Cruel Devices

by George Wright Padgett

  He continued down the back service way and crossed the moderately busy street, noting his path in relation to the bookstore. This was easy to do, since the behemoth’s three stories towered above the single-story structures along the way.

  The last thing he needed was to get lost in Droverton, Connecticut.

  As he passed an abandoned dry cleaner, a paint store, a jeweler, and a plate-glass company, he thought about how Josephine had been right about Billy. He should get the old fart something for his birthday, but what?

  Billy Cavanaugh was much more to him than the editor of twenty-eight of the thirty-four Damien Marksman novels. The man had assumed the role of midwife to the stories, knowing exactly what to do when the birth had gone breech. He had talked the temperamental author “down from the ledge” every time an idea just wasn’t working, which had occurred more times than Gavin would ever like to admit. Billy was a friend, perhaps Gavin’s only true friend. He’d have to do something special for him.

  The noonday sun beat down, and Gavin began to sweat. He daydreamed about how good it would feel to shower back at the hotel and then hit the bar. He was already tired of walking. The irony of getting much-needed exercise by trying to get a cigarette lit wasn’t lost on him. He quickly rationalized it, excusing a lifetime of neglect by thinking that he did exercise—just in unconventional ways. Rolling a suitcase through airports counted, didn’t it?

  He tried to add up the number of airports that he had shuffled through over the last three and a half weeks. He couldn’t remember the exact tally. The fact that there had been more than he could count allowed him to conclude that he had been getting enough exercise, despite what Josephine would say.

  Around the corner, someone sat at the bus stop enclosure on the opposite side of the street. The bright, neon-blue warm-up suit was unmistakable—it was Ms. Hodges. He was delighted to see her. Here was a person he felt an authentic connection with, unlike the parade of mind-numbed fans who worshiped anything that had his name stamped on it.

  What he’d give to go back to writing for people like her again—writing something new, something that he could take pride in again.

  He started to call out to her, but then he realized that she was talking to someone and that something didn’t look right about it. A Toyota nearly clipped him as he crossed the street to get to her. As he approached, he noted the scene. An unkempt man in tattered cargo shorts was talking to her. The imposing figure leaned in and gestured broadly at the elderly woman.

  Gavin sped up to join them. The man, who Gavin guessed was a panhandler, didn’t notice his approach.

  Eunice looked up from the conversation. “Oh, Mr. Curtis, what are you doing here?”

  The man turned to see whom she addressed.

  Before he could speak, Gavin said, “What’s your story, bud?” He glanced down and caught sight of bright white fabric peeking up incongruously from crusty, old sneakers caked in mud and filth. The socks were folded down, almost tucked into the tops of the shoes.

  “What du-duh-do you mean?”

  “Are you here to catch the bus or what?”

  “Nuh-nuh-nuh… no… mu-mu-money,” the man stuttered as he presented a flap of cardboard with crudely formed letters written in marker.

  Gavin studied the man for a moment. “No money, huh?”

  “Nu-nuh-nuh… no,” the man answered with a more severe stutter than before.

  “I can spare five dollars, Mr. Curtis,” Eunice offered as she began to rummage through her tote bag.

  Gavin moved over to the man, his overweight belly nearly touching the panhandler’s stained orange T-shirt. “Don’t give this clown one red cent.”

  “But Mr. Curtis, he told me—”

  “He’s a fake and a liar.” Gavin stared into the man’s hazel eyes. After a second, the man began to blink irregularly and then tried to look away. Gavin shifted, placing himself back into the man’s line of sight.

  “Miss Hodges,” Gavin said, “I’ve studied people my whole life. That’s one of the things that makes me a good writer.” Gavin stepped back. “This chump’s not for real. He probably lives in a nicer house than you and your son do, no offense.”

  “How do you know?” she asked. “How can you tell?”

  “Socks,” Gavin said, pointing down. “Those socks are perfectly clean. He’s not committed enough to let dirt actually touch his skin.”

  “Hey, wait. You said ‘writer.’ Are you Gavin Curtis, the writer?” The man spoke without a trace of a stutter.

  “Yes, he is,” Eunice offered as if she were a proud parent. “Gavin Curtis.”

  “Oh, man, this is cool. This is awesome. I can’t believe that it’s you!”

  Gavin switched his sports coat to the other arm and said, “I suggest you take your act someplace else.”

  “Huh? Oh, yeah, but can I get an autograph first?” He flipped the handmade sign over and presented it to Gavin for signing.

  “Get lost, you jerk.”

  The man’s elation melted to a scowl as he left.

  From a safe distance, he yelled, “I think your new book sucks!”

  Gavin raised his eyebrows and softly murmured to himself, “Yeah, well, that makes two of us.”

  Eunice, perched on the bench, was enjoying the show. She adjusted the canvas bag beside her, shrugged, and winked.

  Gavin looked back at the man and shouted, “Hey, wait a second!”

  He turned with a look of anticipation. “Yeah?”

  “Do you have a light?”

  The question was answered with the man’s middle finger, lifted high.

  “Well, that wasn’t very nice of him,” Eunice said with a disappointed frown.

  Gavin waited until the man was safely out of sight before he reached into his jacket. “Miss Hodges, I forgot to tell you this earlier… “

  A puzzled look formed on her face. “Yes? What is it?”

  He produced a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “I was supposed to give you this special Gavin Curtis bookmark back at the bookstore.”

  “Oh, Mr. Curtis,” she gasped as her veiny hands covered her mouth. “You shouldn’t do that.”

  He shook his head. “I want to. I want you to take this and hail a cab before that creep comes back.”

  “Thank you.” She waved her hands in front of her chest. “That’s too much, though. I only live about—”

  He butted in firmly. “I need you to get home safely with your son’s book, okay? If there’s change left over from the ride, buy him a belated birthday cake or something, from me.”

  Before he knew it, she’d given him a quick peck on the cheek. “Thank you, Mr. Curtis. Thank you so much.”

  He folded the bill into her cool, soft palm.

  “You’re a hero, Mr. Curtis.” He was close enough to see tears welling up in her eyes as she said, “You’re just like… like Damien Marksman.”

  Ughhh. Sucker-punched.

  Again, always with Damien. Would he ever be free of him?

  He forced a smile, wondering what it looked like from the outside.

  “Thank you again,” Eunice said, and then her expression shifted to puzzled concern, as if she’d seen something worrisome. She pulled back for a second and tilted her head, her thin eyebrows revealing an odd intensity. “You… You be careful, Mr. Curtis. I know it sounds silly… well, silly to my son, Doyle, but sometimes I… I get these feelings about people.” She forced a smile. “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. I’m such a ninny, but… please be careful, Mr. Curtis… for me, okay? I don’t know why… it’s just a feeling.”

  Something about the way she said it sent a shiver up his spine. “Yeah, okay, Miss Hodges. I am. I mean, I will be.” He felt a little dumb and awkward. “I will,” he promised again, dabbing the sweat from his brow.

  Gavin watched from the bus stop as Eunice disappeared from sight around the corner. Moments before, he’d offered to walk her to a street with heavier traffic to hail a cab. She had graciously refused, thanking him aga
in with another peck on the cheek. She’d even apologized for not having a light for his cigarette, but she told him there was a Quickie Mart several blocks over.

  Now that she was safely on her way, he walked in the direction that she’d indicated.

  He passed a quaint establishment called The Salad Bowl. Hand-painted images of cartoon vegetables parading about on the windows made Gavin snicker. The happy faces of carrots, celery, tomatoes, and other produce indicated that the vegetables had no idea what fate would soon befall them.

  “Probably no smokers in there, just a bunch of health nuts.”

  Plastered to the connecting fence were various movie posters. He winced as he passed eight side-by-side advertisements for a July 4th release. The posters were for A Chalice of Dragon’s Blood, the latest flick based on his Damien Marksman novels. Dissatisfied with the Hollywood interpretations of his books, Gavin had stopped attending the movie premiers years ago. They always focused on the gore, compounded with a ridiculous number of explosions, rather than the subtleties of character development or plot.

  The recent casting of a Caucasian as Damien’s love interest in book five had caused a controversy. In Gavin’s version, the woman was a dark-skinned Haitian, and the producers opted for a skinny white girl from the Bronx.

  The box office success of the films was bittersweet. It had made him a household name, but he felt dirty and couldn’t convince himself that he hadn’t sold out.

  As he passed through the remains of what was once a used-car dealership, he found that he was still unable to shake the eerie feeling that had descended upon him at the bus stop when Mrs. Hodges had warned him to be careful.

  He thought about it, trying to assess what had made him feel so queer, trying to understand it—to categorize it and maybe file it away for future use in some yet-to-be-written horror novel. He attempted to sort out the peculiar sensation hanging over him.

  It wasn’t her exact words. Everyone tells other people to “take care” and “be safe.” No, there was something else.

  He caught sight of his reflection in the dusty window of the abandoned dealership. He paused and tried to suck in his gut, but his gut wouldn’t have it, his light-blue dress shirt still drooping over the cinched belt of his khakis. The glass was too far away for him to see the day-old growth of facial hair, but he knew it was there, that rough-as-sandpaper feeling on his chin and cheeks. He saw his dark hair, long overdue for a trim, blowing in the breeze and making him look like a mad scientist in training.

  There had been a time when his appearance had mattered, but not anymore, not really. Except for his recently purchased pair of white tennis shoes, Gavin looked like he’d just been released from the city drunk tank.

  He sighed and resumed his trek, and his mind returned to Eunice’s warning.

  He repeated her words aloud, trying to strip them of their power while simultaneously mocking himself. “’You be careful, Mr. Curtis. Please be careful for me, okay?’”

  It took him a third of a book to begin to freak out readers, and she’d done it to him in eleven little words. He did need a smoke. He should just go back to the bookstore. Surely someone there would give him a light.

  But, wait. In the distance, there was a red octagon blooming from a tree-trunk-sized metal pole. It read, “Stop & Shop Food Store.” He picked up his pace.

  Halfway to the store, he passed a rusted-out, mammoth, two-story metal building. The look of the place resembled a large house or lodge. Because of its great size and jumbled patchwork construction of older sheets of metal woven in with newer, shinier scraps, it came off as schizophrenic.

  A single red maple tree in the overgrown yard bore a sign painted on a half-sheet of plywood. Gavin read the sign aloud. “Pawn, Antiques, and Things.” As he moved closer, he read the inscription added at the bottom in parentheses. “And Small Equipement Repair.”

  “Misspelled Equipment,” he told the tree.

  At the end of the building was another structure made of the same oxidized siding, but this one looked more like a house. Although it was smaller in size and only a single story, the A-frame metal hut shared the other property’s overgrown vegetation.

  The house had a short, open deck made of two sheets of plywood laid on cinder blocks. Plopped down in one of two cast-iron chairs was a haggard-looking woman in a jaundice-colored bathrobe. One hand clutched a coffee cup while the other flicked ashes into a coffee can on a small, round table.

  A cigarette!

  Gavin moved swiftly toward his target. Hand-painted on a plywood sign behind the woman was the proclamation that “Madame Kovács Sees All / Solves All.” He recognized the typography from the other sign. He smirked. At least there were no misspellings on this one.

  He stepped up briskly as he compared the fiery image of the soothsayer with the creature slumped down in the chair.

  He determined that if she was Madame Kovács, the sign must’ve been painted thirty years ago. Either that or the artist was being generous to avoid being hexed. Her face was as wrinkled as a crumpled paper bag—even her wrinkles had wrinkles. She flicked more ashes into the Folgers can.

  He slowed down to avoid startling her. “Uh, Miss Kovács?” As he moved closer, it was clear that the artist had also edited out Madame Kovács’ most prominent feature, a harelip.

  Very generous indeed.

  “Excuse me, miss. Can I get a light?” He waved the pack of cigarettes like a peace flag.

  Her pupils rolled around wildly like black marbles. When they finally locked on him, she squinted and grunted. The hand with the cigarette scratched at her dark bird’s-nest mound of hair. “What? What are you wanting?” She spoke in what Gavin guessed was a thick Hungarian accent.

  Gavin was distracted by the faint sound of music—no bass, just a treble whine like a chorus of mosquitos. He quickly identified the source, a blue handheld radio propped up on the cast-iron table between the chairs. “Wow, I haven’t seen one of those things since the seventies. I mean, that even predates the Walkman. Did you get it from next door?”

  Kovács dunked her harelip deep into the coffee cup.

  If it was coffee.

  When the harelip emerged, it glistened. “What you want?” She squinted at him with an even more curious look than Ms. Hodges had given. Then she gasped. “Torri?” She jumped to her feet, uttering rapid-fire shouts in Hungarian.

  Gavin looked behind him to see what she had become fixated on, but nothing was there. When he turned back to her, she was trembling.

  “Miss, are you—”

  She shifted her attention back to him. “You leave… not good for no. Something bad, you.”

  He extended a cigarette and said, “Look, just calm down. I just want a light.” He sighed. “Smoke, smoke?” he said as if by speaking in his own broken English, he could somehow meet her halfway. He advanced, stepping onto the sagging wooden deck. The plywood creaked and moaned beneath his weight.

  “No! Leave this!” She motioned around as she shouted the order. “Leave now before too late!” With alarming speed, she bolted for the protection of the screen door.

  “Well, hell’s bells. What’s gotten into this crazy old bat?” he said to himself while making a cursory search for her lighter or matches. He found nothing.

  Her walnut-colored face glared at him through the mesh of the screen as she nervously stroked the gold links of her necklace. Gavin caught the glint of a green emerald in the shape of a pear.

  Partly out of spite and partly out of frustration, he lunged at the door and yelled, “Boo!”

  Madame Kovács jumped back, spilling some of the contents from the cup on her matted robe. She spouted some indiscernible phrase, which Gavin suspected was a string of curse words in her native tongue. He laughed as he moved to search the cast-iron-frame table for matches. Nothing.

  The music from the transistor radio caught his attention again. He recognized the tune now. It had been at least twenty years since he’d last heard it.

 
; … I'll have another piece of apple pie, you know it don't seem right

  I saw him at the sawmill yesterday on Choctaw Ridge

  And now you tell me Billie Joe's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge

  He picked up the radio and stared at it. From behind the screen door, Madame Kovács protested in a frenzy of curse words. Gavin had an idea and moved over to the screen door. He extended the radio, jiggling it at her.

  “You want it?” he asked, pointing at it. Now that he was in striking distance, Kovács became quiet. Her glare burned through the mangled mesh of the screen at him.

  … That nice young preacher, Brother Taylor, dropped by today

  Said he'd be pleased to have dinner on Sunday, oh, by the way

  “Yes? You want? Give me a light and you can have it back.”

  From behind her rushed a yipping, bug-eyed Chihuahua in full attack mode. Madame Kovács picked up the dog and shoved its barking face at Gavin from the other side of the screen door like a weapon.

  This was getting absurd.

  … He said he saw a girl that looked a lot like you up on Choctaw Ridge

  And she and Billy Joe was throwing somethin' off the Tallahatchie Bridge

  Gavin sighed, disgusted with the whole affair. He stared at her for a moment, looking for the slightest hint of reconciliation. There was none, and the rat of a dog didn’t show any sign of stopping either. Gavin shook his head.

  As he moved to return the transistor radio to the table, he lost his footing on an uneven part of the deck. All 263 pounds of him came down like a sack of bricks. He caught himself with his hands, and the radio went silent. Returning to his feet, he saw the fragments of the blue AM receiver on the ground beside him.

  Seemingly unaware, Kovács shouted, “You go! Not good to be here!”

  Gavin mumbled, “Crazy old witch, I oughta just leave it here for her and her stupid dog.”