The Drowned Life
Page 25
The instant I saw him in the porch light, I could tell he’d followed Bobby off the wagon. He was pale and thin and his hands shook badly when he lit a cigarette. A sharp smell of gasoline came off his coat.
“You don’t look so good,” I said.
“I went back to it after Bobby got busted.”
I almost asked, “Why?” but realized how stupid a question it was.
“Me and Ellis split,” he said. “I showed him an article in the paper one day by a famous doctor that said that taking vitamins was useless.”
“Are you kidding?” I asked.
“He said I was too negative, and he left me. My using again didn’t help either.”
“Do you hear from Bobby?” I asked.
He took a drag of his cigarette. “Yeah, he called once for a minute. He sounded fucked-up, not high but shaky. Right before he hung up I asked him what the joint was like, and he told me, ‘Like an ocean liner made of ice.’”
I shook my head.
“You’ve gotta stay away from me now,” said Gil, staring out the window. “Keep your doors locked, day and night. If you see me, don’t talk to me. Make like I don’t exist. I’ll let you know if I kick it again.”
“Okay,” I said.
Without another word, he left. I never saw him again.
PERMISSIONS
Some of the pieces appearing in this collection were first published elsewhere; permissions and copyright information as follows:
“The Drowned Life” © 2007 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Eclipse #1, Nightshade Books, October 1, 2007.
“Ariadne’s Mother” © 2007 Jeffrey Ford. First published in The Flash, Social Disease Press, April 27, 2007.
“The Night Whiskey” © 2006 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Salon Fantastique, Thunder’s Mouth Press, September 5, 2006.
“A Few Things About Ants” © 2006 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Journal of Mythic Arts, Endicott Studio, Summer 2006.
“Under the Bottom of the Lake” © 2007 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Subterranean Magazine #7, Subterranean Press, Fall 2007.
“Present from the Past” © 2003 Jeffrey Ford. First published in The Silver Gryphon, Golden Gryphon Press, May 1, 2003.
“The Manticore Spell” © 2007 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Wizards, Berkley Hardcover, May 1, 2007.
“The Dismantled Invention of Fate” © 2008 Jeffrey Ford. First published in The Starry Rift, Viking Juvenile, April 17, 2008.
“What’s Sure to Come” © 2002 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet # 10, June 2002.
“The Way He Does It” © 2006 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Electric Velocipede #10, April 2006.
“The Scribble Mind” © 2005 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Sci-Fiction, May 25, 2005.
“The Bedroom Light” © 2007 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Inferno, Tor Books, December 10, 2007.
“In the House of Four Seasons” © 2005 Jeffrey Ford. First published in Fantasy Magazine #1, October 2005.
“The Dreaming Wind” © 2007 Jeffrey Ford. First published in The Coyote Road, Viking Juvenile, July 19, 2007.
About the Author
JEFFREY FORD’s acclaimed and award-winning novels include The Shadow Year, The Physiognomy, The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque, and The Girl in the Glass. He is a professor of writing and early American literature at a college in New Jersey.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
ALSO BY JEFFREY FORD
novels
The Shadow Year
The Girl in the Glass
The Cosmology of the Wider World
The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque
The Beyond
Memoranda
The Physiognomy
Vanitas
story collections
The Empire of Ice Cream
The Fantasy Writer’s Assistant
Credits
Cover design by Milan Bozic
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE DROWNED LIFE. Copyright © 2008 by Jeffrey Ford. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition SEPTEMBER 2008 ISBN: 9780061980381
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com