The Fictional Man

by Al Ewing

  “God, don’t pull any punches,” Niles muttered, pushing his teriyaki away. Bob grabbed it and moved it to his side of the table.

  “You want to know why else she’s perfect for you?” Bob said, picking up a piece of the teriyaki and trying it. He pushed it back to Niles, scowling. “You’re insane. It’s all that boiled beef or whatever you ate growing up – you can no longer taste real food. Eat it.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “You’re insulting them, and you’re embarrassing me. Eat it.”

  Niles blinked. “Is that Indiana Jones?”

  “It feels transgressive. Like I stole his hat.” Bob grinned. “The other reason she’s perfect for you is that you’ve got things in common. In that she wants to be in a story where she’s the hero. And so do you.”

  Niles frowned. “Sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He picked up a bit of the teriyaki with his fingers and gave it an experimental nibble. Then a bite.

  “Like Iyla said,” Bob smiled, “you’re always telling a story about yourself. A little on-going fiction where you’re the hero and everything you do is – well, not right, exactly, but at least sympathetic. You’re a good guy.”

  “A good Joe,” mumbled Niles. Then he told Bob about the narration.

  “That’s a little fucked up,” Bob said, cocking his head. “How long has that been going on?”

  “Pretty much my whole life,” Niles replied. “Well, my whole working life. Although even at school I was doing it to an extent – I don’t know, maybe a lot of people do that when they’re teenagers...”

  Bob ate his last roll. “You wanted to be fictional. A fictional character you could write and edit yourself, because that would give you control over your life.” He chuckled to himself. “Although what do I know, right? What does Ralph say?”

  “I never told him about it.”

  “He’d have come up with that exact same bullshit.” He looked Niles in the eye, mock-seriously. “One strike for me, I guess.”

  “You should let me have one of mine back. Anyway, now the whole narration thing... it’s turned into these daydreams, these sort of little fantasies where I imagine everything just... going horribly. The worst possible outcome, or things that are just... I mean, yesterday I imagined getting so full of myself that I turned into a black hole and narrated an autobiography.”

  “Wow.” Bob blinked. “You should write some of those down.”

  Niles shook his head, finishing his teriyaki while Bob signalled for the bill. “So, you’ve proved you’re the new Ralph. What do you think it means?”

  “Christ, don’t ask me. Maybe... I don’t know. Maybe you’re just sick of the story of Niles Golan, brilliant genius author and second coming of Shakespeare. Maybe it’s time to start the story of Niles Golan, not so much a prick.” He shrugged.

  Niles smiled despite himself. “What the hell,” he said. “Maybe it is.”

  AS SOON AS they were back on the road, Bob fell asleep – he seemed to pass out almost immediately – leaving Niles to drive the rest of the way up I-5 towards Redding. It wasn’t as much of a pleasure to be driving the Mercedes as he’d thought it would be, and after an hour and a half on the road, he found his eyelids drooping slightly, and the traffic noise becoming increasingly soporific. He really should have gotten some sleep himself. Still, he was sure he could tough it out.

  The author, having made this grotesquely irresponsible decision, immediately fell into a dreamless slumber that lasted until the speeding car jumped the centre reservation and ploughed explosively into a bus filled entirely with screaming orphans and helpless kittens and puppies, which smashed in turn into a convoy of nuclear missiles.

  A Public Service Announcement was immediately commissioned, entitled “Don’t be a Golan!” and starring a clone of Hitler in the title role.

  Niles shook himself. Now that he thought about it, toughing it out probably wasn’t such a good idea.

  Music, that was what he needed – either something really good, like Billy Joel, or something horrible like that new thing that sounded like robots ejaculating. He searched the dial, trying to keep the volume low enough not to wake up Bob. Wait – was that ‘Scenes From An Italian Restaurant’? It was!

  Perfect.

  He was still singing along, feeling much fresher, when the last chords faded out and the radio started on the traffic report, followed by news of the capture of the Sherlock Holmes Killer.

  Niles turned it up.

  “...breaking news at the top of the hour is that the Sherlock Holmes Killer is in police custody, and surprising nobody, it’s Sherlock Holmes! But what is surprising LA’s finest – and putting more than a little egg on their faces – is the news that the killer is the same Sherlock Holmes who, up until this morning, had taken charge of the investigation! Sounds to us like it’s ‘Sher Luck’ that the LAPD caught him! Meanwhile, Congress met again today on the matter of...”

  Niles spun the dial. Next to him, Bob blinked sleepily. “What’s going on?”

  “They’re saying Sherlock Holmes did it – the murders.” Niles replied, searching the radio for a dedicated news channel. He caught Bob’s look. “The Classic Holmes. The one who was on the TV in the bar.”

  “You’re shitting me,” Bob said, and took charge of the dial. After a moment, he found a proper news channel, which told them the whole story.

  MISTER SHERLOCK HOLMES had, of late, been possessed by a desire common to humanity, but uncommon to the Fictional kind; the desire for progeny. Fictionals were, of course, sterile – the interbreeding of man and fiction was not something society felt it could permit – but Holmes had always been unconcerned with the flesh and its pleasures. To him, the problem was an intellectual curiosity, a fascinating and delightful puzzle. How could he, as a Fictional, reproduce? What would that mean for one such as him?

  The answer came to him, as it often did, while playing the violin. He was a creature of story, a living story – and thus, his child must also be a story, one that would grow in the telling until a Fictional was gestated for the sole purpose of telling it. Unfortunately, Sherlock Holmes was no writer of fictions. He could take notes, compile dossiers, even compose music – but he was, at the core, a creature of truth and certainty, who had removed all knowledge of the telling of stories from his mental attic in order to make room for more practical items. His imagination was used to divine the mechanics of crime, to imagine ways of murder that, as outrageous as they were, were not impossible – for once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains must be the truth.

  His imagination was for murder, then – so be it. His story would be a murder mystery, a mystery entirely centred around Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes would be both mother and father to this strange new child – for Sherlock Holmes would, in one form or another, play all the parts.

  The first thing to do, as an author, would be to get literary representation; and Maurice Zuckerbroth was whispered of as the sleaziest agent in Hollywood. He – at least in Holmes’ version of events – lived up to his word, seeking out ways of gaining the rights to an upcoming murder spree, selecting a ghost writer who would punch up the somewhat dry style of Holmes’ reports into something worthy of The Strand of old.

  The next stage was to secure his alibi – ‘Action Holmes,’ for whom he acted as friend and mentor, was of particular use in this, for he could be relied on to claim that Sherlock Holmes had been on set as an adviser for a full day of shooting. However, this included the time Classic Holmes spent hidden away in his trailer – a trailer which seemed to have only one entrance and exit, which no man could pass through unobserved; but which was also equipped, thanks to Holmes’ innate cunning, with a false floor through which the great detective could leave the set and back lot whenever he chose. A recording of his violin served to allay any of the second Holmes’ suspicions.

  In this way he crept out to murder his first target, the most recently translated Sherlock Holmes – who, still enj
oying the first flush of his fame, and a weekly presence on the television screens of the nation, presented the ideal way to gain immediate press attention. Having committed the grisly deed with a heavy quizzing-glass, Sherlock Holmes returned to his trailer via the secret entrance, ‘heard’ the awful news ‘for the first time,’ and rushed in front of the cameras, his Watson in tow, to find the clues he’d left behind and ensure the story of murder he had begun would reach the widest possible circulation.

  Next, he killed Zuckerbroth, the agent, with a sword-cane – in stooping to blackmail the great detective, he had outlived any usefulness he might have had. (His wife, Aline Zuckerbroth, offered her own version of events, stating that Maurice had only been informed of Holmes’ plan on the night of his death, and had resisted corruption to the last drop of his blood. This became the official story after she threatened to sue anyone who printed the true one.)

  The last to die was Sexton Blake, who had so agreeably made himself a suspect – and thus, as long as the cameras followed him around everywhere he went, a most tempting target. After all, the man was practically a Holmes, and the plan, such as it was, required the deaths of every Holmes; including, sadly, the original in the San Quentin gas chamber. As it was, his next attempt – on ‘Action Holmes,’ the 2009 model, who despite his natural imbecility was still a Holmes and thus far too close to divulging the truth – was a spectacular failure. ‘Action Holmes’ lived up to his nickname, and Sherlock Holmes the killer was delivered to the police, battered and unconscious.

  An ignominious end for the world’s greatest detective! But not for his plans, or his strange dream of reproduction on the fictional plane; for the story was abroad, and gathering steam.

  “WELL, FUCK,” SAID Bob, shaking his head. “That’s it. For us, I mean. They’re going to build a new Guantanamo after that.” He rubbed his temples. “Christ, I’m tired. I feel like I’ve been up for days.”

  He scratched his arm, staring out of the passenger side window. They were almost at Redding now, after a full afternoon spent listening to the news on different radio stations. Parts of it they were unable to believe – Bob couldn’t imagine any Sherlock Holmes going so completely round the bend, although he’d slept through a fairly convincing statement on the matter from Holmes himself, while Niles was on Aline’s side in the matter of Maurice Zuckerbroth agreeing to conspiracy to murder. “He’d go to the chair too if he’d been an accessory,” Niles said, shaking his head, “and besides, he just wouldn’t do it. He was never that sleazy.”

  “We’re all going to the chair,” Bob yawned. “All us Fictionals, I mean. You real people are going to be just fine.”

  “They’re not going to do anything,” Niles said, shaking his head. “Well, maybe they’ll pass a law against turning his murder spree into a film, or something. I could see that. And I can see the studio getting fined – which one was it, Altamont? – but they’re not going to put anybody in Gitmo. You’re just being paranoid.”

  “Mmmm.” Bob nodded. He was falling asleep yet again. Niles wondered exactly how much sleep the man had had the night before. Maybe Iyla had kept him up, he thought sourly.

  He sighed.

  “What?” Bob said, bleary-eyed.

  Niles swallowed. This was going to be a hard crow to eat. “Bob... you’re real people.”

  Bob blinked. “What?”

  “I admit it. You’re real.” He spread his fingers out, a miniature ‘hold up my hands’ gesture. “Satisfied?”

  “Well, you’re forgiven for the eye.” Bob grinned, lazily. “What brought this on?” He suddenly looked down at the radio. “Wait, it wasn’t...” He looked back up at Niles, blinking. “You have got to be fucking kidding.”

  Niles shrugged, very slightly. “It just wasn’t a very Holmesian thing to do,” he said.

  “So – hang on. Let me get this clear in my head.” Bob scrunched the heel of one hand into his good eye, rubbing it in an effort to wake himself up. “I used reasoned argument on you for fuck knows how many years, trying to persuade you not to be such a bigoted asshole, and I also did things like sleep with your ex-wife, which also isn’t particularly in character, and you don’t give a shit about any of it. And then Sherlock Holmes kills three people and that’s what makes you see the light?” He shook his head, staring at Niles incredulously. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

  “Also, you swear far too much for a comic strip character.” Niles smiled. “Seriously, you should watch your mouth. Children read your adventures.”

  “Fuck you,” mumbled Bob.

  “If I’m being honest, it was some of the things you said earlier, too. And the past few days. My whole life, really.” Niles stared into the middle distance for a long moment, summoning the courage to say it out loud. “I don’t like myself very much, Bob.”

  Bob blinked owlishly at him. “What?”

  “I feel like...” Niles shook his head. “Like I need to change some things about myself. Try and force myself to become a better person than I am. And maybe... maybe I should start by changing my definition of what a person is. What ‘real’ is.”

  “So what...” Bob managed, before another yawn overtook him. “What’s your new definition?”

  Niles thought for a moment.

  “Change,” he said. “If you can change... that’s what makes you real.”

  “WAKE UP,” NILES said, roughly shaking Bob.

  Bob groaned and slowly opened one eye.

  “We’re here,” Niles said, using the book in his hand to indicate a smallish suburban house that looked like it had seen some better days. “Six on the dot. You were right. Don’t worry, I called ahead while we were getting gas in Redding. They’re waiting for us.” He looked up at the porch light. “Are you coming?”

  Bob shook his head. “Nah,” he said, “I’m...” He yawned again, big and loud, like a hippo on a nature documentary. “I’m completely wiped out. I’m going to stay here and get some sleep in the car – that way I can drive us to the motel when you’re done.”

  “Well... okay,” Niles said, frowning. For some reason, the arrangement was making him uncomfortable. “You’re sure? God knows I could use you. They were all but tearing strips off each other on the phone.”

  “God’s dead,” mumbled Bob, closing his eyes. After a moment, he opened them again. “Niles?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a good Joe, Niles,” Bob drawled, in a passably terrible southern accent. “You shure are a gawsh-darn good Joe.”

  “Go to sleep,” laughed Niles, and walked towards the house.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “MEADOW?” ASPIDISTRA LAUGHED, a full-throated cackle. “Oh, she’s not here, don’t you worry about that. No, she’s spending today with some damned fool she met on the internet, of all places.” She shook her head, fixing Niles with a beady glare. “Now, let’s talk turkey, young man. Where’s my book?”

  She was older than her years – if she was six years old in 1951, as she claimed to have been, she wouldn’t yet be seventy, and yet she looked closer to ninety. But for all that, there was a spryness to her – her eyes seemed to sparkle constantly, and when he held up The Doll’s Delight and opened it to the dedication page, they nearly glowed.

  “That’s my copy, all right,” she purred, taking it gently from him. “Just the way Uncle Henry gave it to me. Of course, he wasn’t my real Uncle.” She chuckled. “That’s the kind of dirt you came all the way up here to get, am I right? A few filthy stories from an old gal who’s been around. Well, you’ve earned ’em.”

  “Actually,” Niles said, taking a drink of the tea she’d made him, even though he’d protested that she needn’t, “I’m, uh, not so interested in the filthy stories. I’m really just interested in the book.”

  She fixed him with a sceptical stare. “You’re not interested in filthy stories. Sure you’re not.” She looked him up and down, then returned to the book. “Must think I sailed Lake Redding on a Graham cracker,” she muttered,
flipper through the pages slowly.

  “Honestly,” he said, forcing a smile, “I’m just interested in where your Uncle Henry first came by the idea. I mean, that book is, ah... well, it’s fairly unique...”

  Aspidistra fixed him with another penetrating look. “You mean it’s a damn monstrosity. Speak your mind and shame the devil, Niles. My father couldn’t paint worth a damn, I’ll be the first to admit.” She grinned at his reaction. “That answer your first question?”

  “I was wondering,” admitted Niles, “if he’d... known what he was doing, exactly. I’d thought it might be – well, it might have been ironic, or some kind of pop art, or...” He tailed off. Aspidistra was glowering at him.

  “You could call it ironic, I suppose,” she muttered. “If you call plain bad luck ironic. Some folks have written whole songs about that.”

  She sighed, staring at The Doll’s Delight for a long moment, running her fingertip over the imprint the pencil had left when Henry Dalrymple had left his dedication.

  “All right, Niles,” she said, gently. “Here’s what I know.”

  ON DECEMBER 23RD of 1941, Henry Dalrymple of Boston, Massachusetts, a twenty-six-year-old bank clerk with ambitions to one day write the great American novel, enlisted in the Army. It was, he told his diary, “my Christmas present to a country that has loved me well, and to whom I owe great love in return.” He was writing about the United States, rather than Burma, but it was Burma where he ended up, and by the summer of 1942 he had moved on from there to a Japanese POW camp.