All the Old Bargains

by Benjamin M. Schutz

  “Is that list you had on your wall part of what you went through?”

  “Yeah. It’s taken years to start to sort it out. The war sure didn’t make any sense. Man, we took the same ground so many times your boot prints wouldn’t even be gone before we’d step in them again. So many guys died for nothing. That’ll take the heart right out of you. You just turn everything off inside. You know fuck everything. I wasn’t very good at that. Buddies are buddies. So I started reading samurai stuff, trying to figure out how they did it. It helped, gave me a direction. In war be a warrior; everything else is bullshit. It got me through.”

  “I knew I couldn’t go. It just seemed like a stupid place to die. Stupid reasons to die for.”

  “Most of them are. I sure wouldn’t die for God, Country or the American Way anymore. Love or money, maybe.” He laughed bitterly.

  “Did the killing get any easier there?”

  “Yeah. If the first one doesn’t drive you crazy it gets easier. Pretty soon it ain’t anything at all. That’s the other reason for the stuff on the wall.”

  “How so?”

  “When I came back everyone hated us. ‘Baby-killers.’ Shit! Everybody I killed was trying to kill me. If he was fourteen, go talk to his mother, not me. Anyway I could feel myself getting angry all the time. So I withdrew even further, trying to control myself. I wasn’t going to be some psycho people could point their fingers at: ‘Mad Dog’ Kendall. I went through too much over there to piss away my life like that. If everybody was gonna hate me, fuck ’em. So long as I don’t hate myself. That’s what the code is for. So I don’t lose myself even when everybody else is lying to me.” Arnie stopped and then began again, his voice lower and softer. “That’s the one thing I thank God for. I did some bad things but I never did anything I hated myself for. And that, brother, is a lot to ask for in hell.”

  I thought about the hell of unatonable guilt. A cloak the wearer weaves into the very fabric of his being. A prison of one’s own devise. A pain without respite.

  “Shit, man, let’s get some sleep. All this bullshit won’t change what happens in that room.”

  I looked up at the stars, the constellations, the North Star. How much harder to navigate that inner space of desire, wish and need.

  I fell asleep in a swirl of doubt about what I’d kill for. Death is the last editor, there are no revisions allowed. You’d best be damned certain about what you submit to that reading.

  Chapter 17

  Arnie woke me at four. I stretched and flexed my arms and legs and back to make sure everything was working, took a deep lungful of air and asked him how the night had gone.

  “No movement in the woods; you can hear the traffic up on the road. Some kids wanted to park up there but saw our car and moved on. A car just came by and stopped. I didn’t hear anybody get out but we ought to check the car to see if it’s been tagged as abandoned. If so we’ll have to move it and relocate our stuff.”

  “Okay. Get some shut-eye. I’ll check it out.” My eyes had adjusted to the light. I unzipped the bag and then brushed back the earth, stopping after each action to listen to the silence. It remained unbroken. I rolled out of the ground, did a push-up to get the blood moving and moved off at a forty-five-degree angle from our site toward the road. Despite the absence of moonlight there was reasonably good visibility. Every few steps, varying the number, I stopped. There was no shadow I could detect. I crouched in the woods twenty feet down from the car. There was no yellow tag on the door. So far so good. I reversed my path and five minutes later was once again enfolded by Mother Earth.

  I spent the next four hours listening to Arnie snore, wondering how he lasted one night in the jungle, making that kind of racket. The cars moved up and down the road. I listened to the legitimate residents greet the day. At eight I whispered a sweet nothing in Arnie’s ear and one eyelid rolled back, like a crocodile. He regarded me with reptilian calm. He arose as I did. Within a few minutes our gear was packed, the earth tamped down, leaves spread around and we were moving down to the fence. At the edge of the woods we squatted, checked our weapons once again, reviewed the plan, ate some jerky and trail mix and washed our mouths with water. Today was not the day to have a full bladder. An hour later a black and gold car pulled up to the front gate. Arnie slid down to the fence. I watched a big black man get out and put a key in the gate lock, turn it, and push the gate open. “Now.”

  Arnie unwound the wire, attached the metal clips to the fence and then cut out a four-foot section. As soon as the car was through the gate the black guy got out and rearmed the fence. We’d just made it. You could hear the juice hum through the dummy circuit.

  Arnie came back to where I was sitting. I screwed the lens hoods on the binoculars and could make out Leroy Dixon and Terri Johnson. I put the glasses down. Something dark rippled under the suface of my mind and vanished. I picked up the glasses and watched Dixon swing the car around so it was pointing downhill, get out and go around to let Terri out. He pulled her out of the car and walked her to the door. Except for the tape across her mouth everything looked just fine.

  “Shit man! Something’s gone wrong here,” I said as I turned to Arnie. He pressed his finger to his lips and then pointed upward. I handed him the glasses and he left. I watched him climb a nearby tree, go up about twenty feet and then lie down along a branch and survey the terrain. All he needed was a tail to flick off the flies. He descended quietly to the ground, squatted, brushed away the dirt in front of him and diagrammed our situation. He pointed at me and drew a line from us to the car, our marked trees. He held up four fingers, made his hand into a gun and located the men on the ground. Two trailers: one on each side of our path, fairly close together. Two front men, wider apart. The idea was simple enough. The front men were to contain us. Either flush us into the open field or back into the trailers. I was right, we had dug our own graves. Now we had to keep from filling them. Arnie pointed to me and moved his fingers to the east in a big semicircle behind one of the trailers, cupped his hand under his chin and mimed a cut throat. My lips tightened and my stomach rolled as the adrenaline rushed in. He then drew a second car on the road—theirs—and moved me into a place midway between one of the lead men and the car and motioned palms down for me to hold that position. I pointed to him and then the map: Where would he be? He put his palm on the ground and simply wiped everything away. Our eyes locked for a moment. He gave me the thumbs-up sign and we moved out. There was nothing to say. I couldn’t imagine we would die. The thought is paralyzing and that is halfway dead. There would be time to talk later.

  I crawled down along the edge of the woods a good fifty yards, stopped, looked back into the woods, saw nothing and heard nothing. I slowly began to pick my way through the woods, ass down and eyes open, stopping randomly to check for sounds. Nothing. These guys weren’t half bad but that’ll get you all dead. I scurried and stopped, zigged and zagged like a mouse across a linoleum floor. Just keep moving. If you’re still moving, you aren’t dead yet.

  Adrenaline time had set in. Everything was in slow motion. The blow that hits you seems to take forever to arrive. As the blood shoots out the first reaction is surprise. How could I not have gotten out of the way? Then shock sets in and there are no other thoughts. I had moved midway up to the road. Arnie hadn’t said our car was out of action. Dixon’s arrogance or their bad timing was going to cost them. He knew we were up there and he didn’t care if we saw him muscle Terri into the house. He must have figured we weren’t going to be telling anyone. They had us outnumbered and we’d left them a Day-Glo path to find us. But they were late or cocky and we were still alive in the woods. I wished I’d been a Boy Scout. I was a little short on wilderness skills. They had come up here to kill us and there was nowhere to run to or any way to get there. I lay down and waited. I pressed my ear to the cool earth to see if I could feel their footsteps. Nothing. I sat back up. Time passed, then I heard rhythmically slapping the ground. You dumb schmuck, I thought. To lose your
life because you couldn’t hold your water.

  I located the guy, maybe a dozen feet in front of me. His back was to me, both hands occupied. Black, youngish, wiry, dark clothes. Hopefully his gun was in his waistband. I slipped the knife from the small of my back and got a firm grip on it. My knees were still debating with me, but I’d never have a better moment. It was time to cross the border. He’d kill me if he got the chance. I bunched my legs under me, held the knife tightly and uncoiled across the ground at him. I slapped my hand across his mouth and drove the blade deep into his throat and ripped it across like I was opening a letter not a man. His life ended in a sheet of crimson rain. He died so quickly that I fell over on top of him from my own momentum. I wiped off the knife and rolled away from him. My arm had been pinned under him and as I drew it out his head turned to face me. He stared at me. Brown-eyed, stubble-cheeked, a young black man without any future at all. Blood still ran from his mouth. I wanted it to stop. He was just a boy. Who would send him on such a job? What kind of child would go? I wanted him to be the last child to die. I rolled back and began to pat him down. I rolled him over, pulled the gun out of his waistband and tried not to look at his flaccid penis, dangling uselessly before him. I went through his pockets and got a ring of keys, some coins and some pills wrapped in foil. Other than the gun he was clean. I rolled him back face down. I didn’t want him to be embarrassed when they found him. Then I slithered into the brush.

  I lay in the brush and realized I could hear my heart roaring in my ears. There was no time to stay. The war was still on. I tried to get my bearings and sighted a marked tree. The dead man was ten feet off it. I drew a line from the tree through his body and off into the woods and began to scurry backwards along it. I was placing myself between the other men and their car. I lay down on my stomach and pulled out my .45 and his .38 and lay very still. There were still four other men walking around these woods, armed, looking to kill each other. We were chess pieces come to life with death the only mate. I tried to imagine the thoughts of the three men hunting us. Assuming surprise, and knowing they outnumber us, they’d hurry to finish the job. They’d been moving in a funnel to force us into the open or back into a cross fire. When they got to the edge of the woods, began to curve back and found the funnel was empty, what would they think? They couldn’t call out to each other. They’d wonder if we were on the run or hunting them. Assume the worst: that you’re being hunted now. You still outnumber them. If you find the dead kid you know somebody’s behind you, between you and escape. What do you do? Do you try to run and get out? No. The people you were hunting have shown you they’ll kill. They’re not likely to let you leave. So you have to fight your way out. What do you do? Be cautious. Compared to Arnie I was a novice at this sort of thing. On this chess board I’m a pawn and he’s a queen. A wild piece moving through the woods, knocking off the other pieces. Unless they’ve got a queen too—or two or three. So it’s time to sit and wait.

  I put back my .45 and checked the boy’s gun. A Smith and Wesson, a reliable piece, not a Saturday night special. I tried to get comfortable, shaking and wriggling myself like a snake shedding its skin and lay there trying to be as receptive as possible. Sight and sound. Distal receptors. Early warning. Keep your screen clean. No ruminations, regrets or wishes. Those are the prerogative of the victor and the day was not yet done. I put the .38 in my left hand, loosely held but ready. I didn’t want to be cramped up when they came. I lay there and waited and I wished the fucking birds would shut up. If you lie in the woods and listen, it’s as noisy as the New Jersey Turnpike. It’s just not human noise. I took off my watch and put it in my shirt pocket; I had the rest of my life to wait here. For a long time I merely listened. My eyes defocused. I followed each bird’s sound as if they were notes in a song. Plotted them as a series of lights on a screen in my mind’s eye, incorporating each chirp and tweet into a harmonious pattern, waiting for the sound that would not fit. And so I waited but slowly my reception grew bad. The signals were unclear. The fuzz of fatigue was taking over. Noise became signal. I shifted channels and began to scan the woods, brushing each bush and clump of tangled underbrush with my eyes. Back and forth, left to right. Then my gaze moved up and over as if I were spraying these woods with pesticide. Nothing. I began to think about the interplay of motion and vision. If the eyeball is kept still and the visual field has no movement, the receptors fire and then there is just whiteness. We see at all largely because of our restless eyes.

  I wondered if I could lie still enough to let the world whiteout until someone out there created movement and then track them. Let them reveal themselves rather than searching for them.

  It didn’t work. I didn’t think it would. I squeezed my eyes closed. Then open. Then saucer-wide to start all over. Maybe become a radio again? I felt the tension in my body. The muscular message was that what I didn’t know about would hurt me—in fact it would kill me. I lay there. Be patient. I thought what if everybody crawled off and left and I just lay here until they put the new highway through? I’ll just gather myself up, apologize to everybody and go home. Wouldn’t want to be late for supper.

  How long would I wait here? Maybe a rabbit will go down a hole nearby and I’ll just follow him out of this mad wood.

  I’d wait until dark. Then if I’m not found, I’d try to make my way out. Until then I’ll play this as Arnie said: wait for him to flush them to me. If it doesn’t happen by dark Arnie will probably be dead. So I wait. I lay there starting to gear up into another round of the Sparrow’s Symphony when I heard a sound. “Leo, it’s me, Arnie. Don’t move. Don’t say anything. I’m coming out into the open.” He stepped out of the woods into a clearing not twenty feet from me. I started to rise but didn’t. What if he’d been captured and used to flush me out?

  He moved into an opening directly in front of me. I scanned the woods to either side, looking for a gun barrel covering him. Nothing. A man could be directly behind him. I waited. I knew he wouldn’t betray me. Didn’t I? It wouldn’t buy him anything. I waited to see how he would play it.

  “They’re all dead, Leo. It’s time to go home.” Silence. “Good. If I was you I’d want proof too. Here.” Slowly he lifted up his right arm. In his hand was a severed left ear. He dropped it, “one,” he raised his arm again, “two,” and again, “three.” Three ears for the matador. No tail this time. “You left your guy facedown in the woods with his dong hanging out. That makes four.”

  I slowly let the air out of my chest and relaxed my grip on the .38. Thank god it was over. I pushed off the dirt and stood up in front of Arnie.

  “Jesus man, what a fucking horror show. Is that what it was like? The silence? The waiting? The unknown?”

  “You got it. You sit in the jungle and people drop all over the fucking place without a sound and you don’t know who’s out there—friend or foe—or where he is. Makes you real patient and real careful. One other thing. Next time you do a throat, lift up the chin first. Getting yourself pinned down by a corpse can make you one yourself.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “I was twenty feet off your flank killing the guy who was stalking you.”

  Arnie reached into his pocket. “Anyway, here’s their car keys. Let’s get the fuck out of here. I’ve gathered up all of our gear and obliterated our setup. These guys didn’t have any IDs on them, so it’ll take a while to make them. There’s just four bodies in the woods. It’ll take a while to figure out what happened. I killed each one a different way. That should muddy it up a little. Let’s go.”

  I started to turn away, a little befuddled that four men were dead in those woods without a sound. I wanted to go back and see each one to make it real. It felt like one moment of stunning reality in a moving hallucination. “No, we can’t go. Terri’s still down in that house. We’ve got to get her.”

  “Man, there’s nothing down there to get. They let us see her because we were all supposed to die up here. She’s dead. Let’s be gone.”

&
nbsp; “No, she’s down there because I asked her to help us. It’s on my head. I’ve got to check. You go load the car. Meet me at the front gate. All right?” I handed him the boy’s gun.

  Arnie sighed, shook his head ruefully and then took the key.

  With no need to worry about revealing my position I picked my way quickly through the woods and stood at the edge of the field. Shading my eyes, I looked down at the house. Dixon’s car was gone. I jogged through the grass to the house, coming up from the left side where there were no windows. I crouched by the side of the house, pulled out my gun and peered around the corner. The ground-level windows Arnie told me about were all curtained. The main floor windows were all shuttered. I took a deep breath and listened for any sounds. Three times nothing is nothing. I crept across the front of the house, stepped up on the porch and touched the knob. It rolled easily in my palm and I was in the house. The upstairs was empty. I could see three rooms: bedroom, kitchen, parlor, all empty. All dark, hot and closed. A resort for mushrooms.

  I went down the short central hall toward the kitchen. On the right was the cellar door. The padlock on it hung open in the hasp. The door opened out. I gripped the knob in my right hand, stood out of the doorway and slowly pulled it open. Nothing. It was pitch-black down that staircase. Anyone down there would know I was at the top of the stairs. I reached back, took the lock off the door and rolled it down the wooden stairs. I followed it down and pulled the door closed. It drew no reply. I squatted on the stairs, letting my eyes adjust to the dark, my ears to the silence. The room opened up to my right. I could make out klieg lights, a bed, camera mounts, a circle of chairs, a toilet and sink without a door, a clothes rack on one wall, a small table with bottles on it. The whole room was open to me and it looked empty. Gun in hand, I crabbed down the stairs. On the opposite wall were the light switches. There was a foul smell in the room. I thought of just turning about and leaving, but perhaps Leroy had done something stupid, like left a map of where he was going.