by Jim Dodge
‘At any rate, I decided to steal some U-235, and I asked AMO for help. They sent a member of the Star to see me, a man named Volta, and he not only turned down my request, he tried to persuade me not to attempt it on my own. He said he sympathized, but – I’m quoting – “Personal fascinations aren’t sufficient reason to commit AMO to a course of action where success would be more dangerous than failure.” Which was Volta’s elegant way of saying that the theft of nuclear material would bring down the heat so hard and hot that other projects and many people would be jeopardized.
‘I was pissed, so I said something like “Since I am going to steal the uranium for my own selfish reasons, the only honorable thing I can do is quit AMO.” And Volta said, “As you choose. Not that it’ll make much difference – the scrutiny will still be severe and disruptive. And not that your honorable gesture is pointless; honor never is. By all means, do as you will.”
‘And I did,’ Shamus smiled ruefully. ‘And it fucked up. And the heat came down. And here we are.’ The smile had disappeared.
Annalee reached over with her right hand and squeezed his thigh. ‘I can think of worse places to be.’
‘Now what will happen?’ Daniel said. Annalee could have strangled him. The future would come fast enough.
‘Who knows?’ Shamus answered Daniel. ‘They’ll probably split us up in Dubuque and get me out of the country.’
‘Suppose we don’t want to split up?’ Annalee said.
Shamus turned to her and said softly, ‘But we do. So far I’ve got you burned to the ground, uprooted, and on the run. I’d love to stick with you, but that’d be an indulgence I don’t deserve and a risk I won’t take right now.’
Annalee started to say something, then changed her mind. She reached over and snapped on the radio, looking for some rock ’n’ roll she could crank up loud. Her brain told her splitting up was the most sensible move, but her heart reminded her she didn’t have to like it.
Transcription:
Denis Joyner, AMO Mobile Radio
Oooooowwweeee! You got me when you weren’t looking, the ol’ DJ hisself, the Duke of Juice, coming at you live as I can handle on KOOOOL mow-beel radio, where you find it is where you get it, but don’t look on the dial, baby,’ cause we’re not there. We’re OTD, OD, and O Sweet Leaping Jesus could this possibly be real! It is – heh-heh – it is indeed: The Blue Man in the Silver Van come to seed your dreams and feed your lonely little monkey.
What we’re talking here is HIGH Kulture. Towering! The Immensely Outasight! Magnificent Spirit-Shots into the Void! Direct Brain-Bang Transmission Leaps! Solid-State Astral Sex-Launch! That’s right, you got it! Welcome to the Cloud-Walker Kulture Klub.
Now just between you, me, and the cave walls, kids, tonight we’ve got a bodacious show. If it don’t get you off, you must be chained down.
Think I jive? Well, brothers and sisters, check it out. We’re gonna hear Karl Marxxx doing his Number One single, ‘Undistributed Surplus Income and What It Means for Working Stiffs Like You and Me,’ featuring Peter Kropotkin on dobro and Leon Trotsky on violin. We got Jean-Paul Sartre from that new Essays-on-Tape series, in this case his neglected disquisition on postindustrial anxiety called ‘Incipient Arousal and Feelings of Doom.’ You digging it so far? Want more? Well, write this one down: out-takes from a rare Walt Disney interview where he holds forth at length between pipes of opium on Electromythology and the Tinkerbell Fetish (and hey you guys, ’fess up – don’t you remember wishing little ol’ Tinkerbell was about five feet taller?).
And why stop there? Hell, why stop at all? We’re also gonna have live, in the here and right now, the entire Mormon Tabernacle Choir doing the dirty version of ‘Staggerlee.’ Fuck me if we ain’t! Plus – mercy, mama! – the recently discovered Bach violin partitas as performed by the Tap City Strutters, Demerol Jones conducting. And if that don’t leave you squealing, heap on our regular features – like Carl Jung on astrology, Consumer Hot-Line with Attila the Hun, Corliss Lime’s ultrabitchy book reviews, and me, the Duke of Juice, on drums.
So hang in there and I’ll hang it in your ear.
When they reached Dubuque later that day they stopped at a Conoco station. Shamus called a number from the pay phone. It was a short conversation, and he came back to the car looking thoughtful.
Annalee studied his face. ‘So, where to?’
‘The City of Baton Rouge.’
‘Louisiana?’ Daniel said from the backseat. ‘That doesn’t make sense.’
Shamus smiled. ‘The City of Baton Rouge is a boat, an honest-to-god old Mississippi stern-wheeler docked just out of town.’
‘Of course,’ Annalee nodded absently, ‘the Mississippi River. And down the mighty Mississippi to the Gulf at New Orleans. From there, I suppose, to Cuba by submarine.’
Shamus tousled her hair. ‘That’s the spirit. From Cuba to Brazil by glider. At night. No moon.’
‘Just starlight on the water and the rush of wings.’
‘You got it,’ Shamus said.
Annalee started the car. ‘First let’s find this riverboat.’
‘They’d never find us in the jungle,’ Daniel said with excited conviction.
Annalee said to Shamus, ‘Truth time – do you know where we’re going or are you just jacking us up?’
‘Take the last exit before the bridge, then north along the river. Elmo Cutter, one of Volta’s field men, is going to meet us there. Beyond our immediate destination of the City of Baton Rouge, I have no idea where we’re going. But I’m sure Elmo will have some suggestions.’
Elmo Cutter was short, swarthy, and squat. A thick, black cigar – which he never lit – wagged under the grimy bill of a Chicago Cubs cap. He greeted them on the dock with an assortment of gruff monosyllables, then led them aboard.
The City of Baton Rouge was the last of its class, a steam-driven stern-wheeler riverboat of sleek and majestic line. Before the turn of the century it had carried an elegant trade of businessmen, gamblers, and high-stepping women; and even now, though stripped and abandoned in 1950, it still had an aura of green felt, soft conversation, a waltz drifting from the ballroom. You could smell the fragrant mix of sourmash whiskey, country ham, and fresh magnolias in the serving girls’ hair; almost hear the soft clicking of chips as a pot was raked in the gaming room. But not even a fulgent imagination could blur its present state of weathered, empty decay.
Elmo led them to the dining room. Once two hundred had sat down at long tables sagging with fried chicken, ham, mashed potatoes, slaw, hot biscuits, butter-slathered corn, baked quail, greens, gravy, and thick slices of pumpkin pie. Now there was only a beat-up card table and four folding chairs.
Elmo went straight to the point: ‘You split up here.’
Annalee flinched.
‘Shamus, you’re gone tonight. It’s not all set, but it’s pretty solid.’ He turned to Annalee. ‘You and the boy have a choice. You probably already know it, but you were keeping house for AMO – affiliates, so to speak. Some of the folks that stayed with you weren’t even AMO members – Dolly, for instance, we sprung just because we like her on the loose. Now she’s joined. And we’re inviting you to join if you want.’
Annalee, as blunt as Elmo, said, ‘Why weren’t we asked before? Or at least informed?’
Elmo shrugged. ‘Got me, Miss Pearse. I wasn’t there. But I’d guess there probably wasn’t much reason, seeing as how you were already sort of allied, just not official. We don’t stand on formality.’
‘What happens if we don’t want to join? Maybe we know too much.’
Elmo made a sound somewhere between a grunt and a chuckle. ‘No ma’am, you don’t know too much. Cause some inconvenience maybe, but nothing major. AMO is like mercury. That’s how we’ve survived for centuries. So if you don’t want to join forces, you get the car, the four grand, and our fond farewell. And we’d probably try to help you out if you took a hard tumble – but that ain’t a promise, just our likely inclination.’
‘And if we join?’
‘Interesting work if it’s available, fair pay, good people, expanded opportunities, and the shared benefits of alliance.’
‘Do you have school?’ Daniel said with an intensity that made both Annalee and Shamus glance at him. He didn’t notice; his attention was locked on Elmo.
‘No schools,’ Elmo told him. ‘We got teachers, though, that’ll take you on if you’re serious about learning. And we have sort of a loose network of doctors, too – some of them fairly primitive by AMO standards, but that don’t mean the medicine don’t work. So I guess you could say there’s some educational and medical benefits. Legal as well, come to think of it – some real sack-ripping lawyers. And that’s it for my sales pitch. Don’t mean to lean on ya, but we best move it along.’
‘What do you think, Shamus,’ Annalee asked. Feeling she might have slighted Daniel, she added ‘Daniel and I would appreciate your advice because we’re the two who have to decide.’
‘I told you my story,’ Shamus said. ‘They’re good friends and fair adversaries.’
‘We should join,’ Daniel said. ‘It’s practical. And some day I’ll need a teacher.’
Annalee shut her eyes and opened them almost immediately. ‘Sign us up,’ she told Elmo.
‘Done,’ he nodded. ‘And now if you’d like to check out the boat, I’ve got a few things to discuss with Mr Malloy. I’m sure you understand that ignorance is often the best protection.’
‘But that’s really knowledge, isn’t it?’ Daniel said.
‘Same difference,’ Elmo grunted, then added as an afterthought, ‘Our teachers will love you.’
Flustered by Elmo’s comment, Daniel turned and followed his mother out on the main deck.
When they’d gone, Elmo told Shamus, ‘Detroit by train tonight, then a tour bus across the border and cold storage in Montreal. We got us a boiling case of bad heat. That wacky scientist you latched still hasn’t turned up. Car you left him never moved. He could be stone dead in a runoff ditch or wandering around talking to rocks for all we know, and we pride ourselves on knowing those kinds of things.’
‘That you do,’ Shamus said.
‘If they find him, dead or alive, things would cool considerably.’
‘I understand. I left him off exactly as I said.’
Elmo chewed on his cigar. ‘No idea which way he might have drifted?’
‘Up. Lost in thought.’
‘Yeah.’ Elmo spit a piece of tobacco. ‘All right, we got a fucking UFO on our hands. Figures he’d be a space cadet.’
Shamus folded his hands on the card table, bare hand over the gloved. ‘So where are we?’
‘Volta would like some consideration for the time and money it’s gonna take to keep helping you.’
‘I have money. I’ll gladly pay you back, with interest, when I can get to it.’
‘That’d be the right thing to do, but there’s no press. What Volta would like is your cooperation. He said to think of it as a couple of years of honorable protective custody. What that means to me is he wants your word you won’t run amok for a while. Otherwise, we cut you loose right here – a car and two grand, same as we offered the girl.’
‘You offered her four,’ Shamus corrected him.
‘She’s got a kid.’
‘Good point,’ Shamus said. ‘Guess friends don’t come cheap.’
‘Nope – especially when you screw the heat to ’em.’
‘If I didn’t feel for sure that that guard off smoking a joint was an accident, a random twist, I’d have to believe Volta would have found a way to make sure I didn’t pull it off.’
‘I couldn’t say. Seems you did fine fucking it up by yourself. That’s what we got to deal with.’
‘Put me on the train, then, and somewhere down the line I’ll try to make it right.’
‘Another thing,’ Elmo said, pointing with his cigar stub. ‘The glove’s got to go.’
‘It doesn’t come off. How about a cast?’
‘Whatever.’
Shamus held up his gloved hand. ‘We could cut the arm off at the elbow.’
‘Whatever,’ Elmo repeated.
‘Speaking of fuck-ups,’ Shamus said, ‘any idea how they turned the ranch?’
‘Yeah.’
‘The pilot?’
‘You got it. They just missed your ass at the Nashville airport. Got the plane’s ID and somebody saw the switch in Denver. Took ’em a few days, but they finally run the pilot down in Portland. Pounded it out of him.’
‘I’m sorry about that,’ Shamus said.
‘Not as much as he is. He loved to fly, but he was fond of walking too.’
Shamus slammed his gloved hand down on the card table. ‘Goddammit, whipping on me isn’t going to change it. If you didn’t like my judgment, why did you people recruit me? Why did you send me to Jacob Hind? Why did you encourage me to study radioactivity?’
‘Hey,’ Elmo spread his arms, ‘why the fuck are we helping you? Huh? I’ll tell you why: because we all make mistakes.’
‘Trying to steal that uranium wasn’t a mistake. It just went wrong.’
‘Shamus, you’re talking to the wrong man – do I look like a debate team? My job’s to get you clear. You get to Montreal, you’ll have tons of time to sort the fly shit from the pepper. Right now, we’re moving on the quick.’
‘Fine,’ Shamus said. ‘Let’s move.’
They found Annalee and Daniel admiring the wooden drive wheel.
‘Ready?’ Annalee said. Shamus didn’t look happy.
‘Yep, ready,’ Elmo said.
‘Where to?’
‘You and Daniel, right here.’
‘Dubuque?’
‘Here,’ Elmo said, pointing at the deck. ‘We want you to restore the Baton Rouge to her previous glory. The drydock stuff ’s all done; she just needs the finish work. Use the four grand to get started. When you run out, call Dave Jaspars and mention the Historical Restoration account – he’s in the book. He’s your contact here. Any emergency, let him know.’
‘Whoa,’ Annalee said, head cocked. ‘How do you want it done? Shit, how do we do it? We’ve pounded nails and cut boards, but that was ranch-style construction – we’re hardly skilled. And what about colors and stuff? I mean––’
Elmo cut her off. ‘Listen, you figure it out. We don’t let dummies in AMO.’
‘Can we live on the boat?’ Daniel was enthralled by the prospect.
‘Sort of assumed you would, but you don’t have to. Us, we have to make some tracks.’
Annalee and Shamus kissed farewell with feeling. ‘Gold doesn’t rust,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘I’ll see you again.’
‘Promises, promises,’ Annalee murmured, then held him fiercely as she fought tears.
Shamus shook hands with Daniel, and accompanied Elmo down the boarding ramp and up the dock. Annalee watched till they disappeared across the landing. When she finally turned to look for Daniel, he was leaning against the railing behind her, watching the gray Mississippi slide by. She went over beside him at the rail and put her arm around him. ‘Well,’ she sighed, ‘what do you think?’
Still gazing at the river, Daniel said, ‘It’s just like Mark Twain described it. Beautiful and ugly at the same time.’
It took Annalee and Daniel nearly two years and $52,000 to refinish the City of Baton Rouge. For Daniel, the time passed quickly. When he wasn’t sanding the walnut stairs or painting one of the forty staterooms, his nose was buried in any book he could find on the subject of riverboats – especially their construction, appointments, and history. The old, grainy photos of the Natchez, the Grand Republic, the Robert E. Lee, and the Mary Powell moved him with their power and grace. He read about the great races, disastrous wrecks, and other river legends; the courageous captains and slick gamblers and the wily, drunken roustabouts. In the late evening, checking his set-line at the end of the dock for catfish, he imagined the whistles and bells of ghost riverboats passing in t
he mist. Each bit of knowledge, each feeling, brought a deeper and more passionate respect to his daily work on the City of Baton Rouge.
For Annalee, though, time moved as slowly and sluggishly as the Mississippi itself. The sense of accomplishment that animated Daniel didn’t move her as solidly. The work was interesting, challenging, and rewarding, but it didn’t thrill her – not the way the run from the Four Deuces had, not like the touch of Shamus’s glove at the base of her spine.
She phoned Dave Jaspars whenever they needed money for material or tools. The first time she’d called, he’d told her there was an account at the local First National Bank under her paper name of Maybelline Wyatt. She was now the widowed daughter of J. C. Allsop, a Louisiana sugarcane tycoon and original owner of the City of Baton Rouge, its landing facilities, and forty acres of adjoining riverfront property – all of which she’d recently inherited upon his untimely death in a New Orleans brothel. In a rather feminine voice, Dave Jaspars explained that the boat would be used as a communications center and occasionally for large meetings. To Daniel’s sharp disappointment, however, the steam engine would not be replaced, nor would any other means of locomotion be installed. The City of Baton Rouge would remain moored.
As the work progressed, there was never a quibble over expenses or style. Every call requesting money was answered with a prompt deposit in her account, and no issue of taste or method was raised. They never met Dave Jaspars. No one from AMO came to inspect their work. The only visitors were occasional riverboat nuts (whom Daniel always invited to dinner and pillaged for lore) and the workmen they hired for special tasks. Daniel, who favored wood heat and the original oil-lamp chandeliers, was disgusted by the power lines and the backup generators in the engine room.
