I don’t know the rate at which people disappear in small towns. But from the numbers I came up with, I’d bet you a thousand bucks Trenton set the per capita pace. I’m not talking run-of-the-mill runaway husbands, wives, and kids, either. I’m talking honest-to-goodness hole-in-your-heart gone.
I didn’t bring the clippings to Jack. No point, I realized, a few days in. There was nothing left to tie them to. The new houses were going up fast and nobody was going to tear them down. Grave markers is what those houses were, and what they are.
As for Robert Ripley, Elsie Hix, Frank Edwards, and company, our enthusiasm for their chronicles of the unexplained was no longer what it had been. We were spooked. Burnt out. Dead tired. How else can I put it? We did not sit and plan. Never discussed or plotted. Our decision to leave well enough alone arrived by osmosis.
Ironic, too. Thanks to the Creighton Farms mystery, McGrath was finally getting his wish. We were backing off. By taking Jack and me deeper into The Unknown than we’d ever gone before, Annie might also have saved her own skin.
What was it McGrath had said in the restaurant? It had been one of Mom’s payday dinners. “Some shit deserves explaining. Some shit doesn’t. Plain as that. Explanations won’t change a thing. Sometimes there is no explaining.” Jack and I could see it now. Plain as that.
Our priorities were shifting, as well. Jack would be moving up to Trenton High come fall. While Annie and I would only be a year behind, it would be measured in kid years—and kid years were triple the length of any adult year. No telling the shit that might happen. (For all I knew, bothJack and Annie would be leaving me behind. For sure, Malbasic had a surprise or two in store for me. How many black marks would he have scribbled into my file by then, how many synonyms for troublemaker in my school records?)
So it was, Jack, Annie, and I withdrew to safer, less troublesome ground.
“Best superhero?”
“J’onn J’onnz, Martian Manhunter.”
“What?”
“You heard me.”
“You’re kidding?”
“Who, then? Superman?”
“Herbie Popnecker.”
“Who?”
“Forbidden Worlds. The tubby kid with the glasses? The lollipop? He’s at least as good as your dumb Martian Manhunter.”
“Not to me.”
“Famous Monsters of Filmland or Screen Thrills Illustrated?”
“Find the Feathered Serpent—you ever read that book?”
“Hot dog or hamburger?”
“Hot dog.”
“Larry, Moe, or Curly?”
“Shemp.”
“He’s dead. So is Costello.”
“Abbott and Costello’s Costello?”
“Yup. Hardy, too.”
“The fat one?”
“Sorry.”
“Curly, then, I guess. The old Curly, not the new Curly.”
At first, Annie only listened, as Jack and I dazzled with our profound knowledge and extraordinary taste. But soon, she came around, brought her own spin to the game, giggling her head off . . .
“Best Paul Anka song?”
“Troy Donahue or James Darren?”
“Best Elvis movie?”
“Beehive, bun, or ponytail?”
“Gidget or Tammy?”
. . . as Jack and I drew sputtered blanks. And no, we didn’t mind for a second. Not even Jack. The sarcasm and nasty shots between the two had ended long before. It had happened so gradually, I’d hardly noticed, almost forgot Jack and Annie hadn’t been friends from the start. Like me and Annie. Like me and Jack.
“You guys are a riot,” Annie would say, and in my head there’d be my plaintive reply, “I love you, too, Annie Barker. So goddamn much.” And shuddered at the unexplained mystery that caused me to think such a hokey thing.
Jack, Annie, me, we kept it going until June of 1963.
The 20th.
A Thursday.
The day Jack Levin disappeared.
Fourth Reel
One
1988 and I was in Cobourg
with Jack, Marie Dressler, and Aimee Semple McPherson
The roads were icy. Last count, seven cars in ditches.
Then eight.
Then nine.
Snow was blowing in from the lake, the wipers struggling, the headlights useless in the whiteouts. The visibility was closing in on zero as I inched into Cobourg. I knew what Jack was going to say before he said it, and beat him to the punch: “Marie Dressler was born here. Won the Oscar for Tugboat Annie.”
Jack cut me with his smirk. “Min and Bill, idiot. She won for Min and Bill.”
“I was testing you,” I said.
“Don’t give me that. You’ve lost whatever it was you had. Accept it. Get over it.”
“We could go to her house for dinner,” I said. “It’s a restaurant, you know?”
“Of course, I know. I know what you know.”
After Mom was gone, I swore I’d never go back home. Yet here I was, eleven years on and on my way, at Death’s behest again. It could be habit-forming, I thought, once a decade, give or take.
I should have told the lawyer he’d dialled the wrong number, got the wrong guy. Should have said Leo Berry was dead. But I had guts, right? Jack had told me that. “You got guts, man,” he’d said so long ago.
“The visit will be in your best interest, I assure you,” the lawyer assured me. I could hear the money in his formality. Greedy pig, that’s what I was, between jobs again. At least my exes had remarried, leaving me free and clear on the support, though I doubt either wife would call what I provided as that, exactly. I will not embarrass them by naming them. Aside from their poor judgement in marrying me, I take the blame in full. You try living with me.
Nope. No children. The world didn’t need a Gloomy Gus II.
“Quick!” Jack said. “Scariest movie motel ever?”
I dug deep. “Raven’s Inn. Horror Hotel. Christopher Lee. Venetia Stevenson.” That shut him up, all right. No Hitchcock. No Perkins. Ha!
“You guys are a riot,” Annie said from the back seat. I turned to look. She wasn’t there.
Thirty-five miles to go. Might as well have been a thousand in this weather. Snow blanketed the sign, but otel and Vaca y were enough. I plowed through the drifts into the lot.
Only thirty-five miles. I was in no hurry. I’ve told you.
Once, at a motel in Grand Forks, North Dakota, I found a five dollar bill in a Gideon Bible. I have thumbed through every motel and hotel Bible since. In Cobourg, the Holy Book yielded a bookmark, colourful images of fire, brimstone, roiling seas, and Aimee Semple McPherson, magnanimous in grainy black and white, her thoughts expressed in C.B. DeMille calligraphy:
“The sea shall give up the dead which are in it; death and hell shall deliver up their dead and they shall be judged, every man according to his works.”
—This Is That (1919)
Grand Forks wasn’t the first time I found money in a Bible. The week after Mom had passed, I pulled a dusty basket of Redbook and Good Housekeeping magazines from the crawlspace in the cellar. At the bottom of the box was an oversized New Testament, bound in white with a golden bookmark, and dedicated by hand on the flyleaf:
September 1945
To our beloved Emily,
Love you forever and a day,
Mother & Dad
Scattered among Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were American dollars, British pounds, Polish zlotys, Turkish lira, and Deutschmarks. There were also three passports, American, British, and German, the identity pages torn from each.
Two
Dear Gus
Annie waved her friends on ahead. Susan and Diana complied with misgivings, eyeing me as I approached, separating from Annie with reluctance. “It’s your funeral,” Diana said.
“What’s up with them?” I said.
Annie had bad news on her face. She wanted to be anywhere other than where she was. “Jack isn’t coming.”
�
��Okay.” I hadn’t seen him all day. It was the week before summer vacation. “Teacher’s pet business to wrap up?” I said.
“His parents are splitting up.”
“Yeah?” I said, faking it now, till I had a handle on where this was going.
“You knew it was coming, right?”
“What was coming?”
“His parents. They’re getting a divorce. His Mom’s taken him and his sisters to Montreal.”
“Montreal?”
“They’ve got family there.”
“What? Wait. You’re saying he’s gone?” Confusion gave way to disappointment. I’d expected more from Jack, a vanishing to rival the lost colony of Roanoke, for instance. Or Angikuni Lake and the Eskimo village that went poof.
“It wasn’t like he kept it a secret,” she said. “Still, the suddenness, I suppose.”
“But he’ll be back, right?”
“Maybe. Sometimes. I hope. I mean, his dad is here, the restaurant . . .” She fumbled with her schoolbag, fished out an envelope. “He left you this.”
“What is it?”
“Um . . . an envelope? Probably with a message inside?”
I didn’t want to touch it. “What’s it say?”
“Gosh, how should I know?” She grabbed my wrist and slapped it onto my palm. “Honestly, Gus, sometimes . . .”
“Why you? Why didn’t he give it to me?”
“What difference does it make? For goodness sakes, stop staring at the thing. Read it.”
I tore open the envelope, unfolded the three sheets of pale green paper. His mom’s stationery.
Annie glued herself to my side, reading along. “What’s Hollywood North?”
“Nothing.” I turned a shoulder, held the pages closer to my chest.
“Be like that.” She simmered, spun hair with her fingers.
Jack’s first two pages were a sprawling whirl of hoops and loops and curlicues, syllables in cartoon clothing.
Dear Gus,
I’ve been doing lots of thinking about Hollywood North and the accidents and the cards and everything.
What if it’s not amnesia, but more like THE TIME MACHINE? How the Morlocks took care of the Eloi, fed them, gave them clothes, made them think everything was great. And then the Morlocks ate them.
What if that’s what’s going on? What if there’s something out there like the Morlocks and they’re making everybody think life is hunky-dory. It’d sure make it easier to pick people off like they’ve been doing, wouldn’t it? You know, make it look like accidents or murders. But hiding something bigger.
What if everybody in Trenton is like the Eloi? That’d make us Eloi, too. But who are the Morlocks? Space invaders? Escaped Nazis? Russians? Nikita Khrushchev said WE WILL BURY YOU. What if the Reds did all that on Creighton Farms?
Look, I don’t have the answers, but I’ll bet my life Mr. McGrath and Mr. Blackhurst’s wife (or whoever she is) are working for the real Morlocks and we got too close to the secret and they had to scare us off. I’m telling you, we figure out the WHO and the rest falls into place. Could be the secret is in the cards.
Think about it Gus. Keep your head up and your eyes and ears open. And watch your back. Don’t end up like Dougie.
Yours truly,
Jack L.
The third page was our list, neatly printed. Or now, I guess, his list.
Here’s what we’ve got so far. Some new ones, too. Customers have been super chatty lately.
18?? to 19?? – The ‘buried alive’ of Creighton Farms
1898 – Grand Trunk train wreck
1918 – Ammo plant blows up
1919 – Barn fire and pitchfork murders, 4 dead
1922 – Tour boat burns and flips in Bay
1934 – Foss Brothers Circus catches fire (Iris Lebel burned)
1926 – Sisters murdered on top of Pelion
1927 – Walker Shoe Factory roof caves in
1929 – Scout camp flash flood kills 7
1930 – Family murdered in Hanna Park
1933 – Two girls stabbed to death on Pelion
1937 – Planes collide over town (Simon Lebel)
1938 – Mount Pelion landslide crushes 4 houses
1942 – Duck hunters mistake fishermen for Nazi invaders, 5 shot dead
1944 – RCAF Day picnic poisons 51, kills 22
1950 – Couple jumps from Pelion water tower (possible murder)
1951 – Train hits school bus
1962 – Speedboat crash, 6 dead including driver
“So?” Annie said. “Nice letter? Happy now?”
I crumpled the pages, buried them in my pocket along with my fist.
“Aren’t you going to let me read it, at least?”
“He said goodbye to you, didn’t he?” I turned my back and stomped away.
“Gus, stop. What are you doing? Please . . .”
And that fist in my pocket, I tell you, I held it clenched until I’d made it home. Had to will my fingers to unwind.
What the hell was I supposed to do with his stupid letter, anyhow? What was I supposed to do now?
The Hardy Boys were dead. Iola Morton, too.
Three
Ambushed!
The town was down one celebrity. Nobody gave a crap.
Trentonians had better things to occupy themselves than some big-headed puke who made their small-headed pukes look pukier. Grand openings of a Canadian Tire store and an A&W Root Beer Drive-in. Donkey Baseball at Legion Park. Wrestling at the Community Gardens. The annual Air Show at the base—always good for a close call or two, if not a crash.
Jack the Finder had been yesterday’s news since McGrath ceased to make him news.
I wallowed in my bitterness, brooded over how he’d given Annie the lowdown on his leaving and not me. I vilified Annie for it, too. When did she become more important to Jack than me? And that so-called latest theory of his, how he’d kept it to himself? He didn’t own the mysteries. They were our mysteries.
Why should I care, anyhow? Train wrecks. Plane crashes. Dead school kids. Read a newspaper, why don’t you? Watch Huntley and Brinkley. Like McGrath had told him, bad stuff happened everywhere. And those dumb movie cards—I never gave a crap, not even when I did.
Who’d he think he was? Who’d she think she was?
I’d show him. I’d show her. I’d put up a wall, dig a moat, stock it with piranhas.
I didn’t need anybody. Not him. Not her. Not anybody.
Mom intercepted me at the door. The Avon Lady gig was working for her. Working for me, too. She was hardly ever home after school. Leaving me free to watch TV, read comics, or whatever. But that day, of all days, she was all over me.
“I guess you heard the news about the Levins,” she said.
“How long you known?”
“A few days. A couple of weeks, perhaps. He did tell you, didn’t he?”
“He told me, all right.”
“It’s normal to be upset, your best friend moving—”
“He’s not my best friend.”
“I’m sure he’ll be back to visit. Mollie suggested we could arrange for you to go to Montreal for a few days this summer. How exciting would—”
“I’m not going anywhere near that dirty double-crosser.”
Come July, Annie would be off to her family’s cottage at Barcovan Beach near Carrying Place, the zag end of the zigzag Quinte. I’d be done with her till school resumed in September. But in the week leading up to her departure, my redemption was her mission. Never once in the years I’d known Annie had she come by my house. Not even for birthday parties. Of course, I’d sabotaged my mother’s good intentions every year, supplying no names to invite. I’d heard of kids who’d planned parties where nobody showed and I vowed early on I would not be that kid. Then, too, there’d been the Shirley Temple movie where news arrives during her party that her father had been killed in some war, leaving her penniless and at the mercy of the bitchy-faced boarding school mistress. Next Shirley k
nows, she’s Cinderella, accused of stealing blankets and locked up in the attic.
A kid absorbs. A kid learns.
Who was Annie now, anyhow? She looked the same, yet she wasn’t the same. She showed up at my door at least twice a day for a week and ambushed me here and there about the same.
“You’re being silly. C’mon, Gus, please. You don’t throw away a friend for no good reason. You know I’m your friend. Your best friend. Your oldest friend.”
“This is crazy, Gus. C’mon. Stop it. Let’s go back to the way it was.”
“Jack didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. He didn’t know how to say goodbye, that’s all. He thought the letter would be better.”
“I don’t know what I did that was so wrong, but you can see I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry. That’s got to mean something.”
“Please, Mrs. Berry, make him talk to me.”
“I wish I could,” my mother said. “If it’s any consolation, he’s not talking much to me, either.”
Annie followed me home on the last day of school. Her last chance to make it right. She was half a block behind when Double Al and Lloyd jumped me, bulldozed me through the cedars and onto the grass.
Long-Arm Wayne and Vito hauled me to my feet, twisted an arm behind my back, and screwed me into a headlock.
My heart should have been beating a mile a minute. I should have been hurting. I should have been scared. Instead, I was bugged by their lack of originality. Was the space between the cedars and Malbasic’s big green hedge the only option for ambushes in this town?
“Still think everything’s a big joke, eh?” Double Al said.
I coughed, and Vito eased up on my neck. “Don’t you guys watch movies? TV?”
“We got unfinished business with you.”
“Why always here? No abandoned warehouse around? No place with girders and chains so you can string me up while you beat the shit out of me?”
Hollywood North: A Novel in Six Reels Page 22