Swimming in the Volcano by Bob Shacochis Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Bob Shacochis
shore about twodozen of the whales every season. Mitchell had seen some hauled up on the beach at Kensington, resembling the burned fuselages of DC-3s. The aroma punched into you from miles away when the fishermen heated the flesh to collect one of the worldâs superior oils, used to lubricate aeronautical instruments. It wasnât blackfish frying though. Somewhere nearby plastic or chemicals had caught fire, the fumes stirring the bumblebees that inhabited Mitchellâs broken nose. A creeping haze had entered the air, irritating their eyes and depositing a metallic taste on Mitchellâs tongue. The plane should have been down by now.
Saconi came out from the bar, strolling along with guitar and case, bottle of scotch and glass of it, a smile held just short of arrogance. He could advertise easygoing better than most. Hereâs the juice, he seemed to say, cakewalking now that he had spotted the two of them. Hereâs the tune and the juice, the light and the sound, the music and its maker,
me
, the only guy around this duncey place with the means to an intelligent end. He halted in midstep as he encountered the gathering bank of smoke, surveyed the atmosphere and continued toward them, an expression on his face that said, I will rescue you ... if I must.
âYou fellas on a rahm-
page
,â he snorted. âWha de hell you mash up now to get dis stink?â
Outside the wide rows of windows facing the airfield, a fire engine rolled out of a machine shed down the runway toward the terminal, overloaded with a crew of saviors in street clothes or yellow slickers, clinging tenuously to the running boards. The truck stopped opposite the exterior entrance of the LIAT station. The men hopped to the tarmac and unraveled a rust-stained intestine of hose. Within the terminal, the door behind the ticket counter slammed open and employees scuttled out under a billow of marbled smoke that exited as they did, choking and tugging at their nicely knotted blue neckties. Within seconds water squirted everywhere. A crowd materialized, coming in off the roads, to make commentary and observe the firemen break up equipment in a frenzy of service, and before long the airlineâs operational center was hammered, axed, foamed, and otherwise destroyed. Three stories were quick to circulate, embellished at will with as much creativity as news releases from the Government Information Office. Conservatives advocated number one: technology being the serpent that it was, the hardware in the ops room mysteriously burst into flame, a sign from the very guts of the island that St. Catherine was bounding pell-mell into the mistakes of the nuclearage. Old gods and new gods were jostling each other in the corridors that led to the future. A second version was supported by more progressive witnesses to the event: obeying the logic of a civil visionary, a disgruntled employee, fearing that the islandâs aviation systems lagged far below contemporary standards, exploded the antiquated equipment with a bomb manufactured from components smuggled ashore from Cuba-Florida-Israel-Argentina-Bulgaria, confident that what he had ruined in the ensuing conflagration would be replaced, expeditiously and with a clamor of pledges for more to come, with the most up-to-date do-flicky and gittimas, a flock of foreign agencies competing for this right.
The less dramatic rumor in consideration was the more plausible (though Mitchell didnât wish to diminish the credibility of the former two). For months, they heard from one of the kids who lifted luggage on and off planes, the radio operator had been tossing the greasy paper wrappers from his lunchtime roti behind the short-wave unit where they had collected between the wall and the radio housing. The trash had achieved a high enough level finally to settle against exposed tubes, and as the operator switched on the set and talked to the plane en route, the paper had combusted with a
woof
, the
Saconi came out from the bar, strolling along with guitar and case, bottle of scotch and glass of it, a smile held just short of arrogance. He could advertise easygoing better than most. Hereâs the juice, he seemed to say, cakewalking now that he had spotted the two of them. Hereâs the tune and the juice, the light and the sound, the music and its maker,
me
, the only guy around this duncey place with the means to an intelligent end. He halted in midstep as he encountered the gathering bank of smoke, surveyed the atmosphere and continued toward them, an expression on his face that said, I will rescue you ... if I must.
âYou fellas on a rahm-
page
,â he snorted. âWha de hell you mash up now to get dis stink?â
Outside the wide rows of windows facing the airfield, a fire engine rolled out of a machine shed down the runway toward the terminal, overloaded with a crew of saviors in street clothes or yellow slickers, clinging tenuously to the running boards. The truck stopped opposite the exterior entrance of the LIAT station. The men hopped to the tarmac and unraveled a rust-stained intestine of hose. Within the terminal, the door behind the ticket counter slammed open and employees scuttled out under a billow of marbled smoke that exited as they did, choking and tugging at their nicely knotted blue neckties. Within seconds water squirted everywhere. A crowd materialized, coming in off the roads, to make commentary and observe the firemen break up equipment in a frenzy of service, and before long the airlineâs operational center was hammered, axed, foamed, and otherwise destroyed. Three stories were quick to circulate, embellished at will with as much creativity as news releases from the Government Information Office. Conservatives advocated number one: technology being the serpent that it was, the hardware in the ops room mysteriously burst into flame, a sign from the very guts of the island that St. Catherine was bounding pell-mell into the mistakes of the nuclearage. Old gods and new gods were jostling each other in the corridors that led to the future. A second version was supported by more progressive witnesses to the event: obeying the logic of a civil visionary, a disgruntled employee, fearing that the islandâs aviation systems lagged far below contemporary standards, exploded the antiquated equipment with a bomb manufactured from components smuggled ashore from Cuba-Florida-Israel-Argentina-Bulgaria, confident that what he had ruined in the ensuing conflagration would be replaced, expeditiously and with a clamor of pledges for more to come, with the most up-to-date do-flicky and gittimas, a flock of foreign agencies competing for this right.
The less dramatic rumor in consideration was the more plausible (though Mitchell didnât wish to diminish the credibility of the former two). For months, they heard from one of the kids who lifted luggage on and off planes, the radio operator had been tossing the greasy paper wrappers from his lunchtime roti behind the short-wave unit where they had collected between the wall and the radio housing. The trash had achieved a high enough level finally to settle against exposed tubes, and as the operator switched on the set and talked to the plane en route, the paper had combusted with a
woof
, the