Saigon, Illinois

by Paul Hoover

  “Seven hundred dollars?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I think I can get it,” I said. Seven hundred was everything I had: I could feel the blood draining out of my face.

  “Here’s how it works. You drive her to the Evergreen Shopping Center, nine o’clock Tuesday morning, section Nine-F of the parking lot. You got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “There’ll be a blue van parked there, no windows. She gets out of the car and you drive away, right? You don’t come along, just her. She climbs inside the back of the van and closes it, and she sits there in the dark. It’s scary, right, but she’s OK. Somebody comes along and locks the back door, but that’s no sweat, ʼcause that’s me. Then this somebody drives her to see Dr. Wells, but before she gets out of the van she has to put on a blindfold. Then this somebody walks her into a place and she lies down on a table. It’s nice and clean in there, and it’s OK. The doctor comes in. He does his little job, and a little later it’s back in the van.”

  “I want to come along,” I said.

  “No way.”

  “How do I know she’s going to be safe?”

  “She’s got me, pal. You got any problem with that?”

  “I’m sure you’re fine,” I said, “but how about the doctor? How do I know he’s going to do it right?”

  “You a doctor or something?” His voice became suspicious and feral. “If you’re a doctor, you can do it yourself,” he said, and the phone went dead on the other end.

  “What was that all about?” said Vicki.

  “You wouldn’t believe it.”

  “I’ve got another number,” she said, digging in her purse, “but it’s in Milwaukee.”

  A week later, I picked up Vicki in Richland Center. She was living with her parents, and she told them we were going shopping. Mr. Cepak was in the living room, sitting back in his Barcalounger and reading the paper. He greeted me vaguely and I sat down on the couch.

  “How do you like Chicago?” he asked.

  “Oh, fine,” I said.

  “Big town,” he said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It sure is.”

  Mrs. Cepak came into the room wearing her weekend clothes. I realized it was the first time I’d seen her out of uniform. She was a nurse for the local school system, and even at night she’d have on the tight-fitting dress and spongy white shoes.

  “How come you’re going all the way to Milwaukee?” she said. “If you wanna go shopping, there’s lots of stores right here.”

  “Got the Lewisville Mall,” said Mr. Cepak.

  “I’ve got to return a sweater,” I lied.

  “Seems a long way to drive to return a sweater,” she said.

  “Well, I’m thrifty that way. No sense letting it go to waste.”

  Mercifully, Vicki came down the stairs. “Hi, everybody,” she said. This was her June Allyson voice, but it wasn’t working too well. There was a tremor of anxiety in the way she talked, and dark circles under her eyes.

  “Are you all right, hon?” asked Mrs. Cepak.

  She said she was, but needed an aspirin. She took three Bayers and kissed her mother, and we drove all morning east to Milwaukee. The man on the phone, who sounded vaguely British, had said three hundred dollars, and all you had to do was walk in the door. I could come along, and nobody had to wear blindfolds. Along the way, we listened to the radio and talked about people we knew. She sat in the middle of the front seat, hands in her lap, looking straight ahead.

  It was about noon when we got there, and we grabbed a bite to eat at the edge of town. It was a fancy hamburger place called the Tee-Pee, and the center part of the restaurant was a stucco teepee, naturally. Above the cashier’s head, a chandelier hung down from the vaulted ceiling.

  “Suburban Brown Derby,” I said.

  “You’re pretty big-city, aren’t you?” she said, giving me a look.

  “Just relax,” I said.

  The waitress took our order, and when she brought it back, she said we looked real cute. “You two remind me of somebody on TV,” she said. “You know the weatherman on channel seven?”

  We didn’t.

  “He’s got hair like that,” she said, pointing at my head.

  “Disappearing,” said Vicki.

  We arrived at the address, which was in a black neighborhood, and got out of the car. It looked like a doctor’s office, all right, but just barely. There was no name on the door, which was locked, and nobody responded when I knocked. Standing on tiptoe, Vicki peeked through the window.

  “It looks pretty dirty,” she observed.

  You could see the waiting room from the window. All the furniture was piled in the corner, including the lamps. The room was dark and dusty-looking, as if it hadn’t been used in years.

  “It doesn’t look good,” I said.

  “Maybe we should forget it, Holder.” She was wearing an orange dress of modest cut, like something you’d wear to church. In the middle of the ugly sidewalk, she looked incredibly fragile.

  “There’s a phone booth on the next corner,” I said. “Let’s call the number and see if he’s there.”

  Sure enough, he was. He picked up on the second ring, and his voice was friendly and open, just like before.

  “How may I help you?” he said. The question had about seven tonal levels, rising and plunging like music.

  “This is Mr. Holder. I called you last week?”

  “Oh, yes, Mr. Holder. We’re expecting you any moment.”

  “We tried the front door but nobody answered.”

  “You have the right place, all right. Come back again, and you’ll find it open.” He exuded warmth and common sense, and I imagined him wearing an old tweed jacket, slippers, and a pipe. He would be sitting in a comfortable office with a spaniel at his feet, and as we entered from the devastated waiting room, he would rise to greet us with athletic grace.

  We went back, and the door opened easily. As we stepped into the waiting room, a woman in her thirties, wearing sharply creased pants and a man’s sport coat, walked out of the inner office, a purse hanging from her shoulder. I thought for a moment she was there to greet us, but she passed us with a curt nod of the head and went into the street.

  The doctor stepped to the inner doorway and motioned to us to enter. He was a tall black man of medium build, wearing tan slacks and warm-weather loafers, the kind only black men, old aristocrats, and gay men wear. The silk shirt was loosely cut and of European design.

  “How do you do, Mr. Holder?” he said, shaking my hand. “And this is?”

  “I’m Vicki Cepak,” she said, offering her hand.

  “We don’t have to use last names,” he said with a bow. “It’s so official. But I’m delighted to meet you.”

  He led us down the wide hall, in the middle of which was an old wooden desk with papers on top. There was plenty of light, an old-fashioned office chair, and photos and framed certificates hanging from the wall. One was a medical certificate from the Antipodes School of Medicine in the name of Randolph Mitchell. It was printed over a drawing, in gold, of a spreading coconut palm, which seemed to be the school’s official emblem. Another frame contained a black-and-white photograph of some men standing in a tropical location. All were wearing white shirts and smiling broadly. It looked like a graduation photo. The one I took to be Dr. Mitchell beamed his optimism into the camera.

  “You’re Dr. Mitchell?”

  “That is correct.”

  “Where’s the Antipodes?” I wondered.

  “It’s anywhere you wish,” he said, “provided your point of view is the other side of the world.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, but it seemed a social comment. I imagined party lanterns stretching from tree to tree at night. I could feel them shake as a hurricane struck the island, and guests fled into the house or quickly departed in cars. I could hear musical laughter disappear across a lawn, in a place surrounded entirely by blue water.

  A white woman with black hair appear
ed at a door behind us. She was not wearing a uniform, but her blouse and skirt were very neat, and she exuded confidence.

  “Please come with me,” she said to Vicki. Vicki gave me a look of assurance, and the two of them disappeared through a brown door in a paneled wall.

  A small black-and-white TV played soundlessly on the other side of the desk. The picture was very blurry. It looked like one of those roundup sports shows. One second there was a bicycle race, and the next someone was doing a triple gainer.

  “I have the money here,” I said, pulling out my wallet and counting out three hundred dollars in twenty-dollar bills.

  “That is fine,” said Dr. Mitchell, not bothering to count it a second time. He stuffed the wad into his pocket casually.

  “How long will it take?”

  “About twenty minutes. The nurse is preparing Vicki now.”

  “I’m worried,” I said. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “It is a simple procedure,” he said suavely, with confidence. His long fingers elegantly gestured disregard for trouble, and he headed for the door. “You know how it works, of course.”

  “Not really.”

  “Dilation and curettage, or D and C. We introduce an object into the uterus that causes it to open, then a surgical instrument is used to scrape the walls of the uterus. The fetus is detached and is automatically expelled by the patient’s own contractions. It is somewhat like birth itself, in that way only.”

  He seemed apologetic about the last detail, but it was clear he did this with all the patients, so they knew what to expect. If he weren’t an abortionist, I thought, he’d make a pretty good doctor.

  “Please wait here,” he said. “I will return shortly.”

  As he opened the door, I could see Vicki in the corner of a very large room, lying down on what appeared to be a gynecological examination table. There was a drape over her knees, and her shoulders were bare.

  The doctor was gone, as if he had never existed. I was in an abandoned building some shyster had taken over for this afternoon only. There had been no nurse, and Vicki herself was an illusion. This desk was an apparition. I could probably pass my hand through it, touching only the thick, dusty air.

  But at least the television was on. That was a pretty good sign of the world’s reality. I sat down and watched a pole vaulter miss one attempt and then another. On the third try, he placed the pole but lost his nerve and ran straight through the pit. It was humiliating for him, and the camera showed the serious faces of the crowd. Then I was drawn into the photograph of the young doctors, the sea behind them, palm trees moving in the wind. It was very pleasant. I was lost in thought.

  The door opened again. “Mr. Holder, please,” he said, rubbing his long fingers together. “You may come in now.” Vicki was still on the table, and the nurse gave me a terse little smile. She was straightening up from the operation. There wasn’t any evidence of what had happened. A couple of stainless-steel bowls sat next to a sink, and there was a cabinet near it; but they were the only things in the room.

  “She can get dressed now,” said the nurse, and joined the doctor in the outer hall. Vicki and I were alone, and she was drowsy.

  “It hurt,” she said, pointing to her stomach.

  “Are you all right?”

  “He didn’t put enough pain-killer in, and had to do it twice—the whole thing twice. I think he gave me too much.”

  “How are you feeling now?”

  “OK. Sleepy.”

  I helped her get to a sitting position, and the drape fell to her waist. She was entirely nude, but her clothes were neatly piled on a chair.

  “I don’t feel so good, Holder.”

  “You’ll be all right,” hoping desperately I was right.

  Slowly, with my help, she got dressed, and I walked her into the hall. She was starting to recover her equilibrium, almost a step at a time. We were very close at that moment, but both of us knew it was over. We’d go back to her house, I’d mumble something to her parents, and I’d drive away. She would hate me and hate me, and an ocean of difference would open between us.

  On the way back to Richland Center, in brilliant sunshine, we said very little. She sat where she had before, holding the bottle of Tylenol with codeine the nurse had given her. Halfway there, we passed a small flower stand, and I pulled over. The guy had carnations and roses, that’s all. I bought two dozen red roses, each bunch tied with a piece of string, and walked back to the car.

  “For God’s sake. Holder,” said Vicki with a tired smile.

  We headed down the road, one dozen in her right hand, trailing down onto the floor, and the other on the seat between us. Halfway to her parents’ house, without a word, she tossed one dozen out the window and they scattered on the highway behind us. The huge truck following us ran over them, and the driver’s eyes were big in the window as he tried to figure out what was going on.

  Vicki didn’t say anything, and she didn’t turn to look. A little farther down the road, she threw out the second dozen. I looked in the rearview mirror; the truck was no longer there. The roses bounced onto the empty highway.

  8

  ONE NIGHT RANDY CAME home beaten up and went to bed without telling anyone. But when he tried to get some breakfast in the morning, Rose the Poet saw the condition he was in and sent out a shout that drew us all.

  “What a marvelous set of bruises,” said Penelope. She’d seen all the violence in American movies, but this Chicago event made Capone seem real. She tried to touch his small, blue face, but he turned away in anger.

  “Don’t touch me,” he said, pouting, and stuck his face in the refrigerator.

  “What happened, man?” said Rose. “You fall off your trike or something?”

  “Eat shit,” said Randy, taking a Swanson’s roast-beef dinner out of the freezer.

  “Oo, him mad at me,” said Rose in his Tweety Bird voice. “Dat not good.”

  “Let me guess,” I said, “you got mugged on the el.”

  “Nah,” he said through a much-changed face. Whatever had happened to him, they’d really done a job. His head wasn’t lopsided yet, but it was welted and lumpy. It looked like sandpaper had been rubbed on his skin.

  “Hey,” said Rose. “Is that my roast-beef dinner? You can’t eat that.”

  “All right, all right,” said Randy, and rubbed the frost from the front of the package. Sure enough, in black Magic Marker, the word Rose appeared. We believed in sharing up to a certain point, but when it came to food, we were fanatic. If you bought a quart of milk, you wrote your name on it, likewise with TV dinners, which were the principal part of our diet. At any given moment, there might be three to four quarts of milk in the refrigerator, and everyone had his favorite dinners, except for Penelope, of course. She ate real food, but nothing that looked worth eating. Her favorite was liver and onions, but she’d only steam the liver for three or four minutes, and it was almost raw. Rose and I would run gagging to the local Steak ʼn’ Egger, eat hash browns and toast, and wait for the smell of liver to clear from the apartment.

  “Please,” Randy begged, “I’m all out right now.”

  “Shame on you,” said Penelope, shaking her finger. “Television dinners for breakfast!”

  “Tell you what,” said Rose. “You tell me about last night, and you can have it.”

  “Didn’t you go out with Anna last night?” I said. “To the samurai movies or something?”

  “Uh, well…,” said Randy.

  “Oh, my goodness!” said Penelope, holding her face in amazement.

  “You got beat up by your own date!” exclaimed Rose in triumph.

  It was true. For the last few weeks, he’d been dating a woman named Anna, who was a terror. She was twice his size and walked like a biker. Her masculine presence was made even stronger by the dress she always wore. On another woman it might have been a summer shift, full of air and room. But in the sleeveless dress with roses all over it, she looked like a sofa or Ted Kluzewski,
the old White Sox first baseman. Her huge arms were often placed on her hips akimbo, which made her look butch and stern, but the face was mild. You expected it to look older, given the rest of her appearance.

  Anna did own a motorcycle, only it was a little Honda put-put, one cut above a Mo-Ped. When they had a date, it was Anna who picked up Randy. She’d sit on the street in front, revving the engine, and he would run down the stairs. Randy always sat behind Anna, arms around her thick waist like a baby holding its mother. It was Randy who wore the only helmet, and off they would go, in a trail of blue exhaust, to get some Japanese food and see Toshiro Mifune cut men in half with his sword.

  Anna loved battle. That’s why the samurai movies were so appealing. The kill scenes came in swarms, an ecstasy of surgical swordsmanship. There was one about a left-handed swordsman who’d become a free-lance killer because he’d broken the warrior code of honor. Having dishonored himself with his shogun, he was doomed to roam the countryside without patronage or protection, picking up whatever work he could. Randy said you could tell from early in the first reel that this was one bad dude. He comes upon a pilgrim praying at a roadside shrine, and without explanation, cuts off his head. The camera cuts to the head rolling in the dust, and its lips are still moving. Then it pans up to the left-handed warrior, and his lips are moving, too, in compulsive horror. He knows he’s further damned himself, but he can’t help it. After all, he’s left-handed. At the end of the movie, the character is so degraded, he squats in the mud outside the house where his little daughter is staying, eating a frog that’s hopped toward him in the rain.

  “Wonderful!” said Anna after that particular movie. “You must see it.”

  Anna’s favorite, Randy said, was the Blind Bat Swordswoman. It was a metaphor for the heroic condition of women everywhere.

  “That’s right,” said Anna, seated on the couch where Randy had burned a hole. “She’s the spirit of vengeance and knowledge.”

  “And intuition,” said Randy eagerly.

  “Who’s telling this, anyway?” she said, slapping him in the face with a fierce look.