Jack Ketchum
Sheep Meadow Story
"Let's go have hamburgers on a beach, surrounded by mermaids flapping their wings."
-John Hinkley to Jodie Foster
THURSDAY
"A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones."
-Proverbs 4:4
Stroup took the cell phone off his belt. He hated the goddamn things but sometimes they came in handy. He dialed. She answered.
"Lesvos Taverna. May I help you?"
"I'm gonna get you, Carla."
"What?"
"I'm gonna get you."
"Who is this?"
"I'm gonna get you NOW!"
He hung up. He swung the pump shotgun out from under his raincoat and stepped across Columbus Avenue. Traffic swerved and skidded. Not even the cabbies cursed him. Not with the shotgun.
He stepped through the open glass door and looked around. The hostess screamed so he shot her in the face. The bartender screamed so he shot her in the tits. Some Indian or Pakistani busboy didn't scream, just stood there holding a full tray of empties. Stroup shot him anyway.
Patrons dived for cover beneath their tables. He'd disturbed their lunch. Waiters and cooks and kitchen staff hit the floor. Women screamed. Men shouted. He figured she'd be hiding in the office. Like some STAFF ONLY sign was going stop him. He checked the toilets anyway, pushed open the stalls. Nobody on the shitters.
He walked through the empty back room to the door and tried the doorknob but it was locked. Like some locked door was going to stop him. He blasted the shit out of it and pushed it open. Carla was cowering behind the desk. She looked nice there. He almost felt like fucking her.
"Stroup! Oh jesus, Stroup, it's YOU! Why are you DOING this?"
"It's not me, baby. People don't kill people. Guns do."
"Are you CRAZY?"
She was close to hysterical. It was something new at least. "You've fucked with me for the last time, Carla."
"PLEASE, Stroup!"
"You called me an incompetent nobody, Carla."
"I didn't mean it, Stroup. PLEASE!"
"You own this dyke souvlaki joint now, right? You're such a hot shit? Well, own this."
He pumped the shotgun. She tried to rise so he shot her in the legs. They were good legs. Once. She went down screaming even louder and in a different way than he was used to and even though he more or less liked the sound of it he put the barrel into her open mouth and fired again.
She painted the walls and floor and furniture.
Stroup turned and walked away.
Some guy at the bar was sipping a martini.
"You're Stroup?" he said.
"What's it to you?"
"My name is Maxwell Perkins."
The guy was old and dressed in a nice clean suit.
"I'm a big fan, Mr. Stroup. I've read everything you've ever written, in fact. I think you're a genius. And I'd like to offer you a three-book deal. Would a million per-book advance be acceptable?"
"Make it two million and you got a deal."
Stroup ejected a shell. Maxwell Perkins smiled and extended his hand.
"Done," he said.
Stroup woke up smiling.
***
It didn't last.
He looked at the clock. The clock was set for 9:00 but it was only 8:45. Good fucking dream but it had him up fifteen minutes early.
In the bathroom he splashed water on his face and lit a cigarette and exhaled and went to nuke the coffee. The coffee was three days old and tasted like a rat had recently died in it. It was hot though.
He sat on the edge of the bed drinking his coffee and considered a shower and shave or at least brushing his teeth and a change of shorts and then considered what he had on his plate today and growled and decided all of that could wait. He had work to do. Yesterday he'd rejected two short stories, a coffee-table photo book-naked pictures of some guy's geriatric wife-a self-published Mormon genealogy and Lillie Mae Hipps' poetry collection A BOWL FULL OF LOVE. It was all handwritten and the title poem had a funny misspelling-a bowel full of love-but that wasn't why he rejected the thing. He rejected it because it was shit.
They were all shit.
Fifteen years now he'd been working as a reader for the Cosmodemonic Literary Agency and not once had he come across anything that wasn't shit. Maybe the other readers got the good stuff. He didn't know. Out of the hundred-fifty-dollar, two-hundred-dollar, or three-hundred-dollar fee the Agency charged he got to keep ten percent. For that he had to write a two-to-four page letter explaining why they wouldn't be taking on THE HAUNTED DENTAL CLINIC or the autobiography of some illiterate junkie or CARLOS, THE FARTING CAT for literary representation.
He had to encourage them to try again and write some more miserable swill and send more money.
At least with computers and the net these days he could e-mail copy for the boss' approval or disapproval and got to work at home.
He could roll out of bed and knock it out. He'd started in a room with a dozen kids fresh out of college all pounding on their IBMs and the sound in there was like eight hundred tap dancers all working on different routines at once. You could smell the fear-sweat to produce and do it fast like rotten eggs.
He'd been the oldest guy working there. He guessed he probably still was.
The phone rang. His answering machine picked it up.
"It's your quarter," his voice said. "Leave a fucking message."
Whoever was calling didn't. Either he'd scared them off again or it was some goddamn solicitation. At nine in the morning. The machine was on twenty-four hours a day. He hated solicitations.
He took the coffee over to his desk. Saw the inevitable pile of manuscripts. He picked them up once a week. On top was something called APPLE KNOCKERS' DELIGHT. The cover-letter said it was a novel. The hero was a guy named Jimmy Ballocks who was a hundred-ten years old and was fucking a twenty-year-old schoolteacher. He credited his staying-power to organic gardening. To apples in particular.
Two-hundred-fifty pages.
Jesus.
***
By four-fifteen he was ready to wrap it.
He'd taken a break to shave, shower and shit and another for his midday beer. He wasn't the drinker he used to be but that beer was always good.
The phone had rung four more times, all hang-ups. Maybe he should include some heavy weapons-fire on the message.
The final manuscript of the day was another book of poems by Martin Wellman. Old Marty had already been to Stroup's well five times before but kept plugging away at getting himself some representation. Stroup's personal favorite had been the poem TOILET from the last batch. He'd kept a copy.
It's always there when I'm in need
You'll find that the Toilet is a true friend indeed
It never complains or nags about what you put in it
It just sits there to accept and spin it
Too much to drink and your stomach will reverberate
But you got the Toilet there to eat what you ate
Don't mention bladder problems
Sometimes the outside of the Toilet will get drowned
So you took some Castor Oil and you've got to defecate
It splatters against the walls of the Toilet and still The Toilet don't make a complaint
And now you've got to pee
The Toilet says, "squirt it in me"
Yeah, you bathe in there too every now and then
Can you name the times it's been your friend?
Yes, it's always there when we're in need
The Toilet is a true friend indeed.
Talking toilets. He'd encouraged Wellman on that one. Only complained about the obvious meter difficulties and mentioned
that problems didn't rhyme with drowned. What the hell. If ravens could talk why not a crapper? Maybe the guy had read his Edgar Allan Poe.
While he was dressing he turned on CNN. The Republicans were behind in the polls. In Georgia a guy and his wife were arrested for dragging the family dog half to death behind the rear bumper of their car. The dog wouldn't come when they called him. In Florida another kid had walked into another high school with another Glock and shot up the halls. A teacher and a sixteen-year-old girl were dead. Six others wounded. No wonder he'd had that dream last night. It was in the fucking air.
He finished tying his shoes and got up thinking he ought to change the sheets next week and walked out of the apartment and four floors down to the street.
He was meeting Marie at her place at six. Same as every Thursday. An hour and a half to drink.
Some asshole drug-money gold-chained darkie had the windows of his brand-new BMW open as he crossed Broadway on the northbound side and the speakers were blasting rap. Thunkthunkthunkthunk. Unintelligible street-nigger lyrics. He thought he heard his name mentioned but that couldn't be. Martin King died for this. Made a man wish for a hand grenade. Just pull the pin and toss it into the passenger seat. Exit thunk, exit asshole darkie. He counted seven respectable white citizens on their cell phones on the single block between 68th and 69th. One of them a chunky young female jogger, her tits bound tight by a running bra, her tits mashed down into her chest. He wondered how she heard who she was talking to with that fucking walkman on her head.
Between Broadway and Columbus he counted seven strollers, two of them double-wide. He had to walk right into the street to get around the three black nannies walking side by side. What he really wanted to do was plough through them like a bowling ball through the four, eight, and seven pins. Little white baby-bodies flying. The mothers all looked like they used tanning salons and Starbucks decaffeinated coffee. They summered in the Hamptons and not one of them had lost her figure in the slightest during childbirth. Immaculate conceptions maybe.
He stepped into the End of the World Cafe and sat down at the bar at the corner where he could watch the window if he wanted. Liana knew what to pour him. He lit a cigarette and sipped his Dewars rocks and stared at the rows of bottles. The bottles at least were friendly.
The bar was dead. Just one old rumdumb down at the end with his eyes on Liana. Stroup couldn't blame him. Liana was from Jamaica and taller than god and had smooth cream-and-coffee skin. But the bar was going to hell in a handbasket despite her. At this rate it'd be lucky to last the summer. Their Happy Hour consisted of half-price beer and well-drinks and Stroup drank Dewars. Their Happy Hour meant nothing to him.
He reflected that Carla's place was only a block north. Taverna Lesvos was doing fine.
Carla had gone dyke on him in '86.
He never went there.
He stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. With what these babies cost he was going to have to cut down.
Sure.
The door opened and two women walked in. Girlfriends. Laughing. The thin one in the short skirt had good legs and no bra.
Not bad. Her girlfriend was the usual. Overweight, with everything on her a size too small except maybe the shoes. They always travelled that way. Fat and skinny had a race, and no race at all.
They sat down at the bar in front of the window so that he had to look at them if he wanted to look out the window and ordered frozen Margueritas. A couple of minutes later the blender was roaring, giving him a headache and Stroup was growling deep into his chest. Had to stop that so he did. Liana brought him another Dewars. That was better.
He inhaled and blew out smoke.
"Excuse me?" said the one with the legs.
"What can I do for you?" Stroup said.
"Do you think you could put that out, maybe? Or at least blow your smoke in another direction? I'm sorry. I'm allergic."
They were all allergic these days. All Manhattan had developed sudden desperate allergies.
Liana brought them their drinks. They smiled. At least the blender was finished.
"I'm looking out the window," he said.
"I'm sorry?"
"The smoke is blowing toward you because I'm looking out the window. You're sitting in front of the window and I'm looking out of it. You see? See that one with the tits there? I'm looking at her. That's why the smoke is going in your direction."
"Tits?"
"Tits, yes. She's gone now. You just missed her. Too bad."
She looked like she just found a turd in her marguerita. She turned and whispered something angry to her friend. Her friend was scowling, nodding. The roll of fat on her neck ebbed and flowed. Stroup sighed.
"Listen, ladies. This is a bar. People still smoke at bars in this City. It's a fact of life. Now, you've got this whole fucking empty bar here and you're sitting right in front of me. See all that space down there? Or else you got the tables. Why not try a table? It's cozy. There's no smoke. There's probably nobody around uses the word "tits" in mixed company. Though yours are nice by the way. I notice you're not wearing a bra. Good thinking."
"Stroup," said Liana.
"Aw, hell, Liana. You want me to leave, I'll leave."
"I didn't say you should leave. Just be nice."
"I am being nice. I told her she has good tits. She does."
"Stroup."
"All right."
He finished his cigarette and did not immediately light a third one. Then he did. He blew some smoke. The woman with the legs sighed and shook her head and the two of them took their drinks to a table far away.
Ralph walked in and took their place. He ordered a beer. Now he had to look at Ralph to look out the window. The women were better. Ralph was always going on about some rotten movie he'd just seen or his rotten new haircut which was rotten because he'd paid some kid in barber school five bucks for it or else he was telling bad jokes. He looked a little like George Burns and maybe that was why. The difference was Burns was funny. Ralph was about as funny as stillborn puppies. He was sixty-five and called himself a senior citizen. Stroup was only twelve years younger and would call himself a senior citizen when the Reform Party took the White House or Liana decided to fuck him, whichever came first.
"You hear the one about the doctor, asks this old lady patient of his how long she's been bedridden? 'Not for about twenty years,' she says, 'not since my husband was alive."
"No, Ralph. I hadn't."
"You hear the one about the doctor puts his stethoscope to some old lady's chest and says 'big breaths' and the lady says yes, they used to be?"
"You got something against old ladies today, Ralph? Or is it just me you hate?"
"You hear the one about the doctor asks his patient how he's doing with his medications? Guy says fine, except for the Patch. Doctor says what's the problem with the Patch? Guy says you told me to put a new one on every twelve hours and I'm running out of places to put them."
"Fuck you, Ralph. You're the goddamn village idiot."
Ralph laughed. Stroup finished his Dewars and ordered a third one and drank half of it.
"When are you going to fuck me, Liana?" he said.
"When hell freezes over, Stroup."
"Or the Reform Party takes the White House?"
"That's right."
"That's what I thought."
***
Two drinks and five more doctor-jokes later he was headed up Amsterdam toward Marie's. He made a stop at the Pathmark for smokes. The Indian woman with the gold tooth waited on him which was good because the Indian woman knew he smoked Winston red softpack and the others didn't know Winston red softpack from Virginia Slims green in a box. They were smokers themselves some of them but the cigarette rack seemed to baffle them. The Indian woman always smiled and handed him the change right. The others didn't. The others were stupid as goats. They handed you change of a twenty with the ten on top face-up and the singles on the bottom so you had to reverse the order to put them the hell in y
our wallet. He wondered where that started but almost everybody did it now. As he was walking out the door he thought he heard his name mentioned but that couldn't be.
Marie lived in a brownstone up on 78th Street. Only two floors up so even Stroup could make the stairs. Marie was a Personal Trainer and semi-professional bodybuilder and worked at a Fitness Center which used to be called a gym. Her pecs were better than Stroup's had ever been. She said that Stroup was the first man she'd gone out with who wasn't in shape. He said don't worry about it, he'd get in shape someday. Just not now.
She was a native Norwegian without an ounce of fat on her unless you counted the small smooth tits and her body was lithe as a snake. Not too massive like some of them. Some of them looked like they'd shoved footballs down the front of their thighs. He liked to watch her work out naked standing at the full-length mirror, the muscles making sudden unexpected appearances, the sweat running down those long sleek legs, the tiny vertical-shaved slit of pale blonde pubic hair glistening.
He rang the bell and waited.
He imagined her working out right now.
His hard-on browsed his pants leg looking for a way out. He rang again.
"Who is it?"
He talked into the speaker. "Rudy Giuliani. You're fucking under arrest. It's Stroup. Who else?"
She buzzed him in. He climbed the stairs.
He tried not to show her he was winded.
"I called you," she said. "I kept getting the machine."
"That was you? I thought it was some bastard trying to sell me something."
"I kept getting the machine."
He walked over and kissed her and she didn't smell like herring for a change. She had her countrymen's weakness for pickled herring which was sometimes an almost fatal weakness to Stroup's way of thinking. They'd be fucking and it would pour off her like a Stavanger sewer.
She was wearing grey sweatpants and a tight blue tank top. She looked great.
"Why didn't you leave a message?"
"I do not like to use the machine."
"You've used it before."
"Yes, but I do not like to."