A Self Made Monster (24 page)

“So you copied his handwriting?”

“No. Every student’s name is printed out by a computer onto the class list.”

Holly remembered: her name was in caps on the left-hand side, followed by her SS number. Then came the righteous row of glorious grades.

“So what I did was—” Jimmy leaned forward. “—I copied everyone’s name and number down, then I took a few of those blank grade sheets. Last week I found a printer in the lab that printed out just like those grade sheets, so I used a word-processing program and entered each student name and number onto the new sheet.”

“Color me impressed!”

He laughed. “It was a breeze. Except when I came to your name, I must have…” He raised his eyebrows. “Put in the wrong grades.”

“What about your grades?”

“I didn’t want to push my luck. I just changed one grade to a ‘C’. Resartus is a senile idiot, but he still might remember how bad my grades suck.”

Holly was already daydreaming of a publishing gig in Manhattan: a suite of offices, deep pile blue carpeting and leather furniture, private secretary, and a massive oak desk on which rested a computer, TV-sized computer screen, and fax/copier/printer.

“Now all I need is that paper,” Holly said. She did not see how she could get it from Edward, but she was not worried. She simply had to get it. So she would.

“Can’t you write a paper yourself?”

“Sure, if I want to get a ‘D’ or a ‘C’ if I’m lucky.”

“I can get it for you.”

“I didn’t know you and Edward are on speaking terms.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

She was starting to appreciate Jimmy. He had brass, and obstacles did not bother him. She rewarded him with a toothy grin.

“You’ve done way too much for me,” Holly said quietly, “and there’s no way I can ever pay you back.”

Yes there is, Jimmy thought.

“I’ll get the paper back from Edward myself.”

“But if you need a little help—” Jimmy nodded meaningfully.

“I wouldn’t hesitate to ask.”

“This is Holly Dish, and I want to apologize.”

“For what?”

“What do you think?”

“There’s more than one thing to choose from. By the way, how did you know my phone would be back in service?”

“Try to make just a little sense, and we’ll go from there.”

Edward’s forced laugh sounded like a bark. “You play dumb pretty well, but you can’t keep up the act. You’re really not dumb.”

Do I act dumb? she wondered. “I called to apologize, Edward, and I have. I don’t know what you’re talking about and I guess I don’t care.”

“You really don’t know?” Edward did not believe her, but he wanted to keep her on the line. “You didn’t call the power company? The phone company?”

“God you’re weird.”

“You didn’t lock me in my apartment? Didn’t push firecrackers down my car’s muffler? Didn’t send me a prescription to
‘Lesbos’
?”

 
“Lesbians?”

“
’
Lesbos
’
.” He picked up the magazine; it was a jumble of lesbian porno and paranoid politics. “A magazine for lesbians from the fine folks at Second Sex Comes First.”

“Gross.” She wiped her spittle from the phone.

Holly’s revulsion gave Edward pause. Maybe she didn’t pull all those jokes on him.

“Where would you even find gross stuff like that?” A little girl’s titter enlivened her question.

“You don’t know?” Edward tried to sound skeptical, but he guessed she did not send him the magazine.

“You probably want some fag mag. Tight butts with chest hair and trim mustaches.”

“Some of the women in this magazine have mustaches, and—”

Holly faked a huge wretch.

“—the women in the videotape would curl your hair, and—”

“A video!”

“—I don’t mean the hair on your head.”

“Enough!”

“These women would start with the hair under your arms and slither downward.”

“For Christ’s sake, shut up.” Holly wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “What a rank piece of garbage. How can you watch it?”

“I didn’t watch it all the way through.”

“Just some of it,” Holly giggled.

“It came with the magazine.”

“I can’t believe you think I sent that to you.”

Edward was convinced. “Thanks for calling. Apology accepted.”

“Good.” She frowned. She was not any closer to getting the term paper about Dylan Thomas—if it existed.

“Let’s forget about the whole thing,” Edward suggested.

“Forgotten.”

Like a chess player, Edward made his move: “I’m having an end of the semester party. Just to show what a good sport I am, I’m inviting you.”

“Maybe I can make it. What day?”

Edward had not decided, but Friday sounded good. “I’ve got a previous engagement on Friday,” Holly lied.

“Did I say Friday? I meant Saturday.”

“In that case, I’m free. Who are you inviting?”

“Several people. You’ll see.”

He had not invited anyone else yet, and she knew it. “Maybe I’ll bring a friend.”

“Sure. How about your roommate Kris?”

“She’s too busy writing essays that were due last month. She’ll be locked in the dorm until next Christmas trying to catch up.”

Alex had been anxious about the letter, but he did not expect such a quick reply. His heart rate actually increased—a curious vestige of human behavior—when he examined his mail. The return address almost shouted at him: Herman Adler Literary Agency, 54660 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York. Alex wondered if Herman still ran the agency. Was he even alive? Herman was middle-aged, overweight, and sweaty when Alex first met him. Herman took his high blood pressure medication between cigarettes, and he waved off David’s warnings about smoking. Alex liked Herman; anybody who cheerily dismissed David, the smug family star, was likable.

“That guy’ll be dead soon,” David said spitefully after the meeting. On the flight home, David kept talking about Herman’s nicotine-stained fingertips and shortness of breath. “Don’t ever smoke, Alex.” David gripped Alex’s face and twisted it toward him. “I mean it. Smoking will kill you, just like it will kill that fat agent.”

Alex grinned at the memory, lit a cigarette, and read the letter.

My dear friend Alex:

How good to hear from you! I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw the outline from you, but then I remembered: you’re a special case. Why should I be surprised? I’ve occasionally wondered about you and what you were doing. I even planned to call you once, but I had a heart attack that very afternoon—I kid you not! And that afternoon was three years ago! I decided you were bad luck, and that I should wait for you to call me (just kidding. I was ordered to not engage in any business lest I suffer stress, and unfortunately as I’ve grown older I get so agitated over anything). I’ve just gotten back in a workaday routine in the last eight or nine months.

I’m intrigued by your proposal, and I enjoyed your sample chapters. Actually, parts are as polished as a final draft. You’ve still got the knack, my boy, of writing some major league work! Some problems, to be sure (seems the doctor’s business would not suffer because of his mishap—as a revived corpse, would not the desperately ill seek him out?) but I don’t think they are serious and we can work out the thematic kinks and blind spots, of which there are very few to be sure. Send me the manuscript when it’s done. Can you get it done in six months? Good, I thought you could.

I won’t kid you. Your career does not exist. You will be, as far as publishers are concerned, almost a new author. But such matters are trivial. I’m so pleased you’ve fought bravely against schizophrenia. You’re something of a miracle, my boy. Some schizophrenics suffer debilitating language deterioration as they get older—but then again, you’re not really old yet, are you? And as I asserted earlier, you’re a special case certainly.

Cheers,

Herman

Alex carefully folded the letter and placed it in his file cabinet. Now he needed blood for energy, blood for endurance, blood for concentration. Edward Head’s blood. After he had the blood in capsules, Alex could fly through the manuscript.

He lit another Dunhill and decided to celebrate Herman’s letter by writing a page or two. He looked on his desk in the den, but the manuscript was not there. It was not in the living room or bathroom.

Jimmy held his breath when he heard the rattling of the janitor’s keys. What was he doing here now? Jimmy wondered. He should be in the other suite. Jimmy cursed silently and scrambled beneath Alex’s desk.

The light came on and footsteps approached the desk.

“I’ll be damned,” a voice said. “There you are, right where I left you.” When he realized the voice was Alex Resartus’s, Jimmy clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and silently prayed: Please God, protect me from this jackass. I need to graduate, and I won’t graduate if I get caught in this office at 11:30 p.m. Professors aren’t that understanding.

Alex frowned at the papers scattered on his desktop. He never left papers scattered on his desk. No matter how many he had, he forced himself to sort them carefully and place them in neat stacks. Without this habit, Alex would never find anything.

“Who the hell do they hire these day!” Alex yelled. He never did like the janitor for this building: pony-tailed little twerp, blue shirt bunched around his waist and pants sliding down his hips. He always left the wastepaper basket by the door, and Alex liked it next to his desk. “Can’t do the simplest goddamn things right!” He struck the desktop, and the computer monitor did a little dance.

Alex gathered his manuscript, put the wastepaper basket by his desk, and slammed the door.

Jimmy trembled under the desk for ten minutes before gathering the nerve to move. His neck and back were stiff, and he stood up slowly. He swore when he felt something wet.

He had pissed his pants.

Red-faced and wet-crotched, he cracked open the office window and smoked. After five cigarettes, he was calm enough to think about walking to the frat house. He double-checked for cigarette ashes. When his nerves failed him, he had one more cigarette. The lit end of the cigarette fell to the desk and landed atop a sheet of paper. Jimmy instantly flicked the ash with his middle finger. It rolled, a tiny ember, across the desk and disappeared over the edge.

Keys jangled outside the door.

Jimmy had called Holly Tuesday morning and told her to meet him in the union. He sounded upset and refused to talk over the phone.

He sat in the corner, back to the windows. Shoulders hunched and hair uncombed, he looked hungover. He did not look at her when she sat down.

“Hi.”

“You won’t believe what happened to me last night.”

“Then don’t bother telling me.”

“I have to.” He looked forlornly at his coffee cup.

“Cut the drama.” Her heart was racing. She wanted to pull Jimmy’s hair and slap the pout off his little face.

“I was in the office last night, looking for the test. I heard some keys jangling. You know, like on a key ring. I hid under the desk and who comes in but Resartus. He was looking for something, too.”

Holly ordinarily would have enjoyed the image of Jimmy Stubbs trembling under a desk. But not today. She was tense, waiting to hear what she dreaded:
I told him you’re in on it
.

“What did he say?”

“To me?”

“No, to the walls, you little piss ant.”

“What a partner in crime you’ve turned out to be.” Jimmy looked at Holly with disdain, paused to light a cigarette. “Well, to the walls he said something like, ‘Goddammit, who works around here,’ and ‘I’ll rip off his face,’ or ‘I’ll stuff him into the goddamned wastepaper basket. Maybe he’ll put it in the right place.’ He hit the desk, too.”

“He didn’t hit you?” She hoped so.

“No. He didn’t see me.”

“He didn’t see—then what happened?”

“Just what I said.” He cackled. “He was looking for something, and I guess he was mangled at the janitor. He seemed really mangled about the wastepaper basket being in the wrong place. You know, just stupid stuff like that.”

“I should slap the butt off your face for scaring me like that!”

“And just as I was about to leave, I heard the key ring again, but it was the janitor. He was swearing, too. ‘Who does he think he is?’ and ‘I’ll tell him to kiss my ass’ and so on. I thought, ‘I’m screwed!’ but he only straightened Resartus’s desk and emptied the wastepaper basket. Resartus must have yelled at him about cleaning better.”

Jimmy took a long pull on his cigarette and performed a parlor trick: exhaling the smoke through one nostril then the other.

“That was a nice little adventure, but we still need the test. The final exam is on Thursday. That’s the day after tomorrow, in case you’ve lost your calendar.”