I was tempted to ask him why he'd hired Segarra in the first place, or why he had put out a fifth-rate paper when he might have at least tried to put out a good one. Suddenly I was tired of Lotterman; he was a phony and he didn't even know it. He was forever yapping about Freedom of the Press and Keeping the Paper Going, but if he'd had a million dollars and all the freedom in the world he'd still put out a worthless newspaper because he wasn't smart enough to put out a good one. He was just another noisy little punk in the great legion of punks who march between the banners of bigger and better men. Freedom, Truth, Honor -- you could rattle off a hundred such words and behind every one of them would gather a thousand punks, pompous little farts, waving the banner with one hand and reaching under the table with the other.
I stood up. “Ed,” I said, using his name for the first time, “I believe I'll quit.”
He looked up at me, his face blank.
“Yeah,” I said. “I'll be back on Monday for my check, and after that I think I'll rest awhile.”
He jumped out of his seat and rushed at me. “You cheap Ivy League sonofabitch!” he shouted. “I've tolerated your arrogance long enough!” He pushed me toward the door. “You're fired!” he screamed. “Get out of the building before I have you locked up!” He gave me a shove into the newsroom, then went back in his office and slammed the door.
I wandered over to my desk and started laughing when Sala asked me what happened. “He went off his nut,” I replied. “I told him I was quitting and he snapped.”
“Well,” said Sala, “it's all over anyway. He promised me a month's salary if I'd tell people that he fired Segarra because he was queer -- said he'd pay it out of his own pocket if Stein didn't come through.”
“The cheap bastard,” I said. “He didn't offer me a dime.” I laughed. “Of course he talked like he was ready to give me Segarra's job -- until Monday.”
“Yeah, Monday's D-Day,” said Sala. “He'll have to pay us if he wants to put out a paper.” He shook his head. “But I don't think he does -- I think he sold out to Stein.”
He snorted. “So what? If he can't pay the staff, he's finished, no matter what he wants. I know one damn thing -- he'll be running the greyest paper in the Western Hemisphere if I don't get my check on Monday. I'm coming in here tomorrow morning and clean out the whole photo library -- about 99 percent of that stuff is mine.”
“Hell yes,” I said. “Hold it for ransom.” Then I grinned. “Of course they'd get you for grand larceny if he pressed it -- he might even remember about your thousand-dollar bail.”
He shook his head. “Jesus, I keep forgetting about that -- you think he really paid it?”
“I don't know,” I said. “Probably a pretty good chance he got it back, but I'd hate to count on it.”
“Ah, to hell with it,” he replied. “Let's go up to Al's.”
It was a hot, muggy night and I felt like getting drunk as a loon.
We had been there about an hour, swilling rum at top speed, when Donovan came roaring in. He had been out at the golf tournament all afternoon and had just heard the news. “Holy mother of jack-bastards!” he yelled. “I went back to the paper and there was nobody there but Schwartz, working his ass off!” He fell down in a chair. “What happened -- are we done in?”
“Yes,” I said. “You're finished.”
He nodded gravely. “I still have a deadline,” he said. “I must finish my sports section.” He started for the street. “I'll be back in an hour,” he assured us. “All I have to do is this golf story. To hell with the rest of it -- I'll run a full-page cartoon.”
Sala and I kept drinking, and when Donovan came back we stepped up the pace. By midnight we were all pretty wild and I began thinking about Chenault. I thought about it for another hour or so, and then I got up and said I was going home.
On the way back, I stopped in Condado and got a bottle of rum. When I got to the apartment she was sitting on the bed, reading Heart of Darkness and still wearing the same shirt
I slammed the door behind me and went to the kitchen to mix a drink. “Wake up and ponder the future,” I said over my shoulder. “I quit tonight and got fired about two minutes later.”
She looked up and smiled. “No more money?”
“No more nothing,” I replied, filling two glasses with rum. “I'm clearing out. I'm tired of it.”
“Tired of what?” she asked.
I took one of the drinks over to the bed. “Here,” I said. “Here's one of the things I'm tired of.” I shoved it into her hand, then walked over to the window and looked down at the street. “Mainly,” I said, “I'm tired of being a punk -- a human suckfish.” I chuckled. “You know about suckfish?” She shook her head.
“They have little suction cups on their bellies,” I said. “And they attach themselves to sharks -- when the shark gets a big meal, the suckfish eats the leftovers.”
She giggled and sipped her drink.
“Don't laugh,” I snapped. “You're Exhibit A -- first Yeamon, then me.” It was an ugly thing to say, but I was raving now and I didn't care. “Hell,” I added. “I'm no better. If somebody came up to me and said, 'Tell me, Mister Kemp, just what is your profession?' I'd say, 'Well, you see, I swim around in murky waters until I find something big and bad to clamp onto -- a good provider, as it were, something with big teeth and a small belly.'” I laughed at her. “That's the combination a good suckflsh looks for -- avoid the big belly at all costs.”
She looked at me, shaking her head sadly.
“That's right!” I shouted. “I'm drunk and nuts both -- no hope for me, is there?” I stopped pacing and looked at her. “Well there's not much hope for you either, by God. You're so damn stupid that you don't know a suckflsh when you see one!” I started pacing again. “You said to hell with the only person down here without cups on his belly, and then you grab on to me, of all damn people.” I shook my head. “Christ, I'm cups all over -- I've been grabbing leftovers so long I don't know what the real thing looks like anymore.”
She was crying now, but I kept on. “What the hell are you going to do, Chenault? What can you do?” I went back to the kitchen for more drink. “You better start thinking,” I said. “Your days are numbered here -- unless you want to pay the rent when I go.”
She kept on crying, and I walked back to the window. “No hope for an old suckflsh,” I muttered, suddenly feeling very tired. I wandered around for a while, saying nothing, then I went over and sat down on the bed.
She stopped crying and sat up, leaning on one elbow. “When are you leaving?” she said.
“I don't know,” I replied. “Probably next week.”
“Where?” she asked.
“I don't know -- someplace new.”
She was silent for a moment, then she said, “Well, I suppose I'll go back to New York.”
I shrugged. “I'll get you a plane ticket. I can't afford it, but what the hell.”
“You don't have to,” she said. “I have money.”
I stared at her. “I thought you couldn't even get back from St Thomas.”
“I didn't have any then,” she said. “It was in that suitcase you got from Fritz -- I hid it, so we'd have something left.” She smiled faintly. “It's only a hundred dollars.”
“Hell,” I said. “You'll need some when you get to New York.”
“No I won't,” she replied. “I'll still have fifty, and --” she hesitated. “And I think I'll go home for a while. My parents live in Connecticut.”
“Well,” I said. “That's good, I guess.”
She leaned over and put her head on my chest “It's horrible,” she sobbed. “But I don't know where else to go.”
I put my arm around her shoulders. I didn't know where she could go, either, or why, or what she could do when she got there.
“Can I stay here until you go?” she asked.
I tightened my arm on her shoulders, pulling her closer. “Sure,” I said. “If you think you can stand the gaff.”
&nb
sp; “The what?” she asked.
I smiled and stood up. “The craziness,” I said. “Do you mind if I get naked and drunk?”
She giggled. “What about me?”
“Sure,” I said, taking off my clothes. “Why not?”
I made some new drinks and brought the bottle back to the table beside the bed. Then I turned on the fan and put out the lights while we sipped our drinks. I was propped up on pillows and she had her head on my chest The silence was so total that the clink of the ice in my glass sounded loud enough to be heard on the street. The moon was bright through the front window and I watched the expression on Chenault's face, wondering how she could look so peaceful and content.
After a while I reached over and filled my glass again. In the process, I spilled some rum on my stomach and she leaned down to lick it off. The touch of her tongue made me shudder, and after a moment of contemplation I picked up the bottle again and spilled some rum on my leg. She looked up at me and smiled, as if I were playing some kind of an odd joke, then she bent down and carefully licked it off.
The Rum Diary
Nineteen
We woke up early the next morning. I drove down to the hotel to get some papers while Chenault took a shower. I got a Times and a Trib, so we'd both have something to read, and then as an afterthought I bought two copies of what I figured was the final issue of the San Juan Daily News. I wanted to have one as a souvenir.
We had breakfast at the table by the window and afterward we drank coffee and read the papers. That morning was the only time I ever felt a sense of peace in the apartment, and when I thought about it I felt dumb, because that was the only reason I'd wanted it in the first place. I lay on the bed and smoked and listened to the radio while Chenault washed the dishes. There was a good breeze, and when I looked out the window I could see across the trees and the red-tiled rooftops all the way to the horizon.
Chenault was wearing my shirt again, and I watched it bounce and flutter around her thighs as she moved in the kitchen. After a while I got up and crept over to her, lifting the shirt and seizing her rump with both hands. She shrieked and spun around, then fell against me, laughing. I put my arms around her and playfully jerked the tail of the shirt up over her head. We stood there swaying slightly and then I carried her over to the bed, where we made love very quietly.
It was mid-morning when I left the house, but the sun was already so hot that it felt like mid-afternoon. Driving along the beach I remembered how much I'd enjoyed the mornings when I first came to San Juan. There is something fresh and crisp about the first hours of a Caribbean day, a happy anticipation that something is about to happen, maybe just up the street or around the next corner. Whenever I look back on those months and try to separate the good times from the bad, I recall those mornings when I had an early assignment -- when I would borrow Sala's car and go roaring along the big tree-lined boulevard. I remember the feel of the little car vibrating beneath me and the sudden heat of the sun on my face as I zipped out of the shade and into a patch of light; I remember the whiteness of my shirt and the sound of a silk tie flapping in the wind beside my head, the unhinged feel of the accelerator and a sudden switching of lanes to pass a truck and beat a red light.
Then into a palm-lined driveway and hit the rasping brakes, flip down the Press tag on the visor and leave the car in the nearest No Parking zone. Hurry into the lobby, pulling on the coat to my new black suit and dangling a camera in one hand while an oily clerk calls my man to confirm the appointment. Then up a soft elevator to the suite -- big greeting, pompous conversation, and black coffee from a silver pot, a few quick photos on the balcony, grinning handshake, then back down the elevator and hustle off.
On my way back to the office, with a pocketful of notes, I would stop at one of the outdoor restaurants on the beach for a club sandwich and a beer; sitting in the shade to read the papers and ponder the madness of the news, or leaning back with a lusty grin at all the bright-wrapped nipples, trying to decide how many I could get my hands on before the week was out.
Those were the good mornings, when the sun was hot and the air was quick and promising, when the Real Business seemed right on the verge of happening and I felt that if I went just a little faster I might overtake that bright and fleeting thing that was always just ahead.
Then came noon, and morning withered like a lost dream. The sweat was torture and the rest of the day was littered with the dead remains of all those things that might have happened, but couldn't stand the heat. When the sun got hot enough it burned away all the illusions and I saw the place as it was -- cheap, sullen, and garish -- nothing good was going to happen here.
Sometimes at dusk, when you were trying to relax and not think about the general stagnation, the Garbage God would gather a handful of those choked-off morning hopes and dangle them somewhere just out of reach; they would hang in the breeze and make a sound like delicate glass bells, reminding you of something you never quite got hold of, and never would. It was a maddening image, and the only way to whip it was to hang on until dusk and banish the ghosts with rum. Often it was easier not to wait, so the drinking would begin at noon. It didn't help much, as I recall, except that sometimes it made the day go a little faster.
I was snapped out of my reverie when I turned the corner into Calle O'Leary and saw Sala's car parked in front of Al's front door, and next to it was Yeamon's scooter. The day turned instantly rotten and a sort of panic came on me. I drove past Al's without stopping, and kept looking straight ahead until I turned down the hill. I drove around for a while, trying to think it out, but no matter how many reasonable conclusions I came to, I still felt like a snake. Not that I didn't feel perfectly right and justified -- I just couldn't bring myself to go up there and sit down at a table across from Yeamon. The more I thought about it, the worse I felt. Hang out a shingle, I muttered: “P. Kemp, Drunken Journalist, Suckfish & Snake -- hrs. noon to dawn, closed Mondays.”
As I circled the Plaza Colon I got jammed up behind a fruit peddler and blew my horn savagely at him. “You stinking little nazi!” I shouted. “Get out of my way.”
My mood was turning sour. My sense of humor was slipping. It was time to get off the street.
I headed for the Condado Beach Club, where I hunkered down at a big glass table on the deck with a red, blue, and yellow umbrella to keep off the sun. I spent the next few hours reading The Nigger of the Narcissus and making notes for my story on The Rise and Fall of the San Juan Daily News. I was feeling smart, but reading Conrad's preface frightened me so much that I abandoned all hope of ever being anything but a failure. . .
But not today, I thought. Today will be different. Today we will whoop it up. Have a picnic. Get some champagne. Take Chenault out to the beach and go wild. My mood swung immediately. I called the waiter and ordered two special picnic lunches with lobster and mangoes.
When I got back to the apartment, Chenault was gone. There was no sign of her, none of her clothes in the closet. There was an eerie sense of quiet in the place, a strange emptiness.
Then I saw the note in my typewriter -- four or five lines on Daily News stationery with a vivid pink lipstick kiss above my name.
Dear Paul,
I can't stand it anymore. My plane leaves at six. You love me. We are soul-mates. We will drink rum and dance naked. Come see me in New York. I will have a few surprises for you.
Love,
Chenault
I looked at my watch and saw that it was six-fifteen. Too late to catch her at the airport. Ah well, I thought I'll see her in New York.
I sat on the bed and drank the bottle of champagne. I felt melancholy, so I decided to go swimming. I drove out to Luisa Aldea where the beach was empty.
The surf was high and I felt a combination of fear and eagerness as I took off my clothes and walked toward it. In the backlash of a huge wave I plunged in and let it suck me out to sea. Moments later I was hurtling back toward the beach on top of a long white breaker that carried me along like
a torpedo. Then it spun me around like a dead fish and slammed me on the sand so hard that my back was raw for days afterward.
I kept at it as long as I could stand up, riding out with the riptide and waiting for the next big one to throw me back at the beach.
It was getting dark when I quit and the bugs were coming out, millions of diseased little gnats, impossible to see. I felt a thick black taste in my mouth as I stumbled toward my car.
The Rum Diary
Twenty
Monday was a crucial day and the tension was waiting for me when I woke up. I had overslept again and it was almost noon. After a quick breakfast, I hurried down to the paper.
When I got there I found Moberg on the front steps, reading a notice tacked to the door. It was long and complicated, saying in essence that the paper had been sold into receivership and all claims against the former owners would be duly considered by Stein Enterprises of Miami, Florida.
Moberg finished reading it and turned to me. “This is unconscionable,” he said. “We should break in and loot the place. I need money, all I have is ten dollars.” Then, before I could stop him, he kicked the glass out of the door. “Come on,” he said, starting through the hole. “I know where he keeps the petty cash.”
Suddenly, a bell began ringing and I jerked him backward. “You crazy bastard,” I said. “You've triggered the alarm. We have to get away from this place before the cops get here.”
We raced up to Al's and found the others huddled around a big patio table and jabbering feverishly. Drizzling rain forced them to hunch closely as they plotted the murder of Lotterman.
“That swine,” said Moberg. “He could have paid us Friday. He has plenty of money, I've seen it.”
The Rum Diary Page 19
