So here is Leonard, shopping done, jealous, anxious, and annoyed, walking as invisibly as possible along the sidewalks of a Texan town, hurrying out of this run-down neon neighborhood where everything he notices augments his nervousness: the black men who call out to him from the poultry depot gates, the bony girls smoking cigarettes outside the bar, the two Mexicans idling, elbow to elbow, in their cars and talking unconcernedly while traffic waits in the street, the smell of chicken carcasses. He has expected to feel displaced and self-conscious for a while, the first few days. It’s Texas, after all. He has not expected, though, to be assailed by such discordance, so many disconcerting odors, sights, and noises. Nothing is familiar or comforting. Here the thud-slap of someone running at his back, a siren from an ambulance, a loudmouthed television set, the clanging of a shade-trees mechanic, even the sudden starter motor of a Frito-Lay truck are played in different keys from what he’s used to. They set his teeth on edge. They strike, then leave him jittery. He is convinced — how can he doubt it now? — that this journey to Austin will prove to be a costly blunder. He’s traveled — what, five thousand miles? — to pursue his love, if truth be told, for Nadia. Instead, he is her English gooseberry, and the unwelcome occupant of the box room and the single bed in a town with which he feels incompatible. Nadia is tearful at the window now, he thinks. Maxie’s at the street door waiting for the rent. There’s bound to be an argument, a scene. “Not a single cent,” he says again, but this time he has doubts.
By the time Leonard gets back to the loft, carrying a Big Shot paper bag with orange juice and some other groceries, he is feeling much less ruffled. He has decided what to do. Cut and run. It’s his highway code: be cautious and be sensible, obey the danger signs. He can easily promise to lend them money but do nothing. He can say that it will take up to a week to clear the British bank. That way he’ll neither have to be part of their plans nor be forced to sound a judgmental, moral note about abortion or his sister’s suicide. After all, it’s Nadia’s right to choose, not his. He shouldn’t bully her. No, he’ll avoid that argument, fly east to New York, spend time there — see MoMA and the Met, visit the Hall of Jazz Greats in Harlem Plaza, sit in on a few gigs, improvise a holiday — and then go home, to the country where he best fits in.
The mood in the loft has transformed during Leonard’s short excursion. Maxie is not waiting in the street. The scrounging abortionist is no longer even in evidence. He has washed and is drying three glasses, not for orange juice but for wine. There’s music on the CD player, something French cum African with banks of percussion and exuberant horns. Their little table has been dressed for a meal: three sets of silverware, unmatching plates, and saucer flames. The microwave is humming brightly, and rattling. Nadia has changed into a loose white top that makes her face seem pinker and healthier than before. Aren’t her breasts already plumper than they were in England, where she was overzealously flat-chested?
“I think I’d better move on somewhere else quite soon,” Leonard says, standing at the window, his face hidden, almost tearful. Nadia’s skin is blooming, especially in the fluctuating mix of arctic/tropic microwave and candle lights. “Tomorrow, possibly. I know I’m in the way.”
But “Absolutely not!” “No way!” Nadia and Maxie will not hear of it. They both come up and put their arms round him. He has to stay, at least until the “showdown” in the coming week. “Boy, don’t miss that. We need your manpower. We’re gonna shake this city up a bit. Smile for the cameras.” Leonard offers them his plucky smile.
Snipers Without Bullets, it transpires over dinner from two packets and a can — bean and tuna bake, a local pecan pie — has a membership of two. A third voice (Leon’s) would be welcome. “Essential. Crucial. Indispensable,” Maxie adds, bringing more wine to the table but topping up only his own tall glass. It’s Maxie’s “private enterprise,” Nadia explains, “his plague on all their houses. You know, not just the fat cats, the military and the Republicans, but Democrats as well …”
“And fuckin’ liberals.” Maxie is becoming more sweeping and profane by the glass, more twangingly and less persuasively American. The alcohol — or something else, done out of sight — has made him noisy, volatile, and jittery. Nadia, though, is calm and quiet and prettier by the sip.
“We want to make a difference — and Maxie thinks that liberals will never make a difference,” she says. “Voting isn’t enough. Having an opinion isn’t enough. Caring isn’t enough.” Repeating what Maxie thinks is clearly all that counts.
“Fuck them. Liberals are the front-row enemy. Prime target. Wipe ’em out. They’ve got this city by the balls. Do you hear what I’m sayin’, man?” Leonard both nods and shakes his head. Maxie is only striking attitudes, though he’s striking them a bit too tritely for Leonard’s tastes. It’s harmless boozy talk, he supposes, amusing more than bullying. “Hear this, then, heh? We’re pretty certain Bush is comin’ into town … yessir—”
“Next Saturday, to be exact,” interjects Nadia, being his dutiful British secretary.
“We know he’ll spend the weekend at his snake pit in Crawford bein’ Audie Murphy.”
“What’s that?”
“That’s wearing jeans, basically,” says Nadia.
“It’s wearin’ jeans and pullin’ wire …” Maxie’s beard is truly bristling.
“The Bushes have their place out there.” The secretary again. “Prairie Chapel Ranch. It’s White House West—”
“It’s Funk Hole Number One, is what it is. Where he goes hidin’ from the people. Buried hisself out there five whole weeks, that man, when Iraq was, you know, gettin’ difficult. Folks are layin’ dead. And he’s out on the ranch, fixin’ gates and clearin’ mesquite and bustin’ broncs and muckin’ stalls and being everythin’ ’cept the fuckbrain president. Cowboy George sure does love to dirty up when it gets tough.” Maxie is performing only for Leonard now, facing him excitedly across the table, talking fast and showing off. “How do we know what he’s gonna do next weekend? We know it ’cos we have a comrade workin’ there. The sister says they’ve set aside a patch of brush and cocklebur for the president to clear and there’s been Secret Service personnel crawlin’ all over it in case somebody’s left a thorn out there and he could scratch his thumb. We know it ’cos a comrade workin’ in the canteen at Fort Hood army base has seen the signs. Air Force One is scheduled for a drop, and there’s a chopper on standby all week. You gettin’ me, Leon?”
“I’m getting you.”
“There’s more. We know that the Bush bitch is coming down from Crawford into Austin on Saturday. That ain’t no secret, point of fact. It’s there in black-and-white, on the first page of the program for the Texas Book Festival. She’s come to patronize y’all. She’s gonna give a little talk, no shit … except it’s all bullshit … in the Texas State Capitol. She’s gonna give a little talk on ‘Libraries and Children’s Literature’ because, guess what? She used to be a little girl herself.”
“And she was trained as a librarian,” adds Nadia. “Books for kids.”
“Except Iraqi kids, natchoo.”
“You know, the Reading First initiative. The No Child Left Behind bullshit. It’s Laura’s special thing.”
“Don’t call her by her fuckin’ name. Jeez, Nadia. You countin’ her among your friends? That’s what the problem is, right there. Too much respect.”
“Maxie’s got no time for her,” says Nadia, rubbing Maxie’s arm by way of recompense for her slip of the tongue.
“Too right, I don’t. She deserves what’s comin’ at her Saturday.” Both Snipers Without Bullets look at Leonard, inviting questions. He doesn’t ask, “What’s coming at her Saturday?” as they expect. He wants to ask, “You’ll keep the baby, then?” He says, “You ought to pick on Bush, not her. The president.”