Throwback Thursday: ‘Gumdrop: A Bekker Story’

Cthulhu Calling

Celebrated memoirist JJ Lee was one of our first feature authors. Over the last decade he’s painted two covers and written half a dozen stories for us. Notable among them is his Bekker series, aka The Man in the Long Black Coat, which draws on both Lovecraftian and Moorcockian mythology, with the occasional appearance of Father Christmas. The latest epsisode of JJ’s pulpy mashup appeared in issue 34, Spring 2022.

Enjoy this excerpt from ‘Gumdrop: A Bekker Story’, on sale this month!

Gumdrop: A Bekker Story

by JJ Lee

“The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle.” -Dr John P Stapp, Project Manhigh

I borrowed a delivery bike from YC Sun, the grocer, without asking. Why bother? I planned to bring it back before morning and there would be no wear and tear. I only needed it as a prop, and besides, riding it up Pacific Heights would have made me cough up a lung.

I hoisted it onto my shoulder and hung from the rear runner of the Jackson streetcar. I tried not to get chain grease on my black button-down shirt or my strides. I’d just had Hong Tailors make the pants, four pleats with a dropped belt-line, wide in the thigh and narrow at the cuff. I took the streetcar to Sutter and Gough, but I still had to push the bike two blocks to get to Octavia and Washington. The hundred-foot climb may as well have been the Swiss Alps. Though it was a cool summer evening with a nice ocean breeze, by the time I reached Colonel Hobbs’s house I was sweating bullets.

The street was lined with new Fords, Lincolns, Buicks, and Cadillacs — some as long as Sherman tanks — that gleamed in the setting sun. The mansionette on the corner was a Romanesque affair with rounded arches, three floors plus an attic decorated with a series of engaged Composite order columns. Fancy as can be. Through the windows, I could see women in fox and ermine stoles and men in white ties and tails. Not in a million years could I walk through the front door.

A delivery truck was parked across the street. The pavement around it was all wet. Leaning against the cab, smoking and wearing a newsboy cap, was a young man, skinnier and taller than me.

“Hey,” I said, “I know you. You’re Harry Fong’s boy.”

He straightened up. “Oh, hello, Mr Too.”

“How’s your dad?”

“He’s doing well. What are you doing here?”

I shook the bike handlebars, gave him a big smile. “Mr Sun asked me to see if you needed help.”

“He did?”

“Yeah sure. You know Hobbs wants to buy the Seals. And then he wants the Seals to join the National League. Says if things go well, maybe Mr Sun could supply the beer and hot dogs for the ballpark. So tonight’s a big night.”

“I didn’t know that.”

“Why would you? Anyhow, that’s why he put you in charge, because of how important it is that everything goes smoothly. Everything is going smooth, right?”

The boy gulped so hard he nearly swallowed his cigarette. He put it out on his shoe heel and stuffed the butt in his pocket. He dusted the ashes off the front of his shirt. “Yeah, sure, Mr Too. Everything is going peachy.”

From the corner, a man in tails waved his hands. He could have been mistaken for a guest if he weren’t Black and wearing white gloves. Fong’s boy nodded and went to the back of the truck. He pulled aside the canvas flap. Inside were crates of champagne buried in piles of ice. I propped the delivery bike against the curb. “Let me take one.”

“You sure?”

“Mr Sun sent me to give you a hand, kid.”

We each hauled a crate. He had six bottles of Veuve Clicquot. Mine were Cook’s. “What’s with the cheap California stuff?”

The boy shrugged. “Boss didn’t say.”

The footman kept waving at us, impatient. We followed him through the back gate on Octavia and down three steps into the crowded downstairs kitchen. He took all six of the Cook’s and three bottles of the real stuff. “Crap,” I said. “He’s mixing the champagne?”

“Never you mind,” said the footman. “Take three up to the servery.”

“I’ve got it. You’re doing great.” I gave Fong’s boy a wink.

The back stairwell was dark, narrow, and tightly twisted  upwards. I’m a short guy, and I still felt the urge to stoop, it was so cramped. On the main floor, voices, jazz music, smoke, and the smell of booze and perfume wafted to the end of the hall. A white servant in gloves popped out of the servery. He took the Veuve Clicquot bottles. “Tell downstairs more glasses of the other stuff, quick.”

“Sure.” I winced. “I’m not feeling well. Is there a WC I can use?”

“There’s one below beside the back door.”

“That one was busy.”

The servant sighed. “At the very top of the stairs. And under no circumstances do you go to any other floor.”

I didn’t spend much time on the second floor, but I will say the Colonel’s bedroom, the study, and Mrs Hobbs’s bedroom were as beautiful as any quarters I had seen in German castles during the war.

The third floor smelled of strawberry and roses. At the front was a music room. The middle was a guest room with a big Edwardian four-poster bed. The room closest to me had a panelled arched oak door. It was closed, and when I put my ear against it, I heard the distinct sound of ice falling into a tumbler. I stepped in.

The bed had a pink-and-white quilt. The pillows, also pink, were ruffled. Above the headboard, on a yellow-papered wall, hung a number of abstract prints and drawings. Rattan night tables bracketed the bed. On each sat a potted orchid. A young woman in a green silk brocade evening gown looked out a north-facing window towards the bay. Her side-parted chestnut hair was streaked with blonde.

She eyed me up and down and added another cube of ice to her glass.

Find out what happens next to Alex Too in Issue 34, Spring 2022, ON SALE now until September 30th!

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JJ Lee wrote the memoir The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit. His monster-chaser Bekker has appeared in Pulp Literature twice before, in issues 8 and 24. JJ writes and records a Christmas ghost story for broadcast

every year for CBC Radio, one of which we published in Issue 17, Winter 2018. In addition to the pen and ink drawings that accompany his stories, JJ has provided us with two cover paintings: ‘Fallen Angel’ based on Robert J Sawyer’s story in Issue 7, and the iconic killer teddy bears of Pulp Literature Issue 2, featuring his story ‘Built to Love’.

Want to write with JJ? Join us at our Writing Intensive with guest editor JJ Lee at Cafe Duello.