Denis Johnson - Tree of Smoke

“It’s been years, Ginger. I just don’t feel the pull.” “Come anyway.” “I think I never felt it. I think I only went for Timothy’s sake.” “Timothy certainly felt it! It glowed right out of him. It engulfed

everyone around him and lifted us right up like a tide.”

“I know,” Kathy said. “Anyway …”

At the next table sat an old woman and another of middle age, mother and daughter, Kathy guessed, the old woman talking in a monotone, the daughter listening in a hate-filled silence. Kathy made out the words “and … but… so …”

“Well,” Ginger said, “anyway” —indicating the letter by Kathy’s plate —”So Colin sent it on to St. Paul. And Fm still in St. Paul.”

“And Fm in Minneapolis.”

“How long have you been teaching at the nursing college?”

“Four, no five … Since 77. Five years last October.”

“Was he a friend of yours?”

“Who?”

“Benęt?”

“Oh!”

The white envelope, thickly packed with what must be several pages, its right corner covered with stamps in many colors, had come from Wm Benęt, Pudu Prison, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Carefully she opened it. A newspaper clipping: a photo of a man in handcuffs. Wasn’t this the Canadian, William French Benęt, who’d been sentenced recently by the Malaysian courts? Sentenced to be hanged for dealing in firearms? Canada had protested the sentence. Then he’d been hanged. The prisoner had written to her, the man condemned, here was his letter. Prisoners got all kinds of addresses, any kind of charitable organization, any strand for a man going down, but how had he come by the name Kathy Jones? The letter comprised several —many—handwritten notebook pages folded around a four-by-six snapshot: dozens of people and their wild miscellaneous luggage surrounding a Filipino jeepney with one of its rear wheels removed. Every face smiling, every chest expanded with pride, as if they’d brought down the vehicle with spears.

“Once upon a time,” the letter began —

Dear Kathy Jones,

Dear Kathy.

Dearest Kathy,

The blood rushed into her extremities and her face as if she’d plunged them into hot water: the same feeling she’d had twenty minutes ago when the van had nearly mashed her.

Once upon a time there was a war.

She set down the letter. Looked out over the restaurant. “Are you okay?” She picked up the pages and folded them around the snapshot. “Is it something bad?” “Mom.” “Yes.” “Do you remember Timothy?” “What?” “Do you remember Timothy? I mean very well?” “Of course, yes,” Ginger said. “I think about him often. It changed

me that I knew him. He made a difference. That’s what I was saying be

fore. He really made a difference.” “I don’t run into anybody who knew him. Not anymore.” “I wanted to say I’m sorry about Timothy. I wrote you just afterward,

but here we are in person, and—it’s been a while, I know, all these years,

but…” “Thank you.” “He was a remarkable guy.” “I have no memory of him.” “Oh.” “Memories used to come like beestings, ouch, out of nowhere, but

now they don’t come. But sometimes I get such an urgent, this urgent—

feeling.” “I see … Or no, I don’t.” “This fist just grabs me by the heart and yanks at me like a dog telling

me, ‘Come on, come on’—” “Well, I guess that’s, that’s—well —understandable, in a way. And — ” “I don’t know you well enough to talk like this, do I?” “Kathy, no! I mean, yes — ” “Excuse me,” Kathy said. “Sure. Sure. Sure.”

Making her way to the ladies’ room, she set her purse by one of the sinks and splashed water on her face—thanked God she didn’t use makeup. Looked in the mirror. A bit of graffiti on the tiles beside it in Magic Marker:

electric child on bad fun

The bathroom stank. In Vietnam the blood and offal had spilled everywhere, but it had all belonged to God, God’s impersonal filth. Here in the public bathroom she smelled the proceedings from other women, and it was foreign.

She locked herself in a stall and sat with the letter on her lap. To read it was the least she could do. With a sickness in her throat, she unfolded the pages.

April 1, 1983

Dear Kathy Jones,

Dear Kathy.

Dearest Kathy,

Once upon a time there was a war.

There was once a war in Asia that had among its tragedies the fact that it followed World War II, a modern war that had somehow managed to retain or revive some of the glories and romances of earlier wars. This Asian war however failed to give any romances outside of hellish myths.

Among the denizens to be twisted beyond recognition—even, or especially, beyond recognition by themselves, were a young Canadian widow and a young American man who alternately thought of himself as the Quiet American and the Ugly American, and who wished to be neither, who wanted instead to be the Wise American, or the Good American, but who eventually came to witness himself as the Real American and finally as simply the Fucking American.

That’s me. My name is William Benęt. You knew me as Skip. We last met in Cao Quyen, South Vietnam. I still have the mustache.

After I left Vietnam I quit working for the giant-size criminals I worked for in 11 served when I knew you and started working for the medium size. Lousy hours and no fringe benefits, but the ethics are clearer. And the stakes are plain. You prosper until you’re caught. Then you lose everything.

So, what’s my line? This and that. Smuggling. Running guns and such. Once I stole an entire freighter eftee and sold it in China. A freighter. (Can’t tell you which city I sold it in, because oomobody Our dearly beloved illustrious Warden Shaffee probably reads my mail before it goes out.) Mostly running guns.

That’s what’s got me in the calaboose here in Kuala Lumpur. It’s a capital crime in Malaysia, designated such by the same government that buys arms from America. We’re all the same bunch but, like I say, from my end of the telescope the ethics are clearer. Or as x said to x, I have one ship and they call me a pirate. You have a fleet and they call you an Emperor. I can’t remember who said it.

To make a long story short, since the days when you knew me as Benęt I’ve lived under a dozen aliases, not one of them government-issued. I’ve led a life of fun and frolic, a real life of adventure, and I never expected it to last very long. When I go, which will be soon, I won’t be sorry, I won’t have regrets. Anyway, as my uncle used to say, an adventure isn’t actually any fun till it’s over. Or was it you who told me that? Anyway, this one’s over. Some of this that I’m saying is a bit of a false front, a bit of bravado, but it’s true for the most part. In fact, if this note ever reaches you, I’m sorry to inform you they’ve already hung hongod hung me—hanged me? Somebody should decide once and for all, was he hung, or was he hanged?

I have a wtfe common-law wife and three kids in Cebu City in the P.I. It’s just something that happened. I think she’d say the same thing. But I think I like the kids. They’re teenagers, sweet kids. Haven’t seen them for a while. Cebu City got a little too hot for me, in the law-enforcement sense of the word, and she wouldn’t move to Manila. Loves her extended family and all that, couldn’t leave them. Her name’s Cora Ng.

If you have any sense, your traveling days are long over, but if you happen to get down that way, stop in at the Ng Fine Store near the docks and ask for Cora and say hi.

The Warden tells me the Canadian Consul’s coming around today and I can pass along any letters for mailing. The Consul and I hate each other and I don’t actually let him visit me, but he has to stop around anyway, especially in “The Last Days” here, just to keep up appearances for the press. So I guess this letter goes out tomorrow, and this is hello and goodbye from (I hope I hope) an old friend.