by Mark Nutter
Ginger giggled her giggle again. I would get to know that giggle well. It would eventually put her six feet under.
We went back to her place to scour her bathtub. Later I asked her, “Can you be my muse?”
She giggled.
“What I’m asking is, can you dictate a novel in my ear?”
She nodded and giggled some more. Okay, good, I thought. Calliope had done a lot for me, but that nose. For fun I tried hanging a wash cloth on Ginger’s nose. It fell to the floor, sending Ginger into another fit of giggles.
We thought the good times would never end.
***
We sat at my favorite bar, Ginger and I. Calliope wasn’t there but Rudy was.
“Who’s your friend?” he said. “Zelda Fitzgerald?”
“Jeez, Rudy, can’t you come up with a literary reference?”
I ordered my seven drinks. Ginger had gotten tired of tying cherry stems in knots with her tongue. Now she was using her tongue to weave a welcome mat.
I picked up my pen.
“I’m ready, Ginger. Dictate my next novel.”
Ginger leaned in and giggled in my ear. I wrote it down.
At first I just wrote ‘giggle, giggle,’ for about twenty pages. Then I played with different ways to spell giggle. ‘Giggul’ was the only one I could think of.
Finally, I realized I wasn’t going to get anything more out of Ginger.
Basically, I had to think of it all myself. The story, the setting, the characters. I racked my brain trying to think of a good detective name until I realized I already had it and it was the same as mine, Derek Organ. Now I remember.
I was on a deadline. I had to limit my daily naps to three hours.
Eventually, I had a new novel. It didn’t do as well as the others. The reviews were not good, but who reads reviews? Okay, I do, and I take them personally. I visit the reviewers’ homes and break their windows. I do the same with every bad review on Amazon. That takes weeks.
I didn’t tell Ginger about the bad reviews and the terrible sales. Instead I chose every possible moment to glare at her. She began to suspect something was up when I hid her squeegee.
My publisher wanted to drop me. That’s loyalty for you, I thought. The word loyalty reminded me of Calliope.
I managed to convince my publisher to give me another chance. This time I wanted to write my memoirs. My publisher said no, he wanted another detective story with lots of violence. I said what if I put lots of violence in my memoirs, and he thought that would be okay.
I decided to start with Ginger.
Back at the bar Ginger wanted to giggle another giggly novel in my ear.
“Ginger, it’s over between us,” I said.
“Huh?”
“You don’t inspire me anymore. You never did. You’re a terrible muse.”
“Huh?”
“Say, ‘I’ll never leave you.’”
“I’ll never leave you.”
“Thanks.”
That was just the excuse I needed to murder her.
I know. I’m a terrible person. But deep down in my soul I’m an artist and a cold-blooded killer. These are often the same people, is what I told myself.
“Ginger,” I said, turning to her. But she had already left, after she said she never would. I was building up a strong case in my mind for killing her.
I left the bar and saw Ginger walking down the sidewalk. I got in my car, pulled alongside her, opened my door, hit her in the head with a tire iron, and made some notes.
I put Ginger’s body in my trunk, made a couple more notes (“I’m hungry. Would I be less hungry if I’d shot her?”), then felt like another drink. But I thought it best not to return to my regular bar. Everybody there saw me run after Ginger with murder in my eyes and a tire iron in my hand. I guess that made me the definition of a person of interest.
I looked over my memoir notes. I liked the sentence about being less hungry if I shot her. It was a good read. But that was all I had. I wasn’t clear about how many words my publisher wanted, but it had to be more than twelve.
I needed more words. I needed another muse.
I thought I’d start by looking in bars. Oh, who was I kidding? Bars were the only places I wanted to look.
I went from bar to bar, muse to muse. I guess people still remembered me from when I was famous, when I could write down actual words and not just giggles and sneezes and belches.
Several women approached me who wore glasses. I asked them to remove their glasses and shake their hair out and become suddenly hot, but none of them could do it, at least not to my satisfaction.
When I started with Ginger I was looking for 5 percent muse and 95 percent hot babe. As my deadline approached, hot babe dropped to 2 or 3 percent. I found myself getting drunk with cafeteria ladies, octogenarians, Jehovah’s Witnesses (not the hot kind).
It’s funny. I thought the less hot ones would be more inspiring, but they weren’t, they were dull and boring too. Cafeteria ladies only talked about today’s menu. Octogenarian’s talked about food too, the foods that kept them awake at night.
I felt obligated to kill them all. Old habits die hard.
I really missed Calliope. Sure, she had that nose, but the rest of her didn’t look so bad. Plus she’d really boosted my career, and I got to write at my local bar and didn’t need to drag an ice sculpture everywhere as a calling card. I returned to my local bar, for old times’ sake.
Who should I see but Calliope, sitting next to Rudy, whispering in his ear as he wrote in a notebook.
“Calliope! What the— ?”
“Ssh,” she said. “I’m dictating.”
Rudy looked up at me and smiled.
“It’s a true crime story,” he said, “about a failed author who murders women.”
“Sounds like fiction to me.”
I patted the bar stool next to me. “Calliope, come back. I need you to whisper another book to me.”
“Forget it, Derek,” she said. “You had your chance. And you dropped me for another woman.”
“Actually more like fifteen other women but never mind. They’re all dead. Come back.”
“Uh uh. The minute I disappoint you, you’ll kill me.”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.”
Calliope whispered in Rudy’s ear. It was a loud whisper, for my benefit. I think it’s called a ‘stage whisper’ or maybe a ‘stadium whisper,’ I can never remember.
“He sat on the barstool, his usual seat at his neighborhood bar,” Calliope said. “He was nervously tearing cocktail napkins to shreds.”
What a loser, I thought, until I looked at the mound of torn paper in front of me and thought, hey, she’s whispering about me!
“The police burst through the door of the bar,” she said.
Just then the police burst through the door of the bar.
“They seized him roughly and dragged him out as he protested.”
The police approached and politely asked me to come with them.
“Ha ha, you got that wrong,” I said to Calliope. “Nobody’s using force here — hey! Get your stinking cop hands off me!”
Rudy was scribbling furiously.
“What you’re doing there, Rudy, it’s not writing. You’re just recording stuff that’s actually happening.”
“So?”
“So what Calliope and me would do, we would make stuff up, stuff that never existed, out of the blue. Together. Right, Calliope?”
“Goodbye, Derek,” she said.
The cops kept trying to drag me out.
“His trial was swift,” she continued. “Even though capital punishment was illegal in his state, the legislature reinstated it just for him.”
I stopped struggling. As they pulled me to the door I knew I neede
d to respond to Calliope with a snappy comeback. But without her help the best I could come up with was:
“Oh yeah?”
***
So here I am, on Death Row.
Hey, I just realized, I wrote this whole story by myself, without a muse.
Or maybe with fifteen or sixteen muses. I don’t know anymore.
If someone ever asks my advice on how to be a writer — and they better do it in the next twelve hours — I would say, don’t do it. It’s too dangerous. Do something safe instead. Become a private detective.
“Right, Calliope?”
A Boy, A Girl, Or Something Else Terrifying
At the end of my six-week La Maze childbirth course, I had earned the trust of my group, a good thing, since most couples found the final session to be the hardest.
“So,” I began, “you’ve learned breathing. You’ve learned relaxation techniques.”
The couples smiled and nodded, as if expecting gold stars. I wanted to tell them they could find all the gold stars they wanted in my butt.
“Some of you know the sex of your babies, and some of you don’t,” I continued. “It’s my duty to inform you that the ultrasound technician who told you your baby’s sex — may have been lying.”
Barbara and Patrick, the entitled couple I’d wanted to slap for the past six weeks, raised their hands.
“What are you saying, Darlene?” said Barbara. “Are you saying we might have a boy instead of a girl?”
“I’m saying you may not have a boy or a girl.”
I let them chew on this for a moment, then continued.
“Today’s lesson is about what to do in case your baby isn’t human. First, let’s talk about breathing techniques for delivering your non-human baby... “
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said the group. Hands shot up, as people shouted out questions.
Oh yes, the idea of having a family is wonderful, until you consider this scenario, right?
Todd, who was indistinguishable from Patrick who was indistinguishable from Barry, spoke up.
“What do you mean by non-human baby?” he said.
“I’ll give you some examples, Jason — “
“I’m Todd.”
“Whatever. A puppy. A badger. A tree trunk. A giant fist... “
Skeptical snorts and laughter. I went on.
“A vampire bat. A black hole. A chimpanzee... “
Brian and Caroline stood up.
“A lap desk. A rump roast... “
“Darlene, you’re joking,” said Brian.
“I’m not joking, Warren.”
“It’s Brian.”
“I’m deadly serious.”
“Then you’re crazy. We’re leaving.”
“If you leave now you’ll miss my demonstration on how to breast feed a cactus. Don’t kid yourself, it’s challenging.”
Jason — I’m pretty sure it was Jason — stood up.
“You’re talking about physical impossibilities, Darlene. Women can’t give birth to all those things you just said. It’s against nature.”
“Yes,” said a young woman who, according to her name tag, was Lori. “We were with you for five weeks. We did the exercises, we took your advice. And now, suddenly, you go off on this tangent, and we’re wondering, was everything else you told us nonsense?”
I shrugged.
“What can account for these aberrations?” I said. “Exposure to pollution? Eating too many sun-dried tomatoes?”
Several couples took my sun-dried tomatoes remark personally.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “do you actually think your wife would tell you if she had an affair with a zoo animal or a packing crate?”
Silence. A young mom named Chloe lowered her head, avoiding eye contact. My packing crate remark had hit home.
I’d had my eye on another woman, Julia, for the past six weeks. There was something odd about the shape of her belly. And today it looked bigger and odder than ever.
Lori persisted. “If everything you told us was nonsense then I think we deserve — “
“Ohh!” exclaimed Julia, holding her stomach. “Something’s happening.”
Her husband, who I’m just going to call Richard, was holding on to her shoulders.
“What is it, honey? Did your water break?” He glanced a puddle on their mat. “Is your water supposed to be black?”
“OHHHHH!!” said Julia.
The lucky ones have non-human babies that you can clearly identify, like a sloth or a nightstand. The unlucky ones have a newborn that, while no less adorable than a nightstand, should probably be kept in a cage for the first year.
Julia was one of the unlucky ones.
The whatever-it-was came out.
As if they’d rehearsed it, everyone except Julia backed up against the gymnasium wall and tried not to throw up, and failed.
“Get over it,” I scolded them, “it’s still the miracle of birth, y’know.”
I sprang into action and went over to Julia.
“Good job, mommy,” I said, “and congratulations. Have you thought of a boy or a girl name? Have them both ready. In a minute we’ll see if we can find sex organs under the fur.”
Julia’s eyes were sort of rolling around in her head. Every so often her eyes would focus on something and then decide they were happier rolling around in her head.
Richard, the husband, was trembling.
“This is impossible,” he stammered.
“Ask Julia how impossible it is,” I said as her new baby wrapped a tentacle around her ankle. She screamed.
“Richard!” The husband had joined the others and was retching against the wall.
“I need you over here to help me cut the cord — oh look, isn’t that cute, it bit its own cord off.”
I leaned over and spoke words of comfort to Julia.
“Julia, dear, remember how in Rosemary’s Baby Mia Farrow learned to love the child of the devil. Well — ah, I see your baby has a beak. I don’t think Rosemary’s Baby had a beak. Never mind.”
Somehow the mention of Mia Farrow had a calming effect on Julia. She began to sing a lullaby to her new baby. The baby responded by waving its feelers in the air.
The other couples were making their way to the gym doors. Patrick tried to open them but they wouldn’t budge. Barry and Todd and Brian all tugged on the doors, without luck.
“They’re locked,” said Patrick, in a way that said he felt he was entitled to unlocked doors.
“Let us out!” said Ray or Roy. He never talked in class so why should I remember him now?
“I can’t let you out. This is part of Lesson Six.”
The pregnant wives held on tight to their husbands.
The husbands pried their wives loose, then advanced on me in a gang, looking more offended than dangerous.
“We’re going home,” said Andrew.
“You can’t stop us,” said Andrew (I may be wrong about the first Andrew.)
“Give us the key,” said Ray or Roy.
“The lesson’s not over,” I said. “Don’t go now, you’ll miss the best part.”
I turned back to Julia. She was still singing quietly to her baby-thing.
“Good job, Julia dear. That’s exactly what I would have done. In fact that’s exactly what I did do, when I had my little one-twenty years ago.”
Before the husbands could rush me and steal my keys, I ran to a corner of the gym and pulled a curtain aside.
Arnie was there.
Arnie, my child.
Arnie, my eight-foot tall, non-human darling something-or-other with the pointy teeth.
Arnie was superstrong. How awful it would have been for him if he weren’t strong, being so big and scary and ugly.
The husbands stood in a group, uns
ure of what to do, run or attack or reason with Arnie.
Patrick thought he knew martial arts; the kind based on Tai Chi. He ran forward and did the water-running-over-rocks pose, or something. Arnie smashed his face in.
“There’s no need to piss Arnie off,” I said to the others. “He just wants his lunch.”
Arnie licked his eight lips and advanced on Julia, who was still singing a lullaby. With one swift motion Arnie snatched Lori’s newborn, put it in his mouth, and swallowed it whole.
Julia’s face displayed a mixture of sorrow and relief, mostly relief come to think of it, since she was only singing to keep her newborn from covering her face.
The gym was quiet, save for the occasional burp from Arnie.
“Okay,” I said. “Here’s what’s happening. You all thought you had signed up for a six-week course to learn exercises and breath control that would ease the pain of childbirth. In fact, I spent the past five weeks gaining your trust, so that today I could feed your offspring — human and non-human — to my son Arnie, who is a picky eater and only likes newborns. Is everybody okay with that?”
The pregnant wives shook their heads vigorously.
“Maybe you should talk it over with your husbands.”
The wives conferred with their husbands. Out of habit Barbara tried to confer with Patrick, but with his smashed-in face and his being dead, the conference was one-sided.
After a few minutes Richard stepped forward, having been designated the group’s spokesman.
“There’s a big problem here,” he said. “We paid for six classes. None of us feel you should count today’s class as one of the six, since it was — less useful than the others.”
“So?”
“So it was really only five classes.”
“So?”
“So we’d like a refund.”
I considered this for a moment. Arnie’s stomach, or stomachs, was, or were, growling.
“The refunds will appear on your credit card statements.”
A wave of relief and triumph passed through the group.
I nodded to Arnie. He advanced on the wives.
“Now ladies,” I said, “remember your breathing exercises... “
Fenestrum Anterium
It’s important to respect people’s privacy. That’s why I never use my powerful binoculars, not unless I can’t quite read someone’s lips when they’re having an argument on the phone, or their shower door is foggy.