On the Edge of Twilight: 22 Tales to Follow You Home

by Gregory Miller

  So I ended up listening to him instead of complaining about my week, and drinking more ‘cause I wasn’t doing most of the talking. I called it an early night, I guess since I was in kind of a bad mood and wasn’t finding room to vent. Saul said he’d call me the following week about getting together again on Halloween. Yeah, today. I would have been with him at The Easy right now, at the costume party they have every year.

  Saul called on Monday night. He said he’d finished another oil and was coming down the home stretch on plans for a few more. It was amazing. Those paintings can take weeks, especially the way Saul had always worked. He was still in a fine mood, although he sounded tired. Even so, since I was a bit perkier we chatted for a long time. He actually let me do most of the talking, so I went on and on about my workload, my Master’s project, and stuff like that. We only touched on Lucy once, when he said she was coming over to see him again the next day, and he was going to try to “step up the pace with her,” as he put it. I wished him luck. I truly hoped the relationship would move to the next level. He deserved some happiness, some contentment. And then we hung up. End of conversation.

  Could I have another cigarette? Thanks. Sorry to bum, but I’ve really got a craving. Thought I was going to quit, but I guess not. Not for a while, anyway. I’ll take the addiction for a bit longer. I think I’m going to need it.

  Hmm? Last night. Do we have to talk about it right now? Can’t I get something to eat? Fine, then. Yeah, I understand. It’s just that it’s been a bit of a… yeah.

  Last night Saul called again, and this time, God, there was something wrong. I’d never heard him so upset.

  “I pushed her away!” he said. “She’s gone!”

  “What happened?” I asked. “Why did she leave?”

  Saul said, “I don’t know, I put my arm around her, kissed her, and she kissed me back, was really getting into it, but then she just went cold—so cold—and she pulled away. I asked what I’d done, but she wouldn’t talk about it. She just stood up, got her coat, and made for the damn door.”

  “She didn’t say anything at all?” I asked. “No explanation?”

  “She said she couldn’t do it!” Saul said. “Said she didn’t feel right about the whole thing and had to go. And that’s all. That’s all! I can’t believe it. I didn’t do anything wrong!”

  “I’m sure that’s true.” And even if he had, I knew he sure hadn’t meant to.

  “No, no, I must have done something,” he insisted. “I did something, and I drove her away, and now she might never come back. I couldn’t handle that. I really couldn’t.”

  And I said, “Well, maybe you could buy roses, stop by her house, see if you can talk it out together. Who knows what she’s thinking? But if there’s a connection, you need to go after her, to at least try. Sometimes there’s something deeper at work—something in her past, some insecurity from way back. Like I said, you can’t just assume it’s something you did. And maybe if you put in the effort now, it’ll show her things will be all right later on down the road; that she can feel comfortable with you, no matter what.”

  “But I can’t go over to her house. Don’t you get it? I just can’t.”

  “Sure you can, Saul,” I told him. “You just get up and go, and think about it later.”

  At that he just laughed. It was a desperate, flat, hopeless sound. And then he said, “But I don’t know where she lives.”

  That brought me up short.

  “You don’t know where she lives?” I repeated.

  “No, she never told me. She’s shy, sometimes. Maybe she’s poor. Ashamed of where she lives or what she does. That’s the impression I always get. So I can’t go find her… I can’t.”

  Well, you’ve gotta admit, that’s strange. Even then, I thought so. But I pushed all those thoughts away. Saul needed help.

  He was devastated, crying with big, gulping sobs. Usually he was so calm about things that upset him, at least on the outside, but I guess Lucy really pushed his buttons the right way. She meant something to him. She was something special. Hearing him like that made me feel… well, you know. I hadn’t heard him cry before, not even softly, but here he was, bawling his eyes out. It’s hard to hear your friends in pain.

  He calmed down after a while, though when I suggested he give her a call and talk about it, he said he didn’t have her phone number. He didn’t seem to think it was odd, but oh, man, isn’t that the first thing you get when you want to see someone, even as a friend? And that’s when I realized I knew virtually nothing about her. I wondered if he did, either—if he knew anything about her at all. But again, I didn’t think much more about it until today.

  So, after about an hour and a half, maybe around 10:30, we hung up. He’d promised me he was going to get some rest, take it easy, maybe watch a horror movie countdown on A&E. We were going to go over the whole thing again this evening at the bar and see if we couldn’t find some way of fixing the damage. And then we planned on going to that Halloween party…

  Could I have a break now? I really need a break. Thanks, ten minutes should do. Yeah, just to stretch. Water would be great. A Coke would be better. Sure, thanks.

  I was asleep when Saul called back. No wonder. I mean, it was 3:30 in the morning. Today. Halloween. Oh, man, I’ll never celebrate it again. No parties, no costumes, no candy, no movies…

  Nothing. Not ever.

  All I could hear was screaming. And distortion, because the screaming was so loud. I’d never heard anything like it. He sounded like a wild animal, like a dog howling and baying.

  Finally he lowered his voice a little, but he kept repeating himself, over and over.

  “She’s dead,” he said. “She’s dead.” He kept saying it, again and again: “She’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead…”

  I talked to him. I don’t know what I said, trying to get him to stop, and finally I ended up yelling at him to shut up, to just shut up and tell me what happened, but his voice raised with mine until we were both screaming at the top of our lungs, me telling him to shut up, and Saul just repeating, “She’s dead! She’s dead!” over and over. If I’d been there with him in person, I probably would have slapped him, like they do in the movies when someone’s hysterical.

  I need a glass of water. No, not another Coke, and definitely not coffee. Maybe another cigarette, too? God, look at my hands… thanks.

  He quieted down after five or six minutes. Maybe a little more or less, I don’t know. Either way, it was a pretty long time to be screaming that loud. By then we were both hoarse, and I was afraid he was going to hang up, that I’d hear the click of the phone. And that would have scared me, because he was so upset, and you never know what a person could do when they’re that upset…

  But he stayed on the line. I could hear him gasping.

  “What happened?” I asked again, trying hard to keep calm.

  “Lucy’s dead,” Saul responded, almost in a whisper.

  “Okay, okay, now listen… are you sure she’s dead? I mean, absolutely certain?”

  “Yes!” he said. “Yes, I’m sure of it! I’ve never been so sure of—”

  That tone was creeping back into his voice, and his voice was rising again, getting louder. So I cut him off.

  “How did it happen?” I asked. I just wanted to get the facts out of him, you see? And to keep him calm. Man, how I kept my voice calm, I’ll never guess. Maybe I didn’t believe it was true. Like I was in shock or denial, you know? It all seemed so crazy.

  “I don’t know how it happened,” Saul said. “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know…”

  “But you know she’s dead?” I demanded. “I don’t understand.”

  Then Saul, he just exploded again. “Neither do I! Neither do I!” And then he started shrieking, and he didn’t stop for an awful long time.


  I kept quiet, let him wear himself out, and finally, after a good while, he did. And he didn’t hang up, either, although at one point he dropped the phone. Once he was calm again I asked, “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know!” he wailed. “God, she could be anywhere. Anywhere! I’ve got to get out of here.” That’s what he said: that he had to get out of there. And he should’ve. He should’ve just gotten out and run.

  Again and again I told him to tell me where she was, or where he thought she was. I told him I had to know, he had to tell. That the only way to get to the bottom of things, to make things better, would be to tell me, and that we could take it from there, we could work it all out.

  And over and over, he said he didn’t know. That he didn’t want to know. His exact words? “I don’t know, and I don’t ever want to find out. Hopefully far away.” That’s what he said: “Hopefully far away.” I didn’t understand it. None of it made any sense.

  Then I heard a muffled thumping on his end of the line, like a knocking, and his breath, it hitched in his throat, and then he started breathing real hard, real fast, like he was hyperventilating or having some sort of attack. And finally I heard a sobbing noise. Yeah, it was him. I’m sure of it. And I heard that knocking again, much louder this time. Yeah, like knocking on a door. I asked what was going on, who it was at the door, but he just sobbed one final time, and paused, and said, “I gotta go,” and that’s when he finally hung up. I yelled into the phone, but nothing. He was gone. I called back, over and over, but he didn’t answer. So after 15 minutes more I called you guys, then I jumped in the car and beat it over to his place as fast as I damn well could.

  When I showed up, two cop cars were already there, and three of you guys in uniform were standing around by the door, so I got out and went up to meet them, and they told me to stand back. I remember one started to call out Saul’s name, over and over, louder and louder. The door? Hell, you saw it—splintered apart and ripped half off its hinges, forced open and inward.

  They went inside, and I heard someone say “Shit,” and then another said, “Holy Mary.” That’s when I said the hell with it, I’m going to find out what’s going on, I have to know, and I rushed in past them before they had a chance to stop me. Of course, they weren’t even thinking about me. Their attention was elsewhere.

  And then they brought me here, to answer your questions and tell you what I know. And now I’m done, and I’d really like to go home, if that’s OK.

  …If I have to, I will. But if you’re gonna ask what I think you are, then… yeah, good, please make them quick. Sorry, but… just make them quick.

  Saul was… he was dead, of course. I knew that right away. He looked—I—God, this can’t be happening, you know? This just doesn’t happen. This can’t happen. And it’s Halloween. The jack o’ lanterns were still burning on his porch. There’s no way. It’s supposed to be a fun holiday. All about using the imagination, you know? Not real. But this is real. I can’t deny what I saw. Saul looked… there was no color in his face, and his hair was white… fucking white! And his eyes were wide, and his mouth was open, and he was slumped down beside the coffee table, looking up, his head against the base of the couch.

  And then one of the officers ran out of the house, and I could hear him retching on the porch, and the smell mingled with the smell of burnt pumpkins.

  And that’s when I looked up.

  I’ll never forget it, those paintings. They were on every wall, some huge, as big as this table, others more traditional size. I’m sure you’ll see them soon if you haven’t already. You haven’t? Fine. Yeah, I’ll tell you. I don’t want to, but… they were all labeled clearly in the bottom right corners, each one, and each label read “Lucy Series,” followed by a number.

  Don’t you see? All that time she’d fooled him. He’d seen what she’d wanted him to see, even as he was unconsciously painting her as she really looked. I know that now, and don’t try and tell me any different. I won’t buy it.

  But Halloween… on Halloween, I guess she decided to come clean, so to speak. There’s a power to the day, like in all the old stories. That must be it. And so today he finally saw what she was, and somehow, I can’t imagine, got her out of the house, and called me.

  But she came back.

  The paintings. Yeah, I’m getting there. I’m ready…

  They were portraits of a skeleton. In some it was covered in a sort of white dress, or cloak, but the fabric looked mildewed, like it’d been exposed to the elements for a long time. Some were full-body paintings, nothing covering the subject, and the skeleton, God help me, it wasn’t a clean skeleton, if you know what I mean, and on its head was a thin crown of matted blond hair. One of the paintings was a detail of just the head and shoulders. And yeah, that’s when I lost it, and I guess they had to haul me out of there. I started screaming and couldn’t stop…

  Yeah, I’m sure she’s dead. But he didn’t kill her. You didn’t find a body, did you? And you won’t, either. She’s out there. Walking the evening streets right now, as she really is. Among all the costumes, who would ever notice? And tomorrow maybe she’ll look different again, alive again, and some other poor soul will find her attractive.

  Attractive.

  I can’t say anything else. I’ll lose it. But it all makes sense, doesn’t it? What was it Hamlet said? “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” That says it all.

  No, no more questions. Please. Please, don’t ask any more. That’s all I know, and tons more than I want to. No. No more. Enough.

  Par One

  “Oh, for God’s sake!”

  Livid, Charlie Neilson stared ahead, the smell of the Atlantic strong in his nose, his patient wife, Sarah, at his side.

  Bethany Beach hummed around them: young parents led by restless children toward ice cream stands; bronzed teens loitering outside Beachfront Fries or strolling up the boardwalk, slick with suntan lotion, body boards attached to wrists with neon cord; and the elderly, a small but ever-present minority, quietly dining at outside cafés and sitting on boardwalk benches looking toward the horizon, thinking immutable thoughts.

  Out of all these people, only Charlie stood stock-still, glaring intently and breathing hard, face a sunburned beet.

  “Sarah,” he said slowly.

  “What, Charlie?”

  “They tore the damn thing down and built a GAP over it!”

  Sarah scrutinized the generic-looking chain store with mild disinterest. “What did they tear down?” she asked. “Which place? You’ve mentioned so many.”

  “The putt-putt golf course!” he replied, grinding his teeth. “It’s been there fifty years, and sometime in the last few they tore it down, paved it over, and built this goddamned monstrosity. Hell, if they’d had room I bet they would have built a WalMart! It’d figure, it really would. And I guess this shouldn’t surprise me, either.”

  Charlie and Sarah had been married two years. Charlie, a teacher, had saved up for this trip over six months, anxious to share his childhood vacation town with his new wife—to experience the old magic with someone new.

  “What I wanted, what I really wanted, was to play that golf course with you,” he said.

  Sarah slid her hand into his. Without realizing, he gripped it hard and continued.

  “An old man ran it. He owned half the town, did it for fun. Cost fifty cents to play, never more, no matter what year it was. And he had a little Scottie dog named Toto. There was a loop-the-loop, an old lighthouse with an eighty-watt bulb in the top, a rotating windmill, a mote bridge that rose and fell! And a metal ramp, a dozen sand traps, a stream you had to knock the ball over… and then, finally, Hole 18, a tiny bridge of wood with a hole at the end and a pit on either side. Get a Par One and you won a free game!”

 
“Did you ever win?” Sarah asked.

  “Nope, never did. Mom, Dad, and me—we always missed, every single time. And when I was little I always figured next year would be the one, and then, that last year before high school when we moved too far away, I figured I’d come here again when I was older, married, maybe with children, and… but no.” He shook his head. “Stupid of me to imagine, after all these years.”

  “Not stupid,” said Sarah. “Sweet. But look around! This place is still full of life. Lots to do, lots to see, not too busy, not too lazy. We’re going to have a great week.”

  “Hey,” said Charlie, approaching a teenage clerk who had just emerged from the Gap for a cigarette. “Remember the old putt-putt golf course that used to be here? When did it close?”

  The young man cupped a hand around his lighter and exhaled a plume of blue smoke. “Don’t ask me,” he said. “This is just my summer job. Live in Baltimore the rest of the year.”

  Sarah pulled at her husband’s arm. “Dinner, Charlie. I’m hungry. There’s a nice looking place around the corner. It’s their Grand Opening Week. Bethany Bayou, it’s called.”

  “No, no,” said Charlie. “Suddenly I have a terrible headache. For me, a corndog and bed. Tomorrow will be better. You go out and have a good time.”

  * * *

  The evening passed, the night passed, and in the early pre-dawn morning Sarah, who hadn’t had a good time the previous night, stole out of bed, left her husband snoring gently beneath sheets that smelled of sand and salt, and was back before he woke up.

  After shutting the door with a slam, she shook Charlie’s mattress, pinched his cheek, blew in his ear, and tugged his hair until he grumbled and snorted back to consciousness.

  “Wha?” he demanded groggily.

  “Wake up, Sleeping Beauty, we have a game to play,” she announced.