Jess Row - Your Face in Mine

Mort Kepler, reclining in a rattan chair, a bottle of Singha and a glass of mango juice at his elbow, sees me and jumps to attention, with a broad, toothy grin. Son of a bitch, he says. I can hear him halfway across the bar. They got you. I was just about to pack it in for the day. Want to know how long I’ve been sitting here, waiting for you?

—

Mort, I say, swallowing a warm wave of shock, how the fuck did you make this happen?

I’m a reporter, he says. This is what reporters do. Use fixers. Local eyes on the ground. Haven’t you ever — oh, wait. I forgot. Right! You don’t have a background in journalism. Okay. I guess I have to explain everything from the beginning. Well, I have what Hemingway used to call a one hundred percent foolproof bullshit detector. And when I looked at you, right from the start, I knew you were hiding something. Just not what.

I raise one hand, defensively, and lower it a moment later. What’s the point in arguing with him? I’m so glad to see him, so relieved, I almost want to reach over the table and hug his bristly shoulders. Go on, I say. Give me the full report. I’m listening.

So you shitcan the station, you and what’s-her-name, after, what is it, three months? Three months after you get there? I’ve had Chinese food that lasted longer than you at BCC. Well, so I had nothing else to do. And a grudge, yes. A vendetta. So I started tailing you. Having nothing better to do. Don’t you remember that day I crept up on you in Fell’s Point? There are no accidents in this world. Didn’t anybody ever tell you that? I was hoping for an introduction to the girl, but it didn’t take long to trace her back. Quite a pedigree.

You followed her, too?

No, you idiot. I used the good old-fashioned Internet. Photo-recognition software. And then a fifty-dollar scanner to pick up your WiFi signal. There’s this amazing store online, Orchid Imports? Based right in Baltimore. Sells all that kind of gadgetry. Ever heard of it?

Nope.

That’s okay. I don’t expect you to give up your sources all at once. Let’s just chitchat. Pretend I didn’t just shell out five thousand bucks to make this happen.

Who ever told you I was reporting anything?

Well, you don’t expect me to believe you’re involved , do you? Come on. Good luck with that. If you’ve managed to convince them of your ideological soundness, you’re a better actor than I ever gave you credit for.

I can’t do anything but stare at him, in sheer, confused defeat.

The movement, he says. Does it have a name? I did a lot of digging and came up all zeroes. Wilkinson’s friends with everybody, but no one wanted to talk when I came around. And believe me, I know people. So I’ve been doing a process of elimination. It’s not the New Black Panther Party. It’s not the Revolutionary Communists or the ACP. It’s not Occupy Wall Street. It’s not the Nation. If it’s Islamist at all, he’s a cell of one. Never been to a mosque, never met with an imam. There’s always that possibility. He could be one of those YouTube guys, the Zarqawi syndicate. But I doubt it. I think he’s starting from the ground up. He’s got the charisma, the connections, and the funds. But what is it, man? Just give a clue. What’s his agenda? Black nationalist? Radical self-determination? Third World revolution? Chavismo? Or is he just another drug runner with fancy ideas? Okay. Not that. I can tell just by looking at you.

You must be a mind reader.

No, you’d just be a terrible poker player. I’m getting somewhere , I know that much. It’s like I thought. He’s a big thinker. He’s got ideas. So look, listen to me. I’ve covered insurgencies before. That’s my specialty. Leonard Peltier, Mumia, all the great ones. They all needed a chronicler. A mythologist . You know that book In the Spirit of Crazy Horse ? Matthiessen ripped it off from my reporting. I would’ve sued him, but AIM said no. Didn’t want the distraction. Listen, I’m a movement guy underneath. Ask anyone I’ve worked with. I can talk a good line to the lamestreamers, but make no mistake: I’m a tool in the hands of the people. Not a word of this comes out till the moment is ripe. Listen, if you are actually in Martin’s pocket, let me talk to him. That’s all I want. Ten minutes to make my case. We can all be in it together. I’ve got the connections and the savvy. You’ve got — well, whatever it is. You’ve worked with him. And Robin, too. Robin’s obviously the key.

What are you talking about?

Have you read her master’s thesis? Talking Resistance: Therapy as Emancipation from Freire to Fanon ? I know I’m not supposed to use words like this, but what the hell. Here we are in Bangkok. The girl’s fiery . We’re talking about the diary of a mad black woman. I don’t care if she works for Hopkins or Harvard or the goddamned Cato Institute, she’s a double agent. Scratch that surface and you’ve got a latter-day Angela Davis. Put the two of them together and you’ve really got something. The brains and the means.

A waiter brings me the same thing he’s having, the mango shake and the glistening bottle of Singha.

The mango’s for the vitamins, he says. The beer’s to stay relaxed. Old R&R trick I learned from my friends who spent years in Saigon. Because you never know, do you, when someone’s going to bomb the place out? All these Yankees, out here in the open air? One of these days they’re going to do Bangkok like they did Bali.

He grins, lifts his straw fedora, scratches his bald spot. I never noticed, in the office, just how hairy he was — a salt-and-pepper thatch that runs up his wrists under the sleeves of his linen shirt and emerges over the collar, covering the nape of his neck. A sinewy, almost apelike, grasp. Here is a man, I’m thinking, who loves living his life. Mort Kepler, by Mort Kepler. A self-authored man. Emerson would be proud, and horrified. Does anyone my age live so vigorously, so unironically, so heedless of offense? On the other hand, did his parents? Or are the Boomers just a separate species, never to be repeated?

Mort, would it help in any way, I say, would it make any difference, if I told you you were completely fucking crazy?

All I need is one word. Not even a word. You don’t even have to say it. Just nod. What’s in the boxes? Is it rocket launchers? Centrifuge parts? C-4?

It’s electronics. Gray market electronics. You can ask him.

Well, answer me this, then. If it’s not a movement, what the hell is it? What happened to you, to turn you into this kind of, what, a robot ? Is it a cult? A new religion, excuse my language? What, is he some kind of mystic? I mean, if it’s not drugs, and it’s not revolution, and it’s not just out and out money , then what the fuck is left? Religion, right?

I want to tell him. This is it, I’m thinking, this is the door, the way around and over and out. Mort Kepler is a steaming pile of crap, yes, but he’s also a real reporter, who has actually in his life turned a story around and sold it. Leave it to him to break the news. Who cares if it’s Mother Jones or The Nation ? Let him have the scoop, let him write the book, and then go back to Baltimore and start again. Hire a lawyer and negotiate a plea deal. Probably it’ll all amount to nothing. Look for another NPR job. Move back in with the parents, if it comes to that. Take shelter. Embrace the ordinary. Take shelter in this pockmarked face, in these big capable hands. Treat Mort Kepler as a father confessor. Why the hell not?

Because I’m free, that’s why. When I’m Curtis Wang, I’ll never have a conversation like this again. What would Mort Kepler say, if Curtis Wang were sitting across the table? He’d be mincing his words, biting his tongue, thinking all kinds of inappropriate thoughts about the Little Red Book and internment camps and industrial espionage and Yao Ming. And penis size. How else do men like him measure their distance from other men, when it comes down to it? Wasn’t I tempted to ask Martin about it, once, long ago? To ask, that is, as a joke, whether Silpa had invented penis extensions, as a side project, to correct for anatomical averages? I can see it in Mort’s face even now, in embryo: Chinaman, my dick is bigger than yours.