Manila Gambit. John Zeugner

of the things that disturbs me about you is the way you use terms like fault and my fault. You know what that signals to me? A desire to remain immature, to escape, to drift off, to elude even a little interconnection with anything else.”

      “Anything?”

      “Anything and everything.”

      “We’re interconnected,” I answer, enjoying the oysters less and less.

      “Very funny. Very amusing. Another distancing trick. She’d like to see you, and Hilly and I think—“

      “I don’t want to see her.”

      “Why?”

      “Because she always misinterprets what I say, what I do, what I think.”

      “She does or you do?”

      “Well, I’m not claiming to be in love with her. Not claiming that ‘our relationship’ makes the sun come up, the moon rise.”

      “You don’t have much compassion, do you?”

      “I’m eating with you, aren’t I?”

      “Precisely illustrates what I said, doesn’t it?”

      “You notice how we ask each other questions all the time?”

      Two enormous hunks of Crenshaw melon arrive, so ripe that my piece has a layer of goo along the top.

      “I have a proposition for you,” Waldo says, taking his knife and slivering the melon along the rind and then cutting neat cubes for eating. “Hilly and I want you to visit Pam. You owe her that. You should want to do it of your own accord. But if you don’t—for whatever reason—”

      “I could give you twenty. But they boil down to one essential: compassion, your favorite term. Remarkable isn’t it? Compassion. Why should I deceive her, exploit her?”

      “Can I finish?” Waldo continues eating two neat cubes and wiping his mouth with the immense blue napkin. “Let’s say you have valid reasons for not visiting the sick, or at least persuasive reasons. That brings me to my proposition. You visit her, You spend some time with her next week, maybe two days with her, or two visits for however long they allow, and in return I’ll see to it you get a byline column in the Tribune. That’s what you’ve wanted, isn’t it?”

      “I don’t care that much.”

      “We’ll see. I’ll get you a column.”

      “They won’t go for it.”

      “You let me worry about that.”

      “Well. Jesus! They won’t go for it.”

      “They don’t have to go for it. We, Hilly and I, have to go for it. And we do. We do already. Do you understand?”

      “I suppose.”

      “No. I want you to really understand it, understand the whole process. Arnie and Phil are cracker-jack editors, cracker-jack publishers, the best in this area—top flight. They know the business cold. They can do things, get things done. They know their trade. But that’s just what they are, superb trades men in someone else’s employ. At the behest of somebody else. Whatever objections they have are ultimately resolvable by someone else, because they don’t have controlling capital. It’s very simple. They’re excellent and replaceable. You could be excellent and replaceable—make a nice life for yourself. Work hard and develop highly expensive replaceability. Or you could think about taking care of Pam and become irreplaceable.”

      I start to answer, but Waldo holds up his hand, pushes his palm at me. “You’re glib enough and I’m tired of hearing your responses, to tell the truth. I want you to reflect a little on what I said. I don’t want to address that any more. I want you to think about it. I’ve thought about your situation. So has Hilly. We make a proposition. Let’s talk only about that. Forget the so called ‘long-term’ if you can, at least for now. What do you say? A visit or two in return for a byline column.”

      “My byline?”

      “Yes, sure.” Waldo watches my smile. “Then it’s done, isn’t it? This melon is delicious, soft, succulent, malleable.”

      Chapter 2

      “How do you feel?” I ask still staring out the window, through the dirty steel netting. On a log at the end of the parking lot an elderly black man has sat down and taken out a small, brown paper bag.

      “I feel very, very distracted, but it’s nice, you know.”

      ‘Yeah,” I answer, watching as the fellow drinks from the bag.

      “It is, you know. Waking up and thinking, well, where am I and how interesting these lights are and then wondering if I have a name. Have you ever gotten up and not known your own name?” And then . . . some things begin to come back, but sometimes it takes days.”

      “Eh hehn.” It’s a little early for muscatel. I decide it’s rye or perhaps tawny port in the bag.

      “And then they teach you how to make things. I’ve always like making things, though I hate to sew.”

      “Does it hurt?”

      “What?”

      “The treatments, do they sting? I mean I remember seeing movies of people leaping off beds and writhing around holding their temples. Does it hurt?” She regards me strangely. “I don’t recall any pain. I don’t think it hurts. They wouldn’t hurt you, would they?”

      “No. I suppose not.”

      “I only know it’s hard sometimes remembering where you are. Some days I think I’m in Connecticut. I spent a lot of time there, I think, in a place like this. And it was colder there.”

      “I imagine.”

      “But, anyway, that’s not what I wanted to say. What I wanted to say was that I’ve made something for you. Do you want it?”

      “Sure.”

      “Well, good! But you have to close your eyes and hold your hands out.”

      “I don’t want to hold my hands out.”

      “Yes, you do. Now close your eyes.”

      I hear her get off the bed and go over to the bureau. The sound of a light drawer opening. Then something rectangular and cold comes into my hands. (A task, Waldo remarked once, is a task—the merit of the task, the evaluation of the task is always fluid, depending on all kinds of factors. Rescuing the drowning baby and playing peekaboo with the same infant may be the same act, same worth, depending on who does the evaluating. You must remember that when you deal with Pam, and when the world deals with your dealing with Pam. Do you understand?).

      “Open your eyes,” she says with arch coyness and interest.

      It is a small black leather key pouch.

      “I made if for you yesterday, when Hillary said you were coming.”

      “You made it in one day?”

      “In one hour,” she says but without the pride I had expected.

      “It’s very nice and I can use it all right. Do you know I’m supposed to get a byline column?”

      “You notice how the plastic stitching tucks under there and then you just touch it with a hot soldering iron and it fuses stronger than a knot.”

      “I’m not sure what kind of a column. Maybe local stuff. Maybe national commentary . . . once in a while.”

      “It’s nice you’ve got something you’re interested in,” Pam says getting back on the bed.

      I put the key holder in my pocket and go back over to the window. The black man has splayed his feet out in front of the log. White, chalking dust from the parking lot has settled on his shoes.

      “I