John Wayne of Montcerf: Wayne's opaque allegiance

Wayne's unreadable political allegiance, stated as narrated fact: "It's wholly unclear... how Wayne feels about the U.S. or his citizenship-status." The blank affect ("the hypertonic masking of schizophrenics and Zen adepts"), the morose "expatriate E.T.A. Nucks" he sits with, the sense that his play "seems less alive than undead" — all leave his loyalty unreadable, the reader given a stateless Québécois of unknown allegiance who "figures it doesn't much matter: he is destined for the Show... citizen of the world, everywhere undead." The anthology's central open question (is Wayne an A.F.R. operative) is planted here as pure opacity.