Read Online The Chinese Beverly Hills by John Shannon - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Shannon
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Berets had been a viable Chicano-Chinese alliance of over thirty idealistic kids, and their blood enemy, the Commandos, had still been a rampaging racist gang, each of the leading berets had taken one of the thugs to watch. But as far as she could tell, the Commandos were down to three now, and the Berets had shrunk to two. Mosquito vs. gnat. Dear Lenin. Did you ever cry when things became this pathetic?
*
Overcome with trepidation, Megan Saxton parked in front of the isolated ranch house near the border. She had come from her motel again to carry on the interview with this strange man for the New Yorker . He had turned out to be another force of nature, truly frightening, but she had to go with that.
The flagstone patio beside the pool was an artifact from the 1950s, ribboned with blown-in desert dust. Hardi Boaz sat there in a cast-iron ice cream chair, wearing some kind of Arab robe. He glanced up and grinned. “You save me the trouble of searching you out, liefling .”
He waved an arm grandly toward a pitcher of margaritas on the table. The gesture billowed his loose sleeve like a giant seabird trying to get airborne.
She set the tiny recorder on the table and turned it on, but didn’t know quite how to begin.
“You have violent, piercing eyes,” he said.
She felt herself blush.
“Have a margarita, lovely. It’s proof the Mexicans are good for something.” A smile acknowledged her lack of response, though he still didn’t look directly at her. “The loud Boer has offered you a drink. I believe for the moment you are choosing to punish my magnetism with silence. That is fine, too. By birth I am pure South African beef, but now I am as big as all America.”
He laughed a peculiar stage laugh.
“Look there.” He pointed out at sparse chaparral beyond the hurricane fence surrounding the pool. “I can sit here with a rifle and hunt wetbacks and drug-runners. From this yard I protect the American race from a flood of mud people.”
She checked to make sure the recorder was going.
A hard, dark point of abhorrence was congealing at the center of her chest, a numbness spreading through her, and she was losing her peripheral vision. The man talked and talked. What is this, what’s happening to me?
“Go ahead and drink, sweet. I promise there is no aphrodisiac in it. I’m all the aphrodisiac any woman needs. I am the force of life, but my sweetest fruit is my gentle nature.” He threw back his head and laughed.
She noticed a giant Rottweiler waiting just inside the sliding door of the house, glaring straight at her.
“My charm consists in not caring a damn what people think about me, especially the weak-kneed city pooftahs. I am the full-blown runaway id of the white people. I am the goddamn poet of our race, where poetry is written in grunts and growls and gunshots.
“I am the only thing standing between the sissy white people and the barbarian hordes. It’s true, I may lose here, too, and the brown monkeys may end up running us out. Who knows? Even if you can give me mathematical proof that I am going to be overrun, I am still going to do my best right now to prevent it. And along the way I’m going to enjoy every goddamn minute.”
She knew she should consult her notes, ask more about the Border Guardians, but her forehead burned. The odd harangue went on and on. She had been planning to slap him hard, but she couldn’t move. An ice cube cracked like a firecracker in her margarita, and she almost screamed.
“Listen, sweetling, you didn’t get yourself home before the dark, and your fantasy life is becoming real. The hairy Boer stirs, and his life force is in ascendance.”
He stood and walked over to her. His great ham hands lifted her as if she were weightless.
“Yes, please,” she heard herself say weakly. She hadn’t even switched off the recorder.
*
Somebody had added a generous picture window to the back wall of the garage, really just a huge sheet of glass with unpainted
*
Overcome with trepidation, Megan Saxton parked in front of the isolated ranch house near the border. She had come from her motel again to carry on the interview with this strange man for the New Yorker . He had turned out to be another force of nature, truly frightening, but she had to go with that.
The flagstone patio beside the pool was an artifact from the 1950s, ribboned with blown-in desert dust. Hardi Boaz sat there in a cast-iron ice cream chair, wearing some kind of Arab robe. He glanced up and grinned. “You save me the trouble of searching you out, liefling .”
He waved an arm grandly toward a pitcher of margaritas on the table. The gesture billowed his loose sleeve like a giant seabird trying to get airborne.
She set the tiny recorder on the table and turned it on, but didn’t know quite how to begin.
“You have violent, piercing eyes,” he said.
She felt herself blush.
“Have a margarita, lovely. It’s proof the Mexicans are good for something.” A smile acknowledged her lack of response, though he still didn’t look directly at her. “The loud Boer has offered you a drink. I believe for the moment you are choosing to punish my magnetism with silence. That is fine, too. By birth I am pure South African beef, but now I am as big as all America.”
He laughed a peculiar stage laugh.
“Look there.” He pointed out at sparse chaparral beyond the hurricane fence surrounding the pool. “I can sit here with a rifle and hunt wetbacks and drug-runners. From this yard I protect the American race from a flood of mud people.”
She checked to make sure the recorder was going.
A hard, dark point of abhorrence was congealing at the center of her chest, a numbness spreading through her, and she was losing her peripheral vision. The man talked and talked. What is this, what’s happening to me?
“Go ahead and drink, sweet. I promise there is no aphrodisiac in it. I’m all the aphrodisiac any woman needs. I am the force of life, but my sweetest fruit is my gentle nature.” He threw back his head and laughed.
She noticed a giant Rottweiler waiting just inside the sliding door of the house, glaring straight at her.
“My charm consists in not caring a damn what people think about me, especially the weak-kneed city pooftahs. I am the full-blown runaway id of the white people. I am the goddamn poet of our race, where poetry is written in grunts and growls and gunshots.
“I am the only thing standing between the sissy white people and the barbarian hordes. It’s true, I may lose here, too, and the brown monkeys may end up running us out. Who knows? Even if you can give me mathematical proof that I am going to be overrun, I am still going to do my best right now to prevent it. And along the way I’m going to enjoy every goddamn minute.”
She knew she should consult her notes, ask more about the Border Guardians, but her forehead burned. The odd harangue went on and on. She had been planning to slap him hard, but she couldn’t move. An ice cube cracked like a firecracker in her margarita, and she almost screamed.
“Listen, sweetling, you didn’t get yourself home before the dark, and your fantasy life is becoming real. The hairy Boer stirs, and his life force is in ascendance.”
He stood and walked over to her. His great ham hands lifted her as if she were weightless.
“Yes, please,” she heard herself say weakly. She hadn’t even switched off the recorder.
*
Somebody had added a generous picture window to the back wall of the garage, really just a huge sheet of glass with unpainted
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