Dodging and Burning

by John Copenhaver

  “He was begging me to stop,” he said, “but, Cee, I swear I couldn’t. Something horrible had me by the throat, something I had no control over. I saw only the smirk on his face from the night before. Maybe dreams do keep you warm at night.”

  Terry began crawling away from Jay on all fours, one foot missing a shoe. He was bleeding from his scalp. More bombs exploded. Trees splintered and debris clattered and the ground shook under his feet like it was about to open under him and swallow him whole. He left Terry and scrambled over the rough terrain and back through the woods, adrenaline overriding the pain in his leg.

  When he was a few yards from the trees, nearly back to the path, a stray bomb hit in the woods behind him, not far from where he’d left Terry. The impact knocked him forward, and he tumbled down an embankment, the tall grass slowing him as he rolled to the bottom. When he stopped, he waited, holding his breath, staring at the sky, his camera still strapped to him and the gory tripod gripped tight in his hand.

  “I remembered the snow drifting down through the trees in the Ardennes,” he said. “I couldn’t call your brother to me anymore. That dream was spoiled. I didn’t want to get up.”

  The air raid sirens eventually stopped, and then all he could hear was a ringing in his ears. He got up and went to find Terry. The last bomb had hit the street a hundred yards away and shredded the trees nearby. Whether Terry had moved himself or not, he didn’t know, but he wasn’t where Jay had left him. When Jay found him near a boulder, he knew he was dead. His torso was twisted and his face was covered with blood, but his wig, his fake breasts, his white suit, and even his earrings were still defiantly in place.

  “I’d killed him,” he said, his eyes tracing invisible shapes on the wall across from us, “so I began snapping photos of him, loading and reloading the film fast, focusing and framing over and over, thinking of Darren’s dead eyes staring back at me. It was my penance. It was my burden to preserve the evidence. I must capture everything, I thought. I must carry it with me.”

  When he finished, he dragged Terry underneath a tree and took off his wig, his earrings, his gloves, and his suit and balled them up. He gathered the shoes and wiped the blood and makeup from his face. He told himself he was saving his friend the humiliation of being discovered dressed as a woman, but that had nothing to do with it: “I wanted to see him again, even bloody and broken. I wanted to see his body. I wanted to see his face. Him.”

  He fled to his quarters and then to Netley in the morning. By the end of the week, he was on his way home, honorably discharged because of “injuries incurred in the line of duty.” The real reason was, of course, he had failed to do his job at the hospital. He was a drain on their resources and no longer useful.

  “And useful is one thing you must always be in a war,” he said. “Even Foxy was useful.”

  I’d heard too much that night, more than the younger me could take in. I wanted to be steaming mad, but I wasn’t. I wanted to show my disgust and disapproval, like I know Jay expected me to, but I didn’t. Maybe I was in shock. I had dreamed of you returning so many times, you appearing out of a cloud of dust, like some angel. I understood why Jay wanted to believe Terry could be like you, a second chance, a resurrection. Both of us had wished you back to us, but like they say, be careful what you wish for.

  “It’s Terry in the photos,” I said. “That’s who you showed us. Not Lily. That was all made up, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s Foxy, not Terry. Don’t make that mistake.”

  “Why did you show them to us?”

  “I wanted to give you a mystery like one you’d find in your detective magazines, like the stories your brother loved, like the ones he would tell us.”

  “What about the shoes? Lily’s shoes?”

  “I threw away his wig, his gloves, all of that—but I kept the shoes. I needed to keep a part of her.”

  I thought about this and said, “I want to see the photos.”

  “They’re not here.”

  “Where are they?”

  “They’re safe.”

  “I want to see them.”

  He looked at me. His eyes seemed to say, That’s it. That’s all I’m going to tell you. Anger began tapping at the inside of my heart, gentle at first, then in sharp jabs. I crossed my arms and said, “You hid the shoes for me to find, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So it was all a big lie.”

  “A lie folded around the truth,” he said, a little smug.

  “We would’ve figured it out, you know.”

  “I was going to introduce you to Lily when we were at Jitters Gap. I thought she wanted me to pick her up and take her to the station, but instead of walking down the street and finding us, she went with her father. I don’t know why. Maybe she couldn’t get away from him. But that’s why I told you to go see her before she caught the train. It was time. I needed to tell you the truth, to bend things back in shape, to set things in motion. It’s like ‘A Date with Death.’ Once she opens the photo album, she can watch her life unfold in front of her. She sees how she’ll die. She sees how all her choices will lead her to that moment. She sees everything. I’m like her.” He offered me a fragile smile and reached out and touched my cheek, his thumb tracing the side of my face. I tensed up, tightening my arms across my waist.

  “I’ve done a horrible thing,” Jay said. “A horrible, horrible thing.”

  I withdrew sharply from his hand.

  “Stories are like nesting eggs,” he said, clearly wounded I had recoiled from him. “One inside another, inside another, on and on. Fucking endless.”

  “Nesting eggs? What do you mean?”

  And then his face—no, his entire body altered, it slouched, it crumbled. His mouth fell into a big, gaping O, and his blue eyes went dark, like black holes. I thought of the groaning, foamy-mouthed zombies on the cover of the March issue of Weird Stories. He fumbled for my hand and caught it as I tried to pull away. I cried out and struggled, but he held on, his fingers pressing hard on the bone.

  “Please, Cee … ,” he stammered, his voice like sandpaper, “tell me there’s something at the center … I need to hear it … from you.”

  “There is,” I said, desperate for him to let go. He just gawked at me like he’d never seen me before. “There is something there, at the center,” I tried again, having no idea what that meant, tears welling up in my eyes. “I promise.”

  At that, he released my arm. He wiped the edges of his mouth. “Thank you,” he said in a whisper. “You need to go now. It’s so late. But first, I have something for you.”

  I just sat there, petrified.

  He slipped his fingers under the mattress, retrieved your journal, and gave it to me, his hand shaking like an old man’s. “Keep it safe,” he said, standing up. “It’s all you really have of Robbie. It’s who he was. I don’t need it anymore. I’m sorry I made you give it to me. That was wrong. You were right to push me down.” Then he placed both hands on my shoulders, leaned toward me, and kissed my forehead.

  10

  A DATE WITH

  DEATH

  The Eye of God

  Before she left for the city, Sheila had to find the deed to the house. She couldn’t leave without it. It was the ticket to her new life.

  She turned on all the lights in her aunt’s study and began her task. After a few minutes of riffling through papers, she glanced over at the safe. To her surprise, even though she had spun the dial earlier that evening, it was open. Inside, the photo album was as she had left it. She shut the door, hesitated, and opened it again. She pulled out the album and took it to the desk. Maybe it contained a clue to the whereabouts of the deed.

  As she unfolded the cloth, she noticed the corner of a piece of paper sticking out from the back of the album. She must have dislodged it when she’d shoved the book into the safe earlier. She gently slid it out. In the center was a detailed design for a box camera and below it a carefully diagramed drawing of a lens, complete with mea
surements, specifications, and directions written in a language with an archaic-looking alphabet she didn’t recognize. Her aunt had jotted a note beside it:

  The eye of God sees everything, but not clearly, not with permanence. This is permanence. This is proof!

  She considered the note, shook her head, and tossed it on the desk. She returned to the album.

  On the first page, the photos had changed. They were empty black rectangles. She turned another page, and although it was difficult to make out, it appeared to be a photo of the front of the house, but at night. Someone is playing a trick on me, she thought. Someone is here. That explains why the safe was open. She followed the photos down the page until she reached a photograph of the front door … with a figure standing in front of it!

  She heard a knock and let out a sharp cry. Had she really heard it? She waited. The knock repeated. Her heart was pounding. She grabbed a pearl-handled letter opener from the desk.

  Before making another move, she flipped the page. The next photo was a close-up of the man. That chin! Those eyes! It was Thomas. She waited for another knock. Nothing. In the next snapshot, he was gone. Why was he here, and where did he go? None of this made sense. Was the album really predicting the future? Could it be? Even if it did have this power, then who is to say how it works … or what it means?

  She clutched the letter opener even tighter, her knuckles whiten-ing. She flipped the next page of the album. Again, it was a page of empty rectangles—and then the lights went out.

  She heard the clatter of breaking glass at the other end of the house. She crossed quickly to the door. She didn’t want to be trapped. She felt her way down the hall, moving away from the sound, using the molding on the wainscoting to guide her. Her eyes were adjusting to the darkness.

  Once she was in the main hallway, she could see the outlines of objects—Majestica’s ornate settee, the great oriental vase by the front door, and the dull shine of the mirror opposite the settee. Nothing out of place, nothing broken. The grandfather clock boomed on the staircase, and she spun with fright, but no one was there. It was 1:00 in the morning.

  All the noises she had heard had been on the first floor, so she thought she would be safer on the second. There was a telephone in the master bedroom. She could call for help. She grasped the railing and moved noiselessly up the carpeted stairs. When one of the wood risers squeaked, she sucked in her breath and quickened her pace. Once at the top, she paused and stared down the long hall, lined with doors. Terror rose up through her, but she quickly batted it away. She was determined to escape this. She dashed down the hallway to the bedroom and locked the door behind her.

  18

  BUNNY

  I drove out of DC before churchgoers woke up and before the streets filled with cars. Morning sunshine streamed between the empty, neoclassical government buildings, colliding with windshields, making them flash and glow. The journey back to Royal Oak was promising, a time to roll down the window, to let a breeze in and the chaotic events of the night before out.

  As the city receded in the rearview mirror and the fresh smell of cut grass wafted in, I felt better. But as I wound my way to the ridge on the horizon, the mountains huddled together with their backs to me, as if I no longer belonged to them. As I passed through the dim limestone gateway of Culler’s Mountain Tunnel, I switched on the headlights and, chilled by the damp subterranean air, rolled up the window. I heard Billy Witherspoon’s voice rise up from the echoing motor: She is fucking real! A goddamn dyke. Another fuckin’ dyke. I pressed the gas pedal and sped into the daylight, leaving the inside of the mountain far behind.

  When I arrived in Royal Oak, I should’ve gone directly home, curled up, and slept. I should’ve ignored the spite and ugliness doing laps around my heart. I should’ve been smarter, been better. But I took a right instead of a left and drove to the Bliss home. I had decided it was my moral duty to tell them about Jay. His lies had led me into his twisted, subterranean world, and soon, those same lies would lead Ceola there. I wondered if he had taken Robbie there, if he had told him lies too.

  The Blisses’ farmhouse was lifeless, and I wondered if they were at church. Holes and neat piles of dirt lined the driveway, which I assumed were intended for the row of saplings leaning against the clapboard siding. It looked like the busy work of a large, compulsive gopher. The house itself had obviously been cobbled together in different stages of building. Its original builder (Old Mr. Bliss, Bob’s father, I imagined) hadn’t had the money or aesthetic knowledge to build an attractive, balanced architectural structure. With its sagging eves and rambling layout, it was dreary and charmless, even in the lemony morning light.

  I parked the car and sat quietly, considering what I was about to do. I wanted to elicit a very specific reaction. I wanted to see Bob’s fists curl and his face burn. I wanted to see his tears and spittle. I wanted him to express, as I knew only he could, what I felt. So I got out of the car, pulled my coat tightly around me to conceal my ripped dress, and approached the house.

  Margery Bliss was waiting, framed in the screen door, her eyes black and hard and her mouth a grim slit stretched tightly beneath her nose. I nodded, and she pushed the door wide. Her dress was intended as a statement of her stainless morality, as if she wanted to show the people of Royal Oak she was more at home in the Depression than in the surging wartime economy.

  As I walked up the steps, she said, “What are you doing here?” Her hair fell back from her cheek, and I saw the wine-colored birthmark that ran up the side of her face and disappeared into her hairline.

  “I’ve come to talk to you.”

  “We don’t receive unannounced visitors, especially on Sundays.” She said this with great formality, and it came off oddly pretentious.

  “There is something you need to know about Jay Greenwood.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “Come on, then,” she said, and I followed her.

  The house had the atmosphere of a summer home closed for the winter. The furniture in the living room appeared unused and positioned just so, as if it were only for display. The pale light from the windows revealed a skim of dust on the hardwood and upholstery, deadening the room’s dark red and forest green motif. Margery directed me to sit and left me, making no noise as she moved. I smelled coffee and craved its warmth, but I didn’t dare ask for a cup. Such a request from an unannounced guest, I imagined, would’ve been beyond insult.

  Both Margery and Bob emerged from the back of the house. Bob had been sleeping, the side of his red face marked with lines from a bedspread and his wisp of thin brown hair mussed. He glanced at me warily, as if he were a little afraid of me, and then crossed the room, opened a wooden cabinet, and poured himself a whiskey. Margery made a gesture of protest, but he scowled at her, and she turned toward me, closing her expression with a frown.

  “Mr. Bliss,” I said, growing impatient. “I don’t mean to bother you this morning, but I need to tell you something about Jay.”

  Bob knocked back his whiskey. “Do you know where my daughter was last night?”

  “No. I’ve been in DC.”

  “Why would a man’s only daughter, only remaining child, want to cause him so much pain? Can you answer me that? Can you? You’re a daughter. Would you do that to your father?”

  “I don’t know where Ceola was last night. I was in the city.”

  Margery crossed her arms. “Was Jay with you?”

  “No.”

  Bob finished his drink and came to his wife’s side, hovering close but not touching her. “What were you doing at the carnival?”

  “I was following them.”

  “Why?”

  “They were keeping something from me.”

  “What were they keeping from you?”

  “Why were you there?”

  He paused for a moment, swaying a little.

  “I was at the stop sign on Slater’s Road and they drove right past me,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. To see them together. In
the car. Even after I warned Cee about him.” His eyes were growing wider, more pained. “Now, answer me. What were they keeping from you?”

  “That’s why I was in DC.”

  Margery huffed and shook her head. “You come here and you interrupt our morning and you—”

  “Margery, let her talk,” Bob interrupted.

  “I went to DC, because I thought Jay was lying to me, to your daughter too. He was telling us a story that wasn’t true.” I didn’t mention the photographs or Lily’s name. I didn’t want to explain everything to them, just what was essential. I focused on Bob Bliss, his watery eyes open, almost welcoming, and his bottom lip slack. “At a place called Croc’s, a bar, I learned Jay has been living a double life in the underbelly of the city. He made friends with degenerates, cross-dressers, and thugs. I had to go there and talk to these people. I was attacked.” I pulled the collar of my coat back, revealing the bruises along my collarbone. My self-control faltered, and I allowed tears to come.

  Margery was suddenly by my side, her hand gently taking mine. “I’m sorry, dear,” she said. “I didn’t realize … I was thoughtless.”

  Bob was standing over me, the expression on his face unchanged and demanding. I wiped away the tears and said, “He’s a homosexual.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I talked to people who knew him. I went to one of their bars.”

  I heard Margery exhale. She withdrew her hand.

  “And our daughter has been spending all her time with him,” Bob said.

  “He’s trying to destroy us,” Margery said in almost a whimper. “First Robbie, then Ceola.”

  First Robbie, then Ceola. I was beginning to understand.

  “He twisted his mind out of shape,” Margery said, looking at Bob now. “And we lost him because of it. We sent him away because of it. It was the only thing we could do.”