the city. Officials had taken his Colt from him at the border, but he had purchased a cleaver from a native butcher and upon spotting the fugitives, sought to put it to grim use.
His wife was so weak from love and diarrhea she could neither fight nor flee. “I'm like a cream puff with the cream squeezed out,” she sighed, and slumped on a bench to accept her fate. “I'll take care of you later,” said her husband and he made a move for Plucky Purcell. Plucky, too, was experiencing a touch of Montezuma's revenge but he nevertheless gave the greatest broken-field running performance of his career. Now, the coach, though a bit out of shape, was no lead-footed mover himself, yet after sixteen wild minutes through the narrow streets of old Guadalajara he fell to his knees panting frantically and watched Purcell stiff-arm an orange-juice vendor and disappear down an alley.
That midnight, as he nervously checked out of his hotel, Purcell paused to share a short tequila with the desk clerk. He gave the Mexican a true account of the day's adventure. “You are preety lucky, señor,” the clerk confided. “Not lucky,” said Plucky. “Plucky.”
As the careful reader might have supposed, Amanda has been a bit distraught of late. In fact, so preoccupied has she been with the fate of her husband—and the Corpse that accompanied him in his flight—that she just this hour noticed the writer's efforts at reportage, although all afternoon his typewriter has been bobbing before him like a rubber duck in a tub. At her belatedly expressed curiosity, the writer disclosed that he was attempting to record the bizarre and momentous events in which they seemed so irredeemably entangled. He did not, of course, tell her that it was she who was the substance of his accounting. To reveal that would be to reveal the breadth of his esteem for her—which she would consider excessively misplaced in light of the Corpse, who, dead as it was, was the true and important protagonist in this drama.
The extent of the author's regard for Amanda is a bagged cat to which he cannot grant amnesty at this time. There are too many unknown quantities. Not just the matter of the Corpse, which is scary enough, but personal considerations. What is to be Ziller's lot? What, for that matter, is to be the writer's lot? One does not sit at ease with one's future when one is trapped in a roadside zoo by agents of an unfriendly government, even when that government is one's own.
At any rate, it was admitted to Amanda that the report was only in its preliminary stages (otherwise, how can the writer explain his planned return to the keyboard in the morning?). She inquired if might not the report one day be of interest to historians and such. “Yes,” replied the author, “that's a possibility—providing it is not suppressed.” Silently, he added, “But if it's history they want, they'll have to accept it on my terms. I'm not without a sense of duty in this matter—but duty to whom is quite another business.”
It was then asked of Amanda if there was not some comment she might like to insert here at the onset of the account: no, it wouldn't interrupt continuity, no, not at all. In cutoff jeans that hung below her belly button and a gypsy cape that barely concealed her breasts, she was paler than the writer had ever seen her; a moistly gleaming ivory like the neck of a clam.
“Well,” she said brightly, “do you notice anything odd about these crackers?” She held them out in the woven Haida basket from which she was snacking.
“No, they look like ordinary sesame crackers to me.”
“If you were more perceptive,” she said, “you would have noticed that they have seeds on only one side.”
“That's true. Why don't sesame crackers have seeds on both sides?”
“They do at the Equator,” she said. “But in the Southern Hemisphere, all the seeds are on the
other
side.”
Sailing a lighter-than-air kiss at the author, Amanda vanished into her
His wife was so weak from love and diarrhea she could neither fight nor flee. “I'm like a cream puff with the cream squeezed out,” she sighed, and slumped on a bench to accept her fate. “I'll take care of you later,” said her husband and he made a move for Plucky Purcell. Plucky, too, was experiencing a touch of Montezuma's revenge but he nevertheless gave the greatest broken-field running performance of his career. Now, the coach, though a bit out of shape, was no lead-footed mover himself, yet after sixteen wild minutes through the narrow streets of old Guadalajara he fell to his knees panting frantically and watched Purcell stiff-arm an orange-juice vendor and disappear down an alley.
That midnight, as he nervously checked out of his hotel, Purcell paused to share a short tequila with the desk clerk. He gave the Mexican a true account of the day's adventure. “You are preety lucky, señor,” the clerk confided. “Not lucky,” said Plucky. “Plucky.”
As the careful reader might have supposed, Amanda has been a bit distraught of late. In fact, so preoccupied has she been with the fate of her husband—and the Corpse that accompanied him in his flight—that she just this hour noticed the writer's efforts at reportage, although all afternoon his typewriter has been bobbing before him like a rubber duck in a tub. At her belatedly expressed curiosity, the writer disclosed that he was attempting to record the bizarre and momentous events in which they seemed so irredeemably entangled. He did not, of course, tell her that it was she who was the substance of his accounting. To reveal that would be to reveal the breadth of his esteem for her—which she would consider excessively misplaced in light of the Corpse, who, dead as it was, was the true and important protagonist in this drama.
The extent of the author's regard for Amanda is a bagged cat to which he cannot grant amnesty at this time. There are too many unknown quantities. Not just the matter of the Corpse, which is scary enough, but personal considerations. What is to be Ziller's lot? What, for that matter, is to be the writer's lot? One does not sit at ease with one's future when one is trapped in a roadside zoo by agents of an unfriendly government, even when that government is one's own.
At any rate, it was admitted to Amanda that the report was only in its preliminary stages (otherwise, how can the writer explain his planned return to the keyboard in the morning?). She inquired if might not the report one day be of interest to historians and such. “Yes,” replied the author, “that's a possibility—providing it is not suppressed.” Silently, he added, “But if it's history they want, they'll have to accept it on my terms. I'm not without a sense of duty in this matter—but duty to whom is quite another business.”
It was then asked of Amanda if there was not some comment she might like to insert here at the onset of the account: no, it wouldn't interrupt continuity, no, not at all. In cutoff jeans that hung below her belly button and a gypsy cape that barely concealed her breasts, she was paler than the writer had ever seen her; a moistly gleaming ivory like the neck of a clam.
“Well,” she said brightly, “do you notice anything odd about these crackers?” She held them out in the woven Haida basket from which she was snacking.
“No, they look like ordinary sesame crackers to me.”
“If you were more perceptive,” she said, “you would have noticed that they have seeds on only one side.”
“That's true. Why don't sesame crackers have seeds on both sides?”
“They do at the Equator,” she said. “But in the Southern Hemisphere, all the seeds are on the
other
side.”
Sailing a lighter-than-air kiss at the author, Amanda vanished into her
Similar Books
