Metro Jacksonville

A Short Story by Bill Ectric involving the theft of a legendary Beat Generation artifact and an email message that turns deadly when subjected to William Burroughs-style cut-ups

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v30/Billectric/karpeles.jpg)
Above: The Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum;
101 W. 1st Street; Jacksonville, Florida

Except for historical references to Jack Kerouac, William S. Burroughs, and D. B. Cooper, the persons and events in this story are entirely fictitious

Cut-Up the sToLeN ScroLL


Jim sat at the library table with his head in his hands. He didn’t want to go to jail. Yesterday morning he prided himself in caring nothing for possessions, but today, all the people who could have been his friends probably hated him for something he possessed.

They didn’t know it was him they hated. They posted things on the website like, “WhoEVER took the scroll, please return it” and “What a jerk!”

Jim had stolen the Jack Kerouac scroll, which he first heard about in his American Literature class.

The college professor had said, “In the 1950’s there was a group of alternative musicians, artists, and writers known as the Beat Generation. They spoke of new freedoms and wild adventures, which sometimes scared the more conservative public. Some say that the 1950’s Beat Generation is what led to the 1960’s ideas of sex, drugs, and rock & roll.”

Jack Kerouac wrote one of the best known Beat books, called On the Road. Jack wanted his words to flow like jazz notes from the radio of a fast car on a dazzling endless highway, so he typed the entire novel on one continuous roll of paper so there would be no stopping between pages. Publishers rejected the scroll at first, but finally released the story as a novel. It was a big hit and Kerouac became famous. Now, some fifty years later, that roll of paper had been purchased for over two million dollars by the owner of the Indianapolis Colts football team, James Irsay.

Jim had stolen it on a sudden impulse, the way he imagined most “beat” things were done. A deviate jazz note thrown into the mix. He even thought briefly he might become an “anti-hero” like D.B. Cooper, who stole two-hundred-thousand dollars and escaped from the law by parachuting into the forest, never to be found. It’s fun to read about people like D. B. Cooper as long as it doesn’t hurt you, but Jim didn’t want to hurt anyone. Besides, now that he had the treasure, he didn’t know what to do with it.

The Scroll, on loan from James Irsay, had been on exhibit at the Karpeles Manuscript Museum in downtown Jacksonville, FL, along with other artifacts and posters from the Beat Generation of the 1950’s. The overall geniality of the crowd who came to the exhibit had put the museum staff at ease. When everyone was leaving, Jim almost forgot his back-pack. A guard went to the restroom just as Jim walked back in to get the back-pack and, amazingly, for a moment there was nobody in the room. Improbably, someone had neglected to lock the metal-framed glass case. Jim lifted the lid, placed his hand on the yellowing roll of ink-scored teletype paper, solid and vital, and in two seconds he had shoved it into his back-pack. With the band “Jane’s Addiction” playing in his head, he “walked right…through the door; walked right through the door.”

Jim went ahead to art class because he was trying to act normal. He was thinking about how to return the scroll without getting caught. The naked girl model took his mind off the problem.

Jim was amazed that the college allowed people to pose nude for art class. This girl model was athletic and natural with medium-sized breasts and a jogger’s legs and butt and didn’t seem ashamed of her body at all. She had freckles on her nose and Jim thought it was interesting that in spite of her being naked, he kept looking at her face. It was because he couldn’t tell if she was scrunching up her nose & eyes in a stylish smile of mischief, or if it was just the shading of the freckles that made her look that way.

The girl, whose name was Lilac, had problems of her own. She was trying to get used to her mother moving away, back to upstate New York, and the possibility that her father was a gangster. Her father didn’t know it but she had overheard him talking about murdering an accountant for some reason. Murder! Lilac told herself it wasn’t true; they didn’t mean literal murder, she thought. Maybe her dad meant “murder” as a figure of speech. Nevertheless, she told herself, “I am not my parents. I am not guilty for what they do.” But she did feel guilty about other things.

Lilac wondered, Do I get modeling jobs in fashion magazines because I’m really pretty, or because my daddy gets me these jobs? Is it unfair to prettier girls who don’t have such powerful fathers? And the one thing daddy asked me not to do, posing nude, here I am doing it. If he ever finds out he will be so pissed.

Art students tried their hand at drawing Lilac’s nimble form as these thoughts went through her head. Jim thought about Lilac’s freckles as he made a half-hearted attempt to sketch her shape.

Meanwhile, Lilac’s father, Randy Paquinn, was talking business with his right-hand man, Max. Big bear-like Max was assuring his boss that a murder weapon had been disposed of.

“I threw it into the deep, boss,” said Max in his thick, deep, relaxed voice. “I separated the clip from the gun and threw ‘em both in the water where the river meets the ocean, near the sand bar at the Intercoastal Waterway. Nobody’ll find ‘em.”

“Alright,” said Randy Paquinn. “And all the ledgers are destroyed?”

“Yeah, boss. The accountant is gone and his books are gone. There’s no evidence to be seen nor hoid,” Max chuckled.

Jim had figured a way to return the scroll. He had a part-time job at Books-A-Million and was often alone in the store at closing time. The store where Jim worked was in a strip mall between a Miami Subs restaurant and a video game store called Got Games. He put the scroll in a briefcase and laid the briefcase on the bottom shelf of the magazine rack. Then he spread magazines over it to cover it up.

He wanted to leave a message that would lead people to the scroll, but he didn’t want them to know he was the thief. He couldn’t hand-write the note because the police might analyze his handwriting. He couldn’t type the note because police can even trace typewriters due to tiny distinctive flaws in the letters. He was going to put the message on the one place he knew all the right people would read it. He would post it on the “Beat” website Literary Kicks. Jim went to the school library and logged on to one of the many computers.

The message Jim typed was:

I’ve found I can’t live with this. To recover the scroll in a briefcase look on the bottom shelf of the magazine stand at Books A Million next to Got Games.

Jim hesitated before pressing enter. He was still nervous about getting caught. Then he thought of the Cut-Up program that someone had introduced on Literary Kicks. The “Cut-Up” program scrambles sentences and paragraphs to mimic the bizarre work of writers like William S. Burroughs. The idea was to get new, spontaneous prose by mixing up the existing prose. Jim figured only the most hip readers would catch the message if he put it through the Cut-Up processor. He figured, if nobody got it, he could always go back and re-post it normally.

Jim clicked on “cut-up” and the message came back so garbled it made no sense. He tried again, thinking, “It has to at least look like it means something.”

Someone was approaching Jim from behind. He quickly pressed the ENTER key and logged off without looking at the final message.

He glanced around and saw the librarian eyeing him suspiciously. But the librarian said nothing and kept on walking.

Across town, Max was nervous. His boss, Randy Paquinn, was pissed off.

“What is it, boss?”

“Max, you dumb-ass,” began Paquinn. “Don’t you know there are divers that use that sand shelf on the Intercoastal Waterway?”

“Boss,” said big Max. “There were no divers on the reef when I pitched the gun and clip.”

“Max,” continued Paquinn, “Look what came up on Lilac’s computer. On Lilac’s computer! You know I don’t want her involved in this!”

Max seemed relaxed and unconcerned, but his droopy eyes narrowed as his big hand accepted the sheet of paper that Randy Paquinn handed to him, fresh off the laser printer. Of course, they didn’t know it was Jim’s mixed up message, which now said:

To recover the magazine I’ve found on the bottom next to the shelf, live with this. A Million in a briefcase. I can’t stand games. Got books. Scroll.

“Oh, my God, boss,” Max finally said after it sank in. “How could they have the books?”

“Well, apparently our deceased accountant made copies before we . . . let him go,” said Paquinn.

Max asked, “What’s this about a magazine?”

“Magazine is another name for a bullet clip,” said Paquinn. “Damn it! They found the gun magazine near the sand shelf. They want a millions dollars to keep their mouth shut!”

“Blackmail!” said Max. “But how are we supposed to deliver the money, even if we wanted to?”

“It says to scroll. There must have been another message further down. Well, we’re gonna find out who’s playing games with us, looking at our books…”

“And when we find ‘em, boss, I’ll cut ‘em up good.”

Click here for the entire story  (http://billectrica.wordpress.com/2007/08/22/hello-world/)