The Last Tomorrow

FIFTEEN

Eugene, showered and dressed but not yet fully awake, stumbles from his bathroom and walks down his narrow hallway. He has the day off, but finds it impossible to sleep past four o’clock even when he has nowhere to be, even when he’s a bit hung over, as he is today. His time as a milkman has ruined him for sleeping in.

As he walks toward the kitchen his shower-fogged glasses clear in the cool morning air. Coffee should be done percolating and he needs a cup. He grabs a mug from the cupboard and pours thin brown liquid into it. He checks the fridge, but is out of fresh milk. An empty bottle sits in the door beside a jar of mustard. His mind’s working just well enough that he finds the empty milk bottle amusing. He shuts the fridge and starts looking through his cupboards for an alternative. After shoving several cans of peas and green beans and Spam aside he finds a can of condensed milk. He can’t find his can opener, so he punches a couple holes into the lid with a screwdriver and pours the thick syrup into his coffee.

Then, with mug in hand, he walks to the dining table and sits. He intends to drink his coffee in silence and stare blank-eyed at the wall thinking nothing at all, but instead his eyes fall upon the envelope he found nailed to his front door last night.

He’d forgotten about it until now. Drunken memories seem to remain drunk long after you yourself have sobered up. Pulling the note from the door, walking inside, trying to write: it’s all a blur.

He picks up the envelope and looks at it. It’s blank, white. He holds it up to the sunlight but can’t see what’s inside. He tears open the top and finds within the envelope a newspaper clipping. At first he’s staring at an advertisement. Think of it! A new cylinder-type vacuum cleaner! Only $13.95 complete with attachments! He flips over the thin sheet of paper and reads this headline:

D.A. SEYMOUR MARKLEY SAYS COMICS CAUSE MURDER!

Beside the article is a picture of a rather prim-looking man in his late forties or early fifties. He wears wire-framed glasses. His thin-lipped mouth is open in angry speech. He’s holding up a copy of Down City, which Eugene recognizes immediately. It’s one of the dozen or so issues for which he drew the cover. Below the headline, the story:

LOS ANGELES — District Attorney Seymour Markley announced yesterday that he would be launching a grand-jury investigation into whether it might be possible to charge those involved with the creation and production of a comic book with criminally negligent homicide. The grand-jury investigation comes on the heels of a Bunker Hill killing in which a thirteen-year-old boy allegedly used a so-called ‘zip gun’ to shoot his stepfather before, in imitation of a crime comic book called Down City, carving a star into the dead man’s forehead with a straight razor.

Markley said that the boy’s testimony to LAPD detectives indicated to him that he was not fully culpable for his actions. ‘Anybody familiar with the work of psychologist Frederic Wertham,’ Markley said, ‘can tell you that comic books are a terrible influence on the youth of today. There’s a reason church groups across America are calling for this trash to be burned, to be incinerated. These small boys are susceptible to the morally corrosive influence of entertainments filled with sex and violence, and the inevitable result is tragic deaths like the one we saw a few days ago, a death which has not only ended the life of a man, but which could destroy the life of a small boy before it is even fairly begun. When the boy testifies before the grand jury, I believe the influence, the guilt, of this gruesome comic book and its creators will be clear. And I hope this investigation causes other comics publishers to think twice about what they’re printing — what they’re filling the minds of impressionable youths with.’

According to Markley, his office has evidence that E.M. Comics, a subsidiary of E.M. Publications, which also publishes adult magazines such as Nude Sunbathing and Hygiene, is run behind-the-scenes by James Douglas Manning — also known as New Jersey Jim and the Man — and used as a means of laundering ill-gotten money through overpayment for printing services.

A source within the D.A.’s office has also said, on condition of anonymity, that Mr Manning’s accountant, Theodore Stuart, has agreed to testify against his employer during the grand-jury investigation, though he did not know the extent of the information Mr Stuart might be willing to divulge.

If the investigation goes the way the D.A.’s office intends, and the grand jury returns a ‘true bill,’ James Manning and others involved in the production of Down City could be the first individuals in American history charged with homicide for the creation of an entertainment.

For a long time Eugene only sits and stares unthinking at the gray newsprint, coffee on the table beside him forgotten. He sets down the news item and gets to his feet. He walks to his porch and lights a cigarette. He takes a drag and exhales in a sigh. He looks out at the dark, empty street. The air is cool. He tries to consider what this might mean for him.

Worst case: he’s convicted of a crime he had nothing to do with and he spends years in San Quentin. Best case: nobody ever finds out he was involved in any way. He never signed his work with more than an offhand E., and usually he didn’t sign it at all. There are people who could easily point to him, of course, but not one of them, so far as he knows, lives in Los Angeles. Yet someone nailed this news item to his front door. Somebody knows who he is and where he is. And the implication is clear. A threat is implied.

He can’t imagine that a grand jury would agree that he should be charged with homicide, even criminally negligent homicide, for the creation of a comic book. . except for one thing: it would be a way to nail James Manning, who has been a known criminal for thirty years. Authorities have never managed to put him in jail, despite what everyone knows he is, and this could be a way to do it. A jury could be convinced. And if Eugene ends up a casualty of a witch-hunt, so what, that’s nobody’s problem but his own. He has no friends in high places. He has few friends in low places.

And nobody will defend comics.

Everybody agrees they’re wretched. Everybody agrees they’re trash. Everybody agrees they corrupt children. Books have been banned, and bookstore owners arrested for carrying them. Aren’t criminal charges such as these the next step? If books can be too dangerous to read, they can certainly be dangerous enough to rot the minds of impressionable children.

He takes a drag from his cigarette. He needs to remain calm.

Whoever left the article nailed to his front door was making an obvious threat. I know who you are. I know where you are. I know what you did. I will tell. But the only reason to say all that rather than simply to do it is if there’s an unless. I will tell unless.

Unless what?

Eugene doesn’t know. And the only way to find out is to wait.