by Peter Manus
–B. Stanwyck to the doofy guy in Clash by Night
Acting on hitman’s “advice,” I have decided to take charge of my life—the part of it that’s beginning to make me a paranoid schizophrenic—by doing the cops’ job for them and figuring out who Mr. Suicide was and why he clocked out in his particular way. I am not a psychologist, nor do I have much faith in that “science.” HOWEVER, I have at this point read through the dead man’s diary and also scanned his living space, and I believe I have as good a sense as the next armchair analyst as to what festers in people’s noodles. And, of course, I saw his face, I mean, just before he did himself in. I guess that puts me in a unique position insofar as “knowing” this stranger. So here goes:
This diary only kinda-sorta traces the relationship between Mr. Suicide and this “lover” identified as E. It’s not chronological, and more than one of the entries begins with “Just woke up from the most horrific dream.” Mr. S never discusses E’s profession, if she (he?) has one, or his/her age or his/her appearance in terms that allow me to truly picture him/her, and, unfortunately, just as my first skim-through of the thing made clear, my reread leads me to conclude that there is nothing readily apparent that differentiates me from E.
Soooo, now I’ve decided to change my tactic and try to use the diary as a vehicle for figuring out what made the S-Man tick—as well as what made him arrive at a conscious decision to stop ticking—if I’m going to build a circumstantial case in my defense to hand over to Burly-Bear and his buds in homicide.
This more careful review I have now begun, and as I seem to have lost, just lately and conveniently, my sensibilities about keeping Mr. Suicide’s privacy private—I mean, it’s not like he respected MY peace of mind—I have decided to post a representative excerpt from the diary here with the idea that maybe some of my favorite readers of metadiagetic malaise (noir, she means) could offer some thoughtful comments.
So read. Reread. Analyze to Death. (Oops—how inappropriately apropos.)
Just woke up and had one of those wild moments where you remember everything about your sleep world—the eerie way it hangs in its own space, your own unfiltered presence in that parallel universe. Guess what, E—I was dreaming about the moment I discovered you, here in Boston, a moment I haven’t reflected on for quite a while.
It was late spring, about midnight, and I was walking up Atlantic Ave., heading home, underwhelmed by a club that had been over-hyped in Bay Windows. Strolling toward me was a couple, arms around one another, occasionally kissing. I love everything about casual public necking. I love the rush that comes from seeing two people enjoying the giddy adrenaline of infatuation. I love the visual—the way people look when they’re draped all over each other, oblivious to the world. I love the voyeuristic tingle of watching a couple’s in-your-face exhibitionism. You see public necking in Europe but hardly ever in the States.
Anyway, it was just after midnight when I spotted this couple (in the dream, a kind of eclipse-y glow surrounded everything), and as we got near one another I had the urge to get a better look at you. Maybe it was fate, or something familiar in your walk, or the way your hair cheated me of a glimpse of your face. The man you were with wore one of those gaudy leather coats and had his arm cinched around your neck in a lazy, possessive way that blocked my view of you, and you, who were a bit shorter than he even in those Gestapo boots of yours, walked with your face tilted up as if to catch the kisses that might drip from his lips. I don’t remember if I was fully conscious of what I was about to do, but when we passed I bumped arms with your companion. We hit harder than I intended—always tough to fake those little everyday moments—and I swiveled round, apologizing.
The two of you turned as a unit, arms around one another. The man you were with, who was very young (I remember this without recalling a single detail of his face) looked at me with hostility. You, however, just smiled, evidently still immersed in whatever he’d been murmuring. Your damp hair striped your forehead, and your eyes were a pair of greyed-over jewels, as if being with that other guy, inconsequential as he was, put you into some sort of scintillated trance (could have been dope, I realize now, but then—who knew). Your smile—that coyly chipped bicuspid and the nail-hole dimple in your chin—I knew everything in the space it took me to wave apologetically.
The tall guy turned the two of you and you strolled off. I did the same, but when I got to the next corner I reversed myself without hesitation. I headed directly to the all-night diner (where else could you have been wandering off to in that neighborhood at that hour?). I spotted you sitting in one of the tiny booths against a window. You were drinking coffee while the guy you were with spoke to the old Greek behind the counter, and when it was your turn to order you shook your head, as if whatever you were high on (coke? ludes? the after-buzz of a good screw?) had you completely satiated. I stood there on the sidewalk, my brain a tumble of rage and curiosity and…hope for what might happen, now that I’d found you. I’m sure you saw me, recognized me through the greasy screen. You didn’t show it, though. You gave me a long, slow study, neither wary nor curious. You just drank me in, and then you half smiled and turned your head away. Was it something that your companion had said? Or was that smile for me—did you acknowledge what you would mean to me? Were you…apologizing—something you would never do again, of course—for the hell I’ve been through on your account?
Guyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz??????
GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT
chinkigirl @ January 26 11:12 pm
Gut reactions: romantic, writes relatively well with generally proper grammar, and, dreamy or not, the moment he recalls rings true. Also, Mr. Suicide sounds confident in spite of the self-deprecating tone—probably fairly successful as success is measured by outsiders.
marleybones @ January 26 11:15 pm
But inside the guy’s just another middle-aged adolescent, fixated on young flesh: classics professor, anyone?
i.went.to.harvard @ January 26 11:17 pm
This reminds me, fickel: I’m not in the Boston area anymore myself, but have you been checking the papers every day for obits? I mean, a man kills himself in one of the most horrible and public ways imaginable, and in so doing shuts down the T for hours—wasn’t it in any paper? And wouldn’t that include information about who he was?
fickel @ January 26 11:18 pm
I’ve checked the Globe, the Herald, and Boston.com every day since he did it. Not a word. My understanding on obits is that if he’s not a known figure his family could keep everything private and there would be no incentive for the papers to disregard that. While we’re on this, I could add that it totally galls me that the cops (yes, Burly-Bear included) have been so careful to keep his name from me. And that includes removing his name from the buzzer at his apartment.
36-D @ January 26 11:19 pm
You’re telling us your lawyer hasn’t been able to get the name out of the cops?
fickel @ January 26 11:20 pm
And I’ve spoken with “my lawyer” when, exactly?
roadrage @ January 26 11:21 pm
My guess on the media blackout? The papers, in cooperation with the authorities, keep news of a jumper out of the public eye. The only way to stop desperate people from throwing themselves off the platform is to set up barriers which would slow down the entire train system, and the authorities don’t want a bunch of copycats making that necessary.
marleybones @ January 26 11:28 pm
A conspiracy of silence.
36-D @ January 26 11:30 pm
I’m in Providence. Not a word in our papers either. Then I asked my mother’s friend who works for the MBTA if she knows anything and she hasn’t gotten back but she did say that the mayor’s office could easily keep something like this quiet.
chinkigirl @ January 26 11:32 pm
fickel, about that reference to Mr. Suicide’s name not being on his apartment’s buzzer? I’m sure I’m reading into it, but have you by chance gone back to Mr. Suicide’s apar
tment since the time the cops took you there?
fickel @ January 26 11:33 pm
Sigh. Would that be so crazy of me?
proudblacktrannie @ January 26 11:41 pm
Gurlz, gurlz, back to the diary—I don’t suppose you recall anything like the moment Mr. S describes? Could you possibly have been spotted necking half drunk in the wee hours in the loft district with some forgettable himbo? Come to think of it, E could be me.
i.went.to.harvard @ January 26 11:43 pm
More to the point of differentiating yourself from E, fickel, do you have dimples and a chipped tooth? If no on both counts, then this entry is part of your evidence to give to the cops.
fickel @ January 26 11: 45 pm
I get dimples when I smile, a fact I’ve always kind of liked about myself until just now. I’m not sure I’d call my dimples “nail holes,” but I don’t see me getting off the BPD’s subway pusher short list on that basis. On the other hand, my teeth are perfect, an absolute natural fluke, but, again, I don’t see the BPD being much impressed. I do have Gestapo-style boots, but who doesn’t? And no, proudblacktrannie, I don’t remember the moment Mr. Suicide described because it never happened.
webmaggot @ January 27 12:02 am
Just in from a hot date—yes, sports fans, I-I-I-I…HAD-HAD-HAD-HAD…A-A-A-A…DATE-DATE-DATE-DATE!!!!!! (ten seconds of shocked silence followed by thunderous applause that deafens the world wide web for fifteen minutes) BTW, never point out on a first date that Naomi Watts has a perfect ass—just don’t. However, smuggling Grey Goose into the theater definitely gets a girl rubbing up against yer…or at least feeling around for the bottle. Anywaze my brother used to live in the South End (he bites pillow) and Bay Windows is a gay rag. Since the dead guy read it, he’s gay. E must be a gay guy. Mystery solved er wut?
36-D @ January 27 12:05 am
Uhh, Bay Windows is gay but I used to pick it up when I was up in Boston. They have it in the grocery store, for crissake. I used to like to go clubbing and you could read about what was going on where. Oh, and I’m not gay. Congrats on the date. Just a tip, though? If you get them really really drunk they get to wake up the next day and call it rape. :(
webmaggot @ January 27 12:18 am
Oh thanx, I’d ask her if she’s really really drunk but she’s busy blowing me as I type this so I’ll ask later.
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 12:20 am
Bay Windows is for aging gays who live with their ADM’s. And webmaggot is right, 36-D—there’s a difference between a SATC type such as yourself doing the gay club scene and a middle-aged straight professional man doing same said clubs. The only straight men in those clubs are drug peddlers (bless them), undercover cops (homophobic creeps), and psychos sniffing around for a hate crime (who are deep inside the gayest of us all, AWAK).
roadrage @ January 27 12:21 am
ADM is…?
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 12:22 am
Almost Dead Mothers, luv.
chinkigirl @ January 27 12:23 am
Ummm, and SATC…?
proudblacktrannie January 27 12:24 am
Sex And The City. And before anyone asks, AWAK is “as we all know.” Glory, am I talking to myself out here?
i.went.to.harvard @ January 27 12:26 am
Not to keep harping on the physical features, but Mr. S says that E’s dimple is a chin dimple. fickel seems to be describing cheek dimples—the kind you get when you smile. I see this as a clear distinction. Also, he calls E’s eyes “greyed-over jewels.” Any chance your eyes are jet black or such a bright blue that they couldn’t possibly be described as “greyed-over,” fick?
fickel @ January 27 12:30 am
Dimples: none in chin but I do have a beauty mark that could be mistaken for one. My eyes are very dark brown—two damp spots of joe in the bottom of a couple of white coffee cups, you might say. But I think that Mr. Suicide’s point is that E was stoned and so his/her eyes were foggy. So that could be anyone, including me on occasion in the semidistant past. All in all, there is nothing here that determinatively distinguishes me from E. The writing is all too internal, too arty-farty.
chinkigirl @ January 27 12:37 am
Although we can say that no physical description of E, at least none we’ve seen so far, may be pointed to as a real match with fickel. I find that heartening.
fickel @ January 27 12:39 am
sure, yeah, me too.
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 12:42 am
What I am hearing is that fickel needs to stay within kissing distance of the Burly one.
fickel @ January 27 12:44 am
Uhh, not to get all holy on you, but I don’t like the intimation that I should be stringing the guy along to get me through this weird patch in my life.
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 12:46 am
Sorry luv.
fickel @ January 27 12:47 am
Look, now I’ve insulted you. Not intended, ’kay? :)
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 12:48 am
Nuff said, sweetie, u know I luv u regardless.
hitman @ January 27 12:57 am
I’m gagging here, you mind?
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 12:58 am
ES&D, sweetie-pie. And before I get a million queries, that’s EAT S*** & DIE
fickel @ January 27 01:03 am
Actually, I’m glad you’re on, hitman. POV on the diary?
hitman @ January 27 01:12 am
It’s a fake.
i.went.to.harvard @ January 27 01:15 am
A fake diary?
hitman @ January 27 01:21 am
A fake dream, genius. He thinks E is reading the thing when he’s out and wants to remind her of earlier days in the relationship and how, you know, deep he is into her and crap.
proudblacktrannie @ January 27 01:22 am
Lawdy. Your cynicism is so absolute that I actually picture you in grainy black and white, hitman. Do tell me you’re unshaven and are sitting in a dark office building right now, swigging from a bottle you keep in your bottom drawer.
hitman @ January 27 01:24 am
That’s me, shuggah. Now shaddup or I’ll squash a grapefruit in yer face.
marleybones @ January 27 01:26 am
So let me follow this out. Mr. Suicide writes up this stuff as a cry for help to get E’s attention. So when E isn’t taken in—in fact, maybe is driven to move out on the man—it’s all the more humiliating. So he pines, gets into self-loathing and recriminations, and eventually punishes himself (and E) with a lonely dive into the T tracks.
hitman @ January 27 01:30 am
Yeah, maybe my theory doesn’t hold together too good unless he does the jump, like, right in front of E. That would tie it all together with a bow. Wouldn’t it, fick?
fickel @ January 27 01:32 am
Mmm. In any event, now you all can see why this so-called diary is unlikely to present some sort of scheduling conflict I can just line up against my electronic calendar to “prove” my innocence.
chinkigirl @ January 27 01:33 am
In fact so far we’ve used it to “prove” the opposite. Ouch.
hitman @ January 27 01:36 am
Describe the handwriting.
fickel @ January 27 01:39 am
Fluid, generally artistic. Lots of fracture—places where he lifted the pen between groups of two or three letters. Some letters by the book, others his own formulations—sometimes even the same letter written two different ways, but the whole hangs together and appears reasonably consistent. Several errors corrected with impatient scratch-outs. In short, it’s a nice, mature handwriting but it’s also a three-in-the-morning-just-woke-up-after-too-many-scotches-scribble version of whatever his actual handwriting is probably like.
hitman @ January 27 01:46 am
You need to see the original.
fickel @ January 27 01:47 am
I…do?
hitman @ January 27 01:48 am
No substitute for the original.
Go to the cop. Ask him.
12
01.27 @ 3:06 am:
an Open Letter to Killer Chick
Followed you tonight, killah. Wore a department store wig, thrift shop coat—just in case you really had spotted me in front of your place the other day. Kind of went too far—my oversized shades could have caught your eye as I carefully avoided staring at you from down the subway car. But I had nothing to worry about. You were inside yourself. Maybe you were reliving the experience of pushing the guy. Does it make a good memory for you? I bet it does.
We took the subway into the city. Most guys don’t look twice at you, I notice—why the hell do I find you so hot, with your pinched face and your rubber-banded, tiny ponytail? You got up pretty abruptly to get off at Park Street, but I’d thought ahead and made sure to be standing near a door as soon as we got past Mass General. Good planning on my part because if I’d had to guess I’d have sworn you’d be heading to Hynes to check out the place where you actually pushed the dude. But that’s not what was on your mind. Not tonight.
We walked from Park down through the shopping district and even though we were among the few people around I barely needed to worry about you spotting me, but then you headed into the financial district and I definitely needed to keep some distance between us. You never looked round as obviously you had no suspicion about being followed. You didn’t walk fast but there was no doubt you were going somewhere, I could tell. When we got to a street in the old Channel area where it was very dark and completely deserted, you did not slow down or check around you. You were confident—self-possessed is the word that’s come to mind every time I’ve seen you, including right after you pushed the guy. It’s a very cool quality you have.
When we got to a certain spot you looked up, studying a building. It was one of those old warehouses, made of grey stone and so a little different than the usual brick but not all that unusual. You stood there close to a minute, leaning back to see something. Then you faded back, crossing the wet, empty street without taking your eyes off the building. From the opposite sidewalk, you stared up at whatever the something was you were there to see.