The Lunatic

by Anthony C. Winkler

  Aloysius did not understand what story doo-doo told. He fretted that his thinking was too shallow to see even the meaning of doo-doo.

  When he had lived alone he always made sure that he performed his bodily functions a great distance from where he slept and ate. Sometimes he went into a thickly wooded spot, although this usually started a fierce clamor of outrage among the bushes of, “Jesus God Almighty, why madman must come doo-doo here?” Sometimes he scouted out a deep gully. But he always did it far away from where he slept and ate.

  But Inga was lazy in the morning. She liked to wake up and write and drink a hot drink. Immediately afterwards, she had an urgent bowel movement. The first morning she went only a few yards away, stooped down behind a bush, and did the ugly business there.

  So the next day—since doo-doo doesn’t take up foot and walk—the pile was still in the same place. And the woman saw it.

  She was understandably disgusted and squeamish. But by the second day when she passed by the same bush again and saw her pile of doo-doo, she had found philosophy in it. She flew from doo-doo to notepad and wrote furiously.

  The next day she took another morning stroll past the doodoo and examined it again, this time with many mutterings in her strange tongue.

  That was when she told Aloysius about the law she would pass if she were ruler of the world.

  “Already I learn something new from this experience,” she told Aloysius. “It came to me this morning. I wrote down my thoughts about it. Shit has deep meaning.”

  Aloysius scowled.

  “What dat mean, now?”

  “Vell, it’s simple,” she said, settling down against the trunk of the tree. “You know, vhen you live in a house, vhen you live in a hotel, you do not really ever get to see your shit. Once you have made it, you flush it down the toilet and it becomes property of the municipal government. But vhen you have to go in the bush and every day you must see vhat you made a week ago, still decomposing and stinking, it tells you something important about you.”

  “Vhat dat?”

  He suddenly realized to his dismay that he was saying his “w” like a “v” the way the woman did, and he became very vexed with himself for behaving like a follow-fashion monkey.

  “What it say?” he repeated, elongating and emphasizing the “w.”

  “Vell, it says many things. It makes you realize that you and the dog in the street and the Queen on the throne and the Pope in the Vatican have this single thing in common: You must all take your daily shit, no matter vhat is your position in this world.”

  Aloysius balked.

  “Foolishness,” he declared, stirring impatiently.

  “What dat she say now?” the tree asked.

  “She say de Queen doo-doo every day, too.”

  The tree chuckled at the woman’s denseness.

  “You talking to me or the tree?” the woman asked angrily.

  Aloysius laughed like a big-belly parson baptizing a sinner.

  “Vhy you laugh?”

  “Everybody know dat is not true.”

  “Vhat’s not true? You don’t think that the Queen must take her daily shit, too?”

  “Queen don’t do dat thing! Hi! You don’t have no common sense?”

  Her face turned an angry red.

  “You trying to tell me that the Queen doesn’t shit, you ignorant man?”

  “De Queen is Queen of all de West Indian dominions!” said the tree huffily. “She is Empress of India and Monarch o’ Pakistan. She is titular head o’ we Commonwealth and mistress o’ de ermine robe and keeper o’ de great seal and de golden key. Dis is a woman born upon dis world in a special place o’ glorified distinction. Dis is not you common trash out in de street! Dis is de Queen! How she going doo-doo? You is out of order!”

  “Ignorant?” Aloysius replied scornfully. “Is me you call ignorant? Listen to dis woman,” he appealed angrily to the tree. “She calling me ignorant. De pot call de kettle black!”

  “Damn out of order!” grumbled the tree. “You think de Governor General o’ Jamaica, Honorable Florizel Augustus Glasspole, who is representative o’ her Imperial Majesty, you think he representing somebody who doo-doo every day? Foolishness!”

  “You stupid lunatic! Everybody in this world shits! Everybody!”

  “How you know dat? Tell me how you know dat.”

  “You’re trying to drive me mad like you are!” the woman screeched. “Tell me, does the Pope shit?”

  “Me don’t business wid Pope. But me know dat my Queen don’t doo-doo. Learn dat! A-hoa!”

  “You fool! I can’t believe you actually think that! Everybody shits! Everybody!”

  “You ever see my Queen doo-doo?” Aloysius challenged, standing his ground fearlessly.

  “Of course not. But she is human too, just like you and me. She also must shit.”

  “But you never see her do it,” pounced Aloysius, the barrister in him coming out in full force, “so how you know she do dat thing?”

  “You ass!” the woman bellowed.

  “Sticks and stones will break my bones,” Aloysius chanted in the gloating tone of a vengeful schoolboy who has just won an argument.

  The woman flew into a rage, grabbed a rock, and was about to bust his head with it in her uncontrollable fury when they heard the sounds of footsteps trampling through the underbrush.

  “Aloysius!” a voice bellowed. “Aloysius! I want to see you.”

  They turned and saw Busha McIntosh clawing his way through the thicket and emerging into the clearing.

  Busha had taken his charge seriously: Recruit Aloysius for the cricket side and find out more about the white woman living in the bush with him. But then he’d gotten busy with butchering, foaling, and planting before the October rains. Three days had passed since the cricket committee had drunk rum and plotted strategy, and it was only today that Busha had remembered his responsibility.

  This morning as he was driving past the stretch of land where Aloysius usually lived, Busha had had an impulse. He pulled the Land Rover onto the shoulder of the road and tramped into the bush to find the lunatic.

  It was only ten o’clock in the morning but already the sun was high over the rim of the mountain and licking sweat off Busha’s florid face.

  At the edge of the clearing he stood, mopping his flushed brow with a white handkerchief.

  “Busha!” Aloysius gushed, rushing toward him in relief. “Busha. How you do, Busha?”

  “All right, man, all right. How you?” Busha murmured, tramping toward Inga, who still glowered with murderous rage.

  “Introduce me to you friend, Aloysius?” Busha said, smiling broadly.

  “He is not my friend! He is an ignoramus!” the woman screeched.

  “What?” Busha looked around uncertainly from one to the other. “I coming in on a fight?”

  “He is stupid! Everybody shits! Everybody!”

  Aloysius tried to take Busha aside, but Busha shrugged off the grimy paw on his arm and approached the woman gingerly.

  Busha offered his hand.

  “My name is Hubert McIntosh. But everybody call me Busha!”

  Inga ignored the hand.

  “My name is Inga Schmidt. And he is stupid!”

  “Busha!” Aloysius pleaded. “Sorry, Busha. What you want see me ’bout, sah?” In an urgent whisper, he added, “She have a temper, Busha. And we was in de middle o’ deep argument. Is all right, Busha. Come over here, sah. What you want see me ’bout, sah?”

  Aloysius tugged at Busha’s arm and tried to lead him away from the woman.

  But Busha was overcome by curiosity.

  “You sound like a European,” he said genially.

  “I am German! I come from Berlin, if it’s any of your business! Vhich it is not.”

  “Well, I’m sorry I caught you in such a bad mood,” Busha mumbled.

  “He thinks the Queen of England doesn’t shit!” the woman screeched indignantly. “That’s how stupid he is!”

 
; “Who?” Busha retreated a step or two. “What’s that?”

  “He says the Queen doesn’t shit like you and me!”

  “Well, you see, Miss Schmidt,” Busha tried to explain, flustered at being caught in the crossfire and dimly remembering some words and phrases that had been flogged into him as a schoolboy, “we are a small country without many hallowed institutions. The concept of our sovereign is so important to our way of thinking that the man in the street has a tendency to elevate the person who sits on the throne…”

  The woman looked provoked.

  “You saying the Queen doesn’t shit, too?”

  “Not at all, not at all,” Busha said soothingly. “I’m just trying to establish background, that’s all. You see, what Aloysius no doubt meant—”

  “Does the Queen shit or doesn’t she?” the woman barked.

  Busha got his hackles up. An obdurate look hardened over his features like drying starch.

  “No,” he barked back. “She does not!”

  Aloysius hurried to the woman’s side.

  “Inga,” he pleaded. “No make such a fuss ’bout it with Busha. Is not Busha argument dis—”

  “VHAT?” the woman howled. “The Queen doesn’t shit? You encourage his ignorance vhen you say that!”

  “I’ll thank you not to scream at me,” Busha said coldly. “This is a free country, not your Nazi Germany. We’re all entitled to our opinions here. And I for one am with Aloysius. Our Queen does not defecate. What’s more, our Queen has never defecated, and would never stoop to defecate.”

  “You stupid Jamaican! Don’t you shit?”

  “Certainly not!” Busha retorted indignantly.

  “BUMBO! SHIT! FUCK! PISS! FUCK! BUMBO! BUMBO! COCK!”

  Inga shrieked this nastiness at the sky.

  “Dis woman is even madder than you!” Busha muttered to Aloysius.

  “It’s people like you who have made him vhat he is,” she hissed. “You tell him your lies and he believes them. You vant to know vhat I’m doing here vith him, don’t you? That’s vhy you come here, isn’t it? To snoop and find out vhy I’m staying here vith him?”

  “I don’t care who you stay with,” Busha said stoutly.

  “I stay vith him because he has a big cock! Vhat you think of that?”

  She was shrieking so loud that spittle began dribbling down the corners of her mouth.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” Busha said with impressive dignity, “I have some business with Aloysius.”

  Talking quietly, Busha and Aloysius huddled in the middle of the clearing. The woman was in such a raging fury that she grabbed the tree trunk and bit it savagely, spitting out a great gob of bark.

  “BUMBO!” the tree shrieked. “She bite me rass! Rass hole, she bite me rass.”

  “Lawd, Inga,” Aoysius begged, rushing toward her. “No bite him, man. Him bawling.”

  “Jesus Christ,” Busha muttered. “Dis is worse dan de madhouse.”

  Told the story that night at dinner of the row between Aloysius and the white woman, Sarah had decided opinions about it.

  “Good for Aloysius,” she declared, “standing up for our Queen.”

  “I think the woman is madder dan him,” Busha muttered, gnawing on a chicken leg. “She bite a piece outta de tree just like you see me bite this leg.”

  “Where dese damn women come from nowadays, eh?” Sarah wondered rhetorically. “Where dey get dem from? Why would any decent woman want a dirty lunatic like Aloysius?”

  Busha delicately paraphrased the comment that the woman had made about Aloysius’s private parts.

  “It must be dat she like,” Sarah said with contempt. She pushed away her plate. “I’m so upset I can’t eat.”

  “Why?”

  She shuddered with feeling. “Every time I think of a white woman in de bush with dat nasty mad negar man, I lose my appetite. Now it give me a headache on top of everything else. Where you put the aspirin?”

  Busha told her.

  “What is de world coming to, oh Lord?” she invoked wearily on her way to the medicine cabinet.

  Aloysius was depressed afterwards with Inga. It took two strong doses of pum-pum to make him feel better. But even then he still complained about the way she had carried on before Busha.

  “All right. All right,” Inga snapped. “Forget him. He is of no importance.”

  “Busha no trouble you. You go on too bad with him, man. Is not right. Busha come see me, no you.”

  “Vhat he vant, anyhow?”

  Aloysius chuckled.

  “Dey want me to bowl in de cricket match ’gainst Walker’s Wood.”

  “Cricket match? You play cricket vith him?”

  “De big match. Everybody in de village who can play want play. Walker’s Wood must beat dis time. Must!”

  The woman was pensive. The open fire flared and crackled and lit up her white face with a sinister roseate glow.

  “I think I know vhat is wrong with this island,” she said softly.

  “Vhat’s wrong?”

  “Too many lies. Not enough hate.”

  “Vhat dat?”

  “There is reason for hate. Poor people everywhere you look. A few rich people. There should be hate. But there is no hate. That is vhat wrong with this place. It needs more hate.”

  “Hate?”

  "In Europe, ve have lots of hate. This is why Europe is strong and rich. This is vhy Jamaica is poor."

  "Bumbo," whispered the tree. "Listen dis now."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Inga and Aloysius went for many walks throughout the surrounding countryside in the days that followed. Sometimes they trekked over empty pastures where only cows and goats looked up lazily as they tramped past, and sometimes they took side roads travelled by hagglers and cultivators and schoolchildren who lived in nearby mountain villages. Old people would pass them on the road and exchange formal, polite greetings in voices that dripped with caution and questioning. Passing schoolchildren would wait until the pair were safely in the distance and then scream out, “Madman and white woman!” and fly with terrified squeals into the bushland. Rotund country matrons, their bellies girthed with aprons, peered suspiciously out of their doorways when these two walked past. Even the birds seemed to Aloysius to turn and gawk at this sight of the mad and the white keeping company.

  So they walked every day in the early afternoons, in the mornings, sometimes with the blush of the setting sun on the rolling pastures and the long still shadows of the evening melting in the blur of twilight all around them.

  One day on just such a walk Inga found and took a second lover. It did not matter that Aloysius threw tantrums and shed tears and begged her to be faithful to him and howled oaths and blasphemies. One hood would not do her, she said stonily. She needed at least two.

  So she invited a young butcher, a man who went by the name of Service, into the camp and gave him a grind in the dirt.

  They met this butcher one afternoon. They were tramping on the asphalt road on the way to the seacoast when they spotted a young man who was preparing to butcher a goat.

  “Let’s vatch,” Inga said.

  They sat on a gray cut-stone wall and watched.

  The goat was tied to a tree and bleating like a child while the young man sat on a rock and sharpened his knife. He did not know that he was being watched. All he knew was that he liked his knife to be sharp enough to etch a thin red line across a swollen throat. He worked on the blade with the humorless vanity that workmen take in their tools.

  The goat cried hoarsely, rolled its eyes, and strained at the rope around its neck. The wind soughed across the pastures, and the bushes and trees trembled as though it told a fearsome story.

  Finished with the knife, the young man grabbed the goat by the legs and wrestled it down on its side. He bound its forelegs and hind legs with twine. Still whistling softly, monotonously through his teeth, he tied a rope to the bound hind legs of the goat and hoisted the struggling animal upside down from the
limb of a tree.

  The goat screamed—a falsetto wail filled with terror and helplessness. It fought vainly against the rope; it jerked and danced on its end like a hanged man. The young man chuckled at its antics.

  He showed the goat the knife, holding it up so the animal could see its silver grin, resting the icy flat side of the blade against its throat. The goat shuddered and shrank from the chill of the blade, wailing in the shrill voice of a terrified virgin. Wrapping his thick, muscular arms around the goat’s neck, the young man carefully palpated the big artery that snaked up the side of its neck.

  One deft flick of his wrist and he had sliced open the soft throat. The wound gaped as vulgar and gaudy as the painted red mouth on a whore. Blood sheeted out of the slit throat and rained onto the earth. The goat exploded into a twitching spasm of death.

  Then the animal was swinging lifeless from the limb, the soughing breeze licking at a tangle of blue veins and white bone bared in its throat.

  Whistling silently between his teeth, the young man stepped back and surveyed his handiwork.

  He placed an enamel basin under the hanging goat, punctured its swollen abdomen, and unzipped the belly with one smooth slice. The intestines slithered out of the body like an engorged snake suddenly freed from its feasting in a dark place.

  He stuck the knife inside the belly of the goat and pared off whole bloody organs that splattered into the basin like overripe fruit.

  He began skinning the goat. He cut open the forelegs, and he peeled back the skin, carefully exposing the striations of the muscles enamelled over bone, the formal purple lines of embedded arteries and veins, the sinews running like streaks of rich ore in the dark mines of the flesh.