“C
ome on,” Mick said. “We'll live it up.”
“I don't want to go near that place,” Jackie said.
“Joey Zip's not gonna bother you anymore. Nobody's gonna bother you with me around.”
That was undoubtedly true. But Jackie still resisted the idea of going to Atlantic City. The stage shows were too boring, the food too bland, the gambling tables too seductive.
“Come on. We've got a thousand bucks to blow. You can hear all about guerrilla war in Belfast from Kilroy the great.”
Mick had told her they had found one of Zaccaro's $1,000 bills on the beach. He had orders from Chief O'Toole to get rid of it and keep Kilroy happy in the bargain.
Jackie sensed that Mick was not really enthusiastic about going to Atlantic City. He was in one of his who-gives-a-damn moods. She did not like him around in one
of those moods. She especially did not like making love to him. All he wanted to do was tricks, the more outrageous the better. That was not the kind of sex that satisfied the new Jackie, the woman the girl in white wanted her to become.
But Jackie was tempted by her old fascination with wars of liberation. When she had gone to Hanoi with the student peace delegation in 1969, she had bedded a North Vietnamese colonel after listening to him tell her over dinner how he had annihilated an American outpost in Quang Tri province. It had been one of the most unforgettable experiences of her life. Not that he had been very great, sexually. She barely felt him inside, compared to Mick. It had been the idea of connecting with the world revolution that was being created out there, the apparently irresistible force that was destroying the American war machine.
Now Jackie was not so sure about apparently irresistible forces or the march of history. Instead of marching, history seemed to lurch through time like a drunk with the blind staggers. Vietnam had turned into another boring communist dictatorship. Four or five million Cambodians were dead, thanks to a communist maniac. Russia was revealing the horrors of Stalinism, and China was confessing Mao was a first cousin to a monster.
It was time to disengage from history, Jackie had decided. That was what she was trying to do in Paradise Beach. Find her personhood, her individual soul, and nurture it for a while.
Still, she was tempted. Belfast. Bombs and gunfire in the night. It would be interesting, even if the rest of Atlantic City was a bore. It would be a break from another evening in front of the television in Paradise Beach.
“Is Kilroy for real?”
“You bet he's for real. He's killed more limeys than George Washington. Wait'll you hear his stories.”
“Okay.”
She almost changed her mind when she got a look at Kilroy. It was hard to believe this prematurely wizened little man was a hero. She sat in the back of Mick's car and listened to him chirp about birdies in Atlantic City.
“Yah, we heard all about'em in Belfast. They say it's better than New Yawk,” he said in an accent that did not sound Irish to her. “They say you can pick'em off the boardwalk as you please. You can't do nothin' like that in Belfast with the fookin' Prods on your back all day and night. They wouldn't know a good time if it ran over them like a fookin' locomotive.”
“Tell her how good you are at pickin' off the paratroopers, Billy,” Mick said.
Billy aimed an imaginary rifle ahead of them down the Garden State Parkway. “I can knock the head off a para at thousand yards. I done it more times than you can count.”
“Than you can count, anyway, champ,” Mick said.
“What's with this boyo? He's always full of back talk.”
“I'm just kidding, birdbrain,” Mick said.
“We dawn't kid that way in Belfast.”
“Tell me more about Belfast,” Jackie said.
Billy told Jackie the way the IRA operated. They were a real army, with generals, colonels, majors. They issued orders for operations. Nothing was done accidentally or on impulse. It was all controlled and planned, all aimed at the expulsion of the British and creating a united Ireland.
“Once that's done, we get rid of the fookin' Catholic Church and start enjoyin' ourselves,” Billy said. “We'll have a socialist paradise, where nawbody has to do a lick of work if he dawn't feel like it, and a man can enjoy a woman without havin' to get a bloody marriage license.”
“Hey, I'm gonna emigrate,” Mick said. “Want to come with me, Jackie?”
“Sure. Make me an offer.” She always tried to get in the spirit of a party, though it was not easy to join this one, with Kilroy as master of ceremonies.
“Jackie's big on revolution,” Mick said. “She helped North Vietnam win the war. Set off bombs, marched to
Washington, balled fellow revolutionaries. Even went to Hanoi. Did you ball anyone there?”
“Yes,” she said, old anger stirring. She could easily learn to dislike Mick O'Day.
“Naw kiddin', you got to Hanoi?” Billy said. “I've been to Sofia. I was gawn to Moscow but they quit the revolution business. How'd you like Hanoi?”
“Nice,” Jackie said, deciding not to describe the atrocious food and worse service at the former Imperial Hotel.
In Atlantic City, the casinos blinked their neon invitations on the boardwalk's skyline. They headed for Caesars, easily the gaudiest of the bunch. In the lobby, a black bellman grinned when Mick slipped him $5 and asked for Arlene. The bellman led them to a corner where a blonde with her hair teased into a birdcage was waiting. She was wearing a gold lame dress with a slit skirt; on her face was a pound of rouge and a quart of eye shadow. “Hi,” she said.
“Let's go for the Bacchanalia,” Mick said. It was the most expensive of the casino's eight restaurants. The interior was an orgy of mirrors and gilt and silver glitz. A dwarf in a toga escorted them to their table. “Hey, Billy,” Mick said. “Why don't you hire that midget for the IRA? Then you wouldn't be the shortest guy in the army.”
Billy glared. Jackie wondered if Mick was being indiscreet, but there was no need to worry. Arlene had never heard of the IRA. She had barely heard of Ireland. She was Polish, from Camden, and had been “working” in Atlantic City for three years. She was twenty-three and was not a little pleased that Jackie was fifteen years older.
Arlene watched a lot of television. She treated them to a long appreciation of
Dallas,
her favorite TV show. She adored Lucy Ewing, who specialized in seducing cowboys. She even liked old J.R., the ruthless patriarch. Meanwhile they ate and drank. The courses all had Roman names but it was basically American meat and potatoes. The Bacchanalia served a different wine with
each course and Billy drank plenty of it, as well as most of a bottle of Irish whiskey Mick had ordered when they sat down.
What the hell, Jackie thought as the wine began to hit her. It was only one evening. It was funny. Arlene talked about
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.
Billy said he had seen it at the Monahans and thought it sucked. “Who gives a fook about a lot of capitalist assholes?” he said.
“Hey, what is this guy, some sort of communist?” Arlene asked.
“He's a revolutionary,” Mick said. “But only in Ireland. Here he just wants to get laid.”
“I don't like communists,” Arlene said.
“Come on, relax,” Mick said.
Arlene gave them a lecture on politics. The communists were against the Americans because they were rich. “That's right,” Billy said, amazed at her perspicacity. “It's a fookin' British idea, one percent of the fookin' realm drinkin' champagne and the rest fookin' swill.”
“Hey, this guy really is a goddamn communist,” Arlene said.
“Have another drink,” Mick said.
“I'm not lettin' any goddamn communist touch me,” Arlene said. “I got my principles, you know.”
“We'll play switchees,” Mick said. “You and me. Jackie here can swing with Billy. She goes for revolutionaries, right, babe?”
He was needling her about Vietnam. It was a fairly serious needle, Jackie thought, finishing her fifth glass of wine.
“That sounds good to me,” Arlene said. “Is it okay with you, honey?”
“You bet your fookin' capitalist ass it is,” Billy said. His hand crept up Jackie's thigh. She shoved it away.
“How about some dessert?” Arlene said. She took a packet of cocaine out of her purse and poured it on a plate, along with a silver sniffer.
No, Jackie thought. She had vowed not to touch that
stuff again. But Mick's needle was under her skin. She really did care about the revolutionaries of this world, even if they were no longer the unblemished heroes of her youth. She was not going to let Billy Kilroy touch her, but maybe some cocaine would make him more tolerable for the rest of the evening.
Wham, it was good stuff and it hit her like a blast from Cape Canaveral. Smooth, spacey soaring into a high that made even Mick look enticing. They drank some more wine and Billy persuaded Jackie to try Irish whiskey. They went downstairs and gambled away most of Joey Zaccaro's $1,000. Jackie had a run at the blackjack table that almost doubled it for a while, but it did not last. Billy was a disaster at everything, roulette, craps, the slots. He must have put $100 into the slots, with Mick laughing at him.
“I'm beginnin' to think O'Gorman's right. You've got bad luck comin' out your ears. No wonder he wants to ditch you.”
“He told you that?” Billy said.
“He said he'd pay me a year's salary if I blew you away. Where would he get that kind of money? Anyway, I told him you were too small to hit in the dark.”
It was rotten, the job the marine hero did on Billy. Mick never let Billy forget he was half Mick's size and could barely read and write. After they ran out of money Jackie charged everything on her American Express card. They adjourned to a bar and Arlene passed around the cocaine again. Mick said no, which only made him more contemptible. When Billy's hand crept up her thigh, Jackie did not push it away.
In the bar's half-light Billy looked small and pathetic; he was one of the little Vietnamese whom the huge Americans thought they could step on the way the Russians had stepped on the Jews. The way the Americans had stepped on the Indians and the Mexicans.
Wham, Jackie was really flying now. They were all in a bedroom somewhere in Caesars' stratosphere. Billy was
on top of her but he couldn't do anything, and Mick was in the other twin bed making Arlene squeal like a Miura cornering at 105 miles an hour. Mick was laughing at Billy, telling him O'orman said he couldn't get it up, and Billy was cursing until Jackie offered to play Lucky Pierre and Mick took her from behind while she sucked Billy off, and Arlene watched saying that was the most fun she had ever seen, and she insisted on doing it while Jackie watched and then there was more coke and more booze until everything blurrrrrred.
Â
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Jackie woke up with someone snoring in her ear. She was back on Leeds Point.
The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
was on the night table, only inches from her head. She turned over and there lay Billy Kilroy with his mouth a round
O,
looking like Popeye the Sailor. Snores came out of the mouth. In a fury, Jackie pushed him out of bed onto the floor.
Billy struggled to eye level. “How did you get here?” she cried.
“Fooked if I know. But it's all right anywhere with you, Jackie me darlin'.”
“It's not all right with me,” cried the new Jackie, clutching the sheet around her bare breasts like a Victorian maiden. “Get out of here before I call the police.”
“What the fook are you sayin'? I thought we was good for another roll or two.”
Mick appeared in the doorway, looking as fresh as a man who had slept at a spa for the previous week. “Hey, what's wrong with the lovebirds? Has the revolution gone sour?”
“You get out of here too, you bastard,” Jackie said. She was crying and shaking all over as memory restored last night. She picked up
Dylan Thomas
and threw it at Mick. She threw an ashtray, her slippers, the lamp, at Billy.
Billy could not figure it out. “What'd we do wrong?”
“You didn't do anything wrong, champ,” Mick said. “I
think you can chalk it up to your friend O'orman. He's put the knock on you with her. She forgot it for a while with some help from Monsieur Cocaine.”
Kilroy looked ready to murder Jackie along with O'orman. Was Mick trying to get even with her? What else explained the way he was acting? Mick hated her now. He hated her for Vietnam, for playing games with Billy. He knew exactly why she had done it. She wondered, as she saw the contempt hardening his mouth, if he was measuring her against someone else, someone she could never match. Who could it be?