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Authors: Chris Gudgeon

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Greetings from the Vodka Sea (9 page)

BOOK: Greetings from the Vodka Sea
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Murph brushed the soft powder from his chest. He'd been in such a hurry to leave the house, he'd spilled half a kilo down the front of his shirt and pants and onto the black tile floor. He didn't have time to change. He grabbed his coat. It was an expensive mess, but he'd have to deal with it when he got back. The irony was that Starky was late. And not just late, Murph was sitting on his thumbs in the mall for an hour and a half. He had a coffee, then a latte, then a bowl of soup, then another coffee. He finished with pie. Lemon meringue pie, just like Mom used to make.

Starky rushed in with an air of urgency and sat down without apology. They chatted for a few minutes, small talk about people they knew. Basketball. Then Murph took the book out of his briefcase —
Gray's Anatomy
, a nice touch. He'd burrowed a hole in the pages, making a safe little nest for the coke. Starky looked it over once, than quickly handed it back.

“Look, Sticks”— Stark always called Murph Sticks, he had his own nickname for everyone — “Look, Sticks, I don't want it.”

“What?”

“I changed my mind. There's just too much heat right now. My wife”— here the doctor lowered his voice — “my wife's not acting herself these days. I think she's fucking around. Can you believe that? Fifteen years of . . .” Starky searched for but could not find the right words to describe his marriage.

“It's going like mad, Starks. I can't guarantee I'll have anything left by the end of the week.”

“I can't take the chance. You know, I caught her going through my office yesterday. She's looking for something she can hold over my head —”

“Cost, Starker. I'll give it to you at cost, because you're a friend. I want to move it, that's all. I'm trying to make room for new inventory.”

Starky stood up. No. Sorry.

“Tuesday night, Sticks. Shoot some hoops, okay? You gonna be there, Sticks? You gonna shoot some hoops?”

. . .

Rudy liked Duke. They'd gone to a Duke game once, maybe five years ago, back when Murph was still clinging to the diminishing dream of his son one day playing pro hoops. Rudy had the time of his life. Murph took the kid to the locker room afterwards (he was friends with a friend of the trainer), and all the guys had come over and said hello and signed a hat for him. Rudy wore that Duke hat every day for two years, until it was finally nothing but a band of tattered cloth and plastic, stapled together.

Maybe he'd get Rudy a Duke hat. Notre Dame was on sale. He asked for the sale price on the Duke hat. The store owner said no. He'd got a deal on the Notre Dame hats. The Duke hats were cost plus as it was. He couldn't give Murph a break. He'd like to, but he couldn't.

Murph cut through the park on the way back to his car. He'd still wanted to get something for Rudy, something for Rudy to remember. They hadn't had many memories lately. He thought of
Baby's First Book
and all the things it missed and all the things he'd never know about his son. His first kiss. His first orgasm. His first screw. His first disappointment. His first betrayal. His first bad trip. His first crime. His first good love gone bad. Everything. It.

Murph passed a couple of teenagers, lurking in the shadows by the monkey bars. He could tell one was holding, he knew the look, he'd worn the look himself; maybe he was wearing it now.

“OH vam QaQ shit?” the one kid asked.

The young dealer closed his eyes and nodded emphatically. “HIja', ioD, vam shit ‘oH QaQ . . .”

. . .

The Klingon concept of Honour is tremendously complex. Unlike contemporary Western culture, which renders every complicated idea into an abstraction (honour, love, valour, truth, peace), Klingons leave nothing up to interpretation. Their Code of Honour, the paq vo' quv, runs some twenty-five thousand pages and is constantly being expanded and reinterpreted by the Klingon High Council. In fact, like Earth's Eskimos, who have some fifty words to cover every nuance and grade of the concept snow, Klingons have some eight hundred and sixty degrees (counting changes in inflection and dialect quirks) of honour. There is the honour of a warrior in his first battle (“quv lak”), which varies greatly from the
honour of
a warrior in his last battle (“quV LuZ”). There is the honour a Klingon woman shows her living mate (for example, “qUUv lOn,” although this can vary depending on the mate's standing within in the community), which should not be confused with the honour she shows her deceased mate (which, again, varies greatly depending on the manner in which her mate died). Surprisingly too, for such a essentially conservative culture, there is the honour of a divorced woman, which ranges from the lowest order, “quvV tU,” for the woman who quietly acquiesces as her mate takes another lover, to “quv tulG,” reserved only for those great women who kill their mates in a highly choreographed and physically demanding divorce ritual. This honour code is a highly fluid system, with built-in safeguards that allow it to adapt to changing cultural demands. Only one kind of honour has remained consistent throughout the ages: “QuV SoS,” the honour of a child for its mother.

The concept of duty is less entrenched in the Klingon system, having been introduced only at the end of the second millennium. Still, the pac vo' kA includes more than four hundred entries, delineating what amounts to a state-sanctioned caste system. A careful reading of the pac vo'qua (High Counsellors specializing in this branch of Code must be logicians of the highest order) clearly delineates the duty any one individual within the Klingon Empire bears to any other individual. In fact, over time, as the Klingon culture has become more entrenched and therefore, by necessity, more hierarchical and more political, Duty, in practical, pragmatic terms, has risen to the level of, and in some senses supersedes, Honour. Honour still holds the greatest symbolic power for Klingons, but it is Duty that, as the counsellors like to say, gets the job done.

This is the subtext of Kahless's dilemma. It is a question less of choosing between two abstract and equal concepts (and all abstractions, like all men, are created equal) than of selecting the course for one's life, or rather, the course for one's legacy. To the left, Kahless faces quv, the sacred tradition of his peoples that gives meaning to ka. To the right lies ka, the profane system through which quv is sustained. One is eternal and decadent, the other perverse and sustaining. But Kahless, as the legends tell us, chose neither left nor right. He dove into the middle of the abyss. He is falling still and shall continue to fall without end. That is his legacy. In the shadow of his greatness, that is his tragedy.

. . .

Moonie was still talking about food. At first Murph had thought the talking was cathartic. But now it seemed the opposite, whatever that was.

“The drivers themselves should be chefs, that's part of the key, I think. Who wants to see some pimple-face snot delivering a wet bag of food? That's what most of those other fast places do, have pimple-faced snots deliver the food. It's always cold. The bag is always wet.”

“Uh huh.”

“But our drivers will be professionals. They'll be professional drivers and professional chefs. We'll even get those chefs' costumes and little white hats. In fact, maybe we can save ourselves a bundle and just buy the outfits. That way, we don't have to pay real chefs. We can just hire drivers who look like chefs. But professional drivers. And no snotty-faced kids. I hate that, when they come to the door with cold food.”

“And the bag all wet?”

“Exactly. I hate that.”

Murph had picked up Moonie on the way back from the mall. Quite frankly, Moonie had been getting on his nerves lately. But also, quite frankly, Murph didn't want to be alone. In the back of his mind he half thought that he could unload some of the product on Moonie. But who was he kidding? Even if Moonie took it he'd have to take it on credit, and in that case, he might as well just give it away.

“Maybe we could hire girls. Seventeen, eighteen. That'd be even cheaper. And instead of chef suits, they could wear those little French maid outfits.”

“French maids?”

“Yeah.”

“And not chefs?”

“Yeah.”

“Isn't that somewhat incongruous?”

“Yeah. Exactly. It's funny.”

A moment of silence. Murph figured Moonie was mentally undressing one of his French maids.

“You ever made a stupid decision, Moonie, fucked up real bad? You know, gotten yourself into something that looked simple enough on the outside, but once you're inside, you found yourself . . .”

Moonie waited for him to finish.

“Found myself?”

“Stuck.”

“Stuck?”

“Stuck.”

Moonie tuned the radio on. Coltrane checked in from 1956.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Murph shook his head.

“Jesus, man. You need a holiday. You and Rudy, go someplace nice. Get yourselves a plane ticket, and go someplace nice.”

. . .

Baseball. Crackers. Pearl. Lady. Bush. Candy. Da Bomba knew every word. Hotcakes. Raw. Scotty. Scramble. He even had his own words, he'd teach them to his bitches. Glo. Like “glow” but no “w.” Glo was candy. Or jizz. That was rock. Glamour Pussy, that was a girl who'd go down on you for some jizz, not to be confused with a smoker, a chick who'd suck you off for some jizz. He called a pipe a bracket, no one knew why, that's just the word he used and he liked it. He called customers gooks, he called suppliers fairies, he called his posse his bitches. They didn't like it, but what could they do? Da Bomba had a word for everything. He told his bitches how he'd fixed that gook with his dildo, the gook what owed him the grass (which is what Da Bomba called money), and how the gook had shit himself and cried like a baby, and his bitches laughed until they almost shit themselves. Da Bomba, he was one crazy mother-fucker. He was all fucked up. He was only sixteen, and already the police were afraid of him. Shit, his own momma was scared of that crazy red-haired motherfucker Da Bomba. And that night when Da Bomba got home, he cried. He cried and he cried and he cried. His momma came into his room and held him in her big warm arms. She just held while he cried and cried and cried. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to die and go to hell. She was the only one who knew how scared he was. Da Bomba, that crazy motherfucker, he was scared shitless.

. . .

Murph knew the drill. He'd seen the cherries flashing a quarter mile back. He almost crapped himself. He nudged the wrinkled Barnes and Noble bag closer to Moonie, not entirely sure that, if push came to shove, he wouldn't let Moonie take the fall. He checked his speed, but he was in the limit. It crossed his mind that maybe Dr. No had ratted him out. Maybe the whole thing had been a setup. Maybe Starky was wearing a wire and recorded their conversation. It's possible he was already in deep with the cops and rolled over to protect his own ass. He was just that kind of self-centred son-of-a-bitch.

“What's the matter, officer? Was I going too fast?” Murph unconsciously wiped his shirt as he spoke. The officer didn't respond. He asked Murph for his driver's license and registration. The cop took the papers back to the hog and called them in. Murph slid the bag forward and tried to kick it under the seat. He was careful. Cops were always on the lookout for suspicious movement. For a moment, Murph thought of flooring it. He could easily put a quarter mile between the cop and himself, then ditch the book out the window. It was a question of the lesser of two evils.

The cop returned to the car. Murph thought he looked funny in his little costume, his puffy motorcycle pants and high boots, the white plastic ovum that covered his head, the empty shades meant to convey dispassion, to strike fear into the heart. This was make believe for children. It was not how police should dress in this day and age.

The cop handed Murph his papers.

“Thank you, Mr. Murphy. You have a nice day, y'hear.”

. . .

Peter Murphy returned home. Peter Murphy parked the car. Peter Murphy did not know what to do next. Dr. Starky had knocked the wind out of Peter Murphy's sails. The cop had taken the wind out of Peter Murphy's sails. Rudolph Murphy stood on the steps waiting for Peter Murphy to come up to the house.

“Hello, Father,” Rudolph Murphy said. His tone was unusually expressive.

“Finished your opera, then?” Peter Murphy asked, shifting the Barnes and Noble bag from one hand to the other.

“No, Father. In fact, I scrapped the opera altogether. The libretto was forced, the overture likewise. Parts of the first movement are salvageable, I think. But the rest is gack.”

“Perhaps you're being too hard on yourself, son,” Peter Murphy said. He thought that maybe he could have been more supportive. Peter Murphy patted his son on the head, then entered his house. Peter Murphy was tired. Frank Montgomery had said as much when Peter Murphy dropped him off minutes earlier.

Rudolph Murphy smiled. It wasn't enough to write about Klingons, he thought. The highest good, the greatest glory lay in becoming Klingon. Right now his father would be passing through the kitchen. He'd notice the counters were cleaned and uncluttered. Jars and boxes had been put away in the pantry like his father had asked he didn't know how many times. Those crumbs that seemed to breed like Tribbles by the toaster. Eradicated. Swept into the sink abyss. Rudolph Murphy was enlightened. He felt, for the first time, that he understood the nature of the Kahless dilemma.

BOOK: Greetings from the Vodka Sea
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