Books On Tape (On Tape)

In honor of the imminent flood and Rapture, I recorded my short story Books on Tape on tape.

Enjoy!

Books On Tape (On Tape)

The Squid – Chapter Two: Janet

Chapter One: Rex
Chapter Two: Janet
Chapter Three: Albion

Rex Banion, idiot.

Not that I don’t appreciate him solving our dilemma with Daddy’s
little secret society games, but a man should know when someone’s
plotting his death. Its probably the booze. Coming in here with
whiskey on his breath. There is a constable stationed in the security
office, and if Rex hadn’t ducked him he could have been arrested.

I took a sip of my martini.

I picked up the phone and dialed zero.

“Miriam,” I said.

“Yes, Ms. Hemingway,” she said.

“Rex is leaving, have Henson and Jacobson follow him,” I said.

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said.

“If they can get the journals back without killing him, that’s better,” I said.

“Absolutely, Ma’am,” she said

“And Miriam, he’s slippery,” I said.

“I know Rex, Ma’am,” she said.

I was sure she did.

I hung up.

I’d been spending my whole life cleaning up Daddy’s indiscretions, waiting, waiting for the fortune that was rightly mine, and I wasn’t going to give it up now to Dunny or anyone else.

Since I turned eighteen Daddy’d held the will over my head like a paper sword. The old will, penned before I was born. All the money to Dunny except a little pittance to me to starve on. Why, I’d have to move out of the suite and get an apartment, like a barbarian.

And finally, finally, in those last and dying days, after I’d pushed all of his victims into the harbor and fobbed it off on the rum runners, he signed it. Signed the new will and sealed the old one inside the leather cover of one of his journals, just to let me know it wasn’t gone.

The day after Daddy’s death, Dunny called me up to say that he had a copy of the old will naming him as the sole heir, and also three letters that made Daddy look as mad as King George.

Of course I had to do something. I wasn’t about to stop now, with so much blood on my hands already.

Rex came from a family friend, with a reputation for secrecy, ruthlessness and a weakness for women. Even if he did talk, our friend had plenty of dirt on him from his days in the Boston P.D.

I’d sent Henson and Jacobson with Rex, but he’d slipped them somehow. They were supposed to watch him find the journals, and then we were supposed to find him floating face down in Pelham Bay.

Then he shows up here. The nerve. If he wasn’t so pretty, I’d have shot him myself.

Don’t want to get blood on the rug, either.

I took another sip of my martini.

I dialed zero again.

“Miriam,” I said, “Get me Senator Crane.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” she said.

It was time to cash in a favor.

Chapter Three: Albion

The Squid – Chapter One: Rex

The Squid

Chapter One: Rex
Chapter Two: Janet
Chapter Three: Albion

I awoke one morning to find that I had been transformed into a man who gave a damn what a dame thought of him.

There she was on the blue silk sheets, her golden hair fanned out around her, her slip hanging on her like a ballet partner: Janet Hemingway, the princess of sixth avenue.

I’d just worked a job for her. A little job, as it turned out, but no job is too little for Rex Banion, as it turns out.

Her highness rolled over. Her eyes opened: pale, viper green.

“Rex. I’m worried about Mommy. Now that Daddy’s gone, who will protect her honor? She would be devastated if all this nonsense about death cults reached the papers. All the blood and dismemberment. I think it’s best it we kept it between us, don’t you,” she said.

“You’re quick to corruption,” I said.

“Been doing it my whole life,” she said, “500 dollars, what do you say?”

“500 dollars might do,” I said, “But I’m not taking it out in time served.”

“Oh no, Mr. Banion, I wouldn’t dream of paying you for that.”

“Good,” I said.

“And,” she said, ”We can just destroy Daddy’s journals.”

“Of course,” I said.

I had the only copy of those journals, in a safety deposit box in Chicago.

“Good Rex,” she said,”Bring those journals here, and we can burn them together.”

“Your uncle asked me for those,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, ”My Uncle Dunwoody?”

“Yeah, Dimwitty, called me up and offered me a grand for each one,” I said.

“Oh,” she said, as she drew her finger around her lip, “You didn’t give them to him, did you, Rex?”

“No,” I said, “Should I?”

“No,” she said, “I’ll offer two grand each.”

“You want to give me six thousand dollars to destroy three books,” I asked.

“Is that so surprising? Didn’t you read those books, Rex,” she asked.

“No,” I lied.

“I think you might have, because your eyes, Rex, are fishy.”

“Yeah, I did read them,” I said.

“Don’t lie to me Rex, I know your eyes,” she said, “Rex, if word, ever got out, that my father was unstable, Rex, the family simply couldn’t stand the shock. We’d rend, Rex. Uncle Dunny and the European cousins would back away, and our finances would, well, I just don’t know, Rex, We’d have to sell Rockhaven. Its important for the family.”

“Six thousand dollars”, I said, “Don’t insult me. I read them. Your father was unstable. Those journals contain his confessions, Janet, to fifteen murders. I should take them to the police.”

“No, don’t do that, Rex,” she said. With a sharp breath, she stood up off the bed and walked away into the suite. She pulled her hair up and clasped it with her delicate hands, pulling it through her necklace.

I stood up and walked towards her. She smelled like strawberry, when it first comes off the vine.

I put my arm around her waist and leaned in behind her. She pushed her neck back on my shoulder. I wrapped my arms around her hips and kissed her neck.

“Don’t do that, Rex,” she said, “Don’t embarrass my family. Dunny is a bad man, Rex, he spreads lies about my father. Now that the New York dynasty is ending, they are trying to seize the family fortune. My father is the one that made all the money, and now those dancing little baronets in their summer cottages who suddenly aren’t too dirty to take automobile money are trying to steal it.”

“And yet you only offered me six thousand dollars,” I said.

“That’s a lot of money, Rex,” she said.

“Not as much as you might think I might think,” I said, “This would sell for twenty grand,” I said, as I wrapped my right hand around her necklace, “Maybe I should just take it.”

“Don’t do that, Rex,” she said, “I can pay you twenty grand. Don’t take the necklace.”

“Twenty grand it is,” I said, and let go of the necklace.

“Thank you, Rex,” she said. She walked a few steps ahead of me across the pink shag. Her room, here, at the Waldorf. All pink. Couple of white drapes, couple of white pillows, couple of white poodles. Yip and yap all the time.

“So its settled,” I said, “I’ll bring you the journals tomorrow.”

“You’re so kind, Rex,” she said.

She turned to face me, fastening her bra behind her.

“I may require your services again in the future,” she said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, “At three o’clock.”

“Here, Rex,” she asked.

“No, meet me down in the lobby of the Hotel Amsterdam.”

“Fine,” she said, “Bring me the books, not ashes.”

“I will, kitten,” I said.

“Got claws, you know,” she said.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

I turned to walk away to the door. I took my Stetson from the stand and put it on my head. Buttoning my jacket, I opened the door to the lobby: its tan carpets so bland against her pink. I turned around.

She was already there. We kissed. That’s when I fell for her.

Chapter Two: Janet

Books on Tape (Edited Version)

Books on Tape
Jason Royal Hart

You have stolen a book on tape, and you get in your bath to listen to it. I’m stuck at the post office.

The book is about a dark elf. The candles around you flicker. I’ll be home soon. It starts to rain.

The tape player opens and a little man made of tape gets out. The tape man sits on the side of the bath, leaning against your shoulder. He is shiny and smells like drying glue.

He gets into the water. Underneath, he is a dolphin, blue around your legs like hail driving sideways.

In Venice, the dolphins were blinded so they could not flee. The Doges were not kind. Their eyes were everywhere.

We placed a golden note in the open mouth of a winged lion and it was brought down to the King.

You will be the Duchess of Manhattan. I will be the Duke, when the King returns. This is the message we receive.

Now, in New York, ten years later, the tape man reaches the drain and there he turns oyster, open. Inside is a ring.

You reach for the ring but you remember the infamous treachery of the dark elves. The oyster snaps shut, turns tape now, and swirls everywhere. You are a lobster wrapped in tape and you close your eyes.

When you look up, the tape is gone, and the ring is on your finger. I enter the bathroom. I am wearing a ring also.

“It came today,” I said. I am holding another book. The Yellow Sign is engraved on the cover. The book is hard-bound, ancient. It is closed with a lock, but the key is on a red ribbon, tied to the book.

I light a candle. You ring a bell. We cut the ribbon. We read.

He comes to build of the world an ordered monarchy. You will be a Duchess. I will be a Duke. This is the deal we have struck.

We read on.

When all the little men are throned in ordered pens, he will drown them until the world is naught but dead Dukes and Duchesses.

Now a torrent begins outside. A tornado is coming.

Tin can hail falls. I run to the bedroom.

My socks slide and I slip. The window blares plasmic water. Everything is slick and wet. I slide to the window on my back. I close it.

We move to the kitchen. Now, enclosed: you, me, a candle, a bell, and a guide to enchanting.

I enchant up some tea. The tea floats in a ball in the air.

It’s hard to hear over the thunder. I cough.

You say, “Try making a cup from the candle.”

I enchant up a cup from the candle. We put the tea in the cup. We share the tea.

The little tape man returns. He whines. I tell him to help.

He picks up the candle, carefully. He is immortal, if he does not burn.

He follows us into the bedroom. We sit on the bed.

He puts the candle on the dresser.

He sits in the tape player and we listen to the stories of the Dark Elves of Menzoberranzan. We pray to Lloth. It is a joke. Lloth is not real.

The King calls. He is drowning the world. You are a Duchess. I am a Duke. We are to drown.

The little tape man screeches as a pole smashes through the window. Power lines whip him and he is burned.

He was immortal, if he did not die.

“Let’s make a boat from the bathtub,” I say.

We enchant the bathtub. We set sail with the candle and the bell.

We will bury what remains of the little tape man when we reach land.

We bob on the water.

“It’s dry in the bathtub,” you say.

I smile. I cough. I’m sick.

We met in Prague before we went on to Venice. I remember college. I remember baseball. I remember food. We ring the bell. The bathtub rises.

It is dawn but we are in the stars, cold, not breathing, not dead, traveling. We reach Formalhaut. We see a comet off in the distant sky.

Our bathtub lands in the red dirt. Ours is the only candle. There isn’t much oxygen here. We bury the tape man.

“Shall we start again,” I ask.

You get out of the bathtub. And you look at the sky.

“You can really see the stars out here,” you say.

Books on Tape (3/3)

Part One.

Part Two.

Now a torrent begins outside.

Tin can hail falls. I run to the bedroom.

My tractionless shoes slide and I fall.

The window blares plasmic water. Everything is wet.

I fall. I slide to the window on my back. I close it.

We move to the kitchen.

Now we are enclosed: a strawberry candle and a guide to enchanting.

I enchant up some tea.

We drink. You say, “Try making a cup from the candle.”

I enchant a cup up from the candle.

The little tape man is pushed from the drain by the rats in the sewers. He whines. He is my homunculus.

I tell him to help.

He picks up the candle, carefully. He is immortal, if he does not burn.

He follows us into the bedroom. We sit on the bed.

He puts the candle on the dresser.

He walks to the tape player and we listen to stories of Dark Elves in Menzoberranzan.

The King calls.

He is drowning the world. You are a Duchess. I am a Duke. We are to drown.

The little tape man screeches as the power lines fall and he is burned.

He was immortal.

“Let’s make a boat from the bathtub,” I say.

We enchant the bathtub. We set sail with the strawberry candle.

We will bury the little tape man when we reach land.

We bob on the water.

“It’s dry in the bathtub,” you say.

I smile. I cough. I’m sick.

It’s dawn but we are in the stars, cold, not breathing, not dead, travelling. We reach Formalhaut. We see a comet.

Our bathtub lands on a planet. Ours is the only candle. We bury the tape man.

“Shall we start again,” I ask.

You get out of the bathtub. And you look at the sky.

“You can really see the stars here,” you say.

End.