The Atlas

by William T. Vollmann

  There was a brown islet which turned out to be all walruses wriggling and crawling on each other on a piece of ice you couldn't even see. As the boat bore down they began to flee like a slow explosion of heaviness but the old man in old grayish kamiks had already shot the big one. He'd shot him in the right place, which was the bump behind the head. One-Nut cast the harpoon and they all smiled at him proudly. So much bright blood spread like paint under the boat and beyond.

  Now it was the old man who did everything, going over the side to the dinghy for the butchering. It was a wonder how quickly he did it, from the very first moment when the brim of his cap pointed down like a beak as he squatted in the dinghy and leaned, his left hand resting on the side while his right arm and hand slanted down in parallel with his cap, extended by the long knife whose point gleamed sunstruck as it touched and dimpled a sunny place on the pink-mottled brown skin of the dying walrus which lay like a torpedo between the Peterhead's gunwale on which the other hunters crouched and the dinghy, in which Two-Nuts pulled tight the harpoon cable which the old man in old grayish kamiks had so carefully strung, and the cable passed through the boy's clenched fingers and then into the old man's left hand, which was not resting after all; every part of the old man's body was doing a job; and then the cable doubled back up toward the Peterhead and into the grip of the grandson who always got in trouble. In the bow of the dinghy, the boy who hated white people sat holding two lines to keep the vessels close together. And the knife went in. In seconds the old man had begun to lay bare the walrus's yellowish ribs and blue-green membranes behind. His head turned from side to side as quickly as his knife and he grinned a little with effort as his reddened wrist flowed with perfect skill and confidence through the flesh. He'd opened the creature up like a boat, and it lay so whiskery and ancient with its tusks pointing upward, reddish-yellow and lined with long grooves. Between the dinghy and the Peterhead, seawater sparkled and foamed red like fresh raspberry juice. The wrinkled gray hulk of the walrus still breathed, such was the old man's quickness, and even after the first quarter was winched up over the side (the dark meat reddish-purple and the light meat pinkish-orange), the heart still beat. Its wound-gash now clean and bloodless, the next quarter went up only a moment later, making the Peterhead heel a little under the weight. The grandson who always got in trouble guided each still-trembling walrus-chunk into the well at the bottom of the boat, bending one knee and grabbing high where the meat was hooked to swing it down. When the belly-chunk came, the intestines were still squirming and working. Slowly the rectum discharged a mound of custardy excrement and then it gaped open and still. And the Peterhead sat alone in the still sea, the center of a million concentric ripples which bore away with them the last marks of the animal's struggle.

  The final quarter came aboard, and for a split second it seemed that the grandson who always got in trouble was embracing it so passionately with his head buried in the flesh just below the hook, but that was only for an instant; then the arms which had gathered the flesh in continued to push it laterally and down; and it was all done. The gray flesh, the black and reddish steaks filled the entire floorspace of the hold.

  The walrus penis was given to the kids to use as a baseball bat. Then they turned around for home. There were many other walruses, but the old man said they only needed one. They motored back to their island where the houses of their village would rise up from the muddy bouldery land; they'd go back to the scarlet sunfooted days ahead like toadstools, to the sunny days of swatting mosquitoes, to the summer as huge, scarlet and mysterious as a walrus liver. And the old man sat on top of the pilothouse with One-Nut, whose walrus it was, steering with the sole of his kamik and not quite smiling.

  BAD AIR

  Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. (1992)

  Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. (1992)

  * * *

  Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. (1992)

  Up the glary gray roadstripe whose white and red truck-lights were the jewels on the necklace, up they went. He sat beside her, being nothing. The white dots in the passing lanes were other jewels. Effortlessly they ascended that black hill. They could see the drivers of the other cars and trucks pallidly entranced. Headlights glared on a comb of power wires. Headlights masturbated the wheeled blocks of trucks studded with hard lights. A car, a black die of death, came down the hill toward them bearing two red headlight-dots—a low roll. Then it was gone. Opening their palms like seashells, they reached the crest of the hill and began to descend into Los Angeles. He heard her clear her throat. The hot night air made his eyes water. His throat began to ache. He looked sidelong at her and saw her swallowing the bad air. For some reason he did not want her to#know that he had seen her. She did not see; she stared ahead, her interest in him long since molded white like a mongrel pigeon's feathers. They passed a clean white truck which was a wall of perfect cream. Their headlights picked across the rivets of another truck. The sky was already glowing putridly ahead, just beyond the black ridge. He took another breath and willed it to be as clean as the light-sweat on white trucks, but it burned inside him. They went down the dashed white line that dribbled into the night like an old man's urine. He took another breath and coughed. They passed a truck in the night, pleated like a dirty gray accordion. The air was getting murky; there were no white trucks anymore. They followed the curve down between black ridges, marked ahead by the pale lights of oncoming cars. He inhaled the stale smell of some chemical. Foolish rectangles of car-vision swept down across pavement and dead grass. Then at last he saw clearly the low horizon riddled with lights. The weariness of the air was something he could not win over; he could only deny it. Everything was such an effort! The dashed white line had become his only friend now, as long and straight and even as the row of screws in the window-moldings that ran the length of a Greyhound bus. — We'll be there soon, she said without looking at him, and he almost believed that he hadn't heard her. He was already forgetting that the air hurt. He was already saying to himself: I could get used to this. — He was already looking forward to being there.

  Los Angeles, California, U.S.A. (1992)

  To the ancient ones who lived behind horse-headed gates, people like him and her would have been appalling. Those two thought themselves at home everywhere, and so they had no home. Long before Magic Mountain the greasy-gray air had begun to smell like burning tires. Three patrol cars sped past. Through his window he saw ape of those skeletal-trailered trucks used to haul racks of new automobiles to the dealers' lots; it was carrying nothing but police cars. He and she both had sore throats by the time they passed the Pico Canyon exit. The air smeared itself more and more thickly over the mountains ahead. To the east, no mountains could even be seen. She drove rapidly. They continued to descend. His eyes began to water. I've never seen it this bad, she said. They passed another car. The driver was looking where the road led and shaking his head. Two men in the next car were gesturing to one another.

  He had a terrible headache. Ahead, the air was a featureless curtain, opaque and purplish-gray. The hills nearby were paradoxically clear, their greenery standing out on the chalky eroded walls. It is always like that in a fog; the very clarity of one's immediate surroundings points up the obscurity ahead.

  The sun was large, pale yellow and soft in the turbid sky.

  She clenched the steering wheel. — Do you think they burned Uncle's store?

  I don't know. I hope not. I like your uncle.

  They were close enough to see the black smoke now. Another patrol car screamed past.

  Later they were at a dinner in the expensive hills where the smell of burning was not so bad. A white woman said: You know. I was a student at Kent State. I was there when the National Guard shot Allison Krause and those other students. I saw it! I saw the blood! I breathed it all in . . .

  Somebody was coughing.

  And I—I knew the pigs were the enemy, the woman said. No question about it. They were the pigs. And tonight, well, tonight I'm th
inking that the police are protecting me. Thank God the police are standing between me and the enemy! And I'm trying to understand what changed. Because I don't feel that I'm any different; the police sure aren't any different—

  His throat ached. He said: Doyou mean that the blacks are your enemy?

  She put down her wineglass and he thought that she might cry. She said: Yes, they are. It's not fair that I have all the nice things I have and they have nothing. I understand that, I really do. Once I had black friends. But I'm afraid. And I hate them because they make me afraid. And that truck driver, the way they dragged him owt and beat him half to death . . .

  Another guest had come in quietly from the pool while they were talking, and he was black.

  The black man said: So you've hated me for a week. I've hated you for half a thousand years. Nothing personal.

  My friends, my friends! cried the host, waving his hands. Don't listen to what you're both saying; it's just the stress and this awful air . . .

  WHAT'S YOUR NAME?

  New York, New York, U.S.A. (1994)

  * * *

  New York, New York, U.S.A. (1994)

  The long weary pushbroom whose dark bristles were as kinky as pubic hairs dragged itself attached to a man's ami and hand. It was very late. Two children sat drinking sodas and playing with straws and crying out: What's your name? — When the man's toil brought him near enough, they shouted their question at him in shrill excited voices. — Get Up Mess is my name, the man responded. That's what they call me. You make a mess and they call me get up mess. — The next man sat chewing gum and resting on the sides of his feet. — What's your name? called the little ones. — Sir, the man replied, his eyes shining like the cross on the chain around his neck.

  Now it was ten-o'-clock in this tiled cave like an immense toilet, and the buses pulsed outside, and now it was eleven-o'-clock, and then it was midnight. The two children snored with their mouths open. Their mother's eyes closed slowly, and then a security guard came and shook her shoulder. The guard left the children alone. The buses all seemed to be either absent, gone, or out of sight. Half-asleep people queued or leaned. Only the escalators moved, winding remorselessly up and down like the treads of some monstrous tank turned turtle. A man fell asleep on the silver coast between escalators.

  Not tonight, a ticket agent was saying to a sad man. Not unless you want to sleep in the terminal in Hartford.

  Finally light burst out at the side of a bus outside, and it sped away. Then in the darkness another bus came speeding, and he who waited and watched knew that she was on it, but then it kept speeding and was gone. A man sagged against the wall, curling his fingers against the side of his head, and slept.

  Then suddenly another long bus angled in and upflung its sidehatch to unchoke itself of suitcases which were taken like medicine into the hands of people who then gave themselves to the emptiness between escalator railings and were accordingly transfigured, decapitated, unbreasted, waistcut, kneesplit, anklesliced and then gone, leaving not even the soles of their shoes behind.

  Another bus swam rapidly by, so that his heart rose and fell again.

  He saw a sleeping woman who resembled her blurrily. The security guard shook her, and she woke and looked into his eyes.

  What's your name? he said on impulse.

  Sweetheart. You wanna date? What's your name?

  Gonorrhea, he said.

  You sound like my type, the woman laughed. Let's go.

  The security guard was still there, so he said: And what's your name, sir?

  Fuck You, said the security guard.

  Oh, said the woman. I guess he's my type, too. At least that's what all the men do to me.

  He took her hand and they went out. — What's your name? he said to the taxi driver.

  Go To Hell, the driver said, and he stepped on the gas and sped them straight there . . .

  NO REASON TO CRY

  Bangkok, Phrah Nakhon-Thonburi Province, Thailand (1993)

  Bangkok, Phrah Nakhon-Thonburi Province, Thailand (1993)

  * * *

  Bangkok, Phrah Nakhon-Thonburi Province,

  Thailand (1993)

  In that street the Thai criers wore suits and ties. They looked at me in contempt or else they said: Japanese only! or they shouted: Members only!

  How can I become a member? I said. How can I become Japanese?

  But to this they had no answer.

  At last I found a manager who led me upstairs personally. His place had been open for only two weeks. He could not afford to exclude me.

  It was nothing but a long narrow lounge without windows. There were not even any girls at first, not until they brought in Ting.

  She was dressed in a kimono and she spoke English like a Japanese. When she haltingly sang a karaoke love-song, she sang wirging.

  Oh, are you a virgin? I said.

  Nit noy. Little bit.

  The woman on the other side of me, more experienced, probably sent to encourage and spy on Ting (who had been there only a week), laughed, patted her own rear and said: Me virgin here.

  Every time I said something to Ting that she did not understand, the manager interpreted for her because he sat right across from me in the darkness and devoured us. Now and then he'd announce: She want you to kiss her! and say something to Ting and then that beautifully expressionless face would approach mine, after which Ting would arise to bring a napkin with which to wipe her lipstick off my mouth. The manager asked what I would like to eat from the Japanese restaurant which he just happened to own upstairs, and by some fine serendipity he had a menu with him, so I asked Ting to order and with the manager's help she chose the most expensive foods to chop-stick into my mouth. Betweenwhiles she sang solemnly into the microphone. I came to hate that dark place where the manager worked so hard at listening and Ting had to sing those country songs and love-songs over and over like hymns. The manager asked if I wanted another Johnnie Walker, and I said I'd finish the one I had first, so he motioned to Ting, and she picked up my glass and gulped it. — Good girl. — She still had sweetened colored water in her glass. I said I'd wait for her to finish that, so the manager gestured and she gulped it, too. Then the manager brought me another Johnnie Walker. I said to myself: This girl is so sad and trapped and needs my help; let me rescue her . . .

  Bangkok, Phrah Nakhon-Thonburi Province, Thailand (1993)

  Ting sat sulkily in the front of the taxi as it navigated the red-reflected wetness of the night expressway past the pink and yellow light-strings of the New Excellency Club and the glare-spidered construction booms. She had believed that I would be a quick and easy customer, but here I was taking her past the airport. At the giant camera and soft drink signs the traffic closed around us and we stopped for an hour, and she began to seethe. All in all, it was not going to be a lucrative evening for Ting even though I'd spend a hundred and twenty dollars; a Japanese no doubt would have spent more.

  The upraised helmeted faces of the motorcycle drivers swarmed about us when I rolled down the window at Donmuang to ask for directions. Ting was pale with rage. A dog on the sidewalk growled. People interflitted on the narrow sidewalks beneath hanging sausages and roasted birds. We were lost. Ting and the driver turned to me, pointed at street signs written in Thai, and shouted: Binai? which means: Where? I had given them the brochure for the place, which contained a detailed map in Thai; what's more, I even knew how to get there, but the driver had not turned where I told him to turn, and now we were lost. He would not go back to the turn until a motorcycle driver assured him that he had to. Then Ting stared wrathfully into my eyes and cried: Whaiiiiieeeeeeeeee? while the driver shook his head in disgust.

  Forty minutes later we were on the proper road, rolling slowly, ever more slowly beyond the sickening black glint of night earth at a construction site. The place had been deliberately located on an unfrequented lane of trees. Although it was only a couple of miles from the airport road, the taxi driver made us take a quarter of an hour
because he was so sure that I must be wrong, and Ting sat twisting and turning with vindictive rage, which gradually gave way to fear as she saw that there were no people, no houses, on this dismal way. We came to the turnoffat last, and then the gate. The watchman came out with his flashlight. Recognizing me, he pulled up the rusty stop and swung back that hinged barrier. I made the driver turn left, then take the second right, and we were at the guesthouse.

  I told the receptionist to call the nurse.

  Ting sat by the door, refusing to speak to me. She'd told the taxi driver, to wait. Short time! she'd snarled. No all night you! Only short time!

  When the nurse came the three of us went to the coffee shop, and the nurse explained why I had brought her here. She told Ting that the women who stayed here had all had that job before, Ting's job. They were learning to be seamstresses and beauticians now. She told Ting that she and I wanted to help her, that if she wanted to leave the bar she could stay here for free and learn to do something else.