Fickle

by Peter Manus

  Burly-Bear: (jotting a note) Could be very helpful. May I ask how you remember the date?

  Colonel: (answering without hesitation) Red Sox home opener. I faked a touch of fatigue so I could stay home and watch. The wife knew what I was up to. Can’t fool the ladies.

  Burly Bear: (smiling and standing) Correct you are, sir; it’s always good to remember that.

  Colonel: (musing a bit beyond what you’d expect as he stares at the tabletop, apparently seeing his wife reflected in the glass) Saved my life, meeting her. Used to drink something fierce. She gave me a reason not to. Don’t know what I’d do if… (He muses some more, then revives himself and climbs to his feet, smiling ruefully.) I’m afraid I wasn’t overly helpful, Sergeant. Everything that’s been said here tonight’s been duly observed by the BPD.

  Burly-Bear: (presenting his hand) To the contrary, sir.

  Burly-Bear drives me back to Central Square in silence, both of us buzzing in our own heads about various moments of the evening. He speaks first as he pokes the nose of his car around the corner of my crooked little street.

  Burly-Bear: Quite a fellow.

  Me: I hope he did help, at least a little.

  Burly-Bear: Have to admit, the idea of both lovers being male surfaced pretty early. Heck, you yourself brought it up at the guy’s apartment, even before you seen the diary, way I recall it. Guess that makes you the sharpest tack in the box, huh? (I score a flash of teeth above that cute, bulging chin of his.) It’s good, though, to have the same reading come from a real writer. Supports our theory with some authority, know what I’m sayin’? (Then, not waiting for an answer) What about you, though?

  Me: What about me?

  Burly-Bear: (pulling up by the hydrant in front of my place) You getting used to bein’ on the minds of a bunch of homicide cops?

  Me: (simply—always the best way to flirt outrageously) Not a bunch. Only one.

  Burly-Bear: (Pauses to drink this in. His eyes are glittering, his neck and nostrils widening visibly as he gets out on his side. Soooooo, what’s on his mind? He comes around and opens my door, clears his throat, and helps me out.) You do get that this ain’t a game, don’t you?

  Me: (studying him as we stand on the sidewalk, inches apart.) Sergeant, I’m not afraid to speculate that Mr. Suicide’s lover might have been female. It’s not a risk because it’s not me. (I take a chilly breath.) Get that through your head, won’t you?

  Burly-Bear: Look, did I say som’in’?

  Me: (feeling myself flush and laughing weakly) No. No, you’ve been very supportive. A rock. But I don’t want to walk away from this thing on the strength of how the diary “rings” to the ears of a pair of very chivalrous men.

  Burly-Bear: Why not walk away any way it works out?

  Me: Because then maybe you’ll always wonder that you helped someone get away with murder.

  Burly-Bear: (shrugging as if casual, but he’s not) Maybe I don’t mind wondering that.

  Me: (icing up) I mind. (I go to walk up my front steps and he touches my arm.) I have to go. I have a call scheduled with my lawyer. (The words may read tough, but I say them softly, like I don’t mean them. I don’t tug my arm away from him, either.)

  Burly-Bear: (turning me gently. I’m up a couple of steps from the sidewalk so we’re basically eye to eye.) You got a lawyer, then? (He puffs the words into my face and I can’t tell what’s behind them—is he glad that I took his advice or thinking that only someone with something to hide would run for legal help? His breath is surprising—the musty stuff of cellars and caves. It clicks in my head that it’s what home cooking smells like—meatloaf and potatoes. Does Burly-Bear live with his Ma, or does he just go “home” for meals? I am not into “family values.”)

  Me: (weakly) Yes, I got a lawyer. Actually, it’s more that I had one foisted on me by our friend in Concord. (Suddenly I don’t want to talk about the situation I’m in, don’t want him in my apartment, don’t want him on top of me in bed, kissing me, pawing my face and hair with his gentle, powerful hands, pushing his penis at me. I feel faint, just thinking about how long I’ll have to wait for him to fall asleep so I can crawl out from under him to blog.) Look, I’m dog-tired. I want…(pointing vaguely over my shoulder) to be alone.

  I go to turn away, but suddenly I get scared. He’s the only guy on the inside who is on my side, the only one I can count on if things go very wrong, the only one who will guarantee that I will “walk away,” as he puts it. I turn back quickly and let myself fall into his arms as I lift my face for his kiss. Being as it’s real life and not RKO black-and-white, his mouth bangs against my face somewhere between forehead and ear. He pushes me away, not roughly—very subtly, in fact—but in that split second I experience fear, like a big, horrible crackle emanating all over my skull from its base, and for the first time in my life I get what they mean when they say that fear grips you by the spine. I cannot blow it with Burly-Bear. I turn my face up to his, brushing his chin with my lips, needing to get the kiss right, wanting it badly. He doesn’t join me in the kiss—I’m momentarily devastated—but when I look up at him, he’s staring over the top of my head, up at my building. I twist around, still pressing against him, refusing to fall out of his arms in spite of the fact that he’s not holding me anymore.

  I see what he sees. Through the glass of the front door’s window and the glass of the vestibule door beyond that is the bottom of the stairs up, and beyond that is the door to my apartment. My apartment door is open and leaning against the doorjamb is my brother, looking rather scaggy, one yellow arm resting lazily across the top of his head, the other hand scratching around in his exposed armpit, and not all that carefully considering he’s holding a lit cigarette. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of once-white long john bottoms, riding low; his chest is bare except for the mantle of tattoos. He’s in mid-yawn, and it turns out to be a real jawbreaker. He finishes up, sticks his cigarette between his lips, plugs one nostril with a thumb, and shoots a wad of snot at the wall. Then he turns, treating us to a view of his back tats before he lets my door fall shut.

  Burly-Bear: Isn’t that your place?

  Me: (blinking innocently) Yes, it is. (I tilt my head and try to smile.) How’d you know that?

  Burly-Bear: (throwing a glance back at my door) Friend of yours?

  Me: Oh, he’s just “a rootless creature, floating detachedly above the everyday world, with no point of contact.” Except me, that is.

  I try to deliver the Woolrich quote with the sarcastic lilt it needs, but maybe it comes off cagey. I see something enter Burly-Bear’s expression—a hoggish bunching around his eyes. Guess he doesn’t like the idea of me holding out on him, or maybe he’s just disappointed that he’s got no chance for nookie tonight now that something rather phallic has been spotted scratching itself against my doorpost.

  Burly-Bear: Thank your writer friend for me. Tell him our conversation was invaluable.

  I know that I should try for the kiss again, make it clear to him that the man inside isn’t competition, but I’m afraid, so I just nod. He walks around the hood of the Mustang. I watch his taillights, realizing that I’ve effed something up big time.

  GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 11:22 pm

  Burly-Bear said “invaluable?” Points for that. Would have thought that he’d think that it means “not valuable.”

  chinkigirl @ January 30 11:23 pm

  Maybe he does. Remember that he told fickel that he hadn’t learned anything from the Colonel that the cops hadn’t already considered.

  roadrage @ January 30 11:27 pm

  Uh, since fickel is worried about Burly-Bear being frosted at her, and we’re so convinced that he’s on this blog, should we be getting all snarky about his vocab?

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 11:29 pm

  excellent point, except that I, for one, no longer think he’s on the blog.

  webmaggot @ January 30 11:31 pm

  Umm, hey, you with the
man parts duct-taped between your buns? Aren’t you the one who keeps warning us in all caps that the Burly-Bear’s lurking here? Am I missing sum’n?

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 11:32 pm

  U are, lovable dimwit: did you not catch the fact that the Burly-Bear has no idea who dickel is? If he had been on the blog, he’d have known that it’s just fickel’s brother. Oui?

  chinkigirl @ January 30 11:33 pm

  Brilliant deduction, proudblack! I for one am impressed.

  roadrage @ January 30 11:34 pm

  Yeah, but maybe Burly-Bear was faking it—pretending he didn’t realize who the dickel was—maybe he was waiting for fickel to explain so he could “know” and then he got annoyed because fickel didn’t rush to dispel the obvious erroneous conclusions he might have drawn.

  webmaggot @ January 30 11:35 pm

  Or maybe he was just pissed because he wasn’t gunna get some funk no way no how, and he’d been majorly primed.

  marleybones @ January 30 11:44 pm

  You know, along the line of wondering whether Burly-Bear is aware of more than he pretends, how did he know that dickel was lounging in the doorway of your apartment, fickel? Is it clear from the layout of your building that your apartment is the one just past the bottom of the stairs?

  hitman @ January 30 11:49 pm

  How about it fickel? Burly-Bear onto us and pissed off or dumb to us and even more pissed off?

  fickel @ January 30 11:55 pm

  Jury’s out. Way out. There are two apartments on the first floor, and I don’t see how it could be apparent that mine’s the one on the right. But the idea that Burly-Bear is…sigh…if the man is anything, he is inscrutable.

  36-D @ January 31 12:12 am

  I’m confused to the point where I’ve actually started taking notes on the side, and it’s not helping. Would someone set me straight: is our theory that Mr. Suicide wrote the diary about some girl who was using him OR are we thinking Mr. Suicide wrote it about some freeloader gay scag who wouldn’t push off but in the meantime was blowing everyone in the South End?

  proudblacktrannie @ January 31 12:15 am

  Reverse sexism!!!! Why is the straight female “some girl” while the gay male is a “scag”?

  36-D @ January 31 12:16 am

  Apologies. You know I’m a fag hag like anyone’s maiden aunt.

  proudblacktrannie @ January 31 12:18 am

  Well (sniff, sniff).

  chinkigirl @ January 31 12:22 am

  I’ve been struggling with the conflicting views on E’s gender, too. If we convince ourselves, as the Colonel would have it, that there’s not a female within a mile of this thing, that works to fickel’s advantage, and so I was sorely tempted to see it that way until fickel made her point that her strategy is to simply try to get to the truth.

  marleybones @ January 31 12:25 am

  Putting aside our motive for reading the thing one way and not the other, fickel’s point that Mr. Suicide seemed to portray his early homosexual crush on a coach as an aberration seemed really strong to me, although it’s based on a simple pair of quotation marks, which people use to signify so many things. So…E’s female and Mr. Suicide is bi?

  proudblacktrannie @ January 31 12:29 am

  Giggle, giggle. Ain’t that the twist? Me, I’ve been thinking that all Mr. Suicide’s histrionics read awfully femmy. Do men—even bi men—get all hissy-fitty like that?

  webmaggot @ January 31 12:30 am

  Guy’s a FAY-YUG foh shoh.

  fickel @ January 31 12:32 am

  But maybe that’s why he writes it to himself and doesn’t rant it right at her. He knows that if he lets loose with that kind of shyte at a woman, she’s out-o-there. Any more votes?

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 31 12:36 am

  I have a thought: according to Mr. Suicide, the two lovers discovered themselves to be rutting creatures, i.e., they’re outwardly polite, even uptight, upper-class, law-abiding citizens. Fits more the young woman + Mr. Suicide model than the young gay hustler + Mr. Suicide thing.

  fickel @ January 31 12:39 am

  So it’s 2 votes for a female, 2 votes for a male. Any tiebreaker out there?

  roadrage @ January 31 12:41 am

  Here’s something: he says that E always goes “Big Flipping Whatever” and rolls her eyes. I can only see a chick doing that. Either that or a reeeeeeeeally feminine guy…oh, wait a minute.

  webmaggot @ January 31 12:45 am

  Hey what about the “coquettishly exposed chest.” Doesn’t that make E a chick?

  36-D @ January 31 12:53 am

  Something tells me that you don’t hang out with a lot of gays, maggot.

  webmaggot @ January 31 12:55 am

  Well, I used to mix more—you know how hip and secure I am—but it never worked out.

  hitman @ January 31 12:59 am

  You know what struck me, fickel: you could have been at the Berklee the day that Mr. Suicide and this he-or-she got introduced. I mean, you got a season ticket, don’t you? And you like that weird modern junk—isn’t that what Bartok is?

  36-D @ January 31 01:02 am

  O my lord you are scaring me—fickel do NOT answer if the answer is yes.

  fickel @ January 31 01:15 am

  Well, I’ll say yes to my season subscription and yes to being into “that weird modern junk” and even yes to Bartók falling into that category. But I don’t recall any program that put Bartók together with Beethoven, so I get to give that one a no.

  hitman @ January 31 01:16 am

  But the Colonel said that Beethoven thing in the diary was probably—what’d he call it—alliteration? Stop pussyfooting around: did you go to a Bartok concert last March?

  fickel @ January 31 01:19 am

  Could be, but I’ve heard Bartók on a couple of occasions.

  hitman @ January 31 01:20 am

  I’ll take that as a yes. Did you see—what do we call them—the Peacock and Mr. Groin?

  fickel @ January 31 01:24 am

  Again I can’t give you more than a maybe.

  hitman @ January 31 01:25 am

  Meaning what, the truth is suddenly getting hard to find?

  fickel @ January 31 01:35 am

  Meaning I may or may not have run into the Peacock during intermission at a concert last spring that featured Bartók. Believe me, it would not have been memorable. Her pattern is unerring: she’d greet me with indifference transparently gussied up as light warmth while at the same time she’d be assessing me from head to toe with her laser gaze as if just to assure herself that no style sensibility or silicone enhancement had been magically bestowed upon me. Once she’d satisfied herself that I hadn’t grown a set of knockers since we last exchanged air kisses, she’d warble out something about what a saint I am to remain working with her irascible codger of a husband (which of course she hates), then she’d stop herself short as she laughingly “remembered” that I’m as much of a hopeless bookworm as he, and by this time she’d already be moving on toward wherever she’d been heading when she had the misfortune of bumping eyes with me. Got the picture?

  As for Mr. Groin, like I said in an earlier post, until our formal introduction at the Colonel’s Manor, I’d never laid eyes on him in a way that would distinguish him from every other self-satisfied swell using the mirror behind the bar to slick his hair back while fetching a blood orange martini for his feedbag. So I’ll have to answer your question about whether I saw them at the Berklee last March with a solid “who the hell knows?” Helpful?

  marleybones @ January 31 01:39 am

  Wait—why would the Peacock hate that you’re working with the Colonel?

  fickel @ January 31 01:42 am

  She’s the jealous type. Not of me in particular, but of the fact that the Colonel is busy on a project that doesn’t involve her in any way. You’d think she’d be grateful to me, as I’d definitely sided with her on the idea of having her portrait done (not that she hadn’t been steering the Colonel towa
rd that one for a long time before my “objective opinion” happened along, but sometimes you get credit for being the catalyst).

  hitman @ January 31 01:45 am

  You’re glib, fickel, but I still don’t get why you failed to mention that you were at that concert when the Colonel said his wife was there. Whether or not you remember running into her, it means that you and Mr. Suicide were there together. If you’re after the truth the way you claim you are…

  fickel @ January 31 01:51 am

  Ah, what a detective. Your doggedness in pursuit of “the facts” is beginning to scream “dick” as loudly as a Brownie camera and bottom-drawer bourbon habit. Plus there’s your tin ear for subtext—but let me explain something I consider rather obvious. This is a blog—it deals in retrospect—after-the-fact assessments of motivations and lessons learned. I don’t walk around with these clear convictions about what I’m doing. I figure them out later, usually as I sit here blogging. So when the Colonel brought up the Bartók concert I still had it in my head that it had been some student recital, which is the only thing I could imagine that would included both Bartók and Beethoven pieces. Just because he said differently and happens to sport a moustache doesn’t mean I went trotting down his line of reasoning like some lap pet. Also, to be frank, it wasn’t until Burly-Bear questioned me about it that I got in touch with how scary it would be to just slip off the police radar with no answers—and also with no reason to think this whole nightmare might not resurface.

  Look, I know that the above is going to come over as harsh, but you keep needling me so you did ask for it.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 31 01:57 am

  Bravo, fickel (okay, brava). I’d like to add that even if fickel had announced to the world that she’d been at the Bartók concert, it wouldn’t necessarily have been a “statement against interest.” First of all, we’ve already established that fickel and Mr. Suicide both go (went, in his case) to the Berklee and dig that cerebral jaggy stuff—remember, both of them went to hear Printemps and then both rushed over to Newbury Street to buy their very own copy. Second, I’m liking the theory more and more that at some point Mr. Suicide noticed fickel across a crowded room and began homing in on her. Why shouldn’t that have happened at the Berklee? So any innocent “coincidental” connections between fickel and Mr. S just help establish exactly what we’ve been claiming—that Mr. Suicide might have known her, but that doesn’t mean that she knew him.