Waiting for the Galactic Bus (9 page)

The hero is the one who just
wants to finish his drink
and go home

The garish orange and Formica decor of McDonald’s appalled Coyul, as did the notion of fast food or the amounts of it humans could ingest without mishap.

“Do you see what they call a well-done hamburger? Looks like it was dragged too late from a burning house.”

“Very popular place,” Barion remarked. “Some of my people want a franchise Topside.”

“Shoot them.”

“Business at hand, remember? Shall we proceed?”

Reluctantly Coyul turned his invisible attention to the three young people at the table: Roy and Charity against the wall, Woody sprawled back on the outside seat, fitting the mute to his trumpet. With his leg rubbing against his woman’s (the possessive notion excited him), Roy told Woody, “Get us some more napkins, okay?”

Charity held hers up. “We got napkins.”

“Yeah, but they’re all wet. And Charity needs a new straw.”

Woody went obligingly for the setups. Under the table, Roy added bourbon to his Coke. “You want a taste, honey?”

“Gee, I don’t know. Does it go with diet cola?”

“Goes with anything your heart desires. Come on, ain’t polite to let me drink alone.”

“Well... just it’s cold outside,” Charity accepted with a prim giggle. “But you tell me if I start to get bad.”

She slipped her plastic glass below the tabletop and Roy hardened it a little. “Sort of a wedding toast,” he said, smiling at her. “Tonight’s our night, honey.”

— while Coyul sighed with the burden of the duty-bound. “I regret this already. The dialogue’s as bad as the drinks.”

“Be a little kind,” Barion admonished. “This is going to be Charity’s first time and very important to her. Actually, she’s readier than he is. Why don’t you read Roy; he’s sending signals pertinent to our case.”

Charity’s all mine — Roy glowed with a flush of macho. Nicest girl in town and she’s all mine. Thought once it might be Woody. I like Woody, like the way he does what I tell him, long as I make out like I’m asking, but that just shows you the difference. I’m a leader natural born, Woody just ain’t aggressive at all. Even in the Marines he barely qualified with a rifle, he told me. Wouldn’t touch the piece I got under the back seat. Just looked shit scared when I showed him the ammo and grenades for the Paladins. Threw him one: he caught it all right but just gave it back and looked sick. Ought to come out and join the Paladins. We need good boys been in combat, even the little bit Woody saw. Couldn’t be much, he don’t never talk about it, just mostly about some Jew bastard he knew in the Corps. He don’t think right. He’s pure White American like me and we need all we can get, being a minority ourselves now.

For sure it’s tonight for me and Charity. Man, about time something worked out right in this shit-ass life. All three of us out of work, and we deserve just as much as the Commoniss niggers riding in Cadillacs in Washington, which, hell, it’s all black now anyways. I read that in a book. President steps off the White House lawn, must feel like he’s in Africa.

We Paladins gonna take this country back someday, and I’ll be there, breaking bad and spitting lead, a natural leader. Gonna be blood spilled, the only way, gonna take America back for God and the Aryans.

But tonight I’m gonna take a little for myself — except, shit, I hope I don’t have the usual trouble. No problem at all with some old whore, but somebody nice like Charity... you can’t fuck goodness and look her in the eye at the same time. I mean, that’s a problem. She’s the girl I’m going to marry, and I wouldn’t be spiking her drink except I’m nervous. Only time it was ever super good was in that whorehouse in that hunky town near Pittsburgh. Big Polack whore didn’t give a damn what you wanted done, she served it right up. Just you can’t go on paying for it to get what you need, that ain’t the way for a man to do. Maybe another shot in this lousy Coke, just enough so I won’t worry...

Coyul snorted: “If this tumor had a brain, he’d be neurotic.”

“Think what his son will be with the same problems and more intelligence,” Barion urged. “Does it suggest an approach?”

For a moment, Coyul’s expression came close to his popular image. “There could be some good dirty fun in all this. Being a son of a bitch in a worthy cause.”

“That’s
my little brother.”

“Woody.” Roy nudged him under the table. “How about getting me another Big Mac?”

“I just went,” Woody protested mildly. “Whyn’t you go yourself?”

“Because I’m all tucked up with my woman and I ast you nice.”

“Okay, okay. In a minute.”

While Roy rubbed up against Charity, Woody tried to be cool about the whole thing and not notice. He took a deep breath and let it out through the muted horn in a long, sleepy, drawling phrase like Winton Marsalis on “Melancholia,” or the other jazzmen whose records he could seldom afford. They made a whole new language with the horn, not playing the melody but knowing all about it anyway in that special tongue.

“What you doing with that thing?” Roy wondered.

“Marsalis. Blows a good horn.”

“Yeah, I read about him.” Roy was always talking about what he read, although Woody never saw any books in his house except
Soldier of Fortune
or
Guns and Ammo.
“Smart nigger, thinks he got all the answers. Whyn’t you play like a white man?”

Woody put down the trumpet. “Char, you want anything?”

“No, I’m just fine.” She wiped her lips too daintily. “I like the way Woody plays.”

“Nigger music. Listen, Woody: you come to the next Paladin drill with me. They’ll straighten you out. Old marine like you, we need guys with combat time.”

“No way.”

“You always say that. I’m serious, man. Why not?”

“I’m a pacifist,” said Woody Barnes.

“That’s what the Commonists like,” Roy asserted with the air of an insider. “That’s what they want when they come marching down Main Street. Where’d you get to be a pacifist?”

“In Beirut.” Woody drained his Coke and slapped the paper cup on the table, rattling the ice. “What you say you wanted?”

“Big Mac again. Extra French dressing’n’ pickle.” Roy splayed a couple of dollars on the table, mostly change. “Hey, you see how I took up the collection tonight? I know how to squeeze it out of’em.”

“They know five percent of what you squoze gets back to the Paladins for guns and ammo?”

“Hey, not so loud.” Roy glared at Woody, then glanced at Charity to assure himself the effect wasn’t lost on her, then around at the nearby customers with overdone caution. In a tense whisper: “We got enemies.”

“Just a passing thought,” said Woody.

“Well, you just go on and let it pass.”

“Positively wallows in the role of conspirator,” Coyul remarked.

“To the hilt: the drama, the air of danger. The Paladins can’t afford much ammunition,” Barion recalled from Felim’s briefing. “They have to be very good shots, although so far they’ve only destroyed a few paper targets and someone’s window. But they feel terribly clandestine.” To Coyul’s appreciative smile, he amended: “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t joke about him.”

“Difficult not to.”

“Just so. The Nazis were a joke to Germans in 1925, remember? The upper classes found them a never-ending source of amusement.” Barion looked toward Woody at the counter. “Let’s read Mr. Barnes in his heart of hearts. It may be of service.”

All right, Woody thought, that’s the way it is. Roy’s gonna score with Charity at the White Rose. He shouldn’t take her there, that’s the best-known make-out spot in ten miles. And talking about it all week; some spy he’d make. We’ve been friends since eighth grade; when I went into the Marines, he enlisted in the Air Force. Gonna be a top-gun jet pilot. Except his eyes weren’t good enough or his teeth or his education or anything else. This town doesn’t grow a lot of college graduates. We used to have more to talk about, but now listening to Roy gets real old. It’s all one thing, race and politics. Last couple of years, he’s got a hard-on for niggers and Jews, all he can talk about, and he can’t understand why I keep remembering Milt Kahane so much. More like I can’t ever forget. Milt and that old black man.

I was in New York with Milt before we shipped for Beirut, three straight nights checking out the jazz joints. The last night we found that place where drinks were mucho expensive but the combo — oh, man, they were worth it. That old black man with a lifetime in his horn. The way he talked to me between sets: not polite at all, just an old-timer giving it straight to a kid. Shit, he didn’t
think
he was good as me, he knew he was better where that horn came in, and damn if he wasn’t right. Thought a lot about that old man in the hospital; about him and Milt Kahane. Still thinking about them, but everything gets mixed up together, like will I ever make it back to New York where it’s all at or just sit around here forever, wondering if I want Char enough to do something about it? Or if I’ll ever be good enough to even play backup for that old man who knows it all.

Milt was that good. That’s how we got together, rapping music at Parris Island. Too damned good to go out fragged and bagged in Beirut. He talked about the Israelis like they were a separate people he didn’t agree with, like the way they sent in Lebanese Christians as hit men at Beirut. That bothered him, but when he got it squared away, he said to me, Barnes, I have planted my last fucking tree in Israel, and I’d like the last one back.

I said, Hell, ain’t you sticking up for your own people? What people? he asks. I’m a financial analyst from Long Island, or I will be if I ever finish at NYU. Just don’t want to hear any more Zionist bullshit.

I remember: that was at chow the day he got zapped and damn near me, too. We sat down in the shade of a half-track, eating corned beef and carrots and fruit cocktail. Milt bummed a cigarette from me, angry not because he couldn’t figure it out but because he had. Barnes, he said, countries are just like women. Sooner or later everyone loses their cherry and gets to be just another broad on the block. I don’t know if I’m a Jew anymore.

What do you mean? I said. You were born Jewish.

You were born dumb, Barnes. That mean you gotta stay that way?

We pulled detail after chow, humping ammo to the M-60. Not expecting trouble; didn’t even see that grenade come out of a window until it fucked us up good. Milt got most of it, but there was enough left over for a nice road map across my stomach. So Milt Kahane went home on the same hospital ship with me. I got a bed, he got a box in the hold.

When Roy mouths off about Jews, I see Milt eating those goddamned peaches and smoking my cigarette, asking questions and not liking the answers he got. Me and Milt and that old black man with his trumpet, I guess we’re pacifists. Once you’re nearly blown away, you get real picky what you’ll die for. Roy really got off on the scars where my belly button used to be. I said they were religious medals, not that he’d understand. Roy never wasted anyone but he’d sure as shit like to. Going to declare war all over Char tonight.

Wish I knew what the hell bothers me so much about that. Maybe — hell, no maybe about it. Char deserves better than what Roy’s turned into, but I’m not fool enough to say so. Already did my gig in somebody else’s war.

“Not a bad sort.” Coyul watched Woody carry the fresh tray back to the table. “Eloquent in his way. The ones who’ve done the bleeding always have a great respect for peace. Attila, for example. Very keen on animal husbandry now. Goats, that sort of thing.”

“They’ll be off to the White Rose soon,” Barion said. “Will you be ready to take it from there?”

“Of course. I’ll make an appearance.”

“Let the blandishment fit the time,” Barion advised. “Don’t think about them, think
like
them.”

A crucial aspect, as Coyul knew. In a careless moment a few years back, he’d appeared in slacks and an Izod shirt to a cult of California Satanists. They threw wine bottles at him. Charity Stovall would be no less hag-ridden with stereotype. You couldn’t hurl new ideas head-on at old notions. It never paid.

    9   

H hour minus one