Fickle Read online

  I turn, rubbing my eye like I’ve got nothing on my mind and then I “catch sight” of Slacker Dude and “realize” that he’s waiting for a machine. I point at my spot like to ask “you want this?” and he pushes his way over, clearly eager to cut off whoever might have a more legitimate claim to the next available station. His eyes are bloodshot from the weed but he doesn’t seem all that stoned. He’s also not the type who is troubled by people’s need for space; bumps me hard with his chest, then slides his whole torso against mine, half pushing me out of the way so he can take my spot. Sheesh.

  “You’re supposed to buy a coffee or something to score a computer, bud,” I say kind of coolly, like I don’t appreciate being climbed all over and so am giving him a little back.

  He doesn’t bother to answer, completely uninterested in me now that he’s in my seat. But after a second or two the truth of what I’ve pointed out seeps in and he jerks his attention from the screen. His irises must be some light blue-grey color, because they come off as almost transparent with the computer’s light shining into them, like two black pin dots with nothing around them. Fact is the guy’s an ugly little rat when you actually get close up to him—a human scavenger, even down to the sharp little teeth. He’s already typed in whatever search he’s interested in and thus has closed down Full Frontal without a glance, but that doesn’t trouble me. I’ve thought this through.

  “You work here som’n?” he says. Talks like every other dropout dipstick you’re going to want to meet. Pretty comical, when you think about it, that they all decide to adopt the same dumbass fake-o jive accent.

  “Just telling you the way it is,” I say.

  He snaps his fingers and jerks a thumb over his shoulder. “Find it, fairy.” Then he’s back to the screen.

  “Here,” I say in a pleasant, patronizing tone. I put my untouched coffee on the counter next to him, placing the cup deliberately so he can read what I wrote on it. “My girlfriend didn’t show, so it’s yours.”

  He mumbles “blow me” and goes back to the screen, banging away with a couple of fingers and his thumbs. I know where he’s going, too. He caught Killer Chick’s url and he’s been spying on her and her blog buds, and now he’s hooked and can’t wait to tune in to catch what they’re gabbing about. Naughty little Slacker Dude!

  I lean forward and push the coffee cup deliberately with my fingers, as if making sure it’s away from the edge of the counter. A second later, I, too, have Killer Chick’s url. Naughty me!

  So I leave the internet café and, just for kicks because there’s a handy bar diagonally across the street, I go in and order myself a Mountain Momma Rag, then lean against the window to watch. Sure enough, the Slacker Dude comes out of the internet café. Took him maybe fifteen minutes to find and get the gist of Full Frontal—not bad for a stoner. Out on the sidewalk, he looks around, slow and careful, then moves out from the doorway vaguely, not sure of which way to go. I know he wants to run back to Killer Chick’s place, but maybe now he’s considering whether he’s being watched. He makes up his mind and turns deliberately away from home and starts walking quickly. Kind of stupid, but then he’s that kind of fella. I don’t follow.

  Yeah, kid, so now you know. Tell Killer Chick she’s in DANGER!!!

  …or maybe you won’t, scum pervert, after you read tonight’s post…

  TALK, NIHILIST DOGS

  losmuertos @ 02.01 03:12 am

  I’m luvin it, mon. What you write on the cup to get him to go for it?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 03:21 am

  Wrote WATCH U SHOWER?—1 hr/$100

  losmuertos @ 02.01 03:44 am

  huh?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 03:45 am

  So he sees that and figures out I left it for him.

  bonitoestoria @ 02.01 03:47 am

  So he go outside but you not there. So whazza point big boy?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:02 am

  Figure it out, stupidos.

  eddielizard @ 02.01 04:11 am

  I think you sex-u-a-lee con-fuuzzzed, mon.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:12 am

  (Impatient eye roll.) The slacker kid reads the message on the cup and, whether or not he’s interested in showering in front of a guy for a hundred bucks, he’s certainly going to be curious enough to go to the history queue to see what the dude who left the message has been browsing. Annnnnnnd, just so’s you don’t need to ask, losmuertos, all the extraneous sugar in the cup is like in case the kid happens to actually sip the coffee, it’ll be disgustingly sweet so that could also get him to focus on the cup, think back on the guy who gave it to him, and check the history queue. All of the above just increasing his chances of getting his nasty little eyeballs all over Full Frontal (the url, not our host). Ta-dah.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:15 am

  Ah, a seer among the blind.

  boytoucher @ 02.01 04:16 am

  Still no get der big idere. Slackerdude find Full Frontal. So whad?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:19 am

  And he reads it. Sheete youse sumfukass waysproduk.

  bonitoestoria @ 02.01 04:20 am

  o mon ju ess one clever fello. Still, I not getin for whut reasin dis slacker dude should get hissellf so work up ’bout tonite’s postin. You be the pervert, man, wid you peeping. He got nothing to be embarrass about, where I’m from, to walk roun nikkid in front of his woman and to put her nice warm pannies up next to him. Wasso problemo????

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:21 am

  Trust me, it ain’t sweet for that particular girl’s pannies to be on that particular boy’s stick.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:32 am

  (Shrug) People do a lotta things in private they couldn’t possibly explain to the rest of us.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:33 am

  Yeah well you got that right b’yitch.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:34 am

  Look, brain trust, I’m not much on rear window ethics, but if you don’t like what you see when you peep, try not peeping.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:35 am

  We’re a race of peepers, honeyslot. Wuss dat we doin’ right heah?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:36 am

  There are voyeurs and there are adventurers, comrade. But enough banter (exasperated flounce). When do you and I meet? You’re one tryst away from true love after today’s good deed, by my count.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:37 am

  T.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:38 am

  You got trains on the brains, my friend. Is this a fetish?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:39 am

  You got a label thing?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:40 am

  defensive about it, r we?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:41 am

  chugga chugga choo choo, all a-bored the hunny egggg-spresss.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:42 am

  Tee hee!!!! OK, what line? What stop?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:43 am

  Green Line. Hynes.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:44 am

  Why there?

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:45 am

  I luv old records. So how m’I gunna recah-nize you anywayz?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:48 am

  Oh I stand out in any crowd as you will see.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:49 am

  Yeah this is zack-lee what I’m suspecting—lemme guess, you’re the six footer with the wig and the scarf tied round your neck to hide yer man-lump?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:50 am

  No sweetie I’m regular height and it’s a woman’s neck, you can carve me a second smile yourself if I’m lying. But don’t worry about finding me, I’ll find you after I check you out and see if you’re the pervert you pretend to be.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:51 am

  Huh? Thought you was the one who was all hot for it?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:52 am

  Did you read your own post tonight? You’re hot, lovah, but you’re one weird wuff-wuff. I don’t fancy myself next week’s chick-in-the-dumpster.

  fu
llfrontal @ 02.01 04:53 am

  Pffffff. I make all the sheet on this site up. I’m just a sweet boy lives with his Ma. You ain’t figured that out yet?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:54 am

  Mmmm, that’s what all the psychos say. And it’s probably true.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:55 am

  Wutevah. Bring your mace, paranoid sistah. Time?

  garbo @ 02.01 04:56 am

  Uhhhhh, offsite. I don’t need your circle of perverts showing up like dogs at a gang bang.

  fullfrontal @ 02.01 04:57 am

  yeh good point comma thinka it.

  garbo @ 02.01 04:58 am

  See that, swee-pea we’re gettin along already.

  20

  February 1 @ 3:24 pm

  >SCENE OF ZEE CRIME<

  I’m going to be scolded relentlessly by my favorite bevy of magpies but nevertheless I have to report that today I did something—quite spontaneously and without any conscious notion about it in advance—that’s apparently been roosting in the recesses of my mind for days:

  I went back to the place where Mr. Suicide did it.

  The answer to “egad, fickel you self-destructive ninny, why, why, why, why, why?” is that, well, guess I needed to. “For the portent bade me understand… Some horror was at hand.” Something like that.

  Went as a lunch break from work, and—I swear, dolls ’n’ dudes—I did not know where I was going at the time. In fact, my first clue that I was about to do something strange was that I took a lunch “break” at all. We junior eds pride ourselves on our prowess at the art of desktop dining. But today I rose from my computer with nary a glance at my cup-o-tomato basil powder or an eyelid flutter at the coffee bar, where Noah stood at the boiling water tap, busy reconstituting his favorite beef barley (the boy has farty taste in freeze-dried cuisine). I slipped into the back hall, claimed my coat from its cubby (yes, we have “cubbies,” hardy-har-har) and was out the back door before you could say “whu-whu-whu-which way did she go?”

  “Well, I am a sneaky one,” I congratulated myself as I tripped on down the cobbled delivery drive.

  And then I asked myself, “Self? Um, why, exactly, did I just sneak out like that?”

  And that’s when I first discovered, rather matter-of-factly, that it was “Because I am going to the Hynes T stop and I don’t want company.”

  In the words of the immortal Garbo—“I vhun tuh be alun” (or “I vhun tuh be LEFT alun,” as the great goddess always insisted the line actually went, although it sure as hell sounds like she skipped the word “left” and I don’t actually get the big difference, anyway, myself).

  So I let that little surprise sink in for a moment as I scurried down the sidewalk, energized by vain hopes that a quickened circulation might help me outrun the liquid chill in the air—yeah, right.

  Then, when I’d let a bit of time elapse just for politeness’s sake, I asked myself, “Uh, self? Why am I going to the Hynes T station?”

  Self wasn’t exasperated or offended in the least but at the same time didn’t give what I could call an elucidating answer. “You know,” self said. Didn’t seem like self was in a mood to be toyed with. So I let the subject drop and simply went along.

  Hey, guess what—the station looks the same as it always has. Here are its finest features, for those who live outside of Boston:

  Eerie gusts from nowhere. Distant rumbles from the long black dirty tunnel holes you don’t quite want to look directly into. People scuffing around like surly zoo animals. Human fixtures include the bearded guitarist with his open case at his feet, a couple of crumpled bucks scattered inside like so much litter. His voice is scratchy and high-pitched as he channels—Dylan? Neil Young? Joni Mitchell? Jump back, Jackson—is it Chris Martin? There’s the ubiquitous sewer hag, too, prowling the edge of the platform down past the stairs where the humans don’t go. The Hynes sewer hag is horrid to behold. Today she’s wrapped in a down coat, red with black grime lining its seams, and appears to be muttering both sides of an imaginary argument.

  For a moment I harbor a flight of fancy in which I stride into her lair and, in the space of a few deft questions, elicit from her that she’d witnessed the entire scene with Mr. Suicide—heck, she’d actually seen him attempt to take his fatal walk off the platform five or six times over the course of the hour before I’d happened along to witness the final effort. I stare at the old woman as I imagine this (is she even old? who can tell with that freezer-burn skin?), and then, as I notice her eyeballing me back, turn away abruptly. And that, friends, is when I see him. As in

  HIM! HIM!! HIM!!!!

  Who Him, you ask?

  You need to ask that?!?!?!?!? I reply.

  He’s wearing his usual ratty corduroy jacket-coat and some dusky olive-green jeans, and as he walks toward me I get the sense that he’s just risen from one of the benches, like—yup, you guessed it—like he’s been waiting for me. This would be impossible, being as I only knew myself that I would be coming here moments before I arrived. My heart stops—it’s one thing to speculate that some pretty-boy psychic sketch artist is haunting your life, following you to places that you didn’t know you were going yourself, and it’s quite a-bloody-nother to have this fantasy verified.

  I feel myself going solid steel as he approaches—that’s what I do when I’m scared shitless. Fortunately, I’m also angry. Definitely angry, this time.

  He stops in front of me and rubs a thumb around his prickly jawline, studying me. Or giving me a chance to study him, perhaps. Probably this works with most women. Works pretty danged good on me—I can’t help wanting there to be some explanation other than that he’s a cop or a pervert. So, you know, we stare a while, me and Mr. Angel Face. Then we speak.

  Mysterious Hottie: You’re here.

  Me: (My eyebrow may flicker involuntarily, but that’s all I’ll give him.)

  M.H.: Go ahead. Take a long look. (He gestures with his head in the direction of the tracks. He’s got that same near-whisper-that-you-can-somehow-hear thing going as the other time we spoke. It makes everything he says come out laden with meaning.)

  Me: (pure steel) I told you to stop following me, didn’t I?

  M.H.: (studies me for a moment, then nods to himself) It’s your first time back. Sorry. (He saunters off to lean against a support, his hands in his pockets, like a guy waiting on a friend who’s off to take a leak or make a private call or something.)

  Me: (walking over) Let’s keep it simple, can we? I’m here to catch a train. You’re here because you’re stalking me. And I’m calling a cop. (I pull out my cell.)

  M.H.: I didn’t mean to crowd you, but there’s no use pretending.

  Me: Do I look like I’m pretending? (I stab out 9-1-1, half-expecting him to grab the phone.)

  M.H.: (he utters a soundless laugh) You don’t think the cops know I’ve come here? They know it. I know they know it because one of them asked me and I didn’t see any reason to hide it. My guess is they think you’ve been coming, too. But you’re just here to take the train.

  Me: (not pushing the call button for 911 yet but keeping the phone raised to my ear) Are you saying you were here…that night?

  M.H.: I thought you knew that.

  Me: How would I?

  M.H.: I recognized you. Figured you recognized me.

  Me: You’re lying.

  M.H.: (patient, like I’m a child)

  Me: Where were you, if you were here? (I cast an eye past him, toward where I’d been standing when Mr. Suicide had pushed by me) Hiding behind a post?

  M.H.: (He stares at me for a second as if my half-baked attempt at an insult has caught him by surprise—like he had, in fact, been hiding behind a post that night, like he’d pushed Mr. Suicide from behind me, right past me and into the tracks.) I was on the train.

  Me: (my turn to be caught by surprise—somehow I’d never given much thought to the perspective of the people on the train. I’d been almost smug about being the only witness, the only person who’d h
ad respect enough for Mr. Suicide’s anguish to stick it out and give an accurate statement to the cops. Now I find myself wondering if I’d even been useful, or if Burly-Bear and his buds had gotten the same garbled story fifteen times over from the poor sods who’d ridden the blunt instrument right into its victim.) You saw what from the train?

  Mysterious Hottie: I saw you.

  Me: (feeling myself go very faint. I can hardly feel my lips when I speak again.) What does that mean? You saw me…doing what?

  M.H.: Looking. Watching it happen.

  Me: And afterwards you decided to start following me? Is this some sort of a…I don’t know…you see a woman witness a suicide and something about it attracts you?

  M.H.: Don’t think so. Seems more like fate.

  Me: Fate? Fate has brought us together through this pathetic soul’s suicide? My, the human capacity for egotism never ceases to amaze.

  M.H.: (nonapologetically) He didn’t die so we’d meet. Nothing as simple as that. We’re just wrapped up in the same fate sequence, for lack of a better term. I don’t think it started with this, and I have no idea if any one of us is more central to it than anyone else. Maybe it’s about us, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe it’s just about you.

  Me: (imperiously) Meaning?

  M.H.: Is there anything in your past that’s reminiscent of…? (He tilts his head toward the tracks.)

  Me: (chilled to the core. Only deep-rooted cynicism allows me to lie convincingly.) Not a thing.

  M.H. (continues to study me. He thinks I’m lying, but he doesn’t know.)

  Me: (feeling in control in the face of his ignorance) Guess it’s back to the Ouija board, huh?

  I turn away to head for the stairs to the street. Our entire exchange, although tense, had been delivered in modulated tones, and I doubt that anyone standing around us has even perceived it as a confrontation. To my surprise, however, Sewer Hag has wandered out of her little leper colony of one and is hovering a few fetid feet from me. Close up, she’s even more frightening to behold—her face looks scarred by windburn, the lines around her mouth deep as knife wounds; her hair is like a matted mass under a moth-nibbled scarf she’s fashioned into a head shawl. The quilted down coat mercifully covers what looks to be multiple layers of greasy black clothing—stuff you don’t want to think about ever having been some woman’s fashion choice before it was discarded and picked up by this unfortunate life. I stop short and accidentally look into her eyes—they’re disquietingly prescient—before averting mine.