Shriver (2 page)

The next morning, at precisely six o'clock, Shriver awoke to a knocking at the door. He pulled on a robe, padded across the apartment, and peered through the eyehole to see a tall bearded man staring back at him.

“Yes?” Shriver, still half-asleep, said through the door.

“Airport,” the man said in a strange accent.
Ear-porrit.

“Airport?”

“Ear-porrit, sir.”

Then Shriver remembered: the conference. He considered sending the man away, telling him he had the wrong address—the wrong
man
—but then he recalled the story he'd written. “The Water Mark.” He picked up the stack of paper and stared down at the dense blocks of words, some of them crossed out, with arrows and asterisks and question marks scrawled across the pages. He had written this. And it had been
fun
. Exhausting too, but in a good way. He hadn't felt so consumed by something since . . . he couldn't remember. Was this what it felt like to be a writer? he wondered. What if he . . . ?

“Sir?” the man said from the other side of the door.

“Be right there,” Shriver said, and before he could change his mind he quickly threw on some clean clothes and rummaged through his closet for the suit jacket he hadn't worn in . . . how long? Then he stuffed a few things into an old suitcase, poured a mixing bowl full of dry cat food, and lifted up the toilet seat for Mr. B. to drink from the bowl.

“Don't fret, my little friend,” he said, patting the cat on his furry head. Shriver couldn't remember ever leaving Mr. B. alone. He got onto his knees and squeezed the cat close. Mr. Bojangles purred. “I'll be back before you know it,” Shriver told him as he poured an extra layer of litter into the cat box.

Lastly, he folded the pages of his story and slipped them into his jacket pocket.

When Shriver opened the apartment door, the airport driver, whose dark bushy beard did not at all match the color of his graying hair, grabbed the suitcase and made for the elevator.

Meanwhile, Shriver searched in his pocket for his keys. He could not find them in his pants, nor in his suit coat. He went back inside and stepped over the cat, who sat at the
threshold, already awaiting Shriver's return. He rummaged around the apartment, looking under the piles of clothes on the bed, peering into crowded drawers and cupboards, eventually tossing everything onto the floor in a fruitless attempt to find his keys. He sat in a chair and tried to recall the last time he'd used them. He could not remember, but it couldn't have been
that
long ago.

“Sir?” the bearded man said again from the hallway.

“Yes, yes,” Shriver said, giving up. He would just have to leave the door unlocked.

As they waited for the elevator, he could hear Mr. Bojangles mewing behind the closed—and unlocked—door. He covered his ears against the sad and pathetic sound until the elevator finally arrived.

When they reached the ground floor, Shriver did not recognize the building's main lobby. Had that mirrored wall been there the last time he went out? That sofa and matching chair near the entrance? The night doorman, still on duty at this early hour, looked at him and the bearded man with his battered old suitcase as though they were burglars leaving the scene of a crime. He must be new, Shriver thought, never having seen the doorman before.

“When did they put up those mirrors?” Shriver asked.

“Those?” the doorman said. “They've been there for as long as I have.”

“Really?” Shriver wondered how he could have missed them. “Oh, will you please inform Vinnie”—the afternoon doorman—“he need not bring me my mail for the next few days?”

The doorman continued to scrutinize him closely. “Your name?”

“Why, I'm Mr. Shriver.”

The doorman, dressed in a shabby maroon uniform one size too large, peered at him quizzically.

“Six F!” Shriver clarified.

He debated whether or not to inform the doorman that his apartment door had been left unlocked, but given the man's suspicious demeanor, he decided against it.

“Oh!” the doorman exclaimed. “Mr
. Shriver
. Of course.”

The doorman gestured dramatically, like a master of ceremonies on a stage, toward the revolving door. Through the glass Shriver could see a rusty old town car parked at the curb. The bearded man carried the suitcase out the door.

Out on the sidewalk a fresh predawn breeze cooled Shriver's face. The street looked very different compared with his view from his sixth-floor apartment window. Billowy trees blotted out the slowly lightening sky, forming a pleasant green canopy over the cars parked up and down the block. At this early hour, the only sound was the rustle of leaves and the far-off hum of highway traffic. The bearded man grunted as he hoisted the suitcase into the town car's open trunk.

“Have a nice trip, sir,” the doorman said, tipping his cap.

The bearded man slammed the trunk shut, then opened the rear door with a flourish. Shriver climbed into the backseat. The driver stood on the sidewalk for several minutes, talking with the doorman. Shriver strained to hear them through the closed car window. The two men laughed and shook their heads, giving Shriver the distinct impression they were talking about him. Then the driver climbed in behind the wheel, started the car, and pulled into the street. Moments later, they merged onto the heavily trafficked highway.

Shriver sat back and watched the city flash by, lit by the red-orange rays of the rising sun. He could not recall the last time he'd been in an automobile speeding down a highway
like this. After a while, he noticed that the vehicle seemed to be moving independently of the steering wheel. The driver constantly turned the wheel left, then right, just to keep the car going in a straight line. Nevertheless, he was able to maneuver the decrepit vehicle like a getaway driver, weaving in and out of traffic with only inches to spare.

At the airport the driver refused to accept any money for the ride, not even a tip. “All taken care for,” he said several times in his thick accent, bowing reverently, then he climbed back in behind the wheel and tore off, leaving Shriver amid a swirl of travelers with their huge piles of luggage and golf bags. Car horns blared; airplanes shrieked overhead. It was all a little overwhelming, but with the aid of a uniformed steward he managed to check his suitcase and receive his boarding passes. He then proceeded to the security checkpoint, where a guard asked him to remove his shoes before waving him through a metal detector. As Shriver walked through the machine a bell went off. He was ordered to go back, take off his belt, and place any keys or coins in a little plastic bowl.

“What's that?” The guard pointed at the bulge in his jacket.

“That's just some papers.” Shriver pulled out the story he had written. The guard ordered him to place the manuscript in a plastic tub for X-raying.

“But it's just paper.”

“I don't care if it's the Bible,” the guard said, holding out the plastic bowl.

Shriver set his story down and watched as the guard pushed it through the machine. He then stepped through the metal detector. This time no bell rang. He stood off to the side and watched as two security agents peered at the ghostly image of his story on the little monitor. One of them pointed at the screen, and the other one laughed.

From there the first leg of his journey progressed fairly smoothly, except for some alarming turbulence during the ascent. Once the plane had reached its cruising altitude, Shriver downed two cocktails in quick succession and managed to relax and catch up on his sleep, resting so soundly that he did not wake up until the plane had landed and parked at the gate. Then, in order to make his connecting flight, he had to navigate the enormous Airport of America from Terminal B to Terminal F. En route, he passed fast-food restaurants, bars, clothing stores, bookshops, a pet store, ice cream stands, toy stores, and a massage parlor. He found it difficult moving among so many people. At one point he had to sit down and collect his breath. But he managed to find the correct gate on time and board the second, much smaller aircraft without incident.

When the flight attendant finally brought his cocktail, Shriver shut his eyes and took a long, slow sip. A warm wave rolled down his throat and into his belly. He sighed, licked his lips, then glanced at the pages again. The words were a train wreck.

He turned to the lady beside him, who was now awake and eating from a container of chocolate-covered nuts.

“Excuse me,” he said, touching her pudgy elbow. “Ma'am?”

She turned and took in the empty miniature bottle of whiskey on his tray table. “Do you need to use the lavatory?” she asked, and commenced the elaborate preparatory motions necessary to remove herself from her seat.

“No, thank you,” Shriver said. “I was just wondering if you could do me a favor.”

She stared at him.

“I was wondering,” Shriver continued, “if you can read this.” He held out the pages.

She looked at them suspiciously. “You want me to read that?”

“No, I don't want you to read it. I just want you to tell me if you are
able
to read it. Is it legible?”

She tilted her head to see the top page more clearly.

“Is it comprehensible?” Shriver asked.

She squinted. “Well, the handwriting is pretty sloppy.”

“But you can decipher it?”

Caught up in the assignment now, she set the tip of a finger on the top of the page, leaving a tiny smear of chocolate on the paper.

“ ‘The Water Mark.' ”

“Yes, that's right,” Shriver said.

“ ‘The water mark appeared on my ceiling . . . on the rainy day my wife walked out on me.' Is that right?”

“Thank you very much.”

“Can't you read it?” she asked.

“Oh, I'm just having some trouble with my eyesight. Getting old, I guess. Thank you again.”

“Say,” the lady said, her eyes narrowing, “are you that writer? The one who's speaking at the conference?”

The day had gone so quickly that Shriver had not had time to worry about the moment he would have to take on the role he'd so impulsively decided to assume, but here it was.

“Yes!” the lady exclaimed, all smiles now, her cheeks breaking into dimpled slabs of dough. “I recognize you from your picture!”

“My picture?”

“It's in the brochure. Here.”

She reached under the seat into a large, bulky shoulder bag of the kind woven by Guatemalan peasants and produced an envelope-sized brochure for the conference. On the cover were photos of the various featured authors.

“That's you!” the lady said, pointing to a murky black-and-white photograph. “Oh, this is very exciting!”

“May I see that?” Shriver reached for the brochure. In the photo a man sat on an armchair in front of thick, pale curtains. The chair looked vaguely familiar, Shriver thought, but the man barely resembled him. He was much younger, with a full head of dark hair and a taut jawline.

“Must be an old photograph,” the woman said. “But I can tell it's you from the eyes.”

Shriver peered closely at the subject's face. The eyes, it was true, communicated a certain sadness.

“It's the only picture I've ever seen of”—and here the woman made dramatic air quotes—“the
mysterious Shriver
.

“I come to the conference every year,” she went on. “I'm also a writer. Oh, not like you, of course, not nearly so talented and interesting. I write romance novels, mostly, but I have this one project, a memoir, that I'm trying to publish.”

Shriver opened the brochure to the brief biographies of all the featured writers. Under Shriver's name it said:

One of America's most controversial authors, Shriver burst onto the literary scene twenty years ago with his bestselling novel
Goat Time
. Though he has yet to publish a follow-up novel, he remains one of our most revered chroniclers of the American absurd.

“I have a very interesting story to tell,” the lady continued as she searched through the many items in her bag. “I was once involved in a sort of harem with this biker from Utah. I spent a couple years there, doing drugs and participating in sex orgies.”

“Yes,” Shriver said, still reading:

His long list of honors includes the Federal Book Award, the Outer East Coast Inner Critics Circle Award, the Publishers Prize, and numerous others.

“I have copies of the manuscript, if you'd like to take a look. Maybe you could help me find a publisher.”

She thrust a two-inch-thick bound manuscript into Shriver's hands. On the cover, in large letters, was the title,
Harem Girl: My Life as a Sex Slave, A Memoir by Delta Malarkey-Jones
.

“Don't worry,” Delta Malarkey-Jones said, “it's a quick read. I would say I hope you're not offended by graphic sex, but I figure you're probably not, so . . .”

She pulled from her bag a beat-up hardcover book. On the cover was a crude drawing of a satyr. “I think it's refreshing to read your work,” she said. “Hardly anyone writes about real stuff like you do.”

“Real stuff?”

“You know—the
raw
stuff.”

“May I see that?”

“Maybe you could sign it!” she gushed as she handed the book over.

Goat Time.

This was his first glimpse of the book written by this apparently famous Shriver fellow. He had not patronized bookstores or libraries for many years because the smell of all that slowly rotting paper produced in him the urgent need to go to the bathroom. It was an instantaneous reaction, and very unpleasant.

He opened the book to the inside back cover, handling the pages gingerly, in case the sudden urge to defecate came upon him. There was no author photograph. The brief biographical note stated, simply, that the author lived on the East Coast.