Continuing… (It's Part 6 in the saga, I fucked up. Sorry.)
So, after a few re-fueling and impromptu cigar-purchasing stops in South and Central America, we wheel up to the deserted jetway at LAX.
“Thought we were going to Elmendorf?” I asked.
“This isn’t it?” the pilot replied, feigning worry.
“No.”, I replied, “Looks like California. Fruits and nuts. All around. What’s going on? One minute we’re off to Texas, then Cali, then Texas again, now we end up here at the California airport of the iconic tower.”
“Yeah, it’s confusing enough haulin’ civilians around. But when we get a call from Virginia, we tend to comply without any questions,” the pilot explains.
“Aw, shit!”, I sort of exclaim, “Rack and Ruin called?”
“Yeah”, the pilot replies, “Figures you’d know these guys. They said they were closer to LAX rather than Texas and had us divert here. In fact, you look over there, see that dark blue Chevy? That’s them; and evidently, your ride.”
I tipped the airman from earlier a couple of cigars as he helped me with my gear off the plane and into the trunk of Rack and Ruin’s plain-Jane blue late modeled Chevy. Had to move the Sidewinder Missiles off to one side, though.
“Most honorable Agents Lack and Luin!” I quipped in my faux-racist greeting. “What the hell, guys? I’ve got to get to Japan and get some newly rigidified digits.”
“Let’s see your hand”, Agent Rack asks. “Nasty.”
“Yeah”, I sigh “And with the medicos in South America and their penchant for plaster, I don’t so much have a left hand as more of an ankylosaur tail.”
“Or Thagomizer”, Agent Ruin tittered. “Anyone gives you grief, and one upside the head should set them right. Or dead.”
“You’re a riot, Ruin.” I replied, “But not entirely incorrect.”
We all agreed that I really didn’t need any extra accouterments to make myself look more dangerous. I mean with my severe haircut, stern beard clip, and perpetual ‘Go fuck yourself’ scowl.
“Yeah”, I replied, stroking the aforementioned beard, “I just can’t get that. I’m such a people person.”
After Agents Rack and Ruin finished drying their eyes from laughing what I thought was en extremis, we finally got down to business.
“So, what’s the skinny, guys”, I asked. “New marching orders?”
“No. Not as such”, Agent Ruin said, still sniggering over my ‘people person’ comment.
I see we’re moving. Agent Rack is just driving casually, like Chewbacca when they were waiting to see if the Empire went for that expensive Bothan code.
“Then, what?” I asked, getting a slight bit piqued.
“Well”, Agent Ruin noted, “When you went to South America, you took some of your artillery collection with, correct?”
“You know I did. You even made some snide comments about my personal choice of sidearms and their ‘excessive’ calibers, if memory serves”, I reiterated.
“And if you are proceeding normally, as you always do, they’re all nestled in the trunk of this very car. All cleaned, quiet, unloaded, and smelling sweetly of Hoppe’s Number 9 and WD 40, correct?” Rack inquired.
“Yes?” I cautiously venture.
“Well, ya’ big dummy, do you think they’re going to let you saunter into Tokyo armed like the Third Fleet?” Agent Ruin chuckled.
“Um…well…I do have a Diplomatic Passport.” I ventured.
“That’s not going to work this time.”, Agent Ruin said, shaking his head. “They’re tighter than Dick’s Hatband about sidearms. Want to bring in your Rigby SXS .500 Nitro Express double rifle? Not a problem. Sidearms, especially in your alien hunting calibers, nope.”
Well, that’s just….*dandy!”, I reply, semi-put out. “Now what the hell am I going to do?”
“Ever think that’s why Ruin and I are here, now?”, Rack asks.
“And here I thought it was just so you could bask in the warm glow of my fucking wonderful personality. Or that you actually cared about me as a real goddamn human”, I joshed.
“Ummm…yeah”, Rack replies, “There’s no way we can answer that without going on some Deadpool list. “
I agreed.
“OK, here’s the deal: you get your sidearms, ammunition, speed loaders, brass knuckles, Asp, laser range finders, Sap, Zeiss scopes, Kukri, Wisconsin Cheese Whittler, Buck folding skinner, Marine K-Bar, those two ultra-illegal Cheburkov Cobra titanium switchblades...”
“Three. Olga the KGB lady sent me one for Geologist’s Day.”
“Ahem. Those three ultra-illegal Cheburkov switchblades, that Wyoming Speedholer, your MASER Time-Distance Computer, garrote, pocket rail gun and whatever else lethal you carry and deposit it in the iron box in the trunk. We’ll ensure that it’s delivered to Esme post-haste. And by post-haste I mean one of our guys will deliver it personally.”
“Well…I suppose”, I conceded, “But best send someone who’s been to the house recently. I don’t know how much bigger Khan has grown since I left on this little fantasy trip. Wouldn’t want a star on the wall in Langley for someone eaten by a mastiff. Want to see a picture….Oh, bother. That’s right. My phone’s at the bottom of fucking Lake Maracaibo.”
“Good point”, Ruin interjects, “Guess we’ll do a little road trip and deliver it ourselves. Best call Esme and let her know what’s going on.”
“I have no objections to your proposals. Please give Esme this when you see her. I had some luck in the Calaveras Casino and if I don’t send her some mad money. Ouch. She’ll never forgive me for not taking her along to Japan.” I asked.
“But I thought Esme hated Japan? Too crowded and too ‘fussy’, I believe was her estimation.” Ruin asked.
“Yes, but once she saw the Ginza, all bets were off. Shopping the likes of which even Allah himself hasn’t seen.” I replied, slowly shaking my head.
“I see”, Ruin said, “Well, since you’re off to Sapporo, perhaps you can do a recon for Esme on the shopping there.”
“Not bad. Not bad at all.”, I smiled, “Now I know why I let you guys hang around with me.”
So, as advertised, I am now standing on the tarmac at LAX, basically feeling naked.
“Can’t I keep just one switchblade?” I moaned to Agent Rack.
“Go ahead, if you’re really keen on donating it to Japanese customs”, he replied.
“Fuckbuckets.” I groused.
“There, there now. That’s the usual Dr. Rocknocker of which we’re all so fond.” Agent Ruin chuckled.
“Remember, you do have that wallet-sized credit card gizmo from the Company. So you’re not entirely ‘naked’. Think of it as an emergency breechcloth.” He smiled.
“I’d like a larger model if you don’t mind. It’s chilly out here.” I joshed.
After Agents Rack and Ruin stripped me metaphorically naked as they de-weaponized me, they handed me a Business Class ticket to Tokyo, and a pass to the Japan Airlines Hospitality Suite and Lounge.
“So sorry you guys can’t hang around and have a few farewell snorts”, I chided, “But you’ve got a bit of a drive, so best be off before the weather turns to shit.”
“Who says we’re driving?” Agent Rack asked as he hooked a thumb over his shoulder at the ready and waiting C-130 cargo plane currently taxiing slowly in our direction.
“Well, in that case”, I smiled even more broadly, “Let’s invite the flight crew to join us. That’ll make the flight home all that much more interesting.”
After near tear-jerking farewell sentimentalities, i.e., “Piss on you”, “Get stuffed” and “Take a fuckin’ hike”; Agents Rack and Ruin, my weapons and the Agency’s plain-Jane Blue Chevy were all nestled snugger than buggers in ruggers in the belly of the thundering C-130.
Now truly on my own, I trudge the hundred thousand or so centisteps to my departure terminal, make a quick recon that my flight’s still slated to go in a generally westward direction, and hightail it to the nearest courtesy desk to ask for a motorized cart to take me and my remaining luggage to the JAL Hospitality Suite.
Hey. I’m old, infirm, and currently among the walking wounded.
Anyone that disagrees risks an Ankylosaur tail club swat or Thagomizer to the skull.
Finally ensconced in the JAL Hospitality Suite, Polo Lounge of course; I was drinking Tokyo Teas (3 oz. vodka, 2 oz. gin, 2 oz. rum, 1 oz. triple sec, 1 oz. Midori, good splash of lime juice, a slight splash of 7-Up (diet, of course), over ice with a lime wheel) with Pabst Blue Ribbon Extra 1844 chasers and Hangar One’s “Fog Point” vodka on the side, hiding from the brutish realities of this foul year of two thousand and twenty-something, Common Era…
I’ve already called Esme and we’ve had a good, long chat. She still managed to give me her shopping list for whenever I find myself bored on the Ginza.
She’ll be shocked when she learns that I’m not going to be in Tokyo long, but have 1st class tickets on the Bullet Train to Sapporo. Still, I’ll probably find myself in Pole Town or the Stellar Place there, trading piles of US greenbacks for locally produced Japanese curios and clothing.
I can hardly wait.
I order another round of drinks, as the wonderful attendants in the Hospitality Suite were bored out of their skulls because of the COVID-induced drop-in customers flying anywhere that requires a hospitality room stay, and I was virtually the only one around. They tried their level best to outdo each other when it comes to Japanese efficiency and friendliness.
After a couple of hours, they ask if I would like something from the grill, as the day chef had “the COVID” and the night chef just arrived. A quick perusal of the menu and I chose a 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse and another round of drinks.
I usually don’t like to eat too much before I fly, but JAL tells me the flight is going to be virtually empty, something like <121 pax, all told, so restroom availability shouldn’t be too much of a concern.
Plus, who am I to say no to a free, blue 28-ounce dry-aged Porterhouse?
There was a bit of difficulty conveying to the chef through the intermediaries of the hospitality just how I wanted my steak.
“Blue,” I said.
“Brue?” was the reply.
“Rare. Very, very rare.” I continued.
Look of total bewilderment.
I drag out my Personal Language Pro, speak “Steak, very, very rate” into the infernal gizmo, and hand the contraption to the attendant.
“珍しい、非常に珍しいステーキ?”[ Mezurashī, hijō ni mezurashī sutēki?]
“Raw! Nama!” I say, louder than need be.
They toddle off to find the chef.
“How is it sir, that you would like your steak cooked?” he asks.
“Very rare. Just a minute or two per side. Inside still cold.” I instructed.
All I got for the trouble was a puzzled smile.
“Give me the language gizmo…” I type in a few words…
“お尻を洗い、角をノックオフして、ここから出してください”
[O shiri o arai,-kaku o nokkuofu shite, koko kara dashite kudasai.]
“Wash its ass, knock its horns off, and walk it out here.”
“OH!” as the lightbulb pops. “Rare. Got it! Excellent!” the chef laughs and zips back to the kitchen.
Like I always say, I’m nothing if not the international ambassador of amity and goodwill.
“Crack tubes!”
Dinner was fantastic. I do wish I could have somehow mailed the Porterhouse bone back home for Khan. After that hambone incident, he might even taste it.
Finally on the plane, in an almost empty Business Class, the flight captain informs us that we’re headed to Haneda Airport Tokyo and anyone not headed in that direction better ‘haul ass off’ the flight or forever hold their peace.
Late-night international flights tend to be a bit more wooly than your average Chicago to Omaha gig.
Especially when the flight’s damn near empty and we have the next 12 hours or so to be best friends.
We taxi, turn and head into the wind. I’m doctoring up a couple of dossiers and keeping my personal cabin attendant, Luna since there were two of us in Business and two business flight attendants, busy with her trying to play ‘Stump the Geologist’.
“I’ll bet you never had this before.” She beamed and handed me a tumbler of very dangerous-looking brown liquor.
I cautiously sniff, take a modest gulp, swirl and glug the rest down.
“Ohishi Single Sherry Cask”, I say with a muffled belch. “Light. Fruity. An Englishman’s drink.”
“Oh. You knew. Let me try again.” She smiles beatifically.
“I have no objections to your proposal.” I smile as nicely as this crotchety old Komodo Dragon could.
She returns with another flagon of spirits; it smells of obsidian, leather, and earth.
I just had some of this back in LAX. I take a snort, smile, and shotgun the rest.
“Hibiki Japanese Harmony…lovely stuff.” I smile. “A little light for my jaded palate, but I’d never turn it down if it were free.”
“Oh, you win again. Wait. One more.” She smiles and skitters off to the galley.
She returns with another soupçon of some more dangerous brown liquor.
“Here, try this. It will make you very popular at social gatherings”. She smiles.
Sniff. “Splendid.” Snort. Swirl. Smile. Shotgun.
“Kanosuke New Born, if I’m not mistaken.” I smile back. “Very nice. I really do like this one.”
“You too good at this. One more!” she stands and stomps off defiantly. She returns in a trice and hands me the glass.
“Hmm…brown. Light notes of earth, leather, dating your daughter, and Kentucky…
“Beam Suntory, right?”
“You know them all!” she says, feigning irritation.
“And I thank you. Those were all excellent. Now, anything in the dangerous clear liquor category? I asked.
Luna smiled as I palmed off a 20k yen tip.
“Oh, no sir. Wait until we land.” She demurred, referring to the gratuity; which is know is not de rigueur in the Orient, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Just in case we never make it to Tokyo”, I laughed, unknowingly presciently.
We both chuckled about that last line as she tried out various sakes and shōchūs and an actual Japanese ‘White Liquor’ (ホワイトリカー), which were all excellent as was the company.
I tell her that I need to get some work done and could she bring me a tall Rocknocker. After explain the origins and construction of the eponymous drink, she brings me one that must tip the scales at 1 or so liters.
She settles down to an empty seat and I get after the work that I need to finish before we land. I’m about ½ way through my drink when it felt as if the plane hit a brick wall. She quivered and quaked and clutched at herself while I made some comments about the pilot’s mental health.
We dropped like a paralyzed falcon, then just as suddenly, felt like it was an express elevator to Angel’s 11. The plane bucked and shimmied, wickedly. Then we slam-danced right and fell a few more stories. It was like we were in a Mixmaster and the owner was trying out every speed.
The emergency lights in the 777-300ER popped on, and the fasten seat belt sign barked loudly so even sleeping travelers could enjoy the show.
Rinse. Spin. Shudder. Repeat.
Finally, the ride smooths out and we hear the captain on the blower.
“This is your captain speaking…ah, we seem to have hit some uncharted turbulence back there.”
“Thanks, Captain Obvious”, I muttered.
“Everything’s A-OK. “ he reports.
“That’s good”, I note.
“But…”
“There’s always the but…” I groan.
“…we have a couple of warning lights for which we can’t quite account. So to just be safe and certain, we’re going to divert to Hawaii, get a clean bill of health and resume this flight once we make sure everything here is hunky-dory.”
There were scattered groans and applause. Add them together and divide by two and the average response on the flight was “Meh. Whatever.”
Except for the other guy in Business, with whom I hadn’t shared two words. He began to absolutely lose his shit.
“Oh, man! We’re so screwed! Mechanical malfunction? What does that mean?” he positively fizzed with fear.
The flight attendants tried to calm him down, to no avail. They basically gave up and said they’d report his misgivings to the Captain.
I motioned over to my personal flight attendant, Luna, and asked if I could be of service.
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled at me, “If you could speak with him. You are so calm, and he is…”
“Losing his bloody mind”, I chuckled as I finished her sentence for her. “Of course, I’ll take a stab at it.”
So, I grab my drink and ease over to my Business Class partner and introduce myself.
“Hey, pal. How’s it going? I’m Dr. Rock, gentleman, scholar, and connoisseur of cigars and things alcoholic. You doing OK?”
He looks at me with an ashen face and his eyes the size of bloodshot dinner plates.
“Yeah. I’m Todd Schotts. I’m flying to Japan for business.” He mumbles
“No surprise there,” I reply calmly and take a slug of my drink.
“But now we’re all going to die. The plane is busted and we’ll crash…” he started off again.
“So, Todd is it? Good. You drink?” I asked.
“Yeah?”, he stammered back.
I asked Luna to make us a fresh batch of my eponymous cocktails.
“OK, Todd, listen up”, I began after the drinks were served, “I have flown literally millions of miles over the last 4 decades. On Aeroflot when it was still the USSR. On TACA (Take A Chance Airways), on Chalk’s in the Caribbean, on Bob’s Verrifast Plane Company in Rhodesia, on regional carriers that don’t even exist anymore. All over the world. Had some bad experiences flying, and me ol’ mugger, this ain’t one of them. This is nothing more than the glitch for this mission.”
I chuckled lightly and complimented Luna on a fantastic drink.
“Yeah…yeah…yeah…but we have to land and check out some lights…” Todd squealed.
“Well now, Todd. It would be rather difficult to do any external assessment while in flight, don’t you agree?” I asked.
“But we’re diverting. We have to land and that adds more risk. We’re going to crash and die!” he was coming more and more unglued.
“I will bet you every cent you have on your person and home bank accounts that that will not happen”, I chuckled.
That took him by surprise. At least it shut him up for a while.
“Look, Todd. This is Boeing’s latest model. They have the most incredible safety record. And if a little clear air turbulence were to be knocking planes out of the sky, don’t you think we’d hear about it as the press went berserk?” I asked.
“But they don’t know what the lights mean! What if one of the engines’s out? How far can we fly on one engine?” Todd stuttered.
Having my fill of a supposedly grown man with inane childlike fears, I calmly replied,
“All the way to the crash site.”
He went white.
“...hope we hit something hard. I don’t want to limp away from this.”
He went limp.
Then I went to my seat and motioned for Luna to prepare a reload.
Of course, 45 minutes later, we land without incident at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport, Honolulu Hawaii.
We were told to just wait around until they figure out what the problem if any, was.
They had officials waiting at the end of the jetway to check our COVID status and passports before they let us loose in the terminal.
I asked Luna if she knew this airport. She noted that she did.
“Is there a JAL hospitality room here at this airport? I asked.
“Yes, Doctor. It’s the Sakura Lounge. It is located on the third level above The Local, Terminal 2.” She replied.
“Please notify whoever needs to know that that’s where I’ll be for the duration”, I smiled and handed her my business card. “See you soon, I hope.”
“Oh, Dr. Rock”, she replied, “I am sure it is nothing much. We’ll be back in the air within mere hours.”
“Well then”, I smiled, “Guess I’d better get ready to hoof it to the lounge.”
“Oh, Doctor Rock”, she smiled, “No rush. I will call for you a courtesy cart. You are injured, you are Business, you are priority.”
“I love that Asian efficiency.” I smiled back and toddled down the jetway.
At the terminus of the jetway, I show my COVID-clear papers, dates and times of my Anti-Virus vaccine administrations, the letter from Virginia clearing me of all detention, and my red Russian diplomatic passport.
While in the cart, whizzing our way to the JAL lounge, the driver said “Man! You must be some kind of VIP. You were through that welcoming committee in less than two minutes!”
“Me? Nah!”, I chuckled, “Just an old phart of a geologist that they didn’t want to mess with. Not on such a bright, sunny day as this.”
“I see you’re not wearing a mask.” The driver quipped.
“Very observant. There are reasons for that.” I replied.
He careens around a corner and if this were a normal pre-Covid day, I’m certain we’d have killed hundreds. However, the airport, as I’ve come to grow accustomed to, was virtually deserted.
“Yeah? Like what?” he asks.
“Well, Scooter, 1. I have an active and hardworking immune system that I let off the chain every once in a while for exercise. Got to let it know what it’s up against, right? 2. I’ve had all my shots and some that were experimental. They seem to have worked. And 3. I find it difficult to drink and smoke cigars while wearing a mask. However, if you’d prefer, I will mask up. No problem, though it still is optional.”
“Nah, man”, he said, “I was just wondering if you were one of those religious idiots or conspiracy nuts.”
Nope”, I smiled back, “Just another geologist out in the world plying his trade for cash. Y’know, whorin’ around for money.”
He laughs aloud as we skid to a stop right in front of Lounge.
I slip the guy a $20 and ask if he’d listen for the JAL flight I was just on. If we’re going on ahead today, I’d need him to scoot by and putt-putt me back to the plane.
He laughs and pockets the $20 as quick as a mink ruts.
“No worries. I’ll just hang around this area. I hear anything about the flight, I’ll come and let you know.” He grins.
“Good man”, I say, as I hand him my card. “I’m Dr. Rocknocker. Call me Rock”.
“And I’m Kapula Mano, call me Kap” he replies.
“Good man”, I say again, “Hope to see you in a while.”
He grins, floors his electric cart, and peels out at speeds approaching 4.5 MPH.
I wander into the lounge, show my credentials, and am escorted to a post up on Mahogany Ridge.
The bar is very quiet. Besides the bartender, I can’t see anyone else in the darkened and Smooth Jazz-infused drinking emporium.
I order a local drink, a Mai Tai, just for the experience and something a bit different.
It’s served in a goldfish bowl on a stem, bedecked with a slice of lime, a sprig of mint, a stick of sugar cane, a polychromatic orchid, and the obligate paper umbrella.
“Ah. Mai Tai. I will enjoy it.” I said to no one in particular.
One was enough, and I decided to go back to the old standard. Once I explained to the bartender what that was, he made them heroic and enthusiastically.
I’m reading up on a random dossier, making notes in a new file, and puffing away on a Fuentes Onyx double Maduro Churchill cigar.
I hear a slight cough coming from my right, and this here lovely lady, she sat to my immediate starboard and looked at me semi-quizzically.
Not in the mood for shenanigans of any stripe, I give her the obligate Baja Canada nod and tilt of the drink. I return to my dossiers and continue to read and take notes.
“Excuse me!” I hear.
Fearing the worst, either the woman is Karen-oid anti-smoking or a religious fruit-and-nutburger, I slowly turn to face her and reply, somewhat glacially, I have to admit.
“What?”
“That cigar…”
“Here we go…” I mutter, eyes rolling northward.
“Smells exquisite. Could you tell me the brand? My husband would enjoy some like that.” She notes.
Instantly my demeanor switches 180^0.
“Yes, ma’am. It’s an Arturo Fuentes Onyx. Churchill size, or 60 ring x 7” length, double Maduro. Here, take one for your husband. I have an ample supply.” I smile.
“Oh, no. I couldn’t. Could I?” she asks.
“Please. I insist.” I smile the best I could given the circumstances.
“Thank you. You’re too kind…umm…Mr….?”
“Doctor. Doctor Rocknocker. World traveler, oilman, and international ambassador of amity, good drinks, and fine cigars. Call me Rock” I said.
“Oh! A Doctor?” she brightens.
“Yes, of Petroleum Geology and Engineering. Not medicine.” I chuckle.
She chuckles back.
“And I am Hella Aaberg”, as she offers her hand for a quick shake.
“Interesting name, Hella. Scandinavian or Old German heritage?” I ask.
“On my father’s side. He’s Finnish.” She replies.
“But I’ll wager your mother is not Scandinavian, correct?” I ask.
“She was from Truk, an island…”
“In the South Pacific, Micronesia. Was she from Weno city?” I asked.
“Why yes. How could you possibly know that?” she asked.
“Oh, I’ve been there. Great diving amongst the WWII wrecks. I think it’s actually called ‘Chuuk Lagoon’ or something like that now.” I said.
“That’s right! Amazing. Where else have you been?” she asked.
“Anywhere there’s oil, strife, booze, cigars, heavy explosives and typically long distances from whatever most normal people call civilization,” I replied with a chuckle.
Suddenly, I hear a voice booming out behind me.
“Why don’t you save that rapier-like wit for those musky-fuckers back home, Rocko?”
My expression changes. My eyes pop fully wide open.
“Hella?” I asked.
“Yes?”
“May I ask you a favor?”
“You can ask…”
“Thank you. Now, looking over my shoulder, is there a hulking goon of a person, thin up top, paunchy halfway down with the most ridiculously tiny sized shoes you’ve ever seen for a so-called grown man?” I ask.
“Yes. Yes, there is.” She replies.
“I thought so. Many thanks.”
I spin and launch off my barstool and grab Toivo by the hand. He hadn’t seen my left-hand Thagomizer yet.
“Toivo! You old sumbitch. What the flying fennec fox fuck are you, of all people, doing in Hawaii?” I laughed.
“Just keeping an eye on you, Rock!” he laughed equally as loud.
“No, fucking-A, seriously. What the actual fuck? What are you doing in this actual nice place?” I asked.
“Just headed to Tokyo to conduct a bit of service company business. I walked into the lounge and smelled a foul cigar. I figured it can’t be the venerable Dr. Rocknocker. He’s back at some school up north terrorizing geology and engineering grads and undergrads.” Toivo laughed.
“But there I was. Surprise!”, I laughed and pumped his hand.
“What the fuck, Rock. Now what did you do?” he asks, referring to my Ankylosaur tail club left hand.
“Ah, fuck. Long story. Oh, pardon me. Toivo, this is Hella. We were just talking about the South Seas Islands.” I said.
“Planning on running off together?” Toivo laughs, to the amusement of neither party.
“Oh, and this idiot is Toivo, a man with a congenital foot-in-mouth disorder. He’s mostly harmless.” I noted to Hella.
Greetings were shared all around. Hella made some small excuses and said she needed to depart. I gave her another cigar for her husband, shook her hand, and wished her well.
“Here’s my business card. If your husband has any questions, have him drop me a line.” I noted.
Hella smiled beautifully. She said she would. Then she thanked me shook our hands, and like that, there she was, gone.
“Well Toivo, you old bastard. Don't just stand there in the doorway like some lonesome goddamn mouse shit sheepherder, get your ass over here and have a drink.” I motioned over to my perch on Mahogany Ridge.
“Don’t mind if I do”, he says as he deftly winds his way to a seat to my left, snagging a cigar out of my pocket on the way over.
“You might want these”, I say in an exasperated tone, and hand him my gold Dunhill Hobnail lighter and V-cutter gizmo.
He cuts and fires up his heater.
“What you drinkin’, Rock”, he asks.
“Anything with alcohol, as usual. You know that Toiv.” I reply.
“No. I mean right now.” He clarifies.
“Well, I had a Mai Tai. Very nice if you like fruity, flowery drinks. It’s the locals’ favorite.” I reply.
“Sounds good. I’ll have several. And you?” Toivo asks.
“My usual. The bartender is already apprised of the situation.” I reply.
Toivo smiles the smile of one knowing his sobriety is going to be taken out for a swim. Hell, taken out and tossed into the deep end.
Toivo and I sit there, swapping lies, smoking cigars and sipping at our toddies.
Hell, Toivo was slurping them like a sump-pump during an extra-wet summer.
We chattered about family, work, whether or not Tokyo was going to host the Olympics or if the COVID-boogie man scared everyone off.
Toivo, always one afflicted with TB (“Tiny Bladder”) got up to go to the loo for the third time that hour. He left his pocket organizer on the bar and I swear on a stack of Origins of Species, I didn’t touch it.
I reached over to his vacated seat to retrieve my cigar lighter when I looked down and saw in his organizer a tab that reads “Rack & Ruin”.
“Oh. No. Fucking. Way.” I recoiled as I’d just reached out and petted a 6-foot hungover scorpion.
“One of my best friends? Secretly allied with the Agency? No. Not possible.” I drained my drink and called for another.
“No. No. No. It can’t be. No. No fucking way…” as doubt began to dissolve when I thought back to all those times I had just ‘run into’ Toivo.
“But he’s oil patch as well. That could be chalked up to coincidence.” I ruminated quizzically in my brain.
I quickly reflected back on J.M. Darhower: “Yes, you see, there’s no such thing as coincidence. There are no accidents in life. Everything that happens is the result of a calculated move that leads us to where we are.”
She may be the author of the execrable New Adult Sempre series, which Esme likes and I loathe, but she might just be right on this occasion.
Toivo return, lighter in the bladder and good sense. He never even noticed he’d left his organizer out in broad bar light for all to see.
“So, Toivo, when’s your flight?” I ask.
“Oh, man. Was I lucky. The JAL flight to Tokyo from Los Angeles had mechanical trouble and had to divert here. I got a ticket on the plane for that flight, when it continues.
“You mean ‘if it continues’,” I replied.
“Yeah. Yeah. That’s what I meant. Hey! Was that your flight?” he asks innocently. He’s really innocent of fieldcraft.
I decide to have some fun at my old friend’s expense.
“Yep. Hit some CAT (Clear Air Turbulence) and the JAL pilots reported some lighting problem. No apparent ruin to any of the systems. They relay racked their brains to figure it out, but they couldn’t that’s why I here.” I said, waiting for the words to swim upstream in Toivo’s coconut and make some sort of connection.
“Yeah. Double lucky. No problem with the plane and I get to go to Japan early.” Toivo crookedly grins.
“So, no trouble with the plane? Then why haven’t I heard that the flight’s going to resume?” I asked as I pushed a fresh, seriously strong drink to Toivo.
“Oh, must have heard it in the john.” Toivo countered and tried to cover his tracks by taking a huge gulp of his drink and damn near dying coughing.
I pound on Toivo’s back.
“Heimlich time?” I ask.
Toivo signals ‘no’.
“Jesus Christ, Rock. What was that?” he asks.
“Just my usual”, I innocently replied.
“Holy fuck. No wonder you have the reputation of…” Toivo realizes too late that he’s said too much.
“Yeah. They can rack you out. Really ruin a person if they’re not careful.” I reply icily.
“Why, Rock. Whatever do you mean?” Toivo slurred as he realized he’s been caught out.
“The jig is up, you turncoat. You know Agents Rack and Ruin from the agency. Right? You keeping tabs on me for them? You Quisling! You Benedict Arnold!” I almost was on the verge of losing my cool.
“It was nothing. They approached me years ago as I kept being mentioned in your reports. They asked me for some information. One thing leads to another…” Toivo was ready for an Ankylosaur tail club swat to the bean.
“Oh, put your fucking hands down, you asshole.” I smiled and chuckled.
“You’re not mad?” Toivo slurred badly. I had the bartender make him another special drink.
“No, Toivo. Not mad. Just disappointed.” I said, smiling like a Komodo Dragon just finishing up a fortnight-old wildebeest.
Toivo sat there and puzzled and puzzled until his puzzler was sore.
“You’re not going to kill me or anything rude like that?” Toivo asked, half-assedly trying to inject humor into the proceedings.
“Nah. The paperwork’s too ridiculous for me to do another liberation. But, Jesus Fucking Christwagons, Toivo; you could have mentioned it to me. Fuck, I thought we were friends to the end?” I said, dejectedly.
I was really getting through to Toivo. I could tell he was loaded; feeling like shit and massively deplorable.
Great fieldcraft, indeed.
I told him things “are what they are” and that I won’t blow his cover nor his honorarium.
He began to feel better. I often wonder if he was serious about the sanctioning thing.
Then I delivered the strategic missile strike.
“Just remember, Toivo. I wrote your dossier for the Company…”
He swivels to look at me.
“And one for the KGB. Olga says ‘howdy’.” I grin evilly.
Toivo short-circuited at that. Russia is his company’s bread and butter. Now he has the KGB as well as his best buddy looking over his shoulder at every move.
I bought him a few more drinks and continued to needle him about his ’leading a double life’. He was well and truly fuckered when the electric tap-tap driver from before came looking for me to whisk me back to the plane.
Seems it was simply some knocked-out wires on the plane, or slammed bulbs that were generating a false positive, indicating something other than the system that alerts one to something haywire went haywire.
Toivo was pretty much down for the count. I got him sober enough to hand them his ticket and ensure that he was really supposed to be on this flight. Thing was; h e was in Economy, and I was, as always, in Business.
I spoke to Luna, and the plane was going to be even less crowded than previously because some folks could or wouldn’t wait, or didn’t want to go on with the rest of the trip on a ‘damaged’ aircraft, or were just stupid and superstitious.
“Luna, could I pay for the difference between Business and Economy for my less than 100% conscious friend here? He’s had a rough day.” I asked.
“Dr. Rock. Just put him into Business. No one will be the wiser. Luna says so.” As she gave us a grand smile.
“Luna, I owe you. Thanks so much.” I said.
“Now get on board. Your friend looks like he needs all the downtime he can get.”
“Yes, ma’am!” I said and saluted here be best I could which dragging a schnozzled Toivo down the jetway.
I dumped Toivo in a window seat well away from my seat. I know Toivo. He snores like a semi-load of live hogs rocketing downhill locking up the brakes at 88 MPH.
Surprise! There was no one else in Business. Luna looked at me, at Toivo, and gave me a thumbs up.
Whatever I can write to further her career at JAL, she’ll have it before I deplane.
We finally get everyone settled, and with Captain Kangaroo at the helm, we bounced gracelessly off the tarmac, into the warm, tropical Hawaiian air, finally headed for the Land of the Rising Sun.
Toivo was snoring like a chainsaw hitting rusty nails as I worked on the various letters, communiques, and dossiers which needed updating before we reached touchdown. I gave Luna a thick letter with instructions not to open it until we were on the ground and Toivo and I were well off and away into the terminal.
We left Hawaii at 1300 hours, so we should arrive at Tokyo Nareda around 4:00 pm, the previous day. I was so bereft of time and time zones, I couldn’t figure out what time it really was, as judged by my biometric rhythms, so I asked Luna for a stiff drink as I was kicking off my boots and going to attempt to get some kip.
She brought me another liter or so eponymous drink. I was sawing logs by the time I slurped the last swig of that nifty drink.
Suddenly, or later, I have no idea really, some loudmouth drunk asshole from way-the-fuck-back in economy-land toward the ass end of the plane staggered into Business demanding free drinks.
Luna was nothing but civil, and asked him to both shut up and return to his seat. His air cabin hostess, or whatever the fuck they’re calling them these days, will attend to his needs.
“Naw they won’t! They want me to pay for more drinks! I’m broke but I demand more booze! You fucking owe me.” railed the asshole. “I sat at the bar in Hawaii for four hours. Them fuckers charged me an arm and a leg!”
“No, they don’t owe you shit”, I said in a voice that unmistakably loud and clear.
“Fuck you, old man! You stay the fuck out of this!” he bellowed. “Shut up or I’ll do ya’!”
“’Old man’? ‘Do me’? Excuse me. Luna, may I have a word alone with this individual?” I asked sweetly.
Luna shook her head in the affirmative, and I stood up to confront this flagrant asshole.
“Now look, Scooter. You have gone way, way over the fucking line. You are loud. You are abusive. You are obnoxious. And you stink. Plus you insulted a person who is just barely containing his righteous wrath right now. So, I’m giving you one and one only chance to shut up, sit back down before your body spontaneously develops all sort of bruises, contusions, broken bones, and unconsciousness.” I said calmly, evenly, and threateningly.
“What da’ fuck you think you’re going to do…old man?” he screeched, trying to inflate himself into full mammalian threat posture, all 5’ 9” of it.
He didn’t notice Toivo walking up quietly behind him, as Toivo was returning from the head, quiet as a moose.
“Well, Scooter, I am an Air Marshall. Duly appointed, fully trained, and properly pissed off. Right now, I can arrest you, physically detain you, turn this flight around and take you to the Hawaiian police, at your cost for the inconvenience of the entire flight. Or I could arrest you, physically detain you, and turn you over to the Japanese authorities when we land. It’s really your choice. Choose wisely.”
To be continued…⇝

Every Monday from 8:00 p.m. till just after the sun comes up.
Thursday, October 01, 2020
(12:00 AM) (drama) Up The Down Staircase (1967/124 m/Robert Mulligan)
(2:15 AM) (comedy) Our Miss Brooks (1956/85 m/Al Lewis)
(4:00 AM) (drama)The Corn Is Green (1945/114 m/Irving Rapper)
(6:00 AM) (comedy) Girl He Left Behind (1956/103 m/David Butler)
(8:00 AM) (war) Lafayette Escadrille (1958/93 m/William A. Wellman)
(9:45 AM) (comedy) Dondi (1961/100 m/Albert Zugsmith)
(11:30 AM) (epic) The Shoes of the Fisherman (1968/162 m/Michael Anderson)
(2:15 PM) (crime) Ring of Fire (1961/91 m/Andrew L. Stone)
(4:00 PM) (suspense) Twenty Plus Two (1961/103 m/Joseph M. Newman)
(5:45 PM) (horror) Marooned (1969/129 m/John Sturges)
(8:00 PM) (drama) La Strada (1954/108 m/Federico Fellini)
(10:00 PM) (romance) Two for the Road (1967/111 m/Stanley Donen)
Friday, October 02, 2020
(12:00 AM) (romance) Dodsworth (1936/101 m/William Wyler)
(2:00 AM) (documentary) The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (1944/40 m/Lt. Col. William Wyler)
(3:00 AM) (drama) Black Girl (1966/60 m/Ousmane Sembene)
(4:15 AM) (drama) The Music Room (1958/99 m/Satyajit Ray)
(6:00 AM) (comedy) Go West (1940/80 m/Edward Buzzell)
(7:45 AM) (comedy) The Big Store (1941/83 m/Charles Riesner)
(9:30 AM) (comedy) Double Dynamite (1951/81 m/Irving Cummings)
(11:00 AM) (comedy) Girl In Every Port (1952/86 m/Chester Erskine)
(12:30 PM) (comedy) A Day at the Races (1937/109 m/Sam Wood)
(2:30 PM) (comedy) At the Circus (1939/87 m/Edward Buzzell)
(4:15 PM) (comedy) A Night at the Opera (1935/91 m/Sam Wood)
(6:00 PM) (epic) The Story of Mankind (1957/100 m/Irwin Allen)
(8:00 PM) (horror) Dracula (1931/74m/Tod Browning)
(9:30 PM) (suspense) Cat People (1942/73 m/Jacques Tourneur)
(11:00 PM) (horror) House on Haunted Hill (1958/75 m/William Castle)
Saturday, October 03, 2020
(12:30 AM) (horror) The Haunting (1963/112 m/Robert Wise)
(3:45 AM) (premiere) Wigstock: The Movie (1995/85 m/Barry Shils)
(5:15 AM) (short) The Relaxed Wife (1957/13 m/?)
(5:15 AM) (short) Time Out for Trouble (1961/19m/David S. Glidden)
(6:00 AM) (comedy) Million Dollar Baby (1941/101 m/Curtis Bernhardt)
(8:00 AM) (premiere) MGM CARTOONS: The Peachy Cobbler (1950/7 m/Fred (Tex) Avery)
(8:08 AM) (short) Phonies Beware! (1956/8 m/Larry O'Reilly)
(8:17 AM) (short) Night Life in Chicago (1948/9 m/?)
(8:27 AM) (premiere) Arctic Fury (1949/61 m/Norman Dawn)
(9:30 AM) (premiere) THE WILD WEST DAYS: Redskins’ Revenge (1937/?/?)
(10:00 AM) (premiere) POPEYE: Baby Wants a Bottleship (1942/7 m/Dave Fleischer)
(10:08 AM) (adventure) Safari Drums (1953/71 m/Ford Beebe)
(11:30 AM) (documentary) Alaska Lifeboat (1956/21 m/Herbert Morgan)
(12:00 PM) (drama) The Prince and the Pauper (1937/118 m/William Keighley)
(2:15 PM) (crime) Key Largo (1948/100 m/John Huston)
(4:15 PM) (drama) The Defiant Ones (1958/96 m/Stanley Kramer)
(6:00 PM) (romance) The Thomas Crown Affair (1968/102 m/Norman Jewison)
(8:00 PM) (epic) Lawrence of Arabia (1962/227 m/David Lean)
Sunday, October 04, 2020
(12:00 AM) (crime) Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950/95 m/Otto Preminger)
(2:00 AM) (western) Across the Wide Missouri (1951/78 m/William Wellman)
(3:30 AM) (musical) On An Island With You (1948/108 m/Richard Thorpe)
(5:30 AM) (short) Inflation (1942/17 m/Cy Endfield)
(6:00 AM) (romance) The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937/98 m/Richard Boleslawski)
(7:45 AM) (romance) Humoresque (1946/124 m/Jean Negulesco)
(10:00 AM) (crime) Where the Sidewalk Ends (1950/95 m/Otto Preminger)
(12:00 PM) (comedy) Mr. Belvedere Goes to College (1949/83 m/Elliott Nugent)
(1:30 PM) (comedy) The Women (1939/133 m/George Cukor)
(4:00 PM) (musical) Bye Bye Birdie (1963/112 m/George Sidney)
(6:00 PM) (documentary) The Great Buster: A Celebration (2018/101 m/Peter Bogdanovich)
(8:00 PM) (silent) Sherlock Jr. (1924/46 m/Buster Keaton)
(9:00 PM) (silent) The General (1927/79 m/Buster Keaton)
(10:30 PM) (silent) Steamboat Bill Jr. (1928/71 m/Charles F. Reisner)
Monday, October 05, 2020
(12:00 AM) (silent) Seven Chances (1925/57 m/Buster Keaton)
(2:00 AM) (drama) Viridiana (1961/91 m/Luis Buñuel)
(3:45 AM) (drama) The Exterminating Angel (1962/92 m/Luis Buñuel)
(5:30 AM) (documentary) MGM Parade Show #5 (1955/26 m/?)
(6:00 AM) (musical) Roberta (1935/106 m/William A. Seiter)
(8:00 AM) (musical) Fashions of 1934 (1934/78 m/William Dieterle)
(9:30 AM) (drama) Stolen Holiday (1937/80 m/Michael Curtiz)
(11:00 AM) (comedy) Designing Woman (1957/118 m/Vincente Minnelli)
(1:00 PM) (comedy) Made in Paris (1966/103 m/Boris Sagal)
(2:45 PM) (romance) A Place for Lovers (1969/88 m/Vittorio De Sica)
(4:30 PM) (horror) Blood and Black Lace (1964/88 m/Mario Bava)
(6:00 PM) (suspense) Lured (1947/103 m/Douglas Sirk)
(8:00 PM) (crime) Cash on Demand (1961/80 min/Quentin Lawrence)
(9:30 PM) (romance) The End of the Affair (1955/106 m/Edward Dmytryk)
(11:30 PM) (crime) Time Without Pity (1957/85 m/Joseph Losey)
Tuesday, October 06, 2020
(1:15 AM) (adventure) John Paul Jones (1959/126 m/John Farrow)
(3:30 AM) (drama) Hamlet (1948/154 m/Laurence Olivier)
(6:15 AM) (comedy) A Chump at Oxford (1940/63 m/Alfred Goulding)
(7:30 AM) (drama) Vigil in the Night (1940/102 m/George Stevens)
(9:15 AM) (comedy) The Gay Bride (1934/80 m/Jack Conway)
(10:45 AM) (musical) Swing High, Swing Low (1937/83 m/Mitchell Leisen)
(12:15 PM) (comedy) Love Before Breakfast (1936/70 m/Walter Lang)
(1:30 PM) (comedy) Nothing Sacred (1937/74 m/William A. Wellman)
(3:00 PM) (comedy) Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941/95 m/Alfred Hitchcock)
(4:45 PM) (comedy) To Be or Not to Be (1942/99 m/Ernst Lubitsch)
(6:30 PM) (documentary) The Golden Age of Comedy (1957/79 m/various)
(9:15 PM) (drama) The Ascent (1977/109 m/Larisa Sheptiko)
Wednesday, October 07, 2020
(12:30 AM) Meek's Cutoff (2010/104 m/Kelly Reichardt)
(2:30 AM) (short) Meshes of the Afternoon (1944/14 m/Maya Deren)
(4:30 AM) (comedy) Daisies (1966/76 m/Vera Chytilová
(6:00 AM) (premiere) Cameraperson (2016/102 m/Kirsten Johnson)
(9:15 AM) (drama) The Journey (1959/126 m/Anatole Litvak)
(11:30 AM) (drama) The Squall (1929/102 mAlexander Korda)
(1:30 PM) (short) Beautiful Budapest (1938/9 m/?)
(1:45 PM) (short) Rural Hungary (1939/9 m/James A. FitzPatrick)
(2:00 PM) (drama) Fight For Your Lady (1938/66 m/Ben Stoloff)
(3:15 PM) (drama) Storm at Daybreak (1933/79 m/Richard Boleslavsky)
(4:45 PM) (romance) The Shop Around the Corner (1940/99 m/Ernst Lubitsch)
(6:30 PM) (musical) One Heavenly Night (1930/80 m/Geo. Fitzmaurice)
(8:00 PM) (comedy) No Time For Sergeants (1958/119 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(10:15 PM) (drama) A Face in the Crowd (1957/126 m/Elia Kazan)
Thursday, October 08, 2020
(12:30 AM) (western) Hearts of the West (1975/102 m/Howard Zieff)
(2:30 AM) (comedy) Onionhead (1958/110 m/Norman Taurog)
(4:30 AM) (comedy) Thunder Afloat (1939/95 m/George B. Seitz)
(6:15 AM) (crime) The Public Enemy (1931/84 m/William A. Wellman)
(8:15 AM) (romance) Red-Headed Woman (1932/79 m/Jack Conway)
(9:45 AM) (comedy) Dinner at Eight (1933/111 m/George Cukor)
(11:45 AM) (comedy) Saratoga (1937/92 m/Jack Conway)
(1:30 PM) (romance) Hold Your Man (1933/87 m/Sam Wood)
(3:15 PM) (romance) Red Dust (1932/83 m/Victor Fleming)
(4:45 PM) (comedy) Personal Property (1937/84 m/W. S. Van Dyke II)
(6:15 PM) (comedy) Bombshell (1933/96 m/Victor Fleming)
(8:00 PM) (comedy) The Front Page (1931/101 m/Lewis Milestone)
(10:00 PM) (suspense) Detour (1945/68 m/Edgar G. Ulmer)
(11:30 PM) (drama) The Man with the Golden Arm (1956/119m/Otto Preminger)
Friday, October 09, 2020
(1:45 AM) (romance) Love Affair (1939/88 m/Leo McCarey)
(3:30 AM) (crime) A Brighter Summer Day (1991/237 m/Edward Yang)
(7:00 AM) (short) Alice in Movieland (1940/22 m/Jean Negulesco)
(7:45 AM) (drama) Nora Prentiss (1947/111 m/Vincent Sherman)
(9:45 AM) (crime) Born to Kill (1947/92 m/Robert Wise)
(11:30 AM) (drama) Dark Passage (1947/106 m/Delmer Daves)
(1:30 PM) (suspense) Out of the Past (1947/97 m/Jacques Tourneur)
(3:15 PM) (crime) Race Street (1948/79 m/Edwin L. Marin)
(4:45 PM) (suspense) Impact (1949/111 m/Arthur Lubin)
(6:45 PM) (suspense) The Woman On Pier 13 (1950/73 m/Robert Stevenson)
(8:00 PM) (horror) The Ghoul (1933/81 m/T. Hayes Hunter)
(9:30 PM) (horror) The Black Sleep (1956/82 m/Reginald LeBorg)
(11:00 PM) (horror) Mark of the Vampire (1935/60 m/Tod Browning)
Saturday, October 10, 2020
(12:15 AM) (horror) Night of the Living Dead (1968/96 m/George A. Romero)
(2:00 AM) (adventure) White Lightning (1973/101 m/Joseph Sargent)
(3:45 AM) (drama) Gator (1976/116 m/Burt Reynolds)
(5:45 AM) (short) The Corvair in Action! (1960/6 m/?)
(6:00 AM) (musical) The Opposite Sex (1956/116 m/David Miller)
(8:00 AM) (premiere) MGM Cartoons: Red Hot Riding Hood (1943/7 m/Fred (Tex) Avery)
(8:09 AM) (short) Fortune Seekers (1956/8 m/Larry O'Reilly)
(8:18 AM) (documentary) Historic Maryland (1941/8 m/?)
(8:27 AM) (drama) Men of the North (1930/61 m/Hal Roach)
(9:30 AM) (premiere) THE WILD WEST DAYS: Brink of Doom (1937/?/?)
(10:00 AM) (premiere) POPEYE: Alona the Sarong Seas (1942/7 m/Dave Fleischer)
(10:08 AM) (premiere) The Golden Idol (1954/71 m/Ford Beebe)
(11:30 AM) (comedy) King Of The Islands (1935/17 m/Ralph Staub) .
(12:00 PM) (adventure) Tarzan The Ape Man (1932/100 m/W. S. Van Dyke II)
(2:00 PM) (musical) Lili (1953/81 m/Charles Walters)
(3:30 PM) (comedy) Casino Royale (1967/131 m/John Huston, et. al.)
(6:00 PM) (musical) Top Hat (1935/100 m/Mark Sandrich)
(8:00 PM) (adventure) Gunga Din (1939/117 m/George Stevens)
(10:15 PM) (adventure) The Three Musketeers (1948/126 m/George Sidney)
Sunday, October 11, 2020
(12:30 AM) (crime) The Racket (1951/89 m/John Cromwell)
(2:30 AM) (comedy) Bananas (1971/82 m/Woody Allen)
(4:00 AM) (comedy) Hannah and Her Sisters (1986/107 m/Woody Allen)
(6:00 AM) (comedy) A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935/143 m/Max Reinhardt)
(8:30 AM) (drama) Journey For Margaret (1942/81 m/Major W. S. Van Dyke II)
(10:00 AM) (crime) The Racket (1951/89 m/John Cromwell)
(12:00 PM) (drama) Sounder (1972/105 m/Martin Ritt)
(2:00 PM) (drama) The Secret Garden (1949/92 m/Fred M. Wilcox)
(3:45 PM) (drama) The Catered Affair (1956/94 m/Richard Brooks)
(5:30 PM) (musical) Flower Drum Song (1961/131 m/Henry Koster)
(8:00 PM) (comedy) The Front Page (1974/105 m/Billy Wilder)
(10:00 PM) (comedy) The Fortune Cookie (1966/126 m/Billy Wilder)
Monday, October 12, 2020
(12:15 AM) (comedy) Sidewalk Stories (1989/99 m/Charles Lane)
(2:15 AM) (comedy) The Firemen's Ball (1967/73 m/Milos Forman)
(3:45 AM) (premiere) All My Good Countrymen (1968/126 m/Vojtěch Jasný)
(6:00 AM) (horror) The Reptile (1966/90 m/John Gilling)
(7:45 AM) (horror) The Killer Shrews (1959/68 m/Ray Kellogg)
(9:00 AM) (horror) King Kong (1933/104 m/Merian C. Cooper)
(11:00 AM) (horror) The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953/80 m/Eugene Lourié)
(12:30 PM) (horror) Gojira (1954/96 m/Ishiro Honda)
(2:00 PM) (horror) Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954/79 m/Jack Arnold)
(3:30 PM) (horror) Creature from the Haunted Sea (1961/59 m/Roger Corman)
(4:45 PM) (horror) The Green Slime (1969/90 m/Kinji Fukasaku)
(6:30 PM) (horror) Night of the Lepus (1972/88 m/William F. Claxton)
(8:00 PM) (adventure) Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960/80 m/Terence Fisher)
(11:00 PM) (horror) Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 A.D. (1966/81 m/Gordon Flemyng)
Tuesday, October 13, 2020
(12:30 AM) (adventure) She (1965/106 m/Robert Day)
(2:30 AM) (crime) Violent Playground (1958/106 m/Basil Dearden)
(4:30 AM) (premiere) In Saigon: Some May Live (1967/89 m/Vernon Sewell)
(6:00 AM) (drama) Devotion (1931/81 m/Robert Milton)
(7:30 AM) (comedy) The Runaway Bus (1954/74 m/Val Guest)
(9:00 AM) (crime) The Solitaire Man (1933/67 m/Jack Conway)
(10:30 AM) (suspense) Blind Adventure (1933/63 m/Ernest B. Schoedsack)
(11:45 AM) (musical) Double Trouble (1967/92 m/Norman Taurog)
(1:30 PM) (romance) A Warm December (1972/101 m/Sidney Poitier)
(3:30 PM) (drama) The V.I.P.S (1963/119 m/Anthony Asquith)
(5:45 PM) (comedy) The Prince and the Showgirl (1957/117 m/Laurence Olivier)
Wednesday, October 14, 2020
(2:00 AM) (documentary) The House Is Black (1963/22 m/?)
(2:30 AM) (romance) First Love (1977/91 m/Joan Darling)
(4:15 AM) (drama) The Night Porter (1974/118 m/Liliana Cavani)
(6:30 AM) (drama) Le Bonheur (1965/80 m/Agnes Varda)
(10:15 AM) (silent) The Unholy Three (1925/86 m/Tod Browning)
(12:00 PM) (silent) The Unknown (1927/49 m/Tod Browning)
(1:00 PM) (silent) The Blackbird (1926/86 m/Tod Browning)
(2:30 PM) (horror) The Thirteenth Chair (1929/73 m/Tod Browning)
(4:00 PM) (horror) Freaks (1932/62 m/Tod Browning)
(5:15 PM) (horror) Mark of the Vampire (1935/60 m/Tod Browning)
(6:30 PM) (horror) The Devil-Doll (1936/78 m/Tod Browning)
(8:00 PM) (drama) Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940/110 m/John Cromwell)
(10:00 PM) (drama) Sunrise at Campobello (1960/144 m/Vincent J. Donehue)
Thursday, October 15, 2020
(12:45 AM) (drama) Wilson (1944/154 m/Henry King)
(3:30 AM) (war) PT 109 (1963/140 m/Leslie H. Martinson) .
(6:00 AM) (comedy) Three Men on a Horse (1936/86 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(7:30 AM) (crime) Unholy Partners (1941/94 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(9:15 AM) (musical) Sweet Adeline (1935/88 m/Mervyn Le Roy)
(11:00 AM) (comedy) Happiness Ahead (1934/86 m/Mervyn Le Roy)
(12:30 PM) (drama) Big City Blues (1932/63 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(1:45 PM) (suspense) The Bad Seed (1956/129 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(4:00 PM) (drama) They Won't Forget (1937/95 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(5:45 PM) (romance) Random Harvest (1942/126 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(8:00 PM) (war) Tunes of Glory (1960/107 m/Ronald Neame)
(10:00 PM) (war) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943/164 m/Michael Powell)
Friday, October 16, 2020
(1:00 AM) (war) The Seventh Cross (1944/112 m/Fred Zinnemann)
(3:00 AM) (drama) The Diary of Anne Frank (1959/180 m/George Stevens)
(6:15 AM) (documentary) Trances (1981/89 m/Ahmed El Maanouni)
(8:00 AM) (comedy) Little Shop of Horrors (1960/72 m/Roger Corman)
(9:15 AM) (horror) Village of the Damned (1960/77 m/Wolf Rilla)
(10:45 AM) (horror) The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962/82 m/Joseph Green)
(12:15 PM) (horror) Carnival of Souls (1962/78 m/Herk Harvey)
(1:45 PM) (horror) Dementia 13 (1963/75 m/Francis Ford Coppola)
(3:15 PM) (horror) The Raven (1963/86 m/Roger Corman)
(4:45 PM) (horror) Spider Baby (1964/84 m/Jack Hill)
(6:15 PM) (horror) The Nanny (1965/93 m/Seth Holt)
(8:00 PM) (horror) Dead of Night (1945/103 m/Alberto Cavalcanti, Basil Dearden, Robert Hamer, Charles Crichton)
(10:00 PM) (horror) Twice-Told Tales (1963/120 m/Sidney Salkow)
Saturday, October 17, 2020
(12:15 AM) (horror) Black Sabbath (1963/96 m/Mario Bava)
(2:00 AM) (premiere) Enter the Ninja (1981/99 m/Menahem Golan)
(3:45 AM) (premiere) Revenge of the Ninja (1983/?/Sam Firstenberg)
(5:30 AM) (short) Shake Hands With Danger (1970/23 m/?)
(6:00 AM) (war) The Password Is Courage (1962/115 m/Andrew L. Stone)
(8:00 AM) MGM CARTOONS: Sheep Wrecked (1958/6 m/Michael Lah)
(8:08 AM) (documentary) Cave Explorers (1957/8 m/Heinz Scheiderbauer)
(8:17 AM) (short) The Capital City Washington, D.C. (1940/9 m/?)
(8:27 AM) (drama) She Loved A Fireman (1937/58 m/John Farrow)
(9:30 AM) (premiere) The WILD WEST DAYS: Indians Are Coming (1937/?/?)
(10:00 AM) (premiere) POPEYE: A Hull of a Mess (1942/6 m/Dave Fleischer)
(10:08 AM) (adventure) Lord of the Jungle (1955/69 m/Ford Beebe)
(11:30 AM) (short) Kissing Time (1933/22 m/Roy Mack)
(12:00 PM) (western) Angel And The Badman (1947/100 m/James Edward Grant)
(1:45 PM) (adventure) Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951/117 m/Raoul Walsh)
(4:00 PM) (comedy) Support Your Local Sheriff! (1969/93 m/Burt Kennedy)
(5:45 PM) (horror) Rollerball (1975/125 m/Norman Jewison)
(8:00 PM) (musical) Singin' in the Rain (1952/103 m/Gene Kelly)
(10:00 PM) (musical) Summer Stock (1950/109 m/Charles Walters)
Sunday, October 18, 2020
(12:00 AM) (crime) Destination Murder (1950/73 m/Edward L. Cahn)
(1:45 AM) (comedy) The Fearless Vampire Killers or Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck (1966/107 m/Roman Polanski)
(3:45 AM) (horror) House of Dark Shadows (1970/97 m/Dan Curtis)
(5:30 AM) (short) Return to Glennascaul (1953/24 m/Hilton Edwards)
(6:00 AM) (drama) The Life of Emile Zola (1937/116 m/William Dieterle)
(8:15 AM) (comedy) His Girl Friday (1940/92 m/Howard Hawks)
(10:00 AM) (crime) Destination Murder (1950/73 m/Edward L. Cahn)
(11:45 AM) (epic) The Good Earth (1937/138 m/Sidney Franklin)
(2:15 PM) (drama) Written on the Wind (1957/99 m/Douglas Sirk)
(4:00 PM) (romance) Dear Heart (1964/114 m/Delbert Mann)
(6:00 PM) (comedy) Peggy Sue Got Married (1986/105 m/Francis Ford Coppola)
(10:00 PM) (comedy) Losing Ground (1982/86 m/Kathleen Collins)
Monday, October 19, 2020
(12:00 AM) (silent) Exit Smiling (1926/77 m/Sam Taylor)
(2:00 AM) (premiere) I Am Waiting (1957/91 m/Koreyoshi Kurahara)
(3:45 AM) (premiere) A Colt Is My Passport (1967/84 m/Takashi Nomura) .
(5:30 AM) (documentary) MGM Parade Show #5 (1955/26 m/?)
(6:00 AM) (comedy) I Married a Witch (1942/77 m/René Clair)
(7:30 AM) (comedy) Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941/95 m/Alfred Hitchcock)
(9:15 AM) (crime) Touch of Evil (1958/111 m/Orson Welles)
(11:30 AM) (adventure) Mogambo (1953/116 m/John Ford)
(1:45 PM) (suspense) North by Northwest (1959/136 m/Alfred Hitchcock)
(4:15 PM) (drama) In A Lonely Place (1950/93 m/Nicholas Ray)
(6:00 PM) (war) Any Number Can Play (1949/103 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(8:00 PM) (suspense) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959/87 m/Terence Fisher)
(9:30 PM) (horror) Horror of Dracula (1958/81 m/Terence Fisher)
(11:15 PM) (horror) The Mummy (1959/88 m/Terence Fisher)
(1:00 AM) (horror) The Curse of Frankenstein (1957/83 min/Terence Fisher)
(2:45 AM) (horror) Frankenstein Created Woman (1967/92 min/Terence Fisher)
(4:30 AM) (horror) Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed! (1970/101 m/Terence Fisher)
Tuesday, October 20, 2020
(6:15 AM) (comedy) Front Page Woman (1935/82 m/Michael Curtiz)
(7:45 AM) (romance) Wife Vs. Secretary (1936/88 m/Clarence Brown)
(9:30 AM) (suspense) Mr. And Mrs. North (1941/67 m/Robert B. Sinclair)
(10:45 AM) (comedy) Theodora Goes Wild (1936/94 m/Richard Boleslawski)
(12:30 PM) (comedy) Breakfast for Two (1937/68 m/Alfred Santell)
(1:45 PM) (comedy) Four's A Crowd (1938/92 m/Michael Curtiz)
(3:30 PM) (comedy) It's A Wonderful World (1939/86 m/W. S. Van Dyke II)
(5:00 PM) (comedy) Fools For Scandal (1938/80 m/Mervyn Le Roy)
(6:30 PM) (romance) Love on the Run (1936/80 m/W. S. Van Dyke)
(8:00 PM) (premiere) Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema #8 (2018/?/Mark Cousins)
(9:15 PM) TBA
(10:45 PM) (documentary)) Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema #8 (2018/?/Mark Cousins)
__
Wednesday, October 21, 2020
(2:00 AM) (premiere) The Third Miracle (1999/119 m/Agnieszka Holland)
(7:45 AM) (short) The Birth, the Life and the Death of Christ (1906/34 m/Alice Guy-Blache)
(8:30 AM) (documentary) Araya (1959/83 m/Margot Benacerraf)
(10:00 AM) (drama) Children of a Lesser God (1986/119 m/Randa Haines)
(12:15 PM) (drama) Young Dr. Kildare (1938/82 m/Harold S. Bucquet)
(1:45 PM) (drama) Calling Dr. Kildare (1939/86 m/Harold S. Bucquet)
(3:30 PM) (drama) The Secret of Dr. Kildare (1939/84 m/Harold S. Bucquet)
(5:00 PM) (drama) Dr. Kildare Goes Home (1940/79 m/Harold S. Bucquet)
(6:30 PM) (drama) Dr. Kildare's Crisis (1940/75 m/Harold S. Bucquet)
(8:00 PM) (comedy) Hard To Handle (1933/78 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(9:30 PM) (crime) The Beast Of The City (1932/86 m/Charles Brabin)
(11:15 PM) (drama) One Way Passage (1942/67 m/Tay Garnett)
Thursday, October 22, 2020
(12:45 AM) (crime) They Live By Night (1948/95 m/Nicholas Ray)
(2:30 AM) (adventure) The Prisoner of Zenda (1952/100 m/Richard Thorpe)
(4:15 AM) (adventure) Green Fire (1955/100 m/Andrew Marton)
(6:00 AM) (adventure) Three Faces East (1930/71 m/Roy Del Ruth)
(7:30 AM) (drama) Born to Love (1932/81 m/Paul L. Stein)
(9:00 AM) (drama) The Common Law (1932/74 m/Paul L. Stein)
(10:30 AM) (drama) Rockabye (1932/68 m/George Cukor)
(11:45 AM) (drama) Bed of Roses (1933/ 67 /Gregory LaCava)
(1:00 PM) (drama) Our Betters (1933/83 m/George Cukor)
(2:30 PM) (comedy) Topper (1937/97 m/Norman Z. McLeod)
(4:15 PM) (comedy) Topper Takes a Trip (1939/80 m/Norman Z. McLeod)
(5:45 PM) (comedy) Merrily We Live (1938/95 m/Norman Z. McLeod)
(7:30 PM) (documentary) MGM Parade Show #5 (1955/26 m/?)
(8:00 PM) (crime) The Killers (1964/93 m/Donald Siegel)
(9:45 PM) (drama) The Breaking Point (1950/97 m/Michael Curtiz)
(11:30 PM) (horror) The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933/77 m/Michael Curtiz)
Friday, October 23, 2020
(1:00 AM) (horror) Night of the Living Dead (1968/96 m/George A. Romero)
(3:00 AM) (premiere) A River Called Titas (1973/158 m/Ritwik Ghatak)
(6:00 AM) (drama) Inside Straight (1951/87 m/Gerald Mayer)
(7:30 AM) (crime) Absolute Quiet (1936/70 m/George B. Seitz)
(8:45 AM) (drama) Chain Lightning (1950/95 m/Stuart Heisler)
(10:30 AM) (adventure) Tycoon (1947/129 m/Richard Wallace)
(12:45 PM) (drama) No Marriage Ties (1933/72 m/J. Walter Ruben)
(2:00 PM) (drama) Death of a Scoundrel (1956/120 m/Charles Martin)
(4:15 PM) (crime) Assignment To Kill (1968/99 m/Sheldon Reynolds)
(6:00 PM) (suspense) The Drowning Pool (1975/108 m/Stuart Rosenberg)
(8:00 PM) (horror) Pit and the Pendulum (1961/80 m/Roger Corman)
(9:45 PM) (horror) Spirits of the Dead (1968/121 m/Federico Fellini, Louis Malle, Roger Vadim)
Saturday, October 24, 2020
(12:00 AM) (horror) Murders In The Rue Morgue (1971/98 m/Gordon Hessler)
(2:00 AM) (premiere) Ninja III: The Domination (1984/95 m/Sam Firstenberg)
(3:45 AM) (drama) Heavenly Bodies (1985/89 m/Lawrence Dane)
(5:30 AM) (short) Keep Off The Grass (1969/21 m/?)
(6:00 AM) (comedy) Please Don't Eat the Daisies (1960/111 m/Charles Walters)
(8:00 AM) (premiere) MGM CARTOONS: One Cab's Family (1938/8 m/Fred (Tex) Avery)
(8:09 AM) (documentary) Black Cats and Broomsticks (1955/8 m/Larry O'Reilly)
(8:18 AM) (short) Wandering Here and There (1944/9 m/James A. FitzPatrick)
(8:28 AM) (romance) King Of The Lumberjacks (1940/59 m/William Clemens)
(9:30 AM) (premiere) THE WILD WEST DAYS: Leap For Life (1937/?/?)
(10:00 AM) (premiere) POPEYE: Cartoons Ain’t Human (1943/7 m/Dave Fleischer)
(10:09 AM) (adventure) Tarzan And The Amazons (1945/76 m/Kurt Neumann)
(11:30 AM) (short) The Flame Song (1934/22 m/Joseph Henabery)
(12:00 PM) (suspense) Harper (1966/121 m/Jack Smight)
(2:15 PM) (horror) Brainstorm (1983/106 m/Douglas Trumbull)
(4:15 PM) (war) Men Of The Fighting Lady (1954/80 m/Andrew Marton)
(5:45 PM) (drama) Citizen Kane (1941/119 m/Orson Welles)
(8:00 PM) (drama) Ace in the Hole (1951/111m/Billy Wilder)
(10:15 PM) (premiere) Flesh and Fury (1952/83 m/Joseph Pevney)
Sunday, October 25, 2020
(12:00 AM) (adventure) Macao (1952/81 m/Josef von Sternberg)
(1:45 AM) (horror) The Werewolf (1956/80 m/Fred F. Sears)
(3:15 AM) (premiere) The Howling (1981/91 m/Joe Dante)
(5:00 AM) (horror) The Mummy (1932/73 m/Karl Freund)
(6:15 AM) (suspense) Murder on the Blackboard (1934/72 m/George Archainbaud)
(7:30 AM) (romance) All This, and Heaven Too (1940/143 m/Anatole Litvak)
(10:00 AM) (adventure) Macao (1952/81 m/Josef von Sternberg)
(12:00 PM) (romance) The White Cliffs Of Dover (1944/126 m/Clarence Brown)
(2:15 PM) (epic) Around the World in 80 Days (1956/182 m/Michael Anderson)
(5:30 PM) (horror) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962/134 m/Robert Aldrich)
(8:00 PM) (western) 3:10 to Yuma (1957/92 m/Delmer Daves)
(10:00 PM) (western) Gunman's Walk (1958/95 m/Phil Karlson)
Monday, October 26, 2020
(12:00 AM) (silent) Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922/107 m/Benjamin Christensen)
(2:00 AM) (suspense) Diabolique (1955/117 m/Henri-Georges Clouzot)
(4:15 AM) (horror) Eyes Without a Face (1959/90 m/Georges Franju)
(6:00 AM) (suspense) The Beast with Five Fingers (1946/88 m/Robert Florey)
(7:45 AM) (adventure) Mara Maru (1952/98 m/Gordon Douglas)
(9:30 AM) (drama) They Won't Believe Me (1947/80 m/Irving Pichel)
(11:15 AM) (suspense) Where Danger Lives (1950/80 m/John Farrow)
(1:00 PM) (suspense) Fingers at the Window (1942/81 m/Charles Lederer)
(2:30 PM) (suspense) Footsteps in the Dark (1941/96 m/Lloyd Bacon)
(4:15 PM) (suspense) Kill or Cure (1962/88 m/George Pollock)
(6:00 PM) (comedy) The Gazebo (1960/102m/George Marshall)
(8:00 PM) (horror) Nothing But the Night (1972/91 m/Peter Sasdy)
(9:45 PM) (horror) Madhouse (1974/91 m/James Clark)
(11:30 PM) (horror) From Beyond the Grave (1973/98 m/Kevin Connor)
Tuesday, October 27, 2020
(1:30 AM) (horror) Scream and Scream Again (1970/95 m/Gordon Hessler)
(3:15 AM) (premiere) The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1973/88 m/Alan Gibson)
(4:45 AM) (horror) Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972/96 m/Alan Gibson)
(6:30 AM) (western) Somewhere In Sonora (1933/58 m/Mack V. Wright)
(7:45 AM) (western) Along the Rio Grande (1941/64 m/Edward Killy)
(9:00 AM) (western) Valley of the Sun (1942/78 m/George Marshall)
(10:30 AM) (western) Sagebrush Trail (1933/53 m/Armand Schaefer)
(11:30 AM) (western) Devil's Canyon (1953/92 m/Alfred Werker)
(1:15 PM) (western) The Hired Gun (1957/64 m/Ray Nazarro)
(2:30 PM) (premiere) Black Patch (1957/82 m/Allen H. Miner)
(4:00 PM) (western) Virginia City (1940/121 m/Michael Curtiz)
(6:15 PM) (western) Escape From Fort Bravo (1953/98 m/John Sturges)
Wednesday, October 28, 2020
(12:15 AM) (comedy) Girlfriends (1978/88 m/Claudia Weill)
(2:00 AM) (drama) The Connection (1962/103 m/Shirley Clarke)
(4:00 AM) (comedy) Lost In Yonkers (1993/114 m/Martha Coolidge)
(10:00 AM) (drama) Winter Meeting (1948/104 m/Bretaigne Windust)
(12:00 PM) (romance) I Know Where I'm Going (1945/92 m/Michael Powell)
(1:45 PM) (romance) The Enchanted Cottage (1945/92 m/John Cromwell)
(3:30 PM) (romance) Random Harvest (1942/126 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(6:00 PM) (romance) Desire Me (1947/91 m/George Cukor)
(8:00 PM) (drama) The Best Man (1964/102 m/Franklin J. Schaffner)
(10:00 PM) (drama) State of the Union (1948/123 m/Frank Capra)
Thursday, October 29, 2020
(12:15 AM) (comedy) The Great McGinty (1940/82 m/Preston Sturges)
(2:00 AM) (drama) The Candidate (1972/110 m/Michael Ritchie)
(4:00 AM) (drama) All the King's Men (1949/110 m/Robert Rossen)
(6:00 AM) (western) Haunted Gold (1932/58 m/Mack V. Wright)
(7:00 AM) (horror) The Devil-Doll (1936/78 m/Tod Browning)
(8:30 AM) (suspense) Before Dawn (1933/61 m/Irving Pichel)
(9:45 AM) (comedy) Man Alive (1946/70 m/Ray Enright)
(11:00 AM) (horror) Tormented (1960/75 m/Bert I. Gordon)
(12:30 PM) (adventure) Angel on My Shoulder (1946/101 m/Archie Mayo)
(2:15 PM) (horror) Night Of Dark Shadows (1971/94 m/Dan Curtis)
(4:00 PM) (horror) Indestructible Man (1956/71 m/Jack Pollexfen)
(5:15 PM) (horror) From Hell It Came (1957/71 m/Johnny Greenwald)
(6:30 PM) (horror) Death Curse of Tartu (1966/88 m/William Grefé)
(8:00 PM) (western) Winchester '73 (1950/92 m/Anthony Mann)
(10:00 PM) (western) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949/104 m/John Ford)
Friday, October 30, 2020
(12:00 AM) (documentary) Primary (1960/53 m/Robert Drew)
(1:15 AM) (documentary) Crisis (1963/53 m/Robert Drew)
(2:15 AM) (premiere) Dos Monjes (1934//Juan Bustillo Oro)
(4:00 AM) (drama) Of Mice and Men (1939/107m/Lewis Milestone)
(6:00 AM) (documentary) MGM Parade Show #5 (1955/26 m/?)
(6:30 AM) (horror) Doctor X (1932/76 m/Michael Curtiz)
(8:00 AM) (horror) The Mask Of Fu Manchu (1932/68 m/Charles Brabin)
(9:30 AM) (horror) The Most Dangerous Game (1932/63 m/Ernest B. Schoedsack)
(10:45 AM) (horror) Island of Lost Souls (1932/70 m/Erle C. Kenton)
(12:00 PM) (horror) White Zombie (1932/67 m/Victor Halperin)
(1:30 PM) (horror) The Vampire Bat (1933/63 m/Frank Strayer)
(2:45 PM) (horror) The Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933/77 m/Michael Curtiz)
(4:15 PM) (horror) Mad Love (1935/68 m/Karl Freund)
(5:30 PM) (horror) The Walking Dead (1936/65 m/Michael Curtiz)
(6:45 PM) (horror) The Return of Doctor X (1939/62 m/Vincent Sherman)
(8:00 PM) (horror) Burn, Witch, Burn! (1962/89 m/Sidney Hayers)
(9:45 PM) (horror) The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959/70 m/Edward L. Cahn)
(11:00 PM) (horror) The Devil's Bride (1968/96 m/Terence Fisher)
Saturday, October 31, 2020
(12:45 AM) (horror) The Conqueror Worm (1968/87 m/Michael Reeves)
(5:15 AM) (short) The Distant Drummer: Flowers of Darkness (1972/22 m/William Templeton)
(5:15 AM) (short) Movie Trailer (1950/16 m/?)
(6:00 AM) (horror) Freaks (1932/62 m/Tod Browning)
(7:15 AM) (horror) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1932/96 m/Rouben Mamoulian)
(9:00 AM) (horror) House of Wax (1953/88 m/Andre deToth)
(10:45 AM) (horror) Children of the Damned (1964/90 m/Anton M. Leader)
(12:30 PM) (suspense) The Bad Seed (1956/129 m/Mervyn LeRoy)
(2:45 PM) (drama) The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945/110 m/Albert Lewin)
(4:45 PM) (horror) The Wolf Man (1941/70 m/George Waggner)
(6:00 PM) (horror) The Haunting (1963/112 m/Robert Wise)
(8:00 PM) (comedy) Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964/95 m/Stanley Kubrick) .
(10:00 PM) (horror) Them! (1954/92 m/Gordon Douglas)
(12:00 AM) (horror) The Seventh Victim (1943/71 m/Mark Robson)
(1:30 AM) (horror) I Walked With A Zombie (1943/69 m/Jacques Tourneur)
(3:00 AM) (horror) The Body Snatcher (1945/78 m/Robert Wise)
(4:30 AM) (suspense) The Leopard Man (1943/66 m/Jacques Tourneur)

The Resurrection of the Flesh [Tr by Roses]

These first two tales published in Secret Weavers: Stories of the Fantastic by Women Writers of Argentina and Chile, edited by Marjorie Agosin (White Pine Press, 1992):

She was thirty-two, her name was Aurelia, and she had been married eleven years. One Saturday afternoon, she looked through the kitchen window at the garden and saw the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Men of the world, those four horsemen of the Apocalypse. And good-looking. The first from the left was riding a sorrel horse with a dark mane. He was wearing white breeches, black boots, a crimson jacket, and a yellow fez with black pompoms. The second one had a sleeveless tunic overlaid with gold and violet and was barefoot. He was riding on the back of a plump dolphin. The third one had a respectable, black beard, trimmed at right angles. He had donned a gray Prince of Wales suit, white shirt, blue tie and carried a black leather portfolio. He was seated on a folding chair belted to the back of white-haired dromedary. The fourth one made Aurelia smile and realize that they were smiling at her. He was riding a black and gold Harley-Davidson 1200 and was wearing a white helmet and dark goggles and had long, straight, blond hair flying in the wind behind him. The four were riding in the garden without moving from the spot. They rode and smiled at her and she watched them through the kitchen window.
In that manner, she finished washing the two teacups, took off her apron, arranged her hair and went to the living room.
"I saw the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the garden," she told her husband.
"I'll bet," he said without raising his eyes from his paper.
"What are you reading?" Aurelia asked.
"Hmmm?"
"I said they were given a crown and a sword and a balance and power."
"Oh, right," said her husband.
And after that a week went by as all weeks do--very slowly at first and very quickly toward the end--and on Sunday morning, while she made the coffee, she again saw the four horsemen of the Apocalypse in the garden, but when she went back to the bedroom she didn't say anything to her husband.
The third time she saw them, one Wednesday, alone, in the afternoon, she stood looking at them for a half hour and finally, since she had always wanted to fly in a yellow and red dirigible; and since she had dreamed about being an opera singer, an emperor's lover, a co-pilot to Icarus; since she would have liked to scale black cliffs, laugh at cannibals, traverse the jungles on elephants with purple trappings, seize with her hands the diamonds that lay hidden in mines, preside in the nude over a parade of nocturnal monsters, live under water, domesticate spiders, torture the powerful of the earth, rob trains in the tunnels of the Alps, set palaces on fire, lie in the dark with beggars, climb on the bridges of all the ships in the world; finally--since it was sadly sterile to be a rational and healthy adult--finally, that Wednesday afternoon alone, she put on the long dress she had worn at the last New Year's party given by the company where her husband was assistant sales manager and went out to the garden. The four horsemen of the Apocalypse called her, the blond one on the Harley-Davidson gave her his hand and helped her up onto the seat behind him, and there they went, all five, raging into the storm and singing.
Two days later her husband gave in to family pressure and reported the disappearance of his wife.
"Moral: madness is a flower aflame," said the narrator. Or in other words, it's impossible to inflame the dead, cold, viscous, useless, and sinful ashes of common sense.

The Perfect Married Woman

If you meet her on the street, cross quickly to the other side and quicken your pace. She’s a dangerous lady. She’s about forty or forty-five, has one married daughter and a son working in San Nicolas; her husband’s a sheet-metal worker. She rises very early, sweeps the sidewalk, sees her husband off, cleans, does the wash, shops, cooks. After lunch she watches television, sews or knits, irons twice a week, and at night goes to bed late. On Saturdays she does a general cleaning and washes windows and waxes the floors. On Sunday mornings she washes the clothes her son brings home—his name is Nestor Eduardo—she kneads dough for noodles or ravioli, and in the afternoon either her sister-inlaw comes to visit or she goes to her daughter’s house. It’s been a long time since she’s been to the movies, but she reads TV Guide and the police report in the newspaper. Her eyes are dark and her hands are rough and her hair is starting to go gray. She catches cold frequently and keeps a photo album in a dresser drawer along with a black crepe dress with lace collar and cuffs.
Her mother never hit her. But when she was six, she got a spanking for coloring on a door, and she had to wash it off with a wet rag. While she was doing it, she thought about doors, all doors, and decided that they were very dumb because they always led to the same places. And the one she was cleaning was definitely the dumbest of all, the one that led to her parents’ bedroom. She opened the door and then it didn’t go to her parents’ bedroom but to the Gobi desert. She wasn’t surprised that she knew it was the Gobi desert even though they hadn’t even taught her in school where Mongolia was and neither she nor her mother nor her grandmother had ever heard of Nan Shan or Khangai Nuru.
She stepped through the door, bent over to scratch the yellowish grit and saw that there was no one, nothing, and the hot wind tousled her hair, so she went back through the open door, closed it and kept on cleaning. And when she finished, her mother grumbled a little more and told her to wash the rag and take the broom to sweep up that sand and clean her shoes. That day she modified her hasty judgment about doors, though not completely, at least not until she understood what was going on.
What had been going on all her life and up until today was that from time to time doors behaved satisfactorily, though in general they were still acting dumb and leading to dining rooms, kitchens, laundry rooms, bedrooms and offices even in the best of circumstances. But two months after the desert, for example, the door that every day led to the bath opened onto the workshop of a bearded man dressed in a long uniform, pointed shoes, and a cap that tilted on one side of his head. The old man’s back was turned as he took something out of a highboy with many small drawers behind a very strange, large wooden machine with a giant steering wheel and screw, in the midst of cold air and an acrid smell. When he turned around and saw her he began to shout at her in a language she didn’t understand.
She stuck out her tongue, dashed out the door, closed it, opened it again, went into the bathroom and washed her hands for lunch.
Again, after lunch, many years later, she opened the door of her room and walked into a battlefield. She dipped her hands in the blood of the wounded and dead and pulled from the neck of a cadaver a crucifix that she wore for a long time under high-necked blouses or dresses without plunging necklines. She now keeps it in a tin box underneath the nightgowns with a brooch, a pair of earrings and a broken wristwatch that used to belong to her mother-in-law. In the same way, involuntarily and by chance, she visited three monasteries, seven libraries, and the highest mountains in the world, and who knows how many theaters, cathedrals, jungles, refrigeration plants, dens of vice, universities, brothels, forests, stores, submarines, hotels, trenches, islands, factories, palaces, hovels, towers and hell.
She’s lost count and doesn’t care; any door could lead anywhere and that has the same value as the thickness of the ravioli dough, her mother’s death, and the life crises that she sees on TV and reads about in TV Guide.
Not long ago she took her daughter to the doctor, and seeing the closed door of a bathroom in the clinic, she smiled. She wasn’t sure because she can never be sure, but she got up and went to the bathroom. However, it was a bathroom; at least there was a nude man in a bathtub full of water. It was all very large, with a high ceiling, marble floor and decorations hanging from the closed windows. The man seemed to be asleep in his white bathtub, short but deep, and she saw a razor on a wrought iron table with feet decorated with iron flowers and leaves and ending in lion’s paws, a razor, a mirror, a curling iron, towels, a box of talcum powder and an earthen bowl with water. She approached on tiptoe, retrieved the razor, tiptoed over to the sleeping man in the tub and beheaded him. She threw the razor on the floor and rinsed her hands in the lukewarm bathtub water. She turned around when she reached the clinic corridor and spied a girl going into the bathroom through the other door. Her daughter looked at her.
“That was quick.”
“The toilet was broken,” she answered.
A few days afterward, she beheaded another man in a blue tent at night. That man and a woman were sleeping mostly uncovered by the blankets of a low, king-size bed, and the wind beat around the tent and slanted the flames of the oil lamps. Beyond it there would be another camp, soldiers, animals, sweat, manure, orders and weapons. But inside there was a sword by the leather and metal uniforms, and with it she cut off the head of the bearded man. The woman stirred and opened her eyes as she went out the door on her way back to the patio that she had been mopping.
On Monday and Thursday afternoons, when she irons shirt collars, she thinks of the slit necks and the blood, and she waits. If it’s summer she goes out to sweep a little after putting away the clothing and until her husband arrives. If it’s windy she sits in the kitchen and knits. But she doesn’t always find sleeping men or staring cadavers. One rainy morning, when she was twenty, she was at a prison, and she made fun of the chained prisoners; one night when the kids were kids and were all living at home, she saw in a square a disheveled woman looking at a gun but not daring to take it out of her open purse. She walked up to her, put the gun in the woman’s hand and stayed there until a car parked at the corner, until the woman saw a man in gray get out and look for his keys in his pocket, until the woman aimed and fired. And another night while she was doing her sixth grade geography homework, she went to look for crayons in her room and stood next to a man who was crying on a balcony. The balcony was so high, so far above the street, that she had an urge to push him to hear the thud down below, but she remembered the orographic map of South America and was about to leave. Anyhow, since the man hadn’t seen her, she did push him and saw him disappear and ran to color in the map so she didn’t hear the thud, only the scream. And in an empty theater, she made a fire underneath the velvet curtain; in a riot she opened the cover to a basement hatchway; in a house, sitting on top of a desk, she shredded a two-thousand-page manuscript; in a clearing of a forest she buried the weapons of the sleeping men; in a river she opened the floodgates of a dike.
Her daughter’s name is Laura Inés, her son has a fiancée in San Nicolás and he’s promised to bring her over on Sunday so she and her husband can meet her. She has to remind herself to ask her sister-in-law for the recipe for orange cake, and Friday on TV is the first episode of a new soap opera. Again, she runs the iron over the front of the shirt and remembers the other side of the doors that are always carefully closed in her house, that other side where the things that happen are much less abominable than the ones we experience on this side, as you can easily understand.

The Unmistakable Smell of Wood Violets [Tr by Womack]

Translated for the first time in Ann and Jeff Vandermeer's Big Book of Science Fiction (Vintage, 2016):

The news spread fast. It would be correct to say that the news moved like a flaming trail of gunpowder, if it weren't for the fact that at this point in our civilization gunpowder was archaeology, ashes in time, the stuff of legend, nothingness. However, it was because of the magic of our new civilization that the news was known all over the world, practically instantaneously.
"Oooh!" the tsarina said.
You have to take into account that Her Gracious and Most Illustrious Virgin Majesty Ekaterina V, Empress of Holy Russia, had been carefully educated in the proper decorum befitting the throne, which meant that she would never have even raised an eyebrow or curved the corner of her lip, far less would she have made an interjection of that rude and vulgar kind. But not only did she say "Oooh!," she also got up and walked through the room until she reached the glass doors of the great balcony. She stopped there. Down below, covered by snow, Saint Leninburg was indifferent and unchanged, the city's eyes squinting under the weight of winter. At the palace, ministers and advisers were excited, on edge.
"And where is this place?" the tsarina asked.
And that is what happened in Russia, which is such a distant and atypical country. In the central states of the continent, there was real commotion. In Bolivia, in Paraguay, in Madagascar, in all the great powers, and in the countries that aspired to be great powers, such as High Peru, Iceland, or Morocco, hasty conversations took place at the highest possible level with knitted brows and hired experts. The strongest currencies became unstable: the guarani rose, the Bolivian peso went down half a point, the crown was discreetly removed from the exchange rates for two long hours, long queues formed in front of the exchanges in front of all the great capitals of the world. President Morillo spoke from the Oruro Palace and used the opportunity to make a concealed warning (some would call it a threat) to the two Peruvian republics and the Minas Gerais secessionist area. Morillo had handed over the presidency of Minas to his nephew, Pepe Morillo, who had proved to be a wet blanket whom everybody could manipulate, and now Morillo bitterly regretted his decision. Morocco and Iceland did little more than give their diplomats a gentle nudge in the ribs, anything to shake them into action, as they imagined them all to be sipping grenadine and mango juice in the deep south while servants in shiny black uniforms stood over them with fans.
The picturesque note came from the Independent States of North America. It could not have been otherwise. Nobody knew that all the states were now once again under the control of a single president, but that's how it was: some guy called Jack Jackson-Franklin, who had been a bit-part actor in videos, and who, aged eighty-seven, had discovered his extremely patriotic vocation of statesman. Aided by his singular and inexplicable charisma, and by his suspect family tree, according to which he was the descendent of two presidents who had ruled over the states during their glory days, he had managed to unify, at least for now, the seventy-nine northern states. Anyway, Mr. Jackson-Franklin said to the world that the Independent States would not permit such a thing to take place. No more, just that they would not permit such a thing to take place. The world laughed uproariously at this.
Over there, in the Saint Leninburg palace, ministers cleared their throats, advisers swallowed saliva, trying to find out if, by bobbing their Adam's apples up and down enough, they might be able to loosen their stiff official shirts.
"Ahem. Ahem. It's in the south. A long way to the south. In the west, Your Majesty."
"It is. Humph. Ahem. It is, Your Majesty, a tiny country in a tiny territory."
"It says that it is in Argentina," the tsarina said, still staring through the window but without paying any attention to the night as it fell over the snow-covered roofs and the frozen shores of the Baltic.
"Ah, yes, that's right, that's right, Your Majesty, a pocket republic."
Sergei Vasilievich Kustkarov, some kind of councilor and, what is more, an educated and sensible man, broke into the conversation.
"Several, Your Majesty, it is several."
And at last the tsarina turned around. Who cared a fig for the Baltic night, the snow-covered rooftops, the roofs themselves, and the city of which they were a part? Heavy silk crackled, starched petticoats, lace.
"Several of what, Councilor Kustkarov, several of what? Don't come to me with your ambiguities."
"I must say, Your Majesty, I had not the slightest intention--"
"Several of what?"
The tsarina looked directly at him, her lips held tightly together, her hands moving unceasingly, and Kustkarov panicked, as well he might.
"Rep-rep-republics, Your Majesty," he blurted out. "Several of them. Apparently, a long time ago, a very long time, it used to be a single territory, and now it is several, several republics, but their inhabitants, the people who live in all of them, all of the republics, are called, they call themselves, the people, that is, Argentinians."
The tsarina turned her gaze away. Kustkarov felt so relieved that he was encouraged to carry on speaking:
"There are seven of them, Your Majesty: Rosario, Entre dos Rios, Ladocta, Ona, Riachuelo, Yujujuy, and Labodegga."
The tsarina sat down.
"We must do something," she said.
Silence. Outside it was not snowing, but inside it appeared to be. The tsarina looked at the transport minister.
"This enters into your portfolio," she said.
Kustkarov sat down, magnificently. How lucky he was to be a councilor, a councilor with no specific duties. The transport minister, on the other hand, turned pale.
"I think, Your Majesty...," he dared to say.
"Don't think! Do something!"
"Yes, Your Majesty," the minister said, and, bowing, started to make his way to the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" the tsarina said, without moving her mouth or twitching an eyelid.
"I'm just, I'm going, I'm just going to see what can be done, Your Majesty."
There's nothing that can be done, Sergei Vasilievich thought in delight, nothing. He realized that he was not upset, but instead he felt happy. And on top of everything else a woman, he thought. Kustkarov was married to Irina Waldoska-Urtiansk, a real beauty, perhaps the most beautiful woman in all of Holy Russia. Perhaps he was being cuckolded; it would have been all too easy for him to find that out, but he did not want to. His thoughts turned in a circle: and on top of everything else a woman. He looked at the tsarina and was struck, not for the first time, by her beauty. She was not so beautiful as Irina, but she was magnificent.
In Rosario it was not snowing, not because it was summer, although it was, but because it never snowed in Rosario. And there weren't any palm trees: the Moroccans would have been extremely disappointed had they known, but their diplomats said nothing about the Rosario flora in their reports, partly because the flora of Rosario was now practically nonexistent, and partly because diplomats are supposed to be above that kind of thing.
Everyone who was not a diplomat, that is to say, everyone, the population of the entire republic that in the last ten years had multiplied vertiginously and had now reached almost two hundred thousand souls, was euphoric, happy, triumphant. They surrounded her house, watched over her as she slept, left expensive imported fruits outside her door, followed her down the street. Some potentate allowed her the use of a Ford 99, which was one of the five cars in the whole country, and a madman who lived in the Espinillos cemetery hauled water all the way up from the Pará lagoon and grew a flower for her which he then gave her.
"How nice," she said, then went on, dreamily, "Will there be flowers where I'm going?"
They assured her that there would be.
She trained every day. As they did not know exactly what it was she had to do to train herself, she got up at dawn, ran around the Independence crater, skipped, did some gymnastic exercises, ate little, learned how to hold her breath, and spent hours and hours sitting or curled into strange positions. She also danced the waltz. She was almost positive that the waltz was not likely to come in handy, but she enjoyed it very much.
Meanwhile, farther away, the trail of gunpowder had become a barrel of dynamite, although dynamite was also a legendary substance and didn't exist. The infoscreens in every country, whether poor or rich, central or peripheral, developed or not, blazed forth with extremely large headlines suggesting dates, inventing biographical details, trying to hide, without much success, their envy and confusion. No one was fooled:
"We have been wretchedly beaten," the citizens of Bolivia said.
"Who would have thought it," pondered the man on the Reykjavík omnibus.
The former transport minister of Holy Russia was off breaking stones in Siberia. Councilor Sergei Vasilievich Kustkarov was sleeping with the tsarina, but that was only a piece of low, yet spicy, gossip that has nothing to do with this story.
"We will not allow this to happen!" Mr. Jackson-Franklin blustered, tugging nervously at his hairpiece. "It is our own glorious history that has set aside for us this brilliant destiny! It is we, we and not this despicable banana republic, who are marked for this glory!"
Mr. Jackson-Franklin also did not know that there were no palm trees or bananas in Rosario, but this was due not to a lack of reports from his diplomats but rather a lack of diplomats. Diplomats are a luxury that a poor country cannot afford, and so poor countries often go to great pains to take offense and recall all the knights commanders and lawyers and doctors and even eventually the generals working overseas, in order to save money on rent and electricity and gas and salaries, not to mention the cost of the banquets and all the money in brown paper envelopes.
But the headlines kept on appearing on the infoscreens: "Argentinian Astronaut Claims She Will Reach Edge of Universe," "Sources Claim Ship Is Spaceworthy in Spite of or Because of Centuries-Long Interment," "Science or Catastrophe?," "Astronaut Not a Woman but a Transsexual" (this in the Imperialskaya Gazeta, the most puritan of the infoscreens, even more so than the Papal Piccolo Osservatore Lombardo), "Ship Launches," "First Intergalactic Journey in Centuries," "We Will Not Allow This to Happen!" (Portland Times).
She was dancing the waltz. She woke up with her heart thumping, tried out various practical hairstyles, ran, skipped, drank only filtered water, ate only olives, avoided spies and journalists, went to see the ship every day, just to touch it. The mechanics all adored her.
"It'll work, they'll see, it'll work," the chief engineer said defiantly.
Nobody contradicted him. No one dared say that it wouldn't.
It would make it, of course it would make it. Not without going through many incredible adventures on its lengthy journey. Lengthy? No one knew who Langevin was anymore, so no one was shocked to discover that his theory contradicted itself, ended up biting its own tail, and that however long the journey took, the observers would only perceive it as having lasted minutes. Someone called Cervantes, a very famous personage back in the early years of human civilization--it was still debated whether he had been a physicist, a poet, or a musician--had suggested a similar theory in one of his lost works.
One autumn dawn the ship took off from the Independence crater, the most deserted part of the whole desert republic of Rosario, at five forty-five in the morning. The exact time is recorded because the inhabitants of the country had all pitched in together to buy a clock, which they thought the occasion deserved (there was one other clock, in the Enclosed Convent of the Servants of Santa Rita de Casino, but because the convent was home to an enclosed order nothing ever went in or out of it, no news, no requests, no answers, no nothing). Unfortunately, they had not had enough money. But then someone had had the brilliant idea which had brought in the money they needed, and Rosario had hired out its army for parades in friendly countries: there weren't that many of them and the ones there were weren't very rich, but they managed to get the cash together. Anyone who was inspired by patriotism and by the proximity of glory had to see those dashing officers, those disciplined soldiers dressed in gold and crimson, protected by shining breastplates, capped off with plumed helmets, their catapults and pouches of stones at their waists, goose-stepping through the capital of Entre Dos Rios or the Padrone Giol vineyards in Labodegga, at the foot of the majestic Andes.
The ship blasted off. It got lost against the sky. Before the inhabitants of Rosario, their hearts in their throats and their eyes clouded by emotion, had time to catch their breath, a little dot appeared up there, getting bigger and bigger, and it was the ship coming back down. It landed at 06:11 on the same morning of that same autumn day. The clock that recorded this is preserved in the Rosario Historical Museum. It no longer works, but anyone can go and see it in its display cabinet in Room A of the Museum. In Room B, in another display case, is the so-called Carballensis Indentic Axe, the fatal tool that cut down all the vegetation of Rosario and turned the whole country into a featureless plain. Good and evil, side by side, shoulder to shoulder.
Twenty-six minutes on Earth, many years on board the ship. Obviously, she did not have a watch or a calendar with her: the republic of Rosario would not have been able to afford either of them. But it was many years, she knew that much.
Leaving the galaxy was a piece of cake. You can do it in a couple of jumps, everyone knows that, following the instructions that Albert Einsteinstein, the multifaceted violin virtuoso, director of sci-fi movies, and student of space-time, gave us a few hundred years back. But the ship did not set sail to the very center of the universe, as its predecessors had done in the great era of colonization and discovery; no, the ship went right to the edge of the universe.
Everyone also knows that there is nothing in the universe, not even the universe itself, which does not grow weaker as you reach its edge. From pancakes to arteries, via love, rubbers, photographs, revenge, bridal gowns, and power. Everything tends to imperceptible changes at the beginning, rapid change afterward; everything at the edge is softer and more blurred, as the threads start to fray from the center to the outskirts.
In the time it took her to take a couple of breaths, a breath and a half, over the course of many years, she passed through habitable and uninhabitable places, worlds which had once been classified as existent, worlds which did not appear and had never appeared and probably would never appear in any cartographical survey. Planets of exiles, singing sands, minutes and seconds in tatters, whirlpools of nothingness, space junk, and that's without even mentioning those beings and things, all of which stood completely outside any possibility of description, so much so that we tend not to perceive them when we look at them; all of this, and shock, and fear more than anything else, and loneliness. The hair grew gray at her temples, her flesh lost its firmness, wrinkles appeared around her eyes and her mouth, her knees and ankles started to act up, she slept less than before and had to half close her eyes and lean backward in order to make out the numbers on the consoles. And she was so tired that it was almost unbearable. She did not waltz any longer: she put an old tape into an old machine and listened and moved her gray head in time with the orchestra.
She reached the edge of the universe. Here was where everything came to an end, so completely that even her tiredness disappeared and she felt once again as full of enthusiasm as she had when she was younger. There were hints, of course: salt storms, apparitions, little brushstrokes of white against the black of space, large gaps made of sound, echoes of long-dead voices that had died giving sinister orders, ash, drums; but when she reached the edge itself, these indications gave way to space signage: "End," "You Are Reaching the Universe Limits," "The Cosmos General Insurance Company, YOUR Company, Says: GO NO FURTHER," "End of Protected Cosmonaut Space," etc., as well as the scarlet polygon that the OMUU had adopted to use as a sign for that's it, abandon all hope, the end.
All right, so she was here. The next thing to do was go back. But the idea of going back never occurred to her. Women are capricious creatures, just like little boys: as soon as they get what they want, then they want something else. She carried on.
There was a violent judder as she crossed the limit. Then there was silence, peace, calm. All very alarming, to tell the truth. The needles did not move, the lights did not flash, the ventilation system did not hiss, her alveoli did not vibrate, her chair did not swivel, the screens were blank. She got up, went to the portholes, looked out, saw nothing. It was logical enough:
"Of course," she said to herself, "when the universe comes to an end, then there's nothing."
She looked out through the portholes a little more, just in case. She still could see nothing, but she had an idea.
"But I'm here," she said. "Me and the ship."
She put on a space suit and walked out into the nothing.
When the ship landed in the Independence crater in the republic of Rosario, twenty-six minutes after it had taken off, when the hatch opened and she appeared on the ramp, the spirit of Paul Langevin flew over the crater, laughing fit to burst. The only people who heard him were the madman who had grown the flower for her in the Espinillos cemetery and a woman who was to die that day. No one else had ears or fingers or tongue or feet, far less did they have eyes to see him.
It was the same woman who had left, the very same, and this calmed the crowds down at the same time as it disappointed them, all the inhabitants of the country, the diplomats, the spies, and the journalists. It was only when she came down the gangplank and they came closer to her that they saw the network of fine wrinkles around her eyes. All other signs of her old age had vanished, and had she wished, she could have waltzed tirelessly, for days and nights on end, from dusk till dawn till dusk.
The journalists all leaned forward; the diplomats made signals, which they thought were subtle and unseen, to the bearers of their sedan chairs to be ready to take them back to their residences as soon as they had heard what she had to say; the spies took photographs with the little cameras hidden away in their shirt buttons or their wisdom teeth; all the old people put their hands together; the men raised their fists to their heart; the little boys pranced; the young girls smiled.
And then she told them what she had seen:
"I took off my suit and my helmet," she said, "and walked along the invisible avenues that smelled of violets."
She did not know that the whole world was waiting to hear what she said; that Ekaterina V had made Sergei Vasilievich get up at five o'clock in the morning so that he could accompany her to the grand salon and wait there for the news; that one of the seventy-nine Northern States had declared its independence because the president had not stopped anything from happening or obtained any glory, and this had lit the spark of rebellion in the other seventy-eight states, and this had made Mr. Jackson-Franklin leave the White House without his wig, in pajamas, freezing and furious; that Bolivia, Paraguay, and Iceland had allowed the two Peruvian republics to join their new alliance and defense treaty set up against a possible attack from space; that the high command of the Paraguayan aeronautical engineers had promised to build a ship that could travel beyond the limits of the universe, always assuming that they could be granted legal immunity and a higher budget, a declaration that made the guarani fall back the two points that it had recently risen and then another one as well; that Don Schicchino Giol, the new padrone of the Republic of Labodegga at the foot of the majestic Andes had been woken from his most recent drinking bout to be told that he had now to sign a declaration of war against the Republic of Rosario, now that they knew the strength of the enemy's forces.
"Eh? What? Hunh?" Don Schicchino said.
"I saw the nothingness of everything," she said, "and it was all infused with the unmistakable smell of wood violets. The nothingness of the world is like the inside of a stomach throbbing above your head. The nothingness of people is like the back of a painting, black, with glasses and wires that release dreams of order and imperfect destinies. The nothingness of creatures with leathery wings is a crack in the air and the rustle of tiny feet. The nothingness of history is the massacre of the innocents. The nothingness of words, which is a throat and a hand that break whatever they touch on perforated paper; the nothingness of music, which is music. The nothingness of precincts, of crystal glasses, of seams, of hair, of liquids, of lights, of keys, of food."
When she had finished her list, the potentate who owned the Ford 99 said that he would give it to her, and that in the afternoon he would send one of his servants with a liter of naphtha so that she could take the car out for a spin.
"Thank you," she said. "You are very generous."
The madman went away, looking up to the skies; who knows what he was searching for. The woman who was going to die that day asked herself what she should eat on Sunday, when her sons and their wives came to lunch. The president of the Republic of Rosario gave a speech.
And everything in the world carried on the same, apart from the fact that Ekaterina V named Kustkarov her interior minister, which terrified the poor man but which was welcomed with open arms by Irina as an opportunity for her to refresh her wardrobe and her stock of lovers. And Jack Jackson-Franklin sold his memoirs to one of Paraguay's more sophisticated magazines for a stellar amount of money, which allowed him to retire to live in Imerina. And six spaceships from six major world powers set off to the edges of the universe and were never seen again.
She married a good man who had a house with a balcony, a white bicycle, and a radio which, on clear days, could pick up the radio plays that LLL1 Radio Magnum transmitted from Entre Dos Rios, and she waltzed in white satin shoes. The day that her first son was born a very pale green shoot grew out of the ground on the banks of the great lagoon.