Black Evening (7 page)

"No. I mean this contorted piece of garbage."

The old man considered him, then nodded grimly. "Forty bucks."

"Forty? But that's outrageous! Ten!"

"Forty. And it's not outrageous, pal. It's business. That fool thing's been on my hands for over twenty years. I never should've bought it, but it came with lots of good stuff, and the owners wouldn't split the package. Twenty years. Two bucks a year for taking space. I'm being generous. I ought to charge a hundred. Lord, I hate that thing."

"Then you ought to pay me to get it out of here."

"And I should go on welfare. But I don't. Forty. Just today. For you. A steal. Tomorrow it goes up to fifty."

Tall and good looking, Eric was also extremely thin. An artist ought to look ascetic, he told himself, although the fact was he didn't have much choice. His emaciation wasn't only for effect. It was also his penance, the result of starvation. Art paid little, he'd discovered. If you told the truth, you weren't rewarded. How could he expect the System to encourage deviant opinions?

His apartment was only a block away, but it seemed a mile. His thin body ached as he struggled to carry his purchase. Knobs jabbed his ribs. Levers poked his armpits. His knees bent. His wrists strained at their sockets. God Almighty, Eric thought, why did I buy this thing? It doesn't weigh a hundred pounds. It weighs a ton.

And ugly! Oh, good Lord, the thing was ugly! In the harsh cruel glare of day, it looked even worse. If that junk man turned his lights on for a change, his customers could see what they were buying. What a fool I've been, Eric thought. I ought to go back and make him refund my money. But behind the old man's counter, there'd been a sign. The old man had jabbed a finger at it: ALL SALES FINAL.

Eric sweated up the bird-dung-covered steps to his apartment building. "Tenement" was more accurate. The cracked front door had a broken lock. Inside, plaster dangled from the ceiling; paint peeled from the walls. The floor bulged; the stairway sagged; the banister listed. A cabbage smell overwhelmed him; onions, and a more pervasive odor that reminded him of urine.

He trudged up the stairs. The old boards creaked and bent. He feared they'd snap from the weight he carried. Three flights. Four. Mount Everest was probably easier. A group of teenagers — rapists, car thieves, muggers, he suspected — snickered at him as they left an apartment. One of the old winos on the stairs widened his bloodshot eyes, as if he thought that what Eric carried was an alcoholic hallucination.

At last he lurched up to the seventh floor but nearly lost his balance, nearly fell back. As he struggled down the hall, his legs wobbled. He groaned, not just from his burden but from what he saw.

A man was pounding angrily on Eric's door: the landlord, "Hardass" Simmons, although the nickname wasn't apt because his rear looked like two massive globs of Jell-O quivering when he walked. He had a beer gut and a whisker-stubbled face. His lips looked like two worms.

As Eric stopped, he nearly lost his grip on the ugly typewriter. He cringed and turned to go back down the stairs.

But Simmons pounded on the door again. Pivoting his beefy hips disgustedly, he saw his quarry in the hall. "So there you are." He aimed a finger, gunlike.

"Mr. Simmons. Nice to see you."

"Crap. Believe me, it's not mutual. I want to see your money."

Eric mouthed the word as if he didn't know what "money" meant.

"The rent," the landlord said. "What you forget to pay me every month. The dough. The cash. The bucks."

"But I already gave it to you."

Simmons glowered. "In the Stone Age. I don't run a charity. You owe me three months rent."

"My mother's awfully sick. I had to give her money for the doctor's bills."

"Don't hand me that. The only time you see your mother is when you go crawling to her for a loan. If I was you, I'd find a way to make a living."

"Mr. Simmons, please, I'll get the money."

"When?"

"Two weeks. I only need two weeks. I've got some
Star Trek
T-shirts I can sell."

"You'd better, or you'll know what outer space is. It's the street. I'll sacrifice the three months rent you owe me for the pleasure of kicking you out the door."

"I promise. I've got a paycheck coming for the column I write."

Simmons snorted. "Writer. That's a laugh. If you're so hot a writer, how come you're not rich? And what's that ugly thing you're holding? Jesus, I hate to look at it. You must've found it in the garbage."

"No, I bought it." Eric straightened, proud, indignant. At once the thing seemed twice as heavy, making him stoop. "I needed a new typewriter."

"You're dumber than I thought. You mean you bought that piece of junk instead of paying me the rent? I ought to kick you out of here right now. Two weeks. You'd better have the cash, or you'll be typing in the gutter."

Simmons waddled past. He lumbered down the creaky stairs. "
A
writer. What a joke. And I'm the King of England. Arthur Hailey. He's a writer. Harold Robbins.
He's
a writer. Judith Krantz and Sidney Sheldon.
You
, my friend, you're just a bum."

As Eric listened to the booming laughter gradually recede down the stairs, he chose between a clever answer and the need to set his typewriter down. His aching arms were more persuasive. Angry, he unlocked the door. Embarrassed, he stared at his purchase. Well, I can't just leave it in the hall, he thought. He nearly sprained his back to lift the thing. He staggered in and kicked the door shut. He surveyed his living room. The dingy furniture reminded him of the junk shop where he'd bought the stuff. What a mess I'm in, he told himself. He didn't know where he could get the rent. He doubted his mother would lend him more money. Last time, at her penthouse on Fifth Avenue, she'd been angry with him.

"Your impractical romantic image of the struggling starving artist… Eric, how did I go wrong? I spoiled you. That must be it. I gave you everything. You're not a youngster now. You're thirty-five. You've got to be responsible. You've got to find a job."

"And be
exploited
?" Eric had replied, aghast. "Debased? The capitalistic system is
degenerate
."

She'd shaken her head and tsk-tsk-tsked in disappointment. "But that system is the source of what I lend you. If your father came back from that boardroom in the sky and saw how you've turned out, he'd drop dead from another heart attack. I've not been fair. My analyst says I'm restricting your development. The fledgling has to learn to fly, he says. I've got to force you from the nest. You'll get no further money."

Eric sighed now as he lugged the typewriter across the living room and set it on the chipped discolored kitchen counter. He'd have set it on the table, but he knew the table would collapse from the weight. Even so, the counter groaned, and Eric held his breath. Only when the counter stopped protesting did he exhale.

He watched water dripping from the rusty kitchen tap. He glanced at the noisy kitchen clock which, although he frequently reset it, was always a half hour fast. Subtracting from where the hands were on the clock, he guessed that the time was half past two. A little early for a drink, but I've got a good excuse, he told himself. A
lot
of good excuses. Cheap Scotch from the previous night's party. He poured an ounce and swallowed it, gasping from the warmth that reached his complaining empty stomach.

Well, there's nothing here to eat, he told himself and poured another drink. This albatross took all the money I'd saved for food. He felt like kicking it, but since it wasn't on the floor, instead he slammed it with his hand. And nearly broke his fingers. Dancing around the room, clutching his hand, he winced and cursed. To calm himself, he poured more Scotch.

Christ, my column's due tomorrow, and I haven't even started. If I don't meet my deadline, I'll lose the only steady job I've got.

Exasperated, Eric went into the living room where his old, faithful Olympia waited on its altar-like desk opposite the door, the first thing people saw when they came in. This morning, he'd tried to start the column, but distracted by his broken kitchen chair, he hadn't been able to find the words. Indeed, distraction from his work was common with him.

Now again he faced the blank page staring up at him. Again his mind blocked, and no words came. He sweated more profusely, straining to think. Another drink would help. He went back to the kitchen for his glass. He lit a cigarette. No words. That's always been my problem. He gulped the Scotch. Art was painful. If he didn't suffer, his work would have no value. Joyce had suffered. Kafka. Mann. The agony of greatness.

In the kitchen, Eric felt the Scotch start to work on him. The light paled. The room appeared to tilt. His cheeks felt numb. He rubbed his awkward fingers through his thick blond neck-long hair.

He peered disgustedly at the thing on the kitchen counter. "You," he said. "I'll bet your keys don't even work." He grabbed a sheet of paper. "There." He turned the roller, and surprisingly it fed the paper smoothly. "Well, at least you're not an absolute disaster." He drank more Scotch, lit another cigarette.

His column didn't interest him. No matter how he tried, he couldn't think of any theories about modern fiction. The only thing on his mind was, what would happen in two weeks when Simmons came to get the rent. "It isn't fair. The System's against me."

That inspired him. Yes. He'd write a story. He'd tell the world exactly what he thought about it. He already knew the title. Just four letters. And he typed them:
Scum
.

The keys moved easier than he'd expected. Smoothly. Slickly. But as gratified as Eric felt, he was also puzzled — for the keys typed longer than was necessary.

His lips felt thick. His mind felt sluggish as he leaned down to see what kind of imprint the old ribbon had made. He blinked and leaned much closer. He'd typed
Scum
, but what he read was
Fletcher's Cove
.

Astonishment made him frown. Had he drunk so much he couldn't control his typing? Were his alcohol-awkward fingers hitting keys at random? No, for if he typed at random, he ought to be reading gibberish, and
Fletcher's Cove
, although the words weren't what he'd intended, certainly wasn't gibberish.

My mind, he told himself, it's playing tricks. I think I'm typing one thing, but unconsciously I'm typing something else. The Scotch is confusing me.

To test his theory, Eric concentrated to uncloud his mind and make his fingers more alert. Taking care that he typed what he wanted, he hit several keys. The letters clattered onto the paper, taking the exact amount of time they should have. Something was wrong, though. As he frowned toward the page, he saw that what he'd meant to type
(a story)
had come out as something else
(a novel)
.

Eric gaped. He knew he hadn't written that. Besides, he'd always written stories. He'd never tried — he didn't have the discipline — to write a novel. What the hell was going on? In frustration, he quickly typed,
The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog
.

But this is what he read:
The town of Fletcher's Cove had managed to survive, as it had always managed to survive, the fierce Atlantic winter
.

That awful tingle again. Like ice. This is crazy, he thought. I've never heard of Fletcher's Cove, and that redundant clause, it's horrible. It's decoration, gingerbread.

Appalled, he struck the keys repeatedly, at frenzied random, hoping to read nonsense, praying he hadn't lost his mind.

Instead of nonsense, this is what he saw:
The townsfolk were as rugged as the harsh New England coastline. They had characters of granite, able to withstand the punishments of nature, as if they had learned the techniques of survival from the sturdy rocks along the shore, impervious to tidal onslaughts
.

Eric flinched. He knew he hadn't typed those words. What's more, he never could have
forced
himself to type them. They were terrible. Redundancy was everywhere, and Lord, those strained commercial images. The sentences were hack work, typical of gushy bestsellers.

Anger seized him. He typed frantically, determined to discover what was happening. His writer's block had disappeared. The notion of bestsellers had inspired him to write a column, scorning the outrageous decadence of fiction that was cynically designed to pander to the basest common taste.

But what he read was:
Deep December snows enshrouded Fletcher's Cove. The land lay dormant, frozen. January. February. The townsfolk huddled, imprisoned near the stove and hearth inside their homes. They scanned the too-familiar faces of their forced companions. While the savage wind howled past their bedroom windows, wives and husbands soon grew bored with one another. March came with its early thaw. Then April, and the land became alive again. But as the warm spring air rekindled nature, so within the citizens of Fletcher's Cove, strong passions smoldered
.

Eric stumbled toward the Scotch. This time he ignored the glass and drank straight from the bottle. He shook, nauseous, scared to death. As the tasteless Scotch dribbled from his lips, his mind spun. He clutched the kitchen counter for support. In his delirium, he thought of only three explanations. One, he'd gone insane. Two, he was so drunk that, like the wino on the stairs, he was hallucinating. Three, the hardest to accept this wasn't an ordinary typewriter.

The way it looks should tell you that.

Good God.

The telephone's harsh ring jolted him. He nearly slipped from the counter. Fighting for balance, he teetered toward the living room. The phone was one more thing he'd soon lose, he knew. For two months, he'd failed to pay the bill. The way his life was going, he suspected that this call was from the telephone company, telling him it was canceling his service.

He fumbled to pick up the phone. Hesitant, he said, "Hello," but those two syllables slurred, combining as one. "… Lo," he said and repeated in confusion. "… Lo?"

"Is that you, Eric?" a man's loud nasal voice told him. "You sound different. Are you sick? You've got a cold?" The editor of
Village Mind
.