The deadly writing game started in the grungy but private stall of the Men’s bathroom in the Green Tower. The place is a dump, posing as a former speakeasy with a vibrant history even though the building couldn’t have been constructed before the 1970s – the owners compensated for this timeline discrepancy by filling the place with garage sale leftovers: lacquered gramophones, black and white photos of strangers, heavily frosted mirrors, and shapeless hats. Don’t get me wrong; I was there for the setting. A dimly lit dump has flattering effects on even the plainest of inhabitants.
The Green Tower has a poetry slam every Sunday. I didn’t go for meaningless words. No, I went for a chance at meaningless sex. I could let some tool on stage sweet-talk the ladies in the place and ride on the coattails of imagined emotions rather than create them myself: just scan the bar for a woman visibly affected by the poem, wait for the clapping to stop, pretend to be visibly affected myself, and ask to buy her a drink – it’s called positive association. Anyway, enough of them respond for it to be worth my time.
The bar folk all but hung from the rafters, and it was comforting to conform to this shapeless mass. I had my eye on this chunky but curvy brunette who bit her full lips every time the speaker on stage hit a dramatic pause. Her apple martini was still far from being done, so I waited while the next poetry slam contestant made his way to the stage. He was a little guy and wore this snazzy pinstripe vest over perfectly pressed dress pants.
“Hey now – you’re just dressed to kill, but...do you think he’s missing something folks?” These words came from the white-haired, bright-eyed host of the slam. The bar folks roared in agreement, so the host pulled a rumpled, grey fedora from the wall and tossed it like a Frisbee to the little guy. To his credit, the little guy caught it and put it on his head.
“No no no! Tilt it forward. Come on – don’t embarrass me,” the host called. The little guy did as he was told. I rolled my eyes but caught myself and cheered when I noticed the brunette clapping excitedly. I have to admit the fedora suited him, but he tarnished the effect by explaining in a whiny voice about his writer’s block and how he’d be reading a poem by someone else for practice. At first I thought he was scratching his butt unconsciously, but his behind-the-back motions produced a thin book. He fumbled with the pages and then began to read.
The voice that read from that book was not his own, not the high-pitched but sophisticated tone that his look suggested. The voice was deep, menacing, inexorable - directed at me. I sensed this yet I couldn't make out any of the words. Although the fedora shaded the little guy’s eyes, I knew that he wasn’t reading from the book any longer. The hat on his head wasn’t grey but colorless.
Then it was over, and I stared down at the glass of van winkle sweating in my palms and drained it while the bar folks clapped. I forgot about the brunette and lurched towards the Men’s room. I locked the stall, closed the toilet lid, sat, and breathed. What had that little guy said? Why was I terrified of a hat? I would try on the fedora to disprove this nonsense.
The walls of the stall were covered in more meaningless words – whether spoken or written I’ve never been able to avoid them. Sandwiched between “Jeezus the original Zombie!!” and “U betta treat ya gurl jus right cuz I go deep” was an actual question in bold, black sharpie:
Who’s there?
A lonely pen happened to be on top the toilet paper roll dispenser, so I scratched my answer below in blue Bic.
Its me.
My response looked frail, unnoticeable compared to the question it addressed, but my simple act of vandalism made a second glass of van winkle and a first pick-up attempt seem desirable again. But trying on the fedora would have to come first.
When I pushed open the bathroom door and surveyed the bar, I spotted the little guy talking to the brunette. Her apple martini was full again and he was hatless. The poetry slam must’ve hit intermission. The grey fedora wasn’t hanging from the wall or left on stage, so I turned around. Hung between the Men’s and Women’s swinging bathroom doors was a stuffed buck’s head, and the hat was perched on its right antler.
The no longer colorless but grey fedora was too high for me to reach without jumping. When it comes down to it, I'm not much taller than that little bastard with the deceptive voice.
The white-haired host noticed me staring at the wall, grinned, and approached. I pretended not to notice and walked out of that dump. The hat would have to wait.
* * *
I hate Tuesdays. I can stand Mondays – those are just a change in pace, but by Tuesday the weekly routine of meaningless words seems unbreakable. Part of that routine is a rusty bourbon promise luring me to a random bar every Tuesday night. I lose even that illusion of control when I find myself in the Green Tower for the second time in less than a week. The place is less crowded than it was on Sunday, just a few wallflowers, some of whom are scribbling in small notebooks, pretending to be entranced by their own genius. But the grey hat is no longer hanging from the buck’s right antler; in fact, most of the right antler is gone, split jagged a few inches from the base.
“Hey – who ripped off that antler?” I ask the bartender, a pale guy with extravagant facial hair, wire-frame glasses, and a clean-shaven head. He shakes his head, so I have to point out the broken buck between bathroom doors.
“Hmmm. I think it’s always been that way.” The bartender has a shrug to match his smirk, the bastard.
“Either you haven’t worked here very long or you’ve worked here too long and have started making up stories. Oh, and a glass of van winkle on the rocks,” I respond.
“I’ve been here for just the right amount of time - it’s just a dumb antler.” He manages to slam my drink on the bar without sloshing any bourbon over the edge of the glass.
“Well, someone broke your dumb antler because I was here on Sunday night and there was a hat hanging from it.” I sip my drink as if that will prove my point. I consider messing with the bartender and telling him that I ordered my drink neat and not on the rocks, but it’s generally a good idea not to piss off someone serving you drinks.
“A hat, I see. Fascinating,” he says. I nod and let it go. From there, rattling the ice in my drink and asking “another?” twice is the extent of our conversation. When the bourbon hits my bladder, I revisit the bathroom stall, pee all over the toilet seat, and hope that the bartender will be the one to clean it up.
Who are you? Call 773-769-5249.
This is scrawled in blue sharpie on the stall wall beneath my It’s me. The handwriting appears to be the same as the original message, and the author has taken the liberty of inserting an apostrophe between the letters t and s of my response. Even if I had something to write back with, the meaningless words wouldn’t be worth my time. Plus, the message doesn't ask for a written reply; it wants me to make a call – fat chance. Back at the bar there is now a different bartender, so I underpay for my drinks and brace myself for tomorrow.
* * *
Wednesday is different.
My job is work from anywhere. That may sound like a scam, and hell, part of my job involves convincing people that they too can work from anywhere. That’s me. I’m the work-at-home Mom who makes over $5000 a month doing what she loves. I’m the middle-aged, underemployed Dad with no business degree who made $75,000 dollars last year by following a few, simple steps. By why stop there? I’m the regular, beer-swilling, dungaree-wearing, good naturedly-swearing guy in his mid-20s to early-30s, except I know three weird questions that will get gorgeous girls to take off all of their clothes. I am also those same fantasy girls – we noticed your online profile, and we don’t usually contact strangers like this, but we just had to talk to you. I don’t even need to be a person. Sex life not where you want it to be – of course, that’s because you haven’t been using Elong-8. Are you a flabby-flab – you so have got to try this miracle Acai berry super antioxidant diet! Oh by the way, click here for a few tips on how to find out if your man is cheating on you. Professional spammer at your service.
The job has to be done from anywhere. I make sure that the message, whatever its intent, gets delivered. Those emails get sent, I get my commission sent to temporary accounts from affiliate programs that look the other way, and they get paid by any number of companies in any number of places that can claim no involvement.
I make a modest sum, enough to pay my rent in advance, file my taxes as a self-employed “advertising consultant”, invest a little, and go out whenever I want. I’m sure I could be tracked with some effort, but I keep it reasonable – no more than 8 million emails get sent per week. I make minimal ripples. The guys who make six figures a year and have networks topping 50 million emails a week - those guys are the big fish.
It’s just another unfulfilling day job filled with hollow promises. And that’s what it comes down to again, more meaningless words. The worst part is enough people still fall for them to make it worth my time.
Wednesday starts off in one of the many identical Starbucks of Chicago, free Wi-Fi all the time. I shut my netbook down around lunch time and go to a 24-hour internet cafe that charges by the hour and doesn’t serve coffee, despite the name. Finally it’s time to visit two public libraries and check on some computers there – not unlike any number of past Wednesdays.
What makes this Wednesday different is the remembrance of two, short questions and a phone number scrawled on a bathroom wall. More meaningless words? But whoever created those words responded to my answer with a relevant question and included a number with a full area code. Perhaps the words can be relegated to an old school version of spam, a prototype left behind by the wireless revolution but still thriving in dank, urine-scented corners. Maybe enough people still call the occasional number, allowing this marketing technique to straggle along indefinitely.
Yes, the person who wrote those meaningless words wants something, and I’m sure as hell not going to give it to him. The person would be a guy since the message was in the men’s room, right? What’s his angle? How many sharpies has he bought and how many bathroom stalls has he defaced to get whatever it is that he wants?
But what if the number is legitimate, a golden opportunity that only requires a small leap of faith? This is not a good thought for a professional spammer to have.
For the rest of the week I can’t stop thinking about the handwriting. It has this crooked, messy style with the o’s falling short of total collapse - some lonely guy looking for action? He’s broke and can’t afford to join an online dating service. But then again the y’s are curly and hint at a feminine hand – some woman who can have any man she wants but prefers to do it in the sketchiest manner possible. But why does it have to be just about sex? Perhaps it’s some tired janitor with stooped shoulders and bad eyesight. He’s bored out of his skull and the occasional bathroom stall message is the only thing that keeps him going. Maybe it’s someone just like me, but how can I tell from a handful of words and a phone number?
After drinking too much van winkle in my studio on a quiet, Thursday night, I decide to try the number already committed to memory long ago. I still have the presence of mind to call from a pay phone, a lonely memberof the dwindling Chicagoan herd of abandoned outposts. On the fourth ring someone picks up and asks “Yeah what?” It’s a woman’s voice, heavy smoker.
“Hey – just calling the number on the wall. Have you been expecting a call?” I ask.
“Ah Jeezus, I don’t got time for this,” she husks. I can hear thumps and moaning in the background – no, bass beats,off-key singing, and distant earthquake rumblings - a karaoke bar?
“No, wait. What do you want?” I ask.
“A husband who’s not a drunk, kids that appreciate me, and a private jet. Til then I’ll take the train.” The line goes dead. I call again, but no one picks up. As I walk the several blocks back to my apartment in a mostly straight line, I realize that I’m no closer to learning whether the words hold any significance.
Funny how the skills that you develop on the job don’t necessarily translate to off the clock. The cobbler’s kids all have holes in their shoes. The carpenter’s drawers don’t close properly at home. The chef fixes a frozen pizza for his dinner. And I, with no qualms or lack of experience in uncovering personal information, have a perfectly good phone number. I don’t have to guess answers to security questions and temporarily borrow someone’s reverse phone directory account. No, I simply enter the number in the Google search bar, and the first entry that comes up is for a pay phone - Red line, Roosevelt stop.
I can work from anywhere. Thus, it won’t be a big deal if I ride the El train with one of my netbooks and a prepaid wireless card, spend the travel time phishing for new spamees, and take a five minute break at the stop. I’ll take a black sharpie along too, just in case.
In actuality, it’s a change to my Friday routine. The train car is cramped, and the unintended eye contact that comes from occasionally looking up is an irritation. I gratefully disembark at Roosevelt, and the one payphone along the underground platform is disenchanting asphalt bordered by grungy tiles. I sidle closer and take a look at the various rude messages and specialized signatures in white out spanning the metal shell. A line in dark red sharpie has handwriting similar to that of the stall message, except this time the r’s are flamboyant-looking with curved tails.
Are you here yet?
You know it.
I grin from behind my black sharpie. It could be a fluke; no one has truly original qualities, handwriting included. There could be no significance to all this beyond a one-sided, imaginary game. On the train ride back, I stare at the hands of the commuters, searching for telltale splotches of ink.
***
I check back at the Roosevelt stop on Monday because I can’t stop thinking that it really is the same person. A man is partially enveloped by the metal shell of the pay phone. He has the receiver to his ear as if he is taking a call, but I can see his left arm straying to the side of the outpost and making furtive motions.
I step closer to him and wait for him to finish his “call” until I take in the hat tilted at the perfect angle on his head – no mistaking that grey, sometimes colorless fedora. I tap his shoulder.
“Nice hat, where’d you get it?” I ask.
“Nice manners, where’d you get them? Did you need the phone? I thought you young people had smart gizmos for making calls. Mind if a man finishes his call? Hello? Yes, sorry about the interruption. You were saying?” His left hand has been creeping back to his jacket pocket the whole time. A fringe of tapered but somehow ruffled white hair is visible beneath the fedora as he turns his back to me; I caught that twinkle in his eye while his face was briefly turned towards mine.
“You’re not making a phone call, but you could be making a friend. Poetry slam, Green Tower, right? How’d you track down the hat?” I continue.
The Green Tower slam host clunks the phone down on the receiver, tucks whatever was in his left hand into his jacket pocket, faces me, and grins. “Did you want an autograph or something?” he says. There’s a long pause as if he’s expecting a name.
“I got knocked down, but I get up ag’in. You’re neva gonna keep me dooown!” This comes from a somewhat toothless man of uncertain ethnicity who is rocking a hoody over a trucker’s hat over a skull cap. He has a microphone and speaker set along with a shoebox placed out for donations – how much do people pay him to stop singing? The host and I grin at each other.
“Jeff. Jeff Fisher.” Not my real name, but one of favorite pseudonyms since he seems like a likeable guy. I extend my hand.
“Oh, I see.” He shakes my hand and frowns, and I can see now that he was expecting me to say his name.
“Love the show, crummy with names,” I say.
“Mick Fritz – so what! It’s not a big deal.” He brightens visibly.
“Ah, I can’t believe I forgot. So I see you have the hat from the last slam, but what happened to the antler?” I ask. Fritz touches the fedora gingerly so as not to disturb its perfect tilt.
“Well, it was a perfect toss that I made to get it on that antler. The only problem was getting it down the next day. I jumped instead of getting a stepladder – strong hat, weak antler? Either way, it’s a good hat, one of my own. I guess the antler’s mine too now. ” Fritz says.
“Pisssin’ the night awayyyy.” The El stop performer uses his falsetto for the song’s chorus. I start chuckling. Fritz joins in, but his laughter is strained.
The song helps me get to the point. “I must’ve been in the bathroom when you threw the hat up on the antler,” I say.
Fritz blinks, grins, and looks back at the pay phone. “Same bathroom, same phone. I suppose it’s no coincidence that we’re both here then, although the timing is quite fortunate,” he says.
“So you write a number on the stall in the Green Tower, but people who call it just get a public phone. So you wait around for those interested enough to visit the phone in person – time consuming, but what’s next?” I ask.
“No, no, no. I’m the other guy, the one who called the number and was curious enough to track it down,” he says. I lean past Fritz and reread the phone outpost conversation
Are you here yet?
You know it.
Good now we can play.
The last part is in black sharpie. “Come on, Fritz, I can see what you wrote right there a minute ago. How can we play the game if you won’t admit to it, much less tell me what it is?” I tap my index finger on the last line as Fritz peers at the words as well. He pulls a green sharpie from his left jacket pocket and uses the marker to point to another line.
I want to play too.
We both think this is really funny and decide to visit the Green Tower; Fritz has a key and promises free drinks. Bourbon clinks with gin and tonic while we nail the usual conversation points. I tell him that I’m in advertising, a consultant. He tells me that he’s a poet and has been organizing poetry slams for thirty years now. I can tell that he’s rather proud of this detail although he tries very badly to hide it – with some, it would be disingenuously self-effacing – with him, it’s endearing. Finally, we touch upon the topic of the game.
“It’s edgy. I mean the poetry slam came from here and spread across the world, and I was lucky enough to have started all that.” Fritz gives a deferential nod to his own words. “But the slams still happen in bars, cafés, places with seating. This writing on bathroom stalls and phone booths, who knows where that will stop? It’s poetry on the move,” he says.
“Wait, you think those messages are poetry? Hell, then I’m a poet too,” I reply.
“It could be the beginnings of poetry. Sometimes it’s hard to say, until you see the finished product and maybe not even then. But think about the mystery messager’s progression: ‘who’s there?’, ‘who are you?’, ‘are you here yet?’, ‘good now we can play.’ Two, three, four, then five syllables – each message grows by one syllable and builds off the partnered dialogue.” Fritz is getting excited and swinging his gin and tonic while he speaks. I can’t say that it’s not contagious.
“Yeah, and I’ve been doing it too just by chance. ‘It’s me’ – two syllables. And ‘you know it’ – three syllables. I guess I’m a natural, but didn’t you write too many words for your first line? What was it – ‘I want to play too.’ Five syllables – isn’t that a little much for an opening line?” I ask.
“No, no, no. The first guy, this mystery messager doesn’t set the rules. He can have his progression. I’ll have mine. It’s too predictable otherwise.” Fritz gulps the rest of his tonic and walks around the bar for a refill before leaning over the counter conspiratorially. “Who do you think this guerilla poet is anyway?” he asks.
“Me? I thought you’d have a better idea, as part of a community of poets or whatever. Maybe it’s a test and not a poem. Maybe I’ll keep playing and find out, but for now it’s work time.” I rattle the ice in my bourbon glass.
“Want to check the bathroom stall first?” Fritz smiles. Where did he get that twinkle in his eye from? I agree and we walk into the Men's room, two grown men hunched over in a cramped stall. The three lines of the conversation are now precise black rectangles. Someone has blocked out the text, but the other meaningless messages scrawled across the bathroom stall are untouched.
“Strange events are afoot. This introduces a new element to the game, a moving poem that erases its tracks,” Fritz murmurs. He's still bubbling with excitement, but I feel nauseous. I recall that sense of dread that led me to the stall in the first place.
“Hmmm, definitely strange. Wonder if it was the same person – listen, I really need to get back to work,” I say. Before Fritz can say anything more about the blocked messages, I thank him for the drinks, shake his hand, and leave him in that bathroom stall, still puzzling over the poetic implications of blacked-out text. The jury’s still out on whether words are meaningless, but why would someone take the time to black out words that held no significance?
***
I start Sunday morning off like I always do. I read the Chicago Tribune obituaries - not because they make me feel better about myself. It’s all about inactive bodies that leave behind active online accounts, a wealth of personalized computing power that is rarely missed.
Michael J. Fritz, 72, of Chicago, passed away on Saturday, March 26, 2011. Beloved founder and creator of the poetry slam movement –
What? There’s no picture, but how many elderly poets named Fritz are there in Chicago? The next few lines enumerate how his movement forever changed the poetry establishment – guess he was sort of a big deal. Let’s see – found dead in apartment, officials have not yet performed an autopsy or issued the official cause of death. Suicide? No way. He was so excited about, well, everything, even scribbled bathroom stall and phone booth messages.
Sorry Fritz, I guess I’m the only one who gets to play.
On Monday afternoon, I visit the Roosevelt stop phone to pay my respects and see a message in red sharpie below Fritz’s last words.
Hey new old guy. BUTT OUT.
Six syllables - the curves of the u’s are precise, premeditated, green sharpie strokes.
Did you do it?
I scrawl the four syllables in my same black sharpie with a shaky hand. I can’t afford to violate the progression now.
The bedraggled train platform performer is singing a toneless song. For the second time in a little over a week, I can’t focus on the words. I walk towards him. This catches his attention since most people on the train platform are doing their best to avoid him and his noise.
“Who uses that phone?” I shout over the blare. He nods offbeat to the background music and gestures to the shoebox at his feet filled with dollar bills and scattered silver. I drop in a dollar and repeat my question. He keeps singing, so I hold up a twenty dollar bill.
He stops singing. “What, you need a special song, man?”
I shake my head. “You see that phone. No, don’t point at it. I’ll give you this twenty if you watch it for the rest of the time you’re here. You get another twenty if you can tell me who used it, when I come back tomorrow,” I say.
He nods, but I don’t know if that means that he just wants the twenty or if he’ll actually do what I ask. A southbound train rumbles to a stop, spits out passengers, swallows some more, and slowly slides away. How many southbound eyes are watching? I drop the twenty in the shoebox and leave on a northbound train.
This must just be a string of coincidences. Mick Fritz was old, and well, what happened to him happens to old people. And the messages, the syllable progression – maybe that was just Fritz having fun with me – he did seem kind of kooky. The only significance to the words is their disruption of my routine – the Green Tower and now this lousy pay phone, the revisiting of places in a predictable fashion.
Still, I know that I will visit the Roosevelt stop at least one more time.
***
HWLC PN.6101.P542
Tuesday afternoon, Roosevelt stop, Black sharpie again, but those aren’t even words. Fourteen syllables if I include the numbers. I’m beginning to see two patterns: the surface conversation and then the location shifts, - a phone number and now this code. If I’m right, then this will probably be my last pay phone visit.
I walk over to the platform karaoke performer. He’s not performing any songs since there is a lull in the foot traffic. He doesn’t seem to recognize me until I pull out another twenty.
“Kids, man. It was kids – they play with the phone.” He nods and points at the shoebox.
“Kids? What about adults. Did you maybe see a short guy, dressed very nicely, pinstripe vest?” I ask while the twenty hangs motionless in my hand.
“Do you want me to see him? Lots of people, man. I can’t watch all them.” He checks his microphone connection as another train arrives at the station. Damn, I hadn’t thought of rush hour, a wall of flesh sheltering my opponent – because that’s what he is, this is a game, and I just lost some points.
I put the twenty back in my pocket, toss a five into the shoebox instead, and leave by the aboveground route before my failed informant can begin his next song.
***
Tuesday was another disruption, so I wait until Wednesday morning to Google the code, and, again, there is no challenge. It’s on the first search page, it’s a book, and it belongs to the Harold Washington Library center, a catalogue number. There are five copies available and the book is entitled “Poetry in Motion.” Great.
The introductory letters, the “HWLC” refer to the central library of Chicago, just a few more stops along the El Redline train – my opponent and I will have over 700,000 square feet to redefine the rules of the game.
Wednesday afternoon, and the stupidly curious faces mulling about the thoughtfully imposing building don’t help this conviction. The library is so large that I have to take escalators to travel between half- floors. On floor 5.5, I finally ask this seemingly socially confused librarian for exact directions, and his face lights up when he tells me that I’m on the right floor. He hands me a map and traces a line to the correct location.
Libraries have been good for two things in the past: anonymity and picking up women painfully interested in one genre, whether it be historical romances or motivational biographies. I chose anonymity, since it helped with the job and didn’t involve pretending to read a potentially IQ-withering book in hopes of a conversation.
I spend nearly an hour at the library, over 100,000 sent and possibly-clicked-upon messages lost for the day, before I locate the right book. There are five copies of “Poetry in Motion”, but only one is placed atop the other four copies at a bizarre angle. In the world of spamming, the most ostentatious claim usually holds the worst consequences, so I flip through the other four books first.
Beyond a few random, dog-eared pages, there is nothing special about them – words about trains, planes, and existential epiphanies that don't acknowledge bathroom stalls and public phones. The last, the fifth book is special in that it is pristine, even virginal for the lack of time stamps testifying to the fact that it’s never been used.
It’s a thin book – perhaps the same book that the little guy poet, who wore that grey fedora in such a perfectly wrong fashion, released from his back pants pocket. Perhaps there is some highlighted or underlined portion of a poem that will explain the penalty, if any, paid by Fritz.
I check out that specific “Poetry in Motion” book with my library card, one of my few pieces of identification with my actual birth name on it. That’s when the sirens start. The woman at the check-out desk glares at me through ridiculously long eyelashes as if it’s somehow my fault and places my book and card behind the counter. She trails me past the electronic barriers, but I lose her somewhere along the way as I join the crowd on the outside sidewalk.
Forty minutes later, we’re allowed back into the library. False alarm – no, you think so? I regain my rightful place at the check-out line on floor 5.5. The worker at the desk is no longer a long-lashed woman, but he swipes my book just fine and returns my library card in a timely fashion.
I scour the book for clues during my train ride back, but I eventually realize that I have to look no further than the inside cover. What I took to be my time stamp on the book card is another message.
Please do not disappoint me.
Poor-quality library pen ink and seven syllables now – one more than the last message. Damn it, Fritz, how did you pick up on that so quickly?
And how do I not disappoint a shadow? I know nothing about him or her – the little poet whose voice was not his own, the bartender who didn’t want to talk about the antler, the librarian who abandoned her post, any number of background outlines tracking my progress, memorizing my face, taking note of my habits. And now that shadow has probably caught a glimpse of my library card, my real name.
Most people don’t realize how much their full name reveals – not by itself, but it is a key, a foot in the door, a first step in the straightforward process of reverse engineering a person’s life: credit reports, criminal background checks, cell phone bills, employment history, last known residence.
I do what any professional spammer in his right mind would do; I plan a leave of absence. It’s time to shut it down, find other servers, feel out some new affiliate programs. I drop off most of my electronics at a storage unit that is, thankfully, not registered under my real name. That’s another possession that I’ll have to leave behind for now. The shadow can have my name when it finds my residence building and lurks outside the apartment door. The rent is all paid up. It can wait there for as long as it wants.
But why me? I’m certain I don’t want to find out – perhaps the reason will come as a whisper – maybe it will make sense or maybe it won't, but that won't change what Chicago PD will find in my apartment in the aftermath of the shadow's passage.
My bag is packed, a few days’ worth of clothes and toiletries. My one electronic companion is a laptop, literally my personal computer that I never use for business. After making sure the windows are locked, the faucets aren’t running, and the bathroom light is off, I check my email reflexively.
Kept the Antler. You get the Hat.
That is the subject line for an email sent to my personal account 23 minutes ago. There is no body message. Eight syllables in the title, but what does it matter?
Of the million or so spam messages that my network sends out a day, only a handful get opened. The person who opens that email may realize his mistake as soon as an avalanche of advertisements cascades across his screen, or he may never catch on that he’s about to be swindled in some way. Either way, he pays a price. Look at what happened to Fritz.
Like the customers that click an unknown link, or give out personal information to total strangers, Fritz decided to take a chance. But instead of private humiliation or financial ruin, he got death. People should get to learn from their mistakes, and, in short, be able to spend their remaining life spans readjusting from those follies. I cannot forgive that a human being with an experimental twinkle in his eye was given no such chance. Someone did this to him. Why hasn’t what happened to Fritz happened to me? .
The sender’s email is obviously a bogus return address. Still, it’s not too difficult for me to trace the IP address to another internet café.
I unpack my bag.
***
The internet café from where the email was sent is a small storefront with colorful signs plastered across the window and covered in a language that might be Korean. Perhaps my opponent’s message will cover one of the inside desks supporting a computer for rent. Maybe it will be in the store’s bathroom stall, although a repeat like that wouldn’t be very original.
I check a covered bus stop a few feet away to see if there are any lingering eyes. A grey lump of soft material is wedged between the wooden bench’s splintered end and the transparent, plastic wall. I sit on the bench, unfurl the lump, and cradle Mick Fritz’s fedora in my hands. It looks more grey than colorless, so I put it on my head, hoping that the tilt is just right.
The walls of the bus stop are covered in messages – mere graffiti, since none of them match the handwriting. My last message was four syllables. Should I follow the progression? .
No, no, no – Fritz’s voice grumbles in my head. He’s right – this is poetry not a production quota. But where do I start? The only type of poem I can recall is a haiku, three lines, five-seven-five. Seventeen syllables in total – that's suicide if the shadow is one for progressions. But I can borrow the format to put myself one step ahead. I drag a thick, brown sharpie across the scarred plastic wall.
Its me
Redefining rules
Your move
Two-five-two, nine syllables in all, one more than the message that led me here. First poem I’ve ever written, and I doubt it will be my last in this unhealthy correspondence canvassing Chicago.
Routines are disrupted so that they can become new routines. Words lose and regain their meaning with changing context. Defeat and victory differ by one, stray syllable.
So I write, wearing a dead man’s hat. And I watch. I know that he, she, it, a little poet, a bearded bartender, a long-lashed librarian, a person riding a bus and carrying a jagged antler is somewhere doing the same.
