Das Road

  “Yeah, that’s true.” Something like regret tinges Jon’s voice.

  He bangs his chair legs back down, and I flinch again.

  “How are things at the Mechanics’ school?” he asks.

  “The pits,” I say. “So many people have left that we can hardly run the place.”

  Jon nods. “Uh huh.”

  He doesn’t really care about events at the school, he is only terminating the previous topic of conversation. Jon doesn’t care much about anything or anyone, I figure.

  He spreads a map out on the table and points to a large shaded area. His oversized hand hovering over the paper looks powerful enough to crush a coconut, or somebody’s wind pipe.

  “Here’s where I plan to go,” he says. “It’s supposed to be a wildlife refuge. You on?”

  “Sure,” I say,

  “I’ll get you tomorrow morning, then, 7:30.”

  The business portion of the meeting over, we concentrate on our beers. Things are heating up at the bar between the newcomer and another American in a BHI sweatshirt. Voices raise and stools push back. The Vietnamese bartender beats a hasty retreat.

  “Look at that!” I say.

  Jon glances over his shoulder. “The chaos, man, it’s spreading. Get used to it.”

  He folds up the map, indifferent to the developing brawl.

  The two Americans wrestle against the bar, the newcomer gaining the advantage. Glasses smash to the floor. Then the guy in the BHI sweatshirt manages to slip free and run like hell out the door, much to the amusement of the two other jerks at the bar.

  “Way to go, Alex!” one them shouts.

  “Come on, Jon,” I say. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “I haven’t finished my beer yet.”

  “Well, I’m gone,” I say.

  “Okay, hold on.”

  Jon drains his bottle. I move to the exit and wait for him there.

  “Where’d she go?” Alex is bellowing at the bar. “I need another beer, mine broke on the floor!”

  The other two jerks laugh.

  “He’s in rare form tonight!” one of them says.

  “Somebody bring me a beer!” Alex whines. “Please!”

  He looks around the room, spots Jon.

  “Hey, you!” He points at Jon. “Go back there and bring me a beer!”

  “Sorry, man,” Jon says. “I don’t do that.”

  Alex heaves his bulk off his bar stool and blocks the way as Jon tries to pass. The bastard is, literally, twice Jon’s size.

  “Maybe you didn’t hear me!” He grabs Jon by the shoulders.

  Jon drops down, simultaneously flinging up his arms to break the grip on his shoulders. Then he shoots back up, rotating his weight behind a brutal uppercut to Alex’s groin.

  Oooof!

  The big man rises up on tiptoes like some porcine ballerina, his eyes look ready to pop out of his head. He begins to crumple. Jon slips behind him and hangs from his belt. A moment later, Alex crashes to the floor.

  The other two creeps jump off their bar stools.

  “Get him Alex!” one shouts.

  “Help me break this up,” I say.

  “Shit no!” the other creep says. “We want to see your little friend get his ass kicked.”

  I look down helplessly. I can’t stop the fight by myself, and if I try to help Jon, the others will jump me.

  The two combatants flail around on the floor with Jon momentarily on top. He takes advantage of his position to inflict an elbow strike, followed by a head butt. Blood flows from a gash over Alex’s eye.

  Roaring with pain and rage, he flings Jon off of him like a rag doll. Jon tumbles to the side but holds onto Alex’s arm. He wraps his legs around the beefy extremity.

  “Thanks for the arm, pal!” Jon says.

  He arches his back and strains mightily against Alex’s arm – face reddening, cords sticking out on his neck. Then a loud, sickening SNAP!

  Alex’s roaring changes to a high pitched scream.

  “Ahhhhh!” Like a damned soul on judgment day. “Ahhhhh!”

  Jon disentangles himself and stands up – bouncing on his toes prize fighter style, as if he is just getting warmed up. The two jerks look on, wide-eyed. Jon flicks a punch their direction and they both stumble back, practically falling over themselves.

  On the floor, Alex continues screaming. His arm is bent back at the elbow into a horrifying angle. My beer starts to regurgitate.

  “Shut up!” Jon shouts.

  He delivers a vicious kick to Alex’s face. A tooth flies out and ricochets off the bar.

  “That’s enough!” I shout.

  I try to restrain Jon. He feels like a granite hurricane thrashing in my arms. He flings me off and turns his full fury my direction. For an instant the world stops dead, and all I see are two murderous eyes boring into me. The pit of hell seems to rip open.

  Then the moment passes as quickly as it came.

  “Okay,” Jon says, perfectly calm, “let’s go.”

  Alex is whimpering on the floor, reduced to a small, beaten child. Bloody little bubbles gurgle at his lips. His two pals stand by with their mouths gaping, like the morons they are.

  “Tell your friend no hard feelings, eh?” Jon pulls a bill from his pocket and slaps it onto the bar. “Drinks are on me.”

  We get the hell out of the bar and climb into Jon’s VW.

  As we drive through the quiet streets, Jon’s giggles carry across the darkened car, chilling my nerves.

  “Poor Alex,” he says, “now there’s a guy having a bad day!”

  Jon’s efficient brutality has numbed me into silence. Compared to the destruction I’ve just witnessed, my ‘fights’ at the judo school back home have been child’s play.

  “Could’ve been worse, though,” Jon says. “If I’d had my toothpick with me, they’d be roasting him for kabobs about now.”

  “I’ll never go back there again,” I say.

  “Don’t worry,” Jon says, “the revolutionaries will probably firebomb the place before long.”

  “No doubt.”

  Jon giggles some more. “Hey, maybe I’ll do it myself. Might be interesting.”

  If he meant that as a joke, I’m not laughing. Suddenly I can’t bear to be around Jon another second.

  “I need some air,” I say. “Can you let me out here?”

  “Suit yourself.”

  He whips over to the curb and lets me out. We part without saying good-bye.

  I walk the last few blocks to my apartment. Curfew is forty minutes off, but the streets are practically deserted. I pass a large army truck. The soldiers inside are listening to Iranian pop music on a tape player. One of them jumps out onto the pavement and dances to the accompaniment of the music and the snapping fingers of his comrades.

  The soldiers’ blue shoulder patches identify them as a unit from outside the Esfahan area. The government wants to lessen whatever sympathy individual soldiers might have for the locals they are ordered to shoot. Aside from this minor change in uniform, these guys seem just like my students.

  My suspicious Iranian neighbors watch me from their windows as I enter my apartment building. I feel their disapproving presence behind their closed doors as I shuffle up the stairs like Ebenezer Scrooge ascending to his grim abode.

  My apartment is cold and unwelcoming. After a miserable lukewarm shower, I try to relax with a cigarette, but at 8:30 the electricity goes off and the demonstrations begin. I creep over to my living room window and nudge it open so as to gage the location of the mayhem.

  It is coming from the general area of the bazaar, as usual. The chanting of thousands drifts into my gloomy apartment, like the roar of a fervid crowd at some nightmare sporting event.

  “Allah u Akbar!” God is Great!

  “Javid Khomeini!” Long Live Khomeini!

  Then comes the gunfire – volleys of massed rifles and the solo death rattle of a machine gun. More chanting, more gunfire. Star she
ll flares rocket into the night sky, their sick red glow offering the only illumination in my barren chambers. A stench of explosives drifts on the night breeze.

  I lay on my couch, chain smoking, until the mayhem finally ceases. Then uncomfortable sleep, with the violence continuing in my dreams:

  Roaring crowds being mowed down by machine guns, a severed arm laying on the pavement, snapped off at the elbow – and obscene giggles running though it all.

  59: To the Back of Beyond

  How the soul of man is transformed according to the climate, the silence, the solitude, or the company in which it lives! – Zorba the Greek, Nikos Kazantzakis

  A fine, crisp morning abates my night terrors. I eat a sparse breakfast. Since I am out of cigarettes, I relight a butt from the bottom of a drained Chateau Rezaiyeh bottle. The smoke from the cigarette stub, supercharged with stale wine, hits me hard.

  Jon’s VW rumbles up to the building right on schedule. Gripped by a curious, almost frantic, elation, I bound down the stairs. Maybe it’s because I have another day of life while so many others must have lost theirs last night. A high school punk off for a joy ride couldn’t have felt more excited.

  Jon remains in the driver’s seat silent and immobile, looking straight ahead – like a robot waiting for the proper moment to activate. The VW is heavily loaded with the front passenger seat shoved forward to accommodate the jumble of stuff in back. Jon seems to have lost his talent for organization. The car is a mess.

  I cram myself into the passenger seat and shove my knapsack in with the other baggage. My elation begins to moderate. Two large cans of gasoline repose amidst the camping gear.

  “Isn’t it dangerous to drive around with gas cans?” I say.

  “There probably won’t be any gas for sale where we’re going,” Jon says. “Would you rather run out in the middle of nowhere?”

  I’ve barely closed the door before the car takes off, hurtling us down the side streets. Jon drives with an abandon worse than the most reckless Iranian motorists, whipping the little car around corners and working the stick like a professional racer. My body shifts uncomfortably with every turn. I try to calm things with vapid conversation.

  “Weather’s improved, hasn’t it?” I observe.

  “Uh huh.”

  We zoom down a winding side street, the car listing sharply on every turn. Jon seems to have gone mad – like that bus driver in Korea.

  “This isn’t the Grand Prix!” I say.

  He ignores me. Engine noise echoes off courtyard walls on either side of the kuche. We fly around one corner and almost skid into a jube. Some women washing clothes jump back.

  “Yow!” Jon yells.

  The final length of kuche is straighter, and Jon guns the engine mercilessly. We gain the main thoroughfare – right into the midst of trouble. Jon hits the brakes, nearly pitching me against the flat windshield.

  “What’s this?” he says.

  A flaming barricade blocks our progress. Its appearance is so unexpected, that I think a piece of hell has suddenly erupted from the nether regions. Black, poisonous smoke swirls about from burning tires and other debris.

  An acrid and unholy stench penetrates the VW despite its rolled-up windows. I twist around to look out the back. Other cars have piled up behind us, blocking a retreat.

  “We’re cut off!” I cry.

  Fear reaches out for me from the intense heat. The goddam gas cans in back might explode any second! A military truck pulls up on the wide sidewalk next to us. Soldiers clamber out while demonstrators across the street harangue them and throw rocks.

  Our VW stands between the two groups. Rocks bounce off the roof and hood, one of them cracking the windshield. The soldiers level their guns. Jon rolls down his window.

  “Get out of the God damned way!” he bellows at the cars behind us.

  Vehicles back off. Jon wrenches the transmission into reverse and pops the clutch. The VW stalls out with a jolt. The demonstrators surge forward to take advantage of the cover our car provides, dodging around us and taunting the soldiers.

  “Death to the Shah!” they cry. “Long live Khomeini!”

  A ragged teenaged boy, his face smeared with soot, glowers in at us.

  “Death to America!” he shouts.

  Jon gets the engine started and roars off in reverse. An Iranian on a motor bike swerves to get out of our way and tumbles onto the pavement. Jon stomps the brakes, whips the steering wheel around, and wrenches into forward gear. We take off down another street. Behind us, the soldiers open fire.

  Barricades are going up on this street, too. Young demonstrators are piling rubbish and dousing it with gasoline – tires, crates, trash bins. Fires everywhere.

  “They’re cutting off the whole area!” I shout.

  Disorganized groups of Iranians dash through the street. Jon swings the car, narrowly avoiding them. I slump down, praying that nobody else recognizes us as foreigners. We race toward the obstructions.

  “Hang on!” Jon yells.

  I brace my hands on the dash, eyes bulging with terror. We head straight for a metal trash bin.

  “JIE-ronimo!” Jon cries with almost orgasmic delight.

  “Christ!” I yell.

  Terror catapults before my face like a demonic jack-in-the-box.

  At the last moment, Jon flings the steering wheel around. The car misses the trash bin by inches, smashing into a pile of burning crates instead. The pile explodes, and a flaming crate strikes the windshield, cracking it further. The crate balances against the glass obstructing our view, then tumbles off in a shower of sparks.

  “We made it!” Jon shouts. “Fucking A!”

  Soon we are motoring on the outskirts of town, passing along streets eerily quiet after the mayhem we’ve just witnessed. Jon relaxes, a contented little smirk playing around his lips. The final clusters of buildings recede, and we move into open desert.

  I want to make some comradely remark, compliment Jon on his daring. But my heart still beats so rapidly that I can’t keep my voice steady.

  “Wine skin,” I croak.

  Jon points a thumb toward the back. I dig out the skin and fire a jet of red liquid into my mouth. The rich, leathery taste calms my shattered nerves a bit. I offer the skin to Jon.

  “No thanks, man,” he says with a trace of irony. “It’s not safe driving like that.”

  I keep an intermittent stream of alcohol coming for myself, slurping it down as if my life depends on it. The desert miles begin to interpose themselves between me and the madness in Esfahan; the terror jack-in-the-box slips under its lid again.

  Fatigue bears down on me with leaden weight. Only the discomfort of the seating arrangement prevents me from dropping off into oblivion. I begin to talk, enunciating carefully around my alcohol buzz.

  “It’s a good thing you bought wine before all the liquor stores got bombed,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Jon says, “that’s the last of it, though.”

  “No problem,” I say. “We’ve still got the gasoline. I’m told it goes very well with 7 Up.”

  I laugh boisterously at my stupid joke. My laughter keeps coming, rising to an hysterical cackle. I listen in amazement. Some demented stowaway must be hiding in the car. The cacophony seems to be coming from everywhere.

  Jon glances over, puzzled. A small bruise on his forehead indicates where he head-butted Alex the night before. Then he turns away, showing the bullet scratch on his cheek.

  Finally, the racket dies down, and I occupy myself with sightseeing. The miles pass along the two-lane pavement for what must be hours. A thin snow layer on the barren, rolling hills makes them resemble massive pastries sprinkled with powdered sugar. The sun dodges and hides among thickening clouds.

  The road curves sharply toward an area of low hills with snow-capped peaks rising behind them. A distant adobe village sends smoke into the chill air.

  “This is the place,” Jon says.

  He spins the car off the pa
vement and drives onto the rocky ground. We crash over bumps with such violence that I have to grip the dash handle to keep my head from slamming against the ceiling. Eventually, I have to hold on with both hands, riding my seat like a bucking bronco.

  “JIE-ronimo!” Jon howls, sending the VW over another massive bump.

  The car bottoms out and becomes stuck. I jump out to push. The car advances briefly, then gets stuck again. I tug it out a second time.

  I get back in, but the VW can’t clear the ground with the extra weight. I am reduced to running alongside while Jon negotiates the ruts and bumps.

  “Slow down!” I call as he zips past.

  But the VW doesn’t get far before it requires further pushing. Light snow begins to fall. I feel idiotic trotting over the broken ground like some half-baked marathon runner, but I am also exhilarated.

  At least I am moving freely, not stealing down some city street fearful of being caught up in a violent outburst, or creeping up the stairs of my apartment building hoping to avoid my Iranian neighbors. I am also getting badly winded.

  Near the village Jon picks up a dirt track. He stops and waits for me to catch up.

  “Need a lift?” he asks.

  I slip back into the VW, too tired to speak.

  Our advance must have been observed from the village because the residents are out in force. It is a typical small settlement with domed adobe houses jammed together like bee hives, a wind tower, and a wall surrounding everything. Jon pulls over.

  Curious Iranians surround us – young men mostly, with several boys and older men mixed in. They look poor, all of them shabbily dressed in mismatched clothing. The village females discretely observe from a distance. Jon lowers his window and speaks to the crowd in Farsi. He must have said something humorous, for everyone laughs.

  “You should have been an ambassador,” I say.

  “From where, Bullshit-istan?” Jon replies.

  An older gentleman, gray stubble protruding from his weathered face, takes up head position at the open window and speaks with Jon, emphasizing his remarks with gestures toward the mountains.

  “He says there’s some government land up ahead where they can’t graze their livestock,” Jon translates. “That must be it.”

  The younger boys are making a game of bouncing on the VW’s fenders. When Jon revs the engine, they scatter amid bursts of laughter. We drive off waving to the village folk, our tires leaving tracks in the thin snow.