“What a prick,” Pritcher said.
“I think he took me wrong,” Morgan said.
“He takes everything wrong. He’s just wrongheaded altogether.”
“Have you seen Valentine?” Morgan gulped beer, liked it, gulped some more.
“Not for a while.” Pritcher cleared his throat, leaned in close to Morgan, spoke low in conspiracy tones. “Look, don’t mention to anyone about Valentine’s being back. He doesn’t want-”
“I know,” Morgan said. “Mum’s the word.”
Dirk Jakes surged out of the party crowd, landed on swaying legs in front of Pritcher and Morgan. “All the goddamn broads at this party must be dykes.”
“Do tell,” Pritcher said.
“Buncha damn lesbos,” Jakes slurred. “You catch what I’m saying there, Morgo-man?” Jakes brayed laughter, yanked Morgan’s sleeve.
Beer splashed over Morgan’s cup. “Dammit. Again?”
“Jesus, sorry, Morgan.” Jakes threw himself in reverse, stumbled back to have a look where he’d spilled the beer. “What the hell? Are those slippers?”
“Forget it,” Morgan said. “You were telling us about the lesbians.”
“Yeah. Every bitch here a damn rug-muncher.”
“Striking out again, eh?” Pritcher’s lips curled into a smug grin.
Morgan thought about the woman in the blue cocktail dress, the one who’d almost plowed into him on the way into the party. He craned his neck, scanned the party for her. Nowhere. Too bad.
“That bimbo at the keg was the worst.” Jakes was still at it. “I know how to pour a fucking beer.”
The party music segued into “Folsom Prison” by Johnny Cash.
Pritcher wrinkled up his whole face like somebody had taken a dump in his cup. “Country music? You must be joking. Who’d put that on?”
Jakes looked stunned. “Are you fucking kidding?”
“What would I kid about?” Pritcher asked.
Morgan wiggled his toes within the damp slippers. They were just getting dry when Jakes had splashed the beer on them. His feet were cold and wet and he was sick of Pritcher and especially Jakes.
“It’s Johnny Cash, man.” Jakes waved his cup in the air like that explained it. “Johnny fucking Cash.”
“So?”
Jakes snorted. “You’re an idiot.”
“Okay, just forget it,” Pritcher said. “I’ve had enough of these drunks, Morgan. I’ve got to get up early anyway.”
“On a Saturday?” Morgan asked.
“I ride my bicycle in the mornings. Good night.”
Morgan waved as he left.
“What a dink,” Jakes said. “Can you imagine not liking Johnny Cash?”
Morgan didn’t say anything.
“I’m going to find some pussy,” Jakes said. “There must be some scratch at this party that isn’t lesbo.” And he was off to it again.
Morgan looked in his cup. He saw no beer and that made him unhappy. He threaded his way back to the keg.
The sports bar girl had moved on. Morgan elbowed a fat guy out of the way and refilled his cup. He wasn’t sure when he might be able to make it around to the keg again, so he threw back the beer fast and filled up again. He took his fresh beer back into the crowd.
The noise and the beer and the party were crowding out thoughts Morgan didn’t want to think. He was starting to feel good, a nice glow in his belly. He even forgot about his wet slippers.
A tap on his shoulder.
He turned and looked down into the soft eyes of the woman in the blue V-neck dress. She looked good.
“You’re Morgan?” she shouted over the music.
He smiled, nodded.
“This way.” She grabbed his elbow, pulled him along.
Morgan followed gladly.
She led him from the party, down the hall. She turned, walked, turned again, walked more, turned a few more times. The building didn’t seem big enough for this. Surely they were going in circles. Morgan couldn’t keep track, but he wasn’t trying too hard.
And he didn’t wonder too hard where he was going. It was good not to make such hard decisions for a change. He allowed himself a brief fantasy, like in Penthouse Forum. She’d take him to a secluded room, where she’d lift her skirt, tug aside her panties, and offer herself to him.
That didn’t happen.
She pushed open a door and led him into a smoky room lit by candles. A man he didn’t know sat deep in a cushy armchair. Valentine sat at the far end of a long, low sofa.
“Ah, good. It’s Professor Morgan.” Valentine puffed savagely on his bong. “Brad, this is Bill Morgan. Bill, Brad Eubanks. He’s the custodian here.”
“It’s Jay, actually.” Morgan shook the man’s hand.
“How do,” Brad said.
“I’m afraid I never got your name,” Morgan said to the woman.
“Annette Grayson.” She offered a slim hand.
Morgan shook. It was soft and cool. He let go reluctantly.
“We teach in the same department,” she said. “I manage the Writing Lab and oversee Freshman Composition. I’m surprised we haven’t run into each other before now.”
“I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
She pointed at Morgan’s beer cup. “You don’t actually want that, do you?”
“Don’t I?”
“Let me fix you something for a grown-up.”
She produced a bottle of vodka from thin air. Where had that been, between the couch cushions? Tonic next and a lime. Morgan was still reeling from the sleight of hand, when Annette pushed the vodka tonic at him. He took it, drank. Made the whole thing disappear presto chango.
Valentine was on about something, but Morgan only considered the bottom of his empty cup.
“A refill?” Annette was already pouring.
She reads minds too. Good woman.
Valentine went on about the state of poetry and academia, all the time puffing at his bong like some kind of homemade life-support system. Morgan’s cup never seemed to get empty. His face warmed, and he floated through the hazy conversation with eyelids heavy, head bobbing in eager drunken agreement with the random conversation.
The night didn’t really end. It trailed off like an ellipsis.
eleven
When Morgan awoke the next morning on the couch, he was bitterly disappointed not to find Annette Grayson underneath him. After three or four vodka tonics he’d offered subtle hints, made it clear he was interested. After a few more drinks his suggestions became more overt.
Annette had only giggled, shook her head, gently pushed him back whenever he’d tried to lean in for a kiss.
Morgan couldn’t remember when he’d lost track of the janitor or Valentine. At some point in the evening he’d simply found himself alone with the head of Composition and Rhetoric.
Morgan shifted on the couch. Something was digging mercilessly into his back. He arched, reached underneath. It was the empty vodka bottle.
He sat up. His head was appalled at the notion and began to throb. His stomach gurgled, and Morgan belched a sick blend of beer, vodka, and lime. His feet felt slick and ripe within his slippers. I must reek.
He heaved himself to his feet, stumbled out of the room. In the hall, he leaned raggedly against a wall, battled a sudden wave of nausea. Nothing came up. He swallowed hard. Belched a few more times. He looked around the empty hall.
Lost again. The fifth floor of Albatross Hall was more confusing than the minotaur’s maze. Morgan closed his eyes, hung his head as if in prayer. He listened.
The music. He’d come to count on it now. Classical this time.
He followed it to Valentine’s office, found the old man in a frayed blue robe. He was brushing his teeth. Valentine spit into a glass, wiped his mouth on a sleeve.
Valentine looked at Morgan and frowned. “Good God, Bill. You’re a wreck.”
“I slept on your couch.”
“Perfectly all right.” Valentine ushered him in. “How
about some coffee?”
“That would help. Thanks.”
Valentine poured it into a mug that said Tenure means never having to say you’re sorry.
Morgan closed his eyes as he sipped. The hot coffee hit his belly, and Morgan waited. When it didn’t come back up, he drank some more. He started to feel a little better but not much.
Morgan cleared his throat. “Professor Valentine?”
“Yes?”
“Why do you live in Albatross Hall?”
“My house burned down.”
“That explains it,” Morgan said. “Are you rebuilding or hunting for a new one?”
“Neither. That’s why I’m living here.”
“I understand.” Morgan didn’t understand.
“My house burned down, let’s see, I guess it would be about six years ago. I spent all the money on this lovely girl. Young, twenty or twenty-one, I think. A little wisp of a thing. In pigtails she passed for sixteen. A clever little poet too.” Valentine sounded dangerously nostalgic. “We blew it all in Fiji. Then she left me for a Samoan pastry chef. You want a refill on that coffee?”
“No thanks,” Morgan said. “I guess I’d better get going.”
It took Morgan twenty minutes to find the stairway. He climbed down and found his way out of the building. The early morning was gray and damp. The sudden cold battered him, but helped wake him too. The world was wet. It would rain again soon.
Morgan stumbled along the sidewalk in the direction of-he hoped-his car. He didn’t bother avoiding the puddles. When he got home, he’d throw the slippers away.
And then he saw Reams crouching low along the sidewalk behind some bushes. Reams looked wild, hair tousled, bags under his eyes. His nose and cheeks were red from the weather. He was wearing the same clothing as the night before at the party.
But then again, so was Morgan.
Reams had a thick, hardcover book in his clenched hands.
Morgan was fresh out of tact. “What the fuck are you doing, Reams?”
Reams leapt from the bushes, snagged Morgan by the wrists, and pulled him down into the foliage. Morgan landed in a tangled pile with Reams.
“Shut up, Morgan,” Reams said. “You’ll give away our position.”
“Goddammit.” Morgan rolled onto his side, pushed himself onto an elbow, and shook his head. “For Christ’s sake I’m covered in mud here.” Morgan noticed the book in Reams’s white-knuckled hands was a copy of Finnegans Wake.
Reams returned to his crouch. “Quiet. Here he comes.”
Morgan squinted through the shrubs, looked down the sidewalk. A lone man on a frail bicycle, the thin wheels whirring in the quiet morning.
The rain began again.
“Reams.” Morgan tapped the jittery man on the shoulder. “Uh… Reams?”
Reams swatted Morgan’s hand away. “We’ll show the little son of a bitch what Joyce is good for.”
Morgan recognized the cyclist. It was Pritcher. He wore an obscene spandex outfit that bunched his nuts into a tight wad. Certainly he doesn’t realize how ridiculous he looks. He wouldn’t leave the house if he knew he looked like that.
Pritcher’s ten-speed was humming along at a good clip when it passed between the big fountain and Reams’s hiding place. Reams darted from his crouch, sprung himself at Pritcher’s bicycle. He flung the copy of Finnegans Wake.
It sailed, the cover opening wide, pages flapping. The book spun end over end like some awkward, epileptic wounded bird in its final tailspin.
Morgan watched, his jaw dropping, stomach tightening.
Joyce’s complex novel hit, a corner of the cover lodging in the spokes of the rear wheel. The simple machinery of the bicycle clenched, gears jamming, chain tangled. Pritcher screeched like a fruit bat and flew over the handlebars.
He sailed high and far, landing in a half splash, half crunch in the big stone fountain.
Morgan gulped. “Jesus, Reams, you killed him.”
Pritcher lay still for a long time. The rain came harder. Morgan stood next to Reams, put his hand on the professor’s shoulder. Both men prayed for Pritcher to move.
“You’d better go have a look, Morgan.”
“To hell with that,” Morgan said. “You go look. You’re the one that killed him. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know.” Reams’s voice sounded far away. “I was crazy. He just made me insane, I guess. I must’ve been out of my mind. You’ll testify, right, Morgan? I wasn’t in my right mind.”
They still watched. Pritcher still didn’t move.
“I’ll have to take responsibility,” Reams said. He stuck his chest out, lifted his chin. “I’ve killed a man, and I’m going to pay for that.”
Pritcher’s foot twitched. Loud cursing and splashing came from the fountain.
“He’s fine!” Reams said. “Run!”
Reams elbowed Morgan aside, tore off through the bushes like he was on fire, a panicked stumbling and clawing. Morgan followed. They pushed their way through to the parking lot on the other side. Morgan’s car was near.
“This way,” Morgan shouted.
Morgan didn’t bother to see if Reams followed. He ran for his car as fast as he could while digging into his front pocket for his keys. The keys were stuck, tangled in stray threads inside his pocket. Morgan ran awkwardly, tugging at the keys.
He reached the car door and jerked hard, tore the keys loose, half his pant leg ripping open down to the knees.
“Shit.”
Morgan unlocked the door, climbed inside, cranked the engine.
Reams was on the other side, hitting the passenger window with the heel of his hand. “Let me in, man. Hurry.”
Morgan flashed on an old black-and-white submarine movie. A sailor trapped on the other side of a sealed hatch, the compartment filling with seawater. He thought just for a moment about leaving him. Morgan popped the locks, let Reams in.
They drove fast, sideswiped a library book return box with a metallic crinch. Morgan flipped on the windshield wipers, found the road. Both men breathed hard.
Reams leaned back, sprawled in the passenger seat, rubbed at his eyes.
The windshield fogged over. Morgan wiped at it with a sleeve.
“I can’t believe it,” Reams said. “I thought I’d killed him. I could have fucked up my whole life. I’m up for tenure next year. You can’t get tenure if you kill a guy.”
“No. It’s not like the old days,” Morgan said.
“I really thought I’d broken his neck, Morgan. Do you know what that feels like? The thought that you’ve killed somebody?”
Morgan saw Annie Walsh’s face in his mind, saw her naked, skin slack and cold in his bed. Remembered the weight of her wrapped in the plastic. He started to speak, to say something to Reams, but his voice caught. Another memory, the shallow grave in the peach orchard.
“I hope you never have to feel like that,” Reams said.
twelve
Morgan dropped Reams off at his house then went home.
He was soaking wet. He peeled off the slippers and tossed them into the trash. He showered, thought about getting dressed, but crawled under the covers instead.
He didn’t sleep well. Annie’s corpse followed him through the world of dreams, called to him from beneath the ground. He knew somewhere a mother and father wondered why they hadn’t heard from her. Friends would talk. Other professors would wonder why she wasn’t attending class.
Morgan awoke sore, sweat slick on his forehead and under his arms. He tumbled out of bed, groaned, stood, stretched. He felt heavy and weak and unhappy. Maybe he’d try to write. Maybe a drink first. No, he needed another shower. He wanted to rinse off the nightmare sweat.
After the shower, he shuffled into the kitchen. He looked out the window and saw that the day was creeping into evening.
He made coffee, stood and watched it brew, then poured himself a mug, took it to his little desk. It was a mess, so he started cleaning and found an unfamiliar ma
nila folder. He opened it.
It was Fred Jones’s poetry.
“Hell.”
Something caught his eye, so he kept reading. A good line here and there. He read two or three, came to one that might work with some edits. The old man had decent instincts, smooth with images. Nothing too didactic. The poems must have been in chronological order because they improved as he went along. He pulled out two near the bottom and began marking them with a green pen. As Morgan critiqued each poem, he came to a horrifying realization.
The old man was good.
His images were fresh and energetic, savagely raw and gritty without being overly gruesome. They didn’t pander. His voice was rugged, straightforward, and American.
Morgan was sick with jealousy but couldn’t pull himself away from the old man’s work. Outside it grew full dark, the weather turning sour yet again. The wind kicked up. A little rain. Morgan switched on the tiny desk lamp and kept reading.
After another hour, the wind really started to howl, so he didn’t hear when Jones walked into his house, stood over him at the desk, and put the gun to his forehead.
Morgan felt his sphincter twitch. He was going to die.
“You stupid goddamn punk.” Jones shook the pistol at him. It was an automatic with a silencer. The old man dripped, the gun glistened wet. “You said you was going to take care of the girl, and here I find she’s walking around breathing. For fuck’s sake you know what kind of position I’m in? I can’t have this dumb kid opening her yap.”
The barrel of the gun was gigantic.
And this old man was about to blow his head off. Morgan’s eyes fogged with tears, and he was ashamed to meet death so feebly. No one would come to his funeral, he thought. Not his ex-wife. He wasn’t that close to anyone in the department. He would be buried alone and forgotten like Annie Walsh.
Part of Morgan knew it was what he deserved. He was a small, sad man living a miserable little life. But he wanted to keep on living that little life.
“She won’t say anything,” Morgan said. “I know her. She won’t talk.”
“Don’t yank me off, you dumb egghead. She’s a girl. Girls can’t help blabbing their big fucking mouths all over creation.”
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