Republican Party Reptile(16)
We were interrupting the progressives’ dinner now. The leftists and the peaceniks were mad. But only Mrs. Pigeon had the courage to approach. What were we laughing about?
“Sex,” said Sue Ann.
“Now, what’s so funny about sex?” said Mrs. Pigeon.
“Well, if you don’t remember, honey . . .” And Mrs. Pigeon retreated. We began to sing. We sang “Silver Threads and Golden Needles” and “Danny Boy” and:
My mother sells rubbers to sailors,
My dad pokes the heads with a pin,
My sister performs the abortions,
My God how the money rolls in.
The progressives could not get the Russians to stop us. Instead, the Russians came back from the fantail and began to sing too, loud Russian songs with stamping and pounding of glasses. Then some of the peaceniks came up and then a few more, and they began to sing along. They sang “America the Beautiful” and “God Bless America” and every verse to “The Star Spangled Banner,” a most cacophonous sound. We danced, and the ship’s band tried to play jitterbug. And the Russians gave toasts, and we gave toasts:
To the American Eagle,
The higher she goes, the louder she screams,
And who fucks with the eagle best learn how to fly!
And the Russians said:
To Mother Russia,
Who comes here with the sword
Dies by the sword!
And someone said, “From one bunch of sons of a bitches to another.” And we drank everything that came to hand, the doctor’s neutral grain spirits included, and sang and danced and drank some more until we passed out on top of the tables in a triumph of peace and Soviet-American relations.
There’s nothing at all to the rest of the trip except a huge gray-and-green hangover with a glimpse of the White Kremlin making my head ache in Kazan and the band piping us ashore in the morning with, most appropriately to my mind, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” Then a flight to Moscow, rough weather all the way, and back to that Grand Hyatt hotel.
There was a Russian disco band in the lounge, balalaika music played on electric guitars and set to a Donna Summer beat. The New Mexicans went on to Leningrad, and I was left sitting alone in the bar waiting for my plane home a day and a half hence. An English tourist sat down next to me. “Been here long, have you?” he said. “Been all around the country?”
“I’ve been to the fucking back of the moon!” I said. “Scotch,” I said to the bartender. He gave me vodka.
Goons, Guns, and
Gold
On the day before the 1986 Philippine presidential election, a Manila bartender tells me this one: President Marcos and General Ver find themselves in hell. General Ver is up to his neck in boiling tar. President Marcos is up to his knees. General Ver says: “Look, I’ve been your right-hand man for twenty years, and I’ve done some terrible stuff, but it’s nothing compared to what you’ve done. How come you’re only up to your knees?”
President Marcos says, “I’m standing on Imelda’s shoulders.”
A taxi driver tells me this one: Imelda and her kids, Irene, Imee, and Bongbong (this is, no kidding, what Marcos’s twenty-seven-year-old son, Ferdinand Jr., is called), are flying over the Philippines in their jet. Irene says: “Mommy, the Philippine people really hate us. Isn’t there something we can do?”
“I’ve got an idea,” says Bongbong. “We’ll drop ten thousand packages out of the airplane. Each package will have fifty pesos in it. The people can buy rice and fish, and they’ll love us.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” says Imee. “We’ll only drop five thousand packages out of the airplane. But each package will have one hundred pesos in it. The people can buy chicken and pork, and they’ll love us even more.”
“I’ve got the best idea,” says Imelda. “We’ll drop just one package out of the airplane, and the people will love us forever.”
“What’s in that package, Mom?” say the kids.
“Your father.”
In Tondo, Manila’s largest slum, I see a cigarette boy with a picture of President Marcos on the front of his vending tray. My companion, who speaks Tagalog, the local dialect, asks him, “Why do you have a picture of Marcos there?”
The boy runs his thumbnail across the president’s profile and says, “I like to scratch his face off.”
In a bar on Pilar Street, in the red-light district, some fellow journalists and I are surrounded by B-girls. Liquor cannot be served to Filipinos the night before an election, and the place is dead. A dozen smooth-skinned, peanut-butter-colored girls in tiny white bikinis are rubbing against us like kittens. Somebody orders them a round of $5 orange juices. In an attempt to somehow get this on my expense account, I ask, “Who are you going to vote for?” The girls make an L sign, thumb out, index finger up. It’s the symbol of UNIDO/PDP-LABAN, the coalition backing Corazon Aquino.