CNL: Stories
reprinted from the Compost NewsLetter
Spring 1994:
Bringing Home the Beans
excerpted from a satire by
Seamus O'Bannion
Bombay, and I'm doing my best to be inobtrusive in the bustling brown and saffron street under the blazing saffron sun, my head smothered in a blanket of cumin-smell and staccato babble and wobbly music, and a fat white hand latches onto my arm above the elbow -- fat grimy face half-hidden behind down-flipped widebrim hat and up-flipped, sweltering, winter-coat-black-collar, beads of sweat making long wiggly tracks down his blubbery cheeks.
"Whuh-h-h...!" I said, jumping out of my sneakers at the touch of that puffy hand. It was the Slimy European, and I scraped at where he grabbed me with my handkerchief.
"Whuh-h-h yourself." he said, his deep voice growling up from his guts on a gust of bad breath with a stink like decomposing meat and refried beans, his eyes open white holes that reach back and down, all the way to Calcutta, Marrakesh, Cairo, downtown Bayonne, and I had to turn away my face from those blank eyes.
"Wanna buy some beans?" he said, re-hooking me by the lapel of my shirt, his breath hot in my face.
"Beans?"I said.
"Beans," he said.
"What am I gonna do with beans?" I said. "I don't have a garden, not even a window-box or a geranium. Not even a pocket deep enough to fill with dirt. I'm just cruisin the world lookin for A Better Way."
"Got no ’magination's your trouble," he says. "These're magic beans, grow you a beanstalk from here to eternity, to coin a phrase. Climb the beanstalk and make your future, be a Lewis and Clark, a Junipero Serra, a Cecil Rhodes -- be the first Big Lanlord an Own Everythin."
"Sorry,"I said. "Anyway, I'm broke. Took a vow of poverty. Even my cow is busted, and I'm stuck in this sweltering hell-hole till I can get it fixed."
He let go my lapel, I scrubbed at that too, and he latched onto the next passerby, a gorgeous young widow from New Jersey with black hair and fiery green eyes. She looked familiar. She was on her way with her toddler son to sell the family cow, a runny-nosed beast with skinny tits like old rubber gloves and big white-rimmed wiId eyes like she knew it was all over and the hammer between the eyes was next and then the knife to cut her into tough bloody steaks and leathery chops. Dissolution after a lifetime of service. Protoplasm dissolving into other protoplasm, sucked down the endless black karma tube, corpse of dog turning into maggots and flies, then fungus and flowers and soil, spirit of dog flying in through your open summer door and getting in your eye, buzzing in your ear at night, pollen of oak trees gumming up your Porsche. And not even a gold watch for the old beast, to say nothing of a pension.
"Wanna buy some beans?" I heard him say .
"What am I gonna do with beans?" she said. "I don't even own a window-box or a geranium."
For whatever reason, she stopped and I istened to this guy while the kid played with the cow's tail, slowly winding it into a corkscrew then tying it in a series of tight little knots. Lively kid. Patient cow. I liked the cow right away.
While she talked, I picked up the kid, straddled the cow and took them for a ride around the block. I did it more for the cow than the kid. People followed us around with incense. Little girls walked in front of us strewing lotus petals. The gorgeous widow from New Jersey dickered with the Slimy European over the beans. "Can you throw in some pork fried rice?" she said.
After about forty trips around the block, she missed the cow, but she was cool and didn't break off negotiations till she got the beans for her price -- forty acres in Kansas, and she got to keep the cow.
"I didn't know you had forty acres in Kansas," I said as we flew the cow back over Central Europe. (They were nice enough to give me a lift back.) "I thought you said you didn't even own a window-box."
"I don't. That's what he paid me to take the beans. They bring good luck to whoever owns them and that's a great thing to have -- good luck."
"You're outa luck without it," I said.
She agreed. "It was thanks to the beans that he got the forty acres in the first place, he said. But he doesn't like farming, he said. Not since they got rid of the serfs. Slaves were nice for a while, he said, but then they got rid of that too, so now he's getting out of farming. He said it just isn't fun anymore."
"It figures,"I said. "I never liked that guy. He's like the freeloader of all time."
"You know him?"
"Slimy? Oh sure. We go back a long way. I bought a used car from him once in the forties. It fell apart. Then he got into politics." I could see she was impressed.
It was slow-going flying her cow, but they couldn't fix mine for lack of parts, which they could have flown in from a bio-tech center in Detroit, except they were cheaper from the People's Republic. But the People's Republic was back-ordered, what with the whole Free World out looking for bargains, so I had to wait. I was really pissed. Every couple hundred miles we had to land so Bessy could graze. At this rate it would take forever to get back to Kansas. And I wondered what her top speed was gonna be on seaweed.
"So what's your name, sugarplum?" I said, being a man-of-the-world and a smooth operator.
"Later," she said.
"Why can't you tell me now?" I said.
"That's my name -- Later Carson-Caruthers. In my other life I used to be Little Annie Mooney, nee Francine..."
So that's where I knew her from! Little Annie Mooney, nee Francine, from the Wayward Bus Diner, then waitress in Spiro Poppapesto's greasy spoon!
"I was famous for my huge tits and rotten attitude. But it got boring not having a job, so I made a change: I married the famous adventurer and international financier, Captain Carson-Caruthers, who was hot for my body and thought I was a very interesting person. It's what I really liked about him the most besides his money -- that he didn't think I was crazy, just another very interesting person. Then I had Little Jack, and Captain -- that wasn't his rank, it was his name, he was really a major -- lost all his money when the country he lent it to went bankrupt. They were so corrupt! I never thought a country could be that way. They took all the money and bought tanks and guns and planes, and then they filed for chapter eleven. Or ward six. Or whatever countries file to go bankrupt. Don't you think that sucks?...Anyway, after Major Captain died (he shot himself twice in the head with a shotgun in the cherry orchard), I knew I had to change my life, so I had breast reduction and renamed myself Later. In the beginning, he said I was his chosen, his beloved, his little shnookee-poo and he made me a promise that I would never be poor again, but then he broke it when he died."
"Why didn't you rename yourself right away?"
"Because Later was shorter, I thought, than Right Away. You know? Names are important. I mean, just think -- if we didn't have names for things we couldn't talk about them. If your neighbor was having an affair with some guy down the block, how could you talk about it if they didn't have any names?"
"You're very philosophical," I said. "Perceptive. We have a lot in common. Wanna have sex?"
"Well, right now I have Little Jack to think about. He's a very special little boy. I know he's going to do Great Things. I can feel it.." (I pressed a little closer) "After Captain died, I devoted myself to Little Jack and trying to set a good example. I mean, trying to raise a little boy without a father is, psychologically and sociologically speaking, a very difficult task -- to say nothing of anthropology, political science, economics, world history and calculus -- without bringing a lot of sex into it. Or even a little sex. It's very important for me to be a proper mother."
Boy, had she changed!
"Really the only thing I've done for myself since Captain died was breast reduction surgery. I used to be awfully top-heavy when I was Annie Mooney, and it got embarrassing having these great big sex toys jiggling and bouncing and walking into a room ahead of me all the time."
"Sex toys?"
"My boobs."
"Interesting perspective."
"Right now, I've been going around the world looking for Mr. Right. He has to be dependable but devil-may-care, handsome but not narcissistic, punctual but not neurotic, high self-esteem but not self-centered, conservative but not afraid of taking risks, financially independent but not obsessed with money, love his career but not a slave to his job, sensitive but not a wimp, honest-and-open but tactful, courageous without being belligerent, diplomatic but genuine, charming but frank, strong-willed but open to suggestion, but most of all, a man of conviction and extremely intelligent."
"Extremely intelligent?"
"He has to agree with me."
"Oh....I guess that makes sense. Anything else?"
"He has to be hung like a horse."
"Oh, I see," I said, brightening.
"What's your name?" she said.
"Right," I said. "Reggie Right. Most people just call me Mr. Right, though. Or sometimes they just cal I me Horse for reasons I hope you'll let me make clear."
"Mr. Right! Oh, wow!" she said. "I knew if I kept on looking, I'd finally find you! My search is over -- take me!"
Obviously, she didn't realize I was lying and that I was a traveling man, rooted only in the Eternal Verities: Love, Truth, Justice, and an occasional grilled-cheese sandwich.
On a lovely little meadow in Portugal, in view of snow-capped mountains under a periwinkle blue sky, while Bessy grazed and Little Jack pelted her lovingly with jagged stones, Little Annie Mooney Later Carson-Caruthers and I jumped greedily at each other, peeling away layer after layer of wool, cotton, polyester, leather, vinyl, rubber, hemp, glass, weather-stripping, brass trim, decorative brass studs and cold-rolled steel -- stripping away ages, centuries, aeons of civilization and getting down -- finally! -- to skin and sweat and jungles of hippie hair.
"Annie!" I cried. "Don't you remember me? Horse O'Grady from Poppapesto's greasy spoon in Englewood New Jersey?"
"Horse O'Grady!" she cried, memory vaulting with angel wings back to those tender, adolescent years of critically necessary experimental sex! "I knew you looked familiar!...Careful with that thing."
"I love you, Later!" I cried in triumph.
"Oh, love me NOW!" she cried back. And then, breathless under the blazing saffron sun, she cried: "Oh Horse! Horse! Horse! Horse...!"
Obedient to her call, I came with a snort.
"Oh Horse, I feel as though I've been a hundred years in solitude! I guess I really needed that."
"Glad I could be of service," I said. In the grip of conjugal love, I remembered when we were just two adolescents in a time of indifference, playing it cool, pretending not to care, no matter how much we really did. I thought about our gang, the group of older guys, all the deception and self-deception in those ancient times. There was a certain smile on Annie's face, and it made me feel good about my life as a man (and about love in the afternoon).
It was there, in that little green meadow, that she told me the story of her sad life, of her marriage to the ill-fated adventurer Major Captain Carson-Caruthers, and the strange prophesies surrounding her innocent, good-hearted little boy, Jack.
Jack....Jack....Why did this kid's name sound so familiar?