like a concept for an experimental film.”
“Forget it, somebody’s probably already done it. But yes, sometimes I strip off the masking tapes marking the dates of the films. Then I can imagine that the boy with the plastic gun is me.”
“And you do that because . . . ?”
“Well, I can imagine the years before I existed. I’ve always wondered what it was like not to exist. Like I browse used bookstores and look at those postcards from the 1950s. And I feel wonder mixed with dread or panic—because, you know, I’m looking back at a time when I was nothing, when I was just, you know, part of the void or something.”
“A kind of ontological experience.”
“Yeah.”
“And have we learned anything from this story?”
“Maybe. By some inexplicable equation, some karmic tit-for-tat, I can see that my life must have snuffed out the other.”
“That’s depressing. And illogical.”
“I know.”
She pulls me down to the sofa and unbuttons my shirt. “I don’t want you thinking like that.”
“Sure.”
She clamps her teeth gently on my nipple. I get hard immediately. The last reel is over, and I’ve paused the projector so that the image of the young boy is staring straight at me, his paper hat falling over his eyes, his plastic gun pointed at my heart.
Janya has unzipped me and then she pulls her skirt and panties down and hops over and straddles me. She deftly slips my cock in and when she wiggles her hips around, the sensation makes me groan with pleasure.
“Oh, fuck, Janya, I like that.”
I accidentally knock my elbow against the projector, which makes a weird flapping noise. I reach out to pause it, but Janya grabs my hand and slips it inside her blouse and makes me squeeze her breast. She gives a soft moan.
The projector sputters—in my haste to pause I must have set it to slo-mo. Janya has her back to the image projected on the wall. As I suckle her nipple I can see the boy’s close-up behind her. I can see his eyes from under the brim of the hat as he slowly lifts his head. I have an eerie sensation that he’s staring straight at me, his lips curling into a knowing, fiendish smile.
the little toil of love
—because this time of day the crows leave them alone. Nothing else is moving, except these two dogs. Been watching them trying to get it on for the last half hour, me & the guy with the Uzi & Eddie the rapist. The bitch finally gives in. The male’s got his dick locked inside her now. They’re like conjoined, spastic twins. Eddie bets a peso it’s going to take another 30 minutes before the male can pull out. The head of a dog’s dick pops open like an umbrella when it’s fucking, he says. Once he’s in, it’s even harder to get out. We’re supposed to be picking vegetables some guy planted last summer. Then the guy was shot in the back of the head & he’s been fertilizing them since. The eggplants & bitter melons are scrawny but the tomatoes are ripe & about to burst. It’s November. The air is cool. It’s one of those days when you feel so doped out you don’t even want to move.
Now Eddie’s dropped his spade & starts heckling the dogs. The guy with the Uzi’s getting bored. The lieutenant bellows a stream of curses from inside the barracks. He’s been taking a siesta to sleep off a hangover. Even he is in no mood to keep order around here.
The guy with the Uzi gets up, a machete dangling from his hand. The dogs are in too much heat to notice him approaching. The male’s tongue is hanging out, a thick red flap. He’s drooling all over the bitch’s back, yellow spume dribbling on tufts of mangy brown fur. The guy with the Uzi yanks the male by the scruff. With one swift stroke he cuts its dick from the bitch. There’s a long, ear-splitting squeal. The dogs scamper apart. Jets of blood spurt from the male’s mutilated dick. He doesn’t know what’s happened to him. He runs amok, howling helplessly. He stops & curls up to lick his balls. Now he’s spinning round & round, now he’s dragging his butt on the ground, yelping madly, leaving a black circle of mud on the earth.
The guy with the Uzi is laughing & yelling curses at the dog. Eddie’s cheering wildly, shouting to make it spin faster, howl louder. He picks up a rock, hurls it at the dog. It misses, landing in a small explosion of dust just an inch away.
* * *
It’s 1972. It has been for the longest fucking time.
There are roughly 3.86 billion people living on the planet. Five of them are caught trying to bug the Democratic National Committee headquarters at a place called Watergate in DC. Another 8 have killed 11 athletes at the Munich Olympics. And 8,000 others in Uganda are being deported by 1 person, a fuck-up job called Idi Amin.
My name is Andrew Brezsky. My name. Andy. A. A plus. Or A minus, depending on who you talk to. I have to remember my name. I have to remember what year it is. What happened before I got here, the dark heart of nowhere, some hardscrabble ghost town on an island in the Central Philippines, Archipelago of the Absurd, Little Brown Brother of Big Old Uncle Sam. Must. Remember. Everything. If I don’t I’ll forget that I’m still here. Still hoping, like everyone else in this Pearl of the Fucking Orient Seas, still looking for a way out.
* * *
There’s me, & Eddie, & a student who’s been here a couple weeks earlier than me & Eddie, & who refuses to reveal his name. Every day the lieutenant & the guy with the Uzi take him away. When he comes back, something imperceptible has been damaged in him. It’s as if his body’s being annihilated, one part at a time, with the ultimate aim not of death, but a long, drawn-out disabling.
Last week they burned his nipples with a cigarette. A couple days later they stuck a barbecue skewer through the hole of his dick. Last night they attached live electric wires to his testicles. No evidence is visible unless he’s naked. No one can tell unless he talks about it. But Eddie & I, we can tell.
They don’t want anything from him now. Even his name’s no longer relevant. He’s told them about as much as they can use. But they’ve done it so many times, over & over, Eddie thinks it’s pointless to ask why anymore. Even the student, when Eddie does ask about it, always gives the same reply—that’s just the way it is. He seems hostile to any show of concern from Eddie or me. Once he staggered to the toilet bowl & pissed blood. Eddie pretended to look away.
There’s another reason he doesn’t want to talk about it, but it’s pretty obvious. Always the act is sick & dark & sexual. What normally gives pleasure is nothing now but a source not just of pain, but of shame. The more sexual the punishment is, the less likely he’ll talk about it. Torture deprives the body of making sense of itself. Eddie says it’s the same thing with people you rape. He’s gotten off the hook so many times because no one just damn wants to talk about it.
You see it happen all the time. Pretty soon you realize that’s just the way it is. They have a phrase for it: Bahala na. God willing. Even the freaking Communists believe this. God can drive a stick up your ass, & you’ll bleed, but God knows what’s good for you. Trust him. Bahala na.
* * *
There’s one window in the cell, high above where no one can reach it. If I stand at an angle a couple of feet off the wall, I can see the sky checkered against the steel bars. The full moon passes right through it in a nearly vertical arc.
Eddie’s on his steel-spring cot, lying on a black stain of sweat on a mat of woven palm. He says he finds me strange, writing all night & never seeming to sleep.
The cot sags & forms a hammock, I tell him. It makes my back sore.
He wants to know what I find so fascinating about the moon.
I tell him it never turns its back on us. You only see one side of it, anywhere you go.
It’s