“Consider the potential,” he made a list of what to hawk, included crates of whiskey and cigarettes, canned meats and vegetables, soft drinks and tuna, toothpaste and aspirin, toilet paper, salts and sugars, soaps and socks and powdered milk, all mixed in with Benchere’s provisions to avoid taxes and tariffs. “It’s supply-side economics,” Harper said. “Everything is vendible.”
“Maybe so,” Benchere didn’t doubt, “though trade in Africa’s a different animal. It’s not the same as buying fertilizer and foot spray at Walmart. Beating the competition has a different meaning.”
“Yuk yuk.” Harper moved the collar away from his freshly shaved neck and said, “Not to worry. Try thinking of what I’m doing as a humanitarian effort. I’m bringing in goods not otherwise available.”
“And peddling them,” Benchere addressed the flaw in Harper’s statement. “Since when do humanitarians sell their supplies?”
“Since the Battle of Solferino. Foreign aid is a booming business.”
“Can be. Either way,” Benchere said, “it doesn’t matter. You won’t sell a thing. I know you, Harp. You’ll pay to bring in all this extra product then give it away. You’re soft as soup.”
“Soup is it?” Harper flung his fingers out as if to mirror a splash. “Let’s bet,” he said. “I’ll make a profit or you don’t have to cover costs for flying your stuff over.” He gave Benchere his hand to seal the deal, said of the opportunity to pitch goods in Africa, “It’s the land of milk and honey. It would be blasphemous for me to not take advantage.” He signaled the waiter for a fresh drink, described his plan as part of the post-colonial free-for-all. “Everyone there wants to be independent but there’s no infrastructure. Most trade is still black market. Out where we’re going folks don’t even have basic staples. That’s where I come in.” Harper boasted, “My supplies will feed the free market. I’m expanding the base of people’s choices. If they don’t like the product they don’t have to buy. Bingo bango. That’s it. Ultimately everyone pays for what they want.”
The declaration, more than anything, was hard to argue and Benchere let Harper know, “That’s the first smart thing you’ve said tonight.”
AFTER DINNER, HARPER followed Benchere out to the deck where they sat and looked at the water. A white winged tern circled the lake and searched the shore for a place to land. Benchere finished his drink, put his glass down on the deck, leaned back in his wicker chair and thought about the last time he was here with Marti. They sat outside together like this, in the warm grey dusk of a near set sun, until Marti tired and he took her home.
How long ago now? The time was somehow impossible to measure.
Harper glanced at Benchere, could see the way his jaw was set and knew what he was thinking.
After a minute, Benchere took the ice from his glass and threw it toward the water. The ice dissolved and disappeared. Action and reaction; everything was this. The physical world was calculable and contained, could not be denied, and yet when it came to the human heart, to free will and deed, what was rational rarely entered the equation. How could one want and be rational at the same time? Impossible, Benchere knew.
The thoughts in his head were like welding sparks. He compared the grind of the last year to Sisyphus with his rock. The image did not appeal to him however, and he startled Harper by groaning, “Bah!” Despite his misery without Marti, he held fast to his resolve, accepted the daily doses of melancholy but fought against a full spiritual collapse. His temperament was upbeat, if damaged, his nature expectant. Whatever rock there was to push, Benchere was determined to believe the effort was worth it.
He considered this in more detail, thought of purpose and reason, the responsibility of living an authentic life, as Kierkegaard first examined. If the world was absurd what was there to do but persevere, passionately and sincerely? The facticity of our details was set but did not define us. We alone define who we are. This was what Benchere attempted to show in his art, to avoid the existential angst and celebrate the meaningless as a way to invent our own revelations and exalt in our charge. His love for Marti was this, his commitment a part of his own creation.
A dragonfly hovered just off the deck. Benchere watched the insect in flight, how it hung above the water, raced off and returned. He thought of Africa and the purpose he attached to completing the project. His determination was not a search for meaning because the meaning was already established. This he understood. The fact that, after more than thirty years with her he was heading into the desert without Marti was a reality he could not change but was attempting to live with.
“Hell,” Benchere breathed in deeply, looked across the water for the white tern. “It’s all a cliff dive,” he said to Harper, saw the things people hustled toward and the way they did it, some with heads down and others with arms extended. “The outcome is unpredictable regardless. What matters is the approach.” He said this as if Harper should understand, stopped himself there and rubbed at the underside of his chin. If his sculptures achieved anything it was to demonstrate the universality of the human will. Meaninglessness was meant as an expression of freedom not grounds for inaction. The metals in his works showed this, each turned and welded, the stretch and reach of angles forged and flowing, all in an effort to represent the beauty and potential of what was otherwise absurd.
A couple leaving the deck spotted Benchere as they went past. Benchere acknowledged them, was pleased to be recognized, though for reasons having nothing to do with ego or celebrity, but as confirmation that he was still here. He flipped his empty glass over, thought once more of Marti in the chair, then said to Harper, “Tell you what.”
In that moment he felt he should be grabbing hold of things, gathering in what he still could, after having already lost too much. He took inventory, considered the totality of his options, then pointed and said, “I’ll make you a deal. You want to bring in extra supplies to sell off. I’ll give you that if you do something for me in turn.”
“A favor?”
“Right,” Benchere said. “I need this.”
Harper listened before answering, “Sorry. What you’re asking is not a good idea.”
“I never said it was a good idea. I said it’s what I want.”
“Ha!” Harper ran through the list of complications, the regulations they’d have to circumvent, the false papers needed and what the authorities would do if they got caught. “It’s not like smuggling in a bag of chips. There are rules you know.”
Benchere watched the shadows on the water. He could feel the last of the day’s warmth passing as Harper warned him about the desert beasts, the lions and snakes and deadly heat. “Sure, sure,” he didn’t care. The voice in his head howled, I want! followed by I will! Everything comes with risk. If I’m being selfish, so be it. He spoke of what he had and didn’t, of what was gone and what was left and said, “Damn it, I know Harp, but listen to me. Here’s the thing.”
He rose from his chair, lifted his head, and speaking with clarity and instruction said, “What it comes down to, at the end of the day, what matters is the company we keep. Who is here and who isn’t, and what can we do about it, Harp?”
“Yeah but …”
“What? Hell, you have to know. I know you do. Times like this, what good is a man without his dog? Do you get what I’m saying?”
Book II
6.
STERN DOES CALISTHENICS. NOTHING TOO STRENUOUS because of the heat. A mix of yoga and pushups to keep the body from turning to mush. He stops after a time and stares down the hill. “Soon,” he says to Rose who remains anchored to his chair and answers, “Soon is what I’m thinking.”
THE MAIN TERMINAL of the MUB Airport in Maun fronts a circular drive. The building is brown brick decorated by a glass façade cut into triangular panes. The runways are asphalt, the planes international. People pass through the terminal carrying boxes, LV and Tumi Vapor bags, suitcases strapped with ropes and belts. Benchere and Daimon walk outside. A copy of the Botswana Gazet
te is tucked under Benchere’s right arm. Kitso ke Maalta. On the third page is a reference to his scheduled arrival.
Harper and Naveed have flown out ahead in the DC-3, brought Jazz and the supplies from the States. Everything is loaded now onto two rented trucks. Naveed and a man named Dawid Nawer drive the first truck to camp, while Harper remains with the second, waits for Benchere and Daimon. “Dumela,” Harper in aviator sunglasses, a pair of green shorts and grey Boston Red Sox t-shirt, has learned to say hello in Setswana.
Jazz sits in the truck, head out the window, barks as he spots Benchere.
“Hallo, hallo, hallo,” Benchere opens the door and lets Jazz jump.
Earlier Harper toured the open market where he bought carrots and beets, onions, oranges and grapefruits. The desert fruits have a tortoise-shell rind, insulating the juice within. A crate of turnips was also purchased. Naveed has read up on how to preserve root vegetables in the desert; burying them in the sand and keeping them fresh for weeks with a sprinkling of waste water.
The duffles are tossed in back of the truck. Daimon stores his equipment, climbs into the cab of the truck between Harper and Benchere. Three days ago, he drove out to Valley Falls with Zooie where he filmed Benchere’s sculpture New Cue 2. On the way home they stopped for a late lunch, split a pizza at Ralph’s Bull and Claw. Zooie squeezed Daimon’s elbow as she got out of his jeep and Daimon felt her grip throughout the meal.
Jazz is put in the bed of the truck, behind the crates. The heat of the day passes 100 degrees. They drive south. The road outside of Maun is a rough patch of uneven terrain. The shocks compress beneath the weight of the supplies, absorb little of the bumps. Daimon films through the windshield. The scenery is brush and rock and sand done up in three shades of brown. Two hours into their drive Harper stops the truck and everyone gets out. Harper adds gas to the tank. Daimon does situps and pushups near a ziziphus tree. Benchere gives Jazz water, walks away from the truck.
The temperature turns the air into cooking steam. Benchere concentrates on the landscape. Some twenty hours ago he was at the Pare-Mathus Institute, unveiling Helix at Rest. A good crowd had gathered. Drinks were served by waiters in black shorts and red bowties. Tables with white linen offered large platters of fruit and assorted finger foods. Many of Benchere’s old students came down; Mindy and Cherry, Sam and Doran, Heidi and Nan. Cloie and Kyle spoke with Zooie and Daimon. Pare-Mathus was built on five acres of grassland on the southern tip of Bristol, near Mt. Hope Bay. Benchere’s flight to Africa was a few hours off. He stood between the maples and said his goodbyes. Rather than have Kyle and Zooie drive him to the airport, he gave an excuse, made other arrangements, rented a Ford Focus, tossed his duffle in the trunk and drove east along the shore of the Seekonk River, away from the airport and out toward Swan Point.
The grounds were freshly mowed and decorated with an undergrowth of laurel. Steeply banked ravines lay on the riverside, with curved pathways cutting through two hundred acres. Benchere parked and walked. Many of the headstones at Swan Point dated back 150 years. Marti’s stone was a white and tan marble Benchere carved himself. He moved to the side of the stone and placed his hand on the surface. The marble was cool to the touch. Benchere leaned in and whispered to the stone. Kneeling then, he pulled some grass from the lawn and put it in his pocket.
Thirty yards from the truck now, in the sands outside of Ghanzi, Benchere took the grass from his pocket and let the pieces float free in the air.
Harper came over with a mango. Benchere took the fruit. He watched the grass drift along the surface of the sand further out into the desert.
LINDA DARLING WATCHES herself on the monitor. Digitalized, shot through filters and shades, she is a one-time Emmy and Golden Globe winner, re-imagined now as a star of reality tv. In its third season, The Darling Hour had been created to re-launch Linda’s career. Instead, the show has reduced her to self-parody, chronicled her tabloid persona, cashed in on her misadventures. Recent episodes showed Linda dumping 200 boxes of Jell-O into an exlover’s pool, using a Peng lighter to set off the fire alarm in the Tribere Hotel, and driving in reverse across the Throgs Neck Bridge at two o’clock in the morning.
Life imitating art imitating whatever else was going on. In March Linda mixed X with gin and MDMA, Adderall and ketamine before passing out in the men’s room at Club Zeal. Catatonic, she was taken to Emergency, down for the count, her body temperature nearing that of a lake trout, her skin the color of chilled topaz. The entire episode was caught on film, earned a 3.2 share on cable.
In the kitchen now, pie-eyed from a night of Sobieski and Dexedrine, her makeup smeared and panties in her purse, the camera has to work twice as hard to capture less. Linda does a line of perico. The others do not care that Linda is digesting the parrot’s beak at four o’clock in the morning. For next week’s episode Linda will be confronted by friends at a staged intervention. The dramatic arch is aimed at getting Linda into rehab. The whole device is bullshit. Linda knows if she ever really went to rehab there would be no show, and if there wasn’t a show no one would care if she went to rehab.
The crew breaks down their equipment. Linda’s house is in New Paltz. A Benchere original, one of only seven. The hallway is travertine, the walls Spanish stucco. Linda bought the place back when she was flush. Only The Darling Hour keeps her now from foreclosure. She knows nothing about Benchere except for what she’s read and what she read convinced her to buy the house. She pours a drink. On the counter in the kitchen is a Victorinox Swiss army knife, three tea bags, an ashtray with eight cigarette butts, two glass jars and an open box of Saltines. Linda cuts the perico with a steak knife. Upstairs she has Lunesta and zolpidem, zaleplon and clonazepam, Zoloft and trazodone. A potpourri. She will take something when she’s ready to sleep.
Out in the hall, panty-less, Linda kicks off her shoes, her dress drawn to the heat of her pudendum. Her hips sway in a sort of hoochie-coochie twirl as she calls, “Good night, good night,” and blows a kiss as the crew heads to the door. Toward the end of the line is a young gaffer, mid-twenties maybe, dark haired, carrying a Mickey-Moles lamp. Linda didn’t notice him before, stops him now, has him wait until the others are gone. She calls him Mickey, tells him to put down the lamp, asks if he’d like a drink. “Do me a favor,” she sings the line from Elvis Costello, wants him to help her, “Take off that party dress.”
Upstairs, Mickey sets the light so Linda can frolic. Resourceful, a want to one day make films of his own, he is smart enough to understand the alchemy between opportunity and invention. Using the camera on his smart phone, he sees what he needs, what Linda likes and is like. He gives it to her, the what-for and where she asks. She shows him all, how she lifts and separates, makes room, takes in, turns and gives him every point of view. Afterward he heads home, replays the clip, downloads the action, makes a few calls, weighs each and every offer.
HARPER REFERS TO the heat inside the truck as “oven baked. Like putting wheels on a sauna.” Flies find their way inside the cab. Other insects explode across the windshield, require surgical removal beyond the wipers.
They drive until dark then stop and camp for the night. Dinner is the dried meat Harper picked up in Maun. They take turns afterward sleeping and guarding. Harper has purchased a Win 300 Mag rifle, standard fare, he says, “Better safe than eaten.” Jazz keeps Benchere company. When it comes his turn to sleep, Benchere dreams of the distance travelled.
In the morning they roast potatoes with onions and drink some of their bottled water. Daimon checks his phone for messages from Zooie. The irony of Africa is that, despite its level of poverty and political chaos in nearly all 54 of its sovereign states, the skies overhead are filled with sophisticated satellites, carry communication across the continent into the Middle East and Europe. Benchere dumps the sand from his boots. Harper tends to the fire. Jazz eats a bowl of Purina One Benchere sent over with the early supplies. Grease from the potato roast is also poured into the bowl.
The day warms. B
ack in the truck, Harper drives first. The route they’ve taken has them within a few hours of camp. Just beyond Kalkfontein, Harper turns from the road and heads into the desert. Benchere sits in the passenger seat, reviews the sketches for his sculpture, reads through the handwritten notes Marti added.
When the campsite comes into view, Daimon is driving. It is by now early afternoon. Daimon spots the first truck and honks the horn. Two tents appear in the foreground. One of the generators has been set up. Crates and other pieces of equipment are stacked in close proximity, protected by a tarp Naveed has thrown over the top. Four hundred yards west of camp is a series of hills. The vastness of the area tricks the eye into visualizing a beige undulating ocean. Naveed and Dawid walk toward the truck. Behind them, three more people Benchere doesn’t recognize are watching.
ROSE SPOTS THE truck first and calls to Stern. Together they observe the scene below. “How many now?”
“Eight.”
“Including our man of the hour.”
They take note, take photographs, make data entries before resuming the unpacking of their jeep, which is parked on the far side of the hill. Everything is carried up. They work individually at first and then together. Stern takes the lead, pulls while Rose puffs and pushes from behind.
“Long way.”
“What’s that?”
“I said it’s a long way to the top.”
“Always is.”
“And a long way down.”
“Quicker though.”
Benchere in Wonderland Page 7
