Backward-Facing Man

by Don Silver

  “Besides sharing things,” Carlos continued, “partners show their commitment in other ways.” He had the same gleam in his eye that Artie recognized from kids on the playground—boys who grew up and got in trouble, who got sent away to reform school and jail, some of whom died violent deaths. Carlos took Artie’s hand in his and spread his fingers on the stump. Then he put his hip against Artie’s neck to prevent him from moving. A large bird fluttered from a stand of trees nearby and then the jungle grew quiet. There was a brief struggle, and then Artie made an owlish sound as Carlos brought the machete blade down, releasing flesh and bone—everything from the first knuckle of his index finger down. When he came to, his right arm was above his head, tethered to the tree, his fist wrapped in one of his spare shirts. Manny was kneeling beside him with a bottle of water. “Now we are partners, Mr. Alex,” Carlos said. Artie looked up at his hand and passed out again.

  When he finally woke, it was nighttime, and the sounds in the jungle were louder than city traffic. His entire torso, from his neck down to his belly, was burning and it felt as if his shoulder had slipped out of its socket. His hand was completely numb, except for the stump, which ached as though the finger was still attached and had been stabbed with a hot fork. A rivulet of blood had trickled down his arm and dried, crusty. Carlos was kneeling in front of a small fire that he tended with a stick. A thin streak of blood had sprayed across the securities that were stacked neatly in piles next to the cash. The sound of insects was everywhere. Manny was walking back from the creek.

  Quietly, Artie began to sob. “Our f-f-father, who art in heaven…” His shirt was soaked with blood.

  Carlos walked over to where he sat and cleared his throat. “The money, Mr. Alex. Whose is it?”

  If he said nothing, Carlos would probably continue to torture him. If he told the truth—that the money was stolen and that only a paralyzed old man and a guy about to go to prison knew about it—Carlos would likely steal it all. He took a deep breath, fighting off nausea and pain, and said nothing. Above them, the canopy rustled. In the creek, frogs feasted on insects, and lizards the size of small rodents hunted along the banks. Nearby, cats prowled, and monkeys howled in the distance like hyenas. Dark green slowly became red before disappearing into black.

  “I have a proposal for you, Mr. Alex.” Carlos was speaking slowly now. “You need to listen carefully, because what you say will make a big difference in what happens. Understand?”

  Artie nodded.

  “We’re going to keep the money.” He nodded his head slowly. “All of it. There’s nothing you can do. Finders keepers. It’s the law of the fucking jungle.” Artie was crying now. “We’re going to use it to buy some land, a goat, some dogs, and maybe a few chickens. What do you think, Manny, will we get chickens?” Carlos paused, curious to see if the fat man had any fight left in him. “We’ll move our mother up from Belize City and start a little business. Who knows?” Artie stared blankly at the leaves. “Here comes your part. Are you ready?”

  Artie blinked, releasing a little flood of tears.

  “If you agree to keep the secret—and that means telling nobody—not the boss of your company or Mr. Jim, even a whore, well, then we’ll set you up like a brother with a house, a yard, a cook, even a woman if we can find one ugly enough.” Manny, who was standing off to the side, laughed nervously.

  “You’ll have enough to live on, but you’ll live our way, in our village, under our supervision. No communication with the outside.” He let the words sink in. “If you can accept this and never speak of what happened here or of the money again, you can walk out in the morning with us. If you can’t, or you say you can and then try to contact someone—anyone—we’ll arrange an accident much more serious than this.” Artie lay on the ground, his body shaking, his eyes open wide. Carlos paused. “The choice is yours.”

  For a few hours, Artie sat there, lashed to the tree. At one point, while the brothers slept, he started mumbling, then talking. He said he was only a mule carrying money to Belize for his older brother, who’d soon be coming to reclaim it, and that their chances of keeping the money and evading the people his brother would surely hire to find and save him were remote, at best.

  At dawn, Carlos untied Artie and helped him up. He walked him to the lip of the ravine and turned him around. The three of them stood still for a long time. After a while, the howler monkeys quieted down, and the sun began to rise, filtering through the jungle canopy. Apparently, having thought the whole thing through to his satisfaction, Carlos lifted the pistol and held it against the back of Artie’s head. There was a loud bark, an explosion of sparks, and Arthur Puckman collapsed into a gorge where, over the next few days, his remains were picked clean.

  August 1968

  Frederick explained the hack to the newly formed Fenway Park Revolutionary Council, which consisted of Frederick, Chuck Puckman, and Lonnie Clark, a sad-looking photographer Frederick had met in California the summer before. Lonnie dropped out of UC Berkeley to follow a girl back east, but, unfortunately for Lonnie, as soon as they arrived, the girl took off to the cape with her high school boyfriend. Frederick suggested Lonnie crash in Brighton, which he did, decorating the rooms with prints of hippies in Golden Gate Park.

  It was about three weeks before the Democratic National Convention and they were meeting behind an abandoned apartment building. “The Sox are playing the Tigers at home a week from Sunday,” Frederick said, unloading pots and pans from a duffel bag. “It’ll be broadcast nationally.” He poured vinegar into a skillet. “You might remember this from grade school,” Frederick said. “When you mix acetic acid and sodium bicarbonate, you get carbonic acid and sodium acetate. The acetate’s stable. What wakes it up is the carbonic acid decomposing.” As he said this, he added a large box of baking soda and several packages of food dye. The mixture gurgled and turned cherry red, then foamed yellow and orange. The three of them leaned over the stinking mess.

  Lonnie broke the silence. “Nobody but the guy standing in it would notice this.” Chuck tried not to laugh. On some level, he still believed Frederick was kidding. That he was all talk and bluster.

  Two days later, in a booth near the back of a coffee shop in Inman Square, Frederick opened his composition book, which he’d filled with formulae and new sketches. Beside him in a shopping bag were chemistry textbooks. “What is there in abundance on a ball field?” Frederick asked.

  “Baseballs,” Lonnie answered.

  Frederick shook his head. “What moves in a predictable path?” A white residue like lime formed around the edges of his mouth. “C’mon, man, think!”

  “The ball?” Lonnie said, undaunted.

  “Players?” Chuck guessed.

  “Right. And what’s the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust?” Frederick asked, looking at Chuck.

  “Aluminum.”

  He slapped the table hard. “Bingo. The catalyst and the reaction!” Frederick had his arms behind his head, gloating as if he expected his friends to stand up and applaud. “Lay a little glycerin on top of aluminum and iron oxide, add some potassium permanganate, and, boom, like a fucking volcano.”

  “How you gonna get it on the field?” Chuck asked.

  Frederick smiled. “We don’t need a lot. I figure we can bury a couple grams somewhere.” He turned his place mat over and sketched a diamond. In between second and third, he drew what looked like a penis with wavy lines inside. “The permanganate goes in a condom filled with water. On game day, I’ll put the rubber in a trench and cover it with dirt. The later it gets—the more hits and walks there are, the more the bases load up, the more times teams change field—the more likely somebody’ll puncture it with their cleats.” He stabbed the paper with his pencil.

  Chuck and Lonnie just stared at him, a mixture of skepticism and incomprehension. “The permanganate will leak, causing the iron oxide and aluminum to interact. Let’s just hope the cameras are rolling.” Frederick clapped his hands and grinned like a kid.
r />   “What if it doesn’t work?” Lonnie said.

  “I’m not asking you to guess whether it’ll work,” Frederick hissed. Chuck liked the whole thing better when Frederick pitched it as a hack. From what he knew about thermite reactions, this could be a disaster. “All I need from you is a little help setting it up,” Frederick said. “When the opening pitch gets thrown, mine’ll be the only ass on the line.” They sat there like that for a few seconds, nodding their heads.

  “What’s the point?” Lonnie said, breaking the silence.

  “The point is the banner we’re gonna open in center field.” Apparently, neither Chuck nor Lonnie responded with the appropriate level of enthusiasm, because Frederick leaned forward and pulled them close. “A war is raging, my friends. Our brothers in Southeast Asia are doing what they can to stay alive.” Chuck noticed a little quiver under Frederick’s eye. “Lonnie, you’re in charge of procurement; Chuck, you’re in center field with me. Nobody says a word to anybody about this.” Frederick slid the book back in his knapsack. “One more thing,” he said, looking at Chuck. “Lorraine knows nothing. You understand?” He slipped out of the booth, past the cashier, and out the front door. On his way out, Chuck picked up the place mat and stuffed it in his pocket.

  That week, the Red Sox went on an extended road trip. Frederick traveled, came back, and then went away again. Chuck repaired his relationship with the road manager of the Inter Galactic Messengers by placing a larger-than-average order. That summer, he was moving about twice as much weed as he had during the year. The temperature in Boston took what appeared to be a final leap. Chuck pretty much forgot about the Fenway hack until the Wednesday before game day, when Frederick and Lonnie showed up at his apartment in the middle of the night. Chuck put Creedence on the record player and got the bong gurgling. Underneath his glasses, Frederick’s eyes were rimmed in black, as if he hadn’t slept in days. He kept touching the corner of his mouth with his tongue, as if confirming the presence of something.

  “Lonnie ran into some problems,” Frederick said, as if he was talking about a kid who’d pissed himself. He opened his composition book and turned it so Chuck could see. His fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and his cuticles were caked with blood.

  Frederick explained that, for the past few days, Lonnie sat in a phone booth with the yellow pages and a stack of dimes, calling chemical supply companies, hoping to find one who’d sell to him. “They busted my balls, man,” Lonnie said defensively. “Asked me a thousand fucking questions. What company are you from? What’s your damn tax number?” He had a droopy, hangdog look to him.

  Chuck had a sinking feeling about what was coming next. “This here’s the MIT lab,” Frederick said, pointing to a blank page. He drew a floor plan that showed aisles, a half dozen lab stations, and the supply closet. On the opposite page, he made a grid that was supposed to look like shelves. “Get yourself in there on Saturday night, put on a lab coat, set up at a table, light a Bunsen burner—do whatever you have to do to look natural. It’s usually empty around then; there’s no security to speak of. If you see anyone, don’t talk or make eye contact, and don’t do or say anything memorable or suspicious.” Chuck remembered the teaching assistant describing Frederick and his expulsion from MIT.

  “When nobody’s watching, go over to the supply closet and fill these.” Frederick took three metal film canisters out of his pocket and put them on Chuck’s bed stand. “Take a bus to the subway and the subway to the bus station.” By this time, Frederick was certain he was being followed by the Feds; he was always talking about scrubbing himself—a technique for losing a tail that involved crossing streets for no reason, doubling back, and taking shortcuts. “Lonnie, you be sitting under the Greyhound sign. When Chuck shows up, act like you don’t know him. He’ll put the knapsack on the chair next to you and leave. Don’t look at each other. Don’t talk to each other. You got that?”

  Chuck nodded. The new plan was for Lonnie and Frederick to hold the banner and for Chuck to come to the park with a pad of paper and a pen and sit behind third base. Frederick wanted Chuck to chronicle the hack from up close, describing the reaction of the players, the umps, the managers, and the fans closest to the field as the ground curdled, smoke rose toward the sky, and the banner in center field unfurled. It was unclear to Chuck whether this was a bone that Frederick was tossing him, or whether he saw it as vital to the hack. Frederick promised he would publish Chuck’s account in an underground newspaper called The Mission, which got wide readership in radical circles. Chuck lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair.

  He was unhappy with his new role. He preferred the original assignment. It was simple and safe and, because Frederick had asked her to paint the banner, it required him to have contact with Lorraine. Getting the chemicals made Chuck much more of an accomplice, which bothered him. If the hack went sour, he could find himself in big trouble. Worse, Frederick seemed impatient and reckless, and too much seemed to be riding on it now. What had seemed like a funny stunt involving the national pastime and a Boston shrine—Fenway Park—had turned serious. And like many leftists, Frederick seemed desperate, probably because at the beginning of the summer, he had promised a roomful of radical leaders he would draw thousands from his hometown to the Democratic National Convention. By late August, after the threats from Mayor Daley, even diehard radicals were backing out of going to Chicago.

  To Chuck, the only good thing about the hack now was that Frederick was putting himself in harm’s way. If it failed, he would get knocked down a few pegs, making him slightly more tolerable to be around. And if it failed catastrophically, or even succeeded in a big way, Frederick either would be too hot to hang around town anymore or would get busted, taking him out of Lorraine’s and Chuck’s lives for a little while and giving them room to have a real relationship. Chuck thought about these things, but said nothing.

  By Saturday, the humidity intensified until it began to rain. Chuck felt sluggish, the beginnings of a cold. When the sun went down, he put on a rain slicker with a hood and left his apartment, doing as Frederick suggested, cutting through the back streets of Alston, catching the Green Line to BU and then taking a taxi to MIT. The building that housed the chemistry lab had a huge iron door that led into a cavernous lobby with wide-cut marble steps. Chuck took the stairs slowly, his hood up, his head down, holding the railing. At the top of the third landing, he entered a hallway with high ceilings and classroom doors with opaque glass panels and old-fashioned-looking numbers stenciled on them. He could hear music inside, but the door to the lab was locked. Relieved, he turned and started home.

  Halfway down the steps, he hesitated. If the lab was indeed closed, it would appear that Frederick had miscalculated and Chuck would be excused for not accomplishing his mission. On the other hand, if whoever was inside had simply stepped out for a cigarette or a bite to eat and Chuck aborted, he would face Frederick’s wrath. Chuck’s throat tightened. Near the subway, he stopped and turned back.

  This time the door to the lab opened into a room with a long corridor and several workstations separated by metal shelving jammed with textbooks, burners, beakers, and test tubes. Chuck lifted the clipboard off the wall and signed in as “Barry Goldwater.” He felt a bead of sweat drip down his back as he removed his slicker and lifted a lab jacket from the laundry basket. The front desk, where a student usually sat, was empty. Chuck walked to the workstation closest to the supply closet, poured some water into a beaker, set the burner on low, and listened.

  Beside the radio, there were no other sounds—no voices, no footsteps, no water running, no beakers clinking, no burners blazing. Chuck took the film canisters out of his knapsack and shoved them in the lab jacket. As Frederick had promised, the supply closet was unlocked. Taped to the inside of the door was a grid that mirrored the layout of shelves just as Frederick had drawn in his composition book. Along each shelf were a dozen glass jars and bottles with chemical designations. A pencil dangled from a string, the idea be
ing you deducted whatever you used so that someone in charge would reorder when necessary. The last date on the sheet was 4/26/68. Frederick was right about this, too—it was not a well-tended system.

  Chuck reached for a jar on the top shelf labeled Al. As he did, a spigot opened behind him, and he heard the sound of water in a sink. Holding the canister with one hand, he tapped out the silvery powder. As he returned that jar and reached for the iron oxide, the spigot went off and he heard footsteps. He looked up into the closet and turned his head away, waiting. A woman passed, close enough that he could smell her shampoo. The door to the outside hallway opened and then closed. Quickly, Chuck tapped the jar of iron oxide against the canister, closed it, and then did the same with the permanganate. When he finished, he shut the closet door and hurried back to his workstation. While he busied himself emptying his beaker of boiling water, the door to the lab opened, and the girl returned. Again, he turned away. When she got back to her station, she turned the radio up.

  Moving faster now, Chuck dropped his lab coat back in the basket and wrestled into his rain slicker. Outside, a tiny voice inside him said it wasn’t too late—he could skip the drop and go drinking or, better yet, hitchhike to Connecticut for a few days. The rain had slowed to a drizzle, but it was colder now because the wind had picked up. He imagined being questioned by the dean of students, trying to come up with a plausible reason for being in the lab over a weekend before school started. That made him think of his father double-talking an army recruiter, sitting out the Korean War so he could chase women and set himself up in business.

  Chuck walked the narrow path that ran along the river. His throat wasn’t as raw as it had felt earlier, but he was shaking. When he got to the lawn where he’d first met Frederick and Lorraine, he crossed Memorial Drive. On the other side, he knelt, facing the retaining wall, pulled his hood up, and lit a joint.