A Gaunt Man at the Gull
Gideon Gale, Pt.5 — While waiting for Gideon Gale's next feature to air, Thorsen and Tailor track down one of his interview subjects, only to find reality is very different than what's on TV...
If you’re new to the story: There’s No Such Thing as Gideon Gale follows Midwesterner Carl Thorson as he investigates an impossible phenomenon overtaking the airwaves in his small town.
Charismatic feature reporter Gideon Gale is a recent addition at KZMT Local. So why does everyone in Russet Lakes remember watching him as long as they’ve been alive? Well—maybe not everyone. For a select few, Gale’s reports appear only as static snow on the television. But something is interviewing these people, and Thorson intends to find out what it wants, before the whole town—and possibly the world beyond—falls under Gideon Gale’s spell.
There were bars, dive bars, and then there was the Gulpin’ Gull. The low ceiling sagged over wobbly tables, all covered with bumper stickers. Cords from some classic rock song thumped out of a few unseen speakers–nothing obnoxious, but the few locals who were drinking there kept their voices down, below the threshold of the music.
Tailor and I made for the bar, feet sticking on the tacky concrete floors. The bar itself featured a collection of various bottlecaps, nailed into a base of what looked like someone’s scrap wood, all tucked beneath the overhang of a cheap countertop. The bartender wiped down the surface, marred by countless drink rings.
“Whadaya want?” the man grunted, not looking up. He was stocky, sporting a scraggly beard and a stained flannel shirt beneath his apron. From his accent, I could tell he wasn’t a local. A transplant then—maybe from the Boston area?
“We’re looking for Mysterious Richard. I heard he performs here on occasion.”
The bartender barked with laughter. “On occasion’s right. Only magic trick he’s got these days is making my booze disappear.”
“Is he here?” Tailor asked.
“Back by the stage.” The bartender jerked his head toward a little raised platform in the back corner. At a nearby table sat a familiar figure–still acne scarred and scrawny, but with a sort of sunken aspect to his eyes that made him look withered.
“Appreciate it,” I said, turning from the bar toward Richard.
“If you’re talkin’ to him anyway, tell him he’s cut off!” The bartender called after me. “Least until he pays his tab.”
I gave a wave of acknowledgement over my shoulder. Tailor did not react.
Richard’s smell hit us well before we reached his table; a mix of stale beer and body odor, like he hadn’t showered in at least a week. The lack of nearby patrons now made much more sense.
The man in Gideon’s feature had looked like a child. But here, and now… he seemed old, and exhausted. Drained.
“How long since that special aired?” I asked Tailor.
“Year and a half. Maybe two.” He shrugged.
Rough two years, I thought.
Richard squinted up at us from his drink. “Tommy send you?”
“I don’t know who Tommy is,” I said.
“So, no. Gotta do everything myself around here.” He twisted in his chair to look around me toward the bartender, then raised his voice. “So much for customer service!”
“If Tommy’s the bartender, then he says if you want another, you’ve got to square your tab, first,” I said.
Richard cast a worried glance from the bar, to the beer before him. There was maybe a thimble of liquid left at the bottom of the glass. “W-what?” Tommy knows I’m good for it. Tell him. Tell him I’ll pay tomorrow night if he just—”
“Hey there, easy.” Tailor raised both his hands in a calming gesture.
The ragged, stinking magician fell silent, but did not visibly calm down. He was shaking like the last leaf in autumn, squeezing the pint glass so tight I thought it might crack.
“My name’s Tailor. This here’s Calder. We want to talk to you some. And for taking your time, my friend and I will buy you a round. If we find what you tell us to be helpful, we’re willing to pay your tab.”
I cocked an eyebrow at that. We were? If Tailor saw my expression, he didn’t acknowledge it.
“How’s that sound?”
Richard grunted, tipped the glass back, and drained it he was dying in the desert, lapping at the last bit of water from his canteen. He thunked the glass back down onto the table, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, then nodded.
A few minutes later, all three of us sat around the table with our own pint glasses; Tailor positioned himself so that he could clearly see both my face, and Richard’s. When Richard downed a third of his beer with the first swig, I began to worry about just how large his tab might be. I tried to shove this concern aside, and opened up with the first question.
“What do you remember about your interview with Gideon Gale?”
“Next to nothing,” Richard admitted. For a moment, I thought the entire trip would be a waste of time. Then he continued: “Not about the interview itself, anyhow. That part was like a blackout. We started talking and then…” Richard trailed off, drawing circles with his hand like he was indicating something obvious.
His answer did tee up a clear follow-up question though, and Tailor beat me to it: “What about your friends, and coworkers Gale interviewed for the piece?”
At that, Richard seemed to shift uncomfortably. “They remember… at least they say they do. Just not any details—like where they talked, or the camera man’s name.”
“Let’s back up then,” I said. “You mentioned you don’t remember the interview itself, but what about actually meeting Gale? How did he approach you?”
“Caught me leaving Hornsby’s Hobbies after one of my classes,” he said, slurring the word. “Said he saw me do a show here at the Gull, but I’d never seen him before.”
“What did he look like?” Tailor asked.
Richard scoffed like it was the stupidest question in the world. “Like the guy from TV. We’ve all seen him.”
“Pretend we haven’t. Humor me.”
Richard’s face crinkled—then contorted into an almost pained expression. “Like a…” He tried to gesture with his hands to indicate something—what, I had no idea. “You know.”
In that moment, I tried to picture Gale myself. There was an odd off-balance feeling, like I’d mis-stepped and slipped coming down the stairs in the dark. I’d seen Gale. I had a picture in my mind of what he was supposed to look like. Yet when I tried to dwell on that picture and put it to words, it shifted like smoke.
Something to consider later.
“And then you agreed to do the interview?” Tailor prodded, gently
“Yes,” he said, drawing out the word. He sounded almost unsure.
“Do you remember agreeing to do the interview?” I asked.
“Yeah. That’s something I’ll never forget.”
That response struck me as odd. I exchanged a glance with Tailor, who also seemed nonplussed. “What stuck out to you?” I asked. And why did you forget everything else?
“Because he wanted my sleight of hand,” Richard explained. “Demanded it, really.”
“You mean, he wanted you to teach him your tricks?” Tailor asked.
“No.” Richard shook his head vigorously. “No—that’s what I thought at first, but no matter how many ways I asked, he kept coming back to the same thing: he wanted my sleight of hand. Wouldn’t do the interview until we shook on it.”
My eyes fell on the man’s hands, which still shook slightly. Originally, I thought this had been anxiety. Now though…
“I thought it was a figure of speech,” Richard explained. “Like you said. So I agreed. But ever since then—” he held up his trembling hands, “—I can’t so much as swing a hammer straight.”
Tailor frowned, apparently still not catching on. I imagined Richard’s slurred speech was making it hard for the man to lipread.
“Are you saying that Gale stole your sleight of hand?” I asked, thinking back to the final few seconds of that feature piece I’d watched; how Gale had effortlessly manipulated the cards, almost like real magic.
Again, Richard shook his head. “Not just that. Ever since the interview, it’s like—every day I’m just sleepwalking. And nothing matters. At first I came here to pass the time. Now though, it’s the only way I get any peace and quiet.”
I cast a glance around the bar, which was—while not overly rowdy, still a dive bar— and far from silent. “Quiet?” I asked.
“From the hum,” Richard said with a dismissive wave of his hand. From his reaction, he seemed to think it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Drives me crazy, but when I drink, it’s not so bad.” The slurring was stronger now, to the point even I was having a difficult time understanding him.
I shot a glance over to Tailor to see if he was still keeping up, but saw that the man wasn’t even looking at Richard anymore—at least, not directly. I followed his gaze over Richard’s shoulder, toward a booth by the back door. There sat a lone, scruffy man with a well-kept beard and a faded ballcap turned backward on his head. He had a well-worn long sleeve shirt, the kind you wear to keep the sun off your skin during a day out at the lake. A pair of sunglasses hung from the neck, dragging down the fabric.
He was trying to be subtle about it, but he was clearly watching our table.
“The hum,” I repeated, still watching the stranger in my peripheral vision, “guessing you started hearing it after your interview?”
“Thassright.”
Richard was well and truly drunk now, and I wasn’t sure how much more useful information we’d be able to get out of the young man.
“What does this hum sound like?”
“Like a boat on the lake, late, late at night. Big, and low—so low y’can barely hear it. You feel it, more like.” Richard started to slump over, and for a moment, I thought he was about to vomit all over the table. Then I realized what had happened: the man had fallen asleep.
“Shit,” I said, “I had more questions.”
“I think he was about all out of answers. Useful ones, anyway,” Tailor said. “We should square the tab and get out of here.”
“Agreed.” I left Tailor to keep an eye on the sleeping drunk while I paid—an act that nearly emptied my wallet. Tommy the bartender grunted appreciatively, counting out the bills as he slipped them into the register.
“Should we call someone?” I asked, gesturing toward Richard.
“He’ll be fine. Usually wakes up around close, ‘n stumbles back down the street to his dad’s place,” Tommy said. “I already took his car keys.” The bartender’s thick accent made the word sound more like khakis.
I looked back across the room and motioned for Tailor. When I did, I noticed the watchful stranger had gone, leaving his half-finished beer still sitting on the table. Good, I thought. Something unsettled me about the man, and I wanted to be out of there before he returned.
As it turned out, the man was one step ahead of us. We found him leaning against the driver’s side door of my old rust bucket. “Excuse me,” I said, trying to sound firm.
The man ignored my statement. “Seems like I’m not the only one who knows about our friend, Mister Gale.” He spoke with a thick midwestern accent, possibly the strongest one I’d heard since moving to Russet Lakes.
“Not sure what you mean,” I said. “Everyone knows about Gidon Gale. He’s the closest thing this town’s got to a celebrity.”
The stranger laughed, then pulled a small object from his pocket. I thought it was an e-cigarette, or vape, until the man blew into it for a few seconds. When the device let out a beep, the stranger turned it over and nodded appreciatively at the little blue screen on the side.
He returned the item to his pocket and cleared his throat. “I don’t mean you’ve seen Gale. I mean you know about him. About what he’s doing.” The man pushed off from my car and took a step toward us. “Around here, that is a dangerous thing to know, for sure.”
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