Black Book

Addie hummed the same tune over and over, trying to get it sounding right. She was absentmindedly wiping plates, her hands having gone into autopilot from years of practice, the sounds of the diner meandering around her but not enough to distract her from the song forming in her brain. Occasionally, from the sea of comforting murmured talk, bubbling coffee, and scraping plates there emerged a sharp laughing note that Addie would test in her tune before allowing it to sink back into the outskirts of her interest.

A little place next to a gas station and usually pretty empty, ‘Pluto’s’ today felt cramped and sweaty with families, and truckers and the odd hitchhiker.

Someone here is probably a serial killer - she thought chirpily.

The windows had steamed up, and Addie watched as a little girl crookedly drew a smiley face on the glass. In her head, the lyrics and tune clicked for a moment, and Addie reached for a pencil -

‘Hey, what am I paying you for?’

She snapped to attention and shot her boss what she hoped was a winning smile.

He shook his head unmoved and pointed to a booth on the other side of the room. ‘That guy hasn’t ordered anything in a while. Go and annoy him, not me.’

Addie nodded and headed over, snatching in her mind at the loose thread of her thought, but the tune was already gone.

Although every day here felt like trudging through fast-drying cement, Addie really needed this job, needed to get herself some bank so when she finished her songs she could do something with them. Then she’d show them she wasn’t some empty-headed waitress. She adjusted her smile from winning to ‘May I help you?’ and stepped up to the booth.

What struck her first about the occupant was his manner. In amongst the herds of contented, carefree customers, the man was a knot of tense, frustrated energy focussed on a little black book overflowing with scribbled words, most of which had been violently scratched out again.

I guess I’ve found the serial killer - was Addie’s first thought, but she tried not to let it show in her face.

‘Hey there sir, anything I can get for you? The specials today are –‘

‘No, thanks, I’m – that’s alright.’ His voice was softer than she expected and familiar somehow, but he didn’t look up as he spoke.

‘More coffee?’

‘That’s ok. Um-’

Addie noticed his hands were shaking slightly. Whatever this guy was going through was none of her business, but she couldn’t help but feel worried. ‘Is everything alright?’

He finally looked up, his eyes hauntingly bleak, and Addie felt a tingle of recognition. Where had she seen this guy before? She started running through everyone she’d been at high school with, friends of friends, everyone, but he turned away suddenly and stood up.

‘I’m good. All done. Thanks.’ His words were light but his delivery was heavy.

Addie put a hand on his arm without even thinking and felt how thin it was under the sleeve of his jacket before he jerked it away and stumbled towards the door.

‘Your notebook,’ she called after him, picking it up off the table and holding it up.

‘I’m done,’ he said, his tone haunting and final.

Then he was gone, slipping through the door like quicksilver.

Addie watched the door swing slowly shut, feeling odd and useless. Weirdos passed through here every day, but there had been something different about this man, something that made her feel like there was some kinship between them, some bond, and that she needed to help him somehow because of it. But she had failed to deliver. Just like her goddamn song, she seemed to lack the ability to follow through, and any chance to change that seemed to have departed with the stranger.

She looked at the black book in her hand, flicking through pages filled with half poems strewn carelessly across the lines, peculiar little doodles, and huge areas of scratchy black masses of angry crossing-out. Like his face, they all seemed frustratingly familiar, but where it was she knew them from remained elusive, on the edge of her mind, just out of sight like the remnants of old dreams.

She tucked the book into the waistband of her jeans, wiped the table and cleared away his empty cup. As she returned to the kitchen with it she saw that the smiley face on the misted glass had drooped, water droplets like tears sliding down it, turning it mournful.

After her shift Addie went home, the mood of the day and the first line of her song going over and over in her mind, never feeling happy enough with it to put it to paper in case it sat in front of her and felt wrong. Addie hated herself a little bit because of it, and imagined herself going to a record label one day and saying ‘yeah, hi! Listen to my song! I’ve been thinking about it for years and it’s only one line that I’m not 100% sold on. Sign me! That wasn’t what they were looking for. The people they signed would be people who produced their songs effortlessly and to order.’

She fixed herself a glass of water and turned on the old TV in the kitchen, the serious sounds of bad news pushing away the silence as keywords rose above the general burble like heartbeats.

Accident…. Tragedy…..Tortured talent…

Then the picture faded up and Addie found herself staring at the photo of the man from the diner, only this time he was standing on a huge stage, screaming into a microphone, dirty blonde hair spilling over his face.

She pulled the book from her waistband in a daze, and flicked back through the pages, the tortured scribblings and crossings out taking on a new and huge significance now. This book contained quite possibly the last thing he ever wrote. Not only that but she had seen him struggling, even with all his success he had still been stumbling around, getting it wrong, crossing things out - just like she did.

She closed the book and stared at it as the newsreader continued to list the highlights of a life cut short in the background. In just a few short moments the book had become something far greater than the sum of its parts, and she knew she would never own anything like it again.

But it also represented something else for her. It represented a chance for her to change.

Guilt. That was Addie’s main feeling throughout the whole process, even though the reasonable parts of her fought to keep them at bay. She had felt guilty sending the letter to the journalist telling him what she had, guilty when she told him she wanted to sell the book, guilty when the gavel banged down for the last time at the auction, and guilty that it had fetched such a high price. She still felt guilty now, walking down the street away from the auction room with a cheque for $20,000 in her pocket. But as the sun continued climbing, burning away the morning mist, Addie began to feel two new things that were far more welcome: hope, and an idea.

Twenty minutes later, with a spring in her step and a few dollars lighter, Addie stepped into ‘Pluto’s’ and breathed in the warm, waffle-scented air. It was her day off and when the boss came in he would be surprised to see her. She had come to tell him she quit, wanted to see the look on his face when she said the words when he realised he had no control over her any more. But there was also something else she had to do here, and a particular place she needed to do it.

Addie slid into the booth on the furthest side of the diner and pulled the little black book from her bag. She placed it on the table where his book had sat and looked at it. It was the same make and size as the one he’d had, though this one was brand new, the cover black and soft, the pages shiny and empty.

Addie took out the pencil she used to take orders and listened for a moment to the music of the diner. She looked out of the window where the kid had drawn the smiley face. Then she smiled too, opened the book to the first page, and began to write.