“You wrote, Strike Out Number One?”
I was on a park bench, bloated, beard stubble on my face, looking at the sky.
“Yep.”
“Jesus, you look like hell.”
The voice and connected body had obviously examined my photo on the inside book leaflet a few times and was using it as a comparison in the moment. I was skinny and shaved then. Now, I looked as though somebody had filled a bag of russet potatoes with their mashed counterpart. The end times were nigh, and my cholesterol was high.
“I have seen better days,” I replied indifferently.
“I’d say,” whoever it was responded. “You look like an elephant took a dump in a coin purse.”
He was trying to be funny but I wasn’t laughing. I felt like a plump bag of crap. My lack of creative efforts had stripped me of an outlook on life. Before, I had viewed everything through the eyes of interpretation and themes, all whirling in the nexus of real-world drama; all ripe for the page. Without the ability to put words to paper, suicide was an alternative blessing. Kurt Vonnegut, ever the optimist, said something interesting about suicide?
“It takes care of the bills.”
I tried once. Offing myself. I had a rope and a bridge. Problem was, I bought flimsy rope and I fell fast and hard. The rope snapped and my body swung so far right I landed on a rock, broke my leg in three places. I wasn’t gonna tell this disembodied voice what writer’s block had done to me. What would they have done with this information? I can’t imagine too much.
“What happened to you?” said the voice. “You were a real up and comer.”
Silence filled the void and I swallowed hard, because my next utterance was the verbiage of a truly deranged man. “I was accosted by a pair of good-for-nothing aliens who lacked any creative zeel,” I said. “They shot me with a freeze gun in my backyard one night, popped my skull open like a can of beans, and slipped out a nice, fat chunk of my brain.”
“Are you on drugs?”
“Nope,” I replied. “The chunk of my brain they took was my writing portion. They were gonna use it to write their next novel and publish it on their planet. That’s what I gathered anyway.”
“Why is it that anytime someone gets successful they get hooked on drugs,” the voice said.
I still hadn’t looked at him and I wasn’t planning to, so I closed my eyes tight and waited for him to go. An hour later Zee pulled up to the curb in his ancient car—a car that was so old you had to kick the bumper to get the driver-side headlight to work. Zee was an interesting fellow. I met him at a psych ward held on Monday nights for the convenience of the patients. Okay, that’s snarky, it was a support group.
I sat down next to Zee that night not knowing who he was. The meeting commenced and the talking bag exchanged hands, and even though Bert, a homeless man who wore thermal socks for gloves, would talk out of turn quite often (check your airtime, Burt), we still carried on with a good meeting. Then again, if I was Burt and thought John F. Kennedy had bugged my brain for the answer to the Riddle of Steel then I might speak up a bit more, too. When it was my turn, I talked about my dad mostly, and what a real piece of shit he was. Just a downright scoundrel who couldn’t figure out how to take care of a family or be decent human being. Do you like being run down to make somebody feel better? Then you would dislike my father. Likewise, I needed to vent, because walking in that night, I had suddenly remembered one birthday in which he bought himself a brand spanking new portable fridge for next to his easy chair? Now, alcoholism was within reach. Who needed to get up and walk? Regardless, when the bag came to Zee, he said loudly and proudly, “I am Zeeble Beerman. I am here under court appointment to make a smooth transition back into society. You all have shared a great deal of your personal details with me, and I thank you for that. Each narrative provides me with greater insight into my own condition.”
“So, why did the court order you to be here, Zeeble?”
Zee was stoic, standing with his chin up. “I am imbued with the spirit of a long dead philosopher who has traversed the seas of time to interfere with the logic lines of my mind.”
The mediator nodded happily in agreement.
Zee and I went for coffee afterward, and I told him about the aliens who stole part of my brain. We were fast friends.
In sitting next to me that day when I was assailed so rudely by a disembodied voice on the street, Zee gave me a sort of short-turn head nod and a wink. Though I knew he had something to share, I lay there in silence, my belly pushing upward and my arm over my eyes. Pasty skin, stubble, bloodshot eyes. A divine combination.
“I’m supposed to help you get your brain back, right?” Zee said, swatting the side of my leg.
Yea, I responded, that’d be nice.
“Well, I can’t.”
Okay. Thanks, Zee, I’m glad you took time out of your day to drive down here and piss in my face.
“No, Neil, you don’t understand. I have no means to go to their planet and get your brain back.”
I know, I’ve already thought about that.
“However, I am privy to some information you might want to know.”
“What’s that?” I asked
“You know Samuel Hertz? Well, he finished his latest book and it’s in the safe at his house.”
I asked him how he knew and he told me that he was seeing Samuel Hertz’s maid. Apparently she saw him put the manuscript in his safe.
“He’s an eccentric, you know,” Zee said. “And he thinks putting the book away for a spell will allow it time to grow tender and delicious.”
“I’m not going to steal his book, Zee,” I said. But suddenly I wasn’t interested in my plight and I was hungry for something tender and delicious. A chicken sandwich came to mind.
“Yea, I figured that, but I’m supposed to help you, remember – you asked me to,” he said, wagging his finger. “So, here’s a book for you, right in your lap, and if you get your hands on it then you can publish it.”
“Or eat it?” I asked, licking my lips, but Zee didn’t find it funny, so I shrugged. “It’s not legal; plus, he’s probably got it saved on his computer. He’d have one hell of a case against me when he shows the judge the date it was written.”
“Now, now,” Zee said. “I did my homework. Dr. Hertz completes his books on an old Underwood typewriter. The only copy of that book is in his safe.”
“So what,” I replied. “It’s been six years since my last book. Even if I were able to steal it, it would be just one book. Some come back.”
Zee smiled at me, his eyes lighting up. “That one book could give you enough money to retire, or even help you find those aliens that took your brain.”
“They don’t live here—on this planet,” I said. “They live far away in another galaxy where books stay books and don’t get marinated in herbs and spices and then placed between a sesame seed bun with an order of crispy French fries.”
The hunger was getting to me.
Zee shrugged. “Who cares. Maybe you can use your funds to build a spaceship or something.”
I laid there thinking Zee was on to something. Dr. Hertz was fifty or so and I could take him down if it came to fisticuffs. I wasn’t living for anything, that was for sure, so even though I admired the man I was willing to do him harm. But I was troubled by one thing.
“I would be stealing his baby, Zee.”
Zee didn’t respond immediately. When he finally did, it was the old philosopher. “He has a wealth of knowledge, Neil, and his books are plentiful. He will write another. And, if not, then shame on him—creation is forever in the artist’s soul.”
There was quite a bit of sense in Zee’s logic. It’s not like Hertz had part of his brain stolen and he couldn’t come up with another story. Hell, he probably was already cooking a few more in that brain of his, and they were sure to be doozies.
I side-eyed Zee. “Can we get lunch first?”
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