Fickle Read online

  fickel @ January 29 10:59 pm

  There is more, in fact. Oh, fukk-a-dukk, be right back.

  Okay, my main man is tucked in and snoring (why do I find comfort in that godawful noise?) No idea where he was until this ungodly hour, but of course I know not to ask. This, plus the fact that I’ve just thrown back a shot of something hard and cheap, has got me in the right mood for revealing.

  So, after I did the shadow-to-shadow confrontation with whoever it was in Mr. Suicide’s window and my brain finished tingling from the sensation of being a part of the naked city where no one sleeps, yada, yada, yada…I go for a walk. It’s very quiet in Mr. Suicide’s neighborhood on a Sunday eve, and I hear the sound of my heels echoing off the wet sidewalks. When I look up, there’s the blue neon glow from a sign that reads:

  ALL NIGHT (with a flickering “t”).

  The diner squatting below it is as grim as I’ve imagined it from Mr. Suicide’s diary.

  Let me give you a visual: tiny, narrow, almost otherworldly in its ugliness, presided over by an old geezer with a nose like a burnt potato under a radiator-rack forehead, sizzling hash and fried eggs that smell for all the world like flesh being cooked. There’s a skin-and-bones calico crouched on the counter eating something off a plate, and an undernourished black man with scarred-up facial skin lurking way down where there might be some heat hovering in the air. The bum peeks out at me from behind some grey rasta stocking cap that hangs down the side of his head like a deflated condom. He’s nervous—maybe the last woman he laid an eyeball on had him thrown in the can for even thinking in her direction.

  I slip onto a stool, making the universal mime for coffee. The grill geezer flips his wiping cloth up onto his shoulder, then shuffles over and pours some black stuff into—I shyte ye not, gentle readers—a thick ceramic coffee cup with a faded navy stripe around its rim, along with the traces of some other woman’s lipstick.

  By now I’m, like, so Barbara Stanwyck it ain’t funny. I shoot Grill Geezer a gruff “Thanks, Joe,” and light myself a Lucky, shaking the match just so. Grill Geezer turns away to take a poke at the eggs, then slides a bothered look at me, like he’s trying to place me but can’t quite get there. Finally he tilts his chin my way.

  Grill Geezer: Crim, you wanna? (Greek accent.)

  Me: (I glance around and notice a couple of little metal creamers along the counter. The little bum’s hoarding one, trying to shield it from my view with a quavering hand.) I’m good. (I sip.)

  Grill Geezer: (transfers hash and eggs to a plate, goes down and skids it in front of the bum, then comes back to scrape around at the remnants. His curiosity about me is waning.)

  Me: (pitching for casual) Hear about that suicide in the T?

  Grill Geezer: (shrugs)

  Me: Shame. Successful guy. Came in here a lot. You must miss him.

  Grill Geezer: (scrapes a little more, then gives me an evil eyeball) Whaddayo wann?

  Me: I’m just trying to understand. (I offer what I hope comes off as a jaded smile.)

  Grill Geezer: So sure. Mistah Pale was in here some a time. He liked a work a night. What else you wanna ax?

  Me: (encouraged) You know anyone he used to come in with? I’d like to talk to them.

  Grill Geezer: Nah, I done know nuttin’ like dat.

  Me: I’m just trying to find his friends.

  Grill Geezer: Yeah, that’s good. You go fine em. Talk to um. (walks away)

  I slip a buck under my saucer and leave. Mostly I’m psyched that I’ve gotten Mr. Suicide’s name, or at least a lead on it. Since then, btw, I’ve poked around on the web and have found nary a Mr. Pale (or Payle or Palle, etc.) who could possibly be our Mr. S. But I’m sure that with a little persistence I’ll shake out the right name.

  So…thoughts?

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 29 11:21 pm

  You smoke? Somehow that doesn’t jibe with my image of you.

  fickel @ January 29 11:22 pm

  What do you mean? Oh—that line about the Lucky Strike was just me casting myself as Stanwyck. The rest, however, is all gospel truth. TBH, like most twits of my generation, there was a time when I worked to cultivate a smoking habit. dickel and I used to steal cigarettes from my uncle and smoke them down behind the train station. dickel’s habit stuck, mine didn’t.

  marleybones @ January 29 11:26 pm

  My sisters and I used to pull the same stunt on my mom until she caught on and we got our asses handed to us. Your uncle never caught on to you?

  fickel @ January 29 11:31 pm

  Well, maybe he did and maybe he didn’t. He wasn’t the tattletale type.

  marleybones @ January 29 11:36 pm

  Ever think to ask him about it now?

  fickel @ January 29 11:38 pm

  That’d be tough. He lived with us for a short time a loooong time ago when I was, like, ten. I’m not even sure if he and I would recognize one another if we bumped shoulders on the street.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 29 11:42 pm

  Hmmm, I smell a family feud.

  fickel @ January 29 11:44 pm

  Could have been. If so, I wasn’t in on it.

  marleybones @ January 29 11:47 pm

  Ever think to ask your mom or dad about it? Family stuff’s often very important when you’re trying to figure out where you are in life.

  fickel @ January 29 11:48 pm

  My father’s dead, remember?

  marleybones @ January 29 11:50 pm

  Of course. Sorry about that.

  fickel @ January 29 11:51 pm

  Don’t be. Again, it was a looooooong time ago.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 29 11:52 pm

  Mind my asking how he died? I ask because my both my parents died of alcoholism, and I’ve found myself wondering if you had a similar family history. Naturally, feel free to ignore the question if it’s not something you care to blog about.

  hitman @ January 30 12:55 am

  Hmm, an hour later. Nice one, harvard man.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 01:04 am

  Apologies. We children of alcoholics are always seeking kindred spirits.

  marleybones @ January 30 01:05 am

  My view is that i.went.to.harvard pitched his question about as well as it could be done. If fickel chooses not to answer him, that’s cool, but there’s no reason to jump on him.

  36-D @ January 30 01:07 am

  Hi, just on. Look, fickel’s in kind of a tough place right now. Let’s not scare up additional ghosts for her to contend with.

  hitman @ January 30 01:08 am

  WTF “additional ghosts?” Mr. Suicide’s not from her past. He’s from the other day…unless you’re starting to think that fickel really did have a history with Mr. Suicide?

  36-D @ January 30 01:09 am

  I think he had one with her, in his head. That’s what I think.

  hitman @ January 30 01:10 am

  Oh, the “stalker” theory.

  marleybones @ January 30 01:14 am

  Not stalker. Lurker.

  hitman @ January 30 01:15 am

  The difference?

  marleybones @ January 30 01:16 am

  Maybe Mr. Suicide was a lurker on this blog. Maybe he got to know fickel over this year through our conversations, and figured out who she was in real life. Maybe he took to following her in real life in addition to following her online.

  36-D @ January 30 01:18 am

  I just got goosebumps, literally.

  marleybones @ January 30 01:19 am

  I’m not trying to scare anyone, but this all starts to make sense when you look at it that way.

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 01:25 am

  OMG—could fickel actually BE the “E” in Mr. Suicide’s diary? I mean, let us face some facts: the cops know Mr. Suicide’s identity, and they’ve without a doubt figured out who his friends and acquaintances are, meaning who his lovers might be…

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 01:28 am

  So if
there was someone else who could fit the bill as E…

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 01:30 am

  yes, yes exactly. In that case, they wouldn’t continue to be hassling fickel.

  marleybones @ January 30 01:31 am

  But that doesn’t make fickel “E.”

  hitman @ January 30 01:32 am

  If I was a cop, I’d think it came close.

  36-D @ January 30 01:34 am

  Lemme get this straight—we think that E actually is fickel and that Mr. Suicide, like, fantasized the entire relationship, how it went sour, how she cheated on him, how he finally decided to kill himself because of her… Now THAT’s out of a Cornell Woolrich.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 01:38 am

  Ahh, one of the great dark minds of American pulp. Wasn’t he a suicide, too?

  marleybones @ January 30 01:39 am

  Plus there was something about a diary in Woolrich’s past. His wife’s?

  wazzup! @ January 30 01:40 am

  Permit me, my dearest of friends! Woolrich was a closeted homosexual and eventually killed himself with much drink, and all of the sordid details of his gay experimentation were in a diary he left for the wife he had deserted, most probably to hurt her most terribly!!!!!! Anyone else seeing too many comparisons here for coincidence, as am I?????

  36-D @ January 30 01:45 am

  Wait, so now we’re thinking that Mr. Suicide made up everything in his diary, including E?

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 01:48 am

  It’s a man’s private book that he wrote in at night. Why shouldn’t it be a fantasy? Nighttime is all about fantasy. Believe me, I make a good living off of that fact.

  webmaggot @ January 30 01:49 am

  Sup blog, just on—my luv life is suddenly keeping me BUSY (and naked!). So we’re thinking that Mr. Suicide fantasized about fickel being a cold, slutty bitch who he obsessed over while she half lived with him and started boffing at least one other guy—am I pretty much caught up?

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 01:51 am

  And the “relationship” got so painful that he killed himself…

  marleybones @ January 30 01:52 am

  …punishing fickel for her imaginary sins by offing himself in front of her…

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 01:53 am

  …which makes her real “sin” her simply being the fantasy.

  36-D @ January 30 01:54 am

  {{{{{{{ Group shuddah }}}}}}}

  roadrage @ January 30 01:55 am

  Sorry. Another freakin night shift—why do the stars insist on coming out at night? One thing I want to stick in—there was a real E—remember the silk panties in his bedroom?

  36-D @ January 30 01:56 am

  Uhh, don’t some guys use those as a…“girlfriend?”

  marleybones @ January 30 01:57 am

  As in: maybe the panties were part of the fantasy.

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 01:58 am

  I have more silks than I can count, and each one is its own fantasy, but then intimates are a professional thing with me.

  fickel @ January 30 02:01 am

  Hi. Sorry to have been AFC, but I had a thing to get straight with my brother, and when I finally got back it seemed best to just watch you night owls work collectively for a while.

  Look, I have to confess something—deep breath—my father attempted suicide by lying down in front of a train. I think the cops know about it, and I think that it just adds to the list of coincidences that are keeping them interested in me in connection with Mr. Suicide’s death.

  proudblacktrannie @ January 30 02:06 am

  Lawdy.

  marleybones @ January 30 02:07 am

  I admire your honesty, fickel. Must be extremely difficult to get into this.

  fickel @ January 30 02:08 am

  I’m not feeling very honest at the moment, after having kept that to myself for all this time.

  roadrage @ January 30 02:10 am

  Look, have you thought about bringing this up with Burly-Bear, since you’re sure he already knows about it anyway? Sort of gauge his reaction to your coming clean?

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 02:11 am

  I strongly advise against approaching anyone but Mr. Groin with this. As a substitute, you might consider discussing it with the Colonel. No one else.

  hitman @ January 30 02:12 am

  Wait a sec. You said your father “attempted suicide,” not that he committed it.

  webmaggot @ January 30 02:13 am

  Dood. With a train there ain’t much difference.

  fickel @ January 30 02:14 am

  Sigh. Actually there is. My father lay down on a freight line. The train passed over him. Snagged him somehow, and broke his pelvis. Sliced his foot off, plus half of one hand, including the four fingers (the thumb remained intact). The engineer never saw a thing, but some people found him in the morning. So he survived. He was never himself again, and died a year later. Killed himself. Bottle of pills, this time. I was away at school when it happened. My mother didn’t tell me for several months. She didn’t want me and my brother coming home. She’d kind of had it with the lot of us by then. There. Now you know the worst.

  hitman @ January 30 02:16 am

  Yeah, brave girl and all. One question, though: WHY?

  fickel @ January 30 02:17 am

  Why wouldn’t I blog about this readily? Guess, dipstick.

  hitman @ January 30 02:18 am

  No, WHY did the old man do it?

  36-D @ January 30 02:19 am

  Gawd. Learn some limits.

  marleybones @ January 30 02:20 am

  Well, you can give me a 1 a.m. verbal drubbing, too, 36-D (must be after 2 for you east-coasters!), but I think hitman’s got a point. I think we need some brutal honesty here if we’re going to do any good, and I think we can do some good. fickel’s father’s attempted train suicide is a frightening coincidence that the cops either are or will be all over. We bloggers—we’re groping with only those senses we can translate into semilucid prose. If we’re going to strategize on fickel’s behalf we need whatever pertinent information we can get. If that’s not going to be possible, well, back to fan fiction.

  fickel @ January 30 02:27 am

  I understand. I had a feeling it would get like this. So here goes.

  My father was unstable from way back. Life was so unfair to him I can’t even begin to describe it. He and my mother (and her brother) were their own little reenactment of the Quebec diaspora, and they settled in one of those sad “little Canada” communities. So they were poor, but only she was poor by nature, a Canuck my father fell for due to some heroic misperception that he could “save” her. I don’t think she gave a shit about my father for a minute—okay, maybe before they were married, but she’s the type who instantly loses respect for anyone who has low enough standards to associate themselves with her. Anyway, anyone else could see that my father had talents beyond the average man, sensitivities beyond what was good for him.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 02:34 am

  You blame your mother for his death.

  fickel @ January 30 02:36 am

  I wouldn’t go that far. I just don’t have much use for her.

  hitman @ January 30 02:37 am

  You blame someone, though. Someone hurt him beyond what he could take?

  chinkigirl @ January 30 02:38 am

  Sorry to barge in, but my advice is that we refrain from jumping into analysis. Let’s let fickel tell us what she needs to that may help us understand the current problem—the BPD’s investigation of Mr. S’s death—and leave it alone. Doesn’t that seem the wisest way to go?

  hitman @ January 30 02:40 am

  Just reacting naturally. Cripes, you bitches are touchy tonight.

  chinkigirl @ January 30 02:44 am

  Yes, we are, and sorry to admonish—I’m merely suggesting that we react less than might come naturally if we want to maintain one another’s trust an
d also our focus. We don’t want anyone to develop regrets about something they’ve revealed here.

  fickel @ January 30 02:45 am

  I blame myself.

  hitman @ January 30 02:46 am

  What could you have done, as a kid, that would make a man lay himself down on a train track?

  fickel @ January 30 02:49 am

  I did…what I was told. I was the cooperative twin, remember? Not that my brother was completely intractable.

  hitman @ January 30 02:50 am

  Meaning? Spell it out.

  i.went.to.harvard @ January 30 02:59 am

  Meaning “good night,” I’m gathering.

  marleybones @ January 30 03:00 am

  Brave girl. Sleep tight (all 4 hours you’ve got left!)

  leo tolstoy @ January 30 04:15 am

  …we are all created to be miserable, and…we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?

  fickel @ January 30 10:44 am

  Ah. Good morning to you, too, leo t. Love the encrypted identity. Makes you seem so…oh, I don’t know…undercover?

  16

  01.30 @ 12:06 pm:

  the Twat Thickens…

  Killer chick

  Yer so slick

  Who’s the slacker?

  Trick…or vic?

  Was watching Killer Chick’s place couple nights back, looking for some way in to her. Half expected to see the jarhead cop shuffle on up the stairs to dish up another steaming dog pile of “aw, shucks” foreplay. It don’t happen, but something more in’erstin does when some skateboard weasel slides on up to the stoop and plays conga on her buzzah til she lets him in.

  Let me give you the e-ball pat-down of this losah—maybe 5 foot 10 and weighin in at a buck fifty, all draped in grunge. Fatigue cargos, dirty jean jac over red-to-pink hoodie, army rucksack, hair razored to the skull—everything says “I swallow for drugs.” I.E. typical slacker.

  No kiss from K.C. but I could see she is both groovin on seeing him and totally comfortable in her sweaties, slipper socks and glasses in front of him. He’s all “hey, wohman, whatchu whan outa me” with big bousheet hand motions like he thinks he’s some sort of niggah, and she’s all “yeah-sure-heard-your-bull-before” but she loves this weasel you can see it a mile away. Farkin little twerp must have ten inches in his jockeys cause he sher az hey-ell ain’t showing much else he might offer to a class act such as our lover-ly murderous heroine.