Quicksand

Ad magic, the celebrated direct-mail wizard for the Global Aid hunger effort, spent a full day and two dark nights of the soul in his bathroom at the Hotel Arusha. It was a nasty, humid little room about the size of a small French elevator. It smelled of old sewage and fresh bilious vomit even with the door open and the bathroom air commingling with the dead, heavy air of his suite. He had a case of the Tanzania trots that seemed to go on forever. And the malaria Ad Magic had picked up in Rwanda was making a comeback now that he was unable to keep his mefloquine down. Malarial fever had a way of elongating time into delirious expanses of paranoia and despair. Yet the bone-rattling chills that would follow were somehow worse, like impending death, and he alternated between fever and chills with something near documentable regularity. Between the sieges, Ad Magic would fall into a heavy slumber punctuated by horrible hypnagogic dreams, or by wide-awake bouts of visceral evacuation. The heart of darkness Conrad wrote about so vividly was still available in modern-day Tanzania. It seemed that he had fallen into an eternal vortex of hell.

The nights were especially bad. Commencing at dusk, the sounds of drunken foolishness in the back alley picked up and gradually built into the roar of full-blown evil. Back there, Africans were drinking rum, palm wine and banana beer, knocking out a demonic beat on upturned 50-gallon drums. Ad Magic was too weak and frightened to step out into the hall and summon help: "Please, bwana, call an ambulance." Why, they would only laugh.

His headaches left him cross-eyed, and during the peak of his fever they brought his anguish to a pitch that seemed beyond the limits of misery. It seemed unendurable, but finally it would push his brain into some ethereal hyperspace. Soon thereafter, chills had him clutching his single blanket with chattering teeth. Through all of this his broken thumb throbbed unbearably. In addition to the intense pain, the thumb reminded him of the shocking scenes he had recently witnessed in Rwanda. These recollections were colored with a dread that had not occurred to him as he had originally experienced them. Ad Magic had seen his share of Third World bull-shit, but Rwanda was the topper. In the end exhaustion overcame dread, and he fell into the dreamless sleep of a dead man.

When he awoke, his stomach had calmed and the malaria had settled into some middle ground. He was not altogether refreshed but managed to rouse himself, shave, shower and run a comb through his hair. Then he made his was down to the dining room. Although he knew he was still deranged at some level, it seemed imperative for him to eat.

The dining hall was opaque with the blue smoke of harsh tobacco and cooking oil. It was evening and as the road traffic breezed by, thick puffs of dusty, red, diesel-smelling air wafted in through the large louvered windows of the restaurant. The room was done up in a Masai motif with shields and spears hanging on the walls between a pair of mangy lion heads covered with cobwebs and red road dust. The wall also featured the heads of a greater kudu, a leopard, a water buffalo and a hippo whose partially open mouth contained an enormous fake cigar. Ad Magic knew that hippos were extremely dangerous. Year after year they killed more human beings in Africa than any other animal.

Ad Magic waved to the Methodist missionaries he had met before his attack. Pastor Dave and his wife, Cissy, were seated at a large table illuminated by a pair of 40-watt ceiling bulbs encased in Japanese crepe shades. They had earlier agreed to take a major detour from their own route to drive Ad Magic and a physician from Copenhagen to the Global Aid Mission at Mocherville. That was a nice little piece of luck since Ad Magic was already overdue in Zaire. The entire party had been kind enough to delay its trip until he had recovered.

Pastor Dave summoned him over to the table with a wave. But Ad Magic first stopped at the bar, ordered a double whiskey and a bottle of Simba beer, downed them instantly and asked the waiter to send another round to the table. Alcohol on an empty stomach made him feel acutely well. An apparent full recovery. He felt so well, in fact, that when the waiter arrived with his setup, Ad Magic ordered the house special, vegetable curry on rice. It was going for something like 90 cents American, a bargain impossible to turn down.

Small talk started but stopped at once when Dr. Erika Lars made her appearance at the table. She was a stunning beauty, a blonde. Women like Lars seldom turned up in places like this. It was only as he started at her with some incredulity that Ad Magic recalled her coming into his bathroom at the peak of his diarrhea crisis. She had caught him on the floor, tucked into the fetal position, clutching his thin blanket, his shorts around his ankles. He had cursed helplessly, demanding that she leave. Instead, she had given him a painful injection. Remembering the squalid scene now, he found himself too embarrassed to speak.

A furious assault of spiced curry came from the kitchen until the road breeze picked up and rustled the palm fronds just outside the hotel. An overhead fan with burnt bearings pounded steadily, but with little effect. As Lars pulled off her jacket to hang it on the back of her chair, she drew her blouse taut and Ad Magic got a load of her breasts. Jeez! He realized that he was staring, but couldn't help it. Lars hunched forward, shyly, as if to diminish her bustline. She was far more beautiful than he had remembered. To avoid staring and to better contain his embarrassment, he tossed off his second double whiskey with a debonair flick of the wrist and began sipping his second bottle of Simba. His rationale was that the alcohol would finish off the last of the intestinal bacteria that had made him so sick in the first place. Further doses of whiskey would dispatch any germs lurking in the curry.

At the bar, a half dozen wealthy Africans wearing chunky Rolex watches snapped orders at the barman, a short Arab in a fez and a grimy white bar coat. An old art deco radio on a glass case behind the bar played Moon River. The radio had an amazingly good sound.

While Dr. Lars pondered the menu, Ad Magic dived into the 90-cent special, served with hot pipi peppers. He knew they were dangerous but found them irresistible. His plate held enough food to feed an army. Value for the dollar. As Pastor Dave and Cissy drank Nescafé and fired questions at Lars, Ad Magic astonished everyone by finishing his enormous meal in less than three minutes. When the waiter brought him a brandy, Ad Magic whipped out a Marlboro. It was his first cigarette in days. After four long drags he knew he had made a colossal mistake. Not only was the cigarette a grave error but also the brandy, the curry and the whiskeys and beer before it. He braced himself on his narrow chair and held on to the edge of the table as his face went pale. Dr. Lars set her handwritten menu down, leaned forward and placed the cool back of her hand against his forehead and cheek. "Oh dear," she said with a sweet Danish accent. "You don't look well at all."

Ad Magic popped up and converted a sentence into a word, "Nine-seconds-to-make-the-toilet!" He delivered this declaration so emphatically that the whole room fell silent as everyone turned to stare. Even the glass-eyed animals on the walls seemed to train their enamel-painted pupils on him as he padded out of the room with his ass cheeks squeezed tightly together.

Once safely out of view, he bounded up the back stairs, scrabbled open his double-locked door and burst into the bathroom. When the worst of it was over, he curled into the fetal position and prayed, "Oh, God, please I'll do anything! Just cut me a little slack."

As the cramps began to subside, there came a sharp, insistent knocking at the door. Ad Magic flushed the toilet and mopped his face with a dingy hotel towel that smelled of mold and brought him within an ace of vomiting yet again. He swished some Scope in his mouth, stepped into his bush shorts and answered the door. Dr. Lars stood at the portal with an amber bottle of paregoric. "Hiya," she said, pushing her blonde bangs back. "I thought you could use something to help with your tummy troubles." She handed him the medicine. "This should stop the cramping and calm things down in your lower GI tract."

Ad Magic knew that paregoric contained opium and wasted no time shaking up the bottle and taking several large slugs of the chalky mixture. He shook a couple of malaria tablets from a bottle on his bureau into his hand and chased them with more paregoric.

"Uh, I just wanted to tell you that I thought your letter with the mealies sample was fabulous."

"It was?" Ad Magic said. Fine beads of perspiration broke out on his face. "Hell, I take no credit for that letter. The holy spirit wrote that one."

"Don't be modest, that was a wonderful concept. Attaching a little glassine bag of mealies made it all so real for the reader. It just brought the whole point home. There's such incredible donor fatigue, but your letters--well, they're marvelous. For less money than it takes to feed the average Saint Bernard, feeding an African family of seven. What person with the least shred of human feeling could resist? After I ate my sample, I immediately wrote a cheek and drove it straight to the post."

"That's exactly what you were supposed to do. When you set them aside (continued on page 86)Quicksand(continued from page 78) for later, to think it over, nothing ever comes of it. But the samples weren't really mealies," Ad Magic said. "I sort of cheated. And in truth, what with graft, transportation, thievery and so on, it costs less for two to dine at a Tokyo nightclub than it does to give a single African a handful of Kansas corn." Ad Magic took another slug from the paregoric bottle.

"What?"

"How long you been in-country, baby?"

"Three months, baby."

"It's frustrating, is all. Everything just seems to keep getting worse. Mealies letters, for God's sake."

"What was in it? It was delicious."

"You'll get pissed if I tell you," Ad Magic said.

"Oh come on now," she said with a laugh. "Since I've come to Africa I've eaten monkey, goat, fried grubs, crocodile, even--"

"You'll be disappointed in me. I mean you guys take the Hippocratic oath and are ethical and everything. Ad writers are a different breed. What kind of car do you drive?"

"A Saab."

"A Saab. Well, then I really can't tell you. You'll hate me forever."

"No I won't. Cross my heart and swear to die," Lars said. She was pushing 30. Crow's-feet and wrinkles were beginning to establish themselves on her face, but the bone structure would hold up for life. She had a pretty nose, and from Ad Magic's experience with fashion models in the days when he worked as a commercial ad writer, he knew a good nose was the foremost requisite for the sort of beauty that would survive into and even past middle age. He felt like proposing marriage to her right on the spot. Lars had a great face. She had plump, high cheekbones, full lips and large green eyes. And then there were the breasts, which simply defied the laws of physics. Maybe she'd had a job done on them. Maybe there was a colleague in Copenhagen who practiced cosmetic surgery. The width and thickness of the brassiere visible beneath Lars' T-shirt was formidable. Maybe it was Howard Hughes' last masterwork? Ad Magic took a step back to get an overall idea of proportions. Lars' arms and shoulders seemed slender, but she had good muscle tone and he realized they were slender only relative to the size of her breasts. Her forearms and wrists were substantial. He hoped she wouldn't ruin everything by having thick ankles.

"Thanks for the medicine. That was very nice of you. Do you think you could take a look at my thumb? It's just killing me. And the malaria is bad. I haven't been able to keep any pills clown. I've been hallucinating, it seems, for a lifetime. Am I dreaming or are you real?"

"I'm real," Lars said with a laugh. Her teeth glistened white. Her tongue and gums flashed healthy and pink. Ad Magic escorted her into his room, closed the door and followed her over to the dim light by the bed. Lars wore a madras skirt that hung to her ankles, but the ankles were trim. She had a narrow waist, shapely hips and, unless she were somehow related to Popeye, she had to have long, thin legs.

"A pediatrician from Denmark. Hmmm. They know of me there? Did you read my letter about potable water in Cameroon? I wonder how it held up through the translation."

"It was fabulous. I read it in Danish. I liked the business about living waters."

"You didn't think that was too, well, biblical? Too corny?"

"Not at all. In the context of the letter the whole image was perfect and very subtle, actually. Sophisticated. Ever since I got into this field I've heard scads about you, and now it's as though I'm meeting a celebrity. Anybody with half a brain can get through medical school, but to actually move people, to involve them as you do--I had no idea you would be so handsome," she blurted.

"You mean to make them give up some of their green?" he said. Sick as he was, Ad Magic saw that she was attracted to him. The word handsome had escaped from her mouth like a Freudian slip. Lars seemed to realize this, since she flushed. "Are you going to tell me what was in my little packet of mealies?"

Ad Magic shook the finger on his good hand at her in a teasing, admonishing fashion, worrying at the same time that his breath was vile. "Oh, Lars, ho, ho, ho. I can't tell. It's a trade secret like the recipe for Pepsi. You don't think that the living waters thing was kind of overly theatrical?"

"It was wonderful, but it's going to take more than water to right the situation in Coma. It's going to take some of that American green--lots!" Lars pushed her bangs back again. Preening behavior. She wore no makeup. Her hair was lank with the humidity. With a shampoo, some face powder and lipstick she would be a knockout. He wondered if she had been three months plus without sex as well. She seemed eager for him to make a move, but Ad Magic had serious doubts about his breath. Then his stomach growled and he winced from the cramps. "Unngh!" he said. "I know I just had the shits, but I've been having this pain in my side, too, since before this all started. It really gets bad if I take vitamins or eat dairy. I mean, I know I'm fairly young, but you don't think I could have--cancer?"

"Oh, you silly hypochondriac," Lars said to him. "Of course you don't have cancer."

"How can you just say that? I mean without a CAT scan or something?"

Lars patted the bed. "Lie down," she said. As Ad Magic lay on the bed his stomach growled again and they both laughed. Lars slipped her cool hands under Ad Magic's shirt. "What are you doing?"

"Feeling your liver," she said. She slid Ad Magic's shirt up and placed her ear on his stomach. "Pretty wild in there," she said. "Bowel sounds. Where do you have the pain?" Ad Magic took her wrist and placed her hand on the spot. "If you press on it, it sort of goes away."

Lars began to massage the spot. "There's a 90-degree crinkle in your bowel here and it can get spastic when you eat irritating foods. It's nothing."

"Really?"

Lars began to laugh. "You silly hypochondriac, you. Now let's have a look at that thumb." Lars carefully removed the dressing.

"You have a lot of pressure under the nail and the bone is crushed. No wonder it hurts. What happened?"

"Rwanda," he said. "When I got to the refugee camp in Tanzania and showed the doctors my thumb, they just laughed like, We've got real things to worry about. I said, 'I'm Derek Van Horne.' And it was like, So what? Get the fuck out of here. So I wrapped it myself. And speaking of refugees, let me give you a little piece of advice: You want to bring somebody back from the brink of starvation, powdered milk, beef or whatever doesn't cut it. That will kill them by the second day. It takes sardines, mackerel or cod-liver oil if you can't get fish. EPH. The assholes in Tanzania are pushing powdered milk. It's a joke."

Dr. Lars got up from the bed and (continued on page 149)Quicksand(continued from page 86) removed a paper clip from a manuscript that lay on Ad Magic's bureau. "You still haven't told me how you broke it."

"Government soldiers bashed it with a rifle. Chased me over the edge of a damn ravine--head over heels like a Peter Sellers movie. I landed in a muck-fucking quicksand pit loaded with crocodiles. I lost my shoes. It was insane. I still can't believe it."

Lars straightened the paper clip and held it in the flame of the butane lighter she retrieved from the bureau next to Ad Magic's red-and-white packet of Marlboros. In seconds, the end of the paper clip glowed red. Worried about his breath, Ad Magic took another swallow of paregoric. He hoisted his window and looked down at the street drummers. "Martha and the Vandellas: Your love is like quicksand, and I'm sinkin' deeper."

Lars took his injured hand: "Hey," Ad Magic said, "What are you doing?"

"Don't worry," she said. "Trust me. Be a brave little soldier now." Lars plunged the red-hot end of the paper clip into the base of Ad Magic's thumbnail, filling the air with the pungent smell of burning hair. When she made a second hole, a narrow streamer of blood shot across the room. "Oh man," Ad Magic said, sagging. "You scared the shit out of me but, oh boy. Holy cow! What a relief."

"Didn't I tell you so?" Lars said with a laugh. "You're so tense. Roll over on your belly," she said, pulling him to the bed. Soon her cool fingers were massaging his back and neck. Ad Magic let off a long sigh as the paregoric hit home and warmth filled his abdomen. In another moment he was floating an inch above the mattress. He closed his eyes and saw marvelous swirling lights. "That feels so good," he said. "Don't ever stop. All that shit in Rwanda. I've been as scared as a rabbit ever since I got here. This has been a fucked-up trip."

Her fingers left his skin suddenly and Lars seemed to be rustling out of her shirt. Ad Magic listened as she seemed to unclasp her bra. It sounded as though she were opening up a bank vault. Could it be possible?

Suddenly he could feel the sweep of her long hair and the points of her firm breasts on his back as she licked, kissed and nibbled his ears. He quickly grew hard, and as he rolled over Lars pulled off her panties and mounted him. Her breasts stood erect and the nipples tilted up. Implants or real? Lars bent forward and let Ad Magic bury his face in them. In order not to come, he forced himself to think of the numbers that had accrued to date on his mealies letter. He thought of the metric tons of corn that had been purchased with the funds. He thought of the overhead, the transportation costs and the percentage of money Global Aid owed him over and above his salary on a sliding-scale rate. Suddenly Lars found the right position and began to groove on his cock like a bronco rider. She let off a long shuddering groan and then reverted to the push-up position. Ad Magic quit his mental calculations to watch her marvelous breasts for the few seconds that passed before he exploded inside her.

•

Lars did not get off him but leaned back, pinching her nipples as she continued to thrust in a wholly new fashion. Ad Magic worried that she would expect him to remain hard. He did not think himself capable of such a feat but, to his amazement, as he concentrated on her breasts his erection remained intact, hardened even, like industrial-grade diamond. "I'm fucking. I'm actually fucking. I am getting laid," he whispered.

The further Lars leaned back, the more confident Ad Magic became in his staying power. As the backbend became extreme, Ad Magic thought she might snap off his penis. Yet there was pleasure in the pain. He slipped out, and she roughly grabbed his dick and reinserted it. Ad Magic found himself doing a kind of neck bridge to accommodate her. As with so many of the beautiful women he had known in the fashion industry, making love to Lars was becoming hard work.

Lars got off him and summoned him to enter her from the missionary position. Then she began a series of low-grade orgasms. She wet her middle finger in her mouth and stuck it up Ad Magic's raw ass. He just about hit the ceiling over that one and began banging her as hard as possible, as if to fuck her to death. She gave off her greatest cry. Finally, Ad Magic thought.

But Lars took Ad Magic's head in her hands and rammed her tongue into his mouth. The furnace heat she was putting out was incredible. She worked her mouth down his neck to his chest, arms and the fingers of his good hand. He held the sore thumb above his head in abeyance until Lars went down on him in such an experienced and smooth fashion that Ad Magic realized he was about to receive the blow job of a lifetime. He clasped both hands gently on her head, closed his eyes and drifted off into ecstasy. It was as if Rwanda and the whole nightmarish trip to Africa had never happened. Lars seemed tireless and when Ad Magic opened his eyes and saw those firm, shimmering breasts, he became as hard as a teenager on testosterone and, in moments, he came.

•

Ad Magic woke to the feel of Lars' cool fingers on his check. When he looked up at her, she was fully dressed. "Did we do it, or have I been dreaming?"

Lars winked at him. "Oh, it was a dream. What kind of girl do you take me for? This has been a strictly professional visit."

He smiled at this. "I knew it had to be too good to be true." He swept his hair back with his fingers. "Tell me something, Lars. Do you ever feel like a puppet in a Punch-and-Judy show?"

"No," she said, "What kind of question is that?"

Ad Magic realized he was still grooving on the opium. He reached for a cigarette and smoked it cool style, pouting his lips and inserting it into the center of his mouth. "Scatman Crothers as Mr. Clotho: Ahm just a porter on the Pushman line. Ahm a sheet metal man an' all my ducts look fine."

Lars smiled.

"Scatman Crothers in The Shining: How would y'all like a nice big dish of chocolate ice cream, Doc? Heh heh heh."

Lars smiled, revealing her teeth. "And Scatman Crothers as Jimmy Durante--"

Lars unbuttoned her blouse, tossed it on a chair and reached behind her back to unclasp her bra. When her breasts sprang loose, she said, "Yes? Jimmy Durante. Yes?"

"Make dat Ralph Kramden, darlin'. Hommina, hommina, hommina."

•

Pastor Dave Mosley, large and stout, with a full gray beard, was walking around his dirty gray Peugeot 505 station wagon, shifting luggage on the roof rack. He loosely secured ropes, lighting and relighting a big bowl calabash pipe while he experimented with various load arrangements.

Ad Magic's pupils were dilated and his eyes had a glassy opiate sheen as he took the last few slugs from his giant bottle of paregoric. It was warm and getting hot as Pastor Dave continued to fiddle with the Peugeot. Ad Magic, dressed in the thinnest of cottons, watched with increasing dismay as the stout minister worked in the hot sun in a thick cabled wool sweater. He was checking not only the air pressure of the tires but also that of the spare. Ad Magic zigzagged back to his room to pay one last visit to the toilet. When he returned, Pastor Dave's head was buried in the narrow hood of the Peugeot. Christ! Now what? Ad Magic approached Pastor Dave, tapping him on the shoulder. "Are you putting in new head gaskets, or what?"

Pastor Dave stepped back, struck a wooden match and lit his pipe. He took several pulls on it and then held it out before him, a beloved object. He took another few pulls and blue-and-white smoke poured out of the bowl like mist coming off a hunk of dry ice. "I'm afraid the water pump is shot. Are you feeling any better?"

"I feel fine," Ad Magic said. "I thought we were leaving at nine. The water pump is broken?"

"Ho. Not to worry. This is Africa, son." Pastor Dave puffed on the calabash, surveying the landscape. It was such a bright and clear day that the low crater of Ngorongoro seemed deceptively near. The minister nodded at the mountain, summoning Ad Magic to do the same. "Oh, the hell with that," Ad Magic said, waving it off. "If you've seen one fucking crater, you've seen them all."

"Oh ho," Pastor Dave said. "It's the fever still. You're not feeling well, are you? It's a wonderful day."

"It's not that I'm not feeling well. It's just that I thought we agreed to leave at nine. How are you going to run down a water pump? I suppose you want to boil out the radiator, too."

"Joshua is rounding one up now," Pastor Dave said. "Cissy has gone along with him to keep him away from the beer halls."

"God! They have an auto parts store in Arusha?" Ad Magic said.

"Not really. There's a junkyard."

"The whole city is a junkyard!"

"Well, a case could be made. Anyhow, they've gone over there to scavenge a water pump. I thought I would take the time while we're waiting to adjust the timing and top off the oil. I really need to throw a new set of rings into this beast. It burns a quart with every fill-up. I'm almost three quarters of a quart low and I hate to top up since we'll have an open can of oil to carry."

"Just dump it all in," Ad Magic said abruptly.

"Well, you can do that but then there's too much pressure and it can blow the seals. Especially on a hot day."

"Then add three fourths of a quart and throw the oil away. You can't carry an open can in the car. Somebody's going to knock it over."

"I was thinking of that," Pastor Dave said. "But I hate to waste oil."

"Give it to a beggar!" Ad Magic snapped. "He can start a business greasing rusty bicycle chains."

"Oh ho!" Pastor Dave said. "You're a funny man, Derek. This will be a jolly trip."

"I'm going back to get Lars. They've got an X-ray machine at the Methodist clinic. Lars promised to set my thumb if there was time. It feels like a rat is chewing my whole hand off."

"I noticed the bandage at dinner. What happened?"

"I'll tell you about it on the trip," Ad Magic said. "Let me go find Lars." He started to walk back to the hotel and then turned to look at a chicken crate tied above his suitcase on top of the car. "Whose chicken is that? Is Joshua taking a chicken?"

"Oh, the chicken," Pastor Dave said. "I forgot to tell you."

"That suitcase cost me more than $400 in Switzerland," Ad Magic said as he turned and stalked back to his room. "Fuck."

•

Lars sat before a raw pine bureau with a small mirror, brushing her hair. She was dressed in a pair of Banana Republic shorts, Reebok cross-trainers and a thin denim blouse. She smiled as Ad Magic came inside. "You can't go about like that," Ad Magic said, nodding at her shorts.

"Why not?" Lars said.

"Because this is Africa. How long have you been in Tanzania, anyhow?"

"What makes you think that I was planning to go out like this?" Lars asked. "And where do you get off getting so cheeky?"

"Because it's time to leave, only it's not time to leave because the car's water pump is out. Cissy and Joshua are at some junkyard looking for a spare."

"Why on earth are you so grouchy?" Lars said. "Wasn't last night relaxing?"

"I'm hangover on paregoric," Ad Magic said. "My thumb is killing me."

Lars reached for Ad Magic's hand and examined it. "The nail is infected and it really should come off. Let's walk over to the clinic and take a picture of the break. I can probably set it for you."

"What do you mean, probably?"

"I don't know much about orthopedics," Lars said, throwing on a jacket. "But the bone is crushed. What happened to you, anyhow? You're so mysterious about everything."

"I told you. Rwanda. Quicksand," Ad Magic said. "Martha and the Vandellas. I'm sinking deeper. Crocodiles and shit."

•

As Lars and Ad Magic came out of the hotel, Pastor Dave had the alternator of the Peugeot 505 laid out in the lot along with the fan belt, the water hoses and the car's radiator. "Oh my God!" Ad Magic said. "We'll be here all week."

Lars, now decorously clad in her madras skirt, took Ad Magic's good hand and pulled him along as she took great bounding steps forward. "That would be super."

Ad Magic laughed. "I guess you're right. I mean, we're headed for Goma. And then--Mocherville! Let's hope he never gets it fixed."

The side road into town defined itself only by virtue of the fact that it was a darker color than the sand that surrounded it. It was packed down by road traffic and stained with oil and transmission fluid. Along the roadside were large billboards extolling the virtues of skin bleach, depilatories, Orange Crush, Walls ice cream and Colgate toothpaste. The ubiquitous Coke signs proclaimed nothing. They were just what they were--international icons.

The billboards were separated by flamboyant trees--palms, acacias, ballanites--under which street vendors sold potatoes, onions, tomatoes, mangoes, pineapples and enormous plantains. They sold crude salt, miswaki sticks (which the Tanzanians used as toothbrushes) and various unlikely items--Walkman tape players, Nike jogging shoes, Harvard University sweatshirts. Ad Magic watched a man dole out palm oil from a large tin into empty pop bottles. Another vendor offered cigarettes for sale, one at a time or in colorful packets. Others offered a variety of cooked foods--hot corn on the cob, roasted nuts, stews and meat kabobs of uncertain origin. African women dressed in brightly colored kanga cloth toted bundles on their heads--firewood, yams carried in large porcelain basins, sacks of kola nuts, stalks of bananas, hogfish--while their men walked ahead of them carrying nothing at all. This was a far sight better than Rwanda, where people were reduced to eating field mice.

Bicycles and motorcycles cruised up and down the road. People stood under the trees passing the time of day, smoking cigarettes, listening to juju music or playing the popular board game kigogo, shuffling little wooden balls into slots hollowed out of a log. A child had tried to teach the game to Ad Magic in the refugee camp across the Tanzanian border from Rwanda, and he had promised himself that he would master it as a form of self-improvement, but he had found it to be the most complicated, difficult and utterly pleasureless game he had ever in his life tried. It was the most awful taxing of his brain he could remember since he was required to take a course in botany in college.

"Look at them," he said to Lars. "Happy-go-lucky, sweet, friendly. But God knows how fast that can all change. I thought I had a handle on this place, but not now, not anymore. I'm going to Mocherville and then I'm out of here, never to return. Rwanda is just the start. All these tinhorn countries are ready to blow. And to think I used to feel safer here than at home."

As the side road fed into the main drag, Lars led Ad Magic through the traffic, diesel fumes and 130-decibel noise into the Methodist clinic. This was packed with dozens of ailing Africans, none of whom had anything so minor as a broken thumb. Lars escorted Ad Magic into the surgery with a wave at the clerk sitting at the front desk.

The senior physician took an X ray of Ad Magic's thumb. Lars then whipped out a syringe and began poking him around the base of the thumb with novocaine. Tears began to run from Ad Magic's eyes, "You're so violent with that damn needle," he said. "Can't you give a shot so it doesn't hurt? Like slower? You didn't even give me any time to get ready, to think things over, to compose myself."

"If I go slower, it's still hurting, isn't it?" she said. "We're all through now. Fast is better." Before he knew what was happening, Lars took a pair of forceps and removed Ad Magic's thumbnail. It was a painless operation that sounded like a piece of tape being ripped off a cold glass window. The size of the nail with its bloody root horrified him. As soon as Lars finished cleaning out the nail bed, the house doctor was ready with a wooden splint. He fixed it to the thumb and adjusted the bone by feel. After he bandaged it, he led Ad Magic, now feeling queasy, to his consulting room and poured him a mug of tea. He went back out to the examining room to join Lars.

This gave Ad Magic a chance to poke into the medicine cabinet that sat temptingly open with a key dangling from the lock. He grabbed one of several large blue jars of morphine tablets, popped three with his tea and replaced it. Then he changed his mind and began jamming pills into his bush pockets. When his pockets were bulging, he stuck the jar in the back of the cabinet and positioned the full jars in front of it to conceal his theft. He pulled his shirt out of his shorts to cover the bulk of his pockets. Jeez! He wished he had a sea bag. A shopping cart. This was a once-in-a-life-time score. Before him was a five-year supply of morphine. There didn't seem to be much else worth stealing until he saw a 100-count bottle of Dexedrine. He dumped these into his near-empty box of Marlboros and was sitting on an old leather-cushioned divan when Lars and the senior doctor came back into the room holding an X ray. "All is OK," said the doctor. He carefully replaced the wooden splint with a curved one made of aluminum, secured it with an elastic bandage and said, "Dr. Lars can take it from here."

•

Back at the Hotel Arusha, Pastor Dave and Joshua seemed to have even more motor parts laid out on the ground. Pastor Dave winked at Ad Magic and Lars and they each gave him a little wave. "Good," Ad Magic said to Lars, "We'll be here all week. Good."

"Does that mean you're happy to be with me?" Lars said.

Overjoyed at his narcotics score, Ad Magic said, "Are you kidding? I'm nuts about, you. I'm in love with you. Let's go out and buy a ring. I want to marry you and live with you forever."

Lars laughed. "You're silly," she said.

He had expected her to be thrilled and instead she seemed to be mocking him. Ad Magic stared at her blankly. "So hip, so cool, so tough. You got a heart of ice, I swear. Does life ever seem like it's nothing but a big cartoon?"

She took his good hand and led him up to her room. There, buzzed on morphine, Ad Magic became a high-wire man in the circus. He was the Great Wallenda. Break-dancer Wallenda. "No inhibitions today. I'm not shy," he said. He lifted his arms up and extended them out from his shoulders, pointing his forefingers out with a flourish. He thrust out his chin and began to walk the wire. He carefully pointed each foot forward and walked an imaginary line across the floor, toe-heel, toe-heel, toe-heel. He got up on his tippy toes and began to backpedal as if he were about to fall. "When I was a commercial writer, I sort of flipped. Nervous breakdown. I don't know. I mean I don't know if it was all the drugs I was doing or if I was just plain crazy. I heard voices. God talked to me."

"You heard a voice from God?"

"Seemed like I did," Ad Magic said. "I was nearly killed in Rwanda. I'm getting too old for Africa. I'm over here risking life and limb and back in Los Angeles they tell me, 'Don't drive your Jaguar into headquarters, it looks bad. We're a nonprofit organization.' I say, 'Look at how much money my letters pull in.' They say, "All you do is sit around here all day and flirt with the girls; then you pop into your office for five minutes and write a letter.' I say, 'Well, if it's so goddamn easy, you try it. Who came up with the mealies letter? Look what I've done for you. I've put food in those empty bellies. And what the hell thanks do I get?' Lars, tell me something. Have you ever heard the fairy tale Rumpelstiltskin? Have they got that one in Denmark?"

"Of course."

"Well, I suppose you think the little dwarf was a nasty man because he wanted to take the princess' first baby. Here's a man who comes along, saves her life, weaves straw into gold. Gets her married to the prince of the land. Creates a life of milk and honey for her and when it's time for her to turn over the kid as per agreement, she welshes. I got out of the commercial field, where at least you know you're going to get knifed in the back--nobody pretends that it's otherwise. I thought that by doing something for humanity--by doing the right thing--I could come to terms with life. But it's nothing but lies, duplicity and them all hating me no matter how much I deliver. Yet I have been honorable and held up my end of the deal. I have brought in millions and they say, 'Don't park the Jaguar at work. It looks bad. Buy an Escort.'"

Lars stroked his cheek with the back of her hand. "Poor misunderstood genius."

"Christ, Lars, you got a heart made out of ice. Wait until you get a load of Mocherville. They've got some sorry-ass missions in Zaire." Ad Magic held up his hands. "But with these magic fingers I have single-handedly turned Mocherville into the fucking Hilton of Zaire: air conditioners, Land Cruisers, a river launch, a pharmacy, slit-lamp ophthalmology, clean water, three squares a day, HIV prevention and treatment, an immunization program, Hansen's disease eradication--the whole deal. Clothing. There's even a dental service. They have a library. Classrooms. Modern textbooks. It's an oasis in hell, thanks to yours truly. To top it all off, they sent me over to this motherfucker in a coach-class seat, a violation of my contract. They can kiss my ass and let somebody else float the son of a bitch. I've had it. Every time I come back it's 20 times worse. Africa is just going down the shit-hole as fast as possible. People eating mice--"

"All I'm hearing is self-pity." Lars pulled off her sunglasses. "Have you ever taken lithium? Saliva is flying out of your mouth."

Ad Magic relaxed his shoulders. "Lithium? Yeah, sure. Stelazine, lithium, all that crap." He looked down at his shoes. "My investment portfolio is all over the joint. I've got to get on that when I get home. Maybe I can semiretire." He thrust his lower teeth forward of his lip. Amphetamine. He grabbed her elbow. "C'mon. Let's go. We've got a mission of vital importance."

Ad Magic took Lars in his arms and kissed her. "My God, you're beautiful. I love you. You're the love of my life, I swear."

In moments, Lars and Ad Magic were on the road back to town. With every step, Ad Magic cringed in pain.

"What?" Lars said.

"The heel bone being connected to the leg bone being connected to the hipbone and so on to the thumb bone. The thumb is killing me. I took morphine and it's throbbing anyfuckinghow!" Ad Magic looked up at the sky imploringly.

"Why in the hell don't you just strike me dead and get it over with?"

"Derek," Lars said. "This is insane. Stop it!"

Ad Magic was several strides ahead of her. Soon he began to jog until he came to the first fast-food brazier, where he bought two iced bottles of Fanta orange. He popped three more morphine tablets and swallowed them with a bottle of soda. By the time Lars caught up, he was sipping the second bottle and smoking a cigarette.

"Do you want anything, baby? Are you thirsty? Hungry?"

Lars shook her head. "No, baby!"

"Look, I know what you're thinking, but don't worry. I'm all right. Just having a little nicotine fit back there. I'm better now. Seriously, do you know where we can find a good traditional doctor? I saw a whole lane of them the other day." Ad Magic handed the stall-keeper the empty soda bottles and when the man offered Ad Magic his change Ad Magic told him to keep it. "Let's go!" He thrust his lower teeth forward. "The winged dragon flies through the night sky." He lifted his palm and presented the sky to her as if it were his to give. "Beautiful, huh?"

"It's not night. It's daytime."

"You can really be a pain in the ass, Lars. What a nitpicker."

A small boy ran up to Ad Magic with a shoeshine kit. Ad Magic put a loafer on the little box and while the boy started slapping on polish and working the shoe over with a stained rag, Ad Magic snapped the fingers on his good hand and worked his arms and elbows in rhythm to the popping of the shoeshine rag. "Shoeshine boy. I'm a shoeshine boy." After the first shoe was complete, he handed the boy the equivalent of $50 while Lars shook her head in dismay. "It's all just fucking Monopoly money. I don't have to work for it."

Ad Magic led Lars to a row of herbalist stalls in a side alley off the main road beyond the Methodist clinic. After surveying all the stalls, Ad Magic dragged Lars back to the one with the most alert-looking of the traditional doctors, an old fellow with several crusted eczema patches that he worked over with the tips of his thin fingers. "The motherfucker can't cure himself, but that's not always a factor," Ad Magic said. A hand-painted sign in English advertised cures for lower back pain, impotence, toothache, malaria and worms. He turned to Lars. "My Swahili is for shit. Ask him if he can work some juju. Tell him I have many enemies in America who wish to harm me and that I don't feel so good. Say that I'm a writer and that I need my mojo back. My well is dry. If he's got a quit-smoking cure, have him throw that in, too."

As Lars conversed with the old man, Ad Magic shifted from foot to foot, alternately squeezing the four fingers of each hand. "What? What?" he said anxiously.

"He thinks he can help you. Five dollars American to sacrifice a rooster. Fifteen for a goat."

"Tell him I want a big bull elephant and I'll pay $500."

Lars translated the message. The witch doctor rose from his seat and spat on the ground.

"You've insulted him," Lars said. "Now he wants $20. The size of the animal has nothing to do with it. He wants $20."

"Seven!"

Lars turned back to the witch doctor and entered into a protracted negotiation. Ad Magic reverted to his jaw-thrusting behavior. Instead of wringing his hands, he kept checking his wrist-watch. "We're late," he said. "We're late. C'mon." Lars slapped his good hand. "Relax," she said, as she continued to talk with the witch doctor. Soon both were laughing.

"He has a nephew who has the perfect goat."

"How much?"

"Nine dollars. I don't think I can get him down any lower. If you can pay $50 to have one shoe shined, what's the big deal? It's just Monopoly money, Derek."

"How much for the rooster? What's the bottom line on the rooster?"

Lars turned back to the witch doctor. Ad Magic glanced at his watch. "Oh hell, you're right, give him the nine. Let's get this show on the road."

Ad Magic smoked a half dozen cigarettes in the half hour it took for the witch doctor's nephew to return, not with the goat but with a rooster. Lars spoke with the doctor, who said a rooster was just as good. Rather than watch the ceremony, Ad Magic paid the man and handed him three Marlboro cigarettes. "Kwaheri, man. Muchas gracias. Next time you are een Bolivia, peek up zee phone and geeve me a call, dude. I weel show you zee nightlife an' get you laid." Ad Magic blew him a kiss and he and Lars fought their way through the narrow alley, turned left on the main road and headed back toward the hotel. "You're beautiful," he said. "You're the love of my life. I feel better already."

"You're stoned," Lars said.

"I'm not impaired, in the real sense, believe me. There's a difference."

"Why were you given Stelazine?" Lars said.

"They gave me that in the nuthouse. It's not bad. Stelazine, life's a dream."

"I see."

"Let's go back to my room and do it."

"I am having my period," she said coldly.

"We can just make out. That's even better. I like that better. You're so beautiful. Lighten up, baby."

"OK, baby. But first tell me about the mealies letter."

"Fuckin' Murphy Brown! What a mouth you've got. Shit! Well, the mealies letter. I hate to dwell on past glories, but I'll tell you if I get to kiss those mmm! mmm! goody! luscious lips. Anyhow, I got this sack of mealies in my office and I'm eating it. It's a joke. Like, this is what I have to eat on the pay I get. I make it into a big joke and pretty soon everybody is eating my mealies, including all of the uptight assholes who I just hate and would like to knife, strangle or shoot through the brain. So what I do next is mash up some Milk Bone dog biscuits. I'm telling everyone they're protein-fortified--you know, new and improved--mealies and everybody is eating these dog biscuits and going, 'Wow! This stuff is great! This is just super!' I'm getting real satisfaction to think they're eating dog food. But then I read the ingredients on the dog box--good stuff--canola oil and stuff. I try it myself and it's like 200 times more delicious than the real mealies. Anyhow, how do you make the problem of starvation real to most Americans who have probably never missed a meal in their lives? Pictures of babies with swollen stomachs only cuts it to a point. People are donor weary. So I started sending out the crushed Milk Bones in little homemade packets that I stapled to the bottom of the letters, and after the initial response, I knew I was onto a real goody. I went over the marketing lists. Jaguar owners, unlike myself, are typically austere types. I added coarse sea salt to the product and bingo! We've got 4300 registered Jaguar owners on our list and we get replies from 2107. The Cadillac and Lincoln crowd are comfort-seekers: These got crunchy granola and brown sugar mixed with their Milk Bones. I had a little factory down in the basement and hired some street bums to crush the Milk Bones and bag them."

"What was in the Saab batch?"

"Rat shit."

Lars made a fist and socked Ad Magic on the very site where she had given him a tetanus shot a half hour before. "You bastard."

"Lars, you Danish yuppie, you. I'm just kidding. Milk Bones have to be some kind of food and drug violation. I think we sent out like 40,000 and broke all records--me and my street crew. I had this super blend that I sent to the corporate clients and that's where we started drawing down some long green. Then my boss got into the act, and they started mailing real mealies and, I mean, what, could I say? 'We need to use Milk Bones instead?' The curve started to drop but we were still hauling in well over triple. John Q. Citizen tastes the little sample, imagines himself in darkest Africa eating mealies far from the stresses and strains of 20th century America. Or something. I don't really know what the appeal was. Only that this damn letter has become an instant classic in the industry. I'm up for awards, and in the meantime we are delivering metric tons of corn to the starving Masai, which is the bottom line. I mean, I could get banned if the truth ever comes out. My packaging guys weren't even washing their hands."

"Did you ever imagine yourself to be Christlike?"

"Oh ho ho, Lars! Don't play psychiatrist with me. Jesus was a paranoid schizophrenic. There's literature on it. I've got both my feet planted in reality."

"Hmmm!"

"Hmmm! she sez. You are such a beautiful woman. You have such a free spirit--"

"Would you be willing to try the Stelazine again? The lithium?"

"Lars, don't be my doctor, be my main sah-queeze. I don't want to hear doctor, I can't work on lithium. Who can work on lithium? If I have to be a little crazy to do this, so be it. I'm not really in it for myself anymore. This is all part of a larger scheme."

Ad Magic hailed a gypsy cab and within five minutes they were back at the Hotel Arusha. There, Ad Magic found Pastor Dave, Cissy and Joshua, a middle-aged, gray-haired African, sitting on the veranda sipping iced tea. The Peugeot 505 was all put together. The heat of the day was weighing down heavily, but as soon as Lars and Ad Magic settled their bills they found themselves crunched in the backseat of the car with Joshua. Pastor Dave ran the motor for a moment, released the emergency brake, engaged into first and wheeled the old car onto the tarmac road leading out of Arusha.

Lars said her eyes burned and her head was pounding, but Ad Magic had just caught, a second wind. He reached over and massaged the back of her neck. "Are you OK, baby? I don't mean to ignore you, but I've got a new ad coming through. There's a great deal at stake--the diabetes and the leprosy programs are real and vital concerns. We can't just let them go under. People criticize Boots, but without him Zaire would be nine different countries all at war with one another. I'm still hopeful that things can turn around there. You have to be optimistic in this business. The truth is, none of this foreign-aid shit does any real good. It's all just a big waste of time. They won't do things the right way and teach the people to help themselves. We're making it worse by the day. But that's not my problem. I can't even think about that. The natural resources in Zaire are incredible. You can grow 100-pound sweet potatoes, for God's sake. It could become the breadbasket of Africa, if we could get the roads in shape. Build a jungle autobahn."

"Derek, you're talking so fast and so loud I can't think anymore. I have to shut my eyes for a minute. I'm just absolutely drained. Please stop talking for just one minute."

Ad Magic let his jaw jut out, exposing his lower teeth. He was totally alert on the Dexedrine, yet because of the morphine he felt inwardly calm. He realized that he must be doing something wrong, however, since Lars looked frazzled. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Don't fade on me now, Lars. Keep on track. Come on, you're young, you're tough--a real trooper, remember? Twenty-two-hour days in the refugee camp, six weeks of that. You can do it. Together we can do this, baby?"

Lars put her hands over her ears, but Ad Magic continued. "You know, Lars--shit, I should call you Erika, it's just that Lars sounds like a first, name. Which do you prefer? I can't control myself, I want to call you Lars. At this moment, you look like the person in that painting The Scream. I mean, I don't want to split hairs, but you are giving me all this grief about Stelazine and now you're the one who's caving in. Snap out of it! Don't fall to pieces on me. I'm going to have to work the refugee angle to keep money flowing into Mocherville. So much of it goes to greasing wheels. It's a pity, but all of the other agencies are going to come on like gangbusters with the Rwanda refugee thing. Hell, the same shit happened in Burundi three years ago and nobody even reported it. I always hold up my end of things. It's the other that fuck up. Why? Because they are lazy. Success doesn't come out of thin air, you know. You have to work. They think they can duplicate my style, originality and rapport with the parishioners--in a pig's ass!"

"Derek, stop."

"Yabbetty yabbetty yabbetty! Lars! Listen: Rumpelstiltskin, he goes to court with a valid legal contract and what's Princess Heather going to do? On the other hand, he can weave straw into gold so he could buy anything--babies, hell, you can pick them up for a song in any country in Africa. Shit! Rumpelstiltskin's tragic flaw was anger. You know, like he stamped his foot into the ground and turned into a gnarled bush or something. There's only one guy in all the land who can turn straw into gold."

"Derek, please! If you don't shut up, I'll die! I. Just. Can't. Take. Any. More. Please. Please. Please!"

"OK, baby! But don't forget: fish oil for the starvation. You are going to get hit with a ton of shit in Goma. Sardines and mackerel. Just a tablespoon three times a day. Works like a charm. You have to be persuasive with the mackerel. It tastes like shit. Sardines are different. Your King Oscar, for instance, is your premium sardine, whether you choose the famous original style packed in olive oil or the more economical style in sild oil. Sild oil is the oil of the herring itself. It's rather mild in flavor. What I can't eat is a sardine packed in soybean oil. Uggh! Soybean oil tastes like some kind of hog runoff. You want to know if you've got a premium batch of sardines, your first consideration is the oil. Number two, just count the fish. What's bad, Lars, is a medium sardine. Six and seven to the can. Yuck, those are tough. Better get out the hot sauce. You're going to need a ton of it, too. And the aftertaste will kill you. It goes on forever. You say to yourself, Will it never end? I can't believe this. God! It's been six years and I can still taste them. Once I was in Russia and got a tin, opened the son of a bitch up and there was like one huge fish inside. One fuckin' fish!"

"Please! I'm begging you. Stop!"

"One jumbo sard--"

"Shut up! Damn you, damn you." Lars twisted away from him, sagged against the door and closed her eyes. Ad Magic reached between his legs and pulled his loose-leaf notebook out of his daypack. He continued to work his chin, exposing his lower front teeth, and began to write:

Dear Mr. John Q. Public:

In the land of the noble Masai warrior, on the horn of Africa, there is no such thing as social security, welfare, food stamps or nursing homes.

Ad Magic tore the sheet loose and crumpled it up. He let his jaw jut out. "I can do this," he said to himself. "But first, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present a little Ad Magic." He leaned forward and began to speak to Cissy, Joshua and Pastor Dave. "Before your very eyes I shall convert straw into gold. Yasss, folks, the hand is quicker than the eye. Watch very carefully. I am going to lean back and apply the pen to paper any moment now. Mr. Derek has to write another ad and then another and another and another, on and on forever and ever. No one will ever thank Mr. Derek for doing good things in the world. They will give him a few junky toys and badmouth him behind his back and try to fire him, but Mr. Derek is smart. He is one step ahead of them. He feels much better now. He can weave enough gold to fill Fort Knox. So do not worry about Mr. Derek. His little deadlines are mere triflings. Heaven in motion; the strength of the dragon. The righteous man nerves himself for ceaseless activity. Creative fire! How's it goin' up there, Pastor Dave?"

"Splendid, Derek. How's yourself?"

"Just peachy. Sardines, anyone? Miss Cissy, can I interest you in the mackerel? How about a glass of cod-liver oil? I have a liter of North Sea oil, vintage 1945."

"We're just fine, Derek."

"Tell me, has anybody here seen my rooster?"

"A rooster," Cissy said, pushing her glasses back on the bridge of her nose. "You mean that skinny old bird on the roof?"

"He jes a li'l' red rooster, thass all. He could be dead of exposure up there." Ad Magic let his head drop to his chest and pretended to sob. Pastor Dave swerved around a curb and Ad Magic fell back in his seat. "The jumbo sardine is number ten," he muttered. "The worst."

Pastor Dave struck a wooden match against the dash and lit his huge pipe. The car had cleared the outskirts of town and the road began to weave downward. Everyone settled into quiet. Ad Magic set his notebook on his knees and began to scribble:

Alabama State Penitentiary Luncheon Menu, 5/22/95 Death Row:

Ham and beans, creamed country peas Corn bread & margarine Jell-O

Coffee, milk or tea

Dear Ms. Goodfuck:

The American public spends more than $85,000 a year to keep a convicted criminal on Death Row. The thousands of Africans in the Global Aid Refugee Camp in eastern Sudan have committed no crime except to have been born poor. For this, most of these good people have been condemned to death by starvation.

Starvation is not a pretty sight, Ms. Goodfuck. The choice is yours. You can reach for your handkerchief or you can reach for your checkbook.

Be a lifesaver. Write to Global Aid now. All donations are tax deductible.

Ad Magic quickly struck the last line and then looked over at Lars. She was snuggled against the window with a small pillow. She was beautiful in profile even as her mouth dropped open and a little string of spittle hung suspended from her lip. With a smile of satisfaction on his face, Ad Magic regripped the pen to accommodate his thumb splint and continued the assault on his latest direct-mail appeal. As Ad Magic's pen floated over the pad, he looked at Joshua and said, "Dude, can I interest you in a sardine? You lookin' a bit peaked. That mingy-ass chicken on the roof could use one, too, I bet. Up there shitting on my fancy Swiss suitcase."

Joshua turned away from Ad Magic and fixed his gaze out the window. In the front seat, Pastor Dave and Cissy stiffened. Lars, who seemed to have melted into a puddle, began to snore. Ad Magic realized he had gone too far. Yet again. He picked up the notebook, repositioned his pen and continued to sketch out his next direct-mail appeal.

He knew a good nose was the foremost requisite for beauty that would survive into middle age.