The Plant. Part 18

Writing in this journal yesterday, I said that Riddley's closet had become a jungle, but yesterday I didn't understand what a jungle was. I know that must sound strange after my tour of Tina Barfield's greenhouse in Central Falls, but it's true. Riddley won't be shooting dice with Bill Gelb in there anymore, I can tell you that. The room is now a densely packed ma.s.s of shiny green leaves and tangled vines, rising from the floor to the ceiling. Within it you can still see a few gleams of metal and wood-the mop-bucket, the broom-handle-but that's it. The shelves are buried. The fluorescent lights overhead are barely visible. The smells that came out at us, although good, were almost overpowering.

And then there was a sigh. We all heard it. A kind of whispered, exhaled greeting.

An avalanche of leaves and stems fell out at our feet and sprawled across the floor. Several tendrils went snaking over the linoleum. The speed with which this happened was scary. If you'da blinked, you'da missed it, as my father might have said. Sandra screamed, and when Herb put his arms around her shoulders, she didn't seem to mind a bit.

Bill stepped forward and drew his leg back, apparently meaning to kick the rapidly snaking ivy-branches back into the janitor's closet. Or to try. Roger grabbed his shoulder. "Don't do that! Leave it be! It doesn't mean to hurt us! Can't you feel that? Don't you know from the smell?"

Bill stopped, so I guess he did. We watched as several tendrils of ivy climbed up the wall of the corridor. A few of these began to explore the gray steel sides of the water fountain, and when I left the office tonight, the fountain was pretty much buried. It looks as if those of us who like a drink of water every now and then during the course of the day are going to be buying Evian at Smiler's from now on.

Sandra squatted down and held out her hand, the way you might hold your hand out for a strange dog to sniff. I didn't like to see her that way, not while she was so close to the green avalanche we'd let out of the janitor's closet. In its shadow, so to speak. I reached out to pull her back, but Roger stopped me. He had a queer little smile on his face.

"Let her," he said.A tendril as thick as a branch detached itself from the nearly solid clump of green bulging through the doorway. It reached out to her, trembling, seeming almost to sniff its way to her. It slid around her wrist and she gasped. Herb started forward and Roger yanked him back. "Leave her alone! It's all right!" he said.

"Do you swear?"

Roger's lips were pressed together so tightly they were almost gone. "No," he said in a small voice. "But I think."

"It is all right," Sandra said dreamily. She watched as the tendril slid delicately up her bare arm in a spiral of green and brown, seeming to caress her bare skin as it went. It looked like some exotic snake. "It says it's a friend."

"That's what the Pilgrims told the Indians," Bill said bleakly.

"It says it loves me," she said, now sounding almost ecstatic. We watched as the tip of the moving tendril slipped under the short sleeve of her blouse. A small green leaf near the tip went under next, lifting the cloth a bit. It was like watching some new kind of Hindu fakir at work, a plant charmer instead of a snake charmer. "It says it loves all of us. And it says..." Another tendril snaked loosely around one of her knees, then slipped tenderly down her calf in a loose coil.

"It says one of us is missing," Herb said. I looked around and saw that Herb's shoes had disappeared. He was standing ankle-deep in ivy.

Roger and I walked to the closet's doorway and stood there with the leaves brushing the fronts of our coats. I thought how easy it would be for that thing to grab us by the ties. A couple of long hard yanks and presto-a pair of editors strangled by their own cravats. Then several coils of ivy wrapped themselves around my wrists in loose bracelets, and all those paranoid, fearful thoughts dropped away.

Now, sitting at my apartment desk and pounding away at my old typewriter (also smoking like a furnace again, I'm sorry to say), I can't remember exactly what came next...except that it was warm and comforting and quite a bit more than pleasant. It was lovely, like a warm bath when your back aches, or chips of ice when your mouth is hot and your throat is sore.

What an outsider would have seen, I don't know. Probably not much, if Tina Barfield was telling the truth when she said no one could see it but us; probably just five slightly scruffy editors, four of them on the youngish side (and Herb, who's pushing fifty, would look young at a more respectable publisher's conference table, where the ages of most editors seem to range between sixty-five and dead), standing around the door of the janitor's closet.

What we saw was it. The plant. Zenith the common ivy. It had now expanded (and relaxed) all around us, feeling along the corridor with its tendrils and climbing the walls with its rhizomes, as eager and frisky as a colt let out of the stable on a warm May morning. It had both of Sandra's arms, it had my wrists, it had Bill and Herb by the feet. Roger had grown a loose green necklace, and didn't seem worried about it at all.

We saw it and we experienced it. The physical fact of it and the rea.s.suring mental warmth of it. It experienced us in the same fashion, united us in a way that turned us into a small but perfect mental choir. And yes, I am saying exactly what I seem to be saying, that while we stood there in the grip of those many thin but tough tendrils, we shared a telepathic link. We saw into each others' hearts and minds. I don't know why I should find that so amazing after all the other stuff that's happened-the fact that yesterday I saw a dead man reading a newspaper, for instance-but I do.

Zenith had asked about Riddley. It seemed to have a special interest in the man who had taken it in, given it a place to grow, and enough water to allow it a fragile purchase on life. We a.s.sured it (him?) in our choir voice that Riddley was fine, Riddley was away but would be back soon. The plant seemed satisfied. The tendrils holding our arms and legs (not to mention Roger's neck) let go. Some dropped to the floor, some simply withdrew.

"Come on," Roger said quietly. "Let's go."

But for a moment we stood there, looking at it wonderingly. I thought of Tina Barfield telling us to just give it a DDT shower when we were done with it, when we'd gotten what we needed from it, and for a moment I was actually glad she was dead. Coldhearted b.i.t.c.h deserved to be dead, I thought. To talk about killing something that was so powerful and yet so obviously tame and friendly...profit-motive aside, that was just sick.

"All right," Sandra said at last. "Come on, you guys."

"I don't believe it," Bill said. "I see it but I don't believe it."

Except we knew he did. We'd seen it and felt it in his mind.

"What about the door?" Herb asked. "Open or closed?"

"Don't you dare close it," Sandra said indignantly. "You'll cut off some of its little branches if you do."

Herb stepped back from the door and looked at Bill. "Are you convinced, O Doubting Thomas?"

"You know I am," Bill said. "Don't rub it in, okay?"

"n.o.body is going to rub anything in," Roger said brusquely. "We've got more important things to do. Now come on."

He lead us back toward Editorial, smoothing his tie as he went and then tucking it into his belt. I paused just once, at the jog in the corridor, and looked back. I was convinced that it would be gone, that the whole thing had been some sort of wacky five-way hallucination, but it was still there, a green flood of leaves and a brownish tangle of limber vines, a good many now crawling up the wall.

"Amazing," Herb breathed beside me.

"Yes," I said.

"And all that stuff that happened in Rhode Island? All that's true?"

"It's all true," I agreed.

"Come on," Roger called. "We've got a lot to talk about."

I started moving, but then Herb caught my arm. "I almost wish old Iron-Guts wasn't dead," he said. "Can you imagine how something like this would blow his mind?"

I didn't respond to this, but I was thinking plenty, most of it having to do with Tina Barfield's note.

Back in Roger's office again, Roger behind his desk, me in the chair beside it, Sandra in her chair, Bill and Herb once more sitting on the carpet with their legs stretched out and their backs to the wall.

"Any questions?" Roger asked, and we all shook our heads. Someone reading this diary-someone outside of these events, in other words-would no doubt find that incredible: how in G.o.d's name could there be no questions? How could we have avoided spending at least the rest of the morning speculating about the invisible world? More likely the rest of the day?

The answer's simple: it was because of the mind-meld. We had come to a mutual understanding few people are able to manage. And there's also the small fact that we have a business to save-our meal-tickets, if you want to get down and dirty about it. Getting down and dirty seems easier for me since Ruth kissed me off-perhaps the prolixity will go next. I can hope, anyway. I'll tell you something about the fabled meal-ticket, since I'm on the subject. You worry when you're in danger of losing it, but you don't become truly frantic until you're in danger of losing it and you realize it could possibly be saved. If, that is, you move very quickly and don't stumble. Fatalism is a crutch. I never knew that before, but I do now.

And one more thing about the "no questions" thing. People can get used to anything-quadriplegia, hair loss, cancer, even finding out your beloved only daughter just joined the Hare Krishnas and is currently sparechanging business travelers at Stapleton International in a pair of fetching orange pajamas. We adapt. An invisible, telepathy-inducing ivy is just one more thing to get used to. We'll worry about the ramifications later, maybe. Right then we had a pair of books to work on: World's Sickest Jokes and The Devil's General.

The only one of us to have problems getting with the program was Herb Porter, and his distraction had nothing to do with Zenith the common ivy. At least not directly. He kept shooting reproachful, bewildered glances at Sandra, and thanks to the mind-meld, I knew why. Bill and Roger did, too. It seems that over the last half-year or so, Mr. Riddley Walker of Bug's a.n.u.s, Alabama has been waxing more than the floors here at Zenith House.

"Herb?" Roger asked. "Are you with us or agin us?"

Herb kind of snapped around, like a man who's just been awakened from a doze. "Huh? Yeah! Of course!"

"I don't think you are, not entirely. And I want you with us. The good bark Zenith has sprung one h.e.l.l of a nasty leak, in case you haven't noticed. If we're going to keep her from sinking, we need all hands at the pumps. No frigging in the rigging. Do you take my point?"

"I take it," Herb said sullenly.

Sandra, meanwhile, gave him a look which contained nothing but perplexity. I think she knows what Herb knows (and that we all know). She just can't understand why in G.o.d's name Herb would care. Men don't understand women, I know that's true...but women deeply don't understand men. And if they did, they probably wouldn't have much to do with us.

"All right," Roger said, "suppose you tell us what, if anything, is being done with the General Hecksler book."

To Roger's delight and amazement, a great deal has been done on the Iron-Guts bio, and in a very short time. While Roger and I were in Central Falls, Herb Porter was one busy little bee. Not only has he engaged Olive Barker as the ghost on The Devil's General, he's gotten her solemn promise to deliver a sixty thousand-word first draft in just three weeks.

To say that I was surprised by this quick action would be drawing it mild. In my previous experience, Herb Porter only moves fast when Riddley comes down the hall yelling, "Dey's doughnuts in de kitchenette, and dey sho are fine! Dey's doughnuts in de kitchenette, and dey sho are fine!"

"Three weeks, man, I don't know," Bill said dubiously. "Stroke aside, Olive's got this little problem." He mimed swallowing a handful of pills.

"That's the best part," Herb said. "Mademoiselle Barker is clean, at least for the time being. She's going to those meetings and everything. You know she was always the fastest on-demand writer we had when she was straight."

"Clean copy, too," I said. "At least it used to be."

"Can she stay clean for three weeks, do you think?"

"She'll stay clean," Herb said grimly. "For the next three weeks, I'm Olive Barker's personal sponsor. She gets calls three times a day. If I hear so much as a single slurred s, and I'm over there with a stomach-pump. And an enema bag."

"Please," Sandra said, grimacing.

Herb ignored her. "But that's not all. Wait."

He darted out, crossed the hall to the glorified closet that's his office (on the wall is a poster-sized photo of General Anthony Hecksler which Herb throws darts at when he's bored), and came back with a sheaf of paper. He looked uncharacteristically shy as he put them in Roger's hands.

Instead of looking at the ma.n.u.script-because of course that was what it was-Roger looked at Herb, eyebrows raised.

For a moment I thought Herb was having an allergic reaction, perhaps as a result of some skin sensitivity to ivy leaves. Then I realized he was blushing. I saw this, but the idea still seems foreign to me, like the idea of Clint Eastwood blubbering into his mommy's lap.

"It's my account of the Twenty Psychic Garden Flowers business," Herb said. "I think it's pretty good, actually. Only about thirty per cent of it is actually true-I never tackled Iron-Guts and brought him to his knees when he showed up here waving a knife, for instance..."

True enough, I thought, since Hecksler never showed up here at all, to the best of our knowledge.

"...but it makes good reading. I...I was inspired." Herb lowered his face for a moment, as if the idea of inspiration struck him as somehow shameful. Then he raised his head again and looked around at us defiantly. "Besides, the G.o.ddam loony's dead, and I don't expect any trouble from his sister, especially if we bring her into the tent to help with the book and slip her a couple of hundred for her...well, call it creative a.s.sistance."

Roger was looking through the pages Herb had handed him, pretty much ignoring this flood of verbiage. "Herb," he said. "There's...my goodness gracious, there's thirty-eight pages here. That's close to ten thousand words. When did you do it?"

"Last night," he said, looking down at the floor again. His cheeks were brighter than ever. "I told you, I was inspired."

Sandra and Bill looked impressed, but not as impressed as I felt. To the best of my knowledge, only Thomas Wolfe was a ten-thousand-a-day man. Certainly it overshadows my pitiful clackings on this Olivetti. And as Roger leafed through the pages again, I saw less than a dozen strikeovers and interlinings. G.o.d, he must have been inspired.

"This is terrific, Herb," Roger said, and there was no doubting the sincerity in his voice. "If the writing's okay-based on your memos and summaries I have every reason to think it will be-it's going to be the heart of the book." Herb flushed again, this time I think with pleasure.

Sandra was looking at his ma.n.u.script. "Herb, do you think writing that so fast...do you think it had anything to do with...you know..."

"Sure it did," Bill said. "Must have. Don't you think so, Herb?"

I could see Herb struggling, wanting to take credit for the ten thousand words that were going to form the dramatic heart of The Devil's General, and then (I swear this is true) I could sense his thoughts turning to the plant, to the spectacular richness of it when Bill Gelb yanked open the door and it came sprawling out of its closet.

"Of course it was the plant," he said. "I mean, it had to have been. I've never written anything that good in my life."

And I could guess who the hero of the piece would turn out to be, but I kept my mouth shut. On that subject, at least. On another one, I thought it prudent to open it.

"In Tina Barfield's letter to me," I said, "she told me that when we read about Carlos's death, not to believe it. Then she said, 'Like the General.' I repeat: 'Like the General.' "

"That is utter and complete bulls.h.i.t," Herb said, but he sounded uneasy, and a lot of the color faded out of his cheeks. "The guy crawled into a G.o.dd.a.m.ned gas oven and gave himself a Viking funeral. The cops found his gold teeth, each engraved with the number 7, for 7th Army. And if that's not enough, they also found the lighter Douglas MacArthur gave him. He never would have given that up. Never."

"So maybe he's dead," Bill said. "According to Roger and John, this guy Keen was dead, too, but he was still lively enough to read the used-car ads in the newspaper."

"Mr. Keen just had his heart torn out, though," Herb said. He spoke almost nonchalantly, as if getting your heart torn out was roughly the same as ripping a hangnail off on the trunk-latch of your car. "There wasn't anything left of Iron-Guts but ashes, teeth, and a few lumps of bone."

"There is, however, that tulpa business," Roger reminded him. All of us sitting around and discussing this stuff with perfect calmness, as though it were the plot of Anthony Las...o...b..a's newest big-bug book.

"What exactly is a tulpa?" Bill asked.

"I don't know," Roger said, "but I will tomorrow."

"You will?"

"Yes. Because you're going to research the subject at the New York Public Library before you go home tonight."

Bill groaned. "Roger, that's not fair! If there's a military-type tulpa out there, it's Herb's tulpa."

"Nevertheless, this particular bit of research is your baby," Roger said, and gave Bill a severe look. "Sandra's got the joke book and Herb's got the nut book. You owe me an inspiration. In the meantime, I expect you to check into the wonderful world of tulpas."

"What about him?" Bill asked sulkily. The him he was looking at was yours truly.

"John also has a project," Roger told him. "Don't you, John?"

"That I do," I replied, reminding myself again not to go home without diving back into the dusty atmosphere of the mailroom at least one more time. According to Tina, what I'd been looking for was in a purple box, on the bottom shelf, and way back in the corner.

No, not according to Tina.

According to OUIJA.

"It's time to go to work," Roger said, "but I want to make three suggestions before I turn you loose. The first is that you stay away from the janitor's closet, no matter how drawn to it you may feel. If the urge gets really strong, do what the alkies do: call someone else who may have the same problem and talk about it until the urge goes away. Okay?"

His eyes swept us: Sandra once more sitting as prim and neat as a freshman coed at her first sorority social, Herb and Bill side by side on the floor, Mr. Stout and Mr. Narrow. Roger's baby blues touched me last. None of us said anything out loud, but Roger heard us just the same. That's the way it is at Zenith House right now. It's amazing, and most of the world would no doubt find it flat unbelievable, but that's the way it is. For better or worse. And because what he heard was what he wanted, Roger nodded and sat back, relaxing a bit.

"Second thing. You may feel the urge to tell someone outside this office about what has happened here...what is happening. I urge you with all my heart not to do it."

He doesn't have to worry about it. We won't, none of us. It's ordinary human nature to want to confide a great and wonderful secret to which you have become privy, but not this time. I didn't need telepathy to know that; I saw it in their eyes. And I remembered something rather unpleasant from my childhood. There was this kid who lived up the street from me, not the world's nicest one by any means-Tommy Flannagan. He was skinny as a rail. He had a sister, maybe a year or two younger, who was much heavier. And sometimes he would chase her until she cried, yelling Greedy-guts, greedy-guts, greedy-greedy-greedy-guts! I don't know if poor little Jenny Flannagan was a greedy-guts or not, but I know that's what we looked like right then, the five of us: a bunch of greedy-guts editors sitting around in Roger Wade's office.

That look haunts me, because I'm sure it was on my face, too. The plant feels good. It gives off good smells. Its touch isn't slimy, not repulsive; it feels like a caress. A life-giving caress. Sitting here now, my eyes drooping after another long day (and I still have reading to do, if I can ever finish this entry), I wish I could feel it again. I know it would revive me, cheer me up and rev me up. And yet, some drugs also make you feel good, don't they? Even while they're killing you, they're making you feel good. Maybe that's nonsense, a little Puritanical holdover like a race memory, or maybe it's not. I just don't know. And for the time being, I guess it doesn't matter. Still...

Greedy-guts, greedy-guts, greedy-greedy-greedy-guts.

There was a moment of silence in the office and then Sandra said, "No one's going to spill the beans, Roger."

Bill: "It's not just about saving our jobs in this lousy pulp-mill, either."

Herb: "We want to stick it to that p.r.i.c.k Enders as bad as you do, Roger. Believe it."

"Okay," Roger said. "I do. Which brings me to the last thing. John has been keeping a diary."

I almost jumped out of my seat and started to ask how he knew that- I hadn't told him-then realized I didn't have to. Thanks to Zenith down there in Riddley Walker country, we know a lot about each other now. More than is healthy for us, probably.