The Castle in the Air: A Gaucho Noir
AUTHOR’S NOTE: This piece is a creative account of my experience aiding Spectrum’s Thematic and Equity Audit, a project conducted to understand the demographics of our past and present contributors, and publishing trends throughout our history. Written in a Noir style— or, more accurately, visited upon me by the vengeful shade of Raymond Chandler— I’ve emphasized my emotional reactions, invariably elevating tone over truth. For detailed, factual illumination on the Thematic and Equity Audit, please await Spectrum’s forthcoming paper.
It all went down on a gray Tuesday afternoon. It had been rainy, especially for California, which suited me fine. Being Thanksgiving week, I had a train back South to catch Wednesday, and a lucky extension on an essay— Film Noir class— so I thought I’d kill some time on campus with a muffin from the Arbor, and a bag of Cheez-Its. After all, they were my only vice. I had a room to myself, so I put on a little Broadway: Camelot, 1960. Julie Andrews, Robert Goulet. Real saccharine, practically a fairy-tale in song. What about it? A gal’s gotta have a sentimental 666yy6666side. Especially in this town.
That’s when the call from a client came in: Spectrum Literary Journal. I’d gotten mixed-up with the mag when they’d hired a few dicks-about-town to do what they called an “Audit,” finding everything there was to know about their past contributors— skeletons and change— and all that could mean digging pretty deep. I already told them they’d get their case report when I was good-and-ready, but they were after something different this time: they wanted a blog post on their desk tomorrow, and must have fixed me as the dame to give it to them.
So there I was, slack-jawed, stuck like an ant in molasses. No clue what I’d write about. Thankfully, a bit of Andrews—singing “The Simple Joys of Maidenhood,” namely—brought my brain up to speed. Just something in the word, knight. Back when I’d taken on the Spectrum assignment, there’d been mutterings about a so-called “knight story” in one of the volumes—nothing concrete, not even a title. Still, I’d always wanted to get my hands on that story.
I figure I went in for that old chivalric stuff. Tales of King Arthur, merry maidens and stiffs-in-armor riding all over the country, and if you got me started on Lancelot? Well, we’d be here a while. See, even when you get the sense that things maybe weren’t so bright then, it’s nice. Dreaming about one brief, shining moment.
The trouble was, I’d never found quite the right one to finally close the case on Spectrum’s missing knight’s tale. Considering my deadline, now seemed as good a time as any. At least, it’d be more productive than picking at muffin crumbs and hoping I’d think of something better.
Normally, a new case meant pounding the pavement, turning up stones to see what sorts of slugs had crawled under them. This time, I had a leg up: when it had come up the first time, a source told me I’d find the story in one of the earlier volumes. The sixties, they’d said, and I had no reason to suspect they’d been fooling. That meant I knew right where it was, even if the idea put a little knot in the bottom of my stomach. See, if you needed a quick look at an old issue of Spectrum, your only chance on campus was the sixth floor of the Library.
Walking up, I couldn’t make it out right away, but I knew it was there, looming at the tips of my eyelids— just a big black mass through my glasses, all hazy from the rain. We’d had a library since Eisenhower was in office, but it’d taken until ‘67 for them to build its crown jewel: an eight-story tower, smack dab in the center of campus, standing proud, like it thought it owned the joint. It wasn’t the biggest building I’d seen. Still, it was no Lincoln Log cabin, and it had a way of making itself seem taller: getting all its cronies, the buildings around it, to crouch down to about half its height. Before you even got in, the place wanted to make you feel nice and little, maybe just to make sure you knew what you were in for.
When I got to the entrance, I wiped the slick of sprinkle off my lenses, to get a real good look at the building— although it’s not like I hadn’t seen it before. Right then, I had this picture in my head of a great big castle, and there in front of it, a tiny knight on horseback, looking up, armor all chevron black. Maybe I was in mind of knights, them and all those ladies in high-towers they had to rescue. Only this time, it was down to the dame to climb the castle, and, already, I was feeling pretty weighed down by the last steel-plated Sir I’d left up there. Let’s just say the sixth floor and I had more than a few scores to settle.
* * * * * *
It was mid-October, my first week on the Spectrum case. I was green then, and I guess I thought I was pretty bright. As the automatic doors parted, I took a cold swig from my water bottle, trying to keep my blood from getting too hot with excitement. Already, I’d made a couple breakthroughs—and I was about to blow the thing open.
Once you’re past the first page of google-hits, auditing is a lot like feeling your way around a wide-empty lake at midnight. Sure, the moon’ll give you a few mountains, you get hands on a chunk of driftwood every so often — but you’ve no sense of the shoreline. Even if you somehow learned how far to swim, you’d never know which way. Just as soon as you're counting dates on obituaries so you can match them up to people whose ages you’ve got no idea about, you're in too far. But, I figured, if even half these perps had been University-affiliated, teachers or students, that meant a chance someone had tried to make their mugs for a yearbook.
As it turned out, the UCSB Library had a fine stash of the La Cumbre Yearbook on the sixth floor. Not a complete set— that was for Special Collections to pat themselves on the back about— still, it covered the dates I was after. I’ll tell you, knowing a doll went to your school, shared your major sixty years ago, is one thing. Looking her square in the eyes— even just printed on the page— is another. She was pretty, too. Perhaps, if we’d shared a century, I could have fallen for her. As for a name? Well, a private eye ought to keep a few secrets all her own.
Each face staring up at me, captured in the glossy greys-and-whites, seemed to come through some bent-up mirror. The funhouse kind, that made you feel all funny inside because you didn’t quite know whether they were a thousand miles off or an exact match. I poured over those pictures like they’d never been seen before. I felt as if I’d discovered something that mattered, and, then, there was just about nothing I wouldn’t have done to make sure they got seen— plastered all over the front page of the Daily Nexus, if that’s what it took. Here, was the real type of sleuth-work I’d gotten into this for. I thought I was on cloud nine. Really, I was a kid finding herself on her first hot-streak, and thinking she’s got what it takes to beat the house. The job’s sure got a way of bringing you down to the level.
Riding high, I was on my way to the Special Collections desk, with a mind to schedule a date. I was still missing a few names, which felt like just a drop in the bucket, then. On instinct, I went to take another drink from my water bottle, but my hand came up empty. I didn’t know when, but somewhere, up on the sixth floor, I had lost it.
If, when I started the case, I’d pounded the pavement, then it’s between God and me what I did to that linoleum. My heart hammered in my chest like the Surfliner Amtrak pulling into station, all fiery with fear — go figure, me being without my water, and all.
The whole time, I tried to keep cool, it wasn’t like anyone was thirsty enough to steal a water bottle right off the shelf— not with them giving the drink out free at Subway across the street, but it didn’t take long to wonder if I’d been too optimistic.
I gave all the spots I’d visited the once-over, and then a twice-over just to make sure. After making another round or so, I started to wander the shelves, praying maybe the next glance would be the one that saved my bacon. The whole affair was pretty humiliating, and on my fourth or fifth pass through, I started to notice just how many damn books there were. Row-after-row, shelf-after-shelf.
I wondered, how many of them had been opened for the last time? How many of their authors, artists, thinkers, might never have their work glanced at again. Never even have their names spoken. On every side of me, there was more knowledge than anyone could have possibly learned, or even half-remembered, if they’d have tried.
Right about then, I started feeling the weight of it all. My knees buckled, heels sinking into the floor. Against all this, what was anybody? I felt like a droplet poured into a great big lake. A swirling sea in the goblet of a great big giant— Time itself, you could tell by the sickle— and, it dawned on me that he could wash us all away, in one big gulp.
Before my legs could give out, I decided to call it, thinking I’d catch the tail-end of a picture, then come back at night-time. With any luck, a custodian would have parked the bottle by the front desk for me. Of course, things never like to turn out that way— quick and easy. When I went back, it hadn’t gotten any less missing.
On my way out, I stopped off to kick a puddle— I had new shoes coming the next week, so I figured I could spare the backsplash. Plus, after the day I’d had, I needed all the water I could get. As soon as the ripples settled, the buildings’ mirrored face formed again, like it’d never been wiped away at all. If the library is where they keep the books, I thought, then its reflection must be where they stash all the ideas. A sort of closed-off museum, with more plaques than you could care to read, and more forgotten dreams than you’d ever care to remember. Only now, it held my anger too. Reflected like it was, it seemed never to meet the ground. It just floated there in the water, like a castle, hanging in the air.
* * * * * *
When the elevator chimed, letting me out onto the sixth floor, the first thing I noticed was how empty it was. Sure, the upper floors thinned out the quickest, but I’d have figured two weeks before finals would warrant a rush on second-to-last minute work. Then again, it was two days before Thanksgiving, people’d probably packed up for the holiday. Soon enough, I’d be one of them, and I’d have to get myself acquainted with Amtrak’s one-by-one fold-down— I had a feeling I’d need it like hell, soon as this knight case wrapped up. If I were a betting dame, I’d say a good half of floor six’s regulars were out figuring the same.
Still, you could feel stress in every empty space. Maybe holdovers from seventy-years’ frantic studying, crammed into one chill down the spine, but I suspected the spectres were recent: finding their way off the backs of departed trains, buses, planes. That’s the funny thing about taking time off, all that baggage you’re trying to escape gets real clever about finding ways to tag along. Sometimes, it feels better having a viper in your hand than letting it writhe in the cupboard— either way, you wind up stung.
With each footstep, more of the stresses flagged me down. They clung to my heels like dogs, who hadn’t gotten themselves fed in a while. I tried to keep them off with case music: C’est Moi, ringing in my earbuds. Sure felt nice, though it didn’t much help. Even if I had really been tailed, I doubt I’d have felt it this bad.
Didn’t take long to find the shelves I was looking for, after all, I’d gotten a pretty good lay of the joint, last time I was in. Soon enough, I was there: the library’s holdings of Spectrum Literary Journal. It was a good half-century of history, taking up all of a single shelf — one, out of hundreds — but, I didn’t exactly have all day, either to bask in it, or agonize some more. One of these volumes had its mitts on my knight story, and I wasn’t about to let them keep which one to themselves.
First, I sprang for 1960. The year Camelot came to Broadway. No dice. Serendipity had taken me so far, but I guess Lady Fortune had gotten to miss spinning her wheel. So I gathered the rest of the sixties—bound-up in their nifty hardcovers— and got skimming. It was slow, authors don’t all like giving the game away. Flipping through that many stories, you nurse an urge to read them all, especially the couple that slow you down a minute. Any other day I might have indulged myself—especially if I’d been nice and cozy, back at my desk. But not with a blog post to finish, and a whole snakes’ nest in the cupboard, all itching to bite.
Nonetheless, I let a couple things catch my eye. A poem here and there, the translations mostly, from French and Latin. Figured a little culture wouldn’t hurt me any. The longest piece I read was an academic’s paper, on Horace’s Ode to Cleopatra, finding a sort of triumph in her crossing over, and I have to say, taking a snake to the breast didn’t sound too bad right about then.
In total, I must have glanced over a hundred pieces, give or take. The closest matches were some pieces on Chaucer, and a translation of Wulf and Eadwacer. For any other doll, that might’ve been enough, but I’d been here too long for anything less than pure chivalry. Through the window in front of me, the sky had long since gone dark, and I guess, like a lot of people when they’re up to their neck in the shade, I got desperate.
Early-on, the other Spectrum sleuths made up a spread-sheet, trying to keep all their evidence in order. Although I didn’t mind sharing with the table, it was a point of personal pride I hadn’t consulted it yet. By now, things had gotten to be a little different. Making quick with the search feature, I typed “knight,” only to come up with a twelve-ton cargo-load of nothing. It was like the word never existed. I was about ready to accept it was all a bad lead, write-up the blog post on a white flag. But I’d come too far to take a dead end, and the fifties, the oldest Spectrum on offer, were only a couple-inches away.
Taking a volume, I flipped to a random page, ready to start the process all over…but, I must’ve racked up some karma, because, all cool-headed, as if it’d been there the whole time, there it was. Like some kind of fate, a kismet. “Sir George and the Delicate Marie,” written by Tom Chamberlain, from Volume III, Issue 3, the Fall 1959 edition of Spectrum.
Having it in front of me, laid open on the desk, was like being pronounced a new Galahad, finally achieving the Holy Grail. Or maybe I was Lancelot, only getting to glimpse the thing. That felt more right, after all the time I’d spent in that lake. The year caught my eye too, 1959. Only one year earlier, T.H. White had published his Once and Future King. The two stories had similar tones— and the same genre, of course. I got to wondering if that had inspired this piece. After all, it had inspired Camelot. Serendipity, baby, I missed you.
From the first, you could tell the writer was no stranger to the medieval poems. His work was real reminiscent of the French romances, trying to make nice with both Marie de France and Chrétien de Troyes — and trying to make a little fun, too. Although, if it had really been either of them, they’d have taken a bit more time on the romance, really made you feel it. Maybe I’d even have liked it better, then. What’d I say? Sentimental side.
It was real funny, I couldn't argue that. Good plot too, especially for its type of yarn, just enough to wet your teeth with— to keep you wanting more, without keeping you from appreciating all it was giving to you. When I’d first heard of it, I expected something more introspective, a real thematic arc sounded nice— but, the way it was, it was like a fairy-tale, and, maybe, after the day I’d had, I could use something that light. So I just leaned back, and had myself a good, long, laugh.
I must have had a jaunt in my step, as I placed the volumes on the shelf and packed my things. My mind was already half-way home, getting my fingers ready to type things up and call it quits on the evening. I went to scoop up my earbuds, thinking I’d enjoy the rainy night all the way to my apartment, when I noticed I no longer had a matched set.
The realization settled in kinda funny, since I’d already heard the tune before. It started on a slow movement. String, maybe a woodwind here or there, all winding you into the big cymbal crash. That was the realization, Tchaikovsky’s cannon, cueing all the rest into prestissimo, in time with your heartbeat. Only, I wasn’t in the mood for music anymore.
Not sure why it gnawed me up like it did, they weren’t even brand-name AirPods, just the phony-kind. Guess it was the principle of it, that every time I’d come here, I’d lost something. Then again, maybe a rotten turn was the only kind you could expect in life. Maybe I should have learned enough by now to just stay home.
If I wanted it back, there was only one place to look. I held my nose, closed my eyes, and— making sure my nerves were iron, or at least a good grade aluminum— plunged into the bookshelves. I couldn’t tell you what I expected, pulling out the 1959 volume, but somehow, miraculously clutched between the pages, was my earbud, hanging over the black chasm between the shelves. Honestly, I had a good, long, laugh at that too, and as soon as I picked it up, I just held it close.
Exiting the sixth floor, for what I wanted to be the last time— though deep down I knew better— I stole a glance at the shelves, climbing up above my head, about ready to smash me flat. My stride didn’t slow for a second. Then, if you’d dropped all the books in the world onto my wrist, they couldn’t have tipped the earbud sitting in my hand.
As for my water bottle? Well, I wondered if, all those weeks ago, it might have fallen back behind the shelves, same way my earbud had— but I figured I wasn’t gonna get off with two lucky breaks in a row. Three, if you count my knight. No, I knew then and there that I’d never see it again. That it had taken the big gulp.
Maybe, the rain had washed it up into that great big castle in the air. As for me, I’d just as soon take the first train South.
THE END.