VAGO, the novel

j r hammond (c) 1981

Anti-body: 

CHAPTER 1 THE VAN

    "Inside.  We must look inside," said the policia.

    He spoke softly from the cliff's edge, looking down at the wreck.

    His partner, who did not answer, was merely wondering again--for the

millionth time--how it happened in life that great wealth piled up in some quarters and in others did not.

    Neither moved.

    The one who had spoken continued to ponder the possibility of passengers--surely the tumble down would have killed anyone within.  As they wondered and pondered--it was a long climb down--the timeless pulse of the ocean, and the sudden collapse of a wheel, combined to loosen the broken van from its setting in the rocks below.  It slipped over on its side into the water of the Sea of Cortez.  It rocked gently back and forth with the action of the waves, trapped and bruised, while the two cops silently watched.

    From a high spot on a powdery road not far away, a pair of indios coolly observed the scene.  Descended from those who were once the world's greatest long-distance runners, these ones, whose genes remembered, even if their memories could not, out-running, out-lasting really, a buck or a band of Apaches on horseback across barren desert--no desert is barren--to deliver mouthfuls of water as evidence of their warrior-hood....

    These ones considered how this van, this home, smashed upon the lap of the sea, might best be saved and put to use. 

    These ones saw the van as shelter for doe-eyed, dusty brown innocents, who would be forced by the chill of winter to sleep in a pile together under grimy blankets because the sticks and the mud and the tarpaper do not keep out the wind the way a metal car would.

    These two brown, wiry men stood silently and watched.  Then, without comment, under the phlegmatic watch of pelicans perusing the shore from ancient flight patterns, they trudged off toward the bus and another day in the mine.

    Later, from one of several police vehicles attracted to the scene with roof lights flashing cosmetically as if there was someone to warn and something to warn them of, two of the greener rookies made the arduous climb down the cliff to discover that the van was vacant.  They find no broken corpses, no bodies tossed out on the way down, no signs of violence or skid marks from brakes being applied on the surface above.

    There remains one item of peculiar interest.  A clue, perhaps.  An old shotgun lies in the grass where the van had gone over. 

    It points out to sea as if purposely laid.

    Meanwhile, out on the highway some seven kilometers to the east, a lone early-morning hitch-hiker with backpack begs a ride.  The ride he catches is headed south, but to this young man direction does not matter.

    As he climbs into the truck a thirty-year old ex-school bus passes by.  No longer the familiar yellow, it cries from faded letters on its dusty blue-gray flank: "Minas de Sal de Sonora S.A.”

    Sonora Salt Mines.

    Within the bus, two of the miners, indios, note the hitch-hiker with flat acceptance.

    "Este," says one.

    "Si, por supuesto,” nods the other.  They concur without more being said.  Of course.

It was gringo.  

Come down.

---o---

VAGO the novel Chapter 2 THE BURNOUT

CHAPTER 2   THE BURNOUT

About Carol.

He thought there had been something wrong with them for some time.  She had been getting more and more detached and...I dunno, automated...at functions [they went to.]

He blamed it on the pace.  The old gang partied hearty.  Long-ball was the word among the guys.  [One had to last, y'unnerstand.]

Carol had never been long-ball, but she had kept up all right.  For a girl, they said. 

Texas leaguers and slash bunts had kept her in the game

--that, and the fact she was a beauty. 

But that didn't work the way one might expect:

[At heart she was not a partier.]

The girl deserved a cup, she was so good looking. 

Sometimes, near the end of a night,

when the energy finally backed-off to a bubbling overheated idle, he would sit still and look at her face.  He'd watch her crashed on the sofa drenched in the silver shimmer of their old color TV gone back to black and white.  Or, curled up in a cozy armchair before a dying fire at a ski lodge, he'd catch her in amber. 

At a stop light

on the way home

from a typical Saturday nite/Sunday morn, he'd absorb the quiescent

symmetry and grace

of her idyllic face sweetly tinged in the red glow.  Poised on the status streets,

he'd get into it: red, yellow, green, as the colors vied

to give the best tint to the dream.

[Red again.] 

He'd miss the light.

As she faded at the end of these long and reckless nights, he often wondered

what she'd be doing if she wasn't so pretty.  If she wasn't stuck with the idea

(and concurrent fear?) that people only liked her for her looks. 

'Cause she did keep up with the boys.

"Pound for pound, she buries us," he always said.

She was always accepted.  Everywhere.  The guess had to be that ninety per cent of it was due to her looks.  That's why she played so hard in his league.  She hit at the other ten per cent here.  And everyone in the gang liked her without regard for her face…^’cause she could party.  She had made friends in his clique.

He figured it was because she tried hard to add to the action, not just witness it [like a lump.]

In a public bar once she did a strip-tease that kept the place from closing on time. 

When the cops came, ten guys formed a wall for her to get dressed behind.  Another time she took half her paycheck--she wrote copy for "the largest ad agency N. of wacky Wacker”

--and blew it on Butkusberg Champagne, which'll give you a high and a head you won't soon forget.  The wild and crazy gang countered with coke and, later, after hours of sweaty dancing,

a great steak, totally lascivious and loud, at the Blackhawk.

(Where they use table cloth.)

"Did I have fun?" she asked him the following morning.

"Nah.  You were too cold with your clothes off."

He died.  Laughing.  At the look on her face.

It was a cluster of camaraderie.  Nobody cared, nobody stared. 

[They were used to her. ]

And she wasn't stiff with the other ladies either (who mostly came and went in those bawdy days.) It all fit just fine.  She'd hang with the girls all right.  They'd have lunch.  Go shopping.  They'd meet for a drink after work sometimes before joining the guys.

But even the best and the beautiful have dissatisfactions within.

And Willie finally deduced, too late, that it was a somewhat negative

Self-evaluation that compelled her to stay.  And play.  He probably didn't

want to think about it much because, back of the laughter, he knew

(must've) that it had to stop sometime.  Ten more years of this action and

they'd all be either dead or haggard.  But, heck, that was ten years from now,

right?

So when the crunch finally did come--when she got cured--he was ready for it.

It was the waste of time,

right?

She either grew up or got ambition.  Or both.

Maybe all three.

The change came shortly after somebody hired her to get her picture taken. 

That gave her easy pocket money.  More importantly, it propelled her into

a new world

where everyone

was beautiful.

Oh...?

It didn't happen overnight, but in the next few weeks she began to cool out. 

She had to do certain things for the photographers--for the light. 

Like sleep eight hours, eat some vegetables, and not get hung-over.

No big deal. 

He was glad for her. 

But he missed her a couple of times.

And he began to have doubts, for sure, about it all. 

Now she had to do certain things for the photographer--for the job. 

Now she had to attend some function or another--for her agent. 

She was meeting people.  Not all male models are gay. 

Perhaps zero photographers are.  But he kind of thought she'd be back because that world was so "superficial."

She didn't rave about it.  She described it as, she said it felt like,

[moonlighting.] 

A few extra bucks.  So it demanded a little discipline.   It's a temp assignment.  

Not a new career.   She's still a copywriter.   It buys CDs is all.

A new iPhone.

She'll get tired of the pretense.

[It'll burn out.]

Only it didn't.

They did.

---o---