Ghouljaw and Other Stories

by Clint Smith

  Maggie exhaled and snatched the frame. “Thanks,” she said and resumed the checkout. Handing over the video she said, “This is due back in three days.”

  Lewis feebly gestured at the video. “Do you remember the night we watched that together?”

  Maggie drew in a patient breath and looked at the title. “No.” She shifted her position in preparation to show Lewis to the door but went rigid when Lewis said, “How’s Zooey?”

  Maggie’s eyes grew dark, but something indefinable had softened in her aspect. “She’s fine.”

  Lewis leaned against the counter and lowered his voice. “How’s . . . the little one?”

  Maggie lifted her chin and glowered at Lewis. She gave a glance at her coworker before soberly regarding Lewis. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  And for a swooning, vertiginous instant Lewis wasn’t certain what he was talking about either. He passed a hand over his face. “I’m talking about Zooey, about her—”

  From behind came a braying voice. “Zooey’s a hyperactive psycho.”

  Lewis flinched and pivoted. The other polo-shirted employee, the good-looking young guy. He was grinning at Maggie with his horsey teeth.

  “Shut up, Craig,” said Maggie, a soft pink flush appearing on her cheeks and throat.

  Craig snorted, shook his head and went cheerily back to stocking the shelves, never quite acknowledging Lewis.

  Lewis’s lips and forehead tingled and his mouth was dry. As he walked past Maggie he gathered enough of his faculties to ask once more, “What about the baby?”

  Almost imperceptibly, Maggie’s lower lip trembled and she cocked her head as if hearing some distant whisper. Eventually she simply offered Lewis the movie and said, “I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Lewis teetered away from the counter, remotely aware that his legs were carrying him to the door, to the dark parking lot, to the car. He left the video and the antique frame behind.

  Several weeks later, when the wretched, dream-wracked nights have reached their most perverse peak, Lewis wakes early and drives out to Southeastway Park. One of Zooey’s old leather leashes is limply coiled on the passenger seat. The August theater of verdant, silk-leaved cornfields is already humid and filled with the aroma of wet grass as dawn stretches out in a peach-and-baby-blue yawn. At the park he crosses the flat, dew-damp tract at the foot of Hatcher Hill as he retraces the path on which he’d twice followed Maggie, each irrevocable encounter culminating in irretrievable regret.

  Lewis eventually reaches the cobblestone footbridge. Crossing it, he pauses at the apex and considers the crystal-clear creek smoothly sluicing over stones. After a time, he directs his attention toward the opposite side of the bank, at the boxy object cloaked by a weather-beaten blanket. He is enveloped by a haunting silence as he approaches the crate and, inhaling deeply, peels back the stiff, moss-caked cloth.

  It’s empty. No. That’s not quite right. Something’s inside. He unlatches the wire door and reaches through the shadowed opening, carefully withdrawing the object, appraising it in the morning light.

  An antique frame. A poem under glass. Lewis stares at the words here, his words—He returns to the remains—rereading them for an uncountable time; but the letters shiver and disassemble, scattering and rearranging themselves into the words he should have spoken on that snowy night in February.

  With a tormented howl Lewis flings the frame into the creek and raises his tear-streaked face toward the canopy of crisscrossing tree limbs, examining those crooked branches as he tightens his grip the long, leather leash looped around his clenched fist.

  After a time he wipes his face with the back of one hand and levels his gaze straight ahead, appraising the dense maze of tree trunks. Movement in the distance—a crouching figure soundlessly creeping between the trees—seizes his attention. Lewis is suddenly aware that the dimensions and proportions of the figure bear an alarming resemblance to his own.

  Lewis casually unravels the leash from his knuckles and ambles forward. And as he ventures further into the shadowy belly of the woods he senses the trunks growing more huddled, occluding more light, tightening like the rough-hewn bars of some crude cage. Lewis licks his lips and places a palm next to his jaw, and the unnatural silence is shattered as he calls out in a steadily serene voice, “Here, boy . . .” He repeats the summons, his voice reverberating through the forest. “Here, boy . . .” Then comes the echo of a whistle.

  Double Back

  1

  Deacon Stilwell stood inside his dark apartment, staring out the window, trying to ignore the figure standing in the shadows behind him. Deacon was clutching a glass of whiskey but hadn’t taken a drink for several minutes, hadn’t moved for several minutes. He was waiting for the thing behind him to speak. For a short time he attempted to calm the rapid rhythm of his heart, which drummed uncomfortably in his ears and throat, by focusing on what he saw outside: the unique, cobalt-gray hue of Chicago light pollution; slanting sheets of snow dusting the sidewalk and street below; in the windows of several apartments, nearby and in the distance, he noted twinkling Christmas trees. The exercise was futile and didn’t last long.

  “Hello, Deacon,” it said. It was a monotone sound, issuing from a congested-wheezy windpipe. “Merry Christmas.”

  Earlier that evening, on his way home from the university, Deacon had taken a three-block detour to a familiar, nondescript liquor store—a darkly Pavlovian digression that had, in recent months, increased in frequency. But as habitually consistent as this had become, what grew ever more erratic were Deacon’s reasons for these cyclic trips. Deacon Stilwell would stitch together a list of conditions that necessitated his desire to drink. And lately it had started this way:

  He’d be on a bus downtown, sitting on a sticky seat with his face tilted over a book, trying to dismiss inane, one-sided cell phone conversations; or standing in a crowded el-train car, jostling shoulder-to-shoulder with clusters of commuters, listening to vulgar-speaking people and watching vicious arguments unfold before him. And when these mental vignettes were inadequate Deacon turned on himself, ruminating over his own personal misfortunes. He found solace in calculating his existential injuries—in sliding the black beads of self-pity along his internal abacus. How can a man of consciousness have respect for himself? He enjoyed repeating that phrase while inwardly sneering at people. He’d read it once, somewhere. It was from a Russian writer—Tolstoy or Dostoevsky or Turgenev. He’d always gotten them mixed up.

  Deacon, particularly after living on his own for a year or so in the city, considered himself both: a man, and a man of consciousness. In truth he was a young man, whose intense eyes and coarse disposition contradicted his boyish, delicately vulpine features. He attempted to carry himself with the indifferent swiftness of a metropolitan, but succeeded in merely looking the part. Inside, since becoming ostensibly urbane, he’d developed nasty suspicions about the commonplace: every sidelong glance on the subway became accusatorial, each crosswalk collision became intentional.

  As for consciousness, Deacon was pitifully unaware of this revelation: that he was a mediocre poet and a myopic artist, merely proficient at sketching self-serving metaphors—at observing relationships—which fostered disdain and kept the black dog of culpability at bay.

  That’s how things always started. That’s how things started earlier this evening.

  He’d entered his apartment, stomping off snow and yanking off his knit cap, uncovering disheveled, unevenly cropped hair; he’d slipped out of his coat, dropped it on the floor, and—cradling a wrinkled brown bag—walked into the kitchen, turning on the small light above the stove and retrieving a tumbler from the cabinet. He’d proceeded into the living room, not bothering to turn on any lamps or lights, and pulled up the blinds, the darkness softened by weak light—a pale orange phosphorescence cast up by sodium-vapor streetlights lining the sidewalk below.

  Deacon had pulled the bottle from its paper husk and fill
ed his glass with amber liquid. He’d drunk slowly, steadily, for several minutes before his nerves began to untangle. The phone had begun ringing, and Deacon answered to the voice of his younger brother, Paul. Of course, he thought, it was Paul. It was always Paul.

  As with most of their conversations, it had started with Deacon asking his brother the same rote set of questions: about the weather, about Paul’s surgical residency with the hospital, and so on. And as with most of their conversations, it had started to unravel when Deacon began reciting a litany of excuses about why he couldn’t come home, why he couldn’t come to see their mother. At one point Paul had asked Deacon about his health, his mind.

  “Have you been drinking again?” Paul had asked.

  “No,” Deacon lied.

  Deacon had briefly wondered if Paul asked those kinds of questions because he was training to be a doctor, or if it was the other way around.

  The dialogue had nearly deteriorated when Deacon, stopping mid-sentence, noticed something in the reflection of the window, something standing behind him—the silhouette of a figure backlit by meager light from the kitchen. Paul, likely taking Deacon’s lengthy silence as indignance, had hung up.

  Deacon’s lips had grown numb. His heart pulsed erratically, and it had taken him several seconds to lower the dead receiver from his ear and place it back onto its cradle.

  He had listened to the figure’s breathing—a lacerated, slashed-cord rattle. But for the savage quality of the sounds, the figure remained unnaturally still. It had simply stood there—a mannequin propped up in a poorly lit living room. After a while, it spoke. “Hello, Deacon. Merry Christmas.”

  Deacon heard it make another noise, a cough or a laugh or something, before continuing: “I would ask what’s new but it appears the answer is very little,” it said. “You know, our previous encounter ended so unfortunately. I wanted it to be our last, didn’t you?”

  Deacon remained silent.

  “Are you still smoking cigarettes?” the thing asked.

  “No,” Deacon cleared his throat, trying to sound more formidable. “I quit a long time ago, years ago.”

  “Well,” it croaked, “that speaks volumes about your self-control. How are your studies at the university?”

  Deacon remained silent.

  “Come now,” it proceeded, “the two of us should talk. I’d like to see your face.” The thing lunged forward with jerky, stilted baby steps, as if its limbs were being clumsily tugged by unseen wires. It made damp sounds as it moved across the darkened living room toward Deacon.

  “Stop,” Deacon said. “Please, stop.”

  It did. A few seconds passed before it spoke again. “What has been tormenting you?”

  Deacon said nothing.

  “Would it help if I turned on the light, Deacon?”

  “No,” he hissed, pivoting slightly, nearly turning around. In the stagnant orange light he caught a glimpse of it, of pale skin—of a baby-blue flannel mottled with dark stains. He swiveled back toward the window.

  “Fair enough,” the thing said. “So tell me, Deacon—do you know why your brother Paul called tonight?”

  “No,” he said, before correcting himself. “Yes, I do: to taunt me, to make me feel ashamed. To talk to me like a dog, or like one of his patients.”

  “I’m afraid your perception is addled, boy. But this is a symptom of your condition, is it not? You know, of all the things for which you occlude yourself, I’d submit that you do understand why Paul called. And I’m certain you understand why I’m here.”

  Deacon swallowed and moved his lips, trying to summon some moisture in his mouth. “Sure.”

  “We both know that articulation was never your strong suit. Do you need some help, son?”

  Deacon snorted at that, lifted the glass of whiskey and swallowed what remained in the glass. He winced against the pungent sting; when he opened his eyes he was unsurprised to see that the thing’s reflection had moved closer—that it had moved closer. In the window’s reflection, in the pale orange light, Deacon could discern black strands of hair hanging out of a narrow, elongated head—a dolichocephalic skull, Paul might say, having examined it. It had milky-moist eyes, as if cataract-covered, set in bruised sockets. The thing’s skin was pale, fish-belly white, and stood out in stark contrast against the shadows and darkness behind it. The flannel shirt was covered with black streaks and splotches.

  “Why did Paul call tonight?”

  Deacon answered after uncleaving his tongue from the roof of his mouth. “He asked when I was coming home.”

  “Yes, he did,” the thing croaked. “But there is more.” Somewhere down on the street, a car alarm began wailing. “What did he say about your mother?”

  Deacon lifted the bottle from the sill and poured another drink. “He said she wasn’t doing well—that he was having a hard time taking care of her. He said nobody blamed me, but he always says that.”

  “Do you believe him, your little brother?”

  Deacon took a deep breath. His head swirled from the whiskey. “No.”

  “You lied to him tonight.”

  Deacon said nothing. He pressed his index finger against the cold window, and watched a foggy corona slowly blossom around his fingertip.

  “You lied to yourself tonight,” the thing began again. “And you are lying now.”

  Deacon raised his chin, dropping his finger from the window. The hazy halo faded. “You don’t understand the things I see.” He paused, his words echoing uncomfortably. “The things I see about people.” He gestured toward the window, out at the city. “These goddamn people treat each other like animals.”

  “The best definition of man,” the thing said, “is a being that goes on two legs and is ungrateful. Would you agree with that?”

  Deacon hesitated, frowning slightly. “Yes.”

  “Does it sound familiar?”

  “No.”

  “Those are the words of one of your beloved writers—from Dostoevsky: one of the many authors you often quote but to whom you rarely devote study. You murmur their phrases, from time to time, when they suit your mood. But do you know exactly the context with which you’re employing these convenient little epigrams?” Silence hung for several seconds. “Deacon: you have been misusing your mother’s money and you were wrong convincing her to allow you to come here. Your brother is correct: you have no business at the university. You have no business here in this city.”

  To hell with this fucking thing. Deacon bit his lip, began to turn and froze.

  The thing calmly rested its hand on Deacon’s shoulder. “You still answer questions like a child.” Deacon angled his gaze to the pale hand, which was covered with some sort of black streaks. The fingers were out of proportion, several inches too long. Its nails were filthy and appeared to have been crudely chewed. “Let’s put on some Christmas music.”

  “No,” Deacon whispered.

  “We’re almost there, Deacon. But you need to gather your faculty. Let’s think about the day we first made each other’s acquaintance, yes?”

  Deacon said nothing, closed his eyes and shivered.

  2

  Deacon Stilwell raised his fingers, bending down the brittle mini-blinds, and stared out a window overlooking a pothole-eaten parking lot. It was an early Saturday morning in late August. It would be humid and overcast; but the sun, still hunched along the horizon, sent pastel scarves—peach and mauvy—against gray, low-lying clouds. He panned down to the dusty window sill, where bluebottle flies lay dried-up and dead, their eyelash-thin legs turned upward, as if appealing something in the throes of their tiny death.

  Withdrawing his fingers from between the blinds, Deacon dug into his pocket, retrieved a pack of cigarettes and his lighter. And just as he inserted a cigarette between his lips, he was startled by a voice.

  “We only allow smoking outside on the veranda,” a woman said, not unpleasantly. She was carrying a Styrofoam cup in one hand, a clipboard and a thick stack of almond-colored f
ile folders in the other. “Besides we’re going to get started here in a few minutes.” She wore brilliantly white tennis shoes, which exaggerated each dutiful step as she buzzed around the small meeting room.

  Deacon immediately poked the cigarette back into the pack, and the pack back into his pocket.

  The white-sneaker woman—who Deacon recognized from his previous visits as the program coordinator—was now arranging folding chairs into a large circle. He thought the fluorescently-ill light and muted colors made the room feel more institutional, more nauseating.

  People get sicker here, it occurred to him suddenly. The haphazard botanical pattern on the carpet looked like a garden designed by a disturbed person.

  Feeling useless, Deacon asked, “Do you need some help?”

  “Yes,” the woman smiled but continued unhindered, “that’d be nice.”

  Deacon pulled a couple of beige chairs from the wall. The two worked quietly. When the circle was complete the woman exhaled and glanced around, as if in approval.

  “Okay,” she said, retrieving her Styrofoam cup. “There’s coffee and refreshments across the hall. Help yourself before the meeting.” She didn’t wait for Deacon to respond as she walked out of the room. He sat down in a folding chair and fiddled with his lighter.

  Nearly every chair in the circle was occupied.

  Nearly every rehab program, at one point or another, utilizes a similar therapy exercise where group members in outpatient therapy—whether drug addicts, alcoholics, or both; whether here voluntarily or by court sentence—spend hours dwelling on and describing the circumstances for bringing them here. Very little time is devoted to exploring what will happen next.

  The stories were, of course, varied—diverse, one counselor said brightly—but each tale was similar in that they contained pain, usually at the expense of others, and were narrated by unreliable speakers. Deacon recognized some of the members from previous sessions, but most were new. He sat upright, arms folded, and listened to the stories of the people forming this sad wreath. He was easily the youngest person here.