Love Among the Cannibals Read online

  But their fire was not scattered. “Man—” he began, but I replied:

  “When they start like that you know how they end up?” He did, and smiled. I did too, but I didn’t smile. It crossed my mind, watching the pair of them walk up, that there would be more than the usual hell to pay if my big police dog took a strong dislike to this marble faun. At that point part of Gaul would be divided into many parts. We gave them money to buy what they thought they would need, which is what women do when they face a decision: when they prepare to cross that interior line, I mean. My Greek spent twenty-eight fifty on herself, including a charge of thirty cents for me. What they call a chapstick. For lips that had got a bit chapped. Since her own were quite a bit that way, she figured mine were too.

  We crossed the Colorado River a little after midnight, a stream that Mac took a long careful look at, then we cruised along in the moonlight without the lights. The Greek picked up some music from south of the border on the radio. She curled up in the seat, her feet in my lap, a wad of Dentine gum in her mouth, a Hollywood Mexican-style bandanna wrapped around her head. The effect was that of a contraband bust wrapped for smuggling in assorted rags. Billie Harcum sat erect, her pony tail whipping the wind, the moonlight reflected in her Polaroid glasses, a film of cold cream shining like varnish on her lips. Mac held her hand, her box of Kleenex, and her Parliament cigarettes.

  Over near Tucson I dozed off a little and almost missed a curve. The sway of the car rolled the Greek off the seat and woke up the pair asleep in the back. The car was headed east when it straightened out, and on the rim of the sky, like a crack in space, there was a luminous gap between the earth and a strip of cloud.

  “A fie-ah?” cried Billie. “A foss fie-ah?”

  “That’s the dawn,” I replied, “the crack of dawn.” “Ah sweah to God, Uhl, honey, ah thought the crack of dawn was a metaphoah!”

  Far to the south we could see the lights of Nogales, where we planned to cross the border, and Mac relied on the authorities to save him from himself. But they were very gracious. They made it inadvisable to observe the law. To have turned back would have been an insult to them and to Mexico. For a slight consideration we received our visas, the address of a man who would vaccinate the ladies, then we exchanged our dollars for pesos, and entered Mexico.

  I

  Old lecher with a love on every wind, and you young ones too, running in pimpled packs after the teen-age bitch with her perfumed heat, and you, too, pretty matron, under the hair dryer, this is your book. The night is what you want, and you are waiting to hear what next. Love among us cannibals is not so bad we can ever get enough of it—unless, as sometimes happens, one of them turns up sick. Even a cannibal can lose his appetite. In the mountains near Guaymas an Indian woman sold Mac some pink bananas, with a sharp, wild flavor, along with cups of shaved ice sprinkled with syrup from Wildroot hair tonic bottles. That took care of me and Mac. That took care, I mean to say, of everything.

  We ate the bananas, then sipped the ice the way you kiss the girls in the white-slave fiction, knowing we would soon come down with something as a keepsake. And we did. Mac came down in Guaymas. Billie Harcum came down in Mazatlán. She had guessed it would happen, sooner or later, and had brought with her a book by Norman Vincent Peale on the 44 Practical Ways to Happier and Healthier Living. She read parts of it to Mac, so he was sick longer than usual.

  I put off coming down until the Greek, who was sick in Tepic, was on her way up. That was in Guadalajara, where I had looked forward to a wonderful night. We had a suite with Simmons beds, single beds, one of them for each of us. During the long night the Greek rinsed the towels, emptied the pan in the shower drain, and lay beside me like a heater since the night was cool and I had come down with the chills. Everything I had bolted the day before, that night I lost. It occurred to me that nausea was just a way of bolting in reverse. It gives you time to taste, at length, all of the things you may have hastily swallowed. Since I had. swallowed the Greek first, she came up last. She came up, that is, to where I could taste her—the lips, the yellow tooth, and the sharp tang of her sunburn—but I would have died rather than lose her, so she stuck in my throat. I couldn’t get her to go up or down, and it gave me such a scare I grabbed hold of her.

  “If you’re as well as all of that—” she said, and pushed me away.

  “I’m not,” I replied, meaning as well as all that, then I blurted out, “but I don’t think it matters!”

  “If it doesn’t,” she said, “then what does?”

  “Bolting with you,” I said, and took a fresh grip on her. “Bolting with you is what matters.”

  She took the towel and wiped my face as if to see there what I meant. She saw it all right, then said:

  “Is that all that matters?”

  “No it’s not all,” I replied, and squeezed her so hard I was surprised at my own strength. “You don’t live on what you eat, you live on what you keep down,” I said. She wiped my face with the towel again, and said:

  “You’re getting well awfully fast,” and I could see that I was.

  Toward morning we had a gale, sheets of rain lashed the windows, and in the white flashes of theatrical lightning I could see her face with the marble smile on her lips. I wanted to wake her and tell her I would even settle for that. But I didn’t, of course, since she would be the first to tell me that the smile would not be there in such a settlement. I could see her in that yard, the child straddling her hip, coming toward me with that smile on her lips, and I was strong enough to push that child out of the picture and take his place.

  One of the risks you run when you bolt is that the woman you loved in the dark is there in the morning, as if you had forgotten to take her home. There she is. Like that girl in your arms when the music stops. The lump of the night you can take in one bite, the way a dog wolfs his food, but the lump of the day is what you have when you wake up.

  I woke up feeling better, and there might have been a problem if the Creek had been there. A hotel lobby and a pair of lovers face the same impasse at ten in the morning. How to get through the day. How to get through the day without ruining the night. Few love affairs would fail to pan out if the night was as long as it is in the Arctic. What they fail to survive is the ten-hour day. With the light of day, as we say, the lying begins.

  Our room had doors that opened on the mountains and a huge photo mural of the bay of Acapulco. The mural almost fooled me. The green mirror of the sea in the curve of the bay. All around it the gleaming air-conditioned pleasure palaces. On the white sand of the beach what you would find on beaches everywhere. Shells, oil smears, prophylactics, and human flesh served up according to taste. Not in the picture were the oily-skinned boys with the lips and eyes of fish out of water, their mouths full of evil and the calypso chatter of gold teeth. I lay there gazing at it, through the rain-scoured light, until Mac came in and told me that the girls had gone shopping. It made me smile. Our chicks were smart. They knew what the problem was. If they could get through the day, it would be up to us boys to get through the night.

  Any way you cut it, day or night, I was the one who got the most for my money, since the price of the clothes they bought was the same but it took twice the material to cover my girl. They both put on their new rags, with the Hollywood labels, and we finally got away about four o’clock—we got away, I mean, after passing out pesos like soap coupons. We took along enough hot tea, toast, and Kaopectate to make the next stop. That night we had to make one hotel room do—I mean the girls had to make it do, since there was just one bed, and they slept in it. The way they went about it, the way they didn’t, indicated that Mac had little cause for worry. We men, that is. The chicks were cooling off. Miss Harcum made it clear that even a double bed was hardly big enough for my police dog, and my police dog made it more than clear she was right. To see the girls bristling did Mac more good than the medicine. He lay out on the sofa and I sat out on the balcony. Right below me a young man strummed his guitar
, serenading a muchacha whose lips, he said, were like rose petals, and whose dark eyes were bottomless as forest pools. That’s what he told her. In between her numbers he serenaded me, and in the hope that the night would result in something he doffed his sombrero and inquired if the ladies had any requests. The ladies were asleep, but I requested “What Next?” He hadn’t heard of that, so I put in a plug for Macgregor & Horter, tipping him off that the song was now sweeping the States. In return he sang me “Three Coins in the Fountain,” then reported that los Yanquis de Nueva York had clubbed los Gatos Rojos de Boston by a score of 11 to 3. We were doing so well, and the future looked so bright, that he wished me health, I wished him likewise, and in the dawn light I watched two little Indians take the hubcaps off our car, then sit on the fenders waiting for us. Across from us was a church, moist as a cave, and when the doors swung open I could hear the children, somewhere at the front, chanting together like caged birds. While I bargained with the boys about the hubcaps three or four others washed and polished the car, including in their fee, as one of them pointed out, the return of the hubcaps to the wheels. When we got in and moved on they ran along beside us, like a pack of hounds, pointing out the sights, the holes in the road, and finally the highway that led wherever we wanted to go. That was still Acapulco, where we had a house on the Calle de Juarez, overlooking the sea, unless there had been a revolution or an earthquake and the name or the location of the street had changed. Mac’s studio friend had supplied him with a map, which we stopped in Chilpancingo to look at, showing the curve of the bay and the beautiful location of his house. Besides the beautiful location, the house was being modernized. A Señor Eroza, caretaker, along with his wife, would be at our service. No key was necessary. We would find him on the grounds.

  Out of Chilpancingo we went over the mountains and the hot dry wind was suddenly moist. The road curved along a stream of fast water, running almost white in the rapids, holding the light from the sky long after the canyon was dark. Now and then we caught a whiff of the tropical sea. We picked up Acapulco on the radio, a big, good-neighborly sort of band, sounding like Glenn Miller, playing the sort of jazz that would please the tourist crowd. Myself, Mac, and the girls we had along with us, that is. I turned up the volume, and my Greek, who had been curled up in her comer, rocked herself over and lay with her head in my lap. The night air got so moist we seemed to be floating, the breeze almost lapped on the car, and we came out on the rise, as if we had surfaced, with a view of the sea. The bay of Acapulco, trimmed with lights, after the long dark drive through the mountains, was like the jewel box of the coast seen through that window where I first saw the Greek. Anything that is so right, that seems perfect, is followed by a state of apprehension, which reminds you how imperfect perfection really is. Coasting down the rise into the lights I said:

  “Any particular place?”

  And she replied, “Any place.”

  So we had done it again, and I said:

  “Greek, close your eyes,” and she closed them. Like a man testing his eyes I stared at her face. It was beautiful.

  “What would you like to do?” I said, and saw on her lips, as I had the first time, the soft knowing smile of her tolerance. She took my hand and left on the flesh of the wrist the imprint of her teeth.

  There were lights at sea, there was music on the waves, and there was love in the pollen-heavy air of Acapulco, but we coasted by gas stations that were closed, houses that were dark. We drifted down the grade to a traffic circle, one that I recognized from the map in my pocket, and we followed it around, the motor idling, to the left. In the lights ahead I saw the mound of dirt, the unlit lantern on the top of it, but I did not see the ditch from which the earth had been dug. Not until too late. I saw it as the wheels, both front wheels, dropped into it. The drop jarred the Greek out of my lap, killed the motor, shut off the lights, but left the radio playing a familiar version of “Perfidia.” After a pause Mac said:

  “Man, what’s that noise?”

  “Xavier Cugat,” I replied.

  “I mean that noise,” he said. “You know what I mean,” and I did. Behind the music I could hear the pounding of the surf, and one spinning front wheel.

  “That’s the wheel,” I said, and it hardly seemed to matter, until the music stopped.

  We hadn’t thought to bring a flashlight along, so I had to scratch matches to see what had happened. A ditch about a yard wide, and five feet deep, had been dug halfway across the road. The lantern on the bank of dirt had run out of oil. The car had dropped on its frame, leaving both wheels spinning, but one of the water lines had been broken. The water streamed into the ditch and smelled faintly of antifreeze.

  “How’s it look, man?” said Mac.

  “Looks like we walk,” I replied, and struck another match to see how he took that. He looked comfortable. Billie’s pretty little head was on his shoulder. Her teeth were white.

  “Why’nt we just stay here?” asked Mac. “Moon, water, girl, Chesterfields, what the hell?”

  Rising up in the seat the Greek said, “Is that the sea right there?”

  It was the sea. It didn’t look more than forty or fifty yards from us. When the breakers rolled in we could see the foam piled up like sand.

  “I’m going to take a dip,” she said, got out of the car, unbuttoned the skirt of her touring outfit, kicked off her shoes, then walked away from us toward the sea. We lost sight of her just as she reached the beach. I had opened my mouth to say, “Look,” but when she kicked off her shoes the word had stuck in my throat.

  “She tight, man?” said Mac, since that explained whatever needed explaining.

  “She’ll be back,” I said, and I had no more than said it and she was. She looked even bigger, with her body wet and shining, like one of those amazon channel swimmers, but the shorts and blouse she had worn down to the beach were dry.

  “My God,” she said, shaking herself like a dog, “go take one. It’s wonderful.”

  Why didn’t I? What I wanted to do was chase her back into the sea and run my hands over her body while it was cool and wet. What I said was:

  “It better wait until morning. We’ve got to get to where we’re going.”

  “Okay,” she said, agreeably, and that cut me worse. She could take me or leave me, and I didn’t want to be left. I ran up the windows of the car and said:

  “We better take along at least a bag apiece. If we leave them in the car—”

  “Ah’m—” Billie interrupted, getting out of the car, “Ah’m takin’ all mah bags,” and reached for two of them.

  “Sure, honey,” I said, “you and Mac.”

  “How far is it?” said Mac.

  “It’s not so far,” I said, “if we happen to find it.”

  I picked a bag of my own, with what I’d need in the morning, two of the smaller cartons the Greek passed me, and Mac carried three bags, one drawn up under his arm, and Billie carried two. The Greek settled for some cartons and what she could fold over one arm. The rest we left in the car, under a lap robe, and I locked it up. In the morning the hubcaps would be gone but the boy who had swiped them would sell them back to us later.

  “This way—” I said, leading off, and we crossed the road and went along another ditch. They were putting in pipes. Lengths of heavy black pipe fenced in the road. There were lights along the street, but the posts were so high they glowed on the sky like so many pale moons. It crossed my mind they were up there, out of reach, to keep the natives from swiping them. We walked two long blocks on the level, curving with the shore, then we stopped under a lamp to give Mac a rest. We had been walking on the level but we were all covered with sweat. Where Mac carried the bag under his arm his coat and sleeve were soaked. The pounding of the surf followed the curve of the shore, and went along over our heads like a plane’s roar.

  “Let’s get goin’,” said Mac, but we all just stood there, listening. Between the blows of the surf we could hear the thumping rhythm of the drums. There was no
breeze, it seemed to come from padded blows on the surface of the bay, a pulsing beat that seemed to vibrate in the heavy air. Without speaking to us, Mac picked his bags up, started off. We went along behind him, single file, to where the ditch itself turned and went up the grade. I struck a match and read on the piece of curbing that this was our street.

  It went upgrade, very sharply, and on the rise where it curved into the darkness we all stopped, panting like dogs, and too winded to talk. Mac had soaked through both his pants and his coat. When I struck a match to see him he looked as wet as a slicker. All I could see of the Greek was the white blouse she had slipped on over her wet shoulders, but Billie, like the letters in a road sign, had luminous points. Her big eyes glowed, and there were large white buttons on her dark blouse. It made me think of that dancer with her luminous breasts, her bra full of crushed ice. In Acapulco, on a tropical night, it seemed to make more sense. The body of the dancer cool and sleek as a fish packed in ice.

  I didn’t see the man coming toward us in the darkness, but I could hear the pad of his bare feet, and the ratchet-like click of the gear of his bicycle. He swung wide of us to pass, calling out, “Buenos noches!”

  “Buenos noches,” I replied, striking another match, and saw the fish that he carried in a wire basket. They were still wet. The two or three on top were still alive. He wore a hat but no shirt, and one pants leg was rolled to just below the knee to keep out of the bike chain. His eyes widened just as my match went out. “The house of Señor Eroza,” I asked, “it is near here?”

  “Ahhhhh—” he said. “Señor Eroza!” making clear that that explained whatever needed explaining. He pointed up the road, on up and then above it, up the slope of the hillside above the tree line. I could make out a building with a veranda. It looked very nice.

  “Señor Eroza?” I repeated, and he nodded. That was the casa of Señor Eroza. I thanked him, offered him a cigarette which he accepted, thanking me, then slipped it into the band of his hat and went ahead of us up the street. We followed him to where he stopped and waved us to go off to the left. A walk—a trail that soon would be a walk—went up the bank, between mounds of dirt, along a ditch that was fenced in with lengths of pipe. I thanked him again, and led off up the grade. After eight or ten steps I had to stop. The pounding in my throat made it hard for me to swallow, and I could hear Mac breathing like a swimmer gasping for air. My eyes burned with the sweat that ran into them.