The Book: A Novel Calling Read online

  “Sure. Walk around the footprints.”

  “Right—then what?”

  “Hell, I don’t know, Jon, it’s your vacation.” Gena turned to greet a black Mercedes, which virtually arrived on cue. “Here’s my dad,” she said. She stopped and dropped her bag. “If you see Sophie give her this hug for me.” She threw her arms around me and left a kiss on my cheek. “Goodbye,” she said taking up her luggage. She joined her father, a man with a square jaw and a head of grey hair. They quickly embraced, shared a few words, and he tossed her luxurious leather bag onto the back seat. Gena climbed into the car and she waved. I don’t know why, but I got an image of her in a dogsled under a pile of furs, heading to the North Pole. They drove by and I tried to smile. Grey skies are gonna clear up—put on a happy face.

  Still feeling the pressure of my other goodbye, I felt exhausted. Most of my money was gone. I didn’t have a job, and apparently the universe didn’t give a damn, because for the first time in my life I was getting brushed off continually. “No doubt you could do a great job here,” the last guy said, like the guy before him, who made no offer. They were young, maybe saw me as a threat, or wondered why, after so many years in the ad business, I would take a job like the one they didn’t offer. Leaving the business made it harder to find a good job, but still, I would not go back. “Your resume looks great,” they usually said. “No doubt about it. You could do a great job here.” Those words buried my fate; I knew I would not be considered.

  I couldn’t imagine my future and I couldn’t fly off to Los Angeles for the hell of it. Time was running out. I needed a job. I had two kids to think about. What would I do on a street corner in Los Angeles with no money in my pocket and a spent airline ticket?

  I let a car go by and, slipping Gena’s ticket into my vest pocket, I went looking for mine.

  ∞ 4 ∞

  It was smart to look away: I knew that. I was fully aware that it would be much wiser to avert my eyes and avoid trouble. But for some reason I couldn’t do it. The noisy bus was steaming by the old Chaplin studio, and soon we would pass the Farmer’s Market. I didn’t know why but I had to stare back at him from the front of the bus.

  “What the fuck you lookin’ at?” said stark anger blurting from a young man on the edge of his seat. A shy teenager pleaded at his side, “Wait a minute, Man….”

  “Hey, you!” shouted the one with fury in his eyes. His face hardened under a neon glare and distorted into hateful defiance. The muscles in his cheeks rippled in angry protest. His clamped jaw pulled his lips into a thin straight line, like the one I saw in his eyes. Several passengers groaned as he strode up the aisle with only a few giant steps.

  Struggling to stand upright, he exploded with, “Hey, Motherfucker!” He threw his fist over his head. “Stop lookin’ at me like that, God damn it! I’ll kick your ass!”

  The bus hissed and moaned heading downhill, windows rattling as the vehicle rolled into the Deep South of Los Angeles.

  “You hear me?” the young buck cried, towering me.

  “I’m not trying to hurt you,” I said, trying to hold an even keel. I took hold of the cord above my head. “I’m getting off.” I tried to look away from his outraged eyes, but I couldn’t do it. Something held my gaze and my eyes stayed on him—I just didn’t feel like being bullied. That was it. I’d had enough. I thought, Don’t Push Me, You Jerk.

  The young warrior struck the air like a boxer jabbing over his head. “You son of a bitch,” he cried, his eyes blink-free; I got a definite feeling that this guy would like nothing more than to kill me. “You hear me?” he shouted. “I’ll beat your—”

  “I hear you, Man! I hear you!”

  I stepped in front of him and moved toward the front of the bus, where the driver bitched while pulling hard on the steering wheel: “Jesus Christ!” The heavy bus lurched and swayed to a dark corner in a gritty neighborhood. I descended the stairs to the street and looked up at the light around the driver. He twisted in his seat and looked down at me with honest concern. “Hey, friend … do you know where the hell you are?”

  “Yeah…” I said, “I’m home.”

  The bus pulled away groaning heavily and left me standing in a scrap of light on a dark and very dangerous street. The light came through a grimy window at the front of a liquor store, and brought a yellow haze to the street. The store was closed, the owner most likely in a suburb by now. I looked toward the next corner as a goal I had to reach. No other light shone on this street. I went up to the window and saw through my reflected face a golden female in a black velvet dress. She had that outfit on every night, and every night she made the same sultry promise: My liquid joy will bring you delight, come on inside and for only a few bucks you can postpone the fight!

  Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was made of cardboard; we had a relationship. Her dark eyes were so sultry and said so much, and that sexy black dress over her lovely brown skin made her image stunning; and that smile said it so sincerely: Come on in here, you big hunk, and lay your money down. I’ll give you what you need.

  I turned away looking at my feet, and I noticed some glitter packed in an aggregate of clay and papered aluminum around the jagged edge of a brown half-pint whiskey bottle. To my right a cyclone fence ran a swirl of stainless steel blades along the sidewalk to the corner. Like tiny Saracen blades they could inflict serious injury on anybody dumb enough to try scrambling over the fence. Probably the salesman pitched his product by reciting benefits: harsher, deeper, longer lasting cuts—big improvements over mere scratches administered by antique barbed wire.

  Almost every night on my trek home, a different young woman would approach me and make virtually the same offer. On this night a young lady with light brown skin observed me through pleading eyes that seemed to apologize for existing. Through an opaque consciousness, most likely bruised by some kind of early masculine brutality, she looked at me and said, “I’ll suck your cock for three dollars.”

  My mind missed a beat and I answered, “No thanks.”

  “Why not?” She asked, looking a little lost.

  “I just can’t.”

  She dropped her eyes to my leather planner. “Are you a preacher?” She looked away.

  “No, no,” I said, reaching into my pocket and finding only three coins. “I have to go,” I said, wanting to say more but uttering “Goodbye.”

  Turning away from her I kicked a small whiskey bottle, which skipped across the street like a hollow memory—clinking on cobblestones like evidence of some lonely attempt to swallow the world and crawl into an illusion; as the edgy metallic sound faded, I looked over my shoulder at the padlocked liquor store, still feeling good about the sexiness of that warm cardboard lady. She made that desolate street corner worth knowing. I was grateful every night for the light that seemed to come from her to that frigid corner.

  I remembered seeing unsavory characters roaming these streets a couple of nights ago. I lowered my head and walked on, determined to get home without having to run. Those guys could be out there now, tonight. They might be lurking somewhere between me and my funky urban motel. It was too dark to tell. The neighborhood looked mean in every direction. My shoulders tightened up, even though I didn’t see anything to be concerned about. I walked along the center line of the vacant street.

  My journey tonight would be like most of my returns. Discomfort during this long walk home in the dark would be followed by relief the moment I heard the click of the lock from inside. After challenges like tonight, getting home would feel like a triumph.

  But now, at this very moment, I needed to keep my eyes open and alert. I stopped where I was and looked back surveying both sides of the street. I scanned the sidewalk to the liquor store, and everything on the way back. Both sides seemed all right, but in this neighborhood it was impossible to be sure.

  As I continued walking along the vacant street, I recalled Angela’s face and I relaxed. Her smile was almost as attractive as the cardboard lady’s sex
y grin. I loved Angela’s skin, the way she seemed to generate her own light. Phoebe was right, Angela was beautiful.

  When we were being good together, the world seemed perfect; it was hard to believe that anything had the power to screw that up.

  I came back to the present moment with a slight start; I was already on the next block. I reminded myself to stay smart, and not let my mind roam. It was too dangerous. I resolved to be wise and stay alert.

  If Angela and I went separate ways, that’s how it had to be. That’s life.

  C’est la vie!

  I recalled the lyrics of an old French song, not the words crafted by Johnny Mercer into Autumn Leaves, but the original ones. They fit how I felt now, thinking about faded footprints washed away by the sea: Et la mer éfface sur le sable, les pas des amants désunis.

  Désunis! What a word! Footprints of disunited lovers fading in waves on the beach. I felt an almost pleasant heartache as I thought of letting Angela go. She was so beautiful, but trying to keep it going would have been a drastic mistake, which would have ended in sadness too deep to bear. I hated to say it, but that was it. Now, Angela and I were disunited lovers.

  C’est la fucking vie!

  Walking down this deserted street I still took comfort in her loveliness as I stopped and I looked around cautiously.

  Suddenly, the sky lit up with a cone of garish brightness dropping onto the street. It shifted angles quickly like a huge flashlight in the hand of a giant storm trooper; the flashing beam of light slithered up the street, one way, and then back again this way. A stark mechanical sound entered my mind and grew louder as I squinted at flashing light.

  Every other concern I’d had now vanished. I forgot the girl I met at the corner, the sexy cardboard woman, beckoning me to come inside the liquor store, the stainless steel blades on the cyclone fence and the whiskey bottle I kicked across the street. As soon as the noise of that ominous black machine hit my ears, and as I stood watching those flashing lights, all comforting thoughts of Angela disappeared.

  In this locality, intrusion was commonplace. But it surprised me every time. I felt trapped in a sector that felt more like a concentration camp than a neighborhood in the United States. This happened almost every night, and tonight the brutal chopping noises brought to mind military boots stomping through streets in defenseless neighborhoods. I held my breath as I watched the searchlight shift positions, and then I realized I was depriving myself of air.

  I flashed on iron crosses and stiff military salutes, long black leather coats over tall boots. Right now, some misbegotten soul was stuffing his ass into a tight spot someplace, and this helicopter was hard on his trail.

  That black machine in the sky had no compassion for children living in the vicinity. Frightened kids on the inside of window panes experienced this stuff several times a week, frequent reminders of a dangerous world outside. The arrival of military helicopters so often was like a slap in the faces of deprived kids.

  I wondered who this one might be, the guy they were looking for. Did he have a gun? Had he used it? Was he close by? I looked around the empty street again; it looked like a scene from a 1950s film noir.

  Seeing nothing stirring in the now dark street, I moved on realizing that I had been shaken by the guy on the bus more than I had thought, and this turmoil in the sky was no help. But I smiled at the irony of my gratitude for the cops in the helicopter. Their searchlight may have scared off some knuckleheads looking for trouble tonight. Maybe it saved me. It was possible.

  As I stepped onto the sidewalk, I wondered if the human race would get over its taste for violence. It didn’t look like it. But if it could, I thought, the possibilities, beyond that open door, would be truly astonishing.

  I stood under a burned out street lamp as I looked across the street at my little bungalow, a motel tucked away in the darkness of the city. I imagined reaching for the doorknob before I got across the street, longing for the smell of the stuffy air inside. For some bizarre reason, as I approached the door, I thought of a little girl holding her hands over her eyes and believing nobody could see her.

  I had to admit it. I was grateful for that damned helicopter. Despite my usual resistance to those things, tonight I was happy to see militarized police up there. I was glad to be safe.

  I needed to get out of the neighborhood.

  I needed to get out of town.

  What a life!

  When I got inside my room, I locked the door with a surge of relief. I fell back on the bed and stretched like a lazy cat rolling from side to side. Slowly, I raised my arms and pushed my shoulders up, first one, then the other.

  I let my hands drop to my stomach and listened to myself laughing. What a world, I thought. Out of cash, two thousand miles from home, kids longing to see me, and prospects looking dim. I leaned over, onto my right elbow, and I reached for a knob on a very old radio. A gentleman’s voice entered the room.

  The man spoke of a drug cartel inside the CIA. He reported that Canadian psychiatrists had given their patients LSD so the CIA could determine the effects of the drug on patients seeking help who were given hallucinogens without knowing it.

  “Damn!” I whispered, looking at a jaundiced lamp shade. The former CIA agent gave his name: Stockwell. Like an accountant reading a line of numbers, he calmly reported some alarming facts. I sat up on the side of the bed. The stuff he said about our government and what they had been up to during the past few decades was hard to believe.

  I gazed at a coffee stain on the wall feeling my face frozen in some sort of alarmed expression. Grappling with facts presented by this guy who once was CIA, I scratched my head and my worldview crumbled like an earthquake. Our government arranged to give LSD to people going to psychiatrists to get help? Expecting compassion for their mental problems they got trickery and deceit—LSD—when they were already shaky?

  What kind of psychiatrists did that?

  What the fuck kind of loyalty is this?

  Stockwell changed the subject and things went downhill from there. The former CIA operative described torture trainings conducted in the third world by CIA personnel, and midnight raids on villages by paramilitaries who murdered innocent men and boys in small villages and raped women and their children at will. They too, were trained by CIA.

  Stockwell said he joined them believing in service, because he wanted to be among the best and the brightest helping his country. But as he learned more about American involvement in the third world he lost his faith. He started doing research and asking questions which attracted superiors who told him to stop. They said those who were higher had more information; he should stop making trouble and just follow orders.

  The trouble was, by then, Stockwell knew too much; tonight he was simply asking his audience to do the same investigation. He claimed the United States was responsible for millions of deaths of innocent people in other parts of the world.

  Millions of people?

  I was stunned, primarily because this guy was so believable. I’d never heard anything like this, and despite my current difficulties I wanted to believe that Americans were good guys in white hats. How could the freest country on earth be responsible for crimes against humanity in Canada? In a surreal moment I wondered whether the Canadian government knew what we did to their citizens. Did the public in Canada know the truth? Were they discussing it? I hadn’t heard anybody in broadcast media say anything about this. What about the people in other countries around the world—what did they know? What did they think about us? I didn’t know the answers to these questions. But from his manner and the sound of his voice, and suggestions that nobody should believe him but do the research required to be full citizens, I knew this man was telling the truth.

  Was it possible the United States of America was responsible for killing millions of innocent people in the Third Word without the entire world knowing all about it?

  Were Americans living in the dark?

  John Stockwell said, “Don’t take m
y word for it. Don’t believe me. I could tell you anything. You have to dig this stuff out for yourselves. Read the books written by people who left the CIA.” He named titles and authors. “They want you to know what your government is doing in your name. This is your democracy. Be a citizen of the United States. It’s up to you. Take responsibility.”

  This guy was not lying.

  I felt abandoned by my worldview.

  Now I remembered hearing about a CIA torture manual in the late ’60s or early ’70s when it became public knowledge and remained in the news for a while. It died out before I could think much about it. I was busy trying to make a living. I heard about the School of the Americas, where the U.S. trained some of the world’s dictators, but then again, I was too busy to go deeper. I figured it might be true, but I remained focused on earning an income.

  But now, tonight, that only looked naïve. My confidence was shaken. I had always assumed that other people were being diligent on these things. Now I thought about Americans who can torture human beings outside the country; if they were willing to do that to human beings anywhere, I thought, they could do it here. I remembered a point elegantly made by George Orwell, “The purpose of torture is torture.”

  Who knows what can happen without public diligence? Had so many of us now taken freedom for granted that we let other people think for us, believing it to be good enough? That’s what I had done, and now I found the idea deeply appalling. I remembered now that a law was changed so the CIA could operate legally within our borders. Was it possible for people, even in this country, to squander freedom by not caring?

  I felt like a fish gasping for air in a toxic environment; the room was not conducive to taking a deep breath, let alone a free one. I wanted to scream at the guilty parties, but I was afraid they were really me. So, I just continued to sit in a disconcerting sense that my inane assumptions had played a serious role in shifting our national identity.

  The walls of my grungy motel room were thin. I only allowed myself to mutter a feeble, “Jesus … Christ!”