Fickle Page 23
As if in a daze, I raise my eyes to the unfinished oil on his easel. Up near the top, the letters MASSA fall off the edge of the canvas—it’s not a statement, but the beginning of a word…the word Massachusetts…as in Massachusetts Avenue, an exit at the Hynes T Station. The illusions of majesty tumble away. It’s just a woman sitting on a bench, refraining from leaning against anything. Behind her is the tiled wall of a subway station. And she’s not stiff with regality, her eyes bold—she’s rigid as she represses her emotions, clutches everything in.
She’s me, waiting for the cops, the image of Mr. Suicide’s skinned face beating before my eyes.
I hear a noise from far away—someone yelling, a bottle breaking, nothing about it marking the M.H.’s return, but it jars me to action. I click off the light, this time managing to kick over a tall can of brushes in water that sits under the easel. I clatter down the stairs, grab my coat and purse, and go for the door. Thrusting myself through, I find myself in a public hallway, unlit except for what light seeps through a mottled, stained-glass stairway window. The hallway is narrow with tall ceilings, like his apartment, reinforcing my impression that this building was a church, or anyway something other than the artists’ tenement it has become. I listen, peering down the exceedingly long straight stairway to what might or might not be the entry vestibule below. The runner is rubber and sandy with winter grit. I pitter-patter on down, softly as I can, only to find that this isn’t the ground floor and I have to do it again, this time on a wide, elegant stairway with a curved banister. I’m about to take a flyer down these when I hear the outer door open below and a key rattling in the inner lock. I look around at the silent doors—for a place with few straight lines the public space is amazingly devoid of crannies. I retrace my steps as quickly and quietly as I can, only to find that M.H’s door has locked behind me. Not wanting to be discovered in the hallway, I keep going and head up the next stairway. This set of stairs, I find, leads directly to a locked door—no landing—and I have no idea whether it’s an apartment or just some sort of cupola. I crouch on the top step, listening to the M.H. ascend—those quick footfalls telling so much and yet so little. He thrusts his key, twists and shoves, like someone well used to his own door’s peculiarities. I peer through the banister rails and catch a glimpse of him going in, his whisker-speckled jaw, a hand holding a plastic bag in which there are undoubtedly containers of pea pods and noodles and two pairs of chopsticks. He pauses, the door still open, apparently taking in the fact that I have run out on him. I hold my breath, but he doesn’t come out to check the hallway. The door slaps to behind him and I immediately tiptoe past it and on down to my freedom.
Outside I have no idea where I am—Dorchester, Roxbury, J.P., some area of South Boston I’ve never been to in my life???—all have neighborhoods like this—tall brick walkups crowded together, narrow streets with old trees twisting through the sidewalks, chain link fences side by side with once-elegant iron gates, patches of wasted “gardens.” I skitter along, sensing more than seeing or hearing a commercial district somewhere ahead. I emerge rather suddenly into a wide open street. There are very few people puffing the cold air, all of them at some distance from me and all looking very predatory. I try not to hesitate and start walking rapidly along the sidewalk, pretending that I know where I’m going and that it’s not far. A car seems to slow and pull up near me. Its honk startles me and I steadfastly ignore it and stride along, my face ducked. The driver guns it and shoves ahead of me where he stops again and I glance up and see that it’s a taxi. Amazing. The driver has his window open and is talking out at me, some sort of advice about being out at this hour alone not being safe. I glance over—he’s an older man, Hispanic, concerned-looking, driving a cab. I get in and yank the door and he coasts away, lecturing me gently. I give him my address and close my eyes, wondering whether I’ll have the money to pay him when we get there. Unbelievably, I fall asleep, and the driver has to talk me awake when we reach my place. I go for my wallet and that’s when I realize that I’m holding the pencil sketch of the necklace—the one I’d found at Mysterious Hottie’s place.
I come inside and bolt the door. I pour a drink and, bringing the bottle, sit down here without changing or showering. I write about Slenderbuns. I run dry, as you know, before I can sort out my scene with the Mysterious Hottie.
And since then? Well, he did not call today, but to tell you the truth, I don’t know if he knows who I am well enough to even have called if he wanted to. I’m the chick at the train station who was freaked by the suicide and inspired a painting out of him. He knows my first name—not my last. And why should he call me, anyway? I ran out on him, so shouldn’t it be me who calls? Haven’t I made it clear—haven’t I demanded—that I’m the one in control of whatever it is we’re doing?
Sigh. Why do guys listen only when you’re not sure you want them to?
I’m going to post this, then go out to forage for coffee. When I return, I’m sure I will find that one of you bloggies will have posted some brilliant insights. We will begin the task of figuring this out.
GIVE IT TO ME STRAIGHT
36-D @ February 3 01:12 pm
This is getting way, way freaky.
chinkigirl @ February 3 01:14 pm
I, too, am getting sweaty palms here. Could it be possible that the Mysterious Hottie doesn’t present a threat? If so, I’d like to hear how.
roadrage @ February 3 01:15 pm
Well, the man isn’t gay…so what’s his connection with Slenderbuns?
proudblacktrannie @ February 3 01:24 pm
Lord, lord, lord, the pressure! Somehow I feel like this is my turf, like I should be the one to get at this from the inside—I mean, I do work at a gay club and I have even dabbled in exotic dancing. But I have nothing to offer except the obvious—gay folk can inspire hate crimes. We live with this danger. And, frankly, when the bouncer asked fickel if she had a boyfriend who might have known she was heading off to fraternize with the gay folk, I think he was wondering whether she’d unwittingly sparked a hate killing. We know better, of course, but unless some drug angle emerges in Slenderbuns’ life, that’s how this will go down.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 01:28 pm
Do we know better? This Mysterious Hottie has given us some indication, if fickel is portraying him accurately, that he’s homophobic.
marleybones @ February 3 01:42 pm
No offense, but I’ve had occasion to think that about everyone on this site.
chinkigirl @ February 3 01:43 pm
Yes, but noir itself is riddled with homophobia. We’re all aware of the true meaning of the word gunsel, yes? And obviously that doesn’t bother any of us unduly or we wouldn’t be here. So let’s admit we’re all comfortable, to some degree, with homophobia—including you, marleybones—and let i.went.to.harvard state his case.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 01:45 pm
Thanx. And, agreed, I’m not trying to lynch the guy for liking his sex straight. But, still, there’s been a killing and he was there, so it’s his homophobia that we need to analyze—fair enough?
marleybones @ February 3 01:46 pm
I am cool with all of the above. Write on, Freud.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 01:47 pm
Okay, first we have the fact that the M.H. won’t go in the club even though he’s tailed a fellow all the way there. Second, and far more condemning, he responds to the news of the boy’s murder with the comment “good shot.” Ambiguously as fickel presents it, that seems awful to me (and fickel, I’ve noticed, has an incredibly high tolerance for ignorance, including those of us with less than enlightened views about women and nonmainstream lifestyles). Third, he’s also been in the vicinity of both deaths—Mr. Suicide and now Slenderbuns. I don’t know what any of that means, frankly, but I am picking up other coincidental connections between the M.H. and the Mr. S situation. For example, he’s a blond artist who apparently sketched a necklace, and Mr. Suicide appears to have been i
nvolved with a blond male artist at some point in the last year or so, during which Mr. S created the very necklace that M.H. sketched. He also has a painting in his loft that could be Mr. Suicide himself. Finally, and possibly most damning, he repeatedly turns up in places where he could anticipate fickel might show up if he already knows a great deal about Mr. Suicide and that fickel is trying to investigate the man.
I know that all of this may add up to very little, but my point is simply to question whether the man is safe for fickel to be around.
chinkigirl @ February 3 01:55 pm
Of course, when Mr. Suicide died, Mysterious Hottie was on the train. Close by, but not in any sort of position to have caused the death.
marleybones @ February 3 01:58 pm
Ah, but we don’t know that. We just know he said it. We think that he was at the train station that night, because it appears that he must have observed fickel in order to have her image in his head for the painting he’s doing. But there, again, he could have imagined it, if fickel or his cop friend described what happened. I mean, this is a guy who draws out of his head.
webmaggot @ February 3 02:02 pm
Well, the world wide web has bent me over again. I have been up, down, and around the internet, looking for a weblog called Full Frontal. It is unfindable. Must be one of those sumazzbichinsites that made itself invisible to search engines.
wazzup! @ February 3 02:04 pm
Hey favorite of all Americans! Just made excellent hidden clue connection and am bursting to share: the Mystery Hot Date has the chipped tooth—“snaggle tooth,” fickel says, yes? EXACTLY LIKE “E” FROM THE STRANGE AND CRYPTIC DIARY! M.H. = E!!!
chinkigirl @ February 3 02:07 pm
Not to steal your signature line, proudblacktrannie, but oh my land and stars!
36-D @ February 3 02:09 pm
Plus she’s noticed his manly chin a couple of times, too. Manly chin = chin with nail-hole dimple, in my cute guy scrapbook.
chinkigirl @ February 3 02:18 pm
You know, once you go back and reread, the clues begin to pop out at you—in his diary, Mr. Suicide says he first saw E on the street near the All Night, strolling around with some guy. Well, the M.H. certainly seemed to know that neighborhood.
roadrage @ February 3 02:24 pm
There’s also that line in Mr. Suicide’s diary about E being the artist and Mr. S the clay—Mysterious Hottie is an artist, and Mr. Suicide may have posed for that nude study fickel saw.
marleybones @ February 3 02:27 pm
Careful, now. This is a lot of word association play we’re getting into.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 02:30 pm
Well, let’s put it to fickel. fickel, could it be that the Mysterious Hottie is E?
roadrage @ February 3 02:32 pm
Hey. Something else? I used to live with someone who made jewelry. Those pincers and bits of wire and shit in the M.H.’s apartment are, like, tools of the trade. This guy makes jewelry.
36-D @ February 3 02:39 pm
OMFG—take it a couple of steps out from all this and X becomes a lot less delusional about what killed her husband. I mean, think of it: M.H. is a psycho. He has his fling with Mr. Suicide and, like, refuses to accept the fact that some men ultimately need to be with a woman. He watches Mr. S moving in on fickel, maybe even follows Mr. S as Mr. S homes in on fickel. Hell, gang, he could have been there, watching as Mr. S went to approach fickel in the vinyl shop that night, and then…gawd, I’m afraid to even write it.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 02:41 pm
Let me write it, then: if Mysterious Hottie shoved Mr. Suicide in front of a train, who is to say that he didn’t shoot Slenderbuns in cold blood—the only person fickel’s discovered who actually laid eyes on the M.H. and Mr. S together and identified them as lovers.
marleybones @ February 3 02:44 pm
Except for the fat pussycat.
i.went.to.harvard @ February 3 02:45 pm
Come again?
marleybones @ February 3 02:46 pm
The fat pussycat at the Berklee concert. Remember the diary? She set up E and Mr. Suicide—jeweler and jewelry designer—so she must have known both of them. Puzzle complete, or at least a lot more complete than it was for me ten minutes ago.
hitman @ February 3 02:49 pm
Hail to the nerdiacs. The dyke from the heartland scores in overtime.
marleybones @ February 3 02:50 pm
What makes you think I’m from—actually, yeah, I’m in Minnesota (where my partner is at the moment in the kitchen burning peanut brittle—what a stench).
hitman @ February 3 02:52 pm
Hey, don’t feel like a walking stereotype. I’m just sensitive to nuance.
webmaggot @ February 3 02:55 pm
You’re a walking dildo, actually. See, I’m sensitive to nuance too.
36-D @ February 3 02:59 pm
Look, all you dildos, I’m not sure where we’re at?
hitman @ February 3 03:02 pm
Don’t be dumb, Mrs. Cleavage. Guy Ferguson’s an artist. It’s already been speculated here or thereabouts that the fat pussycat in the diary bears a resemblance to the Peacock. And at their place is a recently painted portrait of the Peacock with some fancy necklace draped around her neck—the same necklace that’s proudly displayed in a photo at Mr. Suicide’s shop AND shows up in a sketch in the Mysterious Psycho’s loft. Put it together, IQ.
fickel @ February 3 03:05 pm
Well, I’m back, toting a super grande deluxe triple espresso with extra skim froth, and I believe I get your drift, gang. So let me try to feel it out.
I guess we start with the Mysterious Hottie meeting the Peacock through one source or another. Lord knows he’s talented enough to get himself recommended for a portrait. So the Peacock likes him—strike that—she loves him—strike that—she is in heat over him and so of course she agrees to sit for him. Hell, if only he’d insisted on painting her nude—hell, maybe she insists on some nude poses. Eventually, some sketches for the portrait develop, and—how are we conjuring this up?—the M.H. lays in some way-out-there necklace across her throat, just to goose up the composition a notch. Acquisitive creature that she is, the Peacock falls in love with these rocks even more than she has fallen for the artist’s. She wants the portrait and she wants the necklace in it. So she gets her artist-cum-lover together with her regular jeweler (and yes, ladies like the Peacock have a “regular jeweler”) to see what they can conjure up.
But self-adulation isn’t all that’s motivating the Peacock. The truth is she is increasingly nervous that her hubby is going to find out about her dalliance with the artist, which dalliance she’s been justifying to herself by pretending to suspect her husband’s “attentions” to a young freelance editor who’s been assisting him in working up his memoir. In sober moments, of course, the Peacock knows that her suspicions are a lot of bunk. This is a good reason to break it off with the artist—HOWEVER, the Peacock has also sobered to the realization that her boy toy might be a touch psychotic, and so she’s concerned about recriminations.
Translation: she gets a glimmer of something in his character that scares her shitless.
Imagine her relief when she learns that her jeweler and her artist have become more than business partners. She eases her way out of her tryst, chewing up the scenery in her role as the spurned woman. She pays both men well for their services, heaves a massive sigh of relief, and hangs her new necklace around her neck and her new oil above the mantel where she and the Colonel can admire it, safely together, if a tad suspicious of one another. She’s escaped unscalded…or so she thinks.
In the meantime, however, the jeweler has stepped right into the Peacock’s shoes: now he’s the sugar daddy to a psycho. And, like his predecessor, he’s afraid to let the pretty lad know that he’s ready to whisper adieu and move along to more…tepid pursuits. Adding to the operatic aspect of the entire mess, the jeweler isn’t quite following the Peacock’s example by desi
ring to resume his state of monogamy. No, for this intrepid fellow it’s a new conquest—the Colonel’s freelance editor, whom the jeweler spotted at a concert, air-kissing with the Peacock.
Wild coincidence? Well, not so wild, when you consider that the Peacock started this whole charade with her head full of half-blown suspicions about her husband and this girl, which would give the older lady plenty of motive for talking up the younger one to any eligible males she might know who might be lured into taking the temptress of the blue pencil away from the Peacock’s old man.
So the jeweler starts thinking more and more about the girl—maybe he spots her at another concert and speaks a word or two with her, maybe he learns about her blog and gets into her internet voice, or maybe she simply represents a return to relative normalcy from the man-to-man thing he’d thought was so daring a few months back. But he’s got a problem: the blond artist’s half moved in on him, and, like the Peacock (and how many others?) before him, our jeweler has come to realize that his snuggle buddy is psychotic. He’s afraid to kick the lad out, and, to make everything that much more audacious, the artist doesn’t seem to feel any compunction about his remaining monogamous with the jeweler. Indeed, our jeweler trails the artist sometimes, and learns that the guy is seeing other guys (cue the street scene outside the All Night). Jeweler-man lives in this limbo for some time, scribbling his self-loathing into his journal. Finally, however, he finds himself some courage and kicks the effer out for good.
Then what? Maybe he waits, fearing repercussions. When none occur, he begins his gentle dance, moving in slowly, as nice guys do, on his new conquest (me, for those who have lost their way). Maybe it takes weeks—or months, if he’s extra shy. At last he sees an opportunity—they’ve been at the same concert, and then make their way to the same retro music store, and then to the same T station. It’s all too, too meet-cute to pass up, and he makes his move. But just as he steps forward to speak to her at the Hynes T station, the psycho hops out from behind a post and shoves him right past the girl and into the tracks, where he meets his fate face first.