Sibella & Sibella

by Joseph Di Prisco

  As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams he found himself transformed in his bed into a gigantic insect. Gregor would prove to have nothing on the bestselling novelist. Someday I needed to check in with my dad for his transcontinental diagnosis.

  “No thanks, I’m good, and the key was on the side of the nearest planter box, where people always put the extra one.” Myron was adept at asking and answering compound questions as well as committing break-ins, being a publisher, and he was seated at Figgy’s desk, three stacks of paper—those three manuscripts, I assumed—in place before him. He turned over a page, as if he had been interrupted mid-graf. The gently rustling sound the sheet of paper made was like that of quaking aspen leaves. Very pretty, to tell the truth.

  “Reading something interesting, Myron?”

  “Very interesting. One of my three books.”

  “And here I thought they were my three books.”

  “Well, I do have this signed contract that says I am legally entitled to them.”

  “You’re going to kill yourself if all you worry about is business. Stress should not be taken lightly, haven’t you heard? You must be heart-healthy when you approach your later stages in life. Look what stress did to my poor brother. Along with the cancer, true.”

  “You know, I had never heard about your brother’s cancer.”

  “Well, it’s a long story. And then it was flash fiction.”

  Whatever its length, it was evidently one that was not going to be told by him.

  “Awful, awful about your brother. How long was he ailing?”

  “Like I said, Myron. Long story.”

  “On second thought, how about a beer?”

  When I came back from the kitchen run with three bottles of IPA (surprisingly good choice de Fontana!), I realized from their shifting side-to-side eyes we were, here we go, destined for a Thrilla in Fontanilla free-for-all or a strained conversation or both. I was glad there was a lot more beer in the fridge, because this might take a while, and everybody knows how critical beer can be during a tense negotiation. Since our last unannounced visit to the cabin, positions had been switched. Now Myron was seated where Fig used to preside, the best-selling author in one of the red chairs. I took my appointed place and, considering the downside of doing otherwise, I instructed myself to breathe.

  “Can you tell me the back story of this manuscript here? Cain Disabled?”

  “Catchy title, don’t you think?”

  “Not your best, not a humdinger like Swimming Buck Naked in a Hurricane, that’s for sure. Sibella’s pretty good with titles—” I was? Since when? “—and she and I will discuss when we get back to the home office. I’m not very far in, but the setup is fascinating and explosive, the pitched bloody battle between two twin brothers loving and hating each other. Is it a tad autobiographical?”

  “Tell me what isn’t autobiographical for any worthwhile writer? Each of his characters is an aspect of himself.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed you and your brother had such a violent relationship.”

  “He was a good prevaricator, is one reason why. The other reason why is you really don’t know much about me and my brother, and why should you?”

  “All storytellers are natural born liars, so my writers all tell me, when they’re willing to talk to me, and by the way, thanks for talking to me.”

  “And I wish I could express gratitude for breaking into my office, but yes, and some people don’t rightly know when they are lying, they think they are always telling the truth, like my brother, who never said two true things in a row. And like me he was a good actor, too. Porphyry was always getting the leads in the local playhouses, he could play act being me, you believe that?”

  “But did you and he work together?”

  He tilted his leonine head, signalizing puzzlement, but said nothing.

  “Well, did he read and comment on your work?”

  “Always advisable to get a second opinion, a reality check, a reading of the crapometer. And Pork knew about books. It’s the only thing he did know anything about.”

  “As for that reality check, did the collaboration approach a type of editing?”

  “You are attempting to be subtle, Myron. If you wish to be convincing, this is something you need to work at.” Well, the author was perceptive. “You asking me did my late brother play a part in the writing of my books?”

  God bless Myron, he didn’t answer that question.

  “’Cause, Moron, if’n you be axing me dat, I might heve to up’n whip yo sorry Jew ass.” Crog, frow.

  Then the author laughed. It sounded like choking. I’ve heard better laughs in Texas Chainsaw movies. His was unpleasant as the sound my washing machine makes before going clank and kaput with the clothes half washed and sopping with soapy water.

  “Pretty good impression, no?”

  “Dead on.”

  We were heading off into deep waters, and they were getting deeper by the second.

  “You know, Myron, some people have stories happen to them and then there are other people who can actually tell the stories.”

  “I always believe stories happen to people who can tell them.”

  “That’s slick publisher talk if ever I heard it.”

  Myron undoubtedly felt he was onto something. “What you are saying is the stories happened to Figgy and the person who could tell them was Porphyry. You guys are twins, so in some way, to put it very crudely and reductively, you are the same man.”

  Whoa, Figgy.

  “Pork and Fig were not the same. Don’t ever say that again.”

  “I’m trying to get to the truth here about Newton. That was his given name, right, Porphyry?”

  What fuck the fuck?

  “Don’t say that. But I’ve been thinking. I’ve reconsidered, having gotten to know you and your staff. I will let you publish these three books after all. I told Cable he was getting too greedy, told him to let well enough alone, but he wouldn’t listen, but he will from now on.”

  “I’m sorry about your brother, but that’s a great development. Isn’t it, Sibella?”

  I was glad he wasn’t waiting for me to make an affirmative non-denial.

  “And you must be very distressed about your brother, whom you buried.” Then Myron gathered himself up to deliver his coup de grab: “But my question after perusing this manuscript, and getting to know you today, is: Who was buried today?”

  Hesitation long as the horizon across the Pacific. “My brother was buried, and you should show respect.”

  “Yes, your brother was buried, but is it Pork or is it Fig in the ground?”

  “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

  “I’m not leaving without these books.”

  “I already said you could have them, didn’t I?”

  “Yes, you did.” Myron paused. “Yes, you did, Pork.”

  What fuck the fuck, he said it again?

  “My name’s Porphyry.”

  Superfuck.

  “And you, Porphyry, are the one who wrote the books?”

  You know what I said to myself.

  “What difference does it make who wrote the books? Fig was sick for a long time, very sick, advanced stage cancer and all, and he wasn’t going to make it, and we made contingency plans in case the worst happened, which it did.”

  “And Fig’s wife and son and his girlfriend, they are all in on it?”

  “Nobody’s committed a crime. The man died, it happens. He’s my brother, and I loved him as much as I hated him, which was a lot.”

  “But you wanted the books to keep coming, as there was big money involved.”

  “What gave you the idea to come up here anyway?”

  “The phone call yesterday, when somebody said he was Fig and he was done with Hard Rain.”

 
“That might have been a mistake on my part. I was looking for leverage, since Fig was dead and I wanted you to cough up more cash.”

  “I already gave Fig the money, and we had an ironclad contract.”

  “Fig kept me in the dark, always took the credit, he thought I was exploiting him, and he never paid me half, which he should have done, only twenty-five percent, and only when he felt like it. After the first few books came out and sales were booming, I tried to get him to agree to changing authorship, a novel by Fig and Porphyry Fontana, but he wouldn’t go along. He said he was the one who made the Fontana name famous and I would screw up the whole thing if I got my way. People were in love with Figgy Fontana, those books sold like hotcakes, which you know, because you got rich off him. Now do you understand why he was reluctant to go on a book tour? Because he couldn’t be himself, because he wasn’t the author of the books, his brother was.”

  “And you think you can keep the ball rolling, and nobody will notice?”

  The wind set early in tonight, when glided in Porphyria; straight she shut the cold out and the storm and kneeled and made the cheerless grate blaze up and all the cottage warm. Kelly, let me help. Look up the poem “Pork’s Luvah.” You’ll find it in that big fat Norton anthology you sit on. But I can’t bear to see you suffer, so don’t pull out your Browning Automatic: hint.

  The mood turned perilous. “If you and giraffe girl both happen to die by accident, say a gun going off during a break-in attempt, so far away from the beaten path, nobody will know, that’s true.”

  Myron said he hoped he wasn’t being threatened. Porphyry said he wasn’t doing that. He must have been channeling one of Fig’s books, if, that is, they were books by the real Figgy Fontana.

  “And nobody needs to know if you keep publishing Fig Fontana, remain on course, and the Fontana Brand will stay alive.”

  “What makes you think we can do that?”

  This was when Porphyry became agitated. “Come on, Myron. Who the fuck do you think wrote the books? Me, that’s who. I wrote the books. Figgy couldn’t decline a verb or a drink.” He paused, vexed. “Who was it who said that?”

  “I call bullshit,” I said. “You conjugate a verb and you decline a noun. Was it Churchill?”

  “Could be,” Fontana said.

  “Dorothy Parker?” I tried again. Damn, I didn’t know. Besides, I had other things on my mind, such as my mortality.

  Myron went back to the subject. “But those were Figgy’s stories.”

  “Which he couldn’t tell, Myron! Didn’t you a second ago say, stories only happen to people who can tell them? He and I used to fight all the time. His position amounted to: You’re a fat old English school teacher with good grammar and good manners, and nothing happens to you, it all happens to me. But he was nothing without me, he wasn’t Figgy Fontana without me.”

  “And you’re going to have to stay in character for the rest of your career, playing at being Figgy Fontana? And when you come to your office, or his office, you can be yourself, whoever that is?”

  “I can do anything I need to do to make money and survive. Learned that from Newton, the poor bastard. He never gave me any credit when he was alive, and now, he can’t help it, I will get all the credit, thanks to you, Figgy Fontana’s Publisher. And now I am leaving. Close up when you go.”

  “I’m taking the books, Pork.”

  The author got up to go, and as he reached for the door, he came to a halt. It’s like the lights went out in the cabin, or like the equivalent of a riptide rushed through the room, and he transformed into somebody else, only for the life of me I would have sworn that he wasn’t acting this time.

  “Moron, you en giraffe girl,” he croaked and screeched, “I’s had enufa yore booshit.”

  He marched into the kitchen and returned with nothing I could see in his hands, but he seemed to have some imaginary object in his grasp, which he carried as if it were a rifle and which he positioned low on his hip. He took a deep breath and then he said his piece—or said his pieces—his eyes by turns fluttering, darting, snapping shut, then flaring:

  “Fig, come on, man. What are you doing? Stop and think. I’s dun wit fuckin’ thinkin’ thas what yore good for, Pork. These people are not worth killing. You’ll spend the rest of your life in prison thinking about them and you will never be rid of them. Yas, yas, yas, they are like skunks in da hen house. Think anybody’d find their sorry asses we just bury them out here where nobody’d come in a hundred years and who would miss them nobody that’s who. I don’t think so, Fig, calm down, it will all be all right once you calm down. Think I’ll have myself ’nother beer you don’t mind you big fat pussy kissin’ up to Moron. Myron is trying to do the right thing by you, Fig, come on, take a deep breath. Ya always wuz a faggot, Pork, always. Why’d I evah let you in why why. You needed my help, Fig, and you’re my brother. Maybe I’ll juz shoot you be good and done with both you and these bichez. Put the gun down, Fig, there’s no call for violence. Like you fuckin’ know ’bout vy lince things I could tell you it’s all been vy lince all been nothing but shootin’ up bichez from day one. It’s fine, Fig, we can work together like before, nobody’ll know any better, and Myron will publish our books and people will love you and it will be like it was before. Now’s I’s dead and burred ain’t gonna be the same no more you fuckin’ piece of shit. Come on, Fig, be nice, it doesn’t have to be that way. Give me the gun. Fuck yer self I got the first amendment right to bear arms. Certainly, you have that right, but it’s the Second Amendment and not here, not now, trust me, Fig, trust me. Like you wuz ever a good brotha to me fuck me fuck me you are nothin’ to me. Don’t get me upset, Fig, you know what happens when I get upset. Things happen neither of us like. Like ta see you uppen try you motha fucker you stoled my books you stoled my words you ain’t nothin’ without me. And you, Fig, you mother fucker, you are nothing without me. You hear me, Fig, nothing at all. Nowza, big brotha, let’s git the fuck. Take the gun, Fig. Shit awe right.”

  He walked over to the desk, looked down on the manuscripts as if he were bidding them adieu, then turned on his heels, opened the door, and stomped out into the dusk without the manuscripts. Had we been in here that long, and what had we witnessed?

  “Guy’s out of his mind,” said Myron.

  I was trembling. “I feared he was going to fucking kill us.”

  “You realize he didn’t actually have a gun?”

  “But did he realize he didn’t have a gun, that’s the question.”

  “I think there’s a big difference.”

  “Why am I scared?”

  “Sibella, read my mind.”

  I did, and it wasn’t hard to do. We ran back to the house and I summoned the others to the car, prontissimo.

  I had watched the sickest, most twisted production of Twelfth Night, one without a happy ending, maybe one without any ending at all.

  This is Dellyria, baby.

  Part Three

  Breakfast at Sibella’s

  You are not the kind of person who would be in a place like this at this time of the morning.

  Which is what I often felt behind my milk-crated desk.

  Nonetheless, next day, we were all back in our not entirely unfamiliar places at the house. But nothing felt familiar. Myron and I were both traumatized, not that either of us would admit it. As usual, though, Kelly was smacking her gum and Murmechka was laboring over her whatever-they-were and a fierce-looking Caprice held cell phones in both hands as if she were a gunslinger and they were six-shooters and she was staring into her computer monitor as if it were the town’s well the desperadoes had poisoned.

  We kept everybody at Hard Rain on a need-to-not-know footing. Between us, though, before we made our hasty pudding departure from the Fontana Follies, Myron and I had agreed that YGB and Ashlay had no need to be told that something nasty had happened in the woodshed. At least until we fi
gured out the implications and decided our next moves. As a consequence, there was hardly any car talk the whole way home. Everybody seemed relieved to have made a clean getaway.

  Later that night in my apartment, considering what little use YGB and I had for pillow talk, we did not list the Figgian topic on our very crowded, intense, and on team agenda, so I buttoned my lips, if not in that way. I can guard the lane and protect the rim and repress with the best of them. He picked up on my disturbed state of mind and probed. You bet he did.

  “Myron drove like a bat out of hell,” he said, which was true, and it was weird to see Myron behind the wheel. “Something must have happened.”

  “Can we talk about this some other time?” Maybe when I understood and maybe when we weren’t in bed.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “Later.” Much, much later.

  “Whatever you want.”

  “It’ll be all right, Myron’s got this covered.”

  “I’m not talking about Myron. I’m talking about you, Sibella.”

  Interesting point. Tell me, what was the difference now between Myron’s problems and mine? Besides, I was talked out. Afterward, I held my new boyfriend tight and we floated into a deep sleep as if it were a warm tropical sea.

  No, really, it was exactly like that.

  Shot beyond the arc is good, three points.

  ✴✴✴

  For the record, the record a rational person or even I ought to be keeping, before we hopped in the car to go home, Myron and I tracked down Cable inside the house and away from Caitlin and his gun-moll momma, and we told him arrivederci. Myron also told him he better forget the lawsuit unless he wanted more trouble than he could handle. Like what sort of trouble? Like he would go public with the news that his father was dead and that Pork was alive and the true author of the books. How would he like that?

  “That might hurt your sales, Myron. And to tell you the truth—”