Exclusive Excerpt: "Fugue"
A New Novel by Paul A.Toth

Chapter 7 Continued: Scatter them Jesus

     "Scatter them, Jesus."
     "I will scatter. Thanks for the money."
     He left while I stared at the bedroom door. Now something stopped me from looking inside, but I wasn't sure I wanted to know, and then again I did.
     Meanwhile, I was thinking about all the booze Mary had mentioned. Last time I'd drank, bad things happened. I shook until I thought I might split in two or start an earthquake. Before that, other bad things happened. Rosie tried to whack me, but I caught her wrist. I held it for several seconds, considering whether I might twist her arm back in retribution for all the blows I'd absorbed. But I never found out what I would have done because her free arm swung toward me, fist landing in my stomach so hard I dropped into the coffee table, smashing the glass but somehow only scraping myself on the way through.
     That was our last two-way domestic incident. Rosie made me drive all the way to Gooseberry for anger management classes. There were twenty other men at the meetings, and none of them looked like they'd taken three thousand smacks in the face. I doubt they told questioning strangers their marks had been caused by falls down basement stairs, either. Rosie and I didn't even have a basement.
     After that, I never drank again. Instead, I uses my imagination to fill the gaps. I became hyper-aware of sunlight and its various effects. For a long time, the world was a cubist's delight, but that effect had washed way, and it was hard to remember more had been gained than lost by quitting alcohol.
     I went to the kitchen and opened the cabinet. I remembered the wood-barrel smell of whiskey before opening the bottle. Taking a sip would add a "Collect a Kick in the Ass" space to the Monopoly board, but the Wanderer liked his drink; he moved 'round the board in the silver automobile. Drink eased his conscience, glued his travels together into a Grandma Moses' jigsaw puzzle. I was a pastoral drunk, innocent as a valley. But the next day, life was painted by Dali.
     Just then, the apartment door opened. I closed the cabinet. I heard keys drop on the floor and then I heard crying. I turned the corner to see Mary shaking and kicking like a frightened girl on a swing. I sat beside her and put my arm around her shoulder, pulling her close. I could have kissed her then, pecked her cheek in sympathy, then kissed her temple a little longer, until I finally kissed those lips already puckered in sorrow over something that must have involved our visitor from the south.
     "Jesus was just here."
     "Oh, John, what did he say?"
     "He said 'thank you' when I gave him a thousand dollars."
     "Gave him what?"
     "I paid him off. So whatever's behind that bedroom door won't have to be there any longer. It's done. Go get a real secretary's job. Jesus is pulling a Lazarus on your stuffed animals tomorrow. Dennis will drop them off, soon as he's done picking them up off the floor. I won't even ask what it's all about. I've got my own mystery."
     "A real Hardy Boy."
     "I'm tired. I've had enough for one day."
     "Turtle eggs."
     "Huh?"
     "I'll solve it for you. I deliver Mexican turtle eggs. Thieves in Mexico steal them off the coast. There's immigrants can't live without 'em, so the gang smuggles the eggs across the border. I'm sure they smuggle more than that. I keep the eggs in the back room and make deliveries. If you find a little shack in the middle of nowhere, ask for turtle eggs. The waitress might laugh or she might give you a little smile and come back with endangered species on a plate. I was making one last delivery and keeping the money for myself, so I could pay them off. I don't know what I was thinking; like they wouldn't know they never got paid for that batch. Now I can't look my animals in the eyes again."
     "They're stuffed."
     "They know."
     Now she was crying again, back to the Mary I used to know, begging to be kissed.
     She said, "Jesus wasn't such a bad guy. I don't know what else he does, but to me, anyway, he's kind enough. Not that I slept with him, but he wanted to. That's how this all got started. They've got an office outside of town. I took an interview there. First, I just wrote down phone messages. Weird messages, long distance, in Spanish. Next, they asked if I could handle books. Then they asked if I could work from home. And finally they asked if I would keep something for them and make deliveries when necessary. They told me what it was; I said no. Jesus smiled and said they didn't offer unemployment benefits. He cracked his knuckles and said they didn't have Workers' Comp, either. He suggested a dumb white girl in the middle of nowhere would look innocent enough carrying a box into a restaurant and would get paid well to do it."
     "But you're not dumb. Why'd you stick around in the first place?"
     She snapped out of my arms, sweet Mary snuffed out, a smoldering cigarette butt in her place. "I was trying to find myself." Her shoulders slumped. She touched my face, but I jerked away. "What's the matter? Look, I'm sorry. I'm so angry at myself. Will you stay tonight, in case he comes back?"
     "He won't come back, not inside this apartment, anyway. He keeps his word."
     "But you need some rest for the road." She clasped my hands. "You know we've started something. Between us, I mean."
     I knew she was playing me, but for what I didn't know. Still, my old violin had been in the case for a long time. It wanted new music, a little Mozart or maybe some Bach, a break in the Wagner. I had an idea, something I would do for her. Then I'd see which Mary was stronger before I decided whether to stay the night.
     "I'm going for a little while," I said.
     "Can't I go with you? What if he --"
     "He won't come back now, but I will, in one hour. Just sit tight."
     I had remembered a shopping strip around the corner, and I was hoping the store I needed was still there. It was, and they had what I wanted....what Mary needed.
     I drove home with a box of my own, smaller than hers. I parked and walked up the sidewalk. The Menace was on the way out and shook his head, muttering, "Fucker." Dennis, I thought, you'll never wander far. You'll still be right here swinging your keys for the next twenty years, poking around underwear drawers but not women. I bet he knew what size Mary wore, and I had a feeling his fantasy ended with the chalk-lined form of my body.
     "Don't worry, Dennis, I won't be staying long."
     "Good riddance."
     I imagined music boxes lined the sidewalk. For once, the String Concerto of Jonathan Thomas would not be obscured by obscene spirituals.
     Mary buzzed me in and I went to her door, this time left unlocked.
     "A present?"
     "It's for you, to make amends." I set the box on the floor and opened the cage inside it. The turtle poked his head out, probably wondering just what the hell humans were trying to pull on him.
     "What's this?"
     "He'll help you forget. It's the kind of thing Jesus would do, the one with a 'J'. Not that I'm a believer."
     She set it on the floor. "Run, turtle."
     I swear a woman's hair can fool a man either way. Some wear a hardhat shell just like a turtle, but they're soft underneath. Others wear it long and smooth, but they're cut and tough below. Some have multiple personalities for wigs and you'd never guess they're bald. Mary was the turtle type, hidden by a flap chop or secretary's doo, trying to amputate her vulnerability but collapsing back into it at the end of the night, teddy bear at her side. Now the stuffed animals were gone and she looked at me as if I had button eyes and a furry gut. I told myself, "Watch out, John Thomas." I wasn't talking to myself, exactly, only the part that wanted one thing the rest of me did not.
     She retreated toward the bed. The turtle moved along the carpet, probably wondering how long its furlough would last. He had everything but striped jail fatigues and with a few more feet of height would have wanted to shoot hoops in the sunlight. Instead, he watched me make for the bed. He looked as though he knew it was a bad idea.
     "Come on," she said, patting the mattress.
     "Let's not step on him. I'll put him in the cage."
     "Just let him wander for a while. You of all people should know that's what he wants."
     I thought of Rosie and said to myself and her, "I'm sorry, Rosie, but the way you treat me, I just can't say no to someone who speaks softly and carries no stick. I don't expect she'll slap me, nor tie me to the bedpost and leave me stranded when she's through."
     Next, as always, I nearly became Mary. Sex for me is a river, taking me into the other until I become genderless. That's how I knew what to do: I did what I thought I'd want done to me if I were her. My own pleasure took care of itself. And without Rosie as a partner, sex was moonwalking, weightless. Soon, I couldn't help but wonder if I hadn't sent that letter to myself, just to land here on the lunar surface.
     Mary had developed a habit of biting. She yelped and repeated my name, only now it was "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny." I hoped Dennis was eavesdropping outside the window.
     I rolled away. She clamped onto my back. I could have sworn I saw Rosie's wide eyes between the bedposts.
     "What's the matter?" she said. "Now you're sorry, I suppose?"
     "Not sorry, just confused."
     I looked over and saw the turtle in his shell; too much commotion for one day, I supposed, and I knew how he felt. It was only dusk, and I had to find a way out of that apartment.
     "I could put my record on."
     She ran to the boombox. We listened to artificial seashore. She sat on the side of the bed, not bothering to cover her body. I wrapped myself in blankets. One leg hung limp off the side of the bed. A figleaf in the rain, no fiddler on the roof and the violinist gone. A tree frog had leapt from her branches. It was quiet and not far away the sounds of the seashore real.
     The turtle came out of his shell and wandered toward the speaker. People parked, arriving home from work. Rattling fast food bags disturbed our fraudulent surf.
     Mary held herself. I must have reminded her of Flapper Mary, and she could no longer be Secretary Mary instead. She was between selves, trying to figure out which way to head. She watched the turtle move. She wouldn't look at me. I touched her back, but she shook my hand away.
     "Now what, John?"
     "Now?"
     "Now that you're here."
     I often believed people could read my mind. All this time, I thought she knew I wasn't planning to stay more than a few hours, even if this happened. I thought she knew I had a mystery to solve and my own murder to prevent. I was sure she must have guessed all of this remained foremost in my mind even while she lay naked beside me.
     "Could I use your computer?" I said. "My laptop's in the car."
     "Jesus Christ. Go ahead. The password's IAMMARY."
     I turned on the machine and waited. She whimpered, but I had that cold feeling, one that wouldn't let me comfort her or even lie to keep things from getting worse.
     The sun lit her thighs. What tricks biology played on me. I had to hang upside down to cry but also to smile. I was a bat, cold and black in my cave. I wanted to feel sorry but couldn't.
     "You never know what to say, do you?"
I shook my head.
     "You watch enough movies. Seems like you would know a line or two."
     I started the browser and accessed my email account, screenname WANDERER6424. There was a whole world of drifters, just like, just as there were a hundred thousand men attracted to carved ducks or women with three nipples or ex-flapper girls who bit like puppies and slept on make-believe coasts. But I was number 6424, and I didn't have a thing to say in my defense.
     Sure enough, there was a message from a free Internet account, email ID of IHATEJOHN. It had been sent while I was on top of Mary.
     "I guess it wasn't you that sent the letter."
     "No shit."
     "'YOU ARE A DEAD MAN.'"
     "Clever."
     "It wasn't you, then?"
     "Get out."
     "I've got to be sure, Mary. Somebody's trying to kill me."
     "Good."
     I checked the details of where the message had gone to arrive at her computer, the hoops and switcharounds and turnpikes, but none of that told me anything. I searched the IP address to no effect.      I printed out the letter and stuffed it in my pocket. I sat beside Mary. She inched away and started sobbing.
     "I don't want you to go away."
     "I know you don't, but it's only because I have to leave that you even want me to stay. A few hours ago, you practically slammed the window in my face."
     She looked at me. "I do want you to stay."
     "I can't."
     "All right," she said, pointing at the box. "Then get the fuck out, and take that fucking turtle with you."
     "Come on, Mary, he'll make you feel better."
     "Did you ever see a stuffed turtle in here? I fucking hate turtles. And how do you know it's a boy?"

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