Clarence Major - My Amputations

The fanbelt of time pulled the days weeks months along and everything went smoothly till Mason got his November statement from Chase — one at First Avenue and Twenty-Sixth Street across from Bellevue — which didn't show a MRF deposit. It was now the morning of December eighth and when he went down for coffee at the bar, Sweden, who had no Swedish accent to speak of, handed him a telephone message: “Urgent: call John Armegurn. About your account.” The fanbelt? Coffee, moments later, tasted of axle grease and Frankish Morea sewage in Killini… Mason bought the Times and returned to the cup. Tricks? Cooler, it hadn't improved. Times: John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation had announced its new grantees. Mason recognized none of them. Urgent? Steep, sharp winds swept down the Alps of his nerves. Red clouds of fear moved over the baked-blood stillness of his mind. Sahara with a blistering scirroco. What an ungodly excuse for foreshadowing! Perhaps he'd need a new identity to get away… Already the fanbelt was about to snap — or the shit to hit… Mason suddenly got such an uneasy feeling — he felt as though he were being led by three captives into the jungle toward an awful confrontation. Wasn't three a magical number? Maybe only twenty-two was magical. Who knew. Yet he saw himself as a masked figure brought into a village somewhere, perhaps in South America or… God knows where, stripped and forced into an arena of Truth: made to account for his sins, his crimes. Brought before the altar of his family, his children, the women he'd betrayed. And he was supposed to have some kind of message (either in writing or deliverable in some other form) for his executioner — but he couldn't remember where he'd stored it. He was also supposed to drink something called wongo soup before going to the site. He'd failed. Then there was something else about wearing a mask — and, shit, he knew nothing about masks. During this time, too, he kept dreaming of an old man in a red robe but none of it made any sense. Now, Old man Bryn Maur over there, religiously, sipping coffee and reading the Times , too. His troubles? Any? And there: the retired Lockheed Aircraft guy, Courtlandt, troubles…? And the ex-Commissioner of the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission retiree, Mister Tredyffrin? The city for him was a troubleless haven? Did their coffee taste of the Middle Ages in Greece? of a sewer in Malusi Nquakula? Wasn't it possible to wake to cello and violin, a friendly woman in Green Pastures —green emeralds, fire engine-red rubies, cocaine white-diamonds, sapphires, rather than rusty wheelbarrows-without-white-chickens-beside-them and shovels of hardtimes, disappointment, corruption? Corruption? “Urgent… ” Banjo buggy rubbish! Shouldn't have sold the Polish machine pistol. The bar mirror gave him back his nutmeg face with sleep-puffiness still clinging to its green chrome. The cortex deep in there was tighter. Tensions between the vertebrae and the disc caused a yanking, a painful fear, he'd not before felt. The yin couldn't find the yang and the outer gray area was a disaster zone with screaming, fleeing mobs. Well, he had to face it. Back upstairs in his room, expecting the police to break the door in any moment, he phoned Armegurn. And he was listening to Armegurn for a full five minutes before he heard what he was saying: “Two hundred fifty eight of our accounts were sublet last week to Gwertzman, Meisnner, Lowell and Associates which is a division of the Kraus-Worner Foundation for the Arts and Sciences. So if your check is late this month this is the reason. Don't worry… ” “But—” “You see, Magnan-Rockford owns Kraus-Worner. We're just equalizing some of the responsibilities.” Mason didn't care for Armegurn's chuckle.

Still in his cellule, about to read himself to sleep, with paperback-fantasies of faraway places, adventures high hopes fears, the telephone rang. Rare. The desk put Brad on. Ah shit! “I gotta see you. Now. ” And when Brad arrived twenty minutes later, Mason — leery — watched his bloodshot leer. His tone was malicious: “I don't feel you treated us right?” “Brad, but we all got the same cut. What'd ya mean?” Face to face — standing. “I read in the Times today that you, winner of the Magnan-Rockford prize were back—” “I never left. Wait—” “… in the city. Ha, you know damn well I never believed you: you're as big a crook as I am. I want ten thousand… ” “ What? ” “You heard me.” “I don't have—” “Don't want to hear don't haves. ” Mason grinned at his old “friend.” Brad was obviously drunk. He smelled bad and looked worse. How had Brad found him? What network of tricks…? Mason considered killing — but killing was not copesettic. A neater way. Stall. The fanbelt was running on its last threads: Brad's death wouldn't prevent the break. Grease-balls and flaws in the scheme. “Okay, Brad. Okay. I need time. Ten thousand is a lot—” “Tomorrow.” “Okay, tomorrow.” Brad took out a gun. He waved it in Mason's face. “And no funny business. Tomorrow at noon. Here.” After Brad left Mason went down and got the VW, double-parked it out front; loaded the Selectric, the books, and his clothing in; settled his bill; and drove to the Cozy Inn Motel on Myrtle Avenue in Brooklyn. Who'd ever find him here? The room was made of cardboard and the furniture too. In the morning he took out two thousand cash, loaded it in the briefcase then walked over to Flushing Avenue and bought that amount in travellers' checks at Chemical. He'd do this each day at a different bank till he had it all transferred. Also had to close the account at Chase. But how — without risking — well — everything? While eating eggs and bacon and drinking coffee at the counter in Aunt Mary's Kitchen on Lorimer, he plotted his future: sell the VW, the Selectric, get the Chase bread— if possible; split. For where? France, of course. Maybe he'd better leave well enough alone. There was only about three thousand in the account: he'd “wisely” taken out most of it each month as soon as the MRF checks cleared. An old rabbi went by. On second thought maybe he'd better not sell the car. But drive to, say, Boston. Leave from there. Or to Canada. Fly from… Yeah. Slow down, think clearly. Gotta stop wearing jeans. Gotta look respectable: that way you won't attract the attention of cops. Three piece suit. Get one. Expensive. And expensive shoes, too. Get a pair. Ace, you're going to make it. Don't even dream of giving up your rightful claim to the chosen name! Dangerous though it may be, you will prevail.

In Nice you can get through the winter. It won't run into you like a boy on a skateboard. At the corner of avenue de Suede and rue Halevy is a bar-pizza joint that sells Sicilienne pizza for twenty-five francs and you can even get dinner there for thirty-eight. If you're feeling rich you can drink at the swank bar of the Negresco Hotel which faces the sea. You might even bump into James Baldwin. The doorman, by the way, is a sight: in his red and blue livery. Out front, erected at a sixty-five degree angle, are the flags of the dominant Western nations. Or if you're feeling like a jock you can walk down the street a couple of blocks to the “Jok Club” at Casino Ruhl. If you are adventuresome you will discover Grand Cafe de Turin down by the Old Place Victoria at Port de Turin and Place Garibaldi on Jean Jaures just across from the Mercury Theatre and here you can drink the house wine — and it's excellent — all afternoon and not go broke and you can eat shellfish if you like it salty, but eat it that way only in winter. If you get up early and like to have your coffee at one of the cafes then you'll want to find a comfortable one. If the sun is out but it's a wintery day you'll probably sit halfway in the sun and halfway out. Maybe you'll have an espresso or café au lait at one of the cafes on the Cours Saleya — perhaps the one directly across from Echeries de la Mediterranee. It's good and not expensive. A few flower vendors in the old market area do well on holidays and weekends. Another good cafe for morning coffee is Bar de la Degustation over on the corner of rue du Marché across from the Palais de Justice on rue de Prefecture. There, just beside the entrance of the tiny cafe-bar a fisherman sells his freshly caught fish out of a wobbly old pushcart usually on Thursdays and Fridays. When you buy from him he talks nice to you and wraps your fish quickly in old sheets of Nice-Matin. Otherwise he doesn't speak to you but you can sit at one of the tables, with the smell of his fish in your nose, and watch the faces of people rushing by on their way to work or market. You can read your newspaper there otherwise and not watch. If you forget to buy your Nice-Matin before you order your coffee there's that little vendor across the way in the shadow of the Palais de Justice. You can make a phone call from there too or get a photocopy made of some legal document you may need to show to the French police.