Joe's Liver Page 4

  Ardy feels completely repaid for all the admittedly minor indignities he has suffered to date. Doctor Spencer’s charitable words confirm everything he has always known to be true about America, country of the big heart, with citizens as bountiful as her fruited plains. For one brief shining moment, Ardy feels he could die right here and now with utter satisfaction, that life will never again be so good. Then he realizes that this is such a selfish wish as to be unworthy of his better nature. He must go on, to bear witness to the grandeur and glory of this, his adopted land.

  “Doctor, I cannot adequately express my gratitude.…”

  Bringing the knock-prone motor to life with a twist of the key, Doctor Spencer says, “Keep a lid on it, son. Men don’t have to tell each other such things. Anyhow, a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse.”

  Ardy ponders this intriguing albeit obscure rubric — which seventeen years of Digestive scrutiny has yet to reveal to him — as Doctor Spencer peels out in a spew of gravel and resumes their southward course.

  Buildings begin to dot the heretofore pristine landscape, and the volume and tempo of the traffic picks up. Soon the travelers are driving down a rather heavily developed strip of commercial structures. Ardy marvels at the sheer exuberant exfoliation of signs and images. True, both San Juan, PR, and Montreal were cosmopolitan places which offered Ardy much to chew on. But neither possessed exactly this aggressive aura — eat, buy, sale, $$$, look, shop, save … it is almost too much to comprehend.

  Doctor Spencer pulls his truck into the lot adjoining a long narrow structure with aluminum walls and red metal roof, which labels itself The Chainsaw Café. Shutting off the engine, he pockets the keys and steps out, where he awaits Ardy, who takes an unwontedly long time to disembark, his muscles sore and stiff from a combination of coldness and inaction.

  “They know me here, son, and we can spend the rest of the day till nightfall in a booth, chawing the fat, getting to understand each other better and making you acquainted with the philosophy of our movement.”

  “Sounds fine, Herb.”

  Draping a mammoth arm around Ardy’s thin shoulders, Doctor Spencer conducts him inside the café.

  The air inside is a warm heavenly bath of enticing odors. Ardy’s stomach convulses on itself, like a startled bivalve in the clear waters around the Spice Island pulling back into its shell. Looking around at the café’s patrons, Ardy notices that everyone is dressed like his conception of a lumberjack. All items of clothing feature traditional checkerboard patterns, and each patron, including the women, are wearing massive boots that must weigh about ten pounds each. These people are all big, and as they direct overtly curious stares at Ardy he feels like Gulliver among the Brobdingnagians (“Feature Condensation,” July, 1976, the two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Swift’s estimable work). When people detach their gazes, Ardy feels a great sense of relief.

  Upon sitting, Ardy and Doctor Spencer receive the attention of a waitress, an older woman with short blonde hair of an unnatural yet becoming shade, who stands out due to her black and white uniform.

  “Still serving breakfast, Allie ?”

  “Only for you, Doc.”

  “I’ll have the usual then.”

  “And I also,” says Ardy, attempting to emulate his mentor and not wishing to order a meal incommensurate with the Doctor’s.

  While they wait for their orders, Doctor Spencer recounts for Ardy the goals and ideals of the UMDPAFLL, how the actions of their small group of right-thinking men will restore to America her prelapsarian status as the Last Best Hope of Mankind. Ardy listens with half an ear, since vague feelings of nausea have overtaken him at last after his travails and he worries about swooning.

  At last their orders arrive.

  Two dishwashers recruited from the kitchen proceed Allie the waitress. All three servitors are bearing huge trays heaped with a profusion of steaming plates. Arriving at the table, the bearers unload:

  A platter of scrambled eggs, and one of fried.

  A giant stack of pancakes, and one of waffles.

  Sausages equal in weight to a small piglet.

  Bacon ditto.

  Ham likewise.

  A whole apple pie.

  A dozen English muffins, dripping with butter.

  Wheat toast similarly slathered.

  A crusty mountain of home-fried potatoes, garnished with onions and sprinkled with paprika.

  Six muffins each of corn, bran, and apple.

  Two steaming decanters of coffee.

  A pint of thick cream.

  The trio departs. Ardy stares at the expanse of food, then swivels his head about as if hunting for something.

  Doctor Spencer has already fastened a red bandana beneath his jowls. “What’s the matter, son? Stick a paper napkin down your collar, and tuck in.”

  “Surely we are expecting someone else to join us and share this meal.”

  “Not unless you invited them, boy. This is what you ordered, double my usual breakfast. We live big up here in the heartland, son. You’d best get used to it.”

  Ardy surveys this banquet, which would feed an average family of four Spice Islanders for approximately two weeks. He is simultaneously immensely attracted and violently repulsed by this profusion. In the end, his empty stomach wins out and he joins Doctor Spencer in a frenzy of feeding.

  Many hours later, his Stomach bulging and two quarts of coffee having turned his nervous system into a network of barbed tripwires, Ardy is barely cognizant of his surroundings. Everything has been subsumed into a jovial, albeit sharp-edged haze comprised of equal parts bacon grease and gassy philosophizing on the part of Doctor Spencer.

  After some time which the new friends spend in leisurely polishing off the leftovers of the mammoth brunch, the café empties of other patrons. The diner doors are locked, and the shades are drawn on the early late-autumnal dusk that has fallen outside.

  Around eight o’clock men begin to filter in, appearing soundlessly outside the door and waiting for admittance after rapping out a complex code. Soon the diner is filled with thirty or forty men. Ardy, wrapped in and exuding his aura of good-feeling, nods pleasantly to each.

  When a quorum is apparently present, Doctor Spencer stands and moves to the counter. He climbs with surprising nimbleness upon a chair and thence atop the counter itself, where his towering bulk overshadows the group.

  “Green Mountain Boys, listen up. Our days of waiting are over. The hour of reckoning is here. Take a gander at this stranger in our midst. You’ve all heard by now how I picked him up after he crept stealthily across our border and into our very bosom, like the snake that bit Cleopatra. No, don’t let yourselves get riled up at him personally, he’s not at fault, he’s only the innocent victim of our ham-handed government’s mucking about. You all know how those goddamn fools down in Washington went and stuck their noses in where they didn’t belong, sending a passel of troops down to Spice Island, claiming we had some sort of duty to help those foreigners clean up the mess they had got themselves into. Well, we have sown the wind and are now going to start reaping the whirlwind. Instead of always remembering to tend to America first, those stooges down in Dee Cee went and barged into another country whose pitiful ruckus meant nothing to us, to rescue a few snotty teenage medical students who probably didn’t even bother writing to their parents since they were so busy tearing off a piece of native tail, and now we’re stuck with another whining client state, ready to drain our precious resources and dump all their trash in our backyard. It’s too much, I tell you! Why, what’s the difference between what we’re doing and the goddamn Eye-rain-ians in Bosnia ? Hell, even the Rooskies were smarter than us, since they just told all their old colonies to go fuck themselves up the ass with an ICBM! It’s time to rise up and show our wrath, men, before our whole state is drowned beneath the dusky tide!”

  Ardy’s peaceful somnolence evaporates a little at a time with each word Doctor Spencer speaks. As the roomful of men beg
in to growl and mutter, and an acrid stench of angry sweat fills the air, Ardy wishes he could sink through the floor. He suspects that getting involved with this surprisingly radical movement will soon turn out to be not the wisest course he might have taken.

  “All right, men, you each have your assigned targets. The moment is at hand. Lets get down to business.”

  The members of UMDPAFLL depart excitedly in pairs and quartets, until only Doctor Spencer and a small group remain. They surround Ardy.

  “Lets go, son. We might need your presence to incite the mobs.”

  “Uh, perhaps I could deliver a written pronunciamento right from this very location. I would be happy to indite whatever you dictate.…”

  “Sorry, Ardy, but a man doesn’t shirk what’s gotta be done.”

  “I thought not.”

  The night air is scented with pine and gasoline fumes and cold as the bottom of a lake in February. Indeed, Ardy feels he is moving underwater, or through some of the fine maple syrup he has so recently enjoyed.

  Ardy is soon squeezed between two men in the front seat of a car, while Doctor Spencer shares the back with two others.

  “Got the explosives, Clem?”

  “Yessiree. Road crew never missed ’em.”

  “Hoo-wee, we’ll be blowing up them guvmint bastards with their own stuff!”

  Ardy’s spine turns to aspic.

  The car pulls up into a pool of shadow on the edge of a meagerly lit parking lot adjacent to a darkened civic-looking building. They park on a slight incline. The men get out. One has to help Ardy stand upon his jellyfish legs.

  “Wires, caps …”

  “Who’s got the battery?”

  “Goddamn, we left it back at the diner!”

  “Christ, that means we gotta use the car battery.”

  “Get the hood up. I’ll go put the charge against the building.”

  “Does anyone have some pliers? These leads are all corroded.”

  “Hit ’em with the screwdriver, f’ chrissakes. We ain’t got all night.”

  “I can’t see a goddamn thing. Ain’t we got a flashlight?”

  “I brought one, but the bulb’s busted.”

  “Christ almighty …”

  The man supporting Ardy moves to help the others. Ardy begins to inch slowly away. Suddenly an enormous distant blast shatters the night.

  “Shit! What are those assholes doing! Everyone was supposed to wait ’til eleven to touch things off!”

  “Hurry up! The cops are gonna be out now.”

  “Ain’t Ira finished subverting the force yet?”

  “Ira couldn’t subvert his own wife, f’ chrissakes. He just got demoted to foot patrol last week for passing out leaflets on duty.”

  Keeping an alert eye on the silhouettes of the frantically laboring men — especially the huge form of the disappointingly treacherous Doctor Spencer — Ardy reaches the rear fender of the car. He leans for a moment against the car to steady his nerves.

  “Hey, the car’s rolling! You musta left it in neutral!”

  “Owww! The wheel’s on my foot, boys! Help me, goddamn it, I’m being crushed!”

  Ardy needs nothing further to compel him to start running. As the men cluster around their stricken comrade, seeking to extricate his foot, Ardy flees into the night.

  Explosions — mingled with battle-cries of “Consume More Cream!” — dog his path all the way out of town.

  3

  Personal Glimpses

  It is too warm to snow. Yet the clotted icy mush that falls from a sky the color of wormy potatoes cannot precisely be called rain. Rather it is some noxious compound totally unfamiliar to Ardy — for whom the word “rain” connotes either a gentle sun-bedazzled milling or the torrents of a hurricane. Perhaps this is the “acid rain” he has been reading about lately. Whatever the dreadful stuff is named, it is making Ardy truly uncomfortable. His lime-green nylon jacket is plastered to his undershirt, which in turn is clinging to his bony ribs and chest like the embrace of a dead man. The curls atop his aching bullet-grooved skull are frozen into place, stiff little ringlets. His feet within his cheap counterfeit Nikes are twin sculptures of unfeeling ice.

  As he trudges through the empty streets of the small nameless town he has just entered, Ardy ponders his options—admittedly, few in number. His overriding goal at the moment is to find some shelter. He is convinced that unless he does, he will soon be, in the pithy vernacular of Mister Enrico, “Doomed, man, doomed.…” How to secure this shelter is the queStion. He has already tried tossing himself on the mercy of strangers, without much success.

  Yesterday morning, for instance.

  Yesterday was Saturday, the day after the debacle in Montpelier, which took place on a Friday. All Friday night Ardy alternately walked and ran, eager to escape the clutches of UMDPAFLL and its cholesterol-besotted minions. When dawn arrived, he was in terra incognita. He attempted to spot some of the legendary hobo signs he had memorized from “Any Work For An Honest Man Down On His Luck, Ma’am?” They should be chalked everywhere, on wall, sidewalk and tree, revealing the disposition of the locals. “Bad dog,” “Owner has gun,” “Food for work,” and “New wife — can’t boil water.” Hard as Ardy looked, however (lighting matches from a pack emblazoned The Chainsaw Café — Barn-raisings catered), near every gatepost, he was unable to discern a single one. He would have to trust his intuition.

  Finally spotting in the grey dawn light a barn (big, red, fieldstone foundation, looking utterly like the soul of charitable, pumpkin-pie New England), he ventured inside it, burrowed into a pile of hay, and fell asleep.

  Ardy awoke an hour or three later to the prick of tines athwart his buttocks. He scrambled up quickly out of the warm, sweet-scented tussock.

  A man with a granitic face, clad in bib-overalls and high rubber boots, and bearing a pitchfork, solemnly confronted Ardy.

  “Good morning, sir. Allow me to introduce myself and explain my rather embarrassing situation —”

  “Git.”

  “I’m afraid I didn’t catch that.”

  “Git your shiftless black hindquarters out of the hay what my cows got to eat, and offen my property entirely.”

  “Perhaps you would allow me to chop some wood, or plow, or slop the hogs …”

  The farmer hefted his pitchfork so that the tines came level with Ardy’s face. The scratched silver point of each looked like a small tunnel into infinity.

  “I must now take my leave of your company, sir. Please give my regards to your missus, whom I assume is an excellent cook, and apologize to your cattle for any flavor I might have imparted to their fodder.”

  All day Saturday Ardy continued his slow, painful tramp south, along roads that were absolutely devastating in their loneliness. God, this country was enormous!

  When the sky darkened, the sun expiring in tattered rags of color, he found himself standing at the beginning of a long gravel driveway that curved off among trees. At the end he could see the lights of a house, undoubtedly symbolizing a refuge of warmth and cheerfulness forever denied him.

  A rather timorous bark jolted Ardy from his reverie. He looked down. A scraggly mongrel dog on a chain had emerged from its oversized house. Ardy approached it and affectionately thumped its flanks, speaking to it as he would to a Spice Island dog, in a certain tongue. The dog helicoptered its tail. Ardy looked one last time at the distant house. Then he got down on all fours and crawled within the dog’s weather-tight abode.

  The night was passed warmly, albeit in a cramped fashion, with the truest camaraderie Ardy had yet experienced in America, expressed by sloppy wet tongue-stroppings across the face at intervals during the night.

  When first light filtered into the doghouse, Ardy set out.

  Eventually, early on Sunday morning, he arrived at a small town fit to grace a Digest back cover: Steepled white church fronting on a town common; public library undoubtedly full of unseen issues of his favorite magazine which the tradewinds had not y
et carried to Spice Island; a Main Street lined with prosperous mercantile establishments.…

  Now, pausing beneath the awning shielding the gaudy window of a darkened store, in order momentarily to escape the drizzle, Ardy scratches at a nagging migratory itch and contemplates his choices. He cannot rely on finding friendly dogs willing to share their shelter all the way to Pleasantville. Nor are such accommodations altogether consonant with Ardy’s high sense of his mission. What else is left to him? Should he turn himself into the authorities — the police, or Travelers Aid, or the Salvation Army — and ask them to expedite his passage to Pleasantville? He rehearses the story he will tell:

  “Fleeing a mix-up at the border, during which two gentlemen named Johnson, after accepting my documentation, mistook my native chewing gum for a controlled substance and felt compelled by Presidential mandate to employ deadly force, I became involved in an armed insurrection led by ‘The Gentle Veterinarian of Goosequill Junction,’ which culminated in the scattered bombings of municipal structures.…”

  Surely they will lock Ardy up — either in Federal prison or a mental institution — and throw away the key. Or, worse, they will deport him, and mount a vigilant watch at all points of the compass for his return, thereby forever denying him the opportunity to make his pilgrimage to Pleasantville. No, the authorities are the one set of people he must Steer clear of, at whatever cost.…

  At that very second, a police car turns a corner and cruises slowly down Main Street.

  Ardy’s blood, already semi-congealed, threatens to clog his heart. Attempting to keep a look of circumspect innocence on his features, he begins to move slowly off, in the same direction as the black-and-white unit.

  Ambling down the deserted Sunday sidewalk, Ardy feels the presence of the creeping cruiser behind him like some Damoclean menace. His mind races, desperately casing about for something to say when the officers finally, as they must, accost him. Perhaps a witticism from the pages of the Digest …

  “Have you ever noticed, Officers, that radar spelled backwards is still radar — thus you can stop a speeder coming or going!”