“So what are you afraid she digs up?”
“Nicolae,” said Peter.
“He’s still alive?”
“No. But she goes deep enough, she’s gonna find out.”
Roman looked at him.
“That Nicolae was a killer,” said Peter.
The Taste of Fear
By nature Nicolae was a pussycat. In his later years he had individual names for every duck he fed, and musicals made him cry. More than anything he loved his Sundays with Peter. On this day he would allow Peter to help him as he went around with a hammer and a dolly looking for cars that had a dent that needed to be fixed. Peter would help by pretending to be retarded because people were happier to give business to the guy with the retarded kid, and this made him feel clever and useful. Then they would go and spend Peter’s share of the proceeds immediately on ice cream or at the arcade. Nicolae would never let him save; a rich man, he said, was one who spent a million. Later, when it started in Peter, the turn, Nicolae was the one who showed him the right way to be a wolf, not brain surgery but impossible to understate the importance: Don’t hunt when you’re not hungry; when you do hunt, go for the flank, thus avoiding antlers in front and hooves in the rear; and when you are filled with the song of the universe, the breathing spirit that passes through and unites all things, throw your head back and close your eyes and join in.
But though Nicolae may have had a heart of gold, the substance of his brain was perhaps not as valued a commodity, and when he was young he fucked things up very badly for himself. He was part of a kumpania in the old country, and because he was one of seven Rumancek boys, and the Rumancek boys being about as useful at holding in gossip as a woman with a map, the fact that once a month he discarded his man coat and roamed in the purview of arcane and unruly gods was not only fairly widespread knowledge but also made the young man a more celebrated figure than even the most accomplished dancers or dulcimer players. How the old women clucked and the young girls tittered as that Rumancek swaggered past. It was really living high on the hog. So it was to increase his standing that he permitted a tradition to emerge among his brothers and their cronies, a real gentlemen’s club, to get howling drunk before the turn, then steal a pig or a sheep and watch Nicolae have at it. Better than the movies! Of course the older and wiser wagged their fingers over the only possible moral of this story—children playing with fire yields one outcome just as drunks playing with werewolves yields one other—and so it came to pass: the night the comedian of the cronies decided it would be a gas to snatch a bone from the wolf’s mouth.
At first the others tried sticks and rocks and finally guns, but it was already too late. Once the wolf gets the taste of fear all there is to do is back slowly away to avoid further provocation and then run, run and pray someone else in the pack is slower.
So that was that. It was all over before it began. It was all over. To kill another person, this doesn’t exist in Gypsy courts. It’s unthinkable. A person who would do this, unthinkable. So there’s no punishment, no sanction to be made against a thing so irreconcilable with the breathing spirit that passes through and unites all things. It’s just over for the one who did it, he doesn’t exist anymore. And no punishment is greater, it’s having your heart removed. The next morning Nicolae awoke alone on bare earth where the blood of his friend had melted the snow and to the sound of the creaking wheels of the caravan and all his brothers moving on, to the sound of his heart being removed from his body.
“That’s where this comes from,” said Peter.
He patted his rib cage where there was the tattoo of a g.
“It stands for gadjo. Outsider. Nicolae stood outside all worlds and I stand next to Nicolae.”
“How did he get here?” said Roman.
“There was only one way. He was invisible to all his people and would have curled up and died with his thumb up his ass except for his two oldest friends in the world: his feet. So he walked. He walked day and night in the rain and the sun and he didn’t stop until he hit America. And he started again.”
“You can’t walk to America, there’s an ocean,” said Roman.
“Well, he found a way to lick it,” said Peter.
Roman looked at him.
“It’s in the Bible,” said Peter.
“In the Bible it’s a miracle, you don’t lick it,” said Roman.
“Well, he did,” said Peter. “There it was in writing, and Nicolae didn’t know how to write himself so he figured if you took the trouble it must be true. So he walked up and down the beach until in his mind he licked it, and then he went inland a ways until he found a pond, and he tied lily pads to the bottoms of his shoes. And that was how he walked to America.”
Roman was not satisfied. But perceiving this line of inquiry a blind alley, he changed the subject. He asked what any of this had to with Peter.
“This is my blood,” said Peter. “Blood … stains.”
Roman picked up the coupling link and hefted it thoughtfully.
“Shee-it,” said Roman.
“Shee-it,” said Peter.
“Who do you think this Chasseur really is?” said Roman.
“I need to know like an extra ear on my dick to hear myself whack off,” said Peter. “Let’s be clear, only one thing matters here: not putting me in a cage.”
Roman was quiet. “What now.”
“We do what you said,” said Peter. “We find the vargulf. And we stop him.”
Roman slapped the link against his palm a couple of times. “How?”
“If there’s time before the next moon, help him,” said Peter. “It’s possible he doesn’t even know what he’s doing.”
“If there’s not?”
“I kill him.”
Roman looked at the other boy who was hiding a wolf. “You would do that?”
“I would do what was necessary,” said Peter, who in a past moment of truth failed to wring the neck of a dying fox in an act of merciful necessity and could make no promises to himself what he would or would not do in a replicated scenario with so much more on the line. But he did know he needed to sell it convincingly for the benefit of the upir’s not insignificant resources.
“So if we went through with this,” said Roman, stressing the word if to lend the false impression there was any question in his mind, “where would we start?”
“Lisa Willoughby,” said Peter.
“Seems like a bit of a dead end,” said Roman.
“What’s left of her,” said Peter. “We find out where they’re burying her.”
“Why?”
“Because we’re going to dig her up.”
Peter was not sure if the joyful light that suddenly shone in Roman’s green Godfrey eyes was indicative of how auspicious or dumbfuck a partnership this would be.
“We’re not calling ourselves the Order of the Dragon,” said Peter.
“Do you … know what it’s like?” said Roman, haltingly shifting gears. “The taste of fear?”
Peter did not know what he disliked more: the idea of formulating an appropriate response to this question or that it had been asked. So he employed a strategy he had perfected in his dealing with the opposite sex: reply naturally as if to an entirely different conversation.
“That bum who hangs out at Kilderry Park,” said Peter. “We also may as well try and talk to him—who knows, maybe he saw something.”
Roman was quiet.
“What bum?” he said.
* * *
From the archives of Norman Godfrey:
NG: You wanted to see me?
FP: …
NG: Mr. Pullman? Francis?
FP: I … seen it.
NG: What?
FP: There was another one. I didn’t know there was another one.
NG: Another what?
FP: …
NG: You didn’t know there was another what?
FP: Another girl.
NG: What did you see, Francis?
* * *
>
Letha was sleeping when some obscure tension woke her and she saw in her doorway a silhouette palpable with ill ease.
“Dad?” she said.
“I’m sorry,” said Dr. Godfrey. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s fine, but … are you all right?”
He considered his response. “No,” he said.
“Why don’t you come over here?” she said.
For a moment it seemed as though he hadn’t heard. But then, trancelike, he went to her bed and sat. He tucked his hands into his lap. She smelled the scotch on him and in her condition it was nauseating to her, it was the smell of a man in pain. She touched his arm.
“You don’t have to worry about me,” she said. “I’m going to stay away from the woods. I’m not going to walk by myself. I’m going to be safe, Dad. I know your job is to worry, but my job is to be safe.” Her other hand passed over her stomach.
He looked at the little hand, this little person’s hand resting on his arm. Looking into Pullman’s story earlier in the night entailed confirming a detail about the Bluebell killing with the sheriff’s department that had not made it to the papers: though the body was disemboweled, the animal responsible had left vital organs intact while consuming only body fat. Meaning she was alive; she was alive and watching herself being eaten. When asked for a statement by the paper he had declared, in his view, a state of emergency. But does raising a child have any other name? There is a fly in the ointment peculiar to the study of the mind and it is that the subject of study is also its instrument, like a microscope under a microscope. He looked out at the dendritic network of branches cast by the streetlight in shadow puppet on her blinds.
“Dad?” she said. “Why are you crying?”
* * *
MYSTERY CREATURE: DEMON DOG?
Todd Palermo, Easter Valley Bugle
The currently unidentified predator responsible for the fatal maulings of Brooke Bluebell and Lisa Willoughby in Hemlock Grove has been described by an eyewitness as “a giant black dog, tall as a man, three hundred pounds, at least, with glowing yellow eyes.”
Francis Pullman, 53, an inpatient at the Hemlock Acres Institute for Mental Wellness, came forward last night claiming to have seen the first attack. Pullman is a homeless veteran of the U.S. Army. He said he was sleeping at Kilderry Park the night of September 30 when he awoke to the sounds of screaming. The victim, Brooke Bluebell, came running from the woods, followed closely by the “demon dog.”
“She had a ten-, fifteen-foot lead, but once they reached the open, he pounced right on her. I’ve seen a rabid dog before and this wasn’t anything like that. This was not natural.”
Pullman, who was admitted to Hemlock Acres last week in a highly agitated condition, apologized for saying nothing sooner, but it was a deeply traumatic experience for him.
When reached for comment, Dr. Norman Godfrey, psychiatrist in chief of the institute, refused to speculate on the likelihood of Pullman’s account on the basis of doctor-patient confidentiality.
“All I can recommend is that all parents consider this a state of emergency,” he said. “If at any time you are unsure of the location and welfare of your child, that is unacceptable.”
Sheriff Thomas Sworn, however, has warned not to lend too much credence to Pullman’s account.
“We are willing to entertain the possibility that Mr. Pullman was witness to the tragedy, and are grateful to him for any light he might shed,” he said in an official press release. “But we are receiving expert help on this case, and though the wounds are certainly consistent with some sort of large animal, there simply isn’t a species of canine on the planet that fits his description, not to mention the sort of evidence it would leave.”
Sheriff Sworn noted that it was night, Pullman has a history of narcotics abuse, and additionally “sometimes the mind plays tricks. I just don’t want a panic to start. It’s our job to find this thing, and as the father of twin girls myself, I promise you we will. Soon.”
Until then, he recommends residents continue taking precautions, “but against a typical feral animal, not some ghost dog. Those teeth are real enough.”
In Poor Taste
From the archives of Dr. Norman Godfrey:
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: A girl’s best friend
Dearest Uncle,
A dreadful row this morning. I was reading my newspaper (“demon dog”? horrid, horrid…) when Roman came to breakfast, upon which Mother instantly set upon him about the guest he had entertained last night, as he was paid a quite unexpected visit by that rascal Gypsy boy, Peter—who, I’ve decided, is most certainly not our hellish hound … well, almost certainly—and had a rather lengthy conversation behind closed doors. (How I should have liked to eavesdrop!—but alas, your charming niece’s sneakier impulses are in inverse proportion with her sheer volume; I fear I would not have much of a career in cloak and daggery barring some conspiracy of the blind, deaf, and dumb—but even then I suppose I would be bumped into eventually.) Mother inquired into his business. Roman replied they were partners on a school project. Mother was not satisfied by this patent evasion.
“Do you want the truth?” said Roman.
“Yes,” said Mother.
Roman gave a lengthy and graphic account of a homosexual affair. “But don’t worry,” it culminated, “it’s only [EXPLETIVE DELETED].”
Needless to say, it was not long before they were trading the usual poison slings and arrows. And despite my unhappy familiarity with the phenomenon, it still eludes me: how two people whose love for each other is so great can find words of such hate. Maybe I’ll understand one day, but I am not impatient for enlightenment.
I am dismayed to report that this is not the only evidence of a general decline in Mother’s temper lately. I went with Roman to the mall this past weekend (I needed a replacement copy of Beyond Good and Evil; I had ripped mine in two in a rage but on reflection decided there were a few points that warranted—ever so tentatively, Herr Nietzsche—reevaluation), and who should we encounter but Jenny from the club! She had been absent from our most recent supper and was to my surprise ringing up a sale at the earring boutique. I poked Roman, quite accidentally bowling him over, and restrained myself from tucking him under my arm like a suitcase to hasten our salutation (I do get excited sometimes).
But at our approach Jenny looked over with a distinct lack of enthusiasm and gave the barest nod of recognition. Of course I was crushed and racked my brains for any cause I may have given to offend her. My first assumption as always was that it was my own fault.
My brother, however, with his characteristic nonchalance in the face of the vagaries of mood of the fairer sex, asked how she’d been.
“Terrific,” she reported flatly. “Your psycho [EXPLETIVE DELETED] mother got me fired.”
I was simultaneously horrified at Mother and to hear Jenny speak of her like that.
“Yeah, well, she’s a [EXPLETIVE DELETED] on stilts,” said Roman. “Stop the presses.”
This was even more distressing. Of course he’s hurled far worse within our walls, but to talk so in this public setting … I grinned like a nervous dog (the friendly household variety).
But my brother’s waggishness had its reliable effect on the mademoiselle—who took apparent pleasure in the all too easily romanticized cynicism of the throne’s heir presumptive.
“You think you got troubles?” continued Roman, impressed with his own performance. “At least you didn’t end up with your brains gussying up the wainscoting.”
My knees grew weak, and I scarcely think this recounting is any more pleasurable for you, but you are my trusted doctor in addition to dearest uncle, and I depend as much on your professional as familial compassion. I’m sure you have heard the vulgar jokes as well, implicating Mother in this family’s great tragedy, and for the most part I am able to turn a deaf ear to such lurid insinuations, but to hea
r one cast so thoughtlessly from the lips of my brother … It took all my will to remain stoic—not to mention upright.
Jenny laughed, the way the fairer sex tends to around Roman. “You’re bad,” she diagnosed. But coaxed now from her initial sullenness she turned to me and graced the thoroughfare with one of those smiles that had so many times brightened our supper, and my dejection was an unmourned memory. Truly astonishing just how much of the world’s trouble could be erased by the simplest smile. She tapped her ears and said, “Come to accessorize, honey?”
I returned her smile with my own inferior facsimile and shook my head.
“You know what would look fabulous on you?” she said, and then unlocked a display of the more exclusive stock and removed a pair of teardrop diamond earrings that would nearly rival some of Mother’s.
“This is the fanciest thing we carry,” she said. “Just waiting for the proper lady. Come here.”
I bent in mad glee and glanced in the mirror as she held one to my ear, and even the juxtaposition of her fine hand with that monstrous countenance (which, though it happens to be my appearance, I will not call my reflection) did not darken my spirits once more. Rather, both of us, Jenny so fair and Shelley its antithesis, were equally delighted by the gentle farce that a thing of such delicate beauty could have a home on such a grotesque.
“Jolie fille!” exclaimed Jenny. “What do you think, big brother? It’s not like it’s outside your spending limit.”
“Brilliant,” said Roman. “Mom would [EXPLETIVE DELETED] a bowling ball.”
“Well, I think your mom just doesn’t want the competition.”
It would hardly have been noticeable under the skylight, but I began lightly to shine.
But the bell will be ringing soon (eighth period, it tolls for thee). Christina is absent again today, the poor girl. One cannot imagine what toll stumbling on the demon dog’s handiwork must have taken on such an innocent. I sent her a card with a humble little poem to perhaps give her courage (no! I will not repeat it here), and also mentioned your name should she desire the audience of a professional. Despite my own impediments on the elocution front, you will never have a more vocal advocate to those in need.
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