Night Train

by Thom Jones

  Yrs,

  Stagger Adam Lee Huxtable

  P.S. Did you get the check? I know you’re too proud to ask but I got all this advance money for the new season—for once I’ve got *too much* money and since you don’t, I wanted you to have it. You shouldn’t go back to work until you are strong again, and you shouldn’t pull such long shifts anymore. You have to learn how to take better care of yourself now. Pace yourself. I read that doctors have a life expectancy of sixty because of the hours they put in. Also, take note: You already know this, I’m sure, but babies that weigh over ten pounds often become diabetic. I don’t want to sound like a worrywart, but feed this kid sushi and don’t let either one of the girls get into junk food when they turn four and see all the other kids wolfing it down. I’m really happy for all of you. Really am. Thanks for not telling me the name. I have to go my own way and I don’t want to know the name. Thanks for respecting that.

  P.P.S. You didn’t name her LaDonna or Chandelle or some shit like that, did you? ROFL.

  P.P.P.S. My own baby (the novel) is now three-quarters finished. I’ve got the voice down and the characters have taken on a life of their own. I’ll just see where it leads. It’s great fun, only they don’t like to print fat books anymore because of the paper costs. Well, it’s too good not to print. I’ve gotten so high on this goddamn book that I know soon I’m going to get exactly that low. It’s some kind of universal law. I mean, with the baby—you have hope and joy. You have unconditional love looking at you. What a great Christmas present, huh? I was secretly regretting this whole thing until I got your message today. Now I’m truly glad. I had a rare unselfish moment. Careful there, Ace. The next thing you know, you’ll be volunteering at soup kitchens. LOL.

  Yours, the one and the only,

  Aceman

  P.S. What actually did you name her? Forget what I said about not wanting to know; I want to know.

  to: CC14

  subject: Love You Madly, Need You Badly

  date sent: December 31, 1999

  Dear Carol,

  Why aren’t you answering my messages? Did your computer crash with the millennium bug? Total cataclysm isn’t supposed to happen until tomorrow. Are you okay? What’s going on? Your phone number, I see, is hereby unlisted. I called the goddamn hospital—I even called Bob, who refuses to spill. Does he know that we fucked seven ways till Sunday? Did you meet some new guy? Why are you hiding from me? I can’t really, in all modesty, imagine you met a *neater* guy than me. So what the fuck is going on? Do I have to fucking drive to Iowa City and hunt you down? Christ, baby, you’re making me crazy! So what is up?

  Don’t think I failed to sense a shift coming. Actually, I expected you to pull some shit like this.

  I know you, and I know your nature. You will be crawling back on your hands and knees. And that’s what really frosts me. Because as I write this, I’m disgusted with you. In two weeks, I will have forgotten that you ever existed. And when you see yourself in my book, when you see how deftly I captured your pathetic essence—then, dear heart, you will be the one who is devastated, humiliated, and utterly destroyed! You will suffer agonies that you have never imagined—you thought last time was “excruciating”? Baby, you don’t even know the meaning of the word. You are one stupid fucking bitch! And you’ll find there’s nothing you can hit me with. My wife read the book; she knows my proclivities all too well. You cannot get back at me this time. I am the victor. In two mere weeks—fourteen days—(that’s right, sugar pie, the clock is already running) you will be nothing but a long-forgotten memory. I won’t know you anymore. Two short weeks and you are forever dead to me. I’ve got better things to worry about than your sorry ass. The “novel,” if you dare read it, will fill you with impotent rage. I held back nothing. Slap your $24.95 on the table. This whole thing was a setup, a hustle: Lisa, the babies—everything. You may ask yourself why? Why am I such an evil cocksucking bastard? That’s a fair question, dear heart, and the answer is this: Even I don’t know the true extent of my evil genius. I just am and I revel in what I am. You want to escape notoriety when it hits the bestseller list, move to Albania or wherever. That’s right, go ahead—feel free and just have yourself a happy little New Year’s. You know something, Carol? I hate you and you can suck my motherfucking dick.

  As always, I remain your obliged humble servant.

  Farouk, King of the Assholes

  All Along the Watchtower

  CLIFFORD HOMER GRIMES​ JR. got the interview thanks to an uncle on his mother’s side of the family. Harry was a bottom-feeder in the Daley machine who had just enough bite to foist his wayward nephew onto the city’s Department of Transportation. He did this reluctantly, only after his sister Martha got down on her knees and begged. But Uncle Harry came through. After announcing the good news, Harry sat in her living room fingering his pencil-thin mustache as he awaited a token gesture of thanks. Clifford being Clifford, none was forthcoming. Harry moved to the bay window and saw a cop stick a parking ticket under the wipers of his Oldsmobile. He was out the door like a shot. It was all a blur to his groggy nephew, who was recovering from a stupendous hangover. Moments later Harry was back, holding an orange ticket. “Too late, goddamn it, but I know people in Traffic. I’ll have it squashed. The sons of bitches.”

  Harry had been worn down by his sister’s appeals. His nephew was a fucked-up mess, and when (not if) he was canned, Harry’s good deed would generate only scorn downtown. It was an idle stab, but Harry handed Clifford a paperback copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People. He had done his best; his nephew was hopeless. All he wanted to do was hang out with those faggots at the gym and lift weights. He looked like a goddamn freak. Then Harry put on his trench coat and stepped outside. He noticed a couple of kids running away from his car. The Olds hadn’t been on the street more than fifteen minutes and it had been zapped by the parking ticket and a pair of quick-ass hubcap thieves.

  Clifford dragged himself into the bathroom, brushed his teeth, and left for the gym. Interview in less than a day; he was terrified. After his workout he went home for a nap.

  At eight-thirty P.M. Clifford got up and hit the bars. He favored silk shirts, gilded chains, a zircon pinkie. As his main man Winston liked to say, “Who’s goin’ get the booty, muh fuck? I’ll tell you: the chief peacock, not that ugly drab-ass uncle!” When Clifford told him about the interview, Winston hopped around Casey’s Bar and Grill singing, “After breakfast every day, she never fail to say, Get a job. Sha da da da, sha da da; yip yip yip yip, mum mum mum, get a job.” Clifford proceeded to get hammered.

  When he came to the next day, the last thing he remembered was puking in the alley. He glanced at his watch. Shit, it was late. He got dressed and was out the door with barf still on his breath. The battery in his beat-to-shit Morris Minor was dead. He looked at his Timex again—shit, eleven-thirty—and made a dash to the El. He chewed his fingernails and paced. The train came at last, packed to the gills. By the time he showed up for the interview, his iridescent blue satin shirt was stained with sweat. The chain around his neck was a major mistake. This was a suit-and-tie interview, and he looked like a damn greaseball. He tried to slide his pinkie ring off, but he couldn’t get it past his second knuckle. He reeked of booze, vomit, and cologne.

  There were no preliminary courtesies. The three-person panel immediately began firing questions. Flop sweat rolled down Clifford’s face. He reached for his handkerchief, a crumpled yellow rectangle of cloth, and shook it open; the members of the panel recoiled. The three huddled over his résumé, speaking in whispers. Clifford heard snatches of muted questions.

  “Fired? A drywall hanger? What’s this here, mortuary assistant? Well, what is it, mortuary or exterminator? Both? Fired from both? Oh my God, a paperboy! Thirty-three years old and a paperboy?”

  Clifford struggled to compose himself. Having heard enough, the assistant deputy commissioner of the Bureau of Bridges and Transit tossed his half-frames on the table and rocked back in
his chair. He locked his hands behind his head and leaned back, revealing two muffs of nasal hair. The smirk on his face was enough to make Clifford want to pound the bastard to the ground.

  A man resembling Joseph Stalin poured a glass of water. He took several small sips, straightened his tie, and began, “Mr. Grimes, it says here you served in the armed forces. Tell us about that.”

  Clifford told the panel he had won a Silver Star during Operation Desert Storm. A broad grin lit the assistant commissioner’s narrow face. He leaned forward, picked up his glasses, and said, “Your recent work history points in the opposite direction, Cliff. Things just don’t seem to jibe here.”

  Clifford wiped down his face and said, “Look, I can do this job!”

  “An orangutan can do the job. That’s not the point.”

  The heat of the room was unbearable. Clifford rolled up his sleeves, revealing a tattoo that read JULIET AND CLIFF, TRUE LOVE SPRINGS ETERNAL. He saw six eyes fall upon it. He could scarcely breathe. He said, “Gulf War. Sergeant in the Green Berets. Some heavy shit went down, and—”

  The third member of the panel interrupted Clifford. She was a dour woman of fifty, her hair in a salt-and-pepper bob. She had a snub nose as bad as Lon Chaney’s in The Phantom of the Opera. The woman waved a copy of Clifford’s service record and said, “Bad-conduct discharge. Private. No Green Beret, but a four-month stretch in the stockade.”

  Clifford hadn’t thought about a background check; this job was supposed to be a shoo-in. He turned up his palms in a gesture of wonder. “You must have the wrong Clifford Grimes.” He swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed up and down like an elevator. His larynx was tight, dry, and strained. He sounded like Tweety Bird with his cartoon nuts in a vise. The interview was blown.

  The assistant commissioner replaced his glasses and scanned Clifford’s service record. “These are discharge papers for a Clifford Howard Grimes at 1187 South Sullivan in Chicago. Is this your address, Cliff? You listed it as such on your application. Are we meant to believe there were actually two Clifford Howard Grimeses in the U.S. Army?”

  “It does seem a little far-fetched,” Clifford said. “I don’t under—”

  “I’ve heard enough bullshit for one day,” the commissioner said. “Let’s cut it off here. Thanks to your uncle Harry, you are hired, effective next Monday. Report to personnel at nine A.M. sharp, and be advised that all new hires work on probationary status the first six months. If you slip up, if you can’t cut the mustard, you’ll be out on your ear.”

  “I’m a hard worker. I never get sick, and I will do a terrific job; you will be glad you took me.”

  “Enough! Get the hell out of here!”

  As he staggered from the building his silk shirt was soaked. Oh man, Disasterville! But at least they didn’t know he’d been thrown in the brig for impregnating the colonel’s daughter, Juliet, an epileptic, fourteen years old, with an IQ of 64.

  The bridge-tender job was simple. All Clifford had to do was sit in the bridge house at Cermak Road and push a red button to let a ship pass through. Still, Clifford pissed and moaned because they stuck him on the graveyard shift. Harry said, “What do you expect, sonny boy? You’re the junior tender. You’re lucky to get the job. Goddamn it, I’m not God! What more can I do?”

  “Graveyard sucks. Why do you think they call it graveyard? It fucks up your body rhythms. You don’t get any melanin, which leads to cancer, which leads where? I’ll tell you, Uncle Harry, it leads to the graveyard!”

  “Oh, fuck you, you son of a bitch. You don’t want a job. You just want to lift weights. You look like a cocksucking faggot. I’m done with you!”

  Harry was wrong; Clifford liked girls. Nights he prowled the neighborhood bars in a relentless search for pussy. Like Cinderella, Clifford now had to cut things short to punch in before midnight. Not many ships went by during his shift, and, half drunk, he often slept on a coffee-stained futon when things were slow, which was almost always.

  The two retractable leaves of the bridge opened like the jaws of a crocodile and could clamp down with surprising speed. With the push of a red button it was up or down, up or down. It was Clifford’s bad luck to come in drunk on a night when traffic was brisk. Up, down, up, down, until he was ready to die. As the booze wore off, the familiar black cloud draped over Clifford’s brain. He was worthless. Go out drinking? Never again!

  He felt better after the first month on the job. One night when things were especially slow he picked up How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book was a blueprint for moral renovation. Clifford bought a fresh copy and pressed it on Winston with the fervor of a street-corner evangelist. His buddy backed away. Clifford was coming on like some sort of twelve-step freak working his program. Who wanted to hear that crap? Clifford accepted this without resentment. His old life was shed like a snake’s skin.

  Back at the bridge house, Clifford set to work like a human tornado. He cleaned the windows with old terry-cloth towels and Windex. They were covered in pigeon shit, and it took all night. Next he hauled out the floor scrubber and removed what seemed like fifty coats of wax from the floors. He put down new wax and buffed it to a diamond-hard shine. After tearing off aged pinups, he painted the walls powder blue. The day man, Cotton McCormick, was not happy. The next day he came tramping on the fresh wax with his galoshes. He carried a bag filled with replacement centerfolds and tacked them to the walls.

  Clifford cleaned the refrigerator, an old-timer with the motor on the top. It was filled with rancid food and warmer than a swamp cooler. Clifford dumped everything, including a partially eaten tin of sardines. He took a screwdriver and attacked the glacier of ice in the freezer like a Gila woodpecker. Near the back Clifford discovered a Hungry Man meat loaf dinner, two Nutty Buddies, and a frozen rabbit. He pitched the lot into the river, then scrubbed the fridge interior with Mr. Clean. When he plugged the fridge in again the temperature dropped to forty degrees in the space of two hours.

  Cotton hit the ceiling when he discovered his “perfectly good sardines” missing. To make amends Clifford replaced them with three fresh cans of Pride of Norway sardines. The day man put on his reading glasses and studied the label suspiciously. Rather than thank Clifford, he took the sardines to the garbage can and slammed them to the bottom. “Those sardines are packed in soybean oil. Goddamn it, did you ever eat sardines packed in soybean oil? Soybeans are what they feed to pigs. The whole mess tastes like transmission fluid.”

  “I don’t eat sardines. I didn’t know.”

  “There are a lot of things you don’t know, Clifford. A whole lot. Keep your goddamn hands off a man’s food! And what’s this crapola coming in with a pierced ear and that stupid turban?”

  “It’s a do-rag, Cotton, not a turban. Winston gave it to me.”

  A blue vein throbbed on Cotton’s neck. “You come in looking like a damn jungle bunny. Now you’re talking like one. And tell me this: How can you man your post if you’re cleaning all the time?”

  “Hey, dude, I’m sorry about the sardines. I’ll get you a can of King Oscars and a box of saltines, okay? Meanwhile, what is so bad about clean? If you think I’m trying to make you look bad or rat you out, tell people I’m the lazy ass and you’re the one doing the cleaning.”

  Cotton had no retort, but Clifford felt himself take a swan dive into the dark abyss of his former life. You could only read How to Win Friends so many times before the chickens came home to roost.

  Not only did he continue his workouts at Gold’s Gym, he brought his own weights to work, where he spent another two to three hours pumping iron. To make up for lost ground he skin-popped huge doses of steroids and human growth hormone. In a matter of weeks he was a giant. The drugs brought to the fore long-buried primal urges.

  He called his old girlfriend, Suzie Q. Suzie had a low-slung ass, but her ta-tas were looking fine. After Clifford dicked her one afternoon, she told him to ditch the cologne. “It’s worse than chloroform. While you’re at it, lose those
gold chains. You look like Iceberg Slim.”

  He felt like saying, “And you can lose that cellulite, you fat-ass bitch.”

  She had more corrective advice. “Those muscles make you look like some kind of S&M fairy. Back off on the weight training.”

  “You liked me better when I was a geek?”

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “Definitely. You were smoking pot and mellow. Now you’re fucking scary!”

  He sent Suzie Q a dozen red roses the next day with a note that read “Dear Suz, I’m real sorry about last night, babe. You’re a real Georgia peach. XXX’s, Cliff.”

  There were attacks of roid rage. Once he clenched his teeth so hard he cracked a molar. The dentist who pulled the shattered tooth gave Clifford a script for pain pills. That night at work, while goofing on Percocet, Clifford picked up his high-powered binoculars and scanned the six-story Hudson & Swain lofts.

  Clifford spotted a brunette working on a clay sculpture. She was a newcomer to Hudson & Swain. She had a cigarette in her mouth as she removed her smock and washed the clay from her hands. She disappeared from view, and Clifford shifted his binoculars to another floor. Suddenly the brunette returned to the window nude except for a white towel around her head. He could see each and every detail.

  She stood at the window extracting another Gauloise from a blue packet as she raised the sill for a little air. Jesus, what a set! Thirty-four-D cups with no sag factor. She lit her cigarette with a Diamond-brand kitchen match. She took a deep drag as she shook out the match. She must have been about twenty-five, and she was absolutely gorgeous. She set the cigarette down on a white Martini & Rossi ashtray and removed the towel covering her hair. She leaned forward, running her fingers through her shoulder-length hair, and straightened up, flipping it back. Clifford’s dick was hard in an instant. It pressed against the inside of his Levi’s like a pole.