Are You There and Other Stories

by Jack Skillingstead

  “You’re guessing it would have been. But maybe the stories in your head don’t become real. Maybe they’re just stories in your head. Did she tell you that you reminded her of the high school crush?”

  Neil looked at his coffee mug. “No.”

  “See? Maybe she liked you for being you, for bothering to stop and ask if she was all right. For your kind face, even. Is that so outlandish? Maybe you don’t have any weird power.”

  “You’re forgetting something.”

  “What?”

  The Men’s Room door opened. Neil tensed, slopping coffee over the rim of his mug, then relaxed when the pony-tailed-hippie-looking guy stepped out, wiping his hands on his jeans.

  “What, what is it?” Freya asked.

  Neil slumped, placed his mug on the table. He rubbed his eyes.

  “What you’re forgetting is all that stuff I know about you. The cat, Roger, the rough sex, all that.”

  Freya blushed. “Maybe—”

  “Maybe what?”

  “I was thinking, maybe it’s that you read minds?”

  “I don’t read minds.” He looked disgusted. “Jesus, that pseudo science stuff is reaching.”

  “It makes more sense than the other thing. There’s at least some scientific basis for mind-reading.” (She was remembering an X-Files episode.) “What if you read minds without even knowing it? So you think it’s a story you’re making up, but it’s the truth to begin with. What about that?”

  He gave her a weary up-from-under look.

  “Never mind,” Freya said. “What happened with your bank girl?”

  “I told you: Nothing.”

  “You didn’t go out, or see her again?”

  “No. She wouldn’t have wanted to see me again. I just caught her at a vulnerable moment.”

  “That’s a dumb way to think,” Freya said. “Trust me. You know what your problem is?”

  “Tell me, I think I need to hear it.”

  “You’re afraid to let anybody know who you really are.” (She was thinking of a Dr. Phil book, but that didn’t invalidate the point.)

  “Something funny? I don’t even know who I am. A long time ago—a long time ago, I think, I started telling stories about myself. Maybe it was because I was always alone, it seemed like, when I was a kid. It wasn’t such a happy home, all that crap you might expect. So I’d make stuff up, to escape. And the stuff was in my dreams, too. Maybe mostly in my dreams. You know dreams, there’s no bullshit. It’s the unconscious giving us what we think we deserve. But there’s something else, and you’re going to think I’m nutty, but what if when I started out I wasn’t even human? Because about half the time I don’t feel human even now.”

  “Neil?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You’re nutty.”

  “I told you,” he said. “You should have believed me.”

  “How could you not be human? What else is there?”

  “Listen. I travel around a lot. I used to like big cities, because there were so many people, so it seemed like it was less lonely, but it wasn’t. I’d hang out in my crappy apartment, go out to coffee shops, the movies, but I was always by myself. All those other people, it got depressing. So then I went the small town route. Like I had this idea it’d be Mayberry, you know, Andy Griffith, all that. But it wasn’t. People in those towns are suspicious as hell about outsiders. I feel like I’m at the end of my options. I’m tired.”

  “How come you get to live in all these different places? What do you do for money?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “Ah.”

  “You mean ah-ha. Right? Well, you’re wrong. It’s natural that I’d be a writer. Like if you have a talent for constructive empathy you might be a counselor, or even a teacher, for instance. I have a talent for making stuff up.”

  “Well, Neil.”

  “What?”

  “The last time I looked, writers are human like the rest of us.”

  “Most of them are, I guess. Personally I don’t get along with the ones I know. They’re all kind of weird.”

  “Thank goodness you’re not.”

  “Yeah, thank goodness.”

  “So what did you mean by not being human?”

  “You ever see 2001, that Kubrick movie?”

  “Of course.”

  “Remember at the end, the Star Child is floating in space above the Earth? That’s what I think sometimes.”

  “What is what you think sometimes?”

  “That I started out like that, like some kind of Star Child, and I was having a dream and the dream became a planet, and the planet became populated with all these really interesting beings full of possibilities and contradictions, and it looked like so much fun I dropped into the dream myself, but I never really fit. And when I sleep, because I’m so lonely and insane, my unconscious desires to just wreck the whole thing boil up, and we get wars and pestilence and all that. What do you think?”

  “I think you think too much.”

  “Jesus, I hate it when people say that. How can anybody think ‘too much’?”

  “Wait a minute. What kind of writer are you?”

  “I suppose if I told you I was a science fiction writer you’d do a double ah-ha.”

  “Are you a science fiction writer?”

  “I saw a revival of that movie when I was a little kid,” Neil said, as if she’d asked him a different question. “2001. My mom dropped me off, by myself. I think because the movie was so long. Like to get rid of me for a while? Well, who can blame her.”

  “Was your father around?”

  Neil didn’t answer. He looked at the Men’s Room door and chewed his lip.

  “What is it with the bathroom?” Freya said.

  “That genie-looking son of a bitch.”

  “What about him?”

  “On the bus I was afraid I’d dream something bad if I fell asleep, something I was afraid of but wanted very much. And I think I did that. All I know is, I mean I wanted to die. Freya, I wanted to die. I was tired of everybody else’s life and not having one of my own, my true one. Never knowing who I was supposed to be, never having a companion. I had even started resenting other people’s lives, hating them. Why should I go on living, why should anybody else get to? You know the drill. That kind of solipsistic crap they find in somebody’s note after the latest massacre. I mean that isn’t what I wanted, but it might be what my secret warped unconscious heart wanted. And that guy, that genie guy, I think he’s going to give me my wish, my secret desire. Because he’s at the end of his rope, too, and he’s ready to go off. He’s ready to go off like a stick of dynamite. You better get out of here, Freya. Right now.”

  The Men’s Room door banged opened, and the bald man appeared.

  Freya grabbed Neil’s hand, and he squeezed it hard enough to grind the bones.

  The bald man walked by their table, looking glum, and resumed his seat at the counter. A few minutes later the driver announced it was time to board.

  Freya swallowed. “Maybe your warped unconscious heart dreamed up some other secret desire you’re afraid of,” she said.

  He stared at her.

  *

  On the Greyhound traveling southwest through the desert, Freya said:

  “What are you going to do when we get to Phoenix?”

  “I don’t know. Get back on the bus? I don’t really like hot weather that much.”

  “Why don’t you hang around awhile? It’s a dry heat, you know.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “Neil?”

  “Hmm?”

  “How did you really know all those things about me and Roger?”

  “I hypnotized you.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I’m going with the mind-reading idea.”

  They sat quietly for a while, which was easy and comfortable. Freya got her book out but didn’t open it. She tapped the cover.

  “To think,” she sai
d, “I used to like this crap.”

  “Shocking.”

  “I mean before I transformed into the Freya from a parallel dimension with better taste. Thanks, by the way. ‘Fear and desire,’ ” she quoted, reading the dust jacket copy.

  “Who needs it?” Neil said.

  “Right.”

  She dropped the book on the floor and nudged it under the seat with her foot.

  “I’ll leave it for the next passenger.”

  They rode along, and after a while Neil closed his hand over hers and squeezed it gently. Not like in the diner, when he thought a homicidal maniac, a monster from his id, was going to come out of the Men’s Room with guns blazing.

  “The fear part, anyway,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Who needs it,” he said.

  Author’s Notes

  The oldest story in this collection is “Double Occupancy.” Technically, it was my first sale, and occurred in 1995—seven years before Gardner Dozois bought “Dead Worlds” and made me a household name—even if it was only in my own house. I say “technically” because, though I received a check for $150, the story didn’t appear in print.

  If anyone’s interested, here’s how publishing works sometimes: Back in the early 1990s I saw a listing in The Gila Queen’s Guide to Markets. It was for a new magazine called A Different Beat. They wanted genre stories with a law enforcement element. Beyond that, anything went. I gave it a try, writing an old school Stephen King-influenced horror story about a couple of state troopers encountering Lovecraftian monsters in the Cascade Mountains. The assistant editor, an MIT student named Michael McComas, worked with me over a period a few months to accomplish several re-writes. I felt optimistic. I felt this was my lucky story, the one that was going to make it, the one with legs.

  After completing the last rewrite request I sat back and waited, fairly certain I had a sale. A year later I wasn’t so sure. I wrote to Mike and asked him what was up. My letter was a little cranky. When he got back to me he seemed surprised that I didn’t know they had bought the story. And by the way, A Different Beat was no longer a magazine but a trade paperback anthology. Wow! I was in! Another year or so passed. I wrote to ask how it was going. Mike informed me that the senior editor was having personal problems and no one could get at the manuscripts for the book, which were locked away in her house. Eventually the other senior editor, and earthbound angel, Dawn Albright, took over the project. She made sure all the contributors got paid, but still the book didn’t appear.

  Years slipped by . . . and I felt that defeat had been snatched from the jaws of victory. I had a first sale, but it didn’t feel anything like what it was supposed to feel like. During this period I was still writing stories, a few of them good, but I was running out of optimism. Even the gloomiest writers flourish only because of a fundamental and largely illogical optimism. When the optimism runs out, so do the stories—and occasionally the writer.

  Jump ahead a few years. Stephen King publishes his book On Writing. In the middle of it he invites readers to try an exercise in writing from a situation. The situation was simple and appealed to me, so I gave it a shot. I have no idea why. By this time I was out of optimism. Like dead out. A year later I get an email from Marsha DeFilippo, King’s personal assistant. I was one of five winners. Stephen would like to post your story on his website . . . Optimism raised her weary head and attempted a smile.

  I got organized.

  And I returned to an old love—science fiction. The first new story I wrote was “Dead Worlds.” Right before Gardner picked it up for Asimov’s in August of 2002, I received a couple of other acceptances from a guy who ran Undaunted Press, a small publishing concern somewhere in the Midwest. But Gardner’s acceptance was the Big One. I worked nights, and when I returned home, weary and discouraged after nine hours in the factory, I stood in the kitchen and opened the mail. As I read Gardner’s letter, which was all of two sentences, I got teary. That’s how a first sale is supposed to hit you, I think. At the time, I was married to my first wife, and she asked me what was wrong. I told her a letter I’d been waiting for finally arrived. It was twenty years late, but nothing’s perfect, and the twenty years were my fault, not anybody else’s.

  The newest story in this book* is “The Avenger of Love,” which started out as a collaboration with Harlan Ellison, though I ended up doing this version by myself and selling it to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, which I’d been trying to crack since, roughly, The Dawn Of Time. Most of the other stories were written and sold after “Dead Worlds,” but a few, “Reunion,” “The Tree,” and “The Apprentice” are from the period of disorganization and diminishing optimism. They are survivors.

  Interestingly, right about the time Gary Turner accepted this collection for Golden Gryphon, I heard from Dawn Albright. It had been years. She was starting an online magazine and wanted, at long last, to publish “Double Occupancy”—twice! First in the online mag, then in a print anthology,** due out about the same time as Are You There and Other Stories. I cleared it with Gary and signed a new contract with Dawn. Gary claims that “Double Occupancy” is his favorite story in the book. For all I know, it tipped the scale in my favor when he was deciding whether or not to make my agent an offer. I guess life, or the writing life, anyway, is circular.

  I’d like to thank the editors who have bought stories from me over the years. In chronological order: Sandra Hutchinson, Dawn Albright, Cullen Bunn, Gardner Dozois, Diane Walton, Sheila Williams, Rich Horton, Patrick Swenson, Shawna McCarthy, Lou Anders, George Mann, Gary Turner, and Gordon Van Gelder.

  I’d also like to thank Nancy Kress, who surprised me when she offered to write the introduction to my as-yet unsold collection.*** And John Picacio, who created the cover art. He went the extra mile, because that’s what John does, and he totally nailed it. I count myself almost preternaturally lucky to have these two lauded and accomplished pros participate in the project. Finally, I want to thank Christine Cohen, my agent on this book. She took a chance on me years ago when I barely knew anyone in the business. I’ll always remember that.

  These stories kept me going through some dark stretches, which may account for the tone of many of them. The writing of one story in particular probably saved my life. I believe that, though it’s possible I’m overstating the matter. Who knows at this late date? Certainly the stories have changed my life, given me a new world to inhabit, populated with friends and companions. The dark is in retreat. Writing is magic.

  Jack Skillingstead

  February 15, 2009

  Seattle, Washington

  *

  * In the Fairwood Press edition “Free Dog” is the newest story.

  ** Actually, the anthology never happened.

  *** A few years later I surprised her back by asking her to marry me.

  Here are a couple of essay/guest blog things I wrote. If you’re interested in my story-writing process, these provide a pretty clear picture of my admittedly quirky approach. The first, “Thermalling,” I wrote in support of Marty Halpern’s Alien Contact reprint anthology. In it I talk about how I came to write my contribution, “What You Are About To See,” which first appeared in the August 2008 issue of Asimov’s. The second essay, “How To Stay Original,” I wrote as part of a blog tour for the novel version of my short story “Life On The Preservation.”

  *

  Thermalling

  I used to fly airplanes. I didn’t do it professionally but as a private, recreational flier. All through high school I rented Cessnas and gave my friends scenic, and on some occasions hair-raising, tours of the airspace over the Puget Sound Basin. Eventually, I think I was twenty-two, I decided to try gliders. I had the idea this would be more “pure.” On my first instructional flight I learned something invaluable about staying up in the air without an engine—and about writing.

  Heat rises. Everybody knows that. But for glider pilots the rising columns of air called thermals are like free gas stations
. Really good glider pilots can stay aloft all day and even conduct cross-country flights by “thermalling” across the sky. It’s a matter of skill and luck. So is writing. And it’s a matter of being keenly sensitive, or I would say, intuitive. Which is also true of writing.

  There’s an instrument called a variometer. It’s a highly responsive vertical speed indicator. This helps in identifying the presence of thermals, which are invisible and can be subtle. But the best glider pilots have their own built-in variometer, much like Hemingway’s “built-in, shock resistant shit detector.” The pilot feels the slight updraft of air—sometimes barely perceptible—and banks steeply into it, climbing hundreds or even thousands of feet, pivoting on the long, elegant wing of the airplane. The first time my glider instructor handed the controls over to me I cluelessly soared through multiple thermals without even realizing they were there.

  I used to do that with story ideas, too.

  Really, calling them “ideas” is overstating the case. With “What You Are About To See,” the first thing I had was a short, declarative sentence, like a stubby knife: It sat in a cold room. This sentence lifted out of my unconscious like a thermal seeking my attention. By now I was experienced enough as a writer to recognize that the sentence might be a valuable skyhook that could carry me into a story, or it could be nothing more than a bump in the air. It was far more likely to be a bump.

  I was writing very fast that summer. At least, very fast for me. I wanted to emulate some of the more prolific writers from an earlier era, writers like Ray Bradbury and Harlan Ellison. At the Nebula Awards in Tempe, back in 2006, Harlan had suggested we collaborate on a story. As part of my run up to that possibility I spent the summer writing short stories as fast as I could. When I felt the updraft of It sat in a cold room I banked steeply into it, without hesitation, without thinking—and at once ascended vertically into a story. If I’d been more methodical and slow, as was more usual for me, I probably would have missed it altogether.