One to Count Cadence

"Oh, piss on both of you," Morning said, trying not to grin. "I'm sorry I hit you, Krummel, but you shouldn't talk to her like that."

"That's okay," I said; "you missed." I stood up and got the bottle. "Have one on me."

The three of us finished the bottle, then Morning climbed back in his wheelchair, and we took a cab downtown to The New Hollywood Star Bar to drink more. It was a small place, a bar and jukebox on the left, five small tables on the right. We sat at an empty table next to the jukebox. The other four tables were filled by young students wearing faces that glowed with revolutionary ardor and surly middle-aged unemployed gold miners with thick wrists and knotted forearms. Several of both had spoken warmly to Morning as I rolled him in, but more stared at me with hate dark on their faces.

"Hello, Comrades," I said to some of the more sullen ones. They started to rise, but Morning raised his hand and said, "He's just joking. He's all right. He's a friend of mine." To me he said, "Don't mock them, Krummel. They take their politics seriously."

"That's nice," I said, "Let's go some place where they take drinking serious." But Morning didn't answer. I could tell from Abigail's face that she had been in the bar with Morning before, several times.

As we were drinking our third or fourth beer, one of the students walked to the jukebox, which had just stopped playing, lifted the face of the machine, reached inside, and punched off half a dozen songs. Neither of the barmaids even looked up. He walked back past our table, stopped, said hello to Morning, then spoke to Abigail. "How are you tonight American pig cunt? Does it take two of these soft American queers to satisfy you now? You should come to my house sometimes. I fuck two American whores before breakfast, so long they ask me to stop."

"You have a dirty mouth, gook," I said, standing up. Chairs scraped behind me. Abigail and Morning both grabbed at me, saying, in effect, that he didn't mean anything, that he was harmless, but I didn't sit down.

"You don't just fight me, American pig, you fight the party," the Filipino said.

"Oh boy," I snorted. "Well, shit, man, I got God on my side."

"There is no God, capitalistic pig."

"Jesus, son, I hate to tell you that the first thing a revolutionary must do is stay away from clichés."

"Well, you watch it," he said walking away, a superior smile twisting his mouth.

I sat down. "Morning," I said, "You are probably crazy. How come you let him talk to her that way?"

"He didn't mean anything," Abigail interjected.

"That's just his way of telling her he likes her," Morning said.

"You could have fooled me," I said, but let it go at that.

Morning rolled over to the other tables to make peace, but he stayed longer than necessary.

"What's he up to?" I asked Abigail, but the throbbing music covered her answer.

"What?"

"I don't know," she said, louder now. "Trying to get out of the Army, I guess. I don't know."

"You know he's more of a dead-end than even I was?"

"Yes," she said. "Maybe you were right awhile ago. I don't know. I'm just sorry. I've always wanted too much; now I have lost everthing. I'm sorry."

"So am I," I said. "I thought I was going to ask you to marry me tonight."

"Don't say that," she said.

"Okay," I said, so we drank on through swirling smoke and music, silence our only bond.

The hospital began processing my papers one day, then suddenly I had just two weeks left in the Philippines. I was alone now; little to do but drink more in the evenings and limp around nine holes of golf in the mornings and lift weights in the afternoons. Morning still feigned his paralysis, Abigail, her love, and me, indifference. I lifted three hours every afternoon now, hefting weights like a longshoreman on overtime, poisonous sweat squeezed out by the expanding, bursting, exploding muscle cells. My body grew quickly hard again, competent, hard, ready; my limp disappeared. On a quick overnight pass to Manila, I had a fake Swiss passport made, got a Mexican and a South African visa, and called my father to tell him to sell my share of the Santa Gertrudis herd. He didn't ask me why, but he did say he wished I wouldn't. I said I wished I didn't have to. The name on the passport was Robert Jordon; it was a joke; nobody laughed.

Gallard gave another drinking bout, promising to behave if I would. Morning stayed sober longer this time, and he and Gallard argued about the Chinese Communists while Abigail got drunk and I stayed drunkenly sober. When Gallard and Morning walked and rolled to the Main Club for another bottle of gin, together so they could continue the argument, Abigail asked why everyone was ignoring her. I kissed her slack mouth, and said I wasn't. I fucked her on the bamboo couch before she had a chance to protest while one of the maids peeked around the corner of the porch. Abigail, afterward, said I wasn't very nice. I said I wasn't a boy scout, if that was what she meant. Then I fucked the Filipino maid on the kitchen floor while Abigail cried in the doorway. I didn't get any merit badges. When Gallard and Morning came back, I had both maids and Abigail naked in Gallard's big bed. Although Morning had to act crippled, we all jazzed and drank until daylight, then slept until five o'clock. Morning and Abigail argued over breakfast, and it was over between them. She called me a bastard as she left and threw a plate at me; but she missed. Morning and Gallard drank some more, but I followed Abigail home. The next day, I lifted twice, morning and afternoon.

When I had four days left, Morning asked me downtown for a farewell drink. I waited until we were in The New Hollywood Star Bar again before I asked him why farewell drinks now when I had four days left.

"Man," he said, "there has been so much shit between us, and so much good stuff too, that somehow I want to get it straight before I leave."

"No," I said, then pulled on a beer, "before I leave."

He drank, then said nothing. One of the students opened the face of the jukebox, punched some songs, then wandered back to the bar. Marty Robbins came on singing "El Paso" on a scratchy old record, obviously around since the late fifties. When he groaned about "a deep burning pain in my side," Morning nodded, but still kept silent.

When the song finished dying, he said, "No, man, it's me who's leaving first." He waved for more beer. It came, room temperature from a case behind the bar, timid white heads poking over the tops.

"Why?"

"Well, I guess if I can't trust you, man, I can't trust anybody." He looked up very seriously. "I'm joining the Huks."

"So am I," I said, trying to smile.

"Don't joke. I'm not."

"Oh, shit, Morning, get off my ass." But I knew by the sickness in my guts that he wouldn't.

"Man, I know you don't think that the world is worth saving, and in a way, I agree, but I have to do something, I have to try. And this is the only way for me. I can't go back and march in peaceful parades and sing about freedom, man. I can't help register voters for elections that I think are meaningless. I can't work in the slums because I want to tell the people to arm, to burn the fucking country down, to screw the New Frontier and get what they can. Get their guns and run for the hills. But it isn't time for that yet. America is hopeless, and I don't know that this is going to be any better, but it is what I am going to do.

"Man, it is going to take fire for the world to start over again. People have to learn, property has to burn, blood has to run… that's all."

"Peace through war," I said.

"That doesn't sound like you." He had stopped trying to convince me that he was going because he knew he was, and he had stopped trying to convince me that he was right because he didn't care. "Shit, man, you taught me about war and about doing what you think is right, so I'm doing it."