“Many people feel that way,” I say, “until they learn the facts. Do you know how bodies are cremated?”
Interest flares in Ray’s eyes. He crushes out his cigarette.
“How?” he says.
“W-well,” I say. “The bodies are not handled with the loving respect they deserve. You know, they sometimes use a hook type device to handle the remains.”
“Really?” Ray says.
An evil look shoots across his face; he slides closer to me on the sofa.
“What else do they do?” he asks in a low, husky voice, blowing foul breath my direction.
Linda leans forward, her eyes fully open now, a lascivious smile curling her lips.
“I ... well,” I say.
“Come on, man, tell me!” Ray grips my knee.
I am instantly on my feet. Diabolical laughter chases me out the door.
Thrashing through the darkness, I somehow get to the Lincoln and roar off into the darkness.
45: Edge of the Abyss
“When a man fails in one world, he succeeds in another. Tis a very great pleasure to see and do new things.” – Cacambo, speaking in Candide, by Voltaire
Death image nightmares suffocate my sleep that night. Vance Cooper stars in the first ghastly scenario.
Vance sitting at his battered desk behind an overflowing ashtray – cigarette in one hand, a drink in the other. With every puff, his face becomes paler and more drawn. Crimson smoke drifts toward the ceiling which is dark and vaulted like an ancient tomb’s.
He finishes the cigarette as the last flesh melts off his skull. He raises the drink, and the glass clicks against bared teeth.
I wake up, run to the bathroom, drink some water and pop an aspirin. But as soon as I drop off to sleep again, the dead are back.
An announcer, who looks a lot like Frank Meade, steps into the television screen. His dignified, conservatively dressed demeanor clashes with his carnival barker sales pitch:
“Yes, folks, you really can take it with you!” he shouts. “Death does not have to be an expensive and unpleasant chore! At Valley Oaks, you’re more than just another corpse, and we aren’t the only ones who will be pleased at your arrival. So, when that old Grim Reaper comes a-knocking, you can rest assured ...”
A choir sings an idiot song in the background, using the same melody as one of the Robert Hall Clothing jingles:
Though your coffin is under the ground (hey hey!),
you can still be financially sound.
Valley Oaks this season will show you the reason.
Six feet overhead,
you’ll be glad that you’re dead!
The clock radio puts a merciful end to this. I jerk my head off the pillow, then relax back, secure in the knowledge that ten minutes of classical music await before the buzzer goes off.
Unfortunately, the goddam station is playing the Mozart Requiem. The music lulls me into a half sleep and returns me to the events of fourteen years ago – by far the worst nightmare of all.
Victor and I are at the funeral home, sitting on either side of Mom in the front row of chairs. Mom is rigid and motionless, almost as if she is dead herself. Ahead of us, the elegant wood casket where Dad is laid out. I can just see his face protruding from its terrible enclosure – serene, quiet, with no hint of suffering.
Floral scents waft from the arrangements around the casket. I glance away. When I look back, the flower arrangements have multiplied greatly. The odor becomes overpowering, sickly. I’ve always hated the smell of flowers since then.
Grandfather Alois hobbles toward us, scarcely able to move. The strong, vigorous gentleman with the von Hindenburg mustache has become a shattered old man.
The scene abruptly changes to a wedding party. My bride, dressed in white with her face obscured by a black veil, sits beside me in the limo. I look out the back window and see a long procession of dark Lincolns with pallbearer rails on the sides. Our car drags black streamers behind it. I take my bride’s hand; it is cold as ice.
Finally, the alarm buzzer ends my suffering. I roll out of bed exhausted and sore, as if the heavyweight champ has worked me over. I stumble downstairs and brew some coffee.
“The cemetery office called,” Mom says. “They want the car back by 12:00.”
“Okay.”
I peer outside at a beautiful May morning. The Lincoln’s massive bulk crouches on the driveway absorbing the brightness. I slurp down some coffee. The car’s hulking presence proves that the experiences of last night had really happened and were not just another nightmare.
How had Bob West phrased it? “Some experiences I can do without.”
Hard to believe that less than a year has passed since he said that on the day we battled the demonstration in Seoul. It seems like decades have interposed themselves between me and those times.
I retreat upstairs to prepare for my trip to the cemetery.
After a long, hot shower I lather up for a shave and wipe a swatch of steam off the mirror. The desperate face of a person who has run out of options stares back at me.
How can I possibly continue with this horrible job? But what’s the alternative – busing tables at some hamburger joint, working a car wash? And how can I stay here in this house with Mom and Ed? That, too, is a slow death.
The thought of calling Julie pops into my mind; maybe I can make up with her. But how can I handle the heavy duty commitment she wants? I feel myself on a tight rope, ready to totter off any second.
I finish shaving and rinse my face with hot water. A fresh layer of steam covers the mirror. Without giving my action any thought, I write on the glass with my finger:
I head downstairs and open the front door just as the mail man is coming up the walk. I hold out my hand for the mail. Big mistake. Chief, who hates all outsiders, misinterprets the situation. From his viewpoint standing in the dining room, all he sees is some stranger reaching in at me. He charges in a fury, knocks the screen door from my hand, and bites at the mail man.
“Ahhh!” The guy screams.
He jumps away, scattering mail.
I fling my arms around Chief’s neck and pull with all my strength. Hard muscles work under the puffy hair with a violent desire to rip and kill. Somehow I hold him back.
“What’s going on!” Mom cries.
I manhandle Chief into the kitchen and then out the side door. I return to the living room and plop down on the sofa, utterly exhausted. Mom has brought the mail man into the bathroom and is doctoring his wound. Fortunately, he’s suffered only a torn pant leg and a light graze.
A monster headache reaches up from my tensed shoulders and grips my skull. Won’t this ever stop? My whole life is one ghastly episode after another. God, could I use a drink!
Maybe I can stop for a quick one on the way to the cemetery. No, that’s not a good idea. Best believe that Ms Davenport would detect booze on my breath and inform the Boss that I’ve returned their motorized coffin in a state of inebriation.
As I leave the house, I discover a letter addressed to me lying in the shrubbery. A Michigan return address! I tear it open:
Hey Tyler,
Should your employment prospects be as lousy as mine are, you might want to consider another overseas adventure. I’m going to Iran, of all places. I’ll be working for an American training company there teaching English to the Iranian army.
This ain’t no kettle of makoli! The money’s good, and the company needs more teachers. You could get a job, too. Of course, I’d put in a good word for you.
I’m leaving in a couple of weeks for orientation in Chicago. Maybe we could go together? Here’s the company contact info and my phone number. Best time to call me is weeknights after 10:00 real time (that’s Michigan time). Take care.
Your old chingu,
Robert L. West (Bob)
My headache vanishes instantly. I seem to be leaping out of a dark valley onto a broad, sunlit mesa.
Iran? Victor once did a repo
rt on that country back in junior high. The Iranian embassy sent him a full-color book. All I remember is an ornate portrait of the Shah, Empress Farah, and the little Crown Prince – all looking glittery and content in their royal finery. I know little else about the country.
No matter, Iran isn’t here, and that’s what counts. Here can only mean the death business or an endless sentence flipping burgers – while Iran beckons with high-paid, exotic adventure.
Ancient Persia. I’ll be following in the steps of Alexander the Great! Who can tell what discoveries await?
I jump into the Lincoln and roar off to the cemetery, stopping only long enough to toss the keys on Ms Davenport’s desk and retrieve my Chevy. By early afternoon I am on the phone to the training company’s office. That night, real time, I call Bob.
Then I leave for Iran.
Seven: Stages of Revolution
46: First Impressions of the Kingdom
Having been condemned by nature and fortune to an active and restless life ... I again left my native country. – Gulliver’s Travels, Jonathan Swift
From the DAS ROAD diary, by Bob West
I don’t think I’m going to like Iran. In fact, I know it.
Everything started out okay. Orientation in Chicago was a blast. Good restaurants, jazz clubs, a boat cruise on Lake Michigan. The others in our group were cheap and stayed in nights, but Tyler and I blew every cent of our per diem.
Things started to go sour on the flight to Tehran. The food was terrible, and the Bloody Mary I drank gave me a headache. I don’t think the headache is going to leave as long as I’m here.
After a brief stop in Tehran, we bussed across the desert to Esfahan. Then the real fun began.
Jolfa Hotel
We arrived in Esfahan and checked into the Jolfa Hotel. We’ll live here until we find other housing. A little background info:
Bell Helicopter International (BHI) has sold Iran a big helicopter fleet. So, there’s a huge demand for Americans to train Iranian pilots and mechanics. BHI has scraped the bottom of the barrel pretty hard to fill all the jobs. Some of the people they and other American companies have brought here are real pricks!
I saw a lot of these types circulating through the Jolfa Hotel. Most of them are ex military and many have Vietnam experience. I don’t want to overstate this. God knows, if I had passed my physical, I’d be a war veteran, too.
Most of the guys are okay; a lot have wives and kids with them. But there are quite a few ass holes, too. Anybody can see this, so there’s no reason to go into a lot of detail.
But even the best ones don’t know how to act in a foreign culture. They offend the local people without meaning to just by the way they walk down the street and by their loud conversation.
The Iranian helicopter pilots and mechanics need to learn English. That’s where we come in. Our company is a BHI subcontractor. Many of us are former PCVs, so at least we understand that we are in a foreign country and must show some respect.
One night Tyler and I were hanging around the lobby when some American bastard had a run in with the Iranian desk clerk. It was a small issue, but the American was being very loud and insulting. Afterwards he sat down by us. He was a big, older guy with a gray brush cut.
“I’ll give you a word that solves lots of problems,” he said. “W-A-R!”
“Oh, really?” Tyler said.
“Yeah,” the guy said. “It gets rid of the excess population.”
He didn’t stick around long, thankfully.
“I can think of one person in the ‘excess population’ to get rid of,” I said.
“Yeah,” Tyler said. “Guys like that make you understand why we’re loved all over the world.”
Tyler left on one of his walks, and I went to the hotel lounge. Elaine was sitting at the bar with two other single American women. Elaine has been in Iran two years working for the company. I sat by them, but they were too busy chatting among themselves to notice me.
“I hadn’t screwed around that much,” one of the girls was saying, “but I could tell the guy was really bad. You just knew when he was turning from page 5 to page 6 of the sex manual.”
I sipped my beer. Kind of hard to ease into a conversation like this one. Two drunk American guys sat on the other side of the women, ogling them. A couple of Iranian slime balls at a table also looked interested.
“Excuse me,” I said.
The girls stopped blabbing long enough to look my way.
“There’re some nasty looking guys in here,” I said. “Maybe it would be best if you called it a night.”
“I don’t give a shit!” Elaine replied.
So, I finished my beer and left. As I was waiting for the lobby elevator, an uproar came from the bar. Shouts, busting glass, the usual brawl noises. I got on my elevator without looking back.
The School
There was some uncertainty about where we’d be working on the army base south of Esfahan. We’d either go to the Flight School and teach helicopter pilot trainees, or we’d be assigned to the Mechanics’ School. Finally, word came down that we’d be going to the Mechanics’ School.
“Good luck,” informed people said. “You’re in for it now!”
Everything about the Flight School was much better, they said. The building was nicer, and it was located on the main base. The level of students was higher, too.
At least I had some warning, but I was not prepared for our first trip to the Mechanic’s School. The building sits in the barren desert on the ass end of the army base. Absolutely nothing around it, just this concrete block. As if somebody dropped a big public lavatory onto the moon. The place smells like a john much of the time, too.
It is supposedly a converted barracks. For who, the lost battalion? Damn! The Shah is paying billions for helicopters and other military stuff. Can’t he afford a few bucks for a decent training facility?
Tyler and I were assigned to different instructor groups. I went with him to check his out.
Tyler’s first floor “teachers’ lounge” was even worse than mine on the second floor. A big, battered table with equally battered chairs around it, dingy walls, dust and crap. The guy sitting at the senior instructor’s desk looked familiar, though I didn’t recognize the bushy red beard. Then he said something in a German accent.
“Rolf Ullrich!” I said.
“Yes?” he looked up.
“I’m Bob West, we met on the boat to Japan. Remember?”
“Bob!” he stood up. “And Tyler, too.”
We all shook hands.
“Do you still have that record player?” Tyler asked.
“Yeah,” Rolf said. “Do you want to buy it? While you’re at it, do you want my job, too?”
“I hadn’t thought about it,” Tyler said.
Rolf lowered his voice. “Let met tell you, man, it really sucks.”
My senior instructor, lowest level boss, is an American guy named Pete. We didn’t hit it off. I didn’t hit it off very well with my class, either, though probably no worse than most other teachers. These cadet mechanics sure are a world apart from the middle school girls I taught in Korea!
Many of the staff members wear “distinctive clothing” supplied by the company. This uniform consists of gray slacks and a blue jacket with the company logo stitched on the left breast pocket.
“That looks like a bull’s eye right over your heart,” Tyler commented.
We’re all supposed to get distinctive clothing and are required to wear it. I can’t wait. Colonel Shanaz, the base commander, gave us a talk. God, what a nut case! I kept pinching myself, asking if this all is really happening.
The Jolfa House
A veteran teacher named Chuck Starsky (no relation to the TV cop) had space available at his house, so Tyler and I moved in. It’s a big, traditional type place in the Jolfa Armenian quarter not far from the hotel. His roommate finished his two-year contract and is heading home.
Stars is the most laid-
back guy I’ve ever met, but his old roommate, Lou, is a nervous wreck. He’s returning to Indiana – not a day too soon, according to him. He said that Iran has worn him out. Worse, he’s injured his back somehow and moves slowly and painfully.
The last evening before Lou left for Tehran, the four of us sat in the kitchen drinking. Then Lou got up to leave. He hobbled out to the narrow kuche and got into a taxi, a battered veteran finally returning home.
Tyler and I traded glances. What the hell are we getting into?
Social Life, or Lack of
Many gay men work for the company. I don’t give a shit, as Elaine would say, but quite a few others are upset. You hear a lot of gay bashing comments.
This situation is no surprise, considering the dismal female prospects here. Just try to talk to an Iranian woman and you risk getting clobbered by her male relatives. If your intentions are totally “honorable” and you’re willing to convert to Islam, you might be able to marry an Iranian girl. If you can even meet her in the first place.
As far as anything else, forget it. The single foreign women are having a field day, and a lot of the married ones, too, I’d suppose.
Our coworker, Bert, is a late middle-aged gay man from Savannah. He’s out of the closet and cuts quite a figure with his wrinkled face and henna-dyed hair. He enjoys teasing Arlene, a middle-aged gal notorious for her sexual exploits.
“Ah-leen,” Bert says, “I’ve got something for you. It’s six inches long and you’re gonna love every inch of it.”
“Bert, all you do is talk!” Arlene replies.
When we first got here, Bert invited me to a party at his house. What did I know? It soon became obvious that the other guests were gay and that I was being checked out. The guys were nice and all, but I felt very uncomfortable. Then I slipped on a loose carpet and fell. My drink glass tumbled away, spilling booze and ice over the floor.
“Well, Bob, that’s one way to break the ice,” Bert said.
I’ve been breaking a lot of ice. Booze is our security blanket, along with hashish and even some opium. Tyler is getting concerned about this. I am too. I try to like this place, but I’m like a guy beating his head against the wall and saying:
“If I do this a few more times, maybe I’ll enjoy it.”
Tyler is all excited about the helicopter orientation rides we’re supposed to get, but I’m not interested. I contacted my friend, Paul, in Bangkok and asked him to check out teaching jobs for me. I’ve got to get out of here!