Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 11/01/12 (9 page)

 
Beth and tonight's beau are bowling. The beau is pretty good, has a
nice steady throwing style that rolls along the edge of the gutter and then
rockets back into the sweet spot with a thunderous crack. After every strike
Beth stands and jumps in place, bringing her hands together for an instant as if
in prayer, and then clapping energetically. He holds his arms wide and grabs
her, lifting her off her feet, twirling. It would look very romantic except for
the silly bowling shoes.

I close my eyes, hearing the action in all the alleys. The spares being picked
up, the strikes, the gutter balls. The kids crying, the geriatrics doing their
best to stay active. The drunks in the bar arguing over the game on television.
I listen to Beth's clapping.

After their last game, the beau pays me and they turn in their pairs of shoes and
while I'm handing the guy back his change, Beth stands barefoot on tippy-toe and
licks him beneath the ear. He meets my eyes with a vain expression. I can't
blame him. If she was licking me under the ear I'd be looking at every
working-stiff doofus the same way. Still barefoot, the two of them traipse
across the carpeted floor toward the front door. I stand there with the
disinfectant about to spray their shoes.

 
Mrs. Manfreddi calls me out to the shed. The fence at the back of
her property has fallen over and she needs me to help drive in new posts. Dead
trees dapple the area. Rotting roots have caused the earth to settle. She tells
me that the grade of the back lawn has always been off, and twenty-seven years
of heavy rain flooding the fence line have created a sump. She hands me a rake,
a pick, a spade, a chainsaw, the Rototiller, a root-grinder, and suggests how I
should cut down the trees and stack the cordwood. How I should turn and level
the soil. It shouldn't take more than four or maybe six weeks, she says. After I
get the first tree down, she'll have a nice blueberry pie waiting.

I yank the cord on the chainsaw, give it some gas. Sawdust spits into the
wind.

 
Woody Wright is full of myth and warriors and gods. He writes about
sorcerers and barbarians in the distant past who battle in stone temples at the
tops of black cliffs. Evil tentacled beings slither in the skies and at the
bottom of volcanic pits. His heroes are always men who take what they want,
pillaging and using two-handed broadaxes to cleave the skulls of enemies who
don't immediately acquiesce. The women are all dancing slave girls trained in
the ways of love. He uses the term "red ruin" ad nauseam. Men's faces are
constantly being turned into a "red ruin" by swords and maces.

Woody's voice is high-pitched, but he has a sense of drama. He speaks with a
growl. He acts out his battles as he reads, wielding invisible weapons overhead.
Black veins bulge in his throat. When the horses fall in battle he whinnies and
neighs and strikes his desk. His head must be loud with screams because he reads
louder and louder, as if he's deaf to himself. Sweat is slathered across his top
lip. He raises a hand to shield his eyes from the torches of his enemies setting
fire to his village. He cries for his murdered father. He chugs down a goblet of
wine with the slave girl he has freed. He's run through by a spear but still
manages to kill his own murderer, an enemy tyrant king of Lemuria whose death
means freedom for a hundred different nations.

With a gurgle, Woody whispers, "And so my name . . . passes into chronicles of
the great ages . . . gaahhh . . . ack . . ."

Hal is impressed. So am I. Woody's face is a red ruin of hope and relief. He
slumps across the desk and, completely slack, drops to the floor,
unconscious.

The paramedics ask us what happened. They've got an oxygen mask on Woody and are
strapping him into a gurney. The class looks at one another in silence, and then
we all start talking at once. Hal's voice slices through the din like a
battle-ax.

"The boy . . . he's a master storyteller who gave his all."

The girls nod. Jerry the Jock drapes the back of his hand across his eyes and
wipes away tears.

The paramedics look at us like we're all out of our heads.

 
I never work the front counter of Cabo Wabo Burger, but somehow I'm
working it tonight when Fruggy Fred walks in. He spots me immediately and nearly
turns around. We've been doing this dance for three years, since I moved out of
the dorm. He took it personally despite my explanation that I just couldn't take
the noise. Maybe that's where his self-doubt began. Maybe it's all my fault,
what's happened to him.

"You got a minute?"

I'm working the front counter of a fast-food joint, but he's caught me at a lull.
There's no one else around so I say, "Sure."

Fruggy has a light step. He writes about the fat a lot but he doesn't look bad,
doesn't seem to be uncomfortable. There's a liveliness there, or at least there
used to be. The years on campus have taken a toll on him. He's gotten a touch
sophisticated, his eyes don't carry the same amused glint.

"What are you doing?" he asks, almost angrily.

"Me? I'm covering the counter."

"No," he says. "What are you doing?"

I know what he's talking about, but I ask, "What are you talking about?"

"You know what I mean. What are you doing to yourself?" He looks me up and down.
"I see you all over town, working all these loser jobs. You're rail thin, man.
You've got black bags under your eyes. When was the last time you ate a real
meal? When was the last time you got a good night's sleep?"

More good questions. Everybody has them. "Why don't you play the banjo
anymore?"

"How do you know I don't? It's been three years since we were roomies."

"You never would have used a word like ‘roomies' before. Where's your
accent?"

His face is all creases and flat, blunt planes. His tongue juts and he licks his
lips. He's got more to say but I jump in.

"You never used to give a damn what anyone thought of you. The world got to you,
Fruggy. You let it eat you up."

"We all care. I just didn't let anyone know that I did."

Maybe it's true. Maybe I care as much as he does. It doesn't feel that way.

I head back to the counter, get a few fresh burgers, a couple orders of fries,
bag it, and hand it to him.

"Thank you for visiting Cabo Wabo Burger. Please come see us again soon."

 
Despite all the jobs and the work I do in Mrs. Manfreddi's yard,
shifting tons of earth and lumber every day, sleep continues to avoid me. I have
hours after midnight to burn through. I've tried to find a job as a security
guard, but there's nothing available in our small town. It leads me out onto the
street. I walk the neighborhoods. I circle the entire town. I walk past
Professor Chadwick's house two or three times, then lean against a tree down the
block and stare at his front porch. The hedges behind me are high, the moon only
a sliver.

I watch Hal moving across the brightly lit rooms, the windows without a speck of
dirt or dust. His Ecuadorian maid spends an hour every morning washing them
down.

He has homes in Manhattan and Los Angeles, and a cabin right on the beach in
Martinique. But Hal spends most of the year right in our small town. Giving back
and paying forward.

I'm immensely patient. I stand there as the cool night continues to pass. Hal's
at the computer, on the phone, watching television. He pops in a DVD and I
wonder if he's watching one of his own movies. He's done the commentary to them.
He's got cameos in all three flicks.

I wait in the darkness. I let it pass through me. I dream on my feet, writing in
my head, thinking of the next tree that's got to fall.

At two A.M. Beth turns the corner and comes walking up the street. I fade back
even farther into the hedges. Beth is beautiful, draped in silver moonlight. The
nerves in my fingertips burn to touch her. If not her, then my typewriter
keys.

Beth steps up the walkway to Hal's house and knocks on the screen door softly,
too softly. Then she thumps with the side of her fist and is embarrassed at the
harsh noise. She rubs her hands together and then tightens her arms around her
belly, hugging herself. She turns back to face the street as if checking to see
if anyone is watching. She's nervous. She trembles in the chill breeze. Her
bangs flap one way across her face and then the other.

Hal comes to the door. He doesn't look happy to see her. How can he not be happy
to see her? I say it aloud, whispering, "How?" He's anxious and a touch angry.
They quarrel for a moment and Hal stands in the doorway and crosses his arms
over his chest. He shakes his head and Beth nods vigorously and he shakes his
head some more.

Beth breaks down and begins to cry. I take a step toward her. It's all I can do.
She doesn't know me. She doesn't want me. All of my love isn't worth a foot-high
stack of ink-stained paper to her. I drop back and watch Hal lift her chin so
that she faces him. He stares at her tear-strewn face and something in him
softens. He reaches out and pulls her into his arms, where she begins to sob
uncontrollably. He leads her into the house and the door swiftly shuts.

I stand in the dark thinking, Oh God.

 
The next day, Beth isn't in class.

Hal has a slight scratch on his cheek.

 
We're sliding into finals. Beth's been out of class all week long.
We have projects. We have our contest. Jodi writes about her father. Matt writes
about his mother. Georgie is a rocket man, he tells us what's happening on
distant planets, where astronauts are pursued by alien dinosaurs and intelligent
man-eating plant life. Phil, he's got this '50s jazzy bop prose thing happening,
talking about sweet rides and hot chicks and life on the streets smoking J and
blowing ax in darkened gin joints off St. Mark's Place. Frieda, she's into
parables and world views and heavy themes. She writes about seekers and
wanderers and women who climb mountains to find answers from starved Hindi who
can hold their breath for six hours. Behind her, Eloise discusses her memoir.
She tells us about Atlantis, which resides on the moon, and is the place where
all the souls of the dead go to rest while awaiting the Apocalypse. She knows
this because, she says, she was born with a caul, the seventh daughter of a
seventh daughter, and she has mystical abilities. She allows that some of us
might not believe her, but that's our choice.

Hal discusses each story, whether it's fiction or not, at length. He praises
syntax, lyricism, passionate richness, heartstring reverberation, depth of
character, the wellsprings of imagination. The class applauds one another. The
class applauds itself.

Hal asks me, "Do you have something to submit for the contest?"

"I do," I tell him.

He's surprised. He gives me a smug grin and holds my gaze a few seconds too long.
There's hate there. I don't mind. He's not the only one I bring it out in.
Eloise glares at me. So does Jerry the Jock. So do others. I smile and try to
turn up my charm. It doesn't help. Hal holds his hand out for my story. I hand
it to him and he flips through the pages. It's a holographic manuscript, full of
tiny holes from where the keys have punched through. It clearly hasn't been
written on a computer screen and shot from a laser printer.

"It's short," he says.

"It's not finished yet."

"Then how can you submit it?"

"Consider it a special instance."

He cocks his head at me and frowns. For the first time his smarm is gone and
there's something else in his expression, a kind of heat. "Wonderful. Please
read it."

Unlike the others who stand beside their seats and read facing Hal, I walk to the
front of the class and turn my back to him. I clear my throat and say, "The
title of my story is ‘The Void It Often Brings With It.'"

Then I begin.

I recite,
"Professor Ferdnick wants us to call him Bill, and Bill is telling
us again why he's a genius. His voice has the mocking quality of arrogance
even while he's trying to sound humble and compassionate. The rest of the
class, especially the freshman girls, are hanging—"

 
Afterwards, the class is quiet. They keep checking Hal for a
reaction so they'll know what they're supposed to feel and say. But Hal has no
reaction. His face is pale and utterly empty. I've taken a little wind out of
his hair. A mean swirl of darkness appears in his eyes and he hikes his lips
into a bitter smile. He says, "Please come see me during my office hours."

"Sure."

His office hours are only a half-hour long, directly following class today. I
give him a head start up the corridor and then follow.

When I get there his door is shut. He's going to make me knock. Hal needs his
petty victories.

I need mine as well. I walk in without knocking. Hal is in his chair, feet up on
his desk, azure eyes glistening. His mind's racing with contingencies, plot
threads, possibilities. His hands are trembling. He's capable of anything at the
moment. His expression is at once playful, lethal, and petrified. I notice that
the top desk drawer is open. I wonder what he's got within easy reach. A letter
opener, rat poison, a pearl-handled snub .32? Maybe nothing more than a
checkbook. I imagine that Hal has gotten rid of a lot of troubles by handing
over a check.

He waits for me to put the touch to him. He wants to know how far I'll go. I let
him see it in the set of my lips. I'm going to go all the way. I think of Beth
crying and Hal shaking his head. He reaches out and pulls her into his arms,
where she begins to sob uncontrollably. I want to kill him.

Hal cracks and asks, "What do you want?"

"What makes you think I want anything?"

"Everybody wants something."

"True enough. Why don't you use your writer's acumen and make a guess at what I'm
after?"

Hal reaches into his drawer and my belly tightens. He withdraws a short wedge of
cash. Maybe five hundred dollars. Silly money, for him. He nudges it over to my
side of the desk. I don't take it. Our eyes meet again, our gazes clashing with
such violence that I can almost see sparks flying.