WORLD VOICES

WHAT WE CHOOSE TO REMEMBER
  BY STEVE HELLER


Contents

Home

Introduction
About the Author
Dedication
Epigraph
What We Choose to
    Remember

Catch
Missing Man
Fargo
Swan's Way, 1998
The Elephant Gang
Honeymooners Marathon
Acknowledgments

World Voices Home

The Literary Explorer
Writers on the Job
Books Forgotten
Thomas E. Kennedy
Walter Cummins
Web Del Sol



The Elephant Gang
continued

        My god . . . This is not random.
        I am, Mark says from the floor. But there's another Mark Wilson in the phone book. You must have the wrong one.
        The fat gunman kneels beside Mark. You rip us off, man!
        I didn't rip you off, Mark protests. I don't even know you.
        No make ass, the skinny gunman warns. Where da kine?
        I don't know what you're talking about, Mark replies. Where's what?
        Da kine elephant, the fat gunman answers.
        Peering around one leg of the coffee table, I can see the stupefied expression on Mark's face as he lifts his chin off the living room floor: Elephant? What kind of elephant?
        Da kine Elephant Weed! the skinny gunman shouts, and balls his free hand into a fist.
        You've got the wrong guy! Phil declares from the floor beneath the window. This guy's straight—he doesn't even smoke. He wouldn't know Elephant Weed from Maui Wowie.
        That's right, Mark says.
        The two gunmen look at each other. In low pidgin voices, they discuss the possibility they have broken into the wrong house. Ignorance will save us, I tell myself silently. Then the skinny gunman retreats to the bedroom. By the time he returns, carrying something I can't quite see, I feel a faint relaxing of muscles in my neck and shoulders, the first moment of relief.
        No mo' talk, the fat gunman says.
        Then everything goes dark. Someone has spread a blanket over my head.

        “In those days, all you could get over here most of the time was Maui Wowie,” Phil explains to Sheyene. “Elephant was ten times as potent. That's why those guys were so pissed off.”
        Sheyene nods like she knows exactly what Phil is talking about.
        “I remember Maui Wowie,” I interject.
        Sheyene smirks.

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