by Jaime Clarke
Holanda shook his head in a manner that indicated he would never, under any circumstances, read The Book of Hurts, the answer Charlie had hoped for. “It’s some of his more mature stuff,” he said definitely.
“I’m glad to hear it,” Holanda repeated, and another piece of Charlie’s past broke free from his inventory of memories.
Outside, in the dusky triangle of Astor Place, he flipped open the cover of Holanda’s book and read the inscription: “To Charlie, who always believed in the possibilities of fiction.” He closed the book and carefully placed it on a stack of Village Voices inside a plastic kiosk, leaving Holanda’s words behind as he trudged toward the subway.
Charlie delivered the Obelisk manuscript to the copy editor in Chelsea, as he promised Derwin he would, and decided to walk across town to meet Vernon for the key. The west side of Manhattan had remained a mystery to him, and he gawked like a tourist at the men holding hands in Chelsea, pausing to window-shop for wine he could never afford, loitering out in front of the Hotel Chelsea. He fell into a stream of people flowing down Seventh Avenue, marking Madison Square Garden, people rolling off the escalator under the JumboTron announcing the upcoming Aerosmith concert like products on a conveyer belt. An ambulance roared by and Charlie fantasized about the feeling of rescue afforded the rescued: Someone else in charge of the big decisions, and there’s every anticipation that everything is going to turn out okay.
He cut down Thirty-second Street and through the jungle of vendors hawking knockoff designer wear, watches, scarves, and prints of famous landmarks in New York and abroad. Koreatown was a long block of signs in both English and Korean, pictures of deliciously glazed food plastered in restaurant windows. He bobbed down Fifth Avenue, guided by the space oddity of the Flatiron Building. He was perplexed by which direction he should take and guessed incorrectly that either side of the Flatiron would lead him to the East Village. He had to cut across Twentieth Street when Fifth Avenue led him astray, then took Broadway to Union Square, where a farmers’ market was in full bloom.
He was still a little early to meet Vernon, so he browsed the stalls, splurging on a hunk of dark chocolate cleaved from a slab the breadth of a manhole cover by a cute girl wearing a yellow bandana. He nibbled the chocolate as he scanned the tables at the Barnes & Noble that loomed over Union Square. Robert Holanda had signed the copies of his book on the front table, and Charlie felt a degree of condescension toward his former teacher. The image of Holanda slinking around town hunting for his own book in bookstores and signing the copies he found, possibly moving them himself to the front table, lowered his opinion of Holanda. He turned Holanda’s book over in his hand, smirking at the author photo, reading the blurbs with irony. The writers who had given Holanda blurbs were hardly famous, and he even recognized some as writers who taught at the state universities in Arizona. Holanda could say what he wanted about Vernon Downs, but he’d probably have killed for a blurb from him.
The doorman at Summit Terrace smiled when Charlie approached. “He’s not in, but he left this for you.” He handed Charlie an envelope with the key, though when Charlie reached the loft, he found the door unlocked. He knocked and then entered. The loft was vacant. All the windows had been thrown open, negating the efforts of the struggling air conditioner. A large television stationed in the middle of the floor played a pornographic movie on mute. “Here boy, here boy,” he called out, not remembering the dog’s name. No answer. Vernon must’ve left early and taken the dog to his girlfriend’s place against her wishes. He conjectured Vernon triumphed more often than he didn’t. He snapped off the television and pushed it back into the corner, closing the windows against the day’s heat.
The pull of his unfettered access to Vernon’s loft was seductive. He previewed the cupboards, the dearth of any food products or surplus cans of fruit cocktail not a shock, considering how often Vernon dined out. An impressive cache of rum and vodka and whiskey was an unexpected bonus. The kitchen junk drawer was a repository of expired lottery tickets. He slid open the door to the sideboard table and was in awe of the collection of signed books. The books were for the most part unread, but judging by the inscriptions, the authors were either friends or admirers of Vernon’s. Charlie hauled out the bins underneath the bed and investigated the trove of work by Vernon, including the prepublication galleys printed by Vernon’s publisher in advance of the actual book. Holanda had imparted that galleys were notoriously brimming with mistakes and misspellings, and Charlie casually hunted through the galley of Scavengers for typos.
The phone rang, giving him a start. He shoved the bins back under the bed. The answering machine picked up and Vernon’s recorded voice boomed sonically. After the beep came “Yo, Vernon, I think I left one of my shoes at your place. Alligator loafer? If not there, then in the cab ride home, dude, so let me know.” Charlie rewound the answering machine tape without rummaging for the loafer. He relieved himself in the bathroom, squinting against the white light. As he washed up, he noticed a tube of Aim in the medicine cabinet. He regarded the toothpaste as an archaeological find. Vernon Downs uses Aim, he noted. The loft was as intriguing as the lost city of Atlantis, every household article or utensil or effluvium found floating in junk drawers holding an unintended significance. It seemed inconceivable that he once spent an ignorant afternoon hearing about Vernon Downs and Minus Numbers from Olivia and Shelleyan, and all these months later he had free reign over Vernon’s loft.
The phone rang again, but this time the machine didn’t answer. The ringing continued until Charlie realized the source was not the phone, but the intercom system with the doorman.
“Yes?” Charlie breathed into the receiver.
“Someone from George magazine is here,” the doorman reported.
Charlie wondered if it was JFK Jr. but guessed JFK Jr. would’ve given his name, or that the doorman would’ve recognized him.
“Send them up,” Charlie commanded, adding, “please.”
A few moments later, the elevator arrived and Charlie cracked the door to the loft, as Vernon had done for him the day they met. At the sound of a faint knock, he swung the door open to reveal a young man in his early twenties, his shaved head gleaming in the light. Tiny silver hoop earrings shimmered in both ears.
“I’m here to deliver the proofs for your piece,” he said, nervously patting his leather messenger bag.
“Come in,” Charlie said, affecting Vernon’s cool tone.
“Wow,” the messenger said. “Great place.”
“Thanks,” Charlie said.
The messenger produced a white envelope stamped with the words GEORGE MAGAZINE and CONFIDENTIAL. Charlie spied a copy of The Vegetable King in the bag as well.
“Just need you to sign for them,” the messenger said meekly. Charlie took the receipt over to the kitchen counter, the nearest writing surface. He began to draw a C on the receipt, when the messenger said, “I was hoping you could sign this, too,” and stood apologetically with his copy of The Vegetable King. “I’m probably not supposed to ask, so if you don’t want to, no problem.”
Charlie signed the receipt with Vernon’s practiced signature, a perfect counterfeit the result of hours spent tracing the letters in the book Vernon had signed to Olivia. “Be happy to,” he said, taking the book. “Who should I sign it to?”
Charlie scrawled the messenger’s name onto the title page, his mind humming, the thrill from the deceit producing a kind of mental levitation. He scribbled “Hope you enjoy this” on the title page and repeated Vernon’s signature.
“Here you go,” Charlie said. “Just don’t sell it to the Strand.”
“No way, never,” the messenger said, bowing slightly. “Thank you.” He tucked the novel back into his bag without inspection and did the same with the receipt for the proofs. He thanked Charlie again and drank in the loft. Charlie imagined the stories the messenger would tell his friends back in Brooklyn about his visit to Vernon’s.
“I know I missed your Christmas in Ju
ly party,” the messenger said nervously. “But is there any way it would be cool if I came next year? My girlfriend would just die.”
“Of course,” Charlie said. Granting the messenger’s wishes mollified his sense of right and wrong.
“Too cool of you,” the messenger responded. He continued to thank Charlie as he called for the elevator, one last thank-you slipping out as Charlie closed the door. He moved in the glow of charity as he opened the envelope to find the proofs of the piece he’d written for George magazine. The initial irritation at seeing Vernon’s name in the byline subsided as Charlie gaped at his words emblazoned on the page. Vernon hadn’t changed so much as a comma. A fantasy quickly developed whereby Olivia would pick up a future copy of George magazine based solely on a piece by Vernon Downs in the table of contents, running home to read it, lying across her bed while frantically flipping the pages, his words filling her eyes. He would need to make a photocopy of the proofs as evidence for when he confessed the ruse to her later. The fantasy rewound and replayed through a celebratory tumbler of Vernon’s whiskey, continuing through the meal of Chinese takeout he spilled across Vernon’s countertop. The scenario, along with the whiskey and Chinese food, lulled him asleep in the early evening.
A clattering woke him near daybreak. He started awake, a blurring figure hovering near the door. The bleary visage of Vernon Downs bore down on him. “Why the fuck are you here?” he asked, his hair tousled as if he’d ridden an all-night roller coaster at Coney Island. Charlie had forgotten to turn off the air-conditioning and the loft was frigid.
“I thought … ,” Charlie said. “The doorman gave me the …”
Vernon jittered through the loft, grabbing up random objects: a fistful of CDs, something from a drawer in the kitchen, the opened bottle of whiskey. “You weren’t supposed to come until—,” Vernon said. “I mean this is not a good—. Whatever.” His eyes were small and red, and Charlie wondered if he was high. “Everything is totally fucked. My fucking dog is missing and I have to leave for Vermont and …” Vernon recounted in profane outbursts how Jessica had taken Oscar for a walk and the dog had bolted from his leash. Vernon had canvassed the area around Jessica’s Murray Hill apartment before retreating to a Kinkos to produce a flyer he’d spent the early hours affixing to any flat surface he could.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “I didn’t know.”
“You have to be vigilant,” Vernon said, a globule of spit landing near Charlie. “If anyone calls about Oscar, you have to go meet them. Here.” He dug into his black jeans for his wallet and swiped all the cash, handing it to Charlie. “Just do whatever you have to.”
“I will,” Charlie promised.
“And call me immediately when you find him,” Vernon said.
Charlie nodded and Vernon disappeared into the bathroom among a clattering of toiletries. Charlie quickly counted the money, which amounted to over four hundred dollars. Vernon emerged with a duffel bag and a suitcase on wheels. He’d smoothed water through his hair, and the adrenaline that had fueled his all-night vigil had recessed, leaving him limp, barely able to scrape the luggage across the floor. “I meant to tell you,” he said. “The editor at Shout! magazine likes your story. He said he’d publish it in the fall fiction issue.”
Charlie guiltily longed for Vernon to leave so he could bask in his great fortune. “I can’t thank you enough,” he said. Vernon waved him off, distractedly checking his answering machine for news of Oscar, deleting the message about the lost loafer before it finished. He trundled into the hall, a rumpled, near lifeless figure, and left without saying good-bye.
Chapter III
On his way out for coffee, Charlie didn’t recognize the new doorman, who was leaner and had a militant air about him. He was also appreciably older than the doorman Charlie’d felt friendly toward. “Where’s the other guy?” he asked, but the new doorman just shrugged and returned to sorting some cards on his desk. He reckoned the doorman had taken a sick day, or maybe even a personal day to play hooky. Good for him. Outside, a hulking moving truck idled at the curb. Charlie casually wondered if the woman on the second floor had found another apartment somewhere far away from Summit Terrace.
Waiting at the corner bodega for his coffee and egg sandwich, he flipped through the Post, landing on a small item about Vernon offering to name a character after the person who found Oscar. He was amazed at the press’s preoccupation with every facet of Vernon’s life. Back at Summit Terrace, he exited the elevator to find a woman with a brunette ponytail fidgeting with the lock on her door. “Hold the elevator,” she called out, but he had already let the elevator go.
“Sorry,” he said as he slid the key into Vernon’s door.
“You must be Vernon Downs,” the woman said, apparently forgiving the faux pas. “I’m subletting while my sister is in Paris,” the woman said, the dimples on her cheeks and the tiny cleft in her chin forming a flawless frame for her soft smile. There was a tomboy element buried deep within, Charlie sensed, a toughness masquerading as delicacy. “I’m a huge fan.” She held out a manicured hand. “I’m Christianna.”
He returned the smile and shook Christianna’s hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. He felt no guiltier about giving this misimpression than he did earlier in the week when someone had mistaken him for someone else, calling and waving from across the street. He’d waved back as a courtesy and the woman moved on. There was little harm in fulfilling expectations, he thought. Besides, he could always plead ignorance with Christianna if the truth emerged, convincing her the miscalculation was her own.
“How long have you lived in the building?” she asked. Uncertain of how long Vernon had been in residence, Charlie was about to cover with “Not long,” but Christianna didn’t wait for his reply and said, “I just have to say”—she put her hand on his arm—“that the party scene in Scavengers, you know, the End of the World party? That’s exactly how it was at my college. The tiki torches, everything. God, I’m sorry I missed your Christmas party.”
“Oh, really? Where did you go to college?”
“That was at Hampshire. I’m at New Haven now,” she said, eager for a reaction. “Drama school. I want to move to New York to be an actress.” She called for the elevator and it opened, having never descended to the lobby. “Well, see you around, Vernon,” she said, and was gone just like that, the swirl of lilac perfume dying in her wake.
He avoided Christianna over the next week or so, pretending to be in a rush if she waylaid him in the lobby, or in the elevator, or on their adjacent balconies looking down on Thirteenth Street. Christianna’s alarming intimacy, as well as her penchant for reciting her favorite scenes from Vernon’s works, had become disquieting.
The first time she caught him in the elevator, on his way to meet someone who mistakenly thought he’d located Oscar: “You know what I loved about The Vegetable King? The stuff about Huey Lewis and Phil Collins and Whitney Houston. I laughed my ass off when I read it.”
The first time she cornered him at the mailboxes in the lobby: “You probably hear this all the time, but that story in Book of Hurts, the one set in Hawaii, is one of my favorites.”
The time she caught him people-watching on the balcony had spooked him the most. Christianna appeared on her balcony, swaddled in a royal blue cotton bathrobe, and addressed him as one of the characters from Scavengers. It was a moment before he realized she, too, was in character. He mimicked deafness and shouted something vague about a phone call he had to make, before scurrying back into the loft, easing the sliding glass door shut.
Two days later, exhausted from following a bogus tip about a dog matching Oscar’s description wandering off leash near the World Trade Center, Charlie watched as a silver envelope was thrust under the door, followed by the echo of Christianna’s door closing. He opened the elaborately calligraphed invitation to a New Year’s in August dinner party and knew he would not be able to devise an excuse grand enough to evade the gathering. The homage to Vernon’s party w
as slightly troubling, a fact that menaced him as he grudgingly dry-cleaned the one suit he owned after discovering that the suits in Vernon’s closet wouldn’t fit.
In the days before her dinner party, Christianna was noticeably absent from the building, and Charlie happily resumed the task of separating and sequencing Vernon’s papers. He rarely left the loft, save for a farewell lunch with Derwin, who was decamping Brooklyn for Fire Island for the rest of August. Derwin was keen for details about the archive project, but in delineating his duties, Charlie admitted that the endeavor was a free-form exercise with little direction, and had been undertaken with more passion on Charlie’s part than Vernon’s. “My only real responsibilities are to check the mail and to report any important phone messages or e-mail,” Charlie confessed. He was too embarrassed to reveal his primary responsibility, finding Vernon’s lost dog.
“Your Obelisk training is paying off,” Derwin laughed as he picked up the tab for the boozy lunch, the afternoon faded by the time they parted, with plans to reunite back in Brooklyn upon Derwin’s return after Labor Day.
Charlie didn’t encounter Christianna once, and he began to root for the possibility that the dinner party had been canceled, a hope that was dashed when a catering van appeared on the afternoon of the appointed date. He reluctantly dressed, fishing through the leftover liquor for a full bottle of anything, finding an unopened pinot noir. He paced the loft until half an hour past the designated time, in order to skip the predinner cocktails, and then grabbed the bottle and presented himself at Christianna’s door.
“Well!” Christianna said dramatically. “This is very exciting!” She was overdressed in a pale blue gown more suited for a ball, or a fairy tale. “Welcome,” she said by way of introduction to the expectant faces populating the loft, which had the same floor plan as Vernon’s. “You traveled a long way to be here with us tonight,” Christianna added, but the other guests didn’t understand her joke, and he worked the room, shaking hands with the segment producer at MTV, the budding fashion designer who lived with her parents in Ronkonkoma, the manager of several rap acts who kept saying he had to “leave soon,” and an actress who turned out to be Christianna’s roommate at Yale. The oldest guest by far was familiar, and as the bespectacled man offered his hand, Charlie recollected him as the Times reporter from Vernon’s Christmas party.