CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Al was not at all sorry when Thanksgiving was over and he could leave Sharon's family and the disastrous weekend behind. If it hadn't been for Luke's nocturnal company, sharing a mutual fondness for jazz and tequila, Al didn't think he would have lived through Sunday and Monday. Clara had stalwartly refused to acknowledge his existence in any way after Saturday's fiasco, which actually suited him just fine. He had caught Debra shooting him the occasional ugly look when she thought no one could see, and Al suspected that her daughter had alerted her to the "gross" white marks webbing his body—marks the girl didn't understand, but her mother would. The thought just about turned his stomach.
On the whole, the weekend—from Debra's bland and thoroughly unimaginative turkey dinner to Pat's plaintive pleas not to be taken back to the nursing home—was an experience that Al didn't think he'd be forgetting any time soon. Not that he wasn't going to try.
Sharon didn't seem at all inclined to have it out over their differing opinions of her family. Instead of launching into another shouting match they presided over an uneasy truce until they got home on Monday night. There, free of the uncharacteristic prudery that Sharon had shown in her brother's house, they had pounced on each other like a couple of crazed wildcats. Passion had been substituted for communication, and they hadn't quit until they passed out from sheer exhaustion.
Tuesday, of course, Al rose early and slipped off to work. This was the downside of returning home. All the problems he had left behind so blithely on Friday were still in existence now, and he was three days nearer the deadline. Al braced himself and attacked his work with vehemence.
By two o'clock he was fading fast. He had been at his desk for six hours straight, taking not so much as a two-minute break to fetch a glass of water. He had to unfold himself slowly, easing stiffened muscles back into motion. His neck ached, and his shoulders felt heavy and weary. He got to his feet with an enormous yawn.
In the reception area, he informed Eulalie that he was going for a walk. Then he made his way out of the administration wing with a dim intention of finding his way down to the chemistry labs, where at least he wouldn't have to deal with Demeter or Eleese. He got into the elevator and pushed a button, not really paying attention. When the door opened he walked, as if in a trance, down the corridor. Not until his key was in the lock did Al realize that he had come up to Sub-Level Three instead.
He grinned a little at the ridiculousness of it all, and unlocked the door to his quarters. The empty suite beckoned him with a promise of peace and quiet. He bolted the door behind him as was his habit and wandered into the kitchenette. Laving his hands quickly in the sink, he ran wet fingers through his hair and over the back of his neck, the gesture dispelling some of the bone-deep weariness already resurfacing halfway through his first day back from the all-too-brief and less-than-enjoyable holiday.
He dug a glass out of one cupboard, and went to the other, where the bottle of scotch from Mac was waiting for him. With a little smile of anticipation, he unscrewed the cap and tried to pour himself a generous serving. What he got was about three quarters of an ounce.
Al frowned and shook the bottle, but it was empty. How could that be? He'd only come up here once or twice before. Maybe four times. No, he realized. Maybe it had been more like ten after all.
He rubbed his chin ruefully, then knocked back what alcohol was left. He would have to pick up another bottle; that was all. He worked hard and there were days when he needed a little glass of something stronger than the coffee-scented dishwater they served downstairs. Come to think of it, it wouldn't hurt to stock the suite up with a few other necessities. Some canned groceries, spices, pasta. If he could take a little break to cook something halfway palatable, maybe he'd actually make time to eat. A weekend of three square meals a day had reminded him how sporadic that particular habit had grown again. He had to be careful with that. Didn't want any trouble with next year's physical. No one was as paranoid as a Navy sawbones who knew a guy's record.
There were other things it would be nice to have on sight, too. Soap, shampoo, towels, a razor. He hated the feeling of an unshaven face, and by the time he got home most nights he was bordering on furry. Forget five o'clock shadow: his was more like an eleven o'clock blackout.
Al went into the bedroom to check out the closet. Roomy and more than adequate for a couple changes of uniform. Wouldn't hurt to have something like that on hand, either. Really, what was the point of taking a mid-afternoon shower if you were just going to don the same sweaty garments you had been toiling in all morning? There was definitely a lot of potential here for making his long, difficult days just a little more comfortable.
Moving into the living room area, he found a pad of Starbright letterhead in the desk, and sat down to make out his list. He would cut out a couple hours early, maybe at seven in the evening, and stop by a supermarket and a liquor store. As he wrote a pleased smile spread across his face. Just a few little luxuries could go a long way to counterbalancing the daily drudgery and never-ending headaches that came with the job.
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December came and Christmas loomed on the horizon. The Starbright Social Activities Committee was planning the annual yuletide celebrations with enthusiasm and skill. It was Al's first Christmas as Project Administrator, and he had wrangled some extra funds out of the budget to make sure that the fine ladies and gentlemen of SSAC had all the resources they needed to throw a really stellar party.
Meanwhile, however, his own work was weighing heavily upon him. Having finally reeled in the last of the reports from the heads of departments (Eleese's, naturally), Al was finally able to sit down to the mammoth task of summarizing and compiling the information in the most presentable and favorable way possible. He wasn't stupid. This report wasn't just a fact-finding exercise. It was his chance to influence the Committee in his favor—or turn them inexorably against him. He wasn't going to throw it away.
Fortunately Al was blessed with the gift of touch-typing, and he sat at his desk clicking away on his Smith-Corona like some kind of robot. Most of the time the words flowed from his mind down his arms and through his fingers to the keys and so onto the paper with a fluidity that surprised even himself. There were times, however, when he had to agonize over passages, writing and re-writing, looking for some kind of positive light to shed on the fact that Omega was now almost six months behind and that the light source was going to need a complete overhaul next fall, for example. At such times it was only the little haven he had managed to carve out on Sub-Level Three that kept him from a raging breakdown. He would pack up the troublesome passage into a manila folder and take it up to the little suite. There he would whip up six-minute alfredo sauce and a little penne, or soak in a hot shower, or just take his boots off and curl up on the sofa with his tumbler of whiskey, and in no time he was working through the problem.
Nevertheless, he was still staying late, still coming home to do no more than feed the dog, make emphatic love to his wife, and subsist into enervated slumber. It was at the end of a long week that he bent over his desk on Friday evening, viciously attacking his fourth draft with a red marking pencil, when there was a knock at the door.
"Who's there?" Al groused, annoyed at the interruption. Everyone in Admin had left three hours ago. This was supposed to be the time for peace and quiet and efficiency.
"D-Doctor Gushman, Captain. D-d-do you, could I…"
Al sighed. Lovely. "Come on in, Doc," he said, straightening up and smoothing the rumpled front of his uniform.
The door opened and the slightly portly scientist came timidly in. "I hope I'm n-not inter-r-r-rupting anything, C-C-Captain," he stammered.
"Nothing important," Al lied, smiling warmly. "Have a seat."
Gushman sat, his hands working in his lap. Al waited for him to voice his problem, but after a full minute's silence it began to look like they could both spend the rest of their lives not having this conversation unless he made the first move.
"What can I do for you?" he asked.
"I n-need your advice," Gushman said hesitantly.
"About what?" Al pressed, trying to mask all traces of the very real frustration he was feeling at the absurdity of this interruption.
"Y-you know we all got a n-n-name for the g-gift exchange?"
Al nodded. It was a Starbright tradition. Everyone had the name of a coworker, for whom they had to purchase a gift costing no more than twenty dollars and no less than ten. Gifts would be exchanged the morning of the twenty-third, for the Christmas party was open to spouses and children, and it wouldn't be appropriate to have teambuilding exercises then.
"W-well, I got M-M-Miss Pharris," Gushman blurted. "I don't know what sh-she'd like, and since she's yo-our secretary, I thought… I thought…"
"That I might have some idea what she'd like?" Al asked.
Gushman nodded frantically. Al wondered fleetingly why he was so anxious about such a small problem. At least it was a small problem: insignificant and easily resolved.
"Eulalie collects figurines of elephants," he said. "Get her a nice, unique elephant figurine. Make sure the trunk is up: that's good luck."
To his surprise, Gushman's expression took on a distinct tinge of terror.
"But—but where do I find that?" he asked frantically.
Al blinked rapidly. Geniuses. Just like children. "Drive into downtown Phoenix," he said. "Better yet: get one of the boys from the motor pool to take you. You'll save a fortune on parking. "Take Monday off and kick back a little."
"Oh, no, I couldn't possibly take Monday off," Gushman demurred, his stutter evaporating. "There's too much to do on Monday."
"Well, Tuesday, then," Al said. "I'll clear you right now."
"No, Tuesday we're running that new program on Sub-Level Six"
Beginning to see a pattern, Al's lip began to curl wryly. "And Wednesday?" he asked. "And Thursday?"
"Much, much too busy," Gushman mumbled.
"Then Monday it is, then," Al said firmly. "Administrator's orders. And forget the motor pool. I'll take a day and drive you myself. I need to get my own Christmas shopping done anyway."
"Th-thank you!" Gushman stammered. "Thank you!"
He got to his feet and left the room. Al buried his face in his arms. What the hell kind of suicide mission had he just volunteered himself for, anyway?
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMDowntown Phoenix was decked out in garlands and bows that looked oddly out of place against the desert sky. Al grinned at the juxtaposition, relishing it. Some people might have found it unnerving, but his happiest Christmases had all been spent in sunny climes, and he wasn't a stickler for clichés.
Of course, he thought with a shiver of memory, some of his most unhappy Christmases had been spent in the sun, too. Literally in the sun, the skin baking off of his naked body.
Forcing a smile, he started to converse loudly with his companion.
"There's a little guy on my street," he said. "His name's Stevie—Esteban. He really needs some nice, durable play-clothes. I figure I'll get him something like that, but a kid should get something fun, too, don't you think?"
"Y-yes, C-Captain," Gushman said.
Al grinned. "That's no good, Doc. You have to call me Al. I'm UA today, and I really don't appreciate all this formality. Al."
"A-Al. Al," Gushman tried valiantly.
"Great!" he said encouragingly. "This is awkward, since I'm the one that hired you, but I can't remember your first name."
"Ginger," Gushman whispered.
"Sorry?"
"Ginger. That's my first name. But nobody calls me that."
"Well, what do people call you?" Al pressed.
He shrugged. "Gushman," he said. "Sometimes Doctor Gushman."
"What about your friends?" Al asked.
"I d—don't have any," he mumbled.
"Sure you do!" Al exclaimed, rebelling instinctively against this melancholy revelation. "What about me? I'm your friend!"
"You are?" Gushman asked.
"Absolutely!" Al cried. "And I'm going to prove it! I'll give you a nickname!"
"A nickname?"
"Yeah! That's what friends do. At least, it's what all my friends did. All of us had nicknames: Stacker and Chip and Bingo and Walleye…"
"And if you give me a nickname, we'll be friends?" the young scientist asked, his brow furrowing with confusion.
"Naw, we're already friends," Al said. "If I give you a nickname you just won't have to put up with me calling you Ginger all the time."
Gushman laughed a little, a genuine smile finally lighting upon his face.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMBy the time noon rolled around they had found an elephant for Eulalie. Al had also picked up a couple pairs of jeans and some colorful shirts for Stevie, a pair of sturdy and practical but handsome leather shoes and a silk blouse for Celestina, trinkets and candy for his office staff, a gift for the young chemist who's name he'd drawn, and a book of dirty jokes for Tony. For Sharon he bought a bottle of her favorite perfume, a tennis bracelet set with rubies, and a wide selection of very revealing lingerie (a stop that had appeared to embarrass Gushman to no end, but that Al suspected from the look in the programmer's eye he had actually enjoyed very much). He had every intention of leaving Sharon to shop for her own monster-in-law and recreant niece, but he picked up a set of Louis Armstrong tapes for Luke, as well as a black bowler redolent of Charlie Chaplain. At the same store, he tried to find a colorful fedora for his father-in-law, but to no avail. Instead he happened across a green trench coat that would match several of his hats, and settled on that. The one thing he hadn't found was a nickname for his companion.
Gushman's stomach growled loudly as they stowed the morning's purchases in the trunk of the Corvette.
"So, where do you want to go for lunch?" Al asked. "My treat."
"Oh, oh, no, Capt—Al," Gushman said. "No, I insist that—"
"You can get the next one," Al promised. With a twinkle in his eye he said, "I always buy on the first date!"
Gushman laughed a little, not quite comfortably. "Then you really should pick the restaurant," he said.
"You're missing the point of this being my treat," Al intoned in some annoyance. "Now pick before I get mad!"
"All-all right," Gushman said. He wasn't stuttering nearly so much anymore, and Al was beginning to think that it was just insecurity behind the habit. "I know just the place! It's a wonderful, quiet little restaurant… just let me think which way it is…"
After a moment of thought, he set off westward, and Al paused to plug the meter before following.
The restaurant was on a quiet street lined with bookstores and antique shops—and the jeweler where Al had bought Sharon's bracelet. Afterwards he wondered how he hadn't noticed it before, because the second they got within three feet of the building he recognized a very familiar, thoroughly nauseating smell. Nuoc mam. Armpit sauce.
He glanced up at the sign as he braced himself for an unpleasant hour. Sure enough, the place bore the telltale name of Saigon Rose.
MWMWMWMWMMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMThe waitress seated them in a corner booth. Al tried to notice the way her breasts filled out the front of her ao dai, but the sad truth was that all he could see was the traditional garment, which despite its bright color and Americanized floral pattern was still unmistakably Vietnamese.
Gushman was babbling, something about how this was his favorite place and everyone was so accommodating. Al managed a thin-lipped smile, and tried to anchor himself as firmly as he could in the present. He told himself he'd never sampled much of Vietnamese cuisine, and there was absolutely no reason that anything about this place should remind him of his years Over There.
The waitress returned with tea and Gushman asked Al a question. He replied along the lines of whatever you suggest: I've never eaten here before, and then fell to picking at a corner of the dyed-reed placemat in front of him.
When the soup arrived, he wished he had paid more attention to what was being said. The second he saw its color he knew he was in for trouble. The orange puree exuded a smell of sweet yet savory spices, but it was unmistakably pumpkin soup. Al steeled his courage and lifted the spoon to his lips. It took all his resolve to force the first mouthful down, and a whole lot of tea to rinse away the aura. It wasn't the taste: the V.C. had never wasted flavor on their captives. It was the texture. Greasy and grainy and familiar.
He tried to hold back the memory, but it flooded in anyway. Summer of '67. He and a bunch of guys in his cellblock had arranged by covert communications to start a hunger strike. It had been Al's idea, inspired by the civil disobedience lessons learned in Selma a decade before, and the other men had agreed readily. It had taken the guards a while to put the whole thing together. Dysentery and hepatitis and other appetite-killing illnesses were endemic in the crowded squalor of the prison, and it wasn't uncommon for a guy to turn down his meals for a couple days. But after a while even Charlie had to notice that a dozen men had been fasting for a week. That's when the interrogations had started. From what Al heard afterwards they'd take a guy out and tempt him with food, try to reason with him. When he continued obdurate, they'd start with the "punishment": brutal beatings and other atrocities that didn't bear thinking about, then or now. The one they'd finally managed to break was Lance Tucker, a signalman who was way too young to be fighting, let alone the captive of the sadistic bastards who held him. Al tried not to hold a grudge against the kid. After all, he'd just been trying to save his skin.
The thing was, though, that he'd ratted out the leader, and Al was hauled up before Rabbit and Thumbscrew.
"Why you not eat, Carravicci?" Thumbscrew demanded. Then Al realized it wasn't the wiry interrogator, but the round Doctor Gushman, who had spoken. "Is there something wrong with the soup, Al?"
"Not at all," he said, smiling his brilliant, false smile. "It's lovely." He took another spoonful, choking it down and driving himself straight back into the memory.
"We want our rights," Al said defiantly. "We have rights under the Geneva Convention. Adequate food and medical care. Humane treatment. Freedom from coercion."
Rabbit laughed. "You are not prisoner of war. You are criminal. Black air pirate. You do not have rights. You suffer as you deserve to suffer. If you do not eat, you will be punished."
Thumbscrew brought a pitcher and a bowl, which he set on the table under Al's nose. He poured steaming pumpkin soup into the bowl. After ten days without food, his stomach roiled at the smell, and his head began to swim. God, he was hungry. He was weak with inanition. But he couldn't eat. Not until they gave in to his demands.
After arguing the matter for a while, they strung him up by his arms and began to beat him, pausing now and again so that Thumbscrew could wave the bowl in front of Al's face, promising that the torture would end if he would just take a sip. Just a little sip.
At last it became plain that they would either have to beat him into unconsciousness or try a different technique. So they cut him down and laid him on a table, his raw and bleeding back against the rough wood. They tied his feet to the legs, so that they were spread with the calves dangling over the edges and the corners of the table digging into his muscles. His wrists they bound to the other legs. His shoulders extended off the edge, and his head fell back. Rabbit smiled as Al fought the agony this position caused his mistreated body.
"You not eat, we make you eat," he said.
Then with finger and thumb he pinched Al's nose with a vice-like grip. Thumbscrew came forward with the pitcher, and as he realized what they were going to do Al sucked in the deepest breath his aching ribs would allow and locked his jaw.
Eventually, though, the air leaked out between his lips and finally he had to open his mouth to gasp for air. That was when his captors struck. With his free hand Rabbit rammed an iron file between Al's top and bottom teeth on the left side, forcing his mouth to stay open. Thumbscrew poured the soup, now stone cold and fetid, into his mouth. Al gagged and choked, unable to breathe, but still the guard kept pouring. Some of it wound up in his stomach, some in his lungs. More dribbled down his chin and the sides of his face, landing in a basin beneath his head. Then Rabbit withdrew, leaving Al to cough and struggle for a free breath.
Then he vomited, copiously and painfully, and this, too, ran over into the basin.
"You eat!" Rabbit ordered fiercely. Then Thumbscrew emptied the basin back into the pitcher and the process began again. Each time he regurgitated what they forced down, and each time they stopped his nose and recycled the liquid torture.
After an hour and a half Al couldn't bear it any more. His traitorous eyes leaking tears of anguish and humiliation, he sobbed, "I'll eat it. I'll eat." Then they had untied him and returned him to the low stool, and Thumbscrew had poured him a bowl of the foul fluid in the pitcher, and they had both watched gleefully as the prisoner ate it of his own volition. The strike was over.
Pumpkin soup. Al pushed the dish away. "To tell you the truth," he said to Gushman. "I'm not much of a soup person."
When the waitress returned he ordered a double scotch, which thankfully they had available. Then it was time to order the main course.
MWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMWMAl forced yet another grin as the girl took away his untouched plate of noodles and vegetables. "Thanks, gorgeous," he said.
Gushman, who was relishing the last of his pork and armpit sauce, said, "Do you flirt with everybody?"
"Only women," Al said firmly, with good humor that he wasn't feeling. He drained the last of his scotch. "You know, I think I want to head home," he said, some of his weariness and desolation creeping unintentionally into his words. "Unless there's anything else you need?"
There wasn't, and they made their way back to the 'Vette. Al drove with singleminded determination, fighting back the phantoms and trying vainly to hide his misery.
"You're mad," Gushman said timidly. "You didn't like the restaurant."
"Sure I did," Al said brightly, lying through his teeth. "It's a really nice place. I'm just not hungry. Had a huge breakfast."
"You're mad," the programmer reiterated. "I'm sorry."
"Look, Gushman, I'm not mad," Al said firmly. "I promise I'm not mad. Okay?"
"Then we're still friends?"
"Sure! Sure, we are!" Al said. "I'll prove it…"
He groped through his mind, trying to find that spark of creativity that had led to the nicknaming of half the old squadron. He had nothing. Absolutely nothing. Then he remembered a time when nicknames had meant affection. Love. Pop and Trudy, maybe even Momma--had Momma ever called him anything but "you little brat"? Poppa and Trudy, anyway. Allie-boy. Allie. Well, what the hell? It was better than nothing.
"Gooshie," he said. "Mind if I call you Gooshie?"
Gushman laughed, a genuine, happy laugh. "I don't mind," he said. "Al."
Well, thank God for that, then. Morosely, Al turned out onto the freeway.