If You Could See Me Now

by Peter Straub

  Because she could feel them staring at her she turned into the first side street. Let them gawk at an empty street, she thought, let them my goodness! one another.

  She walked straight down the middle of the unlighted street. Windows shone in the houses on either side. Someone was waiting up ahead, just a shape on the grassy sidewalk, a man washing his car or getting cool evening air. Or a woman getting away from the kids.

  At that moment she nearly saved her life, because she realized that she was hungry after all, and almost turned around to go back to her friends. But that was not possible. So she put her head down and walked up to the next corner, vaguely planning a route that would take most of the half hour she had of freedom. When she went past the shape on the sidewalk, she half-noticed that it was not a man but a fat bush.

  The next street was shabbier, with two vacant lots between the mean houses like vast blots of darkness. Trees towered and loomed overhead, black and without definition. She heard slow steps behind her. But this was Arden and she did not begin to be fearful until something hard and blunt touched her back. She jumped and whirled around and when she saw the face looking at her she knew that the worst moments of her life were beginning.

  FOUR

  At that moment I would have been skeptical about the odds on my returning to take up the bartender’s invitation for Sunday, but twenty-six hours later I was in Freebo’s, not this time at the bar but in a booth and not alone but in company.

  I realized that I was drunk only when I found that I was pounding the VW along in second gear; chanting to myself, I messily, grindingly slotted the shift up a gear, ending the howl of anguish from the engine, and zoomed home, no doubt weaving through lanes as rakishly as Alison Greening had done on one night years before—the night I had first felt her mouth issuing warmth over mine, and felt all my senses rubbed by her various odors of perfume, soap, powder, contraband cigarettes and fresh water. About the time I reached the red thermometer in the Italian vista I recognized that the Strand girl’s death had been the reason for the hostile stares I’d received from the Arden townspeople. After I spun into the driveway I left the car slewed at a telltale angle before the garage and lurched out, half-sprawling over the front fender. The maddening envelope and blank sheet of paper, along with several torn balled-up pages of Maccabee’s book, bunched in my pocket. I heard footsteps inside the house, a door closing. I went unsteadily across the lawn to the door of the screen porch and entered. It seemed I could feel the chill of the boards even through my shoes. The cold house seemed full of noises. Tuta Sunderson appeared to be in two or three rooms at once. “Come on out,” I said. “I won’t hurt you.”

  Silence.

  “It’s okay,” I said. “You can even go home, Mrs. Sunderson.” I looked around, called her name in the direction of the old downstairs bedroom. Duane’s furniture was immaculately cleaned and dusted, but no one else was in the room. I shrugged and went into the bathroom.

  When I emerged, the noises in the old house had magically ceased. I heard only the singing of the plumbing in the walls. She had nervously decamped; I swore to myself, wondering what I would have to do to get her back.

  Then I heard a cough unmistakably originating from my workroom. That I had yet to complete a sentence in that room made her offense against its privacy triply serious. I gave myself a shove toward the stairs.

  But when I burst into the cold little room I stopped short. Through the window I could see the stout form of Tuta Sunderson huff-puffing down the road, her handbag bobbing on its strap; and seated in the desk chair, absolutely at ease, was Alison Updahl.

  “What—” I began. “I don’t like—”

  “I think you scared her off. She was already pretty upset, but you finished her off. But don’t worry, she’ll come back.”

  PORTION OF STATEMENT BY TUTA SUNDERSON:

  July 18

  When I saw him get out of that car, I knew he was drunk, just pig drunk, and when he started that yelling I thought I’d better skedaddle. Now we know he was just back from that time he argued with the pastor on the street, down in Arden. I think the pastor was right in everything he said, next day, and he could have said it even stronger. Red was home from the police station by then—all shook by what he’d seen, of course—and he said, Ma, don’t you go back to that crazy man, I’ve got a few ideas of my own about him, but I said his five dollars is as good as anyone else’s, isn’t it? I put that other two dollars under a lamp. Oh, I was going to come back, you can bet on that, he didn’t scare me any. I wanted to keep my eye on him.

  —

  We stayed there silently for a moment—oddly, she made me feel as though I was intruding on her. I could see her assessing my condition. To forestall any comment, I said, “I don’t like people in this room. It has to be kept private, mine. Other people louse up the atmosphere.”

  “She said she wasn’t supposed to come in here. That’s why I did. It was the only quiet place to wait for you.” She stretched out her blue-jeaned legs. “I didn’t take anything.”

  “It’s a question of vibrations.” At least I did not say “vibes.” Alcohol cheapens the vocabulary.

  “I don’t feel any vibrations. What do you do in here, anyhow?”

  “I’m writing a book.”

  “On what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m stuck anyhow.”

  “A book about other books, I bet. Why don’t you write a book about something real? Why don’t you write a book about something fantastic and important that other people can’t even see? About what’s really going down?”

  “Did you want to see me about anything in particular?”

  “Zack wants to meet you.”

  “Swell.”

  “I told him about you and he was really interested. I said you were different. He wants to know about your ideas. Zack cares a lot about ideas.”

  “I’m not going anywhere today.”

  “Not today. Tomorrow around noon. In Arden. Do you know Freebo’s bar?”

  “I suppose I could find it on a bright day. Did you hear about another of your pals getting killed?”

  “It’s on all the news. Don’t you pay attention to the news?” She blinked, and I saw the fright beneath her pretended indifference.

  “Didn’t you know her?”

  “Sure I did. In Arden you know everybody. Red Sunderson found her body. That’s why old Tuta was so touchy this morning. He saw her in a field off Highway 93.”

  “Jesus.” I remembered how I had treated her, and then I could feel my face begin to burn.

  —

  So the next day I found myself entering the scene of my second disgrace in the company of Alison Updahl. Underage though she was, she sailed through the door as if, given any resistance, she’d knock it down with an ax. By now I of course knew to what extent this was purely a performance, and I admired its perfection. She had more in common with her namesake than I had thought. The bar was nearly empty. Two old men in coveralls sat before nearly full glasses of pale beer at the bar and a man in a black jacket sat at the last booth. The same fleshy grayhaired bartender who had been there yesterday leaned against the wall beside the cash register, surrounded by the flashing sparkling lights and perpetual waterfalls of beer advertisements. His eyes glided over Alison, but he looked at me and nodded.

  I followed her to the booth, watching Zack as we went. His eyes flicked back and forth between us and his mouth was a taut line. He appeared to be charged with enthusiasm. He also looked very young. I recognized the type from my youth in Florida—the misfits who had gathered around gas stations, paying great attention to their hair, cherishing their own failure even then. Dangerous kids, at times. I didn’t know the type was still in style.

  “This is him,” said my cousin’s daughter, meaning me.

  “Freebo,” Zack said, and nodded to the bartender.

  As I sat in the booth facing him I saw that he was older than I had at first taken him for; he was not a teenager but in
his twenties, with those wrinkles embedded in his forehead and at the corners of his eyes. He still had that look of displaced, unlocated enthusiasm. It gave a sly cast to his whole character. He made me very uneasy.

  “The usual, Mr. Teagarden?” asked the bartender, now standing at the side of the booth. Presumably he knew what Zack wanted. He avoided looking at Alison.

  “Just a beer,” I said.

  “He didn’t look at me again,” said the Woodsman after the bartender had turned away. “That really slays me. He’s afraid of Zack. Otherwise he’d throw me out on my butt.”

  I wanted to say: don’t try so hard.

  Zack giggled in the best James Dean fashion.

  The bartender came back with three beers. Alison’s and mine were in glasses, Zack’s in a tall silver mug.

  “Freebo’s thinking of selling this place,” the boy said, grinning at me. “You ought to think about buying it. You could snap it up. Be a good business.”

  I remembered this too: the ridiculous testing. He smelled of carbon paper. Carbon paper and machine oil. “For someone else. I’m about as business-like as a kangaroo.”

  The Woodsman grinned: I was proving whatever it was she’d said about me.

  “Far out. Listen. I think we could talk.”

  “Why?”

  “Because we’re unusual. Don’t you think unusual people have something in common? Don’t you think they share things?”

  “Like Jane Austen and Bob Dylan? Come off it. How do you get your seventeen-year-old girlfriend served in here?”

  “Because of who I am.” He grinned, as though that were both Jane Austen and Bob Dylan. “Freebo and I are friends. He knows what’s in his interest.” I was getting a full dose of his sly enthusiasm. “But almost everybody knows what’s in his interest. The Big One. Right? It’s in our interest to talk, to be seen together, to explore our ideas, right? I know some things about you, Miles. People still talk about you up here. I was knocked out when she said you were back, man. Tell me something. Do people keep laying their trips on you?”

  “I don’t know what that means. Unless it’s what you’re doing now.”

  “Hoo,” Zack uttered softly. “You’re cozy, man. Make ’em work, huh? I can see that, I can dig it. Make ’em work, yeah. You’re deep. You’re really deep. I got a lot of questions for you, man. What’s your favorite book of the Bible?”

  “The Bible?” I said, laughing, spurting beer. “That was unexpected. I don’t know. Job? Isaiah?”

  “No. I mean, yeah, I can dig it, but that isn’t it. Revelations is it. Do you see? That’s where it’s all laid out.”

  “Where what is all laid out?”

  “The plan.” He showed me a big scarred palm, lines of grease permanently printed in it, as though the plan were visible there. “That’s where it all is. The riders on the horses—the rider with the bow, and the rider with the sword, and the rider with the scales, and the pale rider. And the stars fell and the sky disappeared, and it all came down. Horses with lions’ heads and snakes’ tails.”

  I glanced at Alison. She was listening as if to a nursery story—she had heard it a hundred times before. I could have groaned; I thought she deserved so much better.

  “That’s where it says that corpses will lie in the streets, fires, earthquakes, war in heaven. War on earth too, you see? All those great beasts in Revelations, remember? The beast 666, that was Aleister Crowley, you know, Ron Hubbard is probably another one, and then all those angels who harvest the earth. Until there’s blood for sixteen thousand furlongs. What do you think of Hitler?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Well, Hitler had the wrong thing going, you see, he had all this heavy German stuff around him, all that shit about the Jews and the master race—well, there is a master race, but it’s nothing crude like being a whole nation. But he was one of the beasts of Revelations, right? Think about it. Hitler knew that he was sent to prepare us, he was like John the Baptist, see, and he gave us certain keys to understanding, just like Crowley did. I think you understand all this, Miles. There’s like a brotherhood of those who catch on to all this. Hitler was a screwup, right, but he had insight. He knew that everything has to go smash before it can get better, there has to be total chaos before there can be total freedom, there has to be murder before there can be true life. He knew the reality of blood. Passion has to go beyond the personal—right? See, to free matter, to set matter free, we have to get beyond the mechanical to, uh, myth maybe, ritual, blood ritual, to the physical mind.”

  “The physical mind,” I said. “Like the dark seat of passion and the column of blood.” I quoted these catchphrases despairingly. The end of Zack’s tirade had depressingly reminded me of ideas in Lawrence’s writing.

  “Wow,” said Alison. “Oh, wow.” I had impressed her. This time I nearly did groan.

  “I knew it, man,” continued Zack. He was just gleaming at me. “We gotta have more talks. We could talk for centuries. I can’t believe that you’re a teacher, man.”

  “I can’t believe it either.”

  This sent him into such happiness that he slapped Alison on the knee. “I knew it. You know, people used to say all this stuff about you, I didn’t know if I could really believe it all, about the stuff you used to do—I got another question. You have nightmares, don’t you?”

  I thought of being suspended in that blue drifting horror. “I do.”

  “I knew it. You know about nightmares? They show you the revelations? Nightmares cut through the shit to show you what’s really going on.”

  “They show you what’s really going on in the nightmares,” I said. I didn’t want him to analyze my dream-states. I had ordered another two beers while he ranted, and now I asked Freebo for a double Jack Daniels to soothe my nerves. Zack was looking as though oil had come pouring out of his scalp, as though he expected to be either stroked or kicked. His face was wild and skinny, framed by thick sideburns and that complicated ruff of hair. When the whisky came I drank half of it in one gulp and waited for the effect.

  Zack went on. Didn’t I think the situation had to be loosened up? Didn’t I think violence was mystic action? Was selfhood? Didn’t I think the Midwest was where reality was thinnest, waiting for truth to erupt? Didn’t two killings prove that? Couldn’t they make reality happen?

  Eventually I began to laugh. “Something about this reminds me of Alison’s father’s Dream House,” I said.

  “My father’s house?”

  “His Dream House. The place behind Andy’s.”

  “That place? Is that his?”

  “He built it. You must have known that.”

  She was gaping at me. Zack was looking irritated at this interruption in his sermon. “He never said anything about it. Why did he build a place like that?”

  “It’s an old story,” I said, already sorry that I had mentioned the place. “I thought it would have a reputation for being haunted.”

  “No, nobody thinks it’s haunted,” she said, still looking at me with determined curiosity. “Lots of us kids go there. Nobody bothers you there.”

  I remembered the mess of blankets and cigarette butts on the ruined floor.

  Zack said, “Listen, I’ve got plans—”

  “What was it for? Why did he build it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why did you call it his dream house?”

  “It’s nothing. Forget about it.” I could see her begin to look impatiently around the bar, as if to find someone who would tell her all about it.

  “You’ve got to know about my plans—”

  “Well, I’ll find out from someone else.”

  “I’ve been doing some things—”

  “Just forget about it,” I said. “Forget I ever mentioned it. I’m going home now. I have an idea.”

  The bartender was beside us again. “This is an important guy, you know,” he said, putting his hand on my shoulder. “He wrote a book. He’s some kind of artist.”

&nb
sp; “Also,” I said, “I think I’m going to give you some novels. You’ll like them. They’re right up your street.”

  —

  “I considered we might see you in church today.” Duane was still wearing his suit, the old double-breasted pinstripe he had been wearing to church for ten years or more. But the new informality had touched him too: beneath the jacket he wore a tieless open-collared shirt, blue with patterns of lighter blue. Alison must have given it to him. “Do you want some of this? It’s Tuta’s day off over at your place, isn’t it?” He lifted one big hand toward the mess that Alison had left bubbling on the stove—it looked like pork and beans, with too much tomato sauce. Like the general disorder of the kitchen, this too would have riled his mother, who had always prepared gigantic lunches of roasted meat and potatoes boiled so long they crumbled like chalk. When I shook my head no, he said, “You should go to church, Miles. No matter what you believe in, going could help you out in the community.”

  “Duane, it would be the most blatant hypocrisy,” I said. “Does your daughter usually go?”

  “Sometimes. Not always. I reckon she has little enough time to herself, taking care of me and doing for me the way she does around here, so I don’t grudge her some extra sleep on Sunday. Or a couple of hours with a girlfriend.”

  “Like now?”

  “Like now. Or so she says. If you can ever trust a female. Why?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Well, she has to get along to see her friends sometimes. Whoever the hell they are. Anyhow, Miles, this is one day you should have gone.”

  Then I heard the emphasis I should have heard the first time. And wasn’t it unusual that Duane was still wearing his suit an hour after the service? And that he was sitting in his kitchen instead of doing an hour or so of work before lunch?