I love Ms. Winston. That is what I told myself, after the epic department budget battle. We lost a detective, got moved to a worse floor, and above all my paycheck was cut. Behind it all, was Ms. Winston. I felt utterly betrayed. I thought we were good colleagues, friends even, but you see, she left me three messages to ask how I was doing, before the budget cut announcements came.
I love Ms. Winston. She had denied even knowing a thing about it, and I had believed her, right up until the Director casually mentioned that Ms. Winston was very supportive in the planning meetings for the cuts.
It was war.
Smashing and stuck together keys on my typewriter talking to myself I sent out angry memo after angry memo, to her. Cursing god and red in the face and wishing all death's destruction I swore I'd never speak to her again as I read what she wrote back. We cornered each other in the hallways and waved memos at each other and called each other on the phone just to scream. I ripped my damned line out of the wall as it was either her screaming at me or bill collectors after me.
"You just have to cancel your vacations and stop going out on dates and accept reality", Ms. Winston had said.
I love Ms. Winston. I cancelled dates with promising women because I couldn't afford them. I missed a family re-union because I couldn't afford the steamline fare.
"It's for the good of the department.", Ms. Winston had said.
I struggled to eat and pay my electric bill. My clothes aged. I bought nothing and sold my investments to pay bills. I love Ms. Winston. Oh God, how I hated that bitch!
Finally, she showed up to help our department move to its new basement location, just to raid for supplies for her team. I saw her packing boxes and I leaned up against the wall. I was incensed and checked her out from top to bottom.
It was a liberation thing.
If Ms. Winston could rain so much on me, then there wasn't a line that mattered. The walls of professionalism were done and I could look at her any way I wanted to. I was surprised, because, to be honest with you, Ms. Winston was actually pretty good to look at.
But this was war. I had just gone to lunch, and returned to find that even my filing cabinet was gone.
I caught Ms. Winston, leaning on opposite walls in a narrow hallway, arms length between us.
"Bob", she said, with a sweet little witchy smile, "I took your filing cabinet, and I'll take whatever else I want, and there's not a damn thing you can do about it."
I stared back at Ms. Winston and our eyes locked for but a second. Filing cabinet? I should have been incensed, but she flashed this little witchy smile that ruined everything. Ms. Winston was really beautiful, actually. In one second I saw myself pulling her close, kissing her mouth and her shoulders and her neck. We looked away from each other.
"Filing cabinet?" I said. "Sure, take whatever you want.", and walked away.
I hate Ms. Winston. But I never thought in a million years that anyone could screw me as badly as she did, and be so goddamned sexy. I wouldn't talk to her again for weeks, and preferably, never again. Rich in illusion and approval, that little witchy smile would kill me.
"So what do you think of Ms. Grace?", someone said.
I turned and just reflexively said, "Oh, she's beautiful."
Ms. Grace smiled at me and said "Thank you".
"So now you are hitting on Ms. Grace.", Ms. Winston said, indignantly.
"It's a compliment, Ms. Winston", I said, "Not an offer."
Ms. Winston, I wondered, were you jealous?
I walked away. I had work to do. I was short on money for everything, and needed to get cracking. Entertainment, imagination? That's irrelevant when you are starving.
So now, I guess you get the picture I really didn't want to even think about Ms. Winston and I had no great desire to talk to her.
But one day, Ms. Winston arrived in the office, late. This was unusual for her, and more strikingly she was a little less than her usual dapper self.
Ms. Winston had hastily dressed, making a seemingly poor choice of a skirt and blouse. Neither were pressed, and her skirt was in need of a lint roller. Both were a bit too tight. Her hair was up, her skin pasty, and her eyes dry. She walked into her office and closed the door.
"A long night for Ms. Winston", I noted to Detective Branch, whom I've worked with.
"That Jack must have really given it to her", he laughed. I had a terrible vision of a breathless Ms. Winston dropping cherries into Jack's mouth. I cringed.
"You like her Bob, don't you.", he joked.
"After what she pulled?", I protested. "I'd rather put a cigarette out on my arm."
I went back to my desk. I thought of Ms. Winston and the budget cuts and that little witchy smile. I slipped, imaginationwise. I couldn't help but imagine myself an ex-con fireman on a ship, shoveling coal as discretely as possible, as the officers cast about, searching for any imperfection to eject into the sea, only rising from my hiding from the moment to take in the roar of the massive turbine plant as I fed its flaming heart with shovel after shovel of coal. I heard a bell? Was it the bridge signalling Full Speed ahead?
No, it was my phone, and it was Ms. Winston. I kicked myself again, embarrassed by my distraction. Perhaps I had not been sleeping enough or not eating properly. I should be focusing on my work.
"Can you see me in my office please", Ms. Winston said.
I sighed and said yes. Hopefully this would be quick. I walked towards her office awkwardly, practicing quickly my posture and step from the time when we were closer. I thought it would be more polite to seem more familiar.
"Good luck with your girlfriend", Detective Branch laughed.
"She has a boyfriend.", I said.
"When did that ever matter to you?", Detective Branch said. There was a little bit of history there between us, or more precisely, between three of us.
"Let it go!", I said, "I'm reformed now!"
I walked into Ms. Winston's office and closed the door behind me. Ms. Winston was pacing. I noticed a bit of muscle on Ms. Winston's legs, felt they would be firm by the way she moved. That blouse she had on was a bit too tight, but in a good way. Now let me tell you, son, Ms. Winston was pretty good actually. I forgot she has a habit of bending over in front of me, but I'd never noticed it before. She did so again, as she reached to grab a folder. I enjoyed that and didn't question it.
"Why, Ms. Winston", I said, "Your hair came out very nice today!"
"Don't make fun of me today Bob", Ms. Winston said.
"I'm not making fun of anything.", I smiled.
Ms. Winston laughed at me. "Bob", she said, "I'm going to be President in twenty years, and you are still going to be here, at your same old desk."
I mumbled something. Couldn't remember what I said, even right after I said it, but I'll never forget that her little bit of vanity and hurtfulness rolled up together made me feel like I could sleep with her and probably pretty easily.
Ms. Winston, however, had other plans. She pulled something out of her bag, with a flourish, and placed it proudly on her desk. "Look", Ms. Winston said to me, "Jack gave me a vase..."
"A vase?", I asked, monotonically. She was starting with the Jack stuff.
"Oh yes, it was wonderful.", Ms. Winston glowed with a tortured smile, "He got a vase with some old flowers, but he knew I wouldn't like them, so he took them out, and he gave me the vase. See, he even left some of the dirt inside so I would know it was a good vase for flowers!"
"That's very nice dirt in a very nice vase", I said. I wanted to get out of there. What a waste of time. There is nothing more useless than a woman that advertises she is unavailable, I should tell myself, but I found myself wanting this case with Ms. Winston. I didn't argue or ask questions. "What's the case?", I asked.
"The case... ", Ms. Winston sighed, distracted, "is over there."
Ms. Winston pointed to a corner of her office, and there sat a little mummy boy.
"A mummy boy", I said, shrugging my shoulders. I was a little angry still about the Jack display. Sensing that Ms. Winston had already taken a shine to this mummy thing, I offered, "Let me go get the mummy zapper and get rid of it."
Ms. Winston turned to me sharply, and growled, "You can't zap that sweet little boy!"
"Well yeah, its a mummy you know - already dead.", I said. I reached for some peanuts, in a bowl, on her desk.
"Those are my shells Bob", Ms. Winston said, "Jack gave them to me. He didn't want my teeth to get hurt from the peanuts but he still wanted me to think of him. Isn't that really sensitive?"
"Oh, yes, very...", I said, "well I would have helped you out. I'd help Jack out too. Have Jack send another bag, you know. I wouldn't want his teeth to get hurt."
"Don't be an ass too much Bob...Jack is ....and don't zap the mummy."
"Right", I said. I saw the little mummy boy was sitting a bit scared and I felt bad for fighting with Ms. Winston in front of him. I crouched next to him and gave him a hug.
"I'm sorry", I said to the little mummy boy, "We were just having grownup talk. What's your name?"
"Mummy", said the mummy. "Come with me!", he said.
"Where,", I said to Mummy. "Where?"
Mummy looked around, confused.
"Use your words", Ms. Winston said gently.
"I want to go home", Mummy said. "Will you please help me?"
"Damn", I said to myself. I glanced to Ms. Winston. "Do we want this case?"
"Yes", Ms. Winston said, to me and Mummy. "We'll help you".
I sighed. I thought about reminding her of my own paperwork and my other cases. I thought about anything that could get me out of this case. I sensed more budget cuts, secret meetings, but I thought about that witchy smile and resigned myself to more doom.
"I'll get the Ghostmatic", she said. "Can you keep an eye on him for a minute?"
"I got him", I said to Ms. Winston
I stared at Mummy for a moment, trying to think of what to do. I imagined a game of building a pyramid, and gestured with my hands as if to stack a block, and I was pleasantly surprised when Mummy stacked an imaginary block a top mine. We built a pyramid. Next, I pictured squares with pleasant and dangerous places, on Ms. Winston's desk, and Mummy and I made a game of finger people jumping from good square to good square, sharing the same dream of the board. My finger person was being burned alive by a volcano square as Ms. Winston walked in.
Ms. Winston smiled, that little witchy smile, as she charged the Ghostmatic. It moved me, but then, so did the dismal thought of my paycheck. I turned to face Mummy and rapped my hand on the desk.
"See", I said, "It's just a desk."
"We're going to follow you", she said to Mummy, "with a thing called a Ghostmatic."
Mummy nodded.
Ghostmatics are like most gadgets, perfect on paper, but rough in practice. They are supposed to help one track connections where things of this world and the next may live, and so it can be helpful with ghosts that want to be found. Since mummies tend to be animated by them, it seemed the perfect tool to Ms. Winston, and frankly, myself.
Ms. Winston flipped a brass lever. There was a whoosh of steam and an antenna emerged. If you hold a Ghostmatic, you'd feel the motor running, and anyone close to it could hear a faint electrical discharge sound every second or so. There is a piece of glass on the front, that you can look into, a screen if you will. On it, shapes appear, indicating the Mummy and our own souls spiritside. Tune them in and follow them.
"Your soul is looking very lovely today Ms. Winston", I said, peering into the screen over her shoulder.
"I got him now", said Ms. Winston, ignoring me.
"Psycharts", I asked Ms. Winston.
She nodded yes.
"We're going to go to a new room", I said to Mummy. I held his hand and led him as Ms. Winston followed.
Now once upon an enchanted and magical time, before I started drinking, I used to think I should live a great and noble love story for that wonderful and special girl, where everything you see would just fall into place with hearts and unicorns and castles. Me and my sweetheart would be lovers, and friends, and companions and hold hands in the park and burn ants with a magnifying glass together while drinking cheap whiskey and writing each other poetry after we went hunting.
I was swept along by the dramatic vision of empires clashing against empires, of the vast forces of light and dark converging on a battlefield and I would make my mark against evil and I joined the Great War. For a time, I romanticized the horns and the guns and the mud and the stench and the litters filled with my fallen comrades. I wrote love letter after love letter to my sweatheart back home, ignoring that she replied fewer and fewer times.
War and love, death and passion, it was all an adventure to me. I had the time of my life.
Then, there I was getting shelled in France, dirt flying in my face, my best friend's arm got blown off and he bled to death. I was covered in blood and mud and getting shelled and I got this letter from my sweetheart Cally saying she found someone else, that she was going to move on, but she still wanted a piece of my army pay.
There was no more adventure, only blood and dirt and rain. I was alone in France and dead inside. Soul - searching, it was imagination and hope and dreams that got me into this, and I splashed in the rain filled trenches swearing I'd never hope again.
We were in the psychart examination room. It was a pale, federal affair, with tile floors pale from too many scrubbings. The walls were painted a pale blue, now faded. There were no windows and no chairs, only a bed, upon which Mummy was seated.
Ms. Winston was seated on the floor.
"Do you need a chair?", I asked, to be polite.
"I'm fine."
The mummy sat on a comfortless bed, waiting. "I want to go home", he said.
"We don't know where home is buddy!", I said.
The test we were to undertake was called psycompositional map matching. Essentially, Ms. Winston's plan was to try and snip a piece of Mummy's bandage, a tiny one, and match it to a set of a maps we had on file to see if it might determine where in the heck this Mummy might have come from, and from there, where home is. We felt that home might be a place that Mummy was familiar with. By taking the Mummy boy there, he might find some closure or peace and thus would disintigrate, cinema-like, into bandages as his soul found its rightful resting place.
We had done this sort of thing before. It was just unusual, I had thought, that Ms. Winston took such a personal interest in Mummy. In fact, I never saw her as warm at all. I had some trouble with that.
"Watch him for a minute", Ms. Winston said. "I'm going to talk to the Psychart guys and ask what the hold up is."
"I'll see if I can get some toys for him or something."
"Just play with him Bob", she said, "He doesn't need toys. What he needs is time."
She left. Ms. Winston, sentimental, bonding? I thought of my bills and my laid off friends, and shook my head in disbelief. I took a deep breath and focused on Mummy.
"I want to go home", said Mummy.
"We have to do some tests first, I'm sorry.", I said, "Let's play shoot the monster." I held up an imaginary pistol, and handed the mummy one. We shot imaginary bad guys of all sorts, throughout the room. Then we played imaginary checkers on the edge of his bed.
"How do you know all these games?", I asked Mummy.
"I'm very young", he said, "but I'm also ancient. I have seen things."
"And what sort of things did you see?", I asked, as I moved my imaginary pieces.
"I saw a bearded man howling about life, but he had too many signs to be living. And I saw a man casting spells that thought nothing of dreams. And I saw lonesome people talking about love while making more laws. I've seen all sorts of games, and I like checkers the best."
Ms. Winston walked in as Mummy was double jumping me.
I felt embarrassed, again, in imaginary world. Ms. Winston smiled, that little witchy smile. I gave into it. "We were playing imaginary checkers", I said.
"Right here", said Mummy. "This is a checkboard"
"Checkboard is finished for now", I said, "It's a bed again."
Ms. Winston looked at me with confused approval, as if she didn't want to be comfortable with imagination, but I took whatever approval it was because I felt like playing more. That little witchy smile had somehow brought out something best in me. I wondered what might happen, if she did it again.
"What did the psychart guys say?", I asked, as she sat on the floor again.
"They are coming. I got an orderly that didn't understand a thing. She wants to do the lower emission bandage test and she's just an idiot."
Ms. Winston could be competitive. I said something upbeat and validating. She moved across the room to show me some other case work she had. We talked. I noticed her shoulderline in the flourescent light. She mentioned something about Jack, and instinctively I pushed her away by standing up and moving closer to Mummy.
The psychart team finally appeared, with their recklessly hammeringly loud psycharting machine. Mummy was terrified, too terrified of a ghost to disappear.
"This is to help us find home", Ms. Winston said, reassuringly.
Mummy reached for my hand and I held it. He threw his arms around my neck and held me tight as we approached the monster machine. I held him for a long moment, but had to give way for the tests. I felt this grave injustice as I had to tear him off of me so the Psychart team could work. They set him in the center of the machine. There was a flash of steam and a loud banging sound as an orderly snipped a tiny piece of the mummy's bandage off, and placed it in a hopper as mechanical arms of white and black iron amused themselves dancing around Mummy's shaking fear drenched body, hissing and weaving and clanging as guages flickered like demonic eyes all staring and probing and dissecting.
"Can I go home now?", Mummy sobbed and screamed and wept as the machine worked. "I'm good now", he wept. "I'm good now. I'm good now."
Finally, it was done. I grabbed Mummy and held him as Ms. Winston stroked his back. "We're finished now. Machine is finished!" Mummy said.
"Yes it is", I said, "yes it is." I was shaking.
"The machine is making a map", Ms. Winston said, "And that will help us find home".
"Yeah", I said to Mummy. "Do you want to see the map?"
At length the Psychart team returned with the map the machine produced. Mummy was very interested in it and studied it with Ms. Winston. It didn't seem that important to me though.
"I'm a map!", Mummy said, looking at the map. "I'm a map now!"
"You mean you have a map", I said.
"No", Ms. Winston said, "he is a map, and I know what he means."
"I'm a map now", Mummy said, continued, and then, after all of that, he poofed away.
"So what does the map say", I asked.
"It says the Mummy is the map."
I'd never heard of that result before, but Ms. Winston was insistent.
Ms. Winston returned to her office, and I, to my desk.
Now, back in my day, in France, during the Great War, on letter day, when the order to go over the top came, over the top I went. I had no problem shooting Germans. Reality is mud and guts and to live and have a right to it was just another stupid dream. It was a physical thing, like sex, when warm blood splashes on you like sweat. I felt grounded and connected as I shot, bullets whizzed, people screamed, and artillery streaked in time with thundering guns in the distance. I smelled smoke, and flesh. I felt real, but then, I got shot. I was cursed with adventure. I should have been more careful, but I wasn't, and I got shot. I lost a lot of blood, and more. I was in a different world for a time, between the dead and living. There I learned to move among ghosts and dreams and their secret places, and other things, more than most people can.
So, I came out, found out I was a hero, which felt alien. I worked that into a job as a detective. The next thing you know, I was a Detective in the Weird Tales Unit. It's a bad place to be, when you are trying to avoid dreams and adventure, but I have done the best I can to avoid both. I smashed every dream as soon as it emerged, and ruined every adventure by laughing at it, and the most dangerous thing I felt, was love, more than all, and I do my best to wreck that too.
I didn't want to have learned this. I didn't want any dreams or ghosts at all, and I felt that, by living with them, I could make them real.
I came to decide that I would not invest myself into any one giant passion play. Rather I would have little pieces of them. I put all my of women on different tracks, and strove to have either more than one, or none at all. I'd have a long term track woman to work with. I'd have another for family affairs, if, for example, I wanted to be a daddy to some kid. If I wanted something elegant for drinks and dinners, I would get me one of them too. And still, I'd have others, you know, for sex.
God help me, I used to laugh, if those tracks ever converged.
A few days later, I walked in late. Ms. Winston was waiting in her office and left a note on her desk to see her at once. Mummy had returned.
"We have to go through doors.", Mummy said.
"Doors, what now?", I said to the Mummy.
"He's a map", said Ms. Winston.
And the mummy pulled a small something from his bandages, as if from a pocket, and handed it to me. It was a small wooden door, about the size of a pack of cigarettes.
"Stretch out this door.", the Mummy said, "It's name is Exploration, and we will walk through it."
Now this door was small but built heavy like the front door to a house. It had a frame and three little windows on top. I stretched the tiny thing out to arm's length. It got heavier as I did so and I had to set it down. Ms. Winston tried to help me stand it up, but it was heavy for her. So I propped it up, and resized it out further by pulling it on its side, and that was sufficient to size the thing enough so that we could walk through it.
I glanced at the knob, and without thinking about it, noted aloud, without thinking about it, "Ms. Donovan", an old flame, " had this exact same door knob."
"I have one like that too on my house", said Ms. Winston, "but hers must be the less expensive version."
Feeling impolite, I blurted out "She hates me though."
"Jack said he likes mine.", Ms. Winston replied. She looked at me, smiled, but a little bit angry.
Ms. Winston, I wondered, were you jealous?
I opened the door. "After you", I gestured.
"Thank you Bob", she said, and as we stepped into this new world I enjoyed the kindness of her thanks.
We were on a river bank, Ms. Winston, this mummy, and I, but this river ran across the roof of the sky. As the boats flew through the air on the horizon, planes and the clouds floated idly on the river above. I liked the waves the clouds made. I saw a tree with giant, sprawling set of limbs, waves and ripples in the sky, like a downed limb in the water in our world, but in the air, which you can kinda see, in this. It was as if a late summer here, and the souls of so many departed gathered for a party or perhaps a dance. There were tents and acrobats and players of music, and all kinds in this world enjoyed their attendance. We were in sort of a monster world. There were ghosts and monsters. There were other mummys, and werewolves and zombies and vampires. And while Ms. Winston felt strange among them, I felt at at home.
"Are you seeing anything", Ms. Winston started.
"Let's wait a bit and see what happens.", I replied.
"I'm going to play.", said the Mummy, and I played too. We gathered stars up from the ground and tossed them upwards into the river above us, watching them glow as they sank in the sky. Eventually the Mummy grew bored with me.
Ms. Winston leaned up against a fence and we caught up a bit. We made jokes of the things in the water above. We talked about her showdown with the thing that left shoes, of mine with Ms. Misto, and smaller things. I talked about Ms. Donovan a bit, and she about Jack.
I made a comment about liking Ms. Donovan's pale Irish skin.
"I have pale skin too, Bob", Ms. Winston said, and there was that witchy smile again.
Ms. Winston, are you jealous?
I made an awkward joke about sunburns. I decided to test.
Now this ghost world proved difficult for Ms. Winston to move in. She had grown tired and sat down on a bench. I sat next to her, with some distance, but stretched out my arm towards her expansively. She didn't move. Inconclusive, I thought, and, almost immediately felt rather foolish. I stood up.
"I'm going to see if I can find anything.", I said, walking away.
"I'll keep an eye on Mummy" she said
I walked around a bit, making conversation with the monsters. I asked about the Mummy's Mommy, and thought perhaps I found a lead or two, when I suddenly heard Ms. Winston yell.
"Mummy!", Ms. Winston yelled frantically. She was walking around.
"There she is...", I pointed. Mummy had run down a ways, farther down the river bank. "Maybe he found his mother..."
"Maybe he's lost", Ms. Winston argued. "Mummy!", she yelled. She set out after her, but she was slow and in a way I wasn't.
"I'll go after her.", I said, and I ran after Mummy.
"Hey Mummy", I asked, "Where'd you go?"
"I just wanted to see the ship."
"Well, why don't you come with me and we'll go keep looking for home?"
He nodded and followed me back to Ms. Winston.
"Perk of getting shot, I guess.", I said. But you know, there was Ms. Winston holding Mummy's hand, somewhat scolding Mummy for running away so fast. "You can't run away like that, or we won't be able to find home.
I started to fix one of the bandages, come a little loose.
"I'll do that", Ms. Winston said.
And, as she fixing Mummy's bandages, Ms. Winston smiled at me, that little witchy smile, and said "Thank you". I felt like I mattered.
"I'm going to play in the moon.", said the Mummy. "I'll be back."
With that, Mummy ran off to the moon, which had settled amidst an enormous pile of crackers. We call parts of our moon Tycho and Copernicus but the Ghosts and Monsters know where its at and call their parts Cheddar, and Swiss. They came from all around, equipped with butterknives, helped themselves to a great snack. That is why we see our moon with craters, because the monsters ate the rest.
I started after him. Having had his snack, Mummy disappeared with a small poof.
"I've got him.", Ms. Winston said, pointing to a dot on her ghostmatic.
"Should we not go get him?", I asked.
"He's fine", she said softly, flashing the witchy smile as she put the ghostmatic away. "He's playing. He'll be back."
"Ok", I said.
We walked back through the door and re-emerged at our office.
"I need to call Jack", she said, and left.
I returned home. I walked up to the door of my flat, and seeing the place was dark, grew concerned that my electricity had been shut off. I walked in and switched a light on. I was grateful that it worked. There was a stack of bills on my desk that I could not possibly pay. I wrote a check and mailed it in. There goes food for next week, I thought.
I fixed myself a drink, and tried to curse Ms. Winston's hand in it again, but I couldn't make myself hate her.
That little witchy smile was killing me, but it was a no-win affair. She was tied up with that Jack.
Damn.
I would have rather been alone.
Yet, avoidance was also out. Ms. Winston had dragged me onto this wretched case with the mummy and all.
Calculations ensued. See, women are a numbers game, one after the other, no no no no and yes. Just like rolling a die, where you might calculate your odds of getting rolling a pair of one's or six's, you can also calculate your odds of becoming involved with any single woman. Based upon my previous history, and fudging other factors, I had calculated somewhere around a 3-7% chance of Ms. Winston, perhaps less, because she knew me, and finally, even less, because of Jack.
These were some low, low odds.
But, Ms. Winston had potential. I searched for a more nuanced approach. I had to explore it. I couldn't tell myself on my death bed, that, when Ms. Winston drove herself into my life again, that I should've rolled the dice, even a little bit. I had to say I rolled them. I couldn't imagine myself in front of General Pershing in the afterlife, crying that I was afraid. I had to say that I didn't care. What if I someday had a kid, and he asked me, why didn't you ever think about Ms. Winston? I had to say I tried.
How bad could a little exploration be? Perhaps Ms. Winston was an exploration, not a chase. "Exploration", I laughed to myself, "Just like the little mummy said."
Ms. Winston was infatuated with her Ghostmatic as she continued working the Mummy case. She would show me images, forms that might appear, or disappear, and jot down figures, muttering that the Mummy was a map, when I questioned her.
A new sort of Ghostmatic arrived in supply. It had a different power source that the tech people would say would make the old ghostmatics obsolete. They weren't approved for formal case work yet, but with Ms. Winston in mind, I pulled in some enormous favors with the guys in supply and got myself one. I stopped by Ms. Winston's desk to show it to her. She seized it from me, "Come on", she said, "Let's go outside."
We stepped out the back door to a small courtyard behind the building. Ms. Winston experimented with the Ghostmatic. She looked for Mummy, and then other ghosts.
"It's not very good", Ms. Winston said. "This will never replace good old steam."
"Maybe not now", I offered, "but they'll get it."
"Never in a million years", Ms. Winston argued, examining it.
"Well then", I said, "can I have it back."
"I was actually", Ms. Winston said, "going to ask if I could borrow it."
"Borrow it?", I laughed. "No!" I said. "You just said you didn't like it."
"Well I didn't say it wasn't interesting Bob", said Ms. Winston, adding, "besides, I'd love to show Jack."
Jack? What the hell. I let her borrow my Ghostmatic.
Ms. Winston returned it the next day, thanked me, and said it wasn't as good, but then she said something else.
She looked sourly upon my jacket, and said, "You know Bob, one of these days you should take me with you when you shop for clothes."
I laughed at her. "Don't think so, Mrs. Jack", I said.
"Mrs. Jack?", Ms. Winston sneered. "That's interesting."
I walked home instead of taking the steam line. I practiced making eye contact with every woman that I saw, striking up conversations along the way. The exploration of Ms. Winston was good practice, for sure, but I've found that if practicing with women, son, its best to practice with more than one.
Witchy smile or no, I needed another piece of my play.
I advance and look and check. No. No. Smile. No. No. No. Yes then no. No. No. No. Yes then no. Yes. White. No. Black. Yes Green. No Red. Red Red Red Black Black Black. One no, two no, three no, four no.
The world is numbers and decisions black and white and there is no gray except when you stand back and look at thousands of them together.
I made eye contact, approached, and asked, playing deuteronomy. I found that a quick look, followed by a smile and a look back, seemed to draw the most attention. One woman smiled back at me longer. She turned to me and paused and then darted into a pub.
I followed her in and looked around.
I saw a familiar man sitting at the end of the bar, handing flowers to a girl.
"Flowers Jack, how thoughtful.", she said.
Nah... I wondered, and told myself to let it go. During games of women, or, I reminded myself, an exploration, the best you can do is act as if the boyfriend doesn't exist at all. Forget about it!
I looked around some more. I sipped a whiskey, standing, and enjoyed the warmth.
I saw the woman. There, I thought, was my next number, a good uncomplicated thing. She had some visual disadvantages, but I felt that she would do. This case was short notice, and sometimes you just have to go to war with the army that you got. I sat down next to her.
"Do you always walk that way around strangers?", I asked.
"Maybe I was just looking at the sunset.", she said. She had a pretty voice, rich with an unusual mix of accents. She taught herself to speak that way.
"Well you should look at the sunset", I replied. "I saw you walking so I made it for you."
"A sunset maker, are you.", she said, "I like that."
"My name's Bob", I said, offering her a smoke. She accepted and I lite it for her.
"Ms. Kay", she said, smoking and smiling. I had another drink. So did she.
We spoke about sunsets and fires and music.
Her leg brushed against mine. I pressed mine back and leaned towards her - white, green, yes.
We spoke for a while and had a few drinks. We talked about typewriters and how they felt. I always liked them. So did she. We both liked typing, the feel of the keys and the sound of the hammer. I enjoyed talking to her, honestly. She was both intelligent and unusually perceptive, although I did find her politics to be deplorable. Still, it was simple and I wanted simple. The conversation drifted to romance and, with the drink, and my nudging, to sex. She let on that she was new to the area, and didn't have a network of friends. I saw this as an invitation, and so I invited her home.
She laughed. "Bob", she said, "I don't know you at all."
"I think sex is a great way to get to know someone.", I said.
"Well maybe I'm not so ready like that."
"You're in a bar, and that kinda means you are", I laughed. With that, I gave her my number. We said our goodbyes and we left.
The Mummy boy appeared by my desk. I was typing, and there he was. His bandages were ruffled. I yelled out to Ms. Winston - "your Mummy is here!"
Ms. Winston ran out of her office.
"Come with me!", said the Mummy, as he extracted another door from his bandages.
"Is your Mommy there?" Ms. Winston asked.
"We have to go through the door!", the Mummy said.
"What's the door kid", I asked, as I pulled it large enough for us to step through.
"This door's name is Hope", said the Mummy.
"We like hope", Ms. Winston said, "But... I think we need to move the door this way.", and she gestured.
"Move the door?", I asked.
"I'm following the map", Ms. Winston said, and drew a rune on the door.
"I'm a map", said the Mummy.
"You got those ...", I started.
"Um hum", she said, "Ghostmatic readings I put together." She reached into her purse, pulled out a flask of water in it, took a drink, and returned it. "Shall we", she said.
I nodded in glum agreement.
The three of us, Ms. Winston, the little mummy boy, and I, stepped through.
And found ourselves in a large boat on a small river. I looked down at my hands and saw that they were flippers. Ms. Winston turned to me and she was grey and had thousands of little teeth. The mummy laughed and looked up at us.
It was summer.
"We're fish now", said the Mummy.
"No", I laughed, and said to the Mummy, "We're whales!"
"We have harpoons", Ms. Winston noticed.
A small crowd of people swam and played on a beach along the river bank. "Let's sneak up on them", the Mummy said.
"Why..I believe", I said, "we're whales and we're humaning!"
Ms. Winston turned to me, looked at me in a haunted way, laughed and turned away.
We paddled the boat closer to the beach, and made to step ashore, and stepped out onto a lot. Before us was an enormous lit up place, signs and colors and artificial music and animated things. Ms. Winston stood next to me and pointed, and said, "Just accept that we are screwed.", and we walked in.
It was a store that we were in. Ms. Winston showed me a book of calculations. She had deciphered in her way Mummy's map and explained her imagination to me.
She was designing a door.
We purchased from the tinman shopkeeper a compass and a paper and a fabric for five kernels of corn and a handful of straw. We walked out the door, with Mummy, and found ourselves being pulled by a tractor in a field.
It was autumn.
The tractor was an old thing, an enormous black traction engine, with a skeleton farmer driving it, and atop a black hat the skeleton wore was perched a crow, that spoke for the skeleton, I assume.
"Let's stay packed together", the crow said, "we have a lot of things to pull."
Ms. Winston held the mummy boy on her lap as I looked about the trees. The edge of every branch and face of every leave glowed and focused upwards to the sky, where all the rays of all the leaves and trees and blades of grass and waves converged to make the sun in the sky. I grabbed a leaf off of a branch and held it and I saw her showing the same things about the light to the little mummy, laughing and pointing. Ms. Winston smiled at me, that little witchy smile, and I imagined writing her name into the sky with the light from the leaf.
We came to a hilltop where ghouls and ghosts had gathered. It was thick with vines and pumpkins that burst out of the ground and lit themselves up as Jack O Lanterns. Mummy petted one and it purred and smiled with fangs and candle eyes. Ms. Winston went off to talk to one, and Mummy followed her, hand in hand.
I saw a house, in the distance, on a remote hilltop, from which enormous clouds of ghosts drifted about. It was old and grand and beautiful.
"Someday", I said, thinking of my ghoulish flat, "I'll have a place like that."
Ms. Winston and Mummy returned with new friends, a crowd of little Jack O Lanterns, singing ghoulish songs. I found a small wagon, and Mummy and Jack O Lanterns climbed aboard. Mindful of the case, she pointed the ghostmatic at Mummy and I, following the map, making her readings, flashing that little witchy smile again and again as I pulled Mummy and Jack O Lanterns along.
"I'm a map", Mummy said.
"Yes, I know", Ms. Winston said, and then the Mummy disappeared.
The field was empty now, except for a small vegetable patch at the end, a garden of gray, no good nor evil. Ms. Winston snapped something green off of an ungainly growing thing, and she gave it to me to eat. "I love these", she said, with her little witchy smile, "but you can have one."
I ate it, and it was delicious.
Illusions, this could be so good. Illusions, this could be so right.
We stepped back through the door.
Ms. Winston excitedly showed me her ghostmatic readings, and she leaned toward me so I could see them. I leaned into her. We briefly touched. It was electric and I recoiled from sheer surprise.
I mentioned something about Jack, and she left.
I was home, alone. As expected, I had fixed myself a drink. As expected, Kay, the woman from the bar, called me, and laughed. "You know, I was very tempted the other night."
"Come over tonight.", I said.
She did. She looked worse than I remembered but I didn't care. I wanted simplicity. I opened up my front door and pulled her tight and kissed her. She kissed me back and we kissed feverishly. I wanted to consume her. I had to have her. I said hello after I threw her onto on my couch. She said nice to meet you as worked on her bra. I showered her neck and her mouth and her breasts with greedy kisses as I slid my hand down her pants and she tilted her head back and moaned with approval. I took whatever I wanted and I gave until she cried.
We found our way to bed, and afterwards, she stared at me, shocked. I worried that I made her love me and I asked her what was wrong.
"I've never done anything like this before Bob", she said.
"It's the kind of thing you should do more often", I offered, as I pulled her head close and kissed her.
"I agree." she said, and kissed me back. Yet, she was unsettled.
"I'm not interested in a commitment", she stated in between kisses. "I hate commitment. Someone gave me a goldfish, and I drowned it. I hate commitment."
I realized that for a time, Ms. Kay was perfect. I could compartmentalize. It was nice to have options. The pieces of my play were coming together nicely.
"Well, thank God I'm not a goldfish.", I said, and I assured Ms. Kay that I was not looking for a commitment, by revealing my growing fondness for Ms. Winston.
"Don't do that Bob", Ms. Kay said, "Just see me every now and then."
"I think I'll take you up on that.", I replied, and I pulled her close and reached one hand between her legs and kissed her.
I made her scream again and again as I liked the way she moved and I wanted her to know that I liked that. I told her to be nice to me and she was so, and very. Her kisses were excellent.
Ms. Kay and I paused and lay together, talking idly about the goings on in Germany, joking about our political differences. Yet, as I held her close I found myself imagining what Ms. Winston might be like in bed. I wondered what her skin tasted like. How does she kiss? Was she fast or slow, restrained, greedy, precise, sloppy? How does she move? Was she supple and athletic? Or stiff and controlled?
"Are you there?", Ms Kay asked.
"Yeah, just thinking.", I said. I really wanted to kiss Ms. Winston's belly button just then but I kissed Ms. Kay's instead. It wasn't the same as what I imagined.
Mummy returned. I rang for Ms. Winston and we played imaginary checkers on my desk.
Ms. Winston came and I stood up.
Mummy looked at me and I said, "It's still a checkboard here, and it can be anything we want it to be."
"It's time", Ms. Winston said, tiredly. She was exhausted. More Jack, I wondered?
She lead us down the hall. Mummy reached into his bandages but Ms. Winston gently push his hand away.
"I think we should use this door.", she said, and reached into her pocket and pulled out one she made.
"That's magnificent", I said.
"I've been up till 2 working on this thing.", she said.
"We're using the door.", the Mummy said.
"This will be the last of them,", Ms. Winston said, flatly, adding, "and it's name is Destiny".
I stretched the door out, and we walked through. The end of the case was near.
There was a procession of deathful things marching steadily across an empty concrete plain. These things they walked in line, holding hands sometimes, silence interrupted only by the howls of dogs and the guardians that kept them that way.
Capes fluttered in the wind and loose bones scraped along the ground. We joined the line and followed it. The wind was brisk and it was cold. I offered Ms. Winston my coat, and she declined.
We moved through a graveyard, silently. There we saw the keeper of a mausoleum. Wearing a light blue suit with tails, he ushered me in. "This", he said, holding up a skull, "is reality." He shook it and I heard the rattle of a dried up brain inside, sounded like a cigarette butt in a soda can.
He gave more bones to me. "Play!", he said. "Someday people will play like this with you."
I brought out a pair of femurs for Mummy and I, and we made a swordfight of it.
"That is horrible", Ms. Winston said, "I don't want any bones, all they are is for death."
We came into a funeral home and walked in. People milled around in quiet whispers.
A stranger, tall and well dressed, walked up to me and warned, "Don't you do this, don't you do this."
At the end of the room was an open casket. Three witches cackled and argued over pieces of wizard things and faded spellbooks but there was no magic among them.
Mummy looked around.
"The Mummy is so loud!", the first witch cried.
"Please", the other witch said, "the Mummy is so loud!"
And the third witch, she was silent, and continued on her work of incantations and lamentations for the dead.
Now a specter shadowed in from behind, coweled and dark and brooding. Scythe, I know you! Death had shadowed in and Ms. Winston walked to join him.
"Spare the penny for the powders and wine", he said, so I gave him my sister's pills, and he smiled, skeleton mask.
"Which way?", Ms. Winston asked of him, and he motioned to an arch, and Ms. Winston, Mummy, Death and I, continued through it on our march.
And we came upon a river bank, choked with ice and frozen things. A boat was tied on the bank and the oarsman motioned towards me. "No angels are allowed on this boat", said the oarsmen, "as angels are the most jealous."
Mummy and I, the oarsman signaled, we must cross alone.
I placed a ducket in the that oarsman's hand, and he paddled us across, to where Lady Winter was standing, blue eyed pale and beautiful. She is Death's sister, a jewelry maker whose icy prisms shatter the lights of life into many rainbows and freezes every river with them. She is the goddess of all white and silver and gray. She is frozen winter's angel.
Lady Winter smiles to Mummy, and her magic icy roar gives way to the softest snow, falling silently about me. I hold out my hand to catch some flakes and every flake is different, but every flake's the same.
"Mommy!", said the Mummy, and he disappeared from me, leaving me with naught but bandages as I watched his ghostly footsteps trace towards her. Lady Winter held his smiling spirit, close, and nurturing. Then, with a flourish, they left me with nothing, but the bandages of Mummy, and the remaining silence of Lady Winter's falling snow.
I held his bandage in my hand, and regarded it for a moment.
I crossed the bank silently, through the arch and the funeral home and past the witches and Death and met Ms. Winston. She walked over to me and glanced at me furtively. I thought I wanted to hold her hand but then I wanted to be alone.
"I guess the Mummy was the map", I said.
"He was", Ms. Winston said.
"I guess that's the case then."
"It is", she said.
"Good job on the door", I replied, then distantly, softly, as I looked at the bandage. "I liked the Mummy."
"I know", she said, and returned to her office. I went back to my desk, put the bandage in an envelope, and filed it away. I played a game of imaginary checkers with myself on my desk. I jumped myself, and then returned to work. I left the board there in my mind.
The Weird Tales Unit threw a cocktail party for all of its senior employees. This was at a fine building downtown. Ms. Winston was with Jack and I mingled with others and talked and I drank. This drinking was not a mistake.
Later, Ms. Winston and I enjoyed a glass of wine. She was confident and radiant and beautiful in her elegant business dress and jacket.
"This is a good glass of wine you picked out Ms. Winston", I said.
"The last one you picked out wasn't bad", she said, "I just had to get used to it. It was very rich."
"Sorry about that.", I said. "My normal love affair is with whiskey."
"No I like red wines, all of them. Some are just different."
"It's an exploration.", I said. "I'm the same way with whiskey".
"Exactly.", she added, finished her glass, and walked away.
I fixed myself another drink. That was not a mistake.
I had sat down in the center of a couch in the lobby, holding a drink in my hand, relaxing for a moment. Ms. Winston caught me and laid seductively on the armrest, just out of arms reach.
"I wonder if Mummy's mother ever read to her?", Ms. Winston asks.
"I'm sure they have some kind of books for mummies, or maybe scrolls.", I said. "What would you read?"
"Where the Wild Things Are. I love that book. It's dark and its edgy. I like that.", she replied, tempting me again with her little witchy smile.
"I like dark and edgy, all about emotional secrets." My eyes tracked her hand as she set it on her hip. Desire, I wanted my hand to be there too. Desire, I looked at her - too long. My eyes danced across her body and into hers.
Ms. Winston got up abruptly. "I have to find Jack", she said, and walked away.
Desire, jealousy, I got myself another drink, and maybe another, and that, my friends, might have been a mistake.
I flitted around the party, talking. I looked around briefly for Ms. Grace, but couldn't see her. I leaned against a window, after a time, alone. I thought about the Mummy. I thought about Ms. Winston, and her little witchy smile. I was disappointed that I had not heard from her. I saw her with Jack, and I grew jealous.
I mixed the ice in my glass and in my mind, horrific fights and witchy smiles and empty bandages in my hand, I wanted to leave.
I drank more, but not enough, and that was probably a mistake.
I bumped into Ms. Winston quite accidently at the reception bar.
"Ms. Winston", I joked, "I'm so sad that you haven't talked to me lately you should let me take you out for a miniskirt and boots!"
"Bob", she said, "You need to step back over the line. I'm not a confrontational person but I'm Jack's girlfriend or partner or whatever and that's not going to change. So keep comments about boots to yourself."
There was no witchy smile with that, at all!
I was stunned. Still, I've said a lot worse to women and I wasn't expecting that.
At least I knew though. I thought for a moment of something to clever to say, to protect myself, or even her, but then I just decided just to get on with it.
"Sorry Ms. Winston", I said, "You killed me on this case."
Ms. Winston paused.
"What did I do?", she asked.
And I didn't know. All I can say is what I told her.
"You were beautiful. You were an angel with that little mummy and you made me happy.", and then I said, mindful of her rejection, "I'll run away."
I turned to the door. She followed. I didn't understand that at all, and didn't want to.
"Bob", she said, "Don't leave."
"Ah, I just want to get out of here.", I said.
"You need to not be so hot and cold, and you need to learn to deal with reality."
I was angry at that. I said something about being a bad boy and the reality was that I didn't need to care, and with that, started for the door.
"YOU'RE WRONG", she yelled. "Why do you have to be so black and white?"
"Because I love you Mrs. Winston, completely, and that's as black and white as it gets."
I walked out and I slammed the door behind me. I had been right all along.
Witchy smiles are lies and paychecks are truth! I smashed my drink glass on a lamppost, and then kicked it. I stood for a minute in the street, regarding the glass and drink around me and my footprint on the post. I noticed a few drops of the drink on the ground, and for a second, wished I had a straw. It was good whiskey. I saw the light in the liquid, and imagined lifeboats in them, and I didn't stop myself from that.
I had changed?
"Well that was stupid", I said aloud to myself. I shouldn't have smashed the glass until after I finished the drink.
I laughed. Destruction, ashes, recreation, that was the point all along, and walked towards home.
I thought I might use the evening as a joke at a party. Someone might express angst over a woman, and I would blurt out, "You should just tell her you love her and walk out and smash something." People would think it is funny because people laugh at truth.
Well, there was no going back on imagination now, I thought. I just had to square up and accept rejection, but fortunately, I had my trump card set up ahead of time for this game. "Witchy smiles my ass", I mocked myself, "I'll get a lot more from a witch than a smile."
I walked quickly, but nearly fell over. I tried to touch my nose but hit the bridge of it instead. Close enough.
"Damn, I'm drunk", I thought, as I stumbled on, stumbled on home and called Ms. Kay.
So after the party I called Ms. Kay.
"Nice sunset you made there tonight", she said.
"Thank you!", I said. "I hope you are glad to hear from me", I said.
"I'm drenched.", she laughed.
"I'll help that.", I said.
"I like it that you are forward.", she said.
"I'll be honest, I'm going to be greedy with you", I said.
"I like that", Kay said, adding, "I will give you whatever you want to take."
I was startled by this, but she explained that her last lover was very giving, and pampered her, and she wanted to be taken. "It makes me feel empowered.", she added.
So, I told her what I wanted her to do, and asked her to come over.
She simply said "done", hung up the phone, and arrived at the door, and she did.
I my gave gratitude back. She wept.
"This crying thing of yours..", I wondered aloud, kissing her as we laid in bed.
"I cry because its good, because of the emotional release."
I told her I was surprised at that, explained that I had a love a long time ago that cried that way, but she couldn't explain why. I'd always assumed it was because she hated me somehow.
"Guess you screwed that up", Kay said
We laughed. I kissed her, played a bit with her tongue with mine, got bored with it, and then came a sudden onset of emptiness.
I drifted.
"You can move too, Bob", she said.
I wasn't listening. "Guess so", I replied to whatever was in my arms.
This wasn't real either. Even worse, it was less real than whatever I made of Ms. Winston.
I wondered, for a moment, if perhaps I shouldn't be smashing my illusions at all, if I might be more graceful about things. Hmmm, grace and I will never be easy together, but still, I let my imagination take me. I day dreamed and for the first time in years, and I would never stop daydreaming again.
I felt myself drifting, alone, the maiden of my innocence lashed onto a mast in the waves, rolling in the biting sea ashore.
There! My little story scattered every sentence of that truth among the pages of my plays. There! I was desperate and dirt covered in a trench in France, holding a letter saying goodbye. There! I was walking away from Ms. Winston, admitting that I loved her as I slammed the door on her with the sound of shattered glass. It was all the same. It was all over.
It had worked.
I reached for my clothes, and pointed to Ms. Kay's. I told her that she had to leave. "Depressed.", I said, "Sometimes it happens after sex". She was infuriated. So, I kissed her passionately and then threw her out. I'd never see her again.
I made a mental note that I was perhaps being foolish. I should have been more polite. I should have lied, should have used her more. Even empty sex has its moments, you know.
But son, I felt like a bad loan due. Those things you do to escape how you feel are going to wind up being the things you feel the most about. There - A thousand things, the pieces of a ripped up picture floating on water. I tried to grab them and see what they were, read the tea leaves, assemble the pieces, like there would be truth, but couldn't. There was nothing to assemble and no leaves to read, and witchy smiles, are still just smiles.
Damn - tea leaves and picture pieces are for other people, I guess.
Damn - there they blow, onto the shore, pieces of my play - all Hesperus wrecked, my imagined concordes sunk.
Despite her skills and her intelligence, I couldn't build anything onto it or wrap anything around it and had no interest in doing so. What I'd done with Ms. Kay was empty.
Besides, there's other women.
I wash Ms. Kay off of my face and watch the water run down the drain for a time, echoing in the pipe. Tea leaves and pieces wash down with it.
How could I have been so wrong?
So a few weeks passed and it was time to make friends again with Ms. Winston. There were awkard and accidental meetings in the hall. I still felt strongly about her but over time I managed to ignore her enough and lie to her enough to persuade her that I was safe. I blamed it on whiskey and lied my way through it.
Normally Ms. Winston stays late at work, sometimes for hours, doing paperwork, long after I'm off at the pub. Ms. Winston takes all of our detective notes, turns them into these forms. She does it in such a way as to fix that up for us for the higher ups, so we don't have to deal with it.
"Hey", I said, "this paperwork here ain't too bad... and I'm not doing anything, so why not take a night off and let me handle it."
Ms. Winston looked up at me from her desk for a moment, and paused. "You know Bob", she said, "I think I'm actually going to say yes to you for something.".
She rang Jack as I walked back to my desk. A few hours later, we stood on the street, Ms. Winston, Jack and I. There I was saying "Have a good evening, Ms. Winston", I shook Jack's hand and wished him the best. I turned to face Ms. Winston, paused, awkwardly, tempted about a hug but shook her hand instead. She turned to face Jack, looked at me, and kissed him, passionately, and with that, they left.
I headed back up to the office and I gritted my teeth. I grabbed a folder filled with unprocessed case reports, and set to work. Gods, I cursed myself, what did I volunteer for?
Now you'd think you could just shoot an alien or save a mummy, but, no, it's government work. There's forms, stacks of forms. There's forms in duplicate and triplicate and with carbon and without, to be typed and checked and handwritten and signed and countersigned and routed and tallied and interofficed for every one of our encounters. Does someone really read these things? Ms. Winston seemed to think they did.
I became somewhat interested in the work, or rather, the typewriter. I clacked my way through it, cursing stuck keys and tangled ribbon, while enjoying the feel of the keys and the clang of the carriage and smell of the ink just the same. I kept wiping my hands from the carbon paper. There is music to it and I play it, a dramatic world of myself the detective - laughing, that at least this play is almost real, but I'm not afraid to live it this time.
My hands look old, I thought, noticing that my skin had become stiffer than it once was. I felt ancient in a way that I knew that I'd never really be young again. I worked my way through the stack. I found my own notes, about the Mummy case. It was easy enough to give myself great marks for Detective conduct, but the rest of the from proved tricky. Just how? I wondered, which multiple choice item under the Spectral Group on the Resolution Classification Form 12, does one put the little mummy story. Now when I was younger, I would have checked "Other" and tried to stuff an answer in the smallest possible typing into the line or two provided, then draw an arrow and type a novella on the back. Now, I've come to realize that most of the time its more true to say less than rather explain sometimes, so I just typed an X on the box next to "Ground", and left it at that.
I marvelled at the forms and directions and wondered just how any of us Detectives in the Weird Tales Unit are even alive, let alone employed. I was tempted to let myself admire Ms. Winston and how she handled it but instead I just sighed and closed up shop. The fan whirred silently at my desk, and I turned it off. This was just appreciation, I told myself, and I'd done enough to show it. She kissed him, and she'd shown that.
I slid a piece of paper sideways into the stack to mark where I left off, and wrote a note on it. I put the whole lot back on Ms. Winston's desk, into her in-box. I turned off the office lights, including the light on my own desk, (the one that I always forget to turn off and Ms. Winston gets), and I made my way down the stairs to the street. I locked the office door behind me.
It was quiet, but I wasn't.
I hear the mechanical clang as the street light changes from red to green, but there's no cars. Just me. A wind, a blowing breeze, and buildings with lights on - there has to be people in them, people together, but I'm on the street, in my own world, with my ghosts and going nowhere.
There will be a time to exhale and reflect, to sigh and to wonder. I will recover from my defeats. I will learn to be alone while I learn to look for what I want. And, there will be a time to sweep the ashes and bury them, but to have ashes, you have to have the gather the pieces and burn them first. To the fires all of it, the pieces of my play.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone. And that's really it then, pieces of plays, stitching snippets of relationships together to maybe think you have more than you do, maybe trying to trade honor for love but that's just another way of trying to buy it all along not even knowing what you're looking for. So there you are winding up with nothing but the sight of people holding hands or kissing in the park tangling up your eyes and mind like a blue icy rain, punching through your idiot skin like some sort of bitter wind, and no matter how you spice up rejection you just aren't good enough - all these billboards of love, laughing that you don't got it.
Alone. Angry. Alone.
I'm banished and playing wolf, wearing a wolf-suit and stomping steps of jealousy and loneliness and love and anger and desire, my wolf-tail of rejection waving as I dance in the shadows of the streetlights. Strangers see just a trenchcoat and tie and hat. They don't see my wolf-suit. See me staring at the ground glancing up furtively. See me sneaking and hiding and pretending to be something you can read as confident. Hello goodbye smile I make myself practice for better days, but now am like something shattered but gathered up pieces, raw and angry broken glass shards in suspension grinding my goodness to dark maw and my youth to old age, just done and slinking off about ready to explode and punch and and kick every god-damned old star out of the sky until it's as black and smooth as velvet and shake the moon until it cries new stars and comets in titanic hopes that I find someone - or somebody finds me.
I seethe. I rage. I should want to cry but can't. I got my flaws but I don't deserve this.
Alone. Angry. Angry. Alone. Damn Ms. Winston and her long hair and little black coat and the explosion of discovery that I wrapped around whatever she really is. Damn her and her effortless magic that she doesn't want. Damn her for dragging me into this case I didn't want while loving someone else.
Except...
"Like Ms. Kay damns me!", the thought bursts into my head, slams me back headlong from despair to triumph, and am whiplashed back to the middle.
There was that. "Woops", I laugh. I am standing in the wreckage of an enormous locomotive, scarcely singed, holding my suitcases intact and complaining that the drinks will not arrive on time.
"I'm one and one.", I say to myself, "more or less, exactly as I planned." One white, one black. Mix it together, and it's gray. Damn, I think, Ms. Winston was right after all, in a way, except that, I don't think she's ever the type to see, that if we make an illusion called reality, its not a color, but a game. I was one and one on paper. I lost with Ms. Winston, but I won with Ms. Kay and some day I will do better than paper ties.
I am at my favorite haunt, Edison's. I'm sitting at the chair at the end of the bar. Ms. Winston and Jack and cherries dance in my mind with Ms. Kay while she tries to dress to leave and I am feeling ill over it.
"DAMN ALL THESE HAPPY PEOPLE IN LOVE.", I laugh, smashing a dollar onto the table. It's not a good thing to say in a bar. My joke comes off badly - too much, like saying at a funeral, "there once was this dead guy."
"Sounds like you need a double there... Whiskey tonight then Bob?", says the bartender. She's a tall, red-headed, but smartly endowed Irish girl, with a lovely lilt that also renders her incomprehensible as I drink. She's married, hands off, but she knows my gesture for whiskey and rarely cuts me off.
I want that.
She pours it. "Thanks there..", I said apologizing, catching myself. "Sorry for the drama!"
"Well we wouldn't want you to change now.", she laughs, and I feel welcome for that.
I give her a good tip.
I light up a smoke and let the bourbon take me. For once I make a decent truce with every sip - if whiskey is the nectar of the Gods - and you know it is - then the Gods must be very complicated. I laugh. I'm one of them. I feel wildly alive. I'm nothing. This isn't real. See son, highs and lows, its just the way I am, heading off from one illusion into the next, and I will never change.
Let's have us another glass, shall we?
The first drink or two burns my mouth, and the rest will cauterize my heart. Why do I drink? Because its surgery. Because I love it. Because I want it.
Monsters of desire and anger and love and loneliness and sex, all floating around they the little islands of ice melting in my whiskey. I like the neon lights and the way they move around and reflect the light - yellow eyes looking at me. And there I stare back at those yellow eyes, memories of Ms. Winston every one. There they all are, pieces of my play, me just myself, the king of the monsters, smoking and drinking where the wild things are.