July 20
Jeff was elbow deep in a sudsy sink, washing dishes, when the thumping came. After the fact, he realized that it was knocking, but the sound was so much larger that that, he didn't realize it at the time.
He quickly walked into the living room, wiping the soap from his hands with a towel, and he could see a silhouette knocking on the door to the deck. Ordinarily the doors would be open overnight to let the house breathe and let out the hot air, but last night there had been a breeze that was too cool to be comfortable and Jeff had locked up before going to bed. Later he wondered if the girl would have just walked right in if the doors had not been closed and locked.
“Help,” he heard a woman's voice call over the pounding.
“What the fuck is going on?” Stuart said, emerging from his bedroom, rubbing his eyes.
Jeff threw the bolt and pulled the door open. A young woman took a step back, apparently startled at the response. Her eyes were staring, haunted for a moment, and then she pushed her way in.
“You have to help me,” she said, screeching, grabbing at Jeff. “I think he's dead!”
“Who?” both men said together.
“Henry! He wasn't breathing, we need to call someone!”
So instead of asking all the questions that were on their minds, and there were lots, Jeff called 911 on the landline and Stuart got the girl some water.
“Just a second,” Jeff said, in response to a question from the emergency operator. “Um...” he looked at the girl, unsure what to call her. “Henry is Henry Thorsen, right?”
She looked up and nodded urgently.
“They're on their way,” Jeff said, hanging up a moment later.
“We have to go and help him,” the girl said, and the men looked at each other. Morbidly, they both wanted to go to the next door house, so they let her lead the way.
“He said...he said he was gonna do it last night,” she stammered, as she led them through the line of trees. “But I didn't believe him.”
“What?” Stuart asked.
“That he was gonna, you know, do it.”
Stuart rolled his eyes at Jeff. She sounded like a sixth grader talking about sex. Jeff changed the subject.
“So how do you know Henry?” he asked, intentionally using the same name for him that she had used.
“Oh, I'm his girlfriend,” she said, without hesitation.
Stuart threw Jeff another glance. Jeff would have guessed young relative, niece or daughter, certainly not lover. But now that he took a second look at her, it made sense. She was wearing a wife beater and boxer shorts, clearly what she slept in. Her hair was wound together in gentle dreads at the back of her head, there were spacers in her ears, and she had henna markings on her hands. She would dig a counter culture icon like him. Although Jeff could not imagine sleeping with anyone that much older than himself, no matter how cool they were.
“Okay,” Jeff said, just to keep her talking. “How long have you been out here?”
“We just got back from a publishing conference. They gave him an award.”
“Oh, yeah,”Stuart said, “I forgot that was this weekend. Chicago Publisher's Convention,” he told Jeff.
“So that was this huge deal, and then we got back here and he was all down and said that even though they gave him an award, no one actually wanted to publish his fucking books anymore.”
Stuart reached forward and grabbed her arm. She was pliable now, talking about Thorsen as if he were a concept instead of a person. Her face was slack and empty of expression.
“And he threated to hurt himself?”
She nodded.
“And he's inside?”
She nodded again.
They were in the yard of the Victorian now, so Stuart led the girl over to the truck, which was unlocked, and put her in it. He left the door open and returned to Jeff.
“You follow all that?”
“Yeah. You really think...” Stuart started nodding, so Jeff didn't bother to finish. “I guess I figured he just had a heart attack or something, you know?” he said instead.
“Yeah, me too. 'Specially with Miss My Legs Up To My Chin, over there.”
“So, now what?”
Stuart grinned, his teeth flashing with a carnivore's glee. “I dunno about you, kid, but there's no way I'm passing this up.”
“But if he really topped himself, this place is gonna be a fucking crime scene in ten minutes!”
“Suicide isn't illegal in Washington State,” Stuart shot back. “I'm never gonna have another chance like this. I've sat in on autopsies before and shit, but it was never real. As far as the cops were concerned, we thought there might be a chance he wasn't dead, okay? It's not like we really got much info out of her, is it? She's hysterical or in shock or something.”
Jeff shook his head. “You're nuts.”
“I'm just making the case for what we both wanna do. Imagine the shit this'll give you for your book!”
That, of course, was what did it. It was what pushed Jeff's reason off the cliff and propelled him to follow Victor Stuart as they entered Thorsen's house.
The door was ajar, and Victor pushed it open with the tip of his shoe. He looked back at Jeff and the two of them entered.
They did a quick circuit of the ground floor, which was set up as a huge square around the giant staircase that divided the house. In one corner was a small bedroom, filled with the remnants of Thorsen's career, awards, posters, trophies, a stuffed lion's head, and a wall covered in rack-mounted guns.
“I could spend a fucking day exploring just this room,” Stuart said quietly, as if he were in church or a library.
Jeff put his hand on Stuart's shoulder. “We don't have time, dude, c'mon!”
The rest of the downstairs held nothing interesting, except that, on some level, it was all interesting. If Thorsen were really dead, then this entire house was practically a museum of his life. What magazines did he read in this living room, what food did he eat in this kitchen, did he shoot the colossal buffalo whose head was mounted over the dining room table?
Jeff found a door in the kitchen that led into a cellar. It was not finished, like his basement, it still had dirt walls and it was filled with swollen, oozing boxes of documents, magazines, manuscripts, catalogs, newspapers. As soon as he saw the contents of the room, Jeff was tugging on Stuart's arm again, anxious that if they were going to see the body, they should do so ASAP.
“Yeah, yeah,” Stuart said, almost to himself, looking over his shoulder as they went back up the basement stairs.
They split up at the top of the stairs to the second floor, Jeff going left, Stuart going right.
Jeff found what seemed to be a guest bedroom, devoid of any particular personality. There was a larger room next to it, which might have been a study 100 years ago, but which was now an entertainment room, with a digital project and small rows of theater seats.
“Found him!” he heard Stuart cry, and he ran out into the hall.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Author, Chapter Thirty-Seven: The Best Books
July 17
“You ever see High Fidelity?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah. I liked the book better,” Stuart said, smiling. “When they moved the movie to Chicago they gutted a bit of the book's instincts, since it was a British novel. If you haven't read About a Boy, by the same guy, you should, especially if you're a fan of Nirvana.”
“So, if you saw it, you're familiar with the Top 5 concept?”
“Top 5 Desert Island Whatever, sure,” Stuart said.
“So the Top 5 are what your favorite things are. Not the most important or the ones you think others should check out, but the ones that you would be stuck with if you only had five, right?”
“Right.”
“Top 5 Desert Island Books, then, Victor Stuart edition.”
Stuart nodded and poured himself some bourbon. “You first. And defend your selections.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, as if he had been expecting such a response. “Me first.” He took a breath and cracked his beer. “In no particular order, mind you.”
“Of course. Top 5 does not mandate values in order,” Stuart said, reasonably.
“Needful Things, by Stephen King. He claimed that it was a satire of Reagan's America, but I feel like the book takes his powers of observation and his affection for small town life and threw them together like a car crash. No holds barred, a happy ending, yes, but only after a dozen unhappy ones. Ruthless, even. And an ending that leaves questions to be asked instead of sewing everything up tidily, as he sometimes does.”
“'Kay,” Stuart nodded. “Continue.”
“Watership Down. Richard Adams called it a grown-up's book for children, but I've always maintained it was the reverse. Kids shouldn't read it. I tried to read it when I was 12 and barely got through it. It wasn't until I read it as an adult that I could stomach it or understand it. Plague Dogs was even worse.”
“Plague Dogs is a hell of a book, but I'm not sure anyone should read it. It's too grueling and depressing.”
“Says the author of the Alistar Wilcox books.”
“Point. Watership is really heavy, too, though. With all that stuff with the general and the prophecies and everything. Not something I'd read to my kids, at any rate. What else?”
“Preacher, a comic series—“
“By Garth Ennis, yeah. I know it. A fan of mine recommended them a few years ago and I read them all in one sitting, basically took up a whole day. I liked Y, The Last Man, better, but not by much. Why?”
“The foreign perspective of the United States and our culture meshed with spirituality and a spaghetti western is just, I guess it's just too surprising and original not to acknowledge.”
“Agreed. Keep going.” Stuart seemed to be enjoying Jeff's selections.
“By The Rivers of Babylon,” Jeff said.
“DeMille, really?” Stuart asked.
“It was the first book of his I read, and probably still his strongest. It was probably also the first book that I read that really opened my eyes to an international perspective, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“No cardboard characters, no easy ways out, original solutions to common problems, and a genuine perspective on what a fucking no-way-out mess there is in the Middle East.”
“Sure. Last one.”
“You're not gonna like it,” Jeff said.
“Try me.”
“It's this book by a hack named Victor Stuart. Cemetery. I read it when I was 15.”
“You mentioned that before, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“So now tell me what happened to your father.”
Jeff looked at Stuart for a long moment. “Cancer,” he said in the end, quietly, “He died of lymphoma.”
“I'm sorry. I know that of all my work, that book speaks to those who lost a parent, whether they died or ran off, or whatever. It makes sense, too, because I wrote it about my own father, right after he died. Ask me about that some time, yeah?”
Jeff nodded, trying not to be overwhelmed by unhappy recollections.
“Alright, my turn. Since you chose Needful Things, I'll start with my favorite Stephen King book: Thinner. Writing as Richard Bachman, which means he could be as mean-spirited and unpleasant as he wanted.”
“I read somewhere that the big difference was that in the end of King's books the good guys lived and in the end of the Bachman books no one gets out alive..”
Stuart snorted and then considered and began to laugh. “Yeah, kid, that's pretty accurate. I like it. His observation is at its finest in that book, cutting and clever, the descriptions, the Gypsys, the fuckin' ending. I reread it every so often, it's a fast book.
“Second I'm gonna go with Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.”
“Good choice.”
“I mean, everyone quote-unquote literary likes Stephenson, he's and geeky and literate and everything all at once. Cryptonomicon, though, got me excited through the treasure hunt and the World War Two stuff, and all the code geekery was just gravy.
“You mentioned a comic, so I suppose I will have to, too. I'll say The Crow, by James O'Barr. The movie wasn't bad, but never really did the original work justice. Some of the same things about Thinner are what I like about The Crow. It's unhappy, it's mean-spirited in places, it doesn't offer easy answers. It's brutal, more than anything.”
“I cried like a little bitch when I read it,” Jeff said. He then immediately regretted it.
Stuart looked at him for a moment. “Of course you did,” he said. “You have a soul. It's a tough book to get through. I read it when it was pretty new and I was...I dunno, not very old. I didn't just have a young wife, I had my first kid at the time and the idea of losing those that I held most dear was just...heinous.”
“That's three,” Jeff said.
“Yeah. I'm gonna say Small Town. It's mostly because I want to list a book by Lawrence Block, who is the fuckin' man, and I can say that having met him. He's a gentleman and a hell of a writer. Have you read it?”
“No. I've seen it at the stores, but I haven't read it.”
“It's an ode to post-9/11 New York City. There's a mystery, but it's really secondary to the intertwining stories of all these people and how the tragedy affected their lives. One of the reasons why I respect him so much is he can write on all these levels, humorous, serious, snarky, scary, and that book was the culmination of the lot of it. A love story to the city. It's on my shelves, I think, if you wanna look for it. You can't read just me all summer.”
“I'll check it out,” Jeff said. “What else?”
“The Hobbit,” Stuart said. “It's a cliché choice, I suppose, as it's a formative work for many writers, but I can always go back to it and remember what it was like to not be a writer yet and be so enamored of the fact that some guy, in another country, decades before, could suggest all these ideas that would resonate with a 10-year-old in 1978. I'd been a scribbler before then, but that book was what turned me into a writer. Or, at least, a kid who wanted to be a writer.”
“For me that was Grave.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I wrote my first real short story after that.”
“Wow. Thanks, kid, that's really flattering. Was it any good?”
“No, it was a complete rip off. But it was a place to start.”
“Damn right. Good for you.”
“You ever see High Fidelity?” Jeff asked.
“Yeah. I liked the book better,” Stuart said, smiling. “When they moved the movie to Chicago they gutted a bit of the book's instincts, since it was a British novel. If you haven't read About a Boy, by the same guy, you should, especially if you're a fan of Nirvana.”
“So, if you saw it, you're familiar with the Top 5 concept?”
“Top 5 Desert Island Whatever, sure,” Stuart said.
“So the Top 5 are what your favorite things are. Not the most important or the ones you think others should check out, but the ones that you would be stuck with if you only had five, right?”
“Right.”
“Top 5 Desert Island Books, then, Victor Stuart edition.”
Stuart nodded and poured himself some bourbon. “You first. And defend your selections.”
“Okay,” Jeff said, as if he had been expecting such a response. “Me first.” He took a breath and cracked his beer. “In no particular order, mind you.”
“Of course. Top 5 does not mandate values in order,” Stuart said, reasonably.
“Needful Things, by Stephen King. He claimed that it was a satire of Reagan's America, but I feel like the book takes his powers of observation and his affection for small town life and threw them together like a car crash. No holds barred, a happy ending, yes, but only after a dozen unhappy ones. Ruthless, even. And an ending that leaves questions to be asked instead of sewing everything up tidily, as he sometimes does.”
“'Kay,” Stuart nodded. “Continue.”
“Watership Down. Richard Adams called it a grown-up's book for children, but I've always maintained it was the reverse. Kids shouldn't read it. I tried to read it when I was 12 and barely got through it. It wasn't until I read it as an adult that I could stomach it or understand it. Plague Dogs was even worse.”
“Plague Dogs is a hell of a book, but I'm not sure anyone should read it. It's too grueling and depressing.”
“Says the author of the Alistar Wilcox books.”
“Point. Watership is really heavy, too, though. With all that stuff with the general and the prophecies and everything. Not something I'd read to my kids, at any rate. What else?”
“Preacher, a comic series—“
“By Garth Ennis, yeah. I know it. A fan of mine recommended them a few years ago and I read them all in one sitting, basically took up a whole day. I liked Y, The Last Man, better, but not by much. Why?”
“The foreign perspective of the United States and our culture meshed with spirituality and a spaghetti western is just, I guess it's just too surprising and original not to acknowledge.”
“Agreed. Keep going.” Stuart seemed to be enjoying Jeff's selections.
“By The Rivers of Babylon,” Jeff said.
“DeMille, really?” Stuart asked.
“It was the first book of his I read, and probably still his strongest. It was probably also the first book that I read that really opened my eyes to an international perspective, you know?”
“Yeah.”
“No cardboard characters, no easy ways out, original solutions to common problems, and a genuine perspective on what a fucking no-way-out mess there is in the Middle East.”
“Sure. Last one.”
“You're not gonna like it,” Jeff said.
“Try me.”
“It's this book by a hack named Victor Stuart. Cemetery. I read it when I was 15.”
“You mentioned that before, didn't you?”
“Yes.”
“So now tell me what happened to your father.”
Jeff looked at Stuart for a long moment. “Cancer,” he said in the end, quietly, “He died of lymphoma.”
“I'm sorry. I know that of all my work, that book speaks to those who lost a parent, whether they died or ran off, or whatever. It makes sense, too, because I wrote it about my own father, right after he died. Ask me about that some time, yeah?”
Jeff nodded, trying not to be overwhelmed by unhappy recollections.
“Alright, my turn. Since you chose Needful Things, I'll start with my favorite Stephen King book: Thinner. Writing as Richard Bachman, which means he could be as mean-spirited and unpleasant as he wanted.”
“I read somewhere that the big difference was that in the end of King's books the good guys lived and in the end of the Bachman books no one gets out alive..”
Stuart snorted and then considered and began to laugh. “Yeah, kid, that's pretty accurate. I like it. His observation is at its finest in that book, cutting and clever, the descriptions, the Gypsys, the fuckin' ending. I reread it every so often, it's a fast book.
“Second I'm gonna go with Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson.”
“Good choice.”
“I mean, everyone quote-unquote literary likes Stephenson, he's and geeky and literate and everything all at once. Cryptonomicon, though, got me excited through the treasure hunt and the World War Two stuff, and all the code geekery was just gravy.
“You mentioned a comic, so I suppose I will have to, too. I'll say The Crow, by James O'Barr. The movie wasn't bad, but never really did the original work justice. Some of the same things about Thinner are what I like about The Crow. It's unhappy, it's mean-spirited in places, it doesn't offer easy answers. It's brutal, more than anything.”
“I cried like a little bitch when I read it,” Jeff said. He then immediately regretted it.
Stuart looked at him for a moment. “Of course you did,” he said. “You have a soul. It's a tough book to get through. I read it when it was pretty new and I was...I dunno, not very old. I didn't just have a young wife, I had my first kid at the time and the idea of losing those that I held most dear was just...heinous.”
“That's three,” Jeff said.
“Yeah. I'm gonna say Small Town. It's mostly because I want to list a book by Lawrence Block, who is the fuckin' man, and I can say that having met him. He's a gentleman and a hell of a writer. Have you read it?”
“No. I've seen it at the stores, but I haven't read it.”
“It's an ode to post-9/11 New York City. There's a mystery, but it's really secondary to the intertwining stories of all these people and how the tragedy affected their lives. One of the reasons why I respect him so much is he can write on all these levels, humorous, serious, snarky, scary, and that book was the culmination of the lot of it. A love story to the city. It's on my shelves, I think, if you wanna look for it. You can't read just me all summer.”
“I'll check it out,” Jeff said. “What else?”
“The Hobbit,” Stuart said. “It's a cliché choice, I suppose, as it's a formative work for many writers, but I can always go back to it and remember what it was like to not be a writer yet and be so enamored of the fact that some guy, in another country, decades before, could suggest all these ideas that would resonate with a 10-year-old in 1978. I'd been a scribbler before then, but that book was what turned me into a writer. Or, at least, a kid who wanted to be a writer.”
“For me that was Grave.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. I wrote my first real short story after that.”
“Wow. Thanks, kid, that's really flattering. Was it any good?”
“No, it was a complete rip off. But it was a place to start.”
“Damn right. Good for you.”
Friday, February 12, 2010
The Author, Chapter Thirty-Six: The Sacrifice
July 15
Jeff has never felt so exhilarated in his life. He can feel his pulse throbbing in his wrists, his neck, in his groin, at his ankles. He flexes his fingers, feeling the power that rests there, ready to be deployed.
His shoulders are powerful and wide, different from how they usually feel. His cloak is magnificent, made of a mat of woven feathers that falls almost to the ground. He wears a circlet with a single, rough jewel at his forehead.
The young man before him is also naked, with ropes binding his neck, waist and arms, and ankles to the strong, tall stone post.
Around them is a circle of the tribe, the People, as they call themselves. They are the first and the oldest, for certain, but in the back of his mind, he knows that they will be forgotten by the years, that they are not as permanent as they assume themselves to be, as they pretend to be, as they claim they will be. There will be no kingdom of a thousand years, or even a hundred from this day, but today's ceremony will insure that what time they have will be prosperous.
His apprentice, boy learning the trades of prophecy, soothsaying, and medicine, approaches. The boy bears a simple wooden bowl that he holds forth, bending his head in respect.
Jeff dips his finger in it, taking a small pleasure in the texture of the mixture that is made from ash, ground bone, and fish oil. It smells richly of the herbs that have been sprinkled in it, each one significant, signifying a wish, a dream, or a curse. Jeff gently rubs it between his fingers and thumb to make sure it is properly made. It is his apprentice's first true test. He touches his index finger to his mouth and rolls the taste, rich and repellent, over his tongue. The boy has done well. He grunts in satisfaction and takes the bowl. The boy takes a step back, watching.
He begins to paint the post with the ash, filling in the markings that are appropriate for today's ceremony. He indicates life, health, and fortune. He touches the markers for earth, food, and crops, leaving a black fingerprint.
Then he turns his attention to the young man tied to the post. His eyes are open, staring, entranced, far gone on the fermented berries he was fed earlier. He will go compliantly, gently, Jeff is certain. He paints his forehead and chest with the ash, duplicating the stained runes on the post.
He hands the bowl back to the boy and keeps his hand there, expectantly. The boy hands him the knife.
It is old, as old as the People themselves, and it is said that it was one of the first gifts from the gods, along with speech and fire. It is formed the jawbone of a deer, one end worn smooth and dark from being handled by many hands over thousands of years. The other end is a narrow blade, sharpened on both sides, with a point as sharp as a shark's tooth. Never once has this blade been chipped or broken. Never once has this blade failed. Jeff himself has used it more times than he can count and it is flawlessly reliable.
He holds the knife aloft in both hands, feeling the weight of the feather cloak shift on his shoulders. The people around him, the People, cry out at the sight of the blade.
Lightning flashes overhead, but there is no accompanying roll of thunder. He begins his incantations, the boy repeating them quietly, memorizing them for the time when he will lead the ceremony. The words are as old as the knife, also handed down from on high, the words that will continue the cycle of survival in a cold, hard world, overseen by cruel, unseen gods.
Jeff nods at the boy, who slips something into his mouth and screams, a high-pitched yelp that pierces the ears. Soon he is mentally beyond the clearing, his mind elevated and the words he chants are in another language, the words of the gods.
Jeff approaches the young man at the post again, holding out his empty left hand. The eyes do not blink or shift as Jeff caresses his cheek, continuing to talk, to soothe, to deliver the benediction for this hero, this victim.
The boy is almost running in a circle around them now, panting, screaming, howling. The others in the circle begin to take up his cries, pleading to the gods, each in their own way, to bless the coming days.
Swiftly, so swiftly that it is almost invisible to the People in the circle, Jeff drives the knife forward, confidently, never removing his eyes from those of the young man. The eyes do not move as the knife slides between two ribs, piercing the heart. The man sighs and sags against his bonds.
A lesser shaman breaks the circle, picks up the bowl where the boy discarded it, and brings it forward, holding it beneath where the knife still penetrates the young man's body, and Jeff feels the last, weakening pulses through the handle. He draws the blade out.
The blade sticks, catches on a rib, and there is a hesitation where there has never, never, been one before.
With a wrench the blade breaks free of the flesh and the blood gouts forth into the bowl, overflowing, covering the shaman's hands.
Jeff tucks the knife, bloody and warm, into a secret fold in his cloak. He will deal with it later.
The ceremony is finished with him painting the blood on the sacrifice, and the post, and then a mark for the body of ever member of the tribe, in the location that they desire, where it will help them the most.
Then there is feasting, dancing, singing, and stories on the beach, and the posts are decorated with garlands of flowers in gratitude. Later, it begins to rain and the People return to their shelters, exhausted from their day.
It is not until later, in the light of a small brazier in his hut, that Jeff removes the knife from his cloak and examines it. In the orange firelight he can see, even through the dried blood and gore on the blade of the knife, that there is a chip in the point, where it appears to have struck a rib when he pulled it out. Perhaps the rib had a flaw that dragged against the blade.. The notch is not large, but on a knife that has not needed to be sharpened in the history of its existence, it does not bode well.
The boy comes into the tent without announcing himself, wet from rinsing himself in the ocean. His eyes gleam in the firelight as they see the blade of the knife. His vision leaps to Jeff's face and Jeff nods, slowly.
Tomorrow they will sharpen the blade, reshape it so that it appears as if it has never been damaged. They will do this for the sanctity of the People. They will do this because the gods must be obeyed and because without tradition, without ceremony, the People have very little else.
But they both know that this means something more. It means an ending. An ending of a way of life, of a perfection that was unbroken. It means that the boy's reign as Great Shaman may be the last. Or the boy he trains up may be the last. But the end is drawing near.
The blade is notched. The sacrifice was not deemed worthy by the gods. The coming year will be hard. The years after, perhaps harder still.
This dream Jeff will remember when he wakes. And when he looks in the mirror in the morning, he will decide not to shave, because when he looks at his reflection, he does not see his own face, but rather he sees the high, dark cheekbones of the Great Shaman, still speckled with blood from when Jeff had sacrificed another human life.
Jeff has never felt so exhilarated in his life. He can feel his pulse throbbing in his wrists, his neck, in his groin, at his ankles. He flexes his fingers, feeling the power that rests there, ready to be deployed.
His shoulders are powerful and wide, different from how they usually feel. His cloak is magnificent, made of a mat of woven feathers that falls almost to the ground. He wears a circlet with a single, rough jewel at his forehead.
The young man before him is also naked, with ropes binding his neck, waist and arms, and ankles to the strong, tall stone post.
Around them is a circle of the tribe, the People, as they call themselves. They are the first and the oldest, for certain, but in the back of his mind, he knows that they will be forgotten by the years, that they are not as permanent as they assume themselves to be, as they pretend to be, as they claim they will be. There will be no kingdom of a thousand years, or even a hundred from this day, but today's ceremony will insure that what time they have will be prosperous.
His apprentice, boy learning the trades of prophecy, soothsaying, and medicine, approaches. The boy bears a simple wooden bowl that he holds forth, bending his head in respect.
Jeff dips his finger in it, taking a small pleasure in the texture of the mixture that is made from ash, ground bone, and fish oil. It smells richly of the herbs that have been sprinkled in it, each one significant, signifying a wish, a dream, or a curse. Jeff gently rubs it between his fingers and thumb to make sure it is properly made. It is his apprentice's first true test. He touches his index finger to his mouth and rolls the taste, rich and repellent, over his tongue. The boy has done well. He grunts in satisfaction and takes the bowl. The boy takes a step back, watching.
He begins to paint the post with the ash, filling in the markings that are appropriate for today's ceremony. He indicates life, health, and fortune. He touches the markers for earth, food, and crops, leaving a black fingerprint.
Then he turns his attention to the young man tied to the post. His eyes are open, staring, entranced, far gone on the fermented berries he was fed earlier. He will go compliantly, gently, Jeff is certain. He paints his forehead and chest with the ash, duplicating the stained runes on the post.
He hands the bowl back to the boy and keeps his hand there, expectantly. The boy hands him the knife.
It is old, as old as the People themselves, and it is said that it was one of the first gifts from the gods, along with speech and fire. It is formed the jawbone of a deer, one end worn smooth and dark from being handled by many hands over thousands of years. The other end is a narrow blade, sharpened on both sides, with a point as sharp as a shark's tooth. Never once has this blade been chipped or broken. Never once has this blade failed. Jeff himself has used it more times than he can count and it is flawlessly reliable.
He holds the knife aloft in both hands, feeling the weight of the feather cloak shift on his shoulders. The people around him, the People, cry out at the sight of the blade.
Lightning flashes overhead, but there is no accompanying roll of thunder. He begins his incantations, the boy repeating them quietly, memorizing them for the time when he will lead the ceremony. The words are as old as the knife, also handed down from on high, the words that will continue the cycle of survival in a cold, hard world, overseen by cruel, unseen gods.
Jeff nods at the boy, who slips something into his mouth and screams, a high-pitched yelp that pierces the ears. Soon he is mentally beyond the clearing, his mind elevated and the words he chants are in another language, the words of the gods.
Jeff approaches the young man at the post again, holding out his empty left hand. The eyes do not blink or shift as Jeff caresses his cheek, continuing to talk, to soothe, to deliver the benediction for this hero, this victim.
The boy is almost running in a circle around them now, panting, screaming, howling. The others in the circle begin to take up his cries, pleading to the gods, each in their own way, to bless the coming days.
Swiftly, so swiftly that it is almost invisible to the People in the circle, Jeff drives the knife forward, confidently, never removing his eyes from those of the young man. The eyes do not move as the knife slides between two ribs, piercing the heart. The man sighs and sags against his bonds.
A lesser shaman breaks the circle, picks up the bowl where the boy discarded it, and brings it forward, holding it beneath where the knife still penetrates the young man's body, and Jeff feels the last, weakening pulses through the handle. He draws the blade out.
The blade sticks, catches on a rib, and there is a hesitation where there has never, never, been one before.
With a wrench the blade breaks free of the flesh and the blood gouts forth into the bowl, overflowing, covering the shaman's hands.
Jeff tucks the knife, bloody and warm, into a secret fold in his cloak. He will deal with it later.
The ceremony is finished with him painting the blood on the sacrifice, and the post, and then a mark for the body of ever member of the tribe, in the location that they desire, where it will help them the most.
Then there is feasting, dancing, singing, and stories on the beach, and the posts are decorated with garlands of flowers in gratitude. Later, it begins to rain and the People return to their shelters, exhausted from their day.
It is not until later, in the light of a small brazier in his hut, that Jeff removes the knife from his cloak and examines it. In the orange firelight he can see, even through the dried blood and gore on the blade of the knife, that there is a chip in the point, where it appears to have struck a rib when he pulled it out. Perhaps the rib had a flaw that dragged against the blade.. The notch is not large, but on a knife that has not needed to be sharpened in the history of its existence, it does not bode well.
The boy comes into the tent without announcing himself, wet from rinsing himself in the ocean. His eyes gleam in the firelight as they see the blade of the knife. His vision leaps to Jeff's face and Jeff nods, slowly.
Tomorrow they will sharpen the blade, reshape it so that it appears as if it has never been damaged. They will do this for the sanctity of the People. They will do this because the gods must be obeyed and because without tradition, without ceremony, the People have very little else.
But they both know that this means something more. It means an ending. An ending of a way of life, of a perfection that was unbroken. It means that the boy's reign as Great Shaman may be the last. Or the boy he trains up may be the last. But the end is drawing near.
The blade is notched. The sacrifice was not deemed worthy by the gods. The coming year will be hard. The years after, perhaps harder still.
This dream Jeff will remember when he wakes. And when he looks in the mirror in the morning, he will decide not to shave, because when he looks at his reflection, he does not see his own face, but rather he sees the high, dark cheekbones of the Great Shaman, still speckled with blood from when Jeff had sacrificed another human life.
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Author, Chapter Thirty-Five: Character Work
July 13
Jeff stood over the grill, basting sauce on skewers of chicken. Stuart exited the house, groaning as he stretched.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Thanks,” Jeff replied, and he heard Stuart grunt behind him. When he turned, the writer was laid out on the table, eyes closed, sun on his face.
“Is it must me, or is it getting hotter in there?” Stuart asked him, lips barely moving.
“Yeah, we're not getting much wind anymore.” The grill hissed and spat like a feral cat as the sauce dripped onto the heating element.
“I think we got a fan around here somewhere. Remind me to look for it after we eat, yeah?”
“Sure.” Jeff killed the burners on the grill and rotated the skewers. “I'll be right back,” he said. He went to the kitchen, grabbed two plates and dished out some of the pilaf that had been warming on the stove. He poured two glasses of lemonade, put napkins and forks in his pocket, and managed to get the whole mess outside.
“Here we go,” he said, as he came back out onto the porch. Stuart took this as his cue to get off the table, so he rolled onto a bench.
“Feed me!” he cried.
Jeff placed the plates and then served the chicken. Stuart burned his fingers in his hurry to sample the grilled meat. Jeff just shook his head. They had managed to return to June's equilibrium, making time for writing and for not writing.
“I'm finally caught up after the time I took off from editing over the holiday,” Stuart said, around a mouth full of food. When he looked up, he saw the expectant expression on Jeff's face. He swallowed. “Ah, shit,” he said. “What's tonight's question, quizmaster?”
“Who is the favorite character you created?”
Stuart made a couple of faces and drank some lemonade. “Jesus. Well, this may not be the answer you're after, but character that makes me the happiest is Rast Harker.”
“Who?”
Stuart nodded. “Are you still ripping through all my books?”
“Yup.”
“Which one are you on now?”
“Creature.”
“Well, Harker is in Victim. I'm sure you'll remember him when you get there. He's a lawyer who serves Wilcox with a lawsuit and—“
“Oh, that guy!”
“That guy. Everyone remembers him, even though no one remember his fuckin' name. I created him on a whim, he's just an excuse to move the story forward, to be honest, but I figured if I was going to be so cheap as to create a human plot device, then I should make him interesting. He's in the book just enough to raise about a hundred more questions than he answers, and I implied that he knows stuff about Wilcox and his history. It was a lot of fun. I get people asking me about him all the time, who he is, what he meant, all that. Truth is, what you see is all there was, I just dropped a bunch of hints for things I never intended to explore.” He gave his fierce grin. “I love being a bastard sometimes.”
“Awesome.”
“Now that you've got me thinking about it, I really liked Eria, too.”
“The voodoo priestess?”
“Mmm-hmm. I don't create a lot of love interests for Wilcox. One, 'cause he's just not that kinda guy, but two, because I hate reading novels, especially mystery novels, where the hero,” he snorted, “Okay, bad term, protagonist, main character, whatever the hell, I don't like reading books where the main character is a cocksman. It bugs me. So Wilcox usually runs solo.
“But with Eria, I did something very intentional. I created her to kill her off. Often I kill characters off because when I get to the moment it seems like the right thing to do for the story, or the right thing for the character. Sometimes it just happens. With her, I built her from the ground up just to bump her off. It was really satisfying. I created this person and this relationship that really worked, one of the most genuinely interpersonal relationships this guy has ever had, and then she dies. It must be like being a set designer for plays or movies, everything you create is temporary, you put all this work into something knowing that when it's finished, you're just going to take it apart again.”
“Yeah, that was brutal.”
“Why?”
“Cause...shit, I guess because the poor bastard was happy for a few chapters. You really are a son of a bitch, aren't you?”
“Guilty. And the worst part was, since I knew that's what was going to happen, I built her to be someone that my readers would really like and identify with.”
“Just so you could killer her.”
“In the most brutal way I could think of, too, of course.”
“And it worked.”
“Goddamn right. I get people coming up to me all the time telling me how much they liked her and how painful it was when she died. And I deserve it, for sure, but it was worth it. I don't usually get the chance to get under people's skin like that. Well, I get under their skin all the time, I suppose, just, you know, not emotionally.”
“You did that in your first book, too.”
“You think? I suppose. It seems like less of a victory to create a character that people care about when he's dying of cancer instead of someone who practices human sacrifice.”
“Good point. God, I hope I can do that some day.”
“What, break people's hearts?”
“Create someone or something that makes people respond that strongly.”
“Even if it makes them hate you?”
“Better than nothing, right?
“And don't you forget it. It's better to be loathed than forgotten, despised than neglected. Ask Roman Polanski.”
Jeff narrowed his eyes. “Ouch.”
“I'm just saying.”
“Why are artists so fucked up?,” Jeff asked.
“Aren't you an artist?”
Jeff shrugged. “I guess.”
“Then you fucking tell me!”
“I dunno.”
“Yeah, well, lots of people will give you excuses, but I don't know either. We're different, so no one understands us. Shit, most of us don't even understand ourselves. Maybe we produce art because we're skewed, because we can't see things the way everyone else does, which means that we're broken, that, by a conventional definition of normal, that there is something wrong with us.
“And then maybe you add fame or fortune or reward to the fact that we're broken, that on a basic level we're effectively being supported for being fucked up, and then the public is surprised to find out that we kill puppies, or eat people, or collect kiddie porn, or beat our wives. Of course we do. There's something inherently fucking wrong with us!”
“What's inherently wrong with you?”
“What's inherently wrong with you?”
Jeff opened his mouth to say 'Nothing,' and then paused.
“Gotta be something, kid.”
“I think too much.”
“That'll do it.”
“Like, the other day I...” Jeff stopped himself.
“Go ahead.”
“There's this homeless guy in Danny's Dime. I wanted to make him pathetic, but have you sympathize with him and I decided he's one of those people who is homeless because he was released from a mental hospital. And he was being treated because he's a pedophile. And I started to think about...”
“What that must be like.”
“Well, yeah.”
“What did you come up with?”
“Well, I realized that a guy like that, unless he's a sociopath, would be completely conflicted. He's attracted, just like I am to, say, a supermodel, to little kids. I didn't wanna get into a psychological thing, so I just said he couldn't help it. That's who he is, the way he is.”
“And then?”
“And then...I tried to think like he would. Like, how would I flirt with kids? How I would get their attention, gain their trust. And I thought about what I would find attractive about them.”
“Sounds like it scared you.”
“It fucked me up.”
“Good. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean it should be easy for you. Or easy on you. Psychologists do it, too. You can even enjoy it, you know, checking out the other side of things. Christ only knows what I'd have gotten into if I didn't have my writing for exorcising that shit. That's exorcising with an O, mind you.”
“Yeah, I caught that.”
Stuart burped. “Good chicken, kid. The book is calling.”
“Hey, wait. What about you?”
“What about me?” Stuart was standing now, looking down at him.
“What's wrong with you?”
“Kid you've been living here for more than a month. If there's an answer to that, you know it as well as I do.”
Jeff stood over the grill, basting sauce on skewers of chicken. Stuart exited the house, groaning as he stretched.
“Smells good,” he said.
“Thanks,” Jeff replied, and he heard Stuart grunt behind him. When he turned, the writer was laid out on the table, eyes closed, sun on his face.
“Is it must me, or is it getting hotter in there?” Stuart asked him, lips barely moving.
“Yeah, we're not getting much wind anymore.” The grill hissed and spat like a feral cat as the sauce dripped onto the heating element.
“I think we got a fan around here somewhere. Remind me to look for it after we eat, yeah?”
“Sure.” Jeff killed the burners on the grill and rotated the skewers. “I'll be right back,” he said. He went to the kitchen, grabbed two plates and dished out some of the pilaf that had been warming on the stove. He poured two glasses of lemonade, put napkins and forks in his pocket, and managed to get the whole mess outside.
“Here we go,” he said, as he came back out onto the porch. Stuart took this as his cue to get off the table, so he rolled onto a bench.
“Feed me!” he cried.
Jeff placed the plates and then served the chicken. Stuart burned his fingers in his hurry to sample the grilled meat. Jeff just shook his head. They had managed to return to June's equilibrium, making time for writing and for not writing.
“I'm finally caught up after the time I took off from editing over the holiday,” Stuart said, around a mouth full of food. When he looked up, he saw the expectant expression on Jeff's face. He swallowed. “Ah, shit,” he said. “What's tonight's question, quizmaster?”
“Who is the favorite character you created?”
Stuart made a couple of faces and drank some lemonade. “Jesus. Well, this may not be the answer you're after, but character that makes me the happiest is Rast Harker.”
“Who?”
Stuart nodded. “Are you still ripping through all my books?”
“Yup.”
“Which one are you on now?”
“Creature.”
“Well, Harker is in Victim. I'm sure you'll remember him when you get there. He's a lawyer who serves Wilcox with a lawsuit and—“
“Oh, that guy!”
“That guy. Everyone remembers him, even though no one remember his fuckin' name. I created him on a whim, he's just an excuse to move the story forward, to be honest, but I figured if I was going to be so cheap as to create a human plot device, then I should make him interesting. He's in the book just enough to raise about a hundred more questions than he answers, and I implied that he knows stuff about Wilcox and his history. It was a lot of fun. I get people asking me about him all the time, who he is, what he meant, all that. Truth is, what you see is all there was, I just dropped a bunch of hints for things I never intended to explore.” He gave his fierce grin. “I love being a bastard sometimes.”
“Awesome.”
“Now that you've got me thinking about it, I really liked Eria, too.”
“The voodoo priestess?”
“Mmm-hmm. I don't create a lot of love interests for Wilcox. One, 'cause he's just not that kinda guy, but two, because I hate reading novels, especially mystery novels, where the hero,” he snorted, “Okay, bad term, protagonist, main character, whatever the hell, I don't like reading books where the main character is a cocksman. It bugs me. So Wilcox usually runs solo.
“But with Eria, I did something very intentional. I created her to kill her off. Often I kill characters off because when I get to the moment it seems like the right thing to do for the story, or the right thing for the character. Sometimes it just happens. With her, I built her from the ground up just to bump her off. It was really satisfying. I created this person and this relationship that really worked, one of the most genuinely interpersonal relationships this guy has ever had, and then she dies. It must be like being a set designer for plays or movies, everything you create is temporary, you put all this work into something knowing that when it's finished, you're just going to take it apart again.”
“Yeah, that was brutal.”
“Why?”
“Cause...shit, I guess because the poor bastard was happy for a few chapters. You really are a son of a bitch, aren't you?”
“Guilty. And the worst part was, since I knew that's what was going to happen, I built her to be someone that my readers would really like and identify with.”
“Just so you could killer her.”
“In the most brutal way I could think of, too, of course.”
“And it worked.”
“Goddamn right. I get people coming up to me all the time telling me how much they liked her and how painful it was when she died. And I deserve it, for sure, but it was worth it. I don't usually get the chance to get under people's skin like that. Well, I get under their skin all the time, I suppose, just, you know, not emotionally.”
“You did that in your first book, too.”
“You think? I suppose. It seems like less of a victory to create a character that people care about when he's dying of cancer instead of someone who practices human sacrifice.”
“Good point. God, I hope I can do that some day.”
“What, break people's hearts?”
“Create someone or something that makes people respond that strongly.”
“Even if it makes them hate you?”
“Better than nothing, right?
“And don't you forget it. It's better to be loathed than forgotten, despised than neglected. Ask Roman Polanski.”
Jeff narrowed his eyes. “Ouch.”
“I'm just saying.”
“Why are artists so fucked up?,” Jeff asked.
“Aren't you an artist?”
Jeff shrugged. “I guess.”
“Then you fucking tell me!”
“I dunno.”
“Yeah, well, lots of people will give you excuses, but I don't know either. We're different, so no one understands us. Shit, most of us don't even understand ourselves. Maybe we produce art because we're skewed, because we can't see things the way everyone else does, which means that we're broken, that, by a conventional definition of normal, that there is something wrong with us.
“And then maybe you add fame or fortune or reward to the fact that we're broken, that on a basic level we're effectively being supported for being fucked up, and then the public is surprised to find out that we kill puppies, or eat people, or collect kiddie porn, or beat our wives. Of course we do. There's something inherently fucking wrong with us!”
“What's inherently wrong with you?”
“What's inherently wrong with you?”
Jeff opened his mouth to say 'Nothing,' and then paused.
“Gotta be something, kid.”
“I think too much.”
“That'll do it.”
“Like, the other day I...” Jeff stopped himself.
“Go ahead.”
“There's this homeless guy in Danny's Dime. I wanted to make him pathetic, but have you sympathize with him and I decided he's one of those people who is homeless because he was released from a mental hospital. And he was being treated because he's a pedophile. And I started to think about...”
“What that must be like.”
“Well, yeah.”
“What did you come up with?”
“Well, I realized that a guy like that, unless he's a sociopath, would be completely conflicted. He's attracted, just like I am to, say, a supermodel, to little kids. I didn't wanna get into a psychological thing, so I just said he couldn't help it. That's who he is, the way he is.”
“And then?”
“And then...I tried to think like he would. Like, how would I flirt with kids? How I would get their attention, gain their trust. And I thought about what I would find attractive about them.”
“Sounds like it scared you.”
“It fucked me up.”
“Good. Just because you can do it, doesn't mean it should be easy for you. Or easy on you. Psychologists do it, too. You can even enjoy it, you know, checking out the other side of things. Christ only knows what I'd have gotten into if I didn't have my writing for exorcising that shit. That's exorcising with an O, mind you.”
“Yeah, I caught that.”
Stuart burped. “Good chicken, kid. The book is calling.”
“Hey, wait. What about you?”
“What about me?” Stuart was standing now, looking down at him.
“What's wrong with you?”
“Kid you've been living here for more than a month. If there's an answer to that, you know it as well as I do.”
Author's Note: RnR
Let me tell you about the kind of love I have for you, dear reader. I am on my way out of town for a few days with my buddy Landon, and I just cranked out a chapter on the bus so that I can post a chapter today AND pre-date two chapters to post while I'm gone.
So, while I'll be out of town, you won't miss out on any chapters. I do this because A: I took two days off without intending do for Cheese! last weekend (which was a rousing success, if it wasn't mentioned before) and B: Because I'm supposed to be posting every day and I don't wanna be a dick. I also know that C: Some of you are serious junkies who will start coming after me if I leave you in the lurch.
So there you go. See you when I get back on Sunday, just in time to write another chapter.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
The Author, Chapter Thirty-Four: Danny's Dime
July 11
It was the first day in two weeks the men had watched baseball, since the kids had been there the previous weekend. They ordered Arturo's pizza for lunch and Chinese food for dinner, and Stuart drank his Alaskan Amber and Jeff his Coors Light. They didn't about the beach or the posts at all.
The Dodgers took the Astros into overtime in the afternoon and Stuart's enthusiasm was contagious. Play after play came down to the wire, with a handful of almosts and maybes dragging the game until the 17th inning. When the winning run, for the Astros, crossed the plate in the bottom of the inning, finally ending the game, both men cheered and toasted each other with their beer.
In the lull after the game, before the Chinese food arrived, they adjourned to the deck and Stuart let a cigar.
“How's it coming?” Victor asked.
It took Jeff a moment to realize what he was asking about. “My book?”
Stuart nodded.
“It's coming along really well. I'm past 50 pages.”
“You still excited about it?”
“Totally.”
“Awesome, man, I'm really happy for you. When are you gonna let me take a look at it?”
“I'd say when I'm done, but I dunno if I'll be finished before the summer is over.”
“Go get your laptop,” Stuart said.
Jeff hesitated. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, I wanna take a look. Since today is a no writing day, I'll have the head space for it.”
Jeff scurried down to the basement and retrieved his Dell, almost running back up the stairs in his enthusiasm. He hadn't intended to show the book to Stuart yet, still not wanting to break the spell, but things felt like they were getting back to normal, at last, and he didn't want to break that spell either. Call it a draw.
Stuart was sitting at the dining room table when he returned, staring at the painting on the wall.
“You know who that is?” he asked, as Jeff placed the laptop on the table.
“No.”
“Abel Rasmussen. Ever heard of him?”
Jeff shook his head.
“Get me another beer, will you?”
Jeff went into the kitchen and got them each a drink.
“Rasmussen was a painter. Was well recognized in the late twenties and early thirties as advertising artist. This is back before photo manipulation and Photoshop and all that shit, so when you needed an ad, you either needed to stage a photo or get a good artist to do you a painting or a line drawing. Rasmussen wasn't the best, but he was good. I'm sure you've seen a retro Coke ad or two that he made. He retired here, spent the last five years of his life at this place. It was a different house, then, of course, no basement, the original place was broken down to build this one, but this is where he ended his life.”
“Wait, you mean...?”
“No! Ha, sorry, not like that. This is just where his time ran out. At least, that was the assumption. His wife had left him after he moved out here, as I understand it, and at some point someone dropped by to visit him and he just...wasn't here. He was never seen again, so the conventional wisdom was he went for a swim and never came back. Whether it was on purpose or not probably doesn't matter.”
He stopped speaking and Jeff really looked at the painting for the first time since he had arrived. The man's chin was slightly turned up, giving him an arrogant look. His ears were barely visible, crimped tight to his head, and his colorless hair was swept back from his forehead. The eyes were narrow, permanently squinted, Jeff supposed, from hunching over a drawing board or an easel.
“Why do you have the painting?”
“I haven't done a damn thing to update this place since I moved in except buy some furniture. It came with the place, along with that ugly-ass deer.” Stuart pointed at the other painting. “Doesn't matter. You should Google his illustrations sometime, though, they were something. He captured a, I dunno, a life, I guess, that most of the work from that time didn't have. He was different, I think, which is why he didn't make it bigger, like your Rockwells or what have you.”
Stuart heaved a breath and then turned to Jeff.
“Let's take a look!”
“The idea ain't bad,” Bobby said, begrudgingly.
“Not bad?” Danny demanded. “Fuck you, you never had a good idea in your life. It's a great idea. It'll set us up to do whatever we want.”
“Yeah, and what's that, Danny?” Bobby said. “Fuckin' settle down and pop out some kids? Maybe you think you got what it takes to be a squarejohn, but the rest of us know you don't. You're no better than us and just because you pull a big job won't make you any different from anyone else. You think some broad's gonna give you the time of day when she finds out where your money came from?”
“He won't never have to worry about what some broad thinks of him,” Moses contributed, “Cuz we ain't never gonna live to tell the tale.”
Danny stood at the head of the table, rage boiling like indigestion in his gut. He played his trump card. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the long, heavy key. He dropped it on the table with a decisive thunk.
“No one else has this,” he said proudly. “So stuff your naysaying. This is all we need. This is all we need, and that is that!”
The others around the table stared at the key. Betty crossed herself. Moses clicked his dentures back and forth in his mouth. Slim just shook his head.
“No one knows we got this,” Danny said, slamming a hand on the table. “They'll be so busy looking to chew up someone in the organization that they'll never look at a buncha low-level players like us. That's the whole goddamn point! Getting the job done is easy enough, right, you can't argue with that. It's the getting away with it that's the hard part.”
Betty's eyes gleamed with the wealth she could accumulate. She adjusted her bra and Danny knew what she was thinking about. “I'm in,” she said.
“Shit, son, if you can pull that off, I'll believe in whatever other magic you got to sell,” the old black man said.
Slim just nodded.
Bobby shrugged. “If you say so, man. God only knows I ain't never gonna do any better.”
“You're having fun with it, I can tell,” Stuart said, after he finished another chapter.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It comes through in the writing. Something like this could totally be a heavy affair, all posing and bullshit, but you've got a nice Elmore Leonard tone going on here. Lots of character in your characters, you know? Maybe Carl Hiassen would be closer, but you've found a good energy, a nice center. Stick with it.”
“Wow, that's...amazing. Thanks.”
“Just get it done. That's the important thing. You can fix all sorts of things when you get back to it, but the most vital step you can take when writing a book is just getting the fucker finished.”
Jeff sat at the table for a moment, just basking in the praise of Victor Stuart.
“You already got an idea for the next one?”
Jeff should have known that Stuart would know such things, but he was still taken aback. “Yeah.”
“Great. You come up with good people, good ideas, and they'll stick with you. Some of my stuff seems to come out of thin air, or not from me, I told you that, but the way my characters talk and act, who they really are, that's all my creation and I'll never tell you different. That's one of the areas were I know I'm damn good. You've tapped into that and it shows. These people are real, you know, and that'll carry you a long way.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, you'll need to tighten it up when you come back to it, keep the conversations from meandering, maybe cut back on the patois a bit, but that'll be easy. Worry about it after the book is done. Where is it going?”
Jeff explained it all then, spilled his guts to his hero, about how the book was really more or less The Old Man and the Sea, how Danny and his crew would succeed and then have their success taken away from them.
When he was finished, Stuart stood and stretched. “I gotta take a shit,” he said. “You mind if I take this with me, read some more?”
It never crossed Jeff's mind that there was something weird about another guy using his laptop on the can. Victor Stuart wanted to read more of his book!
“Knock yourself out,” he said.
It was the first day in two weeks the men had watched baseball, since the kids had been there the previous weekend. They ordered Arturo's pizza for lunch and Chinese food for dinner, and Stuart drank his Alaskan Amber and Jeff his Coors Light. They didn't about the beach or the posts at all.
The Dodgers took the Astros into overtime in the afternoon and Stuart's enthusiasm was contagious. Play after play came down to the wire, with a handful of almosts and maybes dragging the game until the 17th inning. When the winning run, for the Astros, crossed the plate in the bottom of the inning, finally ending the game, both men cheered and toasted each other with their beer.
In the lull after the game, before the Chinese food arrived, they adjourned to the deck and Stuart let a cigar.
“How's it coming?” Victor asked.
It took Jeff a moment to realize what he was asking about. “My book?”
Stuart nodded.
“It's coming along really well. I'm past 50 pages.”
“You still excited about it?”
“Totally.”
“Awesome, man, I'm really happy for you. When are you gonna let me take a look at it?”
“I'd say when I'm done, but I dunno if I'll be finished before the summer is over.”
“Go get your laptop,” Stuart said.
Jeff hesitated. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, I wanna take a look. Since today is a no writing day, I'll have the head space for it.”
Jeff scurried down to the basement and retrieved his Dell, almost running back up the stairs in his enthusiasm. He hadn't intended to show the book to Stuart yet, still not wanting to break the spell, but things felt like they were getting back to normal, at last, and he didn't want to break that spell either. Call it a draw.
Stuart was sitting at the dining room table when he returned, staring at the painting on the wall.
“You know who that is?” he asked, as Jeff placed the laptop on the table.
“No.”
“Abel Rasmussen. Ever heard of him?”
Jeff shook his head.
“Get me another beer, will you?”
Jeff went into the kitchen and got them each a drink.
“Rasmussen was a painter. Was well recognized in the late twenties and early thirties as advertising artist. This is back before photo manipulation and Photoshop and all that shit, so when you needed an ad, you either needed to stage a photo or get a good artist to do you a painting or a line drawing. Rasmussen wasn't the best, but he was good. I'm sure you've seen a retro Coke ad or two that he made. He retired here, spent the last five years of his life at this place. It was a different house, then, of course, no basement, the original place was broken down to build this one, but this is where he ended his life.”
“Wait, you mean...?”
“No! Ha, sorry, not like that. This is just where his time ran out. At least, that was the assumption. His wife had left him after he moved out here, as I understand it, and at some point someone dropped by to visit him and he just...wasn't here. He was never seen again, so the conventional wisdom was he went for a swim and never came back. Whether it was on purpose or not probably doesn't matter.”
He stopped speaking and Jeff really looked at the painting for the first time since he had arrived. The man's chin was slightly turned up, giving him an arrogant look. His ears were barely visible, crimped tight to his head, and his colorless hair was swept back from his forehead. The eyes were narrow, permanently squinted, Jeff supposed, from hunching over a drawing board or an easel.
“Why do you have the painting?”
“I haven't done a damn thing to update this place since I moved in except buy some furniture. It came with the place, along with that ugly-ass deer.” Stuart pointed at the other painting. “Doesn't matter. You should Google his illustrations sometime, though, they were something. He captured a, I dunno, a life, I guess, that most of the work from that time didn't have. He was different, I think, which is why he didn't make it bigger, like your Rockwells or what have you.”
Stuart heaved a breath and then turned to Jeff.
“Let's take a look!”
“The idea ain't bad,” Bobby said, begrudgingly.
“Not bad?” Danny demanded. “Fuck you, you never had a good idea in your life. It's a great idea. It'll set us up to do whatever we want.”
“Yeah, and what's that, Danny?” Bobby said. “Fuckin' settle down and pop out some kids? Maybe you think you got what it takes to be a squarejohn, but the rest of us know you don't. You're no better than us and just because you pull a big job won't make you any different from anyone else. You think some broad's gonna give you the time of day when she finds out where your money came from?”
“He won't never have to worry about what some broad thinks of him,” Moses contributed, “Cuz we ain't never gonna live to tell the tale.”
Danny stood at the head of the table, rage boiling like indigestion in his gut. He played his trump card. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the long, heavy key. He dropped it on the table with a decisive thunk.
“No one else has this,” he said proudly. “So stuff your naysaying. This is all we need. This is all we need, and that is that!”
The others around the table stared at the key. Betty crossed herself. Moses clicked his dentures back and forth in his mouth. Slim just shook his head.
“No one knows we got this,” Danny said, slamming a hand on the table. “They'll be so busy looking to chew up someone in the organization that they'll never look at a buncha low-level players like us. That's the whole goddamn point! Getting the job done is easy enough, right, you can't argue with that. It's the getting away with it that's the hard part.”
Betty's eyes gleamed with the wealth she could accumulate. She adjusted her bra and Danny knew what she was thinking about. “I'm in,” she said.
“Shit, son, if you can pull that off, I'll believe in whatever other magic you got to sell,” the old black man said.
Slim just nodded.
Bobby shrugged. “If you say so, man. God only knows I ain't never gonna do any better.”
“You're having fun with it, I can tell,” Stuart said, after he finished another chapter.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. It comes through in the writing. Something like this could totally be a heavy affair, all posing and bullshit, but you've got a nice Elmore Leonard tone going on here. Lots of character in your characters, you know? Maybe Carl Hiassen would be closer, but you've found a good energy, a nice center. Stick with it.”
“Wow, that's...amazing. Thanks.”
“Just get it done. That's the important thing. You can fix all sorts of things when you get back to it, but the most vital step you can take when writing a book is just getting the fucker finished.”
Jeff sat at the table for a moment, just basking in the praise of Victor Stuart.
“You already got an idea for the next one?”
Jeff should have known that Stuart would know such things, but he was still taken aback. “Yeah.”
“Great. You come up with good people, good ideas, and they'll stick with you. Some of my stuff seems to come out of thin air, or not from me, I told you that, but the way my characters talk and act, who they really are, that's all my creation and I'll never tell you different. That's one of the areas were I know I'm damn good. You've tapped into that and it shows. These people are real, you know, and that'll carry you a long way.”
“Thanks.”
“Now, you'll need to tighten it up when you come back to it, keep the conversations from meandering, maybe cut back on the patois a bit, but that'll be easy. Worry about it after the book is done. Where is it going?”
Jeff explained it all then, spilled his guts to his hero, about how the book was really more or less The Old Man and the Sea, how Danny and his crew would succeed and then have their success taken away from them.
When he was finished, Stuart stood and stretched. “I gotta take a shit,” he said. “You mind if I take this with me, read some more?”
It never crossed Jeff's mind that there was something weird about another guy using his laptop on the can. Victor Stuart wanted to read more of his book!
“Knock yourself out,” he said.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
The Author, Chapter Thirty-Three: The Beach
July 11
It was the earliest Jeff had risen in his life. He had considered simply staying up all night, but in the end he was too tired, and had settled for getting three hours of sleep before his alarm blared at 3:15 a.m.
He had half expected Stuart to still be up, chattering away at his laptop, back in the solid groove he had discovered after his children had left. “Now we're getting to the good stuff,” he had told Jeff the other night. But he was apparently asleep in his room, a habit that seemed to have stuck after his kids had visited.
Jeff was having a similar experience. He had torn into Danny's Dime like he had something to prove on the evening after the Fourth of July and he had not looked back. He was coming up on 50 pages and his first elaborate crime scene was impending. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so excited to write something.
Things had quickly returned to normal. Stuart had said goodbye to his children at the house, and Jeff had taken them to the airport. The plan was simply to drop them off, but he felt so guilty about the idea that he wound up paying for parking so he could walk them up to the security check point. Kids shouldn't have to travel alone, he thought to himself, as Riley slouched his way off while Vanessa turned to wave at him.
Jeff's instincts had been right, he had missed them and he had not. He had not been magically filled with energy after they left, though. Between working on his own book and the nightmares, he seemed to always be tired.
“Like getting up at three in the goddamn morning is gonna help that,” he muttered, stepping down off the deck.
The light above the deck partially illuminated the yard and once Jeff broke through the line of trees, the light of the moon and the stars reflected off the ocean was more than enough to see his way down to the beach. He had forced himself to look straight ahead as he crossed the yard, ignoring the post even as it crossed in his peripheral vision.
Thorsen's Victorian looked like a toxic mushroom perched at the edge of the sea. The son of a bitch had, of course, thrown a Fourth of July party the day after the damn holiday, setting off elaborate, whizzing, screaming fireworks until after midnight. Based on the voices that wafted back to them, apparently there were actually people who could stand to hang out with the crazy bastard.
Stuart hadn't minded of course, had barely noticed, as Tomb took him over again. And Jeff had retreated early to the basement to start his own writing, but part of him stayed wary, remembering Stuart's story of the crazy old man fishing with dynamite and waiting or expecting him to cap off his Independence Day celebration with a hand grenade or napalm.
Jeff hadn't even noticed when the party had ended, he'd been so wrapped up in his work.
Stuart and he were talking less lately. Jeff wouldn't have believed that he would prioritize anything over spending time with the writer, but the more they both fell into their books, the more they kept returning to them. They still talked casually, over meals, and Stuart still showed him pages occasionally, which was still flattering and exciting, but they had only had one real conversation since the children had left.
He looked at his sneakers as he shuffed through the tall grass above the beach. He was afraid to look up. Part of it was delaying...what? Not pleasure surely. Excitement, anticipation? Yes, anticipation. He knew what he was going to see and he wasn't excited about it at all. In truth, he was terrified. His heart raced and his hands seemed to be clenching and unclenching all on their own.
“What are you doing?”
Jeff was not quite surprised. The presence of the writer next to him, in the small hours of the morning, felt inevitable. His body still started at the sudden voice, but in his mind, he was not surprised at all.
Jeff was grateful to have somewhere to look other than at the water. He met Vic's eyes, which were points of reflective light.
“It's low tide,” Jeff said. “One of the lowest of the summer.”
“You came out to see them?”
Jeff nodded.
“The tide doesn't have to be that low, but you'll definitely be able to see them tonight. How'd you know?”
“Riley told me. We lost a ball in the blackberries when you were sleeping and I found the other one. He told me about these.”
Stuart broke their eye contact and turned his head to look at the beach. Jeff couldn't bring himself to follow just yet.
“They're part of the weird energy of this place, Jeff,” Stuart told him. “I could tell you things, but they'd be guesses at best. They form a line that points at the house and when I'm drunk, like I am now, I'll admit to you that I think they're what powers me. They're why I can write here and can't write anywhere else.”
“But that's not true,” Jeff said, “You wrote your first book at home in high school.”
Stuart nodded in the dark, his face a soft, dark profile against the lighter color of the Victorian behind him. “Maybe I cheated and now that I did, my own gift is gone.
“Wanna hear something scary?”
“No,” Jeff said. He really didn't.
“Who is the one writer people compare me to the most often?” Stuart asked.
“Lovecraft.” It was an easy question.
“Right. And it's not because I write boring, meandering sentences or refuse to actually tell you what something looks like. It's because of the mythos, they call it. All his Ancient Ones and parallel worlds and monsters with names with no vowels. That stuff is all over my books.”
“How is that scary?”
“Because I read one of his stories, once. When I was 25 and people really started comparing me to him all the time. And I'll tell you something else, I hated that story, too. Not because it was like my stuff but because it was fucking boring.”
They stood in silence, Jeff looking at Stuart, him looking out, Jeff was sure now, at the posts.
“I think all that stuff, the cracks in the Earth, the monsters, the tentacles, that's,” he shivered and swallowed. “I think that's the posts telling their own stories.”
Stuart turned then. “I'm going back to the house. You should come with me. We'll get you a drink and then I have something for you to read. Something about them.”
“But I didn't...”
“Look at them, then. Go ahead. Do it quick. Then you can come back with me.”
They held eyes again for a moment and then Jeff broke the gaze, turning his head to the left to look at the water.
The line of the sand was paler than the water and the tide was, indeed, very far out. The hushed sounds of the ocean moving continued and he could see rills of white as the foamy surf broke on the dying waves.
He couldn't see them and he had a relieved moment when he thought Stuart was fucking with him again, of course he was, the great goddamn prankster just making stuff up, pulling his leg—
And then there they were. Impossibly, he became aware of both of them at the same time, each at one edge of his vision. One was just a stub, beaten down by the ocean, or boats, or weather, or human hand. The other was tall, the tallest, and proud. It stood on the beach, solid black against the sand, like an emphatic finger.
Jeff's focus leaped back and forth between them, taking one in and then the other. Eventually his eyes settled again and he was looking at both at the same time. The tall one would be visible at most low tides, he supposed, and you would be forgiven for mistaking it simply for a broken off part of a dock.
He was beginning to think he could feel them...what? Speaking to him? Reaching out for him? Trying to touch him? The sensation was indistinct, but the intent was clear. They wanted him. Whether it was to be broken over one, like in his dream, or to simply go out and cling to one as the tide came in, he didn't know, but they wanted him. It was nice to be wanted. He felt wanted so little of the time. Stuart needed him sometimes, but he never wanted him exactly.
“Kid,” Stuart said softly, but Jeff did not hear him.
The hand placed on Jeff's shoulder shook him from his stupor. “What?” he asked, his voice high and child-like.
“We have to go,” Stuart said. “Now.”
Jeff blinked at the interruption, remembering who he was, where he was, what had happened. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, let's go.”
Stuart kept an arm over Jeff's shoulders as they walked back to the house and Jeff closed his eyes as they walked through the yard, not wanting to see another post that evening, or ever again. His body trembled, but then again, it was quite chilly at 3:30 a.m. and he was just wearing a t-shirt.
It was warmer inside and his body began to regain control. It wasn't until Stuart walked into the kitchen, tore off a paper towel, and then handed it to Jeff that the younger man realized that he had been weeping, his nose oozing and his cheeks wet with tears.
“I don't think you need a drink after all,” Stuart said. “You just need some sleep.”
He went into the kids' room and brought out a blanket. He spread it on the couch and led Jeff over to it.
“I don't think—“
“You'll be able to sleep,” Stuart interrupted. “Trust me. You'll sleep fucking hard, too. They wear you out, believe me.”
At that moment, Jeff loved Stuart more than he ever did before, more than he'd thought he would ever be able to love anyone. At the same time, he had never been more afraid.
Sleep came, quickly, as the writer had said it would, and when it did, it was blessedly dreamless.
It was the earliest Jeff had risen in his life. He had considered simply staying up all night, but in the end he was too tired, and had settled for getting three hours of sleep before his alarm blared at 3:15 a.m.
He had half expected Stuart to still be up, chattering away at his laptop, back in the solid groove he had discovered after his children had left. “Now we're getting to the good stuff,” he had told Jeff the other night. But he was apparently asleep in his room, a habit that seemed to have stuck after his kids had visited.
Jeff was having a similar experience. He had torn into Danny's Dime like he had something to prove on the evening after the Fourth of July and he had not looked back. He was coming up on 50 pages and his first elaborate crime scene was impending. He couldn't remember the last time he'd been so excited to write something.
Things had quickly returned to normal. Stuart had said goodbye to his children at the house, and Jeff had taken them to the airport. The plan was simply to drop them off, but he felt so guilty about the idea that he wound up paying for parking so he could walk them up to the security check point. Kids shouldn't have to travel alone, he thought to himself, as Riley slouched his way off while Vanessa turned to wave at him.
Jeff's instincts had been right, he had missed them and he had not. He had not been magically filled with energy after they left, though. Between working on his own book and the nightmares, he seemed to always be tired.
“Like getting up at three in the goddamn morning is gonna help that,” he muttered, stepping down off the deck.
The light above the deck partially illuminated the yard and once Jeff broke through the line of trees, the light of the moon and the stars reflected off the ocean was more than enough to see his way down to the beach. He had forced himself to look straight ahead as he crossed the yard, ignoring the post even as it crossed in his peripheral vision.
Thorsen's Victorian looked like a toxic mushroom perched at the edge of the sea. The son of a bitch had, of course, thrown a Fourth of July party the day after the damn holiday, setting off elaborate, whizzing, screaming fireworks until after midnight. Based on the voices that wafted back to them, apparently there were actually people who could stand to hang out with the crazy bastard.
Stuart hadn't minded of course, had barely noticed, as Tomb took him over again. And Jeff had retreated early to the basement to start his own writing, but part of him stayed wary, remembering Stuart's story of the crazy old man fishing with dynamite and waiting or expecting him to cap off his Independence Day celebration with a hand grenade or napalm.
Jeff hadn't even noticed when the party had ended, he'd been so wrapped up in his work.
Stuart and he were talking less lately. Jeff wouldn't have believed that he would prioritize anything over spending time with the writer, but the more they both fell into their books, the more they kept returning to them. They still talked casually, over meals, and Stuart still showed him pages occasionally, which was still flattering and exciting, but they had only had one real conversation since the children had left.
He looked at his sneakers as he shuffed through the tall grass above the beach. He was afraid to look up. Part of it was delaying...what? Not pleasure surely. Excitement, anticipation? Yes, anticipation. He knew what he was going to see and he wasn't excited about it at all. In truth, he was terrified. His heart raced and his hands seemed to be clenching and unclenching all on their own.
“What are you doing?”
Jeff was not quite surprised. The presence of the writer next to him, in the small hours of the morning, felt inevitable. His body still started at the sudden voice, but in his mind, he was not surprised at all.
Jeff was grateful to have somewhere to look other than at the water. He met Vic's eyes, which were points of reflective light.
“It's low tide,” Jeff said. “One of the lowest of the summer.”
“You came out to see them?”
Jeff nodded.
“The tide doesn't have to be that low, but you'll definitely be able to see them tonight. How'd you know?”
“Riley told me. We lost a ball in the blackberries when you were sleeping and I found the other one. He told me about these.”
Stuart broke their eye contact and turned his head to look at the beach. Jeff couldn't bring himself to follow just yet.
“They're part of the weird energy of this place, Jeff,” Stuart told him. “I could tell you things, but they'd be guesses at best. They form a line that points at the house and when I'm drunk, like I am now, I'll admit to you that I think they're what powers me. They're why I can write here and can't write anywhere else.”
“But that's not true,” Jeff said, “You wrote your first book at home in high school.”
Stuart nodded in the dark, his face a soft, dark profile against the lighter color of the Victorian behind him. “Maybe I cheated and now that I did, my own gift is gone.
“Wanna hear something scary?”
“No,” Jeff said. He really didn't.
“Who is the one writer people compare me to the most often?” Stuart asked.
“Lovecraft.” It was an easy question.
“Right. And it's not because I write boring, meandering sentences or refuse to actually tell you what something looks like. It's because of the mythos, they call it. All his Ancient Ones and parallel worlds and monsters with names with no vowels. That stuff is all over my books.”
“How is that scary?”
“Because I read one of his stories, once. When I was 25 and people really started comparing me to him all the time. And I'll tell you something else, I hated that story, too. Not because it was like my stuff but because it was fucking boring.”
They stood in silence, Jeff looking at Stuart, him looking out, Jeff was sure now, at the posts.
“I think all that stuff, the cracks in the Earth, the monsters, the tentacles, that's,” he shivered and swallowed. “I think that's the posts telling their own stories.”
Stuart turned then. “I'm going back to the house. You should come with me. We'll get you a drink and then I have something for you to read. Something about them.”
“But I didn't...”
“Look at them, then. Go ahead. Do it quick. Then you can come back with me.”
They held eyes again for a moment and then Jeff broke the gaze, turning his head to the left to look at the water.
The line of the sand was paler than the water and the tide was, indeed, very far out. The hushed sounds of the ocean moving continued and he could see rills of white as the foamy surf broke on the dying waves.
He couldn't see them and he had a relieved moment when he thought Stuart was fucking with him again, of course he was, the great goddamn prankster just making stuff up, pulling his leg—
And then there they were. Impossibly, he became aware of both of them at the same time, each at one edge of his vision. One was just a stub, beaten down by the ocean, or boats, or weather, or human hand. The other was tall, the tallest, and proud. It stood on the beach, solid black against the sand, like an emphatic finger.
Jeff's focus leaped back and forth between them, taking one in and then the other. Eventually his eyes settled again and he was looking at both at the same time. The tall one would be visible at most low tides, he supposed, and you would be forgiven for mistaking it simply for a broken off part of a dock.
He was beginning to think he could feel them...what? Speaking to him? Reaching out for him? Trying to touch him? The sensation was indistinct, but the intent was clear. They wanted him. Whether it was to be broken over one, like in his dream, or to simply go out and cling to one as the tide came in, he didn't know, but they wanted him. It was nice to be wanted. He felt wanted so little of the time. Stuart needed him sometimes, but he never wanted him exactly.
“Kid,” Stuart said softly, but Jeff did not hear him.
The hand placed on Jeff's shoulder shook him from his stupor. “What?” he asked, his voice high and child-like.
“We have to go,” Stuart said. “Now.”
Jeff blinked at the interruption, remembering who he was, where he was, what had happened. “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, let's go.”
Stuart kept an arm over Jeff's shoulders as they walked back to the house and Jeff closed his eyes as they walked through the yard, not wanting to see another post that evening, or ever again. His body trembled, but then again, it was quite chilly at 3:30 a.m. and he was just wearing a t-shirt.
It was warmer inside and his body began to regain control. It wasn't until Stuart walked into the kitchen, tore off a paper towel, and then handed it to Jeff that the younger man realized that he had been weeping, his nose oozing and his cheeks wet with tears.
“I don't think you need a drink after all,” Stuart said. “You just need some sleep.”
He went into the kids' room and brought out a blanket. He spread it on the couch and led Jeff over to it.
“I don't think—“
“You'll be able to sleep,” Stuart interrupted. “Trust me. You'll sleep fucking hard, too. They wear you out, believe me.”
At that moment, Jeff loved Stuart more than he ever did before, more than he'd thought he would ever be able to love anyone. At the same time, he had never been more afraid.
Sleep came, quickly, as the writer had said it would, and when it did, it was blessedly dreamless.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)