The Wooden Sea
Jonathan Carroll
For connoisseurs of the strange and fantastic, a new book by Jonathan Carroll is something to be both anticipated and savored. Ever since the publication of his celebrated first novel, The Land of Laughs, he has been delighting readers with his uniquely quirky characters and overflowing imagination. Authors such as Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Ruth Rendell, and Pat Conroy have praised his work over the years. He creates worlds just around the courner from our own everyday lives, where the dead sometimes speak, where your best friend is transformed into something no longer human, or wher eyou canmeet earlier—and later—versions of yourself.
From the moment a three-legged dog limps into the comfortable life of Police Chief Frannie McCabe and drops dead at his feet, McCabe finds himself thrust into a new world of unaccountable miracles and disturbing wonders. The small town of Cran'es View, New York, has long been a reassuringly familiar place for Frannie, a haven full of small comforts and domestic harmony, but now he finds himself afflicted by strange and inexplicable omens, such as a mysterious, multicolored feather that keeps insinuating itself into his past, present, and future, all of which now converge to throw Frannie's once ordinary life into doubt. Like it or not, Frannie has come face-to-face with the uncanny, and what he does over the next few days may have uncanny, and what he does over the next few days may have unforseen consequences for the entire world.
A rich stew of intrigue, wonder, and redemption, The Wooden Sea is Jonathan Carroll's most ambitious and visionary work to date.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Jonathan Carroll
The Wooden Sea
To Ifah2 at Augarten heaven
Old Vertue
Never buy yellow clothes or cheap leather. That’s my credo and there are more. Know what I like to see? People killing themselves. Don’t misunderstand; I’m not talking about the poor fucks who jump out windows or stick their sorry heads into plastic bags forever. No “Ultimate Fighting Championship” either, which is only a bunch of rabid crewcuts biting each other. I’m talking about the guy on the street, face the color of wet lead, lighting up a Camel and coughing up his soul the moment he inhales. Good for you, Sport! Long live nicotine, stubbornness, and self-indulgence.
“Let’s have another round here, Jimmy!” croons King Cholesterol down at the end of the bar. He with the rosy nose and enough high blood pressure to launch him and his whole family tree to Pluto. Gratification, mass, texture. The heart attack that’ll nuke him will last a few seconds. The cold beer in thick mugs and perfume of grilling T-bone steaks are forever until he dies. It’s worth the trade-off. I’m with him.
My wife Magda says getting me to understand is like throwing peas at a wall. But I understand fine; I just don’t usually agree. Old Vertue is a perfect example. One day a guy walks into the station house leading a dog the likes of which you have never seen. It’s a mixed breed but is mainly pit bull covered by a swirl of brown and black markings so he looks like a marble cake. But that’s where his normalcy stops because this dog has only three and a half legs, is missing an eye, and breathes weird. Sort of out the side of his mouth but you can’t really be sure. The way air comes out, it sounds like he’s whistling “Michelle” under his breath. There are two deep raised scars across the top of his head. He’s such a mess that all of us stare at him like he just arrived from hell on the Concorde.
Fucked up as he looked, the dog wore a very nice red leather collar. Hanging from it was a small flat silver heart with the name “Old Vertue” engraved on it. That was how it was spelled. That’s all; no owner’s name, address, or telephone number. Only Old Vertue. And he’s exhausted. In the middle of everyone there, he collapsed on the floor and started snoring. The guy who brought him in said he found the dog sleeping in the Grand Union parking lot. He didn’t know what the hell to do with it but was sure it was going to be run over napping there, so he brought it to us.
Everyone else thought we should take the dog to the nearest animal shelter and forget about it. But for me it was love at first sight. I made a bed for him in my office, bought dog food and a couple of orange bowls. He slept almost continuously for two days. When awake he lay in his bed and stared at me with gloomy eyes. Or rather eye. When someone in the office asked why I kept it around, I said this dog has been there and back. Since I’m chief of police, nobody protested.
Except my wife. Magda believes animals should be eaten and can barely stand the nice cat I’ve had for years. When she heard I was keeping a three-legged, one-eyed marble cake in my office she came by for a look. She stared at it for too long and stuck out her lower lip. A bad sign. “The more goofy they are, the more you like them, huh, Fran?”
“This dog’s a veteran, honey. He’s seen battle.”
“There are kids starving in North Korea while you’re serving this mutt food.”
“Send those kids over here—they can share its Alpo.”
“You’re the mutt, Frannie, not him.”
Standing nearby, Magda’s daughter, Pauline, started laughing.
We looked at her with surprise because Pauline doesn’t laugh at anything. Absolutely no sense of humor. When she does laugh it’s usually at something weird or totally inappropriate. She’s a strange girl who works hard at remaining invisible. My secret nickname for her is Fade.
“What’s so funny?”
“Frannie. He always goes left when everyone else goes right. What’s the matter with your dog? What’s he’s doing?”
I turned around just in time to see Old Vertue die.
It had managed to stand, but all three of its legs were trembling badly. Its head was down and it swung it back and forth like it was saying no.
Typically, Pauline started giggling.
Vertue stopped shaking its head and looked up at us. At me. It looked straight at me and winked. I swear to God. The old dog winked at me as if we shared a secret. Then it fell over and died. Its three legs twitched a few times then curled slowly in toward his body. There was no question where it’d gone.
None of us said a thing; just stared at the poor old guy. Finally Magda went over for a closer look. “Jeez, maybe I shouldn’t have said such mean things about him.”
The dead dog farted. A long one—its last breath going out the wrong door. Moving back fast, Magda glared at me.
Pauline crossed her arms. “That’s so weird! It was alive two seconds ago and now it’s not. I’ve never seen anything die.”
One of the few advantages of being young. When you’re seventeen, death is a star light-years away you can hardly see through a powerful telescope. Then you grow older and discover it’s no distant star, but a big fucking asteroid coming straight at your head.
“Now what, Doctor Doolittle?”
“Now I guess I gotta go bury him.”
“Just make sure it’s not in our backyard.”
“I thought under your pillow would be good.”
We locked eyeballs and smiled at the same time. She kissed the air between us. “Come on, Pauline. We’ve got things to do.”
She left, but Pauline hesitated. As she moved slowly toward the door she stared at the dog as if hypnotized. Once there she stopped and stared some more. Outside my office there was a sudden big burst of laughter. Obviously Magda telling the others the sad news.
“Go ahead with your mother, Pauline. I want to wrap him up and get him out of here.”
“Where are you going to bury him?”
“Someplace down by the river. Give him a nice view.”
“Is that legal to bury him there?”
“If I catch myself doing it, I’ll arrest me.”
That broke her trance and she left.
Even in death the old guy looked beat.
Whatever kind of life he’d had, he got to the finish line on all fours (all threes) with nothing left. He used up everything he had. That was clear after one glance at him. His head was turned into his body; the thick pink scars on top were vicious-looking things. Where the hell had he gotten them?
Bending down, I gently wrapped the ends of the cheap blanket around his body and slowly rolled him into it. The body was heavy and loose. His one good front paw stuck out. Maneuvering it back inside the blanket, I stopped and shook it. “My name is Frannie. I’m your paw bearer today.”
I lifted the bundle and went to the door. Without warning it swung open and Patrolman Big Bill Pegg stood there, trying hard not to smile. “You need help, Chief?”
“No, I’ve got him. Just open that door wider.” A bunch of people stood outside and applauded as I passed.
“Very funny.”
“I wouldn’t start a pet shop if I was you, Fran.”
“Waddya got there, pigs in a blanket?”
“Nice guest—you invite him in and he drops dead.”
“You guys are just jealous he didn’t die in your office.” I kept moving. Their laughter and jokes followed me out the door. Old Vertue was not light. Lugging him to the car wasn’t the easiest thing I’d done that day. Once there, I lowered him onto the trunk lid and fished car keys out of my pocket. I slipped one into the lock and turned, but other than the click, nothing happened. The body held the lid down. Hefting him up over a shoulder, I turned the key again. The lid popped up. Before I had a chance to do anything, a loud voice a foot away from my left ear boomed “Why you putting that dog in your trunk, Frannie?”
“Because it’s dead, Johnny. I’m going to go bury it.”
Johnny Petangles, our town idiot, went up on his toes and leaned over my shoulder for a better look. “Can I come with you and watch?”
“No, John.” I tried to push Vertue against one wall of the trunk so he wouldn’t slide around when I drove, but someone was in my way. “John, move! Haven’t you got anything to do?”
“No. Where are you going to bury him, Frannie? In the graveyard?”
“Only people get to go there. I haven’t decided yet. Would you please move over so I can get him settled here?”
“Why do you want to get him settled if he’s dead?”
I stopped moving and closed my eyes. “John, would you like a hamburger?”
“That would be very nice.”
“Good.” I took five dollars out of my pocket and handed it to him. “Eat a hamburger, and when you’re done, go up to my house and give Magda a hand bringing in that firewood, okay?”
“Okay.” Holding the money in his hand he didn’t move. “I’ll be very quiet if you let me come with you.”
“Johnny, am I going to have to shoot you?”
“You always say that.” He looked at the Arnold Schwarzenegger watch I had given him a few years before when he was going through a Terminator phase. “How long do I have before I go over to your house? I don’t want to eat too fast. I get gas.”
“Take your time.” I patted his shoulder and moved to get in the car.
“I didn’t know you had a dog for a friend, Frannie.”
“Dogs know how to love, John. They wrote the book.”
Driving away, I checked in the rearview mirror. He was waving at me as a child would—his hand flapped up and down.
Magda believes you can tell a person’s personality by what is lying around in their car. Stopped at a light on April Avenue, I looked down at the passenger’s seat and saw this: three unopened packs of Marlboros, a cheap cell phone mangled from having been dropped often, a paperback collection of John O’Hara short stories, and an unopened envelope from the town hospital containing the results of a barium enema. In the glove compartment was a tin of Altoids breath mints, a videotape of Around the World in Eighty Days and CDs of seventies disco music no one but me wanted to hear. The only interesting things in the whole car were the Beretta pistol under my arm and the dead dog in the trunk. The contents depressed me. What if we were living under Mount Vesuvius and at that moment it decided to blow again? Lava and ash would kill and perfectly preserve me in my two-ton Ford coffin. Thousands of years from now archaeologists would dig me up and guess who I was judging by what was around me: cigarettes, KC & the Sunshine Band, the results of an asshole exam, and a dog carcass. What’s My Line?
Where was I going to bury Old Vertue, and with what? I had no tools in the car. I’d have to go home first and get a shovel out of the garage. I took a quick left and headed down Broadway.
On his eightieth birthday, my father swore he would never again read a set of instructions. He died a month later. I say this now because I had used the same shovel to bury him. People thought I was cracked. Cemeteries have backhoes for that purpose, but I thought there was something ancient and good about making my father’s final bed. I couldn’t say Kaddish, but I could scoop him a hole with my own hands. In the middle of a hot summer day I dug his grave with a smile on my face. Johnny Petangles sat on the ground nearby and kept me company. He asked where we went when we died. Bangladesh, if we’re bad, I said. When he didn’t understand that I asked where he thought we went. Into the ocean. We turn into rocks and God throws us into the ocean. Was that where my father was now, hiding some Greek calamari? Driving along, I wondered what Johnny would have said about where dead animals go.
The two way radio crackled. “Chief?”
“McCabe here.”
“Chief, we’ve got a domestic disturbance up on Helen Street.”
“Schiavo?”
“You got it.”
“All right, I’m near there. I’ll take care of it.”
“Better you than me.” The dispatcher chuckled and clicked off.
I shook my head. Donald and Geraldine Schiavo, nee Fortuso, had been my classmates at Crane’s View High School. They were married right after we graduated and had been at war ever since. Sometimes she hit him on the head with a pot. Sometimes he hit her on the head with a chair. Whatever was closest. For years people had pleaded with them to divorce, but the two lovebirds had nothing else in the world besides their hatred so why should they give that up? I would guess once a month their mutual simmer turned to boil and one or the other got dented.
A group of neighborhood teenagers were standing on the sidewalk in front of the Schiavo house, laughing.
“What’s up, troops?”
“Fuckin’ Star Wars in there, Mr. McCabe. You shoulda heard her screaming before. But it’s been quiet for a while.”
“They’re resting between rounds.” I walked up the path to the door and turned the knob. It was open. “Anyone home?” When no one answered I said it again. Silence. I walked in and closed the door. What first struck me was how clean and nice-smelling the house was. Geri Schiavo was a sloppy, lazy woman who didn’t mind having a house that stunk. Ditto her husband. One of the annoyances of prying them apart month after month was going into their house, which invariably smelled of BO, rooms where windows had been closed too long, and old food you didn’t ever want to taste.
Not this time. A new store had opened recently in town that sold a wide assortment of exotic teas. I don’t drink tea but found as many excuses as I could to go in there just to enjoy its aroma. After my initial shock wore off at the order and shine in the Schiavo house, I realized it smelled like the tea shop. A potent, wonderful fragrance that gave your nose delicious things to think about.
The surprises didn’t end there either because the house was empty. I moved from room to room searching for Donald and Geri. Nothing had changed since the last time I visited. The same cheap couch and prehistoric BarcaLounger sat side by side in the living room like bums at rest. Family photographs on the mantle, a scrawny piss-yellow canary hopping around in its cage, all the same. But there was that orderliness and shine to everything I had never seen before in this house. It was as if the couple had prepared everything for a party or an important visit. But as soon as they had
everything ready, the owners left.
I went to the basement, half worried that down there would be a rough answer to the mystery upstairs: both Schiavos hanging from matching rafters, or one standing over the other’s body with a gleeful look on their face and a gun in their hand. Didn’t happen. The basement was only full of tidily stacked magazines, old furniture, and junk. And even that had been neatly arranged in a corner. Down there it smelled good too. It was the damnedest thing. What the hell was going on?
Their backyard was as big as a bus stop but the lawn had been mowed. I had never seen the grass out there less than five inches high. I’d once even offered Donald the use of my lawn-mower, which he grouchily rejected.
Back in the house I sat in the BarcaLounger to think things over. And almost went right on my ass when it tipped all the way back on nonexistent springs. Touch and go for a few seconds, I managed to wrestle the thing back upright. That’s when I saw the feather.
There was a sealed-up fireplace on the other side of the room. As I fought gravity to get the stupid chair back on earth, I saw a flash of incredibly bright color on the floor in front of the fireplace. Wiggily kneed from the battle, I went over to the feather and picked it up. About ten inches long, it was a mixture of the most brilliant colors imaginable. Purple, green, black, orange—more. I couldn’t imagine a more inappropriate object to be in the house of these slobs, but there it was. I stared at it while I called the station house and told Bill Pegg what I’d seen.
“That’s a new one. Maybe they got beamed up to the mother ship.”
“Captain Picard wouldn’t want them on the Enterprise. You’ve gotten no reports, Bill? No car crashes or anything?”
“Nope. Wouldn’t it be great if they died? No more having to go up there. Nothing’s come in.”
“Call Michael Zakrides at the hospital and check with him. I’m going home to get something and then down to the river. Call me on my pocket phone if you hear anything.”
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