by Chris Eaton
***
One morning in 1939, although he had been doing nothing wrong, Zdziz Cerosz was arrested. He had been working as a chandler near Gdansk, as his father had before him, as his grandfather before his father, and so on. He had a wife, two children, and a plot of land given to his great-grandfather by the occupying nobility of the time, at the greater proliferation of the incandescent electric bulb, for his years of devoted service. Cerosz, only half-awake, sat half-upright in his bed and said: Who are you? There was laughter in a neighbouring room. And he was taken, quite roughly, by hand and then by cart, to the Long Market square for due process.
Despite his great-grandfather’s servitude to the Prussian Duke, the occupying Germans classified Cerosz as third category in the Deutsche Volksliste, with most other Kashubians, and he was given the choice of either joining the Nazi forces or being sent to a concentration camp. After witnessing the torture of his neighbour, Cerosz chose the former to protect his family, who were permitted to stay on their land, but he was sent back to the Reich as a labourer. The army, thank God, would not take him; his right hand had been horribly burned as a child when he’d crept into his father’s workshop and grasped instinctively for the brightly coloured pot of wax. And so he was stationed in a hospital in Holland where they tended specifically to the Wermacht’s non-German soldiers, assigned to laundry for the first several years until the situation became more desperate and he was suited up, armed with nothing but a pistol and bayonet, both useless to him with his mangled hand, and stuffed in another train bound for the front.
Of course no one, not even his wife back home, knew that he was actually part of the Polish resistance, and that the hospital in which he laboured was a major hub in supplying intelligence to the Allies in Britain. Highly classified information, including the location, composition and movement of German forces was smuggled from the Western Front to Cerosz in the clothing of injured Poles, who were rarely coherent enough to be seen as a threat and searched. The doctors, mostly captured from Canada and France, were terribly understaffed, and so with every delivery, Cerosz was asked to help prep the men for surgery, undressing them and taking their clothing to be washed. Quickly pocketing what he found, Cerosz then spent his evenings in the linen storeroom, using his skills with wax to painstakingly retrace the information to clean articles of clothing with the ends of blunt candles. When these seemingly white articles of clothing were intercepted by other members of the Polish Underground on their way to the Eastern Front in the Ukraine, smuggled to the other side and doused with fresh pencil shavings by the Brits, the secret messages revealed themselves.
This re-con is largely considered to have been a major reason for the Allied victory. But it was so secret, for the safety of everyone involved, that as the war progressed, even Cerosz’s family had grown to hate him. When he finally made it back to Gdansk following the German surrender, he discovered that his wife Danuta had remarried, to a communist who raised their children to think of Kashubia as a fairy tale, their language and culture of birth nothing more than folklore, and their father as a traitor. Before the war was even over, unbeknownst to most of the Polish resistance, the Allies had agreed to give Poland to the Soviets, as the Russians had already occupied the country and placed high-profile communists in its interim government. Many returning Kashubians like himself were arrested for treason and sent to work in the Silesian mines. And so he changed his name to James Wax and left for America.
After the death of her grandfather, Tina Wax officially changed her name back, to grant what she believed to be her grandfather’s dying wish. But believing her Zdziz was Albanian and not Kashubian, she misspelled it as Cerosh.
***
The few Americans Chris Eaton could locate with the Cerosh surname had no relatives named Tina. All of them were also related and claimed to know anyone with the name in the U.S. So after weeks of searching in vain, Chris Eaton went back to the thesis. The Santa Barbara thesis bibliography took some time to navigate, but eventually he dug up another reference, in the memoir of Dick Ho, that detailed how hard it had been for himself and others in the porn industry to make the break to mainstream cinema. Even (Ian) Dowd was having problems. And if that guy was stuck, what did that mean for the rest of us? On the Internet Movie Database, Chris Eaton found an Ian Down, an Ian Dold, two by the name of Dodd and a remarkable five by Dowding. Most were non-actor listings – cinematographers, camera operators, grips, visual effects, a few in the music department and one mysterious “miscellaneous crew” – all of which he could discount almost immediately because they were too old to be Angelo (who would definitely be more likely to lie about his age in the other direction), or had worked prior to the mid-nineties, before he left New York, or even had fairly long careers in their respective fields. These were also jobs that Angelo, a purist, would never have deigned to perform. He was not above schlepping for his uncle making mannequins, but working in the movie business in any other capacity but actor or director would have been a fate worse than death.
Then he noticed one of the Dodds, despite a long career with the electrical department, had a single, fairly recent listing as an actor, in a sci-fi flick called Earth Coins (2004), about two stoners who can’t scrape enough money together to buy pot so they cook up a scheme to become astronauts, reroute the rocket to Mars, and exchange their rare pocket change on the interstellar black market for premium grow, and Chris Eaton felt there was at least a chance that this might be a typographical and/or data entry error. The director, Chaise Torn, had been extremely successful with music videos, particularly with two genre-breakers for the punk band Heroin Cats and the experimental Christian songstress Ani Torches, and had been given the green light from 21st Century Fox for whatever feature project he had in his head. Because of his time making music videos, it was rumoured that he preferred working with non-traditional actors.
Torn was relatively easy to find. Despite a huge marketing push and some truly innovative filmmaking, Earth Coins was panned by most critics, and after that, he could barely find work again, not even in music. Posing as a reporter from Entertainment Weekly, Chris Eaton was able to reach him in a matter of three phone calls and soon they were meeting for coffee in New York. Unfortunately, Torn knew very little about where he might find Dowd. But what he did provide, however, was Ian Dowd’s unfinished autobiography, provided to him by Dowd on the set because he thought it would make a great biopic.
The manuscript, tentatively titled The Bigger They Come, the More Money They Make, was woefully lacking in many areas, unless you were particularly interested in Dowd’s thoughts on wine; or his theory that it was Shakespeare who had actually written the King James translation of The Bible because, published on the bard’s forty-sixth birthday, the forty-sixth word from the beginning of Psalm 46 is shake, and the forty-sixth from the end is spear; or that Kennedy’s assassination was a cold-served revenge killing for Lincoln; or in the lists of some of the more spectacular collections he had gathered over the years, including a nearly complete set of official Superbowl Championship caps for all the losing teams since they were first introduced in 1966 (or rather, three years later, because it wasn’t until then, after The New York Jets had created such an upset over the Baltimore Colts the year prior, that both teams went into the final feeling that optimistic). After the defeats, most of these hats (which were made solely for the players) were immediately destroyed, rushed as the clock officially struck 00:00 by the most trusted members of the cheerleading squad from their spot in a box behind the bench to a special incinerator installed in both dressing rooms before the game. Someone always managed to keep one for sentimental reasons, though, if not a retiring cheerleader then one of the manufacturers, which meant there was also always a price at which they could be purchased. The only exceptions appeared to be: the 1989 Broncos, because their coach was too superstitious to tempt fate in that way; the 1983 Dolphins, who took extra precautions to make the hats themselves, by hand, and then quickly devoured them
on the bench as the last seconds died away; and the 1990 Broncos, who were so convinced that they had no chance of winning that it’s said they didn’t even bother making them.
It said nothing about his youth, or anything prior to the film that really broke him – Hung Gary, Hung Ross (1993), about “a team of well-endowed backdoor-to-backdoor salesmen,” best known at the time for featuring the record number of unique penetration shots in any porn film, with 138 in only 100 minutes, just short of one per minute, including everything from oral to anal to pumpkins and indeed several shots of things like hands reaching into briefcases, stir-sticks in coffee and pencils in sharpeners, which has recently called the record into question, especially by the rival director who had held the record previously. It was as if he’d just materialized out of thin air.
The film’s success led to an entire Hung series of films, including:
•Hung Out to Dry (1993);
•Hung Jury (1993);
•Hung Dinger (1994);
•the Hung detective saga that began with Gary Hung: Private Dick (1994), cycled through a number of parody-style offers like The Naked Hung 9 ½” (1996) and ended with his death at the hands, mouth and everything else of his nemesis, Anita Kvicky, in Hung Over (2000);
•and a vampire porn, banking on the popularity of a television drama for teens, bringing our hero Dick Hung back from the dead in The Hunger (2001).
The sequels and spinoffs became even more ridiculous, transforming Hung into everything from a cigar-smoking Cuban freedom fighter to a triad of martial arts films – Hung Fu (1994), Hung Pao (1995) and Hung Kong (1997) – which were less than sensitive on the racial front but did manage to create a strong political statement with regards to England’s transfer of sovereignty of the island-state back to the Chinese government.
The book unfortunately contained no contact information, and he had to admit that the search for Dowd was likely over. At the very least, the chances of him and Angelo being the same person had grown increasingly slim.
Then he flipped over one of the pages and saw it had all been printed on letterhead from a company in California called Decter-American, purchased in 1999 by Silvestri USA.
Chris Eaton grabbed everything he could carry and caught the first bus for the opposite coast.
There were places, on his missions, that he avoided at all costs. As a child, he had heard the story of a seventeenth century Frenchman named André Pujom whose name, when anagrammed, became pendu à Riom (in those days, the letters j and i were often interchangeable), which translated as hanged in Riom, a township approximately three days from his birthplace of Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. As this was also the birthplace of Michel de Nostradame, more commonly known as Nostradamus, it was near impossible to grow up outside the influence of the burgeoning industry of the occult. And yet, the young Pujom leaned heavily on the side of contrariness, and rejected all forms of divination that were presented to him, all of which seemed to point in the same direction, including the old midwife who, on the power of a vision from his placenta, wrapped the umbilical cord around his newborn neck, and the phrenologist who jokingly remarked that the perfect roundness of his skull, without a bump on it at all, seemed ideal for the passing of a noose. He refused to believe that his life could be so predetermined, not even when the gypsy dropped all nine needles into his bowl and let out a long, low whistle. When his mother passed, they tossed her ashes into the air and they were carried by a gust of wind and hung there long after he had given up and gone home. There were astrologists, of course, and numerologists. More than he could count. And there were others who attempted to reveal his end through the tarot, his aura, the burning of figs, flocks of birds, mashing exotic fruits like kumquats, or avocados, water currents, rainwater, swirling water in a cup, passing water, falling in water, firing arrows into the sky, dogs, smoke, dogs who smoked, dripping wax, fields of light, gongs, the raving of lunatics, random shouts heard in a crowd, opening the dictionary to random words, the number of raisins in a brioche, ants in an anthill, beetle tracks, fish behaviour, dice, dominos, the I Ching, Ouija, voting, small objects, large objects, the palms of the hand, the soles of the feet, the buttocks, things found at the beach, the flipping of a supposedly magic coin. And each one he shrugged off like a shawl on a hot day and went about his daily business of orneriness. But the anagram of his name, for some reason, a combination of temurah and onomancy (as opposed to oinomancy, which was divination through wine), was one that he could not ignore, and he was more angered than opposed to the idea that something as simple as a name could decide his fate. It plagued his thoughts through day and night, night and day, causing him to live in fear for much of his life, until one day he decided to take it upon himself to set things right, packed his bags and hired a coachman to bring him directly to Riom itself.
The plan was simple. He had, in fact, done nothing wrong. So it should be simple enough to approach a judge and convince the man of his innocence. Through the entire circuitous route through Grenoble, Geneva, Lyon and Saint-Esseintes, he rehearsed his speech to the coachman, who did not hear a thing because he was partially deaf and prone to sleeping while his horses followed their familiar route. By the time they reached Riom, Pujom was sure he was free of his destiny forever. The judge, who was more than a little startled and confused by the fiercely strained young man, nevertheless agreed to grant him a special decree of innocence, something he drafted on the spot on the back of a paper napkin, more to be rid of him than anything else. Free at last from his curse, Pujom decided not to push his luck any further and set out for the Americas, searching for gold in Costa Rica. Within a year of settling in Limón, he had found no gold but had managed to accrue quite a fortune trading illegally with New Granada, until one day he went out with his mestizo wife for a picnic, became lost near the village of Moin, and eventually starved to death.
The story was equally bad for Holland’s Jan du Pruom, who knew nothing of his predicted fate when he came to Riom the day after the Frenchman and was nearly run over in the market by the coach taking Pujom to the coast, which forced his horse off the road where it trampled a poor washerwoman to death. He was hanged later the next day.
***
Thus, Chris Eaton never traveled to Norway, for fear of contracting High Altitude Cerebral Edema (HACE) in Stor. He cut a wide path around Wales, including Chester, else risk being shot in Caer (the Welsh name for that British city, as well as the general word for a fortress). He even made a rule, as ridiculous as it seemed, not to travel to the islands of Micronesia, so he wouldn’t be involved in a crash in Eot, though many of the inhabitants of the smallest island had probably never even seen a car anywhere, let alone on the island itself. This particular combination also precluded travel to Spain and Holland, specifically the villages of Teo and Oet, where crashes were much more possible.
But that was only the version of his name that he went by most commonly. So, as Christopher Eaton, he also had to be anxious about Spain around the seaside, and zoos, and any sort of unidentifiable foliage, else he be mauled by a cheetah in Port Ros, or if he considered Chris Avard Eaton – and this one was more uncomfortable than life-threatening – develop a rash in Corterva. (Rashes were also a risk in the U.S., at least in Corter, VA.) He risked equal discomfort in New Zealand, India and Finland, with the possibility of being chased in Ratorva (site of one of the country’s famous geysers), it being overcast in Harda, or being scarred in Vaahto. More crucial, naturally, was steering clear of Germany, Hungary and Mexico, where he might become a cadaver in Sörth, be charred in Sovata, or starved in Arocha. And despite the logical side of his brain saying there was nothing to fear, he bypassed both the villages of Stava and Vasat in Central Serbia and Turkey, in an attempt to ward off an attack by a potential orca herd. If he were to ever set foot in the French village of Orvès, he would expect both a parched throat and a hatched raptor.
Of course, writing these locations off his travel itineraries did not reduce Chris Eaton’s stress.
Because these were only the anagrams he had figured out. He also had to worry about aches in some location using the letters o, r and t. There might also be a crash in Ovedart (or some other location using those letters that actually existed), or likewise a crash in Ovedarttopher. In what location, using the letters a-r-c-o-v-a, might he eventually be trashed? Where in a-d-o-v-a-t would he be ambushed by archers? Roasted in a-c-h-a-r-v, shaved in t-r-a-r-o-c-a, tarred in c-a-s-h-o-v-a, retards in a-c-h-o-v-a: it was nearly enough to keep him from leaving the house. And he spent hours and days, when back in St. Petersburg, poring over atlases and encyclopedias, searching for potentially lethal arrangements.
Certainly, like Pujom, he never predicted getting excessively fat in one of the indigenous territories of Central America.
***
His plane departed for Kuna Yala at six thirty in the morning, the only plane of the day, acting more like a city bus as it touched down at several of the Kuna islands on its tour. The smell of rotting mangoes that hung over the city – the trees were everywhere, and the fruit struck the ground with a rhythmic regularity – was nowhere to be found on the islands. The fruit trees found it more difficult to exist in the sand and salt water. And so the islands were nearly devoid of plant life; most agriculture was grown on the mainland and then paddled over daily, just like the fresh water. In fact, one of the more respected jobs for islanders was to fetch water, and the ones who were chosen made the trek several times a day and then came back to watch television. (During the prior rainy season, some Colombian smugglers had run their charge onto a ridge of coral and jumped ship, and since there was no way anyone could complain about it, elders had decided to outfit the entire town with the contraband sets and VCRs.) One day Chris Eaton helped some women carry the massive plastic jugs from the dock to a home at the centre of the island and in return they provided him with a stalk of sugarcane that he might have used as a real cane, and he chewed on the end for several hours, sitting on the edge of a ship and spitting the fibrous bits into the water where they floated among the rusting batteries and human waste. He learned later that the men on the boat were also Colombian smugglers and had discussed killing him, but he had misunderstood them to be talking about their mothers.
