Four
GAVIN SHOWERED LONGER THAN USUAL when he returned to his room. He scrubbed vigorously until even the slightest hint of Béla’s mint-flavored tobacco juice was just a bad memory. The luxurious room’s trash bin overflowed with the shirt and jacket he’d worn. He knew it was wasteful to throw the clothing away—a good dry cleaner could’ve treated the stains—but even if every disgusting molecule of Béla’s spit had been purged, the items would carry the humiliation and shame of it. His pride alone would forbid him from ever wearing them again. He knew he wouldn’t even allow himself to replace them with anything that looked similar, because it would remind him of his defeat.
Though, in some perverse way, he had won. The antique typewriter on the plush bed of his hotel suite was like a trophy. For everything that those three had put him through, he’d come out of it with a prize: the perfect gift for William Cavanaugh. No one would be able to outdo this present.
As Gavin dried himself, he looked across the enormous suite at the device perched on an oversized pillow. He recalled dozens of times that Billy had boasted about how he had outbid Tom Hanks at a Sotheby’s. They had been neck-and-neck, bidding for a 1904 prototype typewriter designed by François Lambert. Billy had stolen the auction from the actor for a few thousand dollars and had put the artifact on permanent display in his study. To Gavin, that machine had looked like the brake drum of a car in miniature, with button-sized lug nuts positioned around the circle—in other words, a rusted piece of junk. Even so, it made the old man happy, and Gavin’s prize was ten times stranger.
Wrapped in a bath towel that threatened to unknot itself at any second, Gavin moved to the device. He tore off the exposed section of the paper roll, the part of the scroll with the sentence “I'M COMING THROUGH” typed below the word “OUCH.” He frowned, remembering the tender spot atop his head that he’d been careful to avoid in the shower. What were the odds of accidentally typing “ouch,” or any other comprehensible word for that matter?
He tried his best to determine how much of the paper scroll was left in the machine. It wouldn’t do well to give it to Billy without a healthy amount of paper. The coarse, dingy, beige roll of stock curved out of sight into a locked undercarriage, making it impossible to tell how much remained. He placed the clunky relic beside the laser printer on the suite’s massive oak desk.
Gavin marveled over the layout of the typewriter. He recognized the function of many of the components. The couplers, the platen and knobs, the clapper, the bail arm, and the carriage release were all there, but they were twisted, curved, or fastened in a different area of the device than that of a conventional typewriter. The absence of plastic meant it was constructed a century or more ago. Nearly the entire machine consisted of copper, steel, brass, and even lead in places. The only exception to this was a cobalt-blue piece of felt affixed to what appeared to be the space bar. It jutted out further from the base than the other keys and had the peculiar shape of a comb. Gavin delicately ran his finger over the felt, careful to avoid putting enough pressure on it to make it strike.
Stranger still were the keys themselves. Far from the conventional QWERTY keyboard system, Gavin counted only twenty keys in all. Every letter was accounted for, but the embossed metal top of the round pads had an odd pairing of T above D, G above O, Y with H, Q with 4, Z with 1, and so forth. Each character set was displayed in bold uppercase letters. Thinking of how he could send text messages from a modern device that fit in the palm of his hand, he mused, “What a long way we’ve come.”
Gavin cracked his knuckles and said, “Okay, let’s test this baby out. Can’t have any keys sticking, now, can we?” He dictated as he typed, “’The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.’” On every letter, the device’s tiny hammer against the paper made a hard cracking sound. “Wow, this is really loud.”
He leaned forward in the desk chair to view his handiwork. A smudged parade of crooked, oily, black letters presented themselves across the top of the page:
TYE QUI3K BUOWN FGX JUMMS OVEU TYE LA1Y DOG. |
He discovered that the felt-covered space bar also served as the register key. When struck normally, it functioned as the spacer, but when struck with slightly more pressure, the machine rewarded the user with a satisfying clink and the bottom character of the pad activated. Gavin scoffed, “The learning curve to work this thing must have been horrendous.” He straightened in his chair, preparing for a second attempt. “No wonder this thing never made it to market.”
He typed with determination, expecting the loud cracks this time.
THE QRICK BROWN FOX 5UMPS OVIR THE LAZY DOG. |
“Spellcheck, where are you when I need you?” He surveyed the page. Despite his inability to master the quirkiness of the typewriter, all of the letters appeared boldly on the page. “He’s gonna love this. It’ll be the best gift at the party. Nothing else will even come close.”
Inspired, Gavin reached for his cell phone and dialed Billy’s number. As it rang, he continued to play with the typewriter. “’The five boxing wizards jump quickly.’” He viewed the faulty result:
DHE FEVE BOXISG WEZARTS JUMM QUECKLY. |
Just as the other party picked up, he exclaimed, “Crap!”
A confused-sounding, elderly voice on the other end replied, “Hello?”
“Hey, sorry, Beverly. It’s Gavin Curtis.”
Relief came into the woman’s voice. “Oh, yes. How are you? You’re coming next week, right?”
“Yeah, sure. That’s kinda why I’m calling. Is the old man around?”
“What’s that noise?”
“It’s nothing,” Gavin said as he typed. “They’re doing some construction where I’m at. That sound is a nail gun or something.” He pictured Beverly on the other end of the phone, probably wearing her trademark checkered apron. She always wore an apron. In fact, he couldn’t recall any event where she hadn’t been wearing one.
She also couldn’t keep secrets, which was why he had just lied to her. He had learned that the hard way with his proposal to Josephine. It was easier for him to fib than to risk telling her anything.
“You’re coming with Josephine, right?” Beverly asked.
“We’ll both be there, but we’re coming separately,” he said absently, continuing to type.
“You know that she’s available again, don’t you?”
The words hung in the air like a fog. Gavin stopped typing.
“Are you still there, Gavin?”
The question made him snap to. “Uh… yeah, yeah, I’m—”
“Did you hear me?” Her voice was downright cheery to deliver the news. “She broke it off with that photographer guy. Oh, what is his name? It was something like—”
“Ray,” Gavin volunteered a little too quickly.
“Oh, yes, that’s right. You used to call him ‘X-ray Ray.’” She sounded giddy with gossip. “I guess he really is ‘Ex-Ray’ now.”
As she giggled at her joke, Gavin pictured the man. Raymond Salazar had elevated his status from paparazzi to coffee-table–book photographer. His crazy idea to superimpose X-ray images of C-list celebrities over their pictures had been a wild hit. It had snowballed into the mainstream until the gag was a listing of Who’s Who in Hollywood. Major stars clamored to pose for Ray’s Celebrities Over-Exposed book series, which was enjoying its fifth volume. Ray had been transformed from a lowlife outsider to a mega sensation. He was like the doorman of an exclusive club, determining who was desirable and interesting enough to get through the velvet rope.
Gavin’s only encounter with him was after the divorce. Josephine had served as publicist for both men and had begged Gavin to attend Ray’s first gallery opening. He was appalled that Ray’s gimmick would be considered art and had told him so. The photographer had said that he’d considered taking Gavin’s picture until he realized that he wouldn’t be able to find anything inside him to photograph.
In true Gavin Curtis form, the first victim of his next book was a sleazy peeping-Tom photographer named Raymond Salamander. Months later, he found out that Josephine and Ray were secretly dating at the time of the opening and hated him even more.
“How did you find this out, Bev? How do you know that it’s true? I mean, who told you?”
“She did, my dear boy. Josephine said so. You two make such a nice couple.”
Gavin’s mind flashed back to the bookstore. She had admitted to still loving him on the phone.
“Be nice to her, Gavin. She’s one of the good ones.”
“Yes. Yes, she is.” A lump formed in his throat.
Beverly must have sensed it, because she said, “Let me go get William for you, sweetie. We’ll see you next week, okay, love?”
Gavin nodded but couldn’t utter a response. It was all too much. To occupy himself while Beverly searched the townhome for her husband, Gavin resumed his typing. As his fingers moved across the keys, he mumbled, “’The crazy expert in woven pajamas quickly stabbed a ghost frog.’” He paused, remembering the dream of Troy and Des that he had in the warehouse. This time, he didn’t check his sentence but quickly typed another of his practice phrases: “’Twelve ziggurats quickly jumped a finch box.’”
“Hey, Sport,” a grizzled voice said from the receiver. “Is that the music of a Remington 16 that I hear?”
Gavin couldn’t resist smiling. “No, not quite. How are you doing, old man?”
“Breathing,” Billy answered as if the one word should be an ample sentence. He was a true editor.
“That’s good,” Gavin chuckled. “Maybe I should try it some time.”
“Whatcha working on, kid? Something new for me?”
“Pangram,” he answered without a break in his typing.
“What? A pangram?”
“Yeah, you know—a sentence that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once.”
“I know what a pangram is. I’m your editor, remember?” The response sounded like a rebuke. “What I don’t know is why you’re typing a pangram instead of a manuscript for me to read.”
“I’m in a rut,” Gavin admitted, pulling his hands away from the keyboard. “I’m done with Marksman. I’d just about give anything for a fresh idea.”
“A rut? No such thing,” Billy chided him. “’When zombies arrive, quickly fax Judge Pat.’”
“Zombies what?”
“Pangram,” Billy said with the curtness of a drill sergeant. “’When zombies arrive, quickly fax Judge Pat.’”
Gavin obediently typed the words. He was getting used to activating the lower register and locating the keys, and the result was slightly better than before. He paused a moment and then said, “Here’s a new one I came across the other day. ’Joaquin Phoenix was gazed at by MTV for luck.’”
JGAQUIS PHGENIX WAN GA1ED AT BH MTV FOR LU3K. |
“What’s a Ja-quin?” Billy sounded like a ref citing a foul. “They have to be actual words, Sport, or it doesn’t count.”
“Joaquin Phoenix? He’s an actor.” Gavin waited for Billy to rescind his accusation, but there was only silence. “He’s been nominated for several Academy Awards. He played Johnny Cash. He was in Gladiator!”
“Never saw it. Sounds stupid, though. Johnny Cash as a gladiator?”
Before Gavin could offer a rebuttal, Billy added, “Ah, hang on a second… “ A few seconds of silence passed before he said, “‘Question: Just what unexpected horrors befall a very crazy Mr. Gavin Curtis?’”
“You just did that in your head? Very funny.” He tried to think of a rebuttal using Billy’s name, but nothing came.
“I don’t hear you typing anything over there, Sport.”
The antique device complied beneath his fingertips as Gavin begrudgingly typed the line.
Q: JUST WHAT UNEXPECTED HORRORS BEFALL A VERY CRAZY MR.GAVIN CURTIS? |
He proofed the line. For the first time, it was error-free.
“Hey, wait,” he said. “It doesn’t work.” He read the line again, this time searching. “Nope, doesn’t count,” he said with great satisfaction to his editor and mentor. “You left out the K. There’s no K in that sentence.”
The phone went silent. Gavin imagined Billy scribbling out the sentence to check him, but he was right. A moment later, the wet sound of a raspberry came through the line followed by good-natured laughter. “Guilty as charged, but at least I didn’t make up words. Anyway, how’s the tour going? Where are you?”
“It’s going as well as can be expected, I guess. I’m in Connecticut for the next day and a half. I think I encountered the entire cast of David Lynch’s next movie an hour or so ago.”
“Is this to be another episode of the misunderstood artist?” There was a pause followed by an even longer raspberry.
“Why do I put up with you?” Gavin pushed the chair back from the desk.
“Because I tell you the truth no matter how much it stings to hear it. I tell you when your prose is too longwinded or self-indulgent. I tell you when a plot point is meandering or ridiculous. But I also affirm you when you get it right, and you get it right a lot.”
Gavin caught himself nodding in agreement. The adulation was short-lived. Billy said, “But about retiring Damien Marksman, you’re dead wrong.” The older man quickly added the equivalent of a verbal left hook. “You’re not doing another one of those Serpentine stories, are you? I’d rather clean Beverly’s aquarium than read that stuff again.”
Gavin was reduced to the role of an ex-con presenting himself to his probation officer. “No, but what does it matter to you anyway?” He stood and paced the length of the suite. “What do you get out of all this anyway? Who cares what I write?”
“What do I get? Beverly gets new furniture, and if there’s any dough left over, I buy new toys for my Harley. That’s what I get—that and the satisfaction of giving something exciting to your readers.”
“Furniture, huh?”
“Well, actually, she’s got her sights set on some type of high-tech washer/dryer combo thing, but you know what I mean.”
“So, furniture and appliances? You should go on tour instead of me. After all, the big finale lighthouse fight scene in Beware the Hemoglobin Hemo-Goblin was all your idea anyway.”
“Yeah, nice try, Champ, but you’re the superstar. You have to do it. It’s a necessary evil.”
“’Evil’ is the right word for it, all right, but why is it necessary? If someone likes the book, they should just get it. I just find it strange, this whole preoccupation with wanting to meet the guy who made it.”
Gavin plopped down on the bed and stared at the ceiling texture. “Let me ask you, do I have to meet the chef that prepares the porterhouse at the steak restaurant? Does it make it taste better somehow? What of the cattleman or whoever raised it? Should I meet them, too? What is this lunacy?”
There was a pause before Billy calmly replied, “Art is different. We allow art to touch us inside our hearts. It touches us in a deeper way than a hunk of meat in the belly. If it’s good, it stays with us.”
Gavin jerked up to a sitting position. “Art? Hmph! You know what I should’ve done? What I should’ve done from the very beginning? I should have hired a surrogate and placed his picture on the back of the book. Then I’d pay him, the actor, to come out once every couple of years to prance around like a prize pony and do all of this traveling as the wonderful Gavin Curtis.”
“Yeah, that would’ve been the way to do it, but you didn’t, Sport. And why would you want to inflict being Gavin Curtis on anyone else when you don’t even want to do it yourself?”
Gavin moved over to the window and stared at the parking lot far below. An SUV crept through the lot, looking for an empty spot like a shark circling the water for prey. “Is that some more of the hard-edged truth that you say I like so much from you?” Before the older man could answer, Gavin said, “I ought to kill Damien off. I’m done with vampire warlock detectives. I’m written out. I have no more ideas left for him, no worlds or dimensions for him to conquer, no mysteries to solve.”
“But he’s immortal,” Billy offered, as if Gavin needed any reminder.
“Yeah, my mistake.” He watched the SUV circle the lot for the third time and found himself morbidly curious about whether or not a fall from his room’s height would kill a person or just maim them.
Billy snapped him out of his morbid daydream. He shifted to his wise sage voice. “Alas, it’s the cruelest device of all to betray one’s self into abandoning who or what they really love.”
Gavin scoffed. “What does that mean?”
“Just that it can be a nightmare when your dreams come true.”
“Why can’t you just say ‘Careful what you wish for’ like everyone else?”
Billy ignored the question. “There was another popular writer—an author of detective stories, in fact—who tried to kill off his main character, but the fans wouldn’t let him.”
Gavin was pacing again. “How could fans keep the writer from telling the story that he wanted to?”
“Happens more often than you’d think. You’ve got to dispel this idea that you’re the artist and start to see that you and I are in the entertainment business. People like what you’ve done with Damien Marksman. They’re good stories.”
“They’re tripe. I want to do something important.”
Gavin reached for the typewriter keys but pulled back when Billy stunned him by shouting, “Important? Entertaining is important!”
The old man abandoned his scholarly professor voice. “What you—what we do is important. We help readers escape their humdrum existence into fantastic worlds where they don’t have to worry about their mortgage payment or light bill for a few minutes before going to bed at night.”
Uh, oh… he’s on a roll now.
Gavin was the only child of a single mother. There was no father around to lecture him through adolescence, but over the years, William Cavanaugh had come to fill that role. Today, the chastisement meter was set to “stun.” There would be no reprieve now until Billy got it all out or Beverly interrupted him for some “honey-do” that couldn’t wait. Gavin would just have to weather the storm.
“My dear boy, do you think that a cabbie wants to drive to his patron’s destination if they’re not in the cab? Of course not. He’s providing a service. Everyone has a job to do—a role to play. The cab driver’s job is to deliver people where they want to go. You and I are in the same sort of business. We get to take people places, places in their minds, places maybe they can’t go or don’t think to go by themselves. It’s simple. Don’t overthink it, and don’t screw it up. It’s not just about you.”
Gavin returned to the chair and looked at the antique on the desk. In an attempt to regain control again over the conversation, he asked, “Who is it?”
The question succeeded in derailing Billy’s rant. “Who’s what?”
“The writer, the one who wanted to kill his lead character, the detective.”
“Doyle,” Billy answered flatly. “Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“Sherlock Holmes?” Gavin scoffed. “He tried to kill off Sherlock Holmes?”
“He did kill him off in a short story entitled ‘The Final Problem.’ Doyle ends both Holmes and Moriarty by plunging them down Reichenbach Falls. He said that writing the stories was distracting him from more serious literary efforts. Sound familiar?”
“Reichenbach Falls?” Gavin said the letters aloud as he typed.
REE3HESBA3H FVLLS |
“Arrgh, crap!” Gavin exclaimed.
“What are you doing over there?” Billy asked.
“Nothing. How do you remember all this stuff, anyway?”
“It’s a good read. You should look it up. Anyway, the fans were so outraged, they formed a letter-writing campaign to the editor of The Strand Magazine demanding that Doyle bring him back. He did, and it’s a good thing, too, because after that, he went on to write The Hound of the Baskervilles.”
“Well, aren’t you a wealth of knowledge, Mr. Cavanaugh, sir?”
“Be as sarcastic as you like, but just know that you should ‘be careful what you wish for,’ kiddo.”
“That’s what I love about you. You have the most eloquent way of telling me that I’m completely wrong about stuff. You even managed to work in one of the UK’s most beloved novels, Baskervilles, while delivering the literary equivalent of an elementary schoolyard wedgie.”
Billy chuckled. “What can I say? I’m a good editor, and you know you love it. So if you didn’t call for help on a new story, what did you call for? Everything okay?”
Gavin ran his index finger over the warm copper hub of the machine. “I just wanted to tell you that I found the perfect gift.”
“Should I be worried?”
“No, it’s a real gift this time—something really special, better even than the retirement present. I think that it’s handmade, so it’s obviously one-of-a-kind.”
“This is for real, not some gag gift? My grandchildren will be at the party, so no X-rated stuff.”
Gavin pictured Billy waving an admonishing finger in his den hundreds of miles away. “No, nothing like that. You’ll have to get that type of stuff from Beverly.”
“Hardy har har.”
“No, it’s something you’ll really want. It’s probably the best gift I’ve ever given anyone. That’s why I called. It’s going to be great.”
“Hmmm.” The skepticism in Billy’s voice was without apology. “Well, we’ll have to just wait and see, won’t we, then? By the way, Beverly is going to make those cake ball things for me. It took an act of Congress to get her to consent, since she wanted to do a big three-level cake, but she’s going to do it for me.”
Gavin pictured her in the apron again. “You did that so you could eat more. It’s harder for her to keep track of how many you eat if they’re cake balls.”
A long laugh on the edge of turning into a raspy wheeze ensued. “You know me all too well. I’ll set some aside for you in case you’re running late.”
“Running late? I won’t be late.”
“It’s okay, but you’re always late.”
“Whatever. I’ll be there on time, you’ll see.”
“Bye, Sport. Keep typing. Beverly really wants that new washer/dryer.”
“You’re awful. Bye, Bill.”
Gavin made his way out to the balcony with the two cigarettes and a book of matches that he’d bummed from the cabbie. The warmth of the July sun felt good. The suite was too cold after his scorching shower. He could never regulate the thermostats of hotel rooms. He existed in a perpetual state of annoyance, the pendulum swinging between “stuffy” and “meat locker cold.”
He sat in one of the loungers for a few minutes as more cars vied for empty spots in the crowded lot below.
Yeah, a person would definitely die if they fell from this height.
He lit his second and final smoke. Ah, yes, and what of Ms. Garner?
Toward the end of the marriage, he had developed a theory that he had a relationship shelf life of only five or so years—the exception being Billy, of course. He figured that after half a decade, the other participant would have heard pretty much every original thought that he’d ever have. After that, they’d be sentenced to endless reruns of witticisms that had grown stale long ago. Like a carton of milk, once it expired, there was no going back. But now he wondered, was it the other way around? Had it been his interest that had diminished?
Like someone sifting pebbles from a bucket of sand, thoughts like these bounced around in his mind for a few minutes.
Finally, he stood, tossing the cigarette butt over the rail. It twisted in a series of acrobatics on the way down until it disappeared from sight.
In the end, Josephine had gotten the house, which was fine by him. It had always been too gauche for his tastes anyway, though he did miss his writing area in the study. She also took a car and various other prizes that her attorney had won for her.
Gavin was awarded the beach house in Santa Monica, his current meager residence, his book library, the new sports car, and the busted motorcycle that he had tinkered with since before they were engaged.
But the main thing that Gavin had gotten from the divorce was the opportunity to get his way again, specifically in the arguments the two were prone to having. He got to be right. He was granted complete control of himself again, and it felt good.
After half a decade of having every decision challenged by her, the final confrontation was over salad dressing. The relationship had ended rather anticlimactically. He had chosen to take a stand over Ranch dressing. He had protested that he didn’t want some kind of lite Ranch or yogurt custard imitation, but the real stuff—nice and fattening.
The night that Josephine stormed out of that restaurant, Gavin ate the most delicious salad of his life. That meal came to symbolize the turning point. He’d taken back control and could do what he wanted when he wanted and go where he pleased. That was also the night that he met Monica Garcia. Had it been out of revenge against Jo that he’d slept with the young, unsuspecting woman—an act of defiance to prove that he could do what he wanted? What seemed clear in the moment had become muddled over time. Now, here he was a few years later, in complete control, but in control of what? Had it been worth it?
Should he approach Josephine at Billy’s party to say something about her break-up, or would it be better just to leave it alone? He missed being with her. He even missed being annoyed by her. But was he willing to try and reconcile things, to give up being a bachelor, forfeit what he wanted to do for the sake of being with her? Would it be different this time?
He decided this was too much to contemplate fully sober and returned to the room to dress and go to the resort bar.