The Abduction of Edward Furari

I couldn't take it anymore.  I guess I'd just read one too many bad stories.  It's easy to get frustrated when you're a hopeful author and you read those magazines with page after page of ideas that could have been great if only Idiot A had used a garbage man instead of a carpenter, or if the Maid in Doofus B's story turns out to be the stepmother after all, something like that.

Well, this one blew the lid off of it.  A perfect idea, popped right in front of me, in issue 72 of Evocative Stories, in the disguise of a good story.  All the while, I'm thinking, "This could be good," and, "This is really interesting."  The whole time, I'm guessing the plot, and I'm trying to see how the story is going to unfold.  But when the big moment comes, the author blows his opportunity and misses the prize.  He goes for the shock ending and completely passes up a chance to make the story great.

I'd had it, right then.  It was killing me even to have read the story.  I wished I'd just spent my money on bubble-gum.  But it was too late.  Another plot I could have used, taken and mangled by a poor talent.

Well, I wasn't going to let this one get by me.  Late that night, I created a plan out of darkness and my fervent desire, and I made it come true .  It's such an unsettling thing that I did, that I somehow willed into being; it's too strange to be real.  But it worked.

I wrote him a letter, to start.  I sent it to Evocative, who passed it along to him.  The letter read:

Dear Mr. Furari,

I really enjoyed your story, "The Abduction of Jerry Brown." I was wondering, if it wouldn't be too much trouble, would you look at some of my work and give me some feedback? There's an SASE enclosed, so please write me back as soon as you can.

Yours truly,

Adam Cole

The man may have been an incompetent author, but at least he was personable.  He wrote back in a very nice letter telling me that he would be happy to give me what comments he could.

I sent him several of my very worst stories, laughing all the way to the post office.  I waited about three weeks, and then I got another super-nice letter from him with a lot of helpful comments, "You might do this here,"  and "You might try that there."  I rolled my eyes over most of it.  The comments were the kind of thing I might have given to a five-year old.  Obviously, he didn't want to hurt my feelings but he still wanted the boost to his own self-esteem.

I thanked him profusely in another letter.  I told him all about how much his comments had helped me, and how much better a writer I was, and how I could see so clearly when all the while I'd missed the point before.  At the end of it, I asked him if I could send him some more (trashy) stuff.

Of course he bit.  The man was a sucker, an absolute mope, as they say.  I really have to hand it to him.  I'm writing through my tears, now;  he really was helpful!  He gave me more of the same good-will comments as before.

This time I called him.  There weren't too many Furaris in the San Francisco phone book.  I apologized about a thousand times for calling him up, but he was very nice.

"I hope you don't mind..." I said again.

"No, no!" he replied.  "Not at all!  I'm always happy to work with new talent!"

"Talent?" I asked.  "You really think I have talent?"

"Why, of course!" he said generously.

He was so nice.  He really took me in.  I had to hand it to him.  He was a moron, but he had a better heart than me.  If I had any pity in my heart for anyone I would have had it for him first.

We talked on the phone for over an hour.  He was a previously married gentleman with a four-year old son in the same city;  he had a new girlfriend of three years.  He had a position as a bookseller at a local Border's, which I thought was really rich.  I had to tell him a little about myself, but mostly I just let him talk.

The conversation ended like all of those conversations do.  "If you're ever in San Francisco, blah blah."  I'm sure he meant it; at least, at that moment.  He didn't know that I was counting on him to say something like that.  It was part of my scheme.

It didn't take me too long after our chat for me to close up all my business here in Atlanta, quit my job with the ballet, pay off my rent, and buy a one-way plane ticket to San Francisco.  Luckily, I had an old roommate from college who lived out there who let me stay with him while I found a new job and my own place.  Chris and his wife were patient about it, too, which I needed, because I didn't want just any job or any place.

I didn't let Ed Furari know that I was in town at first.  That was my great advantage.  First I went to every Border's in town and asked if he might be working there.  I found his after a couple of tries.  Then I found out when he would be there.

I spied on him from behind the LeCarre books for about a half-hour.  He never noticed me.  That's the only real advantage to a large chain; you can keep your anonymity.  All the while I was watching him, I took little mental notes, seeing how he walked, how he smiled, how he extended his hand when he offered to help someone.  Best of all, I noticed how he walked out of the bookstore with a magazine under his arm.

I came back several times that week, and each time I saw him leave with a different periodical.  As far as I could tell, he wasn't paying for them, and he wasn't returning them.  Sometimes a person comes to another city and he gets very lucky; opportunities just fall on him.  I went to the manager after the third incident and I told her I wanted to apply for a position as a bookseller.  In passing, I mentioned to her that I was a very observant person, and that I'd even seen someone stealing from her store.  She was alarmed, of course, but she was even more alarmed when I described the person.  I didn't let on that I knew he was an employee.

I took Ed's job the next day, smooth as butter on a hot plate.  Not a bad job, actually.  And all the while, Ed never knew.

The time had come when I needed to call Ed and make my presence known.  I phoned him later that same day, after he'd had a chance to get good and depressed.

"Hello, Mr. Furari?"

"Yes?"

"This is Adam Cole.  You probably don't remember me.  I'm the writer who..."

"Yes!  Adam, how are you?"

"Just fine, thanks," I said.  "I just moved to San Francisco a few days ago."

"Really!  This is a local call!"

"Yes."

"I didn't know you were planning a move."

"Well, it was a chance I had to take."

"Very good.  So, perhaps..."

"Would you like to get together?"

"Of course!" Ed replied.  "Of course!"

I knew he would.  He's just that type of guy.  I went over to his apartment that evening and met the man who had unknowingly pulled me out to San Francisco.  He was a tall, thin man with olive-colored skin that was flaking a bit.  He had a wiry crop of black hair and he was dressed in slacks with a button-down short-sleeve shirt that looked as though tobacco had worn out its color.

I mention all these details because, on this first meeting, I took pains to dress very differently from him.  I wore a knit-shirt with jeans and a pair of boots.  I didn't want him to notice the resemblance between us, yet.

He cooked dinner for the three of us; me, his girlfriend, and I.  We ate pasta and talked about writing and cities and Calvino and all the rest.  His girlfriend was quite charming, attractive, really;  a sunny blonde with a degree in psychology from Berkeley, and a sharp, literal sense of humor.  She wasn't really my type...yet.  But these things can't be helped.

Our conversation went along to what I planned to do in San Francisco.  I made up a story about a job I'd come out to get, in the building across from the bookstore.  I told him I'd been here only a couple days, and that I was still looking for a place to live.

Well, of course, the nicest man in the world wouldn't dream of passing that one up!  He mentioned to me that there was a spare bedroom here in the apartment.  He said that his son usually slept there, but that his son wouldn't be visiting for another month, and if I needed a place to stay for a few days while I looked, I was welcome.

I don't know if he really meant for me to take him up on that, but I got a surprised look on my face and I said, "Gosh, Ed, do you mean it?"

What a wonderful position to put someone in!

I moved out of Chris and Krista's that same night and made my move over to Ed's apartment.  That night I had a dream that I was pulling in a rope from the sea.  Coil by coil came through my mechanically pumping arms.  At the other end was Ed, but he wasn't coming along with the end of the rope.  Instead I was pulling something away from Ed and leaving him to drown in the cold black ocean.  He was holding on to the other end for dear life, but I just kept pulling and pulling.  Eventually, something snapped and I was able to pull out of the cold water a loose amalgamation of flesh and soul.  I gave no more thought to what was still out there in the water.  As I began to put the amalgamation on, I awoke with a smile on my face.

Ed was a wonderful host. He cooked me breakfast every morning and made sure I had the best towels.  I took as much advantage of this as I could.  A man's generosity is nothing to pass up from squeamishness, after all.  But I repaid him in kindness; at least, he thought I did.  I cleaned up around the house, even the bathrooms.  All the while, I was taking inventory of where everything was.  Even his girlfriend's underwear.  That was a particular pleasure.  I answered the phone for him when he was out looking for new employment.  I have to admit I couldn't help myself from being social with the people who called, getting to know them and chatting away.  I even spoke to his mother for nearly an hour.  She's such a lovely woman.

Ed was using his days to write as much as he could.  In the afternoons, he'd be out looking for a job.  I had pretended not to know what was going on.  I would have found out anyway, though.  In the first place, Ed's girlfriend began to become uncomfortable with his new lifestyle, and she complained to none other than yours truly.  I'm a very sensitive guy; I gave her every opportunity to express her feelings to me.  She told me she didn't like the idea of coming home day after day and finding him there, lazed out on the couch, "thinking."  She also didn't like Ed's love affair with his word-processor;  "It's a competition between the writing and the rest of the world," she said to me.  She almost cried.  But it was too soon for that, and I stopped her.  There's no rushing these things.

In the second place, when it became apparent that Ed wasn't going to find a job any time soon, he confided the truth to me.  The timing couldn't have been better.  I'd been there about a week and my statute of limitations was nearly up for a free stay.  So I offered to pay him a rent while I was "looking for a new place."  It took me about twenty minutes to convince him.  His girlfriend was all for it.  Not only could they use the money, she said, but she liked having me around.

So I became a border in that house, which made me a far more welcome guest than before.  It's funny how, after the grace period is over, money can make such a difference to people.  Ed didn't even realize how suddenly his attitude towards me changed.  He stopped being so condescending.  We became pals, I guess.

The time I spent with Ed was some of the happiest of my life.  That's because I was truly doing what I was put on this earth to do.  I could feel it.  My energy level was increased.  I felt revitalized.  I had even started to write again.  Ed and I joked about having to make a mutual word-processor schedule to avoid conflicts.  I was following the straight path into Ed's soul.  I was beginning to work the bones back and forth to loosen them up.  I wanted a break so smooth and easy that the meat just pulled right off like it does with a boiled chicken.

He hadn't caught on, then.  Not yet.  He didn't notice that his girlfriend and I had been sharing secret looks.  He didn't notice that the mess in the bed wasn't the same mess it had been before he'd gone to get groceries.  Our friendship just grew more with each passing day, as though there were some intimate bond between us, a mutual interest, a shared understanding.

He had grown so personable with me that we started talking about our stories.  He was struggling with a number of ideas that he had been waiting to work on for months.  Now he had the time to work on them, but the impetus behind them had flagged.  He bounced ideas off of me.  I offered the kind of help that a friend offers.  I gave him advice.  True, it was the wrong advice.  His ideas were excellent.  I had to give him that.  But he was always taking shortcuts, looking for the quick and easy path.  His stories always ended up wasting the good ideas within them, ruining them for the rest of us.

I thought that it was my duty in life to rescue these ideas from him.  So I gave him poor advice.  I led him down false paths that were designed to take him further away from these ideas so that, eventually, he would get all caught up in the pointless intricacies that I had given him and lose interest in the initial idea altogether.

  When this had occurred, I would promptly rush to the word processor and write the story myself, using his ideas, but finishing them correctly.  I was feeling more creative than ever, and the stories I wrote and the characters I was coming up with were better than anything I could have ever done before.  I think villainy does that to a person.  It stirs him up; it gets the pulp back into the orange juice.

The outcome of these encounters were that I would end up with great work which I kept hidden for the time being, and Ed was left with the tattered remains of stories that he'd eventually have to throw away.  The poor man was already beginning to fade at that point and he didn't even know it.

When my schedule allowed it, and when I was too tired for sex, I went along with him to the writers' meetings.  It didn't take me long to make a good impression on those people; and with my high-energy presentation and Ed's growing reticence and silence, it wasn't long before I was the center of attention while Ed was typically off by himself drinking coffee, or puzzling over a wrinkled manuscript.

Ed's depression quickly affected his relationship.  What had been a finely balanced love-affair quickly teetered over into dislike.  The secret was out when Ed's girlfriend came crying into my room late one night and stayed there.  Ed wasn't around to make breakfast that next morning.  I was beginning to wonder if it would be that easy, but he came back that afternoon.

The funniest part was that he didn't blame me, he blamed her!  He confided in me.  He had begun to cling to our friendship like it was the last thing he could depend on.  His instincts were pretty good.  I have to give him that.  He told me he was ready to dump her anyway, but there hadn't been a good opportunity.  She paid the rent out of her salary after all, and right now he was paying nothing.  So he couldn't have just kicked her out.  He totally understood that she had fallen for me.  Sweet guys are always like that.  They can't bear to get angry at the people they need.  I was counting on that, of course.  So there wasn't any grudge, just a tacit civility between them while he decided if he was going to have to move out.

He still didn't realize what was happening!  Not when he couldn't find his thesaurus nor his favorite copy of Dorian Grey, even though he only had to look as far as my desk.  Not when he couldn't think up another idea to save his life, even though I was writing a storm every afternoon I had free.  Not when I started attending the writers' meetings without him, and no one seemed to notice.  Not even when his ex-girlfriend moved him into the guest room and moved me in with her!

It wasn't until his son came over that he finally made the connection.  At first, when the little boy came through the door and saw me, wearing the same clothes as his dad, sitting on the couch with his dad's girlfriend, he actually mistook me for him.  Ed's girlfriend was quick to point out the boy's mistake to him, but not before Ed had shambled in and seen it.  That was the beginning of the end.  That was when Ed looked me in the eye and began to guess it.  But it still didn't come out all the way.

It wasn't until I began spending a lot of time with the boy, taking him to the bookstore, buying him presents, letting him help me write stories, that Ed really began to see things clearly.  Of course, he was in no position to do anything about it.  He was doing poorly.  His health had suffered.  All his available energy was devoted to finding a job and a new apartment, and he didn't have the time to keep the boy that much anyway.  And the boy didn't seem to want to spend much time with this empty ghost that had been his father.

The last straw finally came when Ed tried to take him to lunch, and the little boy protested loudly, saying that he was going to go to lunch with me and my girlfriend.  Ed was taken aback at first.  He seemed to consider the situation, looking me up and down, seeing my olive skin, my overall vitality, my seeming concern for his well being.  He nodded, and he didn't protest.  He just went back into the guest bedroom and closed the door.

I came back home alone that afternoon, leaving the boy and my girlfriend to go shopping.  Ed was waiting for me on the couch.  He had a resigned look on his face.  His shoulders were hunched over.  He looked so sad, then, that I really felt sorry for him.  I had to remind myself of why I had done what I did to feel better about myself.

"Don't worry, Ed," I said.  "You'll feel better as soon as you get a new job."

Ed looked up at me.  His tired eyes were curious.  "I know what you're doing," he said.

I don't know if I was expecting him to say something like that or not.  I knew he'd guess.  But the whole thing was so fantastic that I never figured he'd really hold me responsible.

"What?" I asked, just to play along.  I put that look of concern on my face, just the same look he'd always had.  When he saw the expression, he actually laughed out loud.  He regarded me like I was a statue of his mother, as real as the real thing.  His face betrayed admiration in the midst of his gloomy resignation and anger.

"You're doing to me just what I had that character do in 'The Abduction of Jerry Brown.'  You've come into my life slowly, carefully, and you've stolen it, nearly completely."

"It's nothing personal, Ed," I said, trying not to sound too cocky.  "It's just that your story had a weak ending.  And I couldn't just sign my name to it and resubmit it the way it should have been, could I?  No," I shook my head.  "This is the way it should have ended.  Just like this, with you, fading away into nothingness, leaving behind a perfect, improved imposter."

"You won't get away with this," said Ed.

"You know what, Ed?" I replied, giving up all attempts to be congenial.  "It's just that kind of cheesy dialogue that brought me here in the first place.  No, you're wrong, I will get away with this.  I won.  You're about to take that suitcase on my guest bed and leave this apartment.  You'll probably just fade away into nothing and not even your mother will notice.  That's the best ending for this story, and you know it."

Ed shook his head.  "You’ll see," he said.  And then he got up, went to the guest bed, grabbed his suitcase, and left.

He had guts.  I have to hand it to him.  Even to be able to defy me at that point took bravado.  I have to say, I wasn't at all worried that he'd be able to do anything to me, really.  I knew I had won when I saw his body fade visibly away as he closed the door behind him.  He wasn't in the hall when I opened it, and I wasn't able to track him down.

His mother was the last sticking point.  She did call the police, with my help of course, but they couldn't locate him.  Nor did they ever.  I say with a little modesty that I was some comfort to her.  The boy lives with his mother now, but he still comes over to see us all the time.  I guess you could say I've become the father he lost.

The best part is that my stories are doing very well.  And why shouldn't they?  I always take care to give my stories the ending they deserve.

-  THE END  -

(C) 1998  Edward Furari