The Argo Goes West

70, Eddie's complex, part 1

"Woe, woe is me! so seems it I have plunged

All blindly into curses terrible."

--Sophocle "Oedipus the King" (translated by Edward Hayes Plumptre)

John Braddock came to a cemetery on the outskirts of Thebes. There was a grave keeper named Big Mac. When John opened the slanted door of the shack, Big Mac was sleeping. The house smelled of alcohol and men's body odor. John kicked Big Mac's bed with his boot.

With a growl, Big Mac woke up.

"Are you Big Mac?"

"Oh yes."

A face like a crushed pumpkin. Thick eyebrows, bushy mustache. His eyes were swollen from waking up.

John tossed a coin onto Big Mac's plaid shirt. "I have something to ask you."

Big Mac picked up the coins and checked the numbers. It was a satisfactory amount, he said. "Ask me anything."

"I hear you're doing tattoo work."

"Yes. Do you want a tattoo too?"

"No." John shook his head. "Didn't you get someone's ankles tattooed recently?"

"I wonder how it was," said Big Mac, looking for John's reaction.

John tossed a few more coins.

Big Mac received coins. "I remember. I tattooed a customer, but I don't know who."

"A young man with blond hair and blue eyes."

"Yes, he is."

Knowing that, John didn't want to be in a place like this for a second. He left the hut in silence.

When John got home, Jacqueline and Jay were in the garden. Jacqueline was sitting on a swing hanging from a thick tree branch with Jay pushing her back. Jay fixed the swing after it had been unused for a long time and was rusting. However, since it was for children, it was too cramped for an adult man to ride. John wanted to talk to Jay without Jacqueline, so he went inside the mansion.

John waited for Jacqueline to return, but she clung to Jay's side. She was about to give him twenty years' worth of affection all together. About half an hour later, Jacqueline was gone and Jay was alone, so John went out into the garden.