John Sayles - The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories

"Hey," said Cervantes to Brian, "you know Misser Horse? Misser Horse he lib oberdere, berry big mon you know, lib in a cossle, noosepaper, berry big. I lob him berry much, he gib me chob ohyesohyes."

"Say, Cleveland," called Daniel, "you ever fight? You got a nice little built on you, fella your size."

"Nope. Not in a ring or anything."

Daniel shook his head. "That's why the game is finished, can't get a white kid to put on the gloves."

"Did you fight when you were a kid?"

"Sure. I had a couple bouts when I first come out here. Saw some pretty good people come up. I dropped Blinky DiPersio in the second round once, left hook and down he goes. I was heavyweight then, you believe it? S'what the sauce will make of you. Blinky, he gone on to fight some of the great ones. Those were hungry days, hungry fighters. But now, you can get by on welfare, why beat your brains out? It's dead." He shook his head as if his dog or grandmother had passed away. "Dead." He began a yawn that ended as a minor dry-heave.

"Cleveland," he said, "you wouldn't happen to have fortythree cents would you? We need forty-three cents to make us another quart."

It seemed like the sociable thing to do. Brian counted out his change and added it to what Daniel had given to Cervantes.

"That's real Christian of you, son. Any preferences?"

Brian said no and Cervantes headed off into town.

"Mostly I was a sparrin partner," said Daniel. "Worked with that fella I was lookin for earlier, Stuffy. He was California light-heavy champ, way back when, could have gone all the way if they'd known how to handle him. The drink done him in. Tradin too many punches might have softened his head some, but it was the drink, the drink that finished Stuffy." Daniel started coughing, his eyes bugging and the veins standing out on his forehead. He bent forward to catch his breath.

"Committin suicide."

"Maybe you ought to hang the bottle up for a while."

Daniel ignored the advice. "What you want to do, Cleveland, is thumb on down the road to Ventura. Gonna have a big fight card there Friday night. The fella that operates the concession will be hiring lots of people, you could get on easy. Tell him Daniel Boone sent you. They got Windmill White headlining the card, they'll need some extra hands."

Cervantes came back with another bottle of Thunderbird in a paper sack. Daniel opened it and passed it down. Brian swallowed hard. He wanted some of his forty-three cents out of it.

"If you're going to drink," the old man always used to say, nodding into life between the regulars who steered him home, "you might as well do the full job of it. Keep the edges off, keep the fire going inside. Put a few under the belt and it's a warm current I'm riding on, warms the blood, sets it traveling. Your blood sits still and you're a dead man." The old man put more and more drink between himself and the cold, slept later and later into the day, until in dead of winter he stumbled out from the watch shack to answer the siren moan of the midnight freight that always slowed as it rolled through the yard. They found him outside Chicago, stiff in the corner of an empty boxcar. It was the farthest west he'd ever been.

"Hey there."

Two men were standing behind the bench, grinning. Both had wiry, nervous bodies, bodies like TV bowlers. One had a big gap in his front teeth and a brush cut, complete with butch wax.

"Name's Pete," he said to Brian, winking and offering his hand.

The other man's grin ticked on and off his face. In fact his whole self was caught up in quivers and shakes. Both men wore short-sleeved cotton shirts and looked like they had slept in beds the night before.

"Mind if we join you?"

"Pete an Misser Miles Misser Miles!" Cervantes was beaming, excited to have more company. "Seedown goomorning seedown!"

They sat by Daniel at the other end. It was a four-man bench and things were a little cozy with five. Daniel made the formal introductions.

"This here is Sneaky Pete and Mr. Miles. That young fella on the other side of the bench is — what was it?"

"Oklahoma."

"Right. Oklahoma."

Brian traded nods with them.

"Hate to be b-blunt with you, Dan'l — " said Mr. Miles, his voice rattling inside him and escaping like the bleat of a cartoon lamb, "but you w-wunt have sumn to drink would you? I swear I'monna shake to pieces I don't get sumn under my belt."

Daniel upped with the quart. "Just one whiff in the air and they gather like sharks."

"Ah, you're my man." Mr. Miles closed his eyes and took it like medicine. "Gah-dam I needed that. Evy mornin this week I had these f-fuckin shakes. Chriseawmighty."

Sneaky Pete wasn't drinking.

"Misser Miles Misser Miles you nee a shabe you know you know, you goolookin honsome mon you use a shabe."

"I need more'n a shave, Cervantes. Christ, two tickets for driving while impaired this month, they tell me on the hill I get one m-more, drunk or no, it's my license." A shudder hit him in the breastbone. "Oh shit, I got em bad."

"Give him your makins, Cervantes," said Daniel. "A smoke'll calm him down. Roll yourself one, Miles."

"Hahl I couldn't roll down a hill this mornin, Dan'! much less no cigarette."

"Roll one for Mr. Miles, buddy."

"Misser Miles? You lib up on the moanton, m'hmn ohyes, you got tot big ronch yes?"

"Hardly, Cervantes."

"Ohyes. Ri' nex to me, I got big ronch too m'hmn. I got seben-honrid-bee-yon heads of cottles."

Pete remarked that that was a lot of bull and Mr. Miles made the mistake of giggling, starting shudders through his body. The bag traveled up and down the bench once, skipping Pete. Cervantes gave Miles a cigarette. He had a hard time holding still for a light from Daniel and had to concentrate to keep it from slipping through his fingers. He choked on the first drag.

"Say, Oklahoma," called Daniel, "this your first time to the Coast?"

of "Yuh.

"How you like it?"

"So far so good," said Brian.

Daniel laughed. "I remember when I first come out here, come for fame and fortune. I was gonna be the next Tarzan. Johnny Weissmuller had just turned in his water wings and I was all set to fill his moccasins."

"Give us your yell," asked Pete. "Your Tarzan yell."

"It's too early. I'd have the vice squad down on us. Yeah, I had all the qualifications. Big, good-lookin, could swim like a fish-"

"Didn't your teeth tend to rust?"

"I had my originals then, Pete, had my ivories. I had everything but the breaks."

"Then you switched to boxing," said Pete, "and you got em. Break your nose, break your jaw, break your — "

"One phone call, one photograph in the right hands and Maureen O'Sullivan would've been washin out my leopardskin B.V.D.'s down by the river. Would've hit it big."

"Could you play-act, Dan'!?"

"Act, hell. For what? Me Tarzan, you Jane?"

"With me," said Sneaky Pete, "it was oranges. My older brother and me, we worked at this filling station, and he'd always be sending off for brochures about business opportunities out here. Used to hide from the boss down in the grease pit, read about our future. I remember the one that hooked us, can still see the picture in my head. Pretty girl standing under this tree just drippin with big fat oranges. 'Money does grow on trees,' it said, 'in the Golden State.' " Pete laughed and scratched his scalp.

"So what happened?"

"What ever happens? We came, we saw, we got nowhere. My brother's been in and out of Folsom, if he takes another jolt it'll be a long one. To this day he can't stand anything to do with oranges. He'd get whattayoucallit, scurvy, before he'd even look at one.

"Yeah, it was oranges brung me out here."

They looked to Mr. Miles.

"I was born here," he said. "Just a little after my family come from Arkansas. My mother was eight months and counting when they piled everything on the Ford and started west. Nineteen thirty-one.