The Gorgon Festival (12 page)

Intent on his inspection, relaxed and perhaps contemptuous of his victim, Ball Bearing stood with his hands on his hips, legs spread. He was not guarding his crotch.

“His hair’s matting fast,” the Two-Star said, “but I see a couple of spots above his right sideburn… hmmph!”

With the fluidity of a striking cobra, impelled by the frustrations of a quarter-century of nonviolence, Ward kicked. His thigh propelled his steel-capped toe in a perfect trajectory and with superhuman strength. All pain was obliterated by the exultation he felt when his toe, carrying all before it, imploded into Ball Bearing’s groin.

Figuring the Patriot’s weight at 160 pounds and a conservative lift of four inches on the vertical and a twelve-inch movement along the horizontal plus a six-foot slide on his back after his heels struck the ground, Ward calculated that his kick would have scored a 102-yard field goal in the Coliseum.

One-Star assumed command.

“Drain Oil, you and Crank Case take No-Star over to his hog and try to revive him. He just lost his two stars, but he learned to guard his crotch.”

“That’s locking the stable after the stallion’s gelded,” the Barber said.

“He wore his helmet in the wrong place,” the ape called Arms commented.

“This changes the charges to assault on a fellow Patriot,” Brazos said, turning to Ward.

“I’m no longer interested in the kangaroo court procedures of you crabs on the pubes of a subculture of hopheads.”

“What did he say?” Brazos asked the Barber.

“I don’t know, but it didn’t sound like a compliment.”

Clearing the court took hardly more than three minutes. As Two-Star was carried past Ward he was moaning, “Kill me, shoot me. I’m ruined.”

“Fellow Patriots,” Brazos addressed the group, “you’ve got a new field commander, and Pm no pussyfooting bleeding heart when it comes to Pinkos. Let this be a lesson to all of you; never trust a Red, and guard your crotch. But he ain’t getting off light. There’s a new judgment in this here court. Boys, I’m ordering a crotch job on this subversive… Crotch Job, break out your long chain. Breeches, you handle the breeches. Sprocket, left ankle. Razor, right ankle. Muffler, set them engines up a notch… Drape him over that Cadillac hood.”

It was not done easily. Sprocket lost a front tooth when Razor’s bloody hand slipped off Ward’s ankle, but it was done.

“That’s Miss Frost’s Caddy,” Freddie yelled from the bleachers.

“Hold it, Patriots,” One-Star commanded. “Move him over to that ’70 Lincoln. Miss Frost is bad news.”

Ward was shifted over to an older model and spreadeagled across the hood, completely exposed to the stars.

Knowing the agony he faced, Ward tried to concentrate his consciousness on one spot to blot out his physical awareness. In the irrelevancy of panic, the only positive thought he could muster came from his gratitude that the new cars had no radiator ornaments. Then, all the power of his imagination focused on the head of Chief Pontiac, two braids, hooked nose, jutting chin, but one feather or a war bonnet?

When his imagery wavered in mental confusion, Ward knew no instant yoga would soften the pain he must face, the anguish, the indignity of emasculation, but face it he would. Not for it nor what the potent Patriots in their rage might else inflict would he cry, “Hold.” Sustained by indomitable hate, he would survive and return to plant the blood-avenging toe into the crotch of Big Papa, Brazos, Arms, the Barber, Breeches, Crank Case, Crotch Job, Hoot Owl, Lefty, the Loon, Muffler, Razor and, yes, Little Mama.

What mattered sex to a eunuch?

Closing his eyes, Ward awaited the first slash from the sprocket chain of a New Right flagellant.

Concentrated on thoughts of revenge, Ward was oblivious to the hoot of an owl and the quavering of a loon, to hands releasing his limbs or the voice of Brazos speaking with quiet urgency, “The fuzz… Patriots, let’s get outta here.”

He was first conscious of a rough hand shaking his shoulder, the far-off dwindling roar of gunned hogs, and a voice of authority ordering, “Off the hood, Juliet. All your Romeos have left you.”

Ward opened his eyes to see a man with a new helmet looking down at him with the old contempt. Instead of the terrifying stars and stripes, the helmet bore the emblem of the Sheriff’s Department, County of Los Angeles. Weakened by shock and blood loss, Ward struggled to a sitting position as the deputy called across the lot, “I’ve caught their red-headed fairy over here, Sarge… We can book him for indecent exposure and property damage. He’s messed up the hood of a Lincoln.”

Before the sergeant answered, Ward heard the high-pitched voice of Freddie calling as he rounded the line of cars, “He ain’t the one, Mr. Poe-leece. I’m a witness.”

With incredible speed the deputy pivoted on his huge hocks, drew his pistol, and was pointing it at Freddie and yelling, “Up against the wall, you black mother-lover.”

“I tell y’all, I’m the one who called the poe-leece…”

Without breaking the flow of his babble, Freddie turned and leaped twenty feet to land flat-footed in front of the wall behind him. While in flight his legs spread wide, and when he landed his palms were pressed against the wall, his head lowered, his butt jutting out in a stance for the frisk.

“… I’m not going to be calling the poe-leece on myself, am I? You gentlemen done saved that young white gentleman. He didn’t mess up that Lincoln, sirs…”

Other deputies, guns drawn, were converging on the slender black, and one was moving cautiously forward to make the frisk, using the same sidling motion of the Patriots. Freddie’s whining expostulations amazed Ward. Moments before, the gazelle had talked with glibness and wit. Now he sounded like a field hand caught in the chicken house.

Crack a black with a billy club and you’ll find a darky, Ward thought, and dropped his eyes to his crotch. What he saw exposed, whole and unharmed, brought tears of happiness. All he had forgone, the quiet companionship of home and Ester, the lure of the beckoning Diana, all the mountains and hillocks of love, were restored. Like the mad King Lear, he had not thought enough of these things. As his tears slowly dried, as he contemplated the marvel, a gentleness exuded through his pride of ownership and protectiveness.

“Lord of my love,” he murmured, “to whom in vassalage your merit has my duty strongly knit, how much more beautiful does beauty seem when your sweet ornament before it stands. In those sessions of sweet silent thought when memory, making beautiful old loves, lifts up your burning head…”

Rapt in contemplation, Ward did not see the denouement of the drama against the wall, but he got the effects when he heard a deputy close by ask, “Is he praying, Sarge?”

“Maybe. Could be one of those Oriental religions that keep cropping up along Sunset.”

Ward looked up at a semicircle of deputies around the hood which included Freddie, relaxed and smiling.

“Mr. Atascadero,” the sergeant said, “this black gentleman has explained the situation to us. We’ve radioed for the meat wagon, compliments of the taxpayers, to take you to the Wilcox Receiving Hospital and get that head sewed up, compliments of the taxpayers. Your counselor, here, tells us you’ll not be preferring charges…”

“Like hell!” Ward snapped. “Those bastards took my helmet, my wallet, and damned near scalped me.”

“He’s still out of his head, sir,” Freddie said to the sergeant. “Don’t pay him no never-mind.”

Freddie didn’t want him to bring charges because Freddie, as a witness, would have been in danger of retribution by the Patriots. As a public-spirited citizen, Ward would have ordinarily overridden such considerations, but there was one he couldn’t overlook. Alexander Ward was a fugitive from Stanford. An investigation would uncover his identity.

“I suppose he’s right, officer,” Ward said. “After all, they did leave my motorcycle.”

“And your family jewels,” the sergeant reminded him, “which it might be advisable to cover up. Be sure to catch that ambulance. There may not be another until midnight.”

Ward slid from the hood, pulling up his trousers.

After the squad cars left, Freddie steadied the wavering Ward as they walked down the alley. For Ward, the lacerations were less painful than memory of the senseless brutality he had witnessed from so intimate a viewpoint.

“Freddie, I’m getting even with the Patriots, one at a time or in a group. For my own convenience, I hope I can get them all together. That’s a Stanford vow.”

“Forget them. They’d kill you and get away with it. They’ve made a name for themselves with the Establishment at student rallies and peace parades by knocking heads. Anyhow, they’re not too bad. Some gangs in Watts make the Patriots look like a sensitivity-encounter group.”

Freddie’s easy handling of big words brought a question from Ward. “Where’d you learn that Uncle Tom act you put on?”

“From Miss Frost. I can’t beat the white power structure, but I can bend it my way.”

“They really called you a mother-lover. I expected to hear something more pungent.”

“It’s the new breed of sheriffs,” Freddie explained. “Next month they’re coming at us with pink night sticks.”

As they turned toward the boulevard, Ward asked bluntly, “Why are you doing all this for a whitey?”

“To save my pigeon. I figure you for
mucho
bread, since you’ll be around the Daisy Chain looking for the Greek chick.”

“Forget it. I’m so broke I couldn’t pass the hat-check girl bare-headed.”

“I got a key to the back door. Be my guest. I work there mornings as assistant maintenance engineer to Big John, who has administrative control of all lavatories… Here, sit on the curb.”

Ward sat. None of the barefoots milling along the sidewalk made any comments about his bloody head, but twice he heard the remark, “Dig that red suede shirt.”

Far down the boulevard Ward heard an approaching siren, and suddenly he moaned. “Good heavens! I’m broke, and Big John will take my message off the board.”

“I’ll have him keep it on the board and put the bill on my tab,” Freddie said, reaching into his jeans to pull out a five-dollar bill and a one-dollar bill. “Here’s bean money.”

“I can’t take it, Freddie. I’m broke and out of work.”

Freddie tucked the money into the pocket of Ward’s black leather jacket and buttoned the flap. “You’ve got a job. Report to me, tomorrow night at ten-thirty, at the Kitten Club, six blocks east of here. I moonlight as Systems Analyst Expert for the Kitten Club’s Traffic Placement Department. I’ll deduct my twelve bucks from your pay.”

“Twelve? This is only six.”

“The six extra’s to cover my loss of time on the job. You put me late to work… But don’t worry about paying me back. I’m holding your motorcycle in the Daisy Chain store room as security.”

“So you’ll still have your pigeon?”

Edging out into the street to flag down the ambulance, Freddie said, “You’re my investment, now. I figure any hog jockey with eight hundred twenty dollars in his pocket who chases a pair of teats into the middle of a motorcycle gang to get a haircut and then tries to bring charges with his pants down has too much machismo for me to let off the hook. But stash your red suede shirt when you report for work. It’ll cut down on your income… Be seeing you, scabhead.”

On Tuesday morning, Joe Cabroni composed a message to be sent outside routine police channels.

From: Detective Lieutenant Joseph M. Cabroni, SFPD.
To:    Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In the course of an investigation into the disappearance of Doctor Ruth Diane Gordon, aged 72, professor emeritus of gerontology, Stanford University, nightclub entrepreneur and owner-director of several homes for the aged, facets of the case uncovered by this investigator indicate areas of possible Federal interest.

A suspect in the disappearance, Doctor Alexander Wheeler Ward, professor of molecular biology, Stanford University, is also missing and alleged to have fled to Mexico. Reputedly Doctor Ward was engaged in research pointing toward reconstitution of defective DNA molecules. Doctor Gordon was an authority on the theory of random error in the aging process which holds that aging occurs from an accumulation of defective inner cellular DNA molecules.

Nowhere in the communication did Cabroni advance an opinion, merely editing the facts to fit his theory; but he considered his findings important enough to teletype his message and transmit along with it two photographs, one he had obtained from the personnel file at Stanford and one he had taken from the Ethan Allen yearbook of Ward in his cadet’s uniform at the age of eighteen.

Cabroni had not guessed wrong about the government’s interest. On Wednesday a figure high enough in the Defense Department to be regarded as a “reliable rumor” by Washington newsmen invited to lunch a member of the President’s Scientific Advisory Committee high enough in the hierarchy to be labeled an “unimpeachable source.”

After a third martini, the military man voiced a question. “Doctor, if it were possible to reconstitute innercellular DNA in the human body, what would be the result?”

“Well, General, that would depend. If the body were that of a female past menopause, you’d get a nubile, agile, and infertile young lady. If a man, he would again be subject to draft.”

By Wednesday, Ward had found that the life style of a parking lot attendant differed widely from that of a university professor. Freddie had introduced him to the Kitten Club manager, who had required Ward to fill out an application for a Social Security number. Ward used the name Albert Atascadero and listed his birthplace as El Paso.

With street wisdom verging on the intuitive, Freddie reassured Ward in an area where Ward had been careful to voice no concern.

“Don’t worry about being checked. All the Establishment wants is a cut of your take, and all I’ll need each day is the money to keep your message on Big John’s board. You can pay on the principal later.”

Ward might have earned three meals a day on the job if his appearance had not been against him.

After the doctor at the receiving hospital had shaved his scalp and sewed the cuts, Ward had returned to the motel and rejuvenated his scalp. His head healed immediately, but there were still 422 stitches dangling from livid welts which made his head resemble the striped end of a hairy ape.