Jokers Club

by Gregory Bastianelli

“I want him to be able to watch himself cook,” he said.

  He and Lonny laughed. Oliver grabbed another beer, popping open the top, and stood beside the head, prying open its mouth and pouring the beer into it, the warm suds washing over the dead tongue, down its throat and draining out the bottom of its torn neck.

  Oliver turned to see the bewildered looks on Dale and Geoff’s faces and knew that any chance of renewed friendship with these two was long gone. Only Lonny seemed to appreciate the moment.

  Fuck it, he thought. Who needs them? I’m Oliver Rench, king of the lambs. He chuckled to himself.

  After the lamb cooked for a while, Oliver cut a few strips of meat off and they all tried it. It wasn’t very good, but Oliver quickly washed it down with warm beer. They never got to eat any more because as it cooked, the branch cracked and the body went crashing into the fire. All they could do was watch the carcass burn, its skin sizzling, juices bubbling out of it as it blackened in the flames.

  After finishing the beers, they all pissed on the burning embers to help put out the fire. Then Lonny stomped out the remaining smoldering embers, and they began walking through the woods toward Autumn Avenue. Oliver figured they were in for a long hike home, because he didn’t think they would get a ride with his shirt all covered in blood.

  Both he and Lonny smelled like sheep. As the four of them ventured through the woods, Dale and Geoff in the lead, Oliver began bleating like a lamb. Lonny laughed and began doing the same. It seemed to annoy Geoff especially, so Oliver kept it up.

  It would become something he’d do every now and then when he’d pass Geoff in the hallways in high school or pass his locker.

  “Baaaaaaaa.”

  He got quite a kick out of it because it seemed to torment Geoff.

  When they finally left the woods and began the long trek down Autumn Avenue, Oliver thought of something cool.

  He decided he would go back the next day and get the lamb’s head. He could boil the skin off, clean it all up and keep the skull for a souvenir.

  It would be a symbol of his first kill.

  Unless you counted Jason Nightingale.

  CHAPTER

  SEVEN

  My feet would not stop. They took me down the long lonely dirt road on the east side of the lake, down the road I hoped I remembered from the day we tossed the eggs at Carrothead’s house. I needed to find him and find out what he saw at the ballpark. He must have seen something.

  When I left the inn, I originally walked down to the boardwalk, expecting him to be there. When I saw no sign of him, I headed to the ballpark, figuring maybe he had been hanging out there too. That place was as empty and quiet as the cemetery beside it. It was then that I decided to go right to his house and find him. I thought about going back to the inn and getting my rental car, but decided I liked having my feet on the ground, breathing in the air, feeling the breeze around my face. This could be the last time I walk around this town, feel its pulse beneath my feet. I wanted to enjoy every opportunity.

  Now I found myself walking down the dirt road, not even sure if it was the right one. A couple of other dirt roads had sprung up on this side of the lake since I had last been here, and I passed a few newly built houses. The place had changed, and I wasn’t sure if I could find his home again. Maybe I should turn back? No, I had come this far. There was no sense stopping now.

  I came to another dirt road on the left and stopped. I stared down it, and then up the road I was on. Maybe this was it. Maybe if I stared at the road hard enough I could see the tire tracks our bicycles made when we were kids. Maybe if I waited long enough he would come shuffling down the road. If I had his other walkie-talkie I could try and contact him, ask for directions.

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember that long ago ride, tried to find something familiar about the route that would help me now. The memory was too distant. I took the left fork and hoped for the best. It soon began to look less like a road and more like a trail through the woods. It eventually led me to the edge of the lake. There I stood, not knowing what to do next. My legs were tired, my feet hot.

  As I stared out at the still water, a tingling sensation began stirring in the back of my head. My ears were ringing and I heard a jingling noise.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” I answered, staring at the lake, not even bothering to turn and look at the Joker behind me. “This is a beautiful place.”

  “But you never know what horrible thing might be lurking beneath the surface.”

  “That’s right,” I said, still staring at the lake. “Like the prehistoric fish Professor Bonz is trying to catch.”

  “Or like the carnivorous fish that eats the fishermen in that story I wrote.”

  I did turn around.

  “You wrote?” I said. “I wrote that story.”

  “But you got all your ideas from me,” the Joker said, smiling. “Don’t you remember? I would whisper them into your ear.”

  “No. That’s not true. They were my stories. They were always my stories. I didn’t need you. I still don’t. I can clean out that attic room anytime I want.”

  “Then why haven’t you yet?”

  “I’m afraid.”

  “What are you afraid of? Are you afraid of dying?” He took a step closer. “Or are you afraid of living?”

  “I’m afraid of letting go.”

  “Of what? Me?”

  I studied the lines of his curious painted face. He seemed so real. “I’m not sure.”

  “You weren’t afraid of letting go that winter night on the lake.”

  I turned away from him and squeezed my eyes shut.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t ever think about that. Not ever.”

  But without even opening my eyes I could see the frozen lake that March night. I could feel the icy chill around my body as I stepped onto the smooth hard surface. It was late, well after 2 am. I had just gotten off duty from tending bar that night. But I had been serving myself almost as much as the customers. If I had been caught, I could have lost my job, but I didn’t care. I had received something in the mail earlier that day. It was in response to a writing contest I had entered several months earlier. One of my stories (about a telepathic rat) had made it to the final round of entries. I thought my moment was finally about to arrive.

  But when the mail came that day, I almost didn’t even have to open it. I held the manila envelope in my hand and turned it over and over. Finally I did unseal it and slipped out the copy of my story and an attached rejection form letter.

  I stared at it in wonder, wanting to cry but only able to sigh. It seemed hopeless. All the trying just didn’t seem worthwhile. Then, looking at the form letter, I became angry. They couldn’t even have jotted a personal note. I wasn’t even worthy of that.

  After college, I had wanted to concentrate on my writing, while fellow classmates began careers in their chosen fields. I wanted to give myself at least a year. Write during the day and tend bar a few nights during the week. But the year was long up, and nothing had come of it, not even this stupid magazine contest. Now it was my time to start thinking about a career, making something of my education. It wasn’t what I wanted to do, but what I had to do.

  So I began sneaking drinks at the bar that night. After awhile I didn’t even worry about being inconspicuous. I didn’t care anymore. My job didn’t matter. With my writing career fizzling, nothing seemed to matter.

  After leaving the bar and heading back to my apartment, the frozen lake seemed to beckon me. I don’t know what I thought when I stepped onto that frozen surface. At first it seemed like a neat idea to walk all the way across, something you talk about as kids.

  When I got to the middle, mist swirling around me, I could hear the slow creaking as the ice groaned beneath my feet. I stood there, looking back at the town and its dwindling lights in the night, and I could almost feel the ice swaying underneath in arthritic strains.

  I waited.

  Part of me want
ed to sprint as fast as I could for the shore, hoping the ice would hold long enough till I reached the edge. Another part wanted the whole thing to give way beneath my feet, swallow me up in the cold dark waters where I would sink to the unending depths. The hole that marked my departure would freeze over and no one would ever know where I went. And no one would ever miss me.

  Of course the ice didn’t open up. I suppose if I really wanted to I could have jumped up and down on that frigid surface. But instead, I only waited for something to happen, and as usual nothing did. Wasn’t that always the way. That I always waited for things to happen instead of making them happen?

  But I could make things happen. Wasn’t that what I was really doing back here in Malton, making things happen? The work I was doing on my book was the most productive writing I had ever done. Wasn’t that why I really came back? Not to find Meg or see my friends, not to reminisce about the Jokers Club, but to see if I could recapture the creativity I once had, to make things happen. Wasn’t that what writing was all about? Making things happen.

  That’s what I had to do. I had to take action. When I got back to New York, I’d call Dr. Cutler and rip down the walls of that attic room. Let the sun burn bright inside and remove all the blackness. Then only time would tell whether it’s really me that’s in control.

  But time, there was the true villain. I still needed just a little more time. I needed to end this tale.

  I turned around. The Joker was nowhere in sight. But I knew he was lurking, not too far away.

  Right now I felt as if I were wasting time. I had accomplished nothing in trying to find Carrothead’s house. Now here I was, lost out in the woods alone.

  Off beyond the thickness of the trees was a noise: a faint distant sound that reminded me of either the soft rustling of leaves or the crisp crackling of static. Either way, it meant I was not alone.

  Someone was nearby.

  How foolish of me. I had wandered out in the middle of nowhere, making myself an easy target for whoever was stalking the Jokers Club. I had actually felt a sense of security when Chief Hooper said he would be keeping an eye on us, but look how easily I had slipped away. Maybe before, not caring what happened to me, gave me a sense of invulnerability. But now that I found a reason to keep on living, my time might be up.

  I didn’t move. I stood and listened, trying to pinpoint the direction of the noise. I heard it again. This time it sounded like a combination of radio static and footsteps in the crunchy underbrush. And it was coming toward me.

  I needed to move, but which way to go? I had gotten lost out here in the daylight, now the sun was going down. How could I find my way in the dark?

  Quietly, with light steps, I made my way along the edge of the lake. But no matter how softly I treaded, each footstep crunched a dry leaf or snapped a dead twig.

  I abandoned that tactic and began sprinting like mad, thrashing through the woods, pushing aside low branches that lashed out at my face, stumbling through the leaves and undergrowth, tripping over roots. I could no longer hear the person coming toward me. I was making too much noise to hear anything else; speed was my main concern. I tried to take the most direct route through the woods possible but occasionally had to veer around thick stands of trees. Eventually I had to hit a road or something.

  Through a gap in the vegetation ahead, I caught a glimpse of blue and headed for it. When I burst into a clearing, my chest chugging, sweat coating my body, I saw a small rundown shack of a house. I stared at it for a second while trying to catch the breaths my lungs kept spitting out. I only had to step back in time for a brief moment to realize where I was.

  I had found Carrothead’s home.

  This was only the second time I had ever seen it, but it looked exactly as it had back then: faded blue paint peeling in several places, front edge of the roof that sagged in the middle, tiny windows one could barely squeeze through, weeds crawling up around the foundation, suffocating it.

  This was it.

  Now that I had found it, I wasn’t quite sure what to do next. Behind me the woods were still. Maybe I had only heard the wind rustling the leaves or a squirrel scurrying around for acorns.

  I approached the house. Having come all this way, there was no use wasting any more time. I had done plenty of that already. Standing in front of the wooden door, I raised my fist and paused, knuckles poised, drew in a deep breath, then rapped three times.

  No answer.

  With my hands on my hips, I looked around, trying to glance into the dusty windows. I knocked again, louder. Still nothing.

  There must not be anyone home, I thought. Could it be Carrothead lived alone? Maybe there was no mother. If he were hanging out down by the boardwalk, maybe the house was empty. Maybe I could get inside and snoop around? Could I be so lucky as to find the door unlocked? I doubt it. I grasped the doorknob (Don’t open it) and turned.

  The door opened a crack and I stopped. This is crazy, I thought, looking around at the dirt road behind me. If Hooper caught me, he’d have it in for me. But there was no one around.

  I pushed the door open slowly but did not enter. The door gave way to darkness, like the entrance to a cave. I could see nothing inside. The only way would be to step across that threshold. I stepped forward, absorbed into the blackness, and waited for my eyes to adjust.

  When things became clearer, I found myself in a long room that seemed to be a combined kitchen, dining area and living room with no separations to distinguish each. On the far right end was the kitchen. Dirty dishes rose up out of the chipped porcelain sink and spilt over onto the counter in a trail like some spreading infectious disease. A huge pot sat on the front burner of the olive-colored stove, a large, dried red stain running down the side of the pan and over the lip of the appliance where its journey halted halfway down the front of the oven door. Nearby on the cracked linoleum floor was a tiny table with two padded chairs at either end. The vinyl on the chairs was split in several places revealing yellowed stuffing beneath. Crumb-covered plates were abandoned on each side of the table, with silverware scattered nearby. The only sound was the humming of the refrigerator and the buzz of a fly on one of the dishes.

  I looked at the living room around me, its walls paneled in dark pine, warped and pulling away from the walls at some of the seams, and I took a deep breath. I could almost taste the soft layer of dust that coated the furniture. I managed to suppress a cough. Immediately in front of me, a pine coffee table squatted before a green couch. Spots on the legs of the table were worn down to the bare wood, like a pair of scuffed knees. The surface of the table could barely be seen beneath piles of magazines.

  Beside the couch, next to an end table that held a lamp absent its lampshade, were stacks of newspapers. I looked around and saw more newspapers on the other side of the room, some neatly piled, others scattered haphazardly around the floor and furniture. I went over to the nearest stack and picked up a yellowed paper with curled edges. I had to squint in the darkness before seeing the edition was several years old. I glanced over some of the other piles, noting more recent dates and even older ones.

  I dropped the paper on the floor, not concerned with where it fell, and walked over to the wall at the end of the room. On the wall, above a tall bookcase, hung several enlarged framed photographs. It took close examination in the dark interior of the house to realize I was looking at pictures of a young Carrothead. A young, normal Carrothead. There were photos of him in baseball, football and basketball uniforms. He was handsome, with a laughing smile and an athletic body. He looked like a different person, yet there was no mistaking it was him.

  I looked down at the bookcase before me and saw the shelves were covered with trophies from all three sports. I reached out and touched one, running my fingers along the smooth, shiny, gold-painted baseball figure. Something struck me as unusual and in a moment I realized what it was. This trophy, and all the others, were completely devoid of dust. The top of the bookcase and all the shelves held a thin coat, but
the trophies were spotless.

  I looked down at one of the lower shelves and saw a large scrapbook. I picked it up and began flipping through. The pages were filled with newspaper clippings from Carrothead’s sports career, starting with youth leagues and going all the way through to his high school years. The book ended with several empty pages, pages that never got filled by a sports career that abruptly ended, cut short by – by what? Was the rope-swing story true?

  I looked at the last newspaper photo of him, wearing a basketball net around his neck and holding his index finger high in the air. I closed the book with a thud and held it tight to my chest.

  My god, what had we done?

  All those years, all the teasing and torment. How could we? I felt ashamed. Deservedly so.

  I gently placed the book back on the shelf and turned, a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I just wanted to leave this place, go home. What was I trying to accomplish here? Did I find the answers I was searching for?

  I looked to the right of the green couch, at a hallway that obviously led to the back bedrooms.

  No.

  I might as well finish what I started. I had come this far.

  It was a short hallway that ended with a small window looking out to the backyard of the house. To my right and left were two partially opened doors. Two bedrooms. I pondered for a moment then, for no particular reason, chose the one on the right and pushed the door open.

  The room was pitch black. I imagined the sun must have set by now, for no natural light existed in here. I stood in the doorway scanning the dark silhouettes of shapeless furniture, like huddle figures, trying to see something, anything. It was no use. I needed light.

  Still staring into the far depths of the corners, I slowly reached my left hand out, trying to find a light switch on the wall beside the door, when my fingers touched someone’s hair.

  I froze, fingers still entangled in the soft locks, my heart thudding in my chest. I turned my head slowly as I withdrew my trembling left hand, feeling the fibers of the hair slip from my fingertips. I met a pair of dark eyes that seemed to look right through me. My hands gathered in front of me in a protective pose, as if ready to ward off an advance. My feet would not move.