Denis Johnson: The Stars at Noon

All the authorities are dead. . Or in any case they no longer, and no longer do even their ghosts, inhabit the embassies . . The community swims in the water of earthquake craters. .

And I am getting out of here.

And as I enjoy the peristaltic quiver each icy sip of rum produces, I believe I witness my salvation . .

It’s the bespectacled Londoner of last night, looking over the parrots as if this were a zoo. But he isn’t interested so much in these enormous flashy birds as in the parking lot beyond their cage and on the other side of the patio’s hedge of oleander, through which he’s peering.

THERE WAS something princely about him . . In his cool, cerulean blue suit, his skin so clean and pink in the scorching daylight. . What if my heart moved? What if I went for him at that moment? So what?

I felt stung that he didn’t notice me. After all, I was the only other human this side of the kitchen — no, the big oil executive was now joined by the gentleman he'd been peeking at, who came onto the patio from the parking lot and greeted him quietly, one of the Nicaraguans that Watts Petroleum had business with, I supposed — one of the endless train of Nicaraguans in green sunglasses and white shirts, if Watts represented possible profit — here to mooch lunch or receive a bribe.

I SAW the man from England in his blue suit again at supper, sitting with the same official, or another official just like that one, in the restaurant at the Inter-Continental.

As I came in, I nodded to the Englishman. But he ignored me.

I was very embarrassed and pretended to look over the buffet while thinking of a reason to leave.

I was sick of eating here . . Well, but it was the only outfit in the region capable of putting on a buffet, and they allowed me to pay with my black-market cordobas. The lunch buffets, held in a much larger room, were extravagant, accompanied by live piano, buzzing with journalists and other international crooks and phonies. I wondered why none of them ever ate supper here. . Probably because it was the most expensive place in the country.

I stole a glance. My British friend looked much less the sovereign — suddenly he was hung over, pale, and shaken. He was all alone now, his meal pushed aside.

“Hello,” I said to him like a fool, “has your dinner guest ducked out, or what, exactly?”

I felt like changing his face with a fork when he stared at me as if I were a total stranger.

“Well, excuse my ass all to hell,” I said to him.

His mouth stayed shut. I retreated temporarily. Time to use the washroom downstairs here at the Inter-Continental, where yesterday, at any rate, they’d had toilet paper. And I had to steal some for my room at the Motel Whatsis.

The Englishman's companion, I noticed, was now sitting in one of the wicker chairs on the promenade reading somebody’s discarded La Prensa. And you too, I thought. You too.

At my motel, we got neatly defined squares of newsprint. The ladies' room at the Inter-Continental offered a pinkish brand of toilet paper this evening — the first color other than paper-bag brown I’d seen in Centroamerica. I unhooked a roll from its receptacle and put it in my purse.

Tonight’s graffiti read:

RED, white and blue

I shit on you!

Viva

Reagan-muerto

“If they

move, kill ’eml”

William Holden — The Wild Bunch

Back in the restaurant, the rude British man from the Watts Oil Corporation found me as I looked over the dinner selection, which appeared, for some reason, to be more like breakfast.

He said, “I had a reason for ignoring you, believe it or not.”

“It’s okay. Whatever my true feelings.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s the man I was with, you see. He’s gone now. I was afraid he was coming back.”

“Consorting with unescorted women is no disgrace down here,” I told the poor man. “Latins think it’s normal.”

“No. .”

While I got myself some supper, moving from dish to dish, he moved beside me. “I was concerned for your —for your reputation, believe it or not. That is — oh, for goodness’ sake, what have I said — forgive me, will you?”

He was upset. He mopped his face with a bare hand. His napkin was hanging out of his belt.

“Who is that friend of yours? What did he do to you?”

The Englishman waved his hand, as if trying to cancel our conversation with this gesture. I pulled him into a booth right next to the buffet.

“He’s still here. He’s sitting out there on the promenade,” I said.

“Oh God.”

“He's reading the paper.”

“I see.”

“Who is he?” I said.

“A Costa Rican. He claims to represent the OIJ.”

I pronounced it for him: “The Oh-Ee-Hota.”

“He called it the Oh, Eye, Jay.”

“For you, huh? For your Anglo ears. Oh, Ee, — ‘jota’ is our ‘j,’ see.”

“Gotcha,” he said with some irritation.

“Those are the Costa Rican cops,” I said.

“Yes, the Costa Rican, that's the spy. . Actually it’s quite a good — a large detective force,” he said.

“What have you got to do with them? Or don’t I want to know?”

“Oh. . Well. .” he said miserably.

“I don’t want to know.”

He shook his head.

“You need a drink.”

“No, no. Thanks. A cup of tea. I’ve got one . .”

He brought his tea over from his table; and we sat there silently at mine while he suffered right in my face and I tried to eat. Weren’t we all in some kind of a jam down here? The important thing was we weren’t wasting away, we weren’t combing the dirt for bits of old bone to chew . .

No, my coffee was being poured at this moment by a waiter in a chartreuse vest. . Scrambled eggs and fried potatoes. Yards of white tablecloth, cups of flame beneath the steel warming-pans, mounds of crushed ice in which were bedded down sliced pineapple and three or four kinds of melon, and there was even some reconstituted milk — God alone knew what crimes lay back of its delivery — in a tall stainless-steel pitcher bathed in a cold sweat. .

He said, “It seems I’ve ventured beyond the bounds of reasonable conduct.”

“I like the way you talk,” I told him. “You’re so hopelessly fucking out of it.”

“Out of it,” he said, stirring the milk into his tea. “I’m beginning to think that’s precisely the case.”

“Are you familiar with the American expression ‘You’ve got your ass in a sling’?”

“I’m familiar with most of your expressions.” He placed his hands before him on the tablecloth. “I’m familiar with a lot of things. I’m familiar with many of the capitals of the world. And if you don’t mind, I’m familiar with whores. I’m familiar with the way whores try desperately to act as if they feel superior to those of us who pay them. When actually you feel quite inferior. When actually you feel ashamed. Why didn’t you look at our waiter when he talked to you? Why don’t you look at me when I’m saying something?”

“Because there’s nothing to see.”

“Then why do you avoid my gaze, if I’m nobody at all to you?”

“Can we back this up a little? Because, actually, I’m not the one the OIJ is scaring shitless down at the InterContinental. Am I.”

That relaxed him some, at least with respect to his inventory of my failings. “No,” he said. “I’m the one.”

“Your ass is in a sling. You’ve got your tit caught in a wringer.”

“I’m all in a muddle,” he agreed.

“Well, you’ve still got your sense of humor.”

“You’re very kind. I owe you an apology, a whole group of them, rather. I only said those things because I’m so nervous. ‘Frightened’ is a better word.”