Zero Sum, Book One, Kotov Syndrome (18 page)

A battered air conditioner wheezed from
its position on the wall, barely denting the heat and humidity in
the squalid room. The bed sheets beneath him exuded an odor of sour
perspiration and years of marginal laundering. A car’s un-muffled
exhaust roared down the street outside the window; the moth-eaten
curtains providing only slim insulation from the racket.

Still, it was better than being
beheaded in a mud-hole.

Al tried to sit up but was sapped of
energy. Pausing to muster his strength, he registered a tickling on
the skin of his right leg, as though ghostly fingers were brushing
at the hair just below his knee. He groped for the small bedside
lamp on the table by his head and after several seconds found the
power switch on the cord hanging down the side. A weak yellow light
flickered on and he gingerly pulled the threadbare sheet off his
naked lower body.

He froze.

Two claws gnashed at the air over the
greenish black carapace of a highly agitated scorpion. The arched
tail lashed at Al, its venomous stinger fully exposed. He went
rigid, his skin instantly covered in a film of clammy sweat. The
poisonous insect became more agitated by this physiological change
and, enraged, it scurried up Al’s thigh and plunged its deadly barb
into the soft, exposed flesh of his groin.

Al thrashed to full wakefulness,
clutching his calf in agony, expunging the scorpion dream as he
dealt with this all-too-real distress. The pain was blinding as the
large muscle of his lower leg cramped into a rigid ball, taking his
breath away as he pawed at it, trying to persuade it to release.
His back shuddered with spasms from the effort of bending nearly
double – he wasn’t exactly in prime shape for gymnastics and the
effort of stretching to loosen the knot had pinched his sciatica,
compounding the already excruciating discomfort from his
traumatized lower leg.

Harsh experience had taught him to
maintain a grip on his toes no matter what and exert steady
pressure on the Achilles tendon, pulling and coaxing the contracted
muscle until it relaxed. If he surrendered to his back’s
protestations the cramp would worsen and the ordeal would go on
seemingly forever – either way there would be pain, garnished with
even more pain.

Jesus Christ. What kind of fresh hell
was this anyway? Why him?

A blurry flash of the prior evening’s
debauchery intruded into his labored calisthenics. He vaguely
recalled lurching up the stairs to his dingy apartment swigging the
last of a cheap bottle of coconut rum after many hours of drunken
gambling at the neighborhood watering hole, and the loud argument
with the bartender about soccer, transvestites and how the Chinese
were Satan’s henchmen but the rest was a blank, with the exception
of copious quantities of alcohol. The memory of the rotgut
triggered his gag reflex, filling his mouth with bitter saliva as
he choked down vomit.

The spasm in his leg eventually
loosened and he cautiously slid his legs off the bed and stood up.
So far, so good. He kicked an empty bottle out of his path and
leaned against the wall, stretching his hamstring while he massaged
his back with his free hand. Hopeful the worst was over, Al limped
to the coffee table in the studio apartment’s sitting area and
collapsed onto the sofa, dimly aware of something wet adhering to
the side of his head. He reached up and peeled off the offending
item; a slab of congealed lard and dough.

Pepperoni. Nice. How did this get any
worse?

His head swam through the waves of
dizziness that assaulted him and bile seeped out of his nose. What
time had he gotten in? That he’d passed out was a given – meaning
today had to be either Friday, Saturday or Sunday. He had a strict
rule, or at least a semi-strict rule, against getting obliterated
on weeknights so it had to be one of those. He was pretty sure it
wasn’t a Monday. He desperately hoped it was the weekend – there
was no way he could make it in to work in this
condition.

The luminescent wall clock above the TV
read 5:30. Probably a.m. given the dearth of daylight. So maybe
he’d gotten three hours of sleep. The nightmares were no doubt a
result of plummeting blood sugar and dehydration – it felt like
he’d spent the night with the devil’s penis in his mouth. He really
had to stop overdoing this.

Soon. After he got through the present,
that is. Right now he was in no shape to make rash
decisions.

He groped through the accumulated trash
on the scarred table surface until he found what felt like a
cigarette packet.

Empty. Of course. It would be, wouldn’t
it?

Rooting around in the accumulated
refuse, his hand bumped a cold metal ashtray reeking of a rancid
blend of carbon, alcohol and nicotine. He fished around among the
butts, trying to find something only half smoked.

Great. They were all soaked.

The stink caused him to retch again.
Now he could add vomiting on himself to his pre-dawn party tricks.
Gagging, Al struggled upright and staggered toward the dim outline
of the bathroom door, hands fumbling for support. He switched on
the light and was transfixed by his reflection in the hazy
mirror.

Even for him, this was a new
low.

Red, bleary eyes had the bleak thousand
yard stare of a chain-gang prisoner. Tomato paste crusted around
his right temple created the impression he’d been in a collision,
as did the now hardened mozzarella flecking his cheek. What was
left of his hair was matted into a greasy clump. He resembled
nothing so much as a puffer fish that had been hit in the face with
a brick. Several times.

At least he still had his
health.

Al crumpled onto the floor in front of
the toilet and grabbed the cracked rim for support before
explosively spewing the night’s excesses into the grimy bowl. He
was afraid to look too closely.

He smelled blood.

The cramp threatened to revisit his leg
as he heaved and it was all he could do to keep from crying in
frustration at the accumulated misery of a body that had completely
betrayed him. The spell passed. His hand reached for toilet paper
to blot his mouth and instead found the coarse cardboard of an
empty roll. Perfect.

He dried his face with the filthy bath
mat, absently wondering whether it would wash clean, and depressed
the toilet lever, anxious to flush the toxic soup from the prior
night’s episode down the pipe. He heard a snap rather than the
satisfying flushing sound he’d hoped for. The rusty rod in the tank
had broken again; his temporary fix with fishing line and super
glue having obviously proved inadequate.

A glance at his watch confirmed it was
Friday the 29th. Shit. He had to make it into the office. There was
no choice. He was already in deep weeds due to chronic
absenteeism.

There’d better still be some emergency
vodka stashed in the freezer, or he’d never make it.

He regarded his bloated, ravaged
countenance in the mirror. A network of ruptured capillaries lent
him the flushed glow of a seasoned vagrant, with skin of a
yellowish cast that was disturbing, at best. To say he looked like
shit was pejorative to excrement.

He was a complete mess.

Al flicked a speck of vomit from the
corner of his mouth and splashed some lukewarm water on his face,
knocking his toothbrush into the noxious toilet in the
process.

Superb. Thank you, God.

He considered his reflection once more.
This had to stop. He’d never seen anything looking so bad that was
still breathing. It couldn’t continue. And then he grinned, a
lopsided smirk devoid of humor.

Albert Ross, proud member of the U.S.
Diplomatic Corps in shit-swamp Panama, Central America, at your
service.

* * * *

<2>

Ernesto gripped the metal handle for
support, swaying with the rest of the passengers as the brightly
painted bus bounced along the dusty, rutted street. Faded Spanish
advertisements for breath-freshening gum and miracle kitchen
cleaning products punctuated the ever-present graffiti scrawled
over every interior area of the vehicle.

Most of the occupants were dark skinned
Panamanians wearing colorful shirts or dresses, as if the vibrancy
of the colors could ward off the stifling temperature. A few
intrepid tourists sat towards the front, their pale skin and floppy
hats proclaiming them as aliens in the tropical landscape. The rich
aroma of coffee sloshing in Styrofoam cups mingled with less
identifiable odors in the confined space, and for those
unaccustomed to such constant humidity and heat it was almost
unbearable. But for the locals, this was merely the start of
another workday – a Friday exactly like thousands of others before
it.

The creaky fifty-year old conveyance
might have seemed primitive to outsiders but for the commuting
laborers it was a blessed alternative to walking miles in each
direction to and from work. Sure, air conditioning would have been
welcome but compared to trekking two hours to get to a job that
barely paid for food, water and shelter, the ancient converted
school bus was welcome progress.

Ernesto tuned out his fellow travelers
and watched the scenery go by. Every day it was the same cast and
the same landscape. There was the graveyard followed by several
barrios leading to a haphazardly laid out strip mall, and then
increasingly condensed homes of progressively larger size. He knew
how close he was to his exit point by such landmarks. When the old
pink shack appeared with its rows of chickens roasting on the
makeshift grill, Ernesto rang the bell to signal his stop fifty
yards past it.

For eight years now he’d taken the same
bus to this very stop and it never once occurred to him to question
whether his life had turned out the way he’d wanted, or if some
alternative, better reality could be his with just a little more
initiative or effort. No, Ernesto was comfortable in his role. He
was a cook – not a chef or a showman – just a cook; like his father
and mother before him had been in his native Columbia. He actually
felt he had it pretty good – his current job was hardly demanding;
creating three meals a day in a large colonial villa a quarter mile
down a side road from the chicken shack. True, the cuisine requests
had seemed odd at first, but he’d long since become accustomed to
preparing the largely-vegetarian fare and it was second nature to
whip up a lentil soufflé or zucchini curry.

Beyond those simple culinary exercises,
work was invariably tedious. He was the only kitchen staff and, but
for the small black and white TV he was allowed on the counter by
the refrigerator, he would have died of sheer boredom. Still, many
workers had it far worse; and the pay was good, as were the hours.
Nine to seven, six days a week, with Sundays off – he always
prepared Sunday’s meals on Saturday so the staff only needed to
warm them in the microwave.

Ernesto had mixed feelings about his
existence in Panama. He lived in a small row house in an outlying
barrio. It wasn’t bad – had running water – and four years ago
they’d finally installed electricity. To an outsider it would have
been a frightening area; run down, poor and dangerous, but to
Ernesto it was simply where many people like him lived. Sure, it
had its fair share of crime – mainly burglaries at night, and
assaults on weekends when disagreements broke out after a long
day’s drinking – but he knew all his neighbors, and they watched
each other’s’ backs.

He wished he’d met and married someone
special and started a family but with his schedule and limited
means there hadn’t been a lot of prospects. Even in Panama, a
chubby, thirty-seven year old cook who spent his free evenings and
discretionary income at the bordellos in town wasn’t at the top of
the food chain for desirable mating material. Besides, the barrio
women were usually dark and coarse and illiterate. Ernesto
considered himself superior to them.

Originating from Columbia, with light
brown skin and green eyes, Ernesto not only knew how to read and
write but also had a vocational skill that earned him more than
most in his circle. Getting trapped in a marriage with a
flat-footed mestizo girl who’d swell to two hundred pounds within a
few years of their nuptials wasn’t for him. He preferred the
company of the professional ladies of the city, and if he had to
pay, well, that’s why he worked and made money. It wasn’t like he
had an extravagant lifestyle; no car, a few hundred dollars a month
rent between him and his roommate, thirty dollars for utilities,
and the rest for entertainment, with a small portion set aside for
savings with the local loan shark

Nobody used banks in his neighborhood –
they asked too many questions, were suspicious of cash and paid
laughably low interest. In virtually every barrio in Central
America the neighborhood convenience store ran a profitable side
business lending money; and they tended to be trustworthy
custodians for savings. He methodically gave the local market owner
$200 each month, as he had for three years, and earned fifteen
percent annual interest. Sure, the owner lent the money out at
sixty percent, but Ernesto was satisfied with a quarter of that as
his cut because the owner took all the risk. And Ernesto was
building a nest egg. Perhaps one day he could return to Bogota and
meet a nice girl – someone with an education who worked in a shop
or an office – his savings could easily provide the beginning of a
life together. But for now, a little paid romance twice a week did
the trick.