Outer Banks by Russell Banks
—Oh-h-h, gosh, no! I just love them! I mean, I have too much respect for men. I’m 37-24-37, you know, she said proudly.
—That right? Well, then, why don’t you just untie me, honey, so I can stand up and get a good look at your body?
—Oh, I’m so em-barrassed! she giggled, bending down to untie him, brushing his nose with her naked thigh as she worked.
When she had freed him, he stood up, grabbed her by her left breast, and together they ran from the room to the courtyard outside. There he leaned her against the wall, yanked down her panties, and stuffed his stiff cock into her. He pumped half a dozen times, came, and quickly withdrew, saying as he left,—I’ll be in touch.
—’Bye, she said weakly.
—Don’t forget to douche, he warned her.
6.
Egress decided swiftly that the best way for him to get his throne back was to go underground, at least until he could size up the situation. He called the Loon, but there was no answer.—The little bastard’s probably hiding out in Biloxi, he cursed.
The streets were filled with Indians carrying weapons and wearing makeup on their faces.—Goddamn faggots, he said to himself.—They’ll work for anyone who’ll let them paint themselves up.
With his back to the street, the door of the phone booth closed, he made one more call, to a number his security chief had given him years ago.—H’lo, he said when the party answered.—Is this the Underground?
—Ya.
—Good. I need to drop out of sight for a while. You know what I mean. Can you arrange it?
—Ya, I tink so. How many iss dere in your party? the man asked.
—One, Egress said.
—Und vat time may ve expect you?
—In about fifteen minutes.
—Ya, dot’s fine. Und vat iss da name, pleese?
—Sunder.
—Tank you for callink us, Mister Soonder. Ve vill be expectink you, den.
Hanging up the receiver, Egress darted out of the phone booth and leaped into a cab that had just pulled up to the curb. The driver was a tiny man, so short he could barely see over the steering wheel.—Vere to? he asked.
—Underground, Egress commanded.
—You iss da Soonder party?
—Yeah, that’s right.
—You are early, Mister Soonder.
—Yeah, sorry about that. I got away earlier than I expected, he explained as the cab sped away.
7.
The drive took him to the clubhouse of a long-abandoned golf course in one of the suburbs. Inside the shuttered building, a low, ranch-style, log structure covered with vines and moss, a group of men and women, mostly young, long-haired, and filthy, were making bombs and various incendiary devices. They greeted him with silent, agreeable nods and continued with their work.
Egress admired their discipline and decided to tell them who he was. When he had finished speaking and the laughter had died down, one of the group, a slender youth with flowers tangled into his hair, took Egress aside and said to him,—You may not remember me, but we’ve met. I know who you are, who you were, he said in a confidential voice.—These kids, they’re rather heavily into revolution, so they’re not going to be of much help to you, except to hide you out for a while—but they’ll do that only so long as they think you’re a little crazy and are wanted by the State. That grain bag you’re wearing helps, also that psychotic-looking hair cut. You look like Richard Speck, he said with a snicker.—But you’re going to have to be more careful, he went on.—They’re serious about this revolution thing…
—Wait a minute, Egress said, interrupting him.—Aren’t you…?
—Yes.
—But I thought I ordered you executed!
—Yes, you did, but your wife countermanded your order and had me freed right after you left on your famous pilgrimage. She thought I was gay, and there was an amnesty offered, and so…
—I thought you were gay, too. Aren’t you? the king asked, incredulous.
—Not really. But never mind all that. If you want to hide out here, you better start acting crazy, and you better start helping make the bombs. You’ll find that your family problems won’t count for very much here, not with this group, he chuckled, leading the king back to the young men and women at work on the floor among the wires, fuses, gasoline, and dynamite caps.
8.
Late that night, while the others slept, the king rolled over on his pallet and whispered to the Green Man, who was lying on the pallet next to him.—Are there any others left, besides you, who have remained loyal to me?
—A few, I imagine, the Green Man answered, yawning.—And you really can’t count on me for much more than company.
—How many are left? the king persisted.
—Ten, maybe.
—Ten! Ten men! Ten loyal men. Ten stout-hearted men! he whispered with growing excitement.—Okay, Greenie, you and I are getting out of here now, he announced.
—What for? I like it here. I mean, hiding out isn’t a bad way for a man to spend his life.
—Not this man, fella. We’re getting out of here, and we’re going to contact those ten stout-hearted men and get them together as fast as we can, tonight, if possible. And by tomorrow night, we’ll have ten thousand more! he almost exclaimed.
Once outside the house, the king asked him,—Which of the ten is closest to where we are now?
The Green Man told him of Twit, who used to work at the gymnasium and now was a student of Oriental religions and a part-time cab driver in the city.—He’s kind of wacky, though. Childhood traumas, asthma as a kid, that sort of thing. He’s very big on exploring personal power potentials—mysticism, karate, scientology, peyote, Sufi rites, etc. But he’s still very loyal to you. I think he’s Jewish, he added.
—No matter. He sounds okay to me. Extremism in the defense of liberty means a man like that can be trusted. You’ll see. I wasn’t king for all those years for nothing, y’know. I’ll make him a general. I know the type, he said as the two of them set out in the dark for the city, where Twit maintained a flat.
9.
After Twit was appointed First General of the Loyalist Army, the king, the Green Man, and the new General set up their headquarters in a hidden canyon far in the countryside west of the city. They pitched a high, conical tent and ate free-ranging prairie chickens shot on the wing while they waited for the army to gather, as they knew it would, once word of Egress’s return leaked out.
The first volunteers showed up around noon—the world-famous rock band, The Sons of the Pioneers. They came roaring into the canyon on matching, ruby-flecked, Harley Davidson motorcycles.—Hey, man, what’s happening? the leader of the band said to the king, and the king quickly explained.
—Far out, the musician said.—You want us to do a fund-raiser or somethin’, man? he offered.
Introducing the group to General Twit, Egress agreed that a fund-raiser would be fine, but not till after the war. Meanwhile, he wanted them just to let the fact of their endorsement of his project get around, maybe hold a press conference or two, that sort of thing.
—When this thing hits the media, he said to the Green Man as they strolled out to the dusty plain to hunt prairie chicken,—we’ll be in! Every mother’s son in the fucking country will be fighting on our side! Let Naomi Ruth have her minorities. I’ll have the rest. Don’t forget, these kids have never had a chance to fight for something they believe in! he reminded his cohort.
10.
That night, lying on his cot in his tent, the king had a dream which confused and troubled him. He dreamed he was the pilot of a fighter-bomber on a bombing mission over North Vietnam. Sweeping down on his target, a Standard Oil refinery operated by the enemy, he released his bombs and then suddenly realized he had overshot his target by about five miles. As he pulled the nose of the plane skyward, he glanced out the canopy to see what in fact he was bombing, and he saw three little boys standing in the middle of a clearing in the jungle. For an instant he saw their
The Green Man, mercifully, woke him, but when he told the king that the army was ready to march on the city, the king began to sob uncontrollably.—No, no, this is insane! What are we doing? We’re killing each other!
The Green Man gave him a couple of ten-milligram Librium capsules and got him calmed down again, so that, by sunrise, Egress was once more his hearty, unshakable self.
—I always have a nightmare the night before a big battle, he explained to the Green Man as they rode toward the city at the head of the motorcycle corps.
11.
Behind Egress, General Twit, the Green Man, and The Sons of the Pioneers, the Loyalist Army spread out like a gigantic cape all the way to the horizon. Most of the police and military, practically all professional groups, athletes, clergymen of all the more popular faiths, many clerk-typists and petty bureaucrats from the civil service, members of all the building trades unions, motorcycle gangs, automobile mechanics, miners, realistic novelists, coaches, and all the youth of the land who had been about to apprentice themselves to members of these groups (but who were, in actuality, probably attracted to the Loyalist cause by the presence of The Sons of the Pioneers) turned out to have remained loyal to the king. They seemed to have been waiting only for the proper opportunity to express that loyalty. There were, of course, legions of older men who had wanted to join the battle on the side of the king, but, because of their age, had been put to better use as medics, service personnel, councillors, etc. Stationed with them at the rear of the marching army and at the canyon headquarters, the numerous women who had joined the army had been put to good use making uniforms, bullets, tents, and victory banners.
12.
On the way into the city, there were a few isolated skirmishes, quick forays by small search-and-destroy units into farmhouses and crossroads hamlets where the inhabitants had tried to resist the king’s army, not so much because they were loyal to his wife, but rather because they were out of touch with the conflict and thus had no loyalties at all. The sheer mass of the Loyalist Army overwhelmed them, and the raping, looting, and slaughter that followed barely delayed the army in its march. Like pebbles in the path of a river that has burst its dam, they were swallowed whole and caused not even a ripple of hesitation. But when the river reached its destination, the city, it created, then swirled, eddied, slowed, and finally ceased movement altogether, as if, blocked by a second dam, it had emptied into a new, unexpected basin, creating in a short time a huge, motionless lake of bewildered men.
The city was deserted, empty, and all the major buildings had been destroyed. The streets were filled with rubble, concrete, wrecked automobiles, buses, trains, mattresses, broken cases of food, furniture, clothing, and glass, as if there had been an earthquake and it had occurred at the one moment when everyone was out of town. Egress was at first astonished, and then, when he had begun to piece together what had happened, a process in which he was aided by the Green Man, he was deeply depressed. One might say broken.
12
1.
(AT THE AIRPORT)
He recognized her by the nape of her neck and his powerful attraction to it. She stood motionless in front of him, like Leda before the swan or Europa before the bull, waiting her turn to purchase a ticket, presumably for the next flight out. There were no longer any arriving flights; departing flights had been doubled.
Hungrily, he stared at the tendons on her neck, the fine strands of hair lifting like an Elizabethan tune toward the high, severe tail of her haircut. It was in the new style, he noticed, the one called the “French Barricade.” She curled her head forward as she drew a credit card from her purse and, handing it to the harried clerk, paid for her ticket. Egress ached to strum the taut muscles of her neck, the braid of tendons and sinews that ran like Greek bread from under her earlobes to her shoulders. He felt his hands open out, reaching like morning glories at dawn, his fingertips swarming with impatience for heat.
She accepted her ticket from the clerk, turned brusquely and saw him standing there behind her.—Oh! she said, clearly startled.—Surprise, eh?
—Ah … yes! Surprise-surprise-surprise-surprise-surprise, he said mockingly, cursing himself for it as he spoke:—Goddamn you, goddamn you, goddamn you …, he cursed.
—It’s your turn, I believe. The man is waiting, Egress, she reminded him, inclining her head in the direction of the uniformed clerk at the counter. She seemed to have a sarcastic smile on her thin lips, as if she felt superior to her husband.
A short and exceedingly fat woman with a pair of long-legged, unhappy, teenaged sons stood in line as a group behind Egress. She kicked one of her large suitcases along the floor until it crashed into his heel, battering his Achilles tendon with it as she kept on kicking. Her arms, like meat-filled pillows, were folded pugnaciously across her huge breasts, and, while swinging at her suitcase with one stubby foot, she glared intolerantly at Egress and Naomi Ruth.
—Next! the clerk pointedly called out.
—They think they’re in a movie, the fat woman muttered to her sons.
—Okay, okay, I’m next, Egress said, turning for a second to the clerk, saying to him,—One way, please, and when, a second later, he looked back, Naomi Ruth was gone.
—One way … to where, mister? the clerk impatiently asked him.
—Oh. Ah… Nevada. Reno, Nevada.
—First-class or tourist?
—Ah, tourist, tourist. Yes … tourist. He placed his credit card onto the counter in front of him and the clerk ran it through the machine and handed it, with the ticket, back to him.
Egress deftly stepped away and slipped into the crowd as if slipping into a broad, slow river, and let the current carry him. He said to himself, I’ve never felt so tired, so bone-weary. I feel a thousand years old. I wish I’d been born a member of a different race, one with more of a future. I almost wish I’d been born a woman.
Oh, but just the same, thinking that one over, he thought, I’m glad I don’t have to be born again as anything. The risk isn’t worth taking, he observed shrewdly. Maybe everything’s only as decently worked out as possible. It’s hard to run off and turn your back on the fact of your own manhood, when you are a man and have been one all your life. I mean, what the hell, an ego’s an ego, and you sort of have to take it as it comes from where you get it. Right? he humbly asked himself.
Right, he declared with confidence, sliding forthrightly along with the crowd and keeping a sharp lookout for the proper boarding gate and any possibilities of Naomi Ruth.
2.
(ON THE BEACH)
Egress sat atop the smooth, sow-sized boulder, looking out to sea, diddling idly with memories of his childhood. The harsh cry of a gull caused him to look to his right, along the gray beach, and though he could see little more of the figure walking toward him than that it was a woman’s, he knew immediately that it was Naomi Ruth’s. The languorous yet sporty walk, that slow movement of muscles hardened leisurely by tennis, could belong to no other woman, certainly to no other woman in his life, which, at that exact moment, he realized, in terms of the number and kinds of women he had studied closely, had been rather oddly narrow. Was that usual? he wondered. Was he, then, therefore, lonelier than other men of similar means and abilities? Was this, the catastrophe of his middle age, his own fault?
She didn’t give any sign of recognition until she had drawn near enough for her to speak to him, when she said simply,—I never thought of you as a sun-worshipper, Egress. She was wearing a tiny, cerise, two-piece bathing suit. He had on a rust-colored tanksuit made of wet-look nylon. They both had good tans, leathery brown and evenly distributed.
—Having a good time? he asked.
—Yes! And you? She sat down lightly beside him on the rock and looked out to sea.
Egress looked out
—What?
—A “good” time.
—Oh.
—I mean, I’ve been “good” lately. Travel and most other forms of inactivity, as you know, produce in me a certain … “morality,” he said carefully.
—That’s pretty decadent-sounding, Egress, she said, laughing.—You were many things, but I don’t remember you as particularly decadent.
—I don’t know. No, I don’t think I was, not at all. Nowadays, though, well, maybe I am. After all, life has to go on, n’est-ce pas? “The old biological imperative,” as the Loon used to call it…
—The Loon! she sneered.
—Oh, you can’t blame him, Naomi. Not for this. He was weak, that’s all, and he knew it. For him, everything had to come down to that old biological imperative. His one ethic, his only possible morality, was survival, for god’s sake. We shouldn’t go off projecting our own alternatives onto him, not now. That’s just too easy…
—I know, I know. It’s just the associations. They’re still very strong, you know. And painful.
—Sure, I understand. It’s the same for me—though of course I’m temperamentally slightly more existential than you.
—That makes it easier, probably.
—Aw, please, Naomi, I happen to treasure this moment, so please, don’t indulge in sarcasm. Not now.
—Sorry.
—As a matter of fact, just as you came walking up, I was sitting here wondering whether or not this whole thing was my fault completely. I mean, completely.
—Completely?
—Yeah. Except for a few things, of course. All that destruction at the end, for instance. I mean, Jesus, Naomi, you could have just “left” me, you know. All those innocent people! he exclaimed compassionately.
—Nobody’s “innocent,” she said grimly.—It’s Greek, and that means everything’s interlocked. When the House of Atreus finally collapses, the entire city has to collapse around it. I had nothing to do with all that destruction at the end, not personally, any more than you did. Not as much as you did, if you ask me, from what I heard. What were you doing when you went underground, anyhow? Working as some kind of secret double agent? No, I’m sorry, I don’t mean that. I know you had nothing personally to do with all that violence and destruction of property at the end. It was just coincidence. Fate.