Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine 11/01/12

by Dell Magazines

  I shut my eyes and listen.

  Fruggy's worked hard to lose his holler accent. He sounds New York born and bred. He sounds like everyone else. I can hear him sort of dancing in his seat as he reads his story. All three hundred pounds of him swaying in his seat, heels shuffling, kicking my chair. I know he's got the echoes of a jug band in his head, but he won't let anyone else know it.

  He wants everybody to understand that the fat white trash feel love. The fat can be heroic, the fat want to have children, the fat white trash can say the right words at the right times. A throb of sorrow works through his voice. He swallows tears.

  I want to slap him. I want to shake him. I want to haul Fruggy to his feet and ask him, How the hell has this happened? Fruggy, how did they get you?

  He's settling for the thinnest self-description there is. Fruggy Fred doesn't write about singing Ozark backwoods songs or playing the banjo, which he does extremely well. He doesn't discuss how he came up out of the Missouri holler on a music scholarship. How his mother cooks crank, how his sister was killed in Afghanistan. How his daddy died from eating poisoned squirrel. The years at college have murdered his concept of himself. The rush and patter of his classmates has deformed him, made him forget who he is. Fruggy Fred used to be my roommate three years ago when I lived in the dorms. So much has changed.

  He goes on about fat. He goes on about pretty girls not liking him. His voice is flat, without melody. There's nothing mellifluous about it. Maybe the jug band is dead in his head. Maybe he can no longer pluck a banjo. They've done it to him. They've filled him full of doubt and fear, something nobody in the holler could ever do.

  The fat guy in his story watches the pretty girl turn away from him and walk away into a sunset.

  The pretty girls in class are crying. Hal claps his hands. The rest of them follow suit. Soon, the applause is deafening. I finally turn in my chair. Our eyes meet. Fruggy Fred is smiling so widely I can practically see his tonsils. I wonder if he'll ever visit his sister's grave again.

  I see Beth Moore every night that week. She's dating a few different guys and these guys all have a taste for Wabo burgers. I take their money and hand them their orders and always let my gaze linger an extra moment on Beth in the passenger seat, snuggled up beside the beau. The beau turns and hands her the fries and she plucks at the box daintily, pinching a fry between two fingers. She eats slowly, letting the fry hang from her mouth the way kids do when they're pretending to be smoking cigarettes. She lips the fry and I tell the beau, "Thank you for visiting Cabo Wabo Burger. Please come see us again soon." The beau ignores me. Beth ignores me. The french fry ignores me.

  I watch the car speed out of the parking lot and make a squealing left turn. The brake lights blaze for an instant and then vanish. I shut my eyes and still see the burning red points for a moment, a soccer mom with a bunch of crying kids already at the window. She looks at me as if she wants me to take all her pain away. I'm looking at her with the same expression. We're like that for a while.

  The following week, Beth writes about her family. She lives her life and then lays it out across the pages without dramatic tension. Her narrative voice lacks confidence. She's repetitive. Her dialogue is unnatural and when she reads she tries on voices. They all sound like her, especially her mother.

  But the truth is there, as clear as a bell tolling vespers. She discusses her father, a cop over on Oceanside who's nearly put in his thirty and is ready to retire. She explains how the burden of battling evil on a daily basis has taken a severe toll on her old dad. Her brother is also a police officer, and she's witnessed him change from a moderately self-centered punk into a resentful, hard engine of fury and justice. She doesn't have a good relationship with either of them. They drink too much. Her parents argue. Occasionally her old man slips and begins to discuss some terrible event like walking into a bodega after a hostage-crisis situation and having nothing to do except help clear away the bodies. Her brother is getting a divorce, and her three-year-old nephew wonders why Daddy isn't coming home anymore.

  She falters as she reads. Hal tells her to take her time.

  "I'm sorry," she whispers, and then tries to clear her throat. It doesn't help. Her chin drops and her shoulders begin to quiver. A quiet mewling breaks from deep inside her chest.

  I know that noise. I've heard it a thousand times before. I've made it a thousand times before. I start to slide from my seat but Hal is already moving to her. Of course he is. He takes her in his arms and hugs her. Of course he does. He shushes her gently as she cries against his collar. He presses his lips to her forehead.

  I close my eyes and I make the noise, silently, and let it go around and around inside my head.

  Hal tells us, "You must find your muse. Seek her out no matter how difficult the journey. She may be fickle. She may be shy and hide when you call to her. She may embrace you when you least expect it. But it's your duty to discover her. It's your obligation to provide her with whatever it is she needs."

  I think about my muse. I wonder who she is. Maybe Beth. Maybe the first girl I ever pined for. Perhaps some bully chick from first grade who haunts me under my skin whose name and face I've forgotten. The drive is there. It makes my hands strong. I don't use a computer. I type on an old manual Underwood. I want to feel the foot-pounds of pressure when I hit a key. It's work. Writing for an hour on a manual burns up more calories than three games of racquetball. I eat one of Mrs. Manfreddi's homemade pies a day and there's still not an ounce of fat on me.

  My writing courses through my system. It has impact. It changes me. My muse, whoever it is, knows this.

  I try to imagine what it is she needs. What sacrifices must be made in the name of passion, creativity, and success.

  Hal has given a name to his muse, and calls her Pandora. He thinks he's being cute. He always thinks he's being cute. He says, "Pandora loves no man, not even me. But she understands who and what I am."

  What the hell. I steal the name.

  Pandora, you're my muse. We need to get back to work. You don't love me but you know what I am.

  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 fi
ction 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."