John Gardner - October Light

A man said, “Hey, what’s happenin?”

She started, then instantly recognized him and, still frightened, smiled. “What’s happenin?” she said. She sounded sullen, and tried to fix it. “You work here, Leroi?” It was Leonard, she remembered, not Leroi. She blushed, then shrank further, afraid he was about to do that hand-slapping thing, a thing she’d never learned.

“How’s your mother?” he said. He leaned on his broom, wrapped himself around it like a python in a tree. His family had lived two floors up in Marin City. Six boys, all bad. Her mother would never let her speak with them.

“She’s fine,” Pearl said, and smiled. “How’s yours?” Pearl’s mother had been dead three years.

“She gets by,” he said. He shrugged and made a so-so waggle with both hands. His smile was like a boy’s, as if he’d never done anything shameful in his life. He was delighted — that much was true — to see her. She felt herself blushing again, and pouting like a fool. “Well, shoo,” he said, and gave his head a shake.

Before she knew she’d do it, she pointed at the door with the lettering on it. “Leonard, what is that place? You know?”

He turned to look, then smiled. He had a nose like an ocean liner and teeth like parked white trucks. “Ma’am,” he said, “that’s the American Medical Society’s Special Organization to Prevent the Corruption of Our Youth into Horrible Addiction.”

“Go on!” she said. A sudden white light flashed through her.

He nodded like a judge, then smiled again. “No foolin, baby, that’s what it is. Whole lot of dudes with pipes and whiskers tryin to keep this country beautiful.”

But he was talking too fast, and her mind was awash. Terrifying stories of drugs, murders; images of doors with five, six night-latches, heavy iron chains, dull black pistols in deal-dresser drawers. She remembered hearing shots, somewhere in her childhood. She said, “What’s ‘international trafficking’?”

He tipped his head, soberly, as if the question were natural. “International trafficking is The Mexico Connection — things like that. These dudes find out where some smuggler’s at and they ride down on ’im wif their big black hosses and they bugles sounding like Jericho all over, and they yells, ‘Burn ’em! Destroy ’em! Ride ’em cowboy!’” He laughed, momentarily closing his eyes, hands splayed out like a tapdancer’s. She felt a strange urge to touch him and drew back.

The door opened and she raised the magazine to hide her face. Leonard watched her. Dr. Alkahest came out and rolled right by without seeing her. She shot a look past the magazine. He pushed the elevator button. When he’d rolled the chair in, and the elevator had closed with a whoosh behind him, Leonard said softly, “You in trouble, Pearl?”

She shook her head, but no words came. The magazine fell from her hands and struck the floor. She looked down, surprised. When Leonard bent over, starting to pick up the magazine, she had a sudden intuition that he was about to touch her knee. She froze, her back turning to ice, but the hand continued down, picked up the magazine, brought it up again. “You ok?” he said.

She had no idea. She was filled with panic. She didn’t even like Dr. Alkahest, so what difference did it make if he was up to some terrible mischief? But her mind was unclear, full of guns and syringes, her mother turning toward the door, listening. On Twentieth Street, the place they’d moved next, there was a boy named Chico, about sixteen years old, two years older than she was. One day he was there and the next he was gone, and people said he’d OD’d on heroin. He was simply gone. She looked at the street, at the place where he’d stood the day before, grass coming up through a crack in the sidewalk, and he was gone and the place where he’d been was like a burn in film.

“Where you comin from, Pearl?” Leonard said.

The Jungle, she thought crazily, and the same instant her stomach jerked in as if to vomit the idea, the same revulsion she’d felt as a child at the movies. Barenaked Africans with drums and spears, bones in their noses, running around with crazy yells, killing people, shrinking people’s heads. The corridor leaped toward infinity, floorless, and she seized the nearest thing to her, his arm, and held on for dear life. He looked at her from nowhere, no-time, with frightened eyes, the left one larger than the right. Slowly, he raised the fingertips of his free hand to touch her hands, cautiously, lightly, and she knew it had never so much as crossed his mind that all flesh is imprisonment and filth.

“You pregnant?” he said.

She saw light bursting down the long corridor, and she was momentarily better. She drew away a little, even managed a foolish, apologetic laugh. “Not me!” she said. She looked at his face with sudden interest. It was the face of a coal-black mule, but intelligent and concerned. She said, feeling suddenly free, “Me, Lennie? You crazy?”

Dr. Alkahest, carefully unsmiling, entered Wong Chop’s. He took a booth near the back, on the first floor, and a waiter, absolutely soundless, brought him a menu. The second time the waiter came, Dr. Alkahest said, an irascible whine, “There’s nothing I like here. Let me talk to Mr. Chop.” His heart raced, and he dared not look at the waiter. The waiter considered, face like a mask — he looked about eleven but was probably middle-aged — then bowed, exactly like a puppet, and flowed away. Two minutes later a large Oriental in a crimson robe came beaming in, his palms pressed together like a Buddha. “Good evening,” he said. “I Wong Chop.” He bowed as if humbly but spread out his hands, palms up, as if nothing on earth could be more faultlessly joyful than being Wong Chop.

“How do you do,” Dr. Alkahest said. “I’m John F. Alkahest, M.D.”

“I deeply honored,” Wong Chop said, his little eyes merry behind the thick green glasses. He bowed again, ignoring the hand Dr. Alkahest extended. “We glatified you come to our humble estabrishment, Doctor.” Another bow. It was mere parody, of course, an act for tourists. Nevertheless, Dr. Alkahest was pleased.

“On your menu—” Dr. Alkahest began.

Wong Chop looked embarrassed, shamed beyond words, as if the menu were somebody else’s work, a cross he could scarcely bear. “We have other thing, of course, Doctor,” he said with a wave and another deep bow. “I venture say we allontee satisfaction.” He smiled.

Dr. Alkahest smiled back wickedly. “What my friends recommended,” he said, “was this.” He brought the folded slip of paper from his pocket and pressed it into Wong Chop’s hand. Wong Chop read it with no change in his smile, then folded it again, and, still smiling, sighed. “Ah, esteemed doctor fliend, you teasing poor Wong Chop!”

“Not at all!” Dr. Alkahest insisted. He began to tremble. “My friends assured me—”

“Some joke, must be,” Wong Chop said sadly, compassionately. “They pray you a plank.” He stood smiling down at Dr. Alkahest like a friendly red mountain. Then at last he said, “But perhaps I help you in some small way. Let me show you table you possibly find more congenial.” He led the way, walking sideways, bowing, down a panelled hallway painted Chinese red to an arched door beaded and draped. He held back the drape while Dr. Alkahest wheeled through. It was a cubicle ambushed on all four sides by crimson. Paper lanterns hung from the shiny black ceiling, and below them stood a table for two, a linen tablecloth, candles, and two lacquered bowls. A stone Chinese lion saying OM kept watch in the corner. Wong Chop lit the candles.

“Now,” Wong Chop said, and rubbed his hands. He pushed Dr. Alkahest’s wheelchair to the table, then went around and sat in the chair across from him. He waved two fingers at a silent little man Dr. Alkahest had not noticed, and the man swept away. He returned instantly with a tray containing two green and gold, thin cigarettes with golden tips. This time as he went out the door there was a humming noise and, turning to look over his shoulder, Dr. Alkahest saw something solid move past the slit in the archway drapery. A panel had sealed off the room. Wong Chop smiled and held out a gold-tipped match. Dr. Alkahest fumbled the cigarette to his mouth and Wong Chop lit it. Almost instantly Alkahest’s delicate brains were addled, inspiring him toward song. Wong Chop lit his own cigarette and, puckering his lips, breathed in with enormous satisfaction. He laid one fat hand on the table, and Dr. Alkahest seized it.