Demon's Door (6 page)

During the midday break, Jim drove Tibbles home. As he was lifting the cat basket out of the back seat of his car, Mrs LaFarge appeared at the top of the steps, carrying a huge bouquet of white lilies.

‘Well, well!' she said, and she sounded more than a little disapproving. ‘Bought yourself a new cat already, Jim? And Tibbles not even cold in his grave.'

Jim climbed the steps and set the basket down on the landing. ‘Somebody made me a surprise offer of a new cat, Mrs L., and I couldn't really say no. Besides, I've
always
had a cat around. I have to have somebody to complain to, even if they can't answer back.'

Mrs LaFarge nodded. ‘I know what you mean. It took me years to get used to living on my own, when my late husband passed over, even though he never said a single word from one week's end to the next. My sister used to call him
Bloc-de-Bois
, my lump of wood.'

Tibbles let out one of his irritated ‘
warrooows
'. Mrs LaFarge said, ‘Aren't you going to show me? Is it a he or a she?'

‘It's a he. Pretty much the same as Tibbles. Half Russian Blue and half something else. Nothing much to look at.'

‘Well, come on, then. Let me say
bonjour.
'

Jim cocked his head and lifted a hand to his ear. ‘Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs L.! I can hear my phone ringing! Listen – I'll bring him down later and we can have a proper cat-warming party. Maybe you can help me think of a name.'

‘Your
phone
is ringing?' frowned Mrs LaFarge. ‘I don't hear anything.'

‘It's my new ringtone. Sounds just like cicadas.' Jim scooped up the cat basket and quickly mounted the next flight of steps. He opened the door of his apartment, carried the basket into the kitchen and set it down on the table. When he lifted the lid, he expected Tibbles to jump out immediately, but Tibbles stayed where he was, staring at him with undisguised disgruntlement.

‘OK,' said Jim, and lifted him out. ‘You've had a very difficult morning. We
both
have. One minute you're squashed flat, then you're three-dimensional again. I can understand how you feel. But you have to understand how
I
feel, too. I thought I'd lost you for ever, and I was going to have to get to know some totally new cat, right from scratch, so to speak.'

He held Tibbles close and stroked his ears. ‘Listen, Tibbles, I don't understand what's happened any more than you do, and even if you did you couldn't explain it to me, could you? You don't even sign. So let's agree to accept it and draw a line under it and move on, OK? Friends?'

Tibbles hesitated for a moment. Then he wrestled himself free from Jim's arms and jumped down on to the kitchen floor. He padded over to his dish and started to eat his shrimp dinner. Jim could only presume that he was forgiven.

He picked up the empty basket and left his apartment. Tibbles didn't attempt to run out of the door this time, and the last that Jim saw of him he was still bobbing his head down over his bowl.

Mrs LaFarge was standing at her window as he passed her apartment, arranging her lilies. He waved at her and gave her a smile. He thought the lilies made her kitchen look like a funeral parlor.

FOUR

A
s he turned into the college parking lot, he saw Kim standing in the shadow of one of the cedar trees, talking to Maria. He climbed out of his car, slamming the door twice because it didn't fit properly. Kim was making chopping gestures with both hands, while Maria nodded and nodded as if she were agreeing with him.

Jim walked up to them and held out the empty cat basket. ‘Here, Kim. You can take this back now. I just took Tibbles home.'

Kim took the basket and bowed his head. ‘Thank you, Mr Rook. Cat is happy to return, yes?'

‘In every sense of the word, yes he is. I don't really think he knows what hit him, any more than I do.'

‘Door close, Mr Rook,' said Kim, with the faintest suggestion of smugness. ‘Then door open, like I say before. One day maybe door close for ever. But . . . maybe not.'

‘Well, let's leave it like that for now, shall we? How are you guys? OK?'

Maria said nothing, but lowered her eyes, and looked away. Kim said, ‘Maria and me, we discuss future life. Like in “Tomorrow Will Bring Roses” poem.'

‘Oh, yes? You'll have to tell me about it.'

‘We will, Mr Rook. But not yet. Nobody can speak about future life until they have
seen
future life. Not for certain.'

Jim looked at Kim narrowly, trying to work out what he was driving at. Kim seemed to have a philosophical agenda of some kind, like a Scientologist or a Zen Buddhist or a Zoroastrian, but Jim couldn't really work out what it was. Doors opening, doors closing – what the hell was all that about? In Zen Buddhism, the world was going to end after the Three Great Calamities – Fire, Water and Wind. In Zoroastrianism, the whole world was going to be flooded in molten metal, to purify it, and that was going to be the end of that. The Big Sizzle. But doors closing for ever? Or maybe not closing for ever?

As he walked up the steps into the main entrance, Jim turned around just one more time. Maria had raised one hand to cover her face, as if she were trying to conceal the fact that she was crying. He stopped for a moment, but then he decided that it would be better not to interfere, at least not yet.
Kids. They drive you doolally.

On his way back along the wax-polished corridor, he heard a woman's footsteps click-clacking up behind him. When he turned around he saw that Sheila Colefax was trying to catch up with him.

‘Oh – Jim!
Jim!
Could I have a word?'

‘Hey, I'm sorry, Sheila, I swear to God, I'm doing my best to keep the pandemonium down to a minimum, but they don't call it a remedial class for nothing. Those kids still need a whole lot of remediating.'

‘No, no. The noise level is quite acceptable, thank you. I'll be sure to tell you if it disturbs us.' Sheila Colefax took off her black-framed eyeglasses and gave her head a little shake, which loosened her hair. Jim was tempted to say, ‘Why, Ms Colefax . . . without your glasses . . . you're beautiful!' but he managed to resist it. Maybe she really
was
wearing black stockings and a garter belt.

‘There's a poetry recital Friday evening at the Brentwood Theater. The Santa Barbara School. I've been given tickets and I was wondering if you'd like to come.'

‘The Santa Barbara School?' said Jim, suspiciously. ‘They're, like,
feminists
, aren't they?'

‘Insofar as they have always believed that women have as much literary fire in their bellies as men. But they're not
militants
, if that's what you mean.'

Jim looked down at Sheila Colefax and realized for the first time that her eyes had very unusual violet-colored irises, and that she had the slightest of overbites, her top teeth cushioned on her lower lip, which for some unknown reason he had always found absurdly attractive. Actually, he
did
know what the reason was: it made a woman look hesitant and defenseless, as if she would be putty in his hands. He had experienced quite enough relationships with women who were domineering and opinionated and wanted to sit on top of him every time, as if they were lurching down the Grand Canyon on a rented mule.

‘Actually, Sheila, I'm not too sure,' he told her. ‘I think I might already have plans.' Then he thought:
Excuse me, Jim
.
What plans, exactly
?
Sitting on that springless maroon couch with a bottle of Fat Tire beer, watching yet another repeat of
The Mentalist,
with Tibbles rattling on your lap?

‘It was just an idea,' said Sheila, replacing her eyeglasses. She looked a little hurt, but also as if she was used to being hurt. ‘Why don't you get back to me? I think it could be fun.'

‘Fun' wasn't exactly the word that Jim would have chosen for an evening of warm chardonnay and crop-haired women reading out poems about getting their revenge on wife-beaters, but off the top of his head he couldn't think of a better one, so he said, ‘Sure. Yes. I'll let you know. The Brentwood Theater? That's on Wilshire, isn't it?'

Sheila said, ‘Yes. Wilshire. I'll wait to hear from you.' She click-clacked back to her classroom in her pencil skirt and he stood in the middle of the corridor watching her. No VPL. Maybe she wasn't wearing a garter-belt. Maybe she was wearing a black lace thong. Maybe she wasn't even wearing that.

That afternoon it started to thunder, and Jim gave Special Class Two a list to study.

As he handed them out, he said, ‘This is a list of one hundred ideas by a writer called Michael McClure, who is a well-known writer of what they used to call the Beat Generation. Nineteen-sixties hippies, to you. A typical idea in this list is “The Stars Are A Gas.” Another one is “Man Is A Panda.” Yet another, “War Is One Color.” It's safe to say that none of you will understand what in hell Michael McClure is talking about.'

‘So why do we have to read it?' T.D. demanded. ‘You tryin' to prove that we all
stupid
or somethin'? We already
know
we all stupid. We're not
that
stupid.'

‘You won't be able to understand any of Michael McClure's ideas at face value, but then you'll be gratified to know that nobody can.'

‘Well, if
nobody
can understand him, why does anybody have to read what he write? Especially us. What are we, like goatscapes?'

‘That's scapegoats, T.D. But no you're not. This list of ideas will show you that words can be so much more than just descriptions, or explanations, or instructions. OK, words can tell you that the sky is gray and it looks like a storm's brewing up. Words can warn you that you're driving the wrong way on the freeway off-ramp, or that a candy bar may contain nuts. But words can also stretch your brain to its very limits, right to the very edge of your sanity. Come on, you know that from rap.

‘Words can give you brilliant insights, even if they don't appear to have any literal meaning. Words can do unimaginable things.'

‘Like say
what
, for instance?' asked Arthur, leaning on his elbow to show how unimpressed he was.

‘OK – let me give you a comparison, from basketball. Think about Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's skyhook shot. If you had tried to tell people about that skyhook shot before he actually did it, it would have sounded impossible. They would have said, “
Nah
– nobody can climb straight up into thin air like they're going up a ladder.” But Kareem did, using the same muscles that everybody else has, and it was amazing. It was a revelation. What I'm hoping is that some of you may find a similar kind of revelation in this list by Michael McClure. A skyhook, inside of your mind.'

Lightning flickered behind the San Gabriel mountains, and after a few seconds they heard the crumpling of thunder.

‘I don't think God approves of this Michael McClure dude,' said Billy. ‘I think He's trying to tell us to go back to reading
Hustler
instead.'

‘Just get on and study it, Billy,' Jim told him. ‘Make notes if it'll help you. Tomorrow I'm going to ask you to write ten original ideas of your own. Ten off-the-wall ideas, like these are. Not just “Eating Ten Krispy Kreme Donuts At One Sitting Will Temporarily Make You Hyperactive.”'

While the class shuffled and muttered and coughed and scratched their heads over their assignment, Jim perched himself on the corner of his desk to read through the menus they had selected for their last meals on Death Row.

Leon's was the first. Lox, eggs and onions for starters, followed by a triple-decker sandwich of knockwurst, pastrami, Swiss cheese, Russian dressing and coleslaw, on grilled rye bread, finishing up with a sour cream, raisin and nut rugelach.

Although Leon would have broken the first commandment to end up on Death Row, Jim was interested to see that he was still going to make sure that his last meal was completely kosher. He might be sarcastic and defiant in class, but Jim guessed that he was very respectful to his family at home, and at the synagogue. That gave Jim a good handle on how to deal with him when he was being obnoxious. Ask him how his parents would feel if they knew that he was behaving like such a
schmendrick
. Ask him what his rabbi would say.

To Jim's surprise, Grant wanted ‘Lobster ravilolli followed by roce chicken with black figgs and sore toe potatoes.' In spite of the creative mis-spellings, Jim was impressed. Grant clearly saw himself as more than just a highly successful football player. He saw himself as a highly successful and
wealthy
football player, who would be able to live a sophisticated life of luxury. His menu suggested that he had been reading celebrity magazines like
OK!
although Jim doubted if he would ever admit it. The only nagging uncertainty that he would ever play at the thirty-million-dollar-a-year level was revealed in his choice of dessert, a Twinkie. But Jim realized that there was a whole lot more to Grant than he liked to show anybody – a yearning for glamour, as well as sporting glory. A feminine side. He was the kind of guy who could knock you flat with one punch but still used moisturizer.

Then there was Kim's menu:
bindaddeok
,
mi yeok guk
,
dak gal bi
and
in jeol mi
. Jim wouldn't have been able to understand it at all unless Kim had translated it, but now he knew that it was very uncomplicated: only beef and chicken and vegetables and rice. But that was like Kim himself: although he liked to appear mysterious, he was using enigmatic words to hide a very simple secret.

Simple, but not necessarily benign. Jim had encountered enough demons to know that whatever they gave you, they always wanted something in return, and that what they wanted in return was usually more than you were able to pay. If Kim was capable of bringing a crushed animal back to life – or he knew somebody or something that could – he had to have a motive for being here at West Grove that went far beyond remedial English.