My Amputations (Fiction collective ;) (11 page)

Still in his cellule, about to read himself to sleep, with paperback-fantasies of faraway places, adventures high hopes fears, the telephone rang. Rare. The desk put Brad on.
Ah shit!
“I gotta see you.
Now.
” And when Brad arrived twenty minutes later, Mason—leery—watched his bloodshot leer. His tone was malicious: “I don't feel you treated us right?” “Brad, but we all got the same cut. What'd ya mean?” Face to face—standing. “I read in the
Times
today that you, winner of the Magnan-Rockford prize were back—” “I never left. Wait—” “ . . . in the city. Ha, you know damn well I never believed you: you're as big a crook as I am. I want ten thousand . . . ” “
What?
” “You heard me.” “I don't have—” “Don't want to hear
don't haves.
” Mason grinned at his old “friend.” Brad was obviously drunk. He smelled bad and looked worse. How had Brad found him? What network of tricks . . . ? Mason considered killing—but killing was not copesettic. A neater way. Stall. The fanbelt was running on its last threads: Brad's death wouldn't prevent the break. Grease-balls and flaws in the scheme. “Okay, Brad. Okay. I need time. Ten thousand is a lot—” “Tomorrow.” “Okay, tomorrow.” Brad took out a gun. He waved it in Mason's face. “And
no
funny business. Tomorrow at noon. Here.” After Brad left Mason went down and got the VW, double-parked it out front; loaded the Selectric, the books, and his clothing in; settled his bill; and drove to the Cozy Inn Motel on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. Who'd ever find him
here?
The room was made of cardboard and the furniture too. In the morning he took out two thousand cash, loaded it in the briefcase then walked over to Flushing Avenue and bought that amount in travellers' checks at Chemical. He'd do this each day at a different bank till he had it all transferred. Also had to close the account at Chase. But how—without risking—well—everything? While eating eggs and bacon and drinking coffee at the counter in Aunt Mary's Kitchen on Lorimer, he plotted his future: sell the VW, the Selectric, get the Chase bread—
if
possible; split. For where? France, of course. Maybe he'd better leave well enough alone. There was only about three thousand in the account: he'd “wisely” taken out most of it
each month as soon as the MRF checks cleared. An old rabbi went by. On second thought maybe he'd better not sell the car. But drive to, say, Boston. Leave from there. Or to Canada. Fly from . . . Yeah. Slow down, think clearly. Gotta stop wearing jeans. Gotta look respectable: that way you won't attract the attention of cops. Three piece suit. Get one. Expensive. And expensive shoes, too. Get a pair. Ace, you're going to make it. Don't even dream of giving up your rightful claim to the chosen name! Dangerous though it may be, you will prevail.

In Nice you can get through the winter. It won't run into you like a boy on a skateboard. At the corner of avenue de Suede and rue Halevy is a bar-pizza joint that sells Sicilienne pizza for twenty-five francs and you can even get dinner there for thirty-eight. If you're feeling rich you can drink at the swank bar of the Negresco Hotel which faces the sea. You might even bump into James Baldwin. The doorman, by the way, is a sight: in his red and blue livery. Out front, erected at a sixty-five degree angle, are the flags of the dominant Western nations. Or if you're feeling like a jock you can walk down the street a couple of blocks to the “Jok Club” at Casino Ruhl. If you are adventuresome you will discover Grand Cafe de Turin down by the Old Place Victoria at Port de Turin and Place Garibaldi on Jean Jaures just across from the Mercury Theatre and here you can drink the house wine—and it's excellent—all afternoon and not go broke and you can eat shellfish if you like it salty, but eat it that way only in winter. If you get up early and like to have your coffee at one of the cafes then you'll want to find a comfortable one. If the sun is out but it's a wintery day you'll probably sit halfway in the sun and halfway out. Maybe you'll have an espresso or café au lait at one of the cafes on the Cours Saleya—perhaps the one directly across from Echeries de la Mediterranee.
It's good and not expensive. A few flower vendors in the old market area do well on holidays and weekends. Another good cafe for morning coffee is Bar de la Degustation over on the corner of rue du Marché across from the Palais de Justice on rue de Prefecture. There, just beside the entrance of the tiny cafe-bar a fisherman sells his freshly caught fish out of a wobbly old pushcart usually on Thursdays and Fridays. When you buy from him he talks nice to you and wraps your fish quickly in old sheets of
Nice-Matin.
Otherwise he doesn't speak to you but you can sit at one of the tables, with the smell of his fish in your nose, and watch the faces of people rushing by on their way to work or market. You can read your newspaper there otherwise and not watch. If you forget to buy your
Nice-Matin
before you order your coffee there's that little vendor across the way in the shadow of the Palais de Justice. You can make a phone call from there too or get a photocopy made of some legal document you may need to show to the French police.

His hotel room was comfortable and when he opened the east shutters in the morning he got the sun and from midday on he got sunlight through the south window. An old well-maintained hotel, on rue Pastorelli, north side, called Riviera, near Gubernatis. From the window Mason saw neat Square Dominque Durandy in front of the old Biblioteque. On Sunday mornings philatelists gathered here to trade or sell. On rainy days they parked their cars along Pastorelli and while holding umbrellas over their heads carried on business from the trunks. They were each other's best customers. Idle, Mason went over. Fingered timbres of z Republique Francaise: their celebrations. One stamp collector, a handsome young man wearing a bright scarf, seemed to be watching him with unusual interest. Mason glanced back at the guy. Was he an agent of the . . . ? Mirror
was no ordinary reflector: a touch of silver, bedroom dimness, fantasy, illusion, birds in flight, other complications lurked in its illuminations, its “eternal darkness.” It was a ghost town too. The landscape of screaming. Obsidian in its corners, a river flowed through its center, emptying out into the gulf of its deepest century. Mason might get lost in such a vast ocean. He didn't have both oars in the water anyway. It'd take a chemist to successfully explore the terrain, a levee-expert to stop its flooding. Yet bravely Mason got up, like a sleepwalker, and stood before its silence with strange excitement. Here it was possible to dip into movements of waves deceptively disguised as one's own heartbeat, pulse and spinal nerve-twitch. But would he trust the image . . . ? Well, nobody'd told him he had to confront it. In fact The System might advise against such slander. But he had a plan: he'd look in the old French mirror (with its peeling edges, its mongoose-greased surface) and declare himself visible. At least. Lest he
fall
in. Yes, fully alive. Only the bedside light helped the process. (He hated the ceiling one and never turned it on. Its glare was the slime of eye infection.) He hadn't yet focused on his own reflection but was trying to make out the background: a valley full of vacationers like ants crowded the edge. A red moon. Night had its way. Its sky was no garden of light with mosquito lava and housefly eggs and tiny pupa cups hanging from damp leaves. No, this was a landscape with debris and bathers in a state of metamorphosis. Mason bit his tongue and moved closer for a deeper view. Was this Africa with its delightful myths and mites. Somebody'd scratched a swastika on the parenthesis that was the moon. He felt calm. No green horseflies would buzz near
his
reflection. He was coming to that image slowly. Calmly. Mirror mirror. But wait, wait a minute! There was so much chaos behind the image! Chaos? Who sez? Hundreds of beheaded bodies in doorways and ditches. Where? In doorways and . . . But wait. There weren't any doorways and . . . What kinda rigmarole was this? What was taking him so long? Was somebody running him backwards again? Had his so-called Formula for Clarity been scrambled? Help! Despite
himself Mason saw himself. Fine. So he was looking at the, uh . . . what was this?
This
wasn't Mason Ellis! Who then? What then? The guy in the mirror was more triangular, Mason himself was closer to the arc of a circle—slightly bent from despair and running. The mirror then might be the intersection of two sets. Leaves in there fell suddenly from winter trees. Clouds crowded the sky. The stranger was nobody he knew. Mason couldn't even identify the creature's race or nationality. And what was he doing? He was holding a forty-five automatic. Aiming it at Mason's chest. What kind of reunion was this? What absolute horseshit this betrayal! The image in the mirror showed no emotion as he shot Mason eight times in the chest. Mason cried out. As he began his descent he recognized the killer: that old mask had fooled him but only for a moment. As he lay on the floor clawing his own blood Mason realized suicide was not the answer.

He was made deeply lonely by the arrival of carnival time in Nice. Too many full moons, too much promise of Spring. Place Messena with its giant cartoon figures of Saint Nick and his nicky helpers, Popeye, Snoopy, Clark Gable, Roy Rogers, were a bit much. The New Moon had him by the balls. Ash Wednesday got his goat. He had the howling Quadragesima blues. Lent let him down. The First Quarter moon drove him mad till the Second Lent. He walked a lot nights now—just for the lights, the carnival spirit . . . Hard to imagine himself not followed—or that he wasn't in pursuit . . . 

She had a clear triangular face. “Do you speak French?” “Un peu.” She was an exchange student at the University of Nice. About twenty-one. Knew his name. Was that grounds for celebration or the cue to split. This was in his little cafe on rue du Marché. Barbara Ann Reynolds. Would he come up to the Fac and give a reading? Professeur Jean-Claude Bouffault, one of her professors, she felt sure, would support the idea. Then it was suddenly set for the last week of February. Posters in Old Nice announced the forthcoming event. A week after he'd met Barb, this: at three in the morning the phone rang: It was she. She was weeping Little Orphan Annie-tears. The girl was hysterical. Mason told her to calm. She got louder. Screaming: “
Come and get me!
—” she shouted into the phone. “
He's after me! H-he raped me! I'm, mmmm, l-locked in
—” (she screamed again). And Mason yelled: “Where are you?” only to get this response: “
He's trying to break the door in
—” (and another scream, and—) “
Oh please, come and get me!
” “What's the address? “
I don't know
—
I, uh
 . . . ” Was this a set-up? For real? A tactic of the Observation Squad? He'd heard about such tactics. If for real, why'd she selected him? Surely she must have friends at the university. He couldn't even call and send the police. Mason pushed the light switch. Light the color of Billy the Kid-gunsmoke filled the room. A crackpot maybe? The feeling and sound of his own heartbeat was that of a scalawag viciously kicking repeatedly—with coldjaw, unbroken pride—a blood-slick fence on a candescent day. But what to do now? Clumsily he stepped into his stiff jeans. The phone rang. Barbara Ann again. “I got away.” Gasping. A high ring in the nightwood of her voice. Echo of a sleeper awaking. It dislocated him. Something fishy? Was she another spy after him? She explained that she'd been picked up by the police while running along, God who could remember the boulevard. Maybe Dubouchage. He saw a full moon swinging loosely above her flight. The cops stopping her. Every shadow was too long . . . When Mason entered the harsh light of the station he knew he was getting in too deeply. He took her away. She was in bad shape: red-eyed. Swollen face: out of focus. Her
whole presence warped. The story went this way: she'd been in a bar in rue Droite, the Arab section. Everything was okay for a while with the two American guys and their French friend. Then Jackie went off with the Frenchman leaving her. Well, she and Jackie weren't all that close anyway. But there she was stuck with these two boys she didn't even like. She'd thought the French guy pretty nice. She was drunk. The year the place the season all fell like a landslide down her consciousness. “I made the mistake of trusting that sonofabitch and he raped me.” (The other had gone off alone on foot.) She went into convulsive heavings as she talked. Mason drove with no sense of direction. He felt helpless, hurt by her pain. She'd gone willingly to the American's apartment. She did not expect to be raped. She wept. She'd fought him violently. He overpowered her, pinned her down, entered her like a Boy Scout knife. She knew dimly then that no living organism ever wanted to be penetrated. Mason thought about this and its potential.

Lately some woman was turning up in his bed in the night. A chain smoker, he smelled her breath. Could the other hotel guests hear her screams, smell her? Despite himself his fingers seemed always to find the warmth and wetness between her thighs. A hog in armor, he climbed the mountains of her, and tasted the snowflakes falling from her peaks. He fizzled fast though. His heart wasn't in it. Resisting the glow of her red light, he endured her kicking—her yelps. Was she making a movie or something? She huffed and clawed. She squirmed and gagged. Bit his neck. Her toenails dug into his cheeks. “Oh, I'm coming—” His sense of flunkum was complete in minutes. Yet he plowed on: an after-midnight farmer watching buzzards circle against the hazy moon. A cagey “impostor,” he hid out in the valley of her chomper. She bit him. “
Ouch!
” “Sorry.” Then she whipped out a can of chicken soup . . . 

At times he thought she might be Barbara Ann slipping into his room. He knew she wasn't when one night just before orgasm she said, “Ah, I like foreskin. Bless your mother for not having it taken off. Circumcision is a primitive, barbarian practice: it's symbolic castration with the same intent as clitorectomy. The foreskin which is cut away contains a massive supply of nerve-endings. The elimination of these reduce sexual pleasure—” (
which
sexual pleasure?) “by eighty percent . . . ” and of course listening to this finale finished the old assertative one. Besides, how could Mason be sure . . . ? Maybe such talk had secret coded intentions.