The White Flamingo by James A. Newman Page A

decided to find out. They rode a buffalo cart along the road until they came to a town and then a train station. They hid in a bunch of rice sacks and took the train to the city, to the lights, to the jobs. There was this thing called money, with it you could buy stuff. You could gamble, drink, and be merry. After a period of two years, one of the young men returned to the village driving a new car. He showed the villagers all the beautiful things that he had bought. He said that there was work for everyone in the cities. He took another young man and two young women with him. They were pretty in a rural way and very hungry for money. Money was good. They liked it. It was a great adventure.”
    “I know where this is going …,” Joe grinned and looked up at the row of bottles above the bar. He looked at his empty water glass. He looked at Hale. He couldn’t have been more than thirty-five years of broken dreams and tired memories. Already ruined. The east had done it to him. Broken teeth, red eyes, oily skin. The alcohol escaping through every pore. The harsh tropical sun. The needle was better in the long run.
    The bottle was a killer.
    He thought about a shot. 
    The toilet door was plastic with a ventilation panel. He walked in, sat on the toilet seat, undid his belt, and pulled it through the loops. Tied it. Chose a purple close to the wrist. The syringe was manufactured in Germany. He had no time for disposables. A man got close to his works. Closer than any woman. Shame to see it die. Cooked up the brown on a spoon. Cigarette lighter. Read the graffiti writing on the toilet door as the plunger fell. Telephone numbers. A stickman picture of a man with a huge penis. It felt like relief. Perhaps that was all pleasure was. Relief from tension. Perhaps the stickman with the huge cock had it all worked out.
    He closed the door behind him. Hale was in mid-flow. Hale was an entertainer. Entertainers usually died young , exhausted, unsatisfied, and thirsty. One look at Hale helped Joe with his sobriety. The brown didn’t count. Some folks were put out there to be nothing more than a warning to others. Hale was such a person. A living and breathing example of what happened when you lived the dream until it became a terrible nightmare. The soda water was all that he needed. That and the brown.
    “Hale, I’ve heard this shit a million times.”
    “Yes, but these fellas haven’t, Joe. Listen, just listen.” Two more foreigners had entered the bar, sat, ordered, and listened to Hale. A priest giving a sermon. His church the bar, his congregation sex tourists. “One of the girls went back to the village and showed them all the things she had found there. With the road came electricity. The villagers built rude huts. She had bought a refrigerator for her mother and father and had bought some land in the village. The young women in the village wanted to go to the city too. They wanted to buy refrigerators and build houses too. They wanted to make their parents happy. They wanted face, lots of face, they wanted card games, buffaloes, the biggest house in the village. The biggest face. It was so easy to go to the city. Nobody lost. Their parents were happy when they had money, having lived without all their lives. So she brought more girls to the city. The city liked girls. They found a place on the beach called Fun City. Hundreds of girls were there; girls who liked refrigerators, Coca-Cola, and making their mothers happy. It was like one big happy family. Once poor, now they were rich with the foreigner’s money. Soon there were thousands and then tens of thousands. After many years there, were no girls left in the villages. They had all moved to the cities and the beaches and everybody lived happily ever after.”
    “Apart from the young men in the village,” Joe said.
    “No, no, this is where you are wrong. The boys came too. They spent the days with their sweethearts and drank whiskey while their girlfriends worked in