Do the Weird Crime, Serve the Weird Time

WHAT ARE BEST

FRIENDS FOR?

Steve wasn’t surprised when Joan hit him up for a loan. Joan had been in and out of work for three years (and there was the custody thing), and rent was due in two days. So Steve lent her three hundred dollars against her computer. Steve drew up an elaborate paper of lien—he wasn’t worried about the money, but he thought Joan might take her four-year-old son and split, and he wouldn’t have a claim on the computer. It was a better machine than the piece of crap on his desk at home. But how good a computer did you need to visit porn sites and Robot Nine?

More importantly Joan was Sally’s best friend, and Sally and he were beginning to look like a permanent alliance. Steve handed Joan three Benjamins and got her to sign the lien papers. Joan drove off to court to continue her eleventh hour custody battle, and Steve drove to work.

Texas Data Systems filled a three-story red-brick-and-gold-anodized-window building on a tree-shaded quiet street. Steve’s “office” was a windowless cubicle near the center of the second floor. He began inputting changes on his manual, a novella-length description of a nine-pin to eighteen-pin interface. Juan, his chubby cube mate, sauntered in a few minutes after one.

Juan said, “Guess what?”

“What?” asked Steve.

“I sold the story I showed you to Weird Tales.”

“Hey, congratulations.”

Juan and Steve and a couple of other people, who had since moved on from TDS, had started writing or at least playing-at-writing two years ago, after taking a class at the New Atlantis bookstore. Well Juan had, Steve had only produced the beginnings of short stories, which remained in a manila folder in the bottom drawer of his desk. Steve stood up and shook John’s sweaty pudgy hand. Steve didn’t like fat people; they smelled. He had to be friends with Juan—he didn’t want people to say that he was prejudiced. Steve and Juan made the rounds from cubicle to cubicle spreading the good news. People said all the things they say to people making their first sales. Be sure and tell us when it comes out. We’ll all get a copy. We’ll throw you a party. Someday there’ll be a plaque on this building, “Juan Martinez worked here.” Juan glowed all afternoon and Steve printed out his manual. Steve had his fun with this again that night, telling Sally at the Hunan Dragon.

“Juan was floating about two inches off the ground after he got the word.”

“Whatever happened to your literary efforts?”

“Well. You know.”

“Is that laziness or block?”

“Hey. You’re supposed to be on my side, remember. I make more with technical writing than any fiction freelancer I know. I may start up again anytime. Anyway I was able to loan Joan three hundred.”

“Against her computer.”

“Well it’s not like it’s worth it. She’s the one who insisted. I was willing to lend it to her against her word. She’s your best friend.”

“You kept her from getting evicted. Currently she tells everybody that you are her best friend.” Said Sally.

“Her best friend would be anyone that could give her a job. Maybe if she leaves town. The employment picture here sucks. And you know she’s not leaving if she has to leave her kid entirely in the hands of her ex. She’s licked.”

“He’s a real creep.”

“Yeah. I’ve met him. Here comes our Chicken Kung Pao.”

“That will all be over this Friday. The court decides custody then.”

“I hope Joan copes if the court cuts Mickey out of her life. She was pretty wide-eyed at lunch.”

Friday came. The court decided. Joan did not cope. Joan had purchased a cheap pistol at Snooper’s Pawn for protection some months back. She discharged a bullet through the top of her soft palate.

Joan’s father called Steve on Sunday afternoon. He’d found the lien and wanted Steve to come by and pick up the computer. Steve said that under the circumstances it would be O.K. for them to keep the computer. But they said they had no use for the thing—and it would help them clean up things if Steve got it. Besides Joan had told them what a good friend he was.

Steve was surprised how old Joan’s parents looked. Death of an offspring must really suck away the years.

Joan’s computer represented a step up from Steve’s old machine. He had planned to upgrade for a while, but he was the sort that never spent a nickel unless necessary. Years ago when he did therapy, his shrink told him that he was cheap because he had no self-worth. He looked up a couple of college buds on Facebook, then before he went to bed he thought he should look for any really personal files and delete them. He wouldn’t want someone reading his diary entries, or that bad love poetry he wrote for Sally, or finding the urls of his favorite porn sites.

He came upon two entries called “Games of Light and Dark” and “Allegro.” He assumed that the first was a game package and the second to be a music-generating program. He called up “Games.”

“Games of Light and Dark” proved to be a short story, a five-thousand-word tale of Egyptian adepts battling for the soul of a young psychic in modern-day Los Angeles. Car chases, gang wars, crack, incense, and the brief appearance of Set and Horus over the skies of east L.A. Good stuff really—except for the occasional dangling participle or lapse into passive. Editing habits die hard and Steve was changing this, and polishing that; before considering that this might not be his property. He hadn’t even made a back up. The story was now in its new form; although, it could perhaps be reconstructed. He didn’t know if he had just disrespected the dead. It was midnight, the traditional hour for such things.

His first impulse was to send it to Joan’s parents. Then he realized that they won’t understand it. Unlike many senior citizens the computer had not made it into their world, they had almost seemed sacred of it, fearing that it might send them down the information super highway. Then he thought of Mickey. He could sell the story and then put the money in a college savings account for Mickey. It all seemed so noble.

He would be everybody’s hero. He got out the book he had bought on selling short fiction a couple of years ago. He put the story into MSS form and realized that he needed an address to send the story. Juan had a Writer’s Market. He went to work half and hour early. He was going to do all this in secret, so that when it panned out he would look heroic. If it didn’t pan out no one would ever know.

John’s bottom drawer always sprang if you tugged hard enough. He wrote the Fantasy & Science Fiction address on the brown envelope, closed the drawer, and sprinted to the mail box in front of TDS. He shoved the envelope in just as Juan drove up on his beaten-up blue Toyota.

Juan said, “You’re here early.”

“I just wanted to mail the first fan letter for your Weird Tales story.”

“You dummy. They haven’t printed it yet.”

“Oh they won’t pay much attention to it anyway. I sent it out on your stationery.”

Weeks passed and finally Steve got an acceptance from F&SF. His first story! It came with a two-page contract that talked about foreign rights and subsidiary book rights and lots of things Steve didn’t understand. But he was able to find the dotted line. He told everybody. There was no harm in telling everybody, after all it would be appearing under his name. That had always been the plan. He should get some ego-rites here for everything. It wasn’t like Joan had had the guts to send it out. Besides Mickey would get the money. He was sure that Joan’s parents wouldn’t approve, he could remember Joan telling him that they were some kind of fundies—surely not folks thrilled to see Egyptian gods on the cover of a magazine over their dead daughter’s by-line. It was a good thing not to mention Joan.

When he got home he called up “Allegro.” “Allegro” was a short novel—the quest of a young man looking for a rumored “lost” group of Bach manuscripts during the Cold War. The search took him on both sides of the Iron Curtain through gunfire, intrigue and two sets of hot romance with a vivid dream sequence in which he becomes Bach. With very little padding this could become a bestseller. Shiny and profitable in airport bookstores. And not without literary merit.

Steve began to pad.

He went to use bookstores and bought up tour guides. He began to pour local color in. He re-adapted scenes from his favorite erotica; Joan had had a lace curtain approach to sexuality. Steve bought a copy of Douglas Hofstader’s Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid from the New Atlantis bookstore. Steve took liberal helpings from Hofstader’s book on math and codes and patterns—it made a heady mix of sex and danger and pop science. He was excited by it.

He would break off from work, email a passage home (to Joan’s old machine) People covered for him during the three weeks he expanded “Allegro” to novel-length. Especially Juan. Steve had never felt close to Juan, but Juan apparently really liked Steve. Juan’s wife had died years before and apparently the little writer’s workshop D. B. Bowen had run downtown had literally been the only place Juan had gone for pleasure in nearly ten years.

Fantasy & Science Fiction sent Steve a check for $206.00. Depositing half of it for Mickey—somewhere along the line he decided half was the appropriate share for his compensation—was a bother. It was such a small sum. He might have to explain things to his bankers. He’d wait until Allegro came out. Then he could make arrangements. After all he was a friend of Joan’s. Everyone would understand why he wanted to help Mickey.

Allegro grew to 165,000 words; and by the first snowfall, Steve was sure that they were the perfect 165,000. He asked Juan for his Writer’s Market. He was going to send the first three chapters and an outline to the twenty-five most likely publishers. Surely someone would show an interest. Juan opened his desk. Steve saw the pile of manuscripts underneath the bright yellow Writer’s Market.

“What’s that?”

“Oh. Just some stories I’m working on. I thought I’d get twenty or so together—you know, linked stories—then try to sell them to the magazines and then sell the whole lot as book.”

“Are you finished with them?”

“I’ve got eighteen, I’m holding out for twenty-three. It’s my lucky number.”

“Yeah. I read Illuminatus! in college too.”

“Hail Eris!”

“All hail Discordia!”

“Hey, best of luck with your book.” said Juan as he slid his desk drawer shut.

Aren’t you people supposed to read Bless Me, Última or George Washington Gómez?

During the weekend, Steve made much use of the office copy machine on the top floor of Texas Data Systems.. He made twenty-five piles of his first three chapters and outline. He had them on the floor, on desks, on chairs, atop filing cabinets. I have made a fortress out of my words, if you want to play in my fort you have to be nice to me. Maybe Steve’s therapist had been right so many years ago, maybe the childhood abuse had lowered his emotional IQ. Or maybe he was a fucking genius. Stephen King’s first name is Steve too. Fucking genius.

After wearing the clerk at Mockingbird Postal Station, Steve picked up Sally and headed to Garcia’s. He slurped down food thick with green sauce. Sally fantasized about his novel, the film rights, the adventure game rights, etc. She could hardly wait to see what he would write next.

Neither could he.

Steve put his fragments on Joan’s system. If he could finish one of them—put something together and finish one—it would be enough. It didn’t have to be good. He considered looking for stories sufficiently old or obscure. He could rip-off their endings and fit to his beginnings. Plagiarism would be okay if it wasn’t for lawyers. Dark-suited men with briefcases began to chase him in his dreams.

Juan, of course, was having no problem finishing his book. Stories nineteen, twenty, and twenty-one appeared on schedule. Everyone said they’d be such a famous pair, Juan Martínez and Steve Cruise. One of them would surely do the Hemmingway bit and write-up the early years. Everyone at TDS began to bask in the future light of that book of dead names. People began saving their best remarks for it. Their cubicle held an endless audition for immortality. Everyone made it sound so good, if only they could be writers. People asked them all the cliché questions. “Where do you get your ideas?” Steve stopped seeing Sally as often, told her he was writing. She was so supportive. She was such a bitch, if only she would complain then he would have a reason not to write. It was all he needed, all he wanted. They could have a big fight, and then he could swear off writing. She’d feel guilty, but making her feel bad was OK, because she made him feel bad always asking about his novel. She was the reason he couldn’t write anyway. It was already her fault; she should pay with a little guilt.

A couple of publishing houses expressed an interest in Allegro. Steve shared the good news with John. Juan replied that he had finished the twenty-three stories and was about to send the book off. The magazine sales would only tie up the rights. Juan could have just been quiet; he could have just said nothing and let Steve have his moment, but no moments for Steve.

Steve said “We’ll have a copying and mailing session on Saturday. We’ll make this a little tradition. I’ll mail out your book, you’ll mail my next book and so on.”

Juan said, “That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard. I always felt we would be doing stuff like that. I’m not at all surprised about Allegro. I always knew you would be the writer.. Remember that day the Bowen gave us the little note cards?”

One of the first exercises. Bowen had handed out three by five inch pale blue index cards. He had written an emotion on each. Steve got ENVY. Then you had fifteen minutes to write a scene where the emotion was invoked by the character’s actions. It was called Show Don’t Tell. Steve’s was the best; he knew then he was meant to be a writer.

Steve visited his blue haired, frail grandmother that evening, cheering the old lady up immensely. They watched TV and recollected that Steve used to drop by after school for a plate of warm cookies. This was a completely bogus recollection. Steve’s grandma hated to cook. They were both caught up in TV grandmothers. She fell asleep during a rerun of The Golden Girls and Steve took what he had come for—his late grandfather’s heart medicine. Steve let himself out without any fuss.

At home Steve ground the medicine. He poured fifteen tiny white nitroglycerin tables into a makeshift mortar and (what-the-hell) added five pink digitalis pills. He crushed the tiny tablets into a fine powder—easy to do since heart medicines are finely crystallized to get into the bloodstream quickly. He added the mixture to a small amount of ground Folgers coffee. He shook, added a little salt, which would help cut the bitterness (he hoped).

Everything went smoothly on Saturday. Juan addressed all the envelopes, while Steve ran off a couple of copies of Allegro. Steve brewed coffee in the two employee coffee pots. Decaf for himself, poisoned for John. Juan always drank his coffee with spoons and spoons of sugar. Steve brought the cups in. They talked writing. Steve refilled John’s cup.

Juan said, “This coffee is strong.”

“I was a truck driver in college.”

Steve kept talking about all the things that wannabe writers talk about. The potential for a series, TV, movies, foreign rights, gaming rights, book tours, hot babes that would not mind John’s fleshy middle. Talk and pour and talk and pour,

“Let me Irish that up for you.” Steve poured a little Baileys in the John’s cup.

“Aren’t you having any?” asked Juan.

“I’m the designated mailer. As soon as we are ready I will take these down to the post office. Ain’t it cool?”

“My heart is beating like a kettle drum. I am so excited.” Sweat hung in big drops on Juan’s light brown forehead. He smelled funny—a sort of metallic smell. Steve assumed that it wasn’t exactly the sweet smell of success.

“It’s that eminent fame plus the caffeine, of course,” said Steve, “You know you should really take care better care of yourself.”

Juan looked guilty, “I’ve got a confession, dude. I am really diabetic. Type II. I don’t tell anyone at work, because I really like scarfing down desserts at the monthly office birthday parties.”

Big fucking surprise: El Gordo is a diabetic.

“No shit,” said Steve, “I had wondered. I mean last month I must have seen you devour three slices of red velvet cake. Well maybe if you keep yourself healthy for your adoring fans.”

“I haven’t taken care of myself since my wife left me. I drink too much, eat too many fast sugars. When I started this writing thing, I thought that maybe life wouldn’t be day after day at TDS and nights when I hoped I would just die in my sleep.”

Steve said, “Writing brought the best out in me. No question. Say man you are looking a little like a slice of red velvet cake right now. Why don’t you go on home? I can handle everything here.”

“I am a little queasy. Is it hot in here?” Juan seemed disoriented

“It is really hot,” lied Steve. “Come on let’s get you home. Enough excitement today for my flan.”

Juan made his ponderous way to the escalator.

“No. Come on take the stairs. You need to start taking care of yourself, baby steps you know.”

“You are the only friend I’ve got.”

“I know. Joan used to feel the same way.”

Steve began leading the bug man to the stairwell. With the slightest shiver of distaste, he put his hand on the sweat soaked back of Juan’s pink shirt. Big, wet brown. As Juan began to step on to the straits, Steve sharply increased the pressure of his arm on John’s back. Suddenly Juan ripped. He tried to break his fall, but only broke his arm. The body slumped-and-slid down to the turn in the stairs. Steve slowly stepped down to his fallen companion. Juan’s heart had not withstood the strain. Poor Juan, he should have started that aerobics program he was always talking about. All those enchiladas and tres leche cake hadn’t helped either. Lesson to us all. Steve gathered up Juan’s envelopes and the MSS. He washed his coffee cup and put it on the rack—careful to leave the coffeepot turned on. Almost nothing was left in the bottom of the pot. He threw away the now almost empty Folgers’s can that had the poison in it.

He was Juan’s loudest mourner. Everyone had known how close they were. Someone asked about Juan’s book. Steve said that he thought Juan had sent it out. Juan had always been secretive about his writing. No, Steve had never seen the book. The family up from San Antonio had never heard of it. The boss saw how upset Steve was, and sent him home for a week to get over his loss. Steve used this time to print out new copies of John’s work and stuff them into the envelopes that Juan had so thoughtfully provided. He changed the byline and the title and cleaned up Juan’s grammar. Juan had chosen a good set of markets, but then Juan had an excellent understanding of his own work. Steve felt that Borges at the Mike could be a bestseller. It was funny and gritty and had a little magical realism as a seasoning. Nice salsa for a white boy. American sabor.

Bluebonnets azured the highways, and Steve’s agent Mary Denning finalized a deal with Bantam for Allegro. Borges at the Mike was receiving a few enquires as well. Steve spent some of his generous advance on a three-strand pearl necklace for Sally. He showed it around the office and everyone said that he should quit and work full time. Nobody talked about Juan anymore. The consensus was that he’d never had a book in the first place. The strain probably killed him. Even Steve let himself be convinced.

Steve took Sally to Joaquin’s, the only restaurant in town with a three star rating. She was so proud. She was going to try her hand at this. She already had an idea for a fantasy novel.

As he put the pearls around her neck, Steve wondered how good it would be.