Once outside the house, the king asked him, — Which of the ten is closest to where we are now?
The Green Man told him of Twit, who used to work at the gymnasium and now was a student of Oriental religions and a part-time cab driver in the city. — He’s kind of wacky, though. Childhood traumas, asthma as a kid, that sort of thing. He’s very big on exploring personal power potentials — mysticism, karate, scientology, peyote, Sufi rites, etc. But he’s still very loyal to you. I think he’s Jewish, he added.
— No matter. He sounds okay to me. Extremism in the defense of liberty means a man like that can be trusted. You’ll see. I wasn’t king for all those years for nothing, y’know. I’ll make him a general. I know the type, he said as the two of them set out in the dark for the city, where Twit maintained a flat.
9.
After Twit was appointed First General of the Loyalist Army, the king, the Green Man, and the new General set up their headquarters in a hidden canyon far in the countryside west of the city. They pitched a high, conical tent and ate free-ranging prairie chickens shot on the wing while they waited for the army to gather, as they knew it would, once word of Egress’s return leaked out.
The first volunteers showed up around noon — the world-famous rock band, The Sons of the Pioneers. They came roaring into the canyon on matching, ruby-flecked, Harley Davidson motorcycles. — Hey, man, what’s happening? the leader of the band said to the king, and the king quickly explained.
— Far out, the musician said. — You want us to do a fund-raiser or somethin’, man? he offered.
Introducing the group to General Twit, Egress agreed that a fund-raiser would be fine, but not till after the war. Meanwhile, he wanted them just to let the fact of their endorsement of his project get around, maybe hold a press conference or two, that sort of thing.
— When this thing hits the media, he said to the Green Man as they strolled out to the dusty plain to hunt prairie chicken, — we’ll be in! Every mother’s son in the fucking country will be fighting on our side! Let Naomi Ruth have her minorities. I’ll have the rest. Don’t forget, these kids have never had a chance to fight for something they believe in! he reminded his cohort.
10.
That night, lying on his cot in his tent, the king had a dream which confused and troubled him. He dreamed he was the pilot of a fighter-bomber on a bombing mission over North Vietnam. Sweeping down on his target, a Standard Oil refinery operated by the enemy, he released his bombs and then suddenly realized he had overshot his target by about five miles. As he pulled the nose of the plane skyward, he glanced out the canopy to see what in fact he was bombing, and he saw three little boys standing in the middle of a clearing in the jungle. For an instant he saw their faces, recognizing them, and then they were gone. And then he heard the sickening sound of the bombs exploding in the clearing in the jungle. All the way back to the base in Laos, he roared with incoherent pain.
The Green Man, mercifully, woke him, but when he told the king that the army was ready to march on the city, the king began to sob uncontrollably. — No, no, this is insane! What are we doing? We’re killing each other!
The Green Man gave him a couple of ten-milligram Librium capsules and got him calmed down again, so that, by sunrise, Egress was once more his hearty, unshakable self.
— I always have a nightmare the night before a big battle, he explained to the Green Man as they rode toward the city at the head of the motorcycle corps.
11.
Behind Egress, General Twit, the Green Man, and The Sons of the Pioneers, the Loyalist Army spread out like a gigantic cape all the way to the horizon. Most of the police and military, practically all professional groups, athletes, clergymen of all the more popular faiths, many clerk-typists and petty bureaucrats from the civil service, members of all the building trades unions, motorcycle gangs, automobile mechanics, miners, realistic novelists, coaches, and all the youth of the land who had been about to apprentice themselves to members of these groups (but who were, in actuality, probably attracted to the Loyalist cause by the presence of The Sons of the Pioneers) turned out to have remained loyal to the king. They seemed to have been waiting only for the proper opportunity to express that loyalty. There were, of course, legions of older men who had wanted to join the battle on the side of the king, but, because of their age, had been put to better use as medics, service personnel, councillors, etc. Stationed with them at the rear of the marching army and at the canyon headquarters, the numerous women who had joined the army had been put to good use making uniforms, bullets, tents, and victory banners.
12.
On the way into the city, there were a few isolated skirmishes, quick forays by small search-and-destroy units into farmhouses and crossroads hamlets where the inhabitants had tried to resist the king’s army, not so much because they were loyal to his wife, but rather because they were out of touch with the conflict and thus had no loyalties at all. The sheer mass of the Loyalist Army overwhelmed them, and the raping, looting, and slaughter that followed barely delayed the army in its march. Like pebbles in the path of a river that has burst its dam, they were swallowed whole and caused not even a ripple of hesitation. But when the river reached its destination, the city, it created, then swirled, eddied, slowed, and finally ceased movement altogether, as if, blocked by a second dam, it had emptied into a new, unexpected basin, creating in a short time a huge, motionless lake of bewildered men.
The city was deserted, empty, and all the major buildings had been destroyed. The streets were filled with rubble, concrete, wrecked automobiles, buses, trains, mattresses, broken cases of food, furniture, clothing, and glass, as if there had been an earthquake and it had occurred at the one moment when everyone was out of town. Egress was at first astonished, and then, when he had begun to piece together what had happened, a process in which he was aided by the Green Man, he was deeply depressed. One might say broken.
12
1.
(AT THE AIRPORT)
He recognized her by the nape of her neck and his powerful attraction to it. She stood motionless in front of him, like Leda before the swan or Europa before the bull, waiting her turn to purchase a ticket, presumably for the next flight out. There were no longer any arriving flights; departing flights had been doubled.
Hungrily, he stared at the tendons on her neck, the fine strands of hair lifting like an Elizabethan tune toward the high, severe tail of her haircut. It was in the new style, he noticed, the one called the “French Barricade.” She curled her head forward as she drew a credit card from her purse and, handing it to the harried clerk, paid for her ticket. Egress ached to strum the taut muscles of her neck, the braid of tendons and sinews that ran like Greek bread from under her earlobes to her shoulders. He felt his hands open out, reaching like morning glories at dawn, his fingertips swarming with impatience for heat.
She accepted her ticket from the clerk, turned brusquely and saw him standing there behind her. — Oh! she said, clearly startled. — Surprise, eh?
— Ah … yes! Surprise-surprise-surprise-surprise-surprise, he said mockingly, cursing himself for it as he spoke — Goddamn you, goddamn you, goddamn you …, he cursed.
— It’s your turn, I believe. The man is waiting, Egress, she reminded him, inclining her head in the direction of the uniformed clerk at the counter. She seemed to have a sarcastic smile on her thin lips, as if she felt superior to her husband.