XV

All Around Town

Charles achieves liberation. Most of his old friends agree it was all he ever wanted. Tony sees Jorge in town soon after Charles blazes. He rides a child’s bicycle with little wheels and a little seat two feet off the ground. His knees stick out, and he waves at gringo pedestrians as if they know of his celebrity. With some floppy shoes and a big red schnoz, he could be a clown. The fat tires get him easily over the cobblestones. He stole the bicycle or bought it with Charles’ money. His jumpsuit used to be blue but now blends with his mottled skin. He got the jumpsuit from Arturo, el mechanico, in exchange for staying away from Arturo’s garage. Now he pedals the streets he once scratched, waving, drooling, grunting, calling, “It not time! It not time!” Or he wags a finger and calls, “Secret life in you!” Tourists point at the colorful old man on a bicycle. If they wave back, he rushes in for a photo op for only a hundred pesos. Some pay a grand, because who has a hundred? When he sees Tony Drury, he turns away. It’s a comedy of errors, not a drama. It ended in mortal consequence, but Tony was only a bystander. We all die sooner or later. I am no more responsible for Charles’ suicide than I was for the eclipse. He feels this; it is so obvious to everyone.

But Jorge painfully restates the lingering innuendo. Nobody accuses, but the eyes have it. Jorge now has a tube of Preparation-H more than half full. He applies it discreetly on the curb in front of the coffeehole. Because a man who makes his living on a bicycle must have comfort.

Two blocks down, business booms for the original jumpsuiter. Arturo, el mechanico, knows that gringos pay big for the health of their cars. An enterprising mechanico can sell U-joints, front-end alignments and gasket seal bearing refit compression overhauls by the kilo. Arturo wrenches all day to meet growing demand. “Puta! Puta madre!” he yells when his ratchet fails.

The pubescent boys now living in town with their mothers taught Arturo to say puta madre. Arturo goes along because the boys get their mothers to bring their forty-thousand-dollar cars in for repair. Arturo leaves a gram of flesh on a pesky alternator mount and yells over the WJZS request line blaring BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! And so on with the lyric, All she wantsta doo-az, all she wantsta doo-az, all she wantsta doo-az DANCE! DANCE! DANCE! Bleeding like a punctured ketchup pacquette, he doesn’t really mind, not with the cash rolling in. Arturo denies the pain. In awhile it will go away.

Another festive occasion at La Mexa will officially begin in five hours, so the place is packed with patrons prepping for the big one. Cisco yells over the din, “It didn’t used to be … my ass … fuckers …” He is drowned out by good cheer. He shuts up because the opposition prevails. It’s Cinco de fuckin’ Mayo, Man.

Tony can’t stay because of the crowd, the noise, the airless stink and hopeless wait for a goddamn drink. Yet he sits and stews. La Mexa has been rediscovered; it’s old and original, like it used to be. Celebrity Downhill booms on the dish-fed tube. We outlive the world, Tony thinks. Celebrity Downhill matches a professional skier with a celebrity. They ski together between commercials to the bottom of the hill, where the real skier says, “Ya. Dat vas a gude von, mit der schnow unt der schelebghity.”

The celebrity says, “Wow. It sure was.” Then it’s back to the top for another exciting run of overlapping realities in a thrilling new format. Next comes a survey of football players who agree they could not play so well without Jesus in their lives. A former cocaine-addict offensive lineman says Jesus is big, bigger than football. An opposing linebacker whose all-time records are matched only by his arrest record, BC, says Jesus is the man, the man with the plan. He says his team won on account of Jesus.

“Fuck this,” is the farewell Tony Drury rehearsed, but nobody hears it. Bobby and Earl already left for the coast, from where they plan a southerly drift, a study of liquor dispensaries by night, coffee and cigarette places by day. At last the Marines will land with a soft touch.

Mal was down to pure grunt when he met a divorcée from Dallas. She admits to sixty-one and dolls up with beehive hair and chromium highlights. Tiny crystals sparkle in the great nest and big crystals shine around her neck. She has scads o’ dough, and seeks realization, visualization and actualization. She’s a poster girl for nips, tucks, fills, lifts, spreads and separations. Bar talk for a month was that she wanted a man, a young one, and the interview included advanced foreplay but vaginal and/or oral copulation were absolutely not in the picture for anyone short of fiancé status. Worse yet, a simple feel of her stupendous tits required a vow to take the vow.

Mal knew in his heart that Tomàs—that squirrelly little fucker—would ruin everything again. But he made his play anyway and stands straighter since the day she said yes, she would join him for dinner at his house. She found football in Mexico amusing, and his hand in her panties may have further improved his posture. You can only speculate. They announced betrothal three days after dinner, each promising everything to the other. His pride is hard to watch. Some say it’s his first sex in twenty years, her sixth husband in half that time.

Suey and Whippet are tight again because Lawrence is a bad drunk who becomes someone else, someone loud and hostile. Tony doesn’t care. He wishes them uncritical love and new pantyhose for years to come.

Rhonda rediscovered painting, whimsical landscapes much different than Bill Maxwell’s but certainly viable according to Bill, Rhonda’s art liaison and dinner companion. Some say they look natural together, a great match, a good-looking couple, and what a refreshing change of pace to see two people falling in love. Some wonder what took them so long to find each other. Some say Bill is on the wagon, kind of, because of Rhonda. Some say Rhonda has grown beautiful because of Bill, and she’s more stable now as well, applying her background in art to the filmfest, becoming an integral part of the community.

Tony Drury wishes her continuing stability and wonders if she might one night weaken his way.

Marylin plans her third big year and looks like she might pull it off this time. Ticket sales approach modified projections from Year I, and the town is catching on, not yet a springbreak Mecca, but the college kids trickle in. Marylin was discovered by Jonathon Baywood Tremain, discoverer and world-renowned producer who happened along in Year II, who loves the town, loves the idea of a filmfest and frankly loves the caballero with the undiscovered script.

Tomàs and Marylin are tight, reconciling needs and aspirations. Jonathon Baywood Tremain hasn’t felt so confident in years. A Mexican production tickles his fancy, makes him feel young again, on the new frontier again with a rediscovered passion, the rock opera. He will produce, underwrite and promote ¡Hola Cabrón!, the all new smash hit written, scored and directed by Tomàs. Perfection looms with Tomàs rising in show biz, adapting easily to the flourish, the savoir faire, the new clothing, the cuisine and so many waiters eager to jump. The cash advance on his masterpiece is big enough to change life forever for a third-worlder. Tony hopes he hasn’t taken it in the ass, unless he wanted to, of course. Tony hopes he won’t wind up on Celebrity Downhill.

Parting ways with Kensho is more difficult. His quest for moderation is a compulsion, his taste for the sauce immoderate. His fixed smile comes from no joy but lingers from the laugh to keep from crying. Tony and Kensho know the old times come and go. Maybe they doubt another coming. Maybe this is it, last call.

Migration is the topic of the hour. They review the nature of leaving, of getting on, unattached. Heading out seems short on odds and so demanding.

Kensho says he wants to reach his destination without going anywhere. He says town allows him to change on a daily basis. But his regimen is day in, day out. He dreads the routine, fears the rut. “The difficulty is that an event can occur only when its time arrives.”

Tony agrees; an event cannot be separate from its time, but pondering such nonsense will lead to no more events. “By the way, did you ever do the do with Whippet?” Kensho says yes, once, for the feel of it, which was good and bad. Tony understands. Kensho opens himself to what comes along. Whippet came along with her need. She and Kensho conjoining was good for one thing if not for another. So he opened more and along came Leanne of the road-mapped and heavily traveled body. Her young date left or got thrown out or fell in a hole; she would only elaborate on her attraction to a man like Kensho. He calls her affection profuse and undeniable but his experience with Leanne is also good and wanting. He laughs, because she is monumental when viewed from the bottom, but when they roll over her mountains stand tall where breasts would settled seaward. He laughs. She cried; another transition. She comes to town once a week now. He sometimes drives out to her place.

He feels kinship with his training partners like never before. He came to town after years of trying to get something right. Now he feels right but can’t say why. Maybe staying is best for him. The action picks up every day, and he looks more and more like ever since when. He might grow old here, or Ms. Right will finally find her man. Tony thinks she will or she won’t.

Tony can’t stay on the treadmill without running himself to death, and besides, Kensho staying means he can come back to a friend if he gets lost and needs a homecoming. But it’s time to go somewhere else and be someone new. Possibilities jumble like glass splinters in a foggy kaleidoscope. He can’t see a job at Ashland Gas & Electric, but he wants to see something, something steady and gainful. Because a man dependent on luck must one day hold still long enough to find it.

Cisco is tough and easy. He knows what’s up. Two grown males shouldn’t live together, but maybe he wouldn’t mind a man of Tony’s social skills tagging along. It could be trailblazing, after a fashion. They could ride in the same direction like scouts. Drinking and drugging would be a problem, but what else is there? Cisco shakes his head on what’s what. “One day you’re choking for another breath and then you’re dead.” Then he gathers himself to take his leave, more deliberately than usual, leaving bar talk in his wake.

Stanton Runnymeade says it’s fine and good of Dalton and Lauren Snow to buy up the old Velasquez casa on Barranquilla for a song and then pour half a million dollars into rehab and reinvention. But Dalton wants to be be the richest man in town, and a half-million dollar house simply should not earn the title.

Cisco orders una grande for the road.

“A half a million dollars,” Stanton says in disbelief.

Cisco hoists his daypack, pours his firewater down the hatch and heads out at twilight with a low-spoken, “Adios, amigos,” like the cowboy he wants to be.

“What was that?”

“Cisco leaving?”

“He’s upset.”

“He’s upsetting, you mean.”

Then he’s gone. Maybe he gives Tony a lead to follow. Tony knows it’s time, real time. He just doesn’t know what he always didn’t know but hoped to find out. He fears it’s been known all along and is simple as left right left.

He loves Inez. She fooled him. Everyone does, but nobody gives like she gave. He sees her at the chores, loving the beginning, middle and end of each chore. He sees her pounding a skinhead drum by the fire in the night. He can’t change the setup halfway through Act III. She knows it, nevermind her jimba dance or his fetal soul; they shared an interlude, then it was time for a change. She was way too pregnant for ficky fick, and with Heidi back at the ranch it was time to let the road fork like it needed to. Inez went home. He told her what a gringa would want to hear, something about life and lasting love. And maybe he’d see her again soon.

Heidi drifted, dazed, picking a weed here, plucking a rock there. He hung out, sitting, thinking, squinting; he can’t believe this time will end any more than he thought the sun would really rise on those never-ending nights of not so long ago. Charles requires it to end. Charles said it ended long ago. Heidi said a man loses his connection to life by taking a year to walk out of town toward salvation. And then he finds it again.

Tony sees the point, sees Charles holding a plastic bottle and calling it a fuel cell; like a kid with a chemistry set, seeing the neat way it’s coming together. Charles goes to work on a new idea: gasoline.

Tony won’t push anyone over the edge. He will not refuse to help or leave anyone helpless. But wishing on a star shows better odds than the Charles game.

So Charles follows a lead to gasoline and frames up the last bonfire while Heidi pleads that someone do something.

But what? Tony sees; Heidi wants heroism. She wants her men saving each other with sensitivity and compassion and saving her too. She’s dreamed of it. He calls her name and leads her down to the car. “This is not complicated,” he says. “You have two choices. Both will work. Nothing else will work.”

“You’re so smart,” she says, all ears.

“We clean his clock, knock’m sock’m. One-two, neat, no pain, not much anyway, and carry him down. Then we keep him down, tie him down, barbiturates, anything. It won’t be easy. It’s all I got. You want to talk him down? You’re dreaming. This is it, Babycakes. We take him down or we don’t. Your call.”

“What’s the other choice?”

“Easy. Let him burn. He won’t mind. He’s got the script down, and he’ll be more comfortable afterwards.” Her agony twists to contempt, then worry.

“It won’t work,” she says. “He’s too strong.”

“Kensho knows karate boogaloo. I can swing a bottle, a glass one.”

She shakes her head. “It won’t work. He’s …”

“Stuck is what he is, just like you, just like me. I envy him; you forgive his bad habits.”

She would leave in a huff but can’t, so she huffs in place. Charles laughs and works. Rhonda sings about a man who is blind to love. Tony asks Kensho for readings from the cosmos. Inez shags the sauce, pops the top and serves the thirsty. Tony suggests that Kensho take Charles out so they can take him down the mountain.

“Why me?”

“You spent half your life learning how.”

“Learning nothing.”

“Hey, man.”

“Okay. Okay.” So they march back up the path, hesitant samurai and bold assistant with the idea of doing something to Charles that will make him lay down and fall asleep so they can put him in the truck and carry him home for some soup and tuck him in.

Tony doubts Kensho knows a one-finger touch to the shoulder that will make a man pass out like in the movies, but he thinks Kensho knows something. Kensho makes a strange fist and springs for the Sunday punch, an overhand right to the temple or Tower of Babel. But Charles steps back, turns, blocks and comes in with the uppercut—his best shot—on the button. Kensho goes to rubber, then to mush, then to runny mush.

“I didn’t want to do that!” Charles yodels. “Well, I did, you know, for a long time. I watched it. On TV. But not to him! Well, he did have it coming. Didn’t he?” He goes back to work. Kensho comes to in a minute, smiling, mumbling gratitude and subservience. He takes a drink. “Oh, you can’t beat a madman!” Charles laughs. “It’s a gift. A blessing of sorts. Ho, no!” He works. Kensho has another. The sun lowers; the temperature falls. Tony gathers faggots, because it looks like another night around the campfire.

Kensho comes over holding his jaw. “How many years of practice was that?” Tony asks. Kensho mumbles something about forgetting and what he really needs. He sits by the fire. Tony asks, “Anything else?”

Kensho looks up. “No.” Tony can’t blame him, not after a convincing first-round knockout. Kensho tilts the bottle and looks statuesque, monument to the greatness of drinking, or maybe greatness transcended. He comes up for air and knows what’s wrong: he has to let go more. He guzzles again and passes the bottle.

Tony has a bolt because the sauce takes the edge off. They failed to take Charles by force because they forgot to take the edge off. Charles is still big and strong and correct: a madman does have power. Kensho knows that. A doobie gets things looser still.

Charles works his plastic bottles, getting his piles right so they’ll last a few centuries until they get discovered as ruins with barely decipherable writings. The Post Modern Codex will begin Evian, Product of France … He wants it perfect for all time. He slows down after dark, sits down and smiles.

Kensho smiles too, so Charles throws another punch slo mo just for fun in the playful spirit. But he can’t displace the other spirits of hunger, cold and fear who own the place. He fills the chilly night with a familiar resonance. Ah, Charles; his rich tenor careens round the canyon. The lyric is wise and sad now, like an epitaph. “Buddhists speak of six bardos—existence. Death is only the second. Of six. Did you know that?”

No. That had been unknown, except kind of, by Tony, who read that stuff in Heidi’s library and wondered who in the world lived like that. “In the third, after death, you reach the fork. You go to nirvana. Or seek rebirth. You might have a task to finish. Something noble or something base. You might have to give more of yourself, or you might crave another drink or some pussy, you know.” Charles laughs. “Love makes the world go round with a bit of luck. Otherwise whiskey makes it spin. So if you want to reach nirvana you forget whiskey.”

Charles swills—“Ah! The open spaces. I think I used to be one in a former life. I came back for more. Nomad. That was me. I know what I never knew in this life anyway. No. Nomad no mo. Now you’re all here. We can begin.”

“They consider it a double death,” Kensho says. “Leading to a lower rebirth.”

“Mm,” Charles ponders. “Bit parts. Walk-ons. Nary a break on Broadway. It’s not so bad. I’ve done it. Did the best I could. Everyone does. Take, say … Adolph Hitler. Simple. Evil. Misguided. But a brilliant source of pain. He did that. Listen:” He raises a hand as if to harken the stillness, dark and cold. “Eighty thousand people were marched to the top tier of the temple, quickly now, because we have only three days. Each was laid on a stone slab, face up, and held by the arms and legs. The priest incised each chest with an obsidian knife and reached in and pulled the heart out and held it up to please Huichilobos and Tezcatlipoca. They made rain and told the future when they were pleased. They didn’t waste anything like now. They cut off the heads for display, cut off the arms and legs to eat with tomato and pepper sauce and fed the entrails to the beasts. They burned the hearts on little braziers, five or so a day. Little children were most pleasing. They cry more. Their tears are perfect little raindrops. Listen:”

Faint cries drift from the foothills.

“Hernan Cortez came in the Year of One Reed. Quetzalcoatl dreamed he would, in a ship that looked like a feathered serpent. They did their best. Didn’t they. El Mexica y los Conquistadores. Do you ever wonder who dreamed you? Look, I think the dream is …” Charles can’t readily say what the dream is, so he guzzles a bit of truth elixir and tries another angle.

“Look: You take a wino. Shitting his pants, puking on himself. It’s what he does. Take Danielle Steele. Books to poo poo. How she does it? Better than Son of Sam killed with his gun. Sam was good though. Good at what he did. Take Danielle Steele’s agent—the best! Aunt Jemima makes pancakes. I wish we had some. Don’t you? Mother Teresa took care. Lucky for us, we don’t need her anymore. We’re strong. Dave Letterman is chatty. The best. Don’t you see? Or was that Garraway?”

If anybody sees, they don’t say so. Charles shares his thoughts and impulses nearly coherently as if sharing what he’s learned. Discomfort forms on his audience like surface ice. “You take Jesus,” he says, passing the bottle. “Gifted prophet with excellent handlers, could have given Reagan a run in ’84. Oh, I know you. Pooh pooh on Jesus, too, but my God, what were they supposed to do? They were sacrificing children and fucking their dogs. Well, not that I mind, and they never had a population control problem, and the missionaries with their greed and diseases and inquisition, well, it’s been quite colorful. Don’t you think so? Remember Meher Baba? Not the teenage one but the one who wouldn’t speak for fifty years or whatever, says Jesus got nailed up but didn’t die—deep samadi. That’s all. He says Jesus left the cave on Good Friday. Walked out, talked to the folks, told them adios, my work here is done and walked off to Gethsemane or Booneville or wherever it was. Got married. Raised a family. Died old for chrissake.” He guzzles till it runs down his neck. “You know we never talk about these things. I like Jesus. I want to be like Jesus. Christ, I’m relieved. The idea is pure, you know.”

He needs a rest. Rhonda shivers, her teeth chatter. Charles grins and nods; she’s catching on to liberation. “Forgiveness,” he says. “We are mean, stupid people if we don’t forgive the mean and stupid people. It’s a forgiving circle with us all the way around.” He grins around the circle and is done, time to wrap things up.

Tony takes the lead unwittingly as Kensho took a punch. “Why can’t you forgive yourself?”

“I’m no different than you,” Charles says. “I forgave myself first. Numero uno, you know. I know what I am. I’m an ex-actor. Exactor. Eggs Actor. I’ll tell you what that means. I’m an ex-ex-actor, an ex-exactor, eggs over easy. Sorry. I’m on again, off again. I found the right script. It feels good. Can you feel it? I am forgiven by the one who must forgive. Can you forgive me? Can you forgive you?” Everyone trembles but Heidi. She stares at the fire, pulling it to the palms of her hands. She’s heard it before. Kensho closes his eyes. Charles likes that and nods his grizzled approval. Inez watches. Rhonda shakes like a vibrator, smoking shallow.

Charles says, “You’re afraid to ask, aren’t you?” He addresses Tony and waits.

“Afraid to ask what, Charles?”

“To ask yourself what it is in life that you’ve come to. To ask yourself what you are.”

Tony chuckles fearlessly.

“Why don’t you?”

“Why don’t I what, Charles?”

“Why don’t you ask yourself what you are.”

“Maybe I’m afraid I’ll get it wrong, Charles,” Tony says, losing patience with the game. “Why don’t you help me. Tell me what I am. What is it we do? You have something in mind. Why don’t you tell me what it is, and then I’ll know what you are and what I am.”

Charles smiles his not nice smile, his mean and hurtful smile for those seeking to upstage the star. “That’s easy. I’m a failure. Wouldn’t you agree? Oh, I don’t doubt you thought of it first. But you see, the thing of it is, I’m a failure at the other end of accepting failure. You know many people don’t, right up to the end. I got lucky. You might think it’s obvious, but all anyone can ever do is fail. But the thing of it is … I was very good. I have genius. Do you know what that means? I’m not sure you do. You can fall short of it for years and not know you have so far to go. You’re not supposed to say it once you know it. And you’re not supposed to know it if nobody else knows it. I can’t explain it to you, because you and I have the same appetite but I have something you never imagined. And now I have more, because nobody else can see what I can give—”

“Yes they can,” Heidi says. “I can see it. Others see it. You’re a great actor, Charles. What do you want?”

“Please. I’m explaining something to Dreary Drury. The gift of failure. I have received my … Not my penance. How boring. Not my epiphany. That happened years ago. But my …”

“Your greatest performance?” Tony ventures.

Charles sighs. He turns slowly to Tony with a smile and softly says, “Thank you.” He turns to Heidi. “See? I told you he’s not stupid. You know—” Charles leans over and slaps Tony on the thigh. “I can’t believe we’re friends and you never took the historic tour. I mean, what’s the use of living in a place if you don’t try to understand it. My tour was really very good. Heidi? Wasn’t it?”

Heidi nods.

“If I’m not stupid, Charles, what am I?”

Charles nods vigorously and shrugs. “A murderer. And a whore.”

Tony laughs, “What a relief.” Charles laughs too, his scornful, hurtful laugh. “Who did I murder?”

Charles whispers, “Time. Love. Life. Ask anyone you ever fucked or rode in a cab with. Oh, you are capable of great slaughter. It’s the worst of you. And—you’re a whore. Not a great whore. Certainly not a whore who loves his work. I know people who score maybe one fuck in a year and get more out of it than you could get from a hundred stand ups in alleys.”

Rhonda covers her face.

“I don’t know everything, but I know you’re a fairly bum lay. You should be ashamed. I can’t imagine anything so repugnant. I mean, you can’t fault a savage for savagery. But a man who ignores such opportunity for … for …”

“Style,” Rhonda says.

“Compassion,” Heidi says.

“I lawv him,” Inez chirps.

“But I forgive your ignorance,” Charles says. “I forgave you long ago but only because you got better at things. And because my friend, I love you, one whore to another if that makes you comfortable. Don’t get me wrong. Love is not required. Love is voluntary. And you, I do love, in spite of your murdering.”

“I accept your love, Charles. But I’m still not clear on who I killed.”

Charles crawls over beside him. Tony eases back.

Charles laughs. Tony relaxes.

Charles lunges for a Sunday smooch, lips to lips, holding his new love down until the squirm goes away. Charles gives an inch and breathes in his face. “You killed me, you bastard. You brought me out. I thought I was good. One of the greatest. And look. It was never dreamed so well until you came along. God, I owe you everything. To you goes all my love.”

Tony wipes his mouth. He has no more to say, and it’s time to go. He knows this little scene of suspect homosexuality will make it down the mountain. He should have left long ago. The flames get watched awhile longer until Charles hisses among the coals, “I’m an actor. Forgive me.”

Meditation ends when the fire collapses. Charles lies back down. Heidi moves in beside him.

Rhonda stands, uncertain as a rag doll, knees and voice shaking. “So long, stranger,” is her concession to the demands of love.

The audience files out in soft reflection of fire and ice. Kensho stands straight in compensation to his startling defeat. Inez looks down to conceal her indifference. Rhonda hugs herself. Tony mumbles words and phrases that make far more sense than what a lunatic thinks. Taco follows the prescient lead. Jorge strikes a smile and turns to stone. Charles mumbles that there will be much more after a brief intermission.