June 10
When Jeff got back to the house it still wasn't even 11. There were dishes he could clean, and he was hungry for some real food, but he decided to wait until noon at least before he started clanging around in the kitchen.
Even before he'd gotten the caretaker gig, perhaps partly as penance for not getting it in the first place, it had been Jeff's intention to re-read the Stuart canon this summer. There was no time like the present.
He carefully crossed the living room and grabbed an edition of Grave from the bookshelves. While the title was the same, the book was in the wrong language, so he exchanged it for a U.K. edition, featuring a pictures of an open grave with a blank headstone above it. He took it out onto the back deck, sat at the picnic table, and put his feet up on the porch railing.
In no time at all he was wandering the foggy back streets of an alternative London, as Alistar Wilcox searched for a body that had been robbed from a grave. A body that might not be as dead as everyone expected. Jeff was instantly transported to the bedroom where he slept when he was fifteen, where he had sat up most of the night, taking the same journeys through the same streets of London. The book functioned as a instantaneous connection to his past, to a time when his largest concern was passing his Biology tests and whether Katrina Sheridan would ever acknowledge that he was alive.
Cemetery had been the book that started Jeff's love affair with Stuart and his creations, but it was Grave that cemented them. He had finished the book, white-knuckling it to the end and gone to sleep as the sun was coming up. The next morning he had written his first short story. He had done some small creative writing assignments in school, but his short story, Bodies, was the first time he'd ever sat down with a story to tell. It was a complete rip off, of course, but imitation was the sincerest form of whatever, then he was a flatterer indeed.
Jeff's stomach was getting more insistent and he was about to put the book down and start preparing breakfast, regardless of the time, when his phone rang. It was his personal ring, the ring tone simply Peter Griffin of the Family Guy's laugh, looped over and over, like an obnoxious, nasal machine gun: 'eh eh eh eh eh eh...'
“Hello?”
“Sweetheart, it's your mother. I'm pretty sure you were supposed to call me yesterday and tell me how your job search is going.”
“Oh, yeah, I—“ Jeff began to laugh.
“What's so funny.”
“Mom, you'll never believe it. Are you sitting down?”
Once Jeff got the salient facts out, he had to pull the phone away from his ear as his mother screamed in excitement. Then he had to explain the specifics about the position, even though he had described them very clearly to her six months ago when he had thrown his hat in the ring for the position in the first place.
“So that Mac guy quit?”
“They told me he did, but Vic said the guy just packed his shit up and vanished.”
“I'll be damned.”
“I know!”
“Honey, you ride this pony till the legs fall off, okay?”
“You know it, Ma.”
“I'm very proud of you.”
“I didn't really do anything yet.”
“You will, honey, I know it. Go get 'em.”
Jeff smiled. His mother had been excited about his graduating from college, of course, but that had been eclipsed by the notions of what would come after, and the massive debt they would both be facing. This was the first time in a long time he could remember her being excited without any hesitation. It felt good.
Since he still had his phone out, he called up Malcolm and told him what was going on. He told him briefly about The Best Year, knowing that his friend would appreciate the idea of reading such a book, even if he wouldn't appreciate the book itself. He reassured his friend that he would soon ask about having him over to meet the author and they left it at that.
Jeff went inside and cleaned the detritus of the author's late night writing session. There was a plate and a bowl, two glasses, and an empty bottle of Woodford. Then he started getting ready for breakfast. He brought a package of sausage out of the fridge, put a frying pan on the stove, and rummaged around until he found the seasoning packet he'd bought the day before. He preheated the oven to 350.
Browning meat was about the extent of his cooking expertise, but the instructions for sausage gravy on the back of the packet didn't seem much more complicated than that, so he'd planned on giving it a shot.
The timing turned out to be the biggest pain in the ass. He put the biscuits in the oven after the sausage was brown and the gravy was done well before the biscuits were. Otherwise, the gravy looked, well, like gravy, and the biscuits smelled spectacular, as though he had put much more effort into them than he had.
Surprisingly, by the time he was ready to serve, Victor was still asleep, his head on his chest, snoring in his small animal way. Jeff wasn't sure if he should wake him, after all, the man could have been writing until 8 a.m., but Jeff was so proud of his cooking that he took the risk. He loaded a plate with two split biscuits and covered them with the meaty goo. He poured Vic a glass of orange juice and took them out to the living room. He placed them on the coffee table with a fork and a napkin and looked at the man.
His eyes were squeezed closed, as if he were concentrating. One hand was splayed out like a dead spider beside him on a cushion, the other hand lay on his thighs, fingers twitching. Jeff wondered if it were possible the man were writing in his sleep.
“Hey, Vic,” he said.
Immediately, the author's eyes snapped open and Jeff was pinned in their gaze. Jeff wasn't even sure if the man was awake for a moment, it was as if he had been lying in wait.
“What time is it?”
“Uh, about noon.”
“Mm-hmm.” Vic continued to stare at him, up through his brows, for a moment longer. Then he let out a deep breath and rounded his shoulders, stretching himself up on the couch. He groaned, stretched his shoulders, and when his eyes opened again, he looked a lot more conscious. “That smells really good, buddy, what is it”
“Biscuits and gravy.”
“Seriously? That's amazing. Keep it up, kid.”
He ate as he had the night before, as if he had been on a temporary hunger strike. The food was still too hot, but Stuart didn't seem to pay any attention to it, lowering his mouth to the edge of the plate and scooping it in. He rolled his eyes early on and gave Jeff an appreciative grunt and nod, which he took as a good sign.
Jeff went back into the kitchen and started to eat his own breakfast, flipping through Grave. A minute later, Stuart entered the kitchen, his plate shining and clean, his glass empty.
“Is there any more?”
Jeff took his plate and served another biscuit with another cup of gravy over it, as Stuart looked on lustfully.
“It's really good, man, seriously.” Stuart proceeded to inhale another biscuit. “I can't think of the last fucking time I woke up to breakfast.”
“How late were you up?”
“I dunno, actually. I got five chapters, I think, so late, I'm sure.” He swallowed another bite and planted his hands in his low back, arching it. He moaned appreciatively. “I'm already antsy to get back to it, to tell you the truth, so I'll probably edit what I've got now and take a break this afternoon. And you've gotta go buy yourself something to drink, remember?”
Jeff nodded.
“Let you practice on that bitch mother driveway, some too.”
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
The Author, Chapter Thirteen: The First Morning
June 10
Jeff dreamed in the small hours of the morning, dreams more violent and unsettling than the esoteric dream of the night before. When he woke, he was aware that his dreams must have been unpleasant, as he came to in a knot of bedsheets, having torn the base sheet loose, his face pressed against the rough mattress.
He showered using shampoo and body wash that was left behind by a nameless caretaker, not Mac.
Upstairs, he found Vic sitting in front of the television with the volume off. Morning talking heads were still yammering, and Jeff saw that it wasn't quite ten. It was much earlier than he had assumed it would be, but then again, he had probably fallen asleep before midnight.
Brian Robeson's journey in The Best Year had left Jeff emotionally wasted, coming to a haunting, final exchange between the young man and one of his teachers. Brian had not been on his death bed, he did not die in the book, but you knew that his death was imminent. In all his years of reading Stuart's books, Jeff had learned to expect the man's talent for being disturbing and disruptive, but he would have never guessed the man had the power to make him weep. Jeff had wept, racking his underground room with sobs by the end of the book, at the pitiless disease that was taking his friend from the world (fiction or not) and at the triumphant way Brian had stood up to the universe and accepted his fate.
I can't say this year changed my life, he'd said, talking to Mr. Grimm, his high school history teacher, as he lay in hospice care, wasting away, My life had been changed for me whether I liked it or not, maybe the first time I got a stomach ache and didn't know what it was from. I just did the best I could with it. I ran with it, I guess you could say. I had a hell of a run, though, didn't I?
And Grimm had taken Brian's hand and they had sat together quietly, knowing that they had reached an end, if not the ultimate one.
Jeff realized that he had cried himself to sleep for the first time since...when? He told himself he didn't remember, but the nagging clerk in the back of his mind that never forgot anything flipped through the catalog of slights that he kept and came up with spring, 2002, 8th grade dance. The clerk licked his pencil and consulted the specifics, ready to rattle off the facts of the entire miserable evening, but Jeff shook himself loose from that.
He wanted breakfast, but he didn't want to wake the writer, especially now that he knew the man wasn't a particularly heavy sleeper. Too bad he didn't sleep the way he wrote.
So Jeff dug in the cupboards until he found a cereal bar and grabbed a can of Sprite. He didn't want to hang around the house actively working to not wake Vic up, so he would check out the beach.
On the way, he passed the large clump of grass that he had noticed in the lawn the day before. He was trying not to think about what a bitch it would be to mow this disaster. He saw that the grass was entwined in a yellow clump, dead and stiff. He assumed what was beneath was a small tree stump or some other plant remnant, but when he pushed at the dead grass with his foot, it fell easily away and revealed a piece of rock.
Jeff made a puzzled face and shoved more of the grass off the rock with his foot. It stood perhaps a foot high and it was rough and old. It was square, about the size of a CD jewel case across the top.
Now that he had started, he felt compelled to finish, so he put his breakfast down in the grass beside him and began to pull the grass away from the piece of rock, the post, as he thought of it. The dead grass came away in easy, thick handfuls; damp and muddy on the underside, dry and hay-like at the top. The first time Jeff touched it, he brushed his knuckle across the surface and then hissed and brought his hand back to his mouth like a child, dropping the fistful of grass.
Now why had he done that? He looked at his knuckle and saw that it was just slightly abraded, but the rock had not been hot or cold, there had been no reason to jerk his hand back. But he had. He wondered why as he reached forward and tentatively touched the rock again. Nothing happened. Well, that wasn't entirely true, a humming in the back of his brain, somewhere between pain and excitement, the kind of sensation one might experience before a challenging test, physical or mental, had started up. Jeff didn't notice it.
Once the grass was all pulled away, he saw that there had once been characters or symbols carved into the rock. He could not make them out, he suspected no one could by now, the weather and time had done too much damage. He wondered how old it was. The material was not concrete, but that didn't mean that it had to be particularly ancient. With weather driving right up off the ocean, he suspected that depending on the kind of rock, something like this could get worn down to a nub in just a few years. But he didn't think that was the case here. Touching it made him feel...reverent somehow, as he had felt when he had entered St. Patrick's Cathedral the one time he had visited New York City. The post and its apparent age made him feel insignificant, small, fragile.
His stomach grumbled and a gull cried and Jeff's reverie was broken. He cleared his throat, picked up his food, and returned to the trail.
The band of trees that surrounded the property was just thick enough to create a sense of privacy and it only took Jeff a few steps to cross it. When he broke out into the sun again, he saw that there was another house on his right, this one much bigger and older than Stuart's. It was more like he'd had in mind when he'd envisioned the house he would be spending the summer in. It was in disrepair, a rowboat rotting away on the lawn, a sagging shed next to the house, but the house itself had clearly once been magnificent, full of Victorian glory, no doubt built for some rich showy twat at the turn of the century.
Jeff walked past it, occasionally sneaking glances at the staring windows of the old house. It looked like it could be abandoned, but there was an old Toyota truck in the driveway.
The tide was in and Jeff sat on a driftwood log, high on the beach, a remnant of a past storm, broken loose from some raft of logs being ferried around Puget Sound, driven up on the beach by wind and water. He cracked his Sprite and sipped at it, appreciating the sweet tang, realizing for the first time that he had woken with a mouth that was both dry and ill-tasting.
He consumed the Honey Nut Cheerios Milk N' Cereal Bar in three quick bites, his stomach roaring its approval and demanding more prey.
For the second time in ten minutes, Jeff was again visited by the notion that he was but a small and fragile part of the world, the universe, but here on the beach it was not a distressing notion. There was a comfort being here, feeling the morning sun, smelling the sea and feeling the breeze from it caress his face. This was a world you wanted to be a part of, even if it was only a tiny part.
Jeff gave a deep, satisfied exhale, chugged the rest of his can of Sprite and then threw the sea a loud, wet burp.
He returned to the trail he had followed, which started as a path of rock and crushed shells, but quickly devolved into a beaten trail through the grass.
There was someone at the Victorian, Jeff saw. He wasn't sure if the man had not been there before or if he had simply missed him. He was leaning on the porch of the house, as if he had been looking out at the sea like Jeff. Perhaps he had been. But now, he was looking at Jeff. His posture made Jeff think that the man was old, certainly older than Vic. He wore clothes that would have looked appropriate on a homeless person or the resident of a senior care facility. He wore a straw Panama hat and huge sunglasses that seemed to cover half of his face.
Jeff nodded at the man, trying to be polite, hoping he hadn't broken any rules by coming down to the beach. Vic had told him that he was allowed to come down here, that it was a private beach. And the guy wasn't telling him to get lost, after all.
Jeff received no indication from old the man at all, so he turned his head away and kept walking. He felt the eyes behind the oversized sunglasses watching him until he passed beyond the side of the Victorian house and out of the man's sight.
Jeff dreamed in the small hours of the morning, dreams more violent and unsettling than the esoteric dream of the night before. When he woke, he was aware that his dreams must have been unpleasant, as he came to in a knot of bedsheets, having torn the base sheet loose, his face pressed against the rough mattress.
He showered using shampoo and body wash that was left behind by a nameless caretaker, not Mac.
Upstairs, he found Vic sitting in front of the television with the volume off. Morning talking heads were still yammering, and Jeff saw that it wasn't quite ten. It was much earlier than he had assumed it would be, but then again, he had probably fallen asleep before midnight.
Brian Robeson's journey in The Best Year had left Jeff emotionally wasted, coming to a haunting, final exchange between the young man and one of his teachers. Brian had not been on his death bed, he did not die in the book, but you knew that his death was imminent. In all his years of reading Stuart's books, Jeff had learned to expect the man's talent for being disturbing and disruptive, but he would have never guessed the man had the power to make him weep. Jeff had wept, racking his underground room with sobs by the end of the book, at the pitiless disease that was taking his friend from the world (fiction or not) and at the triumphant way Brian had stood up to the universe and accepted his fate.
I can't say this year changed my life, he'd said, talking to Mr. Grimm, his high school history teacher, as he lay in hospice care, wasting away, My life had been changed for me whether I liked it or not, maybe the first time I got a stomach ache and didn't know what it was from. I just did the best I could with it. I ran with it, I guess you could say. I had a hell of a run, though, didn't I?
And Grimm had taken Brian's hand and they had sat together quietly, knowing that they had reached an end, if not the ultimate one.
Jeff realized that he had cried himself to sleep for the first time since...when? He told himself he didn't remember, but the nagging clerk in the back of his mind that never forgot anything flipped through the catalog of slights that he kept and came up with spring, 2002, 8th grade dance. The clerk licked his pencil and consulted the specifics, ready to rattle off the facts of the entire miserable evening, but Jeff shook himself loose from that.
He wanted breakfast, but he didn't want to wake the writer, especially now that he knew the man wasn't a particularly heavy sleeper. Too bad he didn't sleep the way he wrote.
So Jeff dug in the cupboards until he found a cereal bar and grabbed a can of Sprite. He didn't want to hang around the house actively working to not wake Vic up, so he would check out the beach.
On the way, he passed the large clump of grass that he had noticed in the lawn the day before. He was trying not to think about what a bitch it would be to mow this disaster. He saw that the grass was entwined in a yellow clump, dead and stiff. He assumed what was beneath was a small tree stump or some other plant remnant, but when he pushed at the dead grass with his foot, it fell easily away and revealed a piece of rock.
Jeff made a puzzled face and shoved more of the grass off the rock with his foot. It stood perhaps a foot high and it was rough and old. It was square, about the size of a CD jewel case across the top.
Now that he had started, he felt compelled to finish, so he put his breakfast down in the grass beside him and began to pull the grass away from the piece of rock, the post, as he thought of it. The dead grass came away in easy, thick handfuls; damp and muddy on the underside, dry and hay-like at the top. The first time Jeff touched it, he brushed his knuckle across the surface and then hissed and brought his hand back to his mouth like a child, dropping the fistful of grass.
Now why had he done that? He looked at his knuckle and saw that it was just slightly abraded, but the rock had not been hot or cold, there had been no reason to jerk his hand back. But he had. He wondered why as he reached forward and tentatively touched the rock again. Nothing happened. Well, that wasn't entirely true, a humming in the back of his brain, somewhere between pain and excitement, the kind of sensation one might experience before a challenging test, physical or mental, had started up. Jeff didn't notice it.
Once the grass was all pulled away, he saw that there had once been characters or symbols carved into the rock. He could not make them out, he suspected no one could by now, the weather and time had done too much damage. He wondered how old it was. The material was not concrete, but that didn't mean that it had to be particularly ancient. With weather driving right up off the ocean, he suspected that depending on the kind of rock, something like this could get worn down to a nub in just a few years. But he didn't think that was the case here. Touching it made him feel...reverent somehow, as he had felt when he had entered St. Patrick's Cathedral the one time he had visited New York City. The post and its apparent age made him feel insignificant, small, fragile.
His stomach grumbled and a gull cried and Jeff's reverie was broken. He cleared his throat, picked up his food, and returned to the trail.
The band of trees that surrounded the property was just thick enough to create a sense of privacy and it only took Jeff a few steps to cross it. When he broke out into the sun again, he saw that there was another house on his right, this one much bigger and older than Stuart's. It was more like he'd had in mind when he'd envisioned the house he would be spending the summer in. It was in disrepair, a rowboat rotting away on the lawn, a sagging shed next to the house, but the house itself had clearly once been magnificent, full of Victorian glory, no doubt built for some rich showy twat at the turn of the century.
Jeff walked past it, occasionally sneaking glances at the staring windows of the old house. It looked like it could be abandoned, but there was an old Toyota truck in the driveway.
The tide was in and Jeff sat on a driftwood log, high on the beach, a remnant of a past storm, broken loose from some raft of logs being ferried around Puget Sound, driven up on the beach by wind and water. He cracked his Sprite and sipped at it, appreciating the sweet tang, realizing for the first time that he had woken with a mouth that was both dry and ill-tasting.
He consumed the Honey Nut Cheerios Milk N' Cereal Bar in three quick bites, his stomach roaring its approval and demanding more prey.
For the second time in ten minutes, Jeff was again visited by the notion that he was but a small and fragile part of the world, the universe, but here on the beach it was not a distressing notion. There was a comfort being here, feeling the morning sun, smelling the sea and feeling the breeze from it caress his face. This was a world you wanted to be a part of, even if it was only a tiny part.
Jeff gave a deep, satisfied exhale, chugged the rest of his can of Sprite and then threw the sea a loud, wet burp.
He returned to the trail he had followed, which started as a path of rock and crushed shells, but quickly devolved into a beaten trail through the grass.
There was someone at the Victorian, Jeff saw. He wasn't sure if the man had not been there before or if he had simply missed him. He was leaning on the porch of the house, as if he had been looking out at the sea like Jeff. Perhaps he had been. But now, he was looking at Jeff. His posture made Jeff think that the man was old, certainly older than Vic. He wore clothes that would have looked appropriate on a homeless person or the resident of a senior care facility. He wore a straw Panama hat and huge sunglasses that seemed to cover half of his face.
Jeff nodded at the man, trying to be polite, hoping he hadn't broken any rules by coming down to the beach. Vic had told him that he was allowed to come down here, that it was a private beach. And the guy wasn't telling him to get lost, after all.
Jeff received no indication from old the man at all, so he turned his head away and kept walking. He felt the eyes behind the oversized sunglasses watching him until he passed beyond the side of the Victorian house and out of the man's sight.
Friday, January 15, 2010
The Author, Chapter Twelve: The Pizza
June 9
At ten minutes to six, Jeff's cell phone began to bleep out a happy little tune. Jeff was jerked from Brian Robeson's world, where he was in Vienna and the cancer was beginning to catch up with him. He was starting to see the world with a new perspective, through a haze of pain and medication. He was alone again, his most recent travel companion having stayed in France.
Jeff tromped up the stairs, manuscript in hand, and realized that he had been so excited to start the book that he had left both doors open. He stood in the laundry room and listened. There was, again, the pause and insistent rattling of Stuart's writing. Jeff hoped it was going well. Tomb, he'd said the new book was called. The title made him think of a chamber, deep inside an Egyptian pyramid. Or the hole carved in the rock where Jesus had been laid, according to his one summer in Vacation Bible School when he was eight.
Jeff opened the freezer and checked the instructions on the Four Cheese DiGiorno that was on top of the pile. He preheated the oven to 400 degrees.
Vacation Bible School had been during the first summer he spent alone with his mother and she hadn't known what to do with him. So, for four hours at a stretch he had spent his afternoons in a cool church basement, learning songs, coloring, snacking on Hawaiian punch and Nila Wafers, and of course, hearing about Jesus. Jesus had been laid in a tomb and, according to his teacher, whose name escaped him (but whose massive stature and hairy top lip remained permanently carved onto the tablet of his memory), God had raised Jesus after he had been dead for three days. That tied in with heaven and sin and all sorts of other things Jeff couldn't remember. He wondered if that Vacation Bible School was the first time he had ever heard the word tomb.
And then there was Tomb Raider, of course. Couldn't forget the delectable Lara Croft and her outfits that, while pleasing on a surface level, seemed completely impractical for her chosen profession.
He looked out of the kitchen to see Stuart and you could be forgiven for thinking the man had not moved anything but his fingers in the three hours Jeff had been in the basement. The chattering of the keys continued periodically and the man continued to stare. He must have moved, however, as the glass next to the white Macbook was half-full and there were two bourbon bottles on the table, one empty, one on the way.
The oven temperature read 325, so Jeff pulled the pizza from the freezer, peeled it from its plastic sheath, and placed it on the center oven rack. He set the timer and now had twenty minutes to kill, and he didn't want to start back into The Best Year and stop again, and Stuart was clearly not going to be bothered by anything. He walked past the author into the living room and the man didn't seem to even notice him.
He delayed his pleasure for a few moments by exploring the movie collection beneath the television. He mentally set aside the titles he had not seen before to watch later. He was too self-conscious to examine the porn more closely.
Instead of standing up, he crawled over to the bookshelves, sitting before them with his legs crossed, feeling like he could hug the entire assembly and all the rewards that it held. He browsed a copy of the fourth Wilcox book (and one of his least favorites) Ash, written in what Jeff took to be Italian. He wondered what it would be like to teach yourself a language by comparing this version to the English version. How different was the language when you really got down to it, the metaphors, the idioms, the quirks? Stuart would be a more difficult writer to translate than, say, John Grisham, he supposed.
The covers were fascinating. The United States was apparently the only market that employed the iconic black cover and colored title scheme. The U.K. editions all featured an image of the titular object. The covers of Plague and Blood could have been mistaken for medical thrillers. There were several books with titles in Asian lettering that actually depicted Alistar Wilcox himself, in one particularly ridiculous image, which Jeff took to be the cover of Rain or Storm, the man was standing in the rain, pulling his coat back over one hip as if he were about to perform a quick draw.
The oven beeped in the kitchen and Jeff put the books back and stood up. He stretched out his thighs and groaned as he arched his spine. He heard the slap of Stuart's laptop closing.
“That the pizza?” he asked.
“Yup,” Jeff replied, moving to the kitchen.
He found a hot mitt in a drawer next to the oven and moved the pizza to a heavy marble cutting surface on the island in the center of the kitchen.
“That smells great,” Stuart said from the kitchen door. “I'm starving.” He pulled a large carving knife from magnetic bars above the dishwasher and handed it, handle first, to Jeff. He pulled a fistful of paper towels from a roll and then he pulled two plates from a cupboard and held them out as Jeff served the steaming slices.
“Grab me a Coke, yeah?”
Jeff grabbed a cold can for both of them, and Stuart led them to the living room instead of the dining room. He flopped on the couch and put the two pizza plates on the coffee table. Jeff sat down next to him
Jeff was waiting another minute for his pizza to be ready to eat, but Stuart tore into his, hissing at the heat and then chasing it with the Coke to fight it off. The first slice vanished in much the same fashion before Jeff even started his.
“Thanks,” Stuart said, talking around a mouthful.
“You bet. How's it going?”
“Excellent. I don't keep track of pages, but I'm into the second chapter. I'm toying with the idea of trading off chapters between Wilcox and the other side of things.” Jeff nodded. Stuart slugged back some more Coke and burped. Jeff was conscious of the fact that, while he could smell the bourbon and knew that Stuart had drank a substantial amount that evening, the writer seemed quite sober. “At this rate I'll get at least four chapters today, which is great, but not normal. Like I told you, this book has been waiting to come out for a while, so I'm making a big splash at the outset, but it won't continue. Tomorrow, before I write, I'll go back and read what I've already got, refresh my memory and edit it a bit. A good day for me is usually three chapters.” Stuart then inhaled the second slice of pizza and chased it with the remnant of the Coke. “You want any more?” he asked Jeff, who was only halfway through his first piece.
“No, go ahead.”
Stuart went back into the kitchen and Jeff heard the clank of his plate and the hiss and pop of another can of soda opening. By the time Jeff was finished, the writer was back at his table, writing and staring again. There was one slice left on the counter, so Jeff helped himself, eating over the sink.
When he was finished, he put the plates in the dishwasher and the paper towels in the trash. He paused at the kitchen door and looked back out at the writer. Stuart was pouring himself another hefty glass of bourbon.
Jeff returned to his room to finish The Best Year. It would only take another couple of hours. It was already one of those books that he was excited to get to the end of, even though he knew he would be disappointed when there was none left.
He made sure to close the door at the top of the stairs this time. When he reached the bottom, he was struck again by the odd smell in the room, but he knew he would stop noticing it soon enough.
At ten minutes to six, Jeff's cell phone began to bleep out a happy little tune. Jeff was jerked from Brian Robeson's world, where he was in Vienna and the cancer was beginning to catch up with him. He was starting to see the world with a new perspective, through a haze of pain and medication. He was alone again, his most recent travel companion having stayed in France.
Jeff tromped up the stairs, manuscript in hand, and realized that he had been so excited to start the book that he had left both doors open. He stood in the laundry room and listened. There was, again, the pause and insistent rattling of Stuart's writing. Jeff hoped it was going well. Tomb, he'd said the new book was called. The title made him think of a chamber, deep inside an Egyptian pyramid. Or the hole carved in the rock where Jesus had been laid, according to his one summer in Vacation Bible School when he was eight.
Jeff opened the freezer and checked the instructions on the Four Cheese DiGiorno that was on top of the pile. He preheated the oven to 400 degrees.
Vacation Bible School had been during the first summer he spent alone with his mother and she hadn't known what to do with him. So, for four hours at a stretch he had spent his afternoons in a cool church basement, learning songs, coloring, snacking on Hawaiian punch and Nila Wafers, and of course, hearing about Jesus. Jesus had been laid in a tomb and, according to his teacher, whose name escaped him (but whose massive stature and hairy top lip remained permanently carved onto the tablet of his memory), God had raised Jesus after he had been dead for three days. That tied in with heaven and sin and all sorts of other things Jeff couldn't remember. He wondered if that Vacation Bible School was the first time he had ever heard the word tomb.
And then there was Tomb Raider, of course. Couldn't forget the delectable Lara Croft and her outfits that, while pleasing on a surface level, seemed completely impractical for her chosen profession.
He looked out of the kitchen to see Stuart and you could be forgiven for thinking the man had not moved anything but his fingers in the three hours Jeff had been in the basement. The chattering of the keys continued periodically and the man continued to stare. He must have moved, however, as the glass next to the white Macbook was half-full and there were two bourbon bottles on the table, one empty, one on the way.
The oven temperature read 325, so Jeff pulled the pizza from the freezer, peeled it from its plastic sheath, and placed it on the center oven rack. He set the timer and now had twenty minutes to kill, and he didn't want to start back into The Best Year and stop again, and Stuart was clearly not going to be bothered by anything. He walked past the author into the living room and the man didn't seem to even notice him.
He delayed his pleasure for a few moments by exploring the movie collection beneath the television. He mentally set aside the titles he had not seen before to watch later. He was too self-conscious to examine the porn more closely.
Instead of standing up, he crawled over to the bookshelves, sitting before them with his legs crossed, feeling like he could hug the entire assembly and all the rewards that it held. He browsed a copy of the fourth Wilcox book (and one of his least favorites) Ash, written in what Jeff took to be Italian. He wondered what it would be like to teach yourself a language by comparing this version to the English version. How different was the language when you really got down to it, the metaphors, the idioms, the quirks? Stuart would be a more difficult writer to translate than, say, John Grisham, he supposed.
The covers were fascinating. The United States was apparently the only market that employed the iconic black cover and colored title scheme. The U.K. editions all featured an image of the titular object. The covers of Plague and Blood could have been mistaken for medical thrillers. There were several books with titles in Asian lettering that actually depicted Alistar Wilcox himself, in one particularly ridiculous image, which Jeff took to be the cover of Rain or Storm, the man was standing in the rain, pulling his coat back over one hip as if he were about to perform a quick draw.
The oven beeped in the kitchen and Jeff put the books back and stood up. He stretched out his thighs and groaned as he arched his spine. He heard the slap of Stuart's laptop closing.
“That the pizza?” he asked.
“Yup,” Jeff replied, moving to the kitchen.
He found a hot mitt in a drawer next to the oven and moved the pizza to a heavy marble cutting surface on the island in the center of the kitchen.
“That smells great,” Stuart said from the kitchen door. “I'm starving.” He pulled a large carving knife from magnetic bars above the dishwasher and handed it, handle first, to Jeff. He pulled a fistful of paper towels from a roll and then he pulled two plates from a cupboard and held them out as Jeff served the steaming slices.
“Grab me a Coke, yeah?”
Jeff grabbed a cold can for both of them, and Stuart led them to the living room instead of the dining room. He flopped on the couch and put the two pizza plates on the coffee table. Jeff sat down next to him
Jeff was waiting another minute for his pizza to be ready to eat, but Stuart tore into his, hissing at the heat and then chasing it with the Coke to fight it off. The first slice vanished in much the same fashion before Jeff even started his.
“Thanks,” Stuart said, talking around a mouthful.
“You bet. How's it going?”
“Excellent. I don't keep track of pages, but I'm into the second chapter. I'm toying with the idea of trading off chapters between Wilcox and the other side of things.” Jeff nodded. Stuart slugged back some more Coke and burped. Jeff was conscious of the fact that, while he could smell the bourbon and knew that Stuart had drank a substantial amount that evening, the writer seemed quite sober. “At this rate I'll get at least four chapters today, which is great, but not normal. Like I told you, this book has been waiting to come out for a while, so I'm making a big splash at the outset, but it won't continue. Tomorrow, before I write, I'll go back and read what I've already got, refresh my memory and edit it a bit. A good day for me is usually three chapters.” Stuart then inhaled the second slice of pizza and chased it with the remnant of the Coke. “You want any more?” he asked Jeff, who was only halfway through his first piece.
“No, go ahead.”
Stuart went back into the kitchen and Jeff heard the clank of his plate and the hiss and pop of another can of soda opening. By the time Jeff was finished, the writer was back at his table, writing and staring again. There was one slice left on the counter, so Jeff helped himself, eating over the sink.
When he was finished, he put the plates in the dishwasher and the paper towels in the trash. He paused at the kitchen door and looked back out at the writer. Stuart was pouring himself another hefty glass of bourbon.
Jeff returned to his room to finish The Best Year. It would only take another couple of hours. It was already one of those books that he was excited to get to the end of, even though he knew he would be disappointed when there was none left.
He made sure to close the door at the top of the stairs this time. When he reached the bottom, he was struck again by the odd smell in the room, but he knew he would stop noticing it soon enough.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Author, Chapter Eleven: The First Book
June 9
“Hey, one more thing,” Stuart called out. Jeff stopped and turned in the doorway to see the writer getting up and coming after him. He moved past Jeff and jerked his head to indicate the younger man should follow. “You said you like my books, you should check this out.”
Jeff tailed Stuart to the living room bookshelf. The author sank onto his haunches and examined the bottom left shelf. At the far left side, next to several different editions of Grave, the first Alistar Wilcox novel (Jeff easily identified the original pulp paperback, a copy of which he had bought used when he was 15, the trade paperback reissue and the 10th anniversary hardbound edition) was a sheaf of papers held together with a fat, black clamp.
Stuart pulled it out, letting the other books all tilt to one side without the support. He theatrically pretended to blow dust from it and then handed it to Jeff.
“I can't tell you how many people have read this, kid, not exactly. My ex-wife, my mom, a teacher or two. Not many, I'll tell you that.”
Jeff looked at the thick stack of sheets. The cover sheet read “The Best Year, by Victor L. Stuart”.
“That is the first book I ever wrote. I was 17. Two years later I wrote Grave and my life changed. Read it. Enjoy it. But we probably won't talk about it, okay? I don't think about it much any more. But you claim to be a fan, so I thought you might get a kick out of seeing where I started out.”
“I...Oh, man, I...”
Stuart clapped him on the shoulder and the touch gave Jeff a surge. It was the first time the man had touched him. He was giving him the book he wrote when he was still in high school. A book almost no one had ever read!
“You're welcome to read anything else on the shelf, too, of course. Just be careful with the first editions of my books. Some of them are worth a lot, so don't get salsa on them or nothin'.”
The treasure he held in his hands was blocking out almost everything, but he had noticed several times already the author's lazy speech. For someone who had been called 'erudite and accessible' by the New York Times Book Review (no, not the New York Review of Books, but what can you do?), his spoken communication was awfully sloppy. He certainly didn't talk like he wrote. It's because he's been drinking so much, a small part of him spoke up, and Jeff accepted that as just as likely an explanation as any other.
“Thank you so much,” Jeff said, getting wound up to make a fool of himself.
“It's cool, kid. I'm gonna get to work.”
Jeff stood there a moment longer, staring at the bookshelf as if expecting it to discharge other secret volumes.
When he turned, Stuart was already at the table, his back to the living room, facing out toward the yard, the laptop open. He was either staring outside or staring at the computer. The house was quiet. Outside there was the drone of a distant lawn mower or even more distant airplane. Then, there was the sound of a muted machine gun and Stuart was off. His hands worked in fits and starts, cranking out fistfuls of letters and then pausing for long stretches. The writer continued to stare and if Jeff hadn't known better, he'd have thought the man wasn't look at the screen at all.
Jeff took the book and went downstairs.
He checked the Nextel and saw that no one had called him. The reception bars on both the work phone and his personal cell phone were scraping the bottom of the screen. He reminded himself to take the phones upstairs when he made dinner to check if he had any messages. Then he set the alarm on his personal phone so that he would remember to prepare Stuart's pizza later.
Then, he allowed himself the second greatest regular activity of his life. Third if you counted sex, which wasn't exactly regular. He took The Best Year and went to take a dump.
He sat on the toilet long after he had finished moving his bowels, turning page after page. The manuscript was a clean copy, probably photocopied from an actual typed manuscript. There were no notes and each page was carefully numbered at the bottom, in the center. Slap a cover on it and you wouldn't know that you were reading an unpublished book. For that matter, you would never guess you were reading a book written by a rookie, let alone a minor.
It had all the trademarks that Victor Stuart had become recognized for, deep characters, awkward situations, flowing dialogue, and crystal clear descriptive pose. Other than that, Jeff would have never guessed that Stuart had written it. The Alistar Wilcox novels were all about the unfamiliar, the unknown, the dirty, the mysterious. The Best Year was, Jeff was sure, mined from the details of Stuart's own youth. It was the story of a high school senior who discovered he was dying of cancer. So he robbed and bank and went on to live the life he'd dreamed of for the last months of his life. At least, that's what the book had been about so far.
Jeff would have never dreamed Stuart capable of writing with such...he grasped at words. Emotion seemed like a good one, but all of Stuart's books had emotion, just not the emotions this book had. In the place of fear, terror, and anger there was...sentimentality. That was it. Where the other books were confrontational or abrasive, this book was soft. Even if, in the end, it was about a kid dying, it was a gentle book.
Jeff pulled up his pants, flushed and went to lie down on his bed. He turned on the bedside lamp, propped himself up against the wall with a few pillows, and buried himself further in the world of Brian Robeson, the boy who knew he was dying, and the best year of his life.
“Hey, one more thing,” Stuart called out. Jeff stopped and turned in the doorway to see the writer getting up and coming after him. He moved past Jeff and jerked his head to indicate the younger man should follow. “You said you like my books, you should check this out.”
Jeff tailed Stuart to the living room bookshelf. The author sank onto his haunches and examined the bottom left shelf. At the far left side, next to several different editions of Grave, the first Alistar Wilcox novel (Jeff easily identified the original pulp paperback, a copy of which he had bought used when he was 15, the trade paperback reissue and the 10th anniversary hardbound edition) was a sheaf of papers held together with a fat, black clamp.
Stuart pulled it out, letting the other books all tilt to one side without the support. He theatrically pretended to blow dust from it and then handed it to Jeff.
“I can't tell you how many people have read this, kid, not exactly. My ex-wife, my mom, a teacher or two. Not many, I'll tell you that.”
Jeff looked at the thick stack of sheets. The cover sheet read “The Best Year, by Victor L. Stuart”.
“That is the first book I ever wrote. I was 17. Two years later I wrote Grave and my life changed. Read it. Enjoy it. But we probably won't talk about it, okay? I don't think about it much any more. But you claim to be a fan, so I thought you might get a kick out of seeing where I started out.”
“I...Oh, man, I...”
Stuart clapped him on the shoulder and the touch gave Jeff a surge. It was the first time the man had touched him. He was giving him the book he wrote when he was still in high school. A book almost no one had ever read!
“You're welcome to read anything else on the shelf, too, of course. Just be careful with the first editions of my books. Some of them are worth a lot, so don't get salsa on them or nothin'.”
The treasure he held in his hands was blocking out almost everything, but he had noticed several times already the author's lazy speech. For someone who had been called 'erudite and accessible' by the New York Times Book Review (no, not the New York Review of Books, but what can you do?), his spoken communication was awfully sloppy. He certainly didn't talk like he wrote. It's because he's been drinking so much, a small part of him spoke up, and Jeff accepted that as just as likely an explanation as any other.
“Thank you so much,” Jeff said, getting wound up to make a fool of himself.
“It's cool, kid. I'm gonna get to work.”
Jeff stood there a moment longer, staring at the bookshelf as if expecting it to discharge other secret volumes.
When he turned, Stuart was already at the table, his back to the living room, facing out toward the yard, the laptop open. He was either staring outside or staring at the computer. The house was quiet. Outside there was the drone of a distant lawn mower or even more distant airplane. Then, there was the sound of a muted machine gun and Stuart was off. His hands worked in fits and starts, cranking out fistfuls of letters and then pausing for long stretches. The writer continued to stare and if Jeff hadn't known better, he'd have thought the man wasn't look at the screen at all.
Jeff took the book and went downstairs.
He checked the Nextel and saw that no one had called him. The reception bars on both the work phone and his personal cell phone were scraping the bottom of the screen. He reminded himself to take the phones upstairs when he made dinner to check if he had any messages. Then he set the alarm on his personal phone so that he would remember to prepare Stuart's pizza later.
Then, he allowed himself the second greatest regular activity of his life. Third if you counted sex, which wasn't exactly regular. He took The Best Year and went to take a dump.
He sat on the toilet long after he had finished moving his bowels, turning page after page. The manuscript was a clean copy, probably photocopied from an actual typed manuscript. There were no notes and each page was carefully numbered at the bottom, in the center. Slap a cover on it and you wouldn't know that you were reading an unpublished book. For that matter, you would never guess you were reading a book written by a rookie, let alone a minor.
It had all the trademarks that Victor Stuart had become recognized for, deep characters, awkward situations, flowing dialogue, and crystal clear descriptive pose. Other than that, Jeff would have never guessed that Stuart had written it. The Alistar Wilcox novels were all about the unfamiliar, the unknown, the dirty, the mysterious. The Best Year was, Jeff was sure, mined from the details of Stuart's own youth. It was the story of a high school senior who discovered he was dying of cancer. So he robbed and bank and went on to live the life he'd dreamed of for the last months of his life. At least, that's what the book had been about so far.
Jeff would have never dreamed Stuart capable of writing with such...he grasped at words. Emotion seemed like a good one, but all of Stuart's books had emotion, just not the emotions this book had. In the place of fear, terror, and anger there was...sentimentality. That was it. Where the other books were confrontational or abrasive, this book was soft. Even if, in the end, it was about a kid dying, it was a gentle book.
Jeff pulled up his pants, flushed and went to lie down on his bed. He turned on the bedside lamp, propped himself up against the wall with a few pillows, and buried himself further in the world of Brian Robeson, the boy who knew he was dying, and the best year of his life.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
The Author, Chapter Ten:
June 9
Another thing that had not occurred to Jeff was to bring toiletries. He realized this as he opened the door that sat opposite the closet, which opened into a small bathroom. A glass-enclosed shower sat across from a toilet, with a sink in between. The soap on the corner of the sink made him realize that he hadn't brought any of his own, but it turned out not to be an issue.
Mac, anal retentive knob that he was, had left his Pantene 2-in-1 as well as shaving cream, toothpaste and a glasses case. Jeff could tell because he'd written his name on them like a 12-year-old going off to summer camp. Jeff smirked at the mental image of Mac's mother writing his name in the back of every pair of his tighty-whities as he went off to college.
There were razors and a toothbrush as well, and Jeff assumed they were Mac's also, although there were no labels on those. A fresh razor he would deign to use, but the toothbrush he dropped in the small blue trash can that stood next to the sink. In the cabinet beneath the sink were cleaning supplies, in addition to a rainbow assortment of shampoos, conditioners, body washes and soaps. Apparently most caretakers couldn't be bothered to take such things home with them. There was even a fresh toothbrush, still in its package. It was softer than Jeff would have liked, but free was free. Free toiletries had not been a benefit that Arthur Reed had listed when describing the caretaker position, but Jeff was pretty happy about it.
He was putting his boxers and the neatly folded balls of his socks into the top drawer on the dresser when the door to the laundry room banged open. Jeff hadn't bothered to close the door to his room. He made a note to do so when he went to sleep.
“How's it going down there?”
“Good!”
“You getting settled?”
“Getting there.”
“Cool. Well, listen, I'm gonna start working in a bit, but I wanted to talk to you a bit before I did, alright?”
“Sure!” Jeff said, immediately wincing at the child-like enthusiasm in his voice.
“Alright, finish up and I'll be out on the deck.”
Jeff flipped his bag shut, still half-full, and looked around. The room looked as bare as ever, but it was growing on him. The room mattered a whole lot less than the company.
He left his door open but closed the door to the laundry room behind him. As he left the kitchen he saw that the accordion doors off the dining room were open and sunlight was streaming into the house. The computer and the bottle were still on the dining room table, but the glass and the plate were gone. Jeff squinted in the light.
“Hey,” Stuart called, sitting beneath the umbrella. He was wearing sunglasses and his hair was damp. Wet patches stood out on the simple white t-shirt he was wearing over a pair of sweat pants. Apparently he had recently showered.
Jeff saw that there was another bottle on the picnic table, the same shape as the one in the dining room. There was a plastic bucket of ice cubes on the table, along with two glasses. Stuart tossed a fistful of ice in the empty glass and pushed it toward Jeff.
Jeff sat down and looked at the bottle.
“Woodford Reserve,” Stuart said, tilting his glass toward Jeff. “Small batch Kentucky bourbon. Put hair on your chest.”
Jeff picked up the glass and matched the other man's salute. He smelled the liquor dubiously. He took too
deep a whiff and it made his eyes water. Stuart took a pull from his glass and Jeff matched him. The fluid was cool in his mouth from the ice, but warm in his throat and he felt it slowly blaze a trail into his gut. He managed not to cough or wince, but it was with an effort.
“That's the stuff right there, lemme tell ya.” Stuart killed his glass and rattled the mostly-melted ice cubes in the bottom. “I'm raring to get back to work. I sat around for two weeks waiting to get started with that asshole sitting around here and it never happened. But I got a good feeling about you. I think things are coming together already, and I got this book that's ready to come out, whether I am or not. So I wanna talk to you a bit and then get to work, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Couple hours from now, if you could put one of those pizzas in the oven so I can keep working, I'd really appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
“Okay. So I'm sure you have a lot of questions for me and we'll get to them, but not today, okay? Think of what you wanna ask me tomorrow. Right now, there's still plenty of day left and if I get a good start, I could write eight, maybe ten hours before I have to call it quits. That'll help me get back on schedule. So I'm just gonna run down the rules for you and that'll be it, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
Stuart smiled and put more ice and bourbon in his glass. “Step one, stop calling me sir. I don't want you calling me dude or bro, either, but you and I are gonna be smelling each other's farts before the summer is over, so we might as well be informal from the beginning.”
Jeff nodded.
“Here's what this summer is and what it is not. You work for me. I'm not gonna work you hard, but that's the way it is. This is not a stepping stone for you. At the end of this summer, no matter how much I like you, you will not have a career thanks to me. This also won't make much of a resume credit, either, I'm afraid. Babysitting a novelist while he drinks too much and cranks out another book isn't much to brag about to a job recruiters.
“You're gonna want to ask me about my writing, we both know that, and we'll get there. But you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to ask me the question. You know what the question is?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Sometimes I know exactly where my ideas come from and sometimes no one, least of all me, does, but either way it is an annoying fucking question and I get asked it enough on tour. Otherwise, you can just about ask me anything. I might not answer you or tell you the truth, but I'll answer you.”
“Okay.”
“Sometimes I like to share my work with whoever's around. Sometimes I'll email my editor or my agent, but mostly I just want encouragement or enthusiasm. So I might give you something to read. If I do, you are not allowed to tell me you like it, I cannot make that too clear. Tell me what means something to you and why. Tell me what you hate. Tell me what makes you cringe. If you say, 'It's good,' or 'I like it,' it will take all my self control not to slug you.” He smiled when he said it, but Jeff understood. Inside, he was thrilled. He would be the first person in the world to read a passage of Stuart's new book. The first person in the fucking world.
“Totally.”
“Attaboy.” He drank some more. “Now, you came out of the English department, so I suppose that makes you a writer, huh?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well I hope to Christ you're a better writer than that other jackass was.”
“Who, Mac?”
“Yeah, him. Fuck he was boring. I mean, he was a stuffed shirt in person, too, but he asked me to read something of his, the Playboy story I think, and I don't think he appreciated it when I called it pedestrian.”
Jeff barked a laugh in response. “Awesome,” he said, grinning.
“I'm not gonna bullshit you, kid. But how 'bout you wait till I share something with you first before you gimme anything to read, though, okay?”
Jeff found himself nodding again. He looked down. The ice cubes in his bourbon had melted and he risked another sip. It wasn't much better.
Stuart didn't seem to notice. “So what kind of a writer are you?”
“Crime fiction, mostly,” Jeff said. “At least, so far.”
“Right on. What have you been working on?”
“Well, I spent senior year writing the first draft of a novel.”
“Wow. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Take that to the bank, kid, I mean it. That's something to fucking be proud of. Not many of us get started that early. Gives you a lot of time to make mistakes and still be a big shot by the time you're thirty.” Stuart poured himself another drink and Jeff took a delicate sip of his own. He was surprised to see what a dent the writer had put in the bottle in such a short period of time.
“This book has been coming to a boil for more than a month now and I think it's time to let 'er rip. You wanna watch a movie or something, you can do it with the volume low. Once I'm into the story, you could have sex on the table next to me and I would block it out. Don't, please, but you know what I'm saying.”
Jeff nodded again. “What's it called?”
“The new one?”
Stuart smiled gently. “You like my books, don't you?”
“I really do.”
“What's your favorite?”
“Crypt.”
“What happened to your dad?”
Jeff blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Never mind. Some other time. It's just a thing with the people who like Crypt. The new book is called Tomb. That's all you get from me for now. Be off with you.” He waved his hand like Jeff was an annoying insect. “Put the pizza in around 6, yeah?”
“Sure,” Jeff said, standing to leave.
“Oh, and kid?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you go shopping, buy yourself something you'll actually drink okay? I don't care what it is. You don't have to get hammered, but I feel like a dick sitting here while you pretend to sip that stuff. Rack of beer, bottle of vodka, don't care, just pick something up for yourself, okay?”
Another thing that had not occurred to Jeff was to bring toiletries. He realized this as he opened the door that sat opposite the closet, which opened into a small bathroom. A glass-enclosed shower sat across from a toilet, with a sink in between. The soap on the corner of the sink made him realize that he hadn't brought any of his own, but it turned out not to be an issue.
Mac, anal retentive knob that he was, had left his Pantene 2-in-1 as well as shaving cream, toothpaste and a glasses case. Jeff could tell because he'd written his name on them like a 12-year-old going off to summer camp. Jeff smirked at the mental image of Mac's mother writing his name in the back of every pair of his tighty-whities as he went off to college.
There were razors and a toothbrush as well, and Jeff assumed they were Mac's also, although there were no labels on those. A fresh razor he would deign to use, but the toothbrush he dropped in the small blue trash can that stood next to the sink. In the cabinet beneath the sink were cleaning supplies, in addition to a rainbow assortment of shampoos, conditioners, body washes and soaps. Apparently most caretakers couldn't be bothered to take such things home with them. There was even a fresh toothbrush, still in its package. It was softer than Jeff would have liked, but free was free. Free toiletries had not been a benefit that Arthur Reed had listed when describing the caretaker position, but Jeff was pretty happy about it.
He was putting his boxers and the neatly folded balls of his socks into the top drawer on the dresser when the door to the laundry room banged open. Jeff hadn't bothered to close the door to his room. He made a note to do so when he went to sleep.
“How's it going down there?”
“Good!”
“You getting settled?”
“Getting there.”
“Cool. Well, listen, I'm gonna start working in a bit, but I wanted to talk to you a bit before I did, alright?”
“Sure!” Jeff said, immediately wincing at the child-like enthusiasm in his voice.
“Alright, finish up and I'll be out on the deck.”
Jeff flipped his bag shut, still half-full, and looked around. The room looked as bare as ever, but it was growing on him. The room mattered a whole lot less than the company.
He left his door open but closed the door to the laundry room behind him. As he left the kitchen he saw that the accordion doors off the dining room were open and sunlight was streaming into the house. The computer and the bottle were still on the dining room table, but the glass and the plate were gone. Jeff squinted in the light.
“Hey,” Stuart called, sitting beneath the umbrella. He was wearing sunglasses and his hair was damp. Wet patches stood out on the simple white t-shirt he was wearing over a pair of sweat pants. Apparently he had recently showered.
Jeff saw that there was another bottle on the picnic table, the same shape as the one in the dining room. There was a plastic bucket of ice cubes on the table, along with two glasses. Stuart tossed a fistful of ice in the empty glass and pushed it toward Jeff.
Jeff sat down and looked at the bottle.
“Woodford Reserve,” Stuart said, tilting his glass toward Jeff. “Small batch Kentucky bourbon. Put hair on your chest.”
Jeff picked up the glass and matched the other man's salute. He smelled the liquor dubiously. He took too
deep a whiff and it made his eyes water. Stuart took a pull from his glass and Jeff matched him. The fluid was cool in his mouth from the ice, but warm in his throat and he felt it slowly blaze a trail into his gut. He managed not to cough or wince, but it was with an effort.
“That's the stuff right there, lemme tell ya.” Stuart killed his glass and rattled the mostly-melted ice cubes in the bottom. “I'm raring to get back to work. I sat around for two weeks waiting to get started with that asshole sitting around here and it never happened. But I got a good feeling about you. I think things are coming together already, and I got this book that's ready to come out, whether I am or not. So I wanna talk to you a bit and then get to work, okay?”
“Sure.”
“Couple hours from now, if you could put one of those pizzas in the oven so I can keep working, I'd really appreciate it.”
“No problem.”
“Okay. So I'm sure you have a lot of questions for me and we'll get to them, but not today, okay? Think of what you wanna ask me tomorrow. Right now, there's still plenty of day left and if I get a good start, I could write eight, maybe ten hours before I have to call it quits. That'll help me get back on schedule. So I'm just gonna run down the rules for you and that'll be it, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
Stuart smiled and put more ice and bourbon in his glass. “Step one, stop calling me sir. I don't want you calling me dude or bro, either, but you and I are gonna be smelling each other's farts before the summer is over, so we might as well be informal from the beginning.”
Jeff nodded.
“Here's what this summer is and what it is not. You work for me. I'm not gonna work you hard, but that's the way it is. This is not a stepping stone for you. At the end of this summer, no matter how much I like you, you will not have a career thanks to me. This also won't make much of a resume credit, either, I'm afraid. Babysitting a novelist while he drinks too much and cranks out another book isn't much to brag about to a job recruiters.
“You're gonna want to ask me about my writing, we both know that, and we'll get there. But you are not, under any circumstances, allowed to ask me the question. You know what the question is?”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Sometimes I know exactly where my ideas come from and sometimes no one, least of all me, does, but either way it is an annoying fucking question and I get asked it enough on tour. Otherwise, you can just about ask me anything. I might not answer you or tell you the truth, but I'll answer you.”
“Okay.”
“Sometimes I like to share my work with whoever's around. Sometimes I'll email my editor or my agent, but mostly I just want encouragement or enthusiasm. So I might give you something to read. If I do, you are not allowed to tell me you like it, I cannot make that too clear. Tell me what means something to you and why. Tell me what you hate. Tell me what makes you cringe. If you say, 'It's good,' or 'I like it,' it will take all my self control not to slug you.” He smiled when he said it, but Jeff understood. Inside, he was thrilled. He would be the first person in the world to read a passage of Stuart's new book. The first person in the fucking world.
“Totally.”
“Attaboy.” He drank some more. “Now, you came out of the English department, so I suppose that makes you a writer, huh?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well I hope to Christ you're a better writer than that other jackass was.”
“Who, Mac?”
“Yeah, him. Fuck he was boring. I mean, he was a stuffed shirt in person, too, but he asked me to read something of his, the Playboy story I think, and I don't think he appreciated it when I called it pedestrian.”
Jeff barked a laugh in response. “Awesome,” he said, grinning.
“I'm not gonna bullshit you, kid. But how 'bout you wait till I share something with you first before you gimme anything to read, though, okay?”
Jeff found himself nodding again. He looked down. The ice cubes in his bourbon had melted and he risked another sip. It wasn't much better.
Stuart didn't seem to notice. “So what kind of a writer are you?”
“Crime fiction, mostly,” Jeff said. “At least, so far.”
“Right on. What have you been working on?”
“Well, I spent senior year writing the first draft of a novel.”
“Wow. How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Take that to the bank, kid, I mean it. That's something to fucking be proud of. Not many of us get started that early. Gives you a lot of time to make mistakes and still be a big shot by the time you're thirty.” Stuart poured himself another drink and Jeff took a delicate sip of his own. He was surprised to see what a dent the writer had put in the bottle in such a short period of time.
“This book has been coming to a boil for more than a month now and I think it's time to let 'er rip. You wanna watch a movie or something, you can do it with the volume low. Once I'm into the story, you could have sex on the table next to me and I would block it out. Don't, please, but you know what I'm saying.”
Jeff nodded again. “What's it called?”
“The new one?”
Stuart smiled gently. “You like my books, don't you?”
“I really do.”
“What's your favorite?”
“Crypt.”
“What happened to your dad?”
Jeff blinked in surprise. “What?”
“Never mind. Some other time. It's just a thing with the people who like Crypt. The new book is called Tomb. That's all you get from me for now. Be off with you.” He waved his hand like Jeff was an annoying insect. “Put the pizza in around 6, yeah?”
“Sure,” Jeff said, standing to leave.
“Oh, and kid?”
“Yeah?”
“Next time you go shopping, buy yourself something you'll actually drink okay? I don't care what it is. You don't have to get hammered, but I feel like a dick sitting here while you pretend to sip that stuff. Rack of beer, bottle of vodka, don't care, just pick something up for yourself, okay?”
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
The Author, Chapter Nine: The First Day
June 9
When they returned to Stuart's house it took Jeff three tries to back the Land Rover down the drive. As he drove back up to the top of the driveway after his second attempt, his face burned with humiliation.
“It's a big car, takes some getting used to,” Stuart offered kindly. “Don't sweat it.”
It didn't actually make Jeff feel any better, but he appreciated it anyway. Within three hours of their meeting, Victor Stuart was consoling him. It was not an auspicious beginning.
They unloaded the groceries that Jeff had put on his new AmEx at the Safeway. No one would have mistaken their cart full of canned and frozen food as anything other than the sustenance of two bachelors. The keystones were frozen pizzas and canned beef stew, but there was also an assortment of ground beef, cheese, tortillas, soda (Sprite for Jeff, a cheap knockoff of Dr. Pepper for Stuart) and snacks.
“When I'm out here I keep things pretty basic with the menu,” Stuart had said, dumping a stack of pizzas into the grocery cart, “Mostly because I want to have plenty off stuff around in case I have to fend for myself. I sure don't expect you to cook.”
Once the food was packed away, Vic gave Jeff the complete tour.
“I don't expect you to have anything to do with these rooms,” the author said, gesturing at the two bedrooms at the far end of the house. “You don't have to do any cleaning at all, either. We have a woman come in once a week, Mondays, she's been doing my cleaning for years, we're used to each other. Most of the time she's gone before I even wake up. My room will basically always be a pig sty for the summer, so if it bothers you, close the door.” He did so, shutting away the mess. “The kids and the maid are responsible for their room. They'll only be here a couple weekends this summer. When they're here, I still write, but I start later and we generally spend the days together. We usually order in or eat out when they're here. They'll bring their Wii with them, so I hope you know how to play fake tennis.”
They went out onto the deck, which looked onto the back yard, fenced in by trees and brambles. The lawn had a full spring's growth and stood almost a foot deep in places. Jeff could see a single heavy clump of grass halfway between the deck and the trees. The deck was railed in, with a set of steps leading onto the lawn. A picnic table stood beneath a large umbrella. Stuart took a deep breath.
“The ocean. Dunno what it is about smelling the ocean, but it's one of the best things about being here. You got yer grill,” he kicked it, “And the trail through there,” he pointed to a break in the trees, “Leads down to the beach. Private beach. Doesn't mean you can go naked, but it means you can tell tourists to get bent if they're hanging around walking a dog.”
Back inside, Stuart showed Jeff how to use the three remotes to turn on the television and stereo and use the cable. “Movies on the left, porn on the right,” Stuart said, pointing to a low cupboard in the entertainment center. Jeff thought he was kidding, but when he opened it, there were mainstream movies on one side and there were more than a dozen porn DVDs on the other, mostly of the barely legal vein with titles like, “Don't Tell Daddy.”
“We'll stash those in your room when the kids are here, if you don't mind. They snoop around in my stuff every so often.”
“Uh...sure.”
“Is that weird?” Stuart was looking at him like he genuinely expected an answer. Jeff didn't have a problem with porn, but he thought of it as a private thing. He assumed that Malcolm must own porn for those dry spells, but damned if he'd ever ask about it.
Jeff shrugged. “No biggie.” He wondered how many other things he would discover about his hero before the end of the day.
“Speaking of your room,” Stuart said, and lead the way back to the kitchen. There was a door opposite the fridge that Jeff had taken for a pantry. Instead, it lead into a small laundry room and a staircase. At the bottom of the staircase, which was surprisingly wide and well-lit, there was another door.
Stuart opened it and recoiled from the neck up, sucking air in through his teeth.
“Shit, I thought that would be gone by now. Sorry. I shoulda let the place air out after whatsisname left. I think something died under the house, you know? A rat or something.”
Jeff caught the scent as it wafted up the stairs, stale and unpleasant, a smell of the rot after rot, the dry putrid stink that came after the wet, nauseating one. It smelled like vegetables that had been forgotten in a fridge drawer for too long, the kind that would inevitably be steeping in their own brown juices.
Stuart fumbled inside the door and the lights came on, along with a humming. “Since there isn't a window, there's an exhaust fan,” he said. “I should have left it on, but it'll have you sorted out soon enough. If it still stinks tonight, you can sleep upstairs in the kids' room or something.”
“I'm sure it'll be fine.”
“So if you wanna drag your bag down here and set your shit up, this is all you.”
Jeff did so, bumping his rolling bag down the stairs, and ignoring the smell until he got used to it, which took less time than he would have expected.
There was a closet built into one wall, a simple double bed that sagged a bit, a bedside table with a lamp, a desk with another lamp, and a dresser.
Jeff plugged in his laptop and left it on the desk. He plugged in his new phone and turned it on. He scrolled through the numbers in the phone book and saw that there were only two listed. 'Firm' and 'Stuart'. The phone rang and he dropped it in surprise. 'Firm' blinked insistently on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Reynolds?” The effete voice of Arthur Reed was on the line, sounding, if Jeff wasn't mistaken, quite put out. There was interference on the line and Jeff remembered the lawyer saying the reception out here was shitty.
“Yeah, hi.”
There was a hiss on the line. “—attempting to reach you for several hours, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Oh, God, I'm sorry, it's just—“ What? Your client pulled a fucking gun on me and then made me pay for brunch? “The phone they gave me was dead and once I met Mr. Stuart we went to breakfast and...”
“I'm having a hard time understanding you, Mr. Reynolds. Normally this would not— but after the last caretaker—” There was another hiss, but Jeff knew what the man was saying. After the last guy fucked up, we're a bit gun shy.
“I'm charging the phone right now and I'll keep it with me once it's charged up.”
“Very good. How is everything so far?”
“I'm just unpacking.”
“How is—uart?”
“Ready to get started, I think.”
“Yes, I would—you for your time. Give my best to Mr. Stuart. Don't forget to send receipts at the end of the week.”
“Of course.” A cold panic stabbed Jeff's heart as Reed hung up the phone. He'd fucked up already and they would can him. One day on the job and he'd already fucked up and now the job would fall to the third runner up and whoever the hell that was they didn't want this job as much as he did.
But, consciously or unconsciously, Jeff had done the right thing. Both the brunch receipt and the Safeway receipt were safely in his back pocket. He pulled out the top drawer of the desk to put them safely away. The wide pencil drawer had several odds and ends in it, a pair of scissors, a Sharpie, some paper clips, a pad of sticky notes. Jeff dropped the two receipts in with the rest of the clutter and sighed. He wasn't sure he would be able to handle any more adrenaline spikes today.
He sat down on the bed and kicked off his shoes. He took a deep breath and realized that, while the smell was still there, it was much less noticable.
The room was very brightly lit for what could virtually be a cell under other circumstances. There were no personal touches and Jeff wondered if Mac had brought decorations with him and then packed them up again or if it hadn't occurred to him to bring in some touches of life either.
If you were a glass half full kind of person, you'd say the room was bland. Glass half empty folks might call it bleak. Jeff had a sudden impulse to pick some flowers and find a vase for them, bringing a small touch of life into his monk-like suite, but he quashed it. Men don't need flowers, he told himself.
When they returned to Stuart's house it took Jeff three tries to back the Land Rover down the drive. As he drove back up to the top of the driveway after his second attempt, his face burned with humiliation.
“It's a big car, takes some getting used to,” Stuart offered kindly. “Don't sweat it.”
It didn't actually make Jeff feel any better, but he appreciated it anyway. Within three hours of their meeting, Victor Stuart was consoling him. It was not an auspicious beginning.
They unloaded the groceries that Jeff had put on his new AmEx at the Safeway. No one would have mistaken their cart full of canned and frozen food as anything other than the sustenance of two bachelors. The keystones were frozen pizzas and canned beef stew, but there was also an assortment of ground beef, cheese, tortillas, soda (Sprite for Jeff, a cheap knockoff of Dr. Pepper for Stuart) and snacks.
“When I'm out here I keep things pretty basic with the menu,” Stuart had said, dumping a stack of pizzas into the grocery cart, “Mostly because I want to have plenty off stuff around in case I have to fend for myself. I sure don't expect you to cook.”
Once the food was packed away, Vic gave Jeff the complete tour.
“I don't expect you to have anything to do with these rooms,” the author said, gesturing at the two bedrooms at the far end of the house. “You don't have to do any cleaning at all, either. We have a woman come in once a week, Mondays, she's been doing my cleaning for years, we're used to each other. Most of the time she's gone before I even wake up. My room will basically always be a pig sty for the summer, so if it bothers you, close the door.” He did so, shutting away the mess. “The kids and the maid are responsible for their room. They'll only be here a couple weekends this summer. When they're here, I still write, but I start later and we generally spend the days together. We usually order in or eat out when they're here. They'll bring their Wii with them, so I hope you know how to play fake tennis.”
They went out onto the deck, which looked onto the back yard, fenced in by trees and brambles. The lawn had a full spring's growth and stood almost a foot deep in places. Jeff could see a single heavy clump of grass halfway between the deck and the trees. The deck was railed in, with a set of steps leading onto the lawn. A picnic table stood beneath a large umbrella. Stuart took a deep breath.
“The ocean. Dunno what it is about smelling the ocean, but it's one of the best things about being here. You got yer grill,” he kicked it, “And the trail through there,” he pointed to a break in the trees, “Leads down to the beach. Private beach. Doesn't mean you can go naked, but it means you can tell tourists to get bent if they're hanging around walking a dog.”
Back inside, Stuart showed Jeff how to use the three remotes to turn on the television and stereo and use the cable. “Movies on the left, porn on the right,” Stuart said, pointing to a low cupboard in the entertainment center. Jeff thought he was kidding, but when he opened it, there were mainstream movies on one side and there were more than a dozen porn DVDs on the other, mostly of the barely legal vein with titles like, “Don't Tell Daddy.”
“We'll stash those in your room when the kids are here, if you don't mind. They snoop around in my stuff every so often.”
“Uh...sure.”
“Is that weird?” Stuart was looking at him like he genuinely expected an answer. Jeff didn't have a problem with porn, but he thought of it as a private thing. He assumed that Malcolm must own porn for those dry spells, but damned if he'd ever ask about it.
Jeff shrugged. “No biggie.” He wondered how many other things he would discover about his hero before the end of the day.
“Speaking of your room,” Stuart said, and lead the way back to the kitchen. There was a door opposite the fridge that Jeff had taken for a pantry. Instead, it lead into a small laundry room and a staircase. At the bottom of the staircase, which was surprisingly wide and well-lit, there was another door.
Stuart opened it and recoiled from the neck up, sucking air in through his teeth.
“Shit, I thought that would be gone by now. Sorry. I shoulda let the place air out after whatsisname left. I think something died under the house, you know? A rat or something.”
Jeff caught the scent as it wafted up the stairs, stale and unpleasant, a smell of the rot after rot, the dry putrid stink that came after the wet, nauseating one. It smelled like vegetables that had been forgotten in a fridge drawer for too long, the kind that would inevitably be steeping in their own brown juices.
Stuart fumbled inside the door and the lights came on, along with a humming. “Since there isn't a window, there's an exhaust fan,” he said. “I should have left it on, but it'll have you sorted out soon enough. If it still stinks tonight, you can sleep upstairs in the kids' room or something.”
“I'm sure it'll be fine.”
“So if you wanna drag your bag down here and set your shit up, this is all you.”
Jeff did so, bumping his rolling bag down the stairs, and ignoring the smell until he got used to it, which took less time than he would have expected.
There was a closet built into one wall, a simple double bed that sagged a bit, a bedside table with a lamp, a desk with another lamp, and a dresser.
Jeff plugged in his laptop and left it on the desk. He plugged in his new phone and turned it on. He scrolled through the numbers in the phone book and saw that there were only two listed. 'Firm' and 'Stuart'. The phone rang and he dropped it in surprise. 'Firm' blinked insistently on the screen.
“Hello?”
“Mr. Reynolds?” The effete voice of Arthur Reed was on the line, sounding, if Jeff wasn't mistaken, quite put out. There was interference on the line and Jeff remembered the lawyer saying the reception out here was shitty.
“Yeah, hi.”
There was a hiss on the line. “—attempting to reach you for several hours, Mr. Reynolds.”
“Oh, God, I'm sorry, it's just—“ What? Your client pulled a fucking gun on me and then made me pay for brunch? “The phone they gave me was dead and once I met Mr. Stuart we went to breakfast and...”
“I'm having a hard time understanding you, Mr. Reynolds. Normally this would not— but after the last caretaker—” There was another hiss, but Jeff knew what the man was saying. After the last guy fucked up, we're a bit gun shy.
“I'm charging the phone right now and I'll keep it with me once it's charged up.”
“Very good. How is everything so far?”
“I'm just unpacking.”
“How is—uart?”
“Ready to get started, I think.”
“Yes, I would—you for your time. Give my best to Mr. Stuart. Don't forget to send receipts at the end of the week.”
“Of course.” A cold panic stabbed Jeff's heart as Reed hung up the phone. He'd fucked up already and they would can him. One day on the job and he'd already fucked up and now the job would fall to the third runner up and whoever the hell that was they didn't want this job as much as he did.
But, consciously or unconsciously, Jeff had done the right thing. Both the brunch receipt and the Safeway receipt were safely in his back pocket. He pulled out the top drawer of the desk to put them safely away. The wide pencil drawer had several odds and ends in it, a pair of scissors, a Sharpie, some paper clips, a pad of sticky notes. Jeff dropped the two receipts in with the rest of the clutter and sighed. He wasn't sure he would be able to handle any more adrenaline spikes today.
He sat down on the bed and kicked off his shoes. He took a deep breath and realized that, while the smell was still there, it was much less noticable.
The room was very brightly lit for what could virtually be a cell under other circumstances. There were no personal touches and Jeff wondered if Mac had brought decorations with him and then packed them up again or if it hadn't occurred to him to bring in some touches of life either.
If you were a glass half full kind of person, you'd say the room was bland. Glass half empty folks might call it bleak. Jeff had a sudden impulse to pick some flowers and find a vase for them, bringing a small touch of life into his monk-like suite, but he quashed it. Men don't need flowers, he told himself.
Monday, January 11, 2010
The Author, Chapter Eight: Brunch
June 9
They locked Jeff's bag in the house, and even though Jeff was excited to drive the Land Rover, he was disappointed that they didn't take the sports car. Stuart told Jeff to drive, saying he might as well get used to the big car, and then dug around in the back seat until he found a Seattle Mariners cap. He put it on over his unwashed hair.
“Driveway's easier to get out of than get down,” Vic said as Jeff drove up it. “Backing down this bitch ain't much of a treat, but you'll get used to it.”
“I like your car,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, she's a pretty little thing, huh? 1976. She was the second thing I bought when I hit it big, after this house. Cracked her up twice now, not too bad the second time, so it's not all original anymore, but she still looks and drives the same, which is all I care about.” Stuart interrupted himself. “Turn left and then left again. Left and then right instead to get to the Safeway up here. It's pretty easy to spot. We'll swing by after we eat and lay in some supplies. There's a couple of banks up there too, a McDonalds, couple taverns, and a Chinese joint that delivers. They make their own noodles and do a badass chow mein.”
“Cool.”
“Restaurant is coming up on the right down about a half mile,” Stuart said when they pulled onto a busy street.
“You really not leave the place during the summer?”
“Not much. Once I get in the zone I like to stay there. Since your friend did such a piss poor job of managing the place, I never got into the zone, so I haven't really started this summer's book. I piddled around with some short stuff and some editing. Hopefully tomorrow I can actually get started.”
“So you really do write a novel a summer?”
“I really do. Once I got on a tear and wrote two. Here's the thing though. If I don't finish the book by the end of the summer, it never gets finished. I don't stay here past the middle of September, at the latest, and once I get out of the groove with a book, I can't finish it.”
“Really?”
“I know it's weird, but that's the way it is. That's a big reason why you're here, to make sure I have my time to myself so I get a book finished. Cause if I don't, my publisher gets pissed, and my audience gets pissed and I don't get paid so my ex-wife gets pissed and my agent gets pissed...It's just a bad idea all around.”
“Have you ever not finished?”
“Couple of times I've started a second book during the summer even though I knew I wouldn't have time to finish it. I usually cannibalize the incomplete ones for ideas, characters, conversations...so parts of them see the light of day eventually. But only once have I not finished and that was the summer the lean, mean writing machine came off the rails. For almost 10 years I relied on my wife to keep me on track and when she left me, well, nothing went right for a while. I hired an assistant for the second summer and made that poor bitch miserable, but I managed to write a book that summer.”
The conversation came to a lull as Jeff hit a stop light. He had questions to ask, probably hundreds of them, but he didn't want to ruin what was happening. He was having a casual, real conversation with the adult who had most influenced him in the world, after his parents, maybe. It was possible Professor Higgins could give Stuart a run for his money, but he knew who he would try to save first in a fire.
The light turned green and as they pulled forward, the passenger breathed heavily through his nose and leaned his chair back. “It's called the West End,” he said.
“Okay.”
Jeff wondered if the people at the restaurant knew Stuart. Looking over at the author, he wondered how often he was recognized on the street at all. Mostly, he just looked like a guy. If Jeff had bumped into him, he wasn't even sure he would have recognized him, certainly not with a few days of stubble and a hat. Was it a comfort or an insult to not be recognized? Was an anonymous brunch a privacy that Vic treasured?
Jeff pulled into the parking lot, which was almost empty at 10:15 on a Thursday morning. Stuart straightened his seat and seemed to visibly brighten when he sat up.
“I've got an itch only a bacon waffle can scratch, let me tell you!” He hopped out of the car like a kid on his way to a Happy Meal.
Jeff locked the car, finally getting the satisfying “beep boop” he'd wanted earlier. He tailed Stuart, who was already most of the way to the front door.
Vic held the door for him, and they both entered the foyer, which smelled of sausage and featured pictures of little league teams on the walls, as well as a tiny blond hostess at a podium.
“Dos, por favor,” Vic said, flashing two fingers.
“You bet!” the girl said brightly, grabbing two menus and leading the way to a sunlit table by a window. The restaurant was empty except for an elderly couple finishing up in the corner. “This okay?” she asked.
The author winked and threw her a thumbs up.
“Coffee for either one of y'all?”
“Sure,” Jeff said, and Stuart shook his head. “OJ, thanks.”
“Comin' right up!”
Stuart grinned at her retreating skirt. “I swear to God. They keep getting younger, my hand to Christ they do.”
“Doesn't look to old to me,” Jeff said, then immediately regretted it. His face fell, but Stuart broke into that wild grin of his and then laughed.
“Well, she wouldn't, would she? I'm gonna have to keep an eye on you, kid. What do you think? She's either an import or a hick, because no one in Seattle says y'all.” He emphasized the last word with a drawl of his own.
“I can't remember the last time I saw a girl wearing a hair band, either.”
Stuart nodded.
The girl returned with their drinks, and Jeff noted that her name was Mindy.
“We're between shifts right now, so I'll be taking your order. One of the other gals'll probably be bringing it out to you. You just let me know when you're ready.”
“I'll have the bacon waffle with hash browns. Thanks.” Stuart hadn't bothered to pick up the menu.
“Sure thing. Do you know what you would like?” she asked Jeff.
“Uh, what's good?”
“The stuffed French toast features fresh strawberries today.” Mindy sounded like she'd never been more excited about anything in all her life.
“Sold.”
“Anything else?”
“Eggs over easy.”
“Okey-doke.” She closed her order book and went off.
“And to cover the other side of the spectrum, our orders will be delivered by an 80-year-old woman named Flo who smells like an ashtray, calls us 'Hon,' and sounds like Ronald Reagan,” Stuart said.
Her name was Marge, not Flo, but otherwise Vic had not been far off. Jeff was starting his third cup of surprisingly good coffee as Marge cleared their dishes. Both men were full to the point of groaning and Stuart's eyes were starting to glaze over.
The time before their meal arrived had been taken up by them inventing stories about Mindy, who never returned. The time after the meal had arrived had been taken up with them making noises like hogs at a trough.
Jeff's story had Mindy running away from her trailer park in North Carolina to follow her favorite band on tour. When they had arrived in Seattle, the band broke up and she stayed here. She was in school to be a dental assistant. He had thought for several minutes on his story, trying on ideas and discarding them until he came up with one that he felt actually fit the girl's image.
Vic's story came quicker and uglier. Abusive father, alcoholic mother, grew up in a small town in New Mexico. She was a church girl and had bided her time until a touring preacher had come to town. She had helped take the offering and when her offering plate was full she had walked out the back door and never looked back. She had moved to Arizona, fallen in love with an ASU Sun Devil who got a job with Microsoft. She followed him to Seattle, where he fell in love with a gothed-out barista who was everything Mindy was not, and she had been forced to move out.
“Why West Seattle?” Jeff had asked Stuart.
“Why yourself?” he had replied.
Jeff decided that she loved being close to the water, that its movement reassured her.
Stuart said that she lived in White Center, one of the poorest and most notorious neighborhoods in the greater Seattle area, just to the south of West Seattle. She lived there because of the cheap rent and this was the best job she could manage. She worked under the table because she didn't have a social security card.
The truth was that Mindy was from the south end of Boise, Idaho. She went to high school with a bunch of hicks and it had affected her language. When she got married and moved to the big city with her husband, she realized that two things positively affected her tips: Her folksy way of talkin' and her lack of a wedding ring. So when she went to work the ring came off and the accent went on. When she went home to Horace and two-year-old Nathaniel, the accent mostly went away and the ring came back out.
“This was a good idea I had,” Stuart said, leaning back in his chair and contemplating his gut. “I don't get out of the house much when I'm here for the summer.”
Jeff looked around the dining room. The elderly couple was gone and Marge was undoubtedly off on a smoke break.
“Do they really not know who you are?” he asked.
“Most of 'em do. Some of 'em don't give a shit, some of them just pretend. I'd tip the same if they made a big deal about it or not, but I come here because it's quiet and they treat me like everyone else. Then I go back to the house and have you serve me hand and foot. But mostly its that they know I'm around every summer. It's only exciting the first time or two you see me, because after that, what happens? I'm not gonna put you in a movie, I'm not particularly good lookin', and if you see me around town, the most exciting thing you're gonna see me do is buy ice. Of course, you get superfans out here every once in a while, people stake the place out every summer, hoping to see me or talk to me. Some of them even manage it. Mostly the cops keep an eye out and you can usually tell the difference between city slickers here to visit the beach and the kid dressed all in black with a pierced lip who wants to tell me how much he gets my books. Hey, you got your expense card?”
Jeff was momentarily startled by the segue. “Yeah.”
“Great. Then you got this. I forgot my wallet.”
They locked Jeff's bag in the house, and even though Jeff was excited to drive the Land Rover, he was disappointed that they didn't take the sports car. Stuart told Jeff to drive, saying he might as well get used to the big car, and then dug around in the back seat until he found a Seattle Mariners cap. He put it on over his unwashed hair.
“Driveway's easier to get out of than get down,” Vic said as Jeff drove up it. “Backing down this bitch ain't much of a treat, but you'll get used to it.”
“I like your car,” Jeff said.
“Yeah, she's a pretty little thing, huh? 1976. She was the second thing I bought when I hit it big, after this house. Cracked her up twice now, not too bad the second time, so it's not all original anymore, but she still looks and drives the same, which is all I care about.” Stuart interrupted himself. “Turn left and then left again. Left and then right instead to get to the Safeway up here. It's pretty easy to spot. We'll swing by after we eat and lay in some supplies. There's a couple of banks up there too, a McDonalds, couple taverns, and a Chinese joint that delivers. They make their own noodles and do a badass chow mein.”
“Cool.”
“Restaurant is coming up on the right down about a half mile,” Stuart said when they pulled onto a busy street.
“You really not leave the place during the summer?”
“Not much. Once I get in the zone I like to stay there. Since your friend did such a piss poor job of managing the place, I never got into the zone, so I haven't really started this summer's book. I piddled around with some short stuff and some editing. Hopefully tomorrow I can actually get started.”
“So you really do write a novel a summer?”
“I really do. Once I got on a tear and wrote two. Here's the thing though. If I don't finish the book by the end of the summer, it never gets finished. I don't stay here past the middle of September, at the latest, and once I get out of the groove with a book, I can't finish it.”
“Really?”
“I know it's weird, but that's the way it is. That's a big reason why you're here, to make sure I have my time to myself so I get a book finished. Cause if I don't, my publisher gets pissed, and my audience gets pissed and I don't get paid so my ex-wife gets pissed and my agent gets pissed...It's just a bad idea all around.”
“Have you ever not finished?”
“Couple of times I've started a second book during the summer even though I knew I wouldn't have time to finish it. I usually cannibalize the incomplete ones for ideas, characters, conversations...so parts of them see the light of day eventually. But only once have I not finished and that was the summer the lean, mean writing machine came off the rails. For almost 10 years I relied on my wife to keep me on track and when she left me, well, nothing went right for a while. I hired an assistant for the second summer and made that poor bitch miserable, but I managed to write a book that summer.”
The conversation came to a lull as Jeff hit a stop light. He had questions to ask, probably hundreds of them, but he didn't want to ruin what was happening. He was having a casual, real conversation with the adult who had most influenced him in the world, after his parents, maybe. It was possible Professor Higgins could give Stuart a run for his money, but he knew who he would try to save first in a fire.
The light turned green and as they pulled forward, the passenger breathed heavily through his nose and leaned his chair back. “It's called the West End,” he said.
“Okay.”
Jeff wondered if the people at the restaurant knew Stuart. Looking over at the author, he wondered how often he was recognized on the street at all. Mostly, he just looked like a guy. If Jeff had bumped into him, he wasn't even sure he would have recognized him, certainly not with a few days of stubble and a hat. Was it a comfort or an insult to not be recognized? Was an anonymous brunch a privacy that Vic treasured?
Jeff pulled into the parking lot, which was almost empty at 10:15 on a Thursday morning. Stuart straightened his seat and seemed to visibly brighten when he sat up.
“I've got an itch only a bacon waffle can scratch, let me tell you!” He hopped out of the car like a kid on his way to a Happy Meal.
Jeff locked the car, finally getting the satisfying “beep boop” he'd wanted earlier. He tailed Stuart, who was already most of the way to the front door.
Vic held the door for him, and they both entered the foyer, which smelled of sausage and featured pictures of little league teams on the walls, as well as a tiny blond hostess at a podium.
“Dos, por favor,” Vic said, flashing two fingers.
“You bet!” the girl said brightly, grabbing two menus and leading the way to a sunlit table by a window. The restaurant was empty except for an elderly couple finishing up in the corner. “This okay?” she asked.
The author winked and threw her a thumbs up.
“Coffee for either one of y'all?”
“Sure,” Jeff said, and Stuart shook his head. “OJ, thanks.”
“Comin' right up!”
Stuart grinned at her retreating skirt. “I swear to God. They keep getting younger, my hand to Christ they do.”
“Doesn't look to old to me,” Jeff said, then immediately regretted it. His face fell, but Stuart broke into that wild grin of his and then laughed.
“Well, she wouldn't, would she? I'm gonna have to keep an eye on you, kid. What do you think? She's either an import or a hick, because no one in Seattle says y'all.” He emphasized the last word with a drawl of his own.
“I can't remember the last time I saw a girl wearing a hair band, either.”
Stuart nodded.
The girl returned with their drinks, and Jeff noted that her name was Mindy.
“We're between shifts right now, so I'll be taking your order. One of the other gals'll probably be bringing it out to you. You just let me know when you're ready.”
“I'll have the bacon waffle with hash browns. Thanks.” Stuart hadn't bothered to pick up the menu.
“Sure thing. Do you know what you would like?” she asked Jeff.
“Uh, what's good?”
“The stuffed French toast features fresh strawberries today.” Mindy sounded like she'd never been more excited about anything in all her life.
“Sold.”
“Anything else?”
“Eggs over easy.”
“Okey-doke.” She closed her order book and went off.
“And to cover the other side of the spectrum, our orders will be delivered by an 80-year-old woman named Flo who smells like an ashtray, calls us 'Hon,' and sounds like Ronald Reagan,” Stuart said.
# # #
The time before their meal arrived had been taken up by them inventing stories about Mindy, who never returned. The time after the meal had arrived had been taken up with them making noises like hogs at a trough.
Jeff's story had Mindy running away from her trailer park in North Carolina to follow her favorite band on tour. When they had arrived in Seattle, the band broke up and she stayed here. She was in school to be a dental assistant. He had thought for several minutes on his story, trying on ideas and discarding them until he came up with one that he felt actually fit the girl's image.
Vic's story came quicker and uglier. Abusive father, alcoholic mother, grew up in a small town in New Mexico. She was a church girl and had bided her time until a touring preacher had come to town. She had helped take the offering and when her offering plate was full she had walked out the back door and never looked back. She had moved to Arizona, fallen in love with an ASU Sun Devil who got a job with Microsoft. She followed him to Seattle, where he fell in love with a gothed-out barista who was everything Mindy was not, and she had been forced to move out.
“Why West Seattle?” Jeff had asked Stuart.
“Why yourself?” he had replied.
Jeff decided that she loved being close to the water, that its movement reassured her.
Stuart said that she lived in White Center, one of the poorest and most notorious neighborhoods in the greater Seattle area, just to the south of West Seattle. She lived there because of the cheap rent and this was the best job she could manage. She worked under the table because she didn't have a social security card.
The truth was that Mindy was from the south end of Boise, Idaho. She went to high school with a bunch of hicks and it had affected her language. When she got married and moved to the big city with her husband, she realized that two things positively affected her tips: Her folksy way of talkin' and her lack of a wedding ring. So when she went to work the ring came off and the accent went on. When she went home to Horace and two-year-old Nathaniel, the accent mostly went away and the ring came back out.
“This was a good idea I had,” Stuart said, leaning back in his chair and contemplating his gut. “I don't get out of the house much when I'm here for the summer.”
Jeff looked around the dining room. The elderly couple was gone and Marge was undoubtedly off on a smoke break.
“Do they really not know who you are?” he asked.
“Most of 'em do. Some of 'em don't give a shit, some of them just pretend. I'd tip the same if they made a big deal about it or not, but I come here because it's quiet and they treat me like everyone else. Then I go back to the house and have you serve me hand and foot. But mostly its that they know I'm around every summer. It's only exciting the first time or two you see me, because after that, what happens? I'm not gonna put you in a movie, I'm not particularly good lookin', and if you see me around town, the most exciting thing you're gonna see me do is buy ice. Of course, you get superfans out here every once in a while, people stake the place out every summer, hoping to see me or talk to me. Some of them even manage it. Mostly the cops keep an eye out and you can usually tell the difference between city slickers here to visit the beach and the kid dressed all in black with a pierced lip who wants to tell me how much he gets my books. Hey, you got your expense card?”
Jeff was momentarily startled by the segue. “Yeah.”
“Great. Then you got this. I forgot my wallet.”
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