The Wild Read online

  Mind, let go. Body, run. Door after door, smell of concrete dust and hot electric connections. Running, reduced to raw reality, no more thought, just the urge to escape, to get away from the embarrassment. The road to Cairo, The Road to Rio. Bob Hope, 1956, Ozzie and Harriet, The Dinah Shore Show. The Honeymooners, Leave It To Beaver. Ernie Kovaks, a station wagon going boom boom down into the ditch, Ernie Kovaks. 1956, remembering the dark side of the war. Yes, we went and found out what was behind the curtain, didn't we? The word "Hiroshima" even sounds like a soft explosion.

  The last time you ran like this was in 1956. You were twelve years old. You and Roxanne de LaPlane rolled naked down the hill behind her house, and found yourselves at her father's feet. You rose up and you certainly did run, a naked kid in the evening.

  Ahead, a door! God save me, it's the roof. They are still behind me, they have come forty floors. That security guard is made of strong stuff. Bob had to hang out his tongue, otherwise his mouth felt like somebody had stuffed a hot pillow in it. When he panted it got cold, spreading relief through his body.

  He stood at the door jerking, twisting, pounding his tail against the floor. He tried to change back, straining and grunting. He hopped and yapped, hating the absurd sound of his voice. Poof, bang, abracadabra, hocus-pocus. Hoc et corpus, Father O'Reilly, Jesus. Mary Catherine Baker and Salvatore Allessio each completed ten thousand Hail Marys during Lent in the year 1957. Lent, sacrifice, passion of Christ: oh, Mother of God, intercede for me.

  His prayers were idiotic yaps.

  They brought, however, a curious relief. Someone heard the noises and came to the other side of the door. With a loud click a waiter in a red jacket opened it. Bob, aware only that this was the end of the line, knowing that the security guard was no more than a couple of floors below, rushed through.

  Sights, sounds, and an overpowering mass of odors assailed him. His eyes could not understand, his nose could not sort out the chaos before him. He barked once loudly, and the face of every diner in the Starlight Restaurant turned toward him.

  Damn that bark, without it he might have been able to slink past unnoticed. He was aware of his own nakedness, and sought to cover himself with his hands. The moment he did this, he toppled forward. When he recovered himself, he was confronting three waiters, one of them with a large silver tray in his hand which he used as a shield. A few of the diners had jumped from their seats. "It's a wolf," one of them shouted.

  "How in hell—"

  "Don't let it out onto the floor," a maitre d' hissed. "You'll cause a riot."

  The waiters skittered around. Bob's eyes went to the long corridor. At the far end he could see a glass door. Behind it would be the sky lobby. His own room seemed a million light-years away.

  Oh, Cindy.

  Remembering Sister Eustacia's instructions, Bob tried to concentrate his mind on the glass door and let his body do its own work. He shot forward with the power of four legs instead of two, moving faster than he ever had before. There was a blinding red flash and a shock of pain to his head. With a great shattering the doors became a rubble of glass pebbles. Bob rolled over and over across the sky lobby. As he rolled he moved through a jumble of smells, the glass, the sweat of his pursuers, his own fur and flying slobber.

  Then he was on his feet. "Oh, God," he said. He staggered, his arms working like arms instead of forelegs. He was high off the ground and his nose was suddenly numb. The riot of odors had disappeared. He jabbed the elevator button with a normal finger. When it opened, three women in beehive hairdos and tight dresses burst into shrieks of hysterical laughter.

  The nightmare of being a wolf had left him stranded on the fortieth floor, naked.

  He dashed past the women into the closing elevator, hammered "four," and pressed himself against the back wall as the doors made a thumping sound.

  The waiters, the maitre d', the security guard, and about six male patrons were blasting down the corridor. Bob banged his fist against the "close door" button, but the elevator was at the top floor, and cycling on its own time. They reached the glass rubble and slowed down, picking their way to avoid getting their shoes cut open.

  Not realizing that Bob was inside, the security guards ran right past the open elevator, heading for the fire stairs at the far end of this lobby. "It musta gone to the roof."

  "It can't open doors, surely."

  "I saw it open a door. That thing is smart."

  Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus Christ.

  "Hey, wha—lookit him—wait!"

  The doors slid closed just as a man in a maroon polyester sports jacket and a string tie lunged toward them.

  "There's a guy in there stark staring naked!"

  "Dis a good hotel!"

  Vroom, down he went, down to the fourth floor. Blessed be, don't make a stop on the way. No such luck, a stop is made.

  Bob turned his back on the young man and woman in tan Apple Computer sports jackets, who entered the elevator. "Uh-oh," the woman said.

  "Please, I was taking a shower," Bob replied, his face to the wall. "I was looking for my hair conditioner and next thing I knew I was in the hall. I couldn't make anybody hear me, so I tried to go for the security guards."

  The couple remained silent. The doors opened on the fourth floor and Bob backed out, careful to avoid showing them his face. After the doors closed he heard a burst of laughter, the woman tinkling merrily, the man going haw-haw.

  He raced around the comer and down the hall. Either the door would open or it wouldn't. He saw the overturned cart at the end of the hall, moved forward. He was praying as he walked, a breathy "Jesus, help me" at each step.

  Somebody must have intervened, because he found his door unlocked. Given hands, it was blissfully easy to open. He rushed inside, grabbed clothes frantically, a pair of pants, his house shoes, a knit shirt. Dressed, dressed again, oh blessing divine. His mind twisted and turned. Go down to the bar. Forget the whole thing.

  No. Foolish man. Your room will be full of cops when you return. A better idea: He went outside, heaped all of the maid's things on her cart and rolled it to the opposite end of the hall. There he overturned the cart and spread everything out at another door. Then he dashed back to his own room and replaced the curtains. If only he could have gotten into 422 and pulled the curtains down as well.

  A shout came from outside. Very good. "Aw, damn—" Footsteps going in the opposite direction. Bob exited his room, stepping confidently toward the elevator bank as two security guards and a whole squadron of cops began hammering on the door to 422.

  He remained in the nearly empty bar long enough to knock back two neat Stolys. Then, heavy with sleep, he returned to his room. Down the hall another computer consultant was talking frantically. He didn't have a dog, he had been asleep, he was from Houston, Texas, he was very quiet, yes, he had a driver's license, oh, Officer, there's no need to go down to the station.

  Behind his own door, safe at last, Bob felt a giggly sort of relief. He took off his clothes and went into the bathroom. The mentally ill were often given Jacuzzis to calm them down, so Bob filled the tub and turned on the nozzles. Then he got two little bottles of Courvoisier from the room's fridge. He knocked one back almost immediately. When the tub was ready, he sank into it, floating the other bottle so it would get nice and warm. He watched it dance in the bubbles and he sang softly to himself, "You clever devil, you got away, got awaaay...." He sipped from the second bottle, sipped the good fire. Like a man after battle he was suddenly seized with a need for sex, for the blood and passion of the life he had almost lost. He wanted sex, but he also wanted food. Maybe he would find an escort service. He would get to that. But first he decided to call room service and order a BLT and a bottle of beer. Dixie, if they had it; if not, a nice, cold Molson. Above the hissing of the tub and the foam of these pleasant thoughts, there intruded the frantic bleating of the poor sucker who had been sucked up by the
security guards. His explanations must not have sufficed; they were on their way to the police station. Booking, indecent exposure, breaking down a door, bringing in a giant dog. Sent back to his wife in disgrace, there to be thoroughly punished. God help him, God grant that he deserves it for other sins.

  He ordered his midnight snack over the phone in the bathroom, and was in the hotel's terrycloth robe watching Midnight Blue when it arrived, the cart being pushed by a fetching woman of perhaps forty, neat in her red dress and white blouse, as cheerfully efficient as a stewardess. As she swept the silver dome off his sandwich she glanced at the TV. He saw color come into her cheeks.

  Now, Bob, by God, this is a definite chance. This is what you've been wanting, a stranger. She's no kid, but then neither am I. I need a woman who's had a little experience. She lingered, waiting for him to sign the chit. "Want to share it with me?" he asked.

  She looked down at the chit he had handed her. "How?"

  "I mean the sandwich."

  "I don't want a sandwich."

  What an asinine attempt. He should be ashamed of himself. She was between him and the door, turning to leave. "Wait," he said. He was trying to think but his mind was blank. He leaped across the bed and threw himself to his knees at her feet. She jumped back, her face registering surprise and annoyance.

  "Ma'am, you must know the extraordinary effect your beauty has had upon me. Seeing you this moment, I must confess that I was stunned by the intensity of my own reaction. You look angry, but consider rather that you should be flattered. I'm a decent enough man. My interest is in itself a compliment. I give you my body, my soul, for an hour's love or a lifetime."

  "I—uh—ah—" She had no words, no reply. He fancied that she realized any reply would be fatal. Thus encouraged, he seized her hand and kissed it, the first flesh not of Cindy he had kissed in passion almost since he could remember.

  She drew her hand away, but slowly, like she was removing a luscious glove. "I can't just disappear into a room, I'll lose my job." His heart started thundering. She was saying yes. This was yes.

  "When do you get off?"

  "At three. It's an hour from now."

  He kissed her hand again, then her red sleeve. He rose and swept her up in his arms. "At three. I'll be waiting for you."

  She slipped out, he ate every scrap of his sandwich and drank his beer.

  The next thing he knew his phone was ringing. "Hi, this is Amanda from Apple. Just calling to make sure you'll be at the breakfast." What time was it now? Seven-thirty. He ached from a night spent half in dreams, half in hard, physical longing.

  "I'll be there," he said. He put down the phone. The world was so disappointing. It took more than the real passion of a decent man to entice a woman. Just not very good-looking, that was Bob. His approach had been stupid. Sexual competents didn't go down on their knees and blubber. No macho. A wimp, to use an expression only wimps use nowadays.

  He shaved, lathering his face with Trac II Shaving Cream and then using the Bic shaver the hotel had thoughtfully provided. He rubbed some Brylcreem into his hair, brushed his teeth, and dressed in a J. Press suit. None of this polyester junk for him. He liked to look Manhattan.

  As he was leaving the room he saw a note at his feet. It had been slipped in under the door. "Sorry, a big ruckus in the hotel. No way I can get back after my shift without being noticed, security everywhere. Love ya, crazy guy, Alison."

  For an instant he was delighted with the note, then he threw it down with an in-sucked cry. "A big ruckus in the hotel": reality. The engines of the impossible, still churning. He looked at the note again, then at the door. He was going to have to go out there and pretend ignorance of whatever it was he had done.

  He couldn't hide, that would create suspicion. The thing to do was to attend the breakfast, maybe hit a seminar or demo session, then plead a business emergency and depart on the next plane. Do it smoothly, correctly. Do it well.

  Still, he hesitated. There was always the possibility that the disturbance she referred to had nothing to do with him.

  But of course it did. Last night he had assumed the structure of another kind of creature, perhaps a dog or wolf, and had gotten himself tangled up in a flickering, dangerous adventure in the halls. It remained in his memory, a thick storm of odors and sounds, odd, gray visions, confusion, people shouting, and then a queasy, naked escape back to his room. He remembered his eerie other body as a storm of rich sensations: the tickling joy of paws upon carpet and concrete stair, the movement of air through fur, the sounds and above all the smells of the restaurant, almost as palpable as the food itself. He caught himself sucking breath through distended nostrils, and thought of breakfast eggs, of coffee, of buttered toast, of the shifting, magical steam rising from a plate of food.

  He left the room and strode down the hall. "Hi, Mr. Drake," said a young woman in an Apple blazer. "I'm Jane Poole, I'm your coordinator for the conference. Breakfast's just starting in Ballroom C on the mezzanine."

  "I'm as hungry as a wolf."

  Going down, in the elevator he was joined by two other conferees, named, according to their tags, "Hi, my name is Winston Jeal, Jealco Systems," and "Hi, my name is Harry Thomas, CompuTex." Bob's own name was "Hi, I'm Bob Drake, Drake Business Consultants." What had happened to Bob Duke? he wondered. Been canceled, apparently, at least as far as Apple was concerned.

  Winston Jeal looked haggard. The Kaywoodie in his mouth was the only thing holding his face together. Without it he would collapse into twitches and snickering anger. Bob knew just exactly who he was. This was the remains of the man from 422, who had spent his night in a police station fielding accusations that must have sounded rather bizarre. "You brought a wolf into the hotel! You ran naked through the halls!"

  "'Morning," Bob said.

  "Hiya," Harry Thomas replied. "Hope you're hungry. I've been to these Apple dos before, and they really lay a table."

  Jeal said nothing, only stared at the elevator doors, his pipe jutting from his mouth. There was a copy of Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow in his jacket pocket. His glasses, in desperate need of cleaning, were held together by a couple of Band-Aids. The doors opened. There was also a conference of independent real-estate agents in the hotel, and they had gathered into boisterous, boasting knots in front of the elevator banks, preparing to go to their own breakfast in Ballroom A. "If those bastards try to sell you some damn land, sell them back with a damn computer," Jeal said. His voice was hollow and deep, resonant with bitter meaning.

  Once in Ballroom C, he went down the row of steam tables loading his plate with eggs, bacon, and sausage, with the darkest toast in the pile, with slices of honeydew melon and tiny pastries, finally with a small croissant from a last pile at the end of the table. A sudden roar arose from the real-estate salesmen two ballrooms away. They were there to be set afire with greed by some blazing expert, to be whipped and massaged until they were virtual psychopaths of sales. The hunger upon them, they would rage out into the land, to sell its still-empty meadows, its forests, to people who might haul in trailers or put up A-frames, and drain their septic tanks into its arteries and veins.

  Bob once saw stalking the night woods near his hunt club a ghost Indian whose face was so pocked with anger that it had festered. Black puss fell in globs from the rotted cheeks, and the eyes were bloodshot with rage. The Indian had walked right off into the sky, and Bob had heard a sound like a stone door closing.

  He sat down now across from Jeal and tucked into a forkful of wobbly scrambled eggs. They filled his head, his lungs, his esophagus with fluffy flavor. Through his mind there flowed images of chickens, clouds of chickens, laying eggs to Eine Kleine Nachtmusick, ta ta ta bloof, dum dum dee. Bloof. And the clerks at their computers, hen number 11893, laying rate 4, weight 2.2 kg, cluck cluck went the disk drive, and the sausage and the bacon, and the howling pigs in the slaughterhouse, the sows and the hogs, the shoats going down the chute, the screams of terror in processing, the automatic clubber smas
hing ten thousand skulls a day.

  They evolved without hands, the pigs, but bearing meat that looks, tastes, and smells just like human. Poor pigs, condemned to be at once reviled and loved by man. Sometimes, eating bacon, you almost remember something. Then you don't, you can't.

  "What?"

  Bob looked up. It was Jeal; he had taken his pipe out of his mouth and spoken, raising his coffee to his lips.

  "Excuse me?"

  "You said something about a pig."

  Bob smiled. "I was thinking about—I used to—I mean, my father once took me to a slaughterhouse." He barked out a laugh. "Sorry."

  "You just blurt out gobbledygook about pigs because you're eating bacon? This industry needs more people like you." Bitter, enraged, his words sharp, his voice thick with anger.

  "What's the matter?"

  "I spent the night as a guest of the goddamn Atlanta police. And I never figured out why. Some crazy story about me letting a dog loose in the hotel. I don't have a dog. My sister has a Lhasa apso, and I had a bulldog named Jane when I was growing up. They say this dog that was allegedly in my room wrecked the goddamn restaurant. What is this, a police state?"

  "They had the Wayne Williams thing here, remember. Child murderer. The Atlanta cops are pathological about anything strange."

  "A guy sitting in a hotel room in his goddamn underpants watching Arsenio Hall is strange? Now I've heard it all." He attacked a poached egg, slicing through it so that the yolk ran and the white collapsed. He cut furiously for a time, until the egg was pale yellow pulp. Then he knocked back a glass of prune juice like it was a shot of Old Crow. "There isn't a goddamn thing you can do. All of a sudden the door flies open and here comes a maid and about six security guards and a dozen cops. 'He put the curtains back,' the maid screams. The damn cops grabbed me. I was so startled I almost swallowed my pipe. As it was I blew the fire through the bowl and set one of the cop's hair alight. He was using this inflammable Georgia Peach goo they've got down here, and it took them a while to get it out. So off I went, booked for assault by a furious five-hundred-pound policeman with a wet towel wrapped around his head." Leaning close to his plate, he shoveled in the rest of the pulped egg.