Shadow Traffic (20 page)

“Yah, I think I do,” Parker said, who was just then hailing a cab. “Maybe you should always remember the way you felt then, no matter what.”

“What do you mean?”

“Just to remember who she really is and what you really felt.”

Nick turned his head away, for a moment, once more fiddling with his glasses.

“But I did remember, didn't I? My problem is I remember too
much, not too little. What I'd really like to do is kill my memories, man.”

“Yah, I hear you. That's something I'd like to kill too—some of them anyway.”

“Yah, it would be nice if we could get to choose.”

“Here,” Parker said, handing Nick a twenty. “You got the drinks. I've got a taxi for you, see it coming up? Just go home and lie down, OK?” Parker said, starting to give Nick a goodbye hug. Nick backed away immediately.

“Don't be doing that bro. You want the driver to think we're a couple of queers?”

Parker laughed and they shook hands.

“Seriously, thanks man. I really appreciate what you did,” Nick said.

Parker opened the door and Nick climbed in with his stooped posture and Parker said, “Take it easy,” and Nick said, “Yah, take it easy bro.” Parker waited till the cab turned the corner, wondering if Nick would look back and couldn't remember the last time someone had thanked him like that. Still, he would talk to the first person in authority he saw at the club about Nick and make sure Trudy found out, too, but he wouldn't look at her while she danced. That wouldn't be right. Even if she approached him afterward he wouldn't do anything with her. It wouldn't be fair to Nick.

It had gotten dark now, but the Combat Zone suddenly seemed softly lit, like a strange kind of Christmas tree. Just before Parker opened the door to The Dolphin, he looked up and saw a half moon in the purplish sky.

At least I know it's a moon now, he thought.

It began when the air in his apartment changed. It grew heavier, becoming almost filmy, and had a faint but definite acrid smell. When he started to feel hotter and woke up in the night perspiring, he looked in his bathroom mirror. His hazel eyes looked watery and his hair seemed grayer—his whole face looked as if the pale gray of his hair had spread over, it covering his normal color. Was it the flu? His doctor ruled that out. Of course, his doctor knew about his somewhat hypochondriacal nature, also knew he'd been a painter once. He all but said it was due to his easily stimulated imagination or to staying inside too much where he now worked with his computer. But whatever it was persisted—his apartment still felt occupied—and tonight when he felt something move (not on the floor exactly, but over it) and the air smell worse than ever, he finally became convinced that hell had invaded it and he ran out of his place to find a bar.

Would his drink never come? He'd taken a wrong turn and missed his usual place and was now at one that seemed to be run by the lazy and will-less. When it finally came he took two deep swallows and closed his eyes, trying to imagine he was at a beach or else in a grove filled with pine needles that led to a clear lake.

“Hey, bud,” someone said, forcing him to open his eyes. Sure enough, a surprisingly well-dressed man was sitting next to him, and Mason immediately tried to recall whether the man had actually said, “Hey, bud” or “Hey, bro.” “Bro” would be more ridiculous, although a warmer attempt at communication, whereas “bud” was more appropriate for the occasion but also, somehow, more anachronistic.

He moved his head a few degrees toward the man and nodded, then returned to his drink. Already he'd made up his mind to leave probably after his first drink and definitely after his second. He wouldn't go home, of course, not after what happened. Instead, he'd go to the bar he meant to go to in the first place, where people left you alone.

What was this now? The man had turned toward him again and cleared his throat. He was either going to gargle in front of him or else assault him with more words.

“Hell of a wind out there tonight,” the man said. His blue eyes darted around uneasily as if a wind was moving them.

“You got that right,” he said, to say something, but worried that now he'd encouraged the man too much. Then a silence followed while the man drank. Perhaps it would be over now. Once more he altered the angle of his head to his left, but the man began talking again anyway.

“You come to this place much?”

“No, this is my first time. Took a wrong turn somewhere and wound up here. What about you?”

“I've come here once or twice, when other places were too crowded.”

“Yuh, there's not much here, is there?”

“It's pretty minimal,” the man said.

“Sort of how I picture hell,” he said, then regretted his words,
shivered even as he thought of his apartment, but the man laughed.

“I hear you,” he said.

Hear what? Know what? Just what do you think you could know about me, he thought, thinking of his home with a shudder, and how could you know it, Mason wanted to say, but of course had to keep what had happened to his home a secret.

“There've been many nights when I felt the same way, when it was like being in a part of hell. Fortunately, that doesn't happen anymore, but it used to.”

He turned toward the man again.

“So, what's the secret? Why doesn't it happen anymore?”

The man sighed a little. It was barely audible but Mason heard it almost as if the man felt
he
was the one being put upon.

“You really want to know? OK, first I had to absolutely come clean with myself.” The man paused as if to let the impact of his fatuous revelation sink in. He cleared his throat portentously again before resuming. “Then I heard about an organization that could help people like me, people being eaten up by their sense of injustice, and fortunately I gave them a chance and went to their meetings, and that's really what turned me around.”

Mason nodded rapidly a few times. It was odd not to know if he were interested or not. “What's the name of this organization, or is that a secret I shouldn't be asking about?”

“It's called the Global Justice Society, GJS for short, and I'm actually heading over there for a meeting in a few minutes.”

It had been a long time since he'd thought about that word— “justice.” It sounded both vengeful and satisfying and so ultimately unreal.

“What does the society do exactly? Sounds like it has a pretty ambitious agenda.”

“It does have an ambitious agenda and now that you mention it, it has a pretty intimidating title, I suppose. But the society really works with just one person at a time.”

“How so?”

“It interviews you to determine the source of injustice in your life and, more importantly, what you can do about it, and then it puts you into the right division that will help you get what you deserve.”

“That sounds more like heaven than any society I know of.”

The man laughed. “You have a good sense of humor, and I don't blame you for being skeptical,” he finally said. “When I first heard about Global Justice I was, too. I mean ‘Global Justice,' that sounded way too grandiose for me. But the thing about the society is, it doesn't try to change the world, just help one person at a time in the way they need to be helped. That's really it.”

The man talked a little more about it and then invited him to go to their meeting, adding that they served hors d'oeuvres and free drinks.

Incredible that he was walking with the strange man from the bar in South Philly en route to a justice society meeting, no less. Just before they began their walk the man told him his name was Archie—which didn't help. He hadn't known an Archie since the character in the comic strip he used to read as a kid, and yet he went with him anyway. They walked down Broad Street past the University of the Arts. While they walked Archie talked more about the society (although he hadn't asked him to), as if he were a tour guide obliged to point things out. Mason didn't listen to much of it. It was a January night and quite cold out and they were walking further away from his apartment with each step.
Maybe I dread going back there even more than I realize, he thought. Maybe I can never return. He did manage to hear Archie say that tonight there was an awards ceremony at the society, held by the literature division but open to the general public. When he asked what kind of award, Archie said, “The National Book Awards—the Justice Society National Book Awards, that is. You look confused, but really you don't think that any of the other world's literary awards are fair, do you? That there's one scintilla of justice in their selection? They're as corrupt as can be, just like the Academy Awards or any other of their awards. It's all deals and politics. That's one of the things we correct at Global Justice.”

He mumbled something, letting the wind eat most of his words while they kept walking. At the outskirts of Center City Archie took a left on Walnut Street, explaining that the meeting was being held at a private residence. Soon, in fact, Archie was ringing the buzzer in what appeared to be some kind of code until the door opened and they went inside. About thirty people, quite dressed up for the occasion, were seated in the large living room of a three-story townhouse. He had to sign some obligatory papers asking for his name and address.

“It's a good thing we're fast walkers,” Archie said, “looks like the ceremony's about to start any minute.”

Mason nodded then watched Archie waving and shaking hands with a few people near him and saying, almost proudly, as he pointed to him, “I've brought a guest,” after which he felt obliged to smile and shake hands himself.

He couldn't pay much attention to the ceremony because he kept visualizing his apartment and wondering if hell really had taken
it over, and if so, how he could ever go back there to get his things.

From what he could tell it was an absurdly bloated ceremony, as most ceremonies were, filled with meaningless thank yous and transparently ridiculous attempts at self-modesty. He didn't even hear the names of the first few awards. Instead, he was remembering taking a bath as a child and wondering how many years his father, then in his late fifties, had left to live. His father had been dead for a long time now, and lately he'd been wondering during the baths he still took how many more years he had left himself.

Finally, a hush fell upon the room and he heard the master of ceremonies say, “And the winner of the National Book Award for Fiction is Geoffrey Crumple.”

Instantly the room burst into applause, and a bearded man in horn-rimmed glasses and a suit that was too small for him rose to accept the award. He'd never heard of Geoffrey Crumple. He was not the best-read man in Philadelphia but he still read, fairly avidly in fact, until a few years ago, and yet he'd never heard of him. Even more absurd was why this modest, local ceremony was called the National Book Awards. Clearly it was not the real National Book Awards, so why steal its title?

As the Justice Society cleared the chairs for the reception, which he thought he would attend just long enough to get some free snacks and drinks, he asked Archie about this.

“Geoffrey Crumple is a brilliant novelist and deserves the National Book Award far more than the person who supposedly won it.”

“Where can I buy his books?”

“Geoffrey's too uncompromising a writer to be published
commercially. You can read him for free on the Internet. Just go to his website,
www.crumple.com
.”

“Are the other winners published exclusively on the Internet too?”

“Yes, all of them are. Just pick up a program before you leave and you'll find their websites.”

He nodded and mumbled, “Will do.”

“So, Mason, what do you think? Pretty impressive ceremony, wasn't it? You'll have to come next week. We'll be awarding the Nobel Peace Prize—it's maybe our biggest event of the year.”