T. Boyle - T. C. Boyle Stories

“Very nice,” I say, trying to picture the man as a ten-year-old hounded into a wimpy affection for cats by the tough kids, merciless on the subject of his purple face. But then suddenly my nostrils charge. He is twisting the key on a tin of herring.

“Special diet,” he says. “For their coats.”

Real food has not passed my lips in over twenty-four hours. At his feet, a cardboard box packed with cans: baby smoked oysters, sardines, anchovies, salmon, tuna. When he turns to feed Joy Boy I fill my pockets.

He sighs. “Gorgeous, aren’t they?”

“Yes,” I say. With feeling.

Afternoon

We have had a meeting. Certain propositions have been carried. Namely, that we are a society in microcosm. That tasks will be (equably) apportioned. That we will work toward a common goal. As a team.

The pilot addressed us (slingless). He spoke with the microphone at his lips, out of habit I suppose, and with his Pan Am captain’s cap raked across one eyebrow. Andrea stood at his side, her fingers twined in his, her uniform like a fishnet. The rest of us occupied our seats (locked in the upright position), our seat belts fastened, not smoking. We itched, sweated, squirmed. The pilot talked of the spirit of democracy, the social contract, the state of nature, the myth of the noble savage and the mythopoeic significance of Uncle Sam. He also dwelt on the term pilot as image, and explored its etymology. Then, in a voice vote (yea/nay), we elected him leader.

He proceeded to assign duties. He, the pilot, would oversee food and water supplies. At the same time, he and the professor would tinker with the engine and tighten bolts. Andrea would hold their tools. The mime’s job was to write our constitution. Tanqueray would see that the miniatures were emptied. (He interjected here to indicate that he would cheerfully take on the task appointed him, though it would entail tackling the inferior spirits as well as gin — taking the bad with the good, as he put it. The pilot found him out of order and made note of the comment in any case.) To the allergic man (who sagged, red and wheezing) fell the duty of keeping things tidy within the plane. The cat man and myself were designated food gatherers, with the attendant task of clearing a landing strip. Then the pilot threw the meeting open to comments from the floor.

The allergic man stood, wiping his eyes. “I insist,” he said, and then fell into a coughing spasm, unable to continue until the mime delivered a number of slaps to his back with the even, flat strokes of a man beating a carpet. “I insist that the obscene, dander-spewing vermin in the baggage compartment be removed from the immediate vicinity of the aircraft.” (These were the first articulate sounds he had produced. Judging from diction, cadence and the accent in which they were delivered, it began to occur to me that he must be an Englishman. My father was an Englishman. I have an unreasoning, inexorable and violent loathing for all things English.) “In fact,” he continued, choking into his handkerchief, “I should like to see all the squirrelly little beggars spitted and roasted like hares, what with the state of our food supply.”

The cat man’s purple shaded to black. He unbuckled his seat belt, stood, stepped over to the English/allergic man, and put a fist in his eye. The pilot called the cat man out of order, and with the aid of Tanqueray and the professor, ejected him from the meeting. Oaths were exchanged. Outside, in the bush, a howler monkey imitated the shriek of a jaguar set afire.

The pilot adjourned the meeting.

Evening

It is almost pleasant: sun firing the highest leaves, flowers and vines and bearded Spanish moss like a Rousseau exhibit, the spit and crackle of the campfire, the sweet strong odor of roasting meat. Joy Boy and Peaker II are turning on spits. The cat man has been exiled, the spoils (fat pampered feline) confiscated. Much to my chagrin, he thought to make off with his cache of cat food, and had actually set loose Egmont, Peaker, Roos and Great Northern before the pilot could get to him. I told no one of the cat food. Eleven shiny tins of it lie buried not twenty feet from the nose of the plane. A reserve. A private reserve. Just in case.

There is a good deal of squabbling over the roast cat. The pilot, Andrea and the professor seem to wind up with the largest portions. Mine is among the smallest. Off in the black bank of the jungle we can hear the pariah gnashing his teeth, keening. He is taking it hard. The pilot says that he is a troublemaker anyway and that the community is better off without him. As I tear into Joy Boy’s plump drumstick, I cannot help agreeing.

Night

Wispy flames tremble at the wicks of three thin birthday candles Andrea has found in the galley. Their light is sufficient for the professor. He is tinkering with the radio, and with the plane’s massive battery. Suddenly the cracked speaker comes to life, sputters, coughs up a ball of static sizzling like bacon in a frying pan. The pilot is a madman. He bowls over Tanqueray, flings himself on his knees before the radio (think of altar and neophyte), snatches up the microphone and with quaking fingers switches to TRANSMIT. “Mayday, Mayday!” he shouts, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”

We freeze — a sound is coming back through the speaker. The professor tunes it in, the interference like a siren coming closer and then shooting off in the distance as the sound clears. It is music, a tune. Tinny mandolins, a human voice — singing. We listen, rapt, suddenly and magically in communion with the civilized world. The song ends. Then the first strains of a commercial jingle, familiar as our mothers’ faces, things go better with Coke, but there’s something wrong, the words in a muddle. The announcer’s voice comes over — in Japanese. Radio Tokyo. Then the box goes dead. There is the smell of scorched wire, melted transistor. The pilot’s jaw lists, tears start in his eyes, his knuckles whiten over the microphone. “Good morning, Mr. Yones,” says the professor. “How are your wife?”

Morning

Many things to report:

1) The tools have vanished. The cat man suspected. Vengeance the motive. The pilot and the professor are off in the shadows, hunting him.

2) Tanqueray and the English/allergic man (nose clogged, eyes like open sores) have volunteered to make their way back to civilization and send succor. They are not actuated by blind heroism. The one has finished the miniatures, the other is out of epinephrine. Their chances — a drunken old man and a flabby asthmatic — are negligible. I will not miss them in any case. They are both consummate asses.

3)) The mime has begun our constitution. He sits hunched in his seat, face in pancake, looking uncannily like Bernardo O’Higgins.

4) I have made overtures to Andrea. When the pilot and the professor slipped off after the cat man, I took her aside and showed her a tin of sardines. She followed me out of the plane and through the dripping fronds and big squa-mate leaves. We crouched in the bush. “I had this tucked away in my suitcase,” I whispered, lying. “Thought you might want to share it with me—”

She looked at me — the green of her eyes, the leafy backdrop. Her uniform had degenerated to shorts and halter, crudely knotted. Her cleavage was deep as the jungle. “Sure,” she said.

“—for a consideration …”

“Sure.”

I turned the key. The sardines were silver, the oil gold. I counted them out, half for her, half for me. We ate. She sucked her fingers, licked the corners of the tin. I watched her tongue. When she finished she looked up at me, a fat bubble of oil on her lip. “You know,” she said, “you’re a shit. I mean you’re a real shit. Holding out, trying to bribe me. You think I’d do it with you? Listen. You nauseate me with your skinny legs and your filthy beard and your dirty little habits — I’ve been watching you since you got on the plane back at Rio. Think I don’t know your type? Ha. You’re a real shit.”