by Ellen Datlow
Startled, she pulled away. He apologized, but she said, “No, it’s okay. Really!” But she was flustered. At any minute, he thought, he would hear her say she had to go.
She stared into her glass for such a long time, Shellane grew uncomfortable. Then, her tone suddenly forceful, she said, “I could write a hundred stories about the lake. Every day it has a different mood. I never wanted to live anywhere else.” She glanced up at him. “You like it here, too, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but I couldn’t live here.”
“Why not?”
“It’s complicated,” he said after a pause.
She laid her palms flat on the table and studied their shapes against the dark wood; then she pushed up to her feet. “May I use your restroom?”
She was so long in the bathroom, Shellane began to worry. The water had been running ever since she went in. What could she be doing? Effecting an ornate suicide? Praying? Changing into animal form? He considered asking if she was okay, but decided this was too much solicitude.
Wind jiggled the latch, and a bough scraped the roof. He stretched out his legs, his eyelids drooped, and he pictured Grace with the glass raised to her lips, the tawny whiskey and the coppery color of her hair blended by lamplight. He failed to notice the sound of the bathroom door opening, but heard her step behind him. Her face was scrubbed and shining. She was holding a bath towel in front of her, but let it drop to the side. Her breasts were high and small, strawberry-tipped; the pearly arcs of her hips framing a tuft of coppery flame. Her eyes locked onto his.
“I’d like to stay,” she said.
THERE CAME A point during the night, with the wind sharking through the trees, rattling the cabin as if it were a sackful of bones, knifing through the boards to sting Shellane’s skin with cold … there came a point when he understood that he understood nothing, either of the world or the ways of women, not even the workings of his own heart. Or maybe understanding was not the key he had thought it was. Maybe it only functioned to a point, maybe it explained everything except the important things, and they were in themselves like the underside of a cloud, part of an overarching volume impossible to quantify from an earthbound perspective. Maybe everything was that simple and that complex. Whatever the architecture and rule of life, whatever chemistry was in play, whatever rituals of pain and loneliness had nourished the moment, it was clear they were not just fucking, they were making love. Grace was like a river running through his arms, supple and easy, moving with a sinewy eagerness, as if new to each bend and passage of their course. The wind drove away the clouds, the fog. Moonlight slipped between the curtains and she burned pale against the sheets, announcing her pleasure with musical breaths. Coming astride him, she appeared to hover in the dimness, lifting high and then her hips twisting cleverly down, face hidden by the fall of her hair. At times she spoke in a whisper so faint and diffuse, it seemed a ghostly sibilance arising from her skin. She would say his name, the name she thought was his, and he would want to tell her his true name, to reveal his secrets; but instead, he buried his mouth in her flesh, whispering endearments and promises that though he meant them, he could never keep. At last, near dawn, she fell asleep and he lay drifting, so exhausted he felt his soul was floating half out of his body, points of light flaring behind his lids, the afterimages of his intoxication.
He must have slept a while, for the next he recalled, she was stirring in his arms. The sun sliced through the curtains, painting a golden slant across the shadow of her face. Her eyelids fluttered and she made a small, indefinite noise.
“Morning,” he said.
Anxiety surfaced in her face, but stayed only a moment. “I wasn’t sure …” she murmured.
“Sure about what?”
“Nothing.” After a second or two, she sat up, holding the sheet to her breasts, looking about the room in bewilderment, as if amazed to find herself there.
“You all right?” he asked.
She nodded, settled back onto the pillow. Her eyes, lit by the sun, were weirdly bright, like glowing coins. He turned her to face him, laying a hand on her hip. A tear formed at the corner of her left eye.
“What’s this?” he asked, wiping it away.
Her expression was almost clownishly dolorous. She took his hand and placed it between her legs so he could feel the moistness there, then pushed into his fingers, letting him open her.
“Jesus, you’ll be the death of me,” he said.
AFTER SHE HAD gone, making another of her sudden exits, leaving before he could determine what she wanted or be reassured as to what she felt, Shellane went down to the shore and rested against the old glacial boulder. His thoughts were images of Grace. Her face close to his. How she had looked above him, her hair flipped all to one side in violent toss, like the flag of her pleasure, head turned and back arched as she came. A presentiment of trouble, of Broillard and what he might do, called for his attention, but he was not ready to consider that question. He believed he could handle Broillard—he had handled far worse. The Mitsubishi warehouse in Brooklyn. The New Haven bank job. He recalled a mansion they’d broken into in upstate New York, going after an art collection. An old Nathaniel Hawthorne sort of house with secret rooms and hidden passages. A billionaire’s antique toy. The security system had been no problem, but the house was full of eighteenth-century perils they could never have anticipated, the most daunting being a subterranean maze. One man had been skewered by a booby trap, but Shellane had succeeded in unraveling the logic of the maze and they managed to escape with the art. If he could deal with that, he could take care of Mister Endless Fucking Blue Stars.
He chuckled at the brutal character of his nostalgia.
Memories.
He had been hoping Grace would return, but several hours passed and she did not. Around noon, the blue Cadillac roared past the cabin on its way toward Champion, Broillard off to spend the -afternoon at the Gas ’n Guzzle, and Shellane headed along the shore toward Grace’s house. He stood on the beach below the place for several minutes, uncertain about approaching. At length he climbed the slope and peeked through the picture window. She was sitting on the carpet with her back toward him, legs drawn up beneath her. Her shoulders were shaking, as with heavy sobs. He had not taken notice of the furniture before—ratty secondhand stuff in worse shape than the pieces in his cabin. Clothing strewn on the floor. A plate of dried pasta balanced on the arm of the sofa. Piles of compact discs and magazines. Empty pizza boxes, McDonald’s cartons, condom wrappers. Your basic rock-and-roll decor. He went to the door and knocked. No answer. He pushed on in. She did not look up.
“It’s me,” he said.
She sat staring straight ahead, strands of coppery hair stuck to her damp cheeks.
“Come on.” He extended a hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
She did not move; her expression did not change.
He dropped to his knees. “What’s he say to you?” he asked. “That you’re ugly … stupid? That you don’t have a clue? You can’t believe that.”
A damp heat of despondency radiated from her. It was as if she were steeped in the emotion, submerged beneath it like a statue beneath a transparent lake.
“You’re beautiful,” he said. “You know things with your heart most people don’t have names for. I can tell that of you … even after just one night.” Though he did believe this of her, what he said rang false to his ears, as if it were a line he had learned to recite and had chosen to believe.
She began to cry again, silently, her shoulders heaving. Shellane felt incompetent in the face of her despair. He wanted to put an arm around her, but sensed she wouldn’t want to be touched.
“Is it guilt you’re feeling?” he asked. “About last night?”
He might not have been there for all the attention she gave him. He remained kneeling beside her for a short while and then asked if she wanted him to go.
It seemed that she nodded.
“All right.” He got to his feet. “I’ll b
e at the cabin.” He crossed to the door, hesitated. “We can get past this, Grace.”
Once outside, he recognized the idiocy of that statement. She was not going to leave with him—he knew that in his bones. Even if she would, he had no desire to drag her along through the shooting gallery of his life. Anger at Broillard grew large in him. Back at the cabin, he paced back and forth, then flung himself into the Toyota and drove toward town at an excessive rate of speed. He parked in the Gas ’n Guzzle lot and sat with his hands clamped to the wheel, telling himself that if he let go, he would charge into the place and play an endless blue tune on Broillard’s head. Yet as he continued to sit there, he recognized that his battle to maintain control was pure method acting. He was conning himself. Playing human. If he let go of the wheel, he would do nothing. He might wish that he would act, that he would lose it and go roaring into the Gas ’n Guzzle and drop the hammer on Broillard in the name of love and honor. But he would never risk it. Twenty years in the cold ditches of the criminal classes had left him at a remove from the natural fevers of the heart. He supposed he had become, like his old crime partners, an affable sociopath who stood with one foot outside the world, a man whose emotions were smaller than the norm. And this being the case, wasn’t what he felt for Grace equally undernourished and false?
His anger dimmed and without ever having left the car, he drove back to the cabin and sat on the steps, practicing calm, gazing out at the tranquil blue surface of the lake, the unwinded evergreens standing guard along the shadowy avenues leading off among them. Still as a postcard image. Soothing in its simple shapes and colors. He recalled how Grace had talked about it. He believed her view of the place to be romantic delusion, but wished he could share in it. The idea of sharing anything, after the years of solitude, filled him with yearning. But he knew he was incapable of it. Those shadows of Hiroshima burned onto stone, those parings of lives. That was him. A thin, dark urgency was all that remained.
MID-AFTERNOON, AND Grace had not appeared. Shellane started toward her house, but thought better of it and took himself in the opposite direction, hoping to walk off his gloom. The sun had sunk to the level of the treeline, and though a rich golden light spread throughout the air, the glaze of midday warmth had dissipated. His breath smoked; a chill cut through his windbreaker and hurried his step. He kept his eyes down, kicking at stones, at whatever minor obstructions came to view, manufacturing small goals such as kicking a fish head without breaking stride. He had gone almost a mile when he saw a figure standing among the trees about a hundred feet away. A naked man. Not wearing a stitch. Skinny and tall and pale. Judging by the man’s stillness, Shellane thought he must be waiting for someone. His second impression, based on no clear evidence, was that the man was waiting for him. A pinprick of cold blossomed at the center of his chest and he peered at the man, trying to make out his particulars. He felt as if a channel had opened between them, a transparent tunnel in the air, and that along it flowed a palpable menace.
This, he thought, was a sign of how shaky the thing with Grace had made him. There were no grounds for fear. Yet he kept on his guard, uncertain whether to turn back or go forward, and when the man started toward him, moving with a purposeful stride, he felt a sting of panic that sent him scrambling up the shadowed, needle-covered slopes, in among the trees. After perhaps twenty seconds, he was overtaken by embarrassment—he did not consider himself the sort to panic for any reason, let alone the appearance of a skinny naked stranger whom he could snap in two. He stopped and looked around, but saw no one. He adjusted the windbreaker about his hips and shoulders. Drew a steadying breath and rested a palm against the trunk of a spruce; his palm came away sticky, smeared with reddish resin. He studied the marks—like a hexagram of tacky blood—and wiped the hand clean on his trousers.
“Fucking Christ,” he said, and stepped out of hiding.
The man was standing no more than twenty-five feet away, his bony ass turned to Shellane, and he was staring down at the lake. He was bald, his skull knobby, bean-shaped, and his skin was bleached and grayish. Shellane eased behind the spruce trunk and turned sideways so as to be completely hidden. The wind built a faltering rush from the boughs, like the ragged issuance of a final breath. His heart felt hot and huge, less beating than pulsing rapidly. A scraping noise caused him to stiffen. The idea that he had nothing to fear wouldn’t stick in his mind—he was terribly afraid, and for no reason he could fathom. Then the man came stalking past Shellane’s hiding place, and a reason became apparent: his face had the glaring eyes and gashed mouth and mad fixity of a jack-o-lantern. Outsized features carved into the gray skin. He paused no more than a dozen feet away, his head tilted. Shellane noticed a ruff of flesh at the base of his neck … maybe it wasn’t flesh. Rubber. The son of a bitch must be wearing one of those rubber Halloween masks. But if it was a mask, Shellane wasn’t eager to learn what lay beneath. He held still, not allowing himself to breathe until the man’s ground-eating stride carried him out of sight.
On his way home, he remembered the black house and thought that the man in the mask must be one of the freaks who lived there. The thing to do would be to check the house out. No. That wasn’t it. The rational thing to do would be to put the lake in his rearview. This place was punching holes in him. Or maybe it wasn’t the place. Maybe the years had worn him down to zero and he just happened to be here when it all started to fall apart, a sudden erosion like that of a man who’d been granted an extra century of life and on the day the term expired, he turned to dust? What if he was only walking around in his head, and in reality he was no more than two piles of gray dust in a pair of empty shoes?
“Bullshit,” he said to himself, and picked up the pace. To be that way, to be the dust of a dead spell. He should be so lucky.
BY THE TIME Shellane reached the cabin, his desire to leave the lake had been subsumed by concern for Grace and a generalized depression that blunted the sharpness of his fears and muddied his thoughts. Feeling at loose ends, his energy low, he sat at his laptop playing solitaire. The darkness that soon began to gather seemed to compress the space around him, and he saw himself isolated in a little cube of brightness adrift in boundless night. A man holding digital aces, cards made of light, haunted by freaks and old crimes and a weeping woman. It was all bullshit, he realized. This poetry of self-pity leaking from him. He remembered the ridged and bloody hole in Donnie Doyle’s forehead, and remembered a few seconds before the hole had appeared, Marty Gerbasi handing him the gun and saying, “You do it, Roy.” And he had said, “What?” as if he didn’t know what Marty meant. But he knew … he knew this was how he bought into the big game, this was the soul price of his profession. Gerbasi said, “I like you, Roy. But that don’t mean shit. You need to do this now, understand?” He understood everything. The moral choices, the consequences attending each choice. And so he took the gun and wrote a song on Donnie Doyle’s forehead, the only important song he had ever authored, a hole punched through the bone … .
The door latch rattled at Grace’s knock, so light it might have been a puff of wind. He felt the pressure of her gloom brushing against his own, like two rain clouds merging. He let her in and sank to his knees before her, his face to her belly, the clean smell of wool soaking up and stilling the tumble of his thoughts. When he stood, his hands following the curve of her hips, slipping beneath the sweater to cup her breasts, he felt that his fingers were stained white by her flesh, that whiteness was spreading through him. Her lips grazed his ear and she said, “He hit me. In the stomach, where it wouldn’t show. He told me I was ignorant. A fat Irish cow.” She went on and on, cataloging Broillard’s attacks, all in a husky tone doubtless influenced by Shellane’s gentler assault, and yet the list of her husband’s sins had an erotic value of its own, informing and encouraging his gentleness. Rage and desire partnered in his mind, and as he removed her clothing, it seemed he was removing as well the baffles that kept his anger contained, so that when they fell into the bed and made the mat
tress springs creak in a symphony of strain, it was as if anger were riding between his shoulderblades, spurring his exertions, inspiring him to pin her to the bed like a broken insect and fabricate a chorus of moans and cries. Though joined to her, part of his mind listened with almost critical acuteness as she whispered breathy endearments. Wind dance, meaningless love garbage. Garbled expressions of comic-book word-balloon passion, sounding one moment like she was strangling on oatmeal, the next emitting pretty snatches of hummed melody. She bucked and plunged, heels hooked behind his calves, the tendon strings of her thighs corded like wires. They were both fucking to win, he thought. To injure, to defile. Love … love … love … love. The chant of galley slaves stoking his mean-spirited rhythm. When he came, a cry spewing from his throat, he was aware of its rawness, its ugly finality, like that of a man gutted by a single stroke, shocked and beginning to die.
SHE LEFT HIM with her usual suddenness in the morning, returning, he assumed, to the befouled emptiness of her home. Scatters of rain tap-danced on the roof and he stood by the bed, staring down at the wet spot on the sheet that had dried into a shape reminiscent of a gray bird on the wing. The violence of their passion, its patina of furious artificiality, all inspired by her relation of Broillard’s abuse—it unsettled him. He was still angry. Angry at her for trying to use him. That was what she had been doing. Trying to rouse his anger. And she had succeeded. He was angry at Broillard for having caused her to hate so powerfully, so obsessively, that she would use him, Shellane, as means of wreaking vengeance. But at this moment he didn’t care if that was her intent. He was ready to be used.
He drove into town and parked off to the side of the Gas ’n Guzzle, then walked toward the entrance, moved by an almost casual animus, as if of a mind merely to offer a stern warning. It was no act of self-deception-not this time; it was a mask he wore to hide from others a dangerous mood. Thanks to Grace, he had at least reclaimed something of his old self, the purity of his anger. He pushed the door inward, jingling the bell atop it. A girl in a hooded gray sweatshirt was at the counter, buying cigarettes from Broillard, who offered him a careless wave. Shellane ambled along the aisles, picking up a can of soup, spaghetti, virgin olive oil. When the girl left, he waited at the counter while Broillard rang up the sale.