The Hidden Back Room

by Jason A. Wyckoff

  ‘Very nice,’ Carson mused. He retained his unflappable grin, but Nathan thought the comment as likely referred to the spontaneous re-direction of intent as to the creation.

  The song played on, cycled back on itself. It was Nathan’s musical mantra, his theme for self-reflection. Although he was inestimably relieved not to have ‘created’ Charise, he was somewhat sad to share something so key to his sense of identity with a stranger.

  ‘It sounds good, doesn’t it?’ Carson asked.

  Nathan listened critically. Carson was right. Tonally, acoustically, it sounded fantastic. No matter which way Nathan turned the depth of field remained perfect. It was the best recording played back over the best system that he’d ever heard. But Nathan thought there was some crucial essence lacking. Soul? he wondered. It was that word musicians used that could refer to a dozen interchangeable elements depending on the speaker and the context, but whose meaning was always understood by other musicians. Nathan realised, not for the first time, that trying to define it for himself was a pointless endeavour. That’s not the way you use that word. He tried to listen for the ephemeral quality. It’s there. Some of it’s there. He frowned. Maybe you just don’t want to like it.

  ‘You can dismiss it if you want. It will still exist, forever, now that you’ve created it. Just call it back whenever you like.’

  Nathan tried to read Carson. Was he offering helpful instruction or did he just not care for jazz? Nathan chewed down a grin. He wasn’t going to let the music go far, that was for damn sure. It was his, for one thing, and he didn’t need other people giving it a fine old ‘how do you do?’ like Carson had with Phil’s wife. And if the tune happened to annoy the little man just a bit, Nathan certainly didn’t see that as a reason to send it away.

  ‘Lead on,’ Nathan said.

  Carson’s whiskers fanned out over his unflappable smile. ‘Can do. Ah!’ Carson appeared inspired, ‘Let’s go see chef now. You were right to think that most of what is found here is lost love, but—just like your music—there is more than that.’

  They walked towards a building at the end of a block. Nathan guessed it must have been the town saloon once. The corner was cut away so that the entrance faced the centre of an intersection. The fog gathered and ran in filthy rivulets down a large window fronting the street; block lettering lay indecipherable underneath. Picket railings bordered both streets; the crossbar to one was missing; the remaining posts jutted up like widely-spaced teeth.

  Carson went on, ‘Really, anything you want is yours, in sight and sound. That which matters most to you—or who matters most to you—usually comes first, but soon you will learn to create without needing the passion that first inspired you. Then you can make anything you care to amuse yourself.’

  As soon as they cracked the double doors, the aroma froze Nathan. Carson watched in amusement, pausing to allow Nathan to regain his momentum.

  ‘Amazing, isn’t it?’

  Nathan could not identify the smell. He searched for words to describe it, but the only word that perfectly balanced scent of clean sweet and rich savoury would allow his mind to use was gold. It smells like . . . what gold looks like.

  What had been the bar was now a buffet, overflowing with food. More food lay on the floor in front of the bar, unspoiled and unsoiled, as fit for consumption as any part of the glorious feast from which it had fallen. Nathan scanned the buffet. Plump fruits spilled from a horn of plenty; scarlet lobsters were stacked atop each other; bricks and wagon wheels of cheese nestled with shining crusts of bread; a rack of lamb arched over a roast turkey. At the end of the bar sat a large tureen, the only item separate from the rest. Nathan walked the length of the bar in awe and admiration, though not without some confusion. When he at last got to the tureen, he inhaled deeply and made a startling discovery.

  ‘I can only smell the soup.’

  ‘Soup! Ha!’ a gruff voice intoned from behind the bar. ‘Soup he calls it!’

  Nathan leaned forward and saw a slender, dusky man on a stool bent forward and resting his chin on his hands.

  Without looking at Nathan or at anything in particular, the man continued, ‘He would know! Anyone would know! I cook for the Queen. She say she like it. She like it! Feh. What I made her was nothing.’

  ‘Chef Roman,’ Carson presented.

  The chef ticked his head once indifferently.

  ‘Oh, and . . . that’s Henry.’

  Nathan was surprised to see there was another person in the room that he had not noticed before. A portly man sat at a round table in the corner. A heaped plate of food sat before him. Henry picked at his food lazily, turning it over with his fork.

  Carson drew close to Nathan and spoke conspiratorially, ‘What Chef says is true. He did prepare a meal for the royal family. Chef Roman was a rising star. As he worked on the menu for the royal diner, he made, by accident, that rather perfect concoction you smell. Unfortunately, he was unable to recreate it. The dinner was fine, if unexceptional, and the Chef was amply complimented for his efforts. Which meant nothing to him. Because he had made the perfect dish. No other food mattered after that. And so he found his way here. And he is kind enough to lend us that incredible smell, and to prepare a meal for us. It never goes bad, by the way. Anytime you want to eat, you take whatever you want. Anytime.’

  ‘But . . .’ Nathan began. He picked up a dinner roll and passed this under his nose. All he could smell was the wonderfully pungent broth. He squeezed the roll slightly and felt the crust crack, felt the spring of the bread as he relaxed his grip.

  ‘Go ahead, try it. It will taste good to you,’ Carson encouraged.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’ Nathan replaced the roll on the buffet.

  As he took a step away from the bar, the dinner roll trembled and then dropped to the floor. Several other rolls and biscuits followed. A peach fell and rolled under a nearby table. A polished mahogany-coloured braided rye pushed into view as though rising from up through the bar.

  ‘Maybe for later you want,’ Chef Roman barked from his seat.

  Carson laid a hand on Nathan’s arm. ‘Yes. Maybe later.’

  ‘Take that with you!’

  It was a second before Nathan realised that Roman was referring to his music, still playing, waiting up in the rafters and rolling under the eaves. The music seemed feeble to Nathan now; his beautiful thing was as nothing compared to the chef’s creation. Roman was right, it had no place there, distracting from the treasure in the tureen. Nathan was embarrassed. And I didn’t even try the damn soup.

  When they were back on the street with the doors shut tight behind them, Nathan said, ‘I don’t get it. You said we could create anything with “sight and sound”. But that food was real. That smell was very real.’

  ‘Didn’t I say the fog makes allowances? We have to survive. The fog preserves us. My theory is that we don’t really eat at all, we just think we do. And the fog nourishes us without our noticing. I’ve actually never mentioned it to anyone, because I don’t want to spoil their illusions. But believe me, you’ll never notice. Why, I couldn’t even say the last time I’ve eaten. I kept it as a habit for years and years of course. But I was never hungry. How old do you think I am?’

  Carson stopped and waited for Nathan to take a good look at him. Nathan thought Carson looked old enough that no answer was going to be a good one, so he just waited for Carson to supply his own.

  ‘Hm? Don’t know?’ Carson made his eyebrows dance. Then he laughed and said, ‘Me neither!’ Carson was so happy with his answer that he clapped his hands and kicked through an impromptu jig. ‘Depends on what year it is now! But don’t tell me because I don’t care. I was born in nineteen-double-o, I’ll tell you that for free. August 13th, it was. It ain’t like I celebrate my birthday, anymore, though. I’d have to know what day it was for that, and there ain’t a blessed person here with any idea of the date. ’Cept you, I expect. It was just after the New Year, ’26, when I found my way here—or when the fog found me,
if you prefer.’

  ‘The girl I saw.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘The girl I saw on the path. The flapper.’

  Carson slapped himself on the forehead. ‘Oh my Lord! Edith! It never occurred to me you might see her. Why, I haven’t even called her back in . . . I don’t know how long!’ He closed his eyes and rolled back on his heels. ‘Ah, yes . . . what a girl.’

  ‘But . . .’ An unbidden bitter taste in his mouth kept Nathan from speaking until he spat it out on the ground. ‘You made her.’

  Carson beamed. ‘I was crazy for Edith. But she didn’t want me. It tore me apart. If the fog hadn’t found me that night . . . well, let’s just say I was about to see just how frozen the lake was—and I didn’t care much if it wasn’t.’

  Nathan pointed out from town. ‘But that girl out there—the one you say you haven’t even thought of! What about her?’

  Carson chuckled. ‘Of course you’re a sentimentalist. We all are. Why else would we be here? But you must remember—that wasn’t Edith you saw. Oh, she’s mine, all right, in a way Edith never was, and I thank the fog for that. I told you how it is, here, though: you can dream up anything you want. And, as much as I and everyone else here arrived needing just one thing, it didn’t remain that way for us forever. How could it? Why should it?’

  Nathan stood silent and listened. His music still played, mellow and relentless. It bored him. He thought about dismissing it, but he didn’t want it to leave him. He looked up and down the deserted street. He could see several buildings on either side in either direction, a few held dim lights behind clouded windows. No one else was on the street with him and Carson.

  ‘So where is everything?’ he asked.

  ‘Come again?’

  ‘Where is all the stuff you dreamt up in the century-plus that you’ve been here? If it doesn’t go away, then why aren’t we tripping over it? Why aren’t zombie lovers passing through us every step?’

  ‘Zombie lovers!’ Carson shook his head and clucked. ‘Oh, you mustn’t think of them that way. No, no.’ He wrinkled his brow as though he’d never considered the question before. ‘I guess there might be a lot of walkers on the path outside of town. Could be. But why anyone would want to go take an inventory, I can’t imagine. Most of the time I just think about what I could create. It’s a great entertainment just to let your mind go and imagine the possibilities—what’s available. Less consequences that way, you know—we don’t want things to get crowded.’ He cast a disparaging look sideways to indicate he, too, was growing bored with the incessant soundtrack.

  The gaggle of children rushed forth from the fog behind them. A girl was in front now, waving her rag-streamer enticingly. The rules of the game remained unclear to Nathan. All the children laughed; excitement and delight beamed from every face. They passed the men and continued down the middle of the street to be consumed by the mist.

  Carson chuckled. He said proudly, ‘Of course you don’t need to worry about it ever being too quiet, not with our happy orphans always on the move.’

  ‘Shouldn’t they be . . . ?’ Nathan started and tried again, ‘If the parents who created them abandoned their dream kids, why are they still “alive”—running around and laughing and all?’

  ‘Because there’s someone here always thinking of them, someone whose need is perfectly fulfilled by our little urchins. Just down here on the outskirts of town. Come, you’ll see.’

  They didn’t have far to go. A long, low building to their left might have once been the stables, and then on their right was a small, square building whose centre-peaked roof was nearly missing in its entirety. Just beyond the adjoining vacant dirt plot stood the skeleton of a structure. Nathan thought it might have been a church or a schoolhouse once, or both. A pile of charred lumber sat towards the back corner of the building, a thicket of crisscrossed ash-white stubs stabbed from a mound of black. The floor of the building was pocked with burn-marks; the thick floorboards had been swept clean, though veins of soot ran in the deep crevasses of the weary wood. A stack of repurposed posts and planks signalled the intent to rebuild, but only an unfinished shell indicated any effort. Seated on three broad timber steps at the front of the open entryway was a plump and buxom matron in a muumuu. Fleshy arms pressed flat against her sides; her hands rested in her lap. Her brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail, revealing an uneven bronze and rose complexion. Her eyebrows and lips were thin and flat. Beside her sat a boy of indeterminate age who seemed underdeveloped and weak. He curled forward over a sunken torso, and spindly arms and legs with knobby joints protruded from an ill-fitting pullover and shorts. Bulbous brown shoes adorned his feet; one sole was thicker than the other. He was pallid white, with dark circles under his eyes.

  The other children were in the road, holding hands in a circle and rotating first this way, then that, changing each time the eldest boy barked some nonsensical syllable. The woman on the steps appeared disinterested, though Nathan thought she was actually maintaining calm concentration on the dancers in the ring. The boy watched them morosely.

  As Carson and Nathan approached the steps, the boy lifted his head and searched the air around him as though sniffing. Nathan wondered if the boy was responding to the music, my goddamn theme song. For Nathan, his music held all the allure of a one-hit wonder heard at every wedding for two decades running. If it came on the radio, you’d turn the station. The children stopped laughing and dancing. They dropped hands and turned towards the steps, silent. The change made Nathan feel queasy.

  ‘Hello, Nora.’

  Nora lifted her chin and turned her head slowly. ‘Hi, Carson. Who is that?’

  ‘This is Nathan. He just arrived.’

  ‘Just now? Any kids? Any kids yet?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not. How is your darling boy tonight? Well, I hope.’

  Nora looked down at the sad boy beside her. He looked back with devotion. ‘Kip has good days and bad. He’s a good boy. Maybe one day he’ll get to play with the other kids.’

  Nathan’s nausea worsened. He was horrified. The reassured placidity of his music tormented him. He breathed hard. He wanted to grasp at something, but he was caught between the half-built, burned-out ruin and the dead-eyed children behind him. Carson turned and looked at him inquisitively. The woman and the boy watched him. The ring of children stared blankly at him. Nathan could see they didn’t understand. They had no idea why his body was rebelling, what moral repugnance was pushing up through his throat.

  He pointed at the boy, his hand shaking violently, accusatorily.

  ‘You created that? Your own sick boy to keep sick? Good God—you! You’re sick! This place—’ It seemed to him that the fog was growing thicker. He wiped an arm across his eyes. He recoiled as someone touched his shoulder.

  It was Carson. He hissed, ‘You don’t understand. She didn’t create him!’

  Nathan nearly tripped stumbling backwards. He gaped with horror at everyone present, real or imagined. The ring of children shifted and eased forward, reaching towards him shyly, compassionately. Carson’s face showed an odd mixture of confusion and scorn, as though embarrassed by unseemly behaviour.

  He’ll be here forever, Nathan thought, and then continued aloud, ‘He’ll never leave!’

  ‘Well, of course not!’ Carson motioned towards the steps as though presenting. ‘He’s happy!’

  Nathan turned and ran.

  Twice Nathan heard his name called behind him before he heard nothing but his own thudding footfalls and heavy breath and his music. He willed it away. He pushed it out—his core, his strength, his cherished memory; he cast it out to forgetting; he denied it and cheapened it. The music trailed off. Fade out. Nathan wiped a tear on his sleeve.

  He slackened to a brisk walk. You can leave whenever you want. He wasn’t quite ready to believe it, not until he was gone and the town and the fog were miles behind him. He checked both sides as he hastened down the wide lane. He saw a Great Dane at rapt attention fac
ing a closed door. Across the way a sallow-faced woman in a dingy nightgown sat on a three-legged stool in an immaculate mid-century modern parlour nattering with her young friends, each adorned in a cocktail dress and topped with a lustrous beehive ’do. A blank-eyed G.I. wandered out from between buildings. Nathan passed the saloon; a weak glow tinted the filthy windows, but none of the scent reached the street. Phil’s wife complimented her husband enthusiastically on his half-finished labour. Nathan leaned into his steps now, kicking crescents into the soft dirt.

  Luelle sat on her porch with her chin in one hand, pushing her fat cheeks up, but not enough to cover her smirk. ‘Well, now, look who came back . . .’ she began, stopping short when she saw the anger in Nathan’s eyes. She let out a yelp when he sprang up the stairs at her. She tried to jettison from her seat, but managed only to spill herself on the splintering boards beside her. She trembled and raised her hands to hide her face as he knelt and loomed over her.

  ‘Don’t you think about me, sister,’ he growled. ‘You just go on and forget every little mental note that you jotted down. Because you ain’t gonna make him to your liking. Look here!’ Nathan clamped her wrists and wrenched her hands away from her face. He leaned close, eyes burning. Luelle whimpered. ‘If you ever think of me, you better remember to make him mean.’ Nathan punched the wall of the house; boards cracked and collapsed beneath his knuckles. Luelle wailed with fear. ‘If you want to make him right, you damn well better make him mean!’

  As Nathan strode away from her house, he heard Luelle blubbering softly. Nathan heard T.R. begin to console her just as the fog muffled the sounds behind him.

  Soon Nathan could see nothing but fog and a rough patch of earth. Ahead of him was a single, soft light. Nathan slowed, and then stopped. He grasped at the lamppost to steady himself, but nearly fell over instead as his hand passed through the metal pole. Should’ve guessed.