At Home in the Dark

by Joe Hill

  It was then that Jason noticed Uncle Willy’s sleeves slightly pulled up, and then when he saw the shiny spatulas of scars on the man’s forearms and hands, the webbing of one thumb gone so that the digit looked adhered to the wall of the finger beside it like an odd birth defect.

  The two men, youngish and oldish, sat wordless and watched a tan tabby step along the upper railing of the driftwood fence that separated the Langdon property from its neighbor’s. The cat slowly wheeled its head around and stared, then sat on its haunches near the juncture of two laced limbs and closed its eyes to the sun.

  Jason said, “Alf’s folks said if any of his friends came by I could give them something.” He almost didn’t say it, this strange turkey sitting next to him. But he did. Maybe Jason still wanted to believe in a shred of love.

  “How about the guitar?” Willy asked.

  “It’ll take me a minute,” Jason said. As he stood, the feline on the fence turned its head toward them once more. The “M”-marking typical in the fur of a tabby’s head made it look like the cat was frowning, or grouchy as hell

  Jason walked to the side of the house to his car and got the instrument. It was in a case looking almost as bad as Willy, scraped bald in spots. The man stood when Jason came back to hand it over. He said a scratchy thank you, then turned and stepped down the stone path toward the gate. Jason noticed that a strap on Willy’s left sandal had freed itself of its heel anchor.

  Willy paused before opening the gate. With a forefinger he gave a stroke to a half-open yellow rose. Released, it bounded up, then dipped again; up, and back again. Willy’s fingers stalled it, lightly held it as he inserted his nose in it for a long breathe-in. Then he gave Jason a less excited nod than the one from the rose and said in a voice that sounded scorched, “Tell Grant I came to see him.”

  That shocked Jason. Brought him out of a fugue. The actual connection. This strange man. Alfie’s father’s name. He said, “I will.”

  “Tell him something else.”

  Jason waited.

  “Tell him now we’re even.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You heard me,” Willy said, and thropped the rose again.

  Jason wondered from whose side of the Langdon family this derelict had hailed.

  • • •

  Oh, to hear music, loud music, a means of putting solemn thoughts aside. Jason left the house in Laguna Canyon that he shared with his cousin and headed down to the heart of town. Hotel Laguna was once where movie stars collected to get away from Hollywood. Even Charles Lindbergh lifted shot glasses in the hotel’s Pier Nine Bar. Now the premises were shut down except for a hair salon and something else everyone ignored.

  But along the sidewalks downtown were mini-art galleries, old record shops, tourist flypaper (cards and postcards), and a bakery whose blueberry muffins were the best in the whole known world. Laguna: boasting the Festival of Arts, the anti-uppity-arts Sawdust Festival, the Playhouse, the frequent occasions for chamber music, surfing competitions, tidepool tours, and once-in-an-alley pubs where fools like Jason and Alfie used to go with fake IDs so they, too, could be called, rightly, Lagunatics.

  Jason parked up a hill on Gleneyre and went through the alley behind the library. He headed toward the door of the nightclub with the missing letters that used to spell White House. He already knew that inside he’d find Heather Reston, Alf’s girlfriend, who had not appeared much affected by any of what had gone on only days before. She’d come to the memorial service, of course, and had cried; but not the way you would if you really loved someone, thought Jason. Before this, Jason sort of liked Heather himself. Everything changes when solid earth becomes a bridge of ropes. Who was the “real” anyone? Who knew anything? Was the world really in-fact, in-truth, flat?

  Heather Reston was laughing with two guys and a girl Jason didn’t know seated at a crowded table. She spotted Jason and shouted to him through the noise of a rockabilly band whose drummer whipped sticks fiercely to drive the devil down to Georgia. Heather said something to the others, then began making her way toward Jason as he stood near the bar. When she got blocked, she made a motion with her head to Jason that meant, Go out the back door to talk.

  And he did start outside, but then he saw a guy urge Heather onto the dance floor. “Wait there,” she yelled to Jason. “I’ll be right back!” Nothin’ like a happy drunk girl.

  The dance floor could fit only about twenty people writhing close together. Heather disappeared among them. Jason didn’t know why, but he stayed put, still at the bar when the song ended. He liked seeing her have fun, in spite of himself.

  But Heather didn’t make her way over to him before the next song started. Her dance partner ground to the music in front of her as if she’d already promised the next dance.

  Jason glugged half the beer he ordered before wedging out the back door into the alley. He stood for a moment and then hiked the incline toward his car.

  “Wait up!” Heather called, coming toward him quickly, chattering about what a cool band it was, pulling her blouse away from her chest to cool off. “Shame on me,” she said. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.” She was the type of pretty you see replicated in any beach town, equivalent to a fancy, swirly, narrow-waisted blonde stenciled on a beach towel. Maybe she read it on his face, his condemnation. He kept on walking.

  “Jason, I know what you’re thinking. Like I don’t care what happened to Alfie. That I’m not hurt too. I am. It’s awful. But maybe you’ll understand when you hear what I have to say.” She caught up and put a hand on his arm. He stopped and didn’t make it leave.

  She glanced down, as if to sort her words, then said, “Things weren’t what you think between me and Alf, okay? Alf was my friend. But he wasn’t my boyfriend. He couldn’t ever be my boyfriend, Jason. He . . . he couldn’t be any girl’s boyfriend.”

  Jason stood frozen. Her features were deranged by the overhead sulfur streetlight. It could be Halloween.

  “Think about it, Jason,” she said. “Think about some of the places where he hung out.”

  “What are you talking about?” He focused on his car ahead. The fog had turned it into what you’d see if algae had grown on it underwater for some time.

  He had his car key pointed at the lock, turned it. The locks popped as if that was her cue. “A nightclub named Goldenrod’s, Jason? One called The Gay Blades? You didn’t know that?”

  “You’re bonkers.”

  “It’s the truth. You don’t want to see it, but it is.”

  Jason could smell her perfume, or was it the honeysuckle everywhere? Honeysuckle, around his house too, around the Langdon’s place, Alf’s bedroom window at the bungalow.

  He told her, “Yes, he went to Blades once, with two other friends, just to check it out. He said it was hilarious.”

  “He couldn’t tell you, Jason. He said you wouldn’t be able to deal with it.”

  “First off,” Jason said, pointing a finger at her, “first off, Alf wasn’t gay. Second off, are you saying he would tell you, and not me?”

  She just stood there, her eyes searching his. She looked so damned earnest.

  He went on, waving his hands. “This is Laguna. We had a gay mayor, for Christ’s sakes.”

  “I know, Jason.”

  He jerked the car door open. “Look, it’s no big deal anyway today, gay, straight, kangaroo or . . . or, canary. I guarantee, Alf wouldn’t have been afraid to tell me. Go back to your buddy in there.”

  He slid into the car seat but didn’t shut the door.

  “See?” Heather said. “You made my point. Alfie couldn’t talk to you.” Her hand clutched the top of the car door. “You’re thinking everything’s so out now. But you’re wrong. People still have their prejudices. Even you. Just listen to yourself sometimes, the way you talk.”

  “The way I talk?”

  “I’ve heard you. Faggot. Worse. I don’t even remember. Pinky.”

  “I’ve never heard that one, ever. Therefore, I ne
ver said it.”

  She stood away from the door. “Okay, so I’m wrong. It wasn’t just you Alf was scared of. His dad. He told me once his dad would flip out. I think it just ate and ate at him until he couldn’t take it anymore.” Heather clutched her waist, looked down. “We all should have been better friends.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jason said and started the engine. Heather stepped back, let him shut the door.

  He left her there, standing. She’d be safe enough getting back to the club a block down the hill. What the hell did she know? He’d known Alfie—Al—since forever. “I would have seen the signs,” he said to himself, even as Heather’s words echoed. Didn’t Alf also crack wise about queers? Didn’t he?

  He steamed up the highway, radio loud, other drivers backing off his aggressive driving. Thinking: If Alf—Al—did have a secret and couldn’t tell him, Jason, why would he go and tell Heather Reston, Miss Cheerleader, who hadn’t known Alf but a few months?

  Jason said in the cave of his car, “Maybe you did the right thing, Alfie-o,” and stepped on the gas.

  • • •

  Jason didn’t mean to let the screen door slam shut when Maddy let him in two weeks later. He jumped; she didn’t.

  “You sure it’s okay,” Jason said, “me coming?”

  “We always like to see you, Jason. Want a soda? I just now put on water for tea if you’d rather.” She led him to the kitchen. It was after the dinner hour. The sink was cleaned up.

  “No, nothing, thanks,” Jason said.

  Alf’s dad was sitting at the table, carving up a pear over a small plate. His face lit up, just for a second, then fell into a dullness: a wall, no beginning, no end. He told Jason to take a seat, then said, “We want to say thank you for all . . .” His words failed, and he worked the knife again.

  At the stove, Maddy was lifting the blue teakettle her son had given her last Christmas. There was no tablecloth, when there had always been a tablecloth. No flowers in a vase, when there had always been flowers everywhere, anywhere. Just Grant eating his pear, one unpeeled, narrow slice at a time, and Maddy pouring water in two cups and asking if he wanted cookies; a pear? ice cream?

  He intended to gently ask Al’s parents if they thought their son was gay, maybe ask it to help them hang a reason on his suicide. But he still thought the notion was ridiculous. So instead, what he said was, “Uncle Willy stopped by.”

  Grant laid the knife down, looked at him.

  “I gave him Alfie’s guitar,” Jason said. “That was okay, wasn’t it?”

  “Willy was here?” Grant said almost inaudibly.

  “Did I do wrong? I thought you said . . . I mean, we could probably get it back.”

  Maddy put a cup in front of Jason and one in front of Grant at the end of the table. “It’s not a problem,” she said, glancing quickly at her husband, then going for her own cup on the counter.

  Jason asked, “Willy, now, is whose brother?” looking for resemblance.

  “How’s your landscaping business, hon?” Maddy said. “You didn’t lose work, did you, being gone those few days? You’re not still at the café?”

  “None that mattered,” Jason said. “That guy was his uncle, right?”

  Maddy said, “What’s done is done. Grant, don’t worry about it.” She sat too, and before sipping her tea said, “Chamomile,” looking toward Jason, then at her cup of tea. “I am so tired,” she said to no one.

  A soft moan issued from Grant. Jason had never heard a grownup moan. It scared him. Maddy had her head down, blowing on her tea. Jason said, “I’ll go ask him for it back. Just tell me how to get in touch with him.”

  Maddy reached and lightly touched Jason’s hand, then withdrew and held the cup with all fingers. “There are things that go back a long way,” she said.

  Jason persisted, “I can get it back.” He wondered what else Grant and Maddy would want back that he’d already disposed of.

  “It’ll never be over,” Grant said. “It will go on and on until we die.”

  “Shush!” Maddy said. She stood and moved behind her husband’s chair and put both hands on the back of it. She said softly to Jason, “Maybe we’ll see you later, okay?”

  “Uncle Willy,” Grant said, balling both fists, one with the knife still in it which he was using to cut the pear. “I’ll find him. I’m dead already. What does it matter? We’re both gone, only he just doesn’t know it yet.”

  Alarmed, Jason said, looking at Maddy, “Is that guy really Alf’s uncle?” Maybe . . . maybe he was the one who got Alf to thinking . . . things.

  “He was a friend, once,” Maddy said. “We called him ‘uncle’ for Alfie’s sake.”

  Grant asked, “What did he say? What did he say?”

  Cautiously, Jason answered, “I think he said, ‘Tell Grant now we’re even.’ ”

  “Oh-h!” Grant stabbed the table with the paring knife. As he did, his hand slid down, the blade made slippery from the fruit. He dropped the knife and opened his hand to look. Barely a little blood seeped out. Grant puffed out a laugh, smiling at his own bright blood, then smacked his hand onto the table.

  Transfixed, Jason hoped that when he went to sleep again and awoke the next day the restore point would be the week before.

  Maddy darted to the sink and ran water on a kitchen towel, folded it and wrapped the wound as Grant, eyes shut, tipped his head back, his larynx in spasms.

  “I should leave,” Jason said.

  This family was truly falling apart. He wanted nothing more than to be back with his friend Alf, sitting on a pier, laughing at the moon.

  But he felt an obligation to stay, and so he remained sitting even before Maddy said, “Wait, hon. You deserve an explanation.” She stood behind her husband and stroked his face, covered his eyes with her hands, ran her fingers under his jaw, stroked him like a sculptor forming clay.

  “Don’t,” Grant began, but silenced himself, locked in his own despairing tangle of thoughts.

  “It goes back to when Will Evans and Grant were business partners, a long time ago,” Maddy said, “in Illinois.” She paused to get her breath, drawing a hand over Grant’s forehead. “We worked so hard, all of us, on that business. But it didn’t do any good. We got into terrible financial trouble. Grant thought . . . Jason, you must never tell anyone this.”

  “I swear.”

  “One night, Grant burned down the business. Burned it to the ground. For the insurance.” She moved her husband’s head upright and took her seat again.

  These people were the best people Jason knew. He must have walked into the wrong house, stumbled onto the wrong stage. His own parents had their problems. It’s why he didn’t miss them. But nothing like this.

  Grant’s face changed into a loose sandbag. Maddy continued. “What happened has eaten us up every day of our lives. The world is not what you think, Jason. Someday, if you live long enough, you may do something you never thought possible. I’ll call it by its name. Violation. We thought the insurance money would allow us a second chance, for Will also. I didn’t know about what Grant planned before he did it, but afterward, when he told me, I hid it too, so I’m just as guilty.” Now she waved a hand to the walls. “You fail, you err, you sin, whatever you might call it. What I’m telling you, Jason, is that life plays tricks on us all. You just move on. The only thing is—”

  And here she stopped, raising her chin as she looked away, eyes pitched in sadness. A light over the sink flickered, like a judgment.

  Jason broke in, “Well, gosh, that’s not the worst thing I ever heard. I mean, you know.”

  “Wrong, Jason. You see, the problem was—”

  “Maddy, don’t!” Grant said. He lifted the towel away from his hand, checked, but didn’t stand. “I’m going to bed.”

  “He’s got to know, Grant,” she said, stroking her husband’s shoulder. “We come to the point we have to share the burden. Jason is strong. He is. He’s like a son now, in a way. Or do you want to
talk to Pastor Davis? I don’t.”

  Her husband bowed his head. He set both hands on the chair as though to rise but still didn’t.

  “I guess I should go,” said Jason.

  “I’m not done yet, Jason. Please. Just listen. In the building that burned,” Maddy said, “they found Will’s son. His name was Tommy. He worked there off and on, doing the books. He was supposed to be at home that night with his wife. But he wasn’t. The fire started. Tommy’s wife could see it from their apartment. She phoned Will, and he rushed to try to save Tommy. He went into the building three times. He suffered burns on his arms, his hands, his face and scalp.”

  Grant met Jason’s eyes this time, as he said, “I burned down the building his son died in. I knew he’d come. I didn’t know when. I thought it would be me he’d come after. Me, not Alf! I should have seen it!”

  “Oh my God,” Jason said quietly. “You’ve got to do something about this.”

  Maddy said, “What, Jason? What would you recommend? Think about it.”

  She was there to defend her husband, the one thing she had left, a man torn with unspeakable remorse, grief, shame, and loss.

  “It’s bad enough to lose our son,” Maddy said. “But the real horror, Jason, is that I believe Alfie knew. Maybe he heard us talking. Or maybe Will Evans did reach him and told him the ugly secret. We tried to protect Alfie from that knowledge. But now I believe he knew.”

  “Then, do you think he killed Alf?” Even as he said it, he knew better.

  Maddy said, “The coroner told us no. She said definitely suicide. I just wish I could have known he was so sad, so . . .”

  “I found something,” Jason said. “On Alf’s tablet. Poems. Just a few, but kind of dark. Even music he had on there was moody.” Jason took half a sheet of paper from his pocket. It had been folded and folded again. “I don’t know why I wrote this one down. I guess because it had a recent date. Here, I’ll read it. The title is ‘Companion’.”