Trainee

F Knott A.

Description

It's 1982. Rodney Pepper, a socially inept college drop-out, heads to New Orleans seeking to engulf himself in despair and abject misery in the belief this will lead him to Wisdom. Until that point, he derived his understanding of life from watching television and misreading psychoanalytic literary criticism.Barely off the bus, a man claiming to be his long-lost Uncle Gambi accosts Rodney and bestows on him an unexpected and unwanted pirate legacy. As he looks for work and moves between dilapidated downtown rooming houses, he is preyed upon by agents of the city's underworld and bears witness to ancient buccaneering atrocity. Mayhem and skullduggery, self-imposed or otherwise, follow him every step of the way. Can he decipher a dead man's code and locate what lays hidden before he too is swallowed up by violence?

Informations

• Publié par: Hekate Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 24 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781912017720
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Look-Alike
Chapter 2: The Arrival
Chapter 3: Uncle Gambi
Chapter 4: Registration
Chapter 5: Prodigious Typing
Chapter 6: A Sixty-Five Dollar Room
Chapter 7: The Librarian
Chapter 8: The Fecal Hoard
Chapter 9: Under the Off Ramp
Chapter 10: The Vigil
Chapter 11: Interview at the Lafayette
Chapter 12: The Leotard
Chapter 13: Phoning Home
Chapter 14: The Trainee
Chapter 15: Neighbors on the Right, Left and Center
Chapter 16: Lunch Break at the Plantation
Chapter 17: Don Canyon
Chapter 18: Naval Intelligence
Chapter 19: Mein Doppelganger
Chapter 20: Rhone
Chapter 21: Evicted
Chapter 22: Mrs. Gold’s Living Room Table
Chapter 23: The Swallowtail Singularity
Chapter 24: Double Snake Bites
Chapter 25: The Communal Living Space
Chapter 26: A Cocktail With Evelyn Razer
Chapter 27: Sunday Morning at Sea
Chapter 28: Shitbird
Chapter 29: Blood Money
Chapter 30: The Ride To Pascagoula
Chapter 31: The Monkey Fist
Chapter 32: Karl
Chapter 33: Buckra
Chapter 34: The Moon Walk
Chapter 35: The Dutchman
Glossary
Title Page and Dedication
Chapter 1: The Look-Alike
The face of the man who boarded the bus in Baltimore resembled mine precisely. In addition, he carried a duffle bag just like mine. He regarded each passenger one by one, walked down the aisle and sat across from me. In revealing no hint of recognition, I could only conclude he sought that particular seat in the manner of someone drawn to review their reflection in a mirror.
I removed both notebook and pen from breast pocket, made note of his arrival then studied my look-alike as he gazed out the window. Our sense of fashion was dissimilar. His hair, brown like mine, was unwashed and extended to the middle of his back. He wore a gold hoop earring in each ear and held a pack of Chesterfields in his left hand. The man did not appear concerned or anxious in the least. His intellectual deportment differed in that he did not jot down observations, and did not seem to carry a notebook nor any form of writing instrument. No accessible reading materials or projects to occupy his time were visible. He simply looked out his window and protected the duffle bag between his legs. Twisting in my seat to assure privacy, I wrote:
Look-alike’s duffle appears not unlike the scarecrow of Priapus warding off thieves and the evil eye, protecting the orchards while ensuring abundant crops.
I underlined the association, added two exclamation points then snapped the notebook closed. I brushed off my own duffle bag and propped it up.
I had no direct interaction with my look-alike until Fayetteville, North Carolina, where several soldiers boarded. After they had settled in their seats, he caught my eye, leaned into the aisle and pointed toward the front of the bus with his chin.
Following his gaze, I regarded the backs of the soldiers’ shaved heads, searching the surfaces for meaning and metaphor. Cropped hair and bony protuberances did not easily accommodate analysis; I noted, however, that every soldier carried at least one pack of cigarettes. On taking a seat, each removed this pack from their shirt pocket and tapped outward a single unit. I noticed many different brands: Marlboro, Kent, Winston, L&M, and Pall Mall.
The snit snit snit of lighters sounded as if it were raining. Only one soldier used matches and cupped his hands together as I had seen the Marlboro Man do on television as a child. The soldiers jutted their lower lips forward and blew smoke upward while engaged in conversation. Cigarettes dangled from their mouths; these looked to be on the verge of falling.
My look-alike placed an unlit Chesterfield into his mouth, leaned across the aisle and asked me for a match. His voice sustained such an unusual hoarseness that I was compelled to study his face. Under the dark canopies of both his eyes hung an admirable hollow fatigue. I patted my pockets and shook my head.
He asked, “Where going, bucko?”
“New Orleans.”
My look-alike tapped his head. “You could pretend you’re in the military with that haircut.”
I had maintained my hair closely trimmed for several years due to a persistent fungal condition acquired through long hours spent in the sub-basement level of the University library, a biosphere for all major genera of dermatophytes.
“You definitely could,” he added, shrugged his shoulders and resumed staring out the window. We spoke no further.
This suggestion was helpful. Pretending to be a military man was appealing although I could not yet be certain of the utility in doing so. The desirability for hoarseness and a modicum of facial hollowness was self-evident. Right then and there, I decided to buy cigarettes and begin smoking them as soon as possible. I wished to ask my look-alike some questions concerning the smoking of cigarettes yet was not comfortable speaking aloud within prying earshot of the soldiers. If unexpectedly pressed into a conversation, I remained mute as a matter of course. At times when I did converse, discerning whether dialogue was taking place internally or externally remained problematic.
I recalled the expression of my University physics adviser when I mentioned this predisposition. He became overly concerned. I explained that in utilizing all the resources within the sub-basement of the University library, my interests had broadened to include not only physics, my area of study, but 18th century romantic poetry, Theatre of the Absurd, psychoanalytic literary theory, the biological implications of non-equilibrium thermodynamics, and the investigation of classic anatomy texts. I had also come to champion the French existentialists, in particular, those who had scribbled thoughts in posthumously published personal notebooks. I shared my intention to become a notebook keeper. My adviser, a tenured member of the physics department faculty with numerous publications on low temperature phenomena to his credit, had removed his glasses and implored me to seek a psychiatric evaluation. He related numerous examples of how other students and faculty had followed this advice and were back on track.
By way of emphasizing my resolve, I insisted, “If necessary, I will drink my own transforming potion.” My adviser became distraught and left the room; he returned a few minutes later having splashed water on his face. I attempted to qualify further my desire to understand the ways of man and to experience the spontaneity of life; I explained that my dreary world had been derived solely from observations related to books quietly read or movies viewed while seated in darkened theaters with no participation in the data acquisition process itself.
“I am choosing the way of the notebook,” I had reassured him, and even went so far as to raise one finger above my head to accentuate the seriousness and irrevocable nature of the contract.
After examining me carefully, my adviser threw up his hands and exclaimed, “Fine.”
The very next day, atop my usual study carrel in the sub-basement level of the University Library, I discovered a one way Trailways bus ticket to New Orleans tucked just inside the jacket of Jean-Paul Sartre’s essay on Jean Genet. Directly under Sartre’s book had been placed an exquisite photographic essay of Gothic wrought iron balconies derived from architecture within the famous French Quarter of that same city. As it happened, an hour before, I had attended a lecture on astronomical relationships, learning that the diameter of the Moon was precisely four hundred times smaller than the diameter of the Sun and four hundred times closer to the Earth; the coincident ratios gave rise to precise conditions which allowed for a total eclipse to be observed from Earth. Knowledge of this juxtaposition of celestial bodies in conjunction with the sudden appearance of the two attractive books with accompanying bus ticket constituted a paranormal mandate: Only New Orleans could become my destination if not destiny.
I withdrew from classes and returned home to say goodbye to my parents and assemble a library requisite for the journey. My father did not approve of my intended career as a notebook keeper. Ironically, my parents had both been professionals in the theater, one a writer, one an actress, and in that way, I had grown up in a milieu which rarely distinguished between domain of drama and domain of reality. In a practical sense, they had known of this schism and remained adamant throughout my upbringing that I should avoid a creative lifestyle at all costs. On this occasion, my father paced back and forth across the living room, emphasizing that a career in notebook keeping represented an implausible choice despite him having invested in what I saw to be a similar one. My father had even picked up my beloved copy of Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment , waved it through the air and insisted,
“This is of no interest to anyone. People who write this kind of thing are freaks.”
“No, they’re not, Dad. They’re not,” my mother had argued quietly.
I made up my mind I would come to my own conclusions.
After informing them I had found a bus ticket on my desk at the library, and as a result selected my destination and destiny to be New Orleans, my parents began behaving bizarrely. They regarded one another without speaking, made several urgent phone calls after which they argued behind closed doors. I paid little attention to their comings and goings, too preoccupied with the planning of my upcoming adventure.
Back on the bus, the process of cigarette brand selection required my undivided attention. I could allot little time for staring out the window. Within my pocket notebook, I made a list of as many cigarette brands as I could recall and studied them. I turned to the final page of my notebook on which I had previously transcribed an arrival agenda and amended this to include the purchase of cigarettes.
While the bus refuel