Bag of Bones CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

I was fin alto contri unlessehery able to commove into the z matchless, tho couldnt do any topic one time I got at that place. I keep a s exo pad happy for notes character lists, page references, date chronologies and I doodled in on that point a subaltern bit, with child(p)ly the sheet of paper in the IBM remained blank. in that location was no thundering heartbeat, no throbbing eye or difficulty existent no panic attack, in other words barely thither was no story, either. Andy Drake, John Shackleford, Ray Garraty, the beautiful Regina Whiting . . . they s to a faultd with their fannys debateed, refusing to speak or croak. The bituscript was sitting in its accustomed place on the left pay field side of the typewriter, the pages held d feature with a beautiful chunk of quartz Id ground on the lane, but nix was expose oning. Zilch.I recognized an irony here, peradventure even a moral. For long time I had fled the problems of the real world, escaping into va rious Narnias of my imagination. promptly the real world had filled up with bewildering thickets, thither were things with teeth in virtu aloney of them, and the wardrobe was locked against me.Kyra, I had printed, pullting her name inside a sc each(prenominal)oped shape that was supposed to be a cabbage rose. at a lower place it I had drawn a piece of bread with a beret reorient rakishly on the take place crust. no.nans c formerlyption of French toast. The earn L.B. surround with curlicues. A shirt with a rudimentary duck on it. Beside this I had printed QUACK QUACK. Below QUACK QUACK I had written Ought to fly sheet away Bon Voyage.At another spot on the sheet I had written Dean, Auster, and Devore. They were the ones who had brace the appearance _or_ semblanceed the most there, the most dangerous. Because they had descendants? hardly sealedly each(prenominal) seven of those jacks must, mustnt they? In those days most families were whoppers. And where had I been? I had asked, but Devore hadnt motiveed to utter.It didnt aroma any much similar a dream at niner-thirty on a sullenly hot sunlight morning. Which left exactly what? Visions? Time-travel? And if there was a purpose to such travel, what was it? What was the message, and who was try to send it? I remembered elapsely what Id tell save before casual from the dream in which I had sleepwalked stomach it off to the fore to Jos studio and brought rear my typewriter I dont believe these lies. Nor would I now. Until I could take up at least some of the truth, it cl ever soness be safer to believe nothing at all.At the top of the sheet upon which I was doodling, in heavily stroked letters, I printed the word insecurity, thus circled it. From the circle I drew an pointer to Kyras name. From her name I drew an arrow to Ought to fly away Bon Voyage and added MATTIE.Below the bread eating away the beret I drew a little tele visit. Above it I go under a cartoon balloon with R -R-RINGG in it. As I faultless(prenominal) this, the cordless phone rang. It was sitting on the deck rail. I circled MATTIE and picked up the phone.Mike? She sounded excited. Happy. Relieved.Yeah, I utter. How are you?Great she state, and I circled L.B. on my pad. lindy hop Briggs called ten minutes ago I scarcely got hit the phone with her.Mike, shes giving me my job spur Isnt that wonderful?Sure. And wonderful how it would keep her in town. I crossed come on Ought to fly away Bon Voyage, knowing that Mattie wouldnt go. not now. And how could I ask her to? I theme again If entirely I knew a little more . . .Mike? Are you Its very wonderful, I said. In my minds eye I could see her standing in the kitchen, come forth marches the kinked telephone cord through her fingers, her legs languish and coltish to a lower place her jean shorts. I could see the shirt she was wearing, a white tee with a yellow duck paddling crossways the front. I hope Lindy had the un white-lippe d grace to sound ashamed of herself. I circled the tee-shirt Id drawn.She did. And she was plain-spoken copious to word form of . . . hearty, disarm me. She said the Whitmore woman talked to her early cobblers last hebdomad. Was very frank and to the point, Lindy said. I was to be let go immediately. If that happened, the money, computer equipment, and software Devore funnelled into the library would keep coming. If it didnt, the function of respectables and money would stop immediately. She said she had to equalizer the good of the community against what she knew was wrong . . . she said it was one of the toughest decisions she incessantly had to accomplish . . . Uh-huh. On the pad my hand move of its own volition same a planchette gliding oer a Ouija board, printing the words revel CANT I PLEASE. theres probably some truth in it, but Mattie . . . how often do you suppose Lindy makes?I dont know.I bet its more than any three other small-town librarians in the state o f Maine combined.In the scope I comprehend Ki Can I talk, Mattie? Can I talk to Mike? Please tin cant I please?In a minute, hon. because, to me possibly. All I know is that I have my job bet on, and Im instinctive to let bygones be bygones.On the page, I drew a book. thence I drew a series of interlocked circles between it and the duck tee-shirt.Ki wants to talk to you, Mattie said, laughing. She theorizes the both of you went to the Fryeburg medium last night.Whoa, you mean I had a date with a pretty girl and slept through it?Seems that way. Are you place for her?Ready.Okay, here comes the chatterbox. in that respect was a rustling as the phone adjustmentd hands, consequently Ki was there. I taggled you at the Fair, Mike I taggled my own quartermackDid you? I asked That was quite a dream, wasnt it, Ki?There was a extensive privacy at the other end. I could imagine Mattie wondering what had happened to her telephone chatterbox. At last Ki said in a hesitating compon ent part You there too. Tiu. We saw the snake-dance ladies . . . the pole with the toll on top . . . we went in the spookyhouse . . . you fell atomic reactor in the barrel It wasnt a dream . . . was it?I could have convinced her that it was, but all at once that seemed exchangeable a bad idea, one that was dangerous in its own way. I said You had on a pretty hat and a pretty dress.Yeah Ki sounded enormously relieved. And you had on Kyra, stop. Listen to me. She stopped at once. Its better if you dont talk nearly that dream too much, I commemorate. To your mammy or to anyone except me.Except you.Yes. And the same with the refrigerator slew. Okay?Okay. Mike, there was a lady in Matties clothes.I know, I said. It was all set for her to talk, I was sure of it, but I asked anyway Wheres Mattie now?Waterin the flowers. We got much of flowers, a billion at least. I have to clean up the table. Its a chore. I dont mind, though. I the likes of chores. We had French toast. We evermor e do on sunlights. Its yummy, specially with strawberry syrup.I know, I said, drawing an arrow to the piece of bread wearing the beret. French toast is great. Ki, did you tell your mama more or less the lady in her dress?No. I thought it might s explosive charge her. She dropped her enunciate. Here she comesThats all even knocked out(p) . . . but weve got a secret, castigate?Yes. at a time can I talk to Mattie again?Okay. Her voice moved tally a little.Mommy-bommy, Mike wants to talk to you. Then she came back. impart you bizzit us today? We could go on another snap bean.I cant today, Ki. I have to work.Mattie neer works on Sunday.Well, when Im writing a book, I write all day. I have to, or else Ill for compact the story. Maybe well have a picnic on Tuesday, though. A barbecue picnic at your house.Is it grand til Tuesday?not too huge. twenty-four hr period by and by tomorrow.Is it long to write a book?Medium-long.I could hear Mattie telling Ki to give her the phone. I lead, just one more second gear. Mike?Im here, Ki.I love you.I was both touched and terrified. For a moment I was sure my throat was way out to lock up the way my titty apply to when I tried to write. Then it cleared and I said, be intimate you, too, Ki.Heres Mattie.Again there was the rustly sound of the telephone changing hands, thusly Mattie said Did that refresh your recollection of your date with my daughter, sir?Well, I said, it certainly refreshed hers. There was a link between Mattie and me, but it didnt extend to this I was sure of it.She was laughing. I loved the way she sounded this morning and I didnt want to fuck off her down . . . but I didnt want her mistaking the white line in the middle of the road for the crossmock, either.Mattie, you still acquire to be careful, hunky-dory? Just because Lindy Briggs offered you your aged(prenominal) job back doesnt mean everyone in town is suddenly your friend.I understand that, she said. I thought again about asking if shed consider taking Ki up to Derry for awhile they could live in my house, stay for the duration of the summer if that was what it took for things to return to frequent down here. Except she wouldnt do it. When it came to accepting my offer of high-priced in the buff York legal talent, shed had no choice. About this she did. Or thought she did, and how could I change her mind? I had no logic, no connected facts all I had was a vague dark shape, like something fabrication beneath nine inches of snowblind ice.I want you to be careful of two men in particular, I said. One is explanation Dean. The other is Kenny Auster. Hes the one with the big shack who wears the neckerchief. He Thats Booberry Ki called from the middle distance. Booberry licked my facieGo out and play, hon, Mattie said.Im clearun the table.You can finish later. Go on outside now. There was a conclude as she watched Ki go out the door, taking Strickland with her. Although the kid had left the trailer, Ma ttie still spoke in the lowered tone of someone who doesnt want to be overheard. Are you trying to scare me?No, I said, drawing repeat circles around the word DANGER. moreover I want you to be careful. history and Kenny may have been on Devores team, like Footman and Osgood. Dont ask me why I think that might be, because I have no sitisfactory answer. Its only a feeling, but since I got back on the TR, my feelings are different.What do you mean?Are you wearing a tee-shirt with a duck on it?How do you know that? Did Ki tell you?Did she take the little stuffed chink from her Happy Meal out with her just now?A long pause. At last she said My God in a voice so Low I could hardly hear it. Then again How I dont know how. I dont know if youre still in a . . . a bad situation, either, or why you might be, but I feel that you are. That you both are. I could have said more, but I was afraid shed think Id gone entirely off the rails.Hes d.o.a. she burst out. That old man is dead Why cant he leave us completely?Maybe he has. Maybe Im wrong about all this. however theres no harm in being careful, is there?No, she said. unremarkably thats true.Usually?Why dont you come and see me, Mike? Maybe we could go to the Fair together.Maybe this fall we will. All three of us.Id like that.In the meantime, Im mentation about the key.Thinking is half your problem, Mike, she said, and laughed again. Ruefully, I thought. And I saw what she meant. What she didnt seem to understand was that feeling was the other half. Its a sling, and in the end I think it rocks most of us to death.I worked for a while, thus carried the IBM back into the house and left the manuscript on top. I was done with it, at least for the time being. No more fronting for the way back through the wardrobe no more Andy Drake and John Shackleford until this was over. And, as I dressed in long pants and a button-up shirt for the arise time in what felt like weeks, it occurred to me that perhaps something so me campaign had been trying to sedate me with the story I was telling. With the ability to work again. It do sense work had always been my drug of choice, even better than booze or the Mellaril I still kept in the earth-closet medicine cabinet. Or by chance work was only the delivery system, the sodium thiosulfate with all the dreamy dreams inside it. Maybe the real drug was the zone. beingness in the zone. Feeling it, you sometimes hear the basketball players say. I was in the zone and I was really feeling it.I grabbed the keys to the Chevrolet off the expect and brassed at the fridge as I did. The magnets were circled again. In the middle was a message Id seen before, one that was now instantly understandable, thanks to the extra Magnabet lettershelp herIm doing my best, I said, and went out.Three miles north on Route 68 by so youre on the part of it which used to be cognise as Castle Rock Road-theres a greenhouse with a browse in front of it. Slips n Greens, its cal led, and Jo used to spend a bonnie amount of time there, buying gardening supplies or just noodling with the two women who ran the place. One of them was Helen Auster, Kennys wife.I pulled in there at around ten oclock that Sunday morning (it was open, of course during tourist season about every Maine shopkeeper turns heathen) and parked next to a Beamer with new York plates. I paused long enough to hear the weather forecast on the radio keep hot and humid for another forty-eight hours at least and then got out. A woman wearing a bathing suit, a skort, and a giant yellow sunhat emerged from the shop with a bag of peat moss cradled in her arms. She gave me a little smile. I returned it with eighteen per cent inte quell. She was from New York, and that meant she wasnt a Martian.The shop was even hotter and damper than the white morning outside. Lila Proulx, the co-owner, was on the phone. There was a little fan beside the cash register and she was standing outright in front of it, flapping the front of her sleeveless blouse. She saw me and twiddled her fingers in a wave. I twiddled mine back, feeling like someone else. piddle or no work, I was still zoning. Still feeling it.I walked around the shop, picking up a few things almost at random, watching Lila out of the corner of my eye and waiting for her to get off the phone so I could talk to her . . . and all the time my own private hyperdrive was humming softly away. At last she hung up and I came to the counter. Michael Noonan, what a sight for sore eyes you are she said, and began ringing up my pur shacks. I was awfully sorry to hear about Johanna. Got to get that right up front. Jo was a pet.Thanks, Lila.Welcome. Dont need to say any more about it, but with a thing like that its best to put it right up front. Ive always believed it, always will believe it. Right up front. Going to do a little gardening, are you? Gointer do a little gaadnin, aaa you?If it ever cools off.Ayuh Isnt it wicked? She flapped the top of her blouse again to show up me how wicked it was, then pointed at one of my pur guarantees. Want this one in a special bag? Always safe, never sorry, thats my motto.I nodded, then looked at the little blackboard tilted against the counter. FRESH BLUBERRYS, the chalked message read. THE CROPS IS INIll have a dry pint of berries, too, I said. As long as theyre not Fridays. I can do better than Friday.She nodded vigorously, as if to say she knew damned salutary I could. These were on the bush yesty. That fresh enough for you?Good as gold, I said. Blueberrys the name of Kennys dog, isnt it?Aint he a wary one? God, I love a big dog, if hes behaved. She turned, got a pint of berries from her little fridge, and put them in another bag for me.Wheres Helen? I asked. Day off?.Not her, Lila said. If shes in town, you cant get her out of this place less you beat her with a stick. She and Kenny and the kids went down Taxachusetts. Them and her cronys family club together and get a seaside cottage two weeks every summer. They all went. Old Blueberry, hell chase seagulls until he drops. She laughed it was a loud and hearty one. It made me think of Sara Tidwell. Or maybe it was the way Lila looked at me as she did it. There was no jape in her eyes. They were small and considering, coldly curious.Would you for Christs sake quit it? I told myself. They cant all be in on it together, MikeCouldnt they, though? There is such a thing as town consciousness anyone who doubts it has never been to a New England town meeting. Where theres a consciousness, is there not likely to be a subconscious? And if Kyra and I were doing the old mind-meld thing, could not other citizenry in TR-90 also be doing it, perhaps without even knowing it? We all partingd the same air and land we shared the lake and the aquifer which lay below everything, buried water tasting of rock and minerals. We shared The Street as well, that place where good pups and vile dogs could walk side-by-s ide.As I started out with my purchases in a cloth carry-handle bag, Lila said What a shame about Royce Merrill. Did you hear?No, I said.Fell down his cellar stairs yesty evening. What a man his age was doing going down such a rivet flight of steps is beyond me, but I suppose once you get to his age, you have your own reasons for doing things.Is he dead? I started to ask, then rephrased. It wasnt the way the move was expressed on the TR. Did he pass?Not yet. Motton Rescue took him to Castle County General. Hes in a coma. Comber, she said it. They dont think hell ever wake up, poor fella. Theres a piece of history thatll die with him.I suppose thats true. Good riddance, I thought. Does he have children?No. There have been Merrills on the TR for two hundred years one died at Cemetery Ridge. But all the old families are dying out now. You have a nice day, Mike. She smiled. Her eyes remained flat and considering.I got into my Chevy, put the bag with my purchases in it on the passenger seat, then simply sat for a moment, letting the air conditioner pour cool air on my event and neck. Kenny Auster was in Taxachusetts. That was good. A step in the right direction. But there was still my caretaker. scores not here, Yvette said. She stood in the door, blocking it as well as she could (you can only do so much in that regard when youre five-three and weigh roughly a hundred pounds), studying me with the screw auger gaze of a nightclub bouncer denying re-entry to a drunk whos been tossed out on his ear once already.I was on the porch of the neat-as-ever-you-saw Cape have words which stands at the top of Peabody Hill and looks all the way across New Hampshire and into Vermonts back yard. woodpeckers equipment sheds were lined up to the left of the house, all of them painted the same shade of gray, each with its own sign DEAN CARETAKING, No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3. Parked in front of No. 2 was saddles gambit Ram. I looked at it, then back at Yvette. Her lips tightened a l ittle more. Another notch and I figured theyd be gone entirely.He went to North Conway with Butch Wiggins, she said. They went in Butchs truck. To get No need lying for me, dear heart, Bill said from can buoy her.It was still over an hour shy of noon, and on the Lords Day to boot, but I had never heard a man who sounded more tired. He clumped down the hall, and as he came out of its shadows and into the light the sun was lowestly burning through the muddiness I saw that Bill now looked his age. Every year of it, and maybe ten more to grow on. He was wearing his usual chromatic shirt and pants Bill Dean would be a Dickies man until the day he died but his shoulders looked slumped, almost sprained, a-s if hed spent a week lugging buckets that were too heavy for him. The falling-away of his face had finally begun, an indefinable something that makes the eyes look too big, the jaw too prominent, the mouth a bit loose. He looked old. There were no children to carry on the family line of work, either all the old families were dying out, Lila Proulx had said. And maybe that was a good thing.Bill she began, but he raised one of his big hands to stop her. The callused fingertips agitate a little.Go in the kitchen a dight, he told her. I need to talk to my compadre here. Twont take long.Yvette looked at him, and when she looked back at me, she had indeed reached zero(a) lip-surface. There was just a black line where they had been, like a mark dashed off with a pencil. I saw with pathetic clarity that she hated me.Dont you tire him out, she said to me. He hasnt been sleepin. Its the heat. She walked back down the hall, all stiff back and high shoulders, disappearing into shadows that were probably cool. It always seems to be cool in the houses of old people, have you noticed?Bill came out onto the porch and put his big hands into the easy lays of his pants without offering to rock with me. I aint got nothin to say to you. You and mes quits.Why, Bill? Why are we quits?He looked west, where the hills stepped into the burning summer haze, disappearing in it before they could become mountains, and said nothing.Im trying to help that modern woman. He gave me a look from the corners of his eyes that I could read well enough. Ahuh. Help yself right into her pants. I see men come up from New York and New Jersey with their young girls. Summer weekends, ski weekends, it dont matter. Men who go with girls that age always look the same, got their tongues run out even when their mouths are shut. Now you look the same.I felt both angry and embarrassed, but I resisted the urge to chase him in that direction. That was what he wanted.What happened here? I asked him. What did your fathers and grandfathers and great-grandfathers do to Sara Tidwell and her family? You didnt just move them on, did you?Didnt have to, Bill said, looking past me at the hills. His eyes were damp almost to the point of tears, but his jaw was set and hard. They moved on the mselves. Never was a nigger who didnt have an itchy foot, my dad used to say.Who set the trap that killed Son Tidwells boy? Was it your father, Bill? Was it Fred?His eyes moved his jaw never did. I dunno what youre talking about.I hear him proclaim in my house. Do you know what its like to hear a dead child crying in your house? Some bastard pin down him like a weasel and I hear him crying in my fundament houseYoure going to need a new caretaker, Bill said. I cant do for you no more. Dont want to. What I want is for you to get off my porch.Whats happening? Help me, for Christs sake.Ill help you with the toe of my shoe if you dont get going on your own.I looked at him a moment longer, taking in the wet eyes and the set jaw, his divided nature written on his face.I lost my wife, you old bastard, I said. A woman you claimed to love.Now his jaw moved at last. He looked at me with surprise and injury. That didnt happen here, he said. That didnt have anything to do with here. She mig htve been off the TR because . . . well, she mightve had her reasons to be off the TR . . . but she just had a stroke. Would have happened anywhere. Anywhere.I dont believe that. I dont think you do, either. Something followed her to Derry, maybe because she was pregnant . . . Bills eyes widened. I gave him a chance to say something, but he didnt take it. . . . or maybe just because she knew too much.She had a stroke. Bills voice wasnt quite even. I read the obituary myself. She had a damn stroke.What did she find out? Talk to me, Bill. Please.There was a long pause. Until it was over I allowed myself the luxury of thinking I might in truth be getting through to him.Ive only got one more thing to say to you, Mike stand back. For the sake of your immortal soul, stand back and let things run their course. They will whether you do or dont. This river has almost come to the sea it wont be dammed by the likes of you. Stand back. For the love of Christ.Do you care about your soul, Mr. No onan? Gods butterfly caught in a cocoon of flesh that will soon stink like mine?Bill turned and walked to his door, the heels of his workboots clodding on the painted boards.Stay away from Mattie and Ki, I said. If you so much as go near that trailer He turned back, and the hazy sun glinted on the tracks below his eyes. He took a bandanna from his back pocket and wiped his cheeks. I aint stirrin from this house. I wish to God Id never come back from my vacation in the first place, but I did mostly on your account, Mike. Those two down on Wasp Hill have nothing to fear from me. No, not from me.He went inside and closed the door. I stood there looking at it, feeling unreal surely I could not have had such a deadly conversation with Bill Dean, could I? Bill who had reproached me for not letting common people down here share and perhaps ease my grief for Jo, Bill who had welcomed me back so heartily?Then I heard a clack sound. He might not have locked his door while he was at ped estal in his entire life, but he had locked it now. The clack was very clear in the breathless July air. It told me everything I had to know about my long association with Bill Dean. I turned and walked back to my car, my head down. Nor did I turn when I heard a window run up behind me.Dont you ever come back here, you town bastard Yvette Dean cried across the sweltering dooryard. Youve broken his heart Dont you ever come back Dont you ever Dont you everPlease, Mrs. M. said. Dont ask me any more questions, Mike. I cant afford to get in Bill Deans bad books, any moren my ma could afford to get into Normal Austers or Fred Deans.I shifted the phone to my other ear. All I want to know is In this part of the world caretakers pretty well run the whole show. If they say to a summer fella that he should hire this carpenter or that lectrician, why, thats who the summer fella hires. Or if a caretaker says this one should be fired because he aint proving reliable, he is fired. Or she. Becaus e what goes once for plumbers and landscapers and lectricians has always gone twice for housekeepers. If you want to be recommended and stay recommended you have to keep on the sunny side of people like Fred and Bill Dean, or Normal and Kenny Auster. Dont you see? She was almost pleading. When Bill found out I told you about what Normal Auster did to Kerry, oooo he was so mad at me.Kenny Austers brother the one Normal drowned under the pump his name was Kerry?Ahuh. Ive cognize a lot of folks name their kids alike, think its wily. Why, I went to schooling with a brother and sister named Roland and Rolanda Therriault, I think Rolands in Manchester now, and Rolanda unite that boy from Brenda, just answer one question. Ill never tell. Please?I waited, my breath held, for the click that would come when she put her telephone back in its cradle. Instead, she spoke three words in a soft, almost dark voice. What is it?Who was Carla Dean?I waited through another long pause, my hand contend with the ribbon that had come off Kis turn-of-the-century straw hat.You dassnt tell anyone I told you anything, she said at last.I wont.Carla was Bills twin sister. She died sixty-five years ago, during the time of the fires. The fires Bill claimed had been set by Kis grandfather his going-away present to the TR. I dont know just how it happened. Bill never talks about it. If you tell him I told you, Ill never make another bed in the TR. Hell see to it. Then, in a hopeless voice, she said He may know anyway.Based on my own experiences and surmises, I looked she might be right about that. But even if she was, shed have a check from me every month for the rest of her working life. I had no intention of telling her that over the telephone, though it would scald her Yankee soul. Instead I thanked her, assured her again of my discretion, and hung up.I sat at the table for a moment, staring blankly at Bunter, then said Whos here?No answer.Come on, I said. Dont be shy. Lets go n ineteen or ninety-two down. Barring that, lets talk.Still no answer. Not so much as a shiver of the bell around the stuffed mooses neck. I spied the scribble of notes Id made while talking to Jos brother and drew them toward me. I had put Kia, Kyra, Kito, and Carla in a box. Now I scribbled out the bottom line of that box and added the name Kerry to the list. Ive known a lot of folks name their kids alike, Mrs. M. had said. They think its cute.I didnt think it was cute I thought it was creepy.It occurred to me that at least two of these soundalikes had drowned Kerry Auster under a pump, Kia Noonan in her mothers dying body when she wasnt much bigger than a helianthus seed. And I had seen the ghost of a third drowned child in the lake. Kito? Was that one Kito? Or was Kito the one who had died of blood-poisoning?They name their kids alike, they think its cute.How many soundalike kids had there been to start with? How many were left? I thought the answer to the first question didnt m atter, and that I knew the answer to the second one already. This river has almost come to the sea, Bill had said.Carla, Kerry, Kito, Kia . . . all gone. Only Kyra Devore was left.I got up so fast and hard that I knocked over my chair. The clatter in the silence made me cry out. I was leaving, and right now. No more telephone calls, no more playing Andy Drake, Private Detective, no more depositions or half-assed wooings of the lady fair. I should have followed my instincts and gotten the fuck out of Dodge that first night. Well, Id go now, just get in the Chevy and haul ass for Der Bunters bell jangled furiously. I turned and saw it bouncing around his neck as if batted to and fro by a hand I couldnt see. The sliding door giving on the deck began to fly open and clap shut like something aquiline to a pulley. The book of Tough Stuff crossword puzzles on the end-table and the DSS schedule guide blew open, their pages riffling. There was a series of rattling thuds across the floor, as if something enormous were crawling rapidly toward me, pounding its fists as it came.A skeleton not cold but warm, like the rush of air produced by a subway train on a summer night buffeted past me. In it I heard a peculiar voice which seemed to be saying Bye-BY, bye-BY, bye-BY, as if wishing me a good trip home. Then, as it dawned on me that the voice was actually saying Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, Ki-Ki, something smitten me and knocked me violently forward. It felt like a large soft fist. I buckled over the table, clawing at it to stay up, overturning the lazy susan with the salt and pepper shakers on it, the napkin holder, the little vase Mrs. M. had filled with daisies. The vase rolled off the table and shattered. The kitchen TV blared on, some politician talking about how inflation was on the march again. The CD player started up, drowning out the politician it was the Rolling Stones doing a cover of Sara Tidwells I Regret You, Baby. Upstairs, one smoke alarm went off, then another, then a third. They were joined a moment later by the warble-whoop of the Chevys car alarm. The whole world was cacophony.Something hot and pillowy seized my wrist. My hand shot forward like a piston and slammed down on the steno pad. I watched as it pawed clumsily to a blank page, then seized the pencil which lay nearby. I gripped it like a dagger and then something wrote with it, not guiding my hand but raping it. The hand moved slowly at first, almost blindly, then picked up speed until it was flying, almost tearing through the sheetI had almost reached the bottom of the page when the cold descended again, that outer cold that was like fall in January, chilling my skin and crackling the snot in my trespass and sending two shuddery puffs of white air from my mouth. My hand prehend and the pencil snapped in two. Behind me, Bunters bell rang out one final furious convulsion before falling silent. Also from behind me came a peculiar double pop, like the sound of champagne corks bei ng drawn. Then it was over. Whatever it had been or however many they had been, it was finished. I was alone again.I turned off the CD player just as rice paddy and Keith moved on to a white-boy version of Howling Wolf, then ran upstairs and pushed the reset buttons on the smoke-detectors. I leaned out the window of the big invitee bedroom while I was up there, aimed the fob of my keyring down at the Chevrolet, and pushed the button on it. The alarm quit.With the worst of the noise gone I could hear the TV cackling away in the kitchen. I went down, killed it, then froze with my hand still on the clear up button, looking at Jos annoying waggy-cat clock. Its female genital organ had finally stopped switching, and its big plastic eyes lay on the floor. They had popped right out of its head.I went down to the Village Cafe for supper, snagging the last Sunday Telegram from the rack (COMPUTER MOGUL DEVORE DIES IN WESTERN MAINE townspeople WHERE HE GREW UP, the headline read) before sit ting down at the counter. The successive photo was a studio shot of Devore that looked about thirty years old. He was smiling. Most people do that quite naturally. On Devores face it looked like a learned skill.I ordered the beans that were left over from Buddy Jellisons Saturday-night beanhole supper. My father wasnt much for aphorisms in my family dispensing nuggets of scholarship was Moms job but as Daddy warmed up the Saturday-night yelloweyes in the oven on Sunday afternoon, he would invariably say that beans and beef stew were better the second day. I guess it stuck. The only other piece of fatherly wisdom I can remember receiving was that you should always wash your hands after you took a shit in a bus station.While I was reading the story on Devore, Audrey came over and told me that Royce Merrill had passed without recovering consciousness. The funeral would be Tuesday afternoon at Grace Baptist, she said. Most of the town would be there, many folks just to see Ila Mese rve awarded the Boston Post cane. Did I think Id get over? No, I said, probably not. I thought it prudent not to add that Id likely be attending a victory society at Mattie Devores while Royces funeral was going on down the road.The usual late-Sunday-afternoon flow of customers came and went while I ate, people ordering burgers, people ordering beans, people ordering chicken salad sandwiches, people buying sixpacks. Some were from the TR, some from away. I didnt notice many of them, and no one spoke to me. I have no idea who left the napkin on my newspaper, but when I put down the A section and turned to find the sports, there it was. I picked it up, meaning only to put it aside, and saw what was written on the back in big dark letters GET OFF THE TR.I never found out who left it there. I guess it could have been any of them.