Manila Gambit. John Zeugner

enough. Have you reconsidered? I thought you had, else you wouldn’t be here. I remember you said you’d never visit me here again.”

      “I thought you’d never be here again.”

      “That’s not what you thought—not what you meant.”

      “Ah, maybe . . . Anyway, I’m here, aren’t I?”

      “And have you reconsidered?”

      “Let’s say I am reconsidering.”

      “Oh, that’s good. That’s very good.”

      Reconsideration seemed the kindest term, since I was visiting her in the first place. Why visit to finish something off and then finish it off only to visit some more? There were attractions, Waldo noted, in a wife who periodically couldn’t remember who you were.

      “I told Dr. Coffee this morning that you were the first person I ever had an orgasm with. The first and only.”

      “When did you have that?”

      “You remember. You have to, because you asked me what was going on.”

      “I don’t recall.”

      “Does it hurt?” she says smiling, “I mean the shock treatments?”

      “Very funny.”

      “You can go now, if you want. Is somebody waiting for you in the parking lot?”

      “Yes. Why don’t you come over and see.”

      She slowly gets off the bed and we stand at the metal screen and I point out the Negro who has slipped off the log. He rests his back against it, and the brown paper bag has become a kind of wet and grey appendage to his left elbow. His hat is pushed down over his face, and his head is slumped forward, sleeping.

      “Is he a friend of yours?”

      “No. He’s a friend of yours.”

      “Well, if he is, I don’t remember him. At least not yet. If he comes tomorrow maybe I’ll remember him then.” She pushes back her black hair, cut Egyptian style, caresses her rather long neck. “Would you like a wallet made from the same material?”

      “Sure, if it’s not too fat a one.”

      “I’ll make it very thin,” she says, “very, very thin. And you can have it when you come again.”

      “That may not be until next week.”

      “That’s okay, as long as you’re reconsidering. Then I can keep making it.”

      “Could you go out for lunch or something, sometime?”

      “Dr. Coffee doesn’t think so. Not for a while, he says.”

      “Well, maybe he isn’t the last word.”

      “Yes, the last word,” she answers somewhat distractedly. She climbs back up on the high bed, leans back, head against the yellow wall. There is a white track-light just above here left shoulder. In fact, it seems to sit on her shoulder like an owl, a cylindrical owl.

      “I should be going. I’ll bring you the first column.”

      “Column? About what?”

      “They haven’t said yet.”

      “You’re writing a column now?”

      “Well, I’m starting pretty soon. You’ll get the first one.”

      “Oh.”

      “Yes.”

      “I don’t read newspapers much,” she says, smiling, then turning to look at the track lamp. “Do you think this,” she clinks it with her fingernails, “is part of me or apart from me?”

      “Depends on how you sit.”

      “Well, I think I’ll lie down. Could you lie down with me?”

      “I don’t think so.”

      “Oh, come on. Just for a minute or two. You could lie right here beside me, and we could talk.”

      “I think it’s against hospital policy.”

      “Well, goodbye, then. I’ll make your wallet for the next visit. You’ll see me then.” And she nods off, so that in a minute I can stand beside her and listen to very regular deep breathing.

      In the parking lot I am tempted to spinout in front of the old Negro flailing up dust enough to cover his whole body, but I realize I only envy his wondrous, un-electrified sleep.

      Chapter 3

      True to his word, Waldo works his peculiar magic. On Monday Arnold and Phil send a message down that I should meet them in their office foyer, by the coffee machine, a nifty cream and blue Japanese vending machine that Waldo saw in Tokyo and convinced Hillary the paper couldn’t do without. Arnold and Phil look a lot alike. Each wears light grey trousers and a short sleeve white dress shirt, narrow dark brown or green ties—it’s difficult to tell in the fluorescent light near the machine. Arnold carries a manila folder. Phil holds to cups of coffee.

      “Thanks for coming down,” Phil says evenly, handing Arnold a cup. “You can get one if you want.”

      “It’s okay. I usually don’t drink the stuff.”

      “Smart boy,” Arnold volunteers.

      “Yes,” Phil answers.

      “How long have you been here?” Arnold asks with just a trifle edge in his voice.

      “Five months, I guess,” I answer, wary now. For some reason I begin to imagine that one of them will fling his coffee in my face.

      “You like working here?”

      “Sure. Sure.”

      “Ever think the paper might lack something?”

      “Yes, does it ever seem incomplete to you? You know, with a big void somewhere, where it really should have something? Some papers are like that, you know. Some have terrific sports sections or society columns, maybe great arts reviews, and nothing whatsoever in international news. You ever feel the Trib lacks something?”

      “Some void you could fill.”

      This is apparently a routine. I’ve heard some of the reporters refer to it as the A & P workover. I decide silence is best. No sense prodding the already sensible fury present. Then Waldo’s phrase slowly emerges from some self-protective depth. The sign slowly comes up from underwater and it reads “Replaceable.” These guys are replaceable. I feel better listening to the routine.

      ‘For a long time now, I’ve thought,” Arnold says across the top of his coffee cup, “that this paper needs a chess column. And Phil and I were just talking about, and we thought, is there somebody here, some newcomer, some fresh blood, some young talent that deserves a break?”

      “Deserves a byline,” Phil interrupts, “because, after all, chess columns all have bylines and we thought of you.”

      “I don’t know anything about chess.”

      “What do you know about the city council, about the police department, about firefighting, about any goddam thing? What do you know about any goddam thing?”

      Phil seems really angry, but Arnold’s voice is suddenly soothing. The old good-guy-bad-guy routine. “New reporters don’t know very much, but they learn. You could write a piece on the city council. You can write pieces on the chess world.”

      “I don’t play chess.”

      “You don’t run for city office either.”

      “You’re right,” I answer evenly, “and I don’t plan to.”

      “What is that supposed to mean?” Arnold asks.

      “Nothing.”