FSF, December 2007

by Spilogale, Inc

  Conlin kept the speedometer needle hovering at about twenty m.p.h., then came to a full stop at each corner when stop signs appeared, the branches neatly trimmed away from them. People took no notice of the sedan gliding down their main drag—Grand Avenue. Conlin gave a low whistle at how “Grand” it was. Grain elevator towering off to the right, and yes, the inevitable train tracks ... convenience store with gas pumps ... even a red flashing stoplight suspended above an intersection where some county route slashed through.

  A mail carrier swung along a root-buckled sidewalk, toting a heavy bag. Two old men leaned in under the raised hood of a pickup truck in a driveway. A sloppily parked tricycle with pink streamers on the handlebars proclaimed to the world a little girl lives here.

  Conlin was enjoying his theory of Hallowe'en. The honest holiday—the primeval dance that was human existence: We wear masks. We collect and eat candy. We die.

  Street signs, blue with white letters—Elevator, Ash, Cherokee—but no town name. No Welcome to Birdpitt, Population 5,000 sign. Had it been hidden behind the orange banner advertising the parade? A low-key town, not giving up more than it needed to. Conlin slowed to a crawl through a school zone, although the kids were all inside. Hallowe'en afternoon, and a Friday to boot: they were probably having parties now, one in each classroom, eating cookies with orange icing and then parading around the school halls in those shiny, slick, cheapo costumes with the elastic-string masks and the licensed character name and cartoon likeness emblazoned across the front. Right. As if the Wolfman ran around in a shirt that said The Wolfman. The full moon ... the Change coming on ... a registered trademark symbol ... forming on my chest.... Har-de-har.

  There wasn't even a town name on the school.

  Hardware store, post office, electronics (well-stocked with them new-fangled telly-vision sets), Jason's Game World—Role-Playing Games Played Here! Ooo, role-playing. A couple taverns with neon beer signs in the windows ... liquor store, barber shop. There'd be at least one old-timer parked in the barber's waiting-chair, no intention of getting a haircut. Conlin wondered if barbers in places like this still painted your neck with lather from a little round soap-brush; if they still used those lethal straight razors and sharpened them on leather strops.

  Here.

  Stacy's Kitchen. Retired farmers would be gathered in there around enormous platefuls of things fried in grease, everyone wearing bill caps indoors. It would do nicely.

  There were parking spaces to be had along the main street, but Conlin turned a corner onto Walnut and parallel-parked in front of a silver Ford pickup along the restaurant's two-story brick side. Rolling up the window, he glanced around. Twenty feet in front of him were a green Dumpster and the alley. Across Walnut stood another aging brick building that looked abandoned. An etched concrete slab over the door said Daily News. That's why it's abandoned. Couldn't be much “daily news” around here.

  No parking meters—just a sign forbidding parking in the small hours of the morning. He stretched beside the car, easing the kinks out of his legs and back, enjoying the sun's warmth. On the cracked wall of the restaurant, someone had spray-painted FERG IS HOT!!! in white letters a foot high. A few paces to the right was Ferg + Diane inside a lopsided valentine heart.

  Pressing the button on his keychain, he watched the knobs of the door-locks go down with four simultaneous whunks. Comfortable car, courtesy of Jank. Jank did well with cars. In another couple days, this one would be clean and gone: new plates, maybe even a new color, and for sale on one of Jank's lots somewhere between sea and shining sea.

  Conlin slid his left hand into the side pocket of his gray sportcoat, tucking his arm close against the concealed hardware in the shoulder holster. He was used to the bulk—a Glock 18, not the smallest of its line, not particularly made for concealment. But it suited Conlin fine. He didn't mess around with silencers. If you had to silence a shot, you weren't in control of your environment. He wouldn't be needing the piece here, but he wasn't going to leave it in the trunk, not even in broad daylight. A car could be stolen, vandalized, or towed because of some pissant city ordinance unique to Spudville—Conlin might be parked in a “graffiti zone” or something.

  Graffiti ... closer to the corner with Grand Avenue, the weathered building's side held another scrawl, this one in a darker hue, a purplish blue that made Conlin think it might glow in the dark. The two words were faded, the bricks around them bleached-looking, as if someone had tried to scrub the vandalism away.

  LUCAFER RULES.

  Lucafer. It didn't take Conlin long to formulate a response in the same language: Now, now. Your going to make Jeasis mad. Shucks, if only he had a spray can.

  Across Grand, three women were browsing a sidewalk sale in front of a dollar store. Dumpy, small-town women, one wearing ill-advised shorts that showcased a lot of pasty, cellulite-jiggling flesh. Conlin scanned the parked cars and pickups along both sides of the street—looking for nothing in particular, not dreading the presence of cop cars (there were none)—just being aware of what was where. A guy with a green baseball cap jammed low on his head went into the liquor store. A portly, silver-haired man in a suit emerged from the restaurant and moved off down the walk away from Conlin.

  A splash of color drew Conlin's gaze to a telephone pole. At eye-level hung an ad for the parade, black letters on bright orange paper. Before the words, his attention went to the picture in the center: a skeleton, a black silhouette, one arm and one knee raised. Dancing. Hallowe'en Parade, Friday, October 31st, 7:00 p.m. This one said “Hallowe'en.” And in smaller print, below the figure: Will commence and conclude in the V.F.W. south lot. Awards ceremony to follow. A tiny map in the bottom corner showed the parade route, a square loop four blocks on a side. Conlin checked the street names and got his bearings. It would be simple to find. He was sure it would be the only thing going on in town tonight.

  More of the orange papers, identical, hung on poles and in store windows all along the street. The skeleton was an interesting motif, an unusual choice—not a jack-o'-lantern, not a scarecrow and cornstalks, not a witch crossing the full moon on her broom.

  A skeleton.

  The skull's eyes and triangular nose were simply the orange of the paper showing through, but they suggested a glowing, infernal light inside, like a jack-o'-lantern's flame. The mouth was an exaggerated comb-like grid of orange lines. The image triggered a memory ... the memory of a book he'd read in early grade school; a book of spooky poems, a different standby Hallowe'en creature on every page. Werewolf, vampire, mummy, witch ... the one he'd never forgotten was the skeleton. The illustration, done in creepy black-and-white, showed an animate skeleton in a boy's bedroom—clearly at night, with a bright moon outside the open window. The kid was freaked out, trying to hide under the covers but unable to look away from his nightmarish visitor.

  And Conlin, as a kid, had been unable to look away. The skeleton was just standing there, close enough to touch, but not reaching out, not bending forward, not really even seeming to look down at the kid. Just standing, standing. No skin, no rags of clothing—just two or three wisps of hair stuck to the skull, wiggly black lines like rising fumes. What would a skeleton do to a kid, anyway? Maybe that was part of the horror, that you couldn't imagine what it wanted, why it had come.

  Conlin blinked at the poster, thinking of that long-ago book. He remembered the poem on that page, word for word:

  John is a skeleton,

  John is dead,

  All bony fingers,

  Bony head;

  No life in him,

  Not a breath.

  Lazy in life,

  He's restless in death.

  All bony fingers,

  Bony head—

  Hope he's not standing

  By your bed!

  Shaking his head, Conlin chuckled aloud. They probably wouldn't allow a book like that in a school nowadays. He winked at the skeleton and turned toward Stacy's Kitchen. He was going to have fun here.

  T
he door was at least half a century old, wood with a central glass plate; instead of a crash-bar or a flange, it had a cast-iron handle with an actual thumb-latch, curved to fit your thumb like a tiny black potato chip. As Conlin gripped it, his eyes picked out a handwritten sign taped up inside the door's glass. No more than a card among bigger, fancier announcements of restaurant hours, an upcoming country music concert, a circus, and someone with a set of wrenches to give away, it grabbed his gaze because of the first two words:

  BONE MAN POSTCARDS HERE.

  The lunch crowd had thinned; it was past 1:30. Conlin pushed the door closed behind him with a click. The smell of the grill mingled with the essences of coffee, cigarettes, and some lemony soap that must be what the waitress wiped the tables with. A ring of customers who could only be regulars lounged around a table to the right, up by the counter: three stocky men and a woman, all past middle-age. They noted Conlin's entrance and went on with their conversation, something about how “Barb” was going to “find out a thing or two.” The woman nodded sagely, one of the men shook his head and stubbed a cigarette, and another spasmed with laughter, making his belly bounce.

  To Conlin's left, two youngish men were chewing seriously, facing each other across a table. Not farmers, but not office workers, either. The older, thirty-something, with pale blond hair and a dark suntan, was eating a salad. The younger, maybe twenty-five, wore a polo shirt and held a heavily loaded burger. They nodded at Conlin and he nodded back as he passed them to take a table about equidistant from both parties, against the wall opposite the door. No booths here, just Formica-topped tables and a bar with stools. Conlin faced the bar and read through the day's specials penned in blue on a whiteboard.

  Brat with onions, no thank you. Beef tips ... “fish sand."—of course, that would be for our Catholic friends—and it came “w/fryes.” Setting his elbows on the table, he tented his fingers.

  The woman in the regulars’ group leaned back in her chair and called through the oblong window into the kitchen. “Peg, you've got someone here."

  Conlin heard the clink of dishes, a rubbery noise that sounded like a plunger, and at least two people conversing. Peg appeared from the kitchen doorway, drying her hands on a towel. “Thanks,” she said to the woman. “That thing's backed up again."

  The woman chopped her hand sideways through the air as if cutting off any discussion. “Call Tom. Just call Tom."

  "Yeah.” Peg came a few steps in Conlin's direction, chubby and young, little round glasses, short brown hair in tight curls. She had a long-suffering look, a reddish nose. “Would you like to see a menu?"

  "Uh, no, thanks.” Conlin folded his hands. “I think I'll go with the fish sandwich."

  "What would you like on it?"

  Good. Sand meant “sandwich,” not actual sand. “Um, tartar sauce? Onion?"

  Conlin was also entitled to two sides in addition to the “fryes.” He opted for corn and a cup of chicken-rice soup. And coffee—black coffee.

  Ten minutes passed. The two serious guys paid their bill and left. Conlin sipped his coffee and half-listened to the regular woman carrying on about how she'd explained it all to Jerry, how if he wanted to keep a job he'd have to show up and care. The coffee was good. Peg refilled the cup when she brought Conlin's food.

  The bun tasted wholesome and oaty, the fish tender, not oily. As he shook pepper into the soup, the regulars were beginning to leave: first the big-bellied man in overalls, then the chain smoker. Then the woman, promising over her shoulder that she'd ask Vicky something about a broiler. That left only the oldest, stoop-shouldered man in a bright red ballcap, his back to Conlin.

  Spooning corn, Conlin watched him. The man seemed to be nodding off. His head had a whitish cast overall, as if whiteness had leached into his skin from his close-shaved, glistening hair. He kept drooping forward, then jerking awake; his head, topped with the red cap, reminded Conlin of a fishing bobber.

  Peg warmed up the man's coffee, then Conlin's. When she started reloading the napkin holders, Conlin had to ask.

  "I'm curious. Who or what is Bone Man?"

  Peg cracked a smile—the first smile Conlin had seen on her. And the old man was awake now, turning laboriously in his chair to study Conlin with vividly blue eyes.

  "He's a local ... celebrity?” (Peg pronounced it “celeberty.") “What would you call him, Billy?” She looked at Conlin and tipped her head toward the old man. “We got an expert here."

  The man in the red cap, Billy, was sitting sideways now, bony knees in his canvas pants stuck off the side of his chair. He looked about eighty, the skin hanging loose beneath his clean-shaved chin. “Phenomenon,” he said in a soft voice, not strong but steady. He pushed the cap back a little from his wrinkled forehead and spoke slowly, seeming to think about each of the words, laying them out like treasures from a shoebox. “He's a hero and a boogeyman. Some say a ghost. Some say the Devil himself."

  Conlin leaned forward, telling Billy with his expression to go on.

  "Comes around every year for the Parade. A dancing skeleton, just like on the posters."

  Conlin thought of a Christmas parade he'd been to as a kid, at the end of which Santa Claus had parachuted out of a plane and landed with a Ho, ho, ho to the delight of the crowd. He supposed this was something like that. “Sort of a town mascot?” he suggested.

  "Oh, no.” Billy shook his head, emphasizing the oh more than the no. “No, we respect the Bone Man. We love him, but he scares us. Or maybe that's why we love him. He's lots older than the town."

  "He ain't alive,” Peg said helpfully. “He's all bones. He's paranormal."

  Conlin smiled broadly, looking from one to the other and back, waiting for a punchline. But Billy only watched him, and Peg went back to stuffing napkin holders. The Bone Man was this town's gimmick, and these two were good at presenting it.

  "So he's a paranormal phenomenon,” Conlin said, “who appears every year at the Hallowe'en Parade."

  "That's right,” Billy said. “Only not everyone can see him."

  Conlin snorted and quickly tried to make it sound like a cough. How convenient was that? A ghost with an up-front disclaimer. If you couldn't see him, it was your problem. The local tourism council was brilliant. “Good thing you've got him on postcards."

  Billy chuckled. “You coming to the Parade?"

  "Wouldn't miss it."

  Billy nodded knowingly. “Folks go all out for it. It's something to see, even if you can't see the Bone Man. ‘Fact, I wouldn't be sorry if you can't."

  "Why do you say that?” Aside from the obvious reason of covering your behind.

  "Well....” Billy's gaze drifted. “Seems folks who can't see him at all are generally happier than those that can."

  "Does seeing him, like, bring a curse? Like hearing a banshee scream?"

  "No. No, I don't mean that, exactly. I can see him, and I don't consider myself cursed. It's just ... like what the Bible says about how if you increase your knowledge, you increase your sorrow."

  The Bible. Conlin knew the Bible pretty well. His parents had ripped and wallowed their way through it along with everything else abusable. There were highs to be had from power and even guilt. But Conlin had given the Church a fair hearing. He was nothing if not methodical.

  "You see him,” Billy said, “and then you tend to see a lot of things you might prefer to ignore. The Bone Man is ... a heavy truth."

  "Well.” Conlin sat back and finished his coffee. “I wonder if I'll see him."

  "There's a way to find out."

  "You mean by coming to the parade, right?"

  "I mean right now."

  Right now. A watery coldness gurgled low in Conlin's stomach. The last time he'd felt it was once when he'd realized the mark he was about to move on was also carrying. Like finding a snake in your bed.

  But why should this idea unsettle him? What threat could there possibly be?

  As if on cue, Peg stepped around the bar and picked up a heavy scrapbo
ok of some kind from a shelf of curios and phone books. She brought it to Conlin's table.

  Billy shuffled over and sat in the chair across from Conlin. Peg once more replenished their coffee, cleared away the dishes, and went into the kitchen. With wizened hands, Billy turned the book to face Conlin.

  THE BOOK OF THE BONE MAN.

  It was cheap, wirebound, double-wide, the posterboard cover hand-lettered in garish orange marker. The words were scrunched up toward the right edge, the result of poor planning. Below the title, Hallowe'en figures had been drawn by many different artists with finer felt-tips of various colors. It was obviously a depiction of the Parade. Some of the creatures were done by children's hands and were mostly scribbles, some dripping blood, some with fangs and yellow eyes. A bipedal werewolf brandished a big cartoon bone. Other images seemed to be the work of teens or pre-teens, mean-looking fairies in improbable armor, princesses with the flowing hair and the huge, innocent eyes of Japanese manga. Still other beings were etched with painstaking skill, shaded and three-dimensional, lunging off the cover.

  Conlin looked questioningly at Billy.

  "Open it.” Billy hunched forward on crossed arms.

  Conlin lifted the cover and laid it open. More of the drawings crowded the title page, where the same title was spaced better, in bold black this time, the letters arranged on lines drawn with the aid of a ruler. The next leaf burst with multicolored scrawls on both facing pages, left and right. Pictures gave way to a sort of graffiti on the Bone Man theme—messages by dozens of people. Bone Man Rules! Fan of the Man. We saw the Bone Man, ‘98—the Robert Lynch family, Sauk City, WI. Far out, BONES!—an osteophile, 1999. And under that one: Dude, THIS BOOK is an Osteofile!—Duncan, 11-1-99.

  It reminded Conlin of graffiti books he'd read about that were kept in certain campy bed-and-breakfasts, haunted houses turned into hotels—diaries in which guests were encouraged to leave their own messages. Conlin wondered if the “Lucafer” disciple had signed the book, or the person who thought Ferg was hot.