Fickle
Page 34
Eventually I am at my apartment. I go around behind the building and fold myself up, wet and filthy, in the back seat of my car. When I wake up it’s either still night or the next night. The rain has stopped, although the chilly air is wet. My hands refuse to uncurl. I find that I am thinking about trains.
“I stare at the wall outside the window—dark, light, dark, light, dark, light…”
I get out of my cramped car and head for South Station, where I have the presence of mind to comb my hair in the ladies’ room before approaching the ticket window.
GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT
36-D @ February 18 06:02 pm
fickel, I sent the Rottweiler down to check things out. Might have been the reason they let you go at all. He says they bamboozled him and must have purposely had you leave out a back exit so that he’d miss you, then lied about whether you’d been there at all. Cops lie, like, without any hesitation, according to the Rottweiler, but this is not how to operate with him. He is furious and fully prepared to represent you, but he says you have to get back to Boston pronto. We know you’re not running but this is how cops (and judges, and a jury, god forbid) will interpret your need to ride the rails. Get back east—and call me.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 18 07:10 pm
fickel, I wish I could offer something besides mere words. You must find yourself both legal and emotional assistance and I can recommend spiritual assistance organizations as well. You know how to reach me offsite. Please do.
36-D @ February 18 07:12 pm
Where are you blogging from, anyway? Do you get off these trains you’re riding and spend the night anywhere? God, a couple of days on Amtrak would kill me.
chinkigirl @ February 18 07:14 pm
Much as we’d all like to help, I’m not sure it’s wise for fickel to be answering any specific questions. I think she should get herself home, contact 36-D, and sit down immediately with the Rottweiler. I really see that as the only priority. That and keeping an eye out for the M.H., although I can only presume that he is as far away from Boston as he could get himself.
marleybones @ February 18 07:18 pm
The M.H? Weirdly enough, I’m not 100% certain that it’s the Mysterious Hottie who murdered Burly-Bear. From what fickel wrote I pictured dickel—fickel’s brother. It just read that way to me, and when the police kept fickel for so long I was thinking this was because she wouldn’t name her brother as Burly-Bear’s attacker. Am I totally off, here?
roadrage @ February 19 10:29 pm
Well, it’s been hours since your question, marleybones, and my guess is that fickel is offline. I just want to say that I’ve noticed a lot of similarities between the Mysterious Hottie and dickel…blond, built thin, hard to control.
chinkigirl @ February 19 10:35 pm
Plus, both of them came and went in a similarly irregular way. What are we thinking? Just coincidental?
marleybones @ February 19 10:42 pm
Speaking of coincidences, there’s also a similarity between proudblacktrannie and Slenderbuns that’s been tugging at me.
chinkigirl @ February 19 10:44 pm
Wait a minute—now some of us are populating fickel’s world?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 19 10:48 pm
I’m inclined to hesitate before going down the path of seeing all gay black cross-dressing males as interchangeable.
webmaggot @ February 19 10:49 pm
Wow you’re so incredibly PC. Can I blow you?
proudblacktrannie @ February 19 10:50 pm
GOD I have been WAITING for one of you to NOTICE. I recognized Slenderbuns as myself at around the time he got SHOT. Not that I got shot at work, of course, but a fine black boy from my community did, and some people are saying that it was a YOUNG WHITE WOMAN or a WHITE TATTOO PUNK who did the shooting. As in fickel and dickel? You tell me:
This was at the West Rox pinball arcade. A young man named Lamont Travers. Go to Boston.com for the full story. Nothing about the girl or the skinhead, and nothing about Lamont being gay, but he was shot at close range, one bullet, and I have spoken to a person who has a friend who was an eyewitness, and she says that this white girl was talking to him and the shot went off and this white girl threw herself down on the floor, as did many people of course, and that she was so upset and did not apparently have a weapon on her and had been standing near the entrance to the place at the time so everyone had assumed that the shot had come from just behind her. I mean, apparently this white girl could have run easily but did not, you see? So everyone thought she was another witness, but she took off—melted away before the cops got there, and then some people from outside started talking about having seen some skinhead running fast. This boy Lamont was no trouble—no drugs, gangs, girls—no nothing, so now people who were there are convinced that this white girl had something to do with it.
Well so now you know: she is a killer and a cunt and WE know that she is fickel.
marleybones @ February 19 10:59 pm
Don’t take this the wrong way, proudblacktrannie, but why are you only telling us this now?
proudblacktrannie @ February 19 11:04 pm
Look my luv I have been a very loyal fan to this site. I am in tears even as I write. But I think our fickel is a pathological liar covering for her psycho maniac twin. I don’t think there’s any fullfrontal. I think that’s fickel. I think hitman is fickel. I think she’s done it all to cover for her fucking brother and that we’ve been her dopes all along.
webmaggot @ February 19 11:07 pm
You mean “dupes.”
roadrage @ February 19 11:08 pm
Dude, he’s upset.
webmaggot @ February 19 11:09 pm
She’s upset. I checked with my brother. Most trannies use “she.”
roadrage @ February 19 11:10 pm
Okay, cool, but shut up anyway.
marleybones @ February 19 11:14 pm
Look, proudblack, this is as wild a theory as the events fickel’s been giving us taken at face value. Is there anything else you’ve learned about this man who got shot at the arcade?
proudblacktrannie @ February 19 11:15 pm
I have learned plenty. He worked in a Boston retail establishment. And he was murdered in cold blood, I swear by fickel who made him out like he was ME on this blog. And WHAT DID I DO BUT OFFER LOVE AND SUPPORT TO THAT DEMENTED CREATURE?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 19 11:16 pm
proudblack, I hope you will not read this question as hostile to your viewpoint, but how could dickel have possibly been involved in this shooting? He’d been in the hospital for days by the time this took place.
proudblacktrannie @ February 19 11:17 pm
But do we KNOW that? We only have fickel’s word. We only KNOW that dickel was in the hospital as of the 6th, days AFTER Lamont Travers’s murder. You are just in denial, like I was until the TRUTH just flooded over me like ICE COLD DEATH ITSELF. fickel is EFFED UP. What, you think that just because you LIKE someone they can’t be EFFED UP? Dream on, naive people. There is nothing that says that an effed-up bitch who is STRANGELY CLOSE with her ANIMAL of a BROTHER cannot be UTTERLY CHARMING.
chinkigirl @ February 19 11:18 pm
Okay, we definitely are hearing your theory. But what about more information? Do you know what the retail establishment is where Lamont Travers worked?
proudblacktrannie @ February 19 11:19 pm
Of course I know! It was The Blue Pearl. This is what I’m saying—fickel took my online persona and—how do I say this—she grafted it onto this jewelry store clerk that she needed to kill because somehow Lamont Travers knew she was Stephen Pearle’s lover. Maybe he saw them together and when she went by The Blue Pearl he recognized her so she had to kill him before the cops got around to asking him the right question. Don’t you see?
chinkigirl @ February 19 11:20 pm
You don’t think the cops would have asked him about who Mr. Suicide’s lovers were?
proudblacktrannie @ Febru
ary 19 11:21 pm
A black boy who is clearly gay? How do you think a bunch of cops is going to react to that? I can tell you how but the language won’t be pretty.
36-D @ February 19 11:23 pm
Uhh, okay, just assuming that all cops are so prejudiced that they can’t even accept someone like that as a witness, I hate to bust your bubble but there is no place called The Blue Pearl in the Jewelers Building. I checked it out personally last time I was up in Boston.
proudblacktrannie @ February 19 11:24 pm
I have had enough of this shit. This whole horror story leaves me cold, and now I’m a liar and a cop-basher, I see. Consider me a memory. Good nite.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 19 11:29 pm
Anything reasonably like The Blue Pearl, 36-D?
36-D @ February 19 11:31 pm
There was some place called Blue Diamonds, and I went in there but the lighting’s not particularly blue that I noticed. Also, the lady I met, who seemed like the owner, was not X. She was Indian, but not American Indian, the other kind, wearing one of those saris. Plus she did not have an androgynous thing going on like X. And she was totally snotty—how she sells a thing I cannot tell you but maybe that’s why the place looked like it’s closing. Oh, and there was no blown-up photo of any exotic necklaces on the wall, OR a mirror in the back. So, you know.
webmaggot @ February 19 11:40 pm
Can you spell BIMBO?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 19 11:41 pm
Lay off, webmaggot. 36-D, don’t you see some distinct similarities between the jewelry store you just described and The Blue Pearl as described by fickel? I mean, if you accept that fickel was attempting to mask the place’s exact identity for some reason?
marleybones @ February 19 11:43 pm
Put it this way: are you actually a size 36-D? If not, I have a feeling your assets are still pretty impressive.
36-D @ February 19 11:44 pm
But proudblacktrannie said that there WAS a place called The Blue Pearl. And if he’s going to start calling fickel a liar and a killer he’s got to get his story straight.
roadrage @ February 19 11:46 pm
But aren’t you establishing she’s a liar by ascertaining that there’s no The Blue Pearl?
36-D @ February 19 11:47 pm
Oh. Maybe. Look I have no idea WHAT to conclude. Did The Blue Pearl already close by the time I made it up to Boston, or was I in the wrong building, or what? Alls I know is that none of this added up to fickel or her brother shooting some unfortunate kid in cold blood.
chinkigirl @ February 19 11:50 pm
I agree with 36-D: this is getting dangerously speculative and not doing fickel any good. I think we should lay off before we start going tooth and nail at one another. Anyway, talk to everyone soon—sorry if by posting this I start something really upsetting.
37
GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT
marleybones @ February 22 06:02 pm
Anyone out there?
roadrage @ February 22 06:15 pm
Sup my fave dyke hippie momma soulmate?
marleybones @ February 22 06:38 pm
Clue.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 07:22 pm
I’m on. But clue? As in “I haven’t got a…?”
marleybones @ February 22 07:23 pm
As in Clue. That’s all I’m offering. If no one else sees it, maybe it’s in my head.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 08:00 pm
Okay, I might have it. I was always a major fan. Fact is, I own all the versions.
marleybones @ February 22 08:12 pm
Talk to me, but be subtle.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 08:14 pm
The Colonel, the Peacock, Mr. Groin. Then there’s the housekeeper “Chalkie”…?
marleybones @ February 22 08:17 pm
Right on, man-o-God. Sit tight, now.
chinkigirl @ February 22 08:32 pm
Oh my. I think I get it, too. But coincidence, perhaps?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 08:33 pm
From the street, the people in front of the Colonel’s house looked like figurines on a board game.
roadrage @ February 22 08:48 pm
SHEE-YATT, PHUKAHZ: The Silly Git. Academic. Red hair: 2002 retro-classical set!!!!
chinkigirl @ February 22 08:53 pm
But I’m just seeing a lot of dull tweed. Well, there’s the purple bow tie.
marleybones @ February 22 08:54 pm
Beemer.
roadrage @ February 22 08:58 pm
mauve = purple?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 08:59 pm
A professional decorator you are not, apparently, but you’ve guessed it.
chinkigirl @ February 22 09:01 pm
Umm…implication of this “discovery?”
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 09:04 pm
That fickel is playful in the face of a tragedy? Fanciful, or maybe even untrustworthy, in her reporting? marleybones? You brought it to our attention…
marleybones @ February 22 09:06 pm
Lying flashbacks.
wazzup! @ February 22 09:07 pm
Crossfire!!!! The killer as narrator!!! I LUV this blog!!!
marleybones @ February 22 09:10 pm
Look, I’m not trying to read in a lot of connections…
chinkigirl @ February 22 09:13 pm
Although if we follow the analogy…
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 09:15 pm
fickel = Scarlet
roadrage @ February 22 09:16 pm
Hey, catch the number she wore to her meeting with Mr. Groin? Clue 1972, Asian Miss Scarlet is wearing that very dress.
chinkigirl @ February 22 09:19 pm
Wait a second—so what I’m gathering is that in addition to fickel’s not very subtle references to Colonel Mustard, Mrs. Peacock, and Mr. Green, we’ve also spotted more recent references to Mrs. White and Professor Plum, which is far more jarring because fickel seems to have squeezed them in at a point where you wouldn’t think she’d be in the mood for playfulness. So are we saying that these references are more than playful, but rather serve as some sort of hint?
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 09:21 pm
And, with the connection we’re now making between fickel herself and Miss Scarlet, are we saying that on some level fickel wanted us to consider her a suspect in the deaths of the Colonel and the Peacock?
chinkigirl @ February 22 09:28 pm
I don’t get what you’re getting at.
36-D @ February 22 09:30 pm
Hi, everyone. God I am so worried. Rottweiler and I have heard NOTHING from fickel. And, since it’s always my job to be the literal one—fickel doesn’t wear much in the way of red.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 22 09:33 pm
I, too, am mystified. Are we wondering whether fickel is admitting guilt in this “playful” way?
webmaggot @ February 22 09:37 pm
Killers can’t resist that—I mean, we noir-heads of all people know this shit. Makes them feel smart. Or sometimes they can’t live with it bottled up. Chick killers, especially.
marleybones @ February 22 09:38 pm
Chick killers. Is that women who kill, or killers with female victims?
webmaggot @ February 22 09:39 pm
Umm, maybe both? Hey, are you one of those profs who always throwing out these clever brain-twisty questions that make people look stupid in front of all their friends?
marleybones @ February 22 09:40 pm
Pretty much sums me up. Look, I don’t know where we’re going with all this, exactly. Personally, I’m just thinking my way along and am finally coming to think that there’s far more than meets the eye throughout this entire blog.
wazzup! @ February 22 09:42 pm
Yes, absolutely there is much MUCH more! This is always a feature of a fine noir, as I know we all agree! fickel, or should I now say Miss Scarlet, absolutely RULES!!
chinkig
irl @ February 22 09:43 pm
fickel? Please tell us we’re crazy…?
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GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT
roadrage @ February 24 10:48 pm
Hey, ’sup blog? Something tells me I’m talking to myself, but if anyone’s out there, I have some interesting information to report.
’Loooooo? Am I talking to myself?
marleybones @ February 24 11:18 pm
Not at the moment.
chinkigirl @ February 24 11:32 pm
Actually, I’m here now, too. I check in about twice a day, just to see if fickel’s back. I also check Boston.com every day and I’m in touch with an old friend from Brighton who knows a reporter at the Globe—but so far I’ve got very little to offer. I am hugely worried. Has anyone heard anything—anyone from Boston?
roadrage @ February 24 11:40 pm
Hey, ladies. I’m back on. In answer to your question, you tell me:
Couple days ago, I’m up on Newbury (Classic Comix—best oldies comic book store EVUR) and I realized I was near the Hynes T station where Mr. Suicide—well, Pearle—got killed. So I went to check it out. Nothing, of course—just looked like a train station—not even any old lady screaming at me in Swedish. But when I got back to the street level, I’m looking around and there’s this bookstore across the street—mostly secondhand junk and a big poster about their sci-fi collection, but the name of the store is—get this—Dark Corner.
I never really paid much attention to it before, which is totally weird because I’m definitely a used book freak and of course the store’s name is kinda noir, but anyway, I go in and it’s just like you think, all crammed with moldy paperbacks and some dweeb (I say that with respect—as in, I recognized and warmly acknowledged a fellow dweeb) sitting on a stool behind this high wooden counter, sucking on ginger gummies and reading The Room with Something Wrong.