Simple Things

by Press, Lycan Valley

  “Pretty religious, I'm guessing? Old testament?”

  “Fiercely.”

  Figures. “Why is the bottom book so much bigger than the others?”

  “Well... that's that story that I think I keep going on about.” He moves the green book aside, unopened. “Newton had himself a family, a wife and three girls, and his books were a hit all over the Eastern seaboard. He lived comfortable for a while. Then the girls grew up.”

  “I can only imagine how that went.”

  “It wasn't the Roaring Twenties yet, but it was on the way. One of his girls went wild.”

  Or just lived her life. “Pregnant?”

  “No. Just... indiscreet. Newton found out about it. Drank before confronting her over her... paramour.” Ike shakes his head. “She lived. That's really all you can say for what happened. One of her eyes was just for show by the time he was done with her. But she lived.”

  Amy's stomach twists and the sound is audible. Nothing to do with hunger. “That's horrible.”

  “Yes, yes it is.”

  “How do you know so much about this guy? I've never even heard of him.”

  “The guy who sold me the books told me everything.”

  “Family?”

  Ike nods. “Grandson he never lived to meet, as it so happens.” Amy doesn't press, just leans on the countertop for the story he's all but promised her. “Way his grandson put it, the daughters were the real adults in the house. Harvey Newton was a child of twenty-one who married his wife when she was a child of fourteen. That was the norm back then. Things were sometimes worse.”

  “I know.” She goes Amy Away and thinks of Marty. She'd been street legal when they'd met, but he'd still had six years on her. It worked out all the same: she was an eighteen-year-old college freshman and he was some guy in his twenties who had a steady paycheck and was sweeter than the randy arrowhead Adam's apple boys she'd dated during her high school years. He had been bad at sex back then and wasn't that much better now, and though he'd never said as much, she assumed that she'd been his first, his one-and-only. That first time she'd let him be on top despite the weight and she'd balked at how he'd tried to keep their two bodies at a slightly-past-ninety degree angle. Six years now, she knows he put that space between them because that's how they fuck on the porn sites he sometimes forgets to clean out of the browsing history. Making room for the cameras. If she'd known back then what was going on, by god would she have run. But silly girl that she was, she'd just assumed that was the way older dudes did it. Eighteen and stupid.

  She hears silence and realizes that a full minute has gone by and Ike hasn't said a word. As if he can tell she's gone off into her own head. She struggles to remember their place in the conversation. Child marriage, wasn't it? “Sick, sick stuff. No laws against that sort of thing back then.”

  “None,” says Ike. “So what you get is two people who are really kids that are play-acting at being grown goin' ahead and tryin' to raise three girls. Then twenty years go by and one day one of them girls is half blind on account of... I don't mean to offend yeh, but eh... “parking.” And that ain't exactly the worst thing in the world.”

  “No, it ain't.”

  “Certainly didn't warrant no beatin'.”

  “No, it didn't.”

  “Well, his wife knew that at least. She wasn't all that older than their girls, and when Harvey started talking convents, she had enough. She got him drunk and while he was passed out she and the girls up and left him. No forwarding address, no asking for money. Gone. Just... gone.”

  “Serves him right.”

  “Yep.” Ike finally opens the cream book. There it is again – the cradle that had held the lost key. The other two books she'd seen had had a night-sky backing inside the cradle, but this one has a pattern of red and yellow and orange. She's looking at it upside-down, so it takes a moment for her to realize she's looking at painted fire. “So this is what he does. He has Pemberton take out advertising for him for the very first time. The public is promised something new, something bigger. A limited edition that is expensive to buy but will only appreciate in value over time. One key and...”

  Multiple red stripes in the pages. “A dozen locks.” A harem of them.

  “They paid him an advance, they took out ads in all the Boston papers. Everything was dandy until he finished up and took the book to Pemberton.”

  Ike opens the book. The villain of this story hovers over a caldron, dropping a doe-eyed newt into a noxious brown-purple concoction. She is a classic witch – black dress, broom, pointed hat, green skin. But the features of her face are quite familiar, as is her long and curly red hair.

  Ike turns the page.

  Three little girls – identical to those in The Vexed Vampire – walk down a forest road at night. The witch is atop her broom, eyes trained on them. The next page shows telegraph wires crossing above the road, hidden by the trees.

  The witch banks after the girls, unknowingly setting herself on a course to meet the wires, and the next pages are black save for an orange keyhole where the profile of the witch can be seen tangled in cable with little black lightning bolts all around. Amy snickers. “That could double as a hazard sign for witches if they were real. You could put them up there at the top of the poles.”

  Ike doesn't laugh. “Brace yourself,” he says, and turns the page.

  Newton had restrained himself in all the art she'd seen before. But not here.

  The witch was moving fast when she hit the cable. It shows.

  Blood – thick, rich, the perfect oxygenized shade of life – sprays across the pages, lit in high relief by blue-white lightning that ribbons the slaughtered witch head to foot. Her hair stands on end save for the patches where it burns; her eyes bulge, threatening to burst in their sockets.

  “Oh my god.”

  The next page shows her ordeal is not yet over. Amy can't bring herself to look at it directly; only notes the preponderance of gleaming pink insides and burnt, blackened outsides.

  “How the hell did he get away with publishing this?”

  “He didn't. He took it to Pemberton. They showed him the door and told him never to come back. But by then Newton had his own money.” Ike turns the page and now the witch is pulling her mangled body back together, piece by piece, organ by organ. In the foreground, the last embers of her burnt broom glow like molten gold. “He published it himself. Put it out into the world.”

  “And the whole thing is like this?”

  “Ayuh. Title wasn't even the same. Vexed Vampire, Woeful Werewolf – that was his kind of title. Then he puts this one out as The Witch That Won't Die.”

  Ike keeps going. The witch finds herself at a barbed wire fence by some train tracks. She's crossed both when she grimaces in pain. She's somehow gotten her leg caught in the wire. As she works to free herself, a strand ends up on the tracks. That's when the glow of a steam engine's front headlamp lights the rails.

  “He got it shipped to stores on name recognition alone. Had it bound in ribbon upon arrival. Bookstores had already been doing that themselves. Hooligans were sneaking in, breaking the seals with their pen-knives before the books could be purchased. Did it just to do it.”

  “I see.” The next pages are a blur of cruelty. The barbed wire is caught in the undercarriage of the passing locomotive. The witch is dragged through the gravel alongside the tracks. The damage is realistically rendered and once again Amy has trouble looking at it directly. Instead she focuses on a life-size, photo-realistic severed eyeball that dominates the foreground of the page. The severed optic nerve coils like a scorpion's tail. Amy feels her gorge rise and looks away.

  Ike goes on turning pages, either ignoring her or not noticing her reaction at all. “People bought the books as gifts for their kids. Word of mouth travels, but Boston is a big city with a lot of people to tell. A lotta kids opened these books and saw what was in 'em. And that was that for Mr. Newton. They burned his books in the street.”

  Amy loo
ks back and sees the witch, cowering naked in the rain by the tracks of some desolate rail yard. She's sobbing. Maybe even wailing.

  In the background, a pair of black porters in spiffy blue overalls have noticed the witch. On the next page, they're approaching her with matching grins, and they've taken on the “sambo” look of the time, balloon-lipped, nappy-haired. The “mammy” from the vampire book had been offensive but this is far, far worse. The whites of their teeth and their cheery half-moon eyes glow against skin painted midnight black. Their features are uneven, cartoonish and sloppy, as if both men were drawn in a drunken fury. What Amy is looking at is no longer art; it is an assault to the senses, to decency.

  On the next page, both porters are unfastening their belts.

  “I've seen enough.”

  Ike closes The Witch That Won't Die without a moment's hesitation.

  “What happened to him?”

  “He got sued by about sixty people and they tried to arrest him. He still had the cash for a good lawyer, so he hired one to delay the case from going to trial just long enough to drink himself to death. They buried him in a pauper's grave with no tombstone. All his books burned or rotted away in landfills. These might be the last four on planet Earth. You want 'em?”

  She looks up and sees Marty waddling over from their car. The battery on his phone must have died at last. “I don't know. I'm on a bit of a budget lately.”

  “I'll charge you what I paid for them.”

  “I...”

  “'They were free. Grandson just gave them to me. I can give them to you. Like you said, they're a hell of a find. Won't get a better deal than that.” There's sweat on the old man's brow that stands out in fine relief and magnifies his pores.

  For a moment, the silence breathes.

  Then there's a jingle at the door. Marty sticks his ham-head inside. “Baby, everything all right? You good?”

  “I appreciate the offer, sir,” says Amy. “But I have to go now. Maybe another time.”

  “Well, okay then. But come on back soon.” Ike gives her a folksy smile and a wink, but she sees his expression darken as he turns away. “They won't be here forever.”

  ***

  “You mind driving? My back is acting up. Think I need to recline and stretch it out.”

  To accentuate his point, Marty grimaces and reaches behind his back to grab a handful of the tractor tire of fat that rounds his midsection. A triangle of sweat has dampened the back of his polo shirt and now threatens to spread to the khaki canyon of his ass. “You okay with that?”

  “Sure,” she says. “Weird book in there just now.”

  “Man, my back.” He shakes his head. His jowls sway from the underside of his jawbone. “I don't know what I did to it.” He flashes a knowing smile at her. “I don't think it was exercise, do you?”

  She makes herself smile back at him, but then it comes to her in a flash: He's been doing that for years. That's why I didn't break it off early. All those little disparaging comments he makes about himself. He does that so I'll feel sorry for him. Like without me he'd fall apart. I bought it and things just went the way they went and here I am with a cheap ring on my finger and denim jeans wedged halfway to my large intestine and I'm trying to talk to him and he's not even listening. She feels an overwhelming urge to get out of the clothes she's wearing; the clothes Marty picked out for her. For years young men have leered at her body, and that's been bad. But worse: women young and old speak to her with a tone of thinly disguised exasperation. She'd always chalked it up to a bad day or PMS or, when feeling particularly pleased with herself, jealousy. But what if she'd been hearing it wrong all this time? What if the truth was that they'd felt sorry for her? Look at the little lapdog. Look at how it can walk on its hind legs.

  How many times has Marty surprised her with a gold bracelet only to lean back with the expectation that she would wedge her face between his thighs and his beer gut and go to work? How many nights had he taken her out to dinner in a dress he'd bought her, a dress so tight she could barely breathe, and afterward, how often would he unzip the back on the way to their front door while she giggled and said stop, Marty, stop the neighbors will see. But weren't the neighbors all his friends? Wasn't she always on display?

  If she left, would it really kill Marty? Or would he react the way he did watching his NASCAR races, calling his favorite driver every name in the book if the guy crashed? Would he talk to her the way he talked to those younger men on his Xbox when he had his headset on (and she'd noticed how the headset seemed to sink into the fat on his temples now, and that couldn't be good). Marty didn't have a creative bone in his body, but if he did – wasn't he the sort that would lash out at her with it?

  He could cut without even trying. A year back, he'd taken to calling himself her sugar daddy, and she'd asked him to stop and he had. That particular ghost still came out and rattled the chains late at night when she couldn't sleep.

  But only then. Until today.

  He knows it would be a struggle for me to leave. He'd laugh at my pain the way he laughs when the other team fumbles at first and goal or when Jeff Gordon gets clipped on the turn. Then the phone would ring. All his buddies coming to call. And if I fucked them – and I wouldn't, ever, because they're terrible people – I'd only be doing it to get back at Marty. If I didn't, then clearly I already have a man on the side and probably had him before I walked out. Either way, he'd say I was a whore because I stopped fucking him for money.

  He dragged me three thousand miles from anyone I know to a city where he's friends with judges and lawyers and police. If I left, he would sick them on me. I know he would. He'd put me through absolute hell until the only options left would be to come back to him on my knees or kill myself.

  She realizes one voice in her head is yelling while another one is waiting to speak. She hears her mother's voice.

  You're projecting, Amy. As you are wont to do. Projecting your own feelings onto other people. You think he'd really be that monstrous? He's a teddy bear, and a good man. You're just lost in your own head again. Amy Away. You need to find your way back home.

  As she opens the driver's-side door to their Nissan, Amy hears Marty grunt as he strains to reach past his own gut and slide the passenger seat back. She spares Ike's Books a parting glance and wonders how the witch's story ends. If it could.

  ***

  He's got his phone plugged into the charger now and is back to playing some game like Candy Crush or Fruit Ninja. Each beep rings in her ears, louder to her than normal. Behind her right eye, Amy feels what might be the start of a migraine. She could ask him to mute the sound but finds to her surprise that part of her actually likes being mad at him. If he turns it off and gives her silence, a precious fraction of her anger will no longer be justified. She doesn't want him to be decent just now. What she wants is a reason.

  “You hungry, babe?”

  “Yeah, I could eat.”

  “What are you hungry for?”

  If you only knew.

  “Pizza.”

  That gets him to look up from his game.

  In April, Marty went in for a check-up and weighed in at three-hundred seventy-one pounds. The doctor told him he couldn't see forty like that, and said that if the weight was gone, Marty would feel better and have more energy, and included a delightful little aside that the wife would like it too (“the wife” – like “the lamp” or “the Sunday paper”).

  So for the last few months Marty has been eating mostly fruit and salads. Sure, he does pile on the toppings, and sure, those lakes of ranch dressing can't be great for him. But there is a visible change. He's below three-fifty, with three-forty on the horizon. His resolve has been incredible. As it always is prior to real temptation.

  They cruise until they see something. She doesn't catch the name on the way in. The “open” neons are on but the place is empty. Wood panel walls soak in dim lighting. The walls are draped with Hawaiian kitsch; electric tiki torches and license plates and tr
ibal masks and surfboards and over the bar is mounted a stuffed swordfish. The special is illegibly scrawled across a chalkboard by the bar. Underneath, “Aloha!” is written perfectly clear in a different color by a different hand.

  They take a seat and a casually dressed waitress in her forties comes out from behind the bar with a couple of menus in hand. Somewhere behind her in the kitchen comes a repetitious clang clang clang, as if an escaped mental patient is banging two pots together.

  “What can I get you to drink?”

  Marty goes first, as always. “I'll have a diet...”

  “He'll have a beer,” Amy says. When Marty looks over at her with a confused expression, she gives him a smile and a wink. He practically beams. “What do you have on tap?”

  “Coors, Stella...”

  “He'll have a Stella, I think?”

  “A Stella would be great!” He's smiling so broadly that his cheeks threaten to swallow his half-buried eyes.

  “A Stella it is then,” says Amy. “And I'll have a water. I'm driving. And do you have wings? Breadsticks?”

  “We have wings. No breadsticks, though. We do garlic knots.”

  She thinks of the green stink-lines chasing the vampire and almost bursts out laughing. “We'll take a small order of both.”

  “The wings come in Buffalo, barbeque or extra hot.”

  “Marty?”

  Marty's eyes dart from his wife to the waitress. He's breathing harder than he was when they came in. “Buffalo. Buffalo is good. How hot, though?”

  Amy shrugs. “How about a small of Buffalo and a small of hot? We're on vacation after all.”

  The waitress puts away her pad. “I'll get 'em started. You still need the menus?”

  “Yep.”

  When the waitress is gone, Marty leans across the table and whispers to her even though the place is empty. “What's going on? What about the diet?”

  “Oh, baby,” says Amy. “You've been doing so good. And like I said, we're on vacation! You can take a break from the tap water and rabbit food.”

  Marty takes a break and then some. By the time she orders their large pizza – a “carnivore” special that's little more than a sausage/pepperoni/bacon/ground beef grease swamp – he's finished off thirteen wings and two tall beers with a third one on the way.