by Marvin Kaye
I don’t know if he anticipated the coup that finally ended his rule, but when it came he acted with his usual dispatch. According to the various accounts, the General disappeared by plane, by boat, by mule over the mountain passes. His flight was on the news along with glimpses of bearded men, myself in youth, waving kalashnikovs and dancing in the streets, anticipating good times that would never arrive.
I felt mostly relief; no more cash but no more surveillance, either. I could move, if I liked, to the mountains, which I had not allowed myself to miss; I might even go home. Those were my thoughts, but just when it seemed that the General had left my life, Albert visited my house.
He’d had another name originally, dropped along with the euphonious vowels and plentiful consonants of our native tongue. Now he wore the local garb of bright printed shirts, shorts, and sandals. The only remnant of his former attire were his dark glasses—“shades” is the suggestive local term—and he was wearing them as he stood on my doorstep in the quickening tropical darkness. “You have an opportunity to serve the state and the General, Beloved of Us All,” he said by way of greeting.
I waved him inside. “The capitol has fallen, and the General is probably dead,” I said, but my mind had already lurched into high gear.
“Don’t you believe it,” said Albert. Then, drawing himself up in way made ridiculous by his beach clothes, he said, “You will be asked to do a great service for Him Who is Beloved of Us All,” and added, for like me, he’d been in exile long enough to pick up the distinctive lingo of the place, “Remember, you’ve been on his dime for years.”
He laid out the plan with certain significant omissions which I could fill in all too easily. In brief, The General, Beloved of Us All (and Crafty as Hell) would arrive shortly with a small entourage. “Your house may not be sufficiently large,” Albert said disapprovingly.
“Have them stay at a motel,” I suggested, for I both believed Albert and didn’t believe him at the same time.
Albert frowned. “The General will need some information from you. You will be debriefed.”
“And then?” I asked.
“Why the General, Beloved of Us All, will take your place. He will become ‘Mal,’ who lives on apartment rentals and drinks and dances at The Neon Grove and sees the red-haired Ms. Grabbleston.”
This was a threat; I said nothing. Of course, they would have known about Evelyn; I’d just ignored the idea. “No connections,” the General had warned me. Now Evelyn would be expendable, even as I was.
“Fifteen years is a long time,” Albert said philosophically. Easy for him.
“For you, too,” I said. Even Albert must have made “connections,” developed habits, formed pleasurable routines.
“I have not the honor to resemble the General,” said Albert.
That night I took Evelyn out to dinner, intending to break things off, to give her a running start, so to speak. Instead, I found myself asking her about murder. Our port city is rich in crime, and Evelyn is a writer. She lives off the proceeds of a volume entitled, Releasing Your Inner Wild Woman, but she’s been known to dabble in crime fiction.
“Lots of people get shot here,” she said. “With our stupid gun laws.”
“Bang. Not very interesting. And then?”
“Then the canals, of course. Bang and splash.”
We need to quarrel, I told myself. We need to quarrel, so Evelyn will be safe, but I hated the idea, and my hatred was behind my questions. I not only wanted to kill the General, I needed to kill him.
“Coming back for a nightcap?” she asked. “I think the Wild Woman wants out.”
As a fan of wild women, particularly wild women as attractive as Evelyn, I decided that we could quarrel later. You can see I’d become lazy and indecisive, for we were still on good terms when she nipped into the shower after a pleasant interlude. I was listening to the water running—a lovely sound if you are from a dry country—and thinking how best to offend her when she called, “Have I got any cigarettes left? They’ll be in the bedside table.”
I opened the drawer to find, not cigarettes, but a .38 caliber pistol. This was a surprise, although not a huge surprise. Though a proponent of gun laws, Evelyn lives in what the locals call a “transitional” neighborhood. The pistol was her last line of defense and possibly my salvation.
The General won’t know about this, I thought. Even Albert and his spies won’t know. I stuck the pistol in a pocket and folded my jacket carefully. Then I got dressed. When I kissed Evelyn good-bye at the door, I had her .38 tucked up, fully loaded, in my best silk blazer.
A good beginning, but concealment was a difficulty. The house was out, definitely out. Surely the General would come with professionals. The yard, then, the yard. I could feel my heart beating. The palms, the doves, Serena, my parrot. They’ll kill my pretty Serena, too, I thought, and I opened the cage door for her. The orchids blooming—would the General care for them? Fat chance, but they might check the pots. Might. At the corner of the house, the air conditioner hummed softly. It was a big powerful model, which the AC guy came once a year to service. I could see him lifting the top, and I went into the house for some duct tape.
In a few minutes, I had the top off and the gun taped to the underside of the cover. I closed the lid and went into the house to wash my hands. I had a secret that might become a resource.
Early the next morning I woke up. The doves calling in the trees were too familiar a sound to have awakened me. No, it was the rattle of a key turning in the front door; Albert must have availed himself of a copy. Reminding myself of my hidden resource, I went downstairs to meet my old army colleague, Rezart, the General, who looked pale and tired, his famed vigor drained, his face lined.
He wanted whisky, and he wanted to sleep. Although the guest room was ready, he preferred my room, and I changed the sheets for him. Then I sat in the living room while his three bodyguards searched the house, turning over my things and examining, with noticeable envy, the array of consumer goods so readily available in my new home port.
They wanted to know the details of my day, the names of acquaintances, the value of the rents on the apartments. And also my insurance company, regular monthly bills, my bank account numbers. I realized that they would kill me when they knew enough.
My tanned skin presented a problem for them, my speech, too. They had not anticipated that I would be almost perfect in my adopted tongue. I suggested it would be best to sell the apartments and the house and minimize contact with my acquaintances.
They smiled wolfishly as if they guessed that I was trying to delay.
At three p.m., the General came into the living room to demand orange juice, which he drank sitting on the sofa with the wolves on either side. I noticed he had a metal case with him. Documents, I guessed, cash, details of various numbered accounts. The man who would be “Mal” would be rich and able to buy safety.
“So Malik,” he said. “So many years and we meet so far away.”
“It is always a pleasure to see you, General.”
“You have done well,” he said. “An obscure life can be a happy one. Though this house is too small, I am pleased. Mostly. There are, of course, details. No one lives without entanglements, do they?”
I could only agree.
“We must cut those off.” He made a chopping motion. “You understand.”
“This is a large country,” I suggested. “We would never need to meet.”
The General sighed. “But I believe every individual is unique. There can only be one of you, Malik, and that will now be me. You understand,” he said.
I did.
That afternoon, the General shaved off his famous moustache and had one of the guards thin his thick crown of hair. He helped himself to a shirt and a pair of slacks from my closet. “These are a bit tight,” he remarked. He applied a quickie-tanning product and checked himself in the mirror. I thought he looked sad; satisfied with his plan, yes, but sad, too.
When the su
n went down, the General wished to go for a ride. He wanted to see the historic tourist district, the shore, the rivers, and waterways. I realized that in his career, the General had few chances to play the tourist. The night air was warm, and he said that a ride would do us good. I shrugged, thinking how quickly he worked, how little time I’d been allotted. One of the bodyguards phoned Albert to bring a car. When the phone rang unanswered, I wondered if Albert had taken advantage of his non-nondescript appearance to decamp.
“You can take my car,” I suggested. “It will hold three or four comfortably.”
“You will drive,” said the General. “There must be no irregularities.”
We got into the car, the General beside me in the front, two of the guards in the back. The third man was to stay behind and to locate Albert, who had angered the General by his defection. We drove down the main beach route with the restaurants, clubs, and shops on one side, the sand and water on the other. Roller bladers zipped along the sidewalk; motorbikes were noisy on the street; women sauntered in backless dresses and young men with earrings and tattoos stood talking on the corners.
I remarked that the beaches were famous.
“I do not understand putting oneself into salt water,” the General said, and I remembered, dimly, that he did not know how to swim. Despite our single, vital port, we are a mountain people.
I need to kill this man, I thought, and I need to do it quickly. Him and his guards, too, and leave the life I’ve built behind. But the .38 was taped to the inside cover of the AC unit in my yard and the General’s men were sitting in the back seat.
“There is too much traffic here,” the General said.
“From here until the Everglades.”
When he said, “Drive west,” and he settled himself comfortably in the seat, I knew they were going to kill me.
Why hadn’t I brought the .38 with me? Made an excuse to visit the yard or even made a break through the neighborhood? Now there was nothing to stop them. They’d have me pull over on some deserted stretch where, with one quick shot, my edition of Mal would be food for gators.
I gripped the wheel, sweating even in the air conditioning. We had reached the head of Alligator Alley before despair suggested a desperate solution. Even then I drove for several miles in anguished indecision before a dark, empty stretch decided me.
I could see the lights glistening on the black surface of the wide drainage canal that runs along the right hand side of the road. I took a deep breath, floored the accelerator, and wrenched the wheel. We shot from the smooth hum of the tarmac to the bounce and swerve of the grass, our heads thumping the ceiling, before, with a gut dropping lurch, we were in an airborne plunge toward the water. The Toyota hit the surface of the canal with a mighty splash and bobbed into an absolute, disorienting blackness.
Yelling and blows; thrashing and struggling. I unfastened my belt and fumbled desperately for the window. One of the guards was flailing at me and trying to climb into the front seat, and the General, I’m sure it was Rezart, clawed for my throat. I grabbed the handle and opened the window; the canal poured in, producing more frenzy as the water drenched our legs and thighs and rose inexorably chest deep, neck deep, nose deep.
Amazing that I can remember anything at such a moment, but Evelyn, a native of this swampy land, had drilled me on the dangers of canals and the ways to survive them. I took a gulp of air from the diminishing bubble trapped near the ceiling, then, when the pressure equalized, shoved the door open and floundered into the muddy water. A hand clutched my leg. I kicked myself free, but in my frenzied struggle I became disoriented and touched the horror of the bottom muck.
With scarcely any breath left, I twisted and clawed my way through the water, banging into the side of the car. Terrified of re-entering the vehicle in the darkness, I tasted oblivion, before the lessons of our fine municipal pool return to me. I stopped struggling and, magically, began to rise through the alien fluid.
With an astonished gasp, I broke into the sweet air; the soft southern night, jeweled with highway lights, arched above my head. One stroke, two, three, more, quick, quick, floundering on despite the shock, the pain in my ribs, the difficulty of taking breath: The canals have both alligators and snakes. I didn’t stop flailing until I reached the bank and clawed myself up through the sharp edged grasses that sliced my fingers.
Struggling for breath, I flopped onto my back, amazed by survival and the continuing thunder of my heart. I was alive, and only a few ripples broke the surface of the canal. Our great national poet was right: We are no more than bubbles in some celestial wine. Already all signs of life and struggle were dissolving; against all odds, I had out-lasted my old military colleague, the General.
I sat up to pour muddy water out of my shoes. The night was warm; my clothes would dry. “I believe every individual is unique,” the General had said. He was right; there is something unnatural about doubles.
I got a lift at the Miccosukee truck stop and walked several miles of city streets to my house, where I found the living room still bright behind the blinds. The General’s faithful guard was keeping watch. In the light of my security spot, another local necessity, I eased off the cover of the air conditioner and retrieved Evelyn’s pistol. I regretted that there would be no more sessions with the author of Releasing Your Inner Wild Woman; she would have to find a new partner for late evenings at The Neon Grove and early nights to bed.
I unlocked the door and called softly in our native tongue. The guard would believe me, or he would not. If he did not, I would kill him. And perhaps, some remnant of the General whispered, I would kill him even if he did.
“Did you find Albert, that traitor?”
“No, General, with regret, General.” Then he hesitated. “Where are...”
“There was an accident. The man, Malik, put up resistance.”
He took a step toward the General’s case, left for safekeeping. He was reaching into his jacket pocket when I raised Evelyn’s .38 and shot him dead on the pale rug.
I went through to the bedroom to change my clothes. Four men were dead and my pleasant life was a shambles, but I felt curiously indifferent. The General believed that each individual is unique. He said there could only be one Malik, alias Mal, and he intended to be the one. But he was wrong. There was only one Rezart, one psychopathic, far-sighted, Beloved of Us All and Crafty as Hell General, and I was he. I’d trained for twenty years for his life, and now I was destined to be the General, killer and fugitive, forever.
CARTOON, by Andrew Toos
THE WAY IT IS, by Carole Buggé
You lie on your bed late at night listening to the swoosh of passing cars in the rain on the street outside. There’s a round, rumbling sound as they roll over the manhole cover in front of the building, a double, one-two percussion as the wheels pass over the metal cover, first the front and then the back wheels. It’s a friendly sound, like a hollow drum, and it keeps you company as you stare at the tiny silver stars swirling around in your lava lamp. You imagine each star as a lost soul, caught up in the hot liquid of the lamp, forever circling around each other. The stars are swimming in their purple lava bath, the cars are plowing through a February thunderstorm, but you are warm and dry on your bed, covered with the quilt your mother gave you for Christmas. You lie listening to the raindrops hitting the air conditioner. You see the words the sounds spell out in your head: plunck, plop, thrrat, rat-a-thwop plat.
You’re always happier when it’s raining, especially at night when you don’t have to go out and you can lie on top of your bed with your mother’s quilt wrapped around your knees. It’s a comfort, the rain, and you begin to imagine what would happen if it never stopped raining, if the water from the East River began to rise until it flooded its banks and everyone would have to move to higher ground.
Move to higher ground.
There is no higher in New York — downtown, where you live, is flat as a skillet. The water would just spread over everything until the city was
under water. It’s what happened in New Orleans, but New York has never suffered from a natural disaster like Hurricane Katrina, only man made disasters.
What rained out of the sky that day was death death in the form of religious fanaticism. You’ve had your bout with mysticism, and you’re still not sure that trees don’t have spirits, but you have trouble understanding the allure of organized religion.
But there it was that day, swooping down like a big, ugly bird of prey, suddenly swallowing the southern tip of the island You’ve tried:
Talking it out.
Crying it out.
Swallowing it and moving on.
But what you can’t stop is the image of your sister, arriving with the rest of the catering staff, so excited, so happy to be working at Windows on the World. You remember the phone call the night before:
“How are you going to fix your hair?”
“I don’t know, Kelley, I haven’t thought about it.”
You tried not to dampen her enthusiasm, but you never had her keen spirit. You were the sensible one, the quiet one, but she was the one people looked at when she entered rooms — even though you were identical twins, it was always her shining, eager face that drew stares.
“I’m going to put mine in French braids. I think that will be elegant but it
will keep it out of my face.”
French braids. Her snow-blond hair, wrapped around itself in a coil like strands of DNA endlessly repeating bits of information, genetic codes that mapped out the existence of a human being, a single organism. And now these strands exist only in you — but you feel not so much like a human being as leftover matter, like the tail of a comet that has passed on into another star system.
You were supposed to be there; you had your clothes all carefully laid out the night before, but you awoke in the night with the flu, with chills and vomiting that shook your body and left you breathless and sweating. It seems like such a crummy excuse now, though, and you are left with the feeling that you should have been there. But this is the way it is: you weren’t there.
