He sat down on what had been the stone steps leading up to the front porch, and he laid down the cheap plastic shoulder bag that now contained all he owned in the world. And it was there that the last two of those who had dogged him came to have their talk.
He saw them coming down the dirt road between the fields of freshly harvested corn, the stalks creaking in the breeze, and he gave it up. Packed it in. No more getting in the flow, chasing the wind. No more. He sat and watched them coming up the road, tiny puffs of dust at each step. The day was on the wane, and he could see clouds through them, the horizon line, birds reaching for more sky.
They came up and stood staring at him, and he said, “Sit down, take a load off.”
The man seemed to be a hundred years old. He smiled at Ben and said, “Thanks. It’s been a hard trip.” He slumped onto the stone step below. He wiped his forehead, but he wasn’t perspiring.
The woman stood in front of him, and her expression was neither kind nor hard. It was simply the face of someone who had been traveling a long time, and was relieved to have reached her destination.
“Who are you?”
The woman looked at the old man and said, “We were never a high school girl named Doris Burton, who was supposed to’ve died in a car accident in West Texas, but didn’t. We were never an asthmatic named Milford Sterbank, who worked for fifty years as a reweaver. And we never got to be Henry Cheatham, who drove a cab in Pittsburgh.”
He watched them, looking from the man to the woman and back. “And which ones are you?”
The woman looked away for a moment. Laborde saw the setting sun through her chest. She said, “I would have been Barbara Lamartini. You passed through St Louis in 1943.”
“I was born in ’49.”
The old man shook his head. “Much earlier. If you hadn’t fought with the 2nd Division at Belleau Wood, I would have been Howard Strausser. We shared a trench for five minutes, June 1st, 1918.”
“This is crazy.”
“No,” the woman said wearily, “this is just the end of it.”
“The end of what?”
“The end of the last of us whose lives you’ve been using. The last soft gray man or woman left on a doorstep by your passing.”
Laborde shook his head. It was gibberish. He knew he was at final moments with them, but what it all meant he could not fathom.
“For godsakes,” he pleaded, “hasn’t this gone on long enough? Haven’t you sent me running long enough? What the hell have I ever done to you—any of you? I don’t even know you!”
The old man, Howard Strausser, smiled sadly and said, “You never meant to be a thief. It isn’t your fault, any more than it’s our fault for finally coming after you, to get our lives back. But you did, you stole, and you left us behind. We’ve been husks. I’m the oldest left. Barbara is somewhere in the middle. You’ve been doing it for several hundred years, best we’ve been able to tell. When we found one another, there was a man who said he’d been panning gold at Sutter’s Mill when you came by. I don’t know as I believe him; his name was Chickie Moldanado, and he was something of a liar. It was the only memorable thing about him.”
The woman added, “There’s nothing much memorable about any of us.”
“That’s the key, do you see?” Howard Strausser said.
“No, I don’t see,” Laborde said.
“We were never anything. None of us.”
He let his hands move helplessly in the air in front of them. “I don’t know what any of this means. I just know I’m tired of . . . not of running . . . tired of, just, I don’t know, tired of being me.”
“You’ve never been you.” Howard Strausser smiled kindly.
“Perhaps you can be you now,” Barbara Lamartini said.
Laborde put his hands over his face. “Can’t you just tell it simply? Please, for godsakes, just simply.”
The woman nodded to the old man, who looked to be a hundred years old, and he said, “There are just some people who live life more fully than others. Take, oh, I don’t know, take Scott Fitzgerald or Hemingway or Winston Churchill or Amelia Earhart. Everybody’s heard their names, but how many people have read much Hemingway or Fitzgerald, or even Churchill’s—” He stopped. The woman was giving him that look. He grinned sheepishly.
“There are just some people who live their lives at a fuller pace. And it’s as if they’ve lived two or three lifetimes in the same time it takes others to get through just one mild, meager, colorless life, one sad and sorry—”
He stopped again.
“Barbara, you’d better do it. I’ve waited too long. I’m just running off at the mouth like an old fart.”
She put a hand on his thin shoulder to comfort him, and said, “You were one of the passionate ones. You lived at a hotter level. And every now and then, every once in a while, you just leached off someone’s life who wasn’t up to the living of it. You’re a magpie. You came by, whenever it was, 1492, 1756, 1889, 1943 . . . we don’t know how far back you go . . . but you passed by, and someone wearing a life so loosely, so unused, that it just came off; and you wore it away, and added it on, and you just kept going, which way it didn’t matter, without looking back, not even knowing.
“And, finally, the last of us followed the thread that was never broken, the umbilicus of each of us, and we came and found you, to try and get back what was left.”
“Because it’s clear,” said Howard Strausser, “that you’re tired of it. And don’t know how to get out of it. But—”
They sighed almost as one, and Barbara Lamartini said, “There isn’t enough of either of us left to take back. We’ll be gone, passed through very soon.”
“Then you’re on your own,” Howard Strausser said.
“You’ll be living what portion has been allotted to you,” the woman said, and Ben could see through the holes where her milky eyes had been.
And they sat there into the deepening twilight, in Hudson, Iowa; and they talked; and there was nothing he could do for them; and finally the woman said, “We don’t blame you. It was our own damned fault. We just weren’t up to the doing of it, the living of our own lives.” What was left of her shrugged, and Laborde asked her to tell him all she could of the others they had known, so he could try to remember them and fit to their memories the parts of his own life that he had taken.
And by midnight, he was sitting there alone.
And he fell asleep, arms wrapped around himself, in the chilly September night, knowing that when he arose the next day, the first day of a fresh life, he would retrace his steps in many ways; and that one of the things he would do would be to return to New Orleans.
To go to the Parish Coroner, and to have exhumed the body of Jane Doe #112; to have it dug out of the black loam of Potter’s Field near City Park and to carry it back to West Texas; to bury the child who had never been allowed to be Doris Burton where she would have lived her life. Pale as opal glass, she had passed through and whispered away, on the last night of the poor thing that had been her existence; seeking out the only friend she had been allowed to have, on a noisy street in the French Quarter.
The least he could do was to be her last friend, to carry her home by way of cheap restitution.
RAY GARTON
Shock Radio
SINCE THE MID-1980S, Ray Garton has been carving a niche for himself as one of the hot young writers of erotic horror fiction, although he actively resists the “Splatterpunk” label. After the early novels Seductions and Darklings, and a couple of movie novelizations, he hit his stride with Live Girls and Crucifax Autumn.
Since then he has published Trade Secrets, his first non-horror thriller, and Lot Lizards, a truck-stop vampire novel. His first collection of short fiction, Methods of Madness, has been nominated for a Bram Stoker Award and a novella from that collection, “Dr Krusadian’s Method” (also a Stoker nominee), turns up in the anthology Cafe Pergatorium.
A New Age horror novel, Dark Channel, is due at the end of 199
1 and he is currently working on In a Dark Place, a non-fiction book about a Connecticut family who moved into a house that used to be a funeral home, where they were plagued by the devil and his minions (“a la Amityville Horror”).
Garton lives in Northern California with his wife Dawn and, as a hobby, has a collection of nearly 900 movies on video. “Other than that,” he explains, “there is absoltutely nothing interesting about me. I spend most of my time writing which, to anyone who doesn’t write, is very boring. Hell, half the time it’s boring to me.”
We don’t think you’ll be bored by the story that follows . . .
THE STUDIO WAS DARK but for a soft lamp over the console and, after being cued by the engineer who sat with the producer beyond a long rectangular window, the man leaned toward the microphone suspended before his face, touched his fingertips to the headphones through which he could hear his show’s theme music and said, “You’re listening to the Arthur Colton, Jr., Show and we’re back! We have a few more minutes with my guest Melissa Cartwright, who is joining us by phone from Liberal Central, San Francisco, California. Miss Cart—excuse me . . . Mizzz Cartwright—is a writer, a feminist and, in my opinion, another of the whining castrators who has found a way to take out her aggressions and make a fast buck by writing a book about the evil that men do. Not people, but men, who, according to Mizzz Cartwright, are inherently evil simply because they have been born men.” He smirked and winked at Harry, the engineer, who laughed silently beyond the glass.
“No, no, Arthur,” Melissa Cartwright said, “that’s not what I’m saying at all and you know it. I simply want to—”
“Let’s go back to the phones.” Arthur Colton, Jr., whose real name was Andy Craig, looked at the computer screen before him where the words TAMPA, FLA-FRIEND glowed in amber. “Tampa, Florida, you’re on the air.”
“Yeah, uh, Arthur?”
“Yessir, you’re on the air.”
“Yeah, Arthur, my name’s Tom and I’m just calling, uuhhh, to tell you that you’re, y’know, uh, right. You’re right.”
“I know I’m right, sir, that’s why I’m the host and you’re the caller. Do you have a question for our guest?”
“Yeah. I do. I’d like to ask Miss Carter—”
“Cartwright,” Andy snapped. “Read my lips: Cart-wright.”
“Yeah, okay, Miss Cartwright. I’d like to ask her exactly where she thinks women would be without men, huh? I mean, like, through history, y’know? Where do you think? And, uuhhh, I’ll take my answer off the air.”
Melissa Cartwright said, “I’m very sorry, Tom, this is not your fault, but I’m afraid there’s been a misunderstanding here. It is not my opinion that men are inherently evil or dishonest or even ignorantly wrong. All I’m saying is that we have to find a way to—”
“It’s very clear what you’re saying, Mizzz Cartwright,” Andy interrupted. “Your book, Women in Crisis, Men in Power—which, for those of you interested in this kind of whiney propaganda, is published by Putnam—is clearly the manifesto of someone who feels that all of our problems are the result of men and the works of men. Now, I would appreciate it if you’d answer my caller’s question, which is quite straightforward. Okay? Oookay. Now, let’s hear it.”
She was silent for a long time—too long—and Andy was about to speak again to fill the dead air, but she spoke first. Slowly and coldly.
“I think that . . . to speculate on the position of women . . . without the presence of men . . . throughout history . . . would be asinine.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.” The screen read WINSTON-SALEM, NC-FOE. “Winston-Salem, you’re on the air.”
“Yeah, Arthur, I listen to your show a lot and I just wanna say that I think you’re being a little hard on your guest, okay?”
“And why is that, sir?”
“Because I’ve read her book and, as a man, I can say that I think she’s—”
“Wait-wait-wait a second here. You read her book? What, you enjoy being castrated? What, you like having a woman chew your balls off? And you call yourself a man?”
“That’s exactly my point, Mr Colton, you’re interviewing her and you probably haven’t even read the book.”
“Well, of course I haven’t read the book! I like my balls!”
“But you rely on name-calling rather than discussion to make your point, when really you have no point to—”
Andy punched a button on the panel, cutting the caller off, and sneered, “You have a good time, sir.”
Melissa Cartwright released an explosive breath over the phone and Andy could imagine her rolling her eyes as he flashed a grin at Harry; it was his this-is-good-radio grin.
“Redlands, California, you’re on the air.”
“Yes, Arthur?” an elderly woman said.
“You’re on the air, ma’am, please get to your question.”
“Well, I’d just like to say that I’m seventy-nine years old and I don’t understand how your guest—what’s her name? Cartwright?—can possibly suggest that all men are evil. Speaking from experience, I can say that I’ve—”
Miss Cartwright interrupted firmly: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but you and the rest of the listeners are being misled by Mr Colton. I am not saying that men are evil. I’m simply saying that our culture—along with many other cultures—has given women a back seat in everything and it’s time to—”
“I’m sorry,” Andy said as the theme music came up, “but we’ve run out of time. I’d like to thank my guest, Melissa Cartwright, whose book Women in Crisis, Men in Power, is, for some reason, number two on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list. Thank you for joining us, Mizzz Cartwright, it’s been an education, if nothing else. We’re coming up on the news, then we’ll be back with open lines. Stick around.”
As Andy leaned back in his chair and removed his headphones, he heard Melissa Cartwright’s pinched voice calling from them, “Mr Colton? Mr Colton?” He glanced at Tanya, the producer, waved toward the phone and picked up the receiver, saying, “Yes?”
She struggled to control her voice. “I’m very disappointed, Mr Colton. I was told you were going to interview me about my book. I didn’t know this was going to be the broadcast equivalent of stocks and public humiliation. I didn’t know it was going to be an inquisition.”
“Oh, please, Ms Cartwright, don’t take it personally. It’s just the way I do the show.”
She paused. “I’m sorry? Pardon me?”
He shook his head and chuckled. This always puzzled him. Didn’t they understand it was just a show? That it was just show business? “Have you ever heard my show, Ms Cartwright?”
“No, I haven’t. And after tonight, I have no intention of listening.”
“Well, if you had,” he said gently, “you’d realize that this is just the way the show goes, okay? I mean, think about it. My audience is made up of very conservative, aggressive people who want more than just an interview, okay? Otherwise they’d be listening to Larry King. They want fireworks, you know? So please, Ms Cartwright. Don’t take this personally. I have nothing against you or your book or your opinion. In fact, you’re probably right, I don’t know. Anyway, I really appreciate your good sportsmanship. It’s just show business, you know?”
Another pause, longer this time. “You appreciate what?”
“Your good sportsmanship.”
She laughed, but it was an angry laugh. “Are you serious?”
“Sure I’m serious. Look, it’s just a show, okay? I mean, you want compassion, call Talk Net. You want indepth questions, you go on Nightline. And on my show, you get confrontation and a lot of yelling.”
“And name-calling and humiliation and some pretty obscene sexist insults.”
“Well, that too. But you can’t take it personally. It’s the nature of the show. You got to make your point and plug your book, right? Myself? I think you’re an interesting, intelligent woman. What I say on the show really means nothing.”
A cold chuckle. �
�In other words . . . you’re a whore.” She hung up.
Andy rolled his eyes as he replaced the receiver. Why was it so hard for them to understand? Why did so many people get so upset? Not that he minded; they were his best publicity and stirred the controversy that made his show the number one late night radio talk show in the country. He just didn’t understand what made them so furious. “About li’l ol’ me,” he muttered, leaving the studio and heading to the lounge for coffee.
Laurence Olivier had once played a hideous Nazi, but did anyone accuse him of actually being one? Of course not. They praised his performance; he was simply a great actor. Nobody accused Stephen King of being a sick bloodthirsty monster, did they? Well, maybe a few . . . but surely they didn’t really believe it; he was just a very good writer. But when it came to The Arthur Colton, Jr., Show, otherwise rational people began to foam at the mouth, pound fists into palms and scream for a public hanging. It made no sense.
He’d used that argument with Katherine, a former girlfriend back in Cincinnati who had been irate about the content of his show. It hadn’t worked.
“That’s different!” she’d exclaimed. “What they do is fiction. Everyone knows that what Olivier and King do is fiction! You, however, are hosting a talk show! You’re shaping opinions, manipulating them! You aren’t writing a novel or acting in a movie. People listen to what you say. They respect it, they take it seriously. And for you to go on that show and say the barbaric things you say to boost your ratings—things you don’t even mean—is obscene, Andy!”
It had just been a local show which, for the first four months, was just straight talk with a few guests and a couple hours of open phones; Andy had never expressed an opinion, just kept the conversation going. The ratings were bleak, so he’d listened carefully to his audience, looking for something he could use to breathe life into the show, trying to figure out what they wanted. One night it occurred to him: they were angry and they wanted to scream and shout and kick furniture and if they couldn’t do it, they wanted someone to do it for them. His listeners were fed up with everything from crime and poverty to crooked politicians and unfair laws and they wanted someone with a voice—a loud, powerful voice—to represent them.
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