The Mammoth Book of Seriously Comic Fantasy, page 46
“Wait a minute. I don’t want to actually hurt anyone, you know.”
He guffawed pulverized glass onto the tablecloth. “You crack me up, Al. Drink my gins. I gotta take a powder. When you done your homework, you know where to find me.”
“I mean it. I’m not interested. I don’t hate him, Buck. I don’t hate anybody.”
A circumflex of a smile. An umlaut of a twinkle. Buck vanished.
The waitress brought me the two drinks and the tab. I smiled my irresistibly sexy smile. She grimaced and departed. I looked at the bill. It was my lunch and bus money.
That evening I played chess with Meyer up by the reservoir. We squatted between the fluted columns of the Water Authority, right in the middle of the compass engraved on the portico, me at E, Meyer at W. It was rosy twilight, and from up there on Weber’s Hill we could have watched the city skyline darkle, if we had cared to look past our pawns and pieces.
“You’re nuts, Al,” – casually sliding his rook along my first rank – “but as for the two knots, I gotta say, it rings true. Check.”
“Stupid move.” I took his rook.
“Check,” he said, moving in from the queen’s side.
“Dumb,” I said. I took his other rook. “He was a million miles off. You’re nearly as smart as me, Meyer – I know that. And as for the virgin thing . . . here comes Helen.”
“Checkmate,” he said. I hadn’t seen the knight move. I was beat after walking home from Mandrake & Kinsey’s. I never lost to Meyer unless I was half-asleep. Besides, I’d been thinking about Helen. “Anyway, Al, don’t do anything stupid. The summer’s half over, you’re going to NYU, and Joe’s gonna be an office clerk for the rest of his life. Just ignore him. Lay off the Stravinsky. You don’t really hate him, do you?”
“Of course not! I don’t hate anybody, Meyer. But what if you could really give somebody the Evil Eye? Wouldn’t the experiment be worth it?”
“No. Here she comes. Two’s company, buddy. See ya!” He scooped the chess pieces into his satchel, folded the board under his arm, and ran off.
I galloped down the sunset side of Weber’s Hill to Helen. She was beautiful. She made a blue work shirt and cutoffs look like Cinderella’s gown. Her frizzy blonde hair floated like a halo above a Botticelli angel’s face. Her nose was a little bigger than Venus’ maybe, but I like them that way. Helen Wojtczak had been the queen of my dreams since I almost kissed her at New Year’s, and she almost let me.
We walked together up the stone steps of the Water Authority, crossed north, north-west, west-north-west, and I kissed her. “Don’t,” she said.
I knitted my brows. Helen squeezed my hand with a sisterliness I found alarming, and led me to the circular walk around the reservoir.
“I have something to tell you.” She stared down into our long shadows.
“I have something to tell you.” It was motel night, I’d decided. I wanted to make a liar out of Buck the Imp as soon as possible.
“Al, there’s somebody else.”
I dropped her hand. I stopped walking. I looked out across the reservoir, through the chain link fence to the fountain spraying antibacterially in the waning light. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter who, Al.”
“Yes it does. Tell me who.”
“A guy you work with. Remember the day I met you for lunch . . . ?”
* * *
“I knew you’d come round, Al my boy. Now, to find two of Galucci’s knots – and mind you, I could tell ’em to you, one, two, but it wouldn’t do you no damn good, because you gotta see ’em for yourself – to find two of them knots of his – and they’re double squares, believe you me, solid as a frigging Gordian – you just watch him, savvy? Down in the bushes and tight to the windows, watch his life, Al. Shadow the jerk. Where he tightens up – that’s your baby! You’ll see them knots, four days max . . . How about we get some more of them gin ’n’ tonics at Slim’s?”
“No thanks, Buck – what’s in this for you?”
“For me? I’m like a big league scout, champ. You’ll be a feather in my cap, see?”
“What league is that?”
“Do you hate this Galucci’s guts or not?” He crinkled his little face. The pale epithelium puckered, split, and curled like wood shavings. Where they parted, a crimson inner skin showed through.
“I hate him, all right.”
“Then waddaya care about leagues, huh? I’ll tell you everything-plus when Galooch goes down.” The lunch buzzer sounded. Buck chose a new way to disappear. He collapsed into his own body like a custard pie falling in. His hat funnelled down his cranium. His head went down his throat, the throat down his torso, and so on to the pair of pompons at the tips of his feet. The feet imploded, sucking in the pompons with a pop! All that remained was a faint sulphurous odour. Also, the condom machine was gone.
On the way home from work, on the No. 66 bus, Meyer tried to console me about Helen. Plenty of fish in the sea, he said. No skin off my teeth, I said, honest, but I couldn’t play chess that night – some homework to do.
“You think I’m stupid, don’t you, Al? I know what you’re up to. You’re doing what the damned Imp told you to do. You’re shadowing Joe.” He shook his head and moved to another seat.
I stayed on the bus past Meyer’s stop, past mine, and all the way to midtown. From there I transferred to the one that would take me across the tracks to Joe Galucci’s neighbourhood.
The first knot was easy. I could hear the ruckus halfway down the block. People on the street looked embarrassed. Mothers hurried their children past the Galuccis’ house. Neighbours shut their windows.
Not me. I made straight for Joe’s. Down in the bushes, tight to the windows, I watched Joe Galucci’s life.
Next day Buck debriefed me by the bathroom sink. “His father’s a drunk, right?” I said.
“And . . . ?”
“He beats Joe’s mother. I heard her cry. I heard him yell.”
“And . . . ?” Buck plumbed a hole I took to be a nostril and produced a small diamond. He examined it briefly, then flicked it onto the floor, where it turned into a dustball and skittered away.
“And – what?” I said.
“What about Joe?”
“Joe shouted at his father. He tried to break it up. There were a few slaps and broken dishes; then Mr Galucci stomped out. I listened by the back window – Joe tried to get his mother to leave the bum. Joe and his mom were both crying.
“His father beats her up all the time, Buck. Joe’s desperate to stop it.”
“He can’t,” Buck crowed. “That’s the knot. He wants to save her, but he never will, because she don’t wanna be saved. It’s a beaut, ain’t it? That’s Number One.”
“I think it’s kind of sad.”
“Don’t give me that crap!” Buck started undulating, bottom to top, and each time the wave reached the tip of his conical hat, a puff of smoke came out. “You want me to tell you what he did after you left? Her initials are Helen Wojtczak . . .”
“That bastard!”
“Exactly. He took the pot with all your ante sittin’ there, Al. He shot the moon.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll euchre him!”
“That’s the spirit! One more knot to go!” Just like a Cocteau movie, Buck dissolved into the mirror over the sink, gooey black and white rippling surface and all. I saw him dwindle into that strange world where there was a league in which I was about to be a rookie.
The lunch buzzer sounded. I had a big appetite.
“I’ll beat you at chess.” Meyer sidled in next to me on the No. 66 bus and fished out his wallet chess set – tiny, flat leather pieces in a square of slots.
“Dream on,” I said, and I pushed the king’s pawn.
“Galucci looks bad. He was quiet today. Did you do it, Al? Did you give him the Eye?”
“No. I’m gonna, though, as soon as I figure out one of his other knots.”
“He’s got a date with Helen at the main library at six. I heard him on the phone – watch your queen, Al.”
“I am watching my queen. You watch your queen . . . The library? What would Galucci do at a library?”
“Back issues of The Auto Trader – who knows? . . . There it goes: you lost it, Al.” He slid a rook pawn next to my queen. My queen had nowhere left to go.
“I don’t wanna play any more.” I slapped the chess set closed. “I have to think about something.”
Meyer frowned. “You wanna know what your third knot is, Al?”
“No, I don’t. How would you know, anyway?”
“I know.” He got up and stood by the rear door until his stop. I stayed on till the library.
I spotted them in Business and Finance. I slipped among the shelves and cleared a view between the SATRAPY-TORT and XYZ volumes of a legal encyclopedia. They sat at a table by a window overlooking the river. She was more beautiful than ever, the way girls get when they’re next to another guy, as if the guy were a kleig light shining right on her.
I could see her dimpled knees under the table, pressed against Galucci’s. The way I was feeling, I could have impregnated Helen all the way from Philosophy, Religion and Education, fifty yards distant. And I could have decked Joe from Geography and History on the next floor.
He was wearing glasses. I’d never seen him wear glasses. He stared into a thick book and jotted down notes in a spiral pad next to it. Helen talked, turned pages for him, and stroked his hair. At one point he slammed the book shut, pulled off his glasses, and marched to the window in a huff. Helen followed him. She slid her arm around his waist. He laid his head on her shoulder. They disappeared into an aisle that connected to Sports and Recreation.
I sneaked up to their table to see what Joe had been squinting at – Principles of Accountancy by Warren and Beasley.
“That’s Number Two!” Buck straddled the transom, trimming his fingers – his fingers, not his nails – trimming them to the middle joint of their seven. For the Imp, this was nonchalance. I watched the fingertips fall to the floor where they dried and curled in seconds, like a time-lapse film of desiccating carrots. “He ain’t up to accountancy. Not enough smarts. He’ll die feeling like a failure on account of he’ll never get the hang of double entries. Wretched race! Imps rule.” Snip! Snip!
“Poor bastard!”
“Tell me again what they was doing in Sports and Recreation . . . ?”
It was burned into my memory: Helen and Joe like DNA strands – God forbid! – double-helixing between bound volumes of Sports Illustrated. “Right!” I said. “Malocchio!”
“That’s my boy! Just dig into him with them lovely weepers of yours. The knots are like landmarks on a bombardier’s map.” Snip!
For the first time in weeks, I was at my desk when lunchtime came. Joe moped beside me. He hadn’t struck me for days. You could almost take him for a human being, sitting there dragging a pencil across the order forms.
I figured it was time to elicit some of Galucci’s ill-will, just to remind me what I was in it for: “Hey, Galooch! How’s the CPA today?”
He half smiled. For a moment I thought he was going to cry. Then the buzzer sounded for lunch. He just sat there as everyone else filed out. “Joe,” I said, “aren’t you going to Slim’s with your friends?”
“They ain’t my friends. Nobody gives a flying petootie about me, Al. I’m sick of playing the game.”
And there it was – Knot Number Three. He wasn’t in with the in-crowd.
When I went out onto the loading dock for a smoke after lunch, Buck was there, sucking the air from the tyres of parked cars. He’d balloon up like a blood-pressure band and his little feet would start to levitate while he French-kissed a valve. Then he’d let go and jet around the parking lot, insanely laughing.
After four or five cars, he slid over to the loading dock and sat down next to me. He clicked valve caps palm to palm as if they were a rosary. “So, are we ready for action or what?”
I watched my cigarette smoulder. “I found the third knot . . .”
Buck backfired. Black smoke billowed from his pores. “You dumb human! Damn your race! Two, I told you! Two!”
“But I couldn’t help it, Buck. It was right there . . .”
“Don’t tell me! I don’t wanna hear it!” He stuffed his fingers into his ears all the way up to the fourth joint. The valve caps tumbled. “I know all about it, damn it! I know everybody’s knots, you dumb human! Imps rule! Just clam up! Go do the malocchio, is all! Don’t think about it, Al! Do it now!”
“I can’t go through with it, Buck.”
“You what?” He stopped hiccuping. “I knew it! Damn your race!” His eyes widened like little missile silos. The sulphur smell intensified. The air between us seemed to yellow.
“Listen, Buck. I appreciate all your help, but now that I really know Joe, now that I see his three knots, I can’t hate him any more. I don’t want to give him the Evil Eye, Buck.”
A thin stream of black smoke issued from the pompon at the peak of Buck’s hat. “You know what happens to people who get the Evil Eye? Things go wrong, Al, things that are nobody’s fault, see? Little things can make a big difference, Al. Half a second crossing the street. The wrong knob on a stove top. You catch my drift, Al? Look . . .”
Buck levelled his gaze at a pigeon gliding down toward the loading dock. It fluttered erratically, then slammed into a concrete pier and dropped straight down, its neck broken.
“Y’see,” Buck said, “that can happen to humans too. It could happen to you, Al, if you ain’t careful – say, if you rubbed me the wrong way or something. Not that you’d be that stupid.”
“Jesus, Buck, don’t you ever feel sorry for anybody? Don’t Imps have knots?”
“Yeah, but just one, not three, and nobody ever finds out. Ever. Imps rule. Galucci gets malocchioed, or you do. Think about it, Al. I’ll see you after.”
I butted my smoke and shoved through the bumpered double doors into the shipping room. Meyer was there. His chessboard dangled by a corner from one hand. The pieces littered the floor at his feet. “I saw him. I heard everything. I can’t believe it. He’s an Imp! He’s really an Imp!” The chessboard fell.
“Yeah, so now what?” I walked past him toward the corridor and the vending machines.
“Wait up!” He ran after me, leaving the chess pieces where they lay. He grabbed my shoulder. “Imps don’t rule, Al. You got him! Don’t you see that? He’s completely helpless!”
“You’re nuts, Meyer. If I don’t do what he wants, he’ll do a malocchio on me. I’ll end up like the pigeon. What am I supposed to do – get Joe Galucci’s mother to rub oil in my hair? I’ve got to give Joe the Evil Eye, and that’s that.” I pulled my shoulder from under Meyer’s hand.
He stepped in front of me and blocked my way. I could hear people chattering by the vending machines now. I looked past Meyer to see if I could spot Joe.
“Don’t you get it, Al? Don’t you know why he wouldn’t let you tell him about Joe’s third knot?”
“Get out of my way, Meyer.” Through a doorway, I saw Joe’s brogues sticking out under a chair by the coke machine. I pushed Meyer out of my way and walked to the doorway. Joe looked up. I looked down.
He slapped me, I thought. He makes fun of me. He thinks he’s smarter than I am, faster than I am. He stole my girl.
I hurtled through his eyes. Everything grew as hazy and dim as the sun to a deep-sea diver. In the tunnel behind Joe Galucci’s eyes, I saw neon figures – his drunken father raging, the bruised mother weeping. I sped in past a phantom Joe Galucci beating his fists against the tunnel wall and tearing incomprehensible pages out of a thick book. At the tunnel’s end was a soft red spot like a target painted on a rifle-range dummy.
I hesitated. At my back I heard Meyer’s voice – “Don’t, Al!” – and for the briefest moment I saw the third knot: Joe Galucci alone in himself, Joe Galucci blinkering himself to his loneliness and despair, aching to blend in with the in-crowd. He had fallen behind while they laughed over Seven-and-Sevens at Slim’s . . .
“What do you want, Al?” A pained expression crossed Joe’s face.
“You got change of a dollar?” I couldn’t do it.
The coke bottle in Joe Galucci’s hand boiled over into his lap. A thick, bubbling, yellow fluid seethed down his legs and onto the floor. He stood.
“Run, Joe!” I yanked him up by the elbow. Searing fumes rose from the puddle. The three or four people who had been grazing at the candy machines stampeded out. I pushed Joe out along with them – he didn’t resist. Meyer stood beside me as the fumes congealed into a child-sized clove of garlic.
“You’ve had it!” Buck levelled his smoky red eyes at me, and I felt that my world was haemorrhaging. Everything turned bad and drained away.
“No,” Meyer shouted. “You’ve had it, Imp! My friend Al has a temper like nobody’s business. He keeps it on a leash. He’s fooled everybody. He’s even fooled himself. He thinks he’s a pacifist! He thinks he can’t hate. But you better look out, Mr Imp!”
Buck staggered backwards. His face twitched. He looked at me, then covered his eyes with a freshly defingered paw. He seemed to cave in as my world swelled back into existence. “Wretched race!” he spat, but now there was pity in it, as if he perceived the precious eye of a needle through which I could never squeeze, because I was a barren, hateful egotist: my three knots!
Knots or no, I could still whistle. I remembered how it had made him wince. I whistled a glissando from as low and loose as I could pucker, sliding up in pitch until the plaster walls and concrete floor of that basement room resonated. The vending machines and the fluorescents kicked in, and the room became one large tuning fork. Buck’s little face scrunched like a burnt raisin.
“Humans rule!” Meyer crowed.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Buck swirled down into the puddle like a tornado in reverse. The puddle of Buck froze, shattered, and vanished.
Meyer and I sat together on the No. 66 bus.
“That’s the last we’ll see of Buck,” Meyer sighed. “We found the Imp’s knot, don’t you see? Same as you, Al: to do a malocchio, he has to know his victim, but the more he knows him, the less he wants to hurt him. It’s a razor’s edge. Two knots is just enough to be able to do his dirt. That’s why he got so worked up when you were about to tell him Joe’s third.”
