RAGNAROK
The Twilight of Western Civilization
By
Michael DeWolfe
PROLOGUE
"It was Bor's three sons... who founded a special family of gods..." - Man & Myth on The Creation Of The Gods
A bright spring day cast light on to the field behind the high school. Grade eight was a grueling test of social acumen. Three lanky thirteen year olds sat on the grass eating their lunch and talking. Easter break was a week in the future and they were running on vapor until then.
James was a slender, almost feminine lad. Beside him was Larry: an average kid wearing old jeans and a pilling polo shirt. The trio was rounded out by Eric. Eric was the tallest kid in school but refused to play basketball, calling all sports, "lame." The three of them clung together, outcasts from the norm. They didn't do drugs, they couldn't get a date and none of their parents were rich. But the three were kindred spirits; kids who were rebels in the truest sense of the word. They bucked the school establishment and the ersatz order of their peers.
Together they shared happy days of the school routine, they hung out at each other's homes and played video games and watched movies. Life was good and they pledged themselves to stay friends for their entire life...
CHAPTER ONE
"It was a firm belief of the northern nations that a time would come when all the visible creations... would be destroyed..." - Bullfinch's Mythology on Ragnarok, the Twilight of the Gods.
Like a lion pacing his cage, he went through the routines. But this lion had no teeth to lose-- no claws to be snipped. To those who remembered, he was Lawrence Davis: Larry to most.
The lobby was empty. The odor of asbestos and rancid butter permeated the walls. All three shows were feeding Hollywood pap to the masses. A mild key tapping came from the girl at the concession stand balancing her receipts. Outside, two of the ushers played hackey-sack out on the street. They just finished a joint in the men's room upstairs. The ushers' official excuse for being up there was to unplug a toilet. The theater was an aged remnant of a forgotten era: marble pillars, brass railings and decorative ceilings. Wallpaper peeled from where the walls met the ceiling. The decorative crafting above was yellow from age and ancient cigarette smoke. The tiles at the front door and in the washrooms were chipped and cracked. The seats in the theater were more duct tape than velour. The projectionists disallowed drinks in the projection room because none of the electrical outlets had grounds. The poor design of the building put the men's room above the electrical room. On this night, the overflow of a toilet shorted out the main junction box and shut down the theater for twenty minutes. It forced a complete refund on three packed houses.
The shows ended and the throngs of people milled out. Larry and his fellow ushers toured the theaters. The floors were strewn with popcorn and dried pop-- the leavings of thirty, forty and fifty year olds. Since age eighteen-- six long years-- it was Larry's task to clear up the popcorn and assorted debris.
He changed wordlessly in the communal change room. It was the end of the shift and his co-workers crowded him for space. The girls stripped down their panties and bras and he did not notice-- why torture himself? The girls didn't care; Larry was too tame to be a threat, too mediocre to be an object of desire. In the hot summer months, one of the girls would forego wearing a bra. Larry ignored what he saw for he could do nothing about the desires within him. After all, his favorite, Fanny, was not working this night.
Larry was not an ugly person-- not even unattractive. People, relatives and some friends could not fathom why Larry's life did not fall into place. He was acceptable, clean cut dirty blond hair, average features, none too severe or too recessed. He was five-foot-eight and average in weight only having to work on excess weight three times in his life. Only when agitated, did his voice falter and stammer; apart from that, he was a fine orator. Of all these qualities, Larry lacked only one trait: success.
The walk home was empty. People walked into the heart of town from the parkades, destined to waste away their night in some club or bar. Skinny punks in leather jackets finished off smokes outside of video arcades; their girlfriends wore layers of make-up and coontail purses, like members of some unspoken sisterhood. Two kids in leather and cotton jackets, with their baseball caps on backwards, eyed Larry. It was part of a ritual. He saw a number of these people more often than he saw his friends or his family.
Larry heard a commotion behind him. In the intersection, three toughs took turns kicking a boy of their age. At the crosswalk, a small crowd gathered to watch. No one helped. Larry went back to get a ringside seat.
"Oh look!" said a girl near Larry. She motioned to a police car, fast on its way, its lights flashing. The brand new cruiser closed on the intersection. The bruisers stopped the beating to contemplate escape. Police sirens wailed out and the police cruiser sped past the scene, almost running the delirious victim down in the process. Members of the crowd were confused, their mouths agape. In all the confusion, the casualty ran off with his pursuers close behind.
With the excitement over, Larry continued his walk home. Walking past Pizza's Pizza, Larry recognized the same police car from earlier. Coffee time.
Larry came to his building. The elevator had broken down a week ago and was still in need of a repair. Management said a repair was impossible given his money situation. Larry, at his third flight of stairs, wondered what would be said if he refused to pay rent given his money situation. In his suite, Larry shut the door to the world. he played with the rabbit ears to retrieve a fuzzy image on the TV. He went into the kitchen to set out food for his cat. The sound of the can opener roused his pet from its slumber. Tsitka was his pride and joy. Once or twice Larry pondered escape, but the thought of abandoning his tabby, Tsitka, held him back. Larry grabbed two pieces of aging bread slapped them liberally with sticky, raspberry jam.
He watched an hour of television before turning in. First, the news. It was dominated by stories from America: shootings, cults and children being abused. Watching a story from L.A., Larry recalled a friend's tale of her trip down there. The locals ignored the reports of murder and mutilation because they were so common. The announcer's voice was pure and without impediment. The next story was about South America: "...Warning America of his power in the region, Peruvian strongman Antonio Corvez today..." Larry clicked it to another station.
A young kid, about five years his junior, was being interviewed. Police hovered in the background. The kid spoke of the virtues of the police force and how they saved his life. He rolled up his shirt and exposed an angry, baseball sized bruise where his heart was. He thanked the police for shooting him in the chest with a plastic bullet round rather than the standard-- lethal-- metal incarnations.
He turned the channel. Images of slums and ruined buildings; shots of the homeless and of Depression era footage of soup kitchens. The announcer blared out, "A Nation in Bankruptcy." Images changed to an anonymous urban setting with a reporter in the center of the shot. "Declaring bankruptcy: thousands of people in this nation go bankrupt every year. Massed with insurmountable debts and pressures it becomes the only alternative. But not only people have debts. Entire nations now are billions of dollars in debt. Billions in debt and millions more everyday. What if insurmountable debts and pressures push entire nations into bankruptcy?" More doom and gloom. Larry turned the channel and his mind blanked out to the flickering of empty entertainment.
Close to falling asleep, he realized it was Friday night. Elsewhere, people were out enjoying themselves. Elsewhere.
He was awoken at six am by the phone. He answered it. A voice said, "Mister Lawrence Davis? This is equifare. We are still waiting for last month's six hundred dollar payment on your student loan. You're a month behind already." They were demanding prompt payment for a student loan he never benefited from. After two years of listening to the rambling to self-important instructors and amassing a great debt, he left school to enter the 'working' world.
"I only make four-fifty every two weeks. I need some more time."
"Mister Davis, we have given you time. You leave us little choice; without a payment into the office within two days, Mr. Davis, we will have to guarnsee your wages."
"I can't afford it. I'll lose my apartment."
"I'm sorry, that's not my problem, Mr. Davis. When can we expect payment?"
"My next payday is in almost two weeks..."
"Then I take it that you were just paid?"
"It went to rent."
"Then please make some arrangements to pay. Your current situation is unacceptable."
Thus began another day...
CHAPTER TWO
"He is handsome and well made, but of a very fickle mood and most evil disposition." - Bullfinch's Mythology Of Loki and His Progeny.
James woke up in his Miami hotel room. It was past ten. Morning light and the distant sound of surf came through the balcony door. James felt the vague sensation of a hangover not bad enough to call a hangover. He thought back through the events of the night before...
James fell asleep with the vision of Lara in his mind. She was getting dressed in front of the bed, silhouetted in the predawn light. Eager to depart, she stuffed her bra in her purse rather than put it on...
Earlier, James talked Lara up to his hotel room after hotel's coffee shop closed. Upon first arriving, James had hidden all of the chairs in the closet, leaving only the bed to sit on. Lara discovered the absence of chairs and sat nervously at the foot of the bed. James pulled a bottle of wine from the bar fridge and brought over two glasses.
She asked, "You've got the room to yourself? Where does your friend sleep?"
"My buddy snores like you wouldn't believe. So, he got the next room..." James paused and listened to the silence, garnering Lara's complete attention in the bargain. "You can even hear him. Listen." James pulled himself up and put his ear near the wall adjoining the two suites. She crawled up the bed to share in his discovery. A faint noise bled through the wall. Indeed he did not lie, someone was snoring with enough volume to pierce lumber and gyproc.
James looked to Lara, noting his find. She was gorgeous, single. Actually single; not a woman on a last fling with a sloppy boyfriend at home working a forklift while she fucked her way across the tropics. She looked back at him and smiled. "Why did you ask me up here, James?"
"For some wine."
She asked, "Is that all?" He wondered why people did this dance: the guessing, the games, the feints and dodges. This was no time to question human nature, not with a find like this almost in his grasp.
He felt the moment for action was at hand. He touched her chin and guided her to him for a kiss. The kiss lingered; their mouths opened and they darted their tongues into each other's mouths. Each was so drunk they didn't notice the smell of liquor and cigarettes pervading their breath. He held her close and ran his fingers up and down her back. He grabbed her by the rear and pushed her pelvis closer. She flexed and against him and relaxed. She moved down him and undid the buttons on his shirt and slicked his chest hairs with wet, tonguey kisses. She looked up once or twice and let out a wanton giggle. She opened his jeans and reached into his shorts. She grabbed the head of his penis and squeezed it rhythmically.
James sat up and looked at her to silently to convey his wishes. He pulled her top over her head and she took off her bra to reveal small, firm breasts. He lunged at her, kissing and sucking on her nipples. She laid back to enjoy it, cooing and giving out slight moans. James moved down her torso. He pulled off her jeans and dove in between her legs. She moaned and whimpered louder, responding to the ferocity of his tonguing...
He met Lara at an open air night club.
It was a beautiful, clear night, still warm after midnight. Lara was confident no cops were lay in wait so she was pushing her jeep for all it was worth. James stood in front seat. The wind blew in his hair. His life was on the edge of a knife. Things got no better this...
For James, the adventure was coming to a close. His flight left on this day. At home, Geena-- his wife, awaited him. A wife he married to make certain his leash on her was never broken. She loved him beyond all doubt. He knew it because of his pledge to leave her with the slightest provocation. She had a deluge of loser boyfriends; they beat her or messed around behind her back; or turned gay and waited until too late to tell her. James was a great puzzle that grew into an obsession and later a passion. James hunted after her then dropped her before their first kiss. When she was with another boyfriend, he pursued her endlessly: flowers to her door; notes on her car; attention unbound. When they finally got together, James' affections would wane from time to time. To stem this, Geena's affections waxed in response. He was never outwardly cruel or manipulative. He never called her a diminutive in even the most pitched of arguments. All this considered, Geena's fate was sealed. Her fate was to be with James for as long as he saw fit.
James' job at the Reihold's department also waited for him. Every hour at Reihold's was like running a gauntlet. The sole task in his job was patience; and a willingness to be badgered, interupted and annoyed. It was irony: the same job that taxed his good nature afforded him a stable life; that stable life allowed him little escapes; those little escapes made him more aware of his reality and his misery back at work. A friend, Eric, held a similar job to James. When they talked, Eric put his decidedly alternate spin on the occupation. He likened the customers to animals without consciousness; or, as humans behaving like plants, closing on clerks in a straight line-- ignorant of racks, counters and fellow customers. Never did he see them as people with lives and individuality. On a glimmer of deep reflection, James came up with two theories: Either, the entire job was so dull and empty that to both of them the people they encountered in their jobs were objects-- two dimensional. Or, the consumer mentality that made everything in a business consumable also made consumers treat staff like resources or products, no more important than good lighting, clear price tags or muzak.
James shook of the edges of his fatigue and hangover and filled his luggage in preparation for home.
CHAPTER THREE
"Night Elves were a different kind of creature ...they avoided the sun as their most deadly enemy... and their dwelling places were subterranean caves and clefts."
- Bullfinch's Mythology on Night Elves
Apoethoesis' O'Fortuna beat Orff's remix into the club.
Lights splattered the walls and shot blinding darts into the eyes of the patrons. The music thrummed in the chest and resonated through the skull. Smoke hovered high and dry ice hovered low.
Eric Penzance sat on his stool and gripped the table ahead of him like a life preserver. He was fried. The night started early with a plunge into altered states. First, the pot hit him, clearing his head like an adept copy editor, snipping out the difficult bits and amplifying the obvious. His Friday night ritual was in full swing. He went to Val's house and got stoned. More friends arrived; they ordered Szechuan takeout; and drank whiskey, vodka and sambuca in deadly sorties.
Val was Eric's best friend; far more a confidant or a kindred soul than his friends from his youth. She was a contradiction: in love with comic books and Star Trek, Nietzche and Holst. It was a schismed tapestry that Val wove into popularity.
A blurred cab ride got them into town. Eric stood in the lineup in front of Schism with his friends. Most of the world mumbled at the edge of his senses. Occasionally, he caught a
line of conversation and blurted out a reply. The doorman saw how gone Eric and his friends were but let them in just the same. They were regulars and easily remembered. Eric stood a stick-insect six foot tall, almost like a mast amid sails in his loose cottons. His hair was a dyed black and close- cropped. Cloud or shine, Eric wore his red, box rimmed sunglasses. On sunny spring days, he wore a black bowler.
Val stood beside Eric when not dancing. She was his best friend. He lost his virginity to her age seventeen but the relationship fizzled after his lack of interest in sex. They took their first semester of university together. Eric fancied himself an artist. He got into the fine arts faculty on a very thin portfolio and a thick patch of excuses. By Christmas he was out, marked incomplete by every instructor.
Val was short and heavy, falling short of obesity. Her
natural carrot-red hair looked fake when set against so many fake-blondes, fake-redheads and fake-blackhairs at the club. Her affinity for black clothes gave her skin a pale, pearly gleam.
Val danced with Jonathan, one of her friends from work. Eric sat at the table, trying to hold it all together. A warm hand glided across his back to stop on his shoulder. The gesture made Eric feel calmer almost sedate. He looked over to see a man beside him. He was in his forties, wrinkles mapped his age. He had a permed coif and emaculate clothes. He was drenched in Obsession and his breath smelled of tequila sunrises. "Did your friends leave you?"
"Yes."
"What's your name?"
"Eric."
"Nice name. Eric. Are you single?"
Eric giggled. His stepfather would leave the room when he giggled. Before Eric could answer, Val came up and put her arm around Eric. Purposefully, she squeezed him close and pinched off the man's fingers in the bargain. "Did you miss me?" She asked. The man extracted his hand and went on his way.
Val found the ability to focus anger and chagrin against her friend. "Jesus, Eric. Watch out."
He gave her a silly, glazed look. "Why? What?"
"He was trying to pick you up, Eric. You don't want that. Do you?"
When Eric was this gone he lived only in the present. It was his grand escape. No thoughts existed of his lame job at the theater; no thoughts of himself as a black sheep in a family of mediocres; no thoughts of a life full of adventure but desolate of spirit. In this state of delirium everything happily confused him. "Why? What?"
Val snorted. "Just watch it, Eric. You're really fucked up. So just watch it." She gave him a stern look and headed back to the dance floor. She kept a free eye on Eric.
#
The moron in the firefly revved his engine. Keith 's bug flared in reply. The highway ahead beckoned them. Red changed
to green and tires squealed. The engine of the volkswagon rebelled but continued to propel them. The bug pulled ahead.
Richard looked out the side window. "Keep it up, man! We're doing it!"
The bug distanced itself from the nonplussed firefly. Victory was theirs.
"Cruise a bit before we park," suggested Richard.
"Sure." The bug putted down the tributary to Douglas Street. Kids were assembled in the movie lineups. They milled about outside the arcade. The scum awaited the buses back to their posh suburbs.
Keith turned his faithful vehicle for the parking lot next to Cabbies Cabaret. It was always busy-- a vehicular beehive. A lineup languished outside the nightclub. Richard and Keith parked and disembarked. Richard and Keith were of similar appearance. Their hair was long in the front and buzzed at the back; baseball caps were on backwards; loose jeans; big leather and cotton jackets-- Richard's sported an eightball, Keith's had a variety of flags encircling the Mondetta emblem, none of which he could name or locate on a map. Richard was average in height, clean features and just over eighteen years old. Keith was a little shorter, a few vestiges of acne remaining and two months from his nineteenth birthday and legality.
Three of their friends stood apart from the line up-- two girls with done up faces, looses jeans and tight tops; and Edwardo, a Portuguese kid with the reputation for being
cool. Edwardo had clean skin, a lean body and impeccable curly black hair. Richard and Keith exchanged pleasantries.
Keith asked, "What's the deal?"
Edwardo replied, " They had a crackdown a few days ago so they're paranoid. They're IDing everyone. We don't have a chance."
Richard asked, "So what do you guys want to do?"
"I dunno," one of the girls returned.
"Let's see if we can get someone to boot for us." Keith suggested.
"I got a better idea," Edwardo said in own cool way. He gave the lot of them a devilish look that filled the girls with expectation and misplaced trust. "Back in my Rabbit I got some first class chemo weed. Maybe later cruise around town and see what's happening."
Everyone was quick to accept Edwardo's suggestion. They followed him to the shade windowed, magwheeled, lowriding Rabbit Edwardo called his own.
#
Eric had stopped drinking and-- by comparison to earlier in the night-- he was sobering up. Jonathan was exiting his Goth phase and entering a middle-of-the-road alternate look. He still wore his black leather jacket and steel toed army boots. He and Eric trundled down the street, loaded and delirious after their night of debauchery. Val took up the rear several paces behind them. They had their Cokes; their next stop was the bank machine.
Eric went to crack open his bottle of Coke. Jonathan stopped him. "Why?" Eric asked.
"It’s two-thirty: just trust me." Val took heed of Jonathan's cryptic demand and left her plastic bottle of pop sealed.
They filed into tiny bank machine space annexed from the bank. Jonathan was first in line, Eric was second, Val was third, and another man was fourth. He had tailed them from the store. Jonathan and Eric took their turns at the bank machine. They milled about as Val performed her withdrawal. The fourth man acted. "I'll take the money," he said. He held out one hand and boasted a switchblade in the other. He was one of those scruffy, streetwise types: not too scummy be a street person, not at all clean enough to be a part of society. Jonathan had a reputation for a bad trait: fearlessness. Now came the logic of why he hadn't cracked open his bottle of Coke. He swung his full pop bottle catching the punk in the cheek. Val turned to witness the scene. The punk lunged with his knife. Jonathan slipped out of the way hitting a wall in the process. By instinct he swung up a heavy boot and caught the thief in the stomach. Val screamed. Eric watched, confused. Jonathan swung down his pop bottle again, catching his enemy behind the ear. Val looked but couldn't find an in-- a place to put in a punch. Eric realized what was happening. He grabbed a handful of jacket and gave the punk a gleeful push into the glass window. The glass cracked a spider web shape and was left smeared with blood. The punk was on all fours, his head was down, bleeding like a spigot. He moaned and tried in failure to rally himself.
Eric was still a little confused. Jonathan stood there, ready for round two. Val grabbed both of them and gave them was sharp tug into reality. "C'mon! Let's go!" She knew better than to wait around for the police. Teenaged weekends on downtown street corners taught her to avoid the police at every turn. Her friends obeyed and the fled.
As they ran into the night, Eric said aloud, "Did you see me? Did you?" Then, Eric broke his run and paused into intropection. "Hey, do you think someone called an ambulance for that guy?"
At first, Val couldn't believe what Eric just said. But this was Eric: his unpredictability was only surpassed by irrationality. "Don't fucking worry about it. He reeked of booze. They'll probably get to him, toss him into the drunk tank and patch him up in the morning. Besides he deserved it. Fuck, he deserved worse."
CHAPTER FOUR
"Death is a black bird. Insignificant when it flies overhead, it is all encompassing when it strikes." - The Second Book of Thoughts.
On his way to work, Larry noticed a pigeon sitting on the street. One of its wings was broken, laying flat against the asphalt. His first impulse was to help it. He decided to instead let nature take its course. Larry drew an odd simile between himself and the bird: broken and laying out in the open-- doomed by what came next. Did people avoid Larry to let nature take its course? A car drove by him on a rendezvous with the little creature. Larry felt sick at the thought of the bird's fate. He dared not look back.
He got into work and dressed for duty. Fanny greeted him and went about her job. Her full name was Francine Elizabeth Albert. Fanny was a spontaneous girl: straight blonde hair, luminous, impish eyes. She was both unattainable and irresistible-- like a rainbow. Something in her eyes made her gaze hypnotic and unqiue. She was two years older than Larry and already had to fight the nags of age: a constant battle with weight, lines under the eyes that lingered too long after late nights and all the other minutiae that gathered momentum with time. For the first few months of her time at the theater, she was called "Francis" but after a call from her father asking to speak to "Fanny," her appellation changed.
Larry's boss, the overtly trendy Leo, approached Larry.
He chewed a massive wad of peppermint gum. In mid-chew, he said, "Your little friend, Eric, called in sick. I guess your date's off." The girls within earshot giggled. Leo displayed a shit-eating Cheshire cat grin and bobbed his head in lieu of a guffaw. Larry slinked off to his duties. This was doubly a hell shift. Leo worked as did Steele. Steele was Hitler's idea of perfection: tall; fit; blonde; straight, white teeth; clear, blue eyes; and a good dresser. He was also the girls' idea of perfection. He had money piped to him from his family back east. They were geniuses in business and the stock market; Steele's family name popped up in the Financial section from time to time. They sponsored his schooling, his lifestyle and his excuse for an acting career. Fanny mooned over him for a while until his parade of girlfriends disheartened her. When Steele worked, the staff were brisk with Larry, not wanting to waste their time on him. But on this day, a small fortune did shine. From the front door, Leo called to Steele: "Hey! I'm going to grab a burger at Rotten Ronny's. You coming or what?" Steele gave chase; they jogged out of the lobby to Larry's relief.
This was Sunday afternoon. That was WAT day: World Adventure Tours. WAT films prepared a view of far off lands for those who had not seen the world, had never sensed adventure nor could survive a tour. The lion's share of the audience were senior citizens. Aging white dinosaurs-- they wore fine, conservative clothes, drove big cars and lived in good homes in the stately old parts of town. In short, their lifetime bore the fruit of comfort in their old age. They readied the legacy of a world of scant prospects for the young. The film had an intermission and after filed out and in again, they left one behind. An old, frail man came to Larry. He recognized this man: having greeted him on similar occasions and talking from time to time. The man opened with, "Dear me. I'm a little late for it, aren't I?" In the past, Larry exchanged words with this old man-- or an old man like him. Larry often interposed people, lumping them together like ants in a colony or cattle in a herd.
Every time, these conversations went from word go. Larry lost track of how many times he had filled him in on his dreary state. It was an audit of Larry’s lot in life.
Larry was in one of his miserable moods and these bits of dialogue nagged at him. Still, amiability was his greatest job skill. He made a good show of it. "Yes, sir. It's gone back in."
"I suppose I'll just wait..." A pregnant moment separated the old man's comments. "Have you worked here long, son?" He was working hard to achieve kindness towards Larry. The efforts were repelled with indifference.
"A few years," Larry replied.
"Married are you?" The dinosaur knew how to work Larry's buttons.
"No." Larry felt a need to explain-- to excuse his failure. "I haven't been able to settle down yet."
The old man nodded but only half understood. "I used to work here when I was your age. But back then, I was married."
"Mhm," was the only reply Larry dare offer from the host of responses that loomed in his mind.
"Don't feel so bad about it, lad. We had it lucky. I don't know how kids today make a go of it. Everything is so expensive. Why around every corner someone's waiting to cut your throat-- not just on the street, I mean at work.
"I-- I do volunteer work at the hospital, eh. Every month, they close off another room here or there-- then the odd ward. Nurses quit and are not replaced. Every one's cutting back, laying off. You can't get a decent job, can't get into a good school. I don't know where it's going to end. It scares me to just think of it.
"As a boy, I remember a doctor down the street. When the Depression hit, he lost his house, his wife-- everything. He had to sell apples on a street corner. We pulled out of the Depression-- I have a doubt we'll pull out of this-- this," gesturing to the world around him, "state were in. It scares me to think of it all. I've got a farm up island. I rent it out to a bunch of hippies. They're alright kids, you know. They've never made for me any trouble. Why if I were younger, I'd live there myself and escape all this madness."
Larry listened but said not a word. The future was always full of dread for him-- indefinite, oppressive dread. The old man's words changed that and poor Larry didn't know how to react-- what to say. Bloom gave Larry's future a shape, a taste. It was like eating at a restaurant only to espy the filth of the kitchen and compare it to the last such similar restaurant.
"Say, you know what? Those, ah, those hippies I rent my place out to are good kids. I- I ah, I seen you working here for a awhile. I can tell you don't get away too often. So, if you ever need to get away, why not look them up." He produced a business card and scribbled a phone number on its back. The front said: H Bloom, mechanical engineer and gave a company name and address. "Don't look for that business, son. I used to work for them. They went under two years ago."
The man patted Larry on the arm and offered the feint of a smile. "I have a habit for being gloomy, son. Cheer up, the end hasn't come in my lifetime. It may not come in yours."
On his walk home, Larry walked by the spot where he earlier saw the injured bird; it was gone, no carcass or traces of blood. Only feathers remained, sullied by dirt and automotive oil. Nature took care of its own and removed its spoor. No one but Larry would mark its fall, its passing.
Larry dived into his pocket to pull his mind away from the bird and the metaphor it carried. He pulled out the business card the old guy had given him earlier. Larry studied it for a moment and then returned it to his pocket. It was-- in a way-- a good luck charm-- his key to salvation.
#
Monday. Dan Foster prepared for work. As he did up the noose knot of his tie, he watched a snippet of the news: problems in Peru grew; the scum on the streets; the druglords in the jungle; their second border incursion into Ecuador this year. He knew all too well the wars they had to fight for they were his wars too.
Every morning, Dan Foster rode the bus into town. Like a number of mornings, lunatics rode the bus into town. Some bleeding heart put a halfway house only a mile from Dan's home, nestled safe in suburbia. They gave the scum bus passes-- free rein to the transit system. One scum of note rode the bus his morning: the one Foster labeled the 'layered-look.' On this day, the lanky madman wore three jean jackets, a cotton shell and a leather jacket-- all simultaneously. The layered-look licked his palms before touching a rail and frequently buried his pinky up his nose. All-in-all, it made for a long trip.
Every morning, Foster ran the gauntlet of beggars and street people: from the everpresent Indians to the scruffy derelicts that never even held a hand out to beg. One morning, something snapped.
CHAPTER FIVE
"...seems to take pleasure in bringing them into difficulties and extricating them out of the danger by his cunning, wit and skill..." - Bullfinch's Mythology Of Loki and His Progeny.
James rushed to clear up his affairs. Two days earlier, his father called with the offer to go Central America. James was in the last days of his job at Reihold's. His request for a week off work was met with enmity but granted. Those who received his shifts were grateful for the money.
Reihold's was an independently owned, faltering, department store. It relied on elderly customers who were dying off without replacement. James worked in men's underwear. His job included presiding over people's indecision; to endure endless tales from ancient fools about how their scrotums would fall out of their shorts. Old, deaf women made purchases in a fog of confusion and came back a day later to return the lot of it.
James was fed up with the job, teetering on the edge of frustration for long months. From time to time, friends from high school cruised in to make a purchase and then catch up with James. When they learned that James was at Reihold's for so long they showed disappointment; for a while they too worked part-time for a poor wage, yet they went on to good paying careers. When James foresaw the company's imminent demise, he prepared to go into business for himself. James' store was ran by an incompetent. short tempered buzzard: Harold Boss. Harold: that name was a title of authority to James; both his boss' and his father's name. James saw authority as a barrier to his achievement. James' job consisted of hours of boredom punctuated by moments of nagging from customers. To relieve the tedium, he would talk to the other staff. Without a customer in sight, such an act as crossing a linoleum aisle was met with anger from his superiors. They lectured him on how to deal with customers despite his six odd years of experience. They reminded him of how to sell people things they didn't need, things they didn't want; all the while, espousing the virtues of such a philosophy. Boss's lectures grated against James like broken glass. After one session, James was left shaking with rage. He spoke to no one until he was home. And then, he related his anger to Geena--he even broken into reluctant tears. Geena, his wife, was so moved by her husband's frustration she offered to support and fund him through the rough spots of an escape.
His new venture: a home renovation company. It was unshakable-- he was certain of it. As he said often enough: "everyone needs a place to live."
Geena and James picked up James' father and drove to the airport. Geena carried their luggage into the terminal, kissed James good bye and promptly left.
On the plane, James and his father, Harry, drank like fish. Harry was an older, wider version of his slim angular featured son. While James was a sandy blonde, Harry was greying and his hair was receding. He passed his piercing green eyes on to his son. In midflight, Harry said, "Name your profession."
"What?"
"I'm Doctor Harold Smith, gynecologist. Chicks down there love doctors. And gynecologists-- well, a chick thinks that if you can fix their pussy, you can do no wrong." A woman across the aisle looked on in disgust. Harold didn't care. He also didn't care that his son was married. Harold spent too long on the see-saw of relationships to know what fidelity, trust or love meant. He was proud of his son; able to get a girl as good as Geena and still have the chutzpah to get some on the side when the urge arose. James told his father of almost every extracurricular activity. James was good but needed honing here and there. In a few ways he was still that timid ten year old boy he once left. The same one Harold feared would turn out gay.
"They expect you to fuck them and be stupid enough to bring them back with you. So, if you want some action, son, figure out a profession."
This was James' first time out of the country with his father. His father knew all the ropes, all the routines to survive such banana republics. James obliged his father and offered up: "Writer?"
"Nah. Everyone knows that writers are failures who think they're intellectuals. I know! James Smith, investment banker. Take it to heart, son. When they ask for specifics, bullshit them. Deugos don't know the difference. But, don't say you're involved in anything to do with resources. Y'know, oil, food, water. They take a shit over anglos who want their resources."
Harry intended this trip and vacations like it as reparations-- reparations for the nightmare of Harry's own childhood. James' grandfather beat him and tortured him. He force fed Harry as a child until he vomited and forced him to eat what he brought up. He whipped him into toilet training. He poured a kettle of hot water on Harry's groin when he caught a nine year old Harry masturbating. Harry vowed two things: to laugh at his father's funeral and to make sure James had nothing of the same life.
The plane dropped through the clouds on its approach to the Panama City airport. James noted the Atlantic on the horizon and the Pacific below. A canal bridged a continent. The airport ran surprisingly well. Clean linoleum floors, clear multi-lingual PA announcements and none of the seediness associated with Central America. Clusters of families were being reunited with their American serviceman sons. Harry and James gathered their luggage. Outside, they hailed the first available cab.
The cab was an ugly, rusty, paint peeling hulk from the seventies. Inside, the cab driver was a sullen Hispanic in shorts and a stained white T-shirt. James and Harry took in the images of the city. Ruined buildings were all around. Trash was piled in heaps by the side of the street. An American army APC weaved its way through the traffic. A shanty town was set up in the ruins of a commercial block. Tents, sheets, cardboard and scrap wood replaced the walls. The sector of town fell to the invasion of 'eighty-nine and it was doubted that it would ever be rebuilt. Empty tracts, awaiting investment and growth, lay in better parts of the capital. Instead of oaks and willows in the better parts of city, palms and ferns adorned the streets. The cab stopped near an alley: a boy was stooped over, completing a bowel movement.
They passed by a bizarre construction site. All the machines and tools of building were present but sat on the sidelines, unused. In the center of the dirt patch, two dozen men dug at the earth with care. Clusters of women consoled each other and observed the work with dread. They wore the same good dresses that the poor donned to attend weddings and funerals.
"What's going on there?" James asked. The cab driver was shaken by the sight but did not reply. James repeated his question. The driver slammed his car to a stop. Cars buzzed around the car, honking their high pitched horns.
"Get out! Get out! Get out, mother fucker!"
Better than to debate the issue. James hopped out. Harry stayed in the cab and argued. The driver hopped out of the car, stormed to the back of the car and opened the trunk. He threw their luggage into traffic. As he hauled out the bags, the driver called out, "You fucked us. We hate you! Go back, you mother fucker."
The driver got back into the cab, squealed away in a U- turn, leaving Harry and James confused. The driver's last blow was to wing a Coke bottle at them, superficially striking Harry in the shoulder.
James paced over to the crowd. Workers in the pit had paused and women screamed. A few of them fell to their knees. Three solemn diggers hauled a plastic bag from the dirt. A man in rubber gloves and a white surgical mask intercepted the bag. They put it down before James and stepped back, reverent and melancholy. The man in the mask, cut open the bag with scissors. From twenty feet away, in the heat and the windless air, a stench caught them, it was almost like rotten meat or an old compost heap. James and Harry shared a bewildered look. The man in the mask ventured into the plastic bag. He hauled out a mummified, severed arm. Wails louder than before came from the women. Grumbles and dissent brewed in the crowd.
A U.S. soldier in fatigues came up to Harry and James. He used his rifle like an extension of himself. He waved off spectators including Harry and James. Harry was reluctant to move, to break his observation. The soldier called out, "This area is restricted. Move along." Harry and James complied. They hailed down another cab and completed their journey.
That night, Harry took his son to a bar on the edge of the slums. It was a hangout for locals after payday and whores at work. Harry and James stood out. Their money spoke for them like diplomats.
Harry paid heed to only the most attractive of the prostitutes. Some of them were black haired, some red. They all looked from Hispanic to black; none were the Anglo pale of white-trash wenches at home. Within twenty minutes, four of them shared the table in the hopes of business. They asked what Harry and James did for a living. James held up the illusion of a career as an investment banker. Harry told them he was a doctor.
"A doctor? What kind?" Martha asked. She was clearly in her thirties, but her breasts were still firm, her nipples still hard. They sat like citadels, covered by a tight, tubetop. The good thing about whores in the third world was that their breasts were real.
Harry had a playful look on his face like an imp at work. "I'm a gynecologist. A damn good one."
"Oh, yeah?" She stood, swung one leg up and rested a foot on the table. She hiked up her pleated skirt to reveal herself to Harry. He looked in between her legs and regretted his lie. "What do you call this?" She asked. Whatever disease was rampant across her genitals, Harry couldn't guess.
He offered, "The name is too long. See your doctor, he'll give you some medicine... Maybe take the day off work."
A drunkard looked across at Harry and James. His stared garnered their attention. He asked, "Americans? North Americans, eh?"
James knew enough of the world to never let anyone mistake him for an American. "Sorry, Canadian."
The drunk was skinny-- he spent his money on booze rather than food. He had black, greasy hair, an ill kept moustache and three days growth. "Canadian? Just as bad. Still North American. Smarter than us, but just as bad." The Panamanian took a healthy drink from his bottle of Bud. He adjusted his chair to face James and his father.
"You let the Americans fuck you for a long time so they get used to it. Never do it too hard. Us? We wouldn't let them near us. It got them so worked up and horny they just came in one day. They held us down and fucked us so hard that we can't see straight." The drunk slammed his fist into his hand repeatedly to represent his thoughts.
"Buddy, you gotta be nice to tourists." Two big Americans leaned over the drunk. They looked like half of their life was devoted to surfing and the other half to weight lifting.
The drunk looked up and back. He smiled. "Hey... Fuck you, Yankee."
"That's it." One of the Americans put his arm around the drunk's throat and pulled him from the chair. The drunk gagged, grabbed out in futility and kicked at nothing. The huge man pulled him towards the door. The few locals did nothing. The bartender looked the other way. The whores knew that dissent would cost them American money.
One of the blond Americans had a Texas drawl--similar to the speech patterns of someone with a head injury. He assisted his friend, holding open the door and making sure his path was clear. He walked out backwards, smiled and pointed at one of the prostitutes. "Keep it warm, honey. We'll be back in a minute or so."
Harry was nonplussed. He looked to a couple of the whores. "Do you ladies want to go and party?"
Harry and the prostitutes exchanged details. He displayed money to prove not only his word was his bond. They paid for the drinks and left. Before they embarked, Harry looked to the diseased prostitute that sought his advice. "Take the night off. That's a doctor's advice."
Outside, the Americans were laughing their faces off. Their eyes were red with pot smoke. The air was heavy with the reek of it, making James crave a joint. The drunkard lay on the sidewalk, moaning and bleeding. If one of his arms wasn't broken it was dislocated.
Harry, James and their hired women made the rounds of the bars. When they were too drunk to walk, they took a cab back to hotel. With little romance or intrigue, they took their women to their rooms and worked them over until spent and sore. James rolled into a ball when finished and his girl passed out beside him. Harry fell asleep on top of his, saying only, "Wake me up before you leave."
James awoke alone. His wallet was open on the floor beside him. Luckily he had spent every penny of cash the night before. It left none to steal. His credit cards were still in place. Common scum didn't know how to convert stolen cards into cash. Experienced scum knew that stolen cards were a glut on the market. They fetched ten to twenty dollars and a year in jail, if caught.
He washed up and went to wake his father. His father left a note saying that he had gone into town to sightsee-- he had tendency to be a lone wolf.
James decked himself out for a day at the beach, soaking up the tropical rays. Before he left, the desk clerk stopped him. "Are you going to the beach?"
James paused. Then, "Yes."
"Sir, do not go to the beach."
"Why?"
The clerk shuddered from a pain deep inside. "Please."
James shook his head and left. There were few people on the stretch of shore. James sat on the sand on top of his towel. Absently, he put his fingers through the sand. He parted pebbles and stones and something that was neither. It looked like a bone: a finger bone.
It was from a long dead soul, free of flesh and rot. James studied it with a grim curiosity. His scrutiny was interupted by an agitated electronic whine. A man came down the beach with a metal detector in his hand. He was scanning the sands, stopping to dig at this or that by order of his device. He had three days growth, shorts, hat, short brown socks and a deep tan. He wore a Harley-Davidson T-shirt.
James saluted him and said, "Buenos Dios." That exhausted his command of Spanish.
The man looked up. "You sure don't look like a spic."
His accent was American-- mid-west.
"Ah-no, I'm not. I'm Canadian."
He broke a slight smile in finding an ally in this foreign land. "You finding it warm?"
"A little. But that's why I came to the tropics."
"Is it snowing back at home?" He asked.
James sighed and bit his tongue. It was impolite to insult a slow person, even if they were average in the eyes of their own people. "No. It doesn't snow much where I'm from." He pointed to the mechanism the man wielded. "Say, any luck?"
The man considered his metal detector. "Nah. A watch, some spare change."
"You live down here?"
"Yeah, retired here seven years back after they booted Noreiga. Love it. People are great-- a few surly ones-- but mostly, great."
James held up his find: the finger bone. "What do you make of this?"
The man took it and studied it. "A finger bone?"
"That was my guess. Any guess as to why it's here?"
"Don't know. The Panamanians say that there's a bunch of bodies that were dumped in the ocean. I don't believe it-- I've only found a few of these and part of a jaw."
James was now confused. "What are the bodies doing in the ocean? Who dumped them there?"
"Us, supposedly. They say when the army moved in, so many people got killed that they had to dump 'em into the ocean. Problem is, why didn't we see it on the news? I mean, if so many people were being killed, we would have seen it, right?" He studied the beach, nearly empty of this clear calm day. "These duegoes got some weird ideas."
#
Another two nights of the same followed. They drank cheap liquor until they were nearly blind. They tried to get freefucks out of the locals. Then came a clumsy attempt to fuck the whores they culled from the streets. An indefinite feeling of a binge overdone came the next morning. The days were spent wandering the tourist traps. The beggars were mostly children. They wore signs in English and Spanish: "War Orphan," "Give me food," "God can't let me starve." The people they handed money to--merchants, beggars, whore and the like-- were grateful to obsequious. The people they stood in front of in lines and queues were resentful. The odd pedestrian, seeing their passage via taxi, fingered them and called insults. Streets were blocked off by military blockades without reason. At night, spots of automatic gunfire rang out. The tourist air hung around them but acted likea thin fog that--under examination-- yielded a strange other world throughout Panama City. Despite their effort to ignore all but their carousing, both James and Harry saw through the haze and noticed the environment.
From the plane, James looked down on Panama. "It's become a hell down there."
His father disagreed. "No. It's become a cancer and cancers spread."
#
Dan's life was changing fast. His wife left him a week earlier for being too intense, too close-minded. Her refusal to bend to his ways forced him to punish her-- beat her. When she left, Dan had regrets. He regretted telling her that she deserved worse. That was certain to come out in the divorce hearing.
CHAPTER SIX
"...they amuse themselves... and fight until they cut each other in pieces. This is their pastime..." - Bullfinch's Mythology Of The Joys of Valhalla
A sweet moment came for Eric. His friend since Grade six was Larry. To Eric, Larry was a flat monotone person. But he was trustworthy and kind. Larry got him a job at the theater. A job he hated. The manager, Leo Marcos, was a slimy eighteen year old with a cool car and the entire Polo clothing line. The girls were surly to empty. The guys were lazy to dull. They were losers from rich hardworking families who coddled their kids and turned them into punky little fucks.
Two weeks earlier, the ribbing began in earnest for both Eric and Larry. Everyone knew that Larry had spoken up for Eric and pushed him past the resume pile and into an interview with Leo. Leo had managed to squeeze in an interview between a hackey-sack game and a phone call to his girlfriend.
Eric hated his work but living at home had disqualified him from welfare, leaving work as a sorry alternative. Frying himself at Val's became more than a hobby, a diversion or a ritual. It became an escape, a sanctuary inside of a stupor. More than once, he came home tripping on acid. Thinking nothing of it, he would sit up and talk to his family-- even Carl, the old man. Eric would awake to a household of distant people who all acted as if they about to commit him.
At work, the dogging insults began. Quips began as
hushed giggles out of earshot of Larry and Eric. They grew to cryptic comments like, "Big date tonight?" and "Walking funny, Larry?" When both Eric and Larry were in the change room, others volunteered to hurry so as to leave "the two of them alone."
Even Fanny joined in the diversion, once mentioning to Larry that he should have brought Eric to the Christmas dance instead of coming stag. To Larry, the comment held the weight of a collapsing star.
One week earlier, Eric didn't show up for a shift. Leo marched him into the office with much pomp and circumstance and reamed him out. It made Eric's blood boil.
Three days past that, Eric forgot to turn in a cash drawer from the upstairs concession. Larry even warned Eric of Leo's wrath for such an offense. Eric knew well that for Larry to put forth any viewpoint, it had to be truth. Eric responded to the news of impending doom with, "If he wants trouble, he's come to the wrong guy." His pitched voice and delicate manners punctuated the threat with humor rather than portent.
Leo overheard them talking in the lobby. Leo opened his office door and pulled off his walkman earphones. He put his index finger to his lips-- a pause enacted with practiced ease. He said, "Eric: could you come in here for a moment. Larry, can you check out the men's room upstairs? This time: clean it if it needs it."
Eric strutted into the office and Leo shut the door behind him. With good manners, he offered Eric a seat. Leo began his monologue by describing the demands and advantages of Eric's job. Then he outlined the quality of work put out by other ushers and contrasted it with Eric's performance. Then he dug into the heart of the matter: the cash drawer.
"Your work can't continue like this, Eric."
Eric stood up with a dramatic air. "No, it cannot. I quit." Leo showed little reaction. "I'll expect my cheque within two weeks. I'll be back to collect it."
"Fine by me, bud," replied Leo trying to maintain control over the situation.
Eric opened the door, turned like he had seen Becall do to Bogart, and said, "I'll remember all this. You can count on it."
Eric got his last paycheque from the theater and knew what was to become of it. He appeared at the coffee house where Val worked, two hours later. She looked to him and was mute with shock, surprise and then elation. "You did it!" She exclaimed.
Eric ran his fingers though his new head of short orange-burgundy hair. He asked, "Do you like it?"
"Yeah. Did you tell your mom?" She was used to Eric's occasional excesses: hundred dollar pants that remained in fashion for weeks; sunglasses he left on top of video games; colognes worth a week's salary.
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