Coffin Island (34 page)

You start thinking like Professor
Coffin and what’s going to happen to you next? You’re headed for
greatness or total calamity that’s for sure. Sometimes those states
are just mixed. You’re back looking at the big house, the bughouse
or the penthouse by my estimation, pal. Wait a second here. Who am
I talking to? Or is somebody talking through me. I get it.
Professor Coffin is just messing with me. I like it though. I like
it a lot. You just bring it on, Professor Coffin. That’s what you
do.

However another part of my brain was
sounding the alarm. The thought process behind these thoughts is
alarming. You’re telling me that thoughts aren’t threatening.
Thoughts can’t hurt you. You fool. You tell that to Professor
Coffin. His thoughts are wildly unsettling. They’re very
threatening. They’re not nice too. They’re stalking the daylights
out of me. I’m calling the cops.

911, what is your emergency? This guy
is harassing me with his thoughts. Where are these thoughts located
exactly, crazy?

You fool. They’ve attached themselves
to me like a black widow. And they won’t get off! It sounds like
you have a monkey on your back. Would you like me to call an
ambulance? I don’t have a monkey on my back. You fool. It’s just
Professor Coffin. He’ll jig all he wants. Even after the band
stops. That’s when he gets really good. When the lights go out, the
band goes home and you’re all alone. That’s when he cranks up the
act.

Professor Coffin was a professor that
you desperately wanted to please. The alternative was just too
horrible. He was stomping all over your thoughts. The terror that
he struck into my heart with his mere words was absurd. I was
beginning to see the broad outlines of the middle section of the
test. That Old Havana in glass was just a ruse. It was the theater
of the absurd as The Rollercoaster of The Absurd
suggested.

What sort of school makes you go
physically through the theater of the absurd to admit you? Do you
really want to go to a place that is that cruel for openers? What
does graduation include? Human sacrifice and kicking heads down the
temple stairs?

We’re going to send you to a really
nice school. First, you’re going to have to take a horrific test.
It’s a play, a costume drama, but you’re not going to be permitted
to know the secret until after you’ve passed it. We’ll cast you in
the theater of the absurd unbeknownst to you as well as, what the
hell, against your will. How would like to be cast in that? We’re
going to refuse to ask you though. Why ruin the surprise? We want
that heart attack that we’re trying to give you to stop your heart.
It’s not called cardiac arrest if you heart doesn’t stop. We have
to do this the right way otherwise our fraud isn’t real. We must
make it completely real for you.

You’re going to do the theater of the
absurd in real time with a fictional version of your future
instructor. The writer that wrote your nightmare is going to be
there to coach you through it. Actually he’s too famous to be there
himself but he’ll script up a doppelganger. How does that sound now
that’s over? We got one over on you, you fool.

What sort of devil would write that
just as the entrance exam? He should be shot at sunrise after being
forced to purchase the bullet at the commissary out of his widow’s
annuity fund. His children should pack the bullet too. His first
born should pour the gunpowder into the cup and then put in the
primer. His mistress should pull the trigger. Then everyone should
be fed his corpse through funnels. Then we cut out all their
livers. I was in the market for serious revenge.

“
Those aren’t half bad
thoughts, Booster,” Professor Coffin said. “You should clean them
up a bit and write them down in the next world. Although to be
frank, I have been coaching you a bit. You’re cribbing from me
right now. I permit it though because my artistic sprawl is so
vast. I have plenty of leftover material to share
wantonly.”

“
Stop reading my thoughts,”
I said. “You might learn something.”

Professor Coffin let out a hearty roar
reminiscent of Flash. Even that cantankerous beast was some part of
him? I shuddered.

“
You write that down,”
Professor Coffin suggested. “It’s not half bad.”

“
We’re going to write in the
next world?” Madison asked. “You’re not just saying
that?”

“
Are you pulling a prank on
us again?” I asked.

“
I can’t do all the
writing,” Professor Coffin said. “The world is a greedy beast. And
you’re going to be my successors, pupils. I don’t want to die
forgotten. I’ve worked too hard. Your writing will keep me living
when I’m washed up in retirement. We’ll connect back through all
those dead hands.”

“
What if we can’t do it?” I
asked. “Or rather refuse to do it.”

“
You’ll bleed out your
eyeballs,” Professor Coffin said.

Professor Coffin lowered his
spectacles.

Madison and I cringed.

Chapter

Professor Coffin had no eyeballs. Or
rather he had what appeared to be two black onyxes in his eye
sockets where his eyeballs had formerly been. Some jeweler should
nail in some pupils. Drive the diamonds right into his skull. You
don’t want to lose those peepers now do we? They’re too precious.
Those dark jewels. Why don’t we tack them down so a jewel thief
doesn’t pluck them right out. I dream of pawning Professor Coffin’s
eyes.

What are the origins of these jeweled
eyeballs? I just plucked them out of my former writing instructor’s
head. What did he do? He did the usual. He failed to teach me. He
failed to encourage me. He also had the audacity to hurt my
feelings too. So I plucked his eyes out.

You see this shop, son? I’ve got James
Joyce dentures. I don’t need anymore writer parts.

“
I’ve been considering
that,” Professor Coffin said. “A bit flashy though. The old diamond
eyeballs. A competitor of mine is rocking Rolex teeth. A bit too
much for my blood though. Watch teeth, please. Watch out on the
page. That’s where I do my thing. He’s actually beneath me but he
still irritates me. It’s his attitude of superiority that
infuriates me. Nobody does superiority better than him. Not even
me. He can’t write as well as me though. That’s the only cold
comfort that I have. I should have a superior attitude. It’s just
not right.”

“
Is he reading your thoughts
too?” Madison asked.

“
I think he’s driving them
too,” I said.

“
He’s telling me something
about a writer being a vehicle,” Madison groaned. “He’s saying
something about a bus.”

“
He’s doing it to me too,” I
groaned.

“
You get on the bus,
pupils,” Professor Coffin said.

“
Before the wheels blow
off,” Madison shouted.

“
A chip shop in the next
world,” Professor Coffin said calmly because he had silenced us.
“You can swap out body parts. Add in different writers that you
think you might like. I’ve added them all in several times over.
All the majors and a quite a few minors, they’re useful too. The
old book and a cover, it’s surprising where you find inspiration.
Even while peering into the gutter, I’m a crime writer out of
Minnesota. It’s kind of cute but the real play is that we’re all
out of Minnesota. You can learn something from that hick because
it’s you.”

I was shaking like a wet dog. Madison
was vibrating. Professor Coffin was striking fear into us without
even speaking now. We were both shaking from a cold front that
didn’t even exist. He’d actually turned up the temperature as a
counterpoint. How do you like your brain boiled? What the fresh
hell, make it hard boiled. You like crime novels? I do too. I think
it’s some of the best writing out there. Say what?

“
I’ll take that as a firm
yes that you both want to go to The Coffin Island School for
Witches,” Professor Coffin said. “Your suppositions on the theater
of the absurd are a bit crude but correct nonetheless. Shall we
go?”

Madison and I gripped our seats in
total terror as Professor Coffin put the glass Cadillac into gear.
He then released us from fear. It felt wonderful. It was like we
were floating in space. We were just sitting in our tin can while
the world floated below us out the window of the spaceship. The
blue planet was drifting below us.

One moment we were struck with total
terror in our hearts and now we were free? It gave the mind pause
to shift gears so suddenly. So this is what it feels like to be
completely out-of-control yet in control at the same time? I like
it. Bring it on, Professor Coffin.

“
This is my favorite part of
the test,” Professor Coffin said. “Some pupils die from fear right
here at this very spot. It’s a tough break to crumble at the finish
line but that’s how it goes for some runners. They have total
meltdowns from which there is no recovery. What are you going to do
though? It’s less competition for me. Although let’s be frank,
here, because these could be the last words that you ever hear from
Professor Coffin because of cardiac arrest brought on by fear.
There is no competition out there for me. That’s why I make the big
bucks. I’m Professor Coffin.”

The glass Cadillac went screaming down
into the abyss. It hit the black hole somewhere at the bottom of
the Tower of Babel. The trunk popped open. The Coffin Island
library exploded out of it. All those books were just a warp drive?
How could words propel you with such force? It somehow made cruel
and terrible sense. Knowledge was hells bells. You hear that ring?
I do too. Let’s pull that rope and let that bell take us up with
it. I want to hear that bell crack. I want to be attached to it
too. I don’t care if I’m clinging to a rope. What you call hell. I
call hope.

This entire retched journey was just a
vehicle of learning. It was warped as hell but it could travel
brutally fast, hell yes. Put the pedal to the metal Professor
Coffin. I want to roar like Flash out the tailpipe, horror show.
Stop messing up in here.

“
You need to think like
that,” Professor Coffin shouted. “I like it a lot.”

We dumped the junk and made the jump
for outer space. Professor Coffin slowly turned his face towards
us. The horrific warp made it almost impossible for him to do it.
The glass Cadillac seemed to be reaching terminal speed. Break up
was inevitable. It was roaring fire out the window. At what point
does magical glass incinerate?

Madison and I had our brains pinned
back. Our brains were slumping low. They were hanging real low.
Those bad boys were belted against the bottoms of our
skulls.

Then old Flash tapped on the glass. How
you doing in there he seemed to be saying. He was gesturing with
his fiery knuckles. Flash seemed to be saying that he was the
creature at the end of the dock. Yeah, man, I’m tending the lamp.
I’m a flaming ape, you know? I’m the light at the end of the
tunnel, bro. He was sitting on the rearview mirror, horror show.
Why not take the ride you ornery beast at the end of that fabled
dock? Let out that hearty roar for the all the world. They deserve
it. Blast them with brimstone, bro. Flash them off. I’m on that
same short list with the rest of the world. What the hells bells
just incinerate us all. We deserve it.

“How do you like the ride so far,”
Professor Coffin asked while his jowls jiggled in warp
drive.

“Need to get that chin done, bro,” I
stuttered.

“It’s on the bucket list,” Professor
Coffin shuddered. “We all do India.”

He was fiddling with the radio. He
settled on some long forgotten song.

“
Turn up that heavy metal,”
I shouted.

“
You want to go faster?”
Professor Coffin roared.

He turned around to pass us cigarettes.
Why not smoke up in here while we’re at it? Fire it up.

“
Pin it,” Madison
shouted.

“My other car is a Ferrari,” Professor
Coffin roared. “I should have brought that.”

The planets and stars were flying past
us like so much dust. It was like the dust was being blown off a
novel with a single puff. One of those eager puffs of a real
reader. A breath of fresh air that is scarcer than a raven with
spectacles.

That book has been sitting on that
shelf for far too long. Why not pick it up? Let’s puff off the
dust, shall we? I think that there is something in here that speaks
to me. It’s a ludicrous hope. I know. But maybe once a generation
some holy fool pulls it off. Why not give him his shot? Who says
we’re the last of the Mohicans?

That tribe was about to expand a few
clicks. I was hell bent on that. And that Ferrari sounded downright
delicious. I was looking forward to tanking up that vehicle with
the high test. We’re going to need the smoker’s package on that.
You don’t flash around town in a Ferrari without a cloud of smoke
chasing after it.

The grasshopper must run errands for
the Grand Master such as gassing up his Ferrari. Why not see what
kind of quarter mile that hideous vehicle has in it. I must have
it. That hideous vehicle is mine.

“It will never happen,” Professor
Coffin roared. “That car won’t even let me drive it. That’s why
it’s a magical Ferrari, Booster. You can’t get in it. No doors. You
skid hop off the bumper on a skateboard.”