“I don’t have time today,” Geiger said as he went by.
“Whoa,” said Mr. Memz, grinning. “‘I don’t have time today.’ Shit, man-that’s five whole words. I don’t think you’ve ever said three words in a row. You keep running on at the mouth and I won’t be able to get a word in edgewise.”
Geiger stopped. He had seen something on the table, and the image pulled at him like a harpoon in his back. He returned to Mr. Memz’s station.
“So what’s it gonna be today, BT?”
“Two dollars.”
“ Two dollars? You think I live on Twinkies? You know what a GI with stumps gets from the government every month? And have I ever told you what ‘Nam Vet’ stands for?”
“Yes.”
“‘Not a motherfucking vacation ever taken.’”
“Okay, five dollars.”
“Now, that’s a number a man could get to like, BT,” said Mr. Memz, and his fingertips scratched at his granite beard.
Geiger put down his Burger King and drugstore bags, and picked up a well-thumbed copy of Jack London’s The Sea-Wolf.
“Nice choice, BT.” Mr. Memz stretched back in his chair. “Give me a smoke.”
Geiger took out a pack of Luckies and nudged one out. Mr. Memz stuck it in his lips as Geiger brandished his plastic Bic lighter, but Mr. Memz waved it off.
“Shit, man, have a little self-respect. Gonna kill yourself, do it with style, huh?” He picked up his worn chrome Zippo from the table. “This baby’s been with me since Nam. I used it in-country forty times a day. Worked every time, even in that endless, motherfucking rain.” He flicked it open and grinned at the singular click. “Great fucking sound.”
Mr. Memz talked more than any person Geiger had ever met, but Geiger liked listening to his recitals. And he liked watching the way Mr. Memz moved, how he’d refashioned his approach to a world created for two-legged men. Decades of whiskey and smoke had worn away the edges of his voice, making it a gruff foghorn. Sometimes, when there was bourbon in his blood, Mr. Memz would tug on his ponytail and talk about the friendship between physical pain and his body, and Geiger would pay close attention. The man knew all about pain.
Mr. Memz lit his cigarette and left it smoldering in his lips. “Let’s go.”
Geiger paged through the book. Without understanding how, he knew what he was looking for, and though the small letters shifted on the paper like jittery ants, he found the passage almost immediately.
“‘He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm,’” Geiger read, still unused to the rolling tumble of his voice inside his ears. Mr. Memz’s eyes looked up into his, and he began to speak, words and smoke coming out of him like a salvo of shots.
“‘He sprang for me with a half-roar, gripping my arm. I had steeled myself to brazen it out, though I was trembling inwardly…’”
“‘… though I was trembling inwardly,’” the nine-year-old boy read aloud from the book.
The boy’s father sat before the stone hearth, his thick body clothed in faded denim overalls. His right hand pulled at his dense clipped beard. He drew deeply on his cigarette, and as he exhaled the smoke turned pale amber from the fire’s light.
The cabin was the work of a master carpenter. The walls and cathedral roof were made of massive split logs. Windows were set high, so the view from within was only of lush treetops and infinite sky. The floor was an astonishing work of art, a detailed re-creation of Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights, the thousands of inlays a testament to virtuosity and obsession.
“‘He had gripped me by the biceps with his single hand, and when that grip tightened I wilted and shrieked aloud. My feet went out from under me. I simply could not stand upright and endure the agony.’”
“Stop now, son. He is overcome with pain, but the question is-why?”
“Because… because he is weak?”
“Weak, yes-but not of the body. True strength has nothing to do with muscles. His mind is weak because he doesn’t know pain-and what we don’t know, we fear. And it is fear that makes us weak.” He sucked on his cigarette. “Watch now.” He blew on the tip, sending the loose ash drifting away, revealing the hot orange flush. He lowered the cigarette and ground it into the top of his hand without a flinch or a sound.
“You see, son? Not the body. The mind. ”
Geiger became aware that Mr. Memz had finished his recitation and was now sitting back in his chair. With his eyes on Geiger, he flicked his butt away and offered up the smile of a charming lunatic. Geiger took a five-dollar bill from his pocket and held it out to Mr. Memz, who took the money and kissed it.
“Question, BT.”
“What?”
“During my splendid performance, you weren’t looking at the page and following along. So how do you know I got it right?”
“I’ve read it before. Many times.”
“Why didn’t you say so, man?”
“Because I’d forgotten.”
He started away. It was a downhill journey, and the spinning earth tugged at him. The heat rising off the street turned the view into a rippling, molten curtain. Two men at the entrance to the auto body shop wielded clamorous pneumatic tools, loosening bolts on the wheel hubs of a jacked-up, blood-red Magnum. The sun made the sweat on their bare mahogany backs a glistening polish.
A flash of light pulled at Geiger’s eyes. He turned and saw a silver Lexus with tinted windows cruising slowly up the street. Geiger crouched down behind a parked car and watched the Lexus pass by and then pull over at Mr. Memz’s post. The driver’s window came down and smoke drifted out from inside the car. A hand came out holding up a six-inch square card, its glossy surface glinting in the sun. Mr. Memz leaned forward in his chair and looked closely at the card. His lips moved, but Geiger couldn’t hear what he said.
The dark glass slid up and the Lexus pulled away. Geiger remembered that Hall’s insurance card said he drove a Lexus, but he couldn’t remember what color. His memory wouldn’t give up the information. He watched the car turn onto Amsterdam and drive out of sight, and then he moved quickly to Mr. Memz, leaning down to his ear from behind.
“Mr. Memz.”
The vet seized up in a flinch as if someone had hollered, “Incoming!” He twisted around.
“Fuck, man! Don’t be coming up on me like that!”
“I need to ask you something,” Geiger said.
Mr. Memz’s back rose and fell with a deep breath. “BT, I think I liked you better when you kept your mouth shut.”
“The Lexus. What did the driver want?”
“He showed me a photograph of somebody who looked a lot like you. Asked if I’d seen the guy around and said his name was Geiger. That your name, BT? Geiger?”
Where did they get a photograph of him? Geiger felt his ruptured seams being tested again. The more the world poured into him, the wider they stretched.
“What did you tell him?”
Mr. Memz’s thumbnail raked his beard. “‘I will give no information or take part in any action which might be harmful to my comrades.’”
“What?”
“Article Four, man. Code of Conduct. You don’t give up your own.” Mr. Memz smiled. “I told the guy I’d never seen you.”
As Geiger rose, he saw a double image of Mr. Memz that was gauzy at its edges. He knew what it meant, and what was on the way.
“Thank you,” he said, and headed for home.
