David Jackson - The Helper

‘Hi,’ she says. ‘Found something you like?’

He wonders if this is meant as a double entendre , whether she has spent the last few minutes slaving over that opening line. If so, it’s a stinker.

He drops his bag, holds the book up so that she can see the cover. ‘I’m trying to work my way through all the books I should have read when I was younger.’

‘That’s a worthy ambition. You shouldn’t speed-read them, though.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘ The Grapes of Wrath . You finish it already?’

The book he bought the last time he was in here. Two days ago. Obviously he made an impression.

‘You remember.’

She reddens as she wrestles with her answer. ‘I, uh, I have an excellent memory when it comes to books.’

Good recovery, he thinks. Now my turn for a plausible response.

‘My mother took the Steinbeck. Saw it in my hands and thought it was a gift. Yanked it from me so fast I got paper cuts.’

He laughs and she joins in. Which makes it even funnier to him because she doesn’t appreciate the real joke. Not yet, anyhow.

‘Maybe you should put on gloves next time you visit your mom,’ she says, trying to continue the humor.

He stops laughing. That’s not funny. It’s just stupid. It’s such a lame riposte that he finds himself feeling embarrassed for her.

She looks confused now, out of her depth, so he gestures toward her spiral-bound notebook.

‘You mind me asking what you’re writing there? You seemed really lost in it.’

‘This? Oh, it’s nothing. Just a little poetry. Helps pass the time.’

‘Poetry? Really? I love poems. Could I hear some?’

He doesn’t want to hear any. He suspects they’re shit. But when people need your help you sometimes have to make sacrifices.

She grabs up the notebook, clutches it to her ample chest, flutters her eyelids at him, sniffs a couple of times. ‘Oh no, I couldn’t possibly. It’s way too personal.’

He finds it hard to maintain a smile. He knows what she wants him to do. She wants him to plead to see her outpourings. She wants him to keep on asking so that she can keep on saying no, no, no, until he just wants to rip the fucking pages from her hand.

But he manages to hold on to his civility. ‘What, you mean it’s hot stuff?’

She looks shocked. ‘No. What do you. . No.’

‘I’ll bet it is. I bet I’d never be able to look you in the eye again once I’d found out what goes on in that head of yours.’

‘Well, you’re just going to have to keep on wondering, aren’t you?’

He studies her. Watches the way she tilts her head to one side while she beams her wouldn’t-you-like-to-know smile.

‘Tell you what. If I guess your birthday, you have to let me read your poetry.’

She considers this. ‘My birthday? The exact day of the year?’

‘Give me a sporting chance. Allow me two days either way.’

‘All right. You’re on.’

He folds his arms, looks her up and down. She seems to enjoy the scrutiny. Probably the most rigorous inspection she’s had in a long time.

‘First of all, I’d say you’re a Pisces. Am I right?’

‘That’s pretty good. How’d you figure that one out?’

‘Pisces people are creative and imaginative. You’d need that for the poetry.’

They’re also weak-willed and gullible, he thinks.

‘Okay,’ she says, intrigued now. ‘Go on.’

‘I’d say. .’ He pauses for effect. David Blaine, eat your heart out. ‘I’d say March rather than February.’

She’s shifting from foot to foot now, like she’s about to pee herself.

‘The tail end of the star sign,’ he intones. ‘Yeah, right toward the end.’

She lets out a tiny squeal of excitement. He thinks she’s easily entertained. He thinks that if he gets this right, she’s going to have an orgasm.

‘March the. . the seventeenth.’

Anti-climax. She lets out a puff of air in disappointment. Her face says, Don’t worry about it, it happens to all guys at one time or another.

‘Close,’ she says, holding her finger and thumb apart like she’s commenting on his manhood. ‘It’s the twentieth. That was pretty impressive, though.’

He smiles. Not at the compliment, but at how far a deliberately wrong guess can get you.

‘So I suppose I don’t get to see your poems then?’

‘No. Not this time.’

Oh? A hint of opportunities yet to come? How daring of you, young lady.

‘In that case,’ he says, ‘you don’t get to see mine.’

‘Your what?’

‘My writing.’

Her eyes bulge. ‘You write? Poetry?’

‘Fiction, actually. Short stories mostly, although I’m trying my hand at a novel. It doesn’t come easy to me, though. You know what somebody once said about writing? All you have to do is sit at a typewriter and open up a vein. That’s kind of how I’m finding it.’

‘I know what you mean,’ she says dreamily, like he’s her newfound soulmate. She doesn’t know he hasn’t written a single line of fiction since he graduated from school.

She sucks up another deep lungful of the musty air. ‘Maybe we could do a trade. One of your stories for one of my poems. Next time you drop in.’

Here we go. .

‘Or sooner.’

She blinks. ‘What?’

‘I’m not in this area too often. I live upstate. But maybe. . well, I was just thinking. . if I could call you or something. .’

Her mouth opens and closes like she’s a landed trout. ‘I. . I’m not sure. .’

‘That’s okay. I understand. Why would you give your number out to a perfect stranger? Tell you what: I’ll give you my number. If you want to call me, that’s fantastic. If not, then, well, I understand.’

He fishes a pen from his inside pocket, makes a show of looking for a piece of blank paper. Before she can find one he points to her arm. She’s wearing a woolen sweater with sleeves that reach only to the elbow. Perfect.

‘Give me your arm. Come on, that way I know you won’t lose it.’

She hesitates, but only for a second. Smiling, she lays her arm on the counter. What harm can it do, right?

He clicks his biro, scribbles a number in blue ink across the inside of her wrist.

‘No washing until you call me, okay?’

She laughs as she glances at the number, then follows this up with a frown.

‘What?’ he asks.

‘I, uh, I don’t even know your name.’

He motions for her to surrender her arm again. ‘Close your eyes,’ he says. ‘No peeking. You can look at it when I’m gone.’

‘Why? Is it that bad?’

‘It’s. . unusual.’

She sighs, then sniffs, then does as she has been asked.

He looks down at the column of white flesh with its network of blue-green veins. Like marble.

It’s the moment. His plan has worked. He’s surprised at how easy it’s been. Perhaps it’s because, even though she’s not conscious of it, her soul is crying out for help.

It’s okay, he wants to tell her. I’m here now.

‘What’s taking you so long?’ she asks with a giggle.

He does it then. One swift motion.

Her eyes pop open. He sees the total lack of comprehension in them as her brain struggles to switch context, to make sense of this unexpected phenomenon.

Because what she sees is a geyser of blood spurting from her wrist.

And when the pain strikes home and her brain realizes that something is seriously wrong here and she opens her mouth to scream, he tightens his grip on her wrist and strikes again with his scalpel. And again, and again, moving higher and higher up her bare arm.

And when her hand becomes so slick with her hot blood that she is able to wrench it out of his grasp, he steps around the counter and continues his methodical onslaught. The screams continue as he slashes at her face and neck, at her full, ripe breasts, and when she finally spins away he stands and watches as she whirls and crashes into walls and bookshelves, the blood spraying from her body onto all those books, all those words.