by Peter Manus
So I find all of this homey and inviting. I go up to the guy and point out that he’s reading a favorite of mine. He doesn’t give a crap and says he’s not a big noir fan (like sup dah?), so I asked him how he happened to pick up one of the greats. This is when he gestures to this rack of books under various Polaroids—one of those “staff choices” displays.
Sure enough, there’s one with a bunch of noirs—A Swell-Looking Girl, Death in the Air, Subway. Anything strike you about this list?
wazzup! @ February 24 11:57 pm
TRAINS!!!! So super stoked to be FIRST with this connections!!!
roadrage @ February 24 11:59 pm
Exactly, expostulating Dutch man: trains. The person who put these books together is pictured in a Polaroid, like all the rest of them, but—dead end—she’s not fickel. She’s this very stocky woman with her hair dyed bright red, and wearing a worn over-the-head woolie and a big earthy smile—you probably know the type. I mean she’s in her twenties and female, but otherwise not at all fickel. And her name is “Evy G,” according to what’s printed on the pic.
So I say to the clerk, hey can I talk to this woman you got pictured here because I have very similar taste in books, and he wrinkles his brow like he can barely place her and then says something to the effect of, “Oh, Lyn? She doesn’t work here anymore,” which sounds like he’s pretending indifference but is kind of glad that Evy—or Lyn—or whoever she is, is gone. I should say the guy is coming off real…I wanna say persnickety (is that a word?), which I know scores a big “so what,” but my point is that his views on anyone wouldn’t exactly rule my world.
So I’m thinking name starts with E, nickname starts with L…but a bunch of girls’ names have that feature, I think someone mentioned before: Liz for Elizabeth, Lanie for Elaine, Lisa for Elisa, Lyn for Elinor or Evelyn, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, so I ask what this Lyn did when she used to work there and he says something snide like “mostly bit her nails” while he points to the counter, which I guess is to say that she did the same thing he does, worked as a salesclerk.
So I’m all “cool, brother, love the store,” and I’m about to push off but then it occurs to me to ask him whether the people who run the place actually publish anything. The guy rolls his eyes at how annoying I am, but manages to tell me that they have this tiny company called Midnight Ink that publishes two small-circ literary rags. Those are called Night Sky and Night Streets. Night Sky is their main mag, focused on sci-fi, and Night Streets, the up-and-comer, is on mystery. Midnight Ink has also published a couple of paperback originals—they got them on a special display that Mr. Doesn’t-Like-Noir jerks a thumb at. In fact, he tells me in a sort of gloaty way, he got the feeling that my “friend” Evy G. left in a huff when the boss lady wouldn’t publish Evy’s own novel, which was one of those inner-healing numbers, but with this incest hint that the folks upstairs wouldn’t leave in and Evy G. wouldn’t take out. Of course, now I’m totally interested and I ask whether he means that literally when he says the publications’ offices are “upstairs” and he points at the ceiling and makes a crack like “offices?” I ask if I can go up there and take a gander and he says no because they’re “in lay-out” and, anyway, he seems to be sick of me—starts looking like he’s getting ready to manufacture himself something to go do.
I pretend not to notice (playing dumb is my forte), and I ask what the offices look like and he kind of impatiently says it’s like some big open space with desks and computers and mice and couple of little closet offices in the back, like what the hell should it look like? I stick him with one more question which is whether Evy G. ever worked up there. He thinks about it, then says that sometimes people who work in the bookstore also do typing, envelope stuffing, submissions logging, grammar editing, etc., upstairs, so it’s possible. And that’s about when the guy steams off to change his rag.
One more “coincidence”: after the guy left, I checked the display rack, and he himself was pictured (guy’s a Dickens ho). His name is Webster. You remember fickel’s work pal, Noah? Maybe the guy soured a little toward her after she took off, especially if he has no idea why she’s completely out of touch.
I don’t know if I found fickel or got squat. Not sure I want to pursue it either, so if someone wants to go back and ask for Dame Judith, be my guest. All in all, it was a weird experience and I thought you guys might want to hear it.
webmaggot @ February 25 12:18 am
Excellent post, dewdster. But what’s the name Webster got to do with the name Noah?
marleybones @ February 25 12:22 am
The lexicographer.
webmaggot @ February 25 12:24 am
I like when you talk dirty, bones, but, come on, we’re trying to be serious here.
chinkigirl @ February 25 12:28 am
Noah Webster, of Webster’s Dictionary. Webster = Noah.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 12:37 am
So, to recap: Lamont Travers’s death = Slenderbuns. Blue Diamonds = The Blue Pearl. Now fickel’s workplace. Does this lead logically to Evelyn G = fickel?
webmaggot @ February 25 12:45 am
Just had a FARKIN MOHMENT: The chick in the internet café. The fat one chewing her fingernails who saved the seat for FullFrontal. That weird entry where he spies on fickel and dickel (getting all yick-el together), then feeds his url to dickel in the internet café.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 01:08 am
This suggests what?
webmaggot @ February 25 01:10 am
That fickel is a fat dog.
chinkigirl @ February 25 01:11 am
Wow. If true, this certainly puts a new angle on the Burly-Bear relationship.
marleybones @ February 25 01:18 am
Just back. Greetings, all. Not catching your point, chinkigirl.
chinkigirl @ February 25 01:21 am
Well, I’m not sure I feel that comfortable explaining what I blurted above. Anyone else?
webmaggot @ February 25 01:22 am
Oh, yeah, just let me have my yams mashed, right?
36-D @ February 25 01:26 am
Just on, and I have no PC inhibitions (or yams), so let me put it bluntly: If fickel is hot, the way we were reading her all along, then you can’t help suspecting that Burly-Bear was allowing himself to be—how to put it?—steered by his rod? Like taking her side when the other cops suspect her, making up reasons to see her, not letting on that he’s married, etc., etc., etc.
HOWEVAH, if fickel is that chick from the cafe, it’s a pretty different tale. Suddenly you find yourself wondering if maybe she’s just reading into everything Burly-Bear and getting all lovey-dovey. And when she finally catches on that he’s most definitely NOT interested…
wazzup! @ February 25 01:29 am
…she is one dangerous femme fatale!!! This I have been wondering all along!!!
webmaggot @ February 25 01:31 am
Thank you, Ms Rack and Amsterdam’s most famous premature ejaculator. But now take it a step further. Maybe she’s been hallucinating all along that he’s even on her side. MAYBE IN REAL LIFE HE’S JUST OUT TO NAB HER SAME AS ESCROTO.
roadrage @ February 25 01:34 am
And maybe she gets hit with that reality and stabs him with a pair of scissors, then tries to take herself out with some gun she’s got her hands on?
chinkigirl @ February 25 01:36 am
Her brother’s gun. Remember him groping in his knapsack in that motel room? What would he be looking for but a gun? And who would he never suspect of lifting it so that he didn’t check to make sure it was there before entering the motel room?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 01:39 am
But WHO is fullfrontal under this fickel-is-psycho scenario? Wouldn’t fullfrontal be fickel?
marleybones @ February 25 01:44 am
Back up—I’m not sure I believe what I’m reading. So if she’s fat, she’s totally nuts and also screwed up about men? She couldn’t be nuts and screwed up about men if she’s hot?
webmaggot @ February 25 01:47 am
She could be screwed up about men either way—I mean, she’s female so we accept that. Kudos to marleybones for that frank observation. However, if fickel’s an ugg-o, then maybe she’s a fucked-up nut who comes to realize that she’s been pretending to herself that Burly-Bear is into her. If she’s hot, then she never has that moment of white-hot rage-inducing truth because, trust me, married or not, he’s into her.
roadrage @ February 25 01:55 am
Oh, giant fat lady whom nobody loves
Why do you walk to the sea in white gloves?…
chinkigirl @ February 25 01:58 am
Oddly, I like that. Is there more to it?
marleybones @ February 25 02:02 am
I’m losing more respect for this blog with every post.
36-D @ February 25 02:15 am
Look, anyone, male or female, can be a psycho. But we happen to be looking at a situation where a woman may have killed a cop that she was imagining was into her when he was really investigating her. That woman projecting herself on a blog as hot but turning out to be a dog sure brings it all together. Don’t you see that, marleybones?
marleybones @ February 25 02:17 am
No, I don’t. Sounds like “all fat girls should be shunned” to me. I just don’t buy it.
webmaggot @ February 25 02:19 am
Wait, so that’s not true, now?
roadrage @ February 25 02:20 am
Dewd.
chinkigirl @ February 25 02:21 am
Moving along. So let me understand something: are we speculating that fickel wrote Full Frontal? And that in that persona, she sees herself as overwhelmingly unattractive and needy?
webmaggot @ February 25 02:22 am
This is where I’m at.
36-D @ February 25 02:25 am
I’m sorta there, too.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 02:27 am
If that’s the case, is fickel just the girl in the internet café, or is she the strange “Poppy Z” girl on the train as well?
marleybones @ February 25 02:30 am
Hell, why not! fickel is ALL fat women! And all fat women are crazy!
webmaggot @ February 25 02:33 am
This is why I admire marleybones—ultimately she’s got the balls to speak common sense.
marleybones @ February 25 02:34 am
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
roadrage @ February 25 02:37 am
Just to correct the record, I never said that Evy G. from the bookstore was fat. I said she looked stocky, and it could have been the sweater she had on.
webmaggot @ February 25 02:38 am
You described a porker, man.
36-D @ February 25 02:45 am
However we put it, it looks like fickel is not the goth sylph she put herself across as.
roadrage @ February 25 02:48 am
IF Evy G. is fickel at all.
chinkigirl @ February 25 02:50 am
Did fickel put herself across as a goth sylph? Wasn’t that more fullfrontal?
36-D @ February 25 02:52 am
But fullfrontal is fickel. Didn’t we decide that???
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 02:53 am
I think that some of us think that. It beats the alternative, which is that fickel has a stalker.
chinkigirl @ February 25 02:55 am
He sure writes like a male, while she does not.
webmaggot @ February 25 02:56 am
Meaning he writes what he thinks and not what he hopes won’t hurt people’s feelings? Speaking of which, I’ve just been THINKING, and now realize that there’s a problem with my “fickel is Evy” rationale. Here it is: if fickel is a porker, why would Mr. Suicide have gone for her?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 03:02 am
Well, he went for his wife. Don’t the rest of you picture X as…heavyset?
marleybones @ February 25 03:03 am
Although now that we’re questioning fickel’s word on everything, we don’t know that.
chinkigirl @ February 25 03:05 am
Oh, good, you’re still with us, marleybones. I thought the silly “fat girl discussion” might have disgusted you enough to make you sign off for a while.
marleybones @ February 25 03:06 am
Ha. I went through junior high long, long ago, but the protective callus remains. Hot flash jokes, however, might rub me wrong. Be warned.
36-D @ February 25 03:07 am
If X was the Indian lady I saw in Blue Diamonds, let me just verify that Mr. Suicide was FOJLO.
chinkigirl @ February 25 03:08 am
I’m almost afraid to ask?
roadrage @ February 25 03:10 am
Someone who likes much booty.
chinkigirl @ February 25 03:13 am
Gotcha. But even if X has a big rump, have you ever noticed that when American men go for non-American women, they don’t have the same standards as they do with American women? White men seem harder on their own race when they’re judging women’s sex appeal, now that I think of it. I wonder why that is?
marleybones @ February 25 03:15 am
Because American men are bigger assholes than men from the rest of the planet?
webmaggot @ February 25 03:17 am
Don’t you suspect that foreign guys are just assholes with sexy accents that make you American women all fluttery?
36-D @ February 25 03:18 am
He has a point.
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 03:20 am
Good GOD, aren’t you people GETTING IT?
chinkigirl @ February 25 03:22 am
proudblacktrannie! I’m so glad to see you on!
36-D @ February 25 03:23 am
GAWD, I thought we’d lost you, gurlfriend! It was my FOJLO comment that brought you out of lurking—admit it?
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 03:24 am
I have NOT been lurking, and, anyway, look around—there is no BACK to get to anymore. This site is OVER. I’m just on to satisfy my curiosity and cannot BELIEVE that the rest of you have yet to put TOO and TOO together.
webmaggot @ February 25 03:25 am
It’s “two and two,” dudette.
36-D @ February 25 03:37 am
Way to go. Now she’s gone again.
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 03:38 am
God you are ALL so blind and pathetic. Why doesn’t someone take the lot of you outside and shoot you to put you out of your misery, you STUPID STRAIGHT OXEN?
webmaggot @ February 25 03:39 am
I thought marleybones was a dyke?
marleybones @ February 25 03:41 am
Apparently I’m an exception—gay and stupid—because I’m honestly not getting it.
webmaggot @ February 25 03:42 am
Plus you have a sense of humor—could such a dyke exist? Are you…Escroto masquerading as a fifty-year-old totally cool with-it lesbian in Wisconsin?
marleybones @ February 25 03:44 am
Look, proudblacktrannie, we’re struggling here, and in spite of all the banter, this is a serious matter. I, for one, am worried for fickel’s safety. What if all this speculation is wrong and fullfrontal/Mysterious Hottie exists? Then there’s the other angle: what if he doesn’t and it’s all a ruse by fickel? Either way, fickel is in a dangerous place. Remember, fullfrontal’s site ends with him professing that he is about to commit suicide, and it’s convincing. We may be the only lifeline she has right now. So if you think you can supply some insight, let’s go.
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 03:50 am
HUFF. Okay, fine. But I’m doing this for your sakes and not for fickel’s. She’s in a scary place all right. But it is OTHERS who are in danger.
Let’s start with a simple fact: Mr. Suicide did not SPOT fickel at a concert and start pursuing this ATTRACTIVE STRANGER. HE was the one who was SPOTTED and being STALKED. By HER.
marleybones @ February 25 03:52 am
And she moved in on him.
> proudblacktrannie @ February 25 03:53 am
YES
marleybones @ February 25 03:54 am
And she wrote the bitter diary about him.
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 03:55 am
YES. STEPHEN PEARLE WAS “E,” YOU FOOLS.
chinkigirl @ February 25 03:56 am
fickel wrote the strange, dreamy diary about spotting someone on the street?
roadrage @ February 25 04:27 am
Y’know, I jotted some notes leafing through the excerpts fickel fed us. Here they are:
The tone, of course, is collaborative, rather than informative: the writer writes stuff like “you know” and the whole thing assumes there’s a rapport between writer and reader. The punctuation is also intimate, with a lot of dashes rather than commas or periods. That’s female writing, according to Wikipedia.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 04:34 am
There’s also the generally impeccable grammar, marred by the occasional conscious fragment, which I read as another earmark of intimacy. As we’ve all remarked, this is supposed to be a sign of female writing.
chinkigirl @ February 25 04:46 am
I’m struck mostly by the artistic turns—“scintillated trance” and “catching kisses that might drip from his lips.” Male or female, it reminds me of fickel’s voice once I put my mind to it.
roadrage @ February 25 04:49 am
There’s also the line about the shorter person in the couple being “comfortable enough with who you were,” after being jostled on the street. That makes sense if the two street-kissers are men.
marleybones @ February 25 06:00 am
All fine observations, but I for one don’t buy the theory that all men write one way and all women another. Anyway, if fickel wrote the journal, what’s going on? She was Mr. Suicide’s lover?
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 06:03 am
Ah, a light breaketh in the east.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 25 06:07 am
And then he brought another guy into the mix and she…felt spurned?
proudblacktrannie @ February 25 06:09 am
NO, AGAIN you INSIST on casting her as a VICTIM. It was ALL HER. SHE suggested the other guy. Pearle was a VOYEUR, see? He liked to WATCH others having SEX.
