All My Colors

by David Quantick

  “Well, if I didn’t, who else did?” Todd reasoned to himself. He looked at the typewriter. There was a piece of paper in it, with words typed on it, two or three paragraphs that ended halfway through a word. Todd had written and written until he was forced to stop through sheer exhaustion. Other writers might have worried about picking up the thread again, but not Todd. He could, as it were, just rewind the tape in his head to the point where he’d left off, like a secretary taking dictation from her boss. Except in this case, Todd didn’t know who the boss was.

  He didn’t want to think about that right now, though, and he certainly didn’t want to write any more until he’d got some food and coffee inside him. So (while Billy Cairns was bent double over his own toilet and finding out just how empty an empty stomach can be) Todd got stiffly out of his seat, and went out to his car, which was still parked at a rakish angle across the lawn.

  * * *

  Todd liked driving. It was manly, it was American and it put words and phrases into his head that he approved of, like “road” and “motion” and “Bildungsroman.” And besides, driving a car was a great feeling. There was the radio, which you could tune into jazz (hep, fifties), rock (still a young guy at heart), or classical (a thinker). Todd liked to twiddle his way across the dial and sample all these kinds of station, but invariably he would settle on a bland top forty station, ostensibly so he could feel that he was above this kind of pap, but really because he liked it.

  Right now Todd was cruising into town with Kansas blasting out the Volvo’s speakers, and composing an amusing riff that went what is it about all these groups who are named after places? Kansas, Boston, Chicago… it’s like America has to keep reminding itself that it’s America, a riff that ended when Todd was unable to think of any more bands who were named after places.

  A light turned red and Todd stopped the car. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in vague time to the radio. It was a long light. Todd looked around. He saw cars and trucks. He saw a strip mall. A tire shop, and a diner with an optimistically large parking lot. A small brown car was pulling into the parking lot. Todd despised small cars, regarding them as somehow un-American (the Volvo might be European but it was big, like an oblong Cadillac), and this one was particularly contemptible, being small enough to be Japanese.

  “A contemptible automobile,” said Todd to himself, as the driver—a not especially tiny-looking person in a leather jacket—got out. He adopted the voice of Top Cat. “A… contemptible…”

  He stopped. The driver of the contemptible automobile opened the passenger door and Janis got out. She smiled at the driver and they walked into the diner, hand in hand.

  “Son of a—” exclaimed Todd. He squirmed in his seat, trying to get a good look at the person Janis was with, but no matter how he tried, he just couldn’t get a fix. Behind him, car horns blasted. The lights were green. Todd stalled, started the engine again, and drove on. Then an idea occurred to him. Instead of going straight ahead, he made a sudden left and parked, not in the diner’s lot (he wasn’t that dumb), but outside the tire store next to the diner.

  He thought for a moment, then got out the car and went into the tire store.

  “Welcome to Bill’s Tire,” said the owner, presumably Bill. “Can I help you?”

  Yes, I think my wife is fucking some other guy, Todd thought but did not say.

  “I’m good,” he said, and walked through the store to the side window which, he hoped, offered a good view of the diner. To keep Bill from bothering him, he pretended to look at car stereos. Across the way, he could see Janis ordering breakfast. He couldn’t see the other guy’s face, just his dumb leather jacket.

  “That’s a good one,” said Bill, who had followed Todd over to the window.

  “Is it?” said Todd, who had no idea what stereo he was supposed to be looking at.

  “Yes, sir, got the FM and everything. Plays cassettes, about the only thing it don’t do is drive the car for you.” Bill guffawed. Todd made a kind of “heh” noise. Janis and the other guy were laughing at something now. Todd wished he’d brought a camera, to collect evidence. Evidence of what, he wasn’t sure.

  “You know those two?” said Bill suddenly.

  “Excuse me?” said Todd.

  “Those two people you’re staring at,” said Bill.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Todd, at the same time trying to look over Bill’s shoulder. Now Janis was leaning over and saying something to the other guy.

  “I don’t enjoy people coming in here to stare at other people like some fucking kind of pervert,” said Bill. “Now get out of here or I’ll make you get out.”

  “Can you move please?” Todd said, which was ill-advised.

  “Nobody fucking listens anymore,” said Bill, and punched Todd in the stomach.

  Todd doubled over.

  “What the fuck did you do that for?”

  “Plenty more where that came from,” said Bill. “Now get out before I get the tire iron.”

  Clutching his stomach, Todd made for the door, casting one last glance at the diner. A shove from Bill propelled him into the lot. He staggered, tripped into some trashcans, pulled himself up, and pulled a trashcan over with a mighty crash.

  * * *

  A few feet away, Janis heard the crash and looked out the window to see her future ex-husband trying to clamber to his feet and cover his face as he skulked back to his car.

  “Leave him,” said her companion as they watched Todd brush garbage off himself and get back into the Volvo.

  Janis, out of pure reflex, was about to defend Todd, but no words came, so she just smiled and shrugged.

  “You are so beautiful when you smile,” said her companion, and Janis smiled again.

  * * *

  Todd didn’t even wait until he got home before calling Pete Fenton. He pulled over by the curb and jammed himself into a phone box.

  “He’s not here right now,” said Pete’s secretary, Alice. “He’ll be back after lunch.”

  “Can I leave a message?” said Todd.

  “Sure,” said Alice. “What would you like me to tell him?”

  “Tell him my wife’s fucking some other guy.”

  There was a pause at the other end of the line, then Alice said frostily, “I’ll be sure to pass that on,” and put the phone down.

  * * *

  Todd drove to a bar to think things over. This time, remembering the drunken mess of two nights ago, he stuck to beer and, after even more thought, ordered some peanuts to soak up the booze. The problem as Todd saw it was one of fairness. Janis was divorcing him for—ugly word—adultery. That is, she knew he was fucking Sara, which by her lights was not only an offense, but a good reason for her to take all his money. Todd could understand her anger at the former—maybe if she’d been a little more willing in the bedroom department he might not have had to go elsewhere for his pleasure—but not the latter. Where for example in the Bible did it say that someone who had successfully coveted his neighbor’s wife should pay for it financially? It didn’t make any sense. “Hey, you fucked someone else, you have to give me all your money.” People committed murder and they got to keep their money, didn’t they? It was all wrong.

  And what made it even more tits-up topsy-turvy was that this only applied to the man. Todd was a feminist as much as anyone, but surely this was discrimination. The man dips his wick, he gets caught, he has to pay a substantial fine known as alimony. The woman—whatever “dipping her wick” would be for a woman—the woman plays away from home, and what happens? She gets the alimony. The whole thing was like playing heads or tails with a two-headed coin. Whichever way it came down, the man lost. And the man in this case was Todd. Shit, he thought, if I’d known I was going to get screwed this badly, I’d have fucked every woman in this town.

  With that happy if implausible thought in mind, Todd ordered one more beer for the road and sat back to suck the salt off his peanuts.

  * * *r />
  “Let me pay for this,” said Janis’s companion when the bill came.

  Janis beamed. “Todd never pays for anything,” she said. “He says this is an equal opportunities world now, so the man shouldn’t pay for everything. But that just means—”

  “You don’t have to talk about Todd so much,” said her companion.

  “I’m sorry,” said Janis. “It’s just for the longest time he’s been the only thing in my life. God,” she said, looking away for a moment, “How sad is that? How freaking… empty.”

  “All that’s over,” her companion said, taking Janis’s hand. “There’s a new world for you now. If you want it.”

  Janis looked up. She saw a pair of strong blue eyes, and a mouth that disguised concern in a smile.

  “I do,” she said. “I do want it.”

  * * *

  Todd got home, not too buzzed, and threw his keys at the wall. Then he checked his messages. Nothing from Janis, nothing from Sara, and then just a whole lot of rustling and breathing. He was about to erase the lot when he heard Billy’s familiar voice rasp out his name.

  “Todd,” said Billy on the tape, “Todd, you need to call me. I had this—”

  There was a pause long enough for Todd to feel irritated.

  “I had this dream,” said Billy’s voice. “You were in it.”

  “Jesus, Billy.” Todd winced. “I don’t need you to tell me your erotic fantasies.”

  “Todd,” said Billy, “it was more than a dream. It was a warning.”

  Todd sighed dramatically and erased the message.

  “Some people never realize the truth,” he said out loud. “But the truth is like the tide. It rolls in whether you know about it or not. And if you’re standing in the way of it, you’re going to get your feet wet.”

  He blinked.

  “Time to get to work, I guess.”

  * * *

  Todd was seated at his typewriter. He looked at the paper already in the machine, the word uncompleted on the paper, and was about to consider his next move when his fingers leapt at the keys and began hammering away as if of their own volition. Pages flowed out of Todd as he battered away, stopping only to put in fresh sheets of paper. A thin sweat broke out on his forehead, and his hands began to ache from the sheer mechanical act of typing, but he never stopped. After two hours, during which time Todd hadn’t stood up, taken a drink of water or turned on the lights, his body was unable to go on.

  He slumped in his seat. He looked at the fresh sheaf of words beside the typewriter.

  “Who’s writing who here?” he said out loud.

  He frowned. What the hell did that mean?

  After a few minutes, blood began to flow through his cramped muscles. Todd looked at his hands. They were flexing with eagerness to get back to work.

  “All right, boys,” he said. “Just let me get a sip of—”

  But his hands jerked forward—like a dowsing rod, Todd thought—and began clattering at the keys again, and did not stop until it was too dark for Todd to see and then, after he had turned his lamp on, until Todd himself was too tired to see.

  * * *

  Todd woke in his chair again, but what woke him this time was not the ache in his neck, or the light of the morning sun, but his hands. He looked down. The things were virtually drumming a tattoo on the table.

  Todd looked at his right hand. “Thank you, Thing,” he said, but it didn’t sound that funny and it also put an image into his head of his two hands, severed from his body, typing away quite happily while Todd sat there aghast, blood pumping from his useless wrists.

  “I need to eat,” he said to his hands, not feeling as dumb as he would have expected. “I need to take a dump, I need to wash, and I need to sleep in my own bed.”

  At once his hands relaxed. Todd lifted his arms and examined them. They seemed somehow his again.

  * * *

  An hour later, full of oatmeal, showered but not shaved, and rested after a brief nap, Todd found himself at the typewriter again. His hands virtually flew at the keys, like he was a deranged virtuoso pianist performing the concert of his life. As his fingers typed and typed and more and more sheets of paper were added to the pile, Todd was reminded of a movie he’d seen with Janis—a movie Janis had made him go and see with her—some English crud about a dancer who put on some magic ballet shoes and couldn’t stop dancing. At the time Todd had entertained himself, if not Janis, by laughingly asking why the dancer didn’t just shout, “SOMEBODY GET THESE DAMN SHOES OFF ME!” at the audience, but that too didn’t seem so funny now. Or so Todd thought as his fingers battered away at the keys.

  When he was able, as he was slotting another sheet of paper into the machine, Todd stole a glance at his fingers. They were red and swollen, as though he had been climbing a rock face with them. He wondered if he could get a bowl of warm water to bathe them in but the moment the paper was in the typewriter his hands were off again, like seagulls whirling relentlessly around and around.

  A passerby peering in through the study window would have seen an encouraging sight—Todd Milstead, would-be author, finally applying himself to his craft, writing solidly for hour after hour. The same passerby might wonder that Todd never seemed to worry about where the next word was coming from, and wrote at a consistent, but also maniacal speed, like he had so much to get out of himself and hardly any time to do so. They might also note that from time to time, Todd would open his mouth and emit a wordless yell, like someone trapped on a switchback.

  But there was no passerby, nobody for Todd to say get these damned shoes off me to, and no respite.

  * * *

  Seven hours passed, at which point Todd noticed that two of his fingers were bleeding.

  “Stop, dammit,” he said. “I need to get a Band-Aid.”

  In the bathroom, his hands twitched impatiently as Todd rummaged through the first aid kit. Inspired, he thrust them into his pockets, where they comprehensively thumped his thighs in frustration.

  “Oh darn,” he said in what he hoped was a convincingly flat tone, “We seem to be out of Band-Aids. I better drive to the store and get some.”

  And without a moment’s delay, he turned and walked downstairs and out of the house.

  * * *

  Todd’s hands were his again, which was good news for Todd, as he was currently using them to drive his car. He had no idea how long this would last (maybe forever, he thought. Maybe it would be his fate to be a conduit for every lost book ever written, and one day they would find his skeleton slumped over a previously unpublished Jane Austen novel), so he was determined to make the most of it. Which in this case meant visiting a Burger King drive-in and ordering the largest meal they had.

  “I have to eat,” he reasoned out loud as he maneuvered a Whopper to his mouth at the traffic lights. His hands seemed to have no argument with this, and even let him enjoy his fries with ketchup.

  Todd was so encouraged by this development he decided to take a chance and make his next destination not the drug store but the nearest bar.

  * * *

  It didn’t go well. As soon as he made a left instead of a right, Todd found himself making an extremely abrupt U-turn, to the accompaniment of furious horns, and then having a major fight on his hands, or rather with his hands, to regain control of the parking brake. There was a crunch. Todd’s car was stalled right in the middle of the road. He tugged at the parking brake, but to no avail.

  After a while a police car came by. Its driver got out.

  “Having trouble?” he said.

  “I stalled just as I was about to overtake someone,” Todd lied.

  The cop said, “You can’t stay here, pal. This is the middle of the road.”

  “I know that,” said Todd, testily. “I’m sorry,” he added. He felt his hands loosen.

  “Just get going,” said the cop. Todd started the engine, Todd’s hands released the brake, and the car drove off again.

  Todd sat behind the wheel, sweating
. His life was—he could see the cliché coming—out of his hands. As if to confirm the thought, he saw his hands turn the wheel and make a U-turn in the middle of the road.

  A few minutes later, they were at the drug store.

  “Now what?” Todd said to himself as he collected a cart from the entrance. He began walking, looking for Band-Aids. But his hands had other concerns. Or so he eventually worked out after he started slapping himself in the face. After a while he realized with a sick lurch that he was being directed by his own hands—left side of face for left, right side for right, and both sides for stop.

  Todd walked around the store, slapping himself like a maniac, and pausing only to look at shelves and work out what it was he was supposed to be buying. After a few minutes, he had several packs of aspirin and paracetamol, some long-life milk, several bottles of water, a box of energy bars, and—

  “Oh no,” said Todd. “The fuck no.”

  He was standing in front of a shelf of adult diapers. His hands reached out for a family pack (a family pack?) and placed it in the cart. Todd knew then that this was going to be a big book.

  * * *

  Back home, Todd found himself arranging the food and drink on the desk in front of him (he had already, against his will, put on the adult diapers, an experience he hoped he might one day forget) and sitting down at the typewriter. He’d been able to bathe his fingers in alcohol (sadly not the kind you could drink, although Billy Cairns might have had something to say about that), which he hoped would relieve the pain (he was wrong about that, but the paracetamol helped a little).

  Todd pulled a fresh pack of typing paper from a drawer—he had literally reams of the stuff lying around, just in case he ever had an idea that would sustain more than a chapter—checked that the typewriter ribbon was okay for a few more miles—make that “a few hundred more miles,” he thought grimly—and slid in a new sheet of paper.