The Rum Diary, Page 3

The waiter came out of the kitchen and looked at us. “Two beers!” Sala yelled. “Hurry!”

  I smiled and leaned back in the chair. “What's wrong with Yeamon?”

  He looked at me as if it were incredible that I should have to ask. “Didn't you see him?” he said. “That wild-eyed sonofabitch! Lotterman's scared shitless of him -- couldn't you see it?”

  I shook my head. “He looked okay to me.”

  “Okay?” he shouted. “You should have been here a few nights ago! He flipped this table for no reason at all -- this very table.” He slapped our table with his palm. “No damn reason,” he repeated. “Knocked all our drinks in the dirt and flipped the table on some poor bastard who didn't know what he was saying -- then threatened to stomp him!” Sala shook his head. “I don't know where Lotterman found that guy. He's so scared of him that he lent him a hundred dollars and Yeamon went out and blew it on a motorscooter.” He laughed bitterly. “Now he's brought some girl down here to live with him.”

  The waiter appeared with the beers and Sala snatched them off the tray. “No girl with any brains would come here,” he said. “Just virgins -- hysterical virgins.” He shook his finger at me. “You'll turn queer in this place, Kemp -- mark my words. This place will turn a man queer and crazy.”

  “I don't know,” I said. “A fine young thing came down on the plane with me.” I smiled. “I think I'll look around for her tomorrow. She's bound to be on the beach somewhere.”

  “She's probably a lesbian,” he replied. “This place is full of them.” He shook his head. “It's the tropic rot -- this constant sexless drinking!” He slumped back in his chair. “It's driving me wild -- I'm cracking up!”

  Sweep came hurrying out with two more beers and Sala grabbed them off the tray. Just then Yeamon appeared in the doorway; he saw us and came over to the table.

  Sala groaned miserably. “Oh god, here he is,” he muttered. “Don't stomp me, Yeamon -- I didn't mean it.”

  Yeamon smiled and sat down. “Are you still bitching about Moberg?” He laughed and turned to me. “Robert thinks I mistreated Moberg.”

  Sala grumbled something about “nuts.”

  Yeamon laughed again. “Sala's the oldest man in San Juan. How old are you, Robert -- about ninety?”

  “Don't give me your crazy shit!” Sala shouted, springing up from his chair.

  Yeamon nodded. “Robert needs a woman,” he said gently. “His penis is pressing on his brain and he can't think.”

  Sala groaned and shut his eyes.

  Yeamon tapped on the table. “Robert, the streets are full of whores. You should look around sometime. I saw so many on the way up here that I wanted to grab about six and fall down naked and let them crawl all over me like puppies.” He laughed and signaled for the waiter.

  “You bastard,” Sala muttered. “That girl hasn't been here a day and you're already talking about having whores crawl on you.” He nodded wisely. “You'll get the syphilis -- you keep on whoring and stomping around and pretty soon you'll stomp in shit.”

  Yeamon grinned. “Okay, Robert. You've warned me.”

  Sala looked up. “Is she still asleep? How long before I can go back to my own apartment?”

  “Soon as we leave here,” Yeamon replied. “I'll take her on out to the house.” He nodded. “Of course I'll have to borrow your car -- too much luggage for the scooter.”

  “Jesus,” Sala muttered. “You're a plague, Yeamon -- you'll suck me dry.”

  Yeamon laughed. “You're a fine Christian, Robert. You'll get your reward.” He ignored Sala's snort and turned to me. “Did you come in on the morning plane?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He smiled. “Chenault said there was some young guy beating up an old man on the plane with her -- was that you?”

  I groaned, feeling the web of sin and circumstance close down on the table. Sala eyed me suspiciously.

  I explained that I'd been sitting next to an aged lunatic who kept trying to crawl over me.

  Yeamon laughed. “Chenault thought you were the lunatic -- claimed you kept staring at her, then ran amok on the old man -- you were still beating him when she got off the plane.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Sala exclaimed, giving me a disgusted look.

  I shook my head and tried to laugh it off. The implications were ugly -- a crazed masher and a slugger of old men -- not the kind of introduction a man wants to make for himself on a new job.

  Yeamon seemed amused, but Sala was plainly leery. I called for more drinks and quickly changed the subject.

  We sat there for several hours, talking, drinking lazily, killing the time while a sad piano tinkled away inside. The notes floated out to the patio, giving the night a hopeless, melancholy tone that was almost pleasant.

  Sala was sure the paper was going to fold. “I'll ride it out,” he assured us. “Give it another month.” He had two more big photo assignments and then he was off, probably to Mexico City. “Yeah,” he said, “figure about a month, then we start packing.”

  Yeamon shook his head. “Robert wants the paper to fold so he'll have an excuse to leave.” He smiled. “It'll last a while. All I need is about three months --enough money to take off down the islands.”

  “Where?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Anywhere -- find a good island, someplace cheap.”

  Sala hissed. “You talk like a caveman, Yeamon. What you need is a good job in Chicago.”

  Yeamon laughed. “You'll feel better when you get humped, Robert.”

  Sala grumbled and drank his beer. I liked him, in spite of his bitching. I guessed he was a few years older than I was, maybe thirty-two or -three, but there was something about him that made me feel like I'd known him a long time.

  Yeamon was familiar too, but not quite as close -- more like a memory of somebody I'd known in some other place and then lost track of. He was probably twenty-four or -five and he reminded me vaguely of myself at that age -- not exactly the way I was, but the way I might have seen myself if I'd stopped to think about it. Listening to him, I realized how long it had been since I'd felt like I had the world by the balls, how many quick birthdays had gone by since that first year in Europe when I was so ignorant and so confident that every splinter of luck made me feel like a roaring champion.

  I hadn't felt that way in a long time. Perhaps, in the ambush of those years, the idea that I was a champion had been shot out from under me. But I remembered it now and it made me feel old and slightly nervous that I had done so little in so long a time.

  I leaned back in the chair and sipped my drink. The cook was banging around in the kitchen and for some reason the piano had stopped. From inside came a babble of Spanish, an incoherent background for my scrambled thoughts. For the first time I felt the foreignness of the place, the real distance I had put between me and my last foothold. There was no reason to feel pressure, but I felt it anyway -- the pressure of hot air and passing time, an idle tension that builds up in places where men sweat twenty-four hours a day.

  The Rum Diary

  Two

  I got up early the next morning and went for a swim. The sun was hot and I squatted on the beach for several hours, hoping no one would notice my sickly New York pallor.

  At eleven-thirty I caught a bus in front of the hotel. It was crowded and I had to stand. The air in the bus was like steam, but no one else seemed to mind. Every window was closed, the smell was unbearable, and by the time we got to the Plaza Colon I was dizzy and soaked with sweat.

  As I came down the hill to the News building I saw the mob. Some of them carried big signs and others sat on the curbing or leaned against parked cars, shouting from time to time at anyone going in or out. I tried to ignore them, but one man came after me yelling in Spanish and shaking his fist as I hurried into the elevator. I tried to catch him in the door, but he jumped away as it closed.

  As I crossed the hall to the newsroom I heard someone yelling inside. When I opened the door I saw Lotterman standing in the middle of the
room, waving a copy of El Diario. He pointed at a small blond man: “Moberg! You drunken bastard! Your days are numbered! If anything goes wrong with that wire machine I'll have it repaired out of your severance check!”

  Moberg said nothing. He looked sick enough to be in a hospital. I later learned that he'd come into the newsroom at midnight, raving drunk, and pissed on the teletype machine. On top of that, we'd been scooped on a waterfront stabbing and Moberg had the police beat. Lotterman cursed him again, then turned on Sala, who had just come in. “Where were you last night, Sala? Why don't we have any pictures of this stabbing?”

  Sala looked surprised. “What the hell? I finished at eight -- you expect me to work twenty-four hours a day?”

  Lotterman mumbled and turned away. Then he caught sight of me and waved me into his office.

  “Jesus!” he exclaimed as he sat down. “What's wrong with these bums -- sneaking out of the office, pissing on expensive equipment, drunk all the time -- it's a wonder I'm not crazy!”

  I smiled and lit a cigarette.

  He looked at me curiously. “I hope to Christ you're a normal human being -- one more pervert around here will be the last straw.”

  “Pervert?” I said.

  “Ah, you know what I mean,” he said with a wave of his hand. "General perverts -- drunks, bums, thieves -- god only knows where they come from.

  “Not worth a pound of piss!” he exclaimed. “Sneak around here like weasels, give me the big smile, then disappear without a goddamn word to anybody.” He shook his head sadly. “How can I put out a paper with nothing but wineheads?”

  “Sounds bad,” I said.

  “It is,” he muttered, “believe me, it is.” Then he looked up. “I want you to get acquainted as fast as you can. When we finish here, you go back to the library and dig into the back issues -- take some notes, find out what's going on.” He nodded. “Later on you can sit down with Segarra, our managing editor. I told him to give you a briefing.”

  We talked a while longer and I mentioned that I'd heard a rumor that the paper might fold.

  He looked alarmed. “You got that from Sala, didn't you? Well don't pay any attention to him -- he's crazy!”

  I smiled. “Okay -- just thought I should ask.”

  “Too many crazy ones around here,” he snapped. “We need some sanity.”

  On my way back to the library I wondered how long I would last in San Juan -- how long before I'd be labeled a “weasel” or a “pervert,” before I started kicking myself in the balls or got chopped up by nationalist thugs. I remembered Lotterman's voice when he'd called me in New York; the strange jerkiness and the odd phrasing. I had sensed it then, but now I knew. I could almost see him -- gripping the phone with both white-knuckled hands, trying to keep his voice steady while mobs gathered on his doorstep and drunken reporters pissed all over the office -- saying tensely: “Sure thing, Kemp, you sound normal enough, just come on down and --”

  And here I was, a new face in the snakepit, a pervert yet to be classified, sporting a paisley tie and a button-down shirt, no longer young but not quite over the hump -- a man on the brink, as it were, trotting back to the library to find out what was going on.

  I had been there about twenty minutes when a thin, handsome Puerto Rican came in and tapped me on the shoulder. “Kemp?” he said. “I'm Nick Segarra --you have a minute?”

  I got up and we shook hands. His eyes were tiny and his hair was combed so perfectly that I thought it might be a toupee. He looked like a man who might write the governor's biography -- also like a man who would be at the governor's cocktail parties.

  As we crossed the newsroom, heading for his desk in the corner, a man who looked like he'd just stepped out of a rum advertisement came through the door and waved at Segarra. He came toward us -- graceful, smiling, a solid American face, very much the embassy type with his deep tan and his grey linen suit.

  He greeted Segarra warmly and they shook hands. “A charming bunch out there in the street,” he said. “One of them spit at me as I came in.”

  Segarra shook his head. “It's terrible, terrible . . . Ed just keeps antagonizing them . . .” Then he looked over at me. “Paul Kemp,” he said. “Hal Sanderson.”

  We shook hands. Sanderson had a firm, practiced grip and I had a feeling that somewhere in his youth he'd been told that a man was measured by the strength of his handshake. He smiled, then looked at Segarra. “You have time for a drink? I'm on to something that might interest you.”

  Segarra looked at his watch. “You bet. I was about ready to leave anyway.” He turned to me. “We'll talk tomorrow -- okay?”

  As I turned to go, Sanderson called after me. “Good to have you with us, Paul. One of these days we'll have lunch.”

  “Sure,” I said.

  I spent the rest of the day in the library, and left at eight. On my way out of the building I met Sala coming in. “What are you doing tonight?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said.

  He looked pleased. “Good. I have to get some pictures at the casinos -- want to come along?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “Can I go like this?”

  “Hell yes,” he said with a grin. “All you need is a tie.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I'm on my way up to Al's -- come on up when you finish.”

  He nodded. “I'll be about thirty minutes. I have to get this film developed.”

  The night was hot and the waterfront was alive with rats. Several blocks away a big cruise ship was tied up. Thousands of lights glittered on the deck and music came from somewhere inside. At the bottom of the gangplank was a group of what appeared to be American businessmen and their wives. I passed on the other side of the street, but the air was so still that I could hear them plainly -- happy half-tight voices from somewhere in the middle of America, some flat little town where they spent fifty weeks of every year. I stopped and listened, standing in the shadows of an ancient warehouse and feeling like a man with no country at all. They couldn't see me and I watched for several minutes, hearing those voices from Illinois or Missouri or Kansas and knowing them all too well. Then I moved on, still in the shadows as I turned up the hill toward Calle O'Leary.

  The block in front of Al's was full of people: old men sitting on steps, women moving in and out of doorways, children chasing each other on the narrow sidewalks, music from open windows, voices murmuring in Spanish, the tinkle of Brahms' Lullaby from an ice-cream truck, and a dim light above Al's door.

  I went through to the patio, stopping on the way to order hamburgers and beer. Yeamon was there, sitting alone at the rear table, staring at something he had written in a notebook.

  “What's that?” I said, sitting down across from him.

  He looked up, shoving the notebook aside. “Ah, it's that goddamn migrant story,” he said wearily. “It's supposed to be in on Monday and I haven't even started.”

  “Something big?” I asked.

  He looked down at the notebook. “Well. . . maybe too big for a newspaper.” He looked up. “You know -- why do Puerto Ricans leave Puerto Rico?” He shook his head. “I kept putting it off all week, and now with Chenault here I can't get a damn thing done at home. . . I'm feeling a little pressed.”

  “Where do you live?” I asked.

  He smiled broadly. “Man, you should see it -- right on the beach, about twenty miles out of town. It's too much. You really have to see it.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “I'd like to get something like that.”

  “You need a car,” he said, “or something like I have -- a scooter.”

  I nodded. “Yeah, I'll start looking around on Monday.”

  Sala arrived just as Sweep came out with my hamburgers. “Three of those for me,” Sala snapped. “Quick as you can -- I'm in a hurry.”

  “You still working?” Yeamon asked.

  Sala nodded. “Not for Lotterman -- this one's for old Bob.” He lit a cigarette. “My agent wants some casino shots. They're hard to come by.”

/>   “Why?” I asked.

  “Illegal,” he said. “When I first got here they caught me shooting at the Caribe -- I had to go see Commissioner Rogan.” He laughed. “He asked me how I'd feel if I took a shot of some poor bastard at the roulette wheel and it happened to appear in his hometown paper just about the time he applied for a bank loan.” He laughed again. “I told him I couldn't care less. I'm a photographer, not a goddamn social worker.”

  “You're a terror,” Yeamon said with a smile.

  “Yeah,” Sala agreed. “They know me now -- so I have to work with this.” He showed us a tiny camera no bigger than a cigarette lighter. “Me and Dick Tracy,” he said with a grin. “I'll bust 'em all.”

  Then he looked over at me. “Well, you got through the day -- any offers?”

  “Offers?”

  “Your first day on the job,” he said. “Somebody's bound to have offered you a deal.”

  “No,” I said. “I met Segarra. . . and a guy named Sanderson. What does he do?”

  “He's a PR man. Works for Adelante.”

  “The government?”

  “In a way,” Sala said. “The people of Puerto Rico are paying Sanderson to tidy up their image in the States. Adelante is a big public relations outfit.”

  “When did he work for Lotterman?” I asked. I had seen Sanderson's byline in some old issues of the News.

  “He was here from the beginning -- worked about a year, then hooked up with Adelante. Lotterman claims they stole him, but it was no loss. He's a phony, a real prick.”

  “Is that Segarra's buddy?” Yeamon asked.

  “Yeah,” Sala replied, absently tossing the lettuce and tomatoes off his hamburgers. He ate hurriedly and stood up. “Let's go,” he said, looking at Yeamon. “Come on -- we may get some action.”

  Yeamon shook his head. “I have to do this goddamn story, then drive all the way out to the house.” He smiled. “I'm a family man now.”

  We paid our bill and went out to Sala's car. The top was down and it was a fine, fast ride along the Boulevard to Condado. The wind was cool and the roar of the little engine bounced around in the trees above our heads as we swerved in and out of traffic.