by Peter Manus
36-D @ February 5 10:23 pm
But now you’re going to tell us that your handwriting is nothing like the diary, right?
fickel @ February 5 10:28 pm
Wish I could, but the truth is my handwriting and that of the mysterious diary writer are passably similar. Both reasonably attractive. Both independent, mixing traditional cursives with creative, unattached lettering. Both use a Greek “E,” which is relatively rare.
marleybones @ February 5 10:32 pm
My very limited understanding is that there are a number of handwriting classes or types—scholastic, Greek, independent, lefty, etc.—and so there are often superficial similarities between the handwritings of very different people.
fickel @ February 5 10:35 pm
True. Who knows, however, what an expert would say? And on that note, to all a good night.
leo tolstoy @ February 6 02:03 am
The truth is that life is meaningless.
fickel @ February 6 07:14 am
Oh, great, our ray of sunshine is back. Haven’t you found a stout rafter beam and a rope yet? You can find instructions for fashioning a noose online at www.suicidemadeeasy.net. All my morbidly depressed friends swear by it.
31
February 6 @ 11:31 pm
>LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO HELL<
Long day. Some of it good. Most of it bad. Ahh, scratch that, I’m tired of being the optimist in the house. All of it sucked. But my brother’s alive, so there’s a blessing to hang onto.
Today I arrived at my office early, my head full of plans to speak with Burly-Bear and “come clean,” as Fred MacMurray might have put it, hand over the gun and the will and everything I know. I know, now, that Burly-Bear is not a friend, but I assume he’ll do the right thing as a cop when I come clean. I also planned to attend the Colonel’s funeral today. I knew him and had affection for him—not in a way that should have made him leave his estate to me, of course, but I’ve come to think that the handwritten will was the product of some ugliness that had developed between the Colonel and the Peacock over her actual dalliances and his imaginary one with me. Isn’t love a horror show? The Colonel said something to that effect, last time I saw him. Guess he knew whereof he spoke.
Of course I anticipated that running into Mr. Groin at the funeral could be a tad awkward, with him undoubtedly suspecting me of having stolen from his office the will and gun he’d stolen from Boddy Manor. Anyway, all my worrying in that regard went to naught. My day went differently—very differently—than planned.
I’m heading up the street to my building around 6:30 am, skirting the steaming pile of poop some dog walker must have only just finished pretending not to notice emerging from her airedale’s round-backed rump, when I look up and see the passenger door of a gunmetal grey sedan swing open, all by itself. The car is the one that cruised past my yew bush hideout in Concord the other day. I approach, ignoring the car, even crossing the sidewalk diagonally to avoid the car, and all the while feeling the gun, heavy in my purse, that I’d planned to turn over to Burly-Bear as soon as he chose to come collect it. The moment is so quiet that the toot of his horn causes me to start. I’m half about to ignore that, too—I don’t really do responding to car horns—when he calls out. It’s Escroto. No surprise.
I go over and duck down. He’s looking particularly flush today, or perhaps it’s just the squeezed-behind-the-wheel effect. He’s got one of those seat covers made of wooden beads. His arm rests along the back of the front seat and he moves his hand, like “what am I waiting for?’
I get in and smell all ten thousand cigarettes that have been smoked here over this car’s life. It occurs to me that I’ve never seen Escroto smoke. He has a toothpick in his mouth. Maybe that’s his oral substitute. Maybe I don’t care.
Escroto: (moving the toothpick to the other corner of his mouth) You’re quite the early bird.
Me: Makes us birds of a feather.
Escroto: You planning on shutting the car door, there?
Me: (surprised) No.
He snorts like I’m playing a game, then hoists himself out on his side and walks around to shut my door. I slide half over to the driver’s seat, take his keys out of the ignition, and lean heavily on the horn. I’m childishly amused to see him start, halfway around the hood of his car. Chuckling feels good—it’s been a long time. As the horn blares, Escroto spreads his hands like I’m crazy. I jerk my head back at my side door and he retraces his steps and opens it.
Escroto: What the hell is wit you?
Me: I want the door open while we talk.
Escroto: You want the door hanging open while we’re sitting in the car?
Me: You’re quicker than you look.
Escroto: (seems about to ask why, then apparently decides that he doesn’t give a shit) Fine with me, lady. You mind keeping your hand off the horn while I cross around this time?
Me: I’ll do my best, detective.
He crosses around, adjusting his belt below his tummy in that way men do when they’re annoyed. I slide over and he squashes himself back in behind the wheel and slams his door.
Escroto: You want to hand me my keys?
Me: (I look at them. His key chain is decorated with a pair of miniature dice. They’re silver, with garnet dots.) We’re talking right here, understand? I’m not agreeing to go anywhere with you. You pull off from the curb you’d better be arresting me, because the other choice is kidnap.
Escroto: (gets a real mean look in his eye, then retreats, slyly, into clown mode) What—I’m gonna drive away with my car door open?
Me: You might, when this is what you’re driving. (I toss him his keys anyway. He catches them and sticks them in the ignition but doesn’t start the car.)
Escroto: Caught your disappearing act in Concord. You realize I could have gone straight to your place and busted you? You got your pal Malloy to thank for that not taking place.
Me: I think it’s the law I have to thank, unless there’s some new statute on the books that says any person the police feel like picking up after a crime can be forced to go with them.
Escroto: (grunts a half laugh) That statute ain’t new.
Me: So you want to know about Concord? I was there for a meeting. My lawyer was supposed to be there, too, but apparently he arrived early, found the bodies, and called the police. You must have heard all that from him.
Escroto: We like to hear from everyone. We’re that way.
Me: Well, now you have.
Escroto: A meeting about what?
Me: About the cops, how you’re harassing me.
Escroto: (points at me) You want to play games, you can get out of the car and expect a couple of uniforms to pick you up later in front of your fruity friends up there.
Me: (sigh—although he’s scored a good shot) I wanted to talk to the Colonel about his wife. I think she was involved in Stephen Pearle’s life. Pearle was her jeweler, and I think she introduced him to a man with whom he had a fling before deciding that he wasn’t into men. (ol’ Escroto snorts—a fag’s a fag is what this undoubtedly signifies. I forge ahead.) I think that at the Bartók concert where the Colonel’s wife introduced Stephen to this other man, he also saw her talking to me, and that later he asked her whether I was attached. I think Stephen was biding his time, extracting himself from his relationship with this other man while he homed in on me. I think the other man figured this out, maybe by reading Stephen’s diary, maybe in some other way. I think that maybe this other man is a psychopath who did not like being rejected.
Escroto: (without a pause, as if they’ve got all this) You got a name for this other man?
Me: No. (It’s a kneejerk response—I have no idea at this point why I would want to protect the Mysterious Hottie—I mean, at best he should have figured out who I am and called. I gave him a great lay and am giving him a great painting…oh, men.)
Escroto: Oh well. Nice little story you had going, though.
Me: You asked what I was planning on t
alking about with the Colonel and his lawyer. That was it. I was hoping the Colonel’s wife could provide a name.
Escroto: And you’re thinking that this psycho gay lover beat you to it—murdered the Colonel and his wife only hours—jeez Louise, one hour—before you was set to crack this whole case for us? That where we’re at, here?
Me: There’s more, unfortunately.
Escroto: Do tell (but his hostility has dulled a bit).
Me: (looking through the windshield and down the long hilly street. The traffic, both vehicular and foot, has picked up. I reach out without thinking and pull the door closed. I think about how to proceed, and when I do I speak carefully) I think the Colonel’s wife is…
Escroto: Was. Lady died at 3:56 this morning.
Me: Oh. I didn’t meet her many times, but I developed a strong impression of her as…
Escroto: As?
Me: (I swallow before continuing) As a sort of woman who would suspect her husband of having a dalliance. (I find myself short of breath and hurry to finish.) I think that this might have been why she’d have been happy to fan the flame of Mr. Pearle’s interest in me. She’d have wanted to encourage something other than what she might imagine was going on between me and the Colonel, what with the book we were working on.
Escroto: She saw you as after her old man’s bundle—that it?
Me: I would imagine that she saw all women in that light. Projecting, I think they call it.
Escroto: Not to, like, speak ill of the dead or nothing, huh?
Me: Exactly.
Escroto: But him. What would he be thinking?
Me: The Colonel? To him, she was a goddess. A peacock. I was a child, a mouse, someone he’d be happy to have his wife set up with a man, but not a married man. Maybe a good-looking artist who painted his wife’s portrait (I stop to brush impatiently at my tears). Maybe you should check to see whether a portrait of the Colonel’s wife is missing from their house—your partner saw it when we were there; he remembers details like that. But I don’t know. That’s the important point. It’s all speculation. I don’t know anything.
Escroto: You think she was having an affair?
Me: I don’t know.
Escroto: With who? That lawyer of theirs?
Me: I don’t know a thing. I caught up with the lawyer the other night. He was very upset and said some unintelligible things. It’s only natural.
Escroto: You think he’s the toad?
Me: The what?
Escroto: The toad in the diary. The diary you and Malloy read with the old man. Mentions a horny toad escorting the fat pussy at that concert.
Me: (Suddenly I emit a short spurt of laughter). Well, toads are a symbol for male genitals in romantic literature, did you know that?
Escroto: What the hell you talkin’ about?
Me: (swallowing my giddiness) Nothing. I’m confused.
Escroto: (leaning in a little and grasping the back of the car seat just by my shoulder) Do you think the lawyer was having a thing with the wife?
Me: So what if they were? The Colonel finds out? He kills his wife and then himself? Well, if that happened there would be evidence, signs of a struggle, gunpowder remnants on the Colonel’s fingers, at the very least.
Escroto: (after a pause) How’d you know they was shot?
Me: I talked to the lawyer, remember? He said he found the bodies.
Escroto: Oh, yeah? Tell you about the housekeeper, too? Old lady swears you were there earlier in the afternoon. Says she heard you and the Colonel talking.
Me: (I’m oddly calm about this half-baked accusation. When I talk it’s in a gentle, singsong voice.) And, tell me, detective: did she hear a couple of shots, then my steps across the foyer, then the door close, all while perched in the kitchen, polishing spoons?
Escroto: (I don’t look, but I believe he actually chuckles.) It’s a big house. Lady went down for a nap. Only woke up when the cops arrived.
Me: Another star witness bites the dust.
Escroto: Another?
Me: (turning my head to glance his way) You know, that witness in the train station. The one who swore I was struggling with Pearle and pushed him into the tracks.
Escroto: (his little black eyes on mine) What witness is this?
Me: (spontaneously) Male. Blond. Artistic type.
Escroto: (he’s got an okay poker face, but there’s no doubt that in his mind he’s about to score) Wouldn’t be describing your own brother, would you, hon?
Me: What about my brother? (I can’t help it—my voice drips with condescension, that he should even mention dickel to me.)
Escroto: (picking right up on my slip and loving it) Excuse me, ma’am, that’d be the brother who’s been arrested God knows how many times since age fifteen. The brother who, as an even younger kid, put an end to what your father used to make the two of you do—
Me: (I want to sit there, coolly taking whatever he might say, then let myself out of his car with a dry word about fishwives’ tales and forked tongues. But my hand moves on its own accord, like a snake, so independently of the rest of me that I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover myself crushing the fat cop’s balls. Instead, I press hard on the steering wheel. The horn blares. Some gulls hopping around the pile of dog crap outside rattle off into the sky, cawing. Escroto doesn’t jump this time. Instead, he smiles unpleasantly. I push my door open.) I’m going to work now. You can go badger the next poor soul unfortunate enough to have crossed your path, you emotional blackmailer.
He forces a chuckle as I close the car door. I like the way the noise of the snorts coming out of him are cut off all in a moment, as is my ability to see him, when the car door closes and the window suddenly reflects the bright sky. It’s as if he’s been deleted. Nice feeling.
Escroto isn’t finished with me, however. Thinking back, I now understand that last sleazy chuckle was more a giggle in anticipation of coming attractions. Wish I had squeezed his balls when I’d had the chance. Onward, though.
My office is deserted, it being 7:00. Grateful for the silence, I wake my computer and began the plod through the hodgepodge of emails, most of them offers for discount fares to exotic places, usurious rates on real estate, and, for the fellas, knee-length penises. Eventually I come to a message from my boss, Judith, asking me to see her as soon as I’m in. It’s worded curtly. She is a sharp-tongued woman (Dame Judith, Noah calls her, a nod to all the evil old spinsters played by screen legend Judith Anderson), so in all likelihood she’d word an email about my elevation to full editor like a reprimand, but something causes me to swing around in my swivel chair to look down the open space toward the narrow door with the Venetian blinds in its window, behind which Dame Judith nitpicks her way through her day, whenever she isn’t fawning (still, not without her vinegary edge) over the authors and of course especially over Mr. Bohnan (or, in Noah’s vernacular: “He Who Must Be Boned”).
To my discomfort—always jarring to be totally alone only to discover the presence of someone spying on you—the narrow door is ajar. And by leaning my head precariously, I am able to spy a shiny gold sleeve—an elbow. That would be Dame Judith’s Victoria’s Secret fantasy blouse, a poorly constructed piece of rayon/polyester costumery that someone undoubtedly told her looks good with her skin tone, which is that kind of curdled-cream color that comes from too much reading and not enough sun over a period of many decades. Getting yourself fucked raw with your head hanging off the end of the bed might help liven up that skin tone; merely dressing like a hooker does not. With this particular blouse, Dame Judith will be wearing her “confidence” suit—cream-n-brown “jailbird striped” jacket and pants—which means that it’s to be a Bitch-Behind-Bars day (yes, another Noah-ism).
Anyway, I check the time on her email and it had been sent at 11:17 the prior evening. This is not good news, as it conjures up images of crankiness combined with righteousness at having worked so very late only to confirm her suspicions that one of her minions of—shall we call m
e a minion of “less than maximum diffidence?”—had left some menial task not quite completed by her strictly imposed false deadline. The way her mind works, she’d figure that I would tiptoe in on the fingers of dawn, smug in my subterfuge, to finish said task. And, fueled by the pure adrenaline of pettiness, she has managed to beat me to the office to await her moment of triumph. What a life that woman leads.
Ah, well, might as well start my day with a double dose of screwed. Twenty minutes later I’m “on second warning,” which appears to be some on-the-spot invented status at my publishing shop for “fireable at will.” As someone who’s rarely been reprimanded by an authority figure, I mind Dame Judith’s tart dressdown less than I’d have thought. It does bug me a tetch that I’ve somehow ascended to “second warning” without ever having been apprised of my “first warning.” Apparently those go unpublicized, which seems to undermine their utility. Wisely, I don’t press this point with Dame Judith, as I recognize it as a cleverly laid trap, a little goad designed to allow me to trip her dragon cord, after which she will let loose the flood of exaggerated as well as wholly invented transgressions she’s been amassing all night, all of which is meant to culminate in my resigning on the spot at just about the point when my fellow minions are popping in, hopeful smiles on their faces as they anticipate the office smut of this shiny new day, only to find one of their own in floods of tears, packing her desk. I should make clear that it’s not that Dame Judith hates me. Nor is she a horrible boss. It’s just that her instincts compel her to propel these nasty little dramas into our lives.