by Ajay Ramachandran
He lumbered down the stairs. It was dark.
‘Goddamn!’ he yelled as he stumbled on the last step and just recovered his balance. It had been a thoughtless and dreamless sleep. That surprised him. He opened the shutters and there was no sun to let in. The sky was of a duct-tape grey colour. A few clouds bowled up from the north. He switched the coffee maker on and settled at his desk.
‘Ch IV–D’s hysterics (=American paranoia), M goes to Cuba (desc. journey), Coquill Sam)’ he read a note. It was in his handwriting, written three days ago. He stared at his typewriter. He couldn’t recall writing any of this. And what or who the hell was Coquill? Or was it a ‘g’? Still it dudn’t make no sense. He yawned, rubbed his eyes, and troubled his mind for a few more minutes for some recollection. The pot was ready. Coffee mug in hand, he walked over to the front yard and picked up the newspaper.
He realised that he had other things to do today, a quick letter to his ex-wife and a short story he promised his publisher-friend of a prestigious magazine. Deciding on what the story – his first in many years – was to be about, he started typing. He had barely gone a few sentences in before being bombarded with adverbs – short ones, long ones, phrasal ones (wryly, politely, lugubriously, dry-as-dustly) in all the dialogues. He kept at it regardless, not wanting to self-censor, when out of the blue he wrote this: The opposite of stressed is desserts. So have cake!, followed by A long-lost friend will get in touch with you soon! He yanked the paper off the typewriter and quickly ran it through the paper-shredder. He looked around as if expecting to see a roomful of accusatory eyes. He walked away from his study, vowing not to return there anytime soon. He did some random things around the house – make breakfast, change light bulbs etc. – hoping to keep his mind away from this horror show. Yet curiosity was burning inside. Let me have another go, it said, and he found himself back in the study. He began the letter: “Apropos of your letter dated…”. He went on, strangely amused, a suicidal schadenfreude creeping inside him. Out came the fortune cookie banalities before the twentieth word was reached. He needed to act. Right NOW. He dialled the sheriff.
‘Howdy, Homer,’ said the sheriff, ‘You all right?’
‘Hey, Bob.’
‘Did you know? Roth’s gone. Last night.’
‘Yeah, I read. Listen…’
‘Liked his movie featuring Audrey Hepburn. You worked with him?’
He wanted to tell him that writing was not a design project.
‘No. We…Listen, Bob. She’s gone, man.’
‘Who’s gone?’
He then told him the whole thing.
‘I will call back. Don’t ya worry.’
His eyes rested on an old black-and-white picture of himself wielding a hoe. Images of boyhood flashed. Prairie dogs and playa lakes and windmills and willows, the smell of cotton commingled with bullshit. The phone rang. It was the sheriff again.
‘I am sending Jim Everhart. His uncle went to school with you. Harvey or Harold…’
‘OK. Thanks.’
‘Good luck.’
He barely touched the omelette he made. He had been miserable no doubt when he gave up smoking. He had felt buffeted, rived, hemmed in. He felt as if a Burmese python had wound itself around him. But he knew he could prevail. Because they were fears. Just phantasms. As real as Roth’s characters. And he was right. His book of essays, Smoke It Out, won the Pulitzer. He didn’t care for prizes and didn’t go to the ceremony. But he could go to the restroom with the ineradicable joy of lancing Roth. Roth, ancient Roth, pneumatic Roth, would have been ‘enveloped in envy’, he wrote to his ex-wife. But this time…
The door bell. A cheerful, lean man was standing outside.
‘How you doing this morning, sir? I am Detective James Everhart with the County Police Department. Call me Jim.’ He shook hands and entered the house.
‘We’ll take care of it for you, sir. Now would you mind answering a few questions?’ he said, taking a note-pad out.
‘Go ahead.’
‘What’s your occupation, sir?’
‘I write.’
‘Author ok?’
‘Yeah.’
‘How old are you?’
‘I am sixty-six.’
‘But a lot fitter than Uncle Harvey. That I can tell.’
Jim smiled.
‘When was the last time you saw…’ Here Jim hesitated.
‘Her.’
‘Her. Sorry, sir. I didn’t know what they call ‘em these days. He or she or it or they, you know…’
‘Well, she was just fine yesterday.’
‘What time would that be?’
‘Must have been evening. Latish.’
‘Hmm, what was the last thing you wrote, sir?’
‘A review.’
‘Of what, may I know, sir?’
‘The work of Larry McMurtry.’
‘I always mix him up with Cormac McCarthy. They are like Pacino and De Niro of books,’ he smiled again. ‘Was she there?’
‘Yeah.’ The writer remembered what he wrote: His earlier novels are largely realist fables, a distinct two-way of the Hellenic mythos and the American western. Prometheus may have brought the fire, but how can you be sure it wouldn’t burn us to death? His main characters maintain a marked cynicism towards railroads, oil…
‘This ever happen before?’
‘We have our fights. But it’s all cleared up when we come to the desk. But to answer your question, officer, no. She has never left in all the time we’ve been together. And that’s practically all my life.’
‘Umm. Tell me about your fights. One of them anyway.’
‘We had a major one over the Spielberg film of my novel. She was stubborn about not messing with the original ending. I was with the director. It sounded too bleak. Can you imagine Tom Cruise delivering a Hamlet in the climax? So I reworked it, much to her displeasure. But it turned out well in the end and she liked it.’
The policeman looked up from his notes. He asked him whether he was aware of any weird behaviour lately. Negative. Any strangers? No. They sat for a while in silence.
‘How did you know?’ continued Jim.
‘What now?’
‘The disappearance. How did ya find out, I mean?’
‘The novel I’m working on…all of a sudden seemed so alien, so difficult…I no longer could show love or betrayal or death. It…it…’
‘Try others? Articles, poems and such.’
‘I began an erotic short story but sex was even harder.’
‘Never thought you were into that stuff, sir.’
‘I am not usually. I wrote—ghostwrote—such stuff when I was a grad student. The dough was good.’
He continued, ‘And I also began a letter to my wife. I was using words like “maybe”, “holistic”, “unbelievable” etc. I think she is gone’
‘You married?’
‘Well, she’s my ex-wife. We’re not on speaking terms.’
‘You live alone?’
‘Yeah. There’s a maid comes couple times a week. Cooks and keeps house.’
‘How’s she cook?’
‘She’s purt good. Why do you ask? Do you reckon…perhaps there’s something here…the cooking could mess with the mind…so…’
Jim looked at the other with bewilderment and kindness. He knew what the man in front of him needed: a long vacation.
‘Just curious, sir. Myself looking for one,’ said the cop.
‘Your friends, sir?’ he continued.
‘My friends?’
‘Your contemporaries. How’s theirs doing?’
‘DeLillo’s seemed a dumb fashionista from the only book of his I read.’
There was a long pause.
‘Others, hmm? McCarthy’s still is a pretentious, culture-grabbing gasconader. Angelou is dead,’ said the writer eventually.
‘Roth too. Did you hear?’
He nodded. He was glad the detective did not pry him any more about the dead man. He already expected the phone to go crazy any time now. Journalists! What do they want to hear? I shall tell them that he was a blowhard, a platitudinarian, a thief, a desk psychologist. Sam Weller knew more about human nature than this amateur. That’s all.
‘Pynchon?’
‘It should be the other way around in his case,’ he gave a faint smile. The policeman did not get the joke. Or he did and found it flat.
‘I haven’t read him.’
‘We will get her, sir. Thank you for answering my questions.’
Let me know if you find anything.’
‘I will, sir. I will.’
Months passed. Our writer mourned, looked back, dodged his promises, ignored his agent’s calls, and did not–could not–type a word. And not a word came from the police either. Despite all of this, he was sleeping well these days and his sex life shot up like water from a broken mains. His blueberries and raspberries were getting on in his garden. He now was certain she was not coming back, was probably dead when he found her missing. Two more months passed this way. One day he got up with three words on his lips: No one knows. It was that simple. He opened the paper of doom, his unfinished novel. He still could not make head or tail out of Coquill Sam. But he kept repeating those three words and began to type away (a new document) as if programmed. A lesser writer would have pumped his fist at the gods, believing this was a comeback of sorts. But he knew the gods were just being nice and were giving him time to put his affairs in order.
No one knows. And it does make a fitting title to my memoir, scenes of which have played out in the Colosseum of my soul all of this year, he thought to himself.
