The next day, in the afternoon, Fred and Hanna were sitting in the kitchen at the table, eating what would have to be called breakfast.
Hanna was very casually dressed and not feeling uncomfortable in Fred's presence at all. "You don't have a girl-friend, obviously..." she said.
"No." answered Fred, but didn't elaborate, since indulging in self-pity usually ended in his having a monologue - he had learnt that long ago.
"And you never had one?"
"Never..."
Hanna looked at him sharply. Perhaps she was trying to understand why. "What about you?" asked Fred. "Do you have a boy-friend?"
"If I did," answered Hanna and looked at Fred over the edge of the cup in her hand, "I wouldn't be here with you, would I? I would have rushed to him as soon as I could." "Well, you must have some kind of friends," said Fred, "how come you don't make contact with them and just let them continue believing in your death?"
"Obviously none of them were good enough friends to realize that the body wasn't mine at the funeral." said Hanna and frowned at Fred quizzically.
"I reckon only your parents got a proper chance of identifying the body." said Fred. "It's their fault."
"Maybe..." said Hanna and dismissed the matter. "Anyway, I don't feel like seeing any of my former friends just now."
"But how come you don't have a boy-friend, a pretty girl like you?"
"And how come you don't have a girl-friend?" she asked back. "Though I must say that you have a boring face. That perpetually tired look in your eyes, it's as though you had shutters over your real face."
"This is my real face." said Fred, slightly upset.
"Well, tiredness is only a state. It can't belong to the hardware of a face. Your real face is capable of more than just showing this steady-state mask all the time."
"Aha..." said Fred. This was getting too personal.
"Now you would gladly have sex with me, here and now, wouldn't you?" Hanna asked, perfectly sure of herself.
Fred almost choked on a piece of bread in his mouth. He coughed and it sent tears into his eyes. But he caught himself up, looked straight into Hanna's eyes, gave her a wolfish grin and said: "Yes, here and now!"
"That's what I thought," said Hanna calmly, "you're trying to lead your life upside down. Well, you won't get it from me."
"Are you trying to send me up?" asked Fred with a roaring undertone in his voice. "What do you mean, leading my life upside down?"
"Why do you think I wouldn't want you?" asked Hanna. "Do you believe I've got no desires?"
"I guess I'm not good enough, that's all..." said Fred.
"You've got a well built body, you're okay. Though I must say that the extinguished, listless air you have around you is not attractive."
"If..." Fred began.
"Don't go any further, I know what you're going to say. But that's not the way. In fact, that's what I call leading a life upside down." She remained quiet for a moment, and Fred had nothing to say either. Then she began to explain a few things: "What I want is someone who knows where he's going, and who is aiming at something which seems worthwhile to me as well. Now this doesn't describe you at all. You're aiming nowhere and whatever you're doing you don't consider worthwhile yourself. And I suppose you have the fantasy that by gaining access to sexual satisfaction this would suddenly change; but believe me, it's the other way round. Once you know where you're heading and happy with it, I know you will find someone."
Fred interrupted her dreamy speech: "Well, suppose I make an inhuman effort to do something that seems worthwhile, and then nobody throws in with me - I'd be worse off than I am now!"
"This is not just an empty, uncommitting piece of general wisdom coming from an unconcerned representative of the female gender. This is something I as a person say to you as a person..."
"You mean it's a promise..?"
"Shut up now, I won't be tricked into saying any more!" This came so suddenly that Fred looked up. She gave him a queer smile containing traces of embarrassment. So Fred said nothing more.
But he kept thinking about this. That talk about finding someone who is aiming at something which seems worthwhile to her as well, seemed too technical to Fred - what about falling in love? something that just happens, catches you unawares and then clings on?
But when this happens you can't just rush forward. You have to make sure the other person deserves you...
The topic wouldn't be brought up again between Hanna and Fred, not for the time being, anyway.
For the next few days Hanna stayed with Fred. She did some shopping and cooking for both of them and spent the rest of the day reading and wondering about her future. Fred was working again, but when he came home in the early morning she would come out of bed for a while and keep him company as he drank a cup of tea before going to sleep. It was quite a new feeling for him to be greeted by someone he liked and cared for at the end of his lonely round-trip in the dark.
One night he saw a fox sneaking around the courthouse. As Fred flashed his light at him, the fox stood still and looked in his direction with eyes redly glistening in the light. His mane formed an aurora around his pointed face, strong neck and powerful shoulders, and he was holding his bushy tail proudly off the ground. After a moment he turned his head away and trotted casually off on a business of his own.
Normally this would just have been a random, meaningless occurrence for Fred, but today he made a mental note to mention it to Hanna when he came home, and the occurrence became meaningful, making the whole night into something special. Perhaps Hanna would have something of her own to tell about a fox too, or about some other animal, some pet...
Thoughts of this kind were cruising through Fred's mind all night, and when they got interrupted it didn't matter, because something else would soon remind him of Hanna in some other way, and his thoughts would get started in some new direction just as worthwhile.
So in the next few days Fred got so used to being with Hanna that he could hardly imagine his life without her, aimlessly lounging in his empty flat when he wasn't working...
It was hard to tell what really made everything so different - there were many tiny little things, not one big item on which you could put your finger. Instead of hanging about, nowadays he was chatting, smiling, sometimes talking earnestly and listening actively, and he felt that he was internally evolving again.
But then the day came when it was time to ring up Wolfensberger.
Fred was doing some weight- lifting. This was something he had started doing regularly as a teenager, imagining all kinds of things...
Of course progress had been slow at first, but at that age he still basically believed in himself and had stuck with it. Nowadays Fred continued the work because it was a habit. His muscles didn’t grow any bigger anymore, but he maintained what he had, and he was glad for what he had, because it gave him a sense of self- value when he wasn’t in his car, or even when he wasn’t in his clothes either...
So every second day, usually in the early morning before going to bed, Fred sat down on a chair with the weights on his lap. After breathing carefully and deeply for a moment his mind would be empty of everything except for the desire to contract muscles. Then he would take the weights into one hand, make sure the hand was comfortable on the bar, then lift the weights off the lap and lower them to the full length of his arm, at the side of the chair. From there on the real exercise would begin. He would pull the weights up over his shoulder, then push them up over his head, to the full length of his arm. As he then lowered the weights again he would pantingly whisper “one” and start all over, whispering “two” this time.
After having done this twenty times it would be the turn of the other arm. This exercise didn’t take a lot of time - only a few minutes every second day - but it seemed to make a big difference on Fred’s body. He would have been proud, as a little boy, to see what he was going to look like as a man and to see the strength he had, enabling him to lift up his whole body-weight with a single arm, almost far enough for him to touch the bar with his chin.
But while he exercised Fred didn’t look at his body, even though he undressed to the waist for freedom of movement and cooling down, but followed with his eyes the movement of the ugly, blackened chunks of metal in his ha nd.
Thus he didn’t know what he looked like when he heard the knock on the door of his bedroom and answered “Yeah..?” rather breathlessly.
Hanna burst into the room and saw his body with knots of concentrated power, moving under the skin, all over it.
She was taken aback. “Sorry..!” she said. But she didn’t leave the room. She just stood there, waiting, watching him.
Fred didn’t disrupt the exercise. It consisted of twenty liftings in a row. If he stopped now, he would have to start from the beginning again, later, while his arm was still tired from what it was doing now. Hanna would just have to wait.
He was breathing regularly and hard, breathing out while lowering the weights and greedily gulping for air while hauling them up. He wasn’t ashamed of the sounds he was making.
In the past he used to be ashamed of these breathing sounds. One day his mother had surprised him in the midst of physical exertion by bursting into the room, and he had almost dropped the weights (they were smaller weights in those days ) on his head. Fred had never liked to admit his dreams to his parents. He felt that if they knew about them they would destroy them for him. The dream to become strong was one of them - it had to be hidden.
Of course it was unavoidable that his mother, who cleaned the room for him (not out of kindness, but because she felt responsible for the whole house) or at least directed some hired woman into it for the job, would know about the weights. Of course she didn’t know how regularly he exercised. Maybe she considered them just as a toy, and Fred wouldn’t have wanted her to know that this “toy” exerted him as much as a violent orgasm would.
So today, Fred pondered, was the first time he exercised in full view of somebody, and there seemed to be no cause for embarrassment, so that his muscles were doing the job for him just as well as if he were alone.
“Twenty” gasped Fred and lowered the weights into his lap. “Ah...” he said and smiled up at Hanna.
“I never would have thought...” said Hanna, and seemed almost delighted. “What?” asked Fred.
“That you were so strong!”
“Did I look weak?” asked Fred with a mocking smile.
“No, not at all...” Hanna had difficulties making herself clear. “Only you seemed not to care...”
“To care for what?” asked Fred slightly puzzled.
“For your own strength, for anything...” Her voice was drifting off.
“You mean I seem more human now?” he asked dryly, seriously.
“Yes!” she answered happily. “I’m glad I saw you do it!”
“Well...” said Fred, smiling again. “And by the way, what did you wa nt?” “It’s almost useless to ask now.” said Hanna. “I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t entering the game of the drug-dealers because of me, to impress me or something...” She sighed and wobbled her nose comically. “But I can see now that you really have some energy of your own!”
“What about you?” asked Fred. “Are you sure you want to come along?” “Yes, I am. I want to see the destruction of this organization.”
“Okay,” said Fred, stood up and looked at his watch lying next to the pillow on his bed. “See you in... eight hours then!”
“Good night!” said Hanna.
“Good night.” said Fred, not realizing that for her there wasn’t much of the night left. When he woke up in the early afternoon it was almost time to start moving. If he stayed in bed much longer, Hanna would come and shake him. He would have liked that, but there was no use in lounging in bed for so much longer, so he got up.
Hanna and Fred had a quick meal together, then they packed a few things into the car and started off.
They arrived at the meeting-point, the parking- lot in front of a disaffected factory-block, a few minutes too early. The truck wasn’t there yet, nor was any familiar vehicle, but Fred reckoned they were at the right place because of a dashing, red Volkswagen Golf GTI with spoilers and skirts and over-large tyres incongruously standing among the rubble. He stopped the Mustang somewhere nearby and climbed out of his seat. There were two men patiently sitting in the Golf. But now they left their car and slammed both doors shut, on either side, in quick succession. They came walking towards Fred, their jackets flapping in the wind, unhurriedly and casually. They were both tall and young and had rather blank faces expressing nothing but a bit of ironical pride. They might have come straight from a catalogue for menswear, and the red car behind them would have fitted into the picture as well, though the desolated surroundings would have been a mark of originality that those catalogue- images usually lack.
Hanna had left the Mustang too by now and come around the long bonnet to stand next to Fred, offering him moral support.
“I think these two were involved in the killing of my sister and in my kidnapping!” she whispered.
“Why can’t you be sure?” asked Fred, giving vent to some annoyance, but Hanna didn’t answer.
While Hanna and Fred were standing rather closely together the two men were standing widely apart, their hands hanging casually along their hips. Fred was inadvertently reminded of some scene in a spaghetti-western.
“Well now, who have we got here?” asked one of the men in a well-carrying baritonevoice.
“That’s the whore’s sister and her little boy-friend!” commented the other man, as though he were pleasantly surprised.
“Yeah, it sure is...” said the first man. “The two who got us into this mess!” It wasn’t quite clear what was going to happen next, but they got interrupted because a third car was coming. It was Wolfenberger’s smart limousine.
Wolfensberger stopped his car exactly between the two groups and got out. “Hello, everybody.” he said taking a quick look around.
“What do we need those two loving doves for?” asked one of the blank men and made a throw-away gesture towards Hanna and Fred.
“If anything happens to them, the police will be after us.” said Wolfensberger. “But as far as closing down the pipeline is concerned, they might be of some help.” He said all this quite matter-of-factly.
“But why should we close down the pipe- line?” asked the other blank man. Wolfensberger turned a stern look on him: “I thought we had gone over all of this already. We took the dope but we can’t pay for it. How can we avoid breaking the contract?”
“Let’s get the money from somewhere else! Let’s rob a bank! Why should we obey those two chickens there?!”
“Then you’ll be denounced.” answered Wolfensberger calmly. But maybe he didn’t trust his authority to the full, or maybe he wasn’t too sure of his own decision. Anyway, he felt like adding something, and the tone of his voice suggested that he very much desired for his men to agree with him: “I think we’ve been part of this organization for far too long and become much too dependant. We’ve made a lot of money out of it, but now, before it is too late, the time has come to invest somewhere else.”
The two blank men looked down at their feet and said nothing. Wolfensberger was their master-mind after all.
Then the next car came. It was the battered jeep Fred had met in the forest on that arranged meeting of his when he had daringly delivered Hanna from the gangsters. In some strange way he felt that he and Hanna were progressing backwards again. Men were already leaving the jeep before it had stopped properly, and the doors banged shut as it came to a sudden halt. Now the driver clambered out of the jeep. He had a toadlike figure just like his three mates, and he wore a broad panama-hat just like them. In fact he was the fat bully Fred had almost fried to death that night some time ago. Fred reflected on wearing hats while driving - there would be no chance of doing such a thing in his low-slung Mustang. Only high-legged four-wheel-drives allow such things. All of this was slightly ridiculous - Wolfensberger, the gentleman in his limousine, the “thinking” gangster, then the two sleek thugs in the sporty Golf, and finally the jeep full of hat-wearing city-cowboys. It seemed like a slightly over-stylized plot of a cheap gangster- film in the best American tradition.
What about Fred? The guy with uniform- like clothes, a beautiful girl at his side and driving a shining-blue Mustang? What would he represent in such a plot? The private detective?
No, hardly, because he lacked the tall, good looks, and even more important, the dark sun- glasses.
But how had all of this come about? Was all of this just a played act for Fred’s benefit? These doubts always...!
What this really meant was that there is some truth in cheap American gangster-stories, Fred decided.
By now the fat bully had seen and recognized him.
"Hey!" he hollered out and came towards Fred, "it's the smoker!"
"I don't generally smoke." answered Fred calmly, but he really was impressed by the big mass of flesh moving towards him.
"Let me bash you up!" said the bully and curled his lips into a frightening non-smile. Then Fred swept the corner of his jacket away from his hip with his left hand and grabbed his Ruger GP-100 with his right.
The bully was taken aback when he suddenly saw the rather large gun appear in Fred's hand.
"Please!" said Wolfensberger and held up his hands in desperation, "none of that!" "Why shouldn't we fight it out?" asked the b ully. His face had never been a pretty sight, but with all the peeling blisters imperfectly covering it up, with rosy fresh skin showing underneath, it looked worse than ever. "If that guy is a real man he'll put away his gun and stand out an honest fist-fight."
"Come on, now!" said Wolfensberger. "You're too heavy!"
Fred was still holding his revolver in his hand. "What about an arm-wrestle?" he suggested.
"Yeah!" answered another of the toad-like men standing behind the bully. "That's the idea!"
The bully drew out his tongue and drove it over his fat lips. Then slowly, maliciously he smiled wetly.
A few big strides brought him to the corner of the Mustang where he kneeled down and hammered his elbow onto the bonnet with a hollow clanking sound.
Fred joined him on the other side of the corner, along the snarling grill of the Mustang. Across the corner of the bonnet they joined hands. Fred felt his hand disappear in the spongy mass of the bully's palm.
"Ready?" asked the bully in a rough tone full of anticipation.
Fred's field of vision was almost filled by his opponent's strawberry-like nose. He swallowed the excess saliva in his mouth and nodded.
"Ho humpf!" went the bully and tried to bend Fred's arm down, but Fred resisted. The bully had to take breath and Fred managed to swing both forearms back into the middle-position.
Now they were both steadily pushing hard and nothing was happening.
"Come on, beat him!" It was that inner voice again. "That guy is just a big- mouth. He may be big, but you've got more t raining than he has. Can you picture a guy like him exerting himself? Never! He just talks. You can beat him! Even if you trained the wrong muscles for this kind of job, you've got self-discipline going for you!"
Fred had almost forgotten about this inner voice of his. Schizophrenics listen to such inner voices and become mass-murderers. Well, why not, if their life was just too boring otherwise? Fred had only ever heard his inner voice once before, and he had followed its advice. Ever since he was having the best time of his life. He would go on listening, however insane that meant he was.
So he pushed harder and was really gradually getting on top of things...
The bully was contorting his huge face and sweating freely.
Fred was massaging his jaws against each other, pressing harder.
Fred sent a telepathic message to his opponent: “You never thought that you’d cop it, eh?” He could feel the other’s strength fading away. “You’ve got big arms, but it’s all wobbly fat!”
Yet Fred was reaching the limit of his o wn strength. If he wanted to win, he’d better win now. So he leaned forward a bit, stared at the two hands intimately joined in a sticky embrace, one of which was his, and with a sudden burst of concentration he flung them both down!
“Ouch!” the bully called out and looked at Fred out of watery eyes. Fred let go and stood up.
The bully was still crouching next to the car, massaging his arm with his other hand. “Come on, stand up!” said one of his friends, jokingly, coming up behind him. “He beat me...” said the bully meekly.
“Well, maybe he isn’t that weak, after all.” said his friend. “But never mind, you survived it!”
Despite a surge of pride that sent some colour into his face, Fred wondered if he had just made himself a new enemy. Would the bully wait for an appropriate moment to kill Fred? Well, hopefully not. There would be no honour in doing that and the bully wouldn’t be admired for it. His friends might even despise him for doing such a thing, not out of ethical reasons of course, but because somebody who cannot afford fair-play must logically be weak. As long as Fred lived, the bully would still have the chance of winning a return-match, and he would look stronger if he pretended to believe in that than if he quietly got rid of Fred.
If the bully started showing off his weakness too much, he would lose his authority over his men. Somebody else would suddenly feel confident about taking over his place. The toad- like men were hauling their beaten boss away from Fred’s Mustang, and Fred was glad for it.
Now the truck was coming.
Fred had always loved trucks, as might be expected from anybody who likes power and torque, specially those with a huge bonnet in front. Of course they need more space on the road and they are also less aerodynamic than trucks with a flat front, but they look so much more stimulating..., like the head of some vicious animal. A twofold windscreen stands for the eyes, the headlights for the nostrils and the grill for the gnarled teeth of the beast.
This truck was just like that. It had a windshield on the roof of its cabin full of fancy lights. At night it must look like a lit- up Christmas-tree.
The truck came to a stop in front of the group of people with a purging puff of compressed air being let out, releasing the spring-coils that hold the brakes in place when the hand-brake is pulled.
The driver’s door swung open and the driver came out, clambered along the front mudguard and jumped over the bumper. Then he remained standing there, in front of his truck, resting one hand on the bumper and grinning.
He was a fattish guy with a very round, white face full of darker spots topped by an unkempt mop of hay-coloured hair. He had a boyish grin showing rather small teeth in his otherwise wide mouth.
“Well, what’s the matter?” he asked ga ily. “Why are there so many of you today?” “Bad news,” said Wolfensberger, putting himself forward. “There’s no money.” “Have you written a letter for our boss?” asked the driver, his face reddening a bit. “No letter.” said Wolfensberger.
“But that’s impossible!” said the driver and his face was now brightly red, almost glowing. He wasn’t leaning against his truck anymore but bracing back and forth on his short legs.
“You just take back today’s consignment of drugs to him and tell him that we’re finished with him.”
“He’ll think that I kept the money for myself! He’ll kill me! And if I don’t show up at all, I’ll be tracked down and killed all the same!”
“That’s your problem now...” said Wolfensberger, pretending to be regretful. The driver’s round face seemed to have inflated as he suddenly came forward like a charging bull, unclear words spilling from his foaming mouth. “...you filthy bastard!..” But the toad-like men and the two thugs from the sporty Volkswagen all made one or two steps forward, and the driver stopped short.
“We have a proposition,” said Wolfensberger calmly. “We’ll come with you to the meeting, all of us.”
“But that’s highly irregular.” said the driver, his flabby lower lip trembling as he spoke. “I’m not supposed to show the meeting-place to anybody...”
“Yes, what we’re doing is highly irregular. We intend to follow up the pipeline, closing it down as we go, and kill the boss at the end. Now you can either join our army or die...” “You can’t do that!” said the driver looking like a kid about to burst into tears. “You’re not going to stop us.” said Wolfensberger, obviously enjoying his power in the same way Fred had enjoyed his when he had got this mess started.
“All I ever asked for were some extra earnings through carrying hidden boxes back and forth. I needn’t even know that these boxes contain dope and money. I don’t want to be involved with your internal struggles. Just write a letter for me to hand over and leave me out of your mess!”
Wolfensberger looked at the driver, standing there like a sick puppy, with stern, unyielding eyes.
“You carried your part of the responsibility all along.” he said in an almost friendly tone. “You can’t be disinvolved. Thanks to you - among others, I agree, but it wouldn’t have worked without someone like you - young people in a momentary fit of depression have found momentary relief, which swept them into a deep abyss much more permanent than anything they had witnessed before...”
“But I never encouraged anybody to take drugs..!” yelped the driver.
“Not explicitly...” agreed Wolfensberger.
Hanna nudged Fred. He looked at her. She gave him a meaningful frown. Fred nodded thoughtfully.
Wolfensberger walked away. He came back from his car a moment later, carrying a flat holster with thin shoulder straps and a slim semi-automatic hand -gun.
“Slip this on.” he told the driver and handed it over. He helped the fat boy into the thin shoulder-straps, then slapped him on the back as he was examining the gun. The driver’s eyes were glistening wetly, but he almost had a pleased smile on his face. “You’ll feel better about your whole life after having done this!” said Wolfensberger with fatherly firmness and the driver nodded shyly.
As he joined his men, Wolfensberger said to Hanna: “I’ve got one for you too.” “Thanks.” said Hanna.
Fred was astounded when he saw all these guns. So while conditions to get guns legally are becoming tougher and tougher, gangsters aren’t worried in the least because they obviously have their own bottomless means of getting as many guns as they like. So while the common population is being gradually disarmed, gangsters keep arming themselves happily and totally unhindered. In the end it will be easier for anybody to get guns illegally than to buy them legally.
“Well now, let’s get down to business!” said Wolfensberger as the boss of all men present.
It turned out the truck-driver first had to deliver his pay- load here in this town and pick up some new merchandise. Then he would head off to the meeting-point a few days’ journey from here. The cars of his new friends could of course just follow him, but perhaps they would rather like to meet him at his favourite trucker’s restaurant at the seashore and then they would proceed to the meeting-point all together from there. They all agreed to this, and after making a few cheering jokes they all set off in their various vehicles.
"Wolfensberger is a good man." Hanna said to Fred when they were alone. "Yes," said Fred, "he knew how to handle that truck-driver."
"Do you think it was just tactics? Doesn't he believe in what he said?"
"Believe in what?" asked Fred, puzzled.
"That thing about young people falling into an abyss when seeking momentary relief..." "Well," said Fred, "everybody knows that. It's part of any drug-dealer's job to get new customers by trapping unsuspecting (or momentarily careless) youths."
"But the words he used... an abyss more permanent than anything previously experienced..."
"This is not something you choose to believe or not. It's a fact. Wolfensberger was describing a fact."
"The way he talked about it suggested that he had thought about it, from the point of view of the victims."
"Maybe he has." said Fred.
"Yes," he added after a silent minute, "Maybe he is a better man than I would have suspected."
"Then why did he start dealing with drugs in the first place?" mumbled Hanna. She didn't ask Fred. She just dribbled the question into emptiness.
"There's probably a sad story that put him on the wrong track somewhere in his life." said Fred, "Failure in love, perhaps. I never noticed any evidence of there being a woman in his life."
"And now he tries to make amends, not o