by Josh Emmons
Martin tried but couldn’t get up. The scratch groove of his record player warped and woofed through the small speakers in his apartment. He didn’t remember putting on a record. Or passing out. Or waking up. His only clear memory was of Shane repeatedly hitting him and calling him a fool, saying he’d had the chance to get rich on the Leon Meed story and chosen not to. He was a sick man, Shane said.
Martin felt beyond the powers of alcohol. His head was thick with illegible data and he couldn’t see properly. Why would he or Shane have put on a record? Martin called out for help and his voice was barely a whisper. His stomach roiled and lurched in every direction.
“Help!” he wheezed.
Warp warp woof.
“Help!”
Even though he’d been beaten, he felt no pain, just an undulant nausea and gross distortion of his visual and auditory senses. A thought drifted through his head with cloudlike serenity: Shane had drugged him and taken some of his things. Martin had the drive and agility of a rag doll. Shane had said, with television sarcasm, “You’re an antisocial fuck, you know that? Burning down people’s houses just because they don’t want to be interviewed. I hope they lock you up and forget about you. I really do.” Martin remembered this sinister sound bite and passed back into slumber.
Looking up from his hands (that had repaired so many bodies—opened them up, sewn them together), Steve said that it wasn’t going to work between him and Elaine. They sat at the kitchen table they’d bought on their honeymoon in Mexico—maintained beautifully, it was without stain or blemish—and after a moment’s hesitation she began crying. He wanted to comfort her but couldn’t. She stared unseeingly into space and quieted down for a few breaths before breaking again into sobs, staggering her absorption of their end with ten-second intervals of calm.
Although unsure of when he’d begun to think seriously about Prentiss’s question at the Ritz—how could his withdrawals be a response to women leaving him, when the reason they left him was his withdrawals?—Steve had learned the answer that afternoon, sitting in front of his statue from Leon Meed, studying its fixed eyes. They didn’t hide or turn away from his inquiry. He could tell Prentiss and Elaine and Abraham and anyone who’d listen that he was the innocent one in relationships, more sinned against than sinning, but that was untrue, a thick subterfuge he’d deployed without knowing it. The truth was that a dark corner of his unconscious engineered his withdrawals in order to drive away his partners, just as some criminals wanted to get caught and so left incriminating evidence behind. All he could hope upon learning this was that perhaps, like them, his self-betrayals would lead to a greater good.
Just then he watched his wife cry and wondered if and when he would join her.
The waiter at Mazotti’s was doing too much to imply that Prentiss and Lillith were already romantically involved. He’d recommended they share an order of manicotti, placed a bunch of daisies on their table, suggested how they spend Christmas morning together (the other restaurant where he worked had a superb brunch), and offered them complimentary champagne normally reserved for couples getting engaged.
After he delivered their entrées with an ingratiating bow and walked away, Lillith said, “If he slips us a hotel room key with the check, he’ll have crossed the line.”
“I reckon it’s the holiday cheer’s got him excited.”
They looked at their steaming plates and basket of breadsticks. The candle in between them flickered when a busboy speed-walked past. There was a heavy aroma in the air of cheese and olive oil and cheap disinfectant.
Prentiss said, “This place hasn’t put up any new decorations since the holiday party.”
“That’s true,” Lillith said, surveying the restaurant’s interior. “There’s still mistletoe over the door. Do you do anything at home to celebrate Christmas?”
“You mean do I roast chestnuts and put up a tree?”
“Not necessarily a tree; that’s actually a pagan symbol.”
“Is that right?”
Lillith cut a piece of eggplant parmesan into diamond-shaped bites. “In the Old Testament, the prophet Jeremiah said: ‘Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them. For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe. They deck it with silver and with gold.’ Christians stole the tree tradition from pagans.”
Prentiss said, swallowing a bite of calzone, “You know all the Bible by heart?”
“No, just the stuff that helps explain Wicca.”
“What’s Wicca?”
“My religion. It’s a type of neopaganism.”
Prentiss’s gaze panned slowly to his right as though following an object crossing in front of him. “Is Wicca the religion where you worship the Earth Mother and there’s a store in Old Town sells charms and crystals for it, the Dangling Druid?”
“The Dancing Druid. That’s a good shop, but I go to the Terra Connection in Arcata or order online.”
Prentiss unbuttoned the top button of his suit; his calzone was spiced with hot flakes of hard red pepper. “Is there a Wicca church around here you go to?”
“Not officially; for worshipping we alternate between different people’s houses or meet at Sequoia Park.”
Lillith sipped the champagne Prentiss had turned down in favor of grape juice. The waiter came by twice to ask if they were enjoying everything. They smiled without encouraging him.
“Look,” said Prentiss, whose top three buttons were now undone, “the other night at the office party, you said how you knew Leon Meed ten years ago. I been meaning to ask you something. Don’t get upset if it sounds unusual.”
Lillith held a forkful of eggplant over her plate. “Okay.”
Prentiss pushed back his shoulders to sit up as straight as he could. “Did you see him disappear ten years ago?”
She set down her fork. “You mean truly disappear?”
He nodded.
“That’s what Dr. Baker and his wife were arguing about, wasn’t it?”
“In a way, yeah.”
She said, after a moment, “Yes, I did.”
Prentiss rolled up his shirtsleeves and placed his elbows on the table and said, in a low, serious voice, “I saw him, too, and it’s my idea that everyone who did is linked somehow. Like Leon’s a connecting tissue between us. I mean, there you are working at Steve’s office, and you and me now are sitting here. I’m thinking there might be a purpose behind it.”
Lillith looked at Prentiss. Her breathing quickened and she said, as though confessing to a dream that would expose her but couldn’t be passed over in silence, “Do you want to know the truth about what happened to Leon?”
“I think I know, see, because—”
“He was kidnapped by a god named the Horned Consort and trapped in a hidden world called the Astral Plane until me and some friends cast a spell that saved him.”
Prentiss’s shoulders relaxed and fell forward; he looked down at the plate in front of him and said, “You making fun of me?”
“No, of course not.”
“Then what’s this about a plane when I’m talking about interconnectedness?”
She frowned and said, “Well—what’s this about interconnectedness when I’m talking about a plane?”
The waiter, without either one noticing, had returned to stand a half-foot away from their table, as though hoping to be given an order. Prentiss looked up from his plate at Lillith and in an instant his disappointment faded and he broke into a wide smile. In a mirror action, she smiled back, and neither then knew who started laughing first, but soon they were both leaning back in their chairs, grinning at the absurdity of themselves and of each other and of a conversation that couldn’t be had. The waiter left and returned with two desserts that, although unordered, he knew they’d appreciate.
Shane had never operated on such a large scale or so ambitiously. Like a Vulcan Santa Claus, h
e would begin with Steve Baker and Elaine Perry’s home—its two-for-one aspect pleased him—and carry the torch to each person’s house on his list, ending with Eve Sieber’s. Follow the alphabet. Shane parked Martin’s mini sedan equidistant between two streetlamps on Madrone Avenue, put on his ski mask, and reached behind him for a gas canister and screw-on hose pump. There was nothing sociopathic about seeking justice against those who had wronged you. It was the American way.
He had a headache from the kerosene fumes and wished he was feeling better for his Eureka swan song. This was the biggest night of his life, and he wanted to experience the magnitude of it on every level. The effigies made by Leon Meed would burn up with the houses around them, by which light Shane would teach everyone a lesson.
He got out of the car and walked the dead suburban street to the address he’d written down in his daily planner. There was a great mass of bougainvillea in front of the house; to get to the building he had to wend his way through stabbing brambles. Motion detector lights went on and Shane ducked down, grateful now for the foliage, waiting for Steve or Elaine to come out. When after a minute they didn’t, he began walking the perimeter of the house, spraying its baseboards with kerosene. Before he’d gotten halfway around, though, a car pulled up to a stop in the street—a taxi—from which a large woman emerged, Sadie Jorgenson. Shane tiptoed to the back of the house while Sadie weaved up to the front door and banged loudly on it.
Crouching by a cord of firewood, he removed a matchstick and held its sulfurous head to the rough striking patch of the matchbook. With a flick of his wrist he would redress the injuries done to him—wash them all clean—in a baptism of fire.
For two hours Barry trolled the warehouse district of Eureka, where he was twice mistaken for a theme prostitute—even after removing his headdress—and once threatened with castration by a carload of zombie boys who spat mouthfuls of beer at him. He couldn’t go home and face his statue. The night air, spiked with invisible fog, was forty-eight degrees according to a neon bank sign broadcasting the time in digitized minutes. He regretted having shaved his legs that afternoon and toyed with the idea of returning to the warmth of the party.
If his statue was such a problem he could get rid of it: borrow Derrick’s truck the next day and haul it to the city dump. Or have a woodcutter convert it into firewood. Or interest a local burl vendor in selling it for him. There was a line in the Bible about cutting off the part of your body that caused you to sin. Hand, eye, what Beckett dubbed his so-called virile member, etc. Smite the unclean body. And it would be a fine analogy except that the statue was not at fault; Barry was.
He came to the spot in Old Town where he’d seen Lillith try to lock her car door the week before, where he’d not gone forward to apologize. He stood there until he tired of ruminating on his disagreeable qualities, thinking he and Lillith and everyone would be dead soon enough and freed from worrying about their trespasses against one another—at that moment of resignation, of Barry ready to pack it in for the night, Lillith stepped out of Mazotti’s. A large black man came after her. They pulled their coat collars together and walked toward him.
When they were near enough to be addressed in a normal voice, Barry said, repositioning the headdress under his arm, “Merry Christmas.”
“Who’re you?” Lillith said.
“Barry Klein.” Turning to Prentiss, he held out his hand and said, “How do you do?”
“We met before,” said Prentiss. “At the Ritz a long time ago. You knew my old AA sponsor. I’m Prentiss.”
The two men shook hands and Barry said to Lillith, “I want to say I’m sorry. About the show. You were right that I’d told you it would be a chance to talk about your winter event, and then I got aggressive and went into an attack mode. It was inappropriate and uncalled for, and I hope you can forgive me.”
“You do the same thing to everyone.”
Barry said, “I’m going to try to change.”
“This a New Year’s resolution?” Prentiss asked.
“Something like that.”
“Good luck, then.”
“Thanks.”
Lillith looked at Barry for a few seconds and her expression softened, she relaxed the squint of her eyes. She said, “I’ll think about it.”
“Okay,” Barry said.
When they walked away, he waved good-bye to their receding backs and then dug his hands into his headdress. He went home a few minutes later and wrapped the accessory around his statue’s head and took a bath in scalding hot water. There, imagining his future course of action, he was able to forget he’d ever been cold.
Sadie leaned against a banister with a hand on her forehead, and when Steve finally opened the door of 1353 Madrone Avenue she clapped and embraced him. There was still time, despite her having stayed at the Shanty longer than necessary, fending off Bob’s meaningless advances, enjoying the holiday cheer, to salvage her friends’ marriage.
“Hello, Steve,” she said, trying for a clear, professional tenor.
“Are you drunk?”
“That’s not important.”
“I hope you didn’t drive.”
“There was a cab.” Sadie frowned. “Why’s your coat on? Are you leaving?”
“Yes.”
“But I just got here!”
“I’m staying with a friend.”
From inside the house Elaine called out, “Who is it?”
Sadie shouted her name and Steve gently rubbed his left ear. Elaine came to the door and hugged her friend and her eyes were red and Sadie said, turning to Steve, “You can’t go yet. There’s work to be done.”
“Sadie,” said Elaine, taking hold of her friend’s elbow, “come in. It’s okay.”
“But I want to talk to you!”
“Is one of the gas pipes broken?” Steve asked.
“Both of you!”
“Do you smell gas?”
“Don’t you?”
“I thought it was Sadie.”
“It smells like kerosene.”
“Let’s all go inside and we’ll sit down together. Elaine, is there coffee?”
“This is alarming.”
“What should we do? The gas company’s not going to send someone out to fix it on Christmas Eve.”
“What are you two talking about anyway?”
With a loud crepitation suddenly audible from the south side of the house, Steve and Elaine turned in time to see a five-foot flame burst full-grown along the ground. They grabbed Sadie and stumbled down the steps and onto the brick pathway as the fire ribboned around the base of the house and sent up yellow phantasms of heat and light. A dark figure ran unnoticed down the sidewalk. Stupefied, Elaine, Sadie, and Steve stared at the instant blaze for ten seconds and cast lengthening shadows before neighbors from across the street threw open their doors and barked out exclamations and came over, still digesting puddings and pies. Steve pulled out his phone and called 911 and a car tore out onto the road, its engine growling over and then under the angry percussion of a burning house. People hovered behind Elaine and Steve, asking if anyone was still inside, consoling, subtly charging them with negligence, hoping their own houses wouldn’t be touched, marveling at the speed with which the fire was growing. Sadie blocked the hot wind from her face with the palms of her hands, took pained steps backward into awestruck children. Elaine and Steve didn’t answer their neighbors and instead watched the blaze’s progress and from time to time looked over to see how the other was responding. Nothing could be done to slow the wood’s consumption, and they were quiet, almost respectful of the raging metaphor before them.
As the flames reached the house’s second story, nineteen blocks away a two-door mini sedan ran head-on into a recreation vehicle. The fire trucks called by a witness of the crash would have come straightaway if they weren’t already en route to the fire at the Perry/Baker residence. The delay, said doctors later, made all the difference in killing one driver and badly burning the other.
Mar
tin opened his eyes and felt he wasn’t alone. Perhaps Shane had come back to finish him off. Perhaps the police or paramedics had intuited his need of them and arrived with a waiting ambulance outside. Shifting his gaze upward with reptilian slowness, he dully regarded the window facing Second Street, a bulletin board with a constellation of pushpins, and his desk, on which lay the offending copy of Leon Meed’s journal. A portrait of the artist as a grief-stricken madman. All the time his record player warped and woofed.
This was unlike any inebriation Martin had ever experienced. This strange partial lucidity and inability to move. He was dying of a lethal dosage of some drug that Shane and his future coroner alone would know. How awful to be aware of his impending death. He tried to assemble words to say to those he’d leave behind—some end-of-life summary poignant enough to justify his short existence—but before he could someone else spoke.
“You’re not going to die,” the person said.
“What?” Martin said, staring forward, not expecting to be heard.
Leon Meed, with a shaved head and dressed in the same blue gown he’d worn in the Kimbote Psychiatric Hospital pictures Martin had seen, took a seat at the desk. He had an open smile that revealed two rows of small off-white teeth. “I was once in your position,” he said, picking up his journal to read: “I’ll be dead soon and I want to leave a record of my last days. I lived for ten more years after writing that.”
“That’s because you were taken to a hospital.”
The desk chair squeaked as Leon leaned back and flipped through the journal, staring at Martin. “Yes.”
“I need to go to one.”
“You’ll be fine in the morning. Harmless barbiturates.”
Martin was relieved to hear this and might have closed his eyes again to sleep if a thought hadn’t struck him: “But if you’re here I must already be dead.”
“I could read the passage from my notebook where I thought I was dead. Lies are never so persuasive as when we tell them to ourselves.”
This was what Martin had found annoying about Leon’s journal, this tendency toward aphorism. “I don’t trust you,” he said. “Your doctor at the sanatorium told me you never stopped believing you’d disappeared, and that you only said you did in order to get released.”