To Make a Long Story Short

Crazy?

I HAD JUST HEARD that Belle’s mother was not well and would probably be taken to the hospital. In my mind, that ruined what would probably have been a lovely evening and/or weekend. Not to mention my having to take the bus home because Belle was in no condition to drive into town and meet me at the theatre.

Belle was not much more mentally stable than her mother, in my opinion. Just this week I’d found her in the middle of the night, wandering around the house with a butcher knife. Sleepwalking, I guess. She seemed to not know how the knife got in her hand or what she was looking for.

Hug me if you want, but not with a butcher knife.

So, I was downtown with my choice of bus stops to wait at. Which assortment of derelicts would I need to wait with, having just missed the previous bus. I sat with an uncharacteristic cigarette in hand, staring blankly ahead out of the bus shelter.

Among the creatures seeking shelter from the constant Minneapolis drizzle in the shelter was a pair of lovers keeping each other warm in the corner. They looked as if they might not be able to wait till the bus got them home before they consummated their passion. As they kissed, their hands were concealed inside each other’s winter coat.

Two women examined the schedules posted on the wall and argued over whether the bus just passed was the 17A or the 18C. Therefore, how long would it be until the next one or the other would arrive?

Beside me sat a man with a vacant stare and cigarette, mirroring my own demeanor puff for puff, space for space.

Into this serene picture of banal urbananity stepped Jimmy. I have no idea, of course, if that was his name, but you can only distinguish one person in a tale with words like ‘another guy,’ or ‘the stranger,’ or ‘this fella’ for so long without being bored to death with whoever it is. He looked like any Jimmy I’ve ever met. Therefore, Jimmy.

His JC Penney sanforized work pants were three sizes too big, held up with a belt that had been drawn to new notches cut tighter than the original had allowed. This left a foot of unused belt hanging down the front of his trousers. His fleece-lined denim jacket was pulled up in a feeble effort to cover his ears and two days of beard growth that shadowed his face.

I’ve made up most of this description. I’ve no idea if the pants were sanforized, but it was a cool word and seersucker just didn’t work with the impression I got of him. He slouched along, stepping out into the street once or twice to see if a bus was coming. Nothing hit him, so he stepped back and lit a cigarette, shielding the match behind the paper bag he carried.

I knew before he ever spoke that I was in for a conversation whether I wanted it or not. I just seem to attract that kind of person. Witness Belle and her mother.

“I was just over on Hennepin Avenue, looking in the newsstands for my favorite magazine, Famous Monsters, and they didn’t have it. I went to every shop over there and no one had a copy. Dayton’s didn’t even have a copy. I asked. Don’t you think stores should carry all the magazines?”

I nodded, but he didn’t stop to notice.

“The new issue has ‘Bride of Frankenstein’ in it. That’s one of my favorites. I found an old issue at Uriah’s Used and New store. You know what they wanted? $2.50. When it was new, it was only 25¢! They shouldn’t be allowed to raise the price on old magazines, should they? Do you think?”

I shook my head.

“Of course, they’re rare books, so they’re lots more valuable than when it came out. The store owner said so.”

I wondered exactly how a magazine called Famous Monsters could be considered a rare book. Of course, I’m not a cultist and when I think of rare books, I think of my collection of nineteenth century poets. I couldn’t feature Bride of Frankenstein in a glove leather binding with gold leaf. Or maybe Mary Shelley’s original novel, Frankenstein’s Monster, was produced in a leather bound volume common to the early 1800s. Her husband was one of the poets I collected.

Somehow, I’d just missed the next turn of the conversation.

“I don’t do much,” Jimmy was saying. “Just sit and read. Smoke cigarettes and drink a lot of coffee. Watch the films. Used to be a place in Uptown where you could buy the films. It’s not there anymore, but I’ve got some of them. They’re really great.”

He lit another cigarette and was off on a new subject.

“Lon Chaney smoked a lot. All the time. He always had a cigarette. Boris Karloff never smoked at all. The pipe he carried was just a prop. Still died with only half a lung left. They said it was from smoking, but he died of pneumonia.”

I grunted a little to let him know I was still listening. Then he took me by surprise.

“You’re not worth much,” he said. I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head a little, then realized I’d misunderstood him. “Everybody thinks they were rich. But they didn’t have much money at all. Karloff, I don’t think he was even in Bride of Frankenstein. They didn’t use his whole name—just ‘Karloff.’ And who was the Bride? Just a question mark. They used his name on the picture and he didn’t even get paid for it. In fact, I bet I know who did play the monster. He’s only forty-five years old now. And he got married. His wife is only twenty-five. I even know his birthday.”

This, however, it seemed Jimmy was not willing to share. He turned his back on me and jumped out into the street to look for the bus. There was nothing, but he was right back to me.

“Are you going to heaven? Sure you are. Everyone is going to heaven. You die and ZIP! Right up to heaven you go. I don’t believe there’s a God who sends people to hell. All that power—it can’t be held by one person. It’s all of us. What really happened is that Eve—way back when, you know—was mother of the world. And she killed herself and started heaven. And she is God. We are all her children and when we die we just join Eve in heaven. We invented the God man with white hair and a long beard. A man can’t have that much power. He’d kill us all. God has to be a mother, and if she’s a mother, we’ll all go to heaven, because that’s how mothers are. We can all believe anything we want to, but in the end, you die and go to heaven.”

He started to jump out into the street again, but I caught hold of his sleeve just as the bus rolled up to the stop. He brushed my hand off his arm as if I’d just cost him his ticket to heaven.

We boarded and sat in different parts of the articulated bus-he sat in front of the bend; I sat behind it. He got off two blocks before I did.

I went to be with Belle, who told me they were taking her mother to the hospital the next day for psychiatric care because she’d been filling out crossword puzzles with secret messages she got from the TV and was talking to people who weren’t there.

I couldn’t understand: Why?

❮ 50,000 WPM The Counter Council ❯

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