“I said, who the hell are you?”
No one out there in the theater will know who he is; when he will help H. H. H. Mandern, sick with food poisoning but unwilling to let down his fans, onto the stage, he will be introduced merely as “a huge fan.” When he leads that hour-and-a-half-long interview, filling it with extended descriptions when he sees the writer is failing, answering some questions from the audience when Mandern turns his weary eyes to Less, when he saves this event, saves this poor man’s career, still nobody will know who he is. They are there for H. H. H. Mandern. They are there for his robot Peabody. They have come dressed as robots or space goddesses or aliens because a writer has changed their lives. That other writer, sitting beside him, face partly visible in the open visor of a space helmet, is inconsequential; he will not be remembered; no one will know, or even wonder, who he is. And later tonight, when he boards a plane for Mexico City, and the young Japanese tourist beside him, hearing he is a writer, grows excited and asks who he is, Less, still in free fall from the broken bridge of his last hopes, will answer as he has so many times before.
A magniloquent spoony.
No rancor. No feelings at all.
Arthur, you know my son was never right for you.
“Nobody,” says our hero to the city of New York.
Less Mexican
Freddy Pelu is a man who doesn’t need to be told, before takeoff, to secure his own oxygen mask before assisting others.
It was just a game they were playing, waiting for friends to join them at the bar. One of those San Francisco bars that is neither gay nor straight, just odd, and Freddy still wore his blue shirt and tie from teaching, and they were having some new kind of beer that tasted like aspirin and smelled like magnolias and cost more than a hamburger. Less was in a cable-knit sweater. They were trying to describe each other in a single sentence. Less had gone first and said the sentence written above.
Freddy frowned. “Arthur,” he said. Then he looked down at the table.
Less took some candied pecans from the bowl before him. He asked what the problem could be. He thought he’d come up with a good one.
Freddy shook his head so that his curls bounced, and he sighed. “I don’t think that’s true. Maybe when you met me. But that was a long time ago. You know what I was going to say?”
Less said he did not know.
The young man stared at his lover and, before taking a sip of his beer, said: “‘Arthur Less is the bravest person I know.’”
Arthur thinks of this on every flight. It always ruins everything. It has ruined this flight from New York to Mexico City, which is well on the way to ruining itself.
Arthur Less has heard it is traditional, in Latin American countries, to applaud an airplane’s safe arrival. In his mind, he associates it with the miracles of Our Lady of Guadalupe, and indeed, while the plane suffers a prolonged bout of turbulence, Less finds himself searching for an appropriate prayer. He was, however, raised Unitarian; he has only Joan Baez to turn to, and “Diamonds and Rust” gives no solace. On and on the plane convulses in the moonlight, like a man turning into a werewolf. And yet, Arthur Less appreciates life’s corny metaphors; a transformation, yes. Arthur Less, leaving America at last; perhaps, beyond its borders, he will change, like the aged crone who is rescued by a knight and who, once she is carried across the river, becomes a princess. Not Arthur Less the nobody, but Arthur Less the Distinguished Featured Speaker at this conference. Or was it a princess into a crone? The young Japanese tourist seated beside Less, impossibly hip in a yellow neon sweatsuit and moon-landing sneakers, is sweating and breathing through his mouth; at one point, he turns to Less and asks if this is normal, and Less says, “No, no, this is not normal.” More throes, and the young man grabs his hand. Together they weather the storm. They are perhaps the only passengers literally without a prayer. And when the plane lands at last—the windows revealing the vast nighttime circuit board of Mexico City—Less finds himself, alone, applauding their survival.
What had Freddy meant, “the bravest person I know”? For Less, it is a mystery. Name a day, name an hour, in which Arthur Less was not afraid. Of ordering a cocktail, taking a taxi, teaching a class, writing a book. Afraid of these and almost everything else in the world. Strange, though; because he is afraid of everything, nothing is harder than anything else. Taking a trip around the world is no more terrifying than buying a stick of gum. The daily dose of courage.
What a relief, then, to emerge from customs and hear his name called out: “Se?or Less!” There stands a bearded man, perhaps thirty, in the black jeans, T-shirt, and leather jacket of a rock musician.
“I am Arturo,” says Arturo, holding out a hairy hand. This is the “local writer” who will be his escort for the next three days. “It is an honor to meet a man who knew the Russian River School.”
“I am also Arturo,” says Less, shaking it garrulously.
“Yes. You were fast through the customs.”
“I bribed a man to take my bags.” He gestures to a small man in a Zapata mustache and blue uniform standing arms akimbo.
“Yes, but that is not a bribe,” says Arturo, shaking his head. “That is a propina. A tip. That is the luggage man.”
“Oh,” says Less, and the mustached man gives a smile.
“Is it your first time in Mexico?”
“Yes,” Less says quickly. “Yes, it is.”
“Welcome to Mexico.” Arturo hands him a conference packet and looks up at him wearily; violet streaks curve beneath his eyes, and lines are grooved into his still-young brow. Less notices now that what he had taken for gleaming bits of pomade in his hair are streaks of gray. Arturo says, “There follows, I am sad to say, a very long ride on a very slow road…to your final place of rest.”
He sighs, for he has spoken the truth for all men.
Less understands: he has been assigned a poet.