Clarence Major - My Amputations

Edith Levine had dyed-blond hair and yellow blue (green) eyes. She'd gained weight. Was nervous as she held the closet door opened. The crafty dudes pushed the captive in and Mason locked it. “… some mistake… ” McKay was still whining in a voice with the plaintive yelp of a kicked pup. “ Now what?” Edith wanted to know. “He can't stay here long. You gotta do something—” “Don't worry. We'll—” Mason squeezed her thin shoulder. Brad: “We got techniques. He'll come around in no time.” Pretty nice pad ya got here, Edith. Seventy-second and Riverside Drive ain't bad. Mason'd already been told Edith was hanging out (drinking with) a different crowd: Joe Valenti, Gianni D'Amico, others down in Little Italy and some heavies up in the Bronx. Rumor also had it she was doing a sideline Call Girl-act for Guy Flotilla, Porn Boss of Times Square. Edith? a college graduate — smart, expert on… What'd happened to those mushy marriage plans — the bacon and eggs popping in the skillet at sunrise with the tangy smells floating up to the ranch-house kiddie bedrooms…? Had they gone down the drain in the same splash with the dream of a brilliant career in sociological research on one of the big teams? Edith'd already heard through the gossip-vine about Painted Turtle and was curious. But Mason wasn't talking. His mind was a battleship full of stampeding torpedo experts crazy with war lust. Brad lit a stick, passed the joint to Edith, she hit and passed to Mason. They sat around like Farrell nitwits except in a classier setting. Mason knew Brad and Edith now had a thing going, sort of. Well, nobody had serious relationships: right — but they had serious mutual you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-your-back interests.

Days later the man in the closet still insisted he had no idea what the hell was coming off. The idea was to brainwash—? beat him into submission—? agreement? You tell me. Was it possible anybody could be that good an actor and not be paid for such performance? Still here at Seventy-second. Mason sipped a 7-Up. It was Jesus' move. Checkers were a bore. Brad was watching TV. Edith was downtown making a porno flick with Mighty Mo, a new star. They planned to call it “Happy Valley.” Painted Turtle, here for the first time, was restless. She'd already gone for one walk — was thinking of going for another. Definitely she was against the idea of that human being in the closet. All this shit made her nervous and Mason knew it and worried. And that dud McKay was a bomber and tomorrow he was going to Chemical. He had to. No point in waiting. Just walk right up to the window — with a powerful scenario; like, hey, I lost my checkbook, or, uh, I gotta big oil deal going in Saudi Arabia — need a quick loan, know my credit is shipshape here. Tell the prez I'm here. He knows my name. One of your biggest stockholders. But Sir, do you have an appointment? No, but got a point. Not funny. Give the clown a pentothal injection. He has no ace in the hole — just playing against—. He was cold footed, all right. His gold colic was out to lunch. He'd reach the bank's entrance at United Nations' Plaza, flannelmouthed with no hold on the jerk line. He needed a hymn, a chance to put the saddle on the right horse. No private apocalypse to foretell him of an end to his checkbook blues. Mason was a quivering nerd. Mister Bogus'd step into the revolving door. It'd stick.

When Mason came out of the bank his color had changed: he saw himself in a showcase window: dark gray-purple — not his usual earth with tree bark and leaf and sky in the pigmentation. He could still hear the clerk's laughter echoing in his unclogged ear. Had she seen him as the wretched of the planet? Surely she instantly took him to be an archfiend, a liar, a nut. He felt lucky to have gotten out without a police escort. It would take time to establish his “rightful” identity. He walked back to The Other Side. Painted Turtle wasn't in the room. Probably up at Edith's. That damned cretin in the closet: he'll crack —imagine coming up with a name like Clarence McKay! What could be phonier? Until the masquerader cooperates the MRF bread won't rise. Hadn't the other winners been announced in the news on TV in the rec room at Attica? Robert Penn Warren, Donald Barthelme, novelist Charles Wright, and another name Mason couldn't remember. Sorta like that old TV show called The Millionaire . They seem to give money to people at random for no clear reason. Imagine! Fifty thousand smackaroos a year for life! Mason, feeling the depth of his human impediment, remembered an inmate who'd swindled a bank out of a hundred and fifty thousand by simply calling the president, telling him he was some Arab oil magnate with a son in Attica. The bank sent the inmate the money the next day. Most of it went to an account number the inmate had given the president and about twenty grand came to Attica. Even after the dude got ten years added to his sentence he was still a hero to the guys. So what was Mason's excuse? Not a real crook? Oh, I forgot: he was a novelist. Is a novelist? A poet, a sensitive man, a man of convictions; a person of “true credibility”? And although, like his father, he'd been framed and lost part of his life rotting away in a prison cell, he was not bitter enough to further destroy himself. He had to now go slowly, reestablish himself with skill, smoothly. The Wolf in Sheep's Skin was the immediate hindrance. Just ahead waited riches and respect: yachts, bank accounts around the world, the good life — where the chance of social pain, sudden death by stupid accident, insults, violence were reduced. And Painted Turtle would be there to enjoy it all with him. His stupid mudfrog itched but he refused it the comfort of a scratch. Oh, well. He subwayed to Edith's. Brad was in the closet with The Impostor. Mason looked in. Brad was stuffing Wonder Bread into McKay's mouth. Where was Edith? And Jesus? Search me. Brad giggled as the captive gagged. Don't feed him too much — the brains will never clear: empty stomach opens way to vision. Water twice a day. Bread every other. Enough. Mason'd lost track of the schedule they'd laid out for reprogramming this guy they held in darkness. What's wrong with his nose—? it's all purple. He fell. Mason felt like an hombre with athlete's feet between his fingers: watching Brad struggle with McKay gave him illicit shivers. Was life itself some kind of virus? Never mind. He and The Turtle had made the best of it. The others weren't going anywhere though they claimed they were. Edith knew what she'd do with her cut. Jesus, too. And Brad. And Rob. The immediate problem was this impersonator: Mason had to deal with this shammer in the only way one deals with a conspirator: to out-do him he had to become a supreme impostor himself. He scratched his mudfrog with gentle schizophrenic devotion, as he watched Brad's savage action… What lessons had Mason learned in prison? Public Enemy and Grits had taught him — perhaps — too much. What would Public Enemy advise? He'd say, Listen to me, jack, you gotta give up this bullshit about gettin- yo rep back. What difference do it make, huh? The important thang is: you , barnstormer, baby-lifter, bootlegger, boozehound, cake-cutter, garbage-kisser, is you! You gotta outsmart that sucker. He outsmarted you, so you got to throw a double-whammy on him and hang him by his balls. Be a quick-change artist! Listen to Public. I know what I'm talkin' ‘bout. And he'd throw his chin out. Smirk. You say the name is part of the deal? I hear ya. You can't get the dough without the name being restored. Well, if that rotten egg-sucker ain't around then where's your competition? See my point? Drop the joker in quicksand, send him skating across thin ice, stand him on his head in the bottom of the East River. That's what a snake-in-the-grass deserves. Don't dangle and fart around. You got to create yo identity! So you once owned it, so what. Who cares. You don't anymore. You're just a greenhorn, a sucker, a laughing-stock. What you want now is to get a passport, bank account, driver's permit, whatever you need, in the name of… you know who. You'll have to buy them. Go to my old friends Valenti and D'Amico. They can help. Once you're legal and clean as a chitlin' nobody'll be able to touch you. Sitting pretty and ready to fly, you won't even need them dingy wings I seen ya with… Yup. That's the advice Public'd shoot. And he'd be right. Jesus came in out of breath — shot into the bathroom and started washing under his arms. What happened to you? Nothing. Mason moped in the doorway.