Fool on the Hill

by Matt Ruff

  “Good boy!” George cried, as the dog took off at a run. He did not know as he followed that the tracking job was an impossible task, for as with most other things, leaving a scent was optional with Calliope. In fact at that moment the last traces of her presence were being erased: back at the house the bed regained some of its springiness, forgetting the extra weight of the past few months; the bathroom mirror lost all memory of the Lady’s perfect image; no longer did the walls and ceilings recall the echo of her laughter, nor the floors the tread of her delicate feet. Her entire stay was, in sum, Removed.

  Wholly unaware of this, George chased the dog up to the spot where Calliope had last stood—receiving more scattered applause and awed looks until he had got some distance from the Straight—and Luther, glancing back and seeing the hopeful determination on the man’s face, kept running on a more or less random course. For nearly half an hour they raced about in this way—it began to snow around the fifteen-minute mark—until somewhere in the vicinity of the Veterinary College Luther stumbled across, of all things, an abandoned soup bone, which he affectionately presented to George.

  “WHAT!?” the storyteller cried, realizing his folly. “You brought me to a bone? You think I’m hungry?"

  Luther was hurt by the venom of this reaction, but his distress could not match the Hurt that swelled in George. The enormity of his loss struck him like a hammer blow, driving him first to his knees and then flat out against the cold earth. Still not understanding but wanting to help, Luther came forward to lick George’s ear, which did nothing at all to ease the pounding of blood in the storyteller’s temples.

  When my job is done I’ll leave, without warning, and then you’ll want to die . . .

  That was just right; that was exactly right. In this weakest of moments George broke his own rule and despaired, though as Calliope had also foretold, he was not going to be allowed to surrender.

  He went back to his house—yelling at the dog when it tried to follow him—and broke a large amount of furniture. This was no random act of destruction; George could sense Calliope’s Absence, and punished the chairs, tables, and other furnishings as conspirators. He took a special lingering delight in trashing the mirror in the bathroom, but did not touch the bed, surmising that he would have enough trouble trying to sleep tonight without tearing up the mattress.

  When there was more debris than he could stand he went out again, neglecting to take a coat although an inch of snow now lay on the ground and more was coming down every minute. In a well of self-pity he descended The Hill to The Ithaca Commons, thinking he would never recover from this.

  Yet George’s despair did not remain pure for very long. Even in Hell, common sense and optimism sometimes find a voice. As he entered The Commons he saw that the outdoor clock/thermometer read 25°, and a small rational segment of his addled brain spoke up. Not wise to be out in this wearing just a shirt, it said. All chest-beating aside, you don’t really want to die, do you? The rest of his brain ignored the question, but he had barely gone ten yards when his body was racked with chills—Aha! You can feel physical discomfort—that nearly doubled him over.

  A poor man who happened to be gazing wistfully through a store window took note of George’s plight and went to help him. The poor man had on three overcoats one atop the other, all ragged, and he offered the outermost coat to George. The storyteller thought to run away at first, not wanting this act of kindness which infringed on his sense of abandonment, but the shivers were so bad he could barely stand up straight, much less run. Before he knew what was happening the poor man had draped the coat over his shoulders, saying: “There, there you go. Merry Christmas early, OK?”

  The coat stank but it was warm, and at the feel of that warmth George’s hands betrayed him. He reached into his pockets, taking out all his money—better than three hundred dollars—and giving it to the poor man in a crumpled ball. His lips betrayed him, too. “Merry Christmas early,” they said.

  The poor man’s face lit up like a sunburst, much to George’s chagrin.

  “Oh Jesus,” he said, counting the bills. “Oh Jesus, are you sure?"

  “I’m sure,” George muttered. Finding he had strength to move, he did so.

  “Hey!” the poor man called after him. “Hey, can I at least buy you a beer

  or something?”

  “No thanks!” George called back, desperate to escape.

  “Well hey, you take care, OK? Can’t thank you enough for this . . . Merry Christmas!”

  The last thing George heard him say was “Holy shit, Oral Roberts was right,” and then he rounded a corner and was free. But the poor man’s generosity had done its damage—try as he might, George could not return to his state of despair. Instead he paused by a plate glass window and was berated by his own reflection.

  “You ass,” his reflection said. “What do you think you’re doing out here in the snow? Go home, have some tea. Break a few more things if you can’t help yourself. But cut the crap; frozen you’ll look even dumber than Romeo did.”

  His sense of self-preservation restored, George could not ignore this advice. He remained more depressed than he had ever been in his life, but with a reluctant surge of optimism he began to suspect that he might learn to cope, after all.

  Drawing the ratty, smelly coat tightly around himself, he headed back up The Hill to his house.

  By way of The Boneyard.

  II.

  It was to see the stone that he went that way, the stone hand-hewn in memory of an infant child who had entered and left the world on the same day.

  HERE LIES ALMA RENAT JESSOP

  BORN APRIL 23, 1887

  DIED APRIL 23, 1887

  HER FATHER LOVED HER

  What possessed him to come stand in ankle-deep snow and stare at this rock he could not say, not at first. Certainly Alma Jessop’s father must have suffered a great deal of pain, but it was not really analogous to George’s torment; one did not mourn a dead child and grieve over the loss of a lover in the same way. Although both might lead one down the path of despair. . . .

  April, she had died. April could still be a very cold month in Ithaca, though it was certainly not the best month for dying of exposure. A depressed person would have a better bet walking along the edge of one of the gorges and “accidentally” falling in. Of course the man Jessop had done neither; hand-making his daughter’s tombstone had probably kept him too occupied to even consider suicide.

  Yes. That was it; that was the key. An act of creation in the face of loss. George was no carver of tombstones, but he could channel the Hurt into a story. Yes, how simple: A story about the perfect woman . . . and the Fool who fell in love with her. He could start writing as soon as he got home; like the bed, he had been careful not to harm his typewriter during the furniture-smashing rampage. Now it no longer mattered if he could not sleep tonight; he would write until plain exhaustion took him.

  Heart aching but excited as well now, he turned from Alma Renat Jessop with new purpose. A book, another book, that was it: to ease the Hurt.

  He meant to go straight home now, but his feet led him to the far north end of The Boneyard by force of habit. So preoccupied was he with thoughts of this Calliope-novel that he did not notice he was going the wrong way until he had gotten there, to a place where all the tombstones sagged or leaned away from a central point, like the petals of a grey flower.

  “Ah, Pandora!” he exclaimed, after a moment’s disorientation. He called himself a dunce and a few other things, though now that he was here he could not resist taking a look at the stone. He bent down and brushed aside the snow where he thought it should be, but uncovered only bare earth. He straightened up, took a step back, and his foot found the stone, skidding on the surface of the slippery marble square. George’s balance went right out from under him, and after some half-hearted pinwheeling of his arms he fell over backwards.

  Typical, he thought on the way down. Then his head struck the side of one of the sagging tombs
tones and he blacked out, his coat hanging open in front, snow continuing to fall on his prone form like ash.

  Uncovered, the white marble square flashed its single word at the sky:

  PANDORA

  Beneath the frozen earth, something chuckled.

  DEUS EX MACHINA

  I.

  Once again Mr. Sunshine sat at a Typewriter. There was still chaos in Chicago, but it was getting a little dull; time, maybe, to hand that Manuscript over to the Monkeys and move “Fool on The Hill” to his Desk. Right now, though, he was going to have to think quickly if he wanted the Fool’s Story to continue at all.

  “George, George, George . . .” Mr. Sunshine shook his head. “What is your problem? I give you an extra shot of optimism to make sure you don’t get suicidal and instead you have an accident. Are you trying to ruin my Story?”

  A sudden thought . . . Mr. Sunshine glanced suspiciously at the Monkey standing beside him. It did not glance back.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” Mr. Sunshine promised. “But for the moment . . . we need a fast save here. Hades, Hades, Hades, what am I going to do?”

  He started with what he knew best, reviewed the other major Plots in the Story, checked where the Characters were. And smiled.

  “Of course,” he said. “Of course. Man—and Fool’s—best friend. Simple. I like that.”

  Luther . . .

  he began to Type.

  II.

  “I’m telling you, Blackjack, he made the wind blow, and I guess you could say the storm is his, too.”

  “Luther, I am drowning in a snowbank. Stop talking nonsense and help me out.”

  “It isn’t nonsense, Blackjack. It really happened. Oh, I wish you could have been there to help me understand what he was saying, afterwards. He seemed very disappointed in me.”

  “I don’t care, Luther,” said the Manx, struggling against the white drift that lay piled up around him. “Help me.”

  “Sure, Blackjack, I’ll help you. I just wish—”

  A sudden gust of wind.

  “Luther?”

  “Oh no,” the mongrel cried. “No, that mustn’t happen.”

  “What mustn’t happen?”

  “He’s in trouble, Blackjack. I’ve got to go help him before it’s too late.”

  “Help who? Luther, I’m in trouble too, remember?”

  “You’ll get out all right, Blackjack. If you don’t I’ll be back to help you. But I’ve got to go, he’s freezing."

  “Luther! Luther!"

  III.

  George knew that he must be dead, or dying, for he floated in a formless void, and there before him rose the image of the woman he loved, the woman he had thought forever lost. If death meant being reunited with her, he decided, he would not resist its embrace.

  “No,” Calliope said, reading his mind as she had always read his mind. “You can’t give up, George. Dying won’t get you what you want, or what you think you want.”

  “I want you,” George told her, speaking through lips of ice. “I want to be with you.”

  “But I’m not even real. I’m only a dream you had.”

  “You are real. I touched you with my own hands. I made love to you.”

  “You made love to a dream. Have I ever lied to you, George? Then remember what I told you: Whoever you love will be just like me. Any woman seen through love’s eyes is as perfect as you thought me to be.”

  “No,” George said. “There’s no one like you.”

  “They’re all like me, George, if you see with your heart. But some of them stay.”

  “Why . . . why are you leaving me?”

  “I told you, I’m a dream. Dreams have to end eventually.”

  “Why did you come in the first place?”

  “More reasons than you can know. In the end it’s all for the Story. That’s what you should be worrying about. Not about me, not about love. Love is just part of the Plot.”

  Many more questions he had for her, and a good-bye to say, but now she began to drift toward him, arms outstretched.

  One last kiss, he thought, blissfully. but it was a harsh kiss, alien and sloppy; the void turned over twice, depositing him in a cold graveyard with a dog licking his face.

  “Whuh—” He tried to sit up, snow sliding off his coat, and pain shot him through. A good sign, perhaps, for pain signifies that flesh and bone are still hanging in there, fighting. His feet, though, he could not feel his feet, and the same was true of his fingers, though when he tried to flex them they moved, the knuckles giving a slight twinge.

  “Warm,” George mumbled, his tongue not cooperating. “Need warm.” Luther actually understood this—or maybe it was only a lucky coincidence—and offered to share his own body warmth by leaping on George’s chest. The dog felt warm, all right, but even his slight weight was enough to push the storyteller back down, nearly smacking his head against the tombstone a second time.

  My head . . . his skull throbbed; he felt the back of his scalp with the heel of his hand and discovered a crusty mess that must have been dried or frozen blood. Not good. Could he have suffered a concussion? The mere thought made him dangerously weary, and he realized he had to get out of this place quickly or remain until the spring thaw. He shoved the dog off him as gently as possible and somehow managed to stand, the muscles in his ankles giving a satisfactory scream.

  Walking uphill out of The Boneyard was one of the hardest things George ever did. He seemed to stumble as often as take a step, and the tombstones arranged themselves in an obstacle course, conspiring to trip him up. On the positive side, however, the snow had stopped falling, while the wind came up behind him, helping him along. Luther helped him as well; twice George slipped and fell, and twice the dog nipped, butted, and barked at him until he struggled back to his feet and got going again.

  A small eternity later he emerged onto the sidewalk on Stewart Avenue, head reeling. He heard a voice calling his name from the other side of the street and looked up, expecting to see yet another vision of Calliope. Instead he saw a blond Christian Princess, tiny cross clasped to her throat, her right hand resting briefly on the hood of a snow-covered Volkswagen. Concern creased her brow and she was very beautiful.

  “Borealis,” George greeted her, finding her simpler first name too much of a chore to pronounce.

  “George, are you all right?” she asked him. He looked like death. Noticing that he was swaying like a giddy flagpole, she stepped off the curb and began crossing over to help him; Luther, barking excitedly, rushed out to meet her in the middle of the street.

  The silver Rolls came barreling at them from the left. The Greek behind the wheel—a frat boy but not a Rat boy—was more than a little wasted, driving on bald tires, and lacked the basic skill necessary to make an emergency stop even under better conditions. It should have ended in a manslaughter, but George saw the car bearing down out of the corner of his eye. In the brief second when he realized what was about to happen, he felt a surge of indignation and the same sense of control that he had had in front of the Straight.

  “Uh-uh,” George said, and a whirlwind exploded up around the woman and the dog, obscuring them and the offending Rolls in a funnel of snow and ice. When this cleared, Aurora and Luther remained untouched where they had stood, but the Rolls lay on its roof some ten yards farther on, its driver scrunched upside-down and looking more than a bit startled.

  A good trick, but it robbed George of the last of his strength. With a smile he collapsed once more, felt soft hands touch the back of his neck, and slept in darkness until the doctors over at Gannett Health Clinic thawed him out.

  IV.

  “Good,” said Mr. Sunshine, relaxing a bit. “Better, at any rate. If he can handle himself as well as he handles the air around him, there might be a decent Climax in this after all.”

  He stood up, letting the Story carry itself for a while. Mr. Sunshine was decided—he would move this Manuscript to his Writing Desk in place of “Absolute Chaos.” But firs
t he had to get something.

  SETTING THINGS UP

  I.

  The nearest available vehicle, an Ithaca Sunshine Cab, took George up to Gannett. Though he came in as an unconscious human Popsicle, they soon revived him, and in no time at all he had regained sufficient strength to argue with his doctor. For in New York City, where George had grown up, a patient is discharged from the hospital as soon as he can walk, often within an hour or two of admittance; at Gannett, even though a head X-ray showed no skull fracture, they wanted to keep him overnight for observation. This was kind, thoughtful, and probably proper procedure as well, but in George’s present frame of mind it only seemed stupid.

  “So you think it’s stupid, do you?” The doctor held up the tattered coat George had gotten from the poor man. “Is this all you were wearing in twenty-degree weather?”

  Under a strong light the coat looked pitifully thin, and George got the point: he was not in a position to judge stupidity. Unfortunately, he was also not in a mood to spend a night in Gannett. He had as a roommate a pneumonia-struck graduate student who did nothing but stare catatonically at the latest Soldier of Fortune magazine, which made George decidedly nervous and got him wondering if he might just slip out through some window and escape.

  About an hour after nightfall, however, his spirits took a sudden lift. Aurora Smith had entered the room, and though George did not recognize it as the source of his relief, for half an instant the sight of her made him forget Calliope. Oh, there was more to it than that, to be sure: she had ridden up with him in the patrol cab, cradling his wounded head in her lap, and though he did not remember this some part of him did; knowledge of the gentleness in her, that too helped him smile.