Monster Media 1994 #2/Monster Media No. 2 (Monster Media)(1994).ISO/magazine/rubyv36.zip/RUBY36-2

Text File | 1994-08-15 | 13KB | 227 lines

Copyright 1994(c)

                             PINNED
                          By B.J. Higgs

     Gus hurried so as not to be late for the signing of Adam's new
book, "Death of a Pro-Lifer." He carried his personal copy.
     If death can ever be auspicious, Melanie's had been. A staunch
protester in her early years, she'd taken less interest in such
events in later years, but would have seen the irony of an
accidental death while protesting against an abortion doctor. She
would have liked it, too, that some good came of it, at least for
Adam, Gus thought. Melanie had never gotten over the guilt she'd
felt at the mishandling of Adam's first book, which she'd insisted
on promoting. The four of them had been fresh out of college, and
Adam's first novel had established Melanie in the publishing realm.
     They'd had no money, and less sense in those days, and Melanie
had miscalculated badly. Adam had ended up losing all rights, and
making almost nothing from sales. Melanie had spent ten years
representing him for nothing in an attempt to make amends, groaning
with each failed attempt to duplicate his early success.
     "It bothers her a lot more than it bothers me," Adam told Gus
repeatedly, although Gus thought Adam must have felt differently
when he sat, staring at blank pages in frustration.
     They had talked about it again the day after Melanie's death,
at the corner bar the foursome favored -- Gus still struggling with
the scenario... examining every possibility.
     "You guys were together, following the abortion doctor?" he
asked again, remembering the details Caroline and Adam had related.
     "Just like I told you, and then we got separated near the
metro-mover," Adam answered. "The crowd started shoving the doctor,
daring him to fight back. I looked back and saw Melanie and
Caroline near the edge of the platform. Then, somebody hit the
doctor and when I looked back again, I only saw Caroline. Then
somebody screamed, and..."
     "Yeah," Gus interrupted, not wanting to hear again how Melanie
had somehow fallen onto the tracks in the path of the oncoming
train.
     "The police said she'd apparently lost her footing, what with
all the shoving. She must have reached out and tried to catch on
to something, and that's how she came to have that other pin in her
pocket. Whoever was wearing that one must have panicked and run.
I'll never forget how she looked, laying there, one pin on her
chest and one in her palm and her face ... ".
     Adam grabbed for his beer; emptied it and ordered another.
     "And the pin she grabbed to keep from falling... you say it
was identical to the ones we bought back in college?" Gus asked.
     "Yeah, but the cops checked it out. They said thousands of
those were printed and sold. They figure it was just a somebody who
bought one just like ours and didn't want to get involved, maybe
didn't even realize in all the commotion what had happened."
     "Listen," Gus said, "you don't think Caroline...?"
     "What? Snapped, and pushed her lifelong friend to her death?"
Adam asked, derisively. "Why? I'll grant you Caroline's always been
jealous of Melanie, especially where you're concerned, but murder?
Please! I was there, Gus, remember? Jeez, if you're going to
suspect your friends in a simple accident, I'm a much better
suspect."
     "Oh, hell, Adam, that whole publishing rip-off deal was years
ago. Obviously you didn't hold it against Melanie, and Lord knows
she did everything in her power to make it up to you."
     "True," said Adam. "It wasn't Melanie's fault I could never
seem to write anything else that would sell. She tried to sell my
drek with a vengeance." Adam smiled at the memory.
     "See? That's no reason to kill anybody," Gus said.
     "Want to bet?" Adam joked, ruefully. "You have no idea how
suicidal writer's block makes one."
     They had drunk some more and talked some more, remembering
Melanie in their own way. Somewhere in the alcoholic fog Gus had
come up with the idea that they should all wear their matching pins
to the funeral, and Adam had agreed.
     But Caroline couldn't find her pin, so only a slightly hung-
over Gus and Adam wore the cheapie throw-away pins procaliming
"Right to Life." And Adam continued to wear it weeks later, somehow
feeling closer to the absent Melanie. Finally, Caroline confronted
him about his cooling friendship, what she called his "sick
obsession" in wearing the stupid, tacky pin.
     "That," she pointed to the snapshot of the foursome taken by
a stranger minutes after they'd bought the silly pins ten years
before on their way to a rally, "was a long time ago. Things change
and so do people. I'm not sure Melanie even cared much about the
whole idea anymore."
     "Of course, she did," Gus corrected her. "She went to the
metro station, didn't she? How much more telling can a final act
be?"
     "Hell, Gus... I think Melanie was just looking for an angle
on something to publish. Abortion doctors are being mowed down by
fanatics all across the country, and Melanie knew a hot topic when
she saw it."
     "How the hell can you be friends with someone for ten years
you don't even like?" Gus asked.
     "I never said I didn't like her. I just didn't always like the
way she acted," said Caroline.
     "How much did you not like her, Caroline?" asked Gus.
     "What's that supposed to mean?"
     "I don't know. Just wondering, I guess," he retreated.
     Something wouldn't let him leave it alone, though. He found
a reason to wear the pin and encouraged her to find, and wear,
hers. She didn't think it was important. He couldn't give it up,
though, and words led to more words.
     "How hard could it be to look?" he asked her when she decided
to go home for Christmas. "It's probably in one of those boxfuls
of college junk in your parents' attic."
     "I'm not going home to look for relics from the past, Gus, but
I will if I get time," she said. She returned without the pin,
saying she hadn't had time to worry about it.
     He niggled on, growing ever more distrustful -- wearing his
own pin more as the relationship with Caroline cooled and became
strained.
     The three of them were sitting at that same bar a few weeks
after Melanie's death.
     "Why are you still wearing that?" asked Adam, who had taken
off his own at the gravesite, pointing to the pin on Gus's lapel.
     "I don't know. Just feels right, somehow," Gus muttered.
     "You better get yours back on," a slightly-innebriated
Caroline told Adam. "He suspects all who do not wear the sacred pin
of nameless nefarious deeds." She giggled.
     "It's not funny," Gus protested.
     "And it's not sane, either," Caroline insisted. "Why is it so
damned important?"
     "It's a tie that binds us," Gus fumbled. "Reminds us of who
we were."
     "Who we were, or who we are?" Caroline asked. "Do you," she
asked, emboldened by the drinks, "think Melanie's death wasn't an
accident, Gus? Do you suspect someone?"
     Gus didn't answer.
     "Me? You think I could push someone to their death? And
Melanie, at that? Well, that would account for the heistation in
the proposal, wouldn't it?" she sneered. She deliberately set down
her mug and slid off the barstool.
     Not, 'I'm innocent.' Not, 'You're crazy.' Not any of the
responses Gus would have expected.
     "Hey! Wait up!" Adam shouted at her retreating back. Gus said
nothing. The twosome sat in silence.
     "She's just high," Gus offered, finally. "She'll sober up and
realize she over-reacted."
     But she didn't. In fact, she was silent and absent for ten
days before Gus finally broke down and called her number; listened
to the recording that said the number had been disconnected. He
called her office to learn she'd quit. He visited her apartment and
found new tenants. The door closed with finality when he contacted
her parents in California and was told not to call; that Caroline
didn't wish to hear from him.
     Adam was confident they would hear from her. Gus wasn't so
sure. Either way, guilty or innocent, Gus was pretty sure he'd lost
her. Half their musketeers -- gone. He talked about it with Adam.
     "I feel like a two-time loser, you know?" he mused aloud.
     "Don't be morbid," said Adam.
     And Gus, searching madly for something positive, came up with
the idea.
     "Listen, Adam... I don't know what you're working on, but
violence at these abortion clinics doesn't seem to be slowing down.
What do you think about writing Melanie's story? I don't mean just
for nostalgia, but wouldn't it be something if this whole thing put
you back on top?"
     "Maybe," said Adam, noncommitally.
     "I'm serious," Gus insisted. "What is it, September? Okay,
what could it take. Say, September a year from now. I'll meet you
here September 17, 1994, and we'll toast your new book."
     "We'll see," said Adam.
     In March, Adam gave Gus a first draft to read, confessing,
somewhat shame-facedly that he'd had the same idea and been
hesitant to discuss it.
     "I was afraid talking about it would put the curse on it, you
know?" Adam had asked.
     Six months later, Death of a Pro-Lifer was on the best-seller
list, and Gus had been invited for a guest-signing at Hallmark.
Adam had given him a first edition, and formally invited him to
attend the signing for a personal autograph, seeming to want Gus
to share in his new-found glory in an official setting, though he
could easily have signed Gus's copy before handing it to him.
     "Wear the pin, okay?" Gus asked.
     "I don't even know where I put it, Gus," Adam said. "Tell you
what... if I can't find it, I'll get another."
     Gus had arranged to leave work early for the signing. He'd
forgotten to bring the book along, and had to return to his
apartment to collect it. He hailed a cab and jumped in, leafing
through the mail he'd retrieved from his box on the way out.
     The note was in there.

     "Adam," it began; no "dear."
          "You might be interested in this. I found it cleaning
     out the desk I had shipped from California.
          "Don't bother checking the postmark. My parents are
     mailing this for me. Congratulate Adam on his success.
     Some wounds, like Ceasar's, never heal.

                                        Caroline"

     Obviously, she'd heard about Adam's new book.
     Gus fondled the pin she'd sent. Why was he surprised, he
wondered. Had he been so persuaded that Caroline was capable of
murder?
     So, then, all the pins were accounted for. What an odd
observation, that bit about Ceasar. If Caroline only meant to
demonstrate that she had had no hand in Melanie's accidental death,
why the reference to the subterfuge of friends.
     Gus shoved the letter and pin into his pocket, alighted from
the cab, turned, and stared, transfixed at the storefront display
of pins in the boutique next door to the bookstore. He looked at
the one on his lapel, the one he and Adam had agreed they would
wear to Adam's book-signing as an hnorarium for Melanie.
     He shook himself, and strode onward. Reached the bookstore and
paused with his hand on the door. He could see Adam inside. Adam,
reveling in his renewed glory. He looked so... so Adam. Just as
he'd looked 10 years ago, when Melanie had presented his first
novel to an appreciative audience. The shiny pin on his lapel
bespoke his commitment to ideals of a decade past.
     Adam, who'd spent ten years blocked from writing because of
Melanie's lack of business acumen with his first novel. Adam, who'd
begun writing his current novel long before Gus had thought of and
suggested, but who hadn't mentioned it.
     Gus reached into his pocket; looked at the pin Caroline
had mailed him and saw again, in his mind's eye, the foursome with
their new pins, leaving the dime store where they'd bought them.
Something had niggled him all these months, and he knew what it
was.
     At the time, they'd thought it was some kind of divine
message, but there had probably been thousands of imperfects
printed. Gus ran his finger over the slight foot on the "L" on the
pin in his hand. All four had gotten the imperfect pins, and told
each other it was a sign, he remembered.
     Gus looked again at Adam's pin, with its perfectly formed,
footless "L". He released the door handle and turned away, not
wishing to be a three-time loser.
                               END