He rolled himself out of the rat's nest of dirty blankets and grimy, tangled sheets that he called a bed and padded his way to the small bathroom. There, under the yellow light, above the yellow mirror, he examined his yellow teeth. There was a white rim of food caked around the bottom and in the crevices of his teeth. He was not the type to bother with these personal details. A quick run over with a brush and paste to remove the surface scum and the odor of yesterday's booze was more than enough effort for him. Anyway, he mused and amused himself with a comforting thought; in a few weeks, he would be so rich,he could stink and no one would care. Filthy rich. The kinds of broads and bimbos that were his preferred taste would just have to put up with it. He was sure that they would , and with a smile on their desperate, painted faces.
He had not always been this lowdown and derelict. In a distant past that he could only patchily recall, he had been the earnest, clean, if , somewhat off-puttingly ambitious, Dr. Weston Clavell Burton Scopes III. A newly-minted botanist of Harvard, having done the rounds of an expensive education through San Francisco,Chicago, Philadelphia and finally Boston. He used to buzz around campus and ,then, at night the chic drinking establishments of Newbury Street. He had grand dreams, now delusions of discovering that one secret, elusive ingredient, component,nucleic acid or, whatever ,that would forever inscribe his name up near the top of the pedestal of science next to Pasteur or Newton or Banting. Maybe, he could find that Holy Grail that would make cancer no more troublesome than some banal urinary infection. And of course make him really,really big money. A Mack truck, several Mack trucks full of money.
But that was a long ago then, and this is a here and now. In between, there had been a fetid, grinding drip, drip, chipping way of any hope of enthusiasm for life, for happiness. A dark trap of a marriage to a once cloying girl, who is now a barking harridan. Two mewling children, who are both, now, in his opinion ,like their mother. Hands and tongues extended for offerings of mammon,money. Thank Almighty God for divorce. It had reduced him to living in this dank,dirty crib of an apartment,with only an assortment of sleek bottles named Johnny Walker, Glenfiddich and Absolut for company. But ,at least, they were trusted and loyal friends. And best of all silent.
Done with his minimalist toilettage, Wessy ambled heavily to the sitting area of his hovel. He sat down massively in a wooden chair and dragged the open atlas and documents toward himself.
There it was. That magical, reviving word : "Amazonia", gracing the documents in different fonts and colors and curlicues. He leaned forward for a closer look. His paunch bunching up against the rim of the oak table. The maps in their muted colors were calming. Greens and turquoises demarcated the various elevations. Blue tracery inks out the rivers. It's mysterious,sultry and dangerous. It was where his future lay hidden, but beckoning so softly. It was his secret doorway out of his miserable predicaments.
Strangely enough, if he had never descended into his present state, he would never have even given Amazonia a glance. Pain was forcing him in a new direction. A flight of desperation, but lightened by the excitement of newness and the possibility of infinite rewards.
Bronzed, glistening Amazonia. His trail was going there. The trail that he would start down this afternoon ,when he headed out to the airport.
Chapter 2 is now available
