Paul Theroux - Saint Jack

A group photograph: Jerry Waters, on the end of the middle row, scowling.

“You’re lucky, Jack. You were fighting the Nazis.”

“I didn’t see any Nazis in Oklahoma.”

“You know what I mean. It helps if the enemy’s a bastard. But sometimes we’re shooting the bull at night, tired as shit, and a guy comes out and says, ‘If I was a Vietnamese I’d support the VC,’ and someone else says, ‘So would I,’ and I say, ‘That’s for sure.’ It’s unbelievable.”

The curio shop. After a while the carvings changed. Once there had been ivory oxen and elephants, teakwood deer, jade eggs, and lacquer jewelry boxes. Then we got bad replicas, and finally obscene ones — squatting girls, heavy wooden nudes, carvings of eight-inch fists with a raised middle finger, hands making the cornuto.

The Black Table.

“I’d like to help you, George, but it’s against the rules to have segregated facilities.”

“We don’t want no segregated facilities as such , but what we want’s a table to sit at so we don’t have to look at no Charlies. And the brothers, they asked me to spearhead this here thing.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” I said.

“I ain’t asking you if you think it’s a good idea. I’m telling you to get us a table or we’ll waste this house.”

“You only have three more days here. Is it too much to ask you to simmer down and make friends?”

“We got all the friends we want. There’s more brothers coming next week, so if you say no you’ll have to negotiate the demand with a real bad ass, Baraka Johnson.”

“ Haraka-haraka, haina baraka ,” I said. “Swahili. My ship used to stop in Mombasa. Nataka Tusker beer kubwa sana na beridi sana. ”

“Cut the jive, we want a table.”

“What if everybody wanted a table?”

“That’s the nitty-gritty, man. Every mother got a table except us. You think them Charlies over in the corner of the big bar want us to sit with them? You ever see any brothers sitting along the wall?”

“Maybe you don’t want to.”

“Maybe we don’t, and maybe them Charlies and peckerwoods don’t want us to. Ever think of that?”

“What you’re saying is there are already white tables, so why not have a table for the colored fellers?”

“What colored fellers? ”

“Years ago—”

“We are black brothers and we wants a black table!”

“The point is I didn’t know there were white tables. I would have put my foot down.”

“Go ahead, mother, put your foot down, you think I care? I’m just saying we want a table— now —and if we don’t get it we’ll waste you. Dig?”

It was true. Yusof said so: we had a wall of “white” tables. I gave in. Sung’s photograph showed smiling and frowning faces, all black, and the girls — the only ones they would touch — long-haired Tamils, because they were black, too.

“Give them what they want,” said Shuck.

“Up to a point,” I said, “that’s my philosophy.”

Me, in my flowered shirt, having a beer with three fellers. A middle-aged sentence recurred in my talk. “That was a lot of money in those days—”

A group photograph: Bert Hodder, fifth from the end, middle row. He got tanked up one night and stood on his chair and sang,

“East Toledo High School ,

The best high school in the world!

We love East Toledo ,

Our colors are blue and gold—”

Neighborhood kids from the block of shophouses around the corner. They were posed with their arms around each other. They lingered by the gate, calling out “Hey Joe!” Ganapaty chased them with an iron pipe. The fellers chatted with them and gave them errands to run. They came to my office door.

“Ten cents, mister.” This from one in a clean white shirt.

“Buzz off, kid, can’t you see I’m busy?”

“Five cents.”

“Hop it!”

Edwin Shuck. His blue short-sleeved shirt, freckled arms, and narrow necktie; clip-on sunglasses, sweat socks, and loafers.

“Got a minute?” he asked.

I was with Karim. “The cooler’s on the fritz. I’ll be with you in a little while.”

“That can wait,” he said. “I’ve got to see you in your office.”

“Okay,” I said, and wiped my greasy hands on a rag.

Shuck poured himself a drink at my liquor cabinet. He closed the door after me.

“I spent yesterday afternoon with the ambassador.”

“How’s his golf game?” I took a cigar out of the pocket of my silk shirt.

“He spent yesterday morning with the army.”

“So?”

“I’ve got some bad news for you.”

“Spill it,” I said. But I had an inkling of what it would be. A week before, a Chinese feller named Lau had come to me with a proposition. He was from Penang and had twenty-eight girls up there he wanted to send down. He expected a finder’s fee, bus fare for all of them, and a job for himself. He said he knew how to do accounts; he also knew where I could get some pinball machines, American sports equipment, a film projector, and fittings for a swimming pool, including a new diving board. I told him I wasn’t interested.

“They’re closing you up,” said Shuck.

“That’s one way of putting it,” I said. “Who’s they? ”

“U.S. government.”

“They’re closing me up?” I snorted, “What is this?”

“It’s nothing personal—”

“You can say that again,” I said. “This isn’t my place — it’s theirs! So I suppose you mean they’re closing themselves up.”

“In a manner of speaking,” said Shuck. “Officially the U.S. Army doesn’t operate cathouses.”

“If you think this is a cathouse you don’t know a hell of a lot about cathouses!”

“Don’t get excited,” said Shuck, and now I began to hate his lisp. “It wasn’t my decision. The army’s been kicking this idea around for ages. I’ve got my orders. I’m only sorry I couldn’t let you know sooner.”

“Do me a favor, Ed. Go down the hall and find Mr. Khoo. He’s just bought the first car he’s ever owned — on the strength of this job. He’s got about ninety-two more payments to make on it. Go tell him the Pentagon wants him to sell it and buy a bike. See what he says.”

“I didn’t think you’d take it so hard,” said Shuck. “You’re really bitter.”

“Go find Jimmy Sung. He’s paying through the nose for a new shipment of Jap cameras. Tell him the ambassador says he’s sorry.”

“Sung’s a crook, you said so yourself.”

“He knew what he was doing,” I said. “I shouldn’t have stopped him. I was getting bent out of shape trying to keep this place honest, and then you come along and piss down everyone’s shoulder blades.”

“Everyone’s going to be compensated.”

“What about Penang? You screwed them there.”

“That’s classified — who told you about Penang?”

“I’ve got information,” I said. “You’re ending the R and R program there. They’re all looking for jobs, and you know as well as I do they’re not going to find them. It’s not fair.”

“Jack, be reasonable,” said Shuck. “We can’t keep half of Southeast Asia on the payroll indefinitely.”

“Why put them on the payroll in the first place?”

“I suppose it seemed like a good idea at the time,” Shuck said. “I don’t know. I don’t make policy.”

“I can’t figure you out,” I said. “You’re like these fellers from the cruise ships that used to come to Singapore years ago, dying to get laid. Money was no object, they said. Then when I found them a girl they’d say, ‘Got anything a little less pricy?’ And you! You come in here with an army, making promises, throwing money around, hiring people, building things, and — I don’t know— invading the frigging place and paying everyone to sing “God Bless America.” And then you call it off. Forget it, you say, just like that.”