Stanley Elkin - Boswell

“The next plane, Lano. Do you hear me?”

“Very special. Sentimental. Beautiful. In capital, when I win war, I make another. Better than this one even. Come on, I show you.”

He started to run toward his house and I ran after him. I caught him by the fake gas lamp.

“Wait a minute,” I yelled, holding him. “I want to get out. Lano, you’re crazy. I want to go back to the real Wilmington, Delaware, and I want to go back now.”

He looked confused for a moment and then began to struggle to free himself. I shoved him down on the lawn. “Give me an answer, Lano. I’m warning you.”

“Only the deep wounded,” he said.

“Goddamn it,” I shouted, “there are no deep wounded. And even if there were, do you think I’d let myself get shot?”

“There will be deep wounded, don’t worry about that,” he answered as though that were the point.

“Stop it, Lano. I’m warning you. If you don’t get me out of here I’ll break your face. I’ll tear you up, Lano, I promise.”

“Counterrevolution,” he screamed suddenly.

“Give the orders, Lano. Give the orders.”

“Counterrevolution!”

“What are you talking about? Goddamn it, don’t you hear me?”

“Counterrevolution! Go ahead. Be ridiculous. Hit me, kill me. Counterrevolution! Revolution in infancy. At delicate stage. Anyone who punches Lano in face be its new leader. You want that?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Seven hundred forty-one men. From all over world. Hundreds of thousands of dollars equipment. You want that? You want that responsibility? You hurt me you make successful counterrevolution. You the new leader. Move into the ranch house. You want that? You ready for that? You have to want a thing like that. Where you stand on certain issues? You got five-year plan? You got even lousy three-year plan? No — you don’t even have fucking ten-minute plan! What you think of agrarian reform? Compulsory education? Shit, what you think of freedom?”

“You’re crazy.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go on, you hot to make revolution, hit me. You be new leader. No, you don’t want? Then you go when I say. Go on, get off my lawn. Doesn’t mean a damn no more if you tell troops what I got here. In two days we attack!”

Lano started moving the men out at two in the morning. He had trucks for only half of them; the rest went on foot. Corbonzelos is a nineteen-mile march.

Rohnspeece couldn’t understand why I was staying behind. The Eskimo was drunk and Rohnspeece got to drive his truck. He was very pleased.

Before Lano gave the command to move out he had the men gather in the training compound in order to address them. I had dissociated myself and remained in the tent. Some men came to move it. They said it was equipment earmarked for the trucks and I told them, fuck that, it was staying put, I was in essence a prisoner of war and entitled to be housed as such. I cited a Geneva convention which I made up on the spot and got a young Persian lieutenant to agree with me. They let me alone finally.

A quarter of a mile away I could hear Lano haranguing the men in several broken languages. Then, after the men did the Chant of the Revolution and the War Scream, they re-formed into their units and went away.

At about three that afternoon I heard the abrupt dull pops of distant explosions. I walked higher up the mountain, into Lano’s abandoned compound, and followed the flowers to the scene of the celebration and crossed the field and went into the woods and made my way up to the ranch house. I broke in. Through the big picture windows I could see flames, smoke rising.

It was crazy. Lano’s argument had been enough to destroy whatever ideas I had of doing something about my situation. He was right: to act against Lano was to make a counterrevolution, to drag others into it behind me. A strong man travels very light. Unless I murdered him — and I am no murderer — and hid his body, I couldn’t get away.

At seven Lano came racing back in a jeep. Dr. Mud was with him. He pulled the jeep into the carport and they got out. When he saw me in his house he didn’t even seem surprised.

“Many deep wounded,” he said. “Terrible.”

“The flame that cools one burns another,” Dr. Mud said.

“Heavy resistance. Terrible. It was better over the radio,” Lano said.

“So,” I said, “you lost. The revolution’s over. Now I can go.”

“We won, Boswells,” Lano said. “My grief special, sentimental grief of all generals. On the other hand, victory glorious, brilliant! I blow up whole town entire!”

That night I stole Lano’s jeep.

Down the mountain, on the plain, I saw the fires. Corbonzelos was burning, and I turned the jeep in that direction.

There was death. There was turnover.

People were burning. Lano’s soldiers moved leadenly among the corpses and survivors. It was awful.

It was not entirely unpleasant.

“Okay,” I shouted when I brought the jeep back. “Mud can’t help you. He’s unconscious. Hey, Dr. Mud,” I screamed toward his collapsed, Boswell-clobbered body, “heal thyself.”

“Get back to your tent. You’re a prisoner of the revolution,” Lano said.

“Balls,” I said. “When does a plane go out? Come on, come on. I’ll stick dynamite up you, blow up whole ass entire. Get on your radio. Give orders. Get a plane.”

“Take the jeep.”

“I’d get pretty far in your jeep, wouldn’t I? Come on, come on.”

“Counterrevolution.”

“Lano, don’t start with me, Lano.”

“Counterrevolution.”

“All right, then. Your way. Counterrevolution. Okay. Counterrevolution. I’m ready. Yesterday no, today yes. Counterrevolution. I’ve got a five-year plan now… ten years… twenty… a million: Live forever, live forever! Where’s a knife? A gun? Give me bombs! Lano, you bastard, I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!”

Lano backed away from me. “All right,” he said quietly, “in a few days. A ship. From Texas. It brings mercenaries, supplies. You’ll get out. I promise. I promise you.” His face was white. “Please,” he said, “don’t kill me.”

A man came out of a shop on Michigan Avenue that made shirts. His chauffeur opened the door for him and he stepped into a Cadillac. They drove off and I stared after the big car. It occurred to me with the force of that vision in which we suddenly see familiar things for the first time — a postage stamp, a pattern in the wallpaper, the shape of our own hand — that I had never ridden in a Cadillac. It was astonishing: I had never ridden in a Cadillac. I had never sailed a boat or been on a yacht. I had never screwed a belly dancer or an acrobat or a contortionist or a movie star. I had never paid fifty dollars for a meal or had a suite in a hotel. I had never owned a self-winding watch or gone Pullman. I had never flown a plane or bought property. I had never been dressed by a valet or made a recording. I had never acted in a movie or performed surgery or climbed a mountain for fun. I had never ridden a horse or played golf or been a member of a country club. I had never played in an orchestra. I could not speak French or German or Italian. I had never been elected to public office or seen my name in a book. I had never had an unlisted phone number. I had never gone fox-hunting or deep-sea fishing or on a safari. I had never had a suit made or my own mixture of pipe tobacco. I had never taken out a patent, written a song, made a will, danced till dawn, bought a painting, eaten snails, drunk Pernod, been to Europe, shot a gun, played a piano, bought perfume, given a speech, made a touchdown, owned a tux, a par of skis, learned to waltz, worn a vest, a top hat, a ring, a monogrammed shirt, bet on a horse, been to an opera, a coronation, a costume ball. I had never broken the bank at Monte Carlo!