The Up-Down

by Barry Gifford

  Pace slept often in these weeks and had difficulty determining the difference between dream and reality. After two months, when his mental faculties had returned nearly to normal and he had come to a full understanding of what happened to him, Pace realized that he was most satisfied while in a dream state, abetted as that was by extensive use of pain-killers and barbiturates, from which the doctor who treated him was at this point in Pace’s recovery attempting to wean him. Dr. Dacoit had been Dalceda Delahoussaye’s physician for the last twenty-two years of her life and had also tended to Pace’s mother upon occasion. Though now almost eighty-five years old, Dr. Dacoit was still in possession of his faculties and was the only doctor remaining in Bay St. Clement who made house calls.

  “I been meanin’ to ask you,” Pace said to the doctor one afternoon when he was checking in on Pace’s progress, “where your name comes from. I never ran into it before.”

  “Dacoit is actually a Hindu name, son,” said the doctor. “My grandfather, Kapoor, was born in Calcutta and was taken to America before the age of two by an uncle and aunt, who established a dry goods business in Baltimore. Kapoor’s father, my great-grandfather, was apparently a member of a murderous gang of thieves. He was himself killed and his wife abducted by a rival band of criminals. She was supposedly sold into sexual slavery and ended up in a cage on the docks of Bombay. Kapoor was taken in by one of her brothers and his wife. The name Dacoit came to be associated with the outlaw band in India and Burma. There are many people who believe this gang is still in operation in the present day, much as the mafia in Sicily and America continue their underworld activities unabated. The word ‘dacoity’ is commonly used in India to describe a robbery.”

  “That’s very interesting, doctor. You ever consider changing it?”

  Dr. Dacoit laughed. He had black smudges under both eyes, a large, hawk-like nose, and a full head of wiry white hair. Though an octogenarian, he did not wear eyeglasses either for reading or distance.

  “No, why should I have?” he said. “The word dacoit means nothing in this country, and I’ve never gone to India or Burma. I would like to have but I never got around to it and now I am too old to travel that far and to deal with the everyday difficulties of life in such a confusing place.”

  “When can I get these casts off?”

  “Next week, I think, Mr. Ripley. How frequent are your headaches now?”

  “I usually get them in the late afternoon, but they aren’t as bad as before.”

  “Good, good. I’ll renew your prescription for the headaches, but I believe we’ll see if you can sleep comfortably without the barbiturates. If you have any problems with that, of course, call me.”

  “Okay, Dr. Dacoit, I will.”

  “See you in a week, then.”

  “Oh, doctor?”

  “Yes?”

  “What’s your first name?”

  “Hoyt. Named after a knuckleball pitcher on the Baltimore Orioles.”

  “Just curious. Thanks.”

  After Dr. Dacoit left, Pace thought about the randomness of events, how strange that this good and dedicated doctor bore the name of an organization of murderous thugs from another continent. Not very much made sense to Pace these days. His head began to spin and he closed his eyes and tried to sleep. He could not control his dreams any better than he could control the circumstances of his waking life, but he had no desire to try to manipulate his dreams. At least in them, he believed, the unpredictability could do him no harm.

  2

  Pace recalled the title of the chapter in Herman Melville’s The Confidence Man he had read prior to leaving Dr. Furbo’s house in Wisconsin: “Towards the End of Which the Herb-Doctor Proves Himself a Forgiver of Injuries.” It was up to Pace to forgive himself for his foolishness in Shoshone country that resulted in his near fatal accident. Once he regained the use of his legs he began taking hikes in the nearby woods. The section he liked best was down near a tributary of the Cottonmouth River. Unfortunately, these woods were heavily tick-infested and home to a variety of vipers, several of which were venomous. Having grown up in New Orleans, Pace was largely ignorant of the geography of North Carolina. As a boy he had visited the Delahoussayes a couple or three times with Lula, usually on those occasions when staying with his grandmother, Marietta, but he had never really explored the surrounding territory. His father, Sailor Ripley, a native of North Carolina, once he had established himself in N.O., never expressed the slightest interest thereafter in returning to the state in which he had been raised and for one year imprisoned for manslaughter. Sailor had later done time in Texas, too, for armed robbery, causing him to miss several of Pace’s formative years, and had no desire to ever revisit the Lone Star state, either. The remainder of his lifetime had been incarceration-free, and he and Lula enjoyed what most people who knew them considered a marriage of mutual devotion, certainly the closest thing to true love Pace had ever witnessed.

  Pace had once read in a book about a group of hired guns who operated on the plains of northeastern Brazil in the 1920s and ’30s, mainly in the states of Mina Gerais and Bahía, whose affiliations with the various landowners for whom they worked lasted until they felt they had “lost their understanding.” When this circumstance became unavoidably evident and bothersome to them, this bunch of jagunços would announce their condition to the boss and state their intention to move on and find another situation. It never had to do with money, only with their degree of comfort. They made no attempt to further explain their feelings; once their “understanding” was “lost,” the resulting action was not subject to debate. The men were mercenaries who always did their best for whomever hired them, their work was never faulted and their loyalty during their period of employment could not be questioned. When it was time to go, they went, without argument.

  To be without argument was the way Pace desired to live out the rest of his life. He had no intention of remarrying; his occasional spells of loneliness were more than compensated for by a general sense of tranquility. Pace decided during his first days and weeks of confinement to write about his parents; Sailor and Lula were truly the most interesting people he had ever met. To be wild at heart and never waver on the road to one’s destiny was how everyone should live their life. Sailor and Lula had done that, despite several serious tests along the way. Yes, this is what Pace would do, not just as a tribute to his parents but as an inspiration for everyone else struggling along the road to salvation.

  Pace dug out from his disorganized pile of belongings Dr. Furbo’s book. He would write about Sailor and Lula on the empty pages of Furbo’s Guide; an appropriate context, Pace thought. Perhaps it might even have been Dr. Furbo’s intention for those in possession of a copy to fill in the blanks. He opened the book and wrote the first sentence: “Sailor and Lula lay on the bed in the Cape Fear Hotel listening to the ceiling fan creak.”

  Part Three

  1

  Pace found that the writing life agreed with him. He rose each morning at six and began working on his book after he’d had coffee, bread and fruit, usually by seven. He enjoyed imagining what Sailor and Lula’s early life together was like. The main theme, Pace decided, was his parents’ devotion to one another, what could be considered an intuitive spiritual connection. Lula had told Pace many times that she knew Sailor was destined to be her partner for life from the moment she met him, and that she believed Sailor felt the same way about her. “In these modern times,” Pace recalled his mother telling him, “this ain’t so usual.” Pace was ten years old the first time Lula had said this, the night before his daddy was released from prison after having served a decade behind bars for armed robbery during which two men had been shot and killed, one of them Sailor’s accomplice, a person named Bobby Peru, whom Lula referred to as a “black angel.” Sailor had not spoken much to Pace about this period of his incarceration, saying only that the penitentiary where he’d done his time, at Huntsvil
le, Texas, was filled with liars, every inmate claiming to be innocent in one way or another of the crime for which he had been convicted. Pace, who was fifteen at the time, had asked Sailor, “Were you innocent, Daddy?” and Sailor answered, “No, son, I was both guilty and a liar. Don’t ever blame your troubles on anyone but yourself, and don’t be afraid or ashamed to ask for help when you really need it. There’ll come a day you will.”

  2

  Bitsy and Delbert Parker, the couple who lived in Dalceda Delahoussaye’s big house, were decent, intelligent people. Pace became good friends with them and they often invited him for supper. Del taught at Robert Pete Williams High School, named after the self-styled African-American revolutionary who’d written the book Negroes with Guns, and who’d fled the country after committing a crime, then lived most of his life in Red China, as it was then commonly called. The school had originally been named Dogger Bank High, after the site of a naval battle that had been fought in the North Sea during World War I. Times were changing, Del Parker told Pace, even in a state as backward as North Carolina.

  Both Del and Bitsy were thirty-two years old. Being childless, and with Del having summers off, they had travelled extensively throughout the world and shared stories of their adventures with Pace, who in turn told them about his own colorful life. Pace felt fortunate to have them as tenants and neighbors.

  One cloudy Wednesday afternoon, just as Pace was finishing up his writing for the day, Bitsy knocked on his screen door, which he opened as soon as he saw her.

  “I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said.

  “No,” said Pace, “I’m about done for now. I’m just comin’ to the part where Lula tells her mama, Marietta, that she’s pregnant with me.”

  Bitsy laughed, and said, “Well, then, this might could be the right time to talk to you about what I’ve come to talk to you about.”

  “Come in. You thirsty?”

  Bitsy shook her head no, and they both sat down on a couch in the cottage’s front room. Bitsy was a petite, pretty blonde with green eyes. She did a considerable amount of physical work as a landscaper, so she was strong and sinewy with a good figure which Pace could not help but admire. He liked to look at her.

  “You may have wondered,” she said, “why Del and I have never had children.”

  “I just figured you hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “Not exactly. The thing is, Del can’t shoot nothin’ but blanks. I’m okay, though. We had tests to find out why I’ve never gotten pregnant.”

  “Rhoda and I never had kids. Now that I’m older, I wish we had. Anyway, you can adopt.”

  Bitsy shook her head and her honey blonde hair covered the left half of her face. She stared down at the floor for a minute, then looked back at Pace. There was an expression on her face that he had never seen before, a serious, dark look that made him uncomfortable.

  “I got somethin’ tough to ask you, Pace, and if you think it’s crazy, just say so, all right?”

  “Go on and ask.”

  “Would you consider makin’ love with me and see if I could get pregnant? I mean, you’re Del’s and my good friend and landlord, and livin’ here together like we do, it just made sense to me when I thought of it.”

  Pace just stared at Bitsy for a while before he spoke.

  “Is this something you and Del decided? I mean, to suggest the idea to me?”

  “Not really,” said Bitsy.

  “This is only your idea, then,” Pace said.

  Bitsy nodded. “Do you think I’m crazy, Pace? Does the idea appeal to you at all? Do you think I’m attractive?”

  “Of course I think you’re attractive, Bitsy, but that’s hardly the point. If you and Del decided that you wanted my sperm to use in vitro, I guess I’d go along with you, but . . .”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t want some test tube full of jizz injected into me. I need to have it done right, the way nature intended.”

  “Bitsy, I don’t know. Anyhow, you’d have to discuss this with Del. He’s your husband.”

  Bitsy slid over next to Pace and kissed him. She put her hand between his legs and fondled him. Pace kissed her back.

  She took her mouth off of his and whispered, “It’ll work, Pace, I just know it. This is your chance, too. Maybe the last one.”

  Bitsy stood, took Pace by his left hand with her right, pulled him up, and led him into the bedroom.

  3

  Pace carried on with Bitsy for a couple of months, rendezvousing with her three or four weekday afternoons while Del was teaching at the high school. This turn of events disturbed him because Del knew nothing of his liaison with Bitsy. Pace asked her what she intended to say to her husband if and when she became pregnant; after all, Pace said, Del had been tested and told he could not father a child. “I’ll just tell him it’s a miracle,” Bitsy answered. “It’s proof that miracles do happen, and that he should be happy.”

  Pace wasn’t so sure about Del buying Bitsy’s story. What Pace was certain about was that she continued to have sex with Del while she kept on with him. What was happening, Pace realized, was that he was becoming more emotionally involved with Bitsy than she was with him. Bitsy treated their lovemaking sessions with a demeanor Pace found a little too breezy for his taste. Not that she was distant or not tender during their “sessions,” as Bitsy called them, it was just that after a while, once he’d gotten over the initial thrill of making love regularly again with a beautiful young woman, Pace began to resent his being used. It would have been better, he decided, to have just donated his sperm and let a doctor inseminate Bitsy with a needle. Pace had fallen a little in love with Bitsy, and he was not happy about it, not under these circumstances.

  When Pace confronted her with his feelings, Bitsy looked into his eyes and said, “I been tryin’ to suppress my feelings for you, Pace. I was in love with you, I guess, even before we started up. Now I’ve got a confession to make: Del never has had any medical tests to determine the motility of his sperm. Only I’ve been examined and the doctor said there’s nothing wrong with me, that I should be able to conceive.”

  “Why didn’t Del have a test?” Pace asked.

  “I never insisted on it. He’s just always said if it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t that’s okay with him, too. He just says bein’ with me is the most important thing.”

  Bitsy began to cry, and said, “I’m sorry I lied to you, Pace, I truly am now. I suppose you won’t want me any more.”

  Pace didn’t say anything for a minute. He wanted to tell Bitsy that despite this revelation he wanted her almost more than ever, but he held his tongue.

  “Let me think on it, Bitsy,” he said, finally. “Let’s both of us take some time to decide what to do.”

  Bitsy kissed Pace on the cheek and walked out of his cottage. Pace wished right then that Sailor were still alive and that he could ask him what to do. “Leave her be” were the words that popped into Pace’s head.

  “Thanks, Daddy,” he said.

  4

  Pace left before dawn two mornings following his last conversation with Bitsy. He headed his Pathfinder north with New York City as his intended destination. He left a note tacked to the front door of the big house addressed to both Bitsy and Del, informing them of his sudden desire to revisit New York. He wasn’t sure when he’d be back, he’d let them know. Pace took his notebooks with him, planning to continue writing his book about his parents wherever he landed. That was the great thing about being a writer, Pace thought: you could do it anywhere.

  If somehow Bitsy had conceived a child fathered by him, Pace did not really want to know. She would certainly tell Del that it was his and they would both be happy. It didn’t matter what Pace felt or thought. He welcomed, even depended on his insignificance in the matter. In the end—or the interim, whatever the case might be—one’s understanding of one’s actions does
little or nothing to alter the result. Pace wondered if he had read this somewhere, or was it a product of his own consideration of the circumstances? Perhaps Bitsy was not pregnant—but Pace’s intuition told him that she was. What if he were not Bitsy’s only lover? That was always a possibility. Time to go. He was no longer needed or particularly wanted, and he had work to do.

  Pace suddenly remembered one night about ten o’clock when he and Bitsy had been walking together on the path between the cottage and the big house, in which Del was correcting his student’s exams. She turned her head to say something to Pace when he took her right arm firmly with his left hand and said, “stop.” Bitsy had been about to take a step when she looked down and saw a very long water moccasin crawling across the spot on the path where she would have put down her left foot had Pace not held her back. “What a terrible snake,” she said, as they watched its silver and red-diamonded body slither past them. Her foot was still suspended above the ground. “I just saved your life,” Pace said. “Don’t forget it.” She finished her step and they smiled at each other. “Not tonight or ever,” said Bitsy.

  5

  Pace’s Pathfinder had 75,000 miles on it. It drove a little rough, like the basic pick-up truck it was, but it was roomy enough so that he could sleep comfortably in it if he needed to. He’d bought it from a friend of his mother’s, Álvaro Iturri, a Basque from Bilbao, who had married a young widow from nearby Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, whom he’d met when she was on a European tour following the death of her husband. He then moved with her to Bay St. Clement and bought into a car dealership. Iturri, who was the same age as Pace and had been a merchant seaman for most of his adult life, admitted to Pace that before buying into this business he had known next to nothing about automobiles.