Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up to Me (11 page)

“Hey no, you don’t have to—”

“It’ll be there anyway. It’s my decision, yes? And be careful, Gnossos.”

“Right,” his hand reaching nonetheless into the side pocket of the Saab and removing a small hammer, which as soon as he touched it took part in a plan of earlier revenge. “Later.”

And bang, he was through the swinging doors, inhaling the familiar fumes of Guido’s Grill. Odors always able to hang you up, lay bare the honeycombed cells of nasal memory. French-fried onion rings, pizzaburgers, bubbly cooking fat, Breath-O-Pine disinfectant.

Students were meanwhile packed together in polyethylene booths, most of them independents, an odd minority of slumming fraternity types, ending their collective day over plates of late-night swill, mistaking the knots of academic anxiety for hunger. Coeds in mohair sat nibbling, watching the clock for curfew. Through the cacophonic murmur of extracurricular chitchat, plots to collapse the administration, talk of Caribbean gunrunning, and kneesie games among the graduate queens, Gnossos heard the Saab out in the street turning around and puttering off. Oh well.

“Hey, Paps!”

Heff in a blue-striped French seaman’s jersey, calling from a mobbed booth. Voices suspended above the din of talk for a brief moment, heads bobbing up from ale and strawberry shakes. Here and there an occasional expression of shocked recognition, then embarrassed shifting away. Only one of them with enough hair to call my name. Go over, why don’t you. Man, seven of them. Break the ice, choose your words. “Pax.”

“Sit down, Paps,” Heff’s arm slung limply around Jack’s shoulders, a knuckle toying with her cheek. “Little celebration thing going on. You know these people, these undergraduates, these old university cats?”

Jesus. Four empty martini glasses in front of him, fifth half-dead. “You’re smashed, Horralump.”

“Old-timey celebration happening, Paps, they threw me out.”

“No, man, don’t say that.”

“Out out out on my ass, bump bump down the stairs, dig?”

Lord, Fitzgore, didn’t see him. Four others, no three, that horn-rim type, where? Pimples. Oh Jesus, the D.U. dinner, flee.

“Old-timey Agnoo here’s buying up the Red Cap supply, man, kind of cornered the market, you know? Have a little Red Cap, veal scallopine, you hungry? You know everybody atta table? You know the Lumpers chic here, you know Agnoo, you ‘member Rosenbloom an’ friend from the wheel?”

“Agneau,” came the nervous correction, an uneasy, bespectacled glance at Gnossos, pinching motion to the knot of his tie. No cool. Fitzgore glaring, being too quiet, Condition Red, man. Christ, the dubbies on Lumpers.

“My name is Juan Carlos Rosenbloom,” said the one in a sequined rodeo shirt. “From Maracaibo.” He strained formally over the red plastic tabletop, stretching out a minuscule, hairy hand. Not more than five feet tall, Saint Christopher medal tight on his throat, grease mat for a head. All I need. “An’ my freng Drew Youngblood, the editors of the
Sun
.”

“We weren’t introduced that night,” said the editor.

“What night, man?”

“The roulettes,” explained Rosenbloom, spinning his tiny finger around the table to mimic a wheel. Yes, of course. Want their bread back? May have to bust noses.

“The appeal failed, y’know,” from Jack, her hand going up and down on the inside of Heff’s bluejeaned thigh, a third of her attention on the Lumpers breasts. Fitzgore too quiet.

“I will buy you something to drink,” said Rosenbloom, signaling for the waitress.

“Wha’d you like?” asked Youngblood.

Gnossos shrugging his shoulders, lush not exactly right for the time, pointing to his head for Heff’s benefit, who saw and understood the reference but made a blubbering sound with his lips just the same. Lumpers sliding over. Ought to flee, really, use tact. Lobes still not straight, waitress looking at me. Ahem. “You have any Metaxa?”

“I can’t unnerstan’ you.” A blob of gum in her jaw.

“It’s Greek.”

“It’s what?”

Control. “Rye, then. Any kind of rye. Four Roses even, and a little ginger ale.”

“I’ll see ‘fthey got any. You have a draft card?”

“Look, baby—”

“Jus’ answer the question. Y’ never know who’s gonna be checkin’ up. Y’ want Guido t’lose his license?”

Do the Gandhi. “Yes, I’ve got one. You’d like to see it?”

“No, as long as you got it. Why don’t you make life simple, have a beer?” Going away. Fat legs. I’ll have her mutilated, so help me . . . 

“My round,” said Youngblood, still serious in expression.

“No, plis,” from the South American, flashing a twenty, “I’m insist.”

“Hey, Paps,” said Heffalump, putting down the fifth martini glass, empty, “I want it verified who was Tonto’s horse. Old Jack here, she says Scout, and Fitz says Tony.”

“My
God
,” said Lumpers, in angora, “I used to listen to that on the radio. Every Sunday afternoon.”

“Get ’em up, Scout,” said Jack, sadly. Her free hand extending from a man’s blue buttondown Oxford shirt, fingers drumming hoofbeats on the table.

“I was hoping I’d catch up with you again,” said Youngblood intimately, motioning Rosenbloom’s twenty into obscurity and struggling to get his own wallet free of his chinos, away from the press of bodies in the booth. “There’s this Susan B. Pankhurst thing I wanted to talk to you about, although you probably never heard of her.”

“I’m insist,” continued Rosenbloom.

“Really, it used to be on every Sunday afternoon, the
Lone
Ranger and Tonto,” Lumpers’ attention given to Heff, who was trying to contain all his martini olives under a single inverted glass. “Although sometimes we called him the
Long
Ranger, he he ha.”

“Susan what?” Gnossos with his eye on the Lumpers dubbies.

“It couldn’t’ve been Sundays,” said Jack, stopping her finger-drumming, licking her Red Cap. “It was Thursdays, brought to you by Cheerios. And Tony was Tom Mix’s horse, anyway.”

“B.
Pank
hurst. A new Vice-President for Student Affairs. She’s putting through a bill about coeds in apartments.”

“Sundays was Nick and Nora Charles,” said Heff, not looking up from his project, “with that crazy dog they had. What the hell was that dog?”

“Do you realize I’m being fined TEN DOLLARS for that dinner, you
maniac?!
” yelled Fitzgore, lurching over suddenly, shoving his carrot-colored hair away from his eyes. “Ten goddamned bills?!”

Pretend you can’t hear him. Lost his mind. What to do? Return the enema bag.

Gnossos reaching into his rucksack and handing over the rubber bag and tube while looking casually for the waitress. Highball, the near-perfect drink, la la. Defines social status. “Heff—excuse me a minute, would you, Youngblood?—they didn’t truly throw you out, did they?”

“An’ the House of Mystery, that was Sundays too.”

“And Sky
King
,” said the Lumpers girl with delight, shifting weight, nudging Gnossos accidentally with her left breast.

“Sky King was Saturdays,” from Heff. “With Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders. And you bet your rosy buns they threw me out, man.”

“Look, Gnossos,” insisted the editor of the
Sun
. “We have to talk over this Pankhurst thing, if you follow me. I mean, what she’s after is to keep unchaperoned coeds out of apartments.”

“In Maracaibo we have chaperones, ha ha.” Rosenbloom giving up the twenty to a sequined shirt pocket and fingering his Saint Christopher absently.

“Listen,” Agneau was whispering to a broiling Fitzgore. “Don’t get excited. Why get excited, really?”

“I don’t mind the ten bills, it’s only this embarrassing a whole damn house for a lousy T-bone steak, or whatever the hell it was. Who wasn’t embarrassed, for instance? Tell me you weren’t embarrassed?”

“Who?” continued Heff, ignoring them, “was the Green Hornet’s faithful Filipino companion?”

“Kato,” answered Gnossos casually, taking his highball from the passing waitress. “Who by the way was a Jap to begin with, but they had to cool it after the heat at Pearl Harbor.”

“Check. And Hop Harrigan’s ace buddy?”

“Oh. Hop
Har
rigan.”

“Tank Tinker,” from Gnossos, sipping.

“Listen,” insisted Youngblood. “You don’t realize that if she gets this chaperone thing through, you won’t be able to have
women
in your apartments!”

A subtle collective pause in everyone’s breathing. “I beg your pardon?” asked Gnossos and Fitzgore, almost simultaneously.

Another pause.

“No women.” Youngblood leaning back.

“Townies, even?” Agneau twisting his cuticle-free pinky, smiling falsely at the two coeds, who froze him right out.

“She said,” continued Youngblood, sensing his time, “this Pankhurst actually said that male apartments, if you follow me, are conducive . . .  to petting and intercourse.”

Silence.

“She’s only doing her duty,” from Heff, pulling himself up, “as God gave her the right.”

“To do her duty,” added Jack.

“Who sponsored Jack Armstrong?” asked Heff.

“Wheaties,” said Gnossos. “She’s down on humping, is she?”

“
Intercourse
,” corrected Fitzgore in despair, “for goddamn Christ’s sake.”

“An’ who was responsible for bringing you Captain Midnight?” asked Heff.

“Ovaltine, man. Now if you could get her to come out and say it again—”

“Don’ bother leetle things,” said Rosenbloom. “Have a revolutiong. Smash her, how you call her, Panghurts.”

“Somebody’s getting involved,” warned Heffalump slyly, across all the jumbled conversation. “Somebody better be careful, he gets himself infuckingvolved.”

True. Proceed with caution: “What’s the ploy, man?”

“You had it figured. We want her to say it again. In public this time.”

“Have a revolutiong,” said Rosenbloom.

“Only we’re not certain how to go about it.” Pausing, leaning forward. “We thought you might have something in mind.”

Gnossos looking around the table. “Me?”

“Captain Midnight’s archenemy?” Heff winking.

“Ivan Shark,” said Jack, her hands on the table now, most of her attention on the Lumpers breasts.

“What, are you serious;
me
, man?”

“If she said it all publicly, this petting and intercourse thing, maybe we could
do
something. The issue would be
moral
. I mean, she’d be opposing P and I as
entities
, as concepts having nothing to
do
with Lairville apartments. We could take her
on
. There’s even talk about her becoming Mentor
President
, but that’s too horrible a prospect to consider just now.”

“Smash her,” said Rosenbloom.

Gnossos looked at Youngblood. He was wearing a plain white Arrow shirt, no buttons on the collar, open at the throat, and even had an honest face.

“That’s your plan, then, you want to take her on?”

Youngblood leaning in closer, lowering his voice and looking at the table: “We want the President.”

“Kill him,” said Rosenbloom.

“Don’t get involved, Paps.”

“Listen,” said Judy Lumpers, turning away from Jack’s gaze, “
I’m
a government major and I know that it doesn’t
really
have very much to do with what you’re talking about, I mean God, but if you want the President out, that can be extremely tedious. Not to say
dif
ficult.”

“We gotta get back to the dorms,” said Jack, looking at the clock. “You going to Jove, Lumpers?”

“I mean, the President,
really
.”

“Some other time, man,” said Gnossos, rising, gulping the last of the highball. “But later. Up, old Heffalump, I want words with you. Got a little mission to accomplish.”

“Who designed the Captain Midnight Code-O-Graph?” from Heff, struggling to his feet. All through Guido’s a shift in movement, in inflection, as the Coed Curfew Hour became apparent.

“C’mon, Lumpers baby,” said Jack, “we’ll be late.”

“I can drive you back,” from Fitzgore.

“Nobody’s paying any attention to me,” said Heff, reeling slightly as he stood. “Who designed—”

“Ichabod Mudd,” said Gnossos, reaching casually into his rucksack and producing a small rusted device with letters and numbers on its side. Everyone stopped talking and stared at the object with stunned admiration.

“A Code-O-Graph,” said Heffalump, after some awed moments. “A Captain Midnight Code-O-Graph!”

All of Guido’s collapsed into total silence as every head in the place, including the waitress’s, turned to gaze reverently at the artifact, which Gnossos fingered proudly, then elevated like a communion wafer so tribute might be offered. They all remembered.

In the marble vestibule of Anagram Hall, deserted except for the echo of their hoarse whispers, Heffalump and Gnossos crept along on hands and knees.

“What the hell are you doing, you madman? Where’d you get that ball-peen hammer?”

“From Blacknesse’s car. And shut up, there might be a watchman. There’ll be enough noise in a minute.”

“Jesus Christ, Paps.”

They inched away from the vestibule, along the main corridor, Gnossos lighting matches and checking office numbers, the glow giving eerie definition to the white busts which stood against the wall.

“Here, this looks right.”

“Where?”

“Shhh.”

He kneeled and examined the lock, dipping into his rucksack for a long nailfile, which he inserted in the keyhole. Feels like a single tumbler. Too far in. Back a ways. No. No good. “You have your knife, Heff?”

“Shit, man,” feeling the pockets of his jeans, fumbling, then handing it over.

Gnossos pulled out the awl and inserted it as he had the nailfile. Much better. Left, I imagine. There. The tumbler turned over with an audible clack
and he twisted the brass handle quickly, motioning Heffalump inside. He closed the door behind them and for a moment they stood silently on the carpeted floor. Easy as that.

“Well, here we are.”

“Shit, Paps.”

“Stay loose, man. The cat kicked you out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“He hit me for five, right?”

“Right.”

They crawled across the office, ducking under windows, Gnossos lighting two more matches on the way, finally stopping before a large glass cabinet.