Terry and the Pirates
Sometimes I played around with the form of my adventures in Babylon. They would be done as books that I could see in my mind what I was reading, but most often they were done as movies, though once I did them as a play with me being a Babylonian Hamlet and Nana-dirat being both Gertrude and Ophelia. I abandoned the play halfway through the second act. Someday I must return and pick it up where I left off. It will have a different ending from the way Shakespeare ended it. My Hamlet will have a happy ending.
Nana-dirat and I will take off in an airplane of my own invention built out of palm fronds and propelled by an engine that burns honey. We will fly to Egypt to have supper on a golden barge floating down the Nile with the Pharaoh.
Yes, I will have to pick that one up soon.
I had also done half-a-dozen adventures in Babylon in the form of comic strips. It was a lot of fun to do them that way. They were modelled after the style of Terry and the Pirates. Nana-dirat looked great as a comic-strip character.
I had just finished doing a private-eye mystery in detective magazine form like a short novel in Dime Detective. As I read the novel paragraph after paragraph, page following page, I translated the words into pictures that I could see and move rapidly forward in my mind like having a dream. The mystery ended with me breaking the butler’s arm as he tried to stab me with the same knife that he had used to murder the old dowager who’d been my client, having hired me to look into the matter of some stolen paintings.
“See,” I said, turning triumphantly to Nana-dirat, leaving the murderous wretch to writhe in pain on the floor, the down payment for a life of thievery, betrayal and murder. “The butler did do it!”
“Ohhhhhhhhhh!” the butler moaned up from the floor.
“You didn’t believe me,” I said to Nana-dirat. “You said that the butler couldn’t have done it, but I knew better and now the swine will pay for his crimes.”
I gave him a good kick in the stomach. This caused him to stop concentrating on the pain in his arm and start thinking about his stomach.
Not only was I the most famous detective in Babylon but I was also the most hard-boiled just like a rock. I had no use for lawbreakers and could be very brutal with them.
“Darling,” Nana-dirat said. “You’re so wonderful, but did you have to kick him in the stomach?”
“Yes,” I said.
Nana-dirat threw her arms around me and pressed her beautiful body up close to mine. Then she looked up into my cold steel eyes and smiled. “Oh, well,” she said. “Nobody’s perfect, you big lug.”
“Mercy,” the butler said.
Case closed!
Ming the Merciless
Sitting there on the park bench with the United States of America freshly at war with Japan, Germany and Italy, I decided to do my next adventure as a private eye in Babylon in the form of a serial that would have fifteen chapters.
I of course would be the hero and Nana-dirat the heroine, my faithful and loving secretary. I decided to borrow Ming the Merciless from Flash Gordon to be the villain.
I had to change his name and alter his character slightly to fit my needs. That wouldn’t be hard. Actually, it would be an immense amount of pleasure for me. I had spent a very pleasant part of eight years making up situations and characters in Babylon, unfortunately to the point of being a detriment to my real life, such as it was.
I’d much rather be in ancient Babylon than in the Twentieth Century trying to put two bits together for a hamburger and I love Nana-dirat more than any woman I’ve ever met in the flesh.
First, what to do with Ming the Merciless? Change his name. That was the first thing that had to be done. In my serial he would be Dr. Abdul Forsythe, publicly known as one of the most generous and kindest men in Babylon but secretly he had a laboratory under the clinic that he used to provide free medical services for the poor. In the laboratory he was constructing a powerful and evil ray that he was going to conquer the world with.
The ray changed people into shadow robots that were totally subservient to Dr. Forsythe and would do his evil work, responding to his slightest beckoning.
He had a plan for creating artificial night composed of his shadow robots that would move during the real night from town to town conquering unsuspecting citizens and changing them into more shadow robots.
It was an ingenious plan and he had already changed thousands of unsuspecting and helpless poor people that came to his clinic seeking free medical help into shadow robots.
They came to be helped by Dr. Forsythe and then disappeared from the face of the earth. Their absence was hardly noticed in Babylon because they were poor. Sometimes relatives or friends would come by and inquire into their disappearance. Often, they, too, would disappear.
The fiend!
He needed only one more ingredient to put his plan into action. After he changed them into shadow robots, he stacked them like newspapers in a hidden warehouse nearby, waiting for the time to come when he could turn them loose on the world as artificial night.
The Magician
Escitybrell. Escitybrell.
I heard a sound in the distance that was directed toward me but I couldn’t make it out.
“Excuse me. Excuse me.”
The sound was words.
Babylon fell over on its side and lay there.
“Excuse me, C. Card, is that you?”
I looked up, totally returned to the so-called real world.
The voice belonged to an old comrade in arms from the Spanish Civil War. I hadn’t seen him in years.
“Well, I’ll be,” I said. “Sam Herschberger. Those nights in Madrid. Those were the days.”
I stood up and we shook hands. I had to shake his left hand because his right hand wasn’t there. I remembered when he’d gotten it blown off. It had not been a good day for him because he was a professional juggler and magician. When he looked at his blown-off hand lying on the ground nearby, all he could say was, “This is one trick I’ll never be able to duplicate.”
“You seemed a million miles away,” he said, now years later in San Francisco.
“I was daydreaming,” I said.
“Just like the good old days,” he said. “I think half the time I knew you in Spain you weren’t even there.”
I decided to change the subject.
“What are you up to these days?” I said.
“I’m working just as much as all the other one-armed jugglers and magicians are.”
“That bad, huh?”
“No, I can’t complain. I married a woman who owns a beauty parlor and she’s got a thing for people with missing limbs. Sometimes she hints that I would be twice as sexy as I am now if I only had one leg, but that’s the way it goes. It beats working for a living.”
“What about the Party?” I said. “I thought they loved you.”
“With two arms they loved me,” he said. “I wasn’t much use to them with only one. They used me as a warm-up act for recruiting farm workers over in the valley. They’d gather around to watch me juggle and do tricks and then they’d hear about Karl Marx and how great Soviet Russia was and Lenin. Oh, well, that was a long time ago. A guy’s got to keep moving. If you don’t the grass will grow on you. What have you been doing? The last time I saw you, you had a couple of bullet holes in your ass and you were going to be a doctor. How’d you get shot in the ass, anyway? As I remember the Fascists were on our left flank and there was nobody behind us and you were in a trench. Where did the bullets come from that got you? That’s always been a mystery to me.”
I wasn’t going to tell him that I slipped while I was taking a shit and sat down on my pistol causing it to go off and blow a couple of holes clean through both cheeks of my ass.
“Water under the bridge,” I said. “It hurts just to think about it.”
“I know what you mean,” he said, looking down at the place where his right hand used to be.
“Anyway, did you become a doctor?”
“No,” I said. “That didn’t work out the way I planned it.”
“What are you doing, then?”
“I’m a private eye,” I said.
“A private eye?” he said.
Barcelona
The last time I’d seen Sam had been in Barcelona in ’38. He had been a hell-of-a-good juggler and magician. Too bad about his arm, but it sounded to me as if he was using its absence to best advantage. A guy’s got to make do.
We shared some Spanish Civil War memories and then I hit him up for five bucks. I try not to let a chance go by.
“By the way,” I said. “Did you ever repay me that five you borrowed in Barcelona?”
“What five?” he said.
“You don’t remember?” I said.
“No,” he said.
“Then forget it,” I said. “No big deal.” Then I started to change the subject—
“Wait a minute,” he said. He had always been an unscrupulously honest person. “I don’t remember borrowing five dollars from you. When was that?”
“In Barcelona. A week before we left, but forget it. It’s OK. If you don’t remember it, I don’t want to bring it up. It’s the past. Forget it,” and I started to change the subject again.
A few moments later, after he had given me the five bucks, with a curious expression on his face he walked up Washington Street and out of my life.
The Abraham
Lincoln Brigade
The Spanish Civil War was a long way off but I was glad that it was able to yield five dollars years later. I hadn’t really been a political enthusiast. That wasn’t the reason that I joined the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. I went to Spain because I thought it might resemble Babylon. I don’t know where I got that idea. I get a lot of ideas about Babylon. Some of them are right on the money and others are half-baked. The only trouble is that it’s hard to tell which are which, but it always works itself out in the end. Anyway, it does for me when I’m dreaming of Babylon.
Then I remembered that I still had to make that phone call, but for a few seconds I didn’t know whether I was supposed to call Babylon or my mother out in the Mission District.
It was my mother.
I promised her a call and I knew that she’d be upset if I didn’t call her soon, though we didn’t have anything to talk about because we couldn’t stand each other and always got into the same arguments.
She didn’t like the idea of me being a private eye.
Yes, I’d better call Mom. She’d be angrier than she normally was if I didn’t call her today. I hated to do it but if I didn’t I’d have hell to pay for it. I called her once a week and we always had the same conversation. I don’t think we even bothered to change the words. I think we used the same words all the time.
It would go just like this:
“Hello?” my mother would say when she answered the telephone.
“Hi, Mom. It’s me.”
“Hello? who is this speaking? Hello?”
“Mom.”
“This can’t be my son calling. Hello?”
“Mom,” I’d always whine.
“It sounds like my son,” she’d always say. “But he wouldn’t have the nerve to call if he was still a private detective. He just wouldn’t have the nerve. He still has some self-respect left. If this is my son, then he must have given up his private-eye nonsense and now he has a decent job. He’s a working stiff who can hold his head up high and he wants to pay back the eight hundred dollars that he owes his mother. Good boy.”
Then after she finished speaking, there would always be a long pause and I’d say, “This is your son and I’m still a private detective. I’ve got a case. I’m going to pay back some of the money I owe you soon.”
I’d always tell her that I had a case even if I didn’t have one. It was part of the routine.
“You’ve broken your mother’s heart,” she’d always say then and I’d answer, “Don’t say that, Mom, just because I’m a private detective. I still love you.”
“What about the eight hundred dollars?” she’d say. “My son’s love can’t pay for a quart of milk or a loaf of bread. Who do you think you are, anyway? Breaking my heart. Never having a decent job. Owing me eight hundred dollars. Being a private detective. Never getting married. No grandchildren. What am I going to do? Why did I have to be cursed with a son who is an idiot?”
“Mom, don’t say things like that,” I’d whine on cue. That whining used to be able to spring a five spot or ten dollars out of her but nothing these days, nothing at all. It was just plain whining but if I didn’t call her it made things worse, so I’d call her because I didn’t want things to get any worse than what they were.
My father died years ago.
My mother still hadn’t gotten over it.
“Your poor father,” she’d say and then would start crying. “It’s your fault that I’m a widow.”
My mother blamed me for my father’s death and in a way it was my fault, even if I was only four years old at the time. She’d always bring it up on the telephone. “Brat!” she’d yell. “Evil brat!”
“Mom,” I’d whine.
Then she’d stop crying and say, “I shouldn’t blame you. You were only four at the time. It’s not your fault. But why did you have to throw your ball out in the street? Why couldn’t you have just bounced it on the sidewalk like any other kid who still has a father?”
“You know I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I know you’re sorry, son, but why are you a private detective? I hate those magazines and books. They’re so seamy. I don’t like the long black shadows those people have on the covers. They frighten me.”
“Those aren’t the real thing, Mom,” I’d always say, and she’d answer, “Then why do they sell them at the newsstand for everyone in the world to see and buy. Answer that one if you can, Smart Guy. Come on and answer it, Mr. Private Eye. I dare you. Come on! Come on! This is your mother!”
I couldn’t answer it.
I couldn’t tell my mother that people wanted to read stories about people who had long black ominous shadows. She just wouldn’t have understood. Her thinking didn’t run along those lines.
She would end the conversation by saying, “Son…” pausing for a long time, “…why a private detective?” We’d been having the same conversation now for six months.
I sure wish I hadn’t run out of money, trying to be a private detective and had to borrow so much from my mother and all my friends.
Well, anyway, my luck was going to turn today.
I had a client and some bullets for my gun.
Everything was going to turn out OK in the end.
That’s what counts.
It would be a turning point.
I’d get lots of clients, pay back all my debts, have an office, a secretary and a car again, but this time I would have a secretary that would fuck my ears off. Then I’d take a vacation to Mexico and just sit there on the beach, dreaming of Babylon. Nana-dirat would be right beside me, looking great in a bathing suit, but right now I’d better call my mother.
Loving Uncle Sam
I went into a nearby bar on Kearny Street to use their pay telephone. The place was empty except for the bartender and a fat lady who was on the phone. She wasn’t talking. She was just standing there, nodding her head to the person on the other end of the line.
I decided to have a quick beer from my new five dollar bill while she finished her call. I sat down on a stool and the bartender walked down the bar to me. He was so ordinary looking that he was almost invisible.
“What will you have?” he said.
“Just a beer,” I said.
“Better drink it in a hurry,” the bartender said. “The Japanese might be here by dark.” Somehow he thought that this was very funny and laughed heartily at his “joke.”
“The Japanese love beer,” he said, continuing to laugh. “They’re going to drink every drop in California when they get here.”
I looked over at the fa
t lady nodding her head up and down like a duck. There was a huge smile on her face. She looked as if she were at the beginning of a telephone conversation that might take years to finish.
“Forget the beer,” I said to the bartender and got up from my stool and headed toward the door. I hadn’t had a beer in weeks and I didn’t want it ruined by a bartender who didn’t make any sense.
I think he had a few nuts and bolts loose in his head. No wonder the bar was empty except for the fat woman who was having a love affair with a pay phone.
I now pronounce you telephone and wife.
“Every drop,” the bartender laughed as I went through the door and back out onto Kearny Street, almost knocking a Chinaman over as I stepped outside. He was walking by on the street and I stepped through the door right into him. We were both very surprised but he was more surprised than I was.
He had a package under his arm when we collided. He juggled it briefly and managed to keep it from falling on the sidewalk. He was very ruffled by the incident.
“Not Japanese,” he said, turning to me as he started to hurry away. “Chinese-American. Love flag. Love Uncle Sam. No trouble. Chinese. Not Japanese. Loyal. Pay taxes. Keep nose clean.”
Bus Throne
Things were starting to get too complicated.
I’d better call my mother later on when things got a little simpler. I didn’t want to push my luck while I was ahead of the game, so I decided to go home and take a shower before I met my client.
Maybe I had a shirt that resembled something clean in the closet. I wanted to look my best for my client. I’d even brush my teeth.
I walked down Kearny to Sacramento Street and waited for the bus to take me up Sacramento to Nob Hill and my apartment. I didn’t have to wait long. The bus was only a few blocks away coming up Sacramento toward my stop. See: Luck was running my way.
Dreaming of Babylon Page 4
