All My Colors

by David Quantick

  This time his head didn’t so much tilt back as jerk back like Todd had been shot, and his fingers went into overdrive. A passerby going past this time would have been horrified by the sight of a man leaning backward at an alarming angle, mouth agape and fingers smashing away at a typewriter, and would, had they not been too busy calling 911, have been put in mind of the keyboard player from a progressive rock band caught up in the throes of a complicated synthesizer solo.

  * * *

  How long this went on for, Todd could not say. He dined where he sat, he slept where he sat, he crapped where he sat: despite frequent diaper changes, Todd could feel the sores blooming on his butt and groin. His beard grew and grew into a tangled, matty bush. His teeth remained uncleaned and his sweat started to smell of nail varnish remover, as by now Todd was borderline starving and his body had begun to release acetone.

  He looked like a hermit writing his memoirs. He also looked like shit. Todd had read about the billionaire Howard Hughes ending his days as a recluse, thin as a rail with long white hair, collecting his own fingernail clippings and pissing into jars. Todd looked down at his etiolated frame. At least he had a jar, he thought. Fucking rich guys got it all.

  * * *

  Surprisingly often, the phone rang. Sometimes it was Janis, telling him to get in touch with her lawyer over some legal detail or other. Sometimes it was Sara, mouth close to the receiver in a way that a long time ago Todd would have found very sexy, asking where he was and what he thought he was doing. A couple of times it was Mike wondering when the old gang was going to get together. But mostly it was Billy Cairns.

  Initially, Todd did not enjoy Billy’s calls, but as time went by, they became part of his new life. Just as every TV watcher has shows they like and shows they hate, so Todd found he had callers he liked and callers he didn’t. Callers he didn’t included Janis—”You can hide out all you like, Todd. It’s just going to cost you more is all”—and Sara—”Todd, I need you to call me. I think someone tipped off Terry.” Callers he did comprised of Billy.

  Billy’s early work, in Todd’s opinion, was not his best. It followed a predictable pattern (probably because Billy’s mind was so fried he almost certainly had no memory of his previous calls). The answering machine would click on, Janis’s weary voice would ask the caller to leave a message, and then, after the beep, there would be several seconds of frightening, gulping breathing. And then, just when it seemed he would never speak, Billy would say:

  “Todd? ’S me, Billy.”

  Todd could almost see Billy looking around, as though fearful of being spotted. He imagined him leaning into the phone, flecking the mouthpiece with 100 percent proof saliva. Then:

  “Todd, I had the dream again. The dream where you’n’me were in the libe-aree.”

  If Todd had been blessed with empathy for other human beings, he might have felt something for a man who’d once been touted as a promising young author, but was now such a lush that he could no longer pronounce the name of the place where books were kept. Instead, whenever Billy called and said, “in the libe-aree,” Todd would generally call out, “‘Library,’ Billy. It’s pronounced ‘library.’”

  After revealing that the dream featured Todd and Billy in the libe-aree, Billy would generally start muttering fearfully to himself, and Todd would shout, “Speak up, Bill!” But then Billy would have rung off, having spooked himself back into a terrified silence.

  The calls went on like this for a while, but then, like all long-running shows, they began to evolve. This second iteration was in many ways Todd’s favorite, not least because the calls seemed to coincide with Todd’s rest periods. Todd would be sitting back in his chair, enjoying some once-sparkling water or gnawing on an energy bar, when the phone would ring, Janis would invite the caller to speak after the tone, and then Billy would step in and get right to it.

  “Todd, Billy,” he’d say. “I got to tell you about the dream. I got to do it.”

  “Do it, Billy!” Todd would shout as he tried to soothe his groin with a wet tissue before diapering up again.

  “Todd,” Billy would say, “The libe-aree. It was you’n’me in the libe-aree.”

  “With the lead pipe, yeah, you said,” shouted Todd. “Get to it, Bill.”

  “Except it wasn’t the libe-aree,” Billy would say. “Todd, it wasn’t the libe-aree.”

  “You just said it was the libe-aree,” Todd would sing out as he eased his ravaged body back into his seat and loaded more paper into what he now called the Iron Maiden. “Was it the libe-aree or was it not the libe-aree, Billy?”

  “Todd, I know you ain’t going to believe me—”

  “Aren’t going to,” corrected Todd as he watched his bruised and blistered fingers get ready to go again.

  “But that place was the hardware store, Todd. The one I told you about.”

  “It’s okay, Billy,” Todd would say, more to himself than out loud, because the old eidetic generator was powering up inside him. “I suppose I could have used that info a while back. But right now”—and suddenly his fingers flew out at the keyboard like bats from an increasingly crowded belfry—”I got problems of my own.”

  The third set of calls were, Todd supposed, like the last days of a former hit show, the kind where all the original writers and producers are long gone, but some of the cast are still hanging in there, and loyal fans still tune in, but the magic has dried up. There were only three or four of these calls, and they were pretty short. Mostly they went like this:

  Janis would invite the caller to speak after the beep. There would be the longest pause. And then Billy would just start crying. Sometimes he’d cry for a few seconds, sniffle and then hang up. Sometimes he’d cry and gulp and try and speak and then hang up. And sometimes he’d just cry and cry and cry for so long that the tape would beep and cut him off.

  Todd didn’t say much during these calls. They were distressing, even for him. And also he was getting tired, and needed to direct all his effort into his writing. The typewriter was an Iron Maiden that never seemed to get any less hungry, whereas Todd was running low on energy bars and, indeed, energy. So he just sat there while Billy huffed and sniffed and cried. And sometimes Todd cried too.

  * * *

  There was one final call, and it was not like the others. Billy sounded different again. Weak, but determined, like a kitten at the bottom of a well that was doing its darnedest to get out again.

  “Todd,” he said. “I know you’re there ’cos I can see you.”

  Todd started. He looked out the window, but it was night and there was nothing there but the moon.

  “I know you’re listening right now, too,” Billy said. “I can see you, sitting at that thing, letting it use you.”

  Todd actually looked around. “Billy,” he said, and immediately felt foolish.

  “I suspect I don’t have much time,” said Billy. “It’s got—”

  And he giggled. It wasn’t a very nice giggle.

  “It’s got its teeth into me,” he said.

  Todd felt his guts freeze at that. He had no idea what Billy meant, but he doubted he was talking about his drink problem. Todd was pretty sure Billy was using neither metaphor nor simile. He was talking about real fucking teeth.

  “So I’ll just say this,” Billy went on. “Whatever you’re doing, you better stop now. I know you’re going to say you can’t stop. Listen to me, you fucking jerk. I loathe you. I always did. But what I say now I say for the good of your soul. Which I maintain is a separate and more deserving entity.”

  Todd remained silent. He had never heard Billy talk like this. Probably nobody had since about 1957.

  “Stop it now. Walk away. It’ll hurt, but you can do it. If you don’t…”

  The giggle again.

  “Well,” said Billy. “It’s got plenty of teeth for everyone.” And he rang off.

  After that, there were no more calls.

  * * *

  The next day, Todd was surprised to wak
e up in his own bed. He had no idea how he’d got there, but he wasn’t too fussed. Somehow he had gotten into bed and slept. He still felt like he’d been pushed off a cliff, and he was still wearing an (apparently full) adult diaper, but he’d had worse hangovers and, more importantly, he wasn’t sitting in his study typing.

  He examined his fingers in the mid-morning light. They were battered, bloody, and looked like he’d used them to claw his way out of a lead coffin. But they were his again.

  Todd slowly lowered himself out of the bed, trying not to look at the sores on his thigh, and ran his hand absently over his beard. It felt filthy and dull, as did the rest of his hair.

  “Time for a bath,” he said, and made his way gingerly into the bathroom.

  As the bath was running, Todd treated himself to a few minutes on the toilet, enjoying—despite his very painful ass—his first unfettered bowel movement since he didn’t know when. He drained a tooth glass full of cool clear tap water. He got up, flushed, and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.

  The face in the mirror was not a pretty one.

  “Shit,” Todd said. “I look like Charles Manson.”

  He rummaged in a drawer for a pair of Janis’s scissors and began to hack away at his facial hair. He went over to the bath and poured in everything fragrant that he could find. He turned the bath off and got in.

  Immediately an orchestra of pain started a symphony in his nether regions. Todd just gritted his teeth and waited for the agony to subside. When it finally did, he closed his eyes, ducked his head under water, and counted to a hundred. Then with a gasp he sat upright in the bath again. He repeated this process several times until he was sure he could now run his hands through his hair to wash it.

  An hour later, washed, shaved, and with enough antiseptic cream on his nethers to stifle a horse, Todd felt able to venture back into his study, cautiously like a man who fears there might be a dead body in the room. What he saw was a far from pleasing sight. The desk and floor were littered with crumpled wrappers, empty bottles, and crushed cartons. There were spots of blood on the rug and on the typewriter. And the place stank. It stank of Todd, and what came out of Todd.

  Todd was about to throw open every window he could find when he stopped. Next to the typewriter, stacked with an almost inhuman neatness, was a thick pile of paper, the size of a large cornflake packet. Todd approached it gingerly, as though it were going to (teeth) bite him. He picked up the first sheet.

  ALL MY COLORS

  by Todd Milstead

  Todd flicked through the sheets of paper. They were impeccably typed, neatly laid out and the product of a more orderly mind than his. After a moment’s thought, he flipped the stack over and pulled out the last page. It said simply:

  The End

  Todd was about to go back and read the last part of the story when something (teeth) made him stop. He put the paper back in the right order, found a clean and empty cardboard box—the kind with thick sides and even thicker staples to hold it together—to store it in, and put the box and manuscript on a high shelf, just for safety. Then he threw open every window he could find.

  “Now what?” Todd said out loud and his inner voice answered, a smoke’d be nice. Todd realized as the words came into his mind that he hadn’t had tobacco since he’d started writing the book. He’d had no cravings either, which was weird because normally after ten minutes without his pipe or a cigarette, Todd would be jonesing for a tobacco hit. But he was feeling the itch again, the irritation which meant it was time to light up.

  Todd found a pouch of tobacco and his pipe and was looking for some matches or a lighter when the phone rang again. He was tempted to let the answerphone take it, just for old times’ sake, but that was too much a reminder of how he’d been spending the last few—the last few days or weeks, he had no idea, but the last few anyway. So Todd lifted the receiver and said:

  “Milstead residence, Todd Milstead speaking.”

  “Milstead? This is Pete Fenton.”

  Todd’s mind had been so far away from reality lately that for a moment he had no idea who Pete Fenton might be. Then it came to him. The lawyer.

  “Mr. Fenton, good to hear from you—”

  “I doubt that. Milstead, before we go on, I want you to speak to Alice.”

  “Alice?”

  “My secretary. You used profanities down the line to her last time you called here. I would like you to apologize to her, personally.”

  Jeez, lighten up, Todd thought. In truth, he had no memory of speaking to Alice, let alone swearing at her, but what the fuck, if this born-again douche with a broom-handle up his rear end was so pussy-whipped as to let his secretary push him around, what business was that of Todd’s? So he waited while Alice huffed onto the line and he said:

  “Alice, this is Todd Milstead. I’m very sorry if anything I said or did may have offended you.”

  There was a moment of silence while the uptight old spinster processed Todd’s words and then she said, “That’s all right. Thank you, Mr. Milstead.”

  Fenton came back on the line. “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay,” echoed Todd. Some people, he thought as he filled his briar.

  “I understand from Alice,” said Fenton, in a voice way more formal than he’d used last time they spoke, “that you have some information concerning your wife’s activities.”

  “Yes I do,” said Todd, finally discerning the real reason for the call. Money. “I witnessed something which I feel may alter the nature of the divorce… settlement.”

  “I see,” said Fenton. “According to my secretary, what you witnessed was—and I quote—‘My wife’s fucking some other guy.’”

  “Yeah,” said Todd. “I didn’t actually see her fu—sleep with him, but I did see them go into a diner together.”

  “A diner?” said Fenton. “And after they went into the diner, is that when they fucked?”

  “Excuse me?” said Todd. “No, of course not.”

  “The parking lot then?” said Fenton. “Did she fuck the other guy in the parking lot?”

  “I don’t know,” said Todd. “I mean, no of course not. Fenton, whose side are you on?”

  “Nobody’s side, Mr. Milstead,” said Fenton smoothly. “I’m a lawyer.”

  “Goddammit, you’re my lawyer,” snarled Todd.

  “I haven’t seen any documents to that effect,” said Fenton. “And no money has changed hands.”

  “I’ll bring over a check right away,” Todd said, almost choking with rage.

  “Okay then,” said Fenton brightly. “Let’s start again. You witnessed your wife and another man… being intimate.”

  Todd took a deep breath.

  “I didn’t exactly witness anything,” he said. “But I implied it.”

  “You inferred it,” said Fenton, immediately moving himself from Todd’s mental list of assholes to his mental list of complete and utter assholes. “You saw your wife and another man go into the diner where they—what?”

  “They ordered food together,” said Todd, feeling foolish. “And the food arrived, and they began to eat it.”

  “Began to eat it?” asked Fenton. “Do you mean that something interrupted their meal?”

  “Yes,” said Todd, feeling more foolish. “It was me. I was—compelled—to step into the parking lot and they became… aware of me.”

  Fenton paused for a moment. Todd had a feeling the bastard was beginning to enjoy himself.

  “A while back, I heard from a cop friend about a little fracas outside Bill’s Tire Shop,” he said. “Which is next to Roberta’s Diner, I believe.”

  “What of it?” said Todd.

  “Oh, nothing,” Fenton said. “Just interesting. I know from Alice that Janis goes there sometimes. Wondered if it might be the same place. That’s all.”

  Todd said nothing.

  “Apparently, or so the cop told me, Bill had to punch a guy because he was some kind of peeping Tom,” Fenton continued, almost blithely. �
��But I guess these are two isolated incidents.”

  Todd’s knuckles were as white as ivory.

  “Could we,” he said with what he hoped was calm restraint, “get back to me?”

  “I’m sorry, I thought we were talking about you,” said Fenton. “Concerning the incident you witnessed, I mean.”

  Todd put the receiver carefully down on the side table. He drew back his fist and punched the wall, hard enough to make a small crater in it. He paused to let the pain sink in and then picked up the receiver again.

  “Sorry, Milstead, I thought I lost you for a moment there,” said Fenton.

  “I’m here,” said Todd through gritted teeth.

  “Look,” said Fenton, tired of the weak sport and wanting to throw his catch back in now, “unless you have documentary evidence of your wife being with another man, this news of yours will have no effect whatsoever on your divorce settlement. And even then… the courts tend to favor a no-fault divorce these days, you know.”

  “They tend to favor the bitch!” shouted Todd, and slammed the receiver down. The mouthpiece flew off and hit him in the eye.

  “Motherfucker!” he shouted and slammed the entire phone into the wall again and again, hearing it ding senselessly before it smashed. Todd dropped it and slumped to the floor, head in hands.

  There was no escape. That damn cow was going to take him for everything he had. He was going to be the loser he’d always secretly feared he might be. No friends, no money, no luck: this would be the Todd Milstead story from now on. Unless he could get the book published. Visions of dollar bills literally danced before Todd’s eyes: like a cartoon character, he imagined himself signing book deals, receiving huge checks, being fellated by book groupies, and generally achieving undreamed-of levels of fame.

  For a moment, he imagined himself being interviewed.

  “Where do you get your ideas from?” asked the buxom young interviewer.

  “Where does anyone get their ideas from?” replied Todd, no longer slumped against a wall but sitting relaxed in a TV studio.“Experience, practice, imagination…”