Smith heard footsteps coming. They were shuffling and irregular. The intruder was maybe looking around, trying to get his bearings. Smith stood rigid, hands in front of him ready with the sap.
He’d thought about ordering a pizza, but no way a deliveryman could find his way up to Valentine’s office. And he wasn’t about to leave the boss alone to make a Burger King run.
The guy was close now. Smith heard him breathing.
Smith tried to remember if there was still a MoonPie in the glove box of the car. No. He’d eaten it two days ago. He made a mental note to stash some snacks in the car. The boss had been keeping an odd schedule lately, and Smith needed to be prepared. Hunger, after all, caused distraction.
A hand came around the corner. The hand had a gun in it.
Smith brought the sap down hard across the guy’s wrist. A snap. The guy yelped. The gun flew, slid across the floor. Smith slapped a meaty hand on the guy’s forearm, pulled him around the corner.
He knocked the Harley-Davidson cap off the guy’s head, patted his coat down, and found an Old-West-style revolver. Smith smelled the barrel before sticking it in his belt, gave the guy a shake. “Who are you?”
“Jesus, my wrist’s busted.”
“I asked you a question,” Smith said.
“I don’t feel so good.”
“That’s a shame. Hold still.” Smith had him by the back of the coat.
The guy sagged, wanted to lie down. He groaned, leaned forward, and vomited.
“Christ!” Smith let go of the coat, stepped back, puke splashing on his shoes. The smell almost made him heave too.
The guy took off, running hunched over, clutching his busted wrist to his chest.
“Shit.” Smith took one step after him, planted his shoe square in the puddle of puke. His feet flew out from under him. He landed on his back. Hard. The air knocked out of him. He tried to suck in breath, but it was a long few seconds before he could breathe normally. He sat up. A raw spot on his hip where he’d fallen on his brass knuckles. He’d be sore for a week.
He gathered the pistols, limped back upstairs, wondering how he’d explain this to the boss.
Smith lumbered back into the old professor’s office. Valentine and Jenks looked at him expectantly.
But Jones read Smith’s face, saw the pistols in his hand. The boss could always size up a situation in no time. “Who was it?”
Smith sighed. “Some guy. He got away.” He dumped the pistols onto Valentine’s desk. Smith didn’t need any more guns.
“For Christ’s sake,” the old man said. “What happened?”
“I fell down.”
“What’s that on your pants?”
“Vomit.”
Jones stood, joints creaking. “Forget it. I want to hear the poetry reading. Let’s go.”
Red Zach was sick and tired of Oklahoma, farmhouses, rednecks, and being jerked around. He had to take care of this shit quick, or he’d look weak. He couldn’t go back to St. Louis without his property and Harold Jenks’s head on a stick.
But it was taking too damn long. How hard could it be to find a man in this two-bit town?
Okay, he was getting tense. He closed his eyes and began his breathing exercises. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Long, controlled breaths. It wasn’t working. Damn. He hated being on the road so long. Everything he needed was at home. His yoga workout videotapes, aroma therapy candles, the really good CD with the ocean noises. He needed all of it to keep from going nuts and getting an ulcer.
His cell phone bleated in his jacket pocket. He pulled it out and flipped it open. “What?”
It was Maurice on the other end. He sounded strange, weak, like maybe it was a bad connection. Maurice told him to get a pencil. Zach wrote the words Albatross Hall on a paper napkin. A building at the school.
“What is it?” Zach asked. “Dormitory or something?”
Nothing.
“Maurice?” Zach looked at the cell phone’s display, made sure he still had battery power. “Maurice, you there?”
Must have lost reception, thought Zach. That happened too often with these cell phones. Hit a dead patch and everything goes quiet.
forty-three
Morgan drank another martini, then walked out of the tavern and into the blizzard. Snow flew sideways, stung his face. He walked across the street bent almost in half against the wind. This was bullshit.
The snow was ankle deep, seeped into his socks. The lampposts along the main sidewalk were fuzzy blurs of light in the driving snow. It took fifteen minutes to trudge to the auditorium, a trip that usually took five. Morgan had to keep stopping and looking around to make sure he hadn’t taken a wrong turn. The campus looked unearthly and strange in the whirling mix of snow and pale lamplight.
They’ll cancel the reading, thought Morgan. How can they not? A sudden, unexpected, freak blizzard. The roads would be a mess. He had heard, in fact, a siren in the distance. Emergency services would be caught back on its heels. Nobody would risk the roads for poetry. Nobody would know Ellis had never even shown.
He finally made the auditorium and ducked into the lobby, stomping his feet and huffing for air. His vodka breath burned up his throat and out of his mouth in a toxic cloud.
He heard the crowd. Morgan cracked the door to the auditorium, peeked inside. The seats were filled. He scanned the throng. Professors and administrators in the front two rows. Bored students packed the rest of the place, chatting among themselves. A paper airplane sailed from the back row. A guy in a university sweatshirt leapt up from his seat and snatched it out of the air to the scattered applause of the adjacent rows.
The freshmen. Morgan remembered what Dean Whittaker had said about filling the seats with honor school freshmen. They’d only had to come from the dorms, didn’t need to drive or hunt for a parking space.
Jesus Christ Almighty. Morgan was well and truly fucked. A crowded auditorium and no Ellis. Morgan belched, tasted vodka, felt slightly dizzy.
He had to do something. The dean and the rest of the administration were expecting something special.
Well, fuck them. Morgan hiccuped. It wasn’t his goddamn fault Sherman Ellis was missing in action. What was he? A miracle worker? He couldn’t find a kid who’d disappeared off the fucking planet.
Still, just to show up empty-handed was pretty feeble.
Morgan scanned the crowd. There, in the back row, just coming through the door, were Bob Smith and Fred Jones. The big bruiser helped the old man into his seat.
Morgan suddenly had a bad idea, but it was better than no idea at all.
Dean Whittaker fidgeted in his seat, tugged at the band of the silk panties through his trousers. He usually liked wearing the panties, red with a little bow, and lace trimming. But he’d been shifting nervously, and the panties had crept into his ass crack. They also had a stranglehold on his scrotum.
Lincoln Truman sat to the dean’s right, a random vice president on his left. Various other department heads and community big shots in the front row, and someplace there was a chancellor.
And where the hell was Jay Morgan? The show was set to start any minute.
President Truman looked impatient and cross. Whittaker opened his mouth to say something reassuring to the president, but a young woman in a long, black dress came onstage and modest applause signaled the reading was under way.
Whittaker recognized the woman as one of the graduating MA students in creative writing. She had a pierced lip and eyebrow, bright orange hair pinned elaborately into sprouting tufts of hair that sprang out at odd angles. How the hell did she expect to get a job looking like that? Whittaker thought about his own daughter, who was in her third year at Kansas State. Would she come back pierced, covered with tattoos, trailing some long-haired “dude” who fronted a speed-metal band? The thought made him shudder. What the hell was going on with the world?
He fingered his panties, watched the orange-haired woman approach the podium.
“Good ev
ening everyone, and thanks for attending Eastern Oklahoma University’s annual graduate poetry reading,” she said. “Usually we give this reading in the big classroom in Albatross Hall, but this year it’s been moved to the auditorium, because, as you can see, we’ve had one heck of a turnout!”
She paused for a burst of applause that never came.
She cleared her throat. “Our first reader will graduate with his master’s in English this spring. His poems have appeared in Word Junkie, Gas-hole, and Pea-Pickin’ Potpourri. Please welcome David Blanding.”
The pale young man took the stage amid a sluggish ripple of golf clapping. He began to read, his voice a hypnotic murmur blanketing the audience like a high-tech sleep ray from a dime-store science-fiction novel. He wove his poems like elaborate spells designed by some evil wizard to suck all that was interesting and beautiful out of life. If his poems had been music, they would have been the same note over and over again. If his poems had been a meal, it would have been a plate of wet cardboard.
Dean Whittaker watched Lincoln Truman stick his fist in his mouth to stifle a yawn. Whittaker’s panties were so far up his ass, he had tears in his eyes.
Morgan got the old man’s attention and waved him into the lobby.
“What’s with sending me to see that old loon?” Jones asked Morgan. “Guy’s got a screw loose. You know some fucked-up people.” Jones sniffed, wrinkled his nose. “You smell like a damn distillery.”
Morgan couldn’t disagree. “Mr. Jones, I need your help.”
“It’ll have to be quick,” Jones said. “Bob’s saving my seat. I don’t want to miss the reading.”
Morgan took Jones by the elbow, started easing him down the hall. “How would you like to be a little more closely involved?”
“Like what?”
Morgan said, “One of our readers can’t make it, and we need somebody to-”
Jones dug in his heels, pulled his arm back from Morgan. “Oh, shit no. Are you fucking crazy?”
Morgan latched onto the old man, started dragging him. “I’m desperate, Mr. Jones. Please.”
Jones looked like a little terrier being dragged on a leash. He looked side to side for some help, his eyes round with terror. “There’s like a million people in there. I’ll piss myself.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“I don’t have my poems. Bob has the folder.”
“I’ll get them for you,” Morgan said.
“Oh, God. I can’t breathe.”
“You’ll be fine.”
Morgan floundered backstage until he found the girl with the orange hair. He told her about the change. She didn’t understand. Morgan said what the fuck was there to understand? The old guy would read instead of the black guy. She looked unhappy but said okay.
Morgan had fetched the old man’s poems from the big bodyguard. It had taken much goading and pleading, but Morgan convinced Jones to read. Jones looked pale and terrified. Morgan had never seen the old man afraid of anything. He wished Jones good luck and left him backstage.
Morgan’s stomach groaned. He belched acid. I should have ordered a sandwich. He went back into the lobby, found the men’s room. Inside he bent over the sink and turned on the cold water, splashed his face. He leaned on the sink awhile, took long deep breaths.
Behind him, a toilet flushed. One of the stall doors creaked open. Morgan turned and looked into the bloodshot eyes of Professor Larry Pritcher. He stood stiff, neck still in the brace. The professor had tacked up a “wanted” poster offering a reward for information leading to the person or persons who’d assaulted him with Finnegans Wake.
“Oh, hello, Morgan.” Pritcher talked through clenched teeth. “Hope you don’t mind if I don’t shake hands. I can barely lift my arms.”
“Did they… uh… ever find out who attacked you?” Morgan asked.
“No. I suspect a disgruntled undergraduate. I was rather free with the F’s last semester. My own injuries are of little consequence, but my Italian ten-speed was damaged beyond repair.”
“How’s the reading going?”
“Every poem feels like a punch in the face,” Pritcher said. “I’d go home except for the blizzard. Take care, old boy.”
Pritcher left the men’s room. Morgan splashed more water on his face, scooped some into his mouth, and swallowed. He dried himself with a paper towel.
Back in the lobby he flagged down two kids, torn jeans, skateboarder haircuts. “Who’s reading?”
“Some fag,” said the kid. “It sucks. We’re leaving.”
Wouldn’t that be nice, thought Morgan. To live such a simple life. It sucks. I’m leaving.
He stopped at the door to the auditorium. Maybe he could. Why not? Why couldn’t he just leave? Why should the skateboard kids have more freedom than he? Jones didn’t need him anymore. He’d make or break on his own. The dean expected him to make an appearance. Ostensibly, this was Morgan’s show. It had been his responsibility to get Ellis into shape for the reading. But there was no Ellis. The show, apparently, was a drag and would go down in history as the most embarrassing thing that had ever happened in Green County.
The hell if Morgan would stick around for that. He headed for the door but stopped when he heard the girl with orange hair back at the podium. The first two readers were done, and she was getting reading to introduce the old man.
Okay, Morgan told himself. He’d stay for one poem, see if the old man fainted or what. Morgan could at least do that.
The orange-haired girl said, “I’ve been asked to read this before we introduce our final reader.” She had a card in her hand. “The national weather service has issued a severe storm warning for eastern Oklahoma and parts of western Arkansas. I’ve been told that Fumbee city workers are now getting the plows out of the garages, but it will be a while before the roads are safe for travel.”
A low, hopeless groan rose from the crowd.
“But not to worry,” she said. “We have another fine poet for your entertainment. Originally, Sherman Ellis was scheduled to read, but there’s been a change. I’d like to introduce our next reader, Mr. Fred Jones.”
It took the old man long seconds to cross the stage. He looked ridiculously small and frail from the back of the auditorium. Someone giggled. The old man reached the podium, shuffled his papers, and wiped sweat off his forehead with a bony hand. Morgan’s heart broke a little bit.
He couldn’t quite see the bigwigs in the front row, but Lincoln Truman’s head leaned toward the dean’s. Confused murmurs.
“I’m Fred Jones,” he said into the microphone. He cleared his throat. “My first poem-”
Morgan couldn’t stand it. He closed the door, turned around, and headed for the nearest exit. He felt queasy, guilty. His hand reached for the door and froze when he heard the laughter. Aw hell, they’re laughing him off the stage. Aw, shit.
Go, get out the door, he told himself. You didn’t ask for any of this. But Morgan couldn’t move, couldn’t leave the old man. He went back, flung open the door in the back of the auditorium.
And the cheers washed over him. Students on their feet, howling.
Morgan blinked, rubbed his eyes to see if somehow Metallica had appeared and taken the stage. No. It was the old man. He shuffled his papers again and leaned toward the microphone. “My next poem is called ‘The Zydeco Gangster.’ ” He read:
When I came from Philly to the Big Easy in ’72
in a baby blue Impala full of smack,
I was already pushing gray around the ears.
And I don’t move so quick no more,
and the back gives me trouble,
and the hands are kinkin’ up.
The hands are key.
So when the dagos hired me
to work the Quarter,
I got a big moulie shadow to do the bone work.
The old man’s narrative unfolded. He read it like a pro, voice spinning its magic over the crowd. Morgan too was mesmerized. Jones was a natural. His gift radiated from
him like a beacon.
So I went to hear his song
on a humid night in some bayou shithole,
and Che was huffin’ on the accordion,
and another bony moulie
was beating time on a washboard,
and the shuffling, breathless racket
sounded like the time we leaned on Tiny Allen
in the homo bar
at the rotten end of Bourbon.
The poem was sad and sweet and nostalgic, yet comic at the same time. Morgan did not remember this one. It hadn’t been in the stack of papers the old man had handed to him weeks ago.
So I’m talking to Little Mike on the phone
with Big Mike on the extension
and they say everything is jake back in Philly.
I try to explain the zydeco shakedown,
and how it’s so different from
the tearful, slow Pagliacci pleading
when we’d bear down on the mark
like a lumbering toilet-paper mummy
in a Peter Cushing flick,
but they don’t get it.
So I ask Big Mike if he remembers the time
we chopped down the glassblower over on Sullivan the brrrrpt da bript brip chingle chingle bript
when we riddled his display cases with Mac-10s,
the nine-millimeter percussion
the tambourine tinkle of broken glass,
and I think he’s starting to get zydeco.
And we laughed and laughed
and wondered if the Motor City fellas
do it to Smokey Robinson.
The crowd roared, the applause shaking the building. It was right up their alley. A whole generation who’d thought poetry had to be about flowers and bumblebees. Now they’d heard poetry on steroids. Gritty. Extreme poetry like in a Mountain Dew commercial.
Morgan stayed to hear three more. The old man’s voice had found strength.
Perhaps they enjoyed it for the wrong reasons. Maybe there are no right or wrong reasons. It might not have been the reading Dean Whittaker wanted, but Morgan thought it was beautiful.
Pistol Poets Page 23
