by Don Bajema
Across an intersection another cop car was making a two-wheel turn through a red light. Another one peeled out from behind the church. Set up. For what? Eddie realized they had been surrounded and his determination to escape doubled. He ran out into the middle of the street and drew two cars toward him, then reversed and blasted across the church parking lot. The car from the intersection approached, siren blasting, lights spinning, gaining speed to head him off.
At the end of the parking lot was a cliff that dropped into a deep brush canyon. The car was heading straight at him, the intersection point would be the edge of the cliff. The cops hit the brakes, the screeching stretched for ten seconds of sliding burning rubber. The car was just barely under control, and Eddie’s legs were spinning in the headlights. He saw the black canyon looming beneath him. Step by step he approached the lip of the rim without the slightest drop in speed. The car spun in a circle of smoke and dirt. Eddie planted his left foot on the edge of the cliff, and jumped up and out, full speed above the canyon. Eddie hung briefly in the suddenly silent night air. He felt the cops’ frustration and awe behind him, knowing they were hoping like hell he’d break his sixty-foot drop on a concrete corner, or a pile of cement blocks, or with a trimmed branch between his legs. As Eddie began to drop he repeated to himself, “If I can move, I can get away.”
As he gained speed he began to expect some awful end to this flight. It was plain that the cops were going to have to conclude that Eddie was willing to go to any length to avoid their smug arrest, the humiliating ride downtown, to say nothing of their resisting-arrest excuse to beat him without regret or explanation. He was falling faster, the speed of the run and the blast of the takeoff overcome by an increasing speed in the dark, just as dark brush appeared under him, Wham. A leg-collapsing, back-jarring, teeth-gnashing, neck-snapping, impact. Eddie immediately relaxed and began assessing the damage. Ankles intact, back unbroken, eyes unpoked, wrists and elbows skinless but functional. He was on his feet crashing a trail down into the depths of the canyon floor. Flashlights pointed beams from the cliff edge, searching in vain. Eddie heard the cops mumbling, and saw more headlights converge on the rim. Twenty-five minutes later he was in his room at the beach. They caught his buddy though, got him identified and convicted on four counts of rape and aggravated assault. Gave him three years. Eddie never saw him again.
WINGED SHOES AND A SHIELD
Inside the camper, the streetlight lends a silver glow to the reeking blue waves of marijuana smoke hanging over the bunk. The ice pick rattles the silverware drawer in response to the figure jerking under the blanket. The rhythm accelerates into a brief moment of frenzy and the figure unfolds, rising to his knees before the window. He freezes a second and then punches the curtain with four jolts of semen, adding to the wet weight hanging on the thin white cotton. The voice, caught in the strain of the effort, sputters, “Four.”
Eddie squints at his watch which reads 2:30 a.m. Still coming on. Perfect. He takes another tab. He wipes the sweat from the back of his neck, feeling an increase in fear and anger as he calculates the three and a half hours that remain until dawn. He examines the curtain as he wonders if, at this pace, he will splatter that curtain two or three more times before the cock crows, so to speak.
If these past sixty seconds were a video installation in some chic art spot, the viewer would see that a classic warrior-boy-statue — Perseus standing on a corpse holding a woman’s severed head at arm’s length — has somehow come to life, revived and cleaned of the dust of centuries and — drenched in sweat induced by alcohol, speed, hysteria and acid — has made the long journey to jack off in a camper parked around the corner from the U.S. Armed Forces Induction Center on Wilshire Boulevard in 1971. The boy stands barefooted in the camper, buttoning his Levi’s with one hand over his exhausted dick and cracking another Colt .45 open with the other. Finished with the buttons and half the Colt, he wets his five fingers with the sweat of his forehead, places the tips into a pile of “white crosses,” raises the hand with a pill or two stuck to the end of each finger, and inserts each into his mouth. He takes a mouthful of Colt and waits, letting the chalky pills foam into a acrid-tasting mess that seems to bring an electric charge to his mouth’s dental work. He swallows. He flicks a match beneath the joint pressed between his lips and the burst of flame reveals the insane red eyes of Eddie Burnett. Insane is the right word — self-induced, circumstantial, or a product of amplified empathy. The boy is out of his mind. His eyes change from a bulging hysterical stare into snake-slits of thought. True sailing is dead.
The gods have snuck into hell for a while to lie in the arms of senseless blood lust, groaning and writhing in a top-and-bottom scene that is beyond comprehension. And let’s leave it that way, huh? Besides, as far as Eddie can tell, they’re having a real good time.
Eddie feels his muscles swell from his chest up, his heart suddenly pounding in what seems like an empty cavity. Whoa — beginning to rush pretty heavy, Eddie. So he does what he always does when he rushes. He uses the opportunity to knock out another fifty or sixty pushups. Might as well stay in training.
2:32. Eddie thinks he hears the groaning of the souls in flames in Vietnam. He knows outraged spirits are still breathing and are contorted in isolation, sucking in any possible air that does not carry the stench of napalm and My Lai.
The tiny camper fills with shields and appendages laced in leather. Bodies press around him, and what has been the silver light of the streetlamp becomes a roaring din of carnage. Metal clangs against metal as the ringing echo fills with the grunts of exertion from hundreds of men dying together in a grisly human ball of horror. Men anchored together in a chain of desperate terror are thrown down, link by link, into an inescapable pit.
Eddie looks to his left and sees a small man, thick-set and whimpering, with snot and tears dripping from his face. The man in front of him shifts his weight constantly, revealing the end of the line — the place that shakes and convulses in an orgy of hand-to-hand death. The man on his right rises on his toes in an effort to see into the coming hell. Catching a glimpse, he screams in rage and despair. The men behind Eddie press their weight, constantly inching him forward.
Eddie thinks about the oncoming hell and the irony that he is moving toward it. Eddie’s arms hold a small shield and a short, thick, blunt sword. His vision is obstructed by a nose piece that runs off the front of his helmet. His shins are covered in pounded metal. His mouth is wide open and he is screaming, as he realizes he is less than eight men deep from the front of the stage, where the concentrated effort is a tangled climax of souls departing this bloody earth. He looks to the left side of the swinging, moving mass and sees a blade rise and fall, rise and fall with flesh and blood splattering and spraying in its path. A single man is going berserk, killing one man after another as though they are under a spell and are commanded to cooperate.
Eddie knows in a single flash what he has to do. He locks eyes on the monster who shows no sign of slowing down as he continues to mow down the men before him. Eddie’s only chance is somehow to kill that man, who has, at that instant, with a single cracking stroke, lifted the cranium of a man and sent it flying into the ranks beside him. Eddie looks for signs of fatigue in the warrior and the signs are there at last. He watches the arms dropping and the chest heaving. Eddie’s hope to live hinges on reaching the man before he can pull back behind the line and recover.
Two men before Eddie fall suddenly. The first is knocked off his feet in surprise with the sweep of one of the man’s legs, which catches him under the ankle and spins him onto the ground where his spine is severed with a deft chop behind the neck. The second cannot withstand the press of his shield and slides sideways, exposing his ribs, which are cleaved from bottom to top in a single two-handed stroke.
The warrior slips in the mud and guts, nearly recovers, then lands heavily, pinning his own sword in the mud beneath him. Eddie realize
s that the warrior will die at his hands, and not because of his planning or his skill, but because of — what? Fate? Luck?
The men beside Eddie charge into the silver light of the streetlamp after the retreating tangle of hysteria and disappear. Eddie looks at the camper floor and sees blood running in a stream under the door and out into the street. He opens his eyes. Medusa. Perseus holding Medusa’s severed head. Eddie parts the curtains and strikes a match. He looks at his reflection, he sees the source of his self-hatred. Something female inside of him, distorted and repressed for centuries because of his shame of it. Hated since the instant he saw the light of day. Over the years the undeniable female self — the half he felt he had to hide — has been transformed into his own enemy within, and is becoming the enemy to all those without. His life and this world was a battlefield. Aries has nothing to do with it. It is Medusa, living right under the surface, once innocent and beautiful, but warped into a force that knows nothing but hatred. Eddie stares, as he has stared countless times searching for her. He brings her into focus and stares motionless as though he had been turned to stone. Looking right into his own eyes, his long hair hanging in coils to his shoulders, twisted into tangles falling over his face like snakes.
Eddie cracks another Colt, inhales a burning cloud into his raw lungs, holds his breath, and thinks: Something has got to be done about her. Eddie lies back on the bunk, blowing another cloud to the ceiling, thinking, “Good thing I’m a Gemini, and a good thing I know Athena. That’s all I have to tell them.” Eddie laughs out loud at that one, and washes down a few more whites with another can of Colt.
Seven hours later he is ushered out of the induction center, excused by the psychologist on the grounds that he is too insane for the U.S. Army.
1972
No words came out of his mouth. She thought it was much better that way. He’d knock on her door, or maybe just say her name in the telephone. She knew what he meant. He’d show up in the next five minutes, the next few hours, the next week. “Save me for a second baby. Put me in the shower. Feed me. Get me out of this.” She was good to Eddie, always fed him first.
Running in every sense of the word. Magnified gray crystals shining in the beach-fog headlight reflection. Sticky salt-air streets sliding his bald tires. Eddie hasn’t blinked once in forty minutes. A fragrant pound is under the seat, who knows what is in the trunk. The speed limits are only suggestions that go unheeded. He pulls up on her lawn. Her clothes cling perfectly, she wears only vintage cotton dresses, forties style. She whispers when she talks at all. Her bare feet even whisper on the kitchen floor. She’s a tactile girl. She always fed him first.
Five hours later. Fucked. Fucked. Fucked. He’s so fucking fucked. What a fucker. He makes Eddie weigh every fucking brick, while he drives too slowly around the same streets of Tecate. It is taking an extra hour. They’ll get noticed. Eddie starts reporting lies to him. He knows. Makes him weigh every brick again. Fucker.
Red light. Pulled over. Knew it. Eddie doesn’t hear voices. Not Spanish, nothing. This is taking too long. What the hell is going on? He has seen the same Federale pass the front window three times already. What is he waiting for? Hey, maybe he’s alone. “Shut up.” “You, shut up.” The driver sits there in the front seat, both hands visible on the wheel. The great brown makes another slow pass by the windshield. He’s checking his note pad. Why isn’t he pulling his gun and getting them out of the truck and laying them on the ground beside the road? Will he look back here? Of course he will. Eddie hears the doorknob rattle.
The fucker in front is frozen in fear, he is out of plans. He’s not calm and sitting there, he’s frozen. Eddie hears an echo in his head turning into desperate action, “I am not spending twelve YEARS in a Mexican PRISON.” Fuck this. He opens the silverware drawer and pulls out an ice pick. The door opens. The Federale’s hat pokes in the door, followed by a flashlight. The weight of the camper tilts as the Federale steps in. Eddie grabs him by the skin of his neck. The grime squeezes under his finger nails. The ice pick is punched through the back of the brown-shirted shoulder. The Federale thrashes with surprising power. Eddie has expected it, and hangs on tighter getting a handful of hair and skin. The ice pick slams into the shoulder again, and then again. The Federale is confused, fumbling for his gun. Eddie is furious, “Stupid motherfucker. You should have thought of that before you came in here.” Eddie has him on the floor, with one knee pinned on the pistol in the holster, one hand gripping his hair and smashing his face into the linoleum floor. Eddie thinks his knuckles will pop out of their sockets. The man is struggling for his life. Eddie wishes he could convey to him that he is not trying to kill him. But that is impossible. He is screaming. Eddie is screaming. The fucker in the front seat is screaming. Eddie has done it this time. It’s a runaway. Make or break. Eddie feels vindicated in the fact that at least he is doing something. He’s not sitting up there in the front seat with his carefully weighed twelve-year sentences scattered all over the camper. The engine starts up. In seconds they are rolling. The camper door swinging crazily, banging the man’s kicking legs. They are picking up night-time-Mexican-smuggler speed. More speed. “He’s gotta go.”
Eddie begins to change his position. The Federale gets the idea and grips the side of the cabinet. He makes a move for the gun. This leaves one hand with which to grip the cabinet and his legs are bouncing further out of the camper door. Eddie kicks him behind the ear. The Federale’s body sags as he makes the decision to hit the asphalt rather than endure another kick. “Lo siento, Adi-fucking-os,” and the man slides out the door into the dark. “Fuck you.” “What do you mean? What the fuck could I do? You want to go to prison?” “Not for murder.” “He’s not dead.” The two hysterics exchange a series of “Fuck yous.” They start laughing. They keep laughing and Eddie sticks his head into the front seat. The man driving looks directly at him. Their eyes are four inches apart and they are laughing insanely. Inside of Eddie’s head he is telling the man that he is the boss now. Without a word the maniacal face is answering, “Yes, I know you are, Eddie, for now.” Eddie’s red speed eyes are driving a hole into the driver’s brain, his face a fun-house-mirror contortion telling him, “You will do what I tell you.” The man’s laughter is subsiding. He’s trying to calm down. He checks the road. In the windshield reflection Eddie sees the Federale’s blood on half his face. He looks down at his hands and sees they are red. He wipes them in his hair. He says nothing more and pulls his head back into the camper like a dog coming out of a hole. He croaks, “It was him or us.” It is so absurd they start laughing all over again. Eddie announces the plan they have already agreed upon, to make it his plan now. “Let’s stash and switch and get back over the border.” The driver nods his head, and casually locates the .45 under his seat with one hand. “How fast were you going?” The man shrugs disgustedly. His voice from the front seat echoes like the sound from a storm drain, sounds reminding Eddie of an emergency room gurney, or a voice from a nightmare. “What difference does it make?” Eddie feels something evil becoming aroused, as though a capacity for power he does not want is taking over, as though something wrong in him is the boss. He knows he has finally, completely, turned his back on himself when he says, “None, none at all.”
Another six miles up the road they switch cars. Eddie sees the man going out the camper door again. He lights another joint. He’s getting so tired — exhausted, and much too loaded to get anything resembling sleep. But he knows that he is asleep right now. Eddie stumbles out of the truck and holds out his hand to the man. “I’ll drive.” “No, you won’t.” “Yes, I will.” The man hands over the keys. Eddie slides behind the wheel of the Porsche.
It’s Le Mans over the Tecate hills. They gain speed as they approach the burning bales on either side of the road. The little shack has two Federale cars parked in front. They pass through at over a hundred miles an hour, a .45 weighing heavily in the wind out of each window. They fire
off weird explosions that the car outruns immediately. Come and get us. Come and get us. Come and get us. By dawn they are in a third car holding nothing but cancelled bullfight tickets and what look like severe gringo hangovers. They pass the border with the guard giving them a casual wave. Back to Mars.
Unable to sleep, Eddie wants to see her. They go walking along the lawns surrounding Mission Bay. Her eyes are cool blue, icy. The smile is normal, the eyes are cold. Eddie sees it coming. He tries to get her to talk about it. She won’t. Suddenly it’s out. She’s leaving for France. Eddie can’t believe it, but something makes him cry. As he cries for this girl that means so little to him, he wonders how wigged out he must be. He doesn’t love her. He doesn’t love anything. Is that it? She purrs, “Poor baby,” in a practiced tone that would seem sincere to a square, and should be an insult to Eddie. He doesn’t even care. He keeps sniveling. “Fuck, what am I turning into?” She asks for his speed when they climb the beach house stairs into her studio, assuring him that she’ll give it to him as soon as he wakes up. Yes, she knows how he gets. She’ll be there, because she has to pack anyway. They go to bed. After the first time she asks him to take a shower. Eddie doesn’t blame her. Before he finishes the next, he feels himself falling asleep, her beautiful vague body sliding away. She’s sitting in a chair when he wakes up on Tuesday around dusk. Her feet whisper across the floor. Warm fresh-squeezed orange juice, a handful of bennies, and she tells him she’ll miss him. He’d better go though, her father is coming to take her to the airport. Going down the stairs he’s glad that it’s over. A man gets out of a Lincoln Continental and passes Eddie at the foot of the stairs. He looks at Eddie, he looks at him again. Eddie says, “Yes, I am.” The man says, “I thought so.” Eddie walks back to his apartment behind the low-life beer hall that he thought was dangerous and interesting when he moved there two years ago, and now just smells like piss in the sun.
