After the Workshop (30 page)

I saw from the corner of my eye, however, a shadowy figure lurking in an alley, and as I picked up speed, I heard, “Psssssssssssssst.” When I didn’t stop walking, the man said, “Hold on. Please.”

I stopped and turned. It was S. S. In the illogical way that my life worked, the moment I stopped looking for one person and began searching for another, I found the person I had given up hope looking for. I cinched Vince’s coat tighter.

“Jack!” he said after I had stopped walking. “Friend! I
thought
it was you. I’ve been looking all over, but to no avail.”

“Where’ve you been looking? In alleys?”

“In alleys! In thoroughfares! Wherever the scent led me,” he said cryptically, as though he were a man-beast and I just so happened to have caught him while he stood on two legs instead of sniffing down on all four. He unzipped his coat and pulled out a manuscript box.
My
manuscript box. “I can’t do it,” he said. “I can’t just steal this from you. I was wrong to think I could.”

“My novel,” I said. I had every intention of taking it from him, but when S. S. actually extended it toward me, I stepped back, as if it were explosive.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“I don’t want it,” I said.

“Don’t be silly,” S. S. said. “It’s yours. You’ve toiled over it. For years!” he said, lifting the box up and shaking it at me.

The mere suggestion that I should take it back filled me with a lurching dread. What would that mean? That I would have to sit down and finish it? Even if I were to hide it, I would know it was still there, the way murderers who’d buried their victims’ remains in forest preserves must sense their looming presence every time they drove by.

“Here,” S. S. said. “Please.”

“No!” I shouted. “I don’t want it.”

“Easy, now,” S. S. said. “Take it easy.”

“It’s yours,” I said, nodding toward the box. “I want you to have it.”

“I swear on my dear mother’s grave,” S. S. said, raising his free hand, “that this is the most cherished gift I have ever received.”

I was shivering—it was as though my body was having a physiological response to the death of my novel. “I’m freezing my ass off out here,” I said. “How long have you been outside?”

“I’ve lost track of time,” S. S. said. “A few hours? I should be careful, I suppose, or I’ll end up like your poor neighbor, forced to spend my waning days in the buff.”

“I’m heading home,” I said. “Do you want to crash on my couch?”

“A couch,” S. S. said. “I can’t begin to tell you how delectable that sounds!”

We turned toward the alley’s mouth when a squad car’s lights began to swirl. There was no siren, so I had assumed that a police officer had arrived to deal with the streetlights that had gone on the blink, but when S. S. and I took another step, the cop’s voice came over the PA: “You two. Hold it right there.”

The cop was disturbingly young, practically a child. I saw this as he approached us in his too-stiff coat and plastic-wrapped hat.

“Where did you two come from?” he asked.

“I came from the Mill,” I answered calmly.

“I came from the womb, my good man,” S. S. said.

Even with sheets of snow slapping our heads, the cop didn’t blink. His eyes were trained on S. S., as if he had come face to face with the man who had molested him in childhood but wasn’t entirely sure now what to do with him.

“We’re heading back to my place,” I said. “This man is a visiting author and—”

“Quiet,” the cop said. “I wasn’t speaking to you.” He took a step closer to S. S. and said, “Have you had a few tonight?”

“Why, sir, I’ve been drinking since early this morning,” S. S. said. “Isn’t that right, Jack?”

The cop looked at me now. “And you? Have you been drinking since this morning?”

“Don’t lie, Jack,” S. S. said.

“Yeah, sure, I had a few drinks this morning. But then I took a nap,” I said. “And when I woke up, I wrote the opening of a new book. And
then
I started drinking again.”

“You’re both under arrest for public intoxication,” the cop said. “You have the right to remain silent,” he began.

When I looked over at S. S., his smile was gone, and I saw him for what he really was: a tired old man. The cop frisked S. S. and then frisked me.

“What’s this?” he asked, reaching into Vince’s coat pocket. He pulled out a pill bottle. He extracted a small flashlight from his holster and shined it on the bottle.

“Uh-huh. Do you want to tell me what you’re doing with Flunitrazepam?” he asked.

“With
what
?” I asked.

“Roofies,” he said. “You slip these into drinks when you’re at the bar? Is that it?”

“This isn’t even my coat,” I said.

“Right,” he said. “You think I haven’t heard that before?” He shook the bottle, frowned, then twisted off the cap. “It’s your lucky night, I guess.”

“How so?”

“Bottle’s empty,” the cop said. “You must’ve already had your fun this month.” He put the bottle and cap into his own pocket and said, “Don’t think I’m not going to run a thorough search on you. It’s scum like you who are ruining this city.” He cuffed me, opened the back door of the squad car, and shoved me inside by pushing down on my head. A few moments later, S. S. was sitting next to me, also cuffed. When the cop opened his door and tossed my novel onto the passenger seat, I saw S. S. wince ever so slightly, as though the novel were a small pet being cruelly treated.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We’ll be all right.” And though S. S. nodded, he didn’t remove his gaze from the manuscript box the whole way to the police department.

—WINSTON CHURCHILL

A
FTER S. S. and I were separated at the police station, I asked for my one phone call with every intention of calling someone, but when an officer led me to a pay phone at the end of the hall, I realized that there was no one I could call.

“Are you going to use that phone or not?”

I shook my head, returned the receiver to the hook, and was led to my cell, where, safely guarded from the chaos of my life, I fell into a sound sleep.

I didn’t see S. S. again until the next morning when, wearing orange jumpsuits and white booties, we were handcuffed together and driven the few short blocks to the courthouse in an old Ford van for an 8:00 AM appearance before the judge.

Upon arrival, S. S. said, “Ah, yes. The Gulag of the Plains.”

“Quiet!” a policeman barked.

One by one, after insinuating that a plea of innocence would only piss him off and result in at least a month of jail time, the judge asked us if we were guilty, and one by one, we entered our guilty plea. Afterward, we were processed (S. S. paid my fine as well as his own), taken back to the police station, given our belongings, and set free.

I waited in the police station lobby for S. S., and when he finally showed up, whiskery and clutching my novel, we walked outside together, where a taxi that S. S. had called was waiting for us. I climbed in and slid across the cold seat. S. S. eased himself inside, giving the cab driver my address.

“We’ll take you home,” S. S. said, “and then I’m off to your lovely airport.”

At the word
lovely
, the cabbie glanced in the rearview mirror.

“I would be happy,” S. S. said, “delighted, even, if you agreed to look at our novel once I’m finished writing it. If you don’t like what I’ve done, you can take it back from me. What do you say, old companion?”

“No, no,” I said. “The book’s yours. Do with it as you see fit.”

S. S. nodded. “Very well, then.”

“I’m sorry about last night,” I said. “You know, the two of us getting arrested and all.”

“Oh, please,” S. S. said. “It was cheaper than a night at the Sheraton. And nicer, really. Free transportation. Everyone was rather friendly, too.”

I expected the cabdriver, after pulling up in front of my apartment, to kick us both out, but he didn’t. After I had stepped into a knee-high snowdrift, S. S. rattled my novel at me and said, “We’ll share the Pulitzer, you and I.”

“Take care,” I said.

“Always!” S. S. said, and I shut the door.

I looked up and saw M. Cat staring down at me from his bay window. The bandages were off his hands, and he was wearing an old cable-knit sweater with leaping deer across the front and tan corduroys. He waved at me, and I waved back.

In the narrow stairwell, I came face to face with Lauren Castle, who was carrying her suitcase.

“Back to New York?” I asked.

“Did I just miss that cab?” she said. “I was trying to get your attention from the window.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t notice.”

“Of course you didn’t. Why am I not surprised?”

“Still going to become an agent?” I asked.

“My one client reneged on his contract,” she said, rolling her eyes up toward M. Cat’s apartment, “and my other potential client doesn’t want to publish a book. I guess it’s back to the Publicity Department for me.”

“I may need an agent,” I offered.

Lauren merely snorted and said, “What? For
your
book? I won’t hold my breath. No offense.”

“None taken,” I said.

Inside my apartment, there were no blinking lights on my answering machine, no gas burners turned all the way up, no novel that needed to be finished. Other than being dead broke and potentially unemployed, I was in pretty good shape.

I showered, put on fresh clothes, and, with yesterday’s pages in my back pocket, drove to the Sheraton to call Lucy for my next writing prompt. Amazingly, even though I had woken up this morning in a jail cell, I still managed to make my appointments, a testament to either the efficiency of the Iowa City Police Department or my will to continue on—I wasn’t sure which. And yet there I stood in the hotel lobby. The elevator binged, two doors opened, and Tate Rinehart stepped out. I put the phone down.

“Tate,” I said.

“Oh, hey, Jack,” he said. He looked nervously around. “I should have called to tell you. I’m taking a cab back to the airport.”

“A cab?” I said. I had completely forgotten that I was supposed to take him back to Cedar Rapids this morning.

“Actually,” Tate said, “I’m heading over to the hospital first to see Vince, and
then
I’m going to the airport.”

“The hospital? What’s wrong with Vince?”

Something caught Tate’s eye, and he squinted at me, sizing me up. I looked down and saw that I was wearing Vince’s coat. Tate quickly regained his composure. He said, “Someone found him passed out on the river last night. Luckily he didn’t break through.”

“The guy does drink a lot,” I conceded.

Tate pulled the strap of his messenger bag higher up onto his shoulder. “Apparently, he has a concussion,” Tate said. “They were afraid there was internal bleeding in the brain, but they did a CAT scan and didn’t find any. They did find a hairline fracture in his skull, though. Possibly two fractures.”

I imagined Larry McFeeley’s house surrounded by a SWAT team, urging him to come peacefully outside. “Does he know what happened?” I asked.

Tate shook his head. “Poor guy can’t remember a thing.”

“Jesus. That’s too bad.”

“I know.” Tate sighed. We stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time. Then Tate opened his mouth, as if to speak, but then closed it.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing.”

“No, go on. You were going to say something.”

“It’s just that—” He paused, thinking of the best way to convey whatever news ticked before his eyes. “I didn’t take the job.”

“Oh.”

“I didn’t think it was right,” he said. “This is your city.”

I was about to ask him what the hell he was talking about—after all, I didn’t have any connection to the Workshop anymore—but another elevator opened, and Lucy Rogan stepped out into the lobby.

“There you are!” Lucy said. “You have something for me?”

“I do?”

The look she gave me was that of a stern but loving teacher waiting for her promising but lazy student to remember the last thing she had told him.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “Here.” I handed over my assignment. “Sorry!”

I wanted to introduce Lucy to Tate Rinehart, but Tate had shuffled away, the frosted-over automatic doors sliding open, a taxi already waiting for him.

“Friend?” Lucy asked.

“No,” I said. “Vanquished foe.”

Lucy smiled. “Are you running him out of town?”

“On a rail,” I said.

T
HE COROLLA WAS nauseatingly loud, but Lucy said nothing. Instead of driving us back to my apartment, where we could continue chipping away at my writer’s block, I asked Lucy if she minded taking a detour so that I could stop off at Oakland Cemetery on the north side of town.

“I need to visit a grave,” I said.

Lucy nodded solemnly, then touched my hand for comfort.

The famous Black Angel resided in Oakland Cemetery. It was a bronze angel that stood eight feet tall. Over the many years it had been there, the metal had oxidized, turning the angel black. Unlike most graveyard angels that look up with open wings for ascension into heaven, the Black Angel peered down with its wings partially closed. For years, rumors about the Black Angel persisted—the reason why it had turned black and the powers it possessed—but the rumor that appealed to me the most was this one: If you rubbed the hand of the Black Angel, you yourself would die shortly thereafter. By and large, I wasn’t a superstitious man, but there had been days, after my novel had stalled and I saw no chance of ever resuscitating it, when I had driven to Oakland Cemetery and rubbed the angel’s hand, tempting the Gods of Superstition and Conjecture to reveal themselves to me.