My Amputations (Fiction collective ;) (21 page)

He read from his novel-in-progress: “ . . . Florence Soukhanov watched him from the ground. . . . He was shinnying up a flagpole at sunrise in this strange gawdawful mid-western town near the bus stop. . . . Her view: he was a bug in orange light. . . . What is he trying to
see?
 . . . What'd he
hope
to see? . . . Soukhanov felt a little embarrassed waiting down there for him. . . . At the top he looked in all directions: with grinding, plodding attention, he applied his vision. . . . After twenty-eight minutes of focusing he came down. . . . Soukhanov wanted to know what he saw. ‘Goldfinches and flunkies clustered at a distance.’ He caught his galloping breath by its throat. ‘I saw seven-thirty light through wet trees. I strained. I was disappointed. Originally I went up to try to catch sight of The Impostor's tracks. I got interested in other forms of deception. I tried to detect the real from the unreal. . . . I wanted a view of all the connections: forced or otherwise. . . . I saw The Impostor traveling in foreign countries: he discovered there was nobody in the foreground: everybody except he knew how to talk. . . . He went to public baths under skies juxtaposed with the complicated architecture of clouds pretending to be maternity wards or white guys in blackface. . . . Everything from up there was deception. . . . I felt assigned to the crazyhouse of Black Letters: oddball' . . . ” He stopped. Then told them he wanted to try the whole thing all over again—from a different angle. They were confused enough to care. He started again: “‘I was disappointed. It wasn't so much that I was trying to track down The Impostor—although I tried to spot him,
too
— . . . I wanted a view of all the connections, forced and otherwise. Ya know? What can you make of a ringing church bell, a bra in a puddle of water by a yellow school bus filled with tiny faces, in a bloody parking lot—behind the parish? or a guy who looked like you-know-who grabbing his bloody chest, torn open by history . . . or those slugs down on the poolside: I knew they didn't add up or connect. But out beyond the horizon I dug farm workers in disguises working fields and there was a tree shading a cabin—I'm sure The Impostor hid there—and maybe the dude stroking his sideburns or the straw
boss hidden under his straw hat was
he.
It was like viewing one of those vast romantic landscapes on which many tiny communities can be seen in hectic activity. There was even a gunfight between a very dramatic stud and a law-and-order man. The stud or stuntman vomited ketchup and died theatrically—on a hillside. I knew he wasn't The Impostor: his action was, well, too unenterprising. The hoers, diggers, planters, though, might have been real moneybags, pepless pimps, bellringers, addicts, fans of his. I couldn't tell. Crazy? No, I'm okay. Even the sheepherder herding a flock on the hillside where the gunfight took place, was not exactly who he pretended to be: he looked California but was Jersey under his front. . . . A forest growing dark; just from tires lifting along a road; a figure stepped from a cabin and rang a cowbell; beyond, in the brush and undergrowth, a fire blazed; Kenneth Patchen herding seahorses; hooded lynchers riding out-of-sight of his anger; and there was a cubistic arrangement of The Impostor—as Moca—galloping on a silly donkey with sword raised; and Celt—just an illusion?—juggling an impressive circle of frosty infant bodies. . . . I saw a lot—a lot was confusing: The Impostor trying on a cowboy hat in the jungles of Mali; I saw myself holding The Impostor by the throat, trying to force him to confess his betrayal of my purity, my Truth, my place as a Human Being; saw him dancing with snakemen around the victims of “justice” in a valley before a cave-entrance; the smell of human flesh reached me up there; saw him go among a group that looked like university students and I'm sure he told them lies—as though it were sixty-six, sixty-seven, sixty-eight when every serious Black writer had to be Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Eldridge Cleaver before such groups.
Lies?
Which lies? Later lies. Up there, my dear Florence, I smelled Art farted on; my tongue got caught on the inside of my own lower and upper borders. My gums ached. I tried to gauge myself for shock—disruption. The flag was not up its pole: I was. I felt insecure up there but mine was composed of deceptive fat, loose skin, crooked noses, dirty ears: all so difficult to touch—certainly not sensuous or sexual. My hard-frown-of-concentration on attempting
to come down that pole, finally, was like the downward pressure of an airplane beginning to descend in an emergency landing. . . . ’”

Now, he drove toward Volos and stopped at the Bay of Kolpas. A priest sitting at a table under an old tree at bayside didn't look up as Mason slammed his car door. Two mothers with children who'd by chance met on the road were exchanging words. Hazy day. He looked carefully: there were no winged sea creatures out there in the water. He crossed the street to Restaurant Pemba and sat at an outside table. The waiter came out and Mason got up and went in with him to take a look at the available fish on ice. He selected three different types. While they were being grilled the waiter brought him a bottle of Dymphe. He poured some into the glass while Mason gazed at the priest across the street. Maybe the guy wasn't a real priest but some kind of plant. After lunch Mason got a bright idea. In the back seat of the car he took off his jeans and put on his swimming trunks. He had the radio on while doing this: American pop music. He locked the car and stuck the key into his tiny pocket. Tipping down the rock path he noticed a group of about eleven people sitting in a rough circle at the water's edge. They were eating and drinking and laughing and talking. A couple of kids played near them. Scuffed fishing boats were anchored farther down the coast—a few smaller ones along here had been pulled up onto the sand. Mason looked back. The priest was watching. Him? Mason flapped around in the water. Two from the beach party came in. The man said to Mason, “Bless the Bay of Kolpas. She is warm!” He took up a handful of water and kissed it with a big smacking sound. Mason laughed. The woman was infected by his laughter and laughed too. They wanted to know if he was from North Africa. When he said America they laughed. (How
did he like Greece? Very well, of course. The man introduced himself as Elias Vouliagmenis and the woman was Helena Moutsopoulou. They spoke English as naturally as drinking water. Another member of the party came in. She swam smoothly as soon as she was in deep enough then went on by them. “How long will you be in Volos?” Mason shrugged. “In that case, you
must
come to a party we're having tonight,” Elias said while slapping Mason on the shoulder. “It's perfect! You arrived today? Which hotel? No hotel—yet? In that case, perhaps . . . ” The woman who'd swum by was now returning. Mason was trying to explain that he'd planned to go on to Larissa when Elias interrupted to introduce Zizi Kifissias, a painter. Mason shook Zizi's hand. She was a handsome woman. Presently two other guys joined them—obviously curious about Mason. They too shook his hand. Names: Pavlos Kallethea and David Pangrati. They were quick to say that they were co-directors of an artists' cooperative first established in Athens but recently extended to Volos. What did he do. Well, wouldn't you know, he was a writer. That suited them fine. They shook his hand again. Helena was now swimming out as far as she dared. Zizi had her head cocked at a forty-five degree angle away from Mason and was watching him out of the sides of her eyes. Was that mistrust? Mason noticed there were still others back there in the half broken circle on the sand talking and drinking wine. When they all went back to the sand Mason met the others: Christos Papadopoulos and Stefanos Georga and Costas Massalias and Mariella Tricoupi and Alexander Papadiamantopoulou—all painters or sculptors associated with Pavlos' and David's gallery. Mason began to relax. Even if he were at the center of some sort of scheme, if The System was seeking and gaining its revenge on him, he could not believe these pleasant Greek people were part of any plot to bring him to “justice” or to trap him, use him, push him further into a complex Buckeye-Nameless plot. Nobody'd held up a card and asked him to describe what he saw. Nobody'd asked him to try hard to remember his name. The real one? Any name. Pick a name.
Name your name. So he relaxed. The moment he did, something that had been festering in the back of his mind broke, and the clear puss poured out: that name, it now made sense: Alm Harr Fawond was Alan Henri Ferrand. Think, Mason! And realizing this his heart and brain shrunk. Should he just wait for the machinery to close around him. Surely he could. But this was crazy. He refused to believe himself a Pynchon yoyo or an Ellison dancing Sambo paper doll. . . . Somebody was speaking to him and he wasn't paying attention. Something about giving a couple of them a lift in his car. Sure, of course. “Besides, you can get first-hand directions. . . . ” Dazed with anal-fear and with Zizi beside him smelling of salt-water he began to doubt his ability to ever become free of this elusive and massive plot. He also for the first time doubted his ability to be himself. What was Zizi saying? “ . . . and we call our villa Princess Aliki. No reason other than it sounds good. It's just a name. You'll be surprised—”

It was a mellow September afternoon. As Mason drove toward the entrance of the estate he saw an archway. At its curved top—at first—the words were not clear. Moments later they were. Four-thirty slanted sunlight accented them: Villa Princess Aliki. Across these somebody'd driven a brush stroke of black paint. Using the same brush, the person'd painted—on the wooden board—this: Home of The Brave Willow Plantation. Owners: Bobby Joe and Miss Lindy Belle Sommerfield. Zizi, Christos and Helena broke into star-spangled laughter at the sight. Mason was bewildered. “Straight ahead,” they directed. He followed the curving driveway till he came to the house. “What was
that
all about?” He was serious. “You'll see.” The other two cars were already parked in front of the grand pillared stairway to the enormous doors, which were opened. Mason, as they got out, noticed a man in the yard covering long tables with white table
cloths. Inside the foyer Mason got the impression he was in a fifty-room mansion. A man who was obviously a servant came up the hallway from the back. Zizi told Mason he was Plato. “Hell show you your room.” Plato led Mason up a winding staircase and along a corridor past a series of closed doors. As Plato was opening the room he wanted Mason to occupy, David Pangrati popped up from around a corner. “Hello. I see you found your way. Good, good. Just make yourself at home.” He went in with Plato and Mason. “What size are you?” “Size?” “Never mind,” said Pangrati, “I can tell. Hagnon will bring your dinner clothes up. Once a week we do a different period. It's really sort of ironic that you're our guest on a night when we've planned to do pre-Civil War Mississippi.” “What?” “Oh, it's fun! You'll love it! Wait till you
see
yourself! I got the idea last year when I was in the states. Had a show at the University of Mississippi.” Mariella and Pavlos came in. In Greek they discussed Mason's probable sizes in shirt, jacket and trousers. Then they all left except Pangrati who took a tiny, live spotted bull snake from his pocket. “It's only seven,” he said. “What?” The time he meant. “Oh. What's
that?
” “It's my uta. It looks like a chicken flying upside-down in a Chagall but it's really not. I use it as a model for my fresco. You won't find
him
in the Blue Guide.” His chuckle was snagged on the blue fence of a cemetery gate. Mason cheered up: “If I had a lyre, I'd charm your damned pet!” Pangrati's laughter beat its wings against the wallpaper which was a birthday party scene of floating lovers kissing repeatedly eight thousand times against a background of hand painted blue silk dresses, glazed stoneware, in a living room where sky and earth met in the name of Oceanus. Green violinists provided soft music seeping along the baseboards. Mason dimly realized Pangrati still was talking: “ . . . Need anything just . . . Hagnon . . . gardener . . . His wife, Medea . . . ” Mason felt suddenly very ill. His stomach was a cosmos of burned pine and rubber. “ . . . Ciao!”

Night. In the sitting room they were delighted when Mason appeared. He looked great in his tux! He'd brought down with him an armful of things he forgot he had: gifts from Painted Turtle: a few porcupine quills, a beaded necklace, a rawhide vest, a sacred headdress, some smoked meat. Having found these items in his suitcase, he now presented them to his hosts. “Just a little token of my appreciation of your hospitality!” They all ooed and laughed nervously. His stomach ache was now joined by a killer-headache. As they fussed over the gifts, he dropped onto the couch like a sack of frostbitten sweet potatoes!
“Quick!”
somebody shouted,
“he's ill!”
When he came back to consciousness—an hour later?—it was time for the outdoor events. On the way out, through his fog he heard, “What shall we
call
you?” “Just call me Mister Nobody!” Odysseus? They laughed. He laughed and slapped their backs with the gentleness of pink and green in the
Equestrienne
of 1931. Rock-cut benches lined the yard. Mason clicked his champagne glass against other precious glass. Many of the women—some he hadn't seen before—wore long white or yellow off-the-shoulder hooped evening gowns. Little children hid under some of them. Dogs under others. Perhaps snakes? doctors? A couple held above their heads an unneeded parasol. A horse-drawn carriage waited in the driveway. Necklaces and bracelets and rings glittered all over the place. The night smelled of snake-skin and mossy wood, of vaporous flowers and Nijinsky's socks, of white lilac! Mason heard banjo music. A small group of musicians under a tree were doing their best to carve tones of hillbilly refinement. A couple of piglets turned on spits over a bricked-in fire under moonlight. Dining tables were arranged in rows. Mason sipped his champagne in the hope that it would turn him into a prancing antelope. He had plans for this night: for him it was like being a personified ship entering a narrow passage formed by two blissful, nameless islands covered with white ash and volcanic lava. His expectations were high! Some of the guests were beginning to dance under the lights: patriarchs and ladies! Pavlos like some figure rising naked from the sea, cutting a jig on the
rough black grass! Where'd all the
kids
come from? Brats all over the place—boxing, pissing, giggling, rolling in the music. Pavlos stopped and came to Mason. “Won't
you
dance?” “With you? Why not?” And as their heels dug new scars into the faces of gods and demons long in the dust, Pavlos told him how last month they'd done eighteenth-century Russia. Helena then interrupted,
“Now, now, tut tut:
two men dancing together!
You
come to me, Mister Bobby Joe Sommerfield! I'm yo little ol sweety pie, Miss Lindy Belle.” Her accent was so funny Mason fell to the ground in uncontrollable laughter. But his perplexity was still safely at arm's length: veni vidi vici! vogue la galere! tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner! truditur dies die! The pungent smell of pig whirled as Mason later danced with Helena, then some other woman. Mister Nobody stomped the grass till half the lights burned out. Sunlight was winking through the branches of evergreen when he realized he was already asleep though still moving. But how'd he get
moccasins
on his feet? He'd surely started out with
black
dress shoes!