The Price of the Ticket Read online

  Still he was thinking she’s his best friend when standing right there is Mrs. Hillegass and, uh oh, she’s armed for bear because right behind her is Claude Wong the union steward and they’re both watching Martin do that French movie business with the no-cigarette? Where you hold it from underneath cradled atop thumb and forefinger and suck on the end of it deep and exhale meaningfully like you were in profound Jean-Paul Sartre could explain Darwinian socialism to any whatzhername mode when in actual fact you’re Martin Seam trying to recall when he’s had a hard-on as hard as that one that Marcie gave him and if the cigarette had existed at all he would have burned a finger trying to hide it? You must have smoked like that, anyway, there they stood. Smoking-but-not-smoking outside the employees’ lounge on the job when he could have been polishing the lip mirror on top of everything else says Mrs. Hillegass to which Martin emits a photon of disdain on account she had obviously forgotten that smoking had long since been forbidden in the employees’ lounge too, although not long since she had come to work at the Emporium, just after the Gold Rush, and so the smokers had all been banished to a park bench and ten square feet of astroturf with a barrel planter full of magenta silk geraniums on the parking garage roof which is gray gray gray–on top of everything else, hah hah hah.… This looked serious. Please follow us Martin she instructed him and though he gave Claude the old brothers in arms he did not return same and it was, indeed, curtains for Martin Seam. Too much imaginary smoking. Too much stealing. Too much incorrect ringups at his cash point. Absenteeism. Insolence to customers. Insubordination to Mrs. Hillegass, brazen lying, too many personal phone calls on the job, and that stunt with the theft detector he’d tried to pull oh Mrs. Hillegass after she caught him coming out of the employee’s bathroom with two shirts on and had the effrontery–her word exactly–to make a big scene and suggest to her that she was jumping the gun in her eager beaver toward promotion and early advancement that it was entirely common for employees to wear home garments that they had every intention of paying for and as proof showed her the carbon against his own Emporium charge card itemizing the shirt, discounted of course, so what if there’s no trace of the original he is an employee of this establishment, stuff gets misplaced all the time among other accessories he’d had every intention of leaving in the drawer as he left that evening, if he took home the shirt, he just wasn’t yet sure the shirt was for him, who wants to pay $150 for a shirt that isn’t just right for him ha ha and, besides, so, he just put it on underneath his own shirt and checked it out in various mirrors around the store–only on his breaks, of course his time not company time–to save time on changing and such. And anyway he was still on the premises of the store and so it technically wasn’t stealing, so there. Well you can imagine how that went down with Mrs. Hillegass and anybody else she chose to tell the story to, Claude Wong for instance. Martin had been kidding himself for a long time about how the people he worked with felt about him, his superiors included. His fellow employees tolerated him all right, so long as he paid his fair share at brunch and knew where to find procaine cut with Dexamyl cheap enough to be considered a really viable substitute for cocaine, running with a crowd can be tricky all right, especially if your name is Martin Seam, so okay, lady, it sounds a little rickety, you got any hard evidence?

  But Mrs. H. was ready for Martin this time, and he wasn’t going to worm out of it. She was looking to fire him, and had been going around to all the right flash points in the bureaucracy, fluffing the bitches, the choice was clear, itemization of his peccadilloes a mere formality, because no sooner than she had him sitting down in her office than Claude Wong killed the lights and the three of them screened Martin’s first starring role in a full-length video; each and every frame a shot of Martin, he should get scale for this. In the first shot Martin was in one of the customer dressing rooms alternately holding a shirt and a pair of pants against his body between himself and a mirror, behind which the camera with unblinking eye admiring Martin’s doing the right thing right at the reflected image of himself right at himself himselfing himself too, very unselfconscious, not the right word, very Martin in the darkened room. In the next sequence we see him removing the corresponding articles of clothing, pants, shirt, even socks. Skinny legs. Little pot belly. Black rayon bikini briefs with scarlet piping. The following frames had him trying the articles on, smiling very broadly at himself in the mirror, over his shoulder, turning this way and that, then the full frontal. Here he flattens his palms against the front of this rather exquisite pair of trousers so his basket stands out, and he studies it, turning this way and that. In the gloom nearby, Claude Wong clears his throat, Martin himself was on tenterhooks, he couldn’t remember which boost this was, had he masturbated? But apparently not, thank God, or–he cringed a little further into the chair–they cut it for concision. Then comes footage of Martin removing the Beep-A-Creep anti-theft module containing the metal detector trigger from the shirt. This operation requires a special tool which the video faithfully shows Martin removing from a hole in the wallboard under the bench opposite the mirror and replacing when he’s finished, after chucking the plastic module in there first. Then he dons his street clothes over the articles we’ve been admiring, even the socks, and the last bit has him leaving the booth, doubly attired, after jauntily saluting his new look in the mirror.

  Martin is nailed.

  When the lights come up Mrs. Hillegass has on the desk before her the tool and a whole pile of plastic anti-theft Beep-A-Creep modules, there are at least thirty of them, and everybody in the room knows these things came out of the hole under the dressing room bench.

  Incredibly, she offered him a “deal.” Either Martin “resign,” so he can’t collect unemployment, to which there is no cushion except welfare, which takes weeks to get, and he can sue and take his chances or whatever, but he gets his final paycheck today. Otherwise he gets fired, effective immediately, so he can collect unemployment, sure. But the pay check for this past two-week period which is only half over gets frisbeed into litigation hell, where it’ll take him at least a month to find it, and on top of that the video we’ve all just enjoyed watching so much goes straight to the cops and he can take his chances on the sick fashion-puppy act with them, get the picture.

  Sick fashion-puppy? She’d never spoken to him like that before! There was no doubt that Mrs. Hillegass knew the chance she was taking firing an employee without hard evidence to back up her decision and him with a union to protect him. Well, not too much hard evidence. Well, some. Still, they couldn’t prove he’d walked out of the store with it, right? So what’s in the closet at home, Martin? Right? Well, not to push it, cause he’s all alone. That was why she had Claude Wong there, to reassure Martin that no way his union was going to protect him, and that, if Claude had his way, Martin would be kicked out of the union if Claude could just find a way to do it. Kicking a guy out of the union was infinitely more difficult than merely firing him off a job–something difficult and risky enough in itself. There were any number of labor lawyers out there who would take on the case and the chances were better than even that Martin could stick the Emporium for a million bucks and the union for even more, or was it vice versa. Sexual discrimination distinctly possible except for forcing Martin to make certain decisions about what sexuality he was going to as it were come down on a meddlesome sticky matter back burner where it had ever so languished best left alone though a step beyond what loves me now? He couldn’t be sure of his rights right away anyway, but at any rate, he was out of there, for now at least. She’d even shafted him for his unemployment. He’d never seen Mrs. Hillegass look so smug. He’d never heard Claude Wong speak so assertively. She must have buffed him extra on the side.

  Well they might have warned him. They might have given him a little notice. They might have taken into consideration his circumstances. Why, just the day before yesterday after several days of trying to figure a way around it he had taken the $600 from that truck deal down to Herb Lee’s and paid
off that wreck’s insane repair bill and redeemed his 100 watt in-dash AM/FM CD/cassette player even though he didn’t have a dash to put it in that he’d only just a few months ago spirited out of Electronics which he’d noticed Mrs. Hillegass hadn’t fingered him on that deal in her ever-so-long list of malfeasances had she, the superior bitch. That had taken off the better part of the $600, along with a midnight snack at the Zuni and a couple of CD’s and the video of Fantasia that had just come out at $69.95, he was just about tapped for cash. And the check they so kindly offered to give him–what kind of a deal was that? It was his money: he’d earned it! But it was only enough for half the rent! He’d forgotten to take into consideration that it was ‘that time of the month’ as he liked to coyly call it, when he was out drizzling twenties all over the Castro. He could third-party the paycheck straight over to his landlady Mrs. Chopin so the bank wouldn’t garnish it for credit card arrears as it passed through his account, she wouldn’t mind that, she could appreciate the favor, a third-party Emporium check was hands down better than a first-party Martin Seam check at any given time of the year, twice as good around the end of every month plus Christmas and Hallowe’en, expenses intensives. She knew that. But hey, it’s only half the rent.

  So he tried to bargain. Give him half his rent in cash on top of his check, as severance pay you might say, fire him so he could get unemployment, and he was out of there.

  There came quite a little silence.

  I can see what you mean about this guy, Claude Wong finally said to Mrs. Hillegass. And it was true, Claude didn’t know Martin Seam from Harry Bridges. She on the other hand was too busy trying to conceal a smile of total victory behind a stern unforgiving stare as she said no cash and you’re fired Mr. Seam, turn in your employee badge and get the hell out of my office and off the premises of the store, as of five minutes from now you’re–

  All right, all right, don’t get your wig in an uproar, lady, Martin said, bet she’d never heard that one face to face before and she probably had no idea that Martin knew she wore a wig! Well, not really, she doesn’t really wear a wig. But it makes a good story. Kind of. And who’s to say she doesn’t. Maybe she does. Stranger things have happened.

  Anyway, she Mrs. Hillegass slipped an envelope out from under the anti-theft modules and tapped it against the palm of her hand. They knew they had him in a box and had the check all made out and ready to go! On the desk before you you’ll find your resignation form, she said with iron in her voice. Sign it immediately and accept this check. Otherwise you’re fired for grand larceny. In either case, as of five minutes from now you’re trespassing. If you ever come in this store again, security has been instructed to detail a man to hold you, by forcible restraint if necessary, until such time as the police arrive, into whose custody you shall be remanded. Furthermore, if this step has to be taken, a copy of the videotape you have just watched will be turned over to the police. Is this clear? Fine. Sign. Very good. Here is your check. Goodbye, Mr. Seam. I sincerely hope you can find some way to straighten yourself out before your acquisitiveness gets the better of you, as it just now so nearly has, but I doubt it. As for the rest of my feelings: good riddance.

  A triple grasshopper afternoon. Truly. Right away.

  Chapter Eleven

  THERE WAS A PARKING TICKET ON IT, TOO.

  Another twenty minutes would elapse before the Chevy actually arrived at the Toyota, fifteen minutes before the traffic moved them close enough to the truck to see the ticket. Think of the desert traveler, lost and dying of thirst, who persists in pursuit of a mirage even after he’s long since ascertained its unreality, hopelessly attracted by its very hopelessness, forced into its vacuous promise by the absence of any alternative.

  When they got there Pauley, disgusted, wouldn’t even pull over. The Chevy would move past the Toyota gradually, inches away, close enough to touch it, two or three feet at a time, like incoming flotsam on a backwater tide.

  But they hadn’t gotten there yet.

  And in the meantime the empty truck bed taunted Pauley like a cubic yawn of disinterest concerning his fate, with a dropped tailgate for a tongue. Pauley had experienced some bad fifteen- and twenty-minute periods in his life, and, long since, he had observed that the least violent among them were often the most excruciating to endure. This business of approaching the poached Toyota in slow motion, knowing long before he arrived that there was no longer any reason to have arrived at all, that once they had arrived there would be nothing to do but depart, both–arrival and departure–were accomplished at a pace which seemed intended solely to protract his humiliation. Superficially innocuous, in actuality excruciating, this was in any case one of the worst of those periods, and it seemed to last far longer than fifteen minutes. It was comparable to watching your jury, having reached its conclusion, file in one by one to take their seats. Comparable to the near-infinite pause between pronouncement of your guilt and the fall of the deputy’s hand on your shoulder. Comparable to that long first walk down the cellblock tier, while you wonder which among this gallery of stuttering, staring, slavering, moaning, praying, chafing, masturbating breadbox molds is about to become your chief intimate for the next five to seven years. Comparable in protracted savor to the knowledge that good behavior will consist of letting one of these creeps kill you before you kill him.

  For a fleeting moment his mind cast desperately for, not a solution proper, but an appropriate expostulation of despair. This long-suppressed mechanism coughed up the self-defeating solution of slamming on the brakes, exiting the Chevy screaming, and forcing the lawyer in the Oldsmobile to shoot him. If a bad solution, its chief virtue would be its immediacy. Take down at least one of the bastard’s wife’s microwaved meals with himself. He checked the mirror. The Olds was still stuck in traffic, moving right along with the Chevy, about five cars back. Yeah. That’ll show them.

  Take down one of the bastard’s meals? Hah. Call a fact a fact. How about, inconvenience one of the bastard’s wife’s meals.

  He settled for a shot at the steering wheel with the palm of his hand that made the rim shiver.

  Horseknocker, for once, seemed at a loss for words. But it was no surprise to him that someone had come along to take advantage of a perfectly good opportunity to steal the payload out of the Toyota. He just felt it impolite to point out that Pauley shouldn’t be surprised either. So far as Horseknocker was concerned, the surprised people in this picture were standing around some warehouse or alley looking at a bunch of half-assembled torture racks, having committed a felony for a pile of firewood. The laugh was on them. Pauley’s payload could do no one outside of Affliction’s shipping department any good whatsoever–except Pauley himself, of course.

  Horseknocker cleared his throat. “You know,” he began, “when I was a kid in Philly.…”

  Pauley raised a forestalling hand. “Just.… Shut up.”

  The truck jerked forward a few feet, stopped, jerked forward again. First gear on the Chevy was generally reserved for hauling three-quarters of a ton of gravel up a 40% grade, or pulling stumps–a very low ratio. Second would do fine for leaving stoplights. In first gear Pauley didn’t even have to put his foot on the gas for the truck to grind forward of its own accord, like a tank through the rubble of pacification. To start and stop it he had only to operate the clutch. This left him plenty of time for introspection and cursing.

  In the next five minutes they moved seven or eight feet.

  For five minutes after that they didn’t move at all.

  “Oh Christ–” Pauley hissed, unwilling to brood any longer.

  “When I was a kid in Philly,” Horseknocker said immediately, “me and my buddy Doormouse, we used to hijack trucks.”

  No traffic moved. Pauley exhaled a tired, loud sigh. Horseknocker waited.

  After a full minute, Pauley said to the windshield, “You knew a human being called Doormouse?”

  “He was a little guy.…” Horseknocker began.

  Pauley groaned and
sat up. “What about the trucks?”

  “We had this standard thing,” Horseknocker continued. “A lot of these truckers are half-queer.…”

  “Christ again.” Pauley propped an elbow on the rim of the steering wheel and passed a hand over his face, then stared through the windshield at his Toyota. Ever coming nearer, never quite arriving, no fruit to any of it.

  “Okay, so, at least,” Horseknocker added hurriedly, “they like what a queer can do for them. Pitch but don’t catch. Whatever makes you comfortable. Anyhow, there’s this neighborhood where truckers go when they get into town too late to make their deliveries. Some of them just park and lock the cab and go to sleep. Others don’t lock the cab, and you know what I mean. Others drop their trailer and take off in the tractor to look for action or something to eat. There’s lots of bars and diners around that part of Philly. That’s why they go there.”

  The Jaguar that Pauley had cut off earlier now darted suddenly in front of them, showing its turn signal after the fact. Pauley had to jam the brakes to avoid hitting it. A copy of Yachting magazine lay on the shelf beneath the rear window.

  “God damn your soul,” Pauley said half-heartedly, and he flattened the palm of his hand on the horn ring.

  The horn bleated.

  They could barely hear it. It bleated like a lost lamb stranded in a sage-choked arroyo, calling for its slaughtered mother.

  “That sound will haunt him till the day he dies,” observed Horseknocker.

  “It’s certain,” said Pauley. He pushed the ring again. The horn might as well have been under some other Chevy hood rusting in some other century.

  “As I was saying. We used to cruise the neighborhood late at night looking for vans that had been dropped and left unattended. One night we see this brand new one. Glistening shiny clean-as-a-whistle freshly-minted sheet metal, it couldn’t have been on the road for more than a week. It was parked two blocks from its brother trucks or any other sign of human activity, queer or otherwise, lost among a thousand boarded-up warehouses. Doormouse spotted the trailer from two blocks away. And get this. On its side the trailer has this big logo: a crown with lions pawing it, and above and below the crown it says: Seagram’s 7, Royal Crown Whiskey, and underneath it said something like Schindler’s Wholesale Liquor Dist. Co. Inc., Passaic, New Jersey. Oh man, we knew we’d hit it, we just knew. If that trailer was full of booze it was worth ten grand less than a mile away.”