Lunatics (17 page)

CHAPTER 34

Jeffrey

You know those
Rambo
movies?
Where Sylvester Stallone runs around some dirtbag communist country with no shirt on and shoots down a helicopter with a slingshot and kills 237 communist soldiers with his bare hands?

Those movies are unrealistic. Here's what reality is like: Horkman and I are on one side of the ravine, holding our guns over our heads. The Cubans are on the other side, going nuts, shouting “YI-YI-YI!” ready to go kick some ass. In a movie, the next scene, we're all charging into battle.

But what actually happened was, first, Horkman and I had to climb down our side of the ravine, which was hard because those guns are a lot heavier than they look, plus it was really steep. We both kept dropping the guns and falling down, so we ended up mostly sliding on our butts, which took a while. The Cubans tried to keep cheering, but after a while they realized they'd better pace themselves. Like every twenty seconds or so, one of them would go, “YI-YI-YI!” But you could tell they were losing the mood.

Plus—I'm just going to come right out and say this—I had to take a shit. I mean,
bad
. Which is something that never happens in the movies. You never see Rambo take a shit. You never see whatshisname, the guy in those Bourne movies, Matt Damon, when he and his co-star hot babe are fleeing through some foreign city and he's killing enemy agents with kung fu, speaking nine languages, hot-wiring a car and driving like a stuntman, etc., you never hear him say to the babe, “Geez, I'm sorry, but even though those enemy agents are, like, twenty yards behind us shooting at us, I need to make a pit stop, because if I don't get to a toilet
right now
I'm going to turn this car into a septic tank.”

That's the way I felt, when Horkman and I got to the bottom of the ravine. I had a cramp in my gut like I was about to give birth to a walrus. I had no choice but to drop my pants right then and there.

“What are you
doing
?” Horkman said.

“What does it look like I'm doing?” I said.

“You can't at least go
behind
something?” he said.

“Go behind
what
, asshole?” I said, because (a) there was nothing to go behind, and (b) Horkman is an asshole.

“I don't believe this,” said Horkman. He walked about ten yards and sat down on a rock, facing away. Thanks a lot, douchenozzle.

So there I was, squatting, and I don't want to get too specific here, but it was a severe firehose situation. I was splattering the gravel big-time, plus there was a certain amount of gas noise, plus you had the natural echo in the ravine. I don't think this was what the Cubans were expecting in the way of military leadership. I could hear them up there talking about me, and then one of them went “YI-YI-
YI
!” definitely sarcastically, and then they were all laughing. Assholes. Like
they
never had diarrhea in a ravine.

I firehosed for I would say a good three minutes, off and on. When I was finally done, I realized I had nothing to wipe with, and of course Horkman was no help, because he's an asshole. I looked up at the Cubans, but I didn't see Ramon or Nunez, just a bunch of morons who didn't speak English. I yelled, “TENGO TOILET-O PAPER-O?” I don't know the Spanish word for “toilet paper,” not that it would have made any difference, because they probably haven't had toilet paper in Cuba since 1964. So of course the idiot Cubans didn't know what the hell I was talking about. I pointed at my ass and made a wiping motion, which they thought was very funny, ha-ha, YI-YI-YI! Jerkoffs. But finally they got the point and threw down some kind of big jungle leaves. I wasn't too happy about that, because I remembered a situation at the 1983 Northeastern New Jersey Boy Scout Council Camporee when this kid in my troop, Lenny Vitali, wiped his ass with leaves that turned out to be poison sumac, and by the time they got him to the hospital, according to his brother Victor, his butt was the size of a truck tire.

But I figured I had no choice. I wiped myself as best I could, and then Horkman and I started up the other side of the ravine. It took us even longer than going down did, but we finally made it to the top. Nunez was waiting for us.

“I must ask you,” he said, “how did you survive the attack? I confess that when I saw the truck explode, I feared the worst.”

Horkman gave me a nudge. I looked at him and he shook his head, indicating
Don't say anything about the Salamanders
. I gave him the finger, indicating
Fuck you
. Then I looked back at Nunez and said, “You ever hear of Bourne?”

“Who?” he said.

“Bourne,” I said. “Like
The Bourne Identity
,
The Bourne Extremity
, etc.?”

“No,” he said.

“It's a special kind of agent training,” I said. “Bourne Training. We train for this situation.”

“You train for going off a cliff in a truck?” he said.

“Exactly,” I said.

“Impressive,” he said.

“Yes,” I agreed.

Ramon came out of the jungle and said, “We must go. We have lost time.”

We got into a different truck, Ramon and Nunez in the front seat, Horkman and me behind them. The convoy started up and we were bouncing down the road again, if you can call it a road, going maybe two miles an hour. Horkman leaned over to me and, keeping his voice low, said, “While you were making the River of Poop, I did some thinking.”

“Good for you,” I said.

“Listen to me, Peckerman. This is important. Why do you think the Salamanders let us go?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, we're supposed to be wanted terrorists, right? Wanted by the United States?”

I nodded.

“Well, they're United States military. Why didn't they kill us? Or capture us? Why'd they save you, and give both of us guns, and send us back to the rebels?”

“We already discussed this, Horkman. They're secret whaddycallits, operators. They're helping the rebels overthrow the government.”

“That makes no sense,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“The Salamanders saw us up close. They know we're not military threats. I think they know we're just a couple of schlubs from New Jersey.”

I had to nod. He's an asshole, but he had a point. The Salamanders didn't seem impressed with us.

“So,” continued Horkman, “why'd they send us back over to lead the rebels?”

I shook my head.

“I think,” said Horkman, “they want to make sure that the rebels lose.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. But it's pretty obvious they're not on the rebel side; they didn't even let the rebels see them. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if, once the battle starts, the Salamanders are fighting
against
us.”

I thought about that. “So they're gonna let us go in there and get killed.”

Horkman nodded and said, “I think they might even help kill us.”

If there's one rule that I always try to live my life by, it's this: Don't get killed. I knew I had to do something. In the seat ahead, Nunez and Ramon had their backs to us. I glanced behind. There were three Cubans in the backseat, but they were all dozing. Behind our truck were some more, but they were a ways back, and there were dust clouds on the road. I moved over toward the edge of the seat.

“What are you doing?” whispered Horkman.

“I'm getting the fuck out of here,” I said.

“Bad idea,” said Horkman. He pointed toward the trees. I looked. There were dark shapes moving in there, keeping pace with the truck. The Salamanders. As I watched, one of them came closer to the road, so I could see his face: It was the guy who saved me, Spider-Man. He pointed at the road, then shook his finger back and forth, indicating
Don't get off the truck
. Then he reached down and pulled something out of his boot. It was a really big knife. He held it up, indicating
I have a really big knife
. With his other hand, he pointed two fingers at his eyes, then one at me, indicating
I'm watching
you
.

I slid back into the middle of the truck, leaned over, and put my head in my hands. Indicating
Fuck
me
.

CHAPTER 35

Philip

It was so hard to believe.

Even as I sat in the back of that truck with a bandanna around my head and a machine gun across my lap, it still hadn't sunk in that I, Philip Horatio Horkman, a pet shop owner who wore corrective shoes well into my junior year of college, was on my way to Havana to help overthrow the Castro regime.

I had never been in a war. I'm a member of that in-between generation that made me too young for Vietnam and then too old for any of the Gulf Wars—which my father, a decorated WWII veteran, could be counted on to throw up to me whenever the mood hit him.

“Enlist, you coward!” he once shouted, apropos of nothing anyone was talking about at that particular moment.

“Dad . . .”

“Julius, we're in the middle of a seder,” I remember my mother saying after this outburst. “Your only son is reciting the Four Questions at a meal celebrating freedom from bondage and you're shouting for him to serve in a war effort?”

“Why not?” he asked.

“Because there's no war right now,” Mom said.

“And because I'm only seven years old right now,” I reminded him.

But now, so many years later, I was in a war. And looked to for answers before that first shot was even fired.

“What do you suggest we do, El Horko?” asked Ramon. The rebels had taken to calling me El Horko, a nickname I was flattered by until I learned its translation meant “The Vomit.”

The truck was slowing down, so it would be just a matter of moments until we began the mission of liberating Cuba from the grip of a ruling class whose greed became even more palpable when I saw their homes and neighborhoods on the outskirts of the city. Sprawling ostentation worthy of Beverly Hills zip codes, as compared to the squalor inhabited by Ramon and millions like him.

“Secure the perimeter,” I advised.

It was a phrase I'd heard dozens of times in movies, and it seemed to work in those situations where soldiers wanted to contain the enemy, so I figured I'd give it a whirl.

“Of the entire city?” he asked.

“No reason not to,” I answered with the nonchalance of someone who wasn't soiling himself.

“With all due respect, El Horko, I do not believe that would be effective. As well armed as we are, there are but a few hundred of us. And in a city that covers 280 square miles, unless the enemy decided to run toward each of our soldiers, we'd be too far apart to be able to keep them within that perimeter.”

I felt stupid. And then Peckerman chimed in.

“So why don't we just secure the radius?”

I no longer felt stupid.

“What are you saying?” asked Ramon.

“Well, if I remember my high school geometry,” explained Peckerman, “the radius extends from the edge of the circle to the middle. So if we all lined up that way, at least half of the perimeter will be secure, which is better than nothing.”

“But the very concept of guerilla warfare is for a small group of camouflaged rebels to hide, ambush, and then quickly retreat,” said Ramon.

“It's based on the element of surprise, which standing in the middle of a circle where the enemy can not only see us but also pick us off one at a time as if we were ducks in a shooting gallery completely compromises that strategy,” added Nunez.

“Oh,” uttered Peckerman.

At this point, no one anywhere had reason to feel stupid ever again.

A few silent seconds later, we were in Havana where every rebel soldier jumped out before the trucks even came to a complete stop. Because it was still morning, the city square known as Plaza Vieja was relatively empty of shoppers and tourists. This was good as it was Ramon's wish that no innocent bystanders become casualties, as their beef was with the people
inside
the big buildings at the heart of the promenade.

The objective was to stealthily go through the doors and seize control of the government without firing even a shot. Peckerman and I liked that part of the plan very, very much. The not-getting-shot part. But there were no guarantees.

“Any suggestions, asshook?” Peckerman asked, as we were at the front of the pack heading up the steps of what is called El Capitolio.

“Let the others pass us,” I told him. “No reason for you and me to be the first ones in that building.”

So we slowed down and, needless to say, that proved to be a wise decision, because as soon as the rebels opened those doors, they were greeted by fusillades coming from the guns of fully armed Cuban soldiers awaiting their arrival.

Who'd tipped them off about this “secret” raid was a debate Peckerman and I didn't wish to have at that very moment, as the steady gunfire coming from the inside of the government building was sending rebels flying backward to the point where the marble steps we'd just climbed were becoming littered with their bodies.

So Ramon then ordered the rest of their troops to retreat. To not enter the buildings so no more brave young men would sacrifice their lives for what had suddenly turned into a suicide mission. The rebels were outnumbered, out-armed, and betrayed—so Ramon felt their next move should be to recede back into safety at the perimeter and regroup.

“Now what, shit sniffer?” asked Peckerman.

“Run as fast as you can,” I said. “No reason to be the last ones to get away from this building.”

And because Peckerman and I now outran all the other rebels back toward the perimeter, we didn't realize it when we veered toward the left side of the esplanade that everyone else would be peeling off to the right, heading toward a small park at the far edge of the promenade that was out of the line of fire. No big deal, I figured, when we stopped running and saw what had happened. We'd just circle around and meet up with everyone else.

So we took a couple of steps in their direction, when suddenly all the doorways filled with Cuban army soldiers emerging from the buildings, their weapons still drawn, looking out at the promenade for any more living rebels they could make an example of.

They saw none. Except for me and Peckerman. And while some of them dropped to a knee and took aim, the greater majority started running toward us. So we broke into a run—not in a straight line, but rather in an arc to where Ramon and Nunez and the rest of the rebel army were still in crouched hiding. But then the entire Cuban army started running in the direction we were heading.

I never ran so fast. Not even as a soccer referee who no longer required corrective shoes. But still, I was used to the exertion, so my stamina, fueled by the torrents of adrenaline that were now coursing through my system, made it easier for me to sprint toward our comrades. As opposed to Peckerman, lumbering buffoon that he was, who looked as if he was going to have the incredibly rare life experience of actually seeing his heart burst through his chest, given the seismic breaths he was expelling.

I reached the other side first. Though panting heavily, I rejoined the other rebels, so now I, too, was out of sight of the Cuban army, who now started shooting at Peckerman who was only about twenty feet away from us.

What did I feel when I realized that he would probably not make it? Nothing. Under these circumstances, there was simply no time to indulge
any
emotions. What was needed was action.

So, as if I'd shifted into a gear I didn't even know I had, I took a deep breath and yelled at the top of my lungs.

“Secure the radius!”

Whereupon all the rebels, including Ramon and Numez, stood up, forming a line from the edge of the perimeter to the midpoint of the promenade and started firing at the unsuspecting soldiers who were running right toward them.

As an exhausted Peckerman collapsed onto the safe ground behind this cordon, the rebels unloaded everything they had and, when the shooting finally ceased, all of the enemy soldiers were dead.

“El Horko! Señor Peckerman!” said a jubilant Ramon, who somehow figured that this was all done by design. “We would be honored to have you lead the way.”

So me and Peckerman moved to the front of the pack, walked across the esplanade, up the marble stairs, entered El Capitolio and took it over.