The Reincarnation of Peter Proud

by Max Ehrlich

  Copyright © 1974, 2012 by Max Ehrlich. All rights reserved. No portion of this book, except for brief review, may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the written permission of the publisher. For information contact North Atlantic Books.

  Published by

  North Atlantic Books Cover art: Evening plunge by Maggie Taylor

  P.O. Box 12327 Cover design by Brad Greene

  Berkeley, California 94712 Photo of Max Erlich © Bobbie Probstein

  The Reincarnation of Peter Proud is sponsored by the Society for the Study of Native Arts and Sciences, a nonprofit educational corporation whose goals are to develop an educational and cross-cultural perspective linking various scientific, social, and artistic fields; to nurture a holistic view of arts, sciences, humanities, and healing; and to publish and distribute literature on the relationship of mind, body, and nature.

  North Atlantic Books’ publications are available through most bookstores. For further information, visit our website at www.northatlanticbooks.com or call 800-733-3000.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Ehrlich, Max, 1909–1983.

  The reincarnation of Peter Proud / Max Ehrlich.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-1-58394-383-0

  I. Title.

  PS3509.H663R45 2011

  813′.54—dc23

  2011037881

  v3.1

  For Margaret

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Part Two

  Epigraphs

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Part Three

  Epigraph

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  About the Author

  The Body of B. Franklin

  Printer

  Like the Cover of an Old Book,

  Its Contents Torn Out

  And

  Stripped of its Lettering and Gilding,

  Lies Here

  Food for Worms.

  But the Work shall not be Lost,

  For it Will as He Believed

  Appear Once More

  In a New and more Elegant Edition

  Revised and Corrected

  By the Author.

  —BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

  Chapter 1

  He walked out of the cottage and into the night.

  He was stark naked.

  The moon hung low over the mountain at the north end of the lake. Its phase was almost full. It seemed to bounce, lopsided, through the passing clouds. He grinned at it, swaying unsteadily. It double-imaged before his eyes. Now there were two moons instead of one. He concentrated hard and focused them together again.

  The lake spread before him, dull gold. A chill breeze, honed with the snap of early autumn, rippled its surface. It sang a small, sad song as it rustled through the pine and oak and maple. It smelled of balsam and wood smoke and dying leaves. Too early, it promised winter. He shivered a little as he caught the first fine cut of the wind. But after that, he hardly felt it. In fact he found it exhilarating.

  He laughed aloud exuberantly, thinking, Hey, hey, look at me, Big Chief Two Moons, with my war club flopping in the wind, and here I am in the forest primeval, by the shining waters, on the shores of Gitche Gumee.

  He started down the short slope toward the dock. There was a gravel walk lined with whitewashed stones, but since he was in his bare feet, he avoided it. The grass was covered with balsam needles. Underneath, a cool carpet.

  He padded onto the dock. He had never felt more marvelous in his life. He did a little war dance on the dock. He cupped his hands to his mouth and sent a wild war whoop echoing across the lake. Nobody out there to hear him. All the cottages were dark and shuttered. Everyone had gone home.

  Nobody around but me. Chief Two Moons.

  The last of the Mohicans.

  He laughed aloud, again.

  Crazy. He knew he was drunk. Yet his perception seemed sharper than ever. He saw everything very clearly, as though it were all part of a familiar painting.

  The shadow passing behind the curtain of the lighted window in the cottage, back there in the darkness of the trees. The outdoor fireplace, a grotesque shape in the moonlight, its iron grate rusted, blackened by the burned fat of a hundred barbecues. The picnic table, splotched with bird droppings and now almost covered with dead leaves. Every detail was so clear. A pair of swimming trunks hanging stiffly in the crotch of a tree. The Boston whaler, beached and lying on its back, through for the season. Its white hull was partly covered by a tarpaulin. The canoe on the other side of the dock. An old sneaker lying in two feet of water. The toe was caught in a waterlogged interlace of submerged branches. Like some dead fish it swayed gently, looking up at him, reproaching him. The glint of a beer can, a little farther out, shining up through the water like a baleful and sightless eye.

  Across the lake itself, on the far shore, he saw the red neon sign rising above a grove of pines. It was still illuminated.

  The sign spelled out the word: Puritan.

  Well, he thought, here goes nothing.

  He did not dive in. The water near the dock was too shallow. If he had to go, he didn’t want it to happen that way. Not by breaking his neck. He sat on the edge of the, dock and slid himself gently into the water. It was very cold. He caught his breath as the icy shock hit him in the groin. He could feel his genitals shrivel.

  Then he began to swim with long, easy strokes. Straight out toward the center of the lake. Straight toward the neon sign on the far shore.

  After the first shock, the cold no longer bothered him. His naked body seemed impervious, insulated. He felt strong and very powerful. He felt that he could go on and on like this forever.

  He swam on and on. He had no idea how long it had been. But after a while his rhythm began to falter. Just a little, imperceptibly. But it was only his imagination, of course.

  Gradually, the exhilaration he had felt at the beginning began to drain away. He knew he was becoming sober. Cold sober. It was the chill of the water and the exercise, of course. He should have had another drink back there, one for the road.

  Not that he was worried. Not really. He was a hell of a good swimmer. He was sure he could make it. He had swum this lake many times before. And no sweat.

  But never when the water had been so cold.

  His arms seemed to become heavier and heavier. His shoulders began to ache. His body was losing its alcoholic wet suit. He could feel the numbing chill seep through to his bones. He was almost at the center of the lake now.

  He turned on his back and floated for a while. He stared at the ugly scar just above his left hip. And at his genitals, shrunken by the cold. Tiny strands from the mat of black hair in his crotch broke free and wave
d to and fro gently with the swell of the water.

  He felt tired, very tired. He tried not to panic.

  Somewhere a fish jumped. From the direction of the mountain, far away, he heard the cry of a loon. From this point he had a panoramic view of the entire shoreline. The foliage was almost in full blaze. Autumn colors. Reds; russets, yellows. He could see a patch of smooth-faced stone on the mountain, a bald spot amid the thick growth of trees. Suddenly it disappeared as a cloud obliterated the moon. The shoreline was dark now. Except for the single distant light in the window of the cottage he had left.

  He began to swim again. He estimated he was in the middle of the lake now. He could go forward, or he could turn and swim back. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. The distance was the same. He decided to keep going.

  Stupid bastard.

  He had forgotten. He was as naked as a crow. He pictured himself stepping out of the water on the far side. Asking people if he could use their telephone. They’d probably call the police.

  God, he must have been loaded back there. He turned and started to swim back. The moon, he knew, was gone for good. The cold was getting to him in a way he didn’t like.

  It seemed to him now that he’d been swimming forever. It seemed to him that the expanse of lake between him and the shore had grown wider instead of narrower. The light in the cottage window hadn’t come closer. If anything, it had receded. It didn’t make any sense. He should have closed the gap by now.

  He was having trouble getting his arms out of the water. They ceased to be flesh and became stone. His legs kept sinking. He began to sob, fighting for each tortured breath.

  Now he knew he could never make it.

  He knew this was all there was, and there would never be any more, and this was the end of his young life, and what a lousy, stinking way to die. The distant light blurred; his breath was fire in his lungs; and he heard himself crying. He no longer felt the cold. His body was numb and impersonal, a machine, still moving through the water somehow, by instinct, by reflex, no longer by any force of will. Give up, he thought now. Give up, baby, you’ve had it; just stop and rest, and let yourself go, to sleep, to sleep …

  Then he heard it. The sound of an outboard motor in the distance. It grew louder and louder and seemed to be headed toward him.

  He started to tread water. He began to shout. “Over here, over here!” He yelled and screamed and prayed, afraid that whoever it was would miss him in the dark.

  Then he saw her, steering the boat toward him. She cut the motor, and glided in close. Ah, Christ, he wept. Good Marcia, sweet Marcia, beautiful Marcia. I love you, baby.

  A sliver of moon peeped out from behind the cloud. It suffused the lake in an eerie glow. She looked like a ghost dressed in a fur coat. Her face was ash white and set like wax. Expressionless. Coldly beautiful.

  He found new strength. Now he felt warm, strong again. He waited, treading water, waiting for her to get to him.

  “Look, Marcia,” he said. “I didn’t mean what I said back there.”

  Her face was rigid. “Get into the boat.”

  “I’m sorry. I mean it. I’m sorry.”

  “I know. You’ve been sorry so many times before.”

  “I was drunk. I didn’t know what I was saying. I hate myself for what I did to you back there.” He was really contrite. He thought he saw her face soften a little. Now he hit home. “I love you, Marcia. I always have.”

  “I know that, darling,” she said. He knew he had finally gotten to her. “It’s all right. We won’t talk about it again. We’ll never talk about it again.”

  She picked up an oar and maneuvered the boat, trying to present the stem to him so that he could pull himself up without tipping over the craft. He watched her, thinking how beautiful she, looked here in the moonlight. And how strange. Her face was still expressionless. In this light it didn’t look quite real. It was a delicately tinted golden mask. Blue, blue eyes, almost too blue to believe. The small straight nose in the perfect oval of the face. The black hair, dark and tumbled, a bird’s wing of it curling down her cheek and along her white throat. There was a faint Oriental cast to her face. The artisan who had painted this mask had gone a little overboard with the mouth, as he had with the eyes. It was ripe red, crushed-strawberry red, the lips soft and full and moist. In this light it looked almost obscene, a sensuous gash in the papier-mâché.

  He turned on his back and floated, waiting for her.

  The boat drew alongside. He was about to turn over and reach for the stern when, surprisingly, she stood up. The mask became animated now. There was a sudden strange look on her face. It was evil, contorted. The red slash parted to reveal her bared teeth. She raised the oar high over her head, holding the handle with both hands. Her fur coat fell open as she did so, Underneath, she was stark naked. He saw the red bruise marks around her neck and shoulders. He saw the long, lithe white body; the high round breasts placed well apart, the nipples stiff with the cold; her small waist; the tight, flat belly; the long, milk-smooth thighs; the little tuft of fine black curling hair; and in this moment, in this frozen moment, he even noticed the small birthmark on her lower abdomen, just above the tuft of hair, the strange blue birthmark shaped like a tiny diamond.

  She brought the oar down hard with all her strength. Straight down on his exposed crotch.

  He screamed with pain. He turned on his stomach, still screaming. He looked up at her. She raised the oar over her head again. She sobbed as she swung it down. It caught him on the head, and the blow seemed to penetrate his skull. She hit him again, and again.

  Dimly he heard himself crying, “No, Marcia, no, no!”

  It seemed to come from very far away. His skull seemed to be exploding. He could barely see her now. Desperately he reached out to grab the boat. He managed to catch the side, just barely. She brought the oar up again and slammed its edge against his clutching fingers. He let go. Looked up at her face for one last moment. Saw, through the blur, her wild, staring eyes, the bared teeth, the hot blazing hatred.

  Then her face was gone.

  Suddenly it was dark and, very cold. There was a roaring in his ears. He was turning around and around as he went down. Like an acrobat tumbling through the air in one of those slow-motion films. Around and around, arms flung wide, legs spread apart, down and down. He did not try to move, He could not move. It was a strange and slow and dreamy descent.

  His head hit the bottom first. His face sank into the cold muck and weeds, almost up to the neck. His body arched over a moment later and lay inert in the ooze.

  Then his lungs exploded.

  Chapter 2

  He opened his eyes. His body was drenched in sweat.

  Always, whenever he had this particular dream, this nightmare he had come to call the Lake Dream, he awoke exhausted, as though he had never slept at all.

  “My God, Pete!”

  Nora was leaning on her elbows, staring down at him, her blue eyes wide, her face pale. She had thrown the bedclothes from her, and her breasts had fallen free from her nightgown.

  “Oh.” Then, mumbling, “What is it, Nora? What’s wrong?”

  “Wrong? You just scared hell out of me, that’s all.” She showed him her arm. “Look. Gooseflesh. I’m still shaking. There I was, asleep, when I heard this voice yelling out. Right next to me. I wake up and there you were. Talking in your sleep. Or rather, shouting. Only it wasn’t you.”

  He knew it was bound to happen again, sooner or later. He turned his head and looked out of the window at the familiar scene: palm and lemon trees just beyond the terrace; across the pool and patio, garden apartments. Beyond them the line of high-rise office buildings on Wilshire Boulevard, gleaming white in the early sun. And beyond them the great spread of East Los Angeles, already beginning to blur in the smog.

  “Pete, you’re not listening to me.”

  “I heard you.”

  “I’m trying to tell you, it was awful. This crazy voice coming out of your mouth. It didn
’t belong to you at all.”

  “Oh?” He tried to beg casual. “What did it sound like?”

  “Not it. He.”

  “All right. He.”

  “Weird. Deeper than yours. Coarser. God, I’m still shaking.” It’s like some horror story, he thought. X speaks again.

  He saw that she was really frightened and tried to humor her out of it.

  “Nora, have I ever told you I was a schizo?”

  “What?”

  She looked at him blankly and he grinned. “It’s true. By day I am known as Doctor Peter Proud, brilliant young associate professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Pursuing the history and culture of the North American Indian as my chosen field. Known for my gentleness, tolerance, and humanitarianism. Beloved by all my students and my fellow faculty. You might call that the Doctor Jekyll side of my personality. But at night …”

  “Stop it, Pete,” she said angrily.

  “I’m sorry!”

  “Who’s Marcia?”

  “Marcia?”

  “You were yelling her name in your sleep.”

  “I don’t know any Marcia.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Never knew anybody by that name.”

  “Never?”

  “Never in my life. The lady is a stranger.”

  “Well, you must have heard it somewhere. You must have known a Marcia somewhere, but you’ve forgotten. Anyway, you were yelling something like, ‘Don’t, Marcia, don’t!’ ” She shuddered. “Or to put it more exactly, he was doing the yelling. “She swung her long legs over the edge of the bed. “I’m still shook up. Excuse me while I run for the nearest john.”

  She padded out of the room, and he heard the bathroom door slam behind her.

  He turned to look at the clock. It was 6:15.

  The Lake Dream. There were others just as insane, and he gave them other names. But this was the one that came most often. Of late, it had been coming to him about twice a week. And it never varied. It was always monotonously the same, down to the last detail.

  Always, he died in the same way.

  He was swimming in this lake, and this woman Marcia came along in the boat, and each time they said exactly the same things to each other. The picture never changed; each detail was frozen. Always, he turned on his back to float, and always she raised her paddle and smashed him in the balls and then on the head and then on the fingers, and after that, he went down and down, turning around and around, in the same old way.