Fiskadoro

by Denis Johnson

  He saw himself pitied tenderly by future admirers. How Fiskadoro had suffered in the hard time of his youth! Eventually, in the real situation, all the people dancing there across the sand would be remembered as fools.

  And his sentiments were so out of control, he felt so sorry for those who would someday feel sorry for him, and so keenly grateful for their future understanding, that even walking around by himself on the dark beach he was embarrassed. He was afraid he might bring his thoughts into a ghost-life right now, and people would have a laugh to see his private dreams parading through the air around his head.

  He had nothing to do but wander over to the gathering of other outcasts, the men circled around a wood-fire, absent-mindedly combing sticks out of the sand with their fingers and talking about nothing much. These were the people he had to count himself among, the boys without girls, and the older men who did in fact have women but who now, at an advanced stage of domesticated wisdom, usually tried to keep away from them.

  Fiskadoro was shocked to see a new person holding forth before his friends. Everything went away from him except the face of this famous man, the wide flat nose with monstrous nostrils, the African hair and bushy eyebrows made twice as thick by their shadows in the firelight.

  “. . . go out there and catch fish,” the man was saying, “or you can go out there on the sea and catch Allah. Catch the destiny.”

  Allah, destiny—it was just what Fiskadoro might have hoped this man would say: something that was real and true and not stupid and not small.

  Fiskadoro sat at the circle’s edge, up on his knees to get a clear view of the man over the heads of the others. There were almost a dozen young men here, all listening quietly and pretending not to be totally unnerved.

  It was incredible that this personage should appear on West Beach. He was known to be a rich man, somebody connected with the gamblers, a dealer in goods and substances. But he had a crazy side to his nature that made him fail, because of completely irresponsible actions, just as often as he succeeded. Failure made his legend more appealing. He was supposed to be related to A. T. Cheung, but he looked nothing like Fiskadoro’s clarinet teacher.

  Dropping his talk, the man stared at Fiskadoro. The others made room, and the boy joined the circle of listeners as if commanded. The man was speaking of the great things he’d done. He was telling them how he’d become a legend.

  “Bob Wilson brother, Michael Wilson, he had the power of moving dice, and so the gambling men they kept him in chains. They kept him incognito on the North Deerfield, way up past the contamination. That’s why we had to go. That’s why we lost two men. They were good men. Their business for them that day, it was to die.

  “Remember this that if you are a human man, when you scratch your nose you ass gone start itching. Same thing, same way, what Allah say: ‘Every hardship is followed by ease. Every hardship is followed by ease.’ Say it twice that way.

  “Something else it say that I thinking about right now, for the women who commit adultery. You know que dice adultery?” He passed his hand undulating over invisible waves in the fire. “Somebody all night long with your wife. Or even in the morning, or the afternoon. It say about a woman like that—” He closed his eyes and sang, with deep feeling and a tense throat, “Confine-them-to-their-houses-till-death-over-takes-them-or-till-Allah-finds-another-way-for-them.”

  The mouths dropped open. It was all Fiskadoro could do to contain himself. He crossed his arms tightly to keep his chest from exploding.

  “Confine them to the houses,” the great man said. “Maybe I did and maybe I didn’t. Well well, I don’t remember now.

  “I am not blind. My wife laying down with James Melroy from the Twelve Shacks below Marathon. Gone all night and all morning. You think I don’t know that so hard right here in my heart? You think I don’t know that until ten-thousand-dollar fine? Fugdat shit.” He looked directly at Fiskadoro. “I am Cheung’s half-brother. Got the Negro blood inside me. My newest name Cassius Clay Sugar Ray,” he said. “The First.” His black kinky hair was so long it was beginning to lie down, and he wore several necklaces. He could easily have been taken for somebody from over the swamps. “But the secret of my being is just that I leave alone the most personal thing,” he said to all of them in general. “I do the thing that’s for my business.

  “The boats put out after the fish. It been their business. But my boat stayed behind. My business never in no Gulf that day. My business never up by Marathon. My business with the Atlantic Ocean. Bob Wilson brother. Gamblers.

  “My business told me: Go out in the fog. Keep walking. Walk through fear. Fear is a door! On the other side”—he pointed—“Fiskadoro meets Fiskadoro.” He swiveled his arm, pointing his finger at another: “Glen gonna meet Glen.”

  The boys and young men were more and more astonished by every one of his words. Some of them trembled visibly, and their teeth clacked with fear.

  “I don’t need fifty rules. I don’t need twenty rules. I don’t need ten rules. Every day have one, two, three problems. Every day have one, two, three rules. That day my rule come to me like, Do your business, fool. Leave alone the most personal thing today!

  “When my head gotten clanging because of my personal wife laying around naked and tangle up with James Melroy in the Twelve Shacks, my rule come to me like, Do not kill a wife, do not kill a man who you can call him by his name, James Melroy. Personal is crazy! Go do your business!

  “But I was afraid of my business. I was afraid of to be seen. Everybody would question to me, Where the wife now, my pal? Is she visit up to those shacks below Marathon? You know James Melroy live up those shacks, isn’t it now? Maybe somebody was ask me like this: Brother, you gonna ’bout to visit up there and shoot that man? I was afraid of them see me go in my boat and say, That man, he is not going up toward Marathon. That man, he is a frighten coward.

  “But I telling you, Allah is there. His words are ‘Courage’ and ‘Obey.’ I was afraid of to be seen?—in the blinding sun nobody wasn’t see me. I was afraid of questions?—questions never draw no blood, but yes except inside the stomach of a frighten coward. I went out. I walked through fear. I meeted myself. I did my business. I obeyed the rules for the problems of one day. Now I got business in every place on the Keys. I don’t worry about who was my wife then. I don’t know her name.

  “But she know my name now. Every day. Every day she call on me. Every day she come crying and beating her face. And I say, If I knowed your name, stranger-woman, I surely be go speak to you. But I don’t speak to you because of I don’t know your name.”

  They waited in silence. He picked up sand and let it drift away between his fingers. The shapes of the young men, flattened out by the firelight, seemed to shift when the wind plagued the flames. Whenever the drift of smoke turned around and came at a man, he ducked his face thoughtfully into the crook of thumb and finger, covering his eyes and nose with his hand.

  It began to seem they might not be permitted to hear about Cassius Clay Sugar Ray’s business of that day, which had made him famous everywhere. The boys and young men got anxious. One tossed a smooth rock into the fire. Others said, “Hm! Hm!” but couldn’t fathom how to prod him into going on. Finally one said, “Tell it to us ’bout the words of Allah.” A couple of others said, “Right!” “That’s right!”

  As if he’d never spoken the words in his life before, Cassius Clay Sugar Ray repeated, “Bob Wilson brother, Michael Wilson, he had the power of moving dice, and so the gambling men they kept him in chains. They kept him incognito on the North Deerfield, way up past the contamination. That’s why we had to go.

  “I took four men. Bob Wilson. The person called Holy Apples. Michael Torres. And a sailor name Smith, that’s all anybody know now, Smith. We went in my fisher, the Guerrilla.

  “After one half morning we come around the Twicetown Key to the Ocean. The Ocean side ain’t put there for our boats—they tell you that, but we never said it that day. We took the Ocean, brot
her. We took the Ocean, my pal. We sailed the fog full of ghosts. We was hear them talking but we wasn’t understand the words, because of they were the Ocean ghosts who we never knew them, not any ghosts from around here, who one time they used to be our friends. Then when the fog let loose of us, we have the wind and rain.

  “A storm been our mother all the way. She pick us up—sometime the boat she flying. The hands of the Ocean come out and took Smith. There wasn’t nothing we could do, we wasn’t see it coming. But we see it coming for Holy Apples because of Holy Apples started to glow as loud as this”—he picked up a coal, holding it with complete serenity in the palm of his hand, and blew on it to make it flare. “We knew he gone be next, Holy Apples, and we clutch onto him, Bob Wilson and me, while Michael Torres kept up screaming at the wind.

  “The person called Holy Apples was glowing so loud Bob Wilson and me was look at the bones glowing inside of our hands where we holding him. Then the mighty wind yelled words like, ‘Rock an’ Rooooll! Bop-a-loooola!’ and it turned the boat around three times, and the tail of the sea come up and stole Holy Apples out of our little arms. We knew that was all. She agua won’t take a crew, or even half a crew, without she taking the whole boat. We knew she wasn’t reach up for no more others of us.

  “The storm cracked open right in the middle and fell down the sides of the sky. Way out at the edges of the east, now, we watch the water boiling. On the west we saw the city Miami. Just like the Ocean been boiling on the east, the storm been making the city Miami remember the old war again. The air stand black and boiling all around it, but the towers they come on fire from the sun. Some buildings in the south they still there. Some buildings they high as fifty fish-boats put together, some buildings they look like made out of a thousand mirrors, some buildings they black and shiny as a person’s eye. I try to remember but I really ain’t can’t, because of that day everything I watch been bigger than my mind. The city goes from all the way in the north to all the way in the south. The North Deerfield, that’s a part of it. You know when you get to the North Deerfield because of after that you ain’t can’t never go north no more. The Ocean take you in and beach you. The biggest sail we got over in Twicetown ain’t can’t fight the struggle against that corriente.

  “Me and Bob Wilson talking while the boat move in, and Michael Torres cried a little bit, until when we told him what we talked about. We said, Fugdat shit, now, that’s all. We said, Whatever happen go happen.

  “I didn’t know the name of Allah then, but I said, ‘I think I hear one word from God’s mouth, and that word is Courage.’

  “Bob Wilson said, ‘I think I hear a word, too, and it’s a different word and that word is Obey.’

  “When we telling that to Michael Torres, he say, Fugdat shit, too. He say, Whatever happen go happen, too.

  “The Guerrilla, you understand me now, the Guerrilla she beach there, right up against the North Deerfield face, and we go sleep right in her. Let them come! All night we heard whispering all around us that we wasn’t figure it out—water-ghosts whispering another language. And rain-ghosts came. Let them come! Fugdat shit! But I never slept for one breath, though, I admit it, it’s true.

  “And then a strange morning. Rain all night disappeared with the dawn, like dreams, and the sun soft on the North Deerfield two hours. We hiding in the boat and watch the North Deerfield fish-men. Next thing, cool arms been in the air touching us. By the time the North Deerfield fish-men ropes toss on the boats and them put out, such a cold fog come unrolling like a prayer mat, off the Ocean side. The fish-men they just only let that fog chase the boats out to the Ocean. Didn’t let it stop their journeys.

  “I never did felt a town so cold. Almost of everybody in the North Deerfield stayed in by the stoves. If you walked about, ghosts going in and lick the juice of your lungs. Their tongues they rough like a cat’s, but cold. They hide in the fog. You cough up pink fog and die. We got off the boat and march around—cold water in that harbor! We shook like baby canes and had a stupid thought—we thought we gone walk around, no problem. We thought nobody never gone go out but a thief or a vagabond from far away, on a cold day like that, which we never saw before in our life. Rubbage, rubbage—hey, watch me now—in the North Deerfield, they ain’t can’t feel the cold. They walk around inside it, and say, Oh, what a hot day it is!

  “And when they find a vagabond like us, they throw him down in chains before the big gamblers.

  “Cold town,” he said. Sweat ran down his face. He was out of breath. “Cold town. In deep.”

  Abruptly Cassius Clay Sugar Ray produced a pipe. He took a minute to fill it from a pouch on a string around his waist, and tamp it down and find a good brand in the fire and light it. “Cold town. In deep. Last chance coming down!” They smelled the smoke of Israelite marijuana moving across the fire. They all knew how he’d escaped. Fiskadoro knew, but he waited, like the others, to hear how it would turn out.

  “Mostly,” Cassius Clay Sugar Ray said, “the mercy of Allah cleans out my brain of those terrible time. And it don’t make no sense telling you what those gambling men of the North Deerfield look like,” he said, “I tell you why. Because of those big gamblers have change their faces and their bodies when I be go back the second time, and ever since from that time until now, they have never did return to the way they looked the first time I looked my eyes across them. Just this much: they show long teeth coming out here, like big mean dogs: show claws on the end of their fingers. They push breath coming out in my face like a dead animal shit on their tongue. The mercy of Allah cleans out my brain of those terrible time, so I ain’t can’t remember did I weep and beg like a coward, but I know this, which I say without no shame, when I dream about it, I wake up and I weeping and begging like a coward, all right, well well, yes Cap’n.

  “Our arms and legs lock up in chains. Bob Wilson crying, too. Michael Torres just curl up on the floor all stiff in front of the North Deerfield gamblers and try go die. I been breathing so hard I might make myself faint unconscious. I try go look at those big gamblers, and they turn blue, with yellow sparks. I wasn’t know who was Allah then, but I prayed to God, God, without knowing nothing.

  “The biggest big gambler come walking right up to me. He choosing me for the leader. Bob Wilson he bawling like a seagull. Then to remind Bob Wilson what we say, I say, ‘Whatever happen go happen. Fugdat shit!’ Bob Wilson hear me, but he keep bawling out.

  “Gambler say, ‘I am the Hootchy Kootchy Man!’

  “I say, ‘Shit!’

  “He say, ‘I control all the games down unto the shores of Cue-bar!’

  “I say, ‘What games? What games?’

  “He say, ‘All the games.’

  “I say, ‘You control the Twicetown games? I see those Twicetown gambler-boys yesterday. They spending every coin at the still-house.’

  “He got mad and he say, ‘End—of—discussion!’

  “I say, ‘Every coin at the still-house. They don’t save out no coins for you.’

  “His teeth grew.

  “ ‘Old women run half those games,’ I say.

  “Blood spilled outa his eyes.

  “ ‘Those old women, they never hearda you,’ I say.

  “He scream like I hammering on his feet. I felt sick to die, I been so chicken in my guts to hear a man make that type noise. Bob Wilson he got faint unconscious on the floor in his clattering chains and locks.

  “But the biggest big gambler, he knew I go be reporting out the facts. He got calm inside his face. And I tell to them all, ‘You gone kill us. You gone turn us into ghosts right now.’

  “They say, ‘That’s right.’

  “ ‘You gone keep Bob Wilson brother in chains.’

  “They say, ‘That’s right.’

  “ ‘You gone talk about that hootchy and that kootchy down to Cuba. And everything I say, gone stay be true forever: Twicetown games just belong to everyone, no percent out of it for you big North Deerfield gamblers.’

  “T
hey didn’t say a sound.

  “I say, ‘If you deliver us three back down to Twicetown, we gone take your message that you control all the games. We gone bring your percent, and we gone have Bob Wilson magic brother controlling some dice sometime once in a while for you.’ ”

  Cassius Clay Sugar Ray looked around him at the faces in the flames, going green and blue in his sight, possibly, as had the faces of the gamblers from North Deerfield. “When Bob Wilson wake up and found out he ain’t dead yet, I told him, ‘The Mainland-Keys Alliance for Trading, we now in session!’

  “I laughing and crying both at once, but those gamblers say, ‘You gone go back alone by yourself, nigger-person. We keep these two white boys till you come on back to here with a new report.’

  “I say, ‘All right.’ I repeated to them, ‘Fugdat shit!’

  “They took off my chains and locks and put me back on the Guerrilla. I be sure go die, they all knew about it, plain and obvious. But the biggest big gambler say, ‘My name is Ernest Bodine. Would you like a Bible?’

  “I say, ‘Yes Cap’n,’ but he say, ‘I haven’t ain’t got one. But I give you the Koran of Mohammed.’ Then he made a sinful sound, ‘Moooooo-hammed! Ha ha!’ like a cow.

  “I said, ‘Fugdat shit!’ But I took the book and I readed part of the page one to him, so he can see me as a schooled aficionado of words.

  “They set my sail and push me out into the corriente on the Ocean.

  “If ever I need to come about only once, I not never gone make it. I need the luck of Allah with the wind, to sail one person alone to Twicetown in the Guerrilla. But I didn’t know Allah then, I didn’t have no information about who was Allah. The corriente took me out till the land she been far away on the edge of the world. And next thing, before I knew what, this land we live on and walk on she be gone, gone from outa my eyes, and I there on the Ocean of agua y nothing but agua.