Maniac Drifter

by Laura Marello

  “Harper Martin!” I said, jumped out of bed, and then, finding I did not have any clothes on, climbed back in again. “Harper Martin! What are you doing here?”

  “It’s like I told you last night, babe,” he said, setting the book down on the nightstand. “I’m like a man sentenced to death. Every man gets his last wish. So you granted it to me, don’t you remember?”

  I looked at him astonished and tried with all my might to remember, but I couldn’t.

  “It’s like a man on his way to the electric chair, and before he goes in, they ask him if he wants to make a phone call, or say a prayer or make a statement, but he asks the jailer for a cigarette. A cigarette. It’s like that. You’re like that. Like a cigarette.”

  Harper leaned over and took the pack of Marlboros off the nightstand. He extracted a cigarette from the pack, tamped it on his knuckles, ripped off the filter, and placed the cigarette between his lips.

  “By the way,” he said, “you gotta light?”

  I pointed to the nightstand, where a matchbook was lying next to his cigarette pack. Harper touched the rim of his fedora, took up the matches and lit his cigarette. He leaned back on the pillows, and let the smoke out languorously. Then he looked at me again, tousled my hair with his free hand and put his fedora on my head.

  “So how’s my girl this morning? Did you get your beauty rest? You were pretty mad when I snuck in so late and woke you up.”

  I was still staring at him. I was wondering if I had ever slept with him before. I was wondering if he was the one who had left the note on my pillow that said, You’re so hot I could light a cigarette on your thigh. But to find that out I would have to confess my amnesia, and I didn’t want to. I was especially wondering if he had already been given a jail term, since he kept talking about himself as a man sentenced to death. But that could not have happened overnight. Didn’t he have to go to trial first? After all, this was America. He hadn’t even turned himself in for questioning yet.

  Harper took his watch off the nightstand and fastened it around his wrist. Judging from the nightstand it seemed as if he could have been in bed for several days. A bottle of Jack Daniels and two glasses with melted ice in them, an ashtray full of Marlboros with the filters ripped off, and several scraps of folded paper lay on the table. One of the papers had phone numbers written on it, another calculations. Harper’s wallet also lay on open on the nightstand with its credit cards and dollar bills spilling out. Next to that was a set of keys, two plastic pens, a rubber band, a plastic comb and three toothpicks.

  Harper climbed out of bed and walked over to the dresser. He patted a television set that was sitting on top of it. “See what I brought you?” Then he leaned over and plugged it in. I thought he was very nice looking with his clothes off. I did not remember ever seeing him that way before. I hoped we would not make love again so I would be able to remember. That would be something. But why was he wearing his tie?

  Harper switched the television on. “See what I brought you?” he repeated. When the picture came clear, he turned the dial to Channel Two and got back into bed again. “I thought that since I was turning myself in to the Feds, from now on you’d want to be able to watch the CBS News and the Temple of the Jaguar Reports at home.” He put his arm around me, pulled me gently against him and kissed me.

  “You’re turning yourself in this morning?” I said.

  “Of course. Isn’t that what last night was all about?”

  “I delivered one letter to the investors’ meeting and the other to Dan Rather.”

  “I know. You were brilliant. But you’re missing the update. Watch.” He pointed to the screen.

  I looked at a shot of Provincetown, somewhere on Bradford Street, early in the morning. The TV camera scanned the street, where a crowd of people was lined up behind a barricade, and the neighbors were leaning out their windows or sitting on their porches. In front of a three-story white house, a crowd of reporters had congregated with their cameras on their shoulders, microphones in their hands and cables trailing behind them to their vans. The television showed a closer view of the house, focusing in on the front door, then the windows on each floor going up to the third story, then the two skylights on the sloped roof.

  “That’s this house!” I screamed.

  “That’s right now,” he said.

  The TV commentator said that the crowd was anxious for the Federal Marshals to arrive, and for Harper to appear. They hoped he would make a statement.

  “Jesus Christ!” I said, jumping out of bed and looking around frantically for my clothes. “Is the door locked? Are they coming up now? Are the reporters coming?”

  “Relax. I locked the door. Nobody’s coming. And nobody will see you if you stop running back and forth in front of the windows. They’re shooting this live, you know.”

  “Shooting!” I said, diving into bed with an improvised set of clothes on. I zippered, snapped and buttoned, pulled my socks up, tied the laces of my sneakers, brushed my hair and pulled the covers up. “Am I going to get arrested?”

  “Who would arrest you? Don’t be silly.” He put out his cigarette and took his fedora from my head. “The Feds aren’t coming until nine,” he said. “Can I use your shower?” I nodded. “Will you make some French toast? I said yes. “That’s my girl.”

  He put on his white shirt and flicked the tie underneath the collar. He pulled on his jockey shorts, chinos, socks, and stuffed his wallet, wads of paper, pens, and keys into his pockets. Leaving his jacket off, he went into the bathroom, turned on the shower water and burst out singing, You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss —

  When he emerged from the bathroom, fully dressed except for his wing tips and leather jacket, I had the French toast ready. He carried the TV into the kitchen and positioned it on the day bed. Harper put on his shoes and sat down at the kitchen table.

  “You always have the best syrup,” he said, pouring a generous portion onto his French toast.

  It was ten minutes to nine. I turned the television sound off, so I could hear what was going on in the street. It was too confusing to listen to the same sounds on the TV that I could hear out the windows. When Harper was finished eating, he got up and began to wash the dishes.

  “I’ll do that,” I said.

  “Wouldn’t think of it.”

  I remained at the table, watching the TV and listening to the noises outside. I could hear the generalized hum of people talking to each other, and above that people shouting messages to Harper.

  I watched Harper finish the dishes. He was humming “I Get a Kick Out of You” and had an aura of domestic harmony about him, as if he had been living with me for years, and this was a normal day, like any other one, when nothing out of the ordinary was going to happen. Then I began to hear another noise — a low ominous drone, like the dragonflies at Long Point Light, only stronger, and more sinister. The floor and windows began to shake.

  “It’s an earthquake!” I said and ran for the door. Then I remembered the reporters downstairs and ran back again.

  “It’s not an earthquake. You lived in Los Angeles too long. It’s my ride.” He dried his hands, draped the towel over the sink, and pointed up at the roof.

  “A helicopter?” I said, looking up at the ceiling and then at the television. I went to the skylight and tried to see out without showing myself.

  “An army helicopter,” he said, pointing to the TV. “Double rotors.”

  “Why didn’t you tell them to pick you up on the ground?” I said. I knew this had been his idea. He was showing off again, making everything larger than life, like the movies.

  “I have this fear of the ground,” he said, putting his leather jacket on and adjusting his fedora and string tie. “And anyway, the Feds asked me to avoid the reporters.”

  He took me by the shoulders and kissed me once on each cheek, like a Frenchman. Then he gave me a bear hug and patted me vigorously on the back, like a Soviet President in a gargantuan fur coat might do on
the national news. Then he bowed. Harper was getting ready for a public appearance, for interviews, government meetings and press conferences.

  “Now be good,” he said.

  He cranked the skylight open, then hoisted himself up so he was sitting on the rim. The crowd cheered. He waved to them and blew them kisses. One of the helicopter pilots, in military fatigues, a helmet and headphones, offered Harper his hand to help him out onto the roof, but Harper shook his head and indicated that he would do it himself. The helicopter must have descended in order to pick him up, and it was roaring now. Harper shouted at me: “Remember what we talked about!” He blew me a kiss, climbed around the dome of the skylight, stood up on the sloped roof, and fell into the open arms of the helicopter man.

  I crept over to the skylight and peered out, keeping my head down so I would not be seen. Harper and the helicopter man climbed up a short ladder into the machine, and it started to lift up again. When it was high enough, the house stopped shuddering and I could hear the crowd below shouting: “Free Harper Martin!” They were pointing at the helicopter and the skylight. I kept my eye on them, wondering if they were angry or excited, or simply curious. I thought about Harper’s parting words: Remember what we talked about. I couldn’t remember anything. But if I failed to, I would let him down. Whatever he had asked me to do, I wouldn’t know what it was.

  Now the crowd was shouting: “Free Harper Martin! Free the Temple of the Jaguars!” The camera crews still ran around in the street, some filming the crowd, some filming their newscasters, who pointed to the house, the skylight, and the spot in the sky where the helicopter had disappeared. I watched the whole thing on television.

  Eventually the crowd thinned, the policemen took the barricades down and drove away. The reporters and cameramen began to come into the house, slowly, in twos and threes, and some of the people who had been watching followed them. I rushed to the door and made sure it was locked, then I pushed the kitchen table against it and stacked the chairs on top of that. Then I dove into the bed with all my clothes on and pulled the covers up over my head.

  From my position under the covers, I could hear people walking up and down the stairs, knocking on doors, conferring with each other and with my neighbors. I could hear the camera crews shouting directions. At intervals people would knock on my door, but none of the chairs stacked against the kitchen table fell down. They would shout: “Excuse me!” through the door, and identify themselves and the call letters of their television stations. After that some of my neighbors tried knocking, even my landlord, but I stayed under the covers and eventually everyone gave up and went away. When it had been quiet for a while, I began to think about Harper again, and what he had said to me just before he climbed out of the skylight. Remember what we talked about. Again, I wondered what we had talked about, what I was supposed to do.

  I pulled the covers off and sat up in bed. I reached over to the cupboard built into the wall, and slid the door open. Inside were a number of boxes I used for storage, where I kept old clothes, photographs, magazine articles, keepsakes and memorabilia, appliances that needed repair, items I no longer used, but did not have the heart to give away. In one of these boxes, underneath a broken alarm clock, a tea kettle, and a stuffed bear, I had hidden the skin-suit man. I pulled everything out of the box now, until I reached the bottom. The package was still there, wrapped up in an old sweater. I took the bundle out and unwrapped it.

  I sat the skin-suit man on my lap and ran my fingers over him. I traced the outlines of the elaborate knot securing his mask, and the bows fastening the skin suit on him. I placed my fingertips in the palms of his real hands, and then in the palms of the hands dangling from the skin suit. I traced the edge of the mask underneath his chin, and the top of the suit, just below, around his neck and shoulders. I put my hand in his real mouth, then traced its outline, and then the outline of the mouth surrounding it, the one that belonged to the mask. The mouths were both slightly open. It made him look plaintive, as if he were longing for something, and was about to cry out. I put my finger through the eye of the mask, and tried to touch the real eyes down below, but the gap was deep and the eye slits narrow, so I could not reach through. I looked inside carefully, trying to locate the eyes, but they had not been carved in. I ran my fingertips along his arms and back, as if to smooth the skin suit down. The lava was porous, and made him look pockmarked, or scarred. I touched the stitches on the chest where the flayed man’s heart had been removed.

  I had guessed right about the skin-suit man — he was wearing another man’s skin. The idea made me uneasy. I had seen men on the wharf flay fish, and even that turned my stomach. But the idea of a man actually wearing another man’s skin, his legs inside the other man’s legs, his arms inside the other man’s arms, his chest against the other man’s chest, his face peering out from beneath the other man’s face — it unsettled me. And this is how he gained his magic, I thought. This is how he let the god inside him.

  Chapter Three

  When I was sure no reporters or curiosity seekers were still waiting downstairs, I went out. I intended to stop at Nichole’s house on my way to the Bocce tournament.

  Nichole had inherited the house on Miller Hill from her maternal grandmother. Her father Cosmo said she did not appreciate the house but she did. Acquiring property was the most amazing thing that had ever happened to her. It changed her life by bringing her back to Provincetown when she had vowed never to come back. It made her a landlord; she had also inherited two other houses that she divided into apartments and rented to several tenants.

  At first, when I went to Nichole’s, she was either engaged in her Jane Fonda Aerobics Workout of which she was a religious follower, or hunched over a desk littered with gas, electric and plumbing bills. In addition to managing her rented houses, Nichole had arranged all the maintenance and paid the bills for Cosmo’s restaurant, and had worked as the hostess at night. I wondered how she ever got any painting done, but she had several studios, one in the loft of the Miller Hill house, one above Cosmo’s restaurant, and one at Days Studios. Nichole was not extravagant; she was just prolific. She liked to work on several paintings at once, and her canvases were so enormous she occupied the space in all three studios. She was always threatening to move out of the studios at Days and Cosmo’s and only work at home, but she was afraid if she did she would never leave the house.

  After Nichole met Frank and he started working on the house, it was consumed with hammering and sawing. The entire back of the house next to Nichole’s bedroom was opened up so the place looked like a stage set. Nichole was always on her hands and knees hammering, all dusty, wearing a pair of jeans, her hair tied up in a scarf.

  After she told her father about Frank, Nichole had quit working for her father at the restaurant. She said he had ranted and raved, yelled and screamed, called her a whore and public disgrace to the family, told her she was never any good, that she had always let him down, time after time, and this was the final act, the last straw. She said that he saw his own history repeating itself. When I had asked her if Frank was still married, she told me it was not a condition that went away suddenly. When I asked her what she would do next, she said she planned to move out of her studios at Days and Cosmo’s to save money, paint at home and live off her rental monies. She said she didn’t have time to paint anyway, because she was helping Frank with the house. Since then I had only seen her once, at the Costume Ball, and by then nothing had changed.

  When I arrived at Nichole’s that day, Frank’s truck was not parked in front, and I could not hear any hammering or sawing. Perhaps they had won against the termites and finished the new porch foundation, or maybe they had given up, and Frank had gone back to his wife. Anything could happen in a couple of days.

  From the door I could hear Nichole’s Jane Fonda Aerobics tape, and Nichole counting and grunting while she labored under the exercises. I pounded on the door as hard as I could and yelled Nichole’s name.

  “That�
�s the way the Fire Department knocks,” Nichole said when she let me in.

  The house looked alarmingly tidy. No walls were ripped out; no hammers or nails lay anywhere; no dust from sawn wood or splinters from shingles covered the floor. No rags or work clothes were thrown haphazardly into chairs. Even Nichole’s desk was clear from the stacks of bills and ledgers she was usually working with.

  “I didn’t know you were going to be part of Benefit Week,” Nichole said while she was pouring me a glass of cranberry juice.

  “What?”

  “I saw your house on TV this morning.”

  “Wasn’t that wild?” I said.

  “Harper’s penchant for exits in helicopters is a theatrical urge.”

  “Have I ever disagreed with you?” I said.

  “It’s a double edged sword. The same charm that creates his image serves to undermine it. You know what I mean?”

  “When did you become a media analyst?” I said.

  “This morning when I watched your house on TV.”

  I sat down quietly at the kitchen table and drank the cranberry juice. Even this room was unusually clean. No dishes loitered in the sink; no sugar granules were scattered on the table; the floor looked as if it had just been mopped and polished; everything on the shelves was in its proper place. I wondered how Nichole could have become so fastidious. Perhaps it was Frank’s influence.

  “So what’s happening with Frank?” I asked when we moved into the living room and took our places — me at the dining room table and Nichole in her overstuffed chair by the south window.

  “He’s negotiating with his wife.”

  “How does it look?”

  “Bad. He might stay with her.” Nichole looked down glumly into her juice glass, and then began to turn it slowly in her hand. It seem as if Nichole believed, perhaps for the first time, that Frank would stay with his wife. She looked resigned, almost chastened. Perhaps this explained why everything was in order, nothing left to be cleaned, no bills left to be paid, nothing standing out that needed to be put away, as if the house had been tidied and left for an incoming tenant.