(As written by a non-american)
Autumn, New York, 1949
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J |
ohn Wayne leant casually against the Empire State Building. Six foot four, with large, blunt features, he looked as if he’d been shaped by the hand of God on the day that He had forgotten His tools. He wore an expensive, but plain, dark brown suit with a simple, long sleeved, white shirt beneath it. His feet were encased in a pair of creased leather boots and the wide brimmed leather hat that he wore was sun faded, its rich brown texture leeched away by the ritual rise of the sun. Wayne wore the hat pulled low to obscure his features as he waited and watched the crowd shift and twist around him.
He had been waiting for nearly sixteen minutes. The worn out stub of a cigarette staining his fingers with faint, decay-yellow nicotine measured the time. Once, he had been the kind of smoker that burned through a smoke with impatience but now, in his forties, Wayne had changed his style. He smoked slowly, tasting the tobacco, nursing the hot sensation into his throat, allowing it to soak into the flesh. It took him eight minutes to make his way down to the end of his cigarette, until he had nothing more than a tiny nub in his fingers to drop onto the pavement and squash beneath the front of his boot.
A second butt crushed: sixteen minutes exact.
When he returned his gaze to the world, he found his companion crossing the road: Orson Welles. Younger than Wayne, and pressing outwards in a fleshy smear, Welles was still an imposing figure. He was supporting a short goatee around the chin of his boyish face, and wore a bone-coloured suit, a red handkerchief in the left breast pocket, and a dark grey shirt beneath the jacket. In his pale hands, he carried a long cane. Much to the irritation of Wayne, he held it as an accessory, rather than a necessity, and spun it in a circle as he crossed the road.
He said nothing about it. Instead, he pushed himself off the wall, tilted back his hat, and grasped Welles’s hand in a friendly shake.
“I apologize for my lateness,” Welles said with exaggerated politeness, waving his cane at the traffic. “You know how Manhattan is.”
Wayne nodded and, without another word, the two men began walking, joining the pedestrian flesh that ran throughout the city in a long, sinuous vein.
In front of Wayne was a young, slowly fattening Indian couple who, when they glanced behind, began whispering quietly but excitedly to each other. On his right walked a black man in a green suit, holding a tiny blue radio (Wayne was sure it was a radio) up to his ear. To his left was Orson, and then the traffic, full of crawling yellow and black cabs.
“It’s good to see you, John,” Welles said, his cane taping out a disjointed rhythm.
“You too.”
“You look good.”
Wayne glanced at his companion slowly, then said, “You look like you’ve put a bit of weight on.”
“It comes and goes,” the other replied blandly.
Reaching into his jacket, Wayne pulled out cigarette, followed by a box of matches. “Still, you ought to watch what it makes of you.”
“Indeed.”
Wayne followed Welles into a narrow alley. The buildings rose in a patchwork pattern of red and brown brick, laced with cement, while the pavement beneath was swept clean. At the end was a single door, without a sign, and through it, a dimly lit antechamber. Welles nodded at the tall, lean black woman standing behind the counter in a tailored black suit, and Wayne expected her to speak in return, but she inclined her graceful neck, and directed them to the door wordlessly. Beyond it was a long, dimly lit restaurant: the booths and seats were covered in rich crimson splotches of velvet, and down the middle was a line of black circular tables. In the dark, Wayne could not make out the patrons easily, though he could hear the scrape of their knives and forks and the unintelligible whisper of their conversation.
A black man in a crimson jacket directed the two to their booth. He had an ethereal quality about him, suggesting that his station, dictated by the matching jacket, was more important than his personality. To Wayne, it was the nature of the service industry, though he was surprisingly irritated when the waiter tilted his head and smiled in his direction and, ignoring Welles, uttered the only words he would say throughout the entire meal, “I’m a big fan, sir. It’s my pleasure to serve you.”
Once seated, Wayne dragged the ashtray towards him and ground out his cigarette in the glass bowl, leaving black stains. “Strange place,” he observed, removing his hat.
“Always the obvious statement, I see. But I like it,” Welles replied. “It’s unlisted, and very quiet about what one orders.”
“Really?”
“The press is a pestilence.”
“Has its uses when movies come out.”
“Indeed it does, but we’ve had this conversation before, I think.”
“True,” Wayne replied. He fell silent as a menu was place in front of him. When the waiter had left, he said, “Guess we’ll need a new topic.”
Welles leant forward, and whispered, “How about the Soviet Union?”
“What?”
“Or Joseph Stalin?”
“Christ,” Wayne muttered sourly. “That ain’t funny, Orson.”
Welles leant back, smiling faintly but without mirth. “I’ve got to warn you, John. I’ve heard that Stalin himself has put a price on your head.”
“Best of luck to him.”
“It’s not a joke. You’ve been quite public with your hate for communism.”
“It ain’t no democracy,” Wayne replied, his voice rising. He hesitated, not wanting to speak politics, but gave in. “There ain’t nothing right and decent in the way Stalin runs his people over there, and I ain’t going to be quiet about it.”
“You won’t hear me defending Stalin. I’ve heard of awful things done in his name.”
“Damn right,” Wayne muttered. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a red and white cigarette packet, and a brown box of matches.
“But,” Welles continued, “but. He isn’t to be taken lightly, either. The man does run a country.”
“The man’s a beast.”
“He’s just a man, John.”
“No.” Wayne flicked his match, and brought the flame to the end of his cigarette, where, after drawing in his first breath, he waved it out. Smoke trailed in a grey, indistinct wisp over Wayne’s sun-browned face, then evaporated. He said, “No, he ain’t. Maybe everyone who follows communism ain’t bad. I’ll allow that. But the face of it nowadays is that of a rabid beast, and the leader of that pack of beasts is Stalin.”
“Still, you should watch yourself -”
“No,” he replied shortly, cutting Welles off. “I know you say it out of friendship, Orson, really I do, but no. You’re wrong. You can’t be no coward ‘bout what you believe, and a man has to say what is right when it is so. Especially men like you and me, since we got louder voices that most other folk. And one of them responsibilities of having that voice is exercising it. That’s the notion this very country is built upon. That’s what democracy is.”
“This democracy is not perfect,” the other replied. “Or are you forgetting that it stole this country from the natives?”
“It’s two different things,” Wayne replied angrily. “We didn’t do anything wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and them Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves. Maybe we weren’t right in the way that we did it, but without us, this land would’ve stayed nothing but mud and tents.”
“It must be lovely to see everything so black and white.”
“So long as you make sure you’re on the white side. Now let’s change the subject. I didn’t come out all this way to argue with you.”
* * * *
They ordered. The food arrived and settled wordlessly. After the waiter had left, and in the dimness of their booth, Wayne tried to warm to his companion, but Welles’s words had dug beneath his sun-browned skin and laid a tiny egg into his mind. No matter how he tried to brush it off, tried to smile that dismissive half a smile of his, his thoughts kept returning to the egg and its suggestion that it was true.
After the meal, Wayne and Welles stepped out into the overcast afternoon. The city’s fragile shadows fell over them like thin sticks of crumbling ash. Welles, leaning on his cane, said, “It was a pleasure, John.”
“Yeah, it was nice,” Wayne replied, pulling out his cigarettes.
Welles nodded, motioned to speak again, but stopped.
“What?”
“Remember what I said,” Welles advised quietly, leaning forward. “A red menace is not to be taken lightly.”
Wayne frowned around his cigarette, but before he could press Welles, the other man shook his hand and left. It was strange, but then Welles was strange. He had been ever since Wayne had first met him - it was a strangeness that, in his mind, resulted in people not wanting to work with the man, despite his talent. Still, it was not his problem.
By the time Wayne was on his second cigarette, he was on the Avenue of the Americas, and behind three Korean men in identical dark blue suits. Behind him walked two black women, and their conversation, high pitched and full of unnecessary hyperbole, reached over him: one of their children had enrolled in the US Army, and was currently sending them postcards from France, telling them of a world they had never seen. It was beautiful, they said, though it took Wayne a moment to register the she - a mistake on his part no doubt -
He bumped into the Korean men.
“Sorry there,” he began, the words dying in his throat as the three turned to face him.
Red. The first thing he noticed was the red handkerchief in their pockets; each folded just like the one before it. Then their eyes: dark still pools that reflected his frozen face back at him. With a hesitant step - why was he hesitant? - he tried to croak out his apology, to force it through the sudden chill that ran down his back and caused the Welles egg to crack ever so slightly open.
The middle Korean pointed a long finger at him and spoke sharply in his native language. Around him, the crowd stopped, and swelled, bloated with curiosity.
Wayne took a second step back. “There ain’t no need for that kind of language,” he said quietly, holding up his hands in a show of peace. “It was just an accident.”
The Koreans stared at him, their bodies still, their eyes never wavering, that hint of red in their breast pockets never evaporating - that red over their hearts.
“Christ,” he muttered, anxiety rushing through him. He tried to push it away, but couldn’t. The cracks in the Welles egg splintered, the shell parted, and tightness grew in his chest. His palms began to sweat. He glanced around him, but did so too quickly, and couldn’t make any of the features out about the people around him.
Frantically, Wayne ploughed through the people to his right, bursting out of the flesh ring around him. Free, he stood isolated upon the footpath. Next to him was a large open window belonging to a florist, its display patterned in red, white and purple. The distortion of the final colour registered with a slither up his spine. It wasn’t right. Something was wrong. People flowed around him in tiny isolated droplets, but he remained, he realized, out in the open, where anyone could see him. Anyone.
The thought was ridiculous. More, it was stupid. Wayne knew it. It was utterly stupid, but before he could cast the thought away - and as if following some other directive than his own - his gaze followed the rim of his hat up into the grey sky and along the rooftops that were mapped out in a jagged line. Some man could’ve made his way up the stairs. He’d want a fine perch, so he could pick his moment; he’d have to organize it so that there wasn’t a crowd around me, he’d have to make sure that I was suddenly in the open and that his shot wouldn’t miss.
Nonsense.
Yet he turned in fear.
His gaze ran over the crowd around him, catching a hint of red. The Koreans. They were quiet and still, watching him, stripping back his flesh with their gaze, squeezing the Welles egg and cracking it further ...
The middle Korean stepped forward, and slapped his hands together.
Wayne didn’t wait to see what happened: he fled into a side street, away from the Avenue of the Americas.
* * * *
As he ran, Wayne’s mind fought to be rational. He pushed together the Welles egg, made the cracks tiny and indistinct, though he could not remove its foul presence entirely.
His run slowed, turned into a striding walk, and a new cigarette burned away as he tried to orientate himself internally. Externally, he didn’t recognize the narrow and empty street he was on. Forty-third? Thirty-fifth? The sky failed to reveal his position to him: the buildings looming around him were identical to hundreds of others throughout Manhattan.
There was only one difference to the streets he had just run through. It identified itself along the street with a bright splotch of neon red and blue that ran along the top of the building, spelling out ‘Wal-Mart’.
Wayne approached it slowly. A fractured voice in his subconscious questioned the presence of the store. It wasn’t right. There was something wrong. Yet, in contradiction to the tiny, isolated thought, the sign remained with its bright electric red and blue beacon. The glass windows were papered in advertisements from the inside, offering chocolate for ninety-nine cents, six rolls of toilet paper for two dollars, bourbon for seven, and an endless run of colourful items that Wayne had never seen before, their prices bursting out in red and yellow.
Dimly aware he was doing it - and without knowing why - Wayne dropped his cigarette to the ground before entering. Inside, the light was bright. So bright that it would have been in competition with the big spot lights used on sets; but unlike those, which worked with one huge, bright, hot focus, the lights in Wal-Mart ran along the roof and gained strength by reflecting off the white floor and ceiling. It gave the building’s presence a hazy, indistinct quality as if it were constantly shifting in and out of focus until finally it did settle, and a sense of calm settled over Wayne.
Glancing to his left and right, he stared at the clothes on the racks: they were of a design he’d never seen, and made stranger by the fact that the colour had been washed out by the light, leaving what remained to look as if it had been made from watered down dyes. Around him a characterless sweet-toned murmur of music passed from unseen speaker to speaker in Chinese Whispers.
There was no need for him to be in the store, no reason for him to continue, but he did. The clothes shifted in the cool, artificial whisper of the air conditioning, and soon he came upon aisles of plastic boxes and saucepans and bicycles that looked space age. Food was also offered, and behind him, the entrance to Wal-Mart disappeared in a bright whiteness ... but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered in the tranquillity of the store.
The glass cabinets at the back of Wal-Mart were a beacon for him - it was possible that they had been calling ever since he had walked through the doors, and that their promise was a need that only his subconscious had been aware of and that, only now, he was coming to know about.
When Wayne stepped around the corner, leaving the washed out blue and black of car repair kits and the brown of fishing rods behind, a smile unfolded across his face and he stopped. There, he took in the sight of each long item in one long drinking glance.
Guns.
There were over fifty; most were the length of his arm and ended in polished wooden stocks.
Wayne approached them slowly. The voice of dissent that had raised itself earlier was gone, but it had left a faint tactile impression on his brain, suggesting that this wasn’t right. But what could be wrong? How could it be wrong? The guns, neatly lined up, were soldiers: loyal and steadfast and unquestioning in their proposed service.
“See anything you like?”
Wayne blinked. He had believed he was alone, was sure of it, though he wasn’t quite sure why he had been so confident of the fact. It was a store. Stores had employees, even without customers. Nevertheless, the young man materialized as if God’s pencil had suddenly sketched him into the world. There was nothing extraordinary about the young man: angular, bony, without muscle, and white. His skin much paler than Wayne’s, and his hair a short, spiky blonde that had been dyed in a fashion trend that Wayne was unaware of. He was wearing black pants and a store t-shirt with the name ‘Lincoln’ printed upon it.
“Sorry to startle you,” the young man said, offering his hand.
Wayne took it: loose and dry. He said, “Don’t worry none about it.”
“Cool.” He retracted his hand. “See anything you like?”
“They all look good,” Wayne replied, his gaze returning to the black metal shafts.
“They’re great for protection - I mean, you’ve got to protect yourself, right?”
Without changing the focus of his gaze, Wayne nodded.
“It’s an increasingly dangerous world out there. It’s not what it used to be in the streets or in the world around us. A lot of people envy the kind of freedom we’ve got. Especially in some of those - in you know, the black” - he whispered the word and it escaped his lips like a curse - “neighbourhoods.”
“Black?” Wayne repeated, a sour expression crossing his face.
“Yeah, man. You got to watch for them, y’know? They make up around seventy percent of the jail population, most of them in there for armed robbery or murder or -”
“I have no problem with an American,” he interrupted. “Don’t matter their colour.”
“Well, individually, yeah, some of my mates are black,” Lincoln replied quickly. “But that’s individually. As a group - as a group, you’ve got to admit it’s something different. A lot of hate in those people as a group.”
“We ain’t done well by most of them.”
“We’ve been more than fair.”
“No,” Wayne said, the word ringing out with a deep certainty. “We ain’t been fair to them. The key to being an American is freedom - notice my emphasis. We got to make sure it’s for everyone in America, not just those people born the so-called right colour. Black people have the exact same rights as me and you, and not respecting that, that was a thing that we’ve got to deal with, cause we’ve done wrong by them.”
“I didn’t do a thing to them!”
“You’re American, right?”
“Damn straight,” Lincoln shot back. “Proud of it, too.”
“Then you got to accept that this fine country hasn’t always had its finest moments when dealing with some other folks.”
“But-”
“No,” Wayne repeated sternly. “There’s right and wrong, and we did wrong.”
The young clerk stared at him, clearly not pleased. Then, with a slight smile, he ran his hand through his hair and said, “Well, I’m not going to argue with you, man. Never thought I’d hear that in here, though. Next you’ll be saying we should give back the Native Americans their land.”
Wayne shook his head. There was no humour in the situation. “Ain’t been nothing wrong done there, boy, and don’t let me hear you argue it like some folks I know.”
“Course not.”
“Good. Now, I’ve been looking over your guns here, and I reckon I fancy the look of that 12 gauge you’ve got there.”
“The Browning, yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s three ninety eight.”
Kinda expensive, Wayne wanted to say, but the price was quite good. What was he thinking? “That’s fine,” he said, finally.
Lincoln pulled the key out of his pants, opened the glass cabinet, and removed the shotgun. Outside the glass, the barrel and wooden stock was darker, as if the entire shotgun had gained an extra weight in the reality of the world simply by being placed in Lincoln’s pale hands. Reaching out, Wayne took the weapon into his own grasp as if it were a child. He had been around guns all his life, both real and fake, but there was a rare joy in holding a new gun for the first time to become acquainted with its texture. He could tell that this shotgun was something special: a rib of the Earth that God had reached deeply into and pulled out.
“Yeah, this’ll do,” Wayne murmured, placing it down on the counter, his fingers never leaving the metal.
“Okay,” Lincoln said, appearing on the other side of the counter. “It’s pretty easy from this point onwards: all I need is two pieces of ID and for you to answer some questions for me. Then, well, then this’ll all be for you.”
Wayne nodded. He opened his wallet and pulled out his driver’s license and credit card, and passed them to Lincoln.
The clerk examined them, nodded, and handed them back. “Okay, that’s fine,” he said. “Now you’ve just got to answer these questions - I’ll just fill in your name and address here at the top.
“Okay,” he said, having finished filling in the details. “First. Have you ever been convicted of a felony?”
“No.”
“Are you, or have you ever been, homosexual?”
“No.”
“Do you regularly wear black?”
“No.”
“Are you black - ah, don’t worry about that. It’s just the next question, sorry.”
Wayne grunted, his displeasure evident. “I don’t like that question, boy. Colour ought to not have anything to do with it.”
“It’s just the question. I don’t write the sheet. Anyhow, you’ve got one left, ready?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay.” Lincoln took a deep breath, and in a rush said, “Have you ever thought that your Government is lying to you? And that this lie exists to hide the truth about a political system that has ceased to be about democracy. That a Capitalist-orientated Government runs the country not with the needs of the people in mind, but rather with the needs of its investors? These investors being the large companies that support the President during his campaign for office. Furthermore, has it ever occurred to you that this Capitalist Government is promoting a Right Wing Christian view through the implementation of political and economic policies on a global scale which is ensuring that new technologies and theories that exist outside the Capitalist canon are stunted in their growth?”
“I can honestly say,” Wayne said slowly, “that I ain’t never thought that in my entire life.”
“Great,” the other replied brightly. “I’ll just call, get everything checked, and then, assuming there’s no problems, the gun is yours.”
Wayne waited while the young man called. It took five minutes for him to repeat the information, and another five to wait for confirmation, and then he hung up. “Everything is fine,” Lincoln said. “Just got to pay for it.”
“Sure. Credit card is there. Don’t suppose you mind giving me some shells?”
“Sorry, it’s against store policy.”
“Sure?”
“Yeah, but there’s a K-Mart a block down, and you can get some there.”
“They ain’t going to say anything about me bringing in the shotgun, right?”
“Won’t be a problem. You’ve got a receipt.”
* * * *
The shells were easily obtained. Wayne placed them in the box next to the 12 Gauge, held both in his right hand and felt, for the first time since leaving Welles, safe. Safe enough that, when he figured out where he was (38th Street), he didn’t hesitate to make his way back towards the Avenue of Americas, a stream of cigarette smoke trailing in smoky-grey victory.
Above him, the sky rumbled with thunder. The fragile shadows that had strained earlier across the ground finally broke and seeped into the concrete, washed away like dirt down a drain. Wayne didn’t quicken his pace. Let it rain! He didn’t care. Nothing bothered him. If it weren’t for the people around him, he might have laughed at the fear he had felt earlier. A fear that did not bother him as he paused at the curb, waiting for the pedestrian light to change, and saw two Middle Eastern men step from a yellow and black chequered taxi.
Wayne didn’t know from just where in the Middle East they originated. It could have been Afghanistan, Iran, or Pakistan; he wouldn’t know unless they announced it. Identically shaped, they were thickset men just under six feet. The first man, wearing a blue turban, had a face that been horribly scarred by acne. The second man, in a white turban, had a thick moustache and eyebrows and thick, short neck, as if he were missing a vertebrae or two. Both wore grey suits, with red handkerchiefs in their pockets.
Red.
Nothing to worry about, Wayne told himself, his grip tightening on the box. Nothing.
Their gaze fell on Wayne.
He smiled politely in return. Red. Why did he care? He didn’t. Yet Welles’s egg sat in his brain, connecting with the colour as if it was an answer to a question that had plagued him since his birth.
The two men made their way up the street, their gaze never leaving him. Wayne told himself that he had nothing to worry about - nothing - but the Welles egg fractured and its fluid began to seep out, sending a small wet curling finger of fear through him. He tried to ignore it. He had the shotgun: its very design and purpose to protect its owner. There was nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.
The pedestrian light changed.
Crossing, Wayne quickened his pace. At the end of the road, glancing behind him, seeing them following - redredredredred - he dropped his cigarette and began weaving through people. His thick hands bent the corners of the shotgun box, and dampness began trickling down his spine. Behind him, the two Middle Eastern men quickened their pace.
Ahead, the pedestrian light was red. Red. Christ. He knew that if he waited, it would bring the two Middle Eastern men up beside him. Good. No. No, it wasn’t good. The shotgun box dug into his palm in demand. He wanted to rip the lid off and load it. But he wouldn’t. He would feel safer if he did - he should - but he wouldn’t. He couldn’t open the box, not here, not in the middle of the street.
Wayne left the Avenue of Americas.
He turned sharply, making his way towards Park Avenue by using Sixth Street. Quickly, he worked his way through the people, pushing past them, telling himself - lying, he was lying - that he was only heading down to the street early because it was quicker to the Waldorf and it was going to rain. That was all. It had nothing to do with the two men. Nothing.
He glanced over his shoulder, searching for their turbans. Nothing.
He was a fool, an idiot, yet his grasp relaxed. He blamed Welles entirely, even though the fault lay within him. He had allowed the tiny doubts and fears to flood over him and force him to react in a fearful, suspicious way. An un-American way.
Walking up to the front of the Waldorf, Wayne greeted the doorman in a short, terse greeting.
“Sir?” the short man said.
“Yeah?”
“There are two men waving at you, sir.”
Bending the box with his grip, Wayne turned. There, at the bottom of the steps, were the two men, their red handkerchiefs brightly displayed. The colour was all that he could focus upon, all that mattered, and his hand, bending the box, came into contact with the stock of the shotgun ... Then, and only then, did Wayne realize that they were holding a pad of paper out to him.
“Please,” the blue turbaned man said. “We were told we could find you here.”
Wordlessly, grinding down on his teeth, Wayne laid the pad across the crushed shotgun box, and signed his name.
* * * *
He wanted to call Welles and attack him over the phone, but he didn’t. He knew that if he did, the other man’s response would simply be to deny it and chuckle down the line at the success of his private joke. But the next time he saw Welles... well, that was another question, and another time.
Placing the shotgun box on the coffee table, Wayne kicked off his boots, and dropped his hat down on the chair. A moment later, he picked it up and tossed it onto the table with the shotgun, then sat down and pulled the phone towards him. There was a line of lightning outside the window, followed by the sound of rain smacking against the glass in a hard rhythm. At least he had avoided the storm. That was one thing. Dialling room service, he ordered a dinner of steak and potatoes, then hung up, picked up the receiver again, and called his wife.
Esperanza answered on the third ring. Her sweet voice reached him with the faint trace of static, “Hola.”
“Howdy.”
“John! Es tan bueno oir de usted. He estado preocupado.”
“Worried?” Wayne frowned into the phone. “What’ve you got to be worried ‘bout?”
“Oi ese Joseph Stalin -”
“You ain’t been talking to Welles have you?”
“Orson? No. No, un periodista llamó esta mañana, lo buscando.”
“Reporters,” Wayne repeated sourly. He pulled out his cigarette packet and shook one of the slender white sticks into his mouth. “There ain’t nothing to worry about, love. Welles is just playing some sort joke. Probably like that radio play stunt of his.”
“Ah, bien. El periodista no pensó era un chiste. Quizá debe ser usted un poco más cuidadoso?”
Tiny spark of fire, a burst of smoke around the mouth piece. “I’m always careful.”
“Bien, quizá usted puede ser un poco menos critico del Comunismo?”
“I ain’t going to be quiet with my opinion just cause of some story,” he replied immediately. “This is America and I got the freedom to say whatever I want.”
“John.”
“Don’t John me like that. I’m right, and you know it.” He drew a long, satisfied lung full of smoke, his first since meeting Welles. “People ought to be free to say whatever it is that they happen to be thinking, no matter what other people think. That’s what being in America is all about. And don’t you say you don’t think that, cause I know a girl on this phone that damn well stuck up for her right to say whatever she feels, and that’s why she’s an American too.”
“Acabo de preocupar es todo.”
“There ain’t nothing wrong with worrying - ah, Christ, that’s the door. My food. Hold a sec.” Wayne placed the receiver down and, as he walked to the door, pulled his jacket off and tossed it onto another chair. He opened the door, and said, “On the phone to the wife -”
The world stopped.
In the hallway stood a silver cart with his dinner, but behind the cart stood two white men. The left man - the blond one - wore the uniform of the Waldorf, but was obviously too big for it, while the second man - dark haired - wore casual brown pants, a white shirt, and a thick jacket. But it was not the strangeness of their dress, or the cold look on their faces that caused Wayne’s heart to skip one of its life securing beats.
The men held small silver pistols with thick silencers at the end.
Welles’s egg shattered.
“Shit.”
Wayne didn’t have time to move. It was a blink to take in the scene, and in that blink, the whispered spit of the bullet sounded and pain burst in his chest. Blood blossomed - his cigarette tumbled - then blood blossomed again. He stumbled backwards. He screamed - or did he? His perception swam through the pain wracking his body. Had he called out to Esperanza?
His voice failed to call out as the two men entered his room. One closed the door softly, and another stalked in squeaky shoes across the floor. Wayne tried to push himself up, to lurch towards the shotgun, to grab anything. Yes, it was unloaded, but just grabbing it would buy him precious moments. Outside the rain was falling harder against the windows, its tempo matching his pulse as he moved across the floor, pounding, pounding, urging him on, pounding the beat of life for everyone as he pulled himself up against the table and reached for the box -
There was the whispering spit of a bullet again, and pain in his back.
Wayne crumbled onto the carpet, the box out of his reach. Groaning, he rolled himself over so that he could face his assassins, and meet his death.
The dark haired men crouched down in front of him. “Well, goddamn, John Wayne, dead at my hands. Who would’ve thought.”
“You god ... damned ... snake ...” he muttered harshly, spitting blood.
“You don’t die like your films,” the man continued, taping the silver, silenced end of the gun against Wayne’s head. “Shame. My folks love them. Real American they say. But look how you die, man, all covered in blood like you’re just anybody.”
His vision was slipping, turning grey, but he spat out, “Traitor!”
“It isn’t that simple,” he replied, softly and with contempt. “But if it makes you feel any better, Stalin’s money will be going straight back into the economy.”
Wayne’s right fist connected solidly against the man’s face and a loud, bony crack followed. A bullet sliced into his arm, snapping Wayne’s vision back into focus. The blond assassin was taking aim; Wayne dragged his companion in front of him - the man, dazed, his noise crumpled, offered no resistance. On the floor, his pistol lay like a silver dollar.
The whispering spit again, and the dark haired assassin jerked, moaning loudly.
Wayne grabbed the fallen pistol and bought it up.
The shots caught the blond man in the chest and pitched him backwards. Wayne, his vision dimming again, pushed the dark haired assassin away, intent on shooting him too, but there was no need. The man’s eyes were wide and his lips bubbled with blood: his breath sounded in shallow gasps as if he were asking God how the world he had been so sure of had failed so suddenly?
“Yeah,” Wayne muttered faintly, “I got that question.”
* * * *
Orson Welles stood in the waiting room of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital. It was different to how he last remembered it, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on what that difference was. It just felt wrong. In fact, everything of late felt wrong. But then why should it feel right? He was standing in the horrible, antiseptic smelling white waiting room of the emergency ward, waiting for the doctor, fearing the worse, and feeling responsible.
The doctor emerged from behind the white doors. He was a narrow, white man, with short grey hair. In a quiet, serious voice, he said, “I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that he had lost too much blood, and one of the bullets struck a vital organ -”
“When?” Welles asked, his voice sounding as if someone else had spoken it. Why he didn’t feel anything? Shock. It must be shock. “When did it happen?”
“Ten minutes ago.” The doctor paused. After a moment, his carefully constructed façade broke, and disbelief slithered across his face. “I did not think it was possible for him to ... I just didn’t think he would. He was so strong - a healthy, vital man, in every aspect. I just - I just can’t come to terms with what I know.”
“Doctor,” Welles interrupted kindly. “He was just a man.”
“He seemed more, somehow.”
“The lie of the screen.”
“Don’t you have anything to say?”
“No,” Welles replied softly. “What does it matter what any of us say, now?”
Ben Peek is the Sydney based author of the dystopian novel, Black Sheep, and the autobiography, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth. His short fiction has appeared in Overland, Polyphony, Aurealis, Agog!, and Fantasy Magazine, among others. If you want to find him, he keeps a lo rent web page at http://benpeek.livejournal.com.