The Metaphysical Ukulele. Sean Carswell

him in. Where had he found this gorgeous ensemble? His indigo tuxedo contrasted smartly with a billowing white silk shirt and charcoal brocade jodhpurs. Neat gray suede boots peeked out from beneath the cuffs and long, slender fingers were covered with lambskin gloves.

      Pat had never met this gentleman in a nonfictional world, but she knew him.

      Sammy.

      Sammy sat next to Pat. Pat shivered, though the cool Florida woods were not cold enough to elicit a shiver, though her cape wrapped around to keep her snug. She had the impulse to be nice, to set this conversation on friendly terms despite Sammy’s ominous aura. She said, “I like your suit.”

      The statement dropped like a nickel falling on a hardwood desk, rattling in its understatement.

      “There are laws,” Sammy said.

      Pat felt something like a shot put drop to the bottom of her stomach.

      The group of boys continued to climb on and climb off the pines. Snaps echoed throughout the woods. Pine tops wobbled.

      “There are laws for everything. Thieving, for instance.” He leaned closer, his ice-chip eyes glittering in the faint traces of morning sun.

      “My book.” The words came out before Pat considered them. She wasn’t sure which book she referred to. A few years earlier, her novel Living in Ether had come out. Perhaps she’d leaned a bit too much on the works of Yukio Mishima, but that was an influence, not a theft. And what about Strange Toys, sitting on a desk at Bantam in Manhattan. Too much Angela Carter? Too much Lewis Carroll? Could a writer steal one novel from two people?

      Who was the real thief here, and what were they stealing?

      Sammy said, “Writers steal things. Writers don’t know what to do with them.”

      “Who are you?” Pat asked.

      “You know my name,” Sammy said. “And I have something you need.”

      “Me?”

      “There is danger ahead for your novel. But there is always a way around every law. Each law with the penalty attached, each system connected to another system. Because you have something I want, I’m prepared to…”

      One of the tree-climbers ran toward Pat and Sammy, not as if he were running to them, but as if they didn’t exist, and he could run through the space occupied by them. The boy paused and met Pat’s glance.

      Pat knew what the boy saw, what everyone saw looking into Pat’s face: that expression yearning toward some other world. That expression which seemed to piss people off and make them suspicious. The boy was no exception. He snarled at Pat. His twisted lips stretched the freckles on his face. His blond crew-cut glistened with dew slicked onto him from the pines he climbed. At that moment, he looked like every cocky boy who pursued Pat in high school and turned his failure to capture Pat into a hatred for her.

      The boy said, “Nice cape, lady.”

      More than anything, Pat was surprised that Sammy, with his indigo tux and jodhpurs, got a free pass while Pat’s cape was the object of backwoods scorn. She turned to see Sammy’s reaction, but Sammy was gone.

      The boy, too, scurried off for another flexible pine.

      Pat gathered herself to return to her mother’s. She stood and brushed the needles off her slacks. Tracing the path of a pine needle on its way to the forest floor, Pat saw at her feet a ukulele. The instrument either came from Sammy or came from nowhere. Pat was half-convinced that Sammy had only been metaphysical. Thus, the ukulele would have to be metaphysical.

      It sat on the carpet of pine needles, cute as a pug. Even the grains of dark wood reminded Pat of a pug’s short hairs.

      If the ukulele had had a tail, it would’ve wagged at Pat.

      Pat reached down and rubbed the ukulele’s neck. The ukulele jumped into her arms. She stroked the strings and heard the familiar tune: My Dog Has Fleas.

      She started walking back to her mother’s house, her cape fluttering in the wind and the ukulele trotting along in step with her.

      Somehow, she knew her novel was doomed.

      The evening after Pat’s stroll among the arching pines in the forests of North Florida, Sammy struck. Pat’s writing career careened down the one-way path of entropy; she’d no more be able to recreate the past of it than she could turn a sapling back into an acorn or shrapnel back into a grenade.

      The moment of the Five of Swords cut in Pat’s absence. While she celebrated the growing Christmas season in Florida, her editor accepted that one drink too many at a holiday party in the Bantam offices.

      In Pat’s editor’s defense, the waning 1986 was a troubling time for publishing. Federal laws had changed. Any media company with enough money could buy any other media company. Monopolies could form. The Germans had gotten into the game, buying, among other things, Bantam. Bantam was both Pat’s publisher and Pat’s editor’s employer. Now, they were all owned by Bertlesmann, a company also known for being the largest publisher of Nazi propaganda during the Third Reich.

      In the true top-down fashion that had characterized generations of Bertlesmann companies, Bantam hired a new executive to clean things up. He often slammed his fist against the table at editorial meetings. His arms flailed when he spoke passionately. His long bangs were known to come loose amidst marketing rants. Only after all his sweat and spit had been expunged would he comb the long bangs back into a neat, pomaded center part.