Joseph McElroy - Lookout Cartridge

But — I didn’t say the words— the address book . The address book. On top of the pages but not on top of the pages, for I had consulted it to call my charter man. But I had not consulted it because halfway to Sub’s desk I’d remembered the number and didn’t need the book.

They had the book. And the Highgate burglar had a copy of the diary.

But why smash the TV screen? said Sub, and held up a long dripping serrated knife.

Ruby punched me at the base of my spine and asked for a story. I told her to get undressed for her bath. Sub said she wasn’t taking a bath tonight. She left the kitchen and was replaced by Tris.

I said, It must have been an accident.

Sub said, You should have seen the screen.

Tris said, You should have seen the aerial.

Sub said, The aerial is beside the point. The tubes in back weren’t touched. It’s just that from the beginning we never really knew when the set would go and when it would work.

Tris left the kitchen and Sub said Rose had been thoughtful enough to say they absolutely must get a new doorman here, it was dangerous for the children.

Ruby was in the kitchen with nothing on.

Why couldn’t Mommy get an apartment in this building?

We don’t have closed-circuit television surveillance.

We have television.

Sub took a breath and said slowly, Sometimes so many lines of communication seem available, if I just made the right adjustment in myself I’d be clairvoyant.

Ruby wanted to know what that was.

I remembered my address book and its erratic script or capitals, in all my hands, in the hands of others, in pen and pencil.

I said I’d finish the dishes but I had an errand and would be right back.

Sub asked if I’d forgotten my phone calls — my mother had told him he ought to get married again and had been surprised to hear he and Rose weren’t divorced yet. She’d left four years ago. Time is a fast mover. The address book was an old one.

Sub asked if I was staying. Ruby and Tris asked for a story. I said, when I came back, they said Now. I said I’d tell them Beauty and the Beast when I came back. They said they’d heard it. Tris seemed now in spite of his age to be with Ruby, the two currents joined even though bedtime was also a divider because of their different ages. At an angle through the hall and her half-open white door with DADDY IS STUPIED marked on it in a slanted column thrice, I saw half of Ruby bent over something. She had forgotten me.

The children were glad to see me and so was Sub. Then Tris said, Did you and Daddy ever blow anything up?

Balloons, said Sub.

Fourth of July firecrackers, I said. In England they’re called thunderclaps and because they don’t have Fourth of July in England they explode them on Guy Fawkes Day.

Remember, remember, the Fifth of November, said Sub.

Dad’s suing the TV people, said Tris.

I was, said Sub.

It was like a still shot with sound, I an alien element, moving too softly toward the front door.

Everyone stayed still while I moved. This was better than the other way around.

We’d never got round to some insert shots I’d had in mind of Lorna lying still: first, the mole on her left shoulder blade; second, up upon her shoulder the pearly scar my eyes and nose and tongue had crossed; third, the two clear mounds of pale cool buttock untouched by mole or spot though able to hold the nip of some passing teeth for upwards of three weeks, though by then you would need eyes peeled by lust or love that for their moments of search took other motions or the smell of flesh for granted and so saw only this month-old mark of blue. But what made thirty tripod seconds of Lorna’s still behind a movie — no quivering hand, no tremor on the skin or current through the faint dark down that grows at the end of her spine, nor later in projecting the developed film any faulting flicker to blink the moving frames. What, apart from sound on the film or in the projector, stamped a shot like that a movie rather than one of Millan’s slides? When I asked Lorna she said the movie shot would seem more alive no matter how still. This comment made the film more real and gave me a confidence I hadn’t known I needed or made me wonder if I had secretly dismissed our film.

I bore into Aut’s office building, the location of whose address I had again checked on the address-locater in my wallet, a crisp brown paper bag containing a container of coffee. The night man already on duty was leaning his chair against the empty newspaper and candy stand and stared straight ahead as if dreaming, and if so, not of dynamite.

It was not inevitable one of Claire’s keys would fit, but it did, and the glass door with Outer Film on it opened and my feet were on carpet.

Best turn on the lights, two banks of fluorescents momentarily blinking in the dark. Half a dozen big gray-green desks, some hooded typewriters, a World War II Uncle Sam Wants You poster, and nothing to do with films but a few cans on two desks and against a wall the hexagonal carrying cases.

Voices came, and as they passed my door the Outer Film phone nearest the door on what must be the receptionist’s desk started ringing and the steps stopped after a moment. But there was no reason to think the voices that happened now to stop weren’t waiting at the lift, and since it would not be unthinkable for lights to have been left on or for someone trying to finish up to wish not to get stuck on the phone, I let it go. I identified Claire’s desk by the glossy photos on the wall of Big Ben and Stonehenge. In her desk, not to mention stationery, pens, pencils, and the personals some nine-to-fivers feel more intimate with than anything in their bathroom cabinets at home, were two scripts, a modern Greek textbook, folders with invoices and letters, and in the center drawer notes, a notice from the dog hospital, and under a scattering of more letters, one from Dagger that felt in my hand like a look into the future meant for me. It was dated May 24 and it was typed on both sides and too long to recall in every detail. I could not decide whether to take it or not. I could have it copied but Claire would know. Steps echoed toward me, I thought from the elevator — someone who just might know it was unusual for lights to be on at this hour in an office, if in fact it was unusual, but might not know who worked for Aut and who didn’t. The letter was warm and confusing. What a guy! Dagger devoted the opening long paragraph apropos of nothing to a story about his Uncle Stan who had lived in Yonkers and when he heard his voice on one of the old prewar wire recorders had grown a beard and left his wife and gone to live in New Jersey and signed up in radio school and cultivated his voice and later got into eastern mysticism. Then Dagger wrote about the film. The ball-game footage was fast and funny, he’d dropped to 8 fps once so the film would show Umpire Ismay rolling a cigarette like a madman, and there were three moments, two of them not strictly in the game, that Outer Film would want to use, namely certain (shall we say, he said) arresting faces . Don’t worry, Aut will never hear about our initiative from me.

The steps stopped, a phone began to ring, the same phone, I couldn’t tell from the steps or the watery shadow in the glass door if I had two observers or one. This empty office was surrounded by me, or by the trick I sought in its aisles and files, its desks, demented desks every one messy but the receptionist’s, which was too clean on top not to be tidy inside even to some pattern of emptiness. Each desk had a bit of something. No desk had all. Not even Aut’s. Where was Aut’s? Claire I was sure had not been straight with Aut. Tessa had given confidence to Lorna who had given confidence to me. In a dim and unplaced room of recollection I believed I had given confidence to Tessa.