by Bill Turpin
Without shifting her attention from the dance floor, she asks: “Are you done, or would you like me to take my shirt off?”
And just like that, he’s been exposed. A full-blown chauvinist caught ogling a professional colleague and mentor.
“Done what?”
The Veteran Reporter swings around and faces him full on. There’s no escape. Max is inclined to turn away, but knows he can’t without looking like a fool. It’s like he’s a Star Trek character locked in a force field.
“Done checking me out.”
Max decides to roll the dice. “It’s the most rewarding thing I’ve done all day,” he says, and waits for a blast.
She takes a long pull from her draft glass and leans toward him.
“How is it you can trip over a guy who’s just shot himself and then write two news stories before the hour’s up? You see bodies all the time?”
‘‘First one,” Max says, “and you’re right. I don’t feel a thing. I think I must be some kind of sociopath.”
“Well, then you’ve made the right career choice. So tell me the whole story from the sociopath point of view. I’ve never met one before.”
Max starts his tale with the police radio call and moves quickly to the spookiness of the woods. Finding the body, he says, was like an electric shock. He describes how he had the reaction before he even understood something was wrong.
“How did you know he was dead?”
“It was the crater in his chest. Hardly any blood, just a black hole with edges surrounding it.”
“How big was it?”
“Jesus, I dunno. I guess I could have stuck my thumb in it.”
Max describes the rest of the scene, the horrified look on the guy’s face, which Veteran Reporter describes as a “bit melodramatic”. Nonetheless, she’s listening carefully. He tells her the saddest thing was seeing the empty rifle box.
“Why?”
“Don’t know.”
“So here’s the question I ask all sociopaths: Why did it take you twenty minutes to do a five-minute drive? WERE you doing something perverted in the woods like the boss said?”
Max knows she’s making fun of him, but gives a straight answer.
“I drove to the Canadian Tire parking lot and had a couple of smokes.”
Max tells her he imagined the guy’s route across the pavement from Canadian Tire to the woods. He could see him carrying the rifle box, hunched over against the rain, his giant head covered by a toque, and his giant boots anchoring him to the ground. Like a walking question mark. How was it possible to form and maintain so much self-destructive intent? Go to the store, buy the gun, buy some ammo, carry the box across the parking lot — careful crossing the street! — walk into the woods, find the right spot, load the shiny new gun, lie on the wet ground, put the muzzle to his lumberjack shirt and then reach up to jab the trigger with his thumb.
It was a lot to take in, so Max needed some time in the parking lot before he got back on the road.
The Veteran Reporter is smiling again, just like she did when the Copy Editor decided to leave them alone in Cat Shack. They drink and work their way through the usual topics twice more.
Now the DJ gets to his favourite part of the night — when he pretends he’s working for a radio station. He lowers his voice an octave and leans into the mike: “And now, we’ll slow things down for the lovers out there, and perhaps even some new lovers who’ve found each other at the Cat Shack tonight. We’ll see you all next Saturday. Until then . . . the night is ours.”
Usually this is a signal for the last round, but that doesn’t seem right without the Copy Editor there, so Max reaches to unhook his jacket from the back of his chair. The Veteran Reporter has a different idea.
“C’mon,” she says. “Let’s dance. I’ve never danced with a sociopath.”
Max has the idiot-thought that it might be unprofessional, but gets it under control. She looks him in the eye.
“You can do this,” she says. “It’s only four songs: Woman, Woman; Killing Me Softly with His Song; When a Man Loves a Woman, and Midnight at the Oasis.”
How does she know that?
“Dance with her,” the voice in his head says.
Intrigued and unwilling to hurt her feelings, he agrees. She grabs Max’s hand and leads him to the dance floor.
The Veteran Reporter maintains what Max judges to be a professional distance as they begin slow dancing, her left hand on his right bicep. Seeing her this close, he thinks he’s beginning to see the Copy Editor’s point. Max has created an image of her as an aging amazon, but up close it’s different. His hand covers most of her back, which feels supple. Max can see the top of her head, which is covered with brown hair in long curls, not wild tangles. He wonders if the Veteran Reporter’s hair has always been shiny or is it just tonight. He’s astonished to notice that her skin is perfect. He wonders if she might be a lot younger than he assumed.
Max starts to get a shaky feeling in his chest but, just in time, his thought-police regain control of the riot in his body. Why do people think Woman, Woman (Have You Got Cheating on Your Mind) is romantic, he thinks. Gary Puckett is singing about his woman cheating on him. How can that be romantic?
Next: Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly With His Song. Once again, it doesn’t make sense. What’s romantic about killing? The Veteran Reporter slides her hand from his bicep to his shoulder, moves a little closer, close enough that his skin tingles. How would I describe her smell, if I had to, he asks himself. Max’s mind races through his favourite smells. Cinnamon? No! Vanilla? Jesus Christ, vanilla? No, she smells . . . good. You’re going to be a big-time writer and the best you can come up with is GOOD? But good is all he can think of. Just really good. Roberta sings “strumming my pain with his fingers.”
Percy Sledge steps up with When A Man Loves A Woman. Well, this makes a little more sense. THIS is romantic. Max is just starting to wonder if the Veteran Reporter might be the same age or younger than him when she closes the remaining gap between them. Apparently there is a notch below his right shoulder where her cheekbone fits perfectly. The thought-police are about to compare the whole thing to a space-docking but can’t because she has already completed the manoeuvre. The presence of breasts is re-confirmed, as well as thighs. Max is overcome by an urge to hum to her. They are weightless inside a capsule of scent and body heat.
It’s too much for the thought-police, who stagger out the door, leaving Max to fend for himself. Max thinks of her irresistible voice, which he now realizes he could hear over the din of a thousand newsroom typewriters, even over the buzz of his own thoughts. He thinks of all the times she made him laugh with her clever comebacks, how much he likes it when she teases him. She’s just so . . . nice . . . he thinks. Max hums to her. Percy sings “If she plays him for a fool; He’s the last one to know; Lovin’ eyes can’t ever see.”
The Voice is back: “It’s the Wife, dummy. Relax.”
Percy’s almost done, which is a problem because something has asserted itself. If they have to make their way back to the table now, it will reveal itself as a sturdy tent-pole rather than the tiny legume described by the Editor. Max feels like he’s fourteen again, walking between classes with his three-ring binder held awkwardly over his groin. It’s not a good feeling. “Are you sure there are four songs?” he asks her. “Yes,” she breathes into his ear. “Do you want to sit down . . . for some reason?”
Mercifully he doesn’t have to answer because the DJ segues from Percy Sledge to Maria Muldaur singing Midnight at the Oasis. What will she think if she notices it, Max wonders, as Maria urges him to “send your camel to bed . . . Cactus is our friend.” He is miserable. He has just realized how fond he is of the Veteran Reporter, and now he is in danger of revealing himself as, well, unprofessional. They dance like this for a while.
Maria sings “I can be your belly d
ancer, prancer, and you can be my sheik.” Suddenly there is a minor commotion between them, as if the Wife has tripped. As they rearrange themselves, the tent-pole has miraculously moved to a position more or less flat against his belly. This gives him hope of making it back to their table without attracting attention. They dance. It is pleasant. Maria sings “you won’t need no camel, no, no, when I take you for a ride.”
The Wife presses herself against him, humming, with his predicament firmly sandwiched between their bodies. The shared knowledge of its existence can no longer be denied.
Maria sings:
Come on, Cactus is our friend
He’ll point out the way
Come on, ’til the evenin’ ends.
“Maxie,” the Wife’s unmistakable voice whispers into his ear.
She’s so young.
“I hope that cactus is for me,” she says.
But Max’s lust for her is overpowered by an inexplicable feeling that he has arrived somewhere. Again, he hears his own voice: “Here,” it says. “This is where it ends.”
Max squeezes the Wife tightly, allows his eyes to close, and lets his mind rest.
Acknowledgements
Andrew Safer for his generous help.
All who toiled at the passionate and fearless
Halifax Daily News.
And, of course, the folks at Guernica Editions.
About the Author
Bill Turpin has worked most of his career as a journalist, first in Montreal and more recently Halifax, but has also afflicted government and the communications world. He is currently living off his wits while studying to be a gadfly. Turpin is married and the father of two cats. Max’s Folly is his first novel.
Copyright © 2016, Bill Turpin and Guernica Editions Inc.
All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.
Max’s Folly is a work of fiction. All the characters and situations portrayed in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
Michael Mirolla, general editor
Lindsay Brown, editor
David Moratto, interior and cover design
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Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2016938887
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Turpin, Bill, 1950-, author
Max’s folly [electronic resource] / Bill Turpin.
(Essential prose ; 128)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77183-075-1 (paperback).--ISBN 978-1-77183-076-8
(epub).--ISBN 978-1-77183-077-5 (mobi)
I. Title. II. Series: Essential prose series ; 128
PS8639.U773M39 2016 C813’.6 C2016-902174-2 C2016-902175-0
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