The Land Of Laughs

by Jonathan Carroll

  I knew most of the people in there: Jan Phend, John Esperian, Neil Bull, Vince Flynn, Dave Marty.

  "How are you doin', Tom?"

  I turned around and squinted into the darkness. Richard Lee got up from a table and came over.

  "What're you having, Tom?"

  I sniffed back my runny nose. "I guess a beer and a shot."

  "A beer and a shot. That sounds good to me. Johnny, two beers and two shots."

  Richard smiled and came closer. He slapped me on the arm and kept his hand there. "Come on over and sit down at the table with me, Tom. Fuck these up-your-ass bar stools."

  I took off my coat and hung it on a wooden peg by the door. There were other smells in the room now: perfume, potato chips, wet leather.

  "So, kid, how're you doing over there at Goosey's? Here's the drinks. Thanks, Johnny."

  I took a sip of beer and a taste of whiskey. One bitterer than the other, the whiskey thick and fiery in my stomach. But it felt good after being outside so long.

  "I bet I know one thing for sure, buddy. Ever since Phil Moon's accident, I bet Anna ain't so happy with you, is she?"

  "You've got a point there." I drank some more whiskey.

  "Yep, that's what I figured. Did you hear about the Collins baby?"

  "Yes. Is it still… a dog?"

  Lee smiled and drank off the rest of his beer. "I guess so. The last I heard it was. Things are changing around here so fast lately, you never know." He drank some of the whiskey and stopped smiling. "I'll tell you one thing, buddy, it scares the hell out of me."

  I hunched in close to the table and tried to talk as quietly as possible. "But why you, Richard? I can see it for the others – the worrying, I mean – but you're normal." I lowered my head toward him and said the word in a whisper.

  "Normal, shit! Sure I am, but my wife isn't, and neither are my kids. You know what's been happening to my Sharon lately? I rolled over in the bed one morning last week, and there was fucking Krang on the pillow next to me! Can you believe that?"

  I didn't say anything, but I believed it. I had seen it happen the night we went over there for dinner.

  "I'm not shitting you, Tom. All of a sudden all of Marshall's characters are beginning to run together. Not only aren't things going like they're supposed to in the journals, but now they're mixing up all together, changing back and forth. Look at the Collins kid. One minute it's a kid and the next it's a fucking dog!" He snatched up my glass of whiskey and drank it off with one flick of the wrist. "What the hell is a man supposed to do, huh? I can't even turn around nowadays without being afraid that my wife or one of my little girls is going to be different. And then what'll happen if one day one of them stays that way?"

  "How are they reacting to it?"

  "How the hell do you expect? They're scared shit!"

  "How many people has it happened to so far?"

  He shook his head and turned the shot glass upside down on the table. "I don't know. Not that many yet, but everybody's scared that they'll be next. What I want to know is when you're going to finish that goddamned book."

  The jukebox was still playing, but the talking had stopped all around us.

  I fought down a yawn and wanted very badly to be out of there. "I've done a lot. But there's still so much more to go. I have to tell you that. I don't want to lie about it."

  "That don't answer his question, Abbey."

  "What can I say? What do you want me to say? That it will be done in ten minutes? No, it won't be done in ten minutes. You all want this thing to be good and right, but then you all want it done now. Argh, there's a contradiction there, don't you see?"

  "Fuck your contradiction, asshole!"

  "All right, fuck it! Fuck it! You say that because you're not writing it. If it stinks in the end, then nothing is going to happen here. That's why France was so great, don't you understand? That's why you're all here. He could write like no one else in the world. For God's sake, why don't you understand that? Whoever writes this book has got to try to write it as well… I don't know, better than he wrote his books…. The journals, everything, everything that he wrote. It's got to be better. It's got to be."

  Another voice climbed out of the swampy gloom at the bar. "Fuck that noise, Abbey. You just get that book done soon or we'll fuck you up like we did that other biographer."

  The door opened and a fat man and woman came in, beaming. I had never seen them before and assumed that they were from out of town. Normals. The man was slapping his hat against his leg. "I don't know what the hell the name of this town is, Dolly, but so long as they got a drink for me, then it's friendly territory. How are you doin' there, friend? Colder than the dogcatcher's heart out there, huh?"

  They sat down on bar stools in front of me and I was so glad that they had arrived, I could have kissed them. I got up to go. Richard had an empty whiskey glass in his hand and was slowly turning it round and round on his fingertips. He watched me get up but didn't say anything more. I went over to get my coat. I glanced at the bar and saw the fat couple talking animatedly with the bartender.

  When I got outside, the wind ate me alive, but this time it felt like ambrosia. A Ford Econoline van pulled into the parking lot. The Priest of Spiders from The Land of Laughs got out and turned up the collar of his red mackinaw. He saw me and gave a half-wave. "How arc you doing, Tom? How's your book going?"

  He loped over to the big oak door and went through it, still the Priest of Spiders.

  I stopped where I was and waited to see what was going to happen. If the fat couple hadn't been in there, it would have been all right, but they were there, and who the hell was going to explain what they were seeing?

  The door flew open and three men came racing out, the Priest of Spiders held fast in the middle. The door bammed shut, and the only sound was feet moving through the slush. They were almost to the van when Mel Dugan saw me and stopped.

  "You finish that fucking book, Abbey! You finish it or I'll cut off your fucking balls!"

  I checked the TV Guide for late movies. Cafй de la Paix was on at 11:30. It was 11:25, SO I got a Coke from the icebox and some green-pepper cheese that I had bought at the market.

  The television was an old wooden Philco black-and-white with a huge screen. It also made a great foot warmer on cold nights. I pulled my rocking chair up, arranged the TV table with the Coke and cheese, and put my stocking feet on the side of the set. The music stomped on a combination of "The Marseillaise," "Rule Britannia," and "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." You've got to remember that the film was made in 1942.

  A shot of the Eiffel Tower. A slow pan down the Champs-Elysйes. It's plastered everywhere with Nazi flags. Cut to a tabac where a little fat guy in a beret is selling newspapers to a kid, cigarettes to an old man, then a bunch of magazines from under the counter to a hand which takes them but doesn't pay. Shot of the fat guy's face as he hands them over. Pure adoration. He says "Merci" as the sound comes up. The camera moves slowly up – the hand, the arm, the face. His face. He winks and walks out of the tabac, the magazines up under his arm. A morning's read at the corner cafй.

  I had a slice of cheese in my hand and was about to eat it when I started crying.

  He walks slowly down the street – this guy is in no hurry. Tanks rumble past him. Motorcycles with sidecars full of important-looking men in German uniforms.

  I got up out of my seat and turned off the sound. I just wanted to watch him. I didn't want to think about the movie, the plot, or the action. I wanted to watch my father. The lights were off in the room. Only the castoff glow from the set onto the living-room floor.

  "Pop?" I knew it was crazy, but suddenly I was talking to the screen, to him. "Oh, Pop, what am I going to do?" He walked into a corner bakery and pointed to three pastries that he wanted inside the display case.

  "Pop, what the hell am I going to do?" I closed my eyes as tightly as I could. The tears cut wet lines in my face that I felt when I put my hands up to cover it. "Jesus God." I squeezed t
he heels of my palms into my eyes and watched the perfect colored patterns explode outward. When the pressure began to hurt I took my hands away and watched him through the last of the receding colors. He was in the back of the bakery now, climbing down the steps of a trapdoor ladder. Right before his head disappeared, he stopped and took off his hat. The sound was off but I knew what he said. "Watch my hat, Robert. I just got it for my birthday and she'll boil me in oil if I get it dirty!"

  "Fuck you! Fuck you, Father! Everything's always so good for you! Your fucking new hats and everybody loves you. You even get to die the right way. Fuck you! Fuck you! Fuck you!" I turned off the set and sat in the darkness watching the screen grow gray, brown, black.

  My eyes opened and I was wide-awake. I looked at the green glow of my watch and saw that it was three-thirty in the morning. When I click awake like that I can't get back to sleep for a long time. I put my arms behind my head and looked into the darkness above me. The only sound was the frantic ticking of my watch and the wind blowing outside. Then there was something else. Outside. Outside in the wind and the blue-black night. I turned my head to the window. It was right there, its face and paws pressed up and squashed against the glass. Its body glowed like an unlit white candle.

  The moment I heard Mrs. Fletcher drive away, I pulled my suitcase out of the closet and started yanking sweaters, shirts, and pants off hangers. One bag. What the hell did I need? One of Saxony's skirts fell on my head. I tore at it and threw it on the floor. I told myself to be calm, be cool, you have at least an hour before she'll be back. You can be packed and out of here in fifteen minutes if you don't flip your lid, I stopped and tried to breathe regularly. I sounded like a dog in heat.

  What do you take when you're running away? When you know that every nightmare you've ever had is breathing down your neck? Things. You throw a lot of things in a bag and slam it closed and you don't even try to think, because that takes time and you don't have any time.

  The phone rang. I was going to ignore it, but people knew that I was at home, Anna knew I was home, and I wanted everything to appear normal right up to the moment I jumped into my car. I got it on the fifth ring. That in itself was bad, because by now people knew that I was a one– or two-ring answerer.

  I cleared my throat a couple of times before speaking. "Hello?"

  "Oh, Thomas, you are there. It's me, Saxony. I'm down at the bus station. I'm here. I'm in Galen."

  "Oh, Christ!"

  "Well, thanks a lot! I'm sorry if –"

  "Shut up, Sax, shut up. Look, uh, look – I'll be down there in ten minutes. Just wait for me. Be out there in front and wait for me. Don't move."

  "What is the matter with you? What – ?"

  "Look, do what I say. Stay where you are."

  She must have sensed the fear in my voice because she only said, "All right. I'll be in front," and hung up.

  I wrapped a green blanket completely around my suitcase and carried it outside, held in front of me. If anyone was watching, I wanted them to think that it was only a package or some dry cleaning to be done. I pushed a half-smile onto my lips and walked jauntily to the car. I skidded on a patch of ice and almost fell down. When I regained my balance, I was sure that hundreds of eyes were boring into me from everywhere. I stared straight ahead.

  "Abbey just came out."

  "What's he doing?"

  "He's got some kind of package or something in his arms."

  "It isn't a suitcase, is it?"

  "I don't think so. It looks like… No, I don't know what it looks like. Maybe you should have a look for yourself."

  "Or maybe we should call Anna."

  By the time I had the keys out and was fumbling by the car door, I knew any moment I would hear a shout and a stampede of feet. I got the door unlocked and oh-so-casually leaned in and placed the blanket-wrapped suitcase on the backseat.

  Key in the ignition. Vroom. I had to wait two minutes to let it warm up because I always warmed the car in the morning. No Le Mans start today, much as I wanted to. Nothing suspicious. My eyes flicked from the windshield to the rearview mirror looking for Anna's gold-and-white Dodge or Mrs. Fletcher's black Rambler.

  The wheels spun when I pulled out onto the street, but then they caught and moved forward. That was the first of a dozen heart attacks I had on the way to the bus station. Once I thought I saw the Dodge. Once my car started to fishtail in the middle of the street. Then a freight train went by with 768 cars, all crawling along at a snail's pace.

  While I waited there, some smart-ass kid threw a snowball at the car. It hit a side window and I pulled a muscle in my neck wrenching around to see what was about to eat me. The only thing I saw was his little measly body running away.

  The last car of the train passed and the crossing gates went up. The bus station was two blocks away. My plan was to pick up Saxony, take the road right out to the Interstate, and drive for at least two hours before I stopped again to breathe.

  She was talking to Mrs. Fletcher. The two of them were standing in front of the blue bus station. I could see the vapor of their breath puff out in cold smoke signals.

  "Well, what do you think of this, Tom? I was coming back from shopping, and there she was, standing out in the cold. She came in on the morning bus."

  Saxony tried to smile but gave up.

  "Now, I won't hold you up any longer. I'm on my way home. I'll see you two later." She touched Saxony's arm, gave me a dirty look, and disappeared around the corner of a building.

  "Come on." I picked up her suitcase and started back across the street. I heard her behind me. She coughed. It was a thick, wet, racking cough that went on and on. She barely managed to get out a "Wait!" I turned around and she was bent over, one hand on her stomach, the other over her mouth.

  "Are you all right?"

  She kept coughing but shook her head at the same time.

  I put my arm around her and pulled her to me. Panting, wheezing, she leaned into me and gave me her full weight. I led her around to the other side of the car and opened the door for her. She sat down and let her head fall back on the headrest. The coughing stopped but her eyes were teary from exhaustion.

  "I'm really sick, Thomas. I've been sick ever since I left you. But it's gotten much worse recently." She rolled her head on the headrest and looked at me. "Camille, huh?" Her eyes tightened and she started coughing again.

  "Nothing. There's nothing that can be done."

  "Anna, for God's sake, come on! You can't be that horrible!"

  I got Saxony home and put her into bed. Luckily she went right to sleep. As soon as I could, I shot out of the house and over to Anna's.

  "It has nothing to do with me, Thomas. It was in the journals. It was written. It is done."

  "But everything else in the journals is screwed up. Why can't you screw this up too? She went away, didn't she? She did what you wanted."

  "She shouldn't have come back." Her voice was very cold.

  "She didn't know anything, Anna. I never said a word to her about anything. She's scared to death. For Christ's sake, have a little compassion for once in your life!"

  "Thomas, the journals say that if unnecessary people stay here for a long time then they will get sick and eventually die. If they go away, they'll get better. Saxony wasn't sick when she left, was she? You said yourself that she wasn't. So the journals are screwed up now anyway. She went away and got sick. It was supposed to happen the other way around. I have no control over any of this anymore." She spread her hands and even looked a little sorry for the first time.

  I knew long before anyone else that it was either Saxony's presence, or her proofreading the manuscript, or our combined presence that normalized Galen.

  As soon as she was rested, she read over everything that I had written since she'd left-and cut it to pieces. This was wrong. Why didn't I talk about this here instead of this? This had no bearing whatsoever, this was just silly to include…. She told me to keep perhaps a third of what I had done.

>   Mrs. Collins went into the kitchen to feed the bull terrier four days after I started rewriting with Saxony's suggestions in front of me. The woman found a baby girl asleep on the freshly torn newspaper in the box beside the stove.

  Sharon Lee, who had taken to staying inside the house all the time (along with a number of other people, including the Priest of Spiders), was seen in town shopping again, smiling as if she had won the Irish Sweepstakes.

  And Saxony stopped coughing. I told her that Anna and I weren't sleeping together anymore, but I still didn't tell her anything else.

  When I understood how necessary it was for her to be there for the success of the book, I spent a morning with Anna explaining what I knew now was the truth. She listened but said that she would have to see for herself. After the Collins baby, she agreed with me. We would tell Saxony nothing, but she was allowed to stay.

  Nothing more unexpected happened in Galen.

  9

  I heard her flip-flopping into the room in the fuzzy slippers I had bought for her at Lazy Larry's.

  She never bothered me when I worked, so I put the pen down and turned to face her. She looked so much better now. Her cheeks had gotten some color and her appetite had returned. In fact she was holding a chocolate-chip cookie in her hand with a half-moon bit out of it. Yours Truly had baked them that morning.

  "How far are you now?"

  "The same. I'm just copying some stuff over. France is getting on the train to come here. Why?"

  She threw the cookie in the wastebasket and looked at me. I looked at my cookie in the wastebasket.

  "I have a couple of things to tell you, Thomas. They're two of the reasons why I came back here. But when I arrived I didn't know if I should or not. Then I was sick…. But I've got to tell them to you." She came over and sat down in my lap. She never did that. "Have you ever heard of Sidney Swire?"