The Middleman and Other Stories Read Free Page B

stabilized with bits of lumber. There are bullet holes through the fabric, and rusty stains that can only be blood. I reject the sofa. There are no tables, no chairs, no posters, no wall decorations of any kind, unless you count a crucifix. Above the cot, a sad, dark, plaster crucified Jesus recalls His time in the desert.
    â€œBeer?” Maria doesn’t wait for an answer. She walks behind a curtain and pulls a six-pack of Heinekens from a noisy refrigerator.I believe I am being offered one of Bud Wilkins’s unwitting contributions to the guerrilla effort. I should know it’s best not to ask how Dutch beer and refrigerators and ’57 two-tone Plymouths with fins and chrome make their way to nowhere jungle clearings. Because of guys like me, in better times, that’s how. There’s just demand and supply running the universe.
    â€œTake your time, Alfie.” Maria is beaming so hard at me it’s unreal. “We’ll be back soon. You’ll be cool and rested in here.”
    Andreas manages a contemptuous wave, then holding hands, he and Maria vault over the railing of the back porch and disappear.
    She’s given me beer, plenty of beer, but no church key. I look around the room. Ransome or Bud would have used his teeth. From His perch, Jesus stares at me out of huge, sad, Levantine eyes. In this alien jungle, we’re fellow Arabs. You should see what’s happened to the old stomping grounds, compadre.
    I test my teeth against a moist, corrugated bottle cap. It’s no good. I whack the bottle cap with the heel of my hand against the metal edge of the cot. It foams and hisses. The second time it opens. New World skill. Somewhere in the back of the shack, a parakeet begins to squawk. It’s a sad, ugly sound. I go out to the back porch to give myself something to do, maybe snoop. By the communal laundry tub there’s a cage and inside the cage a mean, molting bird. A kid often or twelve teases the bird with bits of lettuce. Its beak snaps open for the greens and scrapes the rusty sides of the bar. The kid looks defective, dull-eyed, thin but flabby.
    â€œGringo,” he calls out to me. “Gringo, gum.”
    I check my pockets. No Dentyne, no Tums, just the plastic cover for spent traveller’s checks. My life has changed. I don’t have to worry about bad breath or gas pains turning off clients.
    â€œGringo, Chiclets.”
    The voice is husky.
    I turn my palms outward. “Sorry, you’re out of luck.”
    The kid leaps on me with moronic fury. I want to throw him down, toss him in the scummy vat of soaking clothes, but he’sprobably some sort of sacred mascot. “How about this pen?” It’s a forty-nine cent disposable, the perfect thing for poking a bird. I go back inside.
    I am sitting in the HQ of the Guerrilla Insurgency, drinking Heineken, nursing my indignation. A one-armed man opens the door. “Maria?” he calls. “
Prego.
” Which translates, indirectly, as “The truck is unloaded and the guns are ready and should I kill this guy?” I direct him to find Andreas.
    She wakes me, maybe an hour later. I sleep as I rarely have, arm across my eyes like a bedouin, on top of the mounds of boots and gear. She has worked her fingers around my buttons and pulls my hair, my nipples. I can’t tell the degree of mockery, what spillover of passion she might still be feeling. Andreas and the idiot boy stand framed in the bleaching light of the door, the boy’s huge head pushing the bandolier askew. Father and son, it suddenly dawns. Andreas holds the birdcage.
    â€œThey’ve finished,” she explains. “Let’s go.”
    Andreas lets us pass, smirking, I think, and follows us down the rutted trail to Bud’s truck. He puts the bird cage in the driver’s seat, and in case I miss it, points at the bird, then at me, and laughs. Very funny, I think. His boy finds it hilarious. I will
not
be