Midlisters

by Burke, Kealan Patrick

  "I want you to do me a favor," she asked me the night she left. "It's not an easy one."

  She had been about to leave, standing on the threshold of the icy dark, her car waiting like a giant frozen cockroach by the curb. I urged her back inside, shut the door on the cold, and waited for her to continue. Kelly had been standing in the kitchen doorway, after dispensing the requisite sympathy and offers of assistance, one last time. Now she silently pushed away from the jamb and disappeared into the other rooms, leaving us alone.

  "I want you to remember him as a good person," my mother said, her liquid blue eyes searching mine, conveying the plea. "Because he was. He just didn't know how to be a father. It wasn't in him. Doesn't mean he didn't love you."

  Had she said this in my father's company, he'd have scoffed and left the room, and I'd have muttered something insulting. Two guys cursing a stubborn tree stump, but making no attempt to move it. But he wasn't here. We'd buried him, and if this was what my mother needed to be happy for however many years she could manage without him, I would give it to her. So though I had trouble with the idea, and suspected it wouldn't take even if I gave it the 'ol college try, I nodded, gave her a hug that only brought home to me just how truly frail her body had become—it was like embracing a stack of kindling wrapped in burlap—and saw her to the car.

  * * *

  That night I couldn't sleep, and when I went downstairs to get a drink of water, maybe check my email, I found my dead father sitting in my office, in that busted up old chair from my apartment—a chair I'd left there when I'd moved. He was by the window, lit by slats of light from the streetlamps through the blinds, what little hair he'd had in those last few years of his life tousled as if he'd just woken.

  I froze in the doorway, waiting to wake up, waiting to scream, waiting for him to speak.

  But he didn't. He just sat there like some cruel mortician's idea of a joke, waxen-faced, and glassy-eyed.

  Shaking his head.

  It was the whiskey, of course, and whatever residual grief I'd tried to repress, but regardless, I snuggled up tight with Kelly when I went back to bed, so tight in fact that she had to pry herself free of me at one point, and turn around so that she could hold me and still manage to breathe.

  In the morning we made love, just to reassure ourselves that the passing of my father hadn't broken the gears of the universe, that though the light might look less bright and the angles a little sharper, he had left the world more or less as he'd found it for those who'd survived him.

  Chapter 6

  I drove to Baltimore alone. It was my choice. And though Kelly had been surprised when I announced my intentions, I could sense her relief, and for that I couldn't blame her. I wasn't much looking forward to it. The excitement I'd felt at having been asked had long ago evaporated. Not solely because of the other circumstances that made that day one to remember, or my father's death shortly thereafter, but because since then I'd had nothing but time to realize the bother and hassle these conventions generally represented. It was an arduous trip too, through slushy roads and barren monochrome landscapes that, if they hadn't already been mirroring my emotional state, would have depressed the hell out of me. More than once I considered swinging the car around and going home, but was kept moving forward by the awareness that there was little back there to look forward to but my own self-pity, and that guy was already taking up too much room in chez Tennant. So I drove on, distracted every now and then by the chirp of my wife's cell phone, which she'd given me so I wouldn't have to fight my way through crowds at the convention to let her know I was okay.

  "You're not too far to think about coming back to get me, you know," she said, her voice mangled by hiccups of static.

  "I know, but even if you sit around the house just staring at the wall, it'll still be more interesting than this is going to be."

  "Don't say that. Try to think positive. You might have fun."

  "Yeah."

  "Oh, and I've a bone to pick with you."

  "Uh oh."

  "Yeah. You were reading my book, right? The Kent Gray one?"

  "I was. It was trashy."

  "Maybe so, but since when do you draw all over books? I thought that was a big no-no for writers. Makes 'em all crinkly."

  "The books or the writers?"

  "Haw-haw. You know what I mean."

  I turned on the windshield wipers to liberate the glass from a patch of icy snow. "I was marking the passages I liked. The ones I wish I'd written."

  "You're kidding." A staccato hiss followed her words as the connection wavered.

  "No."

  "You found something to like in that book?"

  "Didn't you? You bought the thing."

  "The only thing worth looking at was the author photo."

  Something in me tightened at that, but I let it go. As I've mentioned, and as you probably know, Kent Gray was a handsome chap. I'm sure most women got a little damp over his photo, so why should my wife be any different?

  "I'll be sure to tell him you said that."

  "Please do," she replied. "And while you're at it, tell him his sex scenes suck."

  I laughed out loud at that, and felt instantly better.

  "I much prefer yours," she continued. "But then, I might be biased, since I get to help you research them."

  I squinted as a car passed me and kicked up snow. "Thanks babe. Listen, I gotta go. Weather's getting nasty."

  "Okay. Well…I hope you sell a ton of books."

  At that, I looked in my rearview at the three cardboard boxes loaded with paperbacks on the back seat. It still felt weird schlepping them to a convention, and I could only imagine how ridiculous I was going to look if I had to leave with them still full. How many of the other guests would have their cars stuffed full of books, hoping to make a quick buck? I had to try real hard not to think about it.

  "So do I," I told Kelly. "I'll call you when I reach the hotel."

  "Drive safe."

  I snapped the cell phone closed and tossed it on the passenger seat, then concentrated on the road, which had rapidly become a slippery white ribbon bordered by spindly-limbed trees that seemed determined to grab the car, their ragged fingers scratching at the roof. Occupying my mind with trying to keep the car from sliding into oncoming traffic as vehicles exploded from sizzling sheets of nothingness like wolves from the fog allowed me some respite from the dark shapes lingering on the threshold of consciousness, awaiting consideration. Even when the road widened, and the car finally sprang free of the womb of snow, I turned on the radio to keep my focus on the road and what lay at the end of it. I did not want to think about Kelly alone—or worse, not alone—back at home. I did not want to think about how inadequate and out of place I felt puttering to a convention where the chances were the attendees would be ninety-percent science fiction fans, ten-percent horror, with that ten-percent unaware that anyone but King, Straub, Barker and Anne Rice were writing horror these days

  "Knock it off," I chided. I'd be fine, and I reminded myself that if things went sour for me, there was always the option of leaving early. I wouldn't be out a dime and could be home in a few hours. And hey, Kelly was right, maybe pigs would sprout little porcine wings and I might actually enjoy myself, maybe empty a box or two of books while chatting with some enthusiastic readers. Could happen. I dragged a smile from the well of doubt, and held it as I edged ever closer to my destination.

  * * *

  Fifty miles from the Marriott Hotel, I passed a hitchhiker who'd been holding up a sign with AURORA CONVENTION scrawled on it in thick black letters. The guy had looked young, and cold as hell, but the pang of guilt I felt at spraying him with slushy water was alleviated by the memory of a scene I had written in which a salesman foolish enough to pick up a beautiful hitchhiker had been castrated by her with a straight razor.

  I pressed my foot a little harder on the gas, warmed by the heat inside the car and the knowledge that I was on the home stretch. I wasn't concerned about th
e hitcher recognizing me if he passed me in the packed halls at the convention. I'd been going plenty fast.

  Then my tire exploded.

  I was coasting along, tapping my foot to a Paul Simon number I didn't even know, but remembered my mother liking once upon a time, when there was a brief, agonized screech, and the car bucked like a startled horse. Snowy gravel machine-gunned the side of the car and the wheel spun abruptly to the right, hell-bent on sending me into a railing at seventy miles an hour. I cursed as I wrestled it into submission, allowing it to stay its course toward oblivion, but jamming on the brakes well before its rendezvous with the railing.

  The car squeaked noisily and shuddered to a messy stop, the rear end slipping off the road, so the nose of my Pontiac was aimed at passing traffic, and slightly skyward.

  "Fuck." I thumped a fist on the steering wheel, then sat back and closed my eyes. Blindly, I fumbled for the cell phone, and wondered who to call. Were we members of Triple A? Was Triple A even in business anymore? This was the kind of crap Kelly knew, not me; this, and to whom we owed money, when and where the checks were sent, how to cook food without burning it, how and when the taxes were done etc., etc. I figured the best idea was to call her.

  She wasn't there.

  I stared at the phone, checked the signal, which of course was fine, then hung up and tried again. It rang out, then my own solemn voice advised me to leave a message.

  I flung the phone over my shoulder where it smacked against one of the boxes and hit the floor. And scarcely taking the time to check that an eighteen-wheeler wasn't bearing down on me, I stepped out into the road. Fortunately, there were no cars at all, nothing but the nut-preserving chill that made my teeth irresistible to each other and induced rigor mortis in every hair on my body.

  "Chriiiist," I moaned as I hugged myself, and in the kind of half crouch reserved for the old, the cold, or the constipated, made my way around the car to inspect the damage. It took only a moment to locate the offending tire, or rather, the wheel, because the tire itself had said its goodbyes and blown the pop stand without so much as a note. I imagined it was back there, lying in the middle of the road like rubbery roadkill, still managing even in death to inconvenience others.

  Pissed off, though not in the least bit surprised (for this was just another of those things which occur with semi-regularity and can be blamed firmly on whatever deity has been squatting over me, pants bunched around His ankles, all my life). To think about Kelly at that moment, and where she might be, who she might be with, and what they might be doing would have meant the utter annihilation of my car. I'd have torn it asunder with my chattering teeth, then torched the remains. So I let the anger keep my thoughts on stir-fry as I wrenched open the car door, tugged the keys free of the ignition, stalked around to the back of the crippled vehicle, and yanked open the trunk.

  Against all my expectations, and therefore confusing me a little, there was a spare in the trunk, in relatively good shape too, nestled next to the tools required for the job. I stared at them through the clouds of my breath for some indeterminate amount of time before a voice made me jump so violently, I almost lost my footing.

  "Jesus Christ." Whirling to face the speaker, I realized he would never know just how lucky he was that I hadn't already plucked the tire iron out of the trunk.

  "Hey sorry, man, sorry," the guy said, hands raised to ward off the blow I was imagining for him. I put a hand to my chest, though there was nothing wrong with my heart. My lungs maybe, but not the ticker, which wasn't where it should be anyway but in my throat, busy blocking off the air I needed to suck in to tell this guy what I thought of him. When at last I felt the panic and anger ebb, I realized I was looking at the hitchhiker I'd sloshed by earlier, nothing but red cheeks and watery eyes visible over the thick black woolen scarf he'd wrapped around his lower face. A stocking cap was pulled down over his ears, but despite the padded jacket he wore, he looked half a hopscotch step from hypothermia. The sign I'd seen him holding aloft lay forgotten and fringed with snow at his feet.

  "Didn't mean to freak you out, man," he said, waggling his hands in some lazy estimation of my panic. "Just wanted to know if you needed help."

  With my breathing regulated just enough to allow me to form complete sentences without keeling over, I nodded pointedly at the spare. "Tire blew out."

  "Yeah, I saw it back there. You were lucky."

  "You know anything about changing one?"

  "Only that it's what needs to happen after one of them explodes."

  I closed my eyes. "But not how to facilitate its replacement, right?"

  He shrugged. "I could help you push it."

  I gave him a withering look. "Where?"

  Another shrug, and now I began to seriously consider getting the tire iron out anyway. "You headed to the convention?"

  "I was, yeah."

  He nodded his approval. "Me too. Came all the way from Ontario."

  I straightened, appraised him as I would a dog that had just spoken fluent Italian. "Ontario?"

  "Yep."

  "You hitched all the way here?"

  Though I couldn't see his mouth, I could sense his smile as he produced a gloved thumb and stuck it out. "Sure did."

  "Why?"

  "Haven't got any money, man."

  "No, I mean, why come all this way just for a convention?"

  I knew what he was going to say a moment before he said it, and wished I hadn't asked.

  "Shit, man. It's not every day you get to see Kent Gray in person."

  * * *

  "Name's Walt, by the way," the hitcher said, removing the glove from his right hand and offering it in my direction.

  We were back in my car and moving, after almost two hours spent making runway-cleared-for-landing-type signals at uncaring drivers. Finally one stopped, and a burly guy who I made a note to use in my next inbred-cannibal-psycho story replaced the tire, all the while casting glances at me that I chose to interpret as disappointment in his fellow man.

  I shook Walt's hand. "Jason."

  "Cool." He rubbed his palms together, then held them up in front of the heater vents. "Hey, thanks for the ride. Who are you going to see?"

  "Not sure. I'm a guest. Chances are I'll see everyone."

  "A guest? No kidding." He turned sideways in his seat to reevaluate me. Without the scarf, I could see he was older than I'd assumed when I'd whizzed by him, but not much. The lingering traces of acne and the mismatched tufts of blonde beard on the point of his narrow chin told me he had not yet fumbled into his second decade. "So, like, who are you?" He glanced into the back seat. "A writer?"

  "Yeah."

  "That's cool. What kind of stuff do you write?"

  "Horror."

  "Cool," he said again, but with decidedly less enthusiasm.

  "Have I read anything you wrote?"

  I resisted the urge to smack him. "How would I know? I just met you."

  He laughed. "Yeah, sorry. I should have said: What are some of your books?"

  That was only a slightly less annoying way of putting it, but I told him to reach into one of the boxes and grab the first one that came to hand. Grinning widely, he unsnapped his seatbelt and jostled his lean torso against my elbow, then drew back, a pristine copy of Cutters Inc. in hand.

  "Seatbelt," I said, and he looked at me oddly for a moment, until I urged his gaze downward.

  "Oh right, sorry." He buckled himself back in, then studied the book. I couldn't resist trying to read the expressions that passed over his face, but quickly looked away when he turned to me again.

  "Man, this is no good."

  I felt like a kid had punched me in the stomach, the kind of punch that doesn't hurt exactly, but definitely registers. "Excuse me?"

  He looked at me, and the faux pas dawned on him. Wide-eyed, the book resting on his lap, he raised his hands again and grinned at me from the space between them. "Oh shit, no. Aw, no, man…I didn't mean it like that. What I meant is, this book—" He pic
ked it up again to check the title. "—Cutters Inc. What I meant was, it's no good that I picked this one, because I've already read it."

  "Yeah?" Some of the ice melted from my lungs.

  "Yeah." He shook his head, then went back to looking out the window. I stared at the side of his face until throttling him suggested itself as a good way to get his attention. I know how un-cool it is to ask someone's opinion of your work, particularly when it's supposed to be flattery enough to be told they've read it, and especially if the guy who says he's read it has traveled a million miles to meet his hero, who is not a horror writer, but I couldn't help myself. By saying nothing, he was, whether he knew it or not, implying that he hadn't liked it, that silence was preferable to admitting he thought it stunk. And it would be a shame for the poor guy to unwittingly give me the wrong impression. Unless of course he was lying to be polite and had never read the book, in which case I decided I'd have to quiz him on its contents, just to see him squirm.

  "I can't believe I didn't recognize you, man," he said then.

  "What?"

  He beamed as he hefted the book, displaying the picture on the back cover of a younger, happier-looking me. "Shit, I read this in high school man, and the other one…the one about the serial killer and the hookers…Red-something, wasn't it?"

  "Yeah." I found myself sharing his smile. "Yeah, it was. Raw Red Smile."

  "That's the one!" He nodded his satisfaction. "I dug this shit back in college, man."

  "Big jump from me to Kent Gray."

  "Yeah. Yeah it is. Blame rehab."

  "How's that?"

  "Only book I could find in there that wasn't a romance, or self-help, or some other crock of shit."

  I made a note to periodically distribute copies of my books to rehab centers throughout New York. If my agent caught wind of it, he'd probably tell me I was wasting my time, but I now had it on good authority that it was an effective means of promotion. I even envisioned a poster of me looking all washed out, dark circles beneath my eyes, lips cracked and pale, my hair and clothes in shambles, holding a copy of my book over a caption that read: JASON TENN-ANT. THE CRACKHEAD'S CHOICE!