Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  He could practically taste freedom in the dusty air.

  Even sneaking in through his bedroom window at three A.M. and for the first time in his life, not getting caught and punished—even that was something.

  “Wonder what the Bone’s up to.” Than pointed again toward the opposite side of the highway.

  Peter saw something moving, but it didn’t seem to be quite a man. Low, down along the scrub, between thatches of tumbleweed, the crusted-over old lizard wriggled. Peter had heard about Bonyface now and then at school, but had never actually experienced a sighting. It was as good as seeing a UFO because the Bone was supposed to be like a chameleon, able to blend in with the desert perfectly. Actual sightings were rare and somewhat suspect. The only evidence of him, they said, were the Thunderbird bottles strewn along the Wash.

  “He sees everything that goes on in this hellhole,” Than said. “I bet he watched you fall into the pit last night. I bet he sat there and laughed and drank his Thunderbird. I bet he knows what everybody does in this town. C’mon.”

  Than tugged at Peter’s dirty tee shirt. “Let’s check him out. He’s good for a laugh.”

  Than hobbled ahead of Peter. The sun burned, turning the world into a griddle, its heat seeping right through Peter’s sandals. His ankle still hurt where he’d twisted it, and he was still a little cotton-mouthed from a bitch of a hangover. His dad had hauled him out of bed by nine and told him to get his ass out and find a job, it was almost fucking July and he hadn’t earned a penny, what kind of goddamned lazy son was he raising, anyway? His mother grabbed Annie and fled to church—the Baptist church over in Upperville, where she could avoid reality for at least one day.

  Life as usual.

  Peter was sick of this one-horse town; somehow, he knew his life had to change, one way or another, because right now, it was just frying.

  “Peter!” Than turned, raising his hand, waving him on through the shimmering heat that rose and curved off the bitter highway. “Come on, we can have fun with the Bone!”

  4

  “Boyz,” Bonyface said, covering his face with his leather venous hands, “you leave the old Bone alone, now, you hear? Leave him alone. I know who sent you, that Devil, torment the Bone, but gitalong outta here now.” He kicked his feet out, shooing up flies and small pebbles. He was barefoot, and Peter noticed that there were thorns and burrs and foxtails stuck in the flesh along his toes and soles. A mangy-looking gray tabby cat followed alongside him, rubbing up against his ankles. Seeing that the boys weren’t going away, the Bone dropped his hands from his face and settled down.

  “Jesus,” Peter gasped upon seeing his face. It was studded with what appeared to be small, silvery thumbtacks. Through his lips, a chain ran all the way up to his left nostril; along his ears, several small gold crosses pierced the lobes.

  Than apparently knew what the Bone looked like—this didn’t surprise him. “He’s into body piercing or something. He’s like a human dartboard.”

  Bonyface, watching the disgust on Peter’s face almost evaporate, kept it alive by saying, “Look here, boyz.”

  He grinned, his mouth open wide. There were small fishhooks thrust into his gums around his teeth, and two through his tongue. The old man reached in and, carefully, as if he were working a splinter, drew a tiny hook from the pink, receding flesh of his gum, and held it before them. “It don’t hurt, boyz, it don’t hurt. It’s atonement for my sins—atonement ain’t about hurtin’, it’s more’ bout sufferin’. You wanna know about sin? Ask that godless Beekeeper in the big house. That’s a soul knows all about sin. My hooks, they ain’t bad. It feels good, as a matter o’ fact, it feels damn good. Wanna see something more? Something real special? Something you ain’t never seen before?”

  “Yeah,” Than said, grinning.

  Peter took a step back. “I better get home,” he said.

  “Chicken,” Than said.

  “Yeah.” Bonyface nodded. “Chicken. Bwawk-bok-bwawk!” He folded his elbows up and flapped them. His skin was pale worm-white around the armpits, and like burnt steak on the forearms and up by the shoulders. “You don’t want to know’ bout no devils in this town, but the Bone, he sees ‘em. They been here before, in that devil girl, and the Beekeeper called ‘em back, that one did. Can’t help it, no sah. You can try to kill all your babies, but if one lives, it’s bound to its nature, just like a scorpion’s bound to its stinger, and a rattier to its poison spit, a dog to its bite—you follow? But I know how to stop her, boyz, and none of yous is gonna listen to the Old Bone, is ya? Demon’s back. Only way to stop her is divide it up and serve it raw and ripe.”

  Than said, “I don’t believe in demons, Bone. I don’t think I do. Not really.”

  Bonyface laughed, and slapped his thigh, turned to his cat and said, “Hear that, Isaac? This boy don’t believe in what’s all around us. You want to talk demons, boyz, you come see the Bone sometime. I got lotsa books with pitchers.”

  Peter tapped Than on the shoulder. “Let’s go, Than.”

  “You go,” Than said. “See if I care.”

  “C’mon, Than, this is too weird.”

  “Looky looky,” the Bone said, and brought a handkerchief from his back pocket.

  “C’mon,” Peter said, but even saying this he wanted to see what the weirdo had to show.

  The Bone delicately unwrapped the handkerchief, a trail of spittle hanging at the edge of his studded mouth. “The Beekeeper wanted this, but Bone was watching, and Bone run up and git it ‘fore the Beekeeper got to it. Looky looky.”

  The handkerchief was spread backward, and Peter thought that what was in the middle of it was a small, curled starfish, or perhaps a large, dead tarantula.

  “Holy shit,” Than said. “It’s a hand!”

  Peter lip-farted. “Nah. It’s fake.” He reached over and touched it, and then withdrew his fingers as if he’d just touched a live wire. He rubbed his fingers together.

  Bonyface had a lopsided grin, and when he opened his mouth, it was pure one hundred-proof. “Hush now, boyz, Bone don’t want nobody comin’ over and takin’ it. It ain’t just a hand, boyz, it’s a Hand of Glory, a murderer’s hand, it’s got bad magic all around it, it crawls inside you and stays there. I seen it, I seen it all, what the wild thing did to him, tore him limb from limb, I saw the demon come outta him, I saw the wild thing drink the demon juice, too much at one draught, I saw the dark thing crawl into her, passed back to her after all these years—all it wanted to do was get home, its home, its nest. I saw it with these two eyes, and I got me a souvenir. Looky,” he said, and with his free hand, plucked a fishhook from his skin and jabbed it into the center of the curled Hand of Glory.

  The finger twitched. “It’s powerful, boyz, you get near it, it’s like fire, gives off heat, burns into your brains, into your dreams

  Peter and Than almost jumped back, but the old man laughed, and covered the hand up again. He smacked his lips. “Only protection from the Devil’s if you drink the demon juice, best from the heart, that’ll stop it for sure.” His nose wrinkled up like he was smelling something bad. “Don’t like demons, no sir, but just some blood is good, only not too much or you get ‘fected with it yourself. You go like this...” He lifted the hand up to his mouth, nipping the edge of the thumb.

  And sucked.

  By the time he stopped to take a breath, blood on his lips, the two boys were gone.

  5

  “Jeez,” Than said after he and Peter got out of there. “Holy mother. Creepy, huh?”

  “That man is insane,” Peter said. “My dad’s always talking about the feebs in this town... I touched that thing.”

  “Maybe you’ll get some disease. The Bone disease.”

  Peter looked at his left hand, the one that touched the hand. He brought it up to his nose. Sniffed it.

  “What’s it smell like?”

  Peter thrust his hand under Than’s nose. Than jumped back. “Holy shit!”

  “Smells like a dead animal,
” Peter said. “God, Than, I just want to get it off me.” He wiped his hand on the side of his shirt, and then brought it back up to his face. “I can still smell it. Yuck.”

  Than looked about the mournful highway, to the south, the trailer parks, but they were too far and they’d just come from there. To the north was the beginning of Palmetto, and the Magnificent Diner was over on the other side of the road.

  Then there was the Garden of Eden, with its yellow walls. “Let’s go to the diner,” Than said. “I’m kinda hungry, and you can go wash up.”

  But Peter had spotted, not twenty feet away, a spigot on one of Eden’s walls, and began walking toward it. The gate to the great house was slightly ajar, and Peter walked right up to it. He bent over the spigot and turned the rusty lever until brown water came out. It turned clear, and he thrust his hand under it. It was warm. He squatted down and rubbed his hand in the soil, and then under the running water again. The spigot squealed as the water came out. He shut the water off. He sniffed his hand. “Pretty much gone.” He turned around to look for his friend, but Than was standing a ways back by the road. He had to shield his eyes with his hands in order to see him through the glare of the sun. “What’s the matter?”

  Than said nothing, but watched the house. He rubbed his left ankle over his right.

  Peter got up, wiping his wet hands on his shorts. He heard a sound, and turned to look over the iron gate. Inside, there was a garden, growing wild, vines snaking across vines, flowers blooming almost unnaturally, and between the plants, dozens of gray wooden boxes, all stacked against the walls, with a thin path to the front door. Above some of the flowering plants were pink bed sheets, spread like tents, no doubt to provide shade for the more delicate specimens. A bee flew past his head, over the gate, and down into the garden. Peter noticed that other bees flew about, flower to flower, in and out of the boxes.

  They must waste a hell of a lot of water to grow all those flowers up here.

  He had never seen a garden like it on the desert, anywhere. Oh, there was the retired colonel out on Canyon Road, with his drought-resistant garden, and there were some cactus gardens in the back of some of the tract houses. Nothing could compare with what was within this garden.

  What amazed him most of all were the squat trees—three of them, beneath the narrow windows of the house: orange trees. There were small, round, green oranges hanging from the branches; the dull yellow and orange ones had already dropped to the ground. Peter stood on his toes to see further into the garden. It was so beautiful; he had no idea that anything was this beautiful in this wasteland. Closed his eyes—smelled lemon, honeysuckle, orange blossom, and a rich fertile stink, as if the earth itself within those walls was one huge mulch pile giving forth seedlings. The sound of the bees surrounded him, and he pushed the gate a bit. It opened further.

  He took a step forward.

  “Peter!” Than called out. “C’mon!”

  Peter glanced back. Than was waving wildly, like he had to go to the bathroom or something.

  He looked at the garden again.

  Eden.

  There were roses on latticework, climbing up the walls of the house, the sand-yellow Walls, cracked from time. Just like Gramma’s garden in Cook County, the rose vines, and the wisteria, before Gramma died, before Dad began drinking so much, before Mom lost it. He had been nine when his grandmother had died, and it was one of the worst things in his life because she had been his protector, and seemed to keep Mom safe, too. She would sit with him in her garden for hours reading stories about knights and dragons and rescuing fair damsels from high towers. It was like this place, a sanctuary. He wondered, for a second, if the oranges tasted good. There were still small, white blossoms on the trees, and the bees circled the branches like jeweled bracelets.

  Then he noticed something else.

  From one of the long windows, a face.

  At first he thought it was an infant’s face, staring out from a dark room, and he felt a chill run along his spine.

  But when it moved—for whoever was there noticed him—he saw not a baby; it was a woman staring out at him.

  6

  “Get away from here,” Than said, grabbing him by the shoulder. “Peter, come on, man.”

  Peter felt as if something had slipped beneath the surface of his skin, and he almost jumped when Than touched him.

  “I thought you said it was locked,” Peter said,

  “It used to be. A kid went in there a buncha years ago,” Than said. “And almost got stung to death. By a gazillion bees. He just got over the walls, and he fell into one of those boxes. The County Health Department came out and tried to get the Beekeeper to get rid of them, but they couldn’t do it. The kid was trespassing. The kid knew the bees were there. The kid was allergic to bees. That was the story. He was eight years old, man. But I heard something else.” Than’s voice dropped to a whisper, as if he were afraid of being overheard by something in the house. “But it’s all bullshit, I guess.”

  Peter listened intently, glancing back and forth to the stacks of boxes, the vines, and the pale green leaves.

  “C’mon, I hate this place. Whoever lives in there doesn’t want kids around, believe you me. And anyway, I’m hungry. Let’s go to Trudy’s.”

  “You’re always hungry.”

  “Hey, I’m a growing boy. You comin’ or ain’tcha?”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The Magnificent Diner, Love at First Sight, and Joe Chandler

  1

  Trudy Virtue ran the Magnificent Diner just the Palmetto side of the highway. It was a brief walk in searing heat that made it seem like a mile. Once the boys got inside the chrome-and-wood diner car, the air conditioning was going full blast. Than picked out a dark wood booth, part of the diner add-on, and sat down. Out the window, you could see Hunt’s Garage, and, just the other end of the diner, the beginning of the fountain of Palmetto goods and services: the All-Nite Rx and Sundries, a Baskin-Robbins, the Shoe Brothers Laundromat, and a Christian Science Reading Room. The diner was lit like a hospital ward—too quiet, pale green, and smelling of rubbing alcohol, because Trudy kept it so damn clean. Three men sat up at the counter while a woman and her little girl sat at the small round table. The jukebox wasn’t even playing; Peter dropped a quarter in the selector at his table, but nothing played, and the quarter came back out. The one bald man sitting opposite Peter and Than had to put his hat back on his head because the shine from his scalp was too much for Trudy Virtue, the giantess with bad eyesight. Her booming voice ripped through the silence like a cannon. “Can’t see in my own place, mister, you should go work for Edison, make some real money. Now, where the hell is my waitress? Anybody seen the girl who’s supposed to be working here?” She was larger than life, with a head the size of a melon, and big liver lips, and eyes like a fish. She wore an old-fashioned waitress uniform that was too small for her, and she turned to Than and Peter and snapped, “What’ll it be?”

  “Pie,” Than said immediately. “Boysenberry pie.”

  “Out. Ran out of it this morning, ten A.M.” she said, then, looking at Peter. “You gonna eat, kid, or just watch my tits?”

  “I wasn’t—” he said.

  She waved her stubby pencil in front of him like it was a magic wand. “You was, you was. We got specials, we got ham steak, we got liver and onions, we got homemade guacamole and carnitas, we got apple pie.”

  “Apple,” Than corrected his order. “With ice cream.”

  “You want cheese with it, not ice cream, Nathaniel. Apple pie without cheese is like a kiss without a squeeze.” She grinned, showing six perfectly yellowed teeth on the top, with gold fillings back to the hinterlands of her throat.

  “Ice cream,” he insisted. “Vanilla.”

  “You?” she turned back to Peter.

  “Just a Coke.”

  “Just a Coke,” she said flatly, and walked back to the kitchen, shouting. “Where the hell is my waitress?”

  And then, for Peter, one
of the wonders of existence, the mystery of all human mysteries, showed its face for once in his life.

  Emerging from the back of the diner was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. Each time he saw her, he tried to deny that, but it was like denying breath, or denying heartbeat. She wasn’t the most beautiful girl in existence, he knew that, but something about her overtook him, captured him, and he didn’t think he would ever quite feel that. She wore a blue-checkered dress with a grease-stained apron; her hair was drawn back in a ponytail, although a stray shock of it had come loose and hung down over her forehead; her eyes were the darkest brown, and her nervous smile seemed to lift the entire diner out of its doldrums. He had even seen her before in school, but never like this, and he realized that the diner truly was Magnificent. She stood there while Trudy bawled her out (“You sneak cigarettes, you do it on your own time, honey,” “I wasn’t I was just...” “Just go take this out to booth two.”), and all Peter saw was that she was sweeter and more lovely now in this setting, slightly beleaguered, with just a touch of rebellion to those lips, than when he’d noticed her at school. Alison Hunt.

  “It’s Urqu’s girl,” Than said.

  “I wish she were mine.”

  She approached the table, with the Coke in her left hand, a glass of ice water in her right. Peter noticed that she had a locket around her neck, in the shape of a heart. Slow motion, she came to him, carefully balancing her burdens, not yet noticing who she was waiting on; she seemed flustered and a little lost. Alison Wonderland. She wasn’t like Wendy, although Peter compared the two for a moment in his head: Wendy was rough and wild and trashy, but Alison, Alison Hunt was sweet and had kindness in her eyes. He felt something that possibly only fifteen-year-old boys feel, that fleeting moment of wanting to marry her and have children with her and grow old with her. There were other, more hormonally encouraged thoughts, too. But God, she was pretty. Without wanting to, he sighed as she set the Coke down.