Punchdrunk

Webber looks around, his face pushed out of shape, one cheekbone lower than the other. One of his eyes is just a milk-white ball pinched in the red-black swelling under his brow. His lips, Webber's lips, are split so deep in the middle he's got four lips instead of two. Inside all those lips, you can't see a single tooth left.

Webber looks around the jet's cabin, the white leather on the walls, the bird's-eye maple varnished to a mirror shine. Webber looks at the drink in his hand, the ice hardly melted in the blast of the air-conditioning. He says, too loud on account of his hearing loss, he almost shouts, "Where we at?"

They're in a Gulfstream G550, the nicest private jet you can charter, Flint says. Then Flint digs two fingers into a pants pocket and hands something across the aisle to Webber. A little white pill. "Swallow this," Flint, says. "And drink your drink. We're almost there."

"Almost where?" Webber says, and he drinks the pill down.

He's still twisted around enough to see the white leather club chairs that recline and swivel. The white carpet. The bird's-eye maple tables, polished to the point they look wet. The white suede couches that line the cabin. The matching throw cushions. The magazines, each one as big as a movie poster, called Elite Traveler, with a cover price of $35. The 24-karat-gold-plated cup holders and the faucets in the bathroom. The galley with its espresso machine and halogen light bouncing bright off the lead-crystal glassware. The microwave and fridge and ice machine. All this, flying along at 51,000 feet, Mach zero-point-eight-eight, somewhere above the Mediterranean. All of them drinking scotch. All of this nicer than anything you'll ever be inside, anything short of a casket.

Webber tilts his drink back, sticks his big red potato nose into the cold air, and you can see up inside each nostril, see how they don't really go anywhere, not anymore. But Webber says, "What's that smell?"

And Flint sniffs and says, "Does ammonium nitrate ring a bell?"

It's the ammonium nitrate their buddy Jenson had ready for them in Florida. Their buddy from the Gulf war. Our Reverend Godless.

"You mean like fertilizer?" Webber says. And Flint says, "Half a ton."

Webber's hand, it's shaking so hard you can hear the ice rattle in his empty glass. That shaking, it's just traumatic Parkinson's is all. Traumatic encephalopathy will do that to you, where partial necrosis of brain tissue takes place. Neurons replaced by brain-dead scar tissue. You put on a curly red wig and false eyelashes, lip-synch to Bette Midler at the Collaris County Fair and Rodeo and offer people the chance to punch your face at 10 bucks a shot, and you can make some real money.

Other places, you'll need to wear a curly blonde wig, squeeze your ass into a tight sequined dress, your feet in the biggest pair of high heels you can find. Lip-synch to Barbra Streisand singing that "Evergreen" song and you'd better have a friend waiting to drive you to the emergency room. Take a couple of Vicodins beforehand, before you glue on those long pink Barbra Streisand fingernails; after them you can't pick up anything smaller than a beer bottle. Take your painkillers first and you can sing both sides of Color Me Barbra before a really good shot puts you down.

For a fund-raiser, our first idea was Five Bucks to Punch a Mime. And it worked, mostly in college towns, the aggie schools. Some towns, nobody went home without some of that clown white smeared across their knuckles. Clown white and blood.

Problem is, the novelty wears off. Renting a Gulf-stream costs bucks. Just buying the gas and oil to fly from here to Europe costs about 30 grand. One-way it's not so bad, but you never want to go into a charter place saying you plan to fly the plane only one-way.... Talk about your red flags.

No, Webber would put on that black leotard and folks would already be salivating to hit him. He'd paint his face white, step into his invisible box, start miming away, and the cash would just flow in. Colleges mostly, but we did good business at county and state fairs, too. Even if folks took it as some kind of minstrel show, they'd still pay to knock him down, to make him bleed.

For roadhouse bars, after the mime routine petered out, we tried 50 Bucks to Punch a Chick. Flint had this girl who was up for it. But after, like, one shot to the face, she was saying, "No way...." On the floor, sitting in the peanut shells on the floor and holding her nose, this girl says, "Let me go to flight school. Let me play the pilot instead. I still want to help."

We still had must've been half the bar standing in line with their money. Divorced dads, dumped boyfriends, guys with old potty-training issues, all of them wanting to take their best shot.

Flint says, "I can fix this." And he helps his girl to her feet. Taking her by the elbow, he leads her into the ladies' room. Going in with her, Flint holds up his hand, fingers spread, and he says, "Give me five minutes."

Just out of the Army like that, we didn't figure how else to make that kind of money, not legal-wise. The way Flint saw it, there's no law yet that says folks can't pay to sock you.

It's then that Flint comes out of the ladies' room wearing the girl's Saturday-night wig, all her makeup used up on his big, clean-shaven face. He's unbuttoned his shirt and tied the shirttails together over his gut with paper towels stuffed in to make boobs. With whole tubes of lipstick smeared around his mouth, Flint, he says, "Let's do this thing...."

Folks standing in line, they're saying 50 bucks to punch some guy is a cheat. So Flint, he says, "Make it 10 bucks...." Folks still hang back, look around for some better way to waste their cash.

It's then that Webber goes over to the jukebox, drops in a quarter, presses a few buttons and—magic. The music starts, and for the length of one exhale all you can hear is every man in the bar letting out a long groan. The song, it's the wailing song from the end of that Titanic movie. That Canadian chick.

And Flint, with his blonde wig and big clown mouth, he steps up onto a chair, then up onto a table, and he starts singing along. With the whole bar watching, Flint gives it everything he's got, sliding his hands up and down the sides of his blue jeans. His eyes closed, all you can see there is his shimmering blue eye shadow. That red smear, singing.

Right on time, Webber reaches up to offer Flint a hand down. Flint takes it, ladylike, still lip-synching. You can see now his fingernails painted candy red. And Webber whispers to him, "I plugged in five bucks' worth of quarters." Webber helps Flint down to face the first man in line, and Webber says, "This song's the only thing they're going to hear all night."

From Webber's five bucks they made almost $600 that night. Not a fist left that bar not beat deep, tattooed blue and red and eyeliner green with the makeup from Flint's face. Some guys, they'd hit him until that hand got tired and then get back in line to use their other. (continued on page 143)Punchdrunk(continued from page 88)

That wailing Titanic song, it almost fucking killed Flint. That and the guys wearing big honking finger rings. After that we had a rule about no rings. That, and we'd check to see you weren't palming a roll of dimes or a lead fishing weight to make your fist do more damage.

Of all the folks, the women are the worst. Some of them ain't happy unless they see teeth fly out the other side of your mouth. Women, the drunker they get, the more they love, love, love to slug a drag queen, knowing it's a man. Especially if he's dressed and looking better than they are. Slapping was fine too, but no scratching.

Right quick, the market opened up. Webber and Flint, they started skipping dinner, drinking light beer. Any new town, you'd catch one of them standing sideways in front of a mirror, looking at his stomach, his shoulders pulled back and his butt stuck out.

Every town, you'd swear they each had another damn suitcase. This suitcase for dressy dresses, evening dresses. Then garment bags so's they wouldn't wrinkle as much. Bags for shoes and wig boxes. A big new makeup case for each of them.

It got so their getups were cutting into the bottom line. But say a word about it and Flint would tell you, "You got to spend it to make it." That's not even adding up what they spent for music. Hit or miss, they found that most people want to slug you if you play the following record albums: Color Me Barbra, Stoney End, The Way We Were, Thighs and Whispers, Broken Blossom and Beaches. Really, especially Beaches.

You could put Mahatma Gandhi into a convent, cut off his nuts and shoot him full of Demerol, and he'd still take a shot at your face if you played him that "Wind Beneath My Wings" song. Least that was Webber's experience.

None of this is what the military trained them for. But coming home, you don't find any want ads for munitions experts, targeting specialists, missions point men. Coming home, they didn't find much of any kind of job. Nothing that paid near what Flint was getting, his legs peeking through the slit down the side of a green satin evening gown, his toes webbed with nylon stockings and poking out the front of gold sandals. Flint stopping just long enough between songs and slugs to put more foundation over his bruises, his cigarette ringed with red from his lips. His lipstick and blood.

County fairs were good business, but motorcycle runs came in a close second. Rodeos were good too. So were boat shows. Or the parking lots outside those big gun-and-knife conventions. No, they never had to look too far for a good-paying crowd.

Driving back to the motel one night, after Webber and Flint had left most of their makeup smeared on the blacktop outside the Western States Guns and Ammo Expo, Webber pulls the rearview mirror around to where he's riding shotgun. Webber rolls his face around to see it in the mirror at every angle and says, "I can't be up to this much longer."

Webber, he looks fine. Besides, how he looks don't matter. The song matters more. The wig and lipstick.

"I was never what you'd call pretty," Webber says, "but least I always kept myself looking ... nice."

Flint is driving, looking at the chipped red paint on his fingernails, holding the steering wheel. Nibbling down a torn nail with his chipped teeth, Flint says, "I was thinking about using a stage name." Still looking at his fingernails, he says, "What do you think of the name Pepper Bacon?"

About by now, Flint's girl, she was off in flight school. That's just as well. Things was sliding downhill. For instance, just before they got set up and ready in the parking lot outside the Mountain States Gem and Mineral Show, Webber looks at Flint and says, "Your goddamn boobs are too big...."

Flint's wearing a halter kind of long dress, with straps that tie behind his neck to keep the front up. And yeah, his boobs look big, but Flint says it's the new dress. And Webber says, "No, it ain't. Your boobs been growing for the past four states."

"All your carping," Flint says, "it's just 'cause they're bigger than yours."

And Webber says, real quiet out the corner of his lipstick mouth, he says, "Former staff sergeant Flint Stedman, you're turning into a sloppy goddamn cow...."

Then it's sequins and wig hair flying every which way. That night they raked in a total of zero cash. Nobody wants to slug a mess like that, already all scratched up and bleeding. Eyes all bloodshot and mascara all smeared from crying. Looking back, that little catfight damn near scuttled their mission.

The reason this country can't win a war is that we're all the time fighting each other instead of the enemy. Same as with the Congress not letting the military do its job. Nothing ever gets settled that way. Webber and Flint, they ain't bad people, just typical of what we're trying to rise above. Their whole mission is to settle this terrorism situation, settle it for good. And doing that takes money. To keep Flint's girl in school. To get their hands on a jet. Get the drugs they'll need to knock out the regular lease-company pilot. That all takes solid cash money.

The truth be told, Flint's tits were getting a little on the scary side.

Flying here, reclining on white leather at 51,000 feet, they're headed south along the Red Sea, all the way to Jedda, where they'll hang a left. The other guys in the air right now, all of them headed for their own assigned targets, you have to wonder how they made their money, what pain and torture they went through.

You can still see where Webber got his ears pierced and how pulled down and stretched out they still look from those dangle earrings.

Looking back, most of the wars in history were over somebody's religion.

This is just the attack to end all wars. Or at least most of them.

After Flint got control of his tits, they toured from college to college, anywhere people drank beer with nothing to do. By then Flint had a detached retina floating around, making him blind in that eye. Webber had a 60 percent hearing loss from his brain getting bounced around. Traumatic brain lesions, the emergency room called it. They were both of them a little shaky, needing both hands to hold a mascara wand steady, both of them too stiff to work the zipper up the back of his own dress. Wobbly even on their medium heels. Still, they went on.

When it came time, when the jet fighters from the United Arab Emirates would come to shadow them, Flint might be too blind to fly, but he'd be in the cockpit with everything he'd learned in the Air Force.

Here, in the white leather cabin of their Gulfstream G550, Flint has kicked off both his boots, and his bare feet show toenails still painted titty pink. You can still smell a hint of Chanel No. 5 perfume mixed with his BO.

One of their last shows, in Missoula, Montana, a girl steps out of the crowd to tell them they're hateful bigots, that they're encouraging violent hate crimes being acted out against the gender-conflicted members of our otherwise peaceful pluralistic society.

Webber standing there, cut off in the middle of singing "Buttons and Bows," the spiffy Doris Day version, not the cheesy Dinah Shore version, he's wearing a strapless blue satin sheath with all his chest hair, his shoulder and arm hair billowing from wrist to wrist like a lush boa of black feathers, and he asks this girl, "So you wanna buy a punch or not?"

Flint's one step away, at the head of the line, taking people's money, and he says, "Take your best shot." He says, "Half price for chicks."

And the girl, she just looks at them, tapping one of her feet in its tennis shoe, her mouth clamped shut and pulled way over to one side of her face.

Finally she says, "Can you fake-sing that Titanic song?" And Flint takes her 10 bucks and gives her a hug. "For you," he says, "we can play that song all night long...."

That was the night they finally topped 50 grand for the mission.

Now, outside the jet, you can see the torn brown-and-gold coastline of Saudi Arabia. The windows of a Gulfstream are two, three times the size of the little portholes you get on a commercial jetliner. Just looking out at the sun and ocean, everything else mixed together from this high up, you'd almost want to live, to scrub the whole mission and head home no matter how bleak the future.

A Gulfstream carries enough fuel to fly 6,750 nautical miles, even with an 85 percent headwind. Their target was going to take only 6,701, leaving just enough jet fuel to trigger their luggage, their suitcases and the many bags that Jenson had loaded in Florida, where they landed because the pilot started to feel sick. This was after they got him a cup of coffee. Three Vicodins ground and mixed in black coffee would make most people dizzy, groggy, sick. So they landed. Offloaded the regular pilot, on-loaded the bags. Mr. Jenson humping the ammonium nitrate. And here was Flint's girl, Sheila, fresh out of flight school and ready to take off.

In the open doorway to the cockpit you can see Sheila slip her earphones down to rest around her neck. Looking back over one shoulder, she says, "Just heard on the radio. Somebody dove a jet full of fertilizer into the Vatican...."

"Go figure," Webber says.

Looking out his window, kicked back in his white leather recliner, Flint says, "We got company." Off that side of the plane, you can see two jet fighters. Flint gives them a little wave. The profile of each little fighter pilot, they don't wave back. And Webber looks at the ice melting in his empty glass and says, "Where are we going?"

From the cockpit, Sheila says, "We've had them since we made the turn inland at Jedda." She puts her headphones back over her ears. And Flint leans across the aisle to pour the empty glass full of scotch, again, and Flint says, "Does Mecca ring a bell, old buddy? The al-Haram? How about the Ka'ba?"

Sheila, one hand touching the earphone over one ear, she says, "They got the Mormon Tabernacle, the National Baptist Convention headquarters, the Wailing Wall and the Dome of the Rock, the Beverly Hills Hotel...."

Nope, Flint says. Disarmament didn't work. The United Nations didn't either. Still, maybe this will. With their friend Jenson, our Reverend Godless, to be the sole survivor.

Webber says, "What's in the Beverly Hills Hotel?" And Flint drains his glass and says, "The Dalai Lama...."

That girl in Missoula, Montana, Webber got her name and phone number that night. When it came time for them all to write out their last will and testaments, Webber left that girl everything he had in the world, including the Mustang parked in his folks' breezeway, his set of Craftsman tools and 14 Coach purses with the shoes and outfits to match.

That night, after she'd paid 50 bucks to kick Webber's ass, the college girl looks at him with his blind white eye swollen almost shut, his lips split. He's three years older than her, but he looks like her grandma, and she says, "So why is it you're doing this?"

And Webber peels off the wig, all the strands and curls of blonde hair stuck to the blood dried around his nose and mouth. Webber says, "Everybody wants to make the world a better place."

Drinking his light beer, Flint looks at Webber. Shaking his head, he says, 'You fucker...." Flint says, "Is that my wig?"

For a Fund-raiser, our first idea was five bucks to punch a mime.

Women, the drunker they get, the more they love to slug a drag queen, knowing it's a man.

Webber left that girl from Missoula everything he had, including the Mustang, his set of Craftsman tools and 14 Coach purses with the shoes and outfits to match.