bridge tunnel -- four chapters draft 10jul11

8/6/2019 Bridge Tunnel -- four chapters draft 10jul11

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THE EAGLE calls in the middle of the night.

You're up? He says Now I am, she says.

I'm not in Mexico, he says.

No?

New Mexico.

The ceiling. 4AM. Holding the little candy bar phone to her mouth. Those greenboxer shorts she's wearing, they're his.

He says, We rode up along this old highway. Not a real road anymore.

The window is blue.

-- Down along this corridor, Tucky's telling us, you know, with his hands, becausewe're on the bikes, but all I'm seeing in the dark is his right hand -- "This is it.", "Iknow this place.", and guess what --

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Last Name / Title / Page 2

What?

Wrong way.

Closes her eyes. Ceiling's ugly. Window's blue, the ceiling's like green teeth. He

says, I wanted to say, Hello Darlin, I'm on the beach, wish you had come. But nobeach. We found a motel.

Seven motorbikes in a dirt lot. She thinks of this man, Roger Kent, baggy camoshorts, white t-shirts, his face like an eagle. A dirt lot and a motel she saw (in amovie?), a Santa Fe desert inn, pink with blue swallows painted all along the U-shaped perimeter. In the shadow of a mountain.

On the phone he says, I'm sitting here alone.

In the yard, in her mind, this movie she's cut and pasted, Tucky and the boys at

their bikes, Tucky using his hand motions to guide her to the proper room of themotel.

Dust, golden edible dust, swirling around her force-field, as she walks along theyard of the motel to the room, (something her father had said once to her, a bluebarrette clipped over the flaxen of a Saxon; that's this motel and desert). An opendoor, she wants to see Roger Kent at a small desk -- I'm imagining your room. Isthe window open? He says.

And says, Does it feel longer than a day?

She opens her eyes. Mistake. Blue window a yellow window.

It's a big bed. Without me there. (His statements sound like questions).

That's sunlight in the window. Eyes closed trying to maintain the motel room, thedesert -- a botched fantasy is worse than none at all: one can spend a lot of nightsscraping the flint on the steel not getting back.

Hey, he says.

She says, Don't go yet.

I won't.

I don't want to wait on calls.

Back to work tomorrow?

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Today, she says.

Be careful, he says.

Beep, the phone says.

Hello?, She says, but the line's dead.

There's pigeon shit on the windowsill. She gets up and showers. Empty bed.Birds chirp after she leaves the room.

SHE TAKES big headphones to the street. 8AM. Kate Smith, God Bless America -a crucifix: two hundred something days in a row listening to it on a loop as shewalks to work, and no incident.

There's a skirt that would have looked good in New Mexico; you can't wear a skirt

here; it's not law law -- worse: natural law.

Boys crouched on the stoop of a deli. She mutes Kate to hear their eunuch chirps --Cesario, Ganymeyde, she names these boys, but she's the girl/boy. Has to be here.They watch her pass.

Soldiers with stubbed M4s stare at her as she beats them on a signal.

A bug hotel, and old men wave at her, and she does not wave back.

Southbound men turn for a second look:

(If a man with seven wives will steer south to that what wiggle, what of thesedrawn street creeps starving?)

She walks four blocks north, pace constant; She makes every light, never turns herhead; Her tunnel vision? No waiver.

It can feel like the world is full of men; to a beautiful woman it can feel like thisin a church. Her world is full of men. There's half a million people left in theskillet of Manhattan -- (you know where they all went, no need to rehash that).Half a million, a fifth of that is the state; of that, twenty thousand do what she do:

hack media for the government, (she's called junior coordinator for a UnifiedDemocratic Party), the rest keep the computers running; thirty thousand militaryhere to protect the state workers; twenty thousand cops rehired to apprehend theVDCs, and there's eight thousand bridge and tunnel security, not that there arebridges. The rest, the bugs, voluntary dislocated citizens: island people. Thosewho stayed. When they're caught, they're shipped, but they have a lot of hide in

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them. And blocks yet to squat in.

THE ROOM where she works. Long narrow grey, freckled with cheap paint. Adozen clean plastic desks. There's a glass door and windows at the end, yellowfrosted glass like a motel shower door. A figure in the glass office, talking on a

phone. The figure waves her in. She goes behind the glass. Alan Marybella, withblack eyes, an overbite, and neck folds: he's a newborn turtle. She sits behind hisbig boy desk, a George the III Mahogany, here before they were. He says, It'sstalled. I gave everyone the day, but they're through; they don't know yet, but, yeah --good luck in Pahrump. So. Timing, right? How's the .. (now he's being funny withthe thoughtful pause) The, uh --Roger.

I'm thinking up a nickname.

Crunch.

A new one.

He's fine.

Guarding the coppers from the Marines?

South America. Do I have a job, Alan?

I gotta go to the movies. Private Bridge and Tunnel's not looking after you -- youwalk here alone? Fine. You're a woman, this is the century for it. Just not the city.

He sweeps paint chips off the desk with his hand.

Wanna go to the movies with me?

TO THE theater next door with the Turtle. Alan knocks. An Indian unlocks it,lets them in, and nods as he walks out in front of them. A steep stair down into thedark of the theater. It's just them. Lights, Camera, Instrumentation. She smellsmarijuana; not smoke, but some real nutty paper bag weed smell.

(She thinks: the Red Paint could have offered concessions).

On the screen a Fade In: Two French actors fake doin it to a mechanized beat. TheNewborn Turtle giggles. Same movie they've played for a year. He can watch anymovie he wants at home -- as he'd say: I love the theater.

Gun fire on the street. The Indian comes in, and waves that it's safe. Whatever itwas it went east. She says, Do I have a job?

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Twenty minutes into the movie Alan falls asleep.

WHEN THEY return to the office Alan goes behind the glass, and gets on hisphone. She goes to his door. He pad and papers numbers, he taps the desk with aring on his pinkie, turquoise in silver. The call ends, but he keeps holding the

phone:

I'll take you to dinner, He says.

I would have left with Roger.

Wear something nice, I'll have escorts at your place. Eight. It's a thing! For you.I'm trying. Dinner. Go home. Something nice.

Walk me home, She says.

Too many cops.

She lives safe down there, but cops loved harassing turtle types.

Maggie. You would have left? He didn't ask you.

She'd like to say to him, Roger is an eagle, and you but a newborn turtle, Rogerwould pluck you up, fly around, get bored, and drop you on a tragedian's head.

Instead she asks, What happened to Henny Newton?

Who knows.

He's been down here a year and it fell through?

Went with someone else I guess. Go home, look like a woman later.

A world of men. The shitheels.

THE NIGHT she met the Eagle was a dinner with her work mates, sitting in onAlan Marybella reporting to High Office on his first Henny Newton meeting.Noodles on the table, rice wine, and riflemen at the door. One of those riflemen

was Roger Kent, watching the street. It wasn't strange that of all islanders Japs whocooked good noodle worked in the open, cops bypassed them as wartime priests;these Japs kept entire buildings stacked atop their restaurants -- they hadprotection: here was Roger, ordered to watch this place called Mulberry Field, andthis VIP meet. She stared at him. His profile was red-rimmed under the crab-shaped lights -- no crab, a long time since anything but noodles, but they kept theneon characters, as in the old days, to light the way. Roger Kent was tall. He kept

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his rifle leaned against the wall, and looked like a daydreamer.

Alan was tipsy, and as these stiffs were down from up north to hear a report onHenny Newton, and as there was the perceived future advancement Alan chirped ofon slow days in the office, when they'd come get him out of this place, and bring

him to Philadelphia, if Henny's project stayed on track, and more importantly, on-message, and again, as Alan was tipsy, he oversold the Henny meeting -- (HennyPenny. Filmmaker. The only man with State permission to come in the skillet andmachen schne bilder! A million stories from this one or that one hired to protecthim around the city, or guard his depot of computers downtown: he was workingfor a terror outfit, and somehow, because of his Iraq movies, they'd sneaked him byHomeland Security; he had the reputation with the cops of being a black magicman. Alan said Henny got off the chopper, and walked with him through the park,and just as Alan began to say, "Welcome to the city!", Henny Penny said, "Thisisn't a city anymore."

"No?" Alan asked him.

"Smell this place. Old world stink. It's the shortage of women, there haven't beenthis many fey sarges in one place since Thermopylae."

Alan looked around the table, I was about to ask him what he meant, when one ofhis flunkies shushed me -- he wasn't talking to me, he was talking to his recorder.He was. "Mr. Newton, at least let's take the tour." He said, "Show me where theybulldoze the garbage."

One out of High Office spoke up, This doesn't sound like a pro-New Dem vision."

No, no, Alan said, Don't fret. He's an artist, he was blabbing. I didn't mean tomake him sound like -- listen, he is on-board. We took him down to the dump, weshowed him process. He picked a building down there! No Mid-town aviary forthis one, he said he wants to smell the garbage! What a Cat!

Alan slurped and grimaced rice wine. Maggie caught Roger Kent watching her.She put the palm of her hand up under her throat, as a hello wave. He nodded, andlooked out at the street. High Office cigars were handed out. Japs brought beer.Alan got everyone drunk, and promised in a week he'd set up a second dinner withHenny in attendance. Never happened. A year later, here they were, just She and

Alan, sitting with the same noodles, in the same little room, with Roger in NewMexico, and Henny Newton hiding out downtown, with nothing to show for it --We're probably out. Alan said. But there's one last move.

Just as he said it the front entrance was open, and a strange little cloak with aman somewhere inside it, rushed in to the shop -- Alan jumped, but what the creep

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came out of his jacket with was a camera. He snapped pictures of them, Alanturtled on the floor, and Maggie sitting stone-faced. And then he was gone, runninginto the street. Alan looked up, Fuck, man! What the hell was that?

She said, It's done.

ALAN TOOK her out back where the old Japs were building noodle stock. Theysat in the can pantry, and she felt so bad for poor Alan, that she rubbed his wristsfor him -- he had a bad arthritis.

Maggie, listen; he's downtown sitting on a building full of computers, and a lot ofmoney. He keeps sending messages up the hill that he's nearly finished the picture,but no one has seen it, no one knows what it is! He won't let me down there, but Italked to his courier last week while you were out. They'll let you meet with him.

Will they? How's that?

I can only guess. They remember you, the couriers, you know the toads -- will youmeet with them?

By myself?

It has to be that way. Please --

For what? For your ticket to Philly?

I'll get you sent out west.

She saw something new in Alan Marybella, not like anything in the years sheworked for him: He was unreadable.

How far west?

All the way. You and Crunch can guard each other on the beach. I'll have theboth of you transferred. He'll be out there waiting for you. Maggie? I can do that.But I need Henny's movie. The couriers down at the trash heap specificallyrequested you.

THE NIGHT of that first dinner, after Alan cleared them out so he could suck upto High Office in private, Roger Kent called in his reserve, and walked her home.He did it, and no one questioned it -- he was one of those that had power above hisstation --respect they used to call it. For all the shortage of females, he stayed withher that night, and didn't push it. He laid with her, and told her about places he'dbeen. He'd missed some wars, hit the last couple skirmishes. He had started as anMP, and he was ending as an MP: one more year of this place, and he would head

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back to Worcester, Mass, where he was from.

Then what will you do?

Write a book.

About what?

What are books about? Myself.

They were together after that. He'd come to her place at night. They would talkabout everything off of the island, and eat MREs. They'd talk about places to visitin the west. Like New Mexico.

ALAN MARYBELLA pulled his hands away, then renegotiated back, holding herhands in gratitude.

Let's get out of here, Maggie. Just go down there, and tell Henny Newton he's agenius, and ask him to see the movie. I need a nice desk in Philadelphia. You'llget what you want too.

You know I don't believe you.

Yeah, sure. I know.

When?

Tomorrow.

She did not have the flaxen of a Saxon. She had dark hair cropped short -- nothingto draw attention. The rule here was: unsex yourself.

2

THERE WAS a time she thought her life would be subst Antial; her father hadconvinced her she would be a writer, a delegate, a goddamn politician, (he told herthe more corrupt the better; a father who spoke half-mockeries, but half). Moreoften now she dreamed of going with Roger somewhere quiet, and being for him.

He talked about a construction company; he talked about a farm; he talked aboutselling trucks -- now he was gone, and she felt bitterly unanchored to this dreamingthey had shared; she was his road woman -- up out of this place, her worth to himhad been one phone call. Where was he? Alan was right: he hadn't asked her. Hadhe and Tucky ridden out from under the mountain, and crossed the border with theothers? She finally let the thought annunciate: He might not come back. Boys get

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on bikes and go off with other boys, and promises seem far away and silly.

SHE LIVED on West 38th, State Residence, well-protected by cops and military,GuvHaus, the helipad kids in her building called it, (as did Roger) -- these whizkids, who worked the State landing site at the park, stopped inviting her to the roof

to smoke hash after Roger came around; they'd wine and dope, and watchhumvees, and put bets on how long the lights would stay on, and on the nights theneighborhood power went down, they would lay against the rough tar of the roof,and wait for the stars to color in as light realigned to old bearings, and they wouldchant as if they were Indians out of the island's biography corresponding to visiblestars.

THE ONE time Roger went to the roof with these people was the night the 88scaught Saucy J. The 88s were wild cops out of Arlington, Texas, who workedHudson Street, what they called 8th Avenue and 8th Street -- don't try to tell themthere was no place 8th intersected 8th. Even soldiers like Roger admired them; rare

for soldiers to respect any of these PMC cop units, but the 88s were tough, andnearly honest, and they were obsessed with Saucy J, the biggest name on the streetbefore Henny Penny touched down.

The story was Saucy J killed girls before the change had come, was a tabloidlegend in the old days. When all what happened happened, his story was truckedaway with those bricks that made up the culture of a city -- no reason to read up onsicko victim to victim killers when the headquarters of the newspapers no longerexisted, when people burned in the streets. Saucy J became another forgotten wordcoupling like Big Mac or Gym Membership. That was until the first downtown copgot cashiered dirty: mutilated and left out front of St. Bernard's on 14 -- a base

camp for a long-standing Jersey outfit of former State Police. The poor kid was oneof them, and the way he looked, an Ed Poe monkey was loose -- this kid was eatenup: his hands and feet chewed off, his skull flattened, and the flesh splayed,refolded around it, so that he looked like a puffer fish staring into the sidewalkdrain, dreaming about a swim. Two more showed up like this, and it might havekept going accept Saucy J frigged big, picking a Texas Pete for victim three ratherthan another Jersey Mike.

THAT NIGHT Roger smoked with the Helipad Kids, and held on to her, as theyall watched the street. The kids wanted to know about Saucy J -- where'd they gethim?

Roger, feeling the kinship of shared drugs, told them: They walked down Eighthfrom St. Bernards, and shot every bug they saw until someone told. These were thebugs they had let hang out; their launderers, the scavengers they traded supplieswith.

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Roger counted lit windows in the buildings across the way.

The 88's called us. To say they were doing it. It was shoot it up with them, ordon't. We chose "don't". Killed twenty Bugs before the Bugs gave him up. Hewas living in the Path tunnels. They went down and got him. The Bugs watched

twenty die before they realized the Eights weren't stopping. These bugs didn't wantto give him up. They love Saucy J. Love cops chewed up.

One of the Helipad Kids asked, Did you see him?

J? I did. (The kids poked in around each other like there was a meal to eat out ofwhat Roger said next), He had fingernails. Long nails. He was covered in shit.And he's tiny. A tiny little thing. I don't know how he did it himself. It was him,the face from the posters. If you go down to Hudson, Roger smiled, His head ishanging on their front door. There's a candle burning in his mouth.

MAGGIE WENT up to the roof at dawn of this the day she would go down townto meet Henny Newton, the second day of Roger Kent's absence. Heli-Kids weresleeping on old beds they had dragged up from empty apartments; it was anorphanage; a Tetris screen of old cots. High above them were the advertisementsof the closing age as guidelines on what product to scavenge: Drink COLA ROBA! --COURAGE, BALLS, AND GUILE!

She crawled into bed with a Helipad Kid she knew had gone safely homosexual inthe year he had been skilleted -- gay for the stay, indeed -- his sex drive had provedill by her previously, so she cuddled in beside him -- Raccon Kid she called himbehind his back --big stupid kind eyes -- she cuddled, he was oblivious, and she

counted sodas in the air.

ALAN HAD called and called, but she had left the phone in her room to growsome courage against that Roger call not coming for awhile; (a witch's trick tobubble the cauldron as it were), and so she woke naturally late in the day, and wentback to her room, and showered. But now it was too late to walk up to the officewithout an escort, and so she decided Alan Marybella, and Henny Newton, wouldhave to wait an extra day. And even as she said it her room became very ugly.Poisonous cold panic came to her from looking at the corners of the rooms. Go!Go! Go. Gots to go. Yup. Her father would have said, "corners of the room", likecoroners of the rum, and so she called Alan --He answered on a ring -- Where have

you been?

Under the weather.

Have you?

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Directly under it.

It's still tonight. He said.

Quiet for a moment, and then he turtled out something sweet and unexpected:

Would you like some turkey sandwiches? I can get them from up the hill if you'dlike.

Turkey sandwiches, She repeated.

Yes, you dummkopf, turkey sandwiches.

You know what I want?

No.

I want the coroners of the rum, Alan. That's what I want.

What are you on about?

The coroners of the rum.

I'll have an escort to meet you at Nine.

A penny for Henny. Where will they escort me?

The lights are much brighter there.

Are they?

You can forget all your troubles.

Alan?

YES -- (THEY WERE GIGGLING)

My cares?

You can forget those too. Quite smoking dope. Go meet him.

She heard him laughing as he hung up the phone.

AT NINE tall men came up the stair. Knocked at her door. Every one of them aTexas caucasian with dirty beard and bullet vest. They had stubbed forty-fivecaliber UMPs tied on, dirty little gumdrop shooters, and she opened the door to

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them.

Good evening! She said.

They stood there.

Texas is it?

You're Maggie, Mam?

You guys want a smoke?

No, Mam. It's time to move.

THREE HUMVEES on the street, and a dozen more men. The Lead Beard heldher by the arm as they stepped out. The street was empty -- these boys had that

effect. From high above the Heli-Kids hooted down to her. She waved.

EVERY STREET could be accessed southbound to this convoy. The city,accessed southward, felt like entering a mineshaft, the further they went, the darkerit got, the narrower. And the smell changed. Here was the heaping garbage stink,here they went into the cancerous belly. The Lead Beard sat with her in the backseat of the middle truck, This is gonna take time. We got to hit our base, therewe're gonna leave the trucks. Then ten of my men are gonna walk you east, thensouth, then east. The place is down down, where the streets are gone. Down in thecow pasture by the garbage dump. The tower's there, and that tower is him We'regonna get you there, and hand you off. Read me?

Sure. She said.

Sure. Like it. We've walked it a million times.

I'm not worried.

No? Maybe you should be a bit.

Do you know Sgt. Kent with the 59 MPs?

I don't think so.

He went with you to get Saucy J -- I mean, rather, he escorted him out, or,whatever they did.

The Lead Beard had the brown wall-eyes of a fox. He rubbed her hands with his

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scratchy gloves.

That didn't happen. He said to her.

I know him, She said.

Shit. So do I. He looked embarrassed. He weren't with us.

HER FATHER was called Engel. Engel the storyteller. His stories were tricks.This she learned later. Fairy tales to which he cast himself. Always stories frombefore she remembered. Of this time her father had no photographs of, but for anembarrassingly long time these stories were the truth. She believed his worldstacked up.

He would say, Remember the farm, Maggie? Remember how the old dirt roadforked, and to the left the road continued on along the river, and the right rose up to

our old farm? Remember the rows of poplar that lined the road? Remember theisland in the middle of the river? We could see it from your room.

And she would claim to remember this, and she meant it. And none of it existed.

When he had her acknowledging the scene he painted was a true place, he madethe leap: And what lived on that island?

A Witch.

That's right. Remember her coming to the house that day, asking for corn?

She invited you to supper.

She did.

It was a trick.

To trap me in a wager. She wanted to take you from me.

Her wager, and her trick, was a drinking contest. But, as Engel claimed to know,she had put an illusion on her cup, so that when Engel went to her island, and took

his turn, he would drink from the river, and thus, no matter how deep a drink hetook, he could never win. Because he knew this, and because he knew the wagerwould be for the farm, and his daughter, he made a plan.

What did I do?

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Hid me.

Where no one would find you. And then I went down to the island, and I sat at thetable in the Witch's house, and I drank with her.

HE TOLD her this story many times. So many times. Maybe she requested it.

He drank. And drank. Until he must breathe, and of course there was no drop inthe water level in the cup. He threw the cup at her and ran. The Witch came on,chasing him out of the house. Maggie remembered the version of this witch shehad drawn in via the listening: A tall hag with a massive belly; a spider of awoman, a dewey silver mommy long-legs.

I leapt into the river, and she followed me. But I escaped her.

I know how! She would say to her father.

I turned myself into a trout, and swam away. I swam three hundred miles of river,until I came up, and hid in a beaver's dam!

She believed this then. Would swear, as she was she, it had happened. Shememorized this and twenty other tales: he had walked through time, started andended wars; and this knowledge, her father the shape-shifter, the thousand year oldman, and the touch he had with that other world just off to the side of ours, was asecret to protect.

THE REAL Engel Haff, before he died, had admitted these were lies to her as she

sat sentry over his death in that small room behind the tavern he ran, but there wasmore: as he admitted his lies, he also admitted to her that those parallel lies she hadattacked others for whispering about him, those sinister claims, the desecrated livesof innocent ones, were the truth. The anchored language of her coming up with himhe reversed in those musty days he spit blood into soda bottles, and pissed the bed,and,Yes, I did it. All of it. That's why these people are outside: to see me through.

HE DIED while she fed him baby food. He told her it was happening as ithappened. His victims waited vigil out in the yard, some had come weeks earlier,and camped in the parking lot of the bar, and while she kept them from him whilehe lived, after he died they passed through the room, and spit on his peaceable

husk. She allowed them the goodbye.

ALL OF THIS thinking again on her father's lies was virgin arithmetic to contrastagainst this new Roger Kent, the doppelgnger she created in place of him, as sherode south in the truck with the beards; Roger the Liar in correspondence with thegreat liar.

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THE TRUCKS made their Hudson HUB: a stone firehouse had been blasted open,and the 88s had constructed a hallway from the guts of it, that led from the truckstalls of the old fire station, up to another hole blasted through even older stone, atthe back rectory of an ancient church -- this was a compound! Beards loomedabove them on every building, and had rigged lights to shine down along the road,

like a casino strip in the desert was the changing light here from everywhere else.And there, on the high spear-tip doors of the cathedral, was the hanging skullcandelabra that must be the Saucy One himself.

THE LEAD BEARD whispered to her, Come on in, Maggie. Let's get supperbefore we walk back out in the dark.

He took her arm, and escorted her as if to her wedding, up the walk, to thecathedral doors. Saucy J's smug Jack-O-Lantern smirk was gone to rot. Candleshad burned his lips black. His eyes were lazy from the hours of torture he musthave taken before the Eights got tired of it. Saucy J's head spun right, the door

opened, and Maggie followed the Beard to church.

3

INSIDE THE church men made of themselves forgotten icons: standing at eachside of the hull of the church, up on cobbled ramparts, mounted weapons pokedthrough bashed out glass, moonlight dripping in. And three men lapping theimprovised corridor they made from the church down to the fire station.

Maggie had never been in a church in her life, but she gambled the Lead Beardhad, and would be some percent more honest now that they walked an aisle.

He walked her beyond the altar, to stone steps down into a gloom.

This is the rectory. Come on. He said.

I've never been in a church.

His eyes darker than the dark, his thin wispy eyebrows furrowing under amoonbeam. She came closer looking for the rest of his face, and he bumped intoher as he pulled back on the door, and opened it.

THE TUNNEL they entered, strung with white Christmas lights.

Never been to a wedding? He asked.

Not in a church. Is this the undercroft?

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Says it's a rectory on the wall.

MEN WERE about, playing cards at long wooden benches, napping on cots. Itwas a pleasant smell down here, like split firewood; flowered tarragon hung anddrying from baling wire nailed into the ceiling at each side of the hall.

Men nodded at the Lead Beard. And smiled at her.

They ducked in under another doorway into what was the pantry: two long tableswere walled in by twin colannades of stacked cans. Gooey pastas and beets,scavenged over time.

He plucked up two cans with one hand, and sat down with them. Popped themopen, and pushed one in front of her. He pulled ravioli with his fingers.

Eat. He said.

What's your name?

He smiled. Got up. Back over to his cans.

You look like a Lance. Sven?

He showed her baby bottles of vodka.

Jim. He said.

She felt courageous and in charge, getting his name, and so reached into her coat,and got a stick of dope. She made to light it, and looked over for his reaction.

He was gulping booze this Jim. A fox-eyed, red-bearded Jim.

My Daddy says booze is for smart people looking to get dumb, and dope is fordumb people looking to get smart. He said.

Your Daddy sounds like a rube.

A doctor. And a drunk.

She put the marijuana away. Picked a ravioli like a dead jellyfish, and chewed onit. She unscrewed her vodka bottle, and swigged it down. It should have been withthe beets.

The walk. Just got to do what my guys tell you, and we'll get you there. They'll

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want a meeting, and for whatever reason you got picked for the role. What else canthey do? Drop a bomb because they got conned by Hollywood Henny? Theanswer is Roger and them got no experience with the south-east-north. Stick withguard duty; let us squat and buffer.

WITHIN THE HOUR Jim introduced her to her guides, another six handsomebeards, very polite boys -- younger than her, these. Weapons loaded and lined, theydidn't exit from a secret passage through the undercroft, just walked back out thefront, and down the road. Stopped where the camp lights finally failed to reach, andthere these boys had their cigarettes.

AN HOUR AFTER this they were single-file and crouched along a path of rubblethat ascended up into the second story of what was once a banking center; they gotin under the lean-to of the cracked wall of the building, crossing under steelcolumns and exposed rebar like collapsed spinage, bones exposed from flesh rot.And while half the building teetered above them, like a poorly wedged oak tree, the

boys nested in the cleft of what had been loan offices, looked east, and pointedMaggie to the backdrop that rose up over the grid: even where much of the city wasdestroyed, the imprint of buildings remained like squatting patricians at market, ascimitar'round the twinned totems of the garbage dump and that last standingtower.

The pyre of garbage was taller than anything around it save that tower behind it, sothat it looked to be sprouting, the one from the other. It rolled out so wide incircumference that they had to have pushed it in over the surviving buildings thathad once been there, as if an under-city might passage still beneath the mushroomcap. Landfill, hidden in the old days, now the lone wonder of this world. And

truthfully it didn't smell bad, not from here, not to her: the boys were balaclava'd,pinching their noses, but to her the smell how it came over the miles to themsmelled sweetly of mixed media, a cram of used-to-bes with little left to rot; itsmelled like too many things at once to smell foul: aged pig dung in hay, pineneedles, trapped river water, diesel burning off painted wood, and it was such a mixof strange smells she knew from places that should not occur here that it came toher as sensual, natural, and excited the night around her.

Let's go, Maggie. One of them said through his mask.

IT WAS MIDNIGHT, and the boys were her halo through the eastern pockets of

the lower city, along the outer perimeter of the dump, along the cow pasture roads,the eldest vestures of the old city. Stubborn huddled brick ghettos papered withlight rummage down off the dump in the breezes.

They were creeps in the starlight. None had spoke since the Savings and Loan.Maggie looked around at them; they all watched the road. They were now south of

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the tower, and here was revealed a trick unseen from uptown: the entire south sideof the tower was lit in electricity base to roof; a new face: from Uptown the towerlooked like a black splinter, a grade stake in the garbage, but from the south, amajestic scepter silvery and pinstriped with pirated juice.

Then a strange plinking sound strange to her and familiar and close. Her ringtone!

The Little Beards all dropped to knees, and one grabbed her, and tugged her offthe road; even as she reached in her coat for the phone, this kid took her to theground on a clean fragment of sidewalk concrete. He went into her coat, and fasthad the phone shut off. He held her there on her stomach. She saw Little Beardsfall back into the murk, melt into hiding slots up the road. And they all waited.

How long they waited before the bug came out impossible to know. She didn'tknow where he came from, it just happened that he was there, a blue torso walking

up the center of the road toward them. A light blue coat she could see. Then thelong hair wild and filthy springing out all over. Walking very slowly, dragging it'sleft leg along like it had healed improperly from some injury. And then the bugwhistled, a clear walkabout whistle while you work, and once he whistled a LittleBeard came jogging up behind him, and cut his throat. The Bug dead dropped likea comedian; on the ground he hacked on blood, and it came out on his blue collar.The Little Beard held him down with a knee on the sternum. Then thesemethodical Beards were all out from their hide, and dragging the bug away betweenbuildings. And the kid straddling her got off, and let her up. The kid pulled downthe balaclava from his mouth, and spit on the road. And rubbed his nostrils.

What are you an idiot? He said in an odd gentle whisper. She was shaking, andhe saw it. Go on and smoke your dope. He said. Just a hit.

She did.

Soon enough the others came back. They crouched to memorized positionstriangulated around her. And they waited.

When they moved again it was a man a minute, up out of the crouch and down theroad slow, then the next, and so as caravanners they made of their old halo a half-mile crucifix, she a lone jewel at it's intersection.

NEAR DAWN, (blue window, not yellow window), came down, they creptthrough the gates of an old stable house, and ducked into what had once been ahorse stall, and their, huddled in around Maggie, the boys had a new round ofcigarettes. Then one crept across the yard to the door of the manor. And wentinside.

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Three cigarettes per man it took for the other to reappear from the house, and jogback over. He reached a hand out to her: Come on then.

He escorted her to the house, and at the door let her go. Here's where we'll waitfor you, Maggie. Go on upstairs.

He's here?

Not him.

He clapped her on the arm, and nodded.

Three floors of house above her, and all the windows covered over.

She pulled the door open, and stepped in.

She heard the Little Beard say again, Upstairs.

A LANTERN above her at the turn in a stairwell, glowing. Low ceiling, and apentagram of shut doors around that stairwell. The lantern was dull metal cuppingthe glass cylinder, and heavy for being so small. The first three steps she tookbeyond where the lantern was left, and then Maggie no longer wanted to do this;felt the sudden bubbling up of fear; fear that was honest, was maybe instinct, that athing waited above to hurt her. She thought of that short period of her adulthoodprior to her father's sickness, when he would beg her to visit him at the highway barthat was his home. It was a sanctuary for him: the slobs inside too busy with theirown hiding to sniff around, and ask why a braggart who replied to drink requests in

four languages, seen constantly writing in sharp little black notebooks -- why aproud licentiate was sweating into old age passing beers and sweeping crud. Whenshe did visit him, walking into the too cold air conditioning, and the fecal smell ofold drunks sitting too long, ran her up with dread; when she saw the ruddy ferret thefather had turned into, (such a wiry little man he was), she felt fear for other peoplethat had tangled with him. This was the dread she now felt walking up the stairs ofthe stable house.

SHE STEPPED off the stair on the second floor. Five more doors. Two left.Two right. One down the middle, open and lamplight inside. She could see part ofa bed inside that center room, and as she walked that way she saw a person was in

the bed. Lamplight made a cacao glow of the brown sheets. It was the largest manMaggie had ever seen. He watched her come to the doorway; he had pale colorlesseyes. He was an old man with hair and beard like thick white fur; strange to see aman so grand, so old. He might have been seven feet tall -- and broad: the sheets,(they were several), could not cover him up; great dirty feet hung out under them,slung one over the other, and off the edge of the bed. He raised two fingers as a

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wave.

You're this Maggie the boys talk about?

What boys? She whispered.

The scouts. Ones we send. I had a daughter as pretty as you.

Yes. She said, and did not know what she meant after she said it.

I had a daughter. You had a father. And we're all brothers. I'm your brother.

His voice was high. Boyish. He was touching small flowers in his left hand, andstill motioning to her with his right.

All brothers. All sisters. I wanted to see you before you go. Get a look at you.

Go?

To the tower.

Why am I going there?

Why? Why climb so high? Why answer with a sigh? You're needed. For a rightnasty job.

Henny Newton.

Exactly.

What job?

Not sure.

What's your name?

Oliver.

I don't believe you don't know the job, Oliver.

What can I say. Fine. Henny's no junior officer. He's a senior motherfuck. Getwith him, you'll see London; you'll see France --

And?

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And what?

And I'll see his --

Let's not talk about that! And he laughed. Maggie. I am meant to walk you up

the tower, but, as you see, I am ill. I don't have another trip in me. But I will tellyou a story that will be better protection to you than even me -- even when I wasyoung. Come and sit. Let me see you closer..

His eyes were filmy, and fixed so dispassionately upon the flowers in his handthat she knew she should not.

No. I don't think so.

I was a man. Do you know? A man beyond the concept. A man before menruined the meaning of the word. While the word-coiners crawled, I walked. I

strode. I had a daughter, Maggie.

Yes.

I had a daughter, and Henny Newton loved her. That can never be forgiven.

Why?

Tragedy is his meat. Where he can't smell it out, he fabricates. Will you sit andlisten to my story?

I will.

You're brave. My daughter was brave.

4

OLIVER IS HE.

HE whispered the story.

HE SAID, My daughter was lost to me. That is how I remember. I tumbledthrough my youth, I knew she was a daughter, I had no recollection of her makingand bringing to the world. But she was there. I could feel this. So then: she waslost to me.

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I found her in a Santa Fe trailer park, abandoned to a swing set. The mother inwith bad people. I left my truck running, walked over. Men came out aroundtrailers. The closer I got to the swing the more appetite they had for me.

I got to her; I knelt to her. I was younger, I could carry this body then, and these

men considered that.

Her name was Oneida. Once I took her out of New Mexico, we, together, changedher name to Therese. She was happy that I took her, at first.

It was a man in the service that sniffed her out in New Mexico. A man I trusted.Stephen Witten. Captain Witten. He did me the favor, because of our past. Wittenremembered the girl. He remembered when I met the girl's mother; he told meagain about these things, and forgave me the bad memory because it was during thetime my drinking was bad. He found Therese, and sent me the address. Where Iwas, then in the north, was a long trip to New Mexico. It provided many hours

alone, driving south; days of south, west, south then west, planning the punishmentfor this woman who had taken my girl from me. I couldn't remember the mother'sface.

When I took the girl off the swing the men came. I wrapped her up, within,against my chest. No one spoke. I took the one stride back, and the first one hit mein the back of the neck with a rock. It wasn't much of a hit, I was so tall he fell tothe ground overreaching. The next two boys came to tackle me down, but my stridewas strong, and I dragged them, four, five feet, before they let go to regroup. Imade it to the road before one smartened up with a knife. He stuck me in the back.His force was dulled punching through my leather jacket, (an up north jacket worn

down south), and the knife only got into me an inch. I didn't even swipe themaway, just kept going. The girl kept quiet, and hugged against me, and when I gotto putting her in the truck she let go. She was obedient. I locked the truck up withher inside. I looked over the roof at these men. And I went back on the sandlotwith freed hands.

These were peoples if documented at all in the state of New Mexico than by the judiciary. No authorities would be called. They probably cleaned up when I wasdone. And that was enough. Would have been stupid to wait for the mother toshow herself. I left with Therese, and went north. I mean I left with her after threeof them died. They had knives, Maggie. And her mother never came for her.

I LOST HER AGAIN at nineteen. A boy. A musician. Worcester. Welding ina machine shop. She met him, left with him. Came here with him, not so far fromthis place where we are sitting. She was in this phase of remembering. Everythingwas remembering. She remembered a lot that never happened. Rememberingplaces she'd never been. And this wormy kid gets a hold on her, and tells hereverything is true, and writes songs about kidnapping and all this happy horseshit.

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Writers are perverts. And songwriters are stupid perverts. They brand innocentpeople with their runaway sickness.

So I lose her this time. I know it's going to be awhile. I know I'll have to live withthe worry. I'll suffer it. I can pray for her.

With praying I used to think some people, good people, do get answered; onewho's done what I've done, there's no answer for me. But then I think: Why not?Why not answer me? I signed off to do nasty things in life, and will gladly pay forthem, but these things were done by your consent. Some men have the ingenuity tobend with and against the word of Him, and come out accredited, to bypass sin, andbe saved; then there's the hard men who lie to themselves: I'm under the jurisdictionof a different angel, but he is in the organization. Read the Bible, God's orderedwetwork before. I'm an Army man. He owes me. Protect her, I prayed. Protecther, and don't get cute with putting her with what I've done.

WHEN I KNEW for sure she didn't die here, with this kid who took her here, whenthe bad day happened, that was many prayers answered. It was ten years to find heragain, but these were peaceful years because she wasn't here. Good enough. Themusician she was with died here. That's why I looked for her here. A day comeswhen I'm looking down here for her, and then I look up, and she's there, forty feethigh, a photograph. And inside that forty feet she's on a beach, and with her thesegypsies around her, and she's done up as some Aryan princess, swarthy jipposbowing and kneeling. Strange juju. I have some responsibility for what Henny hadmade of her: Those North Star bones she got from me.

HENNY NEWTON stole her out of NY, and had made of their romance a

lucrative comeback in the world; when we met he told me he was finished inpictures, and had stumbled badly pitching a picture about Bridge and Tunnel Day.They're still counting bodies, he's painting the re-creation in ninety minutes. Doyou know how they got the subways, Maggie? How they hit so many? Bridge andTunnel. Hack Bridge and Tunnel boys set the explosives. They've covered all thatup by now, but that's who did it. Nineteen Tacticals: A, Q, B; ding, ding, ding.

Somewhere, not far from here, a man named Elric Schmidt sang his last song asthe Q caved in and sucked him down. The song was "Oneida", about a girl wholeaves him for the slick promises of a con artist. Therese was in France with theHenny Newton convoy when the island shit itself.

I MET HENNY NEWTON the day he married my daughter. It was on a beach inBoothbay. It was the middle of January with all the hangers-on dressed likeEskimos. He had invited me, Worcester too close to Maine I guess.

Therese was kind to me. The old bullshit forgotten. And Mr. Henny offered me

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a job with the circus. Security detail. In those days Henny Newton traveled with alot of shitheads, all kinds of phoney intellectuals, drug dealers, poets, pornoactresses -- feasters. There was this Count Olof who would brag to me about onemillion acres in Romania, then borrow five dollars to buy a Cola Roba. It was a bigtour; all after-party, no show. But see, with Henny, I'll give the kid credit for

vision: he was biding his time, he knew something was coming. Because here wasthis other count, or duke, or something, but importantly he was Russian, notRomanian, and with him Russian money cloudied Henny's way. They wantedAfghan pictures. A trilogy, with the first to take place on the Silk Road, the secondto resume the story with the Russians fighting the Taliban, and of this second movieHenny should really do it Gunga Din style, because the third movie would be atragedy on Marines stomping towels, not nearly as fun-loving as the Spetsnaz.Because these Russians were looking to get PMC contracts for Afganistan --Maggie, these oil barons wanted to be poppy barons -- they wanted the USA to sellthem back the right to waste ordinance in Toar, Boar, and Loar, and Henny wouldbe their sonneteer and heavyweight annunciator. They wanted to burn bullets, and

pick poppies.

THE RUSSIANS GAVE HIM all the money, and as you probably know he madeone picture, not three, and it was not about Cossacks' right to transact heroin, butUS Enlisted men kicking ass in Iraq; a full frontal hymn to American militaryexceptionalism funded completely by serendipitous Russian oil fortune. Look,Henry is sick. Maggie? Maggie, Maggie, Maggie Mae: He took their money, andmade a film everyone saw. It did business. Just the right amount of years to tie abandana around Iraq, and blow up some buildings. But these were Russians heduped. Russians aren't a good mark for this kind of thing. He asked me toaccompany him to New York. He knew I had been down here in the garbage

looking for Therese, we had long whiskey sessions, him interviewing me about it.Now suddenly popular again in the country, and these people, your people, finallywanted to hear this movie about the Bridge and Tunnel that had been too soon tenyears ago, but two years ago, after the Iraq movie, they were keen for: Henny wasthe tragedian of the moment . He asked me to come with him. Protection. We metyour boss, Alan Marybella, and walked around.

There was something else: Two years ago there was no place safer for HennyNewton to hide from the Russian outfits than right up there. The tower. That's why

he asked me so often about the garbage dump, and between the bugs and the cops,he felt untouchable here. But the Russians didn't want their cut of the Iraq thing:they let him know he needed to take this UDP money, the big check AlanMarybella got him, and make their Afghan movie with it. And Henny told them hewould. It's an interesting tournament if you take the meanest Russians from everyera of cool pale-eyed nasty Russian history, and tried them off against each other.It would be a show. Send some Russians to New Mexico, they won't consider too

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long the size of their combatant. The best rock-chucker in the business, theRussian.

We put Therese with Henny's friends in Maine. Close enough. Better thanFrance. I went up to visit her twice. She was managing this great house on the

ocean, all Henny's people were there. It was nice there. We would walk along thecliffs, and watch the water, that kind of horseshit people do. We talked about NewMexico. We talked about the good years in Mass before that punk Elric wrote herthose songs. She would hold my hand, and she was happy. Something of thisholiday, for her, was the interim between the stages of your life, and she knew, asshe was now Therese Newton, the trotting days would slow down soon enough,Henny would lose his guts for galavanting, and they would do the family thing.She made it clear to me that I should plan to retire up there. To be near the family.

HENNY WAS different when I came back to the Dump. He was cool. By thistime he'd spent half the money hiring PMC boys to sit at the tower, and protect

him. There was this nice-looking black kid called David who was my favorite. Thetower boys would challenge me to wrestling matches sometimes, and David was theonly one who could make it a minute with me. This kid liked to tangle assholes; hewas tough. When I got back, David was waiting on me down here on the road. Wewalked one of our routes, and he told me things were going astray with Al Ferez,which was what we called Henny; in the drinking one night, one of the Spanishkids told us alfrez was like an ensign, a flag carrier, which is exactly what Hennywas: walking around with all these tough kids protecting him, waving the flag, partof the gang -- so, Al Ferez.

David told be, Al Ferez is getting weird, Ollie. We went out with the cameras four

nights in a row, and just walked. He wouldn't let anyone shoot anything.

There is a screening room Henny set up very high in the tower. After we shookyou guys down for the electricity, he got real luxurious. The screening room is ahallway he's cordoned off, and there was a kid who used to come and tradescavenge with us; his whole strategy on searching out wares must have changedwith Henny Newton as a customer, a great business model: while the bugs searchedfor rations, this kid went looking for art. He came with all sorts of survivors, butthe best deal made was this time the kid showed up with three rolled up pages. Thefirst was a drawing of a naked woman leaning over herself, her breasts sagging intoher paunch. Henny nodded for the kid to unfurl number two, which was another

drawing, a group of farmers huddled around a table for supper, a man proudlyholding up a potato. To me, these were just ugly people, and Henny didn't seemimpressed either. The third was larger than the other two, and once rolled out, itstretched seven or eight feet by five, and the kid actually yelled out, Shit! It wasblank. He'd thought his workday was for nothing. But Henny jumped up from hischair, It's a movie screen, Ollie! We'll tape this one up, and run the projector over

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it! That'll be neat! To the kid: I'll give you twenty dollars for the three.

Once the kid left, Henny turned to me smiling: Potato eaters, He said.

That kid eats rats.

No. The drawing. The Potato Eaters. It's Van Gogh. So's the chick. Fuckingworld we're in. I need to tell you something, Ollie. Don't be mad. We can't do thismovie. I told the Russians I'd shoot their movie here, make it an allegory everyonewould understand -- these rubes think the world knows about them still. Russians.I promised them, but I can't do it. I have a new idea. It has to be done.

You see, Maggie, Henny Newton is the coldest thing I've ever known. Not onlydid he take your money, and alter the promised service, but he also reneged on theoriginal screwjob he had promised the Russians. And he didn't care. There isalways a new bad idea with him. Now an adventure movie. Like the promised

allegory, he'd shoot it here in the garbage, but it was to be an ancient tale. OldGods. Ragnarok was his new love. Let's punch Mjlnir against the garbage. We'llhave Odin walk the tunnels interviewing Bugs. Asgard is here, He'd say. He'd runthe story by everyone, and we'd all listen respectfully: The Norse Pantheon, anepisodic epic of mass suicide. Gods chatting up men, and pulling dirty tricks onthem. He'd say, How many cops did they drop on this place? What if, and hearme: what if this were the place they tied the Trickster up, and let him wait for theEnd to come. And while the asps spit on him, he called all the meanest Fascists tohis endgame cause? What if it were the Gods who blew the city up?

The boys said: Henny, baby, cool out with the dope, Baby.

I'm sober as a mule. He'd claim.

YOU WILL SEE ME in the movie. When you go upstairs, Maggie, and get yourscreening, I'll be there. I am Odin because Henny can be sweet. He hugged me onenight, and told me I was Odin. The All-Father. He thanked me for saving Therese.He can be sweet when he needs things, and he needed me to play so he could keepthe rest of the boys in line. I know this now.

MAINE. Ocean and crag. The best breeze in the world. The Russians went therefor revenge. While I stood in front of a camera-woman for Mr. Henry Newton,Russians went up to that house on the sea. The Fourth of July, and Therese wantedeveryone touched by the Eden she had made.

It wasn't a shootout. They walked with the hipsters, and chewed lobster meat.

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We know what they did because they told us after. They went into the kitchen, andthey dusted her Veuve Clicquot with rat poison. So simple. Then they waited.You would like a daughter to meet a good man. A good man can mean manythings. It can mean, to many people, a man who cares about more than money, thebottom line. No. Pray your daughter marries a calculator. A robot could calculate,

as the Russians did, the Russian loss in their Henny debacle. A robot mightcompute how Russian money spurned would end. If the money is meaningless,what has meaning? I wish she had died. Maggie. I wish she had died. HennyNewton buys Van Gogh for twenty dollars, and watches his dailies on papyrus. Helaughs at money.

I should have killed when I could have. I would have. But he sat by her, and readto her. He tired me out waiting for the right time. And he knew it. That's all, myDear. That's my story. Tell the boys downstairs my boys will meet you at thetower.

MAGGIE IS SHE.

SHE whispered, What of your daughter? SHE IS IRREPARABLE. She isparapalegic. Blinded. All that's left of my girl is a voice in a bed. She wascompletely done in before her brain had caught up and told her body to havechildren. I killed to make place in this world for new ones. It may be an evilprocess, but it is process. It makes sense, even if it is a pathetic excuse. Theypoisoned her because he didn't make a movie about their grandsires. It's fact, butwhat is it supposed to be? Of anyone, Maggie, I tell you the truth: Everymeaningless cruelty is a dull person's Ragnarok.

bridge tunnel -- four chapters draft 10jul11

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