yeah, living," I said, sensing or imagining a bitter taste in my
|
|
mouth.
|
|
"Not like you, you lazy bastard."
|
|
"'Lazy'! See if I do your toenails any more. That's hard work."
|
|
She leaned over and took the end of my penis lightly between her nails
|
|
and gave it a little pat. I jumped. "You communists are all the same,
|
|
lazy bastards," she said, "but you, Felipe Elizalde, are the worst."
|
|
"Oh screw! To hell with everything!" The pressures of my crazy
|
|
mess of a life suddenly seemed overwhelming.
|
|
She grabbed me by the earlobes and placed her large lips on my
|
|
eyes, warming them and my cheeks. "What's the matter, sweets?" She
|
|
smiled, her eyes very large. "Don't worry, I'll come back here after my
|
|
date."
|
|
"No thanks!"
|
|
She asked me what the hell was eating me. I said nothing. She
|
|
went back to eye-kissing. I told her she'd be late for her date. She
|
|
pulled my head to her breast and moved my mouth into position to
|
|
suckle. "There, there, sweet honey-love, take hold!" she said. I
|
|
followed directions.
|
|
Up to now all she'd known that I was in Cuba on a mission for my
|
|
government and that my visit to Fidel hadn't been a success. I didn't
|
|
know how much I could tell her, but after a few minutes of womanly
|
|
comfort I raised my head and started in on the Cuban bureaucracy, and
|
|
how you couldn't get anything done with them, and so on and so on.
|
|
She smirked and tickled me under he armpits.
|
|
"Balls!" I said.
|
|
"Pierre," she said, tickling again.
|
|
Me: Pierre?
|
|
Her: The man who knows everybody.
|
|
Me: No matter what name he himself happens to using at the
|
|
moment?
|
|
She shrugged and began to run an Afro comb through her hair.
|
|
She lifted a small mirror and pouted into it, then she moved her toes so
|
|
they were poking into my crotch. "Hey, watch the wet polish," I said.
|
|
Then she kept on poking, prodding until I got distracted, and she
|
|
agreed to call and cancel her date. As she pulled down her slacks and
|
|
panties, she began to describe all the features of a portable TV set she
|
|
had admired in one of the dollar store windows. But even as my prick
|
|
started to concentrate on the lovely beige lyre- shaped hips of Valeska,
|
|
my mind was beginning to worry about Pierre/Waldemar, a man who
|
|
knew everybody but was also known _to_ everybody -- including some
|
|
members of the secret police.
|
|
Pierre and I talked the next day, dashing crazily through the late
|
|
afternoon traffic in a cab. I had met him at the Nacional as he was
|
|
returning, he said, from a visit to one of his "closest and dearest
|
|
friends." I had asked him what he had been up to in Havana -- getting
|
|
some old debts repaid, companero, taking orders, business.
|
|
"You know how it is," he said. He looked at me, his eyebrows
|
|
raised so far that they almost seemed to reach the black "Waldemar"
|
|
wig, which had slipped somewhat off center. "Or do you?" he asked.
|
|
"Know the socialist scene?"
|
|
I felt that I was blushing.
|
|
He gave me a conspiratorial smile. "Sometimes I think you're a
|
|
good little boy with a secret, Felipe. Then other times, I think," he
|
|
said, leaning over and whispering into my ear, "You're just a hustler
|
|
like all of us -- 'Felipe.'" He laughed. "And you have a problem with
|
|
MININT. And I know that ministry like my cat knows the goldfish in
|
|
my aquarium back home in..." His voice level dropped to an
|
|
incomprehensible murmur. Just then the cab made a sharp turn, I fell
|
|
against him, feeling my elbow sink into the layers of fat. He made a
|
|
face and motioned toward the back of the driver's head, waving one
|
|
big finger to belatedly caution me about eavesdroppers. I leaned over
|
|
close to his ear and explained in a whisper my problem to him, only
|
|
telling him that I wanted to get this Dr. Revueltos -- and Jose Pillo --
|
|
out of La Cabana. He raised his eyebrows at Pillo's name. "Collecting
|
|
reactionaries too, comrade?" He smiled.
|
|
"Can you do it?" I said.
|
|
"I was right about you, my little friend," he said, pinching my
|
|
cheek. I pulled away, rubbing the sore spot on my cheek. "No, no,
|
|
Felipe," he said. "You mustn't pull away like that! Distancing yourself
|
|
from your friend, your dear friend who can help you with your little
|
|
problems."
|
|
"No, no, I didn't mean to do that, Pierre."
|
|
He laughed. "Oh, Felipe, you devil."
|
|
He dropped me of at my hotel. He himself was now living with "a
|
|
very close friend, a member of the inner Party circles." This friend was
|
|
helping him arrange something about air conditioners -- I knew that
|
|
little $300 window air conditioners were fetching upwards of $1000 on
|
|
the black market. As the cab came to a stop, I asked Pierre what he
|
|
thought he could do about my problem. He made a face just like the
|
|
one he had made earlier.
|
|
"Hah!" he said. He laughed. "Hah," he said again.
|
|
I suddenly imagined that "Hah" was his version of a personal battle
|
|
cry, like the "Santiago y Espana" of medieval Spain. The haunting
|
|
feeling came over me that any affair of Pierre's would be likely to lead
|
|
to trouble, maybe disaster. The next day, in fact, the first small
|
|
wiggles of the seismographic tracing of a possible Diaz-Ginsburg
|
|
earthquake came when I told Valeska about my talk with Pierre.
|
|
When I told her he hadn't been specific about what he would do, she
|
|
made a face. I was getting tired of people making faces. "What does
|
|
that mean?" I said. She bit her lip, grinning, and shrugged her
|
|
shoulders.
|
|
"So," I said, "do you think that I did wrong to talk to him? It was
|
|
your idea, for God's sake."
|
|
"Oh," she said, "I'm so tired." She yawned and plopped herself
|
|
down on the bed.
|
|
I asked her if I should talk to Pierre again. "What's he going to do,
|
|
do you suppose?"
|
|
"Who knows what anyone else will do?" she said in a voice that
|
|
suggested that you never knew what you yourself were going to do, so
|
|
why worry about others?
|
|
"Shit," I said.
|
|
"It's just that Pierre's crazy," she said in a lazy, throaty voice.
|
|
"Oh, Jesus," I said.
|
|
"The problem with Pierre is, if he doesn't have a good idea, he'll go
|
|
ahead with a bad one." She picked my wallet out of my coat and
|
|
started to look through it. "No point in worrying."
|
|
"How can I not worry, when I don't know what's going to
|
|
happen?" I pulled my wallet away from her. "_If_ anything is going to
|
|
happen."
|
|
Valeska giggled softly. "I told you. With Pierre, _something_ will
|
|
happen." She pulled me down on top of her and reached for the wallet
|
|
again.
|
|
I put my wallet away in my trousers pocket. Valeska smiled, lying
|
|
there lazy-eyed, staring at the far wall. She looked out of this world,
|
|
as if she were either very stupid or very smart about life and people.
|
|
Perhaps the look was the fat, confident stare of an African mask.
|
|
Anyway, I suddenly became concerned that Valeska might indeed
|
|
know her Pierre -- very well.
|
|
"Don't worry," Pierre told me himself when I ran into him at the
|
|
Cafe Oriente three nights later. Cuba hadn't changed that much, and
|
|
he rubbed his fingers together in the money-money sign.
|
|
"Even under the communists?" I said.
|
|
"Communists!" He sniffed, adjusting his mustache. "The
|
|
commune is the ultimate set of shackles for humanity."
|
|
I had heard that all before. "And anarchism shall set you free?"
|
|
His face took on a faraway look. "Man poisons man with politics. The
|
|
ultimate shame. The individual is made into a group man, stupid,
|
|
corrupt, full of hate."
|
|
"Who's always on the take."
|
|
"My dear Felipe, some day this cancer will be destroyed, the
|
|
Bush-Castro- Gorbachev disease of authority, arbitrary rule,
|
|
manipulation of mankind against its own interests." His face lightened.
|
|
He smiled. "In the meantime, it's so easy to help your friends."
|
|
"How much is this going to cost?" I said. Not that I had to know,
|
|
the Gomez operation didn't seem to be on a tight budget. But I did
|
|
wonder whether Pierre was all talk.
|
|
"A friend is a wonderful thing," said Pierre. "Human kindness is a
|
|
natural attribute of Mankind. When governments are finally destroyed,
|
|
we will all learn, Felipe, my friend and comrade, the true glory of
|
|
human kindness. His face fell. "Maybe not in our lifetimes."
|
|
I gave up. By this time I knew that Pierre would tell me exactly
|
|
what he wanted me to know -- and no more. "How much?" I said.
|
|
"Six thousand should do it."
|
|
"I'll see about it," I said, hoping that the Company or whoever
|
|
would be good for that much.
|
|
Big organizations are awfully good at wasting money in a good
|
|
cause
|
|
***
|
|
The phone call woke me. My thin little digital clock said 1:43
|
|
A.M. I said hello, there was no answer. I cleared my throat and said
|
|
hello again, and then Pierre's voice said, "I was worried it wasn't you,
|
|
companero." His voice sounded tired. I asked him what was up.
|
|
Earlier that evening I had almost succeeded in forgetting about Pierre
|
|
and his worrisome "promise" to help my father. My mind had been
|
|
dwelling on the previous afternoon, sitting on the terrace of the hotel
|
|
and spotting Valeska strolling with Arnoldo on the Rampa, looking
|
|
entirely too chummy. And thinking what Amelia would think about it
|
|
all and what did it matter what she thought? I damned well wasn't
|
|
going to play the role of her little boy who was being naughty with the
|
|
bad little girls, just waiting for Mommy to bawl him out! Anyway, I
|
|
had difficulty clearing my mind there on the phone with Pierre in the
|
|
middle of the night. I missed Pierre's next statement the first time
|
|
around.
|
|
"What was that?"
|
|
"I want you to keep something for me," he said matter-of-factly.
|
|
"What, what are you talking about?" I was awake now.
|
|
"The concierge will have it. Tomorrow. Or later. Don't know."
|
|
"What's going on, Pierre, have you been doing something about you
|
|
know what?"
|
|
"_Adiosito_," he said and hung up.
|
|
He didn't say "_Hasta_ _luego_" -- "see you." His choice of a flat
|
|
"good-bye" was kind of worrying.
|
|
The story started to come out in dribs and drabs the next day. I
|
|
first heard from Valeska that Pierre had approached the vice-chairman
|
|
of the Security Committee of the Party. Pierre had told Valeska that
|
|
this fellow, a certain Nunez, was "an old pal" -- she said he made a
|
|
Cheshire-cat grin as he said that. "You could always get a favor done
|
|
by an old pal," he said. "Old pals count even in new societies, even in
|
|
our 'New Cuba.'" I could hear Pierre spitting out that phrase with his
|
|
usual melancholic irony.
|
|
Well, when we filled in the story with some reports from Arnoldo
|
|
and others, it appeared that old pal Nunez and been indeed open to my
|
|
"four thousand dollar" bribe -- especially, Valeska said, because Pierre
|
|
was in a position to spread the word around about the old days when
|
|
they were together in the Sierra Escambray, a blot on his resume that
|
|
Nunez had managed to keep papered over for almost thirty years. I
|
|
could picture Nunez, fat, I supposed, sleek, owning a new Hungarian
|
|
automobile, his children maybe in the elite Pedrazgo School in
|
|
Miramar. Nunez, bald head shining, suddenly faced with the wild-eyed
|
|
face of his old comrade, and saying to himself, stop, stop, this can't be
|
|
happening to me.
|
|
So, as we heard, it was all set up, Nunez had taken the money and
|
|
was arranging medical releases for my father and Pillo, when he
|
|
suddenly found out that Fidel had taken a "personal interest" in my
|
|
father's case.
|
|
No one in Cuba bucks Fidel. For Nunez, that was the end of that
|
|
act of friendship -- an order was sent out for Pierre's arrest. What
|
|
Pierre had apparently overlooked was that while he had something on
|
|
Nunez, Nunez had something worse on him -- a knowledge of the
|
|
Diaz-Ginsburg name under which he was still wanted in the Special
|
|
Courts on charges of murder and treason. So Pierre disappeared,
|
|
leaving only the promised envelope with my concierge. I later heard
|
|
that he had taken to the hills, no one knew where exactly, perhaps to
|
|
his old stomping ground in the Sierra Escambray, perhaps elsewhere.
|
|
A one-line denunciation appeared about him, under his real name, in
|
|
the following day's edition of "Granma."
|
|
The envelope? It held a list of names under the title "Comrades of
|
|
the Liberation movement, 1964-1966," and a photograph of a group of
|
|
bearded men, some holding weapons, against a background of a jeep
|
|
and a grove of pine trees.
|
|
Still later, I learned from Valeska's singer friend Toni that her good
|
|
customer Nunez had bragged to her about making an easy four
|
|
thousand dollars out of the deal and getting rid of a nuisance into the
|
|
bargain.
|
|
Of course I was pissed off about all the references to the "four
|
|
thousand." Then I remembered that it was the American taxpayers or
|
|
maybe, indirectly, the Miami citizenry fleeced by the Association who
|
|
were paying for it and -- who knows -- maybe we the people owed
|
|
Pierre something for past services.
|
|
And two thousand dollars, Pierre's cut, wasn't much money -- as
|
|
these things go. I mean, think about Irangate. But that didn't help me
|
|
much at that moment. Pierre's failure meant that I too had failed.
|
|
Again.
|
|
***
|
|
He wasn't wearing a striped sailor shirt this time, he appeared
|
|
disguised as a would-be fashion plate in a bright purple guayabera. It
|
|
was the middle of the afternoon at La Floridita, Hemingway's favorite
|
|
bar, in the heart of the old downtown, and he walked in and swung
|
|
himself awkwardly into the high, pillowed cane chair right beside me
|
|
where I sat at the bar, nursing a daiquiri and waiting for Valeska to get
|
|
off a date at the Hotel Inglaterra. I automatically looked around,
|
|
expecting to see someone who looked like one of Fidel's agents
|
|
watching us.
|
|
"Need a match, buddy?" he said, in his indescribably bad Spanish.
|
|
He swayed against the bar, his belly buffing the shining dark
|
|
mahogany.
|
|
"No," I said. No one was watching.
|
|
He held out a matchbook. "Take one," he whispered in English.
|
|
I took the matchbook from him. It was colored a faded red and
|
|
looked much used. On the inside cover, it said, "Meet me in fifteen
|
|
minutes in the men's room of the Palacio Hotel. First booth." I had
|
|
just started to wonder where the Palacio Hotel was, when I realized he
|
|
was already disappearing out the front door, purple shirttail wagging
|
|
behind him.
|
|
I found the Palacio nearby, on Calle O'Reilly. Its ancient men's
|
|
room glistened with yellowed porcelain and smelled of lysol and urine.
|
|
I saw black wingtip shoes peeping out from under the partition of the
|
|
first booth. I ignored the small piles of toilet paper stacked on the
|
|
table for use by serious customers and carefully opened the door to
|
|
the booth. Mr. Marcus looked like a bigger man than he was,
|
|
crouching in front of the toilet inside the tiny booth.
|
|
"You'll have to account for the six thousand," he whispered in
|
|
English, apparently under the impression that the language of
|
|
Shakespeare was a secure cipher.
|
|
I started to explain, but he widened his pop eyes and cut me off.
|
|
"Never mind that Ginsburg stuff now. What are your plans?" "I
|
|
don't know." I leaned away from his sweat-stained face, bumping
|
|
against the toilet and flushing it by accident.
|
|
"Shh!" he said.
|
|
"Sorry!"
|
|
"We're sending an agent to help. That is, the Miami office is."
|
|
"What agent? When?"
|
|
He pursed his lips. "Careful. People may be listening." Just then I
|
|
heard steps and someone came into the room and went to the long
|
|
trough. Marcus gripped my arm tightly. I remember wondering what
|
|
his first name was. We heard the sound of liquid, then more steps, the
|
|
outer door opening and closing. "But remember, I'm still directing this
|
|
operation, even when I'm in San Salvador."
|
|
"Yes, but..."
|
|
"Report to the address in Cayo Hueso day after tomorrow. Now
|
|
leave." He gave me a push. "Be careful. Caution, at all times."
|
|
"Sure, sure." I opened the door of the booth.
|
|
"The report," he said.
|
|
"What?"
|
|
"Bring your report, address it 'To files.'"
|
|
"What?"
|
|
He pushed me out of the booth and closed the door, remaining
|
|
inside. I heard the sign of urination starting. His voice raised itself
|
|
over the sound. "Two pages. Double-spaced."
|
|
The door opened and an old man in a white waiter's coat stared at
|
|
me.
|
|
Marcus' voice came now in Spanish. "Not a word. Caution,
|
|
caution."
|
|
The waiter looked at me. "Russians?" He said.
|
|
"Yes, Russians," I said.
|
|
"Your Spanish is good. Long live the Revolution." He clenched a
|
|
fist and I did the same as I opened the outer door of the men's room. I
|
|
could hear someone behind me beginning to sing in a murmuring tenor
|
|
voice, "Our Love is Here to Stay."
|
|
==================================================
|
|
|
|
PITTSBURGH
|
|
|
|
By Otho Eskin
|
|
|
|
(Note: this is the last of 7 parts of the play "Duet")
|
|
|
|
CHARACTERS
|
|
(In order of appearance)
|
|
|
|
SARAH BERNHARDT
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA DUSE
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
|
|
SETTING
|
|
|
|
Backstage of the Syria Theatre, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
|
|
|
|
TIME
|
|
|
|
April 5, 1924 Evening.
|
|
|
|
SCENE
|
|
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
(To ELEONORA)
|
|
You never forgave me.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I never forgave you.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
I told you, you had abominable taste in men.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I knew in my heart he would betray me but I couldn't help myself. I
|
|
detested him. I adored him.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
In love as in life there are only victors and victims. After my experience
|
|
with my beloved prince, I never allowed myself to be a victim again.
|
|
Enjoy men. Take the pleasure they can give. Make them love you. But
|
|
never love them back. Any woman who allows herself to love is a
|
|
lunatic or self-destructive.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
That did not give you the right to betray me with Gabriele.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
Gabriele meant nothing to me. A few weeks perhaps a month or two
|
|
and it was over. And even when we were together I am sure he was
|
|
betraying me as I was betraying him. It meant nothing. You must
|
|
have known what he was like.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I knew from the beginning that he would be unfaithful. But I was
|
|
dazzled by his vitality by his delight in himself by his
|
|
overpowering egotism.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
There is nothing so seductive in a man as his love of himself.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I was a slave of my own passion. I felt a suffering of love, dark and
|
|
deep.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
Love is insatiable and inconsolable.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
After Paris he returned to me, asking forgiveness.
|
|
SARAH
|
|
And you were fool enough to say yes?
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
His cruelty increased every day. He flaunted his infidelity. One night,
|
|
while I was performing in Palermo, he made love to one of the young
|
|
actresses in my company backstage where it was impossible for me
|
|
not to see them. I was crushed by his cruelty, humiliated by his deceit,
|
|
destroyed by his lack of pity. I became subject to fits of raging jealousy
|
|
of blackest melancholy that left me no peace.
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
I am bored by your jealousy, Eleonora.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I was horrified by my own weakness.
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
You are in the grip of an evil demon.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
He wrote a novel he called The Flame. It was supposed to be fiction
|
|
but it was about me our love. It was the portrayal of a woman's
|
|
passion for a younger man.
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
And now, by a violent, sudden impact of fate she had been thrown on
|
|
him, a female in heat, with all her quivering flesh. She had mingled with
|
|
him with all her harsh blood. She had seen him sleep on the same pillow
|
|
the heavy sleep of love-fatigue; she had known at his side sudden
|
|
wakings, troubled by cruel dismay, and the impossibility of closing her
|
|
weary eyelids again for fear that he might observe her sleep, and seek in
|
|
her face the marks of the years and be repelled by them, and yearn for
|
|
fresh, unaware youthfulness.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
How can you be so cruel?
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
I am an artist and artists are not bound by the conventions of normal
|
|
people any more than conventions bind the tiger in the jungle. We
|
|
live by our own rules. If you must be hurt in order for me to create a
|
|
work of art so be it.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
Genius is not a license to kill.
|
|
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
Yes, it is.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
You were a fool, Eleonora.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I was in love. What could I do? He wasn't just a man. He was a poet
|
|
and a playwright.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
They're the worst! Never fall in love with one of those. They spend
|
|
their days inventing lies which they then expect other people to pay to
|
|
hear. They are never to be trusted.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
What could I do? I was in love.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
Some years ago I injured my leg. At first it caused me a little pain but I
|
|
endured. But as time passed the pain increased. It became an obsession
|
|
all my waking hours. At night I could not sleep, living with my pain. I
|
|
went to doctors. They could do nothing. The pain grew worse. It
|
|
interfered with my work. It interfered with my enjoyment of life. I went
|
|
to the doctor and said if you can't cure my pain, cut off my leg.
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
No, Madame Sarah, I will not do that. You must learn to live with your
|
|
pain.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
I refuse to live with pain. I went to other doctors. Finally I found one
|
|
who would do as I asked. And he cut my leg off. Here.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
I could never do that. I would prefer to suffer.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
Your suffering, your experiences, enriched your art.
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
Five minutes, Signora.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
I wonder now that the world has seen you will they speak of me
|
|
sometimes? Perhaps if I had had your advantages, Eleonora, I too
|
|
might have achieved something real.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
My advantages! You had everything! You had wealth. You had
|
|
comfort. You had education.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
I was deserted by my father. Abandoned by the father of my child.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
You had a mother.
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
Do you want to know what kind of person my mother was? She lived
|
|
what was called La vie gallante. She was a courtesan. Every night she
|
|
brought home a gentleman whom she had met at one of the theaters or
|
|
cafes. She would entertain this gentleman perhaps play some
|
|
popular tune on the piano. Then retire to the bedroom.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
Is that what your mother taught you?
|
|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
When I was fourteen the age you were when you stood on that
|
|
stage in Verona and felt the Grace of God I was taught to be a
|
|
whore.
|
|
|
|
MAN
|
|
Signora Duse, it is time.
|
|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
No! Not yet. I'm not ready. There's something I still need to know. Did
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we achieve anything in our lives, Sarah?
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|
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|
SARAH
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|
We were water weavers, Eleonora, you and I. We lived invented lives.
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|
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|
(SARAH arises and goes toward the door.)
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|
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|
ELEONORA
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|
Wait! Don't go yet.
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|
|
|
(SARAH stops at the door.)
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|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
I dreamed of meeting someone who would accept me unquestioningly.
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|
Then I met you.
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|
In one instant, like a mad woman, I built a whole future upon your love,
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|
I thought of my childhood I was dreaming of the impossible. Is it
|
|
too late?
|
|
|
|
(THEY embrace)
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|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
Will they speak of us sometimes?
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|
|
|
SARAH
|
|
That's strange. I seem to have forgotten my lines.
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|
|
|
(SARAH exits. The MAN begins
|
|
switching off the stage lights.)
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|
|
|
MAN
|
|
It's time, Signora. It's time.
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|
|
|
(ELEONORA rises, pulls the shawl
|
|
around her shoulders and exits. The
|
|
MAN switches off the remaining lights.)
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|
|
|
ELEONORA
|
|
(VOICE OVER)
|
|
All my life I wanted to raise myself through my work and for my
|
|
work to the level of really great subjects sacred subjects to the
|
|
very heart of that Mystery. The theater sprang from religion. It was my
|
|
greatest wish that, somehow, through me in some small way
|
|
theater and religion might once again be reunited. We lived dreams of
|
|
passion, you and I. But I look back and see nothing and I am
|
|
intoxicated with regret. What I have done no longer satisfies me. I feel
|
|
something dying within me. I feel the false, fleeting aspect of the plays
|
|
in which I act. I look back and I see shadows and broken memories.
|
|
And yet When everything was just right there were shining
|
|
moments. Moments of such sweet complicity when we were consumed
|
|
with a holy madness.
|
|
|
|
CURTAIN
|
|
*****
|