FICTION-ONLINE An Internet Literary Magazine Volume 5, Number 4 July-August, 1998 EDITOR'S NOTE: FICTION-ONLINE is a literary magazine publishing electronically through e-mail and the Internet on a bimonthly basis. The contents include short stories, play scripts or excerpts, excerpts of novels or serialized novels, and poems. Some contributors to the magazine are members of the Northwest Fiction Group of Washington, DC, a group affiliated with Washington Independent Writers. However, the magazine is an independent entity and solicits and publishes material from the public. To subscribe or unsubscribe or for more information, please e- mail a brief request to ngwazi@clark.net To submit manuscripts for consideration, please e-mail to the same address, with the ms in ASCII format, if possible included as part of the message itself, rather than as an attachment. Back issues of the magazine may be obtained by e-mail from the editor or by downloading from the website http://www.etext.org/Zines/ASCII/Fiction_Online The FICTION-ONLINE home page, courtesy of the Writer's Center, Bethesda, Maryland, may be accessed at the following URL: http://www.writer.org/folmag/topfollm.htm COPYRIGHT NOTICE: The copyright for each piece of material published is retained by its author. Each subscriber is licensed to possess one electronic copy and to make one hard copy for personal reading use only. All other rights, including rights to copy or publish in whole or in part in any form or medium, to give readings or to stage performances or filmings or video recording, or for any other use not explicitly licensed, are reserved. William Ramsay, Editor ================================================= CONTENTS Editor's Note Contributors Two Verses E. James Scott "Elvis Presley, Private Eye," a short story Alan Vanneman "Meeting Fidel," an excerpt (chapter 9) from the novel "Ay, Chucho!" William Ramsay "Pittsburgh," part 7 and last of the play, "Duet" Otho Eskin ================================================= CONTRIBUTORS OTHO ESKIN, former diplomat and consultant on international affairs, has published short stories and has had numerous plays read and produced in Washington, notably "Act of God." His play "Duet" has been produced at the Elizabethan Theater at the Folder Library in Washington.. He is currently working on a play on the life of Emma Goldman. WILLIAM RAMSAY is a physicist and consultant on Third World energy problems. He is also a writer and the coordinator of the Northwest Fiction Group. His play, "Topsy-Turvy," recently received a reading at the N Street Playhouse in Washington. E. JAMES SCOTT is an airline pilot and plays the viola da gamba. He lives in La Jolla, California and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he practices his hobby of photographing and charting the migrations of cetaceans ALAN VANNEMAN is a writer living in Washington. He has published short stories in numerous journals. He is a professional editor, currently working in educational research. =================================================== TWO VERSES by E. James Scott Poolside Summer A dripping wet blue towel Snaking mountainously over the white slotted desert of the chaise, Brown shoulder picked at by freckles and cut, bulging, by the round lemon-yellow strap forming a parabola arching into your brick- red hair. I kiss your skin. Nose and mouth find chlorine, sweat, and suntan lotion. Sacrifice at Aulis Agamemnon's sudden hand raised The long finely-sharpened fibula And stabbed it into the pink-tinged hollow In Iphigeneia's dead-white neck. Three scarlet jets spurted onto his brass-knobbed breastplate Rebounding to the music of the thin screams from Clytemnestra's stifling throat. ================================================== ELVIS PRESLEY, PRIVATE EYE by Alan Vanneman I never seen Elvis but he was up to something. I remember that day just as clear. He come over to the house and he was slick, tight black jeans, a fancy cowboy shirt and his hair all slicked up, and polished cowboy boots that made him look even taller than he was. "Where do you think you're going?" I asks him when I seen him. "Why, I'm going with you, Uncle Buck. I'm going to be a truck- driving man." "Stuff," I says. "You ain't going nowhere dressed like that." "I sure as hell am," he says, "Momma said I could. I got my high school diploma and everything." "Your momma know you talk like that?" I says, and that brought him up short. Elvis, well, he was kind of a momma's boy back then. I wouldn't hold it against him, you understand. That was just the way he was. "Please, Uncle Buck," he says, "please let me go. I drive real good." Well, that was surely true. Ever since I had knowed him, Elvis could handle a tractor. I worked out with him on his daddy's farm one summer. He couldn't have been more than ten, but it was like he was born to it, and that tractor his daddy had was a raggedy old thing. If you didn't treat that clutch just right it would kick up a storm. You had to know that clutch, just know how it was feeling every day, or you'd have yourself a time. "Well, maybe you can, and maybe you can't," I says. "But you sure can't dressed like that. I'm fixing to deadhead down to Tupelo this morning to see a feller that owes me some money, and I could use a little relief. You figure your momma will let you go with me?" "I'm going," he says. "I'm gone. You watch me go." "I'll watch you go," I says. "But you ain't going dressed like that. You come back here dressed like a working man and I might take you with me. But you remember to bring that high school diploma with you." "Oh, yes sir, Uncle Buck, I will," he says, and off he goes, hair just a-flying. I had to laugh, because there wasn't nothing Elvis was so fussy about as his hair. I figured right then that if Elvis was more set on going than taking care of his hair, I'd have to take him with me. I'd been hauling for some time for this feller outside of Tupelo who had the biggest old hog farm you ever did see. He stiffed me on my last run, and I didn't think I'd see that money, the way we talked, but this feller come through on the way to St. Louie and told me Mr. Carlson said I could have my money with $50 extra for my trouble if I'd come down today. I got me a Ford V-8 for trips like that, but I got to revving her too high the night before, showing off for some gal, and I blowed a piston head. When I'm with a gal, I get careless. I just do. So I had to take Bessie instead, and she needed a little cleaning. I'd been letting things accumulate a bit for the past year or so, and there warn't really room for two. The way I figure it, a man, when he's driving, has got to keep his eyes on the road. If you got something in your hand, you just fling it, and worry about it later. So I had considerable chicken bones and pop bottles to take care of, mostly pop bottles. I like an RC and a Lucky to get me going in the morning, and maybe a cherry smash about ten o'clock. Grape Nehi's good too, if they got it. It's got more of a perky taste than that orange. I like a root beer too, but you've got to drink it cold. Hot root beer will take the skin right off your tongue. You can't let it sit in the cab. So I got me a little cooler in the back to take care of things, along with my funny books. I used to haul for DC Comics, and I got 'em all Superman, Batman, Action Comics, Adventure Comics, Detective Comics, World's Finest you name it. I do like a good funny book, and Elvis, he does too. He reads 'em more than I do. I'd got most of the bottles out when Elvis come running back. He didn't look much better, really, but at least he got rid of those black jeans. Wearing pants like that will start a fight every time. He had a cardboard suitcase in one hand and a big old bag slung over his shoulder. "Elvis," I says, "we're just going to Tupelo. It ain't but two hours." "Oh," he says, "I got to be ready." "You got your guitar?" "You know I do.". "Yes, I know you do. I hope you know how to play it." "I surely do, Uncle Buck, and I'm going to be famous someday. And I'm going to write a song all about you." I had to laugh at that. Elvis was such a kid back then, and always talking about how he was going to do this and that. But I figured it was about time he did something more than just talk. So I says, "Well, that's good, but why don't you put down that guitar for just a minute and give Bessie a quart. Let me see you check the brake fluid while you're at it." Well, when I tell him that he takes these gloves out of his pocket and starts putting them on. I couldn't hardly believe my eyes. "What the hell are you doing?" I says. "Putting gloves on to check brake fluid? It ain't like picking up a porkypine." "Oh, I got to," he says. "I'm going to be an artiste, and an artiste can't have no grease under his fingernails." "What the hell is a goddamn artiste?" I says. "An artiste is a man that entertains the public, like Dean Martin, and he can't have nothing offensive about him." "Excuse me for living," I says, "but if this Dean Martin feller ever put on gloves to check the brake fluid on his rig he'd get his ass whupped from here to Californy." "You don't worry about me getting no ass-whupping," he says, "I got my karate moves." I knew all about Elvis and his karate moves, because he and I used to watch those karate fellers busting bricks with they heads on the 'You Asked For It' show, but I ain't seen Elvis bust no bricks, so I says "Okay, let me see those karate moves." So Elvis sets up these two cinderblocks, one on top of another, and he takes off his boots and his socks, and he crouches down low, and he says nary a word, and then, all of a sudden, he just uncoils like a snake, and whup! he kicks that block, and wham! it smashes all to kingdom come. "How'd you do that!" I says. Elvis, he gives me this big smile, and he says "I'm concentrating my floodlike chi, Uncle Buck." "What the hell is floodlike chi?" I says. "All God's critters got chi," he says. "Chi pervades the universe, and everything that creeps and crawls got its own kind of chi. But floodlike chi is different. Floodlike chi is the elemental chi, and if you concentrate it, there ain't nothing a man can't do." I shook my head at that. "I don't know about that," I says, "but you can sure kick the hell out of a cinderblock. You got to take your shoes and socks off every time you give a body a lick?" Elvis, he's pulling on his socks and boots, and he says, "Of course not, Uncle. I just didn't want to mess up my shine." That was Elvis. "Okay," I says, "you get your floodlike behind up in that truck, and let's get us going down to Tupelo." And we did. I let Elvis drive, telling him about deadheading, how to work the brake and clutch, and what you had to watch out for. I couldn't tell him enough. He had to know everything. "What's the worst accident you ever saw, Uncle Buck?" he says to me. "That's a tough one," I says, "and I have seed plenty." And I had. Because there's death on the highway, that's for sure. Anyone been driving a truck as long as I have knows that. There's death on the highway. "You remember old Sam Hayes?" I asked him. "Not rightly," he says. "Is that Joe Hayes' daddy?" "That's the one," I says. "Got himself kilt five years ago. I was coming up to St. Lou around midnight on old Route 55, and there was debris just about everywhere. This state trooper flagged me down, and he says 'You running from Memphis?' and I says 'Sure' and he says 'I think there's a feller here you might know.' You know, Elvis, that feller was shining a light in my face, so's I couldn't see him, but I believe he knew me, and had it in for me." "Why's that, Uncle Buck?" "Because he brought me round and showed me this rig that was all busted up, and he says 'You know this rig?' and I says 'I believe I do. I believe that's Sam Hayes' rig.' Well, then he takes me over to this stretcher they got there, and he pulls the blanket off, and there's this feller, with blood all over his face, and no eyes, and his brains all mushed out like a cauliflower." "No eyes, Uncle Buck?" "No eyes at all. They had just popped out of his head. I seen fellers messed up before, but never like that. That police feller, he says 'Is that Sam Hayes?' and I says 'How am I supposed to answer that?' and he says 'You smell that liquor?' Well, I surely did, cause old Sam did like his moonshine, and the police feller says 'We get mighty tired of you Memphis boys coming through here and smashing things up. I'm going to give you a test.' "So he give me this drunk test, and he was just dying to catch me, but he didn't, because I'm not a drinking man, not on the road. So I was walking off, and I seen 'em." "You seen what, Uncle Buck?" "Old Sam Hayes' eyes, that's what I seen. Lying out on the road like a couple of hard-boiled eggs." "Oh, lordy. What'd you do?" "Wasn't much I could do. I had me a hanky, and I picked 'em up and took 'em over to the police feller, and I says, 'These here is Sam Hayes' eyes,' and he says, 'What do you want me to do with 'em?' and I says 'I think they should go back in Sam's head,' and he says, 'Well I ain't messing with 'em. That ain't my job.' So I put 'em in myself." "You did that, Uncle Buck? What'd it feel like?" "It was pretty grisly, I tell you. Eyes got a kind of jelly in them. You don't want to hold 'em. But I figured it was the right thing to do." "I figure it surely was the right thing to do, Uncle Buck. Folks like to have their kin buried with their eyes in, I bet that. It was downright Christian, fixing a feller's eyes like that. I reckon the good lord will remember you for that one." I had to smile at that. I don't get called Christian too often. Me and the lord get along okay, but when the preaching starts, that's the time old Buck starts to skedaddle. I don't mind hymn singing, but when folks start telling me what to do, that's when I head for the door. That's why I'm a truck-driving man. Mr. Carlson has his hog farm north of Tupelo, and just about the time I finished that story we hit the turn-off. It's a tight turn that'll put you in the ditch if you don't catch it right, but Elvis, he handled it just as smooth. He just always had a nice touch with the clutch. Most young fellers is too hard or too soft, but Elvis, he could slide it in without missing a beat, and turning that wheel all the while, with just a little brake, and whipped it right in there. When he got her straight he had this cocky grin on his face. "You must think you're something," I says. "I ain't thinking nothing." "I'll see how you do with twelve ton of steel hanging off your fanny." Elvis, he got pretty red, but he don't say nothing. So I give Elvis directions, and we drive right on up to the office, which is a separate building, because Mr. Carlson, he don't live on this farm. If you had a whiff you'd know why. You get a thousand hogs together and it gets acrid. That scent will just about rip the hairs out of your nose. That farm is more like a factory than a farm, really. They got these big pens for the hogs, and feed bins and garages for the equipment and all sorts of things. I got out of the truck and I give the door a rap, but nobody answers, so I walk on in. What I see is this: Mr. Carlson flat on the floor, and blood everywhere. There was three bullet holes in that poor feller's face. I never seen nothing like it, and I've been in some scrapes. But this wasn't no scrape. This was murder, pure and simple. I come out the door and Elvis he took one look at me and he says "Lordy, Uncle Buck, what's wrong?" "Elvis," I says, "Mr. Carlson's been murdered, that's what's wrong." "Murdered? Let me see." "Elvis, you don't got to see nothing. Let's get the hell out of here." But Elvis, he ain't listening. He's past me and into the office. So I got to go back. "Don't touch nothing," he says. "I ain't touching nothing," I says. "I'm getting the hell out of here, and you're coming with me." "No, Uncle Buck," he says. "I got to investigate. This here's an adventure." "Elvis," I says, "this ain't no adventure. This is murder. You come with me." But Elvis, he ain't budging. I try to move him, and he don't give an inch. He's dug in like a mule. That shook me a little. Tall as he was, I always thought of Elvis as a boy, but now I feel like I'm tugging on a full-growed horse, and a horse that ain't going in my direction. "Looky at that floor, Uncle Buck," he says. "They's hog feed all over. See them footprints? Looks like two fellers, don't it? One's got pointy-toed shoes like a city slicker and the other's wearing boots with a wore-down heel. Lordy, look at that blood. It's still a-flowing. This feller ain't been dead more'n ten minutes, I bet." "Then what do you bet the killers might still be around," I says. "Lordy, that's so. We better move that truck." "Yes, we should. Right on back to Memphis." "We can't flee a crime scene, Uncle Buck. We got to report this to the sheriff." "I ain't fleeing, Elvis. I am leaving. And I ain't talking to no sheriff in Tupelo, I tell you that." "Why not?" "I just had me some sheriff trouble down here, that's all, some deputy sheriff trouble. Now you and me is going. Get in the truck. I'm driving." When we got in I reached behind the seat and took out a twelve- gauge I keep back there. "You hold on to this and look sharp," I says. "Our adventuring is over." Which was definitely the truth for me. I don't mess with dead folks for fun. A young gal and a bottle of Jim Beam is adventure enough for me. I don't need no murders to keep me happy. So I get Bessie turned around, and we head on out. "You reckon those fellers come down from St. Louis?" Elvis says. "St. Louis? What makes you think that?" "Them pointy-toed shoes was mighty slick. You don't see shoes like that in Memphis. The feller that owned them shoes was a Yankee boy, I bet that." "If he is a Yankee boy he's a long way from home," I says. "But I sure can't spot a Yankee from his footprints." "Oh, you see that on the TV all the time," Elvis says. "Old Boston Blackie or Charlie Chan could solve this case in no time." "This ain't no TV," I says. "This is Tupelo. I hope it was a Yankee, and I hope they catch him quick, because I don't need no sheriff nosing around." "What's wrong with the sheriff here, Uncle Buck?" "Never you mind what's wrong with him. You just keep that shotgun low till I tell you different." Well, them words wasn't out of my mouth for fifteen seconds before I heard a siren, and there was old Tubby coming right up the trail in his police car. "Oh, lordy," I says. "Elvis, just slide that shotgun back where I had it, and don't say nothing. It's old Tubby hisself." Tubby Thompson was always a mean feller, from all I heard, but I did put my foot in it with him, though it surely weren't my fault at all. You see a gal in a bar having a Segrams and looking kind of lonely, you don't figure she's going to be a deputy sheriff's wife, at least I don't. I figure a feller's got a right to buy a lady a Segrams if that's what she's drinking. I guess we had a few before we went back to her place. That one night with Ellie Mae cost me thirty in the jailhouse, and old Tubby probably would have whupped me to death if his boss hadn't been in town. Sheriff Parker ain't so bad, for a sheriff, but I don't need no deputy sweating my ass. I don't go no further south in Mississippi than Mr. Carlson's farm, and when I seen old Tubby coming I surely wished I hadn't have gone that far. 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 we achieve anything in our lives, Sarah? SARAH We were water weavers, Eleonora, you and I. We lived invented lives. (SARAH arises and goes toward the door.) ELEONORA Wait! Don't go yet. (SARAH stops at the door.) SARAH I dreamed of meeting someone who would accept me unquestioningly. Then I met you. In one instant, like a mad woman, I built a whole future upon your love, I thought of my childhood I was dreaming of the impossible. Is it too late? (THEY embrace) ELEONORA Will they speak of us sometimes? SARAH That's strange. I seem to have forgotten my lines. (SARAH exits. The MAN begins switching off the stage lights.) MAN It's time, Signora. It's time. (ELEONORA rises, pulls the shawl around her shoulders and exits. The MAN switches off the remaining lights.) 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 *****