by Bruce Jones
“What--?”
Just a whisper: “…it’s him, Glennie, my big silent hunk, my lovely lumberjack, on the TV, humping the stacked blonde in his bedroom. That’s why the lights got so bright that night…he was making movies…stupid, phony snuff movies…
“Ed was laughing. ‘That’s Sally Palmer,’ he says. ‘We call her Sally-the-Pump down at the precinct! Hooker! Works Cimarron and Central. Saw here there tonight, in fact. Does this sort of phony snuff crap all the time.’”
Glenda lurched up, twisting, pain spiking her ankle, groped for the lid, just got it up before her dinner and probably her lunch found the pale bowl.
The voice from the tub so feeble now, so dreadfully feeble: “…he wasn’t the killer at all, you see…I killed an innocent man…an innocent…man…”
Glenda coughed, raw-throated, slipped to her knees, sat there panting weakly, head down and swimming against the cool porcelain, dancing dots behind her lids. Pushed up and slipped again. Had she gotten some of it on the floor, have to clean it up, it was slippery all over the floor…sticky…
“Karen? Don’t fall asleep! Karen, you’ll drown…”
Her own voice sounded far away now. Probably she’d gotten it on her dress too, the Armani she’d worn at the meeting, damn. “Karen--?”
The air conditioner thumped on first.
Then the blinking fluorescents, stuttering brightness…the room coloring pink, then red…and deeper.
Red on the sticky floor, the walls, but mostly the tub, the tub filled with it, nearly black with it, sides scalloped crimson. Karen waxy as death within.
Glenda, strangely composed, stared at the friend’s corpse: breasts bobbing, chin tilted, mouth still caught in mid-sentence, livid islands in the sea of blood. The left arm, fallen free, dangled with deep slashes, leaking still.
On the sticky floor, Glenda’s shoe found the fallen razor, nudged it, smearing Karen’s blood. She stared curiously at it, dreamily, her swimming head cocked like a bird, eyes finally lifting to her own laughably shocked reflection in the sink mirror…staring silently, listening to her mind saying quite reasonably really: I’m a CEO, I live in Frisco now, I’m not part of this, any of this at all…
Along with screenplays and teleplays and novels I’ve been known to write a comic book or two. We all have our skeletons. Other than one other story in this collection, “Pride of the Fleet”, I haven’t done all that much cross pollinating between the formats. For one thing, short prose does not often a good comic story make. Also, I don’t like repeating myself unless absolutely necessary (read: broke). It was with some alarm, then, that I noticed, while picking out these various footprints of my youth, I’d used the following tale in a comic book version too, albeit title only. I know you can’t copyright a title and I’m not about to sue myself in any case, but it does add to the confusion. My billions of fans don’t like it. And it gives me a personal twinge; things are complicated enough in life, I don’t need an earlier marker for encroaching Alzheimer’s in my life right now. It also makes me wonder how many times in my career I’ve suffered similar redundancies unaware. Really, the two stories have nothing in common whatsoever other than the title; still it peeves me for some reason. Couldn’t I have been cleverer? Is my literary arsenal so limited? Am I getting sloppy? It’s like a criticism received recently for my novel SHIMMER. The book’s gotten consistent five star reviews so far, I’m happy to say, but for one very nice lady who gave it a “four.” She really did like the book, she admitted, except it was “too long” and had “too many adjectives.” I’m not even sure what that means but it bugs me. I don’t like having “too many” anythings: too many traffic tickets, too many TV channels, too many toes on one foot. (Too many long introductions to stories?)
One thing writers never get too much of is positive reaction. Facebook has changed that somewhat in recent years, which is nice, I guess. The following is one of the few stories I actually received good feedback on first-hand. When Blackthorne Press invited me to publish this story it was edited by good friend and associate Jane McKay. I remember Jane looking up after she’d finished the proofing, all wide-eyed and Oooo-mouthed: “Boy, Bruce, that ending really creeped me out!” Mission accomplished, I say. The kind of thing that makes my day, knowing I’ve affected someone with my work even if it has to be in a “creeped out” sort of way. So often we feel we’re just sitting here in our lonely little haunts typing into a void. Hello—our voice echoes, anybody out there? Anybody that’s not watching TV? No? Never mind.
My chief goal in what follows was the same goal I always have when approaching a story: try like hell to be original. I read a lot—I mean a lot—of short fiction as a kid; in fact I have this whole theory I call the “30 Minute Syndrome” from reading all that short fiction and watching all those half hour TV shows; which may partly explain my ADHD and mild dyslexia but that’s another story. But the one thing I swore to myself back then was when I grew up to become the next Faulkner, I would not repeat or willfully ape those great tales that so inspired me…nor repeat myself if humanly possible. I’d dig down deep, instead, seek out the nastiest part of that lurking ID that hides from us all, dwell with the horrid little bugger long enough to get back out alive and complete something as freshly original as possible. To what extent I’ve succeeded in this lofty endeavor over the years is open to debate, but the thing I want to impress upon you is--glib and offhanded as some of these tales may seem--I really did try. Gave them my best. Otherwise, my theory being, what was the point? There’s always the mall.
The sad thing, of course, is that the best stories can never be consciously unearthed; they always come from some other direction, a gift, usually when you’re in zone mode, taking a shower or weeding the yard. But maybe that’s a good thing…maybe that explains just how deeply subconscious some of the best ones really are. It’s like you couldn’t bear to face them in the daylight of awareness. All of which may be so much pie-in-the-sky but the only immediate rationale I have. It will have to serve for the moment. And to hopefully explain what in God’s name I was thinking while creating something as self-disturbing and cloyingly grim as
Les sat tensely behind the wheel of the little import, lips pressed in a flat, sardonic grimace, patina of sweat filming his forehead, perpetual notch cleaving his brow. He was not happy.
The winding costal road was narrowly steep. The fog was heavy and viscous. The car salesman was a liar.
He’d told Les the little foreign import would behave well in inclement weather. “Purr like a kitten through the thickest pea soup! These cars love the cold and wet!” The car was neither purring nor in love. It was torpid, lunging and resentful. It coughed. Worst, the brakes felt soft on the steepest grades.
Les feared most that it would stall here on the mist-slick mountain road, forcing him to start it again at some impossibly steep angle, foot fighting clutch, heart banging ribs as the tires slipped inexorably backward. And eventually off the cliff. Not a thought he relished. Not with fog so thick it masked both the small traffic lane to his left and the sheer, jagged abyss at his right. He couldn’t see the towering six foot breakers dashing themselves to fine spray on the boulders below, but he could hear them.
He wanted out of this. He wanted to be home in Ventura, feet up, bourbon in hand, Jay Leno making him smile.
“I’ve had enough!” he reported to the import’s interior, as if articulating misery could invoke unseen powers.
Perhaps it did.
Out of the swirling mist now came a paler rectangle of weathered wood, a sign, rattling and groaning against rusted chain links, spanking the wind and announcing crudely: CUSHION’S GARAGE in faded, paint-flaking cursive. An attendant hand-painted arrow pointed the way.
Les drew bolstering breath, took a renewed grip on the leather-wrapped wheel and followed blindly.
A high, clapboard façade materialized before his hobbling fog beams. Stately Victorian dormers came into focus. Les let out grateful breath: there actual
ly was human life out here. He nosed his sports car down a narrow drive before a low, sun-baked porch, tires crunching gravel loosely. He set the brake. Grinned wearily, back and shoulder muscles unknotting, clenched molars relaxing. He was still alive. Thank-you unseen powers. It was just after he cut the engine he heard the screaming.
It was coming—it seemed to be coming—from the weathered old house, a second story window, along with the thrashing sound of splashing water, an occasional muffled curse. There were hollow banging noises as well, like someone thumping a metal drum. Les sat quietly for a long moment listening, fingers hooked unconsciously atop the wheel. The screaming turned to a low wail. Then another frantic thrashing of water; someone was being hurt. On impulse he pushed quickly out of the import, banging the wheel hub with his elbow. A jarring honk knifed the damp air. The screaming ceased immediately.
Les hesitated beside the car. Listened. Craned up at the mist-shrouded window. Blank panes stared back. Empty. No, wait—movement. A tall, vague shadow passed behind thick-leaded panes, antique rippled glass. Then: nothing. Silence.
Les stepped tentatively from the car and crept around a weed-festered yard to the front of the place, following a broken, flagstone path. He found himself facing an aged porch: off-center wooden steps warped in a crooked grin, beckoning to the off-center front door above. Les climbed carefully, eyes locked on the door. Its weathered wood was spider-webbed with paint cracks, bowed and warped as well from ever constant salt air. Les walked wobbly porch planks to a low, dubious overhang, rapped lightly on the door. He waited in chill breeze, shoulders hunched inside his jacket, a vague discomfiture settling over him borne of shifting fog. Maybe this wasn’t such a hot idea. All alone out here and someone wailing inside this weird old house. But where the devil else was he supposed to go—the stupid import was through.
He shifted on his hips nervously, suppressed a shiver, cleared his throat, rapped again, harder. “Hello! Is anyone home?” His voice bounced back ineffectually, snatched by the wind.
He waited. Gazed about the sagging porch. What a dump. An iron lawn table, canted and faded sickly white like an old man; or maybe merely scoured that color by onshore wind, lack of maintenance. The place was a mess all right. He twitched at a nearby groan. A chained porch swung mournfully from rust-frozen links. Les pulled his coat jacket tighter. “Hello! Can you hear me?”
He was thinking about trying the slim outside latch when a movement within stayed his hand. A tall silhouette detached itself from interior shadows, moved toward him unhurriedly.
A powerful basso voice boomed—seemed to rattle the thin door. A vaguely southern accent, deep and menacing. “What you want!”
Les tried to squint past the warbled glass. “Help, actually! My car’s broken down. I…saw the sign down the hill…”
The interior shadow enlarged, morphed gelatinous into human shape: tall, stocky, foreboding. “We’re closed.”
Period. The figure began to ripple away…
Les gulped sudden panic. “Wait a second! The fog! I can’t walk these roads at night!”
It must have sounded just pathetic enough. The shadow turned back. In a moment there was a dull click and the door swung inward a foot. A muscled face loomed there, hooded, steel gray eyes, tousled red hair, week’s growth of stubble above torn T-shirt and bib overalls. Middle-aged probably, but hard to tell under the leathery, sun-creased skin. A waft of mildew and alcohol pinched Les’ nostrils. “Whad ya expect me to do?” Accusatory, suspicious.
Les felt all confidence deserting him. “Well,” thick and dry, “…maybe a place I can rest…until the fog lifts.”
The man in the doorway looked Les up and down. Twice. “Won’t lift till tomorrow noon.”
Les lingered. A directionless mound, fog plucking goose pimples at his neck. “I see.” Think of something! “The sign, the garage? Is it yours?”
Difficult seconds passed. “You ain’t a salesman?”
“Me? No.” He was, actually, but auto insurance. Which was ironic.
Up and down again, eyes piercing. Finally: “Ever slept in a garage?”
Les started to shake his head, smiled bravely instead. “When I was a kid.”
The man nodded warily, hairy nostrils widening as if sniffing Les out. Slowly, as if he had all day and night, as if the chill fog weren’t creeping up Les’ pant legs and shrinking his privates. “A kid.”
“Yes. When I was thirteen, I think.”
The man finally nodded, seemed to settle an inch. He shrugged. “It’s yer funeral. There’s an old mattress already out there.”
“A mattress. I see. Fine.”
Was that a grin. Mocking? “Hope you got a strong back.”
There was movement in the dark hall behind them, a tentative, pale shadow. The man turned to observe a small, delicately-boned girl wrapped in threadbare towel creeping up mouse-like and twitching behind him. Long, stringy hair spilled over naked shoulders, plastered flat with dripping water. A tawny, not unpleasant face with enormous eyes, trying to see around the big man’s bulk.
The big man turned back to Les. Grunted. “My wife.”
Les nodded a hello. The young girl stared curiously, bare shoulders fine as polished ivory, delicate mouth pursed quizzically. Watching. Dripping.
“Retarded,” the man said, grinning cigarette-stained teeth. “Never learned how to talk.” He winked at Les, steel eyes dancing. “’Course she don’t have to talk to make a good wife, if ya know what I mean!” His voice made it more liquid and obscene than it already was. Les resisted an urge to step back. His eyes went to the girl. She caught his polite smile, stared back briefly like a deer in headlights and melted into shadows quickly.
“Is everything all right?” Les asked. “Before…I thought I heard…noises…”
The man laughed, souring the air with alcohol. “Everythin’s fine, Mister. Abbie she jes don’t like takin’ her bath is all. Jes like a little kid! She’d go about stinkin’ if I let her!”
Smiling now at his own astuteness, he pulled the door wider. “You got any luggage?”
“One suitcase.”
The man nodded toward the little import in the mist and stepped out. “C’mon, I’ll give ya a hand.”
* * *
Mr. Cushion turned out—to Les’ surprise—to be not an awful person, even passingly friendly, maybe a little starved for conversation out here in the rocks and conifers. They engaged in a lot of it over dinner in his untidy little kitchen. Abbie crept silently about the room, bringing coffee and warm bread and saying nothing.
“Not many folks come by these days,” Cushion was saying. “Big service station down to Point Royal now, took away most of my business. Shell. Government bastards.”
Les wiped up sweet gravy with a piece of delicious bread. “It was closed when I drove up.”
“Sunday. The world near stops spinning in these parts on Sunday. You won’t be goin’ nowhere tomorrow, neither.” And he bit into a chicken leg with strong, wide teeth.
Les looked up cautiously. “Oh? Why’s that?”
Cushion jerked a thumb toward the milky panes in the dour, shadowed parlor. “Fog. Lasts for days around here sometimes. Weeks. We never know. Find yourself at the bottom of a canyon with your imported engine up your skinny ass!”
He roared laughter, belching, slapped the table, making Les jump with the silverware. Les smiled back companionably. Cushion snorted dismissively. “Don’t fret none. Abbie and me will take care of you, won’t we, Abbie girl?”
Les started again as the girl appeared at his elbow from nowhere, pouring coffee. It might have been the poor lamplight, but it seemed to him her hand trembled just the slightest. “Little jumpy, ain’t you?” Cushion chuckled. “Don’t fret, she won’t bite!”
The bedroom above the garage ( a converted carriage house, really) was austere; a little one-room tar paper affair with minimum accoutrements except for a once-expensive but long abused mahogany bed. The mattress was rife with lumps and mildew
under a thin hand-made quilt. The floor was unpolished planked wood, and freezing. A single window overlooked the rocky coast without. Cushion explained to Les the room had been the home of a former assistant, a young man he’d had to let go on account of poor business. That fancy-ass station in Point Royal. “Ain’t been nobody round since but me and the girl.” Cushion nodded at the sad little room as if to confirm it. “No one to talk to…” and he trailed off sullenly. Les felt a wedge of sorrow for the man. And the young woman. They were more lost than he was.
The room was livable, he supposed, but a year of disuse had made it close and stuffy. Les opened the single window wide, took in a deep brace of salt air. The breakwater thundered below the cliff. He listened awhile, sat about on the bed for a while after that, drumming his fingers on the lumpy quilt, and grew rapidly bored. Finally he ventured downstairs again, thought of walking back to the house to see what his host was up to but finally decided it impolite. He checked out the oily little garage—empty of vehicles--looked about the yard, decided to stretch his legs along the coast. Miraculously the fog had lifted some and he could see, at the edge of the bluff out beyond the rock-bound shore, the distant ocean horizon swathed in moonlight. It looked very old. Eternal. Unassailable.