Slices

by Michael Montoure

  “I’m not the devil,” he told her, fusing her bones under his touch, “but I’m nearly as old as him and there’s those would say I do the devil’s work, and maybe that’s so, and there’s those that come to me for fame and those that come to me for talent and you I found just wanting your breath to stay in your sweet body and that’s surely something altogether different. No matter what they say I’ve never taken anyone’s soul, never taken anything that wasn’t mine and you’re going to give me what’s mine, all right? You get to live, you get to walk away, and when that moon comes around all sharp again nine times from now you will have yourself two boys, two fine young boys, and one of them will be your perfect angel, everything you ever dreamed, and the other — the other one belongs to me, and on his twelfth birthday, well. On his twelfth birthday, you hand him over to me, is all. You hand one of your boys to me or there will surely be hell to pay.”

  — Lullaby for Two Voices

  SLICES

  MICHAEL MONTOURE

  SECOND EDITION, APRIL 2011

  Copyright © 2011 by Michael Montoure.

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

  Cover photo from www.flickr.com/photos/distill, made available under a Creative Commons License.

  Proofreading by Merchanical Turk.

  www.mturk.com

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: montoure@bloodletters.com

  www.bloodletters.com

  CONTENTS

  Preface

  “Cold Season”

  “One Last Sunset”

  “Remake”

  “Rest Areas”

  “Daddy’s Girls”

  “Life Story”

  “Only Monsters”

  “Lullaby for Two Voices”

  “Orpheus”

  “Watch the Coin”

  “Lost Boy”

  “Puppets”

  “The Thirteenth Boy”

  “Counterclockwise”

  PREFACE

  Come here. You trust me, don’t you? Take my hand. We’re going to jump.

  I’ve been watching for years as writing and publishing have changed. They were already changing when I first started paying attention to writer’s guidelines for magazines and publishing houses — don’t use a dot-matrix printer, they were saying, don’t use fan-fold printer paper — struggling to keep up with changing technology, with tools that were cutting edge for the time and have already gone the way of the telegraph. Years later, it was don’t send your submissions via e-mail, editors prefer a paper copy. I don’t think that one’s true any more.

  Most of these changes were easy to keep up with. One of them wasn’t.

  Back in 1987, back when I was still having to try to explain to most of my friends what “e-mail” was, personal computers had already changed the way writers worked, forever. Word processors meant that writers could painlessly work through multiple drafts without retyping everything. Desktop publishing software had transformed the humble fanzine — amateur magazines — from the realm of typewritten mimeographed pages to slickly-produced, almost professional-quality layouts.

  I put out a fanzine myself, with fan fiction based on my favorite TV shows. (Smile if you like. But keep in mind that in the whole long tradition of storytelling, from Greek myths through Shakespeare through King Arthur and Robin Hood, this whole notion that you can’t tell stories about certain characters because someone else owns them is a very modern one — and to my mind, a very strange one.) I wrote stories, did the layouts, handled the printing and the distribution.

  But even while I was doing it, as modern as the technology I was using was, it felt immediately old-fashioned and outdated. Because while I was shuffling pieces of paper around, I was also posting those same stories online, on the Internet — and reaching an audience that was literally global.

  I knew the Internet wouldn’t continue to be the domain of geeks and academics forever. It was going to change the world, and it was certainly going to transform publishing. I loved the printed page, but, if writers could now get their words before the eyes of readers all over the world in seconds, what was going to happen to books?

  I waited anxiously to find out. I’m still waiting.

  I’ve been staring at this carousel as it’s been spinning faster and faster, looking for the right time to jump on. I suppose I’ve been hoping that some New Normal would emerge out of it all — some business model, some distribution system, that everyone would point to and say, this, this is the way we do things now, and then that’s what I’d do. That doesn’t really look like it’s going to happen any time soon.

  Print-on-demand kept catching my attention. It was an incredibly promising idea — no spending years shopping your manuscript around, hoping it gets noticed and appreciated by editors and agents, only to have your book disappear back out-of-print after its moment in the sun, unsold stock remaindered or stripped and thrown away. But for years, there were two problems with it all.

  First, the books were terrible. I don’t mean the contents (although those frequently were terrible, too), but the books themselves — cheap paper, poor print quality, flimsy binding, covers that creased and peeled apart. This is finally changing — the technology is catching up to the promise.

  Second, there was their reputation. Print-on-demand was no better than vanity press — it didn’t count. This was what frustrated me the most. Artists who sold their work directly to the public were entrepreneurs; musicians who survived without a label were hailed for their DIY punk spirit; “indie” comics artists who published their own work were treated like heroes by their fans. But a writer, self-publishing? Obviously a loser who wasn’t good enough to really get published.

  But all that finally seems to be changing as well. I keep hearing about writers who are pushing the boundaries of how to get their work into the hands of their readers — Elizabeth Bear, Catherynne M. Valente, Scott Sigler, many others to numerous to mention — and no one seems to think any less of them for doing it.

  Is it safe to jump? There’s space to land, just there, and I can grab that bar, loop my hand through that strap, I might just be able to hold on —

  But I’ve still been standing here, keeping my feet on solid ground — because I keep walking into these huge bookstores and thinking, man, somebody’s getting published, still. No matter how hard everyone says it is, all these people are still getting published. And I still want it. I still want to be a “real” writer, whatever that means, and I want to walk into one of these big box stores and see my book on some big colorful cardboard end cap display. Soon to be a major motion picture.

  Well, maybe. It could still happen. And it’s starting to look like I could do both — like publishers just might not think a writer’s become tainted and ruined and untouchable if they’ve dabbled in self-publishing. And I don’t know about you, but whenever I’m presented with two tempting options — I do like to choose both of them, whenever possible.

  All these years, while waiting and watching, I’ve been telling stories. Reading them aloud at coffeeshops and science-fiction conventions. I became almost more interested in the readings themselves than in the idea of getting my stories out there in print — I love the performance, I love the immediacy of the audience reaction, I love how much it’s taught me about language and about the sound and meter and rhythm of my words.

  Some of my words ended up in print anyway. I have had one book of original short fiction published, by a small start-up publishing house that never quite found a distributor for it. That book, Counting From Ten, does have a small but intense fan-base of people who have purchased it from me in person, or on-line. (And this would be
a great time to mention that you can get a copy yourself, if you like, at my website, www.bloodletters.com. )

  Those fans, my readers and listeners, have been asking for years — when will you have another book out?

  I haven’t known what to tell them. While I’m not sorry about releasing Counting From Ten, I don’t think I’d want to go the small-press route again — not one that didn’t have an established distributor, at least. But I just didn’t think I’d have a chance with a larger publisher. Not with my short stories, at any rate.

  Short fiction has, for whatever reason, kind of dwindled in value in the publishing marketplace over the last few years. Magazines devoted to short fiction are slowly disappearing. And selling a single-author anthology of short fiction, like this one, to a major publisher is — from what I hear — practically impossible, unless you already have an established following. Nobody’s interested in short fiction anymore, the argument goes.

  So when I first published this book, I had finally come to a decision — I know people who are interested, why not take my short fiction directly to them, and save my novel-length fiction for a more conventional approach to getting published?

  It felt like the right decision. It was certainly a simple, clean decision, probably the best way to jump into two worlds at once. Hedging my bets.

  That was just a few short months ago. Long enough that it feels like the world has changed completely.

  Those big-box bookstores I mentioned earlier? Borders just filed for bankruptcy. A few weeks back I went to one for their everything-must-go clearance sale, picking over what’s left on the shelves. (Even the shelves were on sale.) I felt strongly ambivalent about the experience — any bookstore's death diminishes me, to misquote Dunn; but I also felt a rush of excitement, realizing I could be watching history change around me, seeing the start of a shift away from traditional publishing models. I felt kind of like a small mammal scurrying under the footsteps of dinosaurs as the climate shifts around us.

  Self-publishing is definitely starting to take off in a big way. Authors with years of publishing experience behind them are starting to make their backlist available through Amazon’s Kindle store. There are others doing the same thing who have never even submitted their works to a traditional publisher at all — and some of them are starting to become widely known, are even actually making a living, by skipping the middle-man and selling their fiction directly to the public.

  It’s not easy. No one’s promising that. To be able to do all this yourself, you have to be not just a writer — but also an editor, graphic designer, and publicist. Fortunately, these are all things that appeal to me. You don’t have to be a control freak to want to handle all this by yourself — but I have to say, it sure doesn’t hurt.

  So I think it’s probably time to lose the safety net and try it myself. After I make this book available on the Kindle, I’m going to see if I can get the rights back for Counting From Ten and get that on-line next. And after that, I’m going to give Still Life — the novel that grew out of my short story “One Last Sunset,” featured in these pages — one more good, solid revision, and put it up on-line as well.

  After all, people have told me for years — you should do what scares you. So now you know. Doing this scares me.

  I hope this book will scare you, as well.

  Michael Montoure

  April, 2011

  COLD SEASON

  To hear her tell it, you’d think she was dying.

  I’m sitting in my hotel, ten blocks from the hospital, in a room I can’t afford. It’s all going on one of the credit cards, just like the flight out here. I’m flipping channels, eyes keep drifting shut. Nothing on — late night news, heads in suits talking back and forth about the economy, about the Middle East. To hear them tell it, everything’s ending, whole world’s sick.

  I’ve been at the hospital for the past eight hours, sitting by Mom’s bed and listening to her complain. I haven’t spent any real time with her in about five years and these eight hours reminded me why.

  She’s fine. She’s going to be fine. She slipped on an icy sidewalk and broke her leg. I wouldn’t have come all the way out here for that if she’d told me why she was in the hospital.

  She thinks she’s sick. She always thinks she’s sick. She thinks she looks pale and is complaining about dark circles under her eyes, but she looks fine to me. She’s coughing and keeps telling me she’s got a fever. I saw a nurse take her temperature and it was ninety-eight-point-six, so she’s just faking again.

  No, that’s not fair. She believes it, I’m sure she does. Even when she comes up with the weirdest shit. She was even telling me her tongue felt swollen, if that makes any sense to you.

  Jerked back awake — drifted off, hand holding the remote dropping onto the bed and startling me. TV looks blurry through sleep-watery eyes. They’re talking about — wait —

  I sit up and turn up the volume. I heard something about quarantine. Something about the Center for Disease Control.

  Something’s wrong with the TV. Static around the edges and voices distorted, echoing. There’s a map on the screen, red circles around the city, white noise like a million bees droning —

  Eyes snap open again. Drifted off. There’s an ad for some medicine now — smiling woman in a green meadow, sunlight streaming down. Doesn’t say what it’s for. Ask your doctor if it’s right for you.

  I flip through the channels, trying to find the news report again, but there’s nothing. Just dreaming. I turn off the TV and toss the remote aside. I want to turn out the light, but I’m too tired to lean over and do it. I close my eyes again and try to ignore it.

  Ask your doctor. Talking to her’s got me dreaming about sickness. Tomorrow I’d be talking to her doctor — I’ve talked to her nurse a few times, but she doesn’t really seem to know much. Maybe the doctor could tell me if there really was anything wrong with her this time.

  I’m on a bus the next day and I wish to God I had money to rent a car or even get a taxi. I’d walk, but it’s too damn cold out. Cold enough it feels like it would snow if the air weren’t so dry. People around me are bundled up, thick drab coats and scarves. I hear lots of sniffling, muffled coughs. Guy across the aisle from me keeps coughing, staring out the window blankly. God, I keep thinking, if you’re that sick, just stay home. Or at least cover your mouth when you cough. How do you get to be a grown-up without someone teaching you that?

  Maybe if you don’t grow up with a mother who’s a germ-freak, I guess. Someone who wipes doorknobs down with Lysol and washes her hands fifty times a day, tries to make you do the same. Always making me wear a sweater or a coat when she felt cold, warning me about every cold or flu that was going around. And I always caught them all, dammit.

  The staff at the hospital seem busy and stressed. They look like they haven’t slept and I feel like I haven’t, either — I got at least eight hours, but none of it very deep. I see nurses in huddled quiet conversations in doorways, jumping when they see me near. I didn’t think I looked that bad.

  “So what is wrong with her?” I ask, when I finally do see her doctor.

  Mom’s asleep, fitfully, a frown creasing her forehead. The doctor looks sharply down at her, pauses a moment before he answers.

  “Honestly? Nothing. Aside from her leg, she’s perfectly healthy. And the leg is looking good — X-rays confirm that the reduction was successful, and her bone alignment is looking just fine.”

  “She says she’s sick. She says the leg isn’t why she’s really here.”

  The doctor shakes his head. “We thought from what she said at first that she might also have some kind of respiratory ailment, but we haven’t seen any actual symptoms. She’s been coughing, but frankly, we think she’s, well — ”

  “Faking it,” I say.

  “Well, yes.”

  “She’s always done this. Jesus.” I screw my eyes shut and rub my forehead for a minute. “So is she going to be able to go home soon?” What I rea
lly meant was, am I going to be able to go home soon?

  “We’ll see how her progress with the leg goes. And — well, we’d like to keep her here for observation for a while longer.”

  “ … You just said there’s nothing wrong with her.”

  He looks up at me, and all the warmth is gone from his eyes. He smiles blandly. “Well, it’s best to be sure about these things.”

  That’s all he has to say about it. I try asking him some more questions, but it’s like talking to voice mail.

  I give up and go back to the hotel. There’s a homeless guy slumped over on the bench in the bus shelter and I don’t want to sit next to him. I don’t really want to get back on the bus again, close myself in with all those people, even though it’s raining — I just pull my coat tight around myself and start walking. Catch your death of cold, Mom would say. I smile tightly at the thought.

  Some newspaper blows across the sidewalk in front of me, and I catch just a couple words of headline: “hospitals baffled.” I reach out and try to grab it, but it’s gone.

  I take the coins I was going to use for the bus and buy a newspaper instead. The edges of the newspaper box feel wet and sharp and unpleasant under my cold fingers. I take the newspaper back with me to the hotel and read it cover to cover, but there’s nothing.

  I fall asleep with the TV on. I wake up at some nameless hour and watch the colors of the screen spill across the ceiling, and remember how I’d fall asleep to the TV sometimes when I was little, when I was home sick, and I'd wake up in the middle of the night to the Star-Spangled Banner and some old film of a flag blowing in the wind, telling you the day was over and it was long past time to go to bed. That was back when days used to end, before CNN and infomercials, before all our days bled right into each other.