Thomas McGuane - Panama

DEPRAVED PERVERT WISHING WELL

and the money began to come in. It was clear that before the kids got on to the coins, I’d have enough to put on my party at the Casa Marina. Late at night, while I slept, I could hear the change plopping in the fountain and I felt happy. Still, I suspected that the law of averages would soon bring a justice-hungry citizen, some shitsucker, creeping into my place to avenge decency. Here though, I was confident my silent-running dog would have such a one by the leg. So I slept.

The next day, Don stopped by to tell me about my wishing well. He also told me that I was cavorting in the sand at Rest Beach at three in the morning. I told him he’d made this up. He said, “You cut your foot on a Doctor Pepper bottle. You’d better put something on it.” I’d been limping all day. Don left. I got some mercurochrome.

* * *

Catherine and I lay in the sand. I was on my back feeling the sun form its evanescent oval on my belly, the hot retinal images that come through the lids. The sea was breathing at our feet and I considered how trying it can be to be crazy, with a Band-Aid on your arch, if you accept that you are that, crazy, which I had not, any more than I had dismissed it. I rolled over and rested my hand on Catherine.

“Cut.”

“What?”

“Cut it out.”

“Okay. What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not wrong.”

“Then what’s this?”

“I just don’t want any.”

“God why are you shouting? It was recently my birthday.”

“I want some sun. And I’m thinking.”

“About what?”

“About simply making a living. The cans are nearly empty. It’s a photo finish every month, getting everything paid. And I have to admit, this private detective is just about all I can handle.”

“Catherine, I didn’t ask you to hire this private detective”.

“He’s the only legitimate expense I have. Don’t start diminishing that. ”

“He’s useless.” I was shouting.

“I don’t believe that.”

“He’s absolutely useless.”

“I bet he’s already told you something you didn’t know.”

That kiboshed my replies good.

Catherine said, “Oh, please, I’m sorry. Why do I attack you? You haven’t got a chance.”

And then she slept dreamlessly while I watched her. I got up quietly and slipped into the house to dress. I walked down to Juan Maeg’s store and bought a handful of tin rings with plastic jewels; and I bought a few dozen washable tattoos. I went back to the house, fished almost three dollars out of the wishing well under the disapproving gaze of fat Mrs. Dean next door, and walked around to the beach. Catherine was sound asleep. I haven’t got a chance? I slipped the rings over each finger, licking them so they’d slide on without waking her. Then I got a dish of water and began tattooing her: Donald Duck, Spider Man, anchors, hearts, Dodge, Chevrolet, a nice Virgin of Guadalupe, the Fonz, an American eagle, the Silver Streak, Bruce Lee. I covered her and went inside.

When she came in a while later, I was conscious of what a spectacle she was; the tattoos were startling. I smiled a question and she said, “Let’s eat.” Then she started toward the door. The tide was turning.

“Don’t you want to scrub up?”

“No, I’m fine.”

She insisted on eating at the Pier House, which is a nice place, full at lunch, a professional clientele. We asked for a table, me in my huaraches and housepainter’s baggy pants, Catherine in a bathing suit, twelve paste rings, and twenty-five loud tattoos. It was the last month of hurricane season.

Catherine wanted to discuss local Cuban politics. She didn’t know anything about them and I couldn’t get past how peculiar she looked. I asked her, “How can you do this to me?” The whole god damned restaurant was gaping. I felt like a fool.

We went back to my place and Don the detective was waiting for me. I found this distressing, since I’d already picked some songs to play for her on the mandolin. But then, it seemed she was waiting for a reason to slip off; and suddenly she was gone. Don got out his notes. I said, “I don’t want to know.”

“Don’t waste her money. She works hard for it.”

“No she doesn’t. It’s all in a can. What does she pay you?”

“Classified.”

“You’re not supposed to be here now.”

“I won’t be regular. That would only start your memory loping. I’ll just pop up.”

“I hate popping up. That’s against everything I’ve ever fought for. Don’t you fucking pop up on me. ”

Then he recited each thing I had done from bandaging my foot to tattooing Catherine. There were no surprises; but I didn’t like the feeling I was getting. I didn’t like it at all. I looked at Don. Today he was wearing mesh shoes and a banlon sport shirt. I could not fail to notice that he had moved his part from one side of his head to the other since the morning.

“I’m going to give you a little extra time,” he said, “let you get in a little trouble with your memory. — See ya.”

As he darted off, I sensed the air pouring into the tops of his shoes, his purely professional curiosity, the shifting part of his hair, and the utter menace of being up against someone who had a real memory he’d use on you.

* * *

It wasn’t long before I began having a problem retrieving funds from the depraved pervert wishing well. As you know, I have been beset by impostors. Years ago numerous elephants lost their lives in Western Europe at the hands of people who had no idea what a batting practice machine was. An enterprising Frenchman emerged in Brazilian soccer clothes; but that wasn’t the point. That odd young fellow, Chris Burden, who shoots himself, was closer to me and my elephant than these deluded Europeans. The main thing is that impostors have been my cross. The worst of them was at the well today.

I emerged from my home by the sea in shorts and drugstore flipflops. I was not anxious to run into anyone, as I had been making notes to myself that morning on my stomach with a ballpoint while I drank my coffee and greeted the new day. I hadn’t had a chance for a shower; and I knew that from a stranger’s point of view, I did look a bit like something from the National Geographic. At any rate, there was a stranger at the well. In human history, one of the most terrifying appearances is that of the stranger at the well. The truth is, if I had still been in the same business of my recent years, I would have included this in my repertoire. He peered at the upside-down map of the Lesser Antilles on my stomach, the word “Antigua” scrawled across my belly button. I really shouldn’t have come out.

He was dressed in clean white ducks stylishly unpressed. A chambray shirt and a handsome old blazer. He wore deck shoes on brown sockless ankles. He was a well-groomed man in his fifties and he carried a small, heavy satchel that said “Racquetball” on its side. When I appeared, he reached inside and began throwing handfuls of silver dollars into the well.

“Now will you talk to me?” he said. “I am your father.”

“This is a cruel ploy to take with an orphan,” I told him. I wondered if he would ever find his son. He kept showering the silver dollars into the well, as if to say I would not talk to him otherwise. The pathos of this empty gesture is absolutely all that kept me there.

“You touch me with your desperation,” I said. “And I advise you to roll up your pants and get your money back. You’ve got the wrong Joe.” With this he angrily emptied the whole satchel into the water. I would never touch that haunted money.

“Now listen you sonofabitch. I haven’t got all day. I’m going to find out if you’re compos mentis before I go back to Ohio or know the reason why. I’m trying to have a well-earned rest on my yacht, which I have maintained at the dock for five years unused in anticipation of this holiday, and I’m pissing the entire deal away running down my birdbrain, notorious son who refuses to admit I exist.”