The Best of Lucius Shepard (24 page)

2

In the morning Mingolla crossed to the west bank and
walked toward the airbase. It was already hot, but the air still held a trace
of freshness and the sweat that beaded on his forehead felt clean and healthy.
White dust was settling along the gravel road, testifying to the recent passage
of traffic; past the town and the cut-off that led to the uncompleted bridge,
high walls of vegetation crowded close to the road, and from within them he
heard monkeys and insects and birds: sharp sounds that enlivened him, making
him conscious of the play of his muscles. About halfway to the base he spotted
six Guatemalan soldiers coming out of the jungle, dragging a couple of bodies;
they tossed them onto the hood of their jeep, where two other bodies were
lying. Drawing near, Mingolla saw that the dead were naked children, each with
a neat hole in his back. He had intended to walk on past, but one of the
soldiers—a gnomish, copper-skinned man in dark blue fatigues—blocked his path
and demanded to check his papers. All the soldiers gathered around to study the
papers, whispering, turning them sideways, scratching their heads. Used to such
hassles, Mingolla paid them no attention and looked at the dead children.

They were
scrawny, sun-darkened, lying face down with their ragged hair hanging in a
fringe off the hood; their skins were pocked by infected mosquito bites, and
the flesh around the bullet holes was ridged-up and bruised. Judging by their
size, Mingolla guessed them to be about ten years old; but then he noticed that
one was a girl with a teenage fullness to her buttocks, her breasts squashed
against the metal. That made him indignant. They were only wild children who
survived by robbing and killing, and the Guatemalan soldiers were only doing
their duty: they performed a function comparable to that of the birds that
hunted ticks on the hide of a rhinoceros, keeping their American beast
pest-free and happy. But it wasn’t right for the children to be laid out like
game.

The soldier
gave back Mingolla’s papers. He was now all smiles, and—perhaps in the interest
of solidifying Guatemalan-American relations, perhaps because he was proud of
his work—he went over to the jeep and lifted the girl’s head by the hair so
Mingolla could see her face.
“Banditas!”
he said, arranging his features
into a comical frown. The girl’s face was not unlike the soldier’s, with the
same blade of a nose and prominent cheekbones. Fresh blood glistened on her
lips, and the faded tattoo of a coiled serpent centered her forehead. Her eyes
were open, and staring into them—despite their cloudiness—Mingolla felt that he
had made a connection, that she was regarding him sadly from somewhere behind
those eyes, continuing to die past the point of clinical death. Then an ant
crawled out of her nostril, perching on the crimson curve of her lip, and the
eyes merely looked vacant. The soldier let her head fall and wrapped his hand
in the hair of a second corpse; but before he could lift it, Mingolla turned
away and headed down the road toward the airbase.

There was a
row of helicopters lined up at the edge of the landing strip, and walking
between them, Mingolla saw the two pilots who had given him a ride from the Ant
Farm. They were stripped to shorts and helmets, wearing baseball gloves, and
they were playing catch, lofting high flies to one another. Behind them, atop
their Sikorsky, a mechanic was fussing with the main rotor housing. The sight
of the pilots didn’t disturb Mingolla as it had the previous day; in fact, he
found their weirdness somehow comforting. Just then, the ball eluded one of
them and bounced Mingolla’s way. He snagged it and flipped it back to the
nearer of the pilots, who came loping over and stood pounding the ball into the
pocket of his glove. With his black reflecting face and sweaty, muscular torso,
he looked like an eager young mutant.

“How’s she
goin’?” he asked. “Seem like you a little tore down this mornin’.”

“I feel
okay,” said Mingolla defensively. “ ‘Course”—he smiled, making light of his
defensiveness—”maybe you see something I don’t.”

The pilot
shrugged; the sprightliness of the gesture seemed to convey good humor.

Mingolla
pointed to the mechanic. “You guys broke down, huh?”

“Just
overhaul. We’re goin’ back up early tomorrow. Need a lift?”

“Naw, I’m
here for a week.”

An eerie
current flowed through Mingolla’s left hand, setting up a palsied shaking. It
was bad this time, and he jammed the hand into his hip pocket. The olive-drab
line of barracks appeared to twitch, to suffer a dislocation and shift farther
away; the choppers and jeeps and uniformed men on the strip looked toylike:
pieces in a really neat GI Joe Airbase kit. Mingolla’s hand beat against the
fabric of his trousers like a sick heart.

“I gotta get
going,” he said.

“Hang in
there,” said the pilot. “You be awright.”

The words
had a flavor of diagnostic assurance that almost convinced Mingolla of the
pilot’s ability to know his fate, that things such as fate could be known. “You
honestly believe what you were saying yesterday, man?” he asked. “ ‘Bout your
helmets? ‘Bout knowing the future?”

The pilot
bounced the ball on the cement, snatched it at the peak of its rebound and stared
down at it. Mingolla could see the seams and brand name reflected in the visor,
but nothing of the face behind it, no evidence either of normalcy or deformity.
“I get asked that a lot,” said the pilot. “People raggin’ me y’know. But you
ain’t raggin’ me, are you, man?”

“No,” said
Mingolla. “I’m not.”

“Well,” said
the pilot, “it’s this way. We buzz ‘round up in the nothin’, and we see shit
down on the ground, shit nobody else sees. Then we blow that shit away. Been
doin’ it like that for ten months, and we’re still alive. Fuckin’ A, I believe
it!”

Mingolla was
disappointed. “Yeah, okay,” he said.

“You hear
what I’m savin’?” asked the pilot. “I mean we’re livin’ goddamn proof.”

“Uh-huh.”
Mingolla scratched his neck, trying to think of a diplomatic response, but
thought of none. “Guess I’ll see you.” He started toward the PX.

“Hang in
there, man!” the pilot called after him. “Take it from me! Things gonna be
lookin’ up for you real soon!”

The canteen
in the PX was a big, barnlike room of unpainted boards; it was of such recent
construction that Mingolla could still smell sawdust and resin. Thirty or forty
tables; a jukebox; bare walls. Behind the bar at the rear of the room, a
sour-faced corporal with a clipboard was doing a liquor inventory, and
Gilbey—the only customer—was sitting by one of the east windows, stirring a cup
of coffee. His brow was furrowed, and a ray of sunlight shone down around him,
making it look that he was being divinely inspired to do some soul-searching.

“Where’s
Baylor?” asked Mingolla, sitting opposite him.

“Fuck, I
dunno,” said Gilbey, not taking his eyes from the coffee cup. “He’ll be here.”

Mingolla
kept his left hand in his pocket. The tremors were diminishing, but not quickly
enough to suit him; he was worried that the shaking would spread as it had
after the assault. He let out a sigh, and in letting it out he could feel all
his nervous flutters. The ray of sunlight seemed to be humming a wavery golden
note, and that, too, worried him. Hallucinations. Then he noticed a fly buzzing
against the windowpane. “How was it last night?” he asked.

Gilbey
glanced up sharply. “Oh, you mean Big Tits. She lemme check her for lumps.” He
forced a grin, then went back to stirring his coffee.

Mingolla was
hurt that Gilbey hadn’t asked about his night; he wanted to tell him about
Debora. But that was typical of Gilbey’s self-involvement. His narrow eyes and
sulky mouth were the imprints of a mean-spiritedness that permitted few
concerns aside from his own well-being. Yet despite his insensitivity, his
stupid rages and limited conversation, Mingolla believed that he was smarter
than he appeared, that disguising one’s intelligence must have been a survival
tactic in Detroit, where he had grown up. It was his craftiness that gave him
away: his insights into the personalities of adversary lieutenants; his
slickness at avoiding unpleasant duty; his ability to manipulate his peers. He
wore stupidity like a cloak, and perhaps he had worn it for so long that it could
not be removed. Still, Mingolla envied him its virtues, especially the way it
had numbed him to the assault.

“He’s never
been late before,” said Mingolla after a while.

“So what
he’s fuckin’ late!” snapped Gilbey, glowering. “He’ll be here!”

Behind the
bar, the corporal switched on a radio and spun the dial past Latin music, past
Top Forty, then past an American voice reporting the baseball scores. “Hey!”
called Gilbey. “Let’s hear that, man! I wanna see what happened to the Tigers.”
With a shrug, the corporal complied.

“ ... White
Sox six, A’s three,” said the announcer. “That’s eight in a row for the Sox ...
“

“White Sox
are kickin’ some ass,” said the corporal, pleased.

“The White
Sox!” Gilbey sneered. “What the White Sox got ‘cept a buncha beaners hittin’
two hunnerd and some coke-sniffin’ niggers? Shit! Every spring the White Sox
are flyin’, man. But then ‘long comes summer and the good drugs hit the street
and they fuckin’ die!”

“Yeah,” said
the corporal, “but this year ... “

“Take that
son of a bitch Caldwell,” said Gilbey, ignoring him. “I seen him coupla years
back when he had a trial with the Tigers. Man, that guy could hit! Now he
shuffles up there like he’s just feelin’ the breeze.”

“They ain’t
takin’ drugs, man,” said the corporal testily. “They can’t take ‘em ‘cause
there’s these tests that show if they’s on somethin’.”

Gilbey
barreled ahead. “White Sox ain’t gotta chance, man! Know what the guy on TV
calls ‘em sometimes? The Pale Hose! The fuckin’ Pale Hose! How you gonna win
with a name like that? The Tigers, now, they got the right kinda name. The
Yankees, the Braves, the ... “

“Bullshit,
man!” The corporal was becoming upset; he set down his clipboard and walked to
the end of the bar. “What ‘bout the Dodgers? They gotta wimpy name and they’re
a good team. Your name don’t mean shit!”

“The Reds,”
suggested Mingolla; he was enjoying Gilbey’s rap, its stubbornness and
irrationality. Yet at the same time he was concerned by its undertone of desperation:
appearances to the contrary, Gilbey was not himself this morning.

“Oh, yeah!”
Gilbey smacked the table with the flat of his hand. “The Reds! Lookit the Reds,
man! Lookit how good they been doin’ since the Cubans come into the war. You
think that don’t mean nothin’? You think their name ain’t helpin’ ‘em? Even if
they get in the Series, the Pale Hose don’t gotta prayer against the Reds.” He
laughed—a hoarse grunt. “I’m a Tiger fan, man, but I gotta feelin’ this ain’t
their year, y’know. The Reds are tearin’ up the NL East, and the Yankees is
comin’ on, and when they get together in October, man, then we gonna find out
alia ‘bout everything. Alia ‘bout fuckin’ everything!” His voice grew tight and
tremulous. “So don’t gimme no trouble ‘bout the candyass Pale Hose, man! They
ain’t shit and they never was and they ain’t gonna be shit ‘til they change
their fuckin’ name!”

Sensing
danger, the corporal backed away from confrontation, and Gilbey lapsed into a
moody silence. For a while there were only the sounds of chopper blades and the
radio blatting out cocktail jazz. Two mechanics wandered in for an early
morning beer, and not long after that three fatherly-looking sergeants with
potbellies and thinning hair and quartermaster insignia on their shoulders sat
at a nearby table and started up a game of rummy. The corporal brought them a
pot of coffee and a bottle of whiskey, which they mixed and drank as they
played. Their game had an air of custom, of something done at this time every
day, and watching them, taking note of their fat, pampered ease, their
old-buddy familiarity, Mingolla felt proud of his palsied hand. It was an
honorable affliction, a sigh that he had participated in the heart of the war
as these men had not. Yet he bore them no resentment. None whatsoever. Rather
it gave him a sense of security to know that three such fatherly men were here
to provide him with food and liquor and new boots. He basked in the dull, happy
clutter of their talk, in the haze of cigar smoke that seemed the exhaust of
their contentment. He believed that he could go to them, tell them his problems
and receive folksy advice. They were here to assure him of the tightness of his
purpose, to remind him of simple American values, to lend an illusion of
fraternal involvement to the war, to make clear that it was merely an exercise
in good fellowship and tough-mindedness, an initiation rite that these three
men had long ago passed through, and after the war they would all get rings and
medals and pal around together and talk about bloodshed and terror with
head-shaking wonderment and nostalgia, as if bloodshed and terror were old,
lost friends whose natures they had not fully appreciated at the time ...
Mingolla realized then that a smile had stretched his facial muscles taut, and
that his train of thought had been leading him into spooky mental territory.
The tremors in his hand were worse than ever. He checked his watch. It was
almost ten o’clock.
Ten o’clock!
In a panic, he scraped back his chair
and stood.