The Seersucker Whipsaw

by Ross Thomas

  “Do not forget, Jimmy. It is good to see you gentlemen. I have anticipated this meeting. Now I must greet some others, but Mr. Shartelle, you and Mr. Upshaw must sit with me at table.”

  “That’s kind of you,” Shartelle said.

  “I will be back.”

  We watched him move among the men in the room, a foot taller than most, a hundred pounds heavier than some. A big, tough, young man with all the natural poise and grace of a half-tamed panther.

  Jenaro watched him and shook his head. “Well, that’s the boy.”

  Shartelle watched him and nodded his head. “He’s got the smiles. I’d also say he had the inside track.”

  “He does indeed,” Jenaro said. “When the Leader goes to the center, Dekko becomes Premier of the Western Region.”

  “Young,” I said.

  “Thirty-one,” Jenaro replied. “He’s got it all—brains, looks, ability, and the most naïve, trusting manner that you could hope for.”

  “Must go over real nice with the folks,” Shartelle said. “He could move amongst them.”

  “Could and does. Never forgets a name, never forgets a face. That golf thing. He just mentioned once that he’d like to get more exercise and I suggested that he learn golf. I offered to teach him—some time. But he remembered and now you’d think I didn’t come through with the Buick dealership.”

  “I’d say that boy will do all right in politics,” Shartelle murmured. “Unless, of course, the Colts are looking for a new fullback.”

  “Soccer’s his game,” Jenaro said. “And cricket.”

  “Might even turn him into a roll-out halfback if he’s got the speed,” I said.

  “Might,” Shartelle agreed.

  Chief Akomolo made his way to the head of the long table that had five places at its T. He picked up a knife and rapped sharply on his bottle of squash. The babble died and he looked at the dais where the Ile sat smiling benignly. The Ile looked around the room and then nodded his head. Jenaro caught Shartelle and me by the arm. “This is a political meeting, so the Leader, Dekko and Diokadu and I sit at the head table. You guys sit across from each other in the next seats down.”

  Chief Dekko was gesturing to Shartelle and pointing to the seat that Jenaro had mentioned. We sat down, Dekko on Chief Akomolo’s right, Dr. Diokadu on his left, Jenaro next to Dekko.

  After we were seated, one of the white-clad men who had borne the kola nuts for the Ile brought in a table that fitted cleverly across the arms of the throne of horns. Another brought in a plate of what, from where I sat, looked like chicken and goop. The old man with the gold staff thumped his way over from a corner, took a dirty-looking spoon out of his pocket, and dipped into the food. He shoveled the spoonful into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and thumped the staff three times. It was time to eat.

  In my time I have eaten in army mess halls with apes who thought that Emily Post was the name of a hooker, and I’ve been the prison route, eating at the mess with no-forehead felons on either side. I have dined at smokers with members of the American Legion who catapulted butter from the blades of knives. And I have sat down to break bread with the rest of the bums and winos at the Harbor Lights and Last Hope Havens. Nothing bothered me. I’m not too particular. But the dinner at Chief Akomolo’s was a memorable experience.

  The stewards brought the food—an entire broiled or roasted chicken for every man. There were forks and knives to eat them with but they were largely ignored. Plates of hot curry were passed down the table, each man scooping off a double handful or so—with his hand. I took a handful and then looked around for the napkins. There weren’t any. I used the table cloth like everybody else. I tried this’ curry and the fou-fou and the palm wine and the French wine that was passed from the head table down. Anyone thirsty took a drink from the bottle and the bottles kept coming. When a chicken was done with, the bones were thrown over the shoulder—just like Charles Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII. I looked around for some Great Danes. There weren’t any.

  Then came the plates of sardines fresh from the can—apparently still a lingering delicacy flavored by British rule. There were a couple of cans to the diner. I tore off a leg of chicken, gnawed it, and tossed the bone over my shoulder. Nobody noticed. Nobody minded. I tried the curry again and it was no worse than Border chili. I sampled a lump of gray paste and it reminded me of the tamales in Denver, only twice as hot. The bottles of wine had gone around until now everyone had two or three sitting before him—partly full. I snatched one, a nice Moselle that I remembered, and gulped it down to chase the burn. The wine wasn’t chilled, but it helped.

  I looked at Shartelle as he scooped up three fingers’ worth of curry and popped it into his mouth. His face was streaming with grease and he wiped it off with the back of his hand and then wiped his hands on the table cloth, talking all the while. He winked at me. Jimmy Jenaro saw the wink and grinned.

  Chief Akomolo sat at the head of the table, talking first to Dr. Diokadu, who ate sparingly and with a knife and fork, and then to Chief Dekko who looked to be the mightiest trencherman of them all. He put down three chickens and, like Father William, polished them off all but the bones and the beak.

  The noise at the table was just below one long shout. Shartelle leaned across to me and said: “Boy, I haven’t been to a feed like this since the last time I was at a Cajun barbecue at the Opelousas yam festival.”

  Jimmy Jenaro leaned across the table and said, “This is just a quiet businessman’s fellowship lunch. Wait ’til we have a feast day.” I nodded and kept on chewing and poking more in before I’d swallowed that.

  “Do you like our Albertian food, Mr. Shartelle?” Chief Dekko shouted above the shouting.

  “Mighty tasty, Chief,” Shartelle said, tore off a piece of chicken breast, sopped up some sauce made of pure Cayenne and water, and popped the morsel into his mouth. “It’s what I call nicely flavored.”

  “I thought it might be too hot for you,” Dekko said. “If it is—”

  “No, sir,” Shartelle said. “I’d just call it passable warm; spicy you might say,” and the tears of pain glistened in the brave man’s eyes for only a moment.

  At the end of the hall the Ile sat in lonely majesty and ate a tropical chocolate bar and drank another bottle of orange squash. He smiled his golden smile and then yawned a couple of times. When he yawned, the eating stopped; lunch was over. It had lasted a little over an hour. There were a few polite belches which were greeted with appreciative grunts from neighbors. The chief steward hurried to take away the tray containing the candy bar wrapper and the bottle of pop. The Ile arose, nodded, and the procession left the way it had come—the herald singing the Ile’s praises, the drummers beating their litany, the long horn squawking its message to the waiting populace.

  Everyone sat stone-still at the table as the procession made its way out the door. Nobody looked at the Ile, except Shartelle and me. The Ile looked straight ahead until he got to Chief Akomolo and then said something to him in the dialect, indicating Shartelle and me with a wave of his hand. The Chief nodded but remained mute. The procession passed on, bound for the 1939 LaSalle.

  Chief Akomolo leaned towards Shartelle. “The Ile has invited you to attend him at his palace on Wednesday next. I believe it is important that you should go.”

  “We would be honored, sir,” Shartelle said.

  “Good. Chief Jenaro will call for you.”

  Chief Akomolo rose and rapped his squash bottle for attention. The noise subsided, chairs were scraped back, some lighted cigarettes. It was speech time at Rotary after the Thursday lunch, or at the board meeting of the quarterly get-together of vice-presidents, regional directors, and staff of the International Union of Widget Makers. The speeches began. First came Chief Akomolo. He talked gravely, using a minimum of gestures. His eyes sought out the individual faces of his audience and he drove home points to them—sometimes gently pounding a fist into the palm of his hand. He was the chairman of the board, telling of
the progress that had been made—but also pointing to the major challenges that lay ahead and must be met, could be met, and would be met. He sat down.

  He was followed by Chief Dekko who looked to be the executive vice-president, the comer, the go-a-long-wayer. He looked down at the table and he started talking to it in a deep, low voice. Then he put his hands on his hips and rocked back and forth a few times, looking straight ahead over the heads of his audience to that far distant point, that source of personal strength. He drew from it. It warmed him, and his voice rose and it got almost to a shout—and he had them then and he played with them. He teased them with his voice and his face and with his eyes and the amen corner shouted his praises. And finally the voice rose slowly to the peak again—almost to that shout that never came, and then it dropped, and his head dropped, and he talked to the table once more. A last simple, slowly uttered phrase, and he sat down.

  There was quiet, then clapping, then pounding of the table, and cries of approval. The young chief sat there, head bowed, himself overcome by the strength of his belief in what he had said.

  Then Dr. Diokadu, the statistician, the bearer of facts, got up and read from the number report. He consulted a ledger as the chairs scraped and shifted, a few more drinks were drunk, coughs were coughed, and cigarettes lighted. Nobody listened carefully and Dr. Diokadu didn’t seem to be interested in the report either. When he sat down there was polite applause which he acknowledged with a sardonic nod.

  And finally from the head table, Jimmy Jenaro—the public relations man, the fixer, the hotel-room-getter, the young brash joker who could tell a story well and did—even if it was a bit dirty. He told a few to get started, and they laughed and slapped each other on the back and grinned knowingly into each other’s faces. Then Jimmy got serious and talked gravely and quietly for a few minutes and they nodded their heads in equally grave agreement. Then he left them laughing with a couple of quick ones and they gave him twice as much applause as they gave Dr. Diokadu.

  Then each of them got up and gave his appraisal of the situation and how the new moves and proposals would affect his territory. There were the mumblers, the precise and crisp, the ramblers, the droners, the would-be comedians, and those who were too shy to say much of anything.

  It was quite a talk session. It lasted two hours and Shartelle and I sat through all of it. It couldn’t have been nicer if someone had spoken in English.

  Chapter

  13

  There were only six of us at the meeting held in Chief Akomolo’s office. The guests had departed in polite haste as soon as the last speaker sat down. I presumed that they went home. There were no offices to go back to, no secretaries waiting with stacks of mail to be signed. All government business closed at two every afternoon. Years ago the British had decided that it was too hot to work in the afternoons, so regular hours were eight to two on weekdays; eight to twelve on Saturdays. None of the Albertian ministers objected.

  Akomolo sat behind his desk. The rest of us sprawled in low chairs and couches, groggy from the heat, the huge meal, and the speech marathon. The Albertians had shucked their robe-like outer garments and Shartelle, Jenaro and myself were down to shirtsleeves. The shirts were soaked with sweat. It was stifling in the small office. A ceiling fan turned slowly and creaked as it turned. Additional refrigeration was supplied by two oscillating floor fans that blew the air around some. A few strips of flypaper which hung here and there had a fair catch.

  Behind his desk, Chief Akomolo arranged some papers, shifting them into neat piles, and then stowing them away in the desk drawers which he kept opening and closing. He talked as he worked:

  “We are here, gentlemen, primarily for the benefit of Mr. Shartelle and Mr. Upshaw, to discuss the basic strategy and issues of the campaign. I must say that I stress the word ‘basic’ because we can merely touch upon what we consider the key issues.”

  He stopped opening and closing his desk drawers, took off his gold-rimmed eyeglasses, and wiped them clean with a handkerchief. He held them up to the light arm’s length and squinted to see whether they were clean enough. They were. He put them back on.

  While he was doing all that he said: “Dr. Diokadu, would you outline the major issues for our two guests?”

  Diokadu was seated on a couch next to Chief Dekko who sat perfectly still, his huge bare forearms resting on his knees, his eyes fixed on the floor. Diokadu thought momentarily and said: “Unemployment, that’s first. Agricultural prices and development, that’s two. Education, three, and four, medical services. The fifth would be industrialization, but that is scarcely an issue. None opposes it.”

  “Transport,” Chief Dekko said, still staring at the floor. “We are a highly mobile country with an infant transport system.”

  “Transport,” Diokadu agreed.

  No one spoke. The silence grew as Chief Akomolo gazed down at a spot on his desk between his arms that rested on the borders of the leather-edged blotter. Then he looked up and gazed at the ceiling for a while where the ornamental fan spun uselessly. “And peace,” he said. “Peace among our regions and resolvement of our tribal differences. Peace, too, in the world. That must be our recurring theme.”

  Dekko looked up from his favorite spot on the floor and smiled. “A war in Vietnam does not concern the villager who cannot feed his family because he can find no work.”

  “We cannot ignore the responsibility that independence entails,” Akomolo said firmly. “We cannot turn our back on the world and isolate ourselves selfishly. The door has been opened; the invitation has been extended. We would be derelict if we did not accept it.”

  “It won’t win any votes,” Jimmy Jenaro said. “Everybody’s for peace.”

  Before Akomolo could speak, Dekko smiled again and said: “Do we really have so much to contribute to world peace? Are we so wise—or strong? A weak man seldom ends a market brawl.”

  Akomolo came back with: “A man who ignores his neighbors should not complain of loneliness.” I thought that must have lost a little in translation.

  The battle of old saws threatened to continue, but Shartelle rose quickly, walked across the room, and leaned against the wall, his arms folded, a slight smile on his face. By standing, he assumed the role of moderator. The faces in the room turned towards him. I wondered how many times in how many rooms he had done the same thing.

  “Gentlemen,” he said, “I think you have pretty well established the major domestic issues—unemployment, agriculture, education, health and transportation. Seems to me you’re differing only in the shade of emphasis that you think should be placed on Albertia’s role in the councils of the world.” He paused, reached into a vest pocket and took out a black, twisty cigar. He lighted it, puffed a couple of times, and continued: “I think that’ll work itself out during the campaign. If it looks like more emphasis on world affairs is needed, we’ll just shift gears. At least it seems that you’re agreed within the party, so that’s the big thing. But in all those principal issues you mentioned, it seemed to me that there was just one thing missing.” Shartelle paused and puffed on his cigar some more.

  “Taxes,” he said. “Now in my experience, taxes can be the trickiest issue of all.”

  That started it: a fifteen-minute lively debate on taxes which I didn’t bother to follow. I wasn’t going to take sides on whether the tax on petty traders should be raised or lowered. If they decided to tax the oil companies, I was automatically for it, so that precluded much personal interest. They could soak the rich, too, I decided. The only trouble with that was that the wealthy passed the tax laws and they weren’t going to legislate themselves into the poorhouse. So it would be the small farmer, the worker, the petty-trader, the people like Ojo our gardener, who would pay for the trips to the United Nations, the peace missions to Hanoi, and the cocktail parties on Government House lawn after the dawn of independence. Ojo wouldn’t like the tax program whatever it was.

  After taxes, the discussion continued in general for another h
alf-hour. Dr. Diokadu sketched out the issues in more detail for us, joined by Akomolo and Dekko. Jimmy Jenaro said little. Shartelle and I listened, asking an occasional question now and then. Whenever the discussion threatened to go abroad, Shartelle steered it back with an adroit phrase, a skillful comment. It was nice to watch him work.

  Finally, Chief Akomolo said: “I have decided to ask Dr. Diokadu and Chief Jenaro to work with you closely in any capacity which you may wish, Mr. Shartelle. Our discussion for today, however, must come to an end. I think it has proved most fruitful.”

  “It has to us, I’d say, sir,” Shartelle said. “Now I know it’s been a mighty long day already, but I’d sure like to invite these two gentlemen over to our house to continue this for a little while. We’ve got only six weeks for this campaign and there’s lots of planning and plotting to be done yet. I’m sorry to ask you this, Chief Jenaro and Dr. Diokadu, but it needs to be done.”

  “Of course,” Akomolo said. “Are you free?” he asked the pair. They nodded. “Chief Dekko and I would like to join you,” Akomolo said, “but we have some quite pressing party business to attend to.”

  “That’s most understandable,” Shartelle said.

  We were all standing now. The Albertians, with the exception of Jenaro, were slipping their robes over their heads. The rest of us got into our jackets. The close office had grown hotter and it smelled a little like a locker room. Chief Dekko stretched mightily. “Mr. Shartelle, I would like to see you and Mr. Upshaw tomorrow. Will that be possible?”

  “We’ve been asked to Government House at ten o’clock,” Shartelle said.

  “Then perhaps at 11:30. I will drop by your place.”

  Since Diokadu and Jenaro had their own cars, they agreed to meet us at our house in a half-hour. We said goodbye to Chief Akomolo and Dekko and walked out into the hot, bright late afternoon. We found our driver, William, asleep behind the wheel, and Shartelle gently shook him.

  “Reckon we can go home now, William.”