If It Bleeds Read online

  February 15, 2021

  Uncle Henry’s mental decline has been rapid. Mrs. Braddock has told them (regretfully) that it’s often the case once patients are in care.

  Now, as Holly sits beside him on one of the couches facing the big-screen TV in the Rolling Hills common room, she finally gives up trying to make conversation with him. Charlotte already has; she’s at a table across the room, helping Mrs. Hatfield with her current jigsaw puzzle. Jerome has come with them today, and is also helping. He’s got Mrs. Hatfield laughing, and even Charlotte can’t help smiling at some of J’s amiable chatter. He’s a charming young man, and he’s finally won Charlotte over. Not an easy thing to do.

  Uncle Henry sits with his eyes wide and his mouth agape, the hands that once fixed Holly’s bicycle after she crashed it into the Wilsons’ picket fence now lying slack between his splayed legs. His pants bulge with the continence pants beneath. Once he was a ruddy man. Now he’s pale. Once he was a stout man. Now his clothes hang on his body and his flesh sags like an old sock that’s lost its elastic.

  Holly takes one of his hands. It’s just meat with fingers. She laces her own fingers through his and squeezes, hoping for a return, but no. Soon it will be time to go, and she’s glad. It makes her feel guilty, but there it is. This isn’t her uncle; he’s been replaced by an oversized ventriloquist’s dummy with no ventriloquist to lend it speech. The ventriloquist has left town and isn’t coming back.

  An ad for Otezla, urging these wrinkled, balding oldsters to “Show more of you!” ends, and is replaced by the Bobby Fuller Four: “I Fought the Law.” Uncle Henry’s chin has been sinking toward his chest, but now it comes up. And a light—low-wattage, to be sure—comes into his eyes.

  The courtroom appears and the announcer intones, “Steer clear if you’re a louse, because John Law is in the house!”

  As the bailiff comes forward, Holly suddenly realizes why she gave the Macready School bomber the name she did. The mind is always at work, making connections and making sense . . . or at least trying to.

  Uncle Henry finally speaks, his voice low and rusty from disuse. “All rise.”

  “All rise!” George the bailiff bellows.

  The spectators don’t just rise; they get on up, clapping and swaying. John Law jives his way in from his chambers. He grabs his gavel and tick-tocks it back and forth to the music. His bald head gleams. His white teeth flash. “What have we got today, Georgie, my brother from another mother?”

  “I love this guy,” Uncle Henry says in his rusty voice.

  “So do I,” she says, and puts an arm around him.

  Uncle Henry turns to look at her.

  And smiles.

  “Hello, Holly,” he says.

  RAT

  1

  Ordinarily, Drew Larson’s story ideas came—on the increasingly rare occasions when they came at all—a little at a time, like dribbles of water drawn from a well that was almost dry. And there was always a chain of associations he could trace back to something he’d seen or heard: a real-world flashpoint.

  In the case of his most recent short, the genesis had come when he’d seen a man changing a tire on the Falmouth entrance ramp to I-295, the guy down in an effortful squat while people honked and swerved around him. That had led to “Blowout,” labored over for almost three months and published (after half a dozen rejections at larger magazines) in Prairie Schooner.

  “Skip Jack,” his one published story in The New Yorker, had been written while he was a grad student at BU. The seed of that one had been planted while listening to the college radio station in his apartment one night. The student DJ had attempted to play “Whole Lotta Love,” by Zep, and the record had begun to skip. The skip went on for nearly forty-five seconds until the breathless kid killed the tune and blurted, “Sorry, guys, I was taking a shit.”

  “Skip Jack” was twenty years ago. “Blowout” had been published three years ago. In between, he had managed four others. They were all in the three-thousand-word range. All had taken months of labor and revision. There had never been a novel. He had tried, but no. He had pretty much given that ambition up. The first two efforts at long-form fiction had given him problems. The last try had caused serious problems. He had burned the manuscript, and had come close to burning the house, as well.

  Now this idea, arriving complete. Arriving like a long overdue engine pulling a train of many splendid cars.

  Lucy had asked him if he’d drive down to Speck’s Deli and pick up sandwiches for lunch. It was a pretty September day, and he told her he’d walk instead. She nodded approvingly and said it would be good for his waistline. He wondered later how different his life might have been if he’d taken the Suburban or the Volvo. He might never have had the idea. He might never have been at his father’s cabin. He almost certainly would never have seen the rat.

  He was halfway to Speck’s, waiting at the corner of Main and Spring for the light to change, when the engine arrived. The engine was an image, one as brilliant as reality. Drew stood transfixed and staring at it through the sky. A student gave him a nudge. “Sign says you can walk, man.”

  Drew ignored him. The student threw him an odd look and crossed the street. Drew continued to stand on the curb as WALK became DON’T WALK and then WALK again.

  Although he avoided western novels (with the exceptions of The Ox-Bow Incident and Doctorow’s brilliant Welcome to Hard Times) and hadn’t seen many western movies since his teenage years, what he saw as he stood on the corner of Main and Spring was a western saloon. A wagon-wheel chandelier with kerosene lanterns mounted on the spokes hung from the ceiling. Drew could smell the oil. The floor was plank. At the back of the room were three or four gaming tables. There was a piano. The man playing it wore a derby hat. Only he wasn’t playing it now. He had turned to stare at what was happening at the bar. Standing next to the piano player, also staring, was a tall drink of water with an accordion strapped to his narrow chest. And at the bar, a young man in an expensive western suit was holding a gun to the temple of a girl in a red dress so low-cut that only a ruffle of lace hid her nipples. Drew could see these two twice, once where they stood and once reflected in the backbar mirror.

  This was the engine. The whole train was behind it. He saw the inhabitants of every car: the limping sheriff (shot at Antietam and still carrying the ball in his leg), the arrogant father willing to lay siege to an entire town to keep his son from being taken to the county seat where he would be tried and hung, the father’s hired men on the roofs with their rifles. Everything was there.

  When he came home, Lucy took one look at him and said, “You’re either coming down with something or you’ve had an idea.”

  “It’s an idea,” Drew said. “A good idea. Maybe the best one I’ve ever had.”

  “Short story?”

  He guessed that was what she was hoping for. What she wasn’t hoping for was another visit from the fire department while she and the kids stood on the lawn in their nightclothes.

  “Novel.”

  She put her ham and cheese on rye down. “Oh boy.”

  They didn’t call what happened following the fire that almost took their house a nervous breakdown, but that’s what it was. Not as bad as it could have been, but he’d missed half a semester of school (thank God for tenure) and had only regained his equilibrium thanks to twice-weekly therapy sessions, some magic pills, and Lucy’s unfailing confidence that he would recover. Plus the kids, of course. The kids needed a father who wasn’t caught in an unending loop of must finish and can’t finish.

  “This one is different. It’s all there, Lucy. Practically gift-wrapped. It’s going to be like taking dictation!”

  She just looked at him, a slight frown creasing her brow. “If you say so.”

  “Listen, we didn’t rent out Dad’s cabin this year, did we?”

  Now she looked not just worried but alarmed. “We haven’t rented it out for two years. Not since Old Bill died.” Old Bill Colson had been their caret
aker, and Drew’s mom and pop’s caretaker before that. “You’re not thinking—”

  “I am, but only for a couple of weeks. Three at most. To get started. You can get Alice to help with the kids, you know she loves to come and the kids love their auntie. I’ll be back in time to help you pass out the Halloween candy.”

  “You can’t write it here?”

  “Of course I can. Once I get a running start.” He put his hands to his head like a man with a splitting headache. “The first forty pages at the cabin, that’s all. Or maybe it’ll be a hundred and forty, it might go that fast. I see it! I see it all!” He repeated, “It’ll be like taking dictation.”

  “I need to think about it,” she said. “And you do, too.”

  “All right, I will. Now eat your sandwich.”

  “All of a sudden I’m not that hungry,” she said.

  Drew was. He ate the rest of his, then most of hers.

  2

  That afternoon he went to see his old department head. Al Stamper had abruptly retired at the end of the spring semester, allowing Arlene Upton, also known as the Wicked Witch of Elizabethan Drama, to finally achieve the position of authority she had so long desired. Nay, lusted for.

  Nadine Stamper told Drew that Al was on the back patio, drinking iced tea and taking in the sun. She looked as worried as Lucy had when Drew sprang his idea of going up to the camp in TR-90 for a month or so, and when he went out to the patio, Drew saw why. He also understood why Al Stamper—who had ruled the English Department like a benevolent despot for the last fifteen years—had abruptly stepped down.

  “Stop gawking and have some tea. You know you want some.” Al always believed he knew what people wanted. Arlene Upton loathed him in large part because Al usually did know what people wanted.

  Drew sat down and took the glass. “How much weight have you lost, Al?”

  “Thirty pounds. I know it looks like more, but that’s because I wasn’t carrying any extra to start with. It’s pancreatic.” He saw Drew’s expression and raised the finger he used to quell arguments in faculty meetings. “No need for you or Nadie or anyone else to go crafting any obituaries just yet. The docs caught it relatively early. Confidence is high.”

  Drew didn’t think his old friend looked especially confident, but held his tongue.

  “Let’s not talk about me. Let’s talk about why you came. Have you decided how you’re going to spend your sabbatical?”

  Drew told him he wanted to take another stab at a novel. This time, he said, he was pretty sure he could bring it off. Positive, actually.

  “That’s what you said about The Village on the Hill,” Al said, “and you almost lost the wheels off your little red wagon when that one went south.”

  “You sound like Lucy,” Drew said. “I didn’t expect that.”

  Al leaned forward. “Listen to me, Drew. You’re an excellent teacher, and you’ve written some fine short stories—”

  “Half a dozen,” Drew said. “Call the Guinness Book of World Records.”

  Al waved this off. “ ‘Skip Jack’ was in Best American—”

  “Yes,” Drew said. “The one edited by Doctorow. Who’s been dead lo these many years.”

  “Many fine writers have produced almost nothing but short stories,” Al persisted. “Poe. Chekhov. Carver. And although I know you tend to steer clear of popular fiction, there’s Saki and O. Henry on that side of things. Harlan Ellison in the modern age.”

  “Those guys did a lot better than half a dozen. And Al, this is a great idea. It really is.”

  “Would you care to tell me a little about it? A drone’s eye view, so to speak?” He eyed Drew. “You don’t. I can see that you don’t.”

  Drew, who longed to do exactly that—because it was beautiful! damn near perfect!—shook his head. “Better to keep it in, I think. I’m going up to my father’s old cabin for awhile. Long enough to get this thing rolling.”

  “Ah. TR-90, correct? The back of beyond, in other words. What does Lucy say about this idea?”

  “Not crazy about it, but she’ll have her sister to help with the kids.”

  “It’s not the kids she’s worried about, Drew. I think you know that.”

  Drew said nothing. He thought about the saloon. He thought about the sheriff. He already knew the sheriff’s name. It was James Averill.

  Al sipped his tea, then put the glass down beside a well-thumbed copy of Fowles’s The Magus. Drew guessed there were underlinings on every page: green for character, blue for theme, red for phrases Al found remarkable. His blue eyes were still bright, but they were also a trifle watery now, and red around the rims. Drew didn’t like to think he saw approaching death in those eyes, but thought maybe he did.

  Al leaned forward, hands clasped between his thighs. “Tell me something, Drew. Tell me why this is so important to you.”

  3

  That night, after making love, Lucy asked him if he really had to go.

  Drew thought about it. Really did. She deserved that much. Oh, and so much more. She had stood by him, and when he’d gone through the bad time, he had leaned on her. He kept it simple. “Luce, this might be my last chance.”

  There was a long silence from her side of the bed. He waited, knowing if she told him she didn’t want him to go, he would give in to her wishes. At last she said, “All right. I want this for you, but I’m a little bit scared. Can’t lie about that. What’s it going to be about? Or don’t you want to say?”

  “I do. I’m dying to spill it, but it’s better to let the pressure build. I told Al the same thing when he asked.”

  “Just as long as it’s not about academics screwing each other’s spouses and drinking too much and having midlife crises.”

  “Not like The Village on the Hill, in other words.”

  She poked him with her elbow. “You said it, Mister, not me.”

  “It’s nothing like that.”

  “Can you wait, honey? A week? Just to make sure it’s real?” And in a smaller voice: “For me?”

  He didn’t want to; he wanted to go north tomorrow and start the day after. But… just to make sure it’s real. That was not such a bad idea, maybe.

  “I can do that.”

  “All right. Good. And if you do go up there, you’ll be all right? You swear?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  He saw the momentary gleam of her teeth as she smiled. “That’s what men always say, isn’t it?”

  “If it doesn’t work, I’ll come back. If it starts to be like… you know.”

  To this she made no reply, either because she believed him or because she didn’t. It was okay either way. They weren’t going to have an argument about it, that was the important thing.

  He thought she had gone to sleep, or was going, when she asked Al Stamper’s question. She had never asked before, not during his first two stabs at writing long form, not even during the ongoing clusterfuck that had been The Village on the Hill.

  “Why is writing a novel so important to you? Is it the money? Because we’re doing all right with your salary and the accounting work I’m picking up. Or is it the cachet?”

  “Neither of those things, since there’s no guarantee it would be published at all. And if it ended up in a desk drawer, like bad novels all over this round world of ours, I’d be okay with that.” As these words came out of his mouth, he realized they were actually true.

  “Then what?”

  To Al, he’d spoken about completion. And about the excitement of exploring uncharted territory. (He didn’t know if he actually believed that one, but knew it would appeal to Al, who was a closet romantic.) Such bullshit wouldn’t do for Lucy.

  “I have the tools,” he said at last. “And I have the talent. So it might be good. It might even be commercial, if I understand the meaning of that word when it comes to fiction. Good matters to me, but that isn’t the main thing. Not the big thing.” He turned to her, took her hands, and put his forehead against hers. “I need to finish. Th
at’s all. That’s the whole deal. After that I can either do it again, and with a lot less sturm und drang, or let go. Either would be fine with me.”

  “Closure, in other words.”

  “No.” He had used the word with Al, but only because it was a word Al could understand and would accept. “It’s something different. Something almost physical. Do you remember when Brandon got that cherry tomato stuck in his throat?”

  “I’ll never forget it.”

  Bran had been four. They were having a meal out at Country Kitchen in Gates Falls. Brandon began making a strangled gagging sound and clutching at his throat. Drew grabbed him, turned him around, and gave him the Heimlich. The tomato had popped out whole, and with an audible thorp sound, like a cork from a bottle. No damage done, but Drew would never forget their son’s supplicatory eyes when he realized he couldn’t breathe, and guessed Lucy never would, either.

  “This is like that,” he said. “Only stuck in my brain instead of my throat. I’m not choking, exactly, but I’m not getting enough air, either. I need to finish.”

  “All right,” she said, and patted his cheek.

  “Do you understand?”

  “No,” she said. “But you do, and I guess that’s enough. Going to sleep now.” She turned on her side.

  Drew lay awake for awhile, thinking of a little town out west, a part of the country where he had never been. Not that it mattered. His imagination would carry him, he was sure of it. Any necessary research could be done later. Assuming the idea didn’t turn into a mirage in the next week, that was.

  Eventually he fell asleep and dreamed of a limping sheriff. A wastrel good-for-nothing son locked in a tiny crackerbox of a jail. Men on rooftops. A standoff that wouldn’t—couldn’t—last long.

  He dreamed of Bitter River, Wyoming.

  4

  The idea didn’t turn into a mirage. It grew stronger, brighter, and a week later, on a warm October morning, Drew loaded three boxes of supplies—mostly canned food—into the back of the old Suburban they used as a second vehicle. This was followed by a duffel bag full of clothes and toiletries. The duffel was followed by his laptop and the scuffed case containing his pop’s old Olympia portable typewriter, which he wanted as a backup. He didn’t trust the power in the TR; the lines had a tendency to come down when the wind blew, and the unincorporated townships were the last places where power was restored after a blow.