Pickle’s Progress

by Marcia Butler

  “Okay, Stan. I give up. What other things?”

  “Pickle …”

  “Stan?”

  “I’m not sure how to tell you this—”

  “Stop. Fucking stop right there.” Pickle swept the napkins off the table with a violent slash of his forearm. They took forever to flutter through the air and onto the floor. And in those endless seconds, Pickle understood everything—including his own mangled name and that he was born an identical twin—a life sentence that just wouldn’t release its chokehold. He took his gun out of the holster, his badge out of his breast pocket, and carefully laid them down on the Formica table. Sitting back, with his hands folded in the prayer position on the lip of the table, he waited.

  Stan looked at the ceiling. “I’m sorry. It just happened.”

  “I’m sure. The mighty hand of God reached down and took control of your dick and her pussy. As innocent as the baby Jesus himself. But as the Lord is my witness, I want my gun on the table so that when I fuckin’ kill you, they’ll know it was me. I swear to God!”

  Stan dropped his head to the table, hands covering his face, and sobbed. A few patrons had already moved from the surrounding tables. The waitstaff stacked up at the door like a firing squad. The line cooks warily looked through the serving counter. Only a booth jukebox could be heard—“Be My Baby,” by the Ronettes.

  Pickle slapped Stan’s arms away from his face. “Shut your yap and that slobbering. You’re drunk. I’m taking you home.”

  He grabbed his gun and license, pulled Stan to his feet by the back of his collar and dragged him toward the front door.

  “What the fuck’re you all looking at!?” Pickle screamed as he walked forward, holding his badge in front of him, not moving his head in any particular direction. “Can’t you recognize a punk when you see one? He’s a thief! He just confessed and I’m taking him in.”

  The night was almost complete, with a thin glow hovering just above the western Hudson. Junie and Pickle rounded the corner and the first floor of the brownstone was ablaze with light. They stood on the steps for a minute, watching a horizon of burnt orange become evening blue. Junie pulled him up the steps, but he held back.

  “No, Junie, I’ve gotta go. You must be tired, anyway. I know I am—I don’t think I’ve walked that much in years.”

  “It was a long day. But really lovely, Pickle.”

  “Yeah. I’ll call you in a few days. It’ll take me that long to recover from all this garlic!” Pickle heard his own voice apply a jocular pretense. Then with a short wave of his hand, he turned and walked away. Junie stayed put, watching him, he knew, until he got to the end of the block and turned out of sight.

  Pickle called Karen, who picked up on the first ring.

  Her voice rang cold, crisp. “It’s about time.”

  “I’m returning your eighty-seven calls. What?”

  “Well, first, you have to call Lance.”

  “Don’t tell me what to do.”

  “He called me. He’s worried.”

  “He’ll survive.”

  “Whatever. I’m just relaying the message.”

  “What else?”

  “We have a site meeting with Patrick tomorrow morning. Nine thirty.”

  “Okay. Make sure Stan’s there, too.”

  “No. Stan has something at the office. It’ll be just the three of us.”

  “Wrong. I want all four of us there.”

  “Pickle, it’s not necessary.”

  “It is fucking necessary. And you know why.”

  Karen didn’t respond.

  “You picked up the message from me, right?”

  Silence.

  “That’s what I thought. Good!” Pickle continued, his voice a breezy lilt. “I’ll see you in the morning. Oh, and come to the Apartments tomorrow night. About eight. I miss you.”

  28

  STAN WANDERED AROUND THE LIVING ROOM, gathering all the art books they owned on Antonio Gaudi. He’d announced that he’d indeed come up with a spectacular concept for the Kinsey project and was pulling images to present at the client meeting the next morning. Karen leaned over his shoulder and peeked into Stan’s imagination: the gesture of a shallow arc, the rough outline of a cityscape, the color of a chill-grey sky as the backdrop tableau for the Basilica in Barcelona. She settled herself on the sofa and, now from a distance, watched Stan think for several minutes.

  “What’s all this have to do with Kinsey?” Karen finally asked, as Stan flipped through a book of birds indigenous to Spain. “Explain, please.”

  “No idea. I’ll know tomorrow morning when I present.”

  How she envied Stan’s comfort in not knowing. Certainty was something Karen strove for, but had failed spectacularly from a very early age.

  The next time Karen had heard the noises upstairs, she was certain she knew what they meant. The sounds, though curious, were very normal, and surely nothing at all to do with Betsy. Or the man. The occasional scraping sound at the ceiling from the floor above, was simply the house creaking. And the low hooting sound may have been from an owl outside. She’d taken a bird dictionary out of the library to further support her conclusion. Leafing through the book, Karen imagined the hoot was from an owl that was native to the area. Yes, that was probably the sound she’d heard: the Great Horned Owl. And because she’d never heard anything remotely resembling Betsy’s voice, Karen then wondered if Betsy was, in fact, ever in that room at all. Karen convinced herself that she knew all of this for certain, and that she’d more than likely dreamed the whole thing.

  Shortly, she found herself once again upstairs and the door was ajar. Yes—she heard the owl hooting, and the house sounds. All very normal. But then, as she peered through the crack, Karen immediately understood something awful: she’d been wrong.

  He turned his head and smiled, and Karen froze. Suddenly the thin view from the crack of the door zoomed away and she felt, in her mind, that the man was small and in the distance, across a canyon. He seemed to take one hundred steps to reach her, it went so slowly. Then there he was, with his hand on hers, and she was in the room, placed in the corner.

  “You can look or not look. I don’t care. But, dear God, you gotta stop spying on me. Understand, little girl?”

  The man turned his back to Karen and the floor scraping and the owl sounds continued. She was careful to not look directly at Betsy. Instead, she turned and faced the corner to scrutinize the cracked paint and a tiny ant, which crawled back and forth, uncertain which way was best.

  Karen wasn’t sure how long she’d spent at the corner, it could have been under a minute, or an hour. She’d taken a journey: out the window, to her backyard, to her best friend’s house, to the dolls her father threw away, to the alcohol she’d sipped and didn’t hate, to the joker on the card she’d kissed, to the dresses her mother had abandoned in the closet, to the boy down the street who wanted her to kiss him, to the teacher at school who’d touched her breast, to the other teacher who’d seen it and turned away. And then she’d ended up back in the room, not in the corner, but at the ceiling. As she hovered, she saw her own body crouching low to the ground, following the ant, with her hands over her ears.

  Then the man became still, and Karen came back into her body. It was over: a rustle, a smoothing of bedcovers. She felt the man’s hand on her head, his fingers like talons.

  “Little girl? Now you know. So, you’re part of it. Okay? You’re part of it.”

  The Doodles jumped off the sofa and positioned himself on top of Karen’s feet, his signal to go out. Karen took a deep breath. “Stan, listen. I think we have to reschedule the Kinsey meeting.”

  “What? Why? I’m ready for this one. For a change.”

  “I spoke with Pickle. Patrick and I are meeting him here at nine thirty tomorrow. Pickle wants you here, too.”

  “Huh. It’s not necessary. Everything’s on schedule, right? What’s his problem?”

  “I don’t know. You know he gets a bug up his ass when
he feels neglected.”

  “How on Earth could he feel neglected? We’re doing the damned renovation … Nope. Kinsey is too important. Plus, I’m excited about it. Which I almost never am anymore. I’ll call Pickle—”

  “No. No, let me take care of it. And, yes, you’re right. Kinsey’s too important.”

  Stan went back to browsing Gaudi. Suddenly, he stopped and looked up at her. “Karen, the weirdest thing happened today.”

  “What?”

  “Well, I was in the office feeling stressed-out as usual. Then Suzie came in. And you know how I don’t like to see the staff until after one, if at all. And it was eleven thirty. I glanced at the clock and she began to apologize. But the weird thing was, after she apologized, I just told her it was okay. Then, I told her to go ahead and tell me what the problem was. Which she did. And it actually was something that needed to be addressed before one. So, I answered her, and she left.”

  “So?”

  “Well, right then, I was thinking about booze. But not that I wanted it because someone had screwed up my schedule. Which would usually be the case. This time I just noticed that I wasn’t drunk. And I wasn’t hungover. And Suzie didn’t really bother me. I mean, she did a little bit. But not too terribly.”

  “Right?”

  “Right. But here’s the main thing …” Stan paused for effect.

  “What?”

  “It all started with that girl downstairs. Ever since she’s been here, I’ve felt … calmer. She’s irritating—don’t get me wrong. Like that music right now. It’s killing me.”

  Stan paused to listen more closely. “What is that, anyway?”

  It was deliriously happy noise and Karen knew that Junie had been with Pickle earlier that day. “Bruno Mars, ‘Uptown Funk,’” she said without enthusiasm.

  “That’s so weird. I hate it. But somehow, I can cope with it. And listen to this. I don’t want to drink.”

  “Wow.”

  “Crazy, huh?”

  “Crazy.”

  “So, Karen. Don’t let that girl go anywhere. I know I resisted her in the beginning. I admit I’ve been difficult. And maybe even a little mean to her. But now, she’s got to stay.”

  “Of course.”

  “Whatever you do, she stays.”

  “Yes, Stan.”

  Stan shoved the books toward Karen. “Call a messenger for early morning. I want these ready for the staff. First thing. I’ll take The Doodles out.”

  As long as she’d known him, Stan had never planned anything for the next day. That was her job. Karen found herself resenting his sobriety.

  29

  THE TONY UPPER EAST SIDE WAS NOT PICKLE’S style—not even his planet—but he’d made himself swallow it when he and Karen had first been a couple. She’d lived in a one-bedroom in the East Sixties, complete with semicircular driveway, posh doormen, and marbled everything. They’d dine at restaurants in the area and a thick scrim would descend to keep the cop separated from the man he imagined Karen might actually marry one day. This new man he impersonated made an effort to dress a bit better, curse a lot less, and fold his hands whenever he spoke. Now, after walking for hours with Junie, Pickle found himself in front of Karen’s old building and remembered the truth about exactly what kind of person he’d become.

  The traffic had been light the day he and Stan had returned from the diner in Queens. He’d thrown Stan in the backseat, knowing he’d cry the entire ride. Pickle hadn’t wanted to see that; he could barely stomach hearing it. But once they were on the Queensboro Bridge heading toward the city, the hum of the suspended roadway seemed to chasten Stan. He fell into a heavy sleep, leaving Pickle to his wide-awake reality of being a newly single man.

  He’d double-parked in front of Karen’s building and thrown his police tag on the dashboard. Stan was out cold, in a mad-drunk coma, and poking him in the head elicited only a moan. Stan batted the air, with a slurred “Wanna sleep.” Maybe he’d had more than six shots, maybe seven or eight; Pickle couldn’t recall. But Stan’s current state was immensely satisfying. Let the fucker sleep through his misery and then wake up to a bomb inside his head.

  He sat for a while, not sure of what he intended to do. He looked at his watch, then up at her window. Karen’s lights burned; she was home. Pickle finally pried himself out of the car and opened the trunk. Along with handcuffs, a crowbar, and other tools of his trade, a blanket had been shoved all the way to the back. He dragged it out, rattling the metal implements around, and shook it free of God knew what. The wool smelled of oil and gas, and, oddly, smoke. But he threw it over Stan anyway, knowing the filthy fabric would offend him deeply when he woke up. After slamming the car door as hard as he could, Pickle walked into the foyer of Karen’s building.

  The doorman looked nervous. Of course, Pickle thought. The poor slob wasn’t sure how to address him: Pickle or Stan. Then he realized how preposterous this was because they were identical. And his predicament cloyed deeper; specifically, the man he now knew himself to be. How he wasn’t worth a damn and how his brother always outperformed him in every possible way he knew of, or might imagine.

  “Karen Wells, please. Tell her Mr. McArdle is here to see her.”

  Pickle headed for the elevator before the doorman had a chance to nod to him for admittance. He felt reckless, fearless in the way a criminal does who thinks he’ll never be caught, so he proceeds to commit the crime with blithe confidence. He’d seen it a million times—a mindset just shy of madness. Yet he’d rarely heard of a reason for why people committed crimes, other than some distorted version of deep unhappiness. Sadness was certainly making him brave. And now he knew the very best reason to hurt: insanity. He’d lost everything and the thought made him stark, raving mental.

  The interior of the elevator was mirrored on three sides. Pickle stared at himself and made a pleasant smile for the sake of the camera that was surely aimed on him. Stan smiled a lot and Pickle had never understood what was so damned funny all the time. An insipid smile was all he could muster; now they’d mistake him for his brother once the carnage was over.

  Instead of pressing Karen’s floor, he went to the floor above hers. He silently opened the stairwell door and walked, one tentative step at a time, down to the lower floor. Opening the door to the hallway a crack, he saw Karen leaning out of her doorway facing the other way, toward the elevator, waiting for Mr. McArdle.

  He grabbed her from behind with his hand over her mouth, pressing the nub of his gun into her back. She didn’t resist, rather, sank into it, and they twisted together into her apartment. After flinging her with both hands into the back of the sofa, Pickle pulled up a dining chair, turned it around and straddled it. He placed his gun on the coffee table. “Don’t say a fucking word,” he warned.

  Karen obeyed, her face pinched into itself, obviously with fear, maybe tinged with regret. They stared at each other until Pickle swallowed and looked away. He realized this would be the last time he’d see the inside of this apartment, and suddenly thought better of his straddled seating position because he was becoming aroused. How base, how banal, how truly disgusting he was at that moment. He didn’t want Karen to see how he was mixing love with desperation, and lust with violence, and hope with sadness, and finally, how his need to possess her had turned into a desire to hurt her. All of this distilled, much too easily, into the blood flow to his penis.

  Pickle turned the chair back around, sat properly, and folded his hands to brush the moment away. This was to be a formal interrogation, for the record, and he didn’t want to make any mistakes.

  “Tell me he’s a goddamned stallion in bed. Though for some reason I doubt that. Tell me he’s just plain-old better looking. Oddly, I could deal with that. Tell me he stimulates your mind. That actually sounds reasonable. Tell me you’re a crazy, sadistic bitch. We both know that’s the truth. Just tell me something that’ll make me understand this. Because if I don’t get a good answer, I swear to God, Karen, one of us is going out of this apartmen
t in a body bag. And right now, this very minute, I honestly don’t care which one.”

  She took in a shuddering breath. “Where’s Stan?”

  “Fuck Stan.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “If you cared anything at all about him, why’d you get him to do this filthy job for you? Why?”

  “He wanted to do it. Tell you. He said you’d take it better from him.”

  “You’re a liar, Karen. You don’t know my brother very well. He’s never stepped up to a confrontation in his life. That’s what I do. You’re confusing us. Not a good start to a blissful relationship.”

  She shifted on the sofa, pulling her legs underneath her.

  “That’s right. Get nice and comfortable. I can see this is gonna take some time,” he sneered.

  “Pickle, it’s simple. We just clicked.”

  “Clicked? Like my gun?” Pickle scoffed at the irony of her words.

  “Do you need to keep up with your terrorist threat? Or do you want to hear?”

  Pickle closed his eyes and nodded.

  “Remember when I went out to see your mother?” She paused, and Pickle couldn’t imagine what might come next. “Well, Stan was there too. We had lunch after and talked for a long time … about design and all of that … we have a lot in common.”

  “So, this is a business transaction? Stan’s business?”

  “It’s not business.”

  “Then what?”

  “Where’s Stan? I have to know.”

  “You’re in no position to demand anything. But as a courtesy, he’s in the backseat of my car in front of this building, sleeping off a monster drunk.”

  She looked toward the window and sniffed. “Okay.”

  “See, Karen, here’s the part you just don’t get. Maybe one day in the near or distant future you will, but right now you are in very iffy territory. So, listen up. My brother had to drink himself into a stupor to tell me he was fucking you. My brother is not capable of this kind of bald-faced, shank-in-the-back-of-the-neck treachery. I know him very well. You’ll never know my brother like I do. Ever. As long as you live. This had to come from you. And here you sit with your flat brown eyes, and your perfect blonde hair, and your knockout figure, staring me down. Trying to shovel your cock-and-bull story up my ass that it ‘just happened.’ Well, I’m here to tell you that in life, nothing ever just happens. I’m a cop, remember?”