by Tom Robbins
“Look at him up there,” said Stubblefield, directing Dern’s attention to the silhouetted figure who appeared to be dancing alone in empty space out over the canyon. “He’s feeding the angels.” The Americans were sipping Cristal on the veranda, after a day that the one had spent adding brush to the crude canopy that camouflaged the helicopter, and the other, reading Oscar Wilde.
“Just look at him,” Stubblefield went on, as in the distance the solitary figure jumped through a hoop and landed back on the nearly invisible wire. “What you’re seeing is the perfection of a conscious act of craziness. What you’re seeing is pinpoint focus combined with mad abandon in such a way as to cause the specters of death and the exaltations of life to collide at some kind of crossroads. The sparks that fly from that collision are like little shards of God. If you can hold them in your mind for more than five seconds, you can understand everything that ever was or will ever be.”
“Well, now, I suspect you may be overstating the case,” drawled Dern, his thick, rough fingers circling like barbarians the elegant contours of the champagne glass. “In fact, you’re drifting into deep hyperbole, ol’ Stub. But I must admit there’s something Zen about those fools on a wire, something beautiful beyond our ordinary, uh, understanding of beauty.”
“Yes, yes, you’re quite right. But, Foley, my lad, it isn’t beauty per se that makes wire-walking Zen or makes it art. It’s the extremity of the risks that are assumed by each exquisite gesture, each impossible somersault. Here’s a more extreme version of the dangerous beauty bullfights used to possess before the matadors became preening cowards and stacked the deck against the beasts. We only rise above mediocrity when there’s something at stake, and I mean something more consequential than money or reputation. The great value of a high-wire act is that it has no practical value. The fact that so much skill and effort and courage can be directed into something so ostensibly useless is what makes it useful. That’s what affords it the power to lift us out of context and carry us—elsewhere.”
Dern gulped Cristal and made a face. Frankly, he would have preferred a beer. Dern was thinking that Stubblefield need not ever worry about boring the gods. Of course, as a result of his, Dern’s, personal investigation of animism, he was no longer prepared to write off the notion of an “elsewhere,” a “world behind this world” as strictly bullshit, even when floridly expressed. He took another unsatisfying swallow and said, “It’s true there aren’t many wire-walkers showing up on the covers of People or Fortune, but you can bet the crazy fools are getting something out of it aside from the aesthetic and the metaphysical. What about the spotlight? What about applause? I mean, every slack-jawed rube in the bleachers is sitting there wonderstruck while you do your stuff, and when you take your bows they’re clapping their sticky palms together and imagining how they’re gonna make the folks at home believe the near-suicidal display that some superhuman maniac put on just to give them a thrill. Come on. Any way you slice it, it’s still show biz. There’s gotta be a lot of ego gratification involved.”
“Granted,” said his prodigious friend. “Artists soon expire in a vacuum. On the other hand, look at that lonesome genius frolicking in the ether over there. Whose hosannas is he risking his neck for? This ain’t no arena. There’s nobody watching him at all. Aside from us and the birds—and that child beside the platform.”
Dern squinted. “You’ve got better eyes than me, ol’ horse.”
In truth, Stubblefield couldn’t see the child, either. But he knew she was probably there. She always was. Either there or else at the tanuki cage.
Knock! Knock!
“Who’s there?”
“Lisa Ko.”
“We thought your name was Ko Ko.”
“In the beginning. Ko Ko was given to me at birth. But at sixteen, when Stubblefield became more to me than a teacher of English, he said he couldn’t possibly have sex with me under my baby name, my little girl name, my student name. He started calling me Lisa. And I guess it stuck.”
“But wasn’t Lisa his . . . his wife’s name?”
“Weird, isn’t it? Maybe even a bit, how do you say, kinky. Of course, Stub has never pretended to be a normal guy. When we made love he—”
“Let’s not get into that. Tell us how you got interested in the badgers.”
“Yes, the tanukis. They really aren’t badgers, you know, they’re a species of wild dog, although they certainly neither look nor behave like dogs. Well, you see, after Papa Phom fell off the wire, a search party climbed down into the gorge to recover his body. Apparently, Papa Phom had landed on a mother tanuki and squashed her. Her two pups were hanging around the corpses, so the men caught them and brought them back to the village.”
“As pets.”
“Ha-ha. No, I think they planned to fatten them up and eat them. The Lao are notoriously unsentimental when it comes to animals. Anyway, they put the little creatures in a wire cage. A small cage, very cramped. Beside the ringmaster’s house. Most people ignored them, and with good reason. They’d pretend to be docile, just cute and cuddly, but then when you got too close, they’d suddenly hiss and lunge and bite a hunk out of you if you weren’t careful. Because they were so devious about their viciousness, Stubblefield nicknamed them ‘Nixon’ and ‘Kissinger.’”
“That’s appropriate. But you evidently liked them.”
“Oh, yes. Probably a kid thing. Or an orphan thing. I brought them fried bananas and fried rice cakes whenever I could. Tanukis are good eaters, and they love fried food. Eventually, I won them over. They’d lick my fingers or sleep in my lap. Even follow me around. Later, I got them to do a few tricks.”
“You had a natural rapport. Had you ever been around tanukis before?”
“Not that I know of, although I seemed to have had a vague memory of them.”
“Hmm? Yes, well, we’ve been given the impression here that you’re . . . that you may actually have tanuki blood in your veins. That you—”
“What are you talking about? That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard! Obvious nonsense. How could anyone in this day and age believe . . . ? Well, on second thought, when you consider that the two fastest growing religions in the world today are based, in one case, on an Arab flying up to Heaven on the back of a horse, and in the other, on a teenager meeting an angel named Moroni in the woods who hands him a set of gold tablets, then I suppose you’d have to conclude that even in the twenty-first century, millions are driven to embrace miraculous tales and go so far as to give their lives over to primitive magical narratives. It’s lovely in an absurd way, but tanuki genes in a human being? Get real!”
“Uh, okay. But speaking of instructive gold tablets, uh, we don’t mean to pry, but your mother left you an envelope that you opened when you reached puberty. Wasn’t there reference to tanukis in that . . . ?”
“No. None. Ha-ha. Pardon me for laughing, but you really are barking up a most unlikely tree.”
“Then, if you don’t mind us asking, what was in that envelope?”
“Mother-daughter stuff, mainly. Personal sentiments. Words of advice, which I believe came originally from some obscure Zen monk and which, incidentally, have served me extremely well. Family heirlooms. Family history. How my great-grandmother emigrated from Japan and my Grandmother Kazu made her way into Laos. And then she told me about my . . . my ‘implant.’ What to expect and when to expect it.”
“Aha! Speaking of the intrusion of archaic magic into the twenty-first century! So what’s with the chrysanthemum seed in your mouth?”
“I do hope you understand that this is a metaphor. There’s no archaic magic involved, for goodness sake—and there isn’t any chrysanthemum seed. That was simply my mother’s fanciful way of describing a physical condition that’s affected the women in my family for three generations. A hereditary disease. Well, no, it’s more a ‘condition,’ as I said, than a disease. Although it definitely has medical consequences.”
“Are you going to be okay? Have you seen
a doctor?”
“Mother emphatically cautioned against physicians. But yes, sure, I’ll be okay. We’ll all be okay.”
“There are no mistakes?”
“Ha-ha. That’s one way to look at it. Well, I’ve got to be going now. I’ve enjoyed our little chat. If it cleared up some things, then I’m glad I knocked. Sayonara.”
“Sayonara, Madame Ko. We’ll be seeing you.”
The scowl on Mayflower Cabot Fitzgerald’s face could have skinned a cactus. It preceded him into Col. Patt Thomas’s office, followed, in degrees, by his maroon bow tie, closely cropped haircut, and tweedy shoulders. Taken by surprise, the colonel swiveled to greet him. He’d been sitting with his back to the door, gripping in his fist, Mayflower observed, a nine, a jack, and a queen. All clubs. Two subordinates—a tech sergeant and a lieutenant—sat opposite him, looking sheepish.
“Poker at this hour of the morning?” asked Mayflower incredulously, although surely his powers of observation, so finely honed on the grindstone of his country’s secret service, must have enabled him to instantly analyze the variously aged strata of cigar smoke and the overflowing ashtrays and conclude that the men had been at the cards all night. As he stared at Colonel Thomas, who was aching to draw to his flush, the scowl became a sneer.
Well, the operations officer thought, what can one expect of a man whose mother named him Pitter Patt because the white lady for whom she worked remarked, upon noticing an obvious pregnancy, that her maid would soon be hearing the pitter-patter of little feet? What most perplexed Mayflower was that the man, already burdened by the color of his skin, had not deigned to change that unfortunate appellation. Or that the air force, before granting him a commission, had not insisted upon it. God knows he, Mayflower, had endured a few schoolboy taunts and debutante snickers as a result of his own christening, but his name was a badge of pedigree and quite a different story.
“Excuse your men, please,” said the case officer, in a voice that could have wormed a kitten. “We have important business, and my time is short.”
Bet your dick’s none too long, either, thought Colonel Thomas, eyeing the pot he’d been certain he was about to win but that was now being divided equally among the three players. When the airmen had departed and the door closed, he said, “Good you came in early, Mayflower. I’ve got a bit of news.”
In the process of whisking cigar ash off of a chair before seating himself, Mayflower froze. “Has he talked?”
“Oh, hell no. Spent Labor Day weekend reading his favorite book. He—”
The case officer interrupted. “Then your news can wait. I have a flight in little more than an hour, and—”
“You going somewhere?”
“When one has a flight, one usually does. Go somewhere. Yes, back to Washington. A low-level person at State is insisting she’s uncovered information about a major terrorist plot against the World Trade Center and/or the White House. Some preposterous scenario, supposed to happen next Monday or Tuesday. It’s ridiculous, of course. We’d obviously know about it at Langley if an attack of that magnitude was actually being planned. It isn’t credible. And anyway, those grubby heathens aren’t capable of anything more sophisticated than car bombings. Nevertheless,” he sighed, “the director wants me on hand in case some wild-eyed Abdul does try something and the Administration needs . . .”
“A spin put on it.” Thomas, who at one time had considered converting to Islam, made note of the bigotry but kept his composure.
“. . . a reassuring statement from the intelligence community. A waste of time, but I shouldn’t be away more than ten days. Meanwhile”—Mayflower unlocked his attaché case and pulled out a folder—“I have a report on the Foley sisters.”
“What those lovely ladies up to? You had a tail and a wiretap, right?”
Mayflower grimaced, causing the colonel to wonder if the man’s gallstones were on a roll. “Terms such as those are inappropriate in today’s climate,” he cautioned. “However, we have judiciously monitored the women’s activities. The smart-ass is working temporarily at the circus, of all places. Goes there early and comes home very late. The dingbat . . .”
“That would be sweet Bootsey.”
“. . . is the problem. She’s attempting to retain legal representation. She thinks she can interest a marquee defense attorney to take her brother’s case. There isn’t any case, of course, but—”
“But there could be. If some hot-shot, publicity-loving shy-ster gets hold of it. Damn!”
“So far, Johnnie Cochran isn’t returning her calls. Sooner or later, though, she’ll get through to somebody who’ll—”
“Be on it like a hobo on a ham sandwich. We got to—let me be appropriate in today’s climate—intercede.”
The operations officer nodded. “No mischief, though. Give her a pep talk. Perhaps a little scare. And we ought to move Foley. Deny he was ever here. Or that he exists. He’s MIA, presumed dead. Sisters have gone around the bend. Et cetera. I trust you can handle it.”
Colonel Thomas grinned. So wide was his grin that May-flower was taken aback. “Relax, my man. There’s not a thing to worry about. Ol’ Patt’s a step aheada you on this one.”
“What do you mean?” snapped Mayflower, taken aback still further.
Leisurely, the colonel peeled the cellophane wrapper from a domestic cigar. “I believe I told you that, some time ago, I’d sent our boy’s priest threads in for dusting. Mineral content of the dirt in the seams. Any organic detritus. Et cetera, as you’d put it. Well, the results finally came back from the lab. Seems Father Gorodish had been kicking up dust on the high plateaus of the Annam Mountains. That’d be in Vietnam or Laos, most likely the latter since that’s where he and his fellow intellectuals went missing. So, I’m gonna head on over there and have a look around. Day after tomorrow. Friday. Taking Foley with me.”
Incredulity was the expression du jour, and Mayflower brought out another serving. “On whose authority?” he demanded.
Pitter Patt struck a match, ignited the stogy, and tasted the smoke before answering. “On the authority of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
“You went over my head?!” A second cigar might well have been lit with the heat from Mayflower’s face.
“No, I reported the findings to my general, and he went over your head. It’s a bitch, ain’t it? All these levels of command.” With some difficulty, he had resumed a sober countenance. “At any rate . . . there’s a freelancer in Bangkok, used to be one of your own boys, I hear tell.” He mentioned a name and watched the other man flinch. “Supposedly, he’s got a handle on the Southeast Asian dope trade, knows all the principal players.”
“Yes, he would know them,” said Mayflower. “That screwball can’t be trusted. He’d sell you his own grandmother.”
So would you, thought the colonel. The difference is, you would deliver. “We’re not letting him in on anything. But maybe he can steer me in the right direction. And maybe Foley will sing some tunes over there in his ’hood that he don’t seem to remember in this country. Anyway, getting him out of America should be a relief for everybody concerned. Ain’t no TV cameras in the Annam Mountains, no ACLU, no ditzy sisters, and Johnnie Cochran wouldn’t dig the haberdashery. We’ll fly military all the way, Foley’ll be sedated if necessary, and either Tech Sergeant Canterbury or Lieutenant Jenks, the nasty cardsharks you just ran into, will be along as guard. One way or another, we’ll try to leave Foley over there. He’s only a headache for us here.”
“Yes, but the drug charges? What about the DEA?”
“Fuck the drug charges, Mayflower! And the DEA can go suck a purple doughnut. This is a national security issue. Surely nobody in your outfit is gonna be bothered by a bit of drug running? Correct me if I’m talking trash.”
In silence Mayflower stared at the ceiling, feigning an indifference to the disgusting stains and discolorations thereupon. Then he abruptly consulted his Rolex and all but leapt out of the chair. Locking his attac
hé case, he said, “On the whole, it’s probably for the best. In retrospect, we shouldn’t have brought him here in the first place. It was definitely a mistake to involve his sisters. Sometimes, Colonel, it is wise to let sleeping dogs lie. If Foley’s crewmen are alive over there somewhere, incognito as it were . . . well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” He checked his watch again. “I’m late.”
“Need a ride?”
The white man reacted as if the black man had made an improper suggestion. “My driver is waiting,” he said, with a virtuous jerk of his head. He snatched a piece of paper from the cluttered desk and without ascertaining whether or not it might be important, scrawled upon it with a pencil. “This is my secure number. Direct line. Not even my secretary will answer. Memorize it and shred it. I want to be briefed at every step along the way. Every step. Never out of the loop for a moment.” He shot the other a cast-iron look to emphasize his request and was out the door.
Colonel Thomas saluted the disappearing back. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled, and jetted a stream of smoke into the hallway.
That afternoon, on his way home, the colonel stopped by a Mission District gay bar renowned for its unusually aggressive and sleazy clientele. A hush fell over the establishment when he entered, and every eye was on him, but thanks to his uniform, perhaps, his height, his bearing, and his color, not one word, hoarse or falsetto, was directed toward him. Nonchalantly, he strolled back to the toilet, made sure it was unoccupied, and let himself in. He removed a juicy marking pen from his pocket and inscribed upon the wall the following intelligence in large letters:
FOR A GOOD TIME OF EPIC PROPORTIONS, CALL:
And underneath he wrote Mayflower Cabot Fitzgerald’s restricted phone number.
Approximately twenty-four hours later, on Thursday, Bootsey Foley stepped off a Metro bus and was examining a maple in a neighbor’s yard for signs of seasonal change—“Just a wee touch of fall color. Isn’t that sly?”—when a bearded, bespectacled man in a dark suit sidled up to her.
