John Sayles - The Anarchist's Convention and Other Stories

"I'm a dead duck."

"I'll drink to that. Hand her over, Dan'l."

"Breakfast of Champions."

"No shit."

Cervantes fumbled the bag but recovered, giving Miles a big grin.

"You drop that wine an I'll drop you, Cervantes. Into the ocean with a rock tied around your neck."

"Ohyes m'hmn ohyes."

"Oh yes."

The bag moved from Mr. Miles to Daniel to Miles to Cervantes to Brian. Brian finished it.

"Don't chuck it, Nevada. Them squirrels."

Brian slid it under the bench, still in the bag.

"Tell you one thing," Pete cackled. "Now you can say, 'D. Boone killed him a bottle at this bench.' We'll put up a plaque."

"I'm finished. Hairy Carey."

"You know Misser Carey? He got a boosher — "

"Shut up, Cervantes. I'monna lay out on the beach, get my strenth back." Daniel tried to get up but seemed tied to the bench. He fell back. He made it up on his third try; Pete and Mr. Miles tensed to catch him, but he straightened and swayed gently. Cervantes stood and grabbed the Navy bag.

Brian stuck the ESP paperback in it. "There's your book, Daniel. Thanks."

He looked down at Brian. "You believe it?"

"Sure, Daniel."

"I'll believe it, Dan'! when you get down them steps in one piece."

Daniel got to the steps in a controlled lurch, with Cervantes wagging behind. He paused, took a deep breath, declared himself a dead duck, and started down.

"I'm worried about old Dan'!."

"Oh, he'll be all right."

"The thing is, Pete, I got this theory. You know how there always seems to be the same number of winos around? Like there's a steady figure? But you know they have to die, everybody dies. So my theory is that every time one taps out, that makes room for a new one. Somebody's got to fill the space."

"Now don't you worry, Miles. You're not as bad off as you think and Daniel's gonna perk up. He kept his mind out of that damn fifth dimension he'd feel a lot better."

Mr. Miles was shaking again, almost in tears. "I think I'm gonna lose my job," he said.

"Now come on, buddy, pull it together. Lookit there, he made.it down to the beach as good as new. Now if your theory is right, there just isn't any room for a newcomer, is there? Daniel's gonna outlive us all. We can keep him up nights calling from the next world."

They were quiet then and Brian sat for a while, watching the waves and the gulls, enjoying his slight wine buzz. Now that he'd arrived he didn't know what to do. He was hungry. He asked the men about the fight in Ventura and they said yes, he'd probably be able to get on with the concession.

"Horace Greeley had the ticket," the old man used to say, winking through one of his playful periods. "Of course history tells us that he stayed home and sold it to somebody else. I don't believe the man ever saw the far side of the Mississippi. Oh, but I'm sure he told a fine story over a shot of rye, all full of nostalgia for what he'd never seen. Probably drummed up a great deal of business for the Union Pacific, too." The old man would peek at himself in the bar mirror then, and snort a little laugh. "They also serve who only sit and bullshit."

When Brian left, Sneaky Pete was dozing and Miles was shivering in the sun. He could see Daniel and Cervantes stretched out down on the beach. It was warm and nice and he liked the idea of getting a job with a fight card.

Brian walked back through town toward ioi. It would be the quickest way down to Ventura. There was some kind of commotion in the center plaza when he got to it, dozens of people crowded around the forty-niners fountain. The water was on, cascading over bronzed boulders, streaming on down a sluice into the miners' pans, sparkling golden in the sun. There was a cop standing on the edge of the moat wall, hands supporting him from the crowd behind. He was fishing something from the water with a gaff, something very heavy hooked by wet, green cloth.

It was just getting warm when Brian reached the highway, only a little after eight. He had daylight to burn.

ON TINH TAN SITS in the waiting room. She avoids looking directly at the other patients. The Americans. She can see them partially reflected in the mirror that is the back pane of the fish tank. She can look past the underwater flash of lionfish, saltwater angels, yellow tangs, rock beauties, sea robins, past a ceramic replica of the Golden Gate Bridge, to watch the Americans, sitting and waiting.

There is music playing around Tan, music so quiet and without edge that sometimes it is like she is humming it to herself, though none of the songs are familiar. A single receptionist shuffles file cards at a desk. The window behind her overlooks the Golden Gate Park. The receptionist has large, blue eyes, made rounder and bluer with liner and shadow, made larger still by the tinted aviator glasses she wears. Tan wonders if the receptionist could ever keep a secret, could ever hide a fear behind such open, blue eyes.

Tan can see a small boy reflected from the fish tank, half obscured by a drowsy grouper, a small boy with a harness strapped around his head, cinching into his mouth. When he turns to talk with his mother his lips stretch far back over his gums and he looks like a small muzzled animal. He seems not to notice or care.

In 1963 Tan was thirteen and in the mornings would bicycle with her two younger brothers along the walls of Hue to the nuns' school. Her little sister Xuan went to grammar school closer to home, inside of the Citadel, and her older brother Quat crossed the river to go to high school. The nuns taught Tan poetry in Vietnamese, prayers in French, mathematics and history in English. She was a good student, which pleased Father very much. Your father expects you to do well in school, he would tell them at dinner. Only the educated person can save himself. Father never said what the person was saving himself from. Tan believed it was the lake of fire the nuns warned about, and she worked very hard.

Each night they faced the family altar to think about their ancestors, beginning with Mother. Then they'd say French prayers. All of Tan's ancestors, back as far as Father knew, had lived in Hue. But none lived and worked in the Citadel like Father did. Father had grown up with the Ngo family, had been a high-school friend of Ngo Dinh Diem. When Diem received the Mandate of Heaven he remembered his friend, and Father was given an important job in the city government. In Tan's house Diem was always spoken of in the same tones as the ancestors. They called him the Virgin Father and he was included in Tan's nightly prayers.

Tan liked mornings best, when she could take her time riding to school, surrounded by the high walls and the moats, the tiled roofs and gardens. She could look over the walls to see the mist rising off the Perfume River, could stop and rest by the Emperor's Gate and watch the city waking up. -Hue was a walled garden.

The ride home was too hurried to enjoy. Tan was the eldest daughter, responsible for dinner and cleaning. It never bothered her. If she waited around school too long the boys' section would let out and they would tease her. Monkey. Tan had an extra pair of canine teeth that pushed her upper lip out and made her nose look fatter. Face like a monkey! the boys would cry and bicycle circles around her. Monkey- monkeymonkey.

But sometimes Tan would sit with the picture of Mother they kept on the altar and see the same teeth, the same lips and nose. It was her connection with Mother. It was her face.