Wild Thing: A Novel

by Josh Bazell

  “He also inspires a lot of resentment.”

  “Or so he likes to think.”

  “What do you mean?” Violet says.

  “We’re just fucking with you,” the guy on the stool says. He nods toward the bartender. “He’s the mayor.”

  “And he owns the Speed Mart and the liquor store. Congratulations: you’ve just met the second- and third-biggest employers in Ford.”

  “Nice to meet you. Who’s the first?”

  “CFS. By a long shot.”

  “Debbie employs more people than you or I do,” the guy on the stool says. “Unless by ‘employs’ you mean ‘pays them with money.’ ”

  “Hey now,” the bartender says.

  “You mean Debbie the psychopathic waitress?”

  “You’ve met Debbie,” the guy on the stool says.

  “Yeah. What’s her fucking problem?”

  As he’s about to answer, the bartender says to Violet, “You wouldn’t happen to be an officer of the law, would you?”

  “No.”

  “No offense. It’s just that you look like someone from a TV show.”

  “Oh, start. But no: I’m not an officer of the law. Either in reality or on a TV show.”

  She watches them try to figure out how to politely ask her what she does do. “I’m a paleontologist.”

  The guy on the stool turns to her. “Like in Jurassic Park?”

  “Exactly like that.”

  Although the only part of the Jurassic Park movie Violet now considers realistic is how everybody calls the male PhD “Dr. Grant” and the female PhD “Ellie,” she doesn’t mind the association. Both the book and the movie were instrumental in her choice of career. And they’ve turned paleontology into a job that everybody thinks, at least, they can relate to.

  “I call bullshit,” the bartender says.

  “I’ll show you my badge,” Violet says.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. There’s a badge for being a paleontologist. What’s wrong with Debbie?”

  The two men look at each other. “Well… she’s had it rough,” the bartender says.

  “That’s true,” the guy on the stool says.

  “What happened?”

  “She lost a kid a couple of years ago,” the bartender says.

  “Shit,” Violet says.

  “Which maybe isn’t an excuse for flipping out, but maybe it is.”

  “Could well be,” the guy on the stool agrees.

  “There were some kids behind her restaurant,” Violet says.

  The bartender shakes his head. “The Boys just work for her. None of them is her son. She just had the one, Benjy.”

  “What happened to him?”

  The two men trade glances again.

  “What?” Violet says.

  The guy on the stool shrugs. “That’s… not all that clear.”

  “What do you mean?”

  After a moment, the bartender says “Benjy and his girlfriend got killed skinny-dipping in a place called White Lake.”

  Violet almost chokes on beer.

  “You’ve heard of it?” the bartender says.

  “Yeah. How did they get killed?”

  “Police ended up deciding they got cut up by a boat propeller.”

  “But you don’t think that’s what happened?”

  “It’s what the police decided.”

  Violet studies them. “You guys are fucking with me again. You’re trying to make me think it was the monster.”

  They stare at her.

  “You’ve heard about William?” the guy on the stool says.

  “William?”

  “William, the White Lake Monster.”

  “Okay,” Violet says. “First off, now I know you’re fucking with me. I’ve heard there’s a monster. I’ve never heard it was called William. Or that it killed people.”

  Which means they have to be fucking with her. If there had been deaths at White Lake, Reggie Trager’s letter would have mentioned them, as advertising.

  She pushes her empty beer bottle toward the bartender. “Second off, I need another one of these.”

  “If you’re opening the fridge anyway,” the guy on the stool says.

  “You people are so full of shit,” Violet says.

  “Well,” the bartender says, digging through the refrigerator, “yes and no.”

  Len unrolls a T-shirt on top of the bar. Len is the bartender. The guy on the stool is Brian. They all traded names before Len went back to the storeroom for the shirt.

  It has a cartoon of a lake monster on it. Kind of an apatosaurus-plesiosaur mix, but with a smile and one raised eyebrow. Text underneath the creature says “Ford, Minnesota.” A speech bubble next to its head says “I’m a BILLiever!”

  “You can keep it,” Len says. “I’ve got tons of these pieces of shit. I should use them for coasters. Just don’t wear it around Ford or you’ll start a riot.”

  “Why?”

  “People around here think that somehow agreeing to do the hoax caused all those people to die.”

  “What do you mean, ‘all those people’?”

  There’s a pause. “There were, uh, two other people who died too,” Brian O’ the Stool says.

  “At White Lake?”

  “Oh, no,” Len says. Like that’s ridiculous. “Chris Jr. and Father Podominick got shot. Around here.”

  “So what does that have to do with it? I almost got shot around here today. Ford’s a dangerous place, Mr. Mayor.”

  “I’ll relay your concerns to my chief of police.”

  “Seriously: what does that have to do with White Lake?”

  Brian says “The two guys who got shot—Chris Jr. and Father Podominick—were kind of the ones who had the idea for the hoax in the first place. And they got shot only five days after the kids died.”

  Violet says “A priest had the idea for the hoax?”

  Maybe there is a reason Reggie Trager chose to not get into this squalid shit. Four dead bodies, and anything at all having to do with a priest, and it starts to get creepy.

  “Also, Chris Jr. was Autumn Semmel’s father.”

  “Wait. What?”

  Violet’s a bit drunk. That’s the joke about Violet Hurst: she’s a lightweight. Partly because of the antidepressants, which even if they don’t do shit else for her are worth it for that reason. She suspects, though, that right now she’d be confused even if she were sober.

  Brian says “Autumn and Benjy died, and right after that Father Podominick and Autumn’s father got shot. So it did kind of seem like there might be a connection.”

  “Yeah. I can see why it would.”

  “You have to understand, though,” Len says, “the whole thing started out as a joke. I mean, look at the T-shirt.” He’s got a beer in his hand where the glass of Diet Coke used to be. Violet didn’t see the change.

  “But the two guys who got shot,” she says. “If Debbie thought they were responsible for the hoax, and that her son somehow died because of the hoax, then why doesn’t everyone just assume Debbie shot them? Or had her Boys do it?”

  Brian taps the side of his nose. Len, seeing it, says “Hey—come on. That’s just hearsay.”

  “Doesn’t mean it isn’t true,” Brian says.

  “Doesn’t mean it is.”

  “Is it?” Violet says.

  Len doesn’t answer.

  Brian says “Don’t ask me. I’ve been shamed into silence.”

  “I don’t think it is,” Len says finally. “She definitely didn’t have the Boys do it. She didn’t have them yet when it happened. And it’s kind of hard for me, at least, to picture Debbie doing something like that by herself. Plus, the person she really blames for the hoax is Reggie Trager. And as far as I know she’s never tried to kill him.”

  “Why Reggie Trager?”

  “Who knows? I’m sure he was involved—the whole town was involved. But I didn’t see him at any of the meetings, and I went to most of them. That’s another thing:
nobody’s ever tried to kill me either.”

  “I’m already dead inside,” Brian says.

  “And,” Len says, “maybe Father Podominick and Chris Jr. getting shot didn’t have anything to do with Autumn and Benjy dying after all. Maybe someone mistook them for deer. Nobody knows, cause nobody knows who did it. Meanwhile everybody feels all guilty. Like it was our fault the monster turned out to be real.”

  Violet replays that last bit in her head. “You’re saying the monster is real?”

  Both men seem suddenly interested in the wood of the bar.

  “Oh, come on. I’m not going to quote you.”

  “Whatever happened to Benjy and Autumn,” Brian says quietly, “it wasn’t a boat propeller.”

  “How do you know?”

  “There were two other kids out there with them. Good kids, who everybody knew. They said there was no motorboat out there. That it was something else.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “They didn’t fully see it.”

  “So what did they think it was? What do you guys think it was?”

  “There’s a few different theories,” Len says, still not looking at her.

  “I’m listening.”

  “Look, a lot of it sounds pretty crazy.”

  “Understood.”

  “You know… like dinosaurs. Or—” He looks up at her. “Hey, is that why you’re here?”

  “Only partly,” Violet says. “What are some of the other theories?”

  “Well… something from space. Or this thing that the Ojibwe call a Wendigo. People have been seeing that thing forever.”

  “What is it?”

  “Some kind of Bigfoot-type thing.”

  Brian says “I think—is it okay if I tell her what I think?”

  Len says “Don’t be a dickwad.”

  “I think it came out of the mine. You’re not going to believe this, but after the mine closed, the government sent a bunch of scientists down there to check it out. I’m not making this up: they were here in town. They came into the store a couple times. I think they were trying to trap it, but they couldn’t, and they ended up just pissing it off. Or waking it up. I’m not saying it wasn’t originally from space, or isn’t a dinosaur or a Wendigo or whatever. But I think before it moved to White Lake it was down in that mine for a long, long time. Maybe since before there were warm-blooded creatures up here for it to eat.”

  When the door at the back of the bar bangs open, everyone jumps.

  It’s Dr. Lionel Azimuth, coming down the aisle of the bar like a bowling ball. Scaring the shit out of Brian and Len even further.

  Violet stands to meet him. “Hello, darling!”

  She puts her arm through Azimuth’s and—swear to God, an accident—stumbles into him. It’s like stumbling into a telephone pole.

  “We were just talking,” she says. “These people know about William.”

  “Uh huh. Time to go home, dear.”

  Violet leans close. Exhales wetly into his ear as she says “William the White Lake Monster.” Causing him to stiffen up, unclear whether from the information or her lips brushing his skin.

  Brian and Len still look nervous. “Don’t mind him,” Violet says to them. “He’s a big square. He’s a doctor. He just doesn’t approve of my drinking.”

  “You two know about the White Lake Monster?” Azimuth says to them. “About the hoax?”

  “Uh…” Len says. Azimuth follows his eyes to the T-shirt on the bar.

  Violet, wanting to spare Brian and Len having to go through it again, says “I’ll tell you about it in the car.”

  “She’s not driving, right?” Len says.

  “No,” Violet says, “she’s not. She walked here.”

  Azimuth says “Okay. But one thing. What’s the name of the guy in the documentary who says he got his leg bitten off?”

  Len and Brian look at each other.

  “Charlie Brisson,” Len says.

  “Thanks,” Azimuth says. “How much do we owe you?”

  “It’s on me,” Len says. To Violet, he says “Just don’t forget your shirt.”

  8

  Ely, Minnesota

  Still Thursday, 13 September

  I carry Violet into the Ely Lakeside Hotel like I’m looking for some train tracks to tie her to. It reminds me how much you have to weigh to look like a bombshell.*

  Back in Ford I made her tell me everything she’d learned from those dipshits in the bar before I would start the engine—I was afraid she wouldn’t remember it all when she woke up. Telling me involved a lot of her putting her hand on my thigh for emphasis, and my having an erection that felt like part of the car.

  The teenage girl who checks us into the hotel says “Looks like someone’s having fun.” I can only hope she’s referring to Violet being drunk, and not to my having access to her unconscious body.

  I put Violet to bed, dressed, in one of the rooms, and go down to the hotel bar. It has a porch overlooking some lake. I get a Grain Star of my own and take it outside to look at the water. Beyond it, dark as a jungle, is the Boundary Waters.

  Eventually the bartender comes out and leans against the railing next to me. Blond and thirty-five, with a sun-aged smile that I like. “Do you mind if I smoke?” she says.

  I think about that. Cigarettes are so fucking awful for you that they make your urine carcinogenic and your brain unable to regulate how much oxygen it gets, and as a doctor I probably have a responsibility to say something along those lines. But I have no idea what. Preventative medicine’s hard to bill for, so the only research on how to change human behavior through communication gets done by the advertising industry.

  “Only for your sake,” I end up saying, thinking I need to formulate something better. “Am I keeping you up?”

  She lights and does the slow exhale. “Not yet.”

  Nice.

  I get along with bartenders. There are plenty of women to sleep with on a cruise ship—it’s called a cruise ship, for fuck’s sake—but if you’re into superficiality, bartenders are special. Not to belabor it, but they do spend most of their time being sociable behind a barrier.

  I should go home with this woman and tell Violet about it in the morning. Better yet, take her to my room and project as much noise as possible through the wall. Kill any chance with Violet I might have.

  Since Magdalena Niemerover’s death because of me eleven years ago, I’ve observed the following rule: if a woman gets so close to me that she cares what my birthday is, I never talk to her again. It keeps me from endangering anyone, and has other benefits as well, since half the time I don’t remember when Lionel Azimuth’s birthday is supposed to be. And the last thing anyone needs is to try to throw me a surprise party.

  Violet and I haven’t reached that point yet. But my lies are piling up fast—commission, omission, whatever. If it’s not too late for us to have stranger sex now, it will be soon. And if I’m going to have sex with her on the premise that she actually knows something about me, I might as well go do it now, while she’s passed out.

  I should end the possibility. I’m too weak to, though.

  “I won’t take up much more of your time,” I say to the bartender. “My wife and I have to get going in the morning.”

  If anything, the bartender looks relieved. Now we can have something even shallower than a sexual relationship.

  “Where to?”

  “We’re just tourists,” I say. Which, it occurs to me, is true. Here in civilization—even civilization with a view of not-civilization—Ford and its discontents seem a million miles off. “Anything we should see?”

  “You planning on going canoeing?”

  “Probably.”

  A werewolf howl rips out of the Boundary Waters, full force from across the lake.

  The bartender sees my face and laughs. “It’s just a loon,” she says, making me wonder how many of northern Minnesota’s mysteries are going to turn out to be just a loon. “Don’t get your hopes up
.”

  9

  Bill Rom Public Library, Ely, Minnesota

  Friday, 14 September

  “I don’t really remember the details,” the librarian says, picking up the phone, “but I know who does. Hold on a sec.”

  Violet, in her sunglasses, is listing against the counter. I woke her up early and dragged her to a place here in Ely that, I shit you not, was called the Chocolate Moose.

  Ely is not like Ford. Its central avenue looks like something from a ski town, all souvenir shops and organic grocery stores. Two blocks over there’s an intersection with a granite WPA office building on each corner, one of which has the public library in it.

  So far, the library hasn’t been much help. We’ve read back issues of Ely’s two weekly newspapers on the library’s computers, but they’re both strangely circumspect when it comes to Ford. I don’t know if they consider Ford too far away to be interesting or whether what happens there just isn’t a good fit with the weddings, high school football games, and letters to the editor that make up the rest of the papers’ material. But Ford hardly gets mentioned.

  We have managed to confirm that the four deaths there actually happened—Autumn Semmel’s and Benjy Schneke’s as the result of “a boating accident” at the end of June two years ago, Chris Semmel Jr.’s and Father Nathan Podominick’s in “a possible hunting accident” five days later.

  And, interestingly, we’ve learned that the University of Minnesota was at one point considering building its High Energy Physics Lab at the bottom of the closed Ford Mine. Which might explain the visiting scientists, although U Minn seems to have come to its senses and put the lab at the bottom of the Soudan Mine instead.

  Past that, it for some reason seemed like a good idea to ask the librarian.

  “Carol?” she says now into the phone. “It’s Barbara. Is the sheriff in? I’ve got some people here who want to know about White Lake.”

  “That’s really not necessary,” I say quickly.

  The librarian covers the mouthpiece. “Don’t worry, they’re not busy.”

  “No, really—”

  She’s not listening to me, though. She’s nodding and saying “Uh huh, uh huh” to whoever’s on the phone. She covers the mouthpiece again. “Carol says to come on over. What are your names?”