Dunfords Travels Everywheres

by William Melvin Kelley

  Frank picked up the thought. “He’s smart and he’s not interested in just money or power. He’ll change things.”

  “Just as long as you agree he’s no lily, like Chig said.”

  Most of Chig’s mind had been outside of the car, in a café with an iced-tea cooling his hand. “I didn’t say anything, Lane.”

  “Someone did.” He pushed Frank back into the seat, turned bright blue eyes Chig’s way.

  Chig shook his head. “No one said he was a lily, Lane.”

  “Hey, I know what I heard.” He continued to study Chig. “Are you saying—”

  “Oh, shit!” Ira interrupted. “I forgot the demonstration.”

  They had stopped. A half-mile ahead, over the shining roofs of several hundred idling automobiles, stood the thirty-storey Touras Netswonals.* In the park at its base, a crowd of natives, Jualoreursos and Atzuoreursos both, had gathered to protest the war raging in Asia.

  “I’m sorry about this.” Ira turned full around and addressed the four in the backseat. “They can’t even start the game. We have all the balls.” One side of his mustache drooped lower than the other.

  “Can’t you get out of it some way, for golly’s sake?”

  “Look for yourself, Lane.” He beckoned around them to the shining cars. “It’s not moving. Can I fly over it?”

  “It’s all right, Ira.” Marian kissed his ear; Ira jumped.

  “What o’clock is it, please?” Cleurdia did not turn her head.

  Snatching his cuff halfway up his arm, Frank told her: 12:40.

  She thanked him, twisted to smile at Lane. “In the jeurnala it has said that the manofestatson will finish at two hours o’clock.”

  Marian sighed. “Over an hour? We’ll bake.”

  Chig did not mind that too much, but already a wet halfmoon had appeared under Lane’s arm. Frank’s face shone with grease. Only Wendy seemed unaffected. She started a new cigaret, blew smoke out of her window.

  “Well…” Marian leaned forward, and, elbows wiggling, took off her shirt. Chig put on his sunglasses. He had never seen any breasts quite like them, even in films.

  LUOS ESTOTOS EURNIDOS SORLIT D’ASHA: Parading a huge sign, a group of students moved among the stranded cars, heading toward the Towers. Attracted by the spots of bright-yellow in the front seat, one student turned their way, then stopped, then stared.

  The first student grabbed the arm of a friend, pointed; then ten, then twenty boys had gathered around the car’s hood, four feet away, staring through Ira’s windshield. Short like most men in that country, they had to stand on tiptoe to see, a group portrait in the front window, their eyes bright, skin pale, long hair covering their ears, pushing and shoving each other for the best view.

  “Now, what do they want? Ira, get them out of the way. The traffic might start again.” Lane reached over the front seat, waving the students aside. “Hey, Cloode, tell them to get away.”

  “Put on your shirt, Marian.”

  “What’s wrong, Ira?”

  Chig felt embarrassed for her.

  Lane leaned across Wendy, began to yell out of the back window. “Vo! Vo!” He tapped Cleurdia’s shoulder. “Hey, come on, tell them to move away. Vo, you bastards!”

  “Put on your shirt.”

  “But Ira, I’m so hot.” She seemed not to see the students, a puzzled smile on her lips.

  “Marian, will you please cover your God-damn tits?”

  Frank covered his giggle.

  “Why are you shouting at me, Ira?” She fumbled with her shirt, but could not find the sleeves. “Why did you shout at me?”

  The students saw her trying to dress herself. “No! No!” Several of them, in the front rank, bent down, grabbed the fender, began to rock the car. “NO! No! NO! No!”

  Lane screamed at them, in English. “Hey, Roomps, if you guys want to get physical, we’ll get physical. God-damn Roomp bastards!”

  Cleurdia turned, offended.

  But Lane did not notice; the line of cars ahead began to roll, and behind them, a horn trumpeted the first eight notes of that nation’s Anthem. “Come on, Ira, run over them!”

  Ira shifted into first gear. “But I don’t want to hurt anybody.”

  Marian had finally buttoned her shirt. Defeated, the students released the fender and stood back. They smiled, waved farewell, as Ira’s car started forward.

  Turning to his right to watch the students by the window, Chig found Wendy looking at him with her dark brown eyes.

  * LUAS TOURAS NETSWONALS: Actually three towers in one, a tower of wood within a tower of stone within a tower of brass. According to recent archeological evidence, the aboriginal tribes of that part of Europe erected the innermost, wooden tower to commemorate an alliance entered into with Attila, King of the Huns (406?–453 A.D.). Until late in the fifteenth century the only place where the native-born could commit suicide without legal or social interference; in modern times, an average of eighty-nine natives jump from the towers each year.

  3

  KNOWING THE ABILITIES of the seven stranded in the demonstration, their friends had not waited to choose sides. Arnold Lockman, a can of beer in his fist, stood in the gutter, saving Ira a parking space. He directed Ira’s maneuvers, pounced to open the door. “Want some, Wendy?”

  “No thanks, Arnold.”

  “Where you people been?” Arnold had on a short-sleeved canary yellow shirt.

  “A gang of Roomps attacked us.”

  “No kidding. How many of them?”

  “Twenty.” Lane stretched. “I almost jumped out of the car.”

  “Then you didn’t really fight.”

  “Didn’t have to.” He smiled. “Old Ira boy just about ran them down.”

  “I thought you had a real fight, bud.” He drank from the can. “Want some, Chig?”

  He shook his head. “It wasn’t as bad as Lane said. They just rocked the car.”

  “No kidding.”

  Ira opened the car’s hood and pulled out the canvas sack which held the bats, bases, balls and gloves. Chig volunteered to help him. Side by side, they dragged the heavy sack the twenty yards between Ira’s car and the four bare circles of yellow dirt that their weekly game had worn into the park grass.

  They set out the bases, while their friends greeted one another. Frank and Cleurdia passed them on their way to the public toilet house, a half mile away across center field. Every Sunday Cleurdia went there to change into her playing clothes. And Frank usually contrived to go with her, walking beside her at stiff attention, an even two feet from her. Every few steps he would lean toward her, say something, begin to laugh. She never joined him.

  “Hey, Chig, heads up.” Ira threw the ball.

  “I wish he’d just go on and ask her out.” Chig pitched wild. “Sorry. She’d go, I think.”

  “Lane’s got that locked up.”

  “At least Frank could ask her.” He wondered when he would ask out Wendy, now that she seemed free. “Lane doesn’t care about Cleurdia.”

  “Frank’ll just keep cracking his bad jokes.” Ira smiled. “What a Jew!”

  “Frank’s not Jewish.”

  “I know. He’s an RC pretending to be Jewish. My father would love him for a son.”

  “Come on, Ira. You showed me letters from your father.” He could not make the ball reach where he aimed it, wished he hit the same way. He always hit high flies to center. “He seems happy with you. You’re not a bum. You stay clean. You dress—”

  “You don’t understand. We’re not interested in that kind of thing. That’s what they say, but they’re the ones who like all that show, parades, medals, image. My father doesn’t care how I dress. I could dress like a bum. If I was a banker. How’s your arm?”

  “Coming.”

  “My father takes a real interes
t in my work. He even knows a little about the art world, who’s big, who’s small. He used to come by my studio in New York and sit on a stool and tell me I was great. On the way to the States, he had to spend a few years in a couple of European cities. He was on his own and wanted to have a good time and he knew the best-looking girls went with artists, so he went with the artists too. He gave them another name. So he knows what’s good, and he says I’m good. Throw the ball.”

  He did, too high. “So why doesn’t he want you to be an artist?”

  “I’m wasting my time, he says. Nobody cares about art, Ira. If it was like when I was a boy in Europe and you wanted to be an artist, I’d send you with good wishes. They had some respect for artists there. But Mr. Mustache changed all that. Artist, banker, doctor, bum. Right into the oven. Don’t waste your time giving them beauty, he says. Make money. That way, when the pogrom starts, maybe I can buy my way out.”

  “You’re kidding.” He laughed again as soon as he had made his comment.

  “My father’s seen a lot; he’s very cynical. I say to him, but Daddy, there won’t be a pogrom here. But he answers: We said the same thing in Spain, just before the Inquisition started, to say nothing of Russia and Germany. So I don’t argue with him.” Ira shrugged. “I know what I’m doing is right. Somebody’s got to bring some beauty into the world.”

  “You fellows working something up?” Lane had jauntied over to them. “We want to start.” He stood between them, one hand leather-covered, turning his head from side to side. “You were warming up with the game ball.”

  “The game ball?” Chig tossed it to him. “Sorry. We didn’t mean to hold you up.”

  “Well, let’s start.” He escorted them to home plate. There, Chig’s friends milled, asking what team each belonged on, and which position, and where in the batting order.

  Marian talked with an exchange professor’s wife about the students who had bounced the car. “…against the States is running high. I think they just got carried away. But there was a strange kind of love in what they did. I mean, they never actually tried—Hi, Chig. And our having Chig in the car showed them we weren’t the kind of people they were against.” Taking him by surprise, she scooped him close, mashing the bikinibra between them. “Chig’s like a good luck wand, charm.”

  They laughed. The professor’s wife, in a yellow-gray denim shirt and pink dungarees, nodded her head.

  “We’re on the same team, Chig.” Ira joined them.

  “What about me, Ira?” She released Chig. “Who do I go with?”

  He puckered his lips, kissed her. “Could I play against my sweety?”

  “Come on, gang, rag or rock them!” Lane led his team onto the field: the male model who played shortstop, the government scholar from Iowa who manned third, a blonde with knobby calves who typed at the Embassy. And Wendy, long straight black hair, tanned legs, yellow shorts over a high round behind, took a position in right field, swept her hair away from her face with two fingers and pounded a pocket into her glove. The others followed. Lane circled around to pat their backs, nudge their elbows. “Rag and sock them!”

  Ira started the batting-order, swinging, missing twice before hitting to the male model, who fielded nicely, but threw over the first baseman’s head, who retrieved the ball and ran it back to the pitcher. By that time, Ira stood, coughing, on third base.

  An architect from Minnesota left him stranded, striking out on three straight pitches.

  Chig’s turn had come. Before stepping into the box, he looked out at Lane, crouched and playing him deep; behind Lane squatted the public toilet house, the air above it jellied by the sun.

  As the first pitch left the pitcher’s hand, Frank rounded the building’s corner, stumbled, and started toward them, waving his arms.

  The pitch bounced on home plate, skittering through the catcher’s legs, a ball. Cleurdia too had started across the field, trudging, her head bowed.

  “No batter! No batter! No batter!”

  Frank ran, flatfooted in a patch of tall grass, his feet tangling. He had already fallen once.

  Chig wondered idly if he could hit a ball over Lane’s head. Lane never took his eye off the ball; perhaps he and Frank would run into each other. He watched a strike.

  Frank had run within thirty yards of Lane, his mouth opening, closing; poor Frank and his jokes.

  The next pitch came stomach high and over the plate. Smiling at his own seriousness, Chig swung—watched Lane shuffle forward, stop, looking deep into the sky. Chig started down to first base, watching Frank, ten yards from Lane, a shout in his throat, his hands fisted. “Hey! Time out!”

  They collided. For an instant Frank kneeled on Lane’s shoulders, a snapshot of a circus act; then they tumbled onto the grass, a heel, an elbow, Frank on his face, Lane on his back.

  Chig laughed before anyone else, just because he could not believe what he had imagined actually happened. But within seconds, everybody laughed. Ira stood on home plate, coughing and laughing. Marian had rushed to hug him, but, fighting for breath, he kept pushing her away.

  They laughed until Lane crawled over to Frank, pulled him by his ascot, and began to punch at his face. “You made me miss it, you stupid shit!”

  “No, wait.” Frank tried to defend his face. “I’m sorry, but wait.”

  Finally Arnold parted them, but not before Frank had started to cry. “The President’s shot.” Tears, and a little blood from a cut Lane had opened dribbled down his cheeks, dripped to the grass, but Frank smiled. “It’s true. He’s shot.”

  Half of Chig’s friends laughed again, but not Lane. “You’re not funny, Frank. Don’t you know that yet, you stupid shit!”

  Frank shook his head, his eyes the same as when he had told Chig about his virginity. “But it’s true. Last night. Well, about four hours ago.”

  Chig stepped back from the circle and tried to find Cleurdia. She was in very deep center field, still walking. She had not changed to her playing clothes. He went to meet her. “Shot, Cleurdia?”

  She nodded. “He has dead.”

  “Wow. But how?”

  “They have carried guns.” She looked at him now, shaking her head. “And also his wife and…”

  They joined the others. Frank had completed his first report; the blonde with knobby calves sat in the grass, weeping. But most had gathered around Frank and Lane. “Okay, now tell again what the radio said.”

  Frank sniffled. “Last night, a few hours ago, and that two men came out of each dugout and walked up and shot him. The batboy got in the way…”

  “How’d they get into the dugouts?”

  “They don’t know. They were just changing sides and a lot of people were running around because they had some trouble with the lights, and four men all dressed like groundskeepers and all of them with acorns, I think the radio said, I was translating, anyway with acorns in their lapels came out of the dugouts, and walked over to his box and…and then they had shotguns and fired at everybody in the box.” His eyes glowed deep pink like wounds; the little cleft in the middle of his upper lip had filled with water. “His wife and his two youngest children, and a man who was selling ice cream and a photographer who was taking pictures of that, with his kids and the ice cream man, I mean.”

  “Stick to the point, Frank.” Lane punched his glove.

  Frank patted himself for a handkerchief, but never found one. “I am.”

  “Well?”

  “So the President jumped up, I don’t know if he was hit yet, but I guess so with shotguns. He jumped up and tried to get to the aisle. But then the groundskeepers had pistols, the ones dressed like groundskeepers, and they shot him.” He paused, hurt already by what he would say. “In the back!”

  “Well?”

  “And he fell. And everybody was running around, like it was a riot, the radio said, and the groundskeepers,
I mean the men dressed as…they went into the nearest dugout and…”

  Lane nodded his head. “A professional job, all right.”

  “Is that all?” Arnold asked.

  Frank shook his head. “They caught one.”

  “Why didn’t you say that before?”

  “I was coming to it, Lane.” He swallowed, cleared his nose. “They blocked all the exits. And this groundskeeper came out of the clubhouse and they arrested him.”

  “What’d he say?”

  Frank smiled. “That he was a groundskeeper.”

  “Is that all?”

  “He said he didn’t do it. They checked and he is a groundskeeper, but he’s still a prime suspect. Ten years ago, they said, he was one of the leaders of a movement to unionize the groundskeepers or something like that.”

  Lane nodded. “That figures.”

  4

  “WELL, THERE’S NOT very much we can do about it here.” Lane lowered his head for a few seconds. “Chig would’ve been out if Frank hadn’t barged into me. Who bats now?”

  “What do you mean he would’ve been out?” Arnold asked.

  But most of their friends began to pack. Ira held the equipment bag, stuffing it with bases and gloves, then bats and balls. They loaded into the car, rode within ten minutes.

  Ira leaned forward, his chest an inch from the steering post. “I know it’s a little early, but I’d like a drink.”

  “That’s a good idea, Ira.” Marian had buttoned her shirt to the throat. “And let’s buy some newspapers.”

  “Ira? The office of Lua Jeurnala dol Swora,” Cleurdia offered, timidly, “you can found on Beulward dol Touras.”

  “Come on, Cleurdia, it’ll be a mess there. You think it was bad before?”

  “You have a match, Chig?” Wendy sat beside him now. Lane had jumped into the car first, into Chig’s corner, followed by Frank, then Chig. Wendy had kept her window.

  Chig did not carry matches, told her so, smiling. Wendy just looked at him, killed the smile on his lips.

  “Here’s one, Wendy. The dirty killers!” Frank handed her a striker torn from a matchbook and two matches. “In the back. Who could’ve wanted to do that?”