(This is a short story I worked on for a couple weeks. I read seven minutes worth of it to a small group of people in a little theater space off of Canal Street. I don’t really know how I feel about it, but I don’t think I’m going to work on it anymore. Figured posting it here wouldn’t hurt anything…)
“You’re tarot is Death, Trent.”
“Oh yeah, and what is yours old man? The Carnie?”
“The Tower, I come right after the devil. I fell next, and my words I give to the gifted, and have since time began.”
“Dr. Penemue, I know you wanted that machine from Rubenick Tuttle.”
“You bet I did gum-shoe, and I got it, and the thing is there isn’t a case. Never was.”
“How do you mean?”
“I mean it was the girl that betrayed Tuttle, not me, and in fact, it was the girl that made the machine. You’re being hired was a completely different sort of game, does that make sense to you Mr. Bourbon?”
“It’s a start, seein’ as I’m more broke than interested. Say, what’s with the dame anyway? Who’s she working for? You? Tuttle?”
“No, Tuttle was working for me unknowingly. I can inspire little tricks like that. Say Bourbon, you’re father, did he ever speak of ‘The Angel.’”
“Hey, now how would you know about something like that, unless you’ve been putting your nose where it doesn’t belong?”
“Just think about the obscurity and impossibility of my knowing something strictly between a father and a son.”
“I’m not gonna think all that hard Pops, doesn’t bother me, but I’m sold. I’ll play along, assuming nobody’s holding but me, and that this thing is truly on the up-and-up.”
“Sure, Trent, sure. It’s ‘on the level,’ as you’d probably say. You see, dear boy, This isn’t going to be one your typical hard boiled cases where the woman holds the smoking gun right before you do. I am ‘The Angel,’ and seeing as you aren’t going to try so hard to wrap your head around that part. Not immediately. No, Trent, what I need from you will take you to a place your kind isn’t used to.”
“My kind isn’t used to much Doctor Penemue, but I’ll tell you one thing, we have manners. I don’t like you using my old man’s memory to try and play some kind of mind game on me. Isn’t going to work, now I said I’d work for you if it’s on the up and up. That deal was made, and I’ll follow it to a point, so watch what you say if you don’t want me running back to Tuttle.”
“You won’t.”
“And why won’t I?”
“Anna”
The Doctor knew my number, faster than I did. I gave in, I let him say the bizarre and cryptic things he shouldn’t of known about. I started thinking about them instead of taking them to heart. Made me start feeling pretty uneasy so I decided just to tail the banker Heeb he told me had the next part of his device. I wanted to put this thing together, sure I might take it away, but after seeing the plans the Doctor had actually handed over to me for safe keeping I was in shock. They looked like space plans, like a rocket on the earth. The plans were otherworldy and not at all salutary. This was some kind of a joke, and I worried I was the punchline.
I drive fast as I can in this beat-up El Camino, a loaner from Sal at the garage, seems he’s always working on my Hudson lately. Hell of a car, that Hudson. This scrapheap you can take or leave. More often than not I leave it, but tonight I’ve got to get uptown. Quick. That’s what the muffled voice on the phone said, odds are that voice was Anna’s. Tuttle has already beaten me there, and that wouldn’t worry me if I hadn’t already downed all that rye. Now I’m sweating, and that’s never good when you plan to play interrogator.
“Still think workin’ for the doctor is your best bet, Bourbon?”
“I see you’ve got the girl tied up, but that’s not gonna work this time Tuttle. She’s an Anne Margaret like I’m Harry Houdini. Wouldn’t be much of a P.I. if I couldn’t put together a brother sister team, now would I?”
“Thought we had a little more time before you put that one together. But don’t count Rubnick Tuttle out so fast.”
So the boisterous little man slinks sideways and assists a door swinging forward, and suddenly I’m looking at a face I’d hoped time forgot.
“You’ve always been a loner, I know that, but I thought once we grew up… I really did figure you’d get married. That you’d fall in love, but not now. Now, you look like Sam Spade, hell you’ve got a name like Sam Spade, like Marlowe. A real person doesn’t have a name like Bourbon. Still, I never would have called it. The side I didn’t see won that chess match, you took the white queen with a black rook. You became a man; A man raised by women, somehow a character right out of a Dashiell Hammett novel.”
“You think that’s why I can’t stay in a relationship? Some misogyny complex? Watching the detectives? A match? A game? Is that really what you would call it? Some kind of subconscious hatred for the dames? The broads? No sir. No, it’s pity. I’ve loved a lot of girls, but really, really it’s just one. One sad poor pitiful girl that I can’t save. If she didn’t have an abortion she was raped by her dad, a football player, or a couple she was babysitting for. She slept with a fella that ended up being a bull-dyke, she gave a spinster with a 8mm a blowjob for 76 dollars the list of possibilities goes on and on and there is something on the list almost always, and if there isn’t, something inside is telling the poor thing there SHOULD be so there WILL be. That’s the girl I love, that’s the girl I pity, that’s the girl I can’t save, so you tell me how the hell she could save me? What do I need saving from, save loneliness? Not a damn thing.”
“Look at us, we’re 16 again, for this moment. We can still do it, we can still have a conversation, but we’re acting out two very different roles from two very different scripts. I know what I represent in yours. Be glad my entire plotline is a mystery to you. Be thankful Godammit.”
“Clemons, you aren’t my Moriarty, that’s what makes me the most sick. I wish you were the arch nemesis, because the hero is supposed to understand and relate to such a being. And I understand you. And I relate to you. But ‘the universe machine,’ I don’t understand it, but somebody sends you, so I know they understand me. That’s scary, so I can’t be glad. Can’t be glad I can’t open up your softspot and take a peak at what they infested you with. How they squeezed the shit you believe you know in between those Godfearing ears and made you all screwy. That’s all I know. I wish I knew your plotline, but you don’t know mine, and neither do they. The Betamax Corporation is clueless, and they know it, but you don’t. You poor bastard, you don’t know anything.”
“Calm down, calm down, let’s get back to defining ourselves. Let’s not get caught up in our perceptions of truth, you’re right ok? You are right, what do I know? Just what I’m told, but I know more than you think, more than you do. If a court of law was of any matter I could put you away, and you couldn’t lock me up. You! The detective, can you believe that, can you believe that for one second?”
“Yes.”
“Good.”
“So where does that leave us, and I don’t need your cock-n-bull story, because you can’t make me believe you know the half of it, and you either Tuttle. It’s not the big strong men behind this caper… and I see I’m hitting a nerve or two, your bald head’s glistening Rubnick. Clemons, uncork the skirt, let her explain it. Who do you work for, Princess?”
I watch Clemons pull the handkerchief knot and Anna was smirking…. at all of us. Was this the punchline?
“What do you really remember, Doll?”
“I remember plenty, all started when those big beautiful blues glided through that office door, having me believe you wanted your husband tailed, I did my job, but then the good Doctor wanted me to track you, says you got no doubt about his fidelity, says your the one with sex issues. Implied you were screwing Brother Rubnick, wondering if he didn’t tell me about you two being related to build a stronger case against you. I think it goes a little deeper, and that’s thanks to you Clemons.”
“You don’t know the half of it, Trent! You’re involved, don’t you get it?! You are involved!”
“What did he mean Anna? What did Penemue mean when he said you wouldn’t be holding the smoking gun?”
And suddenly little Rubnick can’t hold back anymore, something got to him.
“You’re a plaything Bourbon!”
And before he can say anything more Clemons draws quick, but I’m quicker, I push and my old crony acquaintance and he fails to shoot a mortal wound…
“Go on Tuttle, what do you know?”
“You ain’t real, Bourbon, your a wind-up! Ain’t no Betamax corporation. Just an old videogame designer. Worked on that one where the plumber keeps banging his head into things, see that’s what I did, saw too much let em pay me to go along, but I can’t stand it no more! You’re the game, Bourbon. Girls favorite movie was where the robot thinks he’s a man, for God’s sake! The uncle, he thinks he’s an…”
“Stop it Rubnick! STOP!” And Anna starts her hysteria, doesn’t let up, but Rubenick’s in a frenzy, pretty sure the whole crew is wound up on dope, whose dope is anyone’s guess.
“He beat her, raped her, she had a miscarriage. Just like you said, all that stuff. He made you for her, says he’s an angel!”
And now I remember. Story my old man told me, something that would make this whole case a hard one for me to swallow, somebody wanted to rub me out the commie way. Hittin’ my brain instead of my gut. Now, while I’m trying to process all this, Clemons unties Anna, quiet as a mouse, and suddenly I’m at gunpoint, and Anna pipes up, no longer hysterical, but back to that wrenching grin.
“Now you listen, wasn’t supposed to go like this. He’s not my Uncle, Trent, I don’t know what he is, says he’s an angel, ok, let him say what he wants. All I know is that, well, he says HE’S your father, my love! Now you tell me what that means!”
“You weren’t supposed to say anything about that Anna!”
Clemons is now sweating, but not as hard as me. What had been done to me, that’s anyones guess, but in that moment I remembered the face. The old man had walked out on us when I was just a kid, and now, he too had entered the room.
“Did this for you boy, seemed I owed it to you, but, well, you weren’t supposed to know. It was supposed to be an anonymous gift.”
“Don’t want it, don’t want the girl, don’t want the friend, and I don’t want you either.”
“I didn’t think you would, but thought I owed you, that’s all.”
“You owe me a lot of things, but I don’t know what this is.”
“Then go have a drink boy.”
And I did. I walked to the bar, just turning on all the patsies, leaving them in my wake. I had a single shot of vanWinkle, and remembered that I don’t know where I live or where my office is. That gives me a chill and I down seven more shots. Next thing I remember, I’m back in Penemues workshop, can’t say a damn thing, can’t move a muscle. Dr. P pipes up.
“Well, can’t expect to get it eactly right the first time, every time now can we? But it was fun, wasn’t it? It was fun and when I’m all done, we’ll have plenty of funding. The girls will be lining up for a shot at you my boy. Lining up.”
Now I’m doing my damnedest to slow myself down, put all this together, I manage to comprehend that with the paralysis, I’m still standing at attention, like one of those doughboys that didn’t get sent off in time. Now I’m moving my arm, reaching into my pocket, and continue my transcription. Writing what I see, seeing I’ve written more than I remember having the chance to jot down.
“You think you’re writing this all down don’t you, boy?” says the voice of Dr. P, my father.
“Don’t know, don’t know anything. Trying to put it together. Can’t, but that’s nothing unusual. Black-outs from the drinking come often, this isn’t so much different. In fact, I’m not sure that’s not exactly what’s going on here.”
“Interesting.”
“Ah, shut up. Shut up, damn you. Interesting? What in God’s name do you mean by that?”
“Who exists as son for ever and ever. You are what you are, you are who you are.”
Gotta keep writing, get it down… get it down…
What’s the story with Clemons, with Anna, and little squealing Rubnick Tuttle? How involved are each in the deck? Well, there is a con happening… that part matches, synchs up, but what I’m really having a hard time swallowing is that Tuttle’s the schizoid, Clemons the Android, and Anna is the one I prayed for, but this is where the old man comes in. Far as I can tell Dr. P is what you might call a Don Juan from hades, and there isn’t one fetish in the book he isn’t up for. A dystopic pairing with a father son scenario isn’t beyond him, in fact it suits him… he thinks, but just because he understands some things… What I mean to say is it doesn’t mean he gets them. Women that is. He can bed them, that’s not the issue and it’s not a problem. The problem is me. We can’t just write ourselves out of stories that make us uncomfortable. That don’t fit the outline we have for them. But how do we wrap them up? How do we end them when we’re forced to change horses midstream?
That’s the thing about reality, there is this odd rapidity to it you can’t turn off. Maybe that’s why back where I come from people that could read always had their nose in some kind of book, or the daily rag. Not here though, here people are always typing up, don’t know what it is they’re banging away at, but isn’t a book… God only knows, or P, maybe he does.
Ineffable. Somehow that word keeps ringin’ in my ears, or something like that. Ineffable, the ineffable sound, the aeon. That story the old man told me when? Had to be over a hundred years ago, thing is I couldn’t tell you anything a 35 year old could seeing as far as I can tell I’m not a day over 29. But when did this case start, that’s what your asking right? Or is that what I’m asking? Ever wonder when exactly it was the hieroglyphs turned to scripture?
Did… did you get the impression this was a detective story? No, Lord no. It never is, is it? Not really, not when a man picks up a pen and goes out looking for trouble. The name IS Bourbon. Always has been, and it’s true, I digested about as much Black Mask as any other subscriber… And there was an attempt, the pulp was an inspiration. I figured, I mean I assumed when your only memory of your dead father is that he’s telling you he’s an Angel damned from heaven, he’s talking about livin a saint’s life then mixing in with the wrong crowd. He’s speaking metaphors, has to be, but now while I wear this trench coat and smoke my luckies I’m traveling through time, being kept in invisible prisons and realizing I’ve been trying to look too far ahead without realizing I can’t look behind anymore. I know I’m Trent Bourbon but with every second that passes I forget more and more what that means.
“Bourbon! Times up!”
I’m about to answer this well dressed Italian greaseball, but Dr. P pipes up quicker.
“I’m not finished Mr. Bartelli! I’m so close, but I have to be alone with the boy. It’s not going to take much longer. I’m so close Mr. Bartelli! So so close!”
“We don’t have time, is he working for us or am I taking him out?”
“He’s my son, Mr. Bartelli. You’ve only given me a week, and I’m working on the greatest scientific achievement the U.S. underworld has undergone since Capone’s invisibility sheet. These kids are miserable, depressed, and when the pigs pick them up they’re only too ready to talk. I’m proving a point here Bartelli, your taking that gun out, and your ruining it, making me explain while the boy stands right there, coming off the drug, listening to this, but if you keep massaging it I gotta keep talking, try to make you understand, know I won’t. Know I can’t. These kids, I’m gonna make the job a fairy tale for them! I owe it to them, do you understand? These poor girls with names like Candy blowing some old prick like Rock Mightysword until they get a black eye, and if we don’t off them they’re at the precinct telling everything they heard when a big boy picks them up and downs too much whiskey. If my experiments work we’re gonna have a monopoly on the whole industry. PUT THE GUN AWAY!”
“Thing is Bourbon, I think what your doing here is sick. Taking your pig son, making him into some kind of porno star, him living in some dreamworld. I’m just the timekeeper so ain’t my business, but either way ain’t gonna be any reasoning with me. I’m just doin what I’m told, so is he in or is he out?”
“He’s out Bartelli. He’s out.”
