Dark Rooms: Three Novels

by Douglas Clegg

  She closed her eyes, opened them again, and looked at me as if she had just said a prayer.

  "It's the stupid past," I said. "Just like you said. Don't let it hurt you now. I'm here. I don't care about any of it. I'm here right now."

  I was about to say something more, but I decided not to talk at all. I wanted to kiss her tears away. I leaned forward and kissed her eyelids, and then her nose, and then without even realizing where this might lead, my lips were over hers, and she opened her mouth gently. Her breath was sweet and felt like home as I inhaled it. I wrapped my arms around her, and drew her to me. Part of me was afraid she might pull away, but she embraced me before I had locked my arms behind her back.

  "This is crazy," she murmured. She pressed her face against mine, and then under my chin, and then against my cheek.

  "I know, I know," I said. I resumed kissing her as much as a woman could be kissed beneath a streetlamp. I reached up and drew out the twist of cloth that held up her hair, and it cascaded around her shoulders, and she opened her coat so I could put my arms inside it for warmth as I held her.

  "We can't do this here," she whispered.

  "The store," I said, glancing back at the darkness of Croder-Sharp-Callahan. "The lunch counter."

  She laughed, looking up at me to see if I were teasing her. "You're serious?"

  "Like when we first made love," I said, and my throat caught on those words: made love. It was the first time in my adult life I had ever said them. I had said all the other words that seemed truer in the past; I had used the profanity and the blunt language and the clinical talk, but not those words that had seemed both precious and mysterious.

  "This is mad," she whispered, but her body betrayed a passionate urgency, and we held each other's hands like kids again and ran through the fresh snow, back to Croder-Sharp-Callahan.

  4

  Once inside, she locked the door behind us.

  She kept the lights off, and we stumbled into stools and chairs and around the cash register. Somehow, our clothes fell away, although there was a good deal of tugging and unsnapping and unbuttoning and unzipping and boots that took a while to come off. I felt just as I had at seventeen, the fumbling numbskullery of a boy in love without a brain in his head, the explosion of the senses as we rolled together, and tasted and felt and burned against each other.

  Somehow, from there, we went up to the empty apartment above the store, through the back stairs, half-dressed, the snow still spinning gently downward, giggling and passionate and me in my boxers and socks, bounding up the steps after her as she wrapped herself in her coat, but with nothing else underneath.

  The apartment was one room, with a bathroom and a small kitchenette by the window. The window had a tattered and yellowed shade drawn down. An overhead light flickered. A mattress lay back against one wall. "It's clean, don't worry," she said. "We use it for naps at work."

  I didn't care if it was dirty or newly washed. I leapt onto the mattress, and she came tumbling down on top of me.

  I felt an energy within me, a renewal of forces stronger than personality or sustainable life. Something more than what I had been before that night. I wanted to give her so much, everything I had, every ounce of love and care and physical pleasure; I wanted to mold myself against her and her against me until you couldn't tell one from the other.

  Afterward, I didn't even crave a cigarette.

  5

  "I've been wasting my life," I said, my lips against her hair, holding the scent of her for just a moment longer.

  "You have not," Pola said.

  "I have," I insisted. "I've wasted these years. I let go of my family. Of you. We could've been building a life together."

  "You'd have been bored here. With me. It wasn't right, not then."

  "I guess we had separate paths for a while," I said. And I knew it. Sorrow had held its sway over me for too long. The sorrow was not just my father's murder. It was a sorrow that had somehow crept its way into my soul and had burrowed there. It all seemed ridiculous now, in the arms of the woman I loved, on the island I had abandoned for no good or genuine reason.

  "Maybe this was the way it was meant to be," she whispered, lazily and sweetly.

  I held her longer than I had ever before held a woman in my arms. I felt her heartbeat against my chest. That peculiar and unfamiliar feeling of being bound to another human being in a way that breaks down all barriers and intimate territories. We made love with the energy of first-timers, and the sloppiness, too. She laughed when I tried to hold her in a way that made her leg cramp; and I began laughing when she took me inside her, not from silliness, but from a joy I hadn't even known could exist between two people, between a man and a woman in a secret of love that had been protected over several years. It was as if I had unlocked doors within me. She smiled afterward and told me that when we were in the throes of it, she enjoyed my laughter. "You sounded like the old Nemo. The one I fell in love with when we were children. The one who had joy." She kissed my lips, then my cheek, and neck. "Are you back, Nemo?" She looked into my eyes as if someone might be hiding somewhere in them.

  Without realizing it, I had held my breath as she spoke. I had held on to a breath as if I were holding on to the years. I let out a sigh, the likes of which had not passed through my lungs or throat in all my life.

  "Yeah," I said, like some idiot, a gust of my breath escaping and taking with it a great burden. "Yes. I am back."

  Outside the window, the wind howled, the beginnings of a storm, perhaps, but I didn't care. I felt safe, for once in my life. I felt safe with Pola.

  I lay there with her, looking at the window, the snow, and for a brief second, I thought I saw a woman's face at the window.

  I sat up, startled.

  But it was gone.

  It's in your mind.

  "What is it?" Pola asked, looking from my face, back to the window. "Nemo?"

  "Nothing," I said, settling back into the mattress with her, arms around her again.

  6

  "I want you to forgive me," I said a bit later.

  "For what?"

  "What I did to you back then."

  "I didn't blame you," she said. "Like I don't need forgiveness myself."

  "How I ever deserved even knowing someone like you "

  She held a finger to my lips. "Don't make me out to be a saint."

  "But I was the one—"

  "Don't. Leave the past where it belongs. All the bad things are in the past. We were barely more than children then."

  "I don't even wanna talk," I said. "My dad used to tell me that the sun shines on a dog's ass now and again. And I just want to bask in the sunshine a little."

  We kissed again, and lay there until we both knew it was time for her to go pick up her son at her ex-husband's. I didn't want to leave her side at all, but we parted, regardless. I told her that we'd have lunch the next day.

  The separation of old lovers who discover a new love between them has got to be the most agonizing. You know what it's like, you know how much you want the other person, but you also know that things can get in the way of love. How I wished that two people in love could always be together, every minute, every hour, and never grow bored or tired or distracted—or worse, out of love by the familiarity of love. These were the crazy abstractions I thought about on my walk back to Hawthorn, down the snowy road at sometime after ten p.m.

  And that's when I saw Carson McKinley in his truck, parked alongside the darkened storefronts, but beneath the red and blue of Christmas lights, masturbating.

  7

  Truth was, I didn't know if he was choking the chicken, but the truck vibrated, and I saw his sweaty face in the truck, so I assumed he was performing his favorite public pastime.

  I never begrudged Carson his compulsion. Many a man has dreamt of doing just what Carson did in broad daylight or beneath the streetlamps, but few have the balls to follow through. As long as he was in his truck, the island sheep and horses were safe.
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br />   As I walked by the truck, I averted my gaze. The last thing I wanted to see after being with Pola was a fifty-four-year-old with a beard and eyes like a crazed moron jacking off. But as I passed, he called out my name.

  Now, with anyone else, I would've ordinarily turned to see who wanted to get my attention. But this was Carson McKinley.

  "Hey, Nemo!" he called out again, his shout echoing slightly because of the cold and snow and emptiness of the street. I turned. He looked out at me with his trollish face, half in darkness.

  "Storm's comin'," he said.

  "What?"

  "I saw her. Storm's comin'."

  The truck continued to vibrate.

  Perhaps Carson McKinley might've somehow spied on Pola and me as we had our marathon of sex. I felt a disgust for all mankind. The memory of seeing my dad's porn collection didn't help. Women were right, most of the time we were dogs and pigs, and perhaps not even as good as anything that walked on four legs. Sure, there were men who did great things in the world, but in the ordinary things, we were completely the lowest of lows. Even my father, I thought—even Gordie Raglan, war hero, survivor of prison camps, who led the other prisoners to safety at great odds; even his life came down to a stash of porn stuffed in the walls.

  I didn't want life to be just this. Finding Pola again, not knowing if I could even feel that innocent love you get to feel as a kid, seemed like a miracle in need of protection. I stood there for a moment, judge and jury of Carson McKinley, who seemed the prototype of all that was dysfunctional of my gender. It was my puritan blood rising, I guess. Who was I to judge anyone else? I felt bad for Carson. I asked him if he was okay.

  "She's a bad storm comin' down on us," he said. The truck began to bounce up and down. I turned away. He shouted after me, "SHE'S COMIN'! OH LORDY, SHE'S A-COMIN!" This was followed by what I can only assume were orgasmic moans of McKinley pleasure.

  "Merry Christmas to you, too," I said.

  8

  As I approached Hawthorn, feeling weary and frozen and in need of sleep like a drunk in need of the last drop from a bottle, I saw a light on in Brooke's room toward the back of the house. You're up. You're always up. You need more life. You need more than Hawthorn, Brooke. You need to open some doors.

  Bruno's light was off, but this didn't mean much. I wasn't even sure if Bruno was in his bedroom asleep or across town with his boyfriend. Well, good for him. At least he's got love. Hang on to it, Bruno, for as long as you can. It's a small miracle that needs protection. I didn't protect my miracle when I was a teenager, and I lost some years. Luckily, Pola protected it. Luckily, Pola loved me, too. So, Bruno, just make sure it's love and then hang on for dear life.

  I dropped onto my bed, and only then realized that I had left my boxer shorts in the apartment above Croder-Sharp-Callahan.

  That night, I awoke to Brooke walking through my room at some ungodly hour. Unfortunately, I had that now-expected impression that it wasn't Brooke. I sat up and flicked on the light.

  No one was there at all.

  Both doors to my bedroom were shut.

  9

  The next morning, I discovered that Carson's fertility rite had indeed brought a storm.

  We were buried under snow, not the most unusual occurrence for the island in December. By the time I'd trudged downstairs to the kitchen to the smell of a rich dark roast of coffee, Bruno and his boyfriend had already dug out most of the driveway. Not that it mattered. The village plow, also known as Johnny Sullivan, had yet to reach Hawthorn. There'd be no driving that day.

  Cary and Bruno started a snowball fight out front. As I watched them from the kitchen window, it reminded me of us all as kids. How we played all over the fields, how the winters were rich with ice skating on the pond or snow forts along the hill.

  Afterward, the smell of coffee and a kind of rosy glow seemed to permeate the house. I think it was just the way I felt—I had this hope again, this sense that I'd come home for a reason that was good. Not just because of my father's murder, but because I still had to find out if there was love for me in the world—the only woman I had ever really loved. Bruno noticed and commented that I looked a bit more chipper than usual; he asked where I'd left Dad's tool kit, and then added, "You look the way I feel."

  A bit later, I called up Pola. "You hanging in there?"

  "Yep," she said. "Me and Zack are making hot cocoa. Want to come over?"

  "If I can walk a mile or two in the snow."

  "Johnny'll be out soon."

  "Well, then I definitely want some cocoa. With marshmallows."

  "We have a fire going. Zack and I are gonna go to Seabird Hill and sled down it in a bit."

  "You sure we're okay?"

  "Nemo?"

  "I mean, last night was "

  "I know," she said softly. "I wish we could've stayed together all night."

  "Me, too."

  "Why didn't we?"

  "Don't want to spring it on Zack too quickly," I said. "How do you think he'll feel about about this?"

  "I don't know," she said. "Well, he's begging to go out and play. Come by when you get out from under it."

  She hung up.

  Part of me felt the phantom of girlfriends past in the hang up. I felt the Jumblies in my stomach. Would this work out? Were we just trying to recapture a past that couldn't last? It was still all euphoria for me. All the goofy and no-good thoughts that run through you when you realize that love looms. I thought of every woman I had ever felt close with, how I had wanted to see if love was there within each relationship. But it hadn't been. Only Pola. It was crazy. Things like high school sweethearts weren't supposed to work out.

  I spent the day either on the phone with Pola (the road didn't get plowed until nine o'clock that night), or going over my dad's papers. I found a notebook of his, and recognized his tiny scrawl that was so hard to read.

  My dad had kept track of everything that happened in his life, particularly in terms of the house. Here's one bit of it:

  Stairway, back of house. Need repair on banister. Call lumberyard. Call Bill. Make appointment with vet for Mab.

  Bruno's baseball practice. 9 a.m. Saturday, take cooler. Brooke at 11, swim team.

  Cheerios, milk, sugar, eggs, wheat bread, chicken breasts, case of Coke, case of Diet Coke, case of root beer. No Oreos for Bruno.

  It made me laugh to flip through the spiral notebooks he kept, the closest thing to a diary he'd ever had. It reminded me more of him, of his way of organizing his life, than if he'd kept a more detailed record of his every whim and mood. I laughed, and then wept a little thinking about life's unfairness, that I'd never made things right with my father, that some insane person had murdered him and now there was nothing I could do to reach my father and tell him all the things you want to tell the dead.

  As I sat there, I began to wonder about the past month's records. I flipped through the notebooks, but for the one marked that year, there were no strange entries at all.

  I guess I wanted to believe that my father had noticed something. Had seen anything.

  But again, my head ached, my stomach tightened, and I thought of him, lying in his own blood, sliced, someone standing over him with a curved blade in her hand.

  Her.

  I thought it: Her.

  Why her? I closed my eyes. The sense of a woman.

  Not Brooke.

  Another woman.

  As if the house itself had a woman hidden in it somewhere.

  Hiding.

  Sometime after two or three, I awoke in darkness and sensed a presence in the room.

  My heart began beating too fast, and I could taste something sour and dry in my throat. I wanted to get up, drink some water or at least flick on a light. But a half-sleepy fear kept me on the bed, trying not to move. What was it? I glanced to the bookshelf and the small desk by the window.

  Then I saw her.

  For a moment, I had a terrible feeling I didn't know who it was. I felt my heart beating within my ch
est, and a strange shushing sound that was like a pulse within me. I held my breath, afraid she would know I was awake and watching her.

  For that slice of a moment, a terrible dread overtook me.

  I had the sure feeling—the absolute conviction—that if there were such things as ghosts, this was one of them.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  1

  She stood near the white curtain of the window, the moon shining in her hair. I could not tell if she was looking out the window or looking from the window to me, for she was nearly all shadow.

  It's Brooke, I thought. My heart still jackhammering. I felt clammy and cold, and didn't want to think this could be anything irrational. It has to be Brooke.

  I was about to say something, but I didn't want to startle her. Brooke went from room to room at night, after all. Perhaps she had just stopped for a minute to look out across the woods, and think of our father.

  The sensation of dread returned.

  Somehow, I felt that this was not Brooke at all. This was someone else. I only thought it was Brooke because it was a woman in the house, and Brooke was the only candidate. I began to believe (as you only can in those terrible early morning hours when the dark has not yet vanished) that this truly was a ghost. I felt like a child again, with a belief in anything that came my way.

  It took courage for me to reach over and flick on the bedside lamp.

  When I did, and the light flashed up in the room, it was Brooke. That nighttime imagination always did its worst with me.

  She faced the window, her back to me, the reflection of her face in the mirror.

  She wore one of her stretched-out sweaters and gray sweatpants, her hair long and stringy as if she hadn't washed it for a few days.

  "Brooke?"