Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me Read online

  In Emporia, Virginia, they tried again and this time the waiter, a blond weight-lifter type, laughed until he drooled.

  “Let’s go, man,” said Heff, “it hurts.”

  “Just like that? You serious?”

  “Let’s just go.”

  Judy Lumpers looked at her watch for diversion. “God, is it eight-thirty already?”

  Gnossos stole two sugar jars, full to the brims, and dropped them heavily into his rucksack. Later, while the others nibbled salami and cheese in a Safeway parking lot, he sat under the Enter sign and studied the incoming drivers. He picked a teenager with a long grocery list and a U. S. Olympic Drinking Team sweatshirt, stole his yellow Lincoln, drove past the restaurant, and lobbed both jars gingerly through the plate-glass window. He went back to the parking lot, ate a piece of block provolone, and eased away in the Impala just as the police arrived, located the Lincoln, and arrested the bag-carrying, surprised-looking teenager.

  In Fayetteville, North Carolina, Judy Lumpers awakened to find Jack semiconsciously massaging her toes, and the hairy undersized hands of Juan Carlos Rosenbloom exploring the area where the hem of her bermudas joined her thighs. The experience left the poor girl distracted.

  On the shores of the muddy Santee River they feasted on hush puppies, grits, corn pone, deep-fried shrimp, and chilled tap beer. The restaurant was Negro, the service was extraordinary, and during a dessert of lemon sherbet and honeydew melon, Heff went into the men’s room and wept quietly by a window. But only Gnossos saw him.

  In Charleston they wandered out to dig Fort Sumter and Gnossos recited what he could of The Star-Spangled Banner.

  “‘. . . we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming . . . ’”

  “He’d just better keep his hands off the material, that’s all,” from Lumpers, still in a snit. Juan Carlos Rosenbloom was bursting bombs in air and failed to hear.

  “‘. . . the rocket’s red glare . . . ’”

  “Jack brings me down with that toe fetish, Paps.” Heff was trying to light a cigarette in the wind. “I mean, who needs her when she gets like that? Do I need her?” She slept in the front seat, wrapped in a blanket, withdrawing.

  “‘. . . gave proof through the night that—that’—somebody clue me, please, I always go to pieces in the tough parts—‘that . . . ’”

  In Savannah, where the hibiscus was beginning to flower and the air grew tropically heavy, Jack, still sleeping, began to moan and caress the chrome door handle at her side. Now and again she lifted her spine free of the seat, arched her pelvis, and shuddered. Heff leaned over and whispered to Gnossos, “She’s in heat, man.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “I always know. Doorknobs, candlesticks, all that bouncing around. It’s seasonal, probably the warm weather.”

  “Will she wake up?”

  “She never wakes up,” he whispered intimately.

  “You serious?”

  “Never.”

  “Not even—”

  “Nope. It’s her thing.”

  “It sure is.”

  “But I love her.”

  They stopped at a motel with beds that vibrated when you put in money, and Gnossos gave them a handful of change. Heff carried her in and told them to come back in half an hour.

  In the meantime the keeper of the flame went down to look at the sea, where, alone, he was able to wonder about the ominous drawing pain in the lower part of his intestines.

  In Woodbine, Georgia, Judy Lumpers went hysterical. The car was littered with bits of Oreo creme sandwiches, Burry’s chocolate chip cookies, empty beercans, stale-smelling laundry, used tissues, old Q-tips, rigid socks, crumbled paper bags, fudgicle sticks, salami rind, Snickers wrappers, sandals, sneakers, fractured hot dog rolls, cheese Danish crumbs, seashells, sand, a palm frond, hair, chicken bones, milkshake containers, peach pits, orange peel, two Blackhawk comic books, torn Time magazines, broken sunglasses, postcards, Juan Carlos’ maps, and a limp, nearly full, knotted Trojan which had belonged to Heffalump. It was the Trojan that touched her off. She had been trying for six hours to maneuver Rosenbloom into an inert position so she could curl up and get some rest. When she finally did, something tacky touched her cheek. She leapt up, and the unspeakable thing was sticking to her ear.

  “What’ll we do with her?” asked Heff. She was giggling insanely and twisting her hair.

  “Give her some provolone, man.”

  Heffalump popped a piece of block provolone into her mouth and she wolfed it down compulsively.

  In Jacksonville, Florida, her giggles subsided into whimpers and her eyelids looked heavy. In St. Augustine she fell suddenly asleep and dropped into Rosenbloom’s patiently waiting arms. To celebrate, he recited Ramón Pérez de Ayala:

  “En el cristal del cielo las agudas gaviotas, como un diamante en un vidrio, hacen una raya.”

  “St. Augustine, old Horralump, dig it.”

  “Old people’s homes?”

  “Right. Retirement schemes, shuffleboard tournaments.”

  “Nordeste y sol. La sombra de las aves remotas

  se desliza por sobre el oro de la playa.”

  “MMmm,” said Jack, awakening to the sound of a foreign language and the smell of salt air. “Where are we, you guys?”

  “She’s moving, man, just look at her.”

  “She thinks we’re in Havana,” from Heff. “Speaking of which, I’ve got a little business on the boat. What’s the date?”

  “¡Oh tristeza de las cosas vagas y errantes,

  de todo lo que en el silencio se desliza!”

  At Titusville they began to believe where they were.

  At Vero Beach, Heff and Jack sang Peggy Sue.

  At Fort Pierce they slept on the sand and woke up thirsty. Gnossos went creeping into an orange grove off the highway and returned, rucksack bulging.

  At Lake Worth they got a traffic ticket for using the horn and Gnossos took up an hour collecting as many stubs as he could find on the windshields of other cars. He mailed them all to the local fuzz, in a large manila envelope with no return address.

  In Fort Lauderdale the stomach pain grew worse. It spread, in fact, into his groin and he pretended it didn’t exist.

  In Miami there was an ecstatically painful burning sensation when he went to the bathroom, and he had to lean against the wall to steady himself. But by the time they drove down Collins Avenue it was not so bad. They dug the ankleless women in pink straw hats, the faces dripping of Coppertone and cacao butter, the men in Dr. Scholl’s sandals, the off-duty busboys playing Aga Khan. Judy and Juan Carlos had been given the back seat to themselves and seemed, incredibly, to have found true love.

  On the P and O pier they parked the Impala, bought tickets with the magic credit card, were given Series B tourist cards, drank a pitcher of ice-cold piña colada, and boarded the S.S. Florida. In the quayside world of salt air and quick expectancy, Gnossos was neither Here nor There. Pelicans stood on poles, cormorants dove, black-backed gulls waited for swill. Oil slick, leather, rope, squeaking timbers, the Caribbean. Water eddied in translucent pools, blue and pale green. The color of her spring stockings. Found the note by now, doing what, I wonder? Too late to douche, wait and see is all, count the days. Gnossos seed too tenacious and single-minded. Old ovum doesn’t have a chance.

  “But why, Paps? Holy shit, man, there must have been other ways.”

  “It was going a little sour on me, right? Not exactly rancid, but a little buttermilk odor.”

  “So what? It goes bad, it goes bad, man. Then it’s over, bang.”

  They were standing with the other tourists at the rail, watching the ship ease past the narrow peninsula of quarantine huts toward the open water. The sun had set and the sky was turquoise and saffron. The girls were taking showers and Juan Carlos was looking for plots.

  “I’m not up to the bang is all.”

  “You? Come on.”

  “I’m just not up to it, baby. I’ve been down too long, dig, all th
ose asphalt seas behind me, all I want is to go like home to the hill. Maybe she turns me on.”

  “She’s starting to smell like buttermilk, and she turns you on? Tell me about it.”

  “Nothing’s simple.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “Yeah, well it was true before I started. Look at you and Jack anyway, man. You catch her practically in Lumpers’ pants and five hundred miles later you’re back in the vibrating sack, ready to go looking for Castro.”

  “That’s different.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “I mean, she’s a little bit sick, so it’s different.”

  “Yeah, and you’re a little bit boogie, and I’m a little bit Greek. And Kristin, man, is a little bit American, but if she thinks she’s gonna use me for some doublethink university politics, her head is twisted!”

  “Her head is twisted?”

  “I will not be done up, sport, it cuts my Exemption. And that shitty letter warning me she might be out fooling around. Man.”

  “So you knock her up?”

  “Check.”

  “To teach her a lesson, I suppose?”

  “To bring her full circle, man, to have her nearby.”

  “That’s where you lose me, right there, that circular stuff. I mean, why the hell do you want to keep anybody who’s going to hate you, man?”

  “She won’t hate me is all, the kid will turn her on.”

  “Oh wow, you do need a vacation.”

  “The American mother-syndrome takes over, just like changing gears. Overdrive, dig?”

  “I also don’t see why she wanted you to meet her old man.”

  “She didn’t, baby, she knew goddamned good and well I’d say no. She only brought it up to cover all that scheming in the infirmary. I’ve been used by the bitch.”

  Heff watched one of the heavy pelicans pause in its lazy flight, fold its wings, and drop like a bag of stones into the water. “Listen, Paps, dig what I have to say. For the first time since I’ve been hanging out with you I think maybe you’re in trouble. Usually you can talk your way around a hangup and I end up seeing a little where you’re at and it’s mostly pretty cool, see; but right now you’re into something very private and from here it looks spooky. I’ve got no rational insight for you, man, but the spooky feeling is there just the same and you ought to know.”

  The steam whistle sounded as they passed a winking lighthouse, and Gnossos turned to watch the line of pink and white hotels beginning to fade on the Miami horizon. “You’re not into the monkey is why,” he said wearily.

  “What monkey?”

  “Back in Athené.”

  “Wow, man, you’ve been shooting up horse?”

  “No, baby, it’s a different breed. Or maybe not, I don’t have it all figured out. Blacknesse is looking for a picture, dig?”

  “You feel all right?”

  “Beth says he won’t find it, and Kristin’s afraid she’s going to see it again.”

  “O man—”

  “It was trying to kill her, right?”

  “Let’s go have a drink.”

  “It smelled like ammonia.”

  “Little Johnny Walker, just the thing for your head, white Bacardi, maybe.”

  “It wouldn’t come to Kim’s room, though. Smell of Innocence there. She caught me with a boner, dammit, bound to stick in her memory, get her all screwed up.”

  “Little birdbath martini?”

  They drank the martinis from a wicker table in the small ballroom amidships. A four-piece band played mambos and cha-chas, passengers in paper hats waddled around the floor, lights from the Keys glowed occasionally through the portholes. There was a pleasing vibration from the engine throughout the hull, and the fragrance of the warm Caribbean. Heff waited impatiently for his business connection to show, and Gnossos, soothed after the potent alcohol, watched him with a growing feeling of nostalgia.

  “What are you going to do with Jack, anyway?”

  “I’m not sure. Tell me more about your monkey.”

  “To hell with the monkey.”

  “Listen, man, you don’t go around digging demons and tell me to forget it. What am I, just a passive ear or something?”

  Gnossos tossed him a cigarette and smiled, “It’s only your frame I’m worried about. You might get it bent, running around those mountains.”

  “My frame stays straight, you can tell just by looking at it.”

  “Those cats don’t use water pistols is all, they can shoot through trees.”

  “I know about guns, man, I went to school in Harlem.”

  “Don’t get racial, baby, all’s I want to know is whether Jack is really going with you.”

  “We’ll know in Havana, there are people we have to see, get the firsthand word.”

  “The Buddha? Pick up a little bread?”

  “Maybe. I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

  “The Scarlet Heffalump.”

  “Shove it.”

  “They play finders-keepers, baby.”

  “I know all that, so what? I’m fed up with hanging around, everybody jawing, nobody doing anything. This cat in the Sierra is stepping out, so now’s no time for you to bring him down.”

  “He’s high in my eyes, baby, he swings, I dig him.”

  “He has class, man, he’s on his own. Whole Batista army looking for him and he makes it anyway.”

  “If he makes it alone, then learn a lesson.” Gnossos streaking the moisture on his glass. “Jack is better off out of it.”

  “She can handle herself.”

  “Maybe. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t step away clean. Just split, zippo-bang, you don’t need fans along for the ride. You especially don’t need anybody to send reports back to Athené.”

  “That isn’t fair, man—”

  “You know what I’m laying down.”

  “Maybe.”

  “There’s something else too, important, are you listening?”

  But before he could tell him, their attention was distracted by a small commotion on the dance floor. A figure like a Zeppelin was cutting a path through the waddling couples, pushing everyone out of his way. He wore a silk double-breasted suit, a maroon fedora, brown and white shoes, and smoked a black Italian cigar.

  “I think that’s my man,” from Heff, shifting weight.

  He apparently was making his way to their small table, walking flat-footed like an elephant. One of his teeth was missing and a lethal-looking bump protruded beneath his jacket. He smiled broadly when he saw them, ignoring the whispering tourists. Gnossos checked Heflalump’s slackening jaw and said: “Aquavitus.”

  “Gnossos,” from the man, quite loudly, extending jeweled fingers. “An’ you mus’ be Hippalump?”

  Heff’s cigarette fell clumsily out of his mouth into his martini.

  “I join you, yes?” asked Aquavitus. “We talk business.” He sat down just as the violinist detached himself from the bandstand and began wandering around the tables. A waiter came over and smiled cautiously. “For me,” he continued, “Brolio Chianti, ’47, cool, not too cold, if you follow. These guys, what they got?”

  “Birdbath martinis,” said Gnossos. “No olive, wipe the rim with lemon peel.”

  “Don’t take all day, either.” The waiter gathered up the glasses and ran away to the bar. Aquavitus noticed the approaching violinist and cursed under his breath. He whispered perilously to Gnossos and Heffalump, “He will stay away from here. He come near to our table I have him killed, okay?”

  Heff put a handful of peanuts in his mouth all at once.

  The man’s cigar had gone out and he fumbled in his pockets for a match. A waiter appeared with a candle. Aquavitus took it away, blew out the flame, broke the wax in two and dropped the pieces on the table. “You gotta keep them jumpin’ alla time,” he explained to Gnossos with a wink. “They ain’t jumpin’, they don’t come through. How you doin’, Hippalump, pleasure to make you acquaintance, you ready to make the run all ri
ght?”

  Heff coughed on his peanuts but Gnossos smiled. “This guy working for you, Giacomo? Little bread on the side?”

  “Shoo,” said Aquavitus. “Everybody work for me. Giacomo, he espreading out, goin’ worldwide, if you follow. How you doin’ anyway youself, Gnossos, take a little vacation? Those guys come to see you in Atheené, those Heap guys?”

  Heff’s eyes widened and he ate another handful of nuts. The first waiter arrived with the drinks and the bottle of Brolio. Aquavitus tested it against his cheek, pointed a thumb and said, “Maybe I put out my cigar in you eye?”

  The waiter jerked up but managed to ask, “Too cold?”

  “You, Farabutto!” came the hiss. “What you mean ‘too cold,’ he’s too hot. You want to be a lampshade? Cool him.”

  “Sí, señor.”

  “Drink you drink, Hippalump, little martini, anh? Strong estuff.” Then to Gnossos, “He drink pretty strong estuff, this Hippalump, you know him pretty good, he do nice work?”

  “He’s all right, Giacomo, spiritual Italian.”

  “Oh yeah, he that way?” In a sudden intimate whisper, leaning over the table, breathing garlic and eggplant fumes: “I got him going into new territory. He breaking ground, this kid. Heap, he recommend him.”

  Heff and Gnossos looked at each other. “Heap did, man?”

  “Heap, he say Hippalump go to Cuba anyway, ha ha, maybe use some bread on the side like you say, make a little run, ha ha.”

  “Heap,” said Heff, amazed. “That spooky little ghoul.”

  “Conspiracies, man. It’s all getting pretty zany.”

  The waiter brought back a new bottle of Brolio and stood trembling until Giacomo savored the bouquet and nodded condescending approval.

  “Maybe we make a toast to Palermo, okay?”

  “How much you paying him, Giacomo?”

  “What do you want to talk money alla time? Drink up.”

  “How much?”

  “Come on, Paps,” from Heff, slightly embarrassed.

  “He make what you used to get, fixed rate a kilo, little shit fo’ private use.”

  “Uncut?”

  “Shoo uncut, you think I’m in olive oil?”