Big Sex Little Death_ A Memoir Part 12

Earl was a 'Nam vet - two tours, baby - but they must have gone on forever, because Earl would not shut up about it. He craved our audience, my ears in particular. I had to share his smoke and brimstone - he was a veteran of the U.S. f.u.c.king Army and They. Had. f.u.c.ked. Him.

But who was "they"? I mean, he was an IS contact, right? He must mean the army or, at the very least, the VA hospital. But within the first fifteen minutes, he said "f.u.c.kin' Charley" and "f.u.c.kin' gook" about a dozen times. There wasn't enough soap in the world to wash his mouth out.

I was cringing, and cheated a glance at Runninghorse, who silently shook his head side to side: Don't do it. Don't say it. Shut Up.

Steve P. looked like a skinny rabbit, his eyes getting pinker and pinker, his forehead a ma.s.s of sweating acne. Chili's eyes held my sympathy, and I tried to imagine his meaning: This, too, shall pa.s.s.

Earl acted like the boys weren't there. He didn't pa.s.s the joint to them; I did. My heart was beating hard enough to hear it in my head, and I couldn't stop staring at the bottle Earl kept between his knees. It must be nearly empty by now. He might as well have hung a sheet on the side panel: Welcome, Highway Patrol, to Open-Container Drinking.

If we got stopped, the shock of the booze and pot would soon give way to a full FBI investigation as to what was in our backpacks and boxes. We had a full load of incriminating evidence: socialist books, rifles, mailing lists.

Unbelievable. Earl reached behind his seat and pulled out another fifth. I swore under my breath.

Hank moved forward from the bench seat. He grabbed Earl's shoulder. "Hey, man," he said. "Take it easy, we gotta get the youngster home in one piece."

"Hey, man!" Earl cackled and shook him off. "I don't take it easy, man; I take it!" he whooped, like a lunatic version of some Wobbly song he'd picked up at camp.

The van swerved, but there was no one in the next lane. Something long and silver flashed out from beneath my seat when Earl corrected the wheel, and I yelped, "What's this?"

It was something in a holster. I picked it up.

Earl shouted again and temporarily forgot to unscrew his next bottle. "Open it up, darlin', and see what's inside!" he urged me. "That's my lady!"

I heard Steve P. whimper, and Chili and Hank moved forward. I was glad for a distraction from the whiskey.

It was a knife. No one would have known what it was at first glance, though, because it looked like a medieval instrument. Earl s.n.a.t.c.hed it from my hand, and said, "Isn't she bee-yoo-ti-ful! My lady gutted Charley many times; oh yes, she did."

I thought I was going to throw up. The blade was a foot long, one side curved like a pirate's sword. On the other side, it was serrated like a saw. The tip formed a hook. I could see why Earl talked about her like she was a person, a she-warrior, a terrorist who could slay all the b.u.t.ter knives and steak cutters in a dishpan army.

Earl liked to talk with his knife in his hand. He gestured and gesticulated through a hundred more soldier stories. My eyes stayed on the western light playing on his blade.

Runninghorse tried to interrupt, wanted to doubt him. Hank had never handled such a knife, and I could tell he wanted to. But Earl wasn't going to let go of it now. I could feel Chili drawing closer to Hank, tempering him quietly. So familiar. If he could soothe Runningmouth, and I could calm Earl, and Steve P. could stop mouth-breathing, then maybe we could get back to the national office on Woodward Avenue in one piece.

We got inside city limits. Earl tipped the hook of his lady at my head and then offered the knife to me, which I grabbed before Hank could make a pa.s.s. Earl was loosening his belt - s.h.i.+t, now what?

"G.o.dd.a.m.n, girl, I have to take a leak," he yowled, like I was squeezing his tank.

Chili spoke up, his first words: "We're at Six Mile - five more minutes."

Earl took that inspiration to start describing what kind of havoc he and his "gook gutter" could wreck in the same amount of time.

"What's Fleetwood like?" I asked, willing him to leave Saigon. He looked at me like I'd asked him what it was like on Mars.

"Huh?"

"Fleetwood plant?" I began again. "Don't you work there with Zelda and Brent and Henry and -"

"Work there?" He choked on his spit. "Well, we'll just see, won't we, if I still work there or not!"

I had no idea what he was talking about. He was still bombing Hanoi. How could someone who gloried in his Vietcong kill count be a contact of a bunch of socialists who, despite our self-defense credo, were more the type to hold hands and sing "k.u.mbaya"? This guy was a redneck n.a.z.i drug addict. I'd watched my life pa.s.s before my eyes for the past ninety minutes, but now I felt something different: fury. Whoever had let this a.s.shole into our cabbage patch - I might have to take Earl's "lady" and cut him into a million pieces.

The neon sign at Larry's Diner came into view, the coffee shop below our office. Steve P. was gasping, but I kept my eyes on Earl's hands, willing them to move to the right, pull to the curb - yes, yes, easy does it.

"We're here," Hank announced, and leaned all the way over me to put his hand on the steering column and yank out the keys. The car shuddered, and we b.u.mped into another parked vehicle in front of us. Runninghorse put his face in Earl's, and said over his shoulder, "Sue, open his door." Then to him: "Earl, you're gonna take a p.i.s.s now."

Chili climbed out the side panel door, yelling back at Hank, "I'll get him, man, I'll get him."

How did Earl drive at all? He couldn't walk. He fell down into the street; I heard him, and the thud, and Chili trying to help him back up. But I was already well down the sidewalk, pus.h.i.+ng open the lobby doors and praying the stink would fall behind me.

Steve P. was right at my side - when we got to the foyer, he gave me a bear hug. "You saved us."

I looked at him, shaking my head.

"No, no," Steve heaved. "You're so sweet and nice-looking, and you were so kind to that animal; he's a monster!" He started weeping, and I had to tug at him to get him to continue climbing the stairs with me. We didn't want to get called back for first aid.

"Nice to him? I should've throttled him with both hands."

"You know, you just kept talking like you believed in him, which is the only thing he listens to; he's insatiable."

"He's suicidal," I said, realizing something. I knew it so well. "We should be calling Bellevue - what's 'Bellevue' in Detroit?"

Steve had his keys out for our next set of doors. Our offices were at one end of the second floor of what had once been a small manufacturing firm. There was nothing at the other end except restrooms.

Our new British National Secretary, Hugh Fallon, had tightened up our security since he'd arrived with his Manchester ingenuity. Now, instead of one set of gla.s.s doors and locks, there were two sets of steel doors, each one so heavy that I routinely had to put my shoulder into them to get them open. The first set required one key that you turned twice clockwise. The second door had a dead bolt that went one way and a k.n.o.b lock that went the opposite.

It took me five minutes to wrestle through the entrance, but noodle-thin Steve was so quick we spirited though. The second door made a groan when we opened it. Everyone in the office looked up at our grand entrance.

Marty Breyer, our six-foot-tall UMW coal organizer from West Virginia, smiled and said, "Allow me, sweetheart," taking my sweaty backpack off my shoulders. Temma told me he used to be an engineer at MIT - I couldn't imagine it. Marty had this way of listening to everyone in a room, like each person's story went right to his heart.

Secretary Hugh was in the middle of the room, wearing a lavender s.h.i.+rt with French cuffs, scowling at pallets of new books that had just arrived. Our chief copywriter, Ty Burnside, waved at me without even looking up from his typewriter. There was Murray again, his camp chef's toque replaced with a striped printer's cap. I could hear Judith, our bookkeeper who looked like Mona Lisa, talking in the editor's office. Michael, my only Los Angeles comrade in town, sprang up from the back and embraced Steve and me at the same time: "Your timing is perfect!"

I squeezed him back harder. "No, don't even tell me what you need now ... I'm not going anywhere except into a shower. I've just been through a sewer."

Michael loosened his hug, acknowledging the stench. I wanted the bathroom key - Steve P. went to get it for both of us. But he came back and shook his head. "Sorry." He gestured at the doors where Marty had just pa.s.sed though on his way to the john. s.h.i.+t. I hated it when a middle-aged person beat you to the bathroom - you had no idea how long it would be.

"What happened?" Michael asked. I realized he'd shaved his beard off, the one he'd sported since I'd met him my first day at Uni High. Any other day that would've shocked me. But not today.

Steve and I spoke almost simultaneously: "WHO THE f.u.c.k IS EARL VAN NUYS THE THIRD?"

Everyone within earshot looked blank.

"UAW worker?" I continued. "Someone's contact? Supposedly came up to camp from the Auto Caucus?"

Steve P. delivered the full picture. "This racist, inbred piece of trash almost killed us driving home from camp, and he says that he just joined the IS yesterday!"

Wow, I hadn't heard that part.

Ty tried to make light. "Hey now, Steve, don't go talking 'bout 'inbred' to your West Virginia comrades."

"You have no idea what we've just been through," Steve spat. He may have sounded like a baby, but he was right. I was freezing even though it was June; I wanted a blanket and a hot cocoa.

Steve held court about the "lady" knife, and Michael put his hand on my shoulder. Marguerite, the typesetter, came over to me with the purple afghan she always kept on her chair.

There was a thud against the outside doors. Not the inner ones, but the thick outer doors - the ones you had to unlock counterclockwise. I wondered if Runningmouth had lost his keys again - but it wasn't his impatient banging.

No, it was like a big package someone was shoving against a wall.

Christ, I didn't care. Send in the deliveries; send in the clowns. I wrapped Marguerite's blankie all around me and closed my eyes, so tired.

"Marty!" Hugh yelled. " b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! Ty, Michael!"

Hugh always snapped orders, but I'd never heard him yell like this. I opened my eyes and saw him trying to hold up a much bigger man, failing to push the second doors open. Murray and Michael rushed up help him. The big man collapsed to the floor, and Hugh broke his fall.

It was Marty Breyer. He'd just gone to the bathroom with the key. But now he was lying on the floor, with a huge dark puddle spreading all over his chest. Hugh struggled out from under Marty's body, his lavender s.h.i.+rt soaked scarlet-red.

My mind went as blank as a stone. A single line entered it, as if in a dialog balloon: "The blood looks just like it does in the movies."

Hugh tore off his s.h.i.+rt and pressed it over Marty's chest. It was leaking like a faucet. I heard Marguerite's voice behind me, summoning an ambulance on the phone, her voice breaking up. But that wasn't the only thing cracking. I heard one, two, three rifles behind me, pulling their magazines back.

In the seconds since Marty had hit the ground, every man in the office had reached up, down, or behind shelves and desks to appear holding a firearm. Ty; Murray, our telephone union guy; Chewy - they looked at one another like members of a night patrol. Like something Earl had told us about. They approached the front doors, antic.i.p.ating an ambush. I realized they thought we were under siege.

"Michael," I whispered, and then realized I was whispering.

Mikey heard me anyway, and held up his hands to the gun guys. "What is it, Sue? Who is it?"

"It's the guy who drove us; it's Earl," I said. "He has that special knife -"

The new battalion doubted me. Chewy claimed there must be more men; he and Ty started taking positions to head down the hall to the bathroom and the front gate.

"Secure the front doors!" Judith screamed. She was Chewy's wife, Hugh's current lover. The only woman there besides Marguerite and me.

Hugh excoriated her for calling 911. "You f.u.c.king idiot!"

"He's dying Hugh, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d; he's dying!"

Hugh stood bare-chested in the middle of it all, as if Judith's revelation had brought his own self-interest to heart. "I have to get out of here, now," he ordered, and Judith ran up to him, car keys in hand. He turned to Michael. "Give me your s.h.i.+rt.'

Michael ripped off his work s.h.i.+rt. Hugh slipped it over his shoulders, stepped over Marty's body, motioned to Judith, and barked, "JFK. Meet me at the airport."

I didn't get it. This supremely selfish man was now leaving town because one of his underlings was drowning in a sea of blood on his fresh-scrubbed floors? I bet Judith had waxed them herself.

Michael saw my disbelief. "Hugh's illegal, Sue. He can't be here when the cops come ... this is bad."

I could hear thunder coming up the stairs; everything was loud. Michael asked me for my jacket, so he wouldn't be half naked, so I took off my mom's navy sailor coat, and he squeezed into it. His muscles bulged in my skinny sleeves.

He took me by the shoulders again. "Sue, look at me, and talk to me now, because the cops are coming through that door in one minute."

Marty was moaning. I could hear his labored cries, and no one else's.

"Sue!" Michael tried once more. "Are you are sure it was this guy Earl, this guy with the hunting knife? There's no one else?"

I nodded. "He talked about carving people up the whole ride; he's hysterical about ... communists ... he's still fighting in Vietnam."

Michael took it in. His eyes were dotted with red. "I have something very important for you to do, Sue. I want you to leave, now, out the fire exit in the back, and go to the Betsy-Do Laundromat, right off Demby - you know where that is?"

Yeah, I knew, but - "Samuel's there; you need to go tell Samuel what's going on and get him over here."

Samuel Jaffe was our National Chairman, the one guy above Hugh.

Our National Chairman was doing his laundry? I had never seen him do a single practical thing, not even fill a gla.s.s of water. I had never even talked to the man; I'd only listened to him expound on the minutia of the "U.S. economy in crisis."

"Is Marty going to live?" I said.

"Just go get Samuel, okay?"

I ran there.

I ran past Larry's Diner; past the 1-2-3 Budget Shop, where I got the tight jeans I was wearing; past the Pretzel Bowl, where Pepsi waitressed and had introduced me to gin and tonics and Bob Marley on the jukebox.

I was amazed I could run this hard and think at the same time. It was as if I couldn't think at all crouching in the office watching a man with blood pouring out of his chest - but with my legs moving, I could see it all.

Marty was alive; he hadn't pa.s.sed out. I heard his voice. The IS wouldn't want a murder investigation, because the police would have an excuse to tear the place apart. Everyone was armed to the teeth because of what the FBI did to the Panthers. And look at what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. G.o.d knows what revenge the current Teamster president, Frank Fitzsimmons, might exact against our reform efforts.

"Earl Van Nuys the Third" - why did he attack Marty in the bathroom? He didn't even know the man. And Earl had been in such a merry mood when I last saw Hank helping him stumble up the sidewalk. He wanted to take a p.i.s.s, right? He didn't want to kill anybody, not then. Steve P. said that I had charmed him, that he'd been charmed into drunken bonhomie. I thought he was going to p.i.s.s all the whiskey away and fall into a dead sleep.

Marty didn't have anything to do with it. Marty was alive.

I walked into the Betsy-Do. Its hot dryer smell, the waves of heat, rendered me stupid for a minute. All my keen powers of sprinting endorphins left me. I was in a hot room with dryers spinning, old ladies folding clothes, some kids playing with Matchbox cars on the floor.

No Samuel in sight, but I kept scanning the machines and rows of orange plastic chairs, like there would be a revelation.

One of the figures in the chairs rustled a newspaper to turn its pages, and I saw it was the Wall Street Journal.

"Samuel!" I called, and he lowered his paper, his limpid eyes peering at me as if I were a stranger.

I pushed someone's cart out of my way and got down on my knees in front of him.

"Samuel, it's Sue, Sue B. I'm from the L.A. Red Tide, remember? I'm Zelda's friend?"

He used to sleep with Zelda, surely that must register. I could see it was dawning on him that I was there for a reason. He dropped the paper. His skin was yellow in this light.

"Samuel, I'm sorry," I said, my voice sounding strange even to me. "It's Marty, Marty Breyer; he's been stabbed at the office by one of our contacts, in the bathroom."

Samuel and Marty had been very close; they went to grad school before Marty industrialized in the mines. Someone told me they'd been bar mitzvahed together, but I think that was a joke.

Samuel said, "Would you please say that again?"

I did.