It took longer than I’d expected to finish the article. Usually the night before my day off I’d go to a particular bar after work, a bar whose name isn’t really worth mentioning, at about ten o’clock. Once I’d finished, it was pretty well past ten, and there raged a rather fearsome tempest outside, as anyone could hear, and so the chances that my ritual would go uninterrupted were beginning to wither. For more hours that day than I wish now to recall, the only two stimuli my ears could access were the banging of my typewriter and a volley of my own sighs during the occasional but mentally necessary breaks. I managed to finish, sanity retained, only minutes, I guess now, after my editor disappeared from the building. I left my office and made my way through the dead hallway towards his. I could neither hear, nor, after cracking his door open, see him, nor much of anything else, for that matter. That day was the deadline, and fears that I was too late to meet it crept into my mind. I didn’t want to ruin my night by making sure of the fact, so I set my article on the editor’s desk and sneaked out of the room.
I returned to my office just as what I can only describe as a ‘great-grandfather’ clock struck eleven, and I stopped only to retrieve my hat and coat. Before long, I’d left the building altogether, unconsciously making my way towards the bar, despite the hour. Shambling across a suspension bridge at the end of which sat my destination, I couldn’t help but feel a want to leap shamefully off of the edge for the labor I put into a column with which I was so absolutely discomfited. This one involved the renovation of a fifty-year-old mansion downtown, an activity of no importance nor interest to me, nor of, I’m sure, the rest of the city. Resigning to the fact that my editor didn’t care what I wrote as long as his papers were being sold, a feat I’m surprised by whenever I have to think about it, I made my way to the bar to which I was so loyal a patron.
It was all I could to do keep from drowning in the storm that assailed the earth. I wondered to myself why I even wore a hat and coat, considering that they were doing no more to keep me dry than my article would have.
Thankfully, before I was murdered by the almost portentous squall I managed to pass the threshold of the bar. Inside were four or five other patrons, all shivering and damp. Any step made was an orchestra of shrieks by the warped wooden floor.
Immediately hanging my hat and coat on the rack, letting them make a pool at its base, I began to shiver when I approached the bartender. I asked him for a shot of whiskey, making sure not to sound or look as pathetic as was in my ability. I made my way to an isolated table, where was opened, to my chagrin, the latest issue of my own paper. I searched urgently for some other reading material I could pass the time and fend off possible chatterers with, but, alas, my toils were in vain. I decided that the reading wasn’t as bad as I had first imagined, out of desperation, if nothing else, and warily flipped through it to the front and began to read the comparatively brilliant columns of my colleagues.
A tall man opened the door, and the temperature in the previously cool bar noticeably rose. Considering the then-trivial nature of the incident, I naturally wasn’t, at the time, paying much attention; I glanced upward for a moment in an attempt to discern what had caused the fluctuation, and immediately returned to reading my periodical and sipping my drink.
Not much sooner had I lowered my head, from the other chair at my table I heard a clatter. Peering above my read, I spied, beside the formerly unlit candle, enigmatically lit, at the table’s other end, the tall man sitting. He sported a long brown trench coat that hid what I guessed was great emaciation, and a tightly fitting bowler, and in his skeletal hand there was clenched a shot of what smelled much too pervasively like gin.
“Mind if I sit here?” he asked belatedly.
“I’m not expecting anyone,” I shrugged, turning the page of the newspaper. “You’re probably the only one who’s going to sit in that busted chair, anyway.” One of the chair’s four legs was easily an inch longer than the others, and it would take an expert sitter to comfortably employ it. He seemed to be among the elite, not having any trouble at all.
I was confounded by his decision to sit in that chair, at that table, with such dull company. The bartender was fond of recounting how he’d bought the table a decade ago and, he would regularly declare, hadn’t touched it for almost that long. That’s not to say it turned away that many patrons, or, for that matter, termites. In any case, my mysterious tablemate had made his equally mysterious choice.
He had taken off neither his coat nor his hat, seeming as though he’d forgotten that they hadn’t escaped him. Upon inquiry, he replied, “Oh, I’m not wet,” pointing with his thumb to the cold and soaking gale outside the grubby old window just above our table, after which he added “Besides, it’s cold in here.” He put one hand out to shake mine while tasting his gin with the other. “My name’s Luke,” he said.
“Howard,” I told him, and shook his hand. Usually a January hand isn’t that warm.
“Why exactly aren’t you wet, Luke?” I asked him, pointing at his bone-dry apparel and synchronically considering my dripping sheets. He took a look at his coat sleeve for a moment and responded, “Hm.”
“I’m going to get another gin,” Luke informed me after taking the last sip out of his glass and, it appeared, forgetting that I’d asked him a question. “You want one on me?” I thought for a moment, and peered into my empty glass. “Sure,” I shrugged.
No sooner had he left and had I begun to read my review once more than I heard the notes of the glass on the table, and felt the gin’s odor invade my head. It couldn’t have been five seconds since I had said ‘sure’.
“That was quick,” I mentioned. The glass was a little grubby and there was a tiny chip, but I deemed the vessel drink-worthy, and took a sip. I could taste on the lip of the glass whatever drink had been in it before; adequate washing wasn’t, I had already learned, the establishment’s selling point. On that subject, the gin didn’t taste altogether wholesome, either. “What do I owe you?” I asked.
“I said it was on me, don’t worry about it,” Luke sat down once again.
“What are you being so nice to me for?” I asked him coolly, putting aside my reading.
“Why not?” He returned. “You were the only lone patron I could spot.” I let my eyes scan the room, which happened to house ‘lone patrons’ anywhere I could wish to look.
“The only one?” I pointed at my observation.
“Okay,” he submitted, “The first one.”
After a few minutes of silence and sipping, Luke reembarked on the not greatly stimulating conversation: “What is it that you do?” “I’m a newspaper columnist,” I replied, paused, and added, “And a lifeless bar pigeon.” I hadn’t, I reflected, gone anywhere besides work and the bar for months, but I reflected only involuntarily, not necessarily because I wanted to change. It had been weeks since I’d talked to anybody in the bar but the tender, which, I decided defensively to myself, was a mere peculiarity, and not symptomatic of a graver disorder. This Luke, though, began not to seem like he’d be a disappointment if conversation were further engaged.
“How about you, Luke? What do you do?” I continued after some time, more interested in the odd fellow than anything else that was going on, which was actually saying very little. “Hell, that’s not interesting: I’m just a businessman. I’m in town for a while, and I needed a nip to warm up, that’s all,” he told me, as though I were prying. I wondered why the already unearthly warm man needed anything short of a faceful of some boiling liquid to ‘warm up’. “A businessman, huh? What exactly is your business?” I began to pry deliberately. “Just that, Howard. My business,” he said glibly, bordering on hostility. I motioned that I meant no offense and sipped my gin docilely. I would have rolled my eyes at his statement, but I knew when to control myself.
I figured that Luke was some variety of criminal, and his eccentricities and overall greasy look only added to my suspicions. Literal grease could be noticed on the sporadic tufts of shiny black hair that attempted escape from his tightly worn bowler and helping to keep the shape of his pointy black beard.
We experienced an awkward silence for a few minutes. After recovering partially from the rift in the friendly chatter, I spoke again, saying, “I’m having a smoke,” as I fished through my jacket pocket. “Do you want one?” I offered when I found my case, an old rusty metal one that my father was issued during the Civil War. Luke affirmed so, and I retrieved two slightly battered cigarettes, handing him the better one. “Need a light?” he asked. Even before I could open my mouth to tell him that I didn’t, he’d lit my cigarette, and his, so quickly that I had caught neither the flame nor the apparatus. “Well, thank you,” I said. He just smiled. I decided to make the attempt to be more alert, so I could see exactly how he did all he did so quickly.
I felt a twinge of drunkenness after I’d finished the gin. Luke seemed unencumbered. “I think I’ll try their cognac,” he said, rubbing his marginally bearded chin thoughtfully. “Want one?” he said, yet again. I was taken aback at his habits, and his offer, but since I didn’t have work the next day, I figured there wouldn’t be any harm in it. I decided – without vast justification – that I would be alert enough, even for my shifty bar mate, so I gave in with a “Yeah”.
Again, he came back almost without leaving. I nearly caught how he could have returned so damnably fast, and if it weren’t that I was so tipsy, I know I would have. I decided to down the cognac more slowly than my previous drinks, making sure to observe carefully Luke’s motions. It would be difficult to juggle acting completely sober as well, since I didn’t want the seedy man to take any advantages of my being compromised like that.
Despite the minor handicap, I could tell that Luke wasn’t even slightly affected by his drinks. I managed not to slur: “You don’t seem like the drinking type.” The cognac he’d given me had been barely touched, and Luke added, pointing at it, “I guess you aren’t, huh?” “It’s a little too strong,” I lied, making sure not to let him know my present situation. “I liked it okay. Mind if have yours?” He offered. I admit that I wanted to see exactly how much this seemingly invincible man could drink. “No use wasting it,” I replied, and he reached over the table, directly above the lit candle, and seized the glass between his thumb and forefinger.
As should be expected, his coat sleeve caught fire by the candle flame. Naturally, I was shocked for a moment, but from his face, I could tell that Luke was absolutely un-phased. The flame grew, and I frantically turned my gaze about for some water I could use to put it out before it consumed him, but when I turned around again to make sure Luke was okay, the flame was out, and, perplexingly, his glass was empty.
“Did you put that out with the cognac?” I asked him, not attempting to conceal a face of pure astonishment. “And add to the flames like a dimwit? Hell, no! My coat would have been ruined!” Luke said, pointing at the unharmed sleeve. “I just drank it quickly, and blew on the flame a little.” At this point, I had been successfully desensitized to Luke’s odd tricks, and I didn’t bother to ask what sort of primeval wind he kept in his lungs that could have blown out a flame that large.
I found that he had become astoundingly flushed, which – from what I could discern – was the only physical sign of his copious drinking.
“I think I’m suitably warm, Howard. How about a change of scenery?” the flushed Luke offered. I felt in control of the situation and of myself enough not to stumble if rising and walking were attempted, so I agreed. I retrieved my coat from the hanger by the door. “Where did you have in mind?” I asked as I ascended. “Oh, I don’t know. Let’s play it by ear,” he chose as he did the same.
We walked towards the exit, and beneath his long trench coat were concealed what sounded to be, of all things, wooden clogs. I wouldn’t put it past him, I decided, and gave it little thought.
Almost as soon as we’d stepped outside, the storm, which I’d previously let slip my mind, ceased completely, and the air around us seemed to warm from our coming. “That’s better,” Luke opined, looking skyward. We began following the sidewalk aimlessly. Now and again my companion would glance at me, as though studying my gait, either without notice of or without concern for my obvious gazes back at him.
Luke, from within the caverns of his coat, revealed a shining silver cigarette case, one very much like my own, except that his was in mint condition and most likely not fifty years old.
“Want one?” Luke put a perfect cigarette into my hand and before I could even bring it to my lips they both had been successfully lit, almost as though his very hand made the fire. “How do you do that so fast?” I asked, blowing my cover of nonchalance. “Just practice,” he replied presently, in a manner suggesting that he expected and wanted me to ask, though not actually to ease my wondering.
After only a few minutes’ walk, we passed by the entrance of the city’s park. The gate was an old pointy and rust-scabbed wrought-iron affair, at the top of which there was – or used to be – printed the name of the park. All that remained at that time of our visit were a few grime-encrusted letters.
At the sight of this, Luke started whistling some kind of cacophonous rhapsody and bid me enter the park with him, still glancing every so often at what I guessed to be my footing. He walked briskly and happily inside, almost skipping, whatever footwear he sported clopping in harmony. Finally, I thought, the drinks were getting to him.
I attempted to run, but shortly realized that I couldn’t keep up with Luke, and underwent a brief fit of coughing during which I was doubled over. When I re-straightened myself the peculiar chap had perched himself on the bough of a central apple tree. His trench coat was longer than I’d first imagined, hanging far below his feet. “Damn, I love these things!” Luke said, nimbly pulling an apple off of it and taking a bite. “Have one, Howard!” He said, throwing me another, which, despite my admittedly somewhat retained inebriation, I caught. I sat on a wet bench below the apple tree and imperceptibly rolled the apple off of it. “Hey, don’t sit there,” Luke advised. “If you’re suggesting that I climb up that tree, you’re asking too old a man,” I informed him, adding, “I’m surprised you still have your youthful dexterity.” “It’s not too hard. You just need practice.” With no other words, he pulled me by the back of my coat up to the branch upon which he was roosted, despite the fact that he had to have been at least five feet away from me during our conversation.
I estimated that we were no less than ten feet in the air, and my companion had unsteadily placed me on the branch. “I’m about to break my neck, here,” I warned, attempting to keep as best balance as I could. “Aw, Howard, you’re no fun,” Luke said uncharacteristically playfully.
“I’m guaranteed to be a lot less fun if I’m dead,” I said, hopping down from the tree branch not quite as rapidly or nimbly as Luke had climbed up. He followed suit the way he would, much more youthfully than I did, and said, “I’m getting cold out here anyway,” though I still felt eerily warm in the dark of January.
We made our way back to the entrance of the park, Luke a little more sober than when he had entered, and I much more tired, though, I confess, a great deal more at ease with him. Once we’d escaped the threshold of the park, the storm immediately began again, and, as luck would have it, the very apple tree we’d been sitting on was thoroughly routed by a lightning bolt and erupted immediately into a baleful inferno.
“Damn, that was close,” examined Luke composedly, while I, in the midst of a grip with my own mortality, stayed silent.
Of course, we made our return to the bar much more quickly than when we’d exited, and from what I could tell, nothing had changed in the slightest way, counting where we sat. Yet again, too quickly for me to have scrutinized critically, Luke had lit the candle on our table, and in each hand was another glass of gin. He handed me one, saying “Here you are,” genially, but leaving out the traditional inquiry of whether I actually wanted one or not. The guilt of telling him to take it back – though it probably would have only taken two seconds for it to disappear, knowing him – constrained me into thanking him and hesitantly engaging the new beverage.
As a matter of course, I returned presently to my previously slowly fading intoxication, and Luke returned, really, to whatever it was he’d been before.
I picked up once more the paper I’d put down before our walk, and, refocusing my eyes for their next task, laid them at random on the last column I’d written; some pointless and forced drivel about the city’s parks. I groaned involuntarily at the thought that perhaps thousands of people were reading that soulless garbage and I phlegmatically dropped the paper. “What’s all that?” Luke inquired. “I just found my column, and I’m not proud of it, that’s all.” I managed to say with little difficulty. Almost before I’d finished, Luke, with a theretofore-unseen degree of fervor, scooped up my discarded failure and read it to himself. Quick one that he is, only moments later he set it down and spoke. “I wouldn’t beat myself up about it. You just need more of an imagination.” I took a pull from my drink and said, “That’s very helpful, Luke. I wouldn’t have dreamed that my boring writing needed something.” Beaming, he said, “No, no, I mean, I can help you with it.” “What is it that you think you can tell me that I haven’t already tried?” I asked skeptically. Luke sighed. “We might need some more drinks for this.” Of course, I wanted to see what he had up his sleeve, so against the better judgment that had for the most part left me, I acquiesced to Luke’s bid.
Wasting no time, Luke came back with the two glasses of the gin he seemed to keep behind his ear, and we talked.
“You see, Howard,” he bent forward and lowered his voice. “I didn’t want to tell you what exactly my business was before in fear that you’d think I was, I don’t know, a madman. You see, though, if you do only one simple thing for me, I can easily and quickly give you the ability to write better than anyone you’ve ever met. I guarantee it.”
Naturally, I was wary. “How do you propose to do that?” I said, throwing my feigned sobriety to the wind in the assumption that he had just done the same. “That’s not really important,” he said, and extracted a sheet of paper from within his sleeve.
“All you have to do is agree that we had this conversation, and each of your letters will have its own muse.” My temptation and curiosity overpowered and murdered my suspicions, and I took a look at the paper. “Just sign here,” bony-handed Luke said as he pointed to a line at the bottom of the page. My eyes refused to focus, and I could only pick up the occasional word from the contract. At that point, it wasn’t much of a problem to me, since Luke had told me just about all I wanted to know about our agreement at the time. I began to retrieve a pen from my coat pocket, but Luke stopped me and handed me his. It was warm. I carefully signed my name on the line he’d pointed at and handed it back to him. He signed it as well, and made it disappear into his coat once more.
Immediately, a deluge of ideas – good ideas – rushed into my head. “That was odd,” I mentioned. “Did you do that?”
Luke smiled and clopped out of the bar.