Going Sasquatch

by Jess Whitecroft

  “Oh, so much,” I said, surprised to hear my first name. “Really. Thank you.”

  I left her my number, filled out a couple of forms and paid a deposit. My darling ‘husband’ sashayed out to admire the view and salivate over the firepit. I wasn’t sure what was up with that. Either he was getting down with his inner caveman or I’d just found myself fake-married to a pyromaniac.

  “Sasquatch forum?” I said, when I caught up with him. It was - somehow - one of the least ridiculous parts of the previous conversation. “We met on a sasquatch forum? Really?”

  Chase turned, his newly blond hair fetchingly ruffled by the slight breeze that blew down the hillside. “Why not?” he said.

  “Honeymoon?” I steered him towards the path back to town. No sense in Blondie hearing this.

  “I felt the scene needed an emotional hook,” said Chase. “So I added one.”

  “Scene? Chase, this isn’t an improv class. I think once you leave the city limits of Los Angeles it stops being acting and starts being lying.”

  He shook his head and kept walking. “You want to spend your vacation being eaten alive by bedbugs?”

  “No.”

  “Or would you rather spend it sipping champagne in a hillside hot tub?”

  “How is that even a question?”

  “Exactly,” said Chase.

  I followed him down the trail. How the hell was I supposed to do this? I’d survived sleeping next to him on a double mattress, and had somehow managed to pull that off without humping his thigh in my sleep or otherwise disgracing myself, but now I was supposed to fake being married to my walking wet dream?

  “This feels…bad,” I said. “Manipulative.”

  “Oh, stop. If anything we’re doing them a favor. What kind of business model stops their turnaround in its tracks for an entire day anyway? They should hire more cleaners. Up their occupancy rate.” He gave me a sidelong look. “What? Why are you making that face?”

  “You sound very Hollywood right now. Do you know that?”

  “Why? What am I supposed to sound like? Rugged? Mountainous? I’m a lumberjack and I’m okay?”

  “Gay. You’re supposed to sound gay. If we’re going through with this scam…”

  “It’s not a scam, Finn. I fully intend to pay them the going rate. And what do you mean, ‘sound gay’? You want me to put on some lispy gay voice? Because not only is that lazy characterization, it’s also extremely homophobic.”

  I laughed. “I’m homophobic now?”

  “No, not you…”

  “I was gonna say.” I wasn’t the best-adjusted human being in the world, but out of all the things that had made my life difficult, being gay was a long way down the list. When you name your kid Michael Finnegan and take a keen family interest in cryptozoology then it’s safe to say that kid is going to have some issues. Issues quite separate from his sexuality.

  We reached the bottom of the path. It popped out directly on the main street of the little town. I’d spent half my childhood in towns like this. Once you got outside Eureka they were everywhere, little Podunk places with Sasquatch this and Bigfoot that. Even the gas stations were named after Bigfoot, and I still remembered this one place where the owner had gone to the trouble of having a bunch of sasquatch inflatables custom made. Like those waving tube men you see at car lots, only the sasquatch version. It was a whole goddamn industry up here.

  A life-size cardboard Bigfoot loomed at me through the window of the local bookstore.

  “Want to get a drink?” said Chase, eyeing the Skookum Bar and Grill across the street.

  “Sure. Fuck it. It’s five o’clock somewhere, right?”

  We went inside. The place was largely empty. We ordered a couple of beers and went to sit in a window seat. Chase sat and watched the world go by. I glanced at the foot-shaped menu, drawn by some trainwreck instinct to something calling itself a Yeti Special.

  “Oh shit,” said Chase, spotting a small film crew outside in the street. “Who are those guys?”

  “Who do you think? The usual. Cranks. Kooks. Dingbats. The usual people you get up in sasquatch country.”

  He leaned back in his seat, out of line of sight. “You’re really not into this, are you?”

  “What? Bigfoot? No. Why would I be? It doesn’t exist.”

  “So? Neither does Santa, but are kids going to stop leaving out milk and cookies for him?”

  “No,” I said. “Because they’re kids, Chase. If you believe in Santa as a child then you’re a normal kid. If you believe in him as an adult then you’re two fries short of a Happy Meal. Same goes for Bigfoot.”

  “Oh, come on. Is it really that far-fetched to believe that there are things we don’t know about? We didn’t even know about tubeworms until recently.”

  I blinked at him, once again remembering the waving tube-sasquatch. Not for the first time I had the strange impression that he could somehow read my mind. It was one of the things that made him such a dream client; he always seemed to know what the next move should be. “Tubeworms?” I said, curious to hear more in spite of myself.

  “Yeah. Those little worms that live at the bottom of the ocean,” he said. “Next to volcanic vents. The water’s so hot and so full of poisons that nothing is supposed to live there, but they do, apparently in total defiance of all the laws of nature as we used to understand them. They’ve been there for millions and millions of years, but for almost the whole of human history we had no idea they were there.”

  “Chase, you’re talking about the bottom of the ocean. Somewhere we didn’t even have the technology to get to until very recently. And besides, they’re tiny worms. There’s a big difference between some little worm at the bottom of the ocean and a nine foot tall ape man supposedly stomping all over the forests of the Pacific Northwest.”

  He took a pull of his beer and shook his head. “Nuh uh. They’re both unexplored environments. The temperate rainforests are huge. Anything could be in there.”

  “Like bears,” I said. “Or mountain lions. Other large animals that we know exist because they hunt and shit and mate and make noise and do all those other large animal things that so far we’ve never observed sasquatch doing.”

  Chase laughed. “Why does this irritate you so much?”

  “Because it’s dumb. And flaky. Bigfoot? Aliens? What next? Are you gonna tell me you believe in ghosts?”

  He shrugged. “I’ve seen some things.”

  “Really? In that house of yours? You seen Harry Houdini rattling his chains around the place?”

  “No,” said Chase. “But–”

  “–but what? Let me tell you something about Harry Houdini, Chase. Because I looked this up, right after that time I came round to your house and met your girlfriend.”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Yeah. The hottie in the white bikini.”

  “Oh. Alicia.”

  “Yeah, Alicia,” I said. “You remember you told me that Harry Houdini’s widow used to hold séances in that house?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Here’s the interesting part,” I said. “That might be true. Because Bess Houdini did hold séances after her husband’s death, but it wasn’t because she believed in ghosts. She did it because he told her to.”

  Chase frowned. “So, he believed in ghosts?”

  “No. Not at all. He was a magician. He knew all the tricks. He knew how to make an elephant disappear, for fuck’s sake. Conjuring ghosts in a darkened room was babytown frolics, and Houdini knew it. He knew that most of the mediums at work were nothing more than third rate conjurers and it pissed him off. He saw these people getting emotionally manipulated and bilked out of money by frauds who claimed they could talk to the dead, and he got mad. So mad that he set out to expose them.”

  Chase finished his beer and set down the bottle. “Okay,” he said. “But what does this have to do with my house?”

  “I’m getting to that. Houdini figured that the only way to settle the question of
whether you could talk to the dead or not was to actually do it. Because you can’t prove a negative, right?”

  “Right.”

  “So, he and his wife Bess came up with a code. Words, or numbers, or both. I can’t remember, but it doesn’t really matter, because the point was that they were the only two people in the world who knew those words. They were going to take those secret words to the grave with them. Then, whoever survived the other–”

  Chase nodded. “–was going to hold séances to try and contact the other, so–”

  “–right. For the secret words. The ones that only they knew.” I drained my beer. “After he died she did it for ten years. For the next ten years she held her séances, every year, on Halloween, the anniversary of his death. Until October thirty-first, 1936, ten years to the day he died.”

  He leaned forward slightly on his elbows. “And? What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “Nada. Niente. Same as before. Same as all the other times. And that’s when Bess said ‘Enough’s enough.’ She put an end to it. She knew it was all very well looking for answers from the great beyond, but sometimes…well, I guess the greater wisdom was in knowing when to stop knocking your head against the same brick wall.”

  Chase picked at the peeling label on his beer bottle. His glasses had slid down his nose and the sunlight streaming through the window lit up his eyelashes and the one white hair in his eyebrow. His eyes were the color of absinthe. “So what are you saying?” he asked.

  I suck at taking my own advice, I wanted to say. Because you’re the brick wall and I’m standing here with a bloody forehead and a punch-drunk brain, waiting for the moment that will never come. “Well, among other things,” I said. “I’m saying that Bess Houdini would never have made a sasquatch hunter.”

  “Lacked persistence?”

  “Lacked insanity, Chase. Isn’t that the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?”

  My phone chimed. Speaking of results…

  “What’s it say?” he says, leaning forward.

  I showed him the text. “Happy Honeymoon, husband. We got ourselves new some digs.”

  4

  We picked up a couple of cheap matching rings and checked in just an hour later.

  The place looked small and unassuming at first glance, a little wooden structure nestled against the wooded hillside. Chase and the blonde – whose name was Charlotte – went in ahead of me, so my first impression was of a narrow hallway with a low ceiling, pretty underwhelming until I heard his ‘oooh’ and stepped out into the light.

  It was a wide, wood-floored living room, with a modern hearth in the middle, a small kitchen to the left hand side and what appeared to be a bathroom to the right. The high ceiling was finished in pale wood, and the floor to ceiling windows looked out over a deck with a view of the forest.

  “Oh my God, it’s beautiful,” said Chase, as I turned on my heel and looked around. The bed was directly over the front door, where they’d made a mezzanine level out of the hallway ceiling. Unlike a lot of places in Northern California, they clearly hadn’t succumbed to the decorating style that my mom referred to as ‘log-cabin frenzy.’ The mezzanine was edged with blond wood and the treads of the stairs were wooden, but the spiral staircase itself was of a modern design in black metal. The walls were done in shades of cream and modish taupes.

  There was only one bed, but the couch didn’t look too uninviting. Hopefully not crawling with bugs, anyway.

  “So,” said Charlotte, gesturing to a welcome basket full of fruit and pastries. “Make yourselves at home. If there’s anything you need, call the lodge, and if you’re in the mood we would love to see you on the terrace for drinks later.”

  “That sounds so nice,” said Chase, before I could stop him. “Thank you.”

  “It’s nothing formal,” she said. “But my parents like to mingle, you know?”

  “Your parents?”

  “Oh, they own the place,” she said. “And they’re great people. Obviously I’m biased, but I’m pretty sure my dad makes the greatest Hurricanes in California.”

  “Well, I do like a Hurricane,” said Chase.

  “He’s from New Orleans. Used to tend bar in the French Quarter, so you know it’s the real deal.”

  “Sold. What time should we come down?”

  “Uh?” I started to say, but he gave me the kind of look I hadn’t seen from him outside of a gym. In its usual context it meant ‘if you make you make me do one more fucking burpee I’m going to start casting aspersions on your mom’, but this was a whole new setting. Whatever, I was pretty sure it meant ‘shut the fuck up’.

  “Seven. Seven thirty?”

  “Okay. Great. Look forward to it.”

  “I’ll let you guys get settled,” said Charlotte. “And Happy Honeymoon!”

  “Thank you,” I said, with a shit-eating grin. I wound my arm around Chase’s waist and we stood and waved her out of the door. “Okay,” I said, once she was out of earshot. “Have you lost your fucking mind?”

  Chase stepped away and went to investigate the gift basket. “What?”

  “You know what, Chase. Like two hours ago you were ducking behind the foot-shaped menus at the Skookum Bar and Grill because you saw a film crew. In the street. And now you want to go to a party?”

  “Yes.”

  “With people? People who have eyes? And phones? And camera phones? What if someone recognizes you?”

  He zeroed in on some kind of Danish. Wasn’t sure of the filling, but I was pretty sure it was one of those things that I was duty bound – as his personal trainer – to smack out of his hands. Luckily for his carb cravings, I wasn’t dumb enough to attempt to snatch pastries from someone who looked that desperate to eat them.

  “I thought about that,” he said, chewing.

  “Did you?”

  “Uh huh. I was thinking maybe I could pretend to be someone else. It’s a thing. You might have heard about it. It’s called acting.”

  Jesus Christ, what was he going to do? Bust out the make-up kit and the fake beard like Harry Houdini infiltrating a séance? “You’re a movie star,” I said. “Everyone knows what you look like.”

  “Please. I could be any one of a dozen people. I’m generic.”

  “You’re what?”

  He swallowed his mouthful and set down the pastry. “Generic. I’m not one of those actors whose faces you’re going to remember, like Benedict Cumberbatch–”

  “–yeah, but he looks like the offspring of a Roswell alien and a hotdog–”

  “–exactly. He’s distinctive. For the record I think he’s very handsome, but you get my point. He stands out from the crowd. Not like me. I’m just your average basic cornfed American bro.”

  “You’re not basic,” I said.

  “I am,” said Chase. “I’m ‘a pumpkin-spiced human yawn’. ‘A Mason jar experiment in meh.’”

  I flopped down on the sofa opposite. “Are you quoting your bad reviews? Because that’s why you’re not supposed to read them, dumbass. They get in your head. They fuck you up. First rule of Hollywood – never read the bad reviews. Also what happened to our rule about not talking about anything Hollywood?”

  Chase sighed. “Please, Finn,” he said. “Just…just trust me. They won’t know it’s me. I’m a much better actor than I’m allowed to be in those stupid movies. I need this. I need to feel like a normal person again.” He picked at the last fragment of Danish. “Someone who isn’t afraid of carbohydrates. Someone who doesn’t know what the words ‘pinch point’ mean or why they might be used in the context of a screenplay.”

  He made his case well, because I knew exactly what he was sick of and why he was sick of it. And it was weird, but I did trust him. He was different from the Chase Morrow I thought I knew. That guy was nice, polite, and – if I was being totally honest – a little basic. He knew how to curl, count carbs and had girlfriends in white bikinis splashing in his backyard p
ool. Just a standard, clean cut all-American movie star. He would have bored me, if it hadn’t been for his beauty and those occasional moments where he said something strange or nerdy, like knowing the wordcount of The Great Gatsby or going off on tangents about Prince albums or tubeworms.

  Now I was starting to realize that those brief oddball flashes were glimpses of the real Chase Morrow, and that Chase was very, very different from Hollywood Chase. His voice, his expressions, his mannerisms; everything about him was light and unconsidered, like a completely different person from the one the studio trotted out to answer inane questions from Entertainment Weekly. If you’d looked at Chase the way he was now - bleached blond, bespectacled, charmingly awkward – you might have double taked and thought that guy looked like Chase Morrow, but on a third glance concluded that it was nothing more than a passing resemblance.

  “Okay,” I said. “But keep the glasses.”

  “I was going to. They make me look nerdy, I know.”

  They actually made him look fucking hot, but I wasn’t about to split hairs.

  He glanced at the goodie basket, like he was thinking about eating something else, but then thought better of it. “Okay,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip. “I think I’m going to check out the hot tub. Work out where I’m going with this character.”

  “Character?”

  “It’s a process.”

  “Oh. Okay. Like Under The Cherry Moon?”

  “Exactly,” said Chase. “Only a lot less expensive.”

  “Hope it does better in awards season.”

  He smiled, shook his head and went to grab his bag. “You want to flip a coin for the bed?”

  “Nah. You can take it tonight. We can switch later if we like.”

  For a moment I thought he was going to grab that and run with it, but then he shrugged and headed for the staircase. I went out to admire the view, which said a lot about the view because I could still remember a time in my life when I thought if I had to look at another redwood forest I would just about lose my shit. And especially if someone mentioned the S-word again. Or the B-word. Sasquatch, Bigfoot, Yeti, Yeren, Yowie, Skunk Ape, Abominable Snowman – the mere mention of any of the above used to make me contemplate violence. As if I hadn’t had enough problems in life.