Wakefield

by Andrei Codrescu

  Wakefield is out of water, but he spots the eagle-feathered warrior holding playing cards and follows him to The Golden Eagle Casino. He’s driven back a piece.

  He pulls into the nearly full parking lot and squints in the direction of a domed white building. Two state troopers are dragging a man to a squad car. It’s Never Stop, without his backpack. Wakefield would like to intervene, but his feet are leaden and he needs liquid.

  The air inside the casino is thick with cigarette smoke. A group of old people in wheelchairs with oxygen tanks strapped to the handles are parked in front of a bank of slot machines. A couple of them are actually smoking, one through a hole in her neck. Loudspeakers announce slots winners and imminent drawings for prizes, and pipedin music blares from speakers clutched by giant eagles. The blackjack and craps tables are jammed, surrounded by people trying to place bets over each other’s shoulders. The dealers are all Native Americans in dark vests stamped with golden eagles, standing boulderlike against the waves of sickly-looking gamblers. I have arrived in hell, Wakefield realizes, and he finds a seat at the bar and orders two Cokes from a broad-faced waitress. He is waiting for the Devil to show up. In case anybody asks.

  After a few sips he feels anonymous and free. Smoke drifts about him, the shrieks and loud music wash over him. No one around here is in the market for redemption. The architecture of the place is intentionally hollow, a huge absence in the middle of what was once a native world. No one is alive here; he is surrounded by ghosts. Does it matter to anyone that eagles were once sacred? Or even that they once certified real value on gold dollars? Now they are plaster, money is dust, the Indians are smoke, and pain floats about touching maimed bodies, squeezing as hard as it can, without effect. People scream in pantomime, holding whiskey and pretending to drink, laying down fake money, shaking cups full of confetti; their corpses are carried out and more are brought in by tall, thin shadows.

  Wakefield takes a room at the motel beside the gambling hall, a small, dark, windowless cubicle steeped in acrid smoke and bleached vomit. The threadbare blanket on the bed stinks of sweat. He can hear the chiming of the slot machines and the blare of loudspeakers all night in his sleep. Yet he is innured to annoyance, waiting to die.

  When he wakes up, he feels less confident: he isn’t strong enough to die, not all on his own. He lies another hour on top of the stinking blanket, looking mutely at the blank TV.

  The Devil stares with him. He’d like to die, too, but he’s immortal.

  Days later, he’s not sure how many, Wakefield is in a town perched on the edge of the Pacific, sitting on a bench, waiting for the diner to open. Along the street there’s a health food store, a video rental place, an art gallery, a pottery shop, a dance school, and a surfing-gear rental place. He counts six joggers passing by at an even and optimistic pace. Five bicyclists glide by on sleek machines that complement the outfits molded to their perfect bodies. The sun gradually warms the cool sea-salty morning, and by the time the sleepy teenager inside flips the Closed sign to Open, Wakefield feels himself returning from the dead. The smell of coffee makes him want to cry for joy. When the girl starts frying bacon for his eggs, he is ecstatic. Diana Vreeland called the smell of bacon frying “the most optimistic scent in the world,” and Wakefield agrees.

  While Wakefield savors his bacon and eggs, his teenage cook sits at another table with her laptop open, researching homework with a friend via cell phone. Wakefield hasn’t checked his e-mail for days; it’s as if one of the cords binding him to the world has snapped. He feels no desire to reconnect.

  “Rosa Parks. Yeah. The bus driver threw her off the bus when she refused to move to the back, right.”

  She sees that Wakefield is listening. “Black History Month.” She shrugs. She reviews a few more salient facts with her friend, then gets up and refills his coffee.

  “What’s life like around here?” Wakefield asks.

  “Boring.” She smiles. “Are you a vampire?”

  His lack of sleep must show. “Hardly. ‘The key to the whole thing was boredom,’” Wakefield quotes someone, he can’t remember who. He wonders if l’ennui can exist in this jewellike beach town sparkling gloriously on a sunny morning. Bored, bored, bored, ma petite. Be bored, sweet, it’s a luxury.

  Wakefield wishes he could offer her some wicked fun, but he’s full of eggs and light. “Surely,” he says, “there is something to do.”

  “My mom’s having an olive pressing today. Tourists like it.” These last words she pronounces ironically, dissociating herself from the tourists and from her mom. “She makes fancy olive oil.”

  He imagines hippies squeezing olives with hand-operated presses, or with their bodies. Doesn’t sound like a symptom of ennui. He’ll try it, why not. He still has time to spare before his next appointment in the City of Rain.

  The teenager directs Wakefield to a stone house half-hidden among Spanish olive trees. He walks up a stone-paved path to the massive wooden door and finds himself inside a divinely scented and spotless factory. Mounds of Spanish olives on conveyor belts roll toward a device that pits them and passes them on to a big crusher. Other conveyors transport blood oranges to a different crusher, and another machine mixes the olive oil with brief spurts of oil from the orange peels. Three workers in white coats are supervising the process; one of them, a dark-haired beauty, waves to him and points to a sliding glass door, gesturing him to go through to where other visitors are sampling the finished product.

  The olive oil glistens in miniature Japanese tubs next to fresh loaves of sourdough bread, and people are eating black caviar and pâté de foie gras, their wineglasses filled and refilled by a smiling waiter. Wakefield dips a piece of bread into the oil. Wide windows frame a view of rolling hills covered with grapevines and olive trees.

  “Everything but the caviar is made in-house,” a cheerful, cultivated voice is saying. “Olives, grapes, oranges, wine, goose livers.” The voice belongs to a woman with gray-streaked chestnut hair gathered into a chignon. “What restaurant are you with?”

  “The Beat,” blurts Wakefield.

  “Oh, you’re not Argylle, are you?”

  “No, unfortunately.”

  “Argylle is splendid, formerly of Chez Panisse. I’m Beth’s mom, Sandina. She called to say she was sending you up here.”

  “Pleased to meet you.” Wakefield shakes her hand. “Sandina?”

  “Well, that’s a story. I named myself after the Sandinistas. You know, Nicaraguan rebels. Youthful folly. I was in love with Ernesto Cardenal’s poetry.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m in love with olive oil. My partners, you saw them coming in, the people in the white coats. They are Portuguese. They bought the groves and vineyard from a bankrupt guru who had to flee the country after being indicted by the I.R.S. The Portuguese have a long history of oil, you know.”

  Sandina pauses for Wakefield to wipe a drop of oil from his chin.

  “Our oil is some of the finest produced in this country.” She gestures toward the other guests. “Buyers, chefs, some L.A. people. Are you buying?”

  “Observing,” admits Wakefield.

  “My modest abode is nearby. I have a collection of ten thousand cookbooks. I also make wine, strictly for myself and my friends.” Her tone becomes intimate. “Beth is not coming home after work today, and her sister is with their father in Switzerland. Would you like to taste my wine?”

  This is as direct a proposition as Wakefield has ever heard. And as complete a biography as could be put in a few words. Clearly Sandina is a working member of the leisure class. After the tasting he follows Sandina’s BMW convertible down the hill to town. She pulls up in front of a grocery store. “I need a couple of things,” she explains, and Wakefield follows her inside. The store isn’t what he expected; there are sacks of Colombian and Costa Rican coffee beans, wooden boxes of Peruvian amaranth, tin containers of Italian olive oil, and hard salamis hanging from the ceiling. An enormous wheel of parmesan covers a
burled redwood table. A refrigerator case along the wall is stocked with mineral waters and imported sodas bearing colorful labels.

  “Our modest grocery-cum-lunch place,” explains Sandina, with a tinge of irony he finds quite attractive. Behind the deli counter, a chef wearing a tall white toque converses briefly with Sandina in German.

  “He says you cannot leave without trying his duck.”

  Wakefield doesn’t mind. Before he can even say thanks, he’s handed a plate on which a roasted duck leg is nestled on a bed of lentils. Sandina takes one, too, and they sit at one of the burly tables, under the chef’s watchful eyes. Wakefield takes a bite: the duck tastes slightly smoky.

  “Slow-cooking,” Sandina explains. “It cooks all night and he’s very proud of it. Rescues his own ducks, too. And he has a bone to pick with me, haha.”

  When the store first opened, Sandina and her Swiss husband had grievously insulted the chef in some way that she has now forgotten. The chef, however, has not forgotten, and every time she comes in, he subjects her to his latest dish, then waits for her praise. It’s been their little game for years now.

  Wakefield takes a forkful of lentils, but they are bland, underseasoned for his taste. He walks to the counter and asks, in all innocence, for hot sauce.

  At first the chef appears not to understand English. Then he turns away abruptly, and Wakefield could swear there are tears in his eyes.

  “What did I do?” he asks Sandina, upset that the guy’s upset.

  “You’ve destroyed his ecology,” she whispers.

  “His what?”

  “Seriously. You’ve stepped onto a battlefield. He came here to rescue Pacific cuisine from the Mexicans and the Chinese. It’s like a holy war for him. You just asked for the enemy.”

  They leave in a hurry.

  “There’s more about the duck,” laughs Sandina before they get in their cars. “It’s wild duck, but it wasn’t hunted. It was ‘rescued’ by volunteers after the oil spill. Beth and all her friends worked for a week without sleep, rubbing the oil off the ducks, but a lot of them died. Some local restaurants bought the ones that didn’t make it. This rescued duck is the regular Friday special.”

  “Why did we go in there?”

  Sandina laughs. She holds open her windbreaker for him to see. Peeking over the top of an inside pocket is a long package of ink-black squid noodles. “Part of the game. I always lift something. Anyway, I thought you would enjoy seeing the place.”

  As they drive, rising and dipping over the grapevined hills, Wakefield imagines lines of force over the landscape, connecting the people to the cosmos where the continent meets the restless ocean. People have always found, or made, utopias here, utopias of refugees and migrants, eccentric religions, infinite kindness, and silliness without end. The End of the World is often anticipated here, but the Garden of Eden just keeps growing.

  Sandina’s house is hidden inside a paradisical garden. Paths of seashells and smooth stones lead through it to a meditation gazebo and a windowless redwood building. Wakefield sits in the kitchen, surrounded by the ten thousand cookbooks, while Sandina rolls an enormous joint.

  “My husband was a marijuana grower way back when. He perfected this strain of sensimilla.…” She licks the paper, completing her task. “Eventually he went into banking, like all good Swiss.”

  A young Asian girl comes through the kitchen door. “Will you need me today?” She smiles at Sandina, paying no attention to Wakefield. She’s wearing a batik scarf over her hair.

  “You could make a fire for the sauna,” Sandina tells her, passing Wakefield the joint. “Use the balsam, okay?”

  The girl nods and leaves noiselessly, trailing a scent of sage and leaf smoke behind her.

  “She’s with a Sufi-type group. They show up to do chores for people around here, but won’t take any money for it. They won’t even accept a glass of juice. They are required to do ‘service’: roof repairs, plumbing, gardening, anything. Some people don’t like to have them around: they’re so otherworldly, they seem almost weightless. I’ve even heard people say that their ‘service’ is some kind of ritual before they kill us all, but I don’t think so. Do you?”

  Wakefield doesn’t want to think about it. He can get a little paranoid when he’s stoned. He’s heard of “skill gatherers” before, but he doesn’t know why they prefer serving the rich rather than helping out the needy.

  Sandina leads him to a wooden bench in the garden. He watches as she takes off her clothes, and he does the same. She’s tan and toned, and unabashed by her nakedness. She takes his hand, examining his worm-white frame, and pulls him into the sauna, where they are enveloped in fragrant heat.

  Sandina pours a dipper of water over the hot rocks and sits next to him, almost invisible in the aromatic steam. She hands him a cold glass; he grips it, lifts it to his lips, and takes a sip. It’s champagne.

  “Having fun yet?” Sandina asks.

  Fun. What a concept. What a word.

  “My husband never understood fun. In Switzerland they call it something that translates as ‘cozy relaxation,’ something you do with friends at the ski lodge. Fun is a little more hard-edged, I think,” she says, taking hold of his edge, which grows hard under her touch.

  “European fun is never close enough to surrender,” she continues even as she gently plies his firmness. “It’s more like a desperate pause between the wars, a release from immovable givens.”

  So this is American fun, West Coast style. He’s lazing in a river of sensuality, his body a lute or guitar, champagne bubbles playing over his cartoon-figure head. Sandina’s hand caresses, cajoles, and his hands cup her breasts. Did she straddle him as suddenly as he thinks? Wakefield shudders, feels her grip, is within the moist darkness of woman, and he waits there, listening. He feels her interior rejoice, and she holds him there until Wakefield, who has never stayed in a sauna this long, begins to feel faint.

  The air outside is cold. When he reaches for his clothes, she takes his hand and sprints toward the house, where she wraps him in a fluffy robe. She wraps herself in a short kimono, then disappears into the bathroom. He sits on the paisley futon and picks up the book lying there. It’s called The Art of Bathing.

  Reading it he realizes there is a lot to learn. The Japanese custom involves immersion in very hot water and steam while being laved by professionals trained in massage and music. Even the simple act of pouring a bucket of water on one’s head is an art they’ve developed to poetic ecstasy. The Finnish subdue winter with a ritual of steam, snow, and hot springs. On leaving these womblike environments, they enjoy being birched with green saplings. The thrill of hot water followed by fresh stinging pain is also a favorite of Russians, who consider birching a form of purification. There’s a photo of a plump, pink man emerging from a bath and a birching, glowing with physical and spiritual health. In Hungary the baths are like coffeehouses; men lounge about wrapped in towels, reading the newspapers and playing checkers.

  Many serious bathing cultures use aromatic herbs to increase the headiness of the experience. The women’s baths in Islamic countries, the hammam in Morocco, for example, are veritable herbariums that induce pleasant hallucinations through a subtle blending of aromas and perspiration. “You cannot imagine,” the author of The Art of Bathing exclaims, “the arabesque interiors! The perfumes!” Wakefield cannot. He can barely read; his eyes keep shutting postorgasmically, his mind subdued by pleasure. Sandina finds him nodding off and pushes him gently down on the futon, where he sleeps.

  “Aw, Sandina, he’s just a tourist!”

  Wakefield opens his eyes. He’s lying on the futon, covered by something angelically soft. He must be dead. He runs his hands over the material and it makes him want to sleep again. Sitar music is playing in the clouds. But then he hears Sandina say, “Don’t be such a square, Beth.”

  Through the bedroom door he can see Beth sitting on the butcher-block counter in the kitchen, bringing an Inca Cola to her lips.

 
; “I’m not square! I thought we had a rule! No tourists or monks!”

  “He’s not a tourist, Beth. He’s here for a reason.”

  “To you, Sandina, everybody’s here for a reason.”

  Time to intervene. Wakefield rises and looks around for his clothes. He finds them draped over a trunk at the foot of his nest. His nakedness covered, he approaches the kitchen and coughs.

  Both women turn toward him.

  “I don’t know what to say. I should know what to say, but I don’t.” He realizes that he’s still stoned, a little drunk, and his body tells him that he’s just had an extraordinary sexual experience. Of course he doesn’t know what to say.

  “Say thanks,” grimaces Beth, “and then leave before my dad gets back tomorrow.”

  Sandina smiles enigmatically. “She’s probably right. But I should be the one to say thanks. Thank you for letting me use you, mister.”

  “Oh, freakin’ jeez, you’re disgusting, Sandina.” Beth leaps off the counter and heads for the kitchen door. “I’m never giving directions again to anyone. I’m going to Ella’s to study.”

  “Black History Month. Good luck,” Wakefield calls after her.

  Paradise, it turns out, is only temporary. Sandina hands him a bar of soap wrapped in a banana leaf, tied with red silk. “Finely milled eucalyptus-oatmeal soap, handmade by my very best friend.”

  Wakefield kisses her hand, slips the soap in his pocket. Oh, you lucky Devil.

  The road that Wakefield takes out of Eden climbs and curves and doubles back on itself, refusing to conform to any traditional narrative structure. He drives all night up the coast, startled occasionally by lights flashing in the dark ocean, deer running across the road. Near dawn he stops to rest for an hour in the car, his sleep accompanied by the pounding of the surf six hundred feet below.