Charlie Huston - The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death

– I know.

– I'll put some money in the mail. And those berries. And a couple pies.

– Great, Mom. That's great.

– I love you, Web.

– Love you, Mom.

Another long pause.

– Love you, Mom.

And the sound of the phone hanging up.

She never forgets the money. Not sure why that is. Some part of the mothering instinct that won't let her fully relax until the cub is cared for. Or something. I mean, it may be a month before it shows up, and there's no telling what she'll send (could be whatever is in her purse when she drives past the post office on a trip into town, or it could be a rubber-banded roll of twenties in a FedEx envelope, no note, just the cash), but she'll send it.

But no berries or pie. Which will bum Chev out more than it will me. That's him missing things he didn't have.

I put the phone back in the cradle. It's a big yellow Bakelite phone with big old push buttons. I'd found it in a pile of garbage someone left at the curb when they moved out of the building, and took it inside and tinkered with it till it worked. The timing had been excellent because the night before Chev had come home with a girl he'd been seeing and after they screwed he had broken up with her and she'd thrown our cordless at him and it'd broke. She wasn't so much pissed at being dumped as that he'd waited till he got off, but before she did, to do it. Anyway, the way we go through phones, a heavy-duty model is the best bet. As long as it doesn't get thrown at anyone.

I looked in the fridge and the cupboards, but there wasn't really anything to eat. Just half a box of oatmeal, some brown iceberg, a big can of coffee beans, a bunch of takeout condiment packets of catsup and mayo and soy sauce and duck sauce, a frosted bag of Green Giant peas, and some crusty brown rice left over from a Genghis Cohen doggy bag.

I thought about putting the rice in the microwave and mixing it with the duck sauce, but did the dishes instead. Then I emptied the wet grounds from the coffeemaker, ground some fresh beans and put them in the hopper and filled the reservoir with water. The linoleum in the kitchen was gritty so I sprayed window cleaner on it and gave it a mop. Then I got the vacuum from the hall closet and ran it over the brown wall-to-wall semi-shag.

I really do take care of the cleaning and the cooking.

Then I sat in the canvas director's chair in the living room and cycled through the 157 TV channels a few dozen times without watching anything for more than two or three minutes at a time. Then it was close to six. The sky was still bright and the air hadn't started to cool yet and I'd gotten a little sweaty cleaning, so I unbuttoned my shirt and walked around the apartment. I rearranged some books on the shelves that covered two of the livingroom walls. Chev had borrowed a couple of my biographies, Houdini and Groucho, and put them on his shelf, and put some of his volumes of ReSearch on mine. I put them where they belonged. Then I stood there and flipped a few pages of one of his back issues of Gearhead and looked at the clock, but it was just a few minutes after six now. I put the magazine back and went in the bathroom and stared at the tub and thought about cleaning it. It was gonna be a biiig job and I didn't feel like it. But I thought about it for awhile.

I looked at the clock again. Just a few more minutes had passed.

It would be getting busy at the shop soon. I could walk over and give Chev a hand shooing out the kids and keeping the drunks in line. I could go down to my parking space in the driveway and uncover the 510 I bought last summer and take the boxes of parts out of the backseat and the trunk and start working on it. I could turn on my computer and play a game.

I looked at the clock and it was just about six thirty.

So I brushed my teeth and got undressed and lay down on the futon mattress on the floor of my room and read the rest of my Fangoria and then it was seven and I turned out the light. The homeless couple living in the alley behind our building were drunk and screaming at each other, so I listened to them for a little, and then I fell asleep and I slept for eleven hours straight.

Which was several hours less than I'd slept in months.

I forgot to set my alarm clock. Which was OK because Chev didn't forget to set his and snuck into my room and put it on my pillow when he came home from the shop.

After I spent a minute banging it against the floor to get it to stop buzzing, I swore revenge and crawled back under my covers. Then the phone started ringing. Very loud and just outside my bedroom door. It rang. And it kept ringing. And it kept ringing. And I got up and opened the door and picked it up.

– What? What the fuck?

– Is this Web?

– Yeah, what the fuck?

– Yeah, my name is Curtis.

– What do you want, Curtis?

– Nothing. I was in White Lightning last night and I got this boss Tas-manian devil on my shoulder and the guy, Chev, he said he'd knock twenty bucks off the price if I got up at six and called you and made sure you were up.So?

– What?

– You up?

I hung up the phone and threw it across the hall and it put a dent in Chev's door and I heard laughing behind it.

– Fuck you, Chev. Fuck you!

But I was up so I turned on the coffeemaker and got in the shower.

The Cutlass Cruiser station wagon idled at the curb, all gloss black paint, buffed chrome and dark tinted windows. One of the windows slid down and a driver just a shade lighter than his car looked out from behind mirrored sunglasses.

– Web?

I pulled my hoodie tighter around my body the morning air still carrying a chill.

– Yeah.

The driver tilted his head at the passenger seat.

– Let's get rollin'.

His window zipped up and I walked around the car. He pushed the door open and took a black suit coat from the passenger seat so I could sit. I climbed in, glancing at the rear of the cruiser where the back seats had been removed to make room for a gurney. And stashed just behind the front seats, a tightly packed bedroll and three milk crates filled with various pieces of camp gear tucked neatly on the floorboards. Coleman stove and lantern, hand generator emergency band radio, tent bag, ground tarp, a coffee can of rattling iron stakes, four small red fuel bottles, shrink-wrapped bundle of flares, boxes of waterproof matches, a hatchet with a well-worn leather handle, binoculars, a large plastic canteen, an Army surplus mess kit in a nylon pouch, a black cast-iron skillet with a heat-warped bottom. And more.

I pulled the door closed.

– Going on a trip this weekend?

He dug a finger behind one lens of his glasses and rubbed an eye.

– Do me a favor and buckle up, OK?

I pulled the seatbelt over my shoulder and lap and clipped the silver tongue into the buckle.

He stuck out his hand.

– Gabe.

I took his hand, calluses on his palm scratching my skin.

– Web.

He loosened his black tie and undid the top button of his white short sleeve shirt.

– Some coffee there if you want it.

I took the large white cardboard cup from the holder clipped to the dash.

– Thanks.

He put the car in drive and pulled from the curb.

– No problem. Didn't know how you liked it. Some creamers in the glove box.

I opened the glove box and found a couple creamers bouncing around on top of registration papers weighted down by a huge ring of at least a hundred keys, and a thick flipper of leather with a little plastic handle jutting from it. I closed the box and peeled back the top of my creamer and poured it in my cup.

Gabe pointed at the paper bag in the middle of the front seat.

– Garbage in there.