An Arsonist's Guide to Writers' Homes in New England (27 page)

“It’s nobody’s business, and I mean nobody’s,” the author said.

This must have been a line from one of his books, because everyone around him cheered and hooted. This is the most terrifying thing about speaking in front of a crowd: not that you’ve lost them, but that you never had them in the first place and never will. My face felt so hot, so red, and I bet that if I’d touched my cheek to the floor, the whole house would have gone up in smoke, and Peter would have gotten what he wanted that way. But I didn’t do that: I stood there and waited for the crowd’s noise to finally subside, and then said, “But it
is
your business. You made him that way.”

“I didn’t make him that way,” the Writer-in-Residence said. “That’s the way he is.”

“The way he is,” I repeated. I borrowed this tactic from my mother. When I was a child and I would say something stupid, she would repeat it back to me so I could hear for myself how stupid it was.

“The way he is,” the Writer-in-Residence repeated back to me. Maybe that was his tactic, too.

“But suppose that’s
not
the way he is,” I said, and before the Writer-in-Residence or his crowd could say anything else, I continued: “Suppose he’s not an old man. Suppose he’s a young man.” The Writer-in-Residence nodded, as though that seemed a viable alternative, which only encouraged me. “Suppose he wasn’t angry at all. Suppose he had a job. Suppose he was a farmer … ” And here I paused. I remembered the bond analysts’ memoir-brainstorming sessions; I remembered that they always urged one another, when trying to hurdle an especially big writer’s block, to “write what you know.” And in a sense, the bond analysts
did
write what they knew — they knew my father’s postcards, knew where he had been and what he had done — and so it seemed like useful advice. But I didn’t know anything about being a farmer, so I tried something else. “Or suppose he was a lumberjack.” But again, same problem: I knew nothing about being a lumberjack, not even what sort of saw to use in killing which sort of tree. The only job I knew anything about was being a packaging scientist. But I remembered my father’s initial reaction to my job — “No greatness in tennis ball cans” — and I suspected the Writer-in-Residence’s reaction would be the same or worse. And so out of panic and with nothing else to say, I said, “Or suppose this young man was a bumbler and he accidentally …, ” and then I basically told the story I’ve been telling you. It was a much shorter version, but it included most of the major events and characters: my mother’s stories and the burning houses and the dead Colemans and their vengeful son and my beautiful wife and children and my drunk parents and their mysterious living situation and the letters and the bond analysts. It’s true the story didn’t have a proper ending — I only told the story up to the Mark Twain House fire and then said, “To be continued” — but I tried to keep things close to the facts. In fact, the only thing I made up about the young man was that he played a mean twelve-string guitar, because I’d always wanted to play guitar and because twelve strings seemed better than six, since there were more of them.

“What do you think?” I asked after I was done. In truth I was very pleased with myself and with my story and all that had happened in it. Because you can’t help being impressed with your own story. Because if you’re not impressed with your own story, then who will be? “What would you say about
that
guy?” I asked.

“I’d say he doesn’t sound like a real person,” the Writer-in-Residence said.

“He doesn’t?” I asked. Oh, that hurt! Just the day before, Lees Ardor had told me she wanted to be a real person, and now I knew exactly what she meant. I would have given anything, right then, not to have told my story. I would have given anything to go back in time, before I’d told my story, and get Lees Ardor and bring her here so we could have sat there together and listened to the Writer-in-Residence tell us what a real person was.

“He doesn’t sound like a real person at all,” the Writer-in-Residence said. “He sounds like a cheap trick. No cheap tricks.”

“No cheap tricks,” I repeated. I fell back into my chair, hard, and I bet the folding chair would have folded with the impact except it had heard what had happened and felt pity.

“No tricks at all,” the Writer-in-Residence said, and then he took another swig of his bourbon.

At that moment the Director stood up, walked toward the podium, and started waving his hands and arms over his head, as though he were shipwrecked and trying to get the attention of a plane flying overhead. “I believe that’s all the time we have,” he said, and then he announced that the Writer-in-Residence would be happy to sign books. This announcement caused a mad rush toward the front of the room. I sat in my seat, with my head hanging between my knees, in the crash position. Except I had already crashed and the position was taken too late. Peter was sitting next to me — I could hear the angry in-and-out of his breathing — but other than him, I felt completely alone. Even my mother’s spirit had left me, as though it had, like the Connecticut Yankee, time-warped out of my body and this place and back into its own.

I don’t know how long we sat there like that: it could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. Finally Peter grabbed the back of my (his) jacket and pulled me backward. I refused to look at him, so he had to grab my chin and turn my head and attention in his direction. Peter was angry, that was clear. I assumed he was angry at me: not only had I made a fool of myself, but by telling my story I’d probably drawn some unwanted attention to myself, and to him and his letter, and to what he wanted me to do. I hung my head again, in shame; and again he put his hand to my chin and raised it up, but gently, surprisingly gently.

“You understand now why I hate that guy?”

“I do,” I said. Because I thought I did.

“OK?” Peter asked, then shrugged. I knew he was asking me if I’d burn the house down for him, for free; I knew that. I had no intention of doing what he wanted, but — and this is just one of the many things of which I’m ashamed — I was so grateful that he wasn’t angry that I decided to play along,
playing along
being the thing we do when it’s too difficult to do its opposite and just tell the truth.

“OK,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“Where to?”

“The bar,” Peter said.

“Good idea,” I said. We got up and left the house, but before I did, I glanced back at the Writer-in-Residence. He was still sitting in his chair, still drinking his Beam. There was still a long line of people holding books for him to sign. The Director was still hovering over him for God knows what reason. But the Writer-in-Residence wasn’t looking at the Director or his audience or their copies of his books. No, he was looking at us, longingly, as we walked out the door, and who knows: maybe he was thinking that we were real people after all.

The bar was a gray cinder block rancher with a black plywood entrance on the front and not to the side as on Peter’s trailer. But they were from the same lowborn family of buildings. There were neon beer lights in the windows, and around the windows were flickering Christmas lights, but the lights were fighting a losing battle; half of them were out and dead. They’d probably been left up all year. There was no sign naming the place as this bar or that tavern, as if no name were sufficiently bad. The parking lot was full, the trucks — they were almost all trucks — parked at angry, confrontational angles, as if preparing themselves for a demolition derby or having just finished one. It was the sort of bar that gave one pause, especially if the
one
was someone like me, who’d never been in a bar like this before. True, I’d been to plenty of “bar and grille’s”: there were dozens of them near our house in Camelot. But they were the sort of places that provided crayons for the kids, and special place mats for them to deface, and stern warnings on the menu not to let the kids draw on anything but the place mats, and they were also the kind of places that issued even sterner warnings — on the place mats, on the walls, on the waitresses’ and waiters’ uniforms,
everywhere
— forbidding you to smoke or else, and in these ways the “bar and grille” seemed exactly like the world outside the “bar and grille” except with more rules and fewer ways to break them.

This place was different, and after entering it I understood immediately why bars exist and why people like to drink in them: if a “bar and grille” reminded you of all the things you shouldn’t do, then a real bar gave you the idea that there was nothing you couldn’t do, and no consequences to face if you did do it. My first impression of the place was wrong; it wasn’t depressing at all. For one thing, it was better-looking inside than out. The bar floor was pine, with a bowling-alley slickness to it. Overhead there was a low drop ceiling with flaking acoustical tiles that I could touch and did, which gave me a nice sense of accomplishment. For another, there was Peter, standing next to the men’s room, selling drugs — dime bags, he called them, ten-dollar plastic bags of marijuana — to guys who looked a lot like him but happier, more talkative. For that matter, Peter in the bar seemed a happier and more talkative version of Peter, too, and that’s why I say the bar wasn’t depressing. Being in it seemed to free Peter. Or maybe it was the pot, much of which he seemed to deal to himself. Or maybe it was that I’d agreed to do what I in fact had no intention of doing. Right when we first got to the bar, Peter pointed at me, said, “That’s him,” and made introductions all around. There was Barry, Mick, Shoe, and Lyle. Of course, I didn’t get their names straight at the time, but they didn’t seem to mind and made me feel right at home. At one point, Peter even put his arm around me and said, “We
need
you, bud,” which nearly made me cry and made me feel as though I needed them as much as they needed me.

But then again, it might have been the booze making me feel that way. Peter bought me shot after shot of bourbon, and soon I started calling
myself
by the wrong name, and this got all of them laughing good and hard, which made me glad, so glad that I drank some more. I must have done at least a good baker’s dozen of shots. After a point, I have no memory of any real conversation or of time passing, although it must have, because I found myself sitting on a stool at the horseshoe bar, the guys were nowhere to be seen, and there was a band playing.

There was no stage in the bar, but in one corner there was a band playing anyway, four guys — two guitarists, a bassist, a drummer — with long, stringy hair peeking out from under their ski hats, nodding their heads violently in time to a song that seemed to have no time. The bass was so loud it wasn’t just a sound but also a feeling coming up through the floor, up into me, through my groin, my heart, my throat. The sound pulled me toward the band, although first I got another shot of bourbon from the bartender.

I took my drink and went and stood in front of the band. I didn’t recognize the song they were playing, but when it ended, someone yelled out, “Creedence!” This seemed to encourage the guys in the band, because they launched into another song, a favorite apparently, and the dance floor got crowded — women dancing with men, women with women, men without partners stomping their feet and singing into their beer bottles — and before I knew it, I was dancing, too.

Yes, I was dancing, and immediately I remembered why I hadn’t danced in a long time. Because when I dance, I dream, or at least I remember, which for me is exactly the same as dreaming. So the band launched into Creedence, if that’s what it was, and I started stomping my feet and swinging my arms a little, and just like that, I started dreaming about the last time I’d danced, at my wedding, with Anne Marie. It was our wedding song, and I don’t remember what it was — another thing of which I’m ashamed — but I had the impression it had been many other people’s wedding song as well. I noticed many of the older married guests go soft in the eyes and clasp hands. It felt good to be in the company of so many similarly and successfully betrothed, and for that matter it felt good to have my beautiful girl in my arms, my beautiful, tall girl, who’d worn low-heeled shoes so that she wouldn’t be too much taller than I was, my beautiful, tall, thoughtful girl, who smelled like the cake we’d just cut. All was well except that we were dancing, and I started remembering and dreaming
that
time, too, remembering and dreaming about my parents, who weren’t at the wedding, of course, because I hadn’t told them about it.

Specifically I was remembering the time when I spied on my mother and father dancing. This was a year after my father had returned from his exile, and it was certainly the first time I’d seen them dance. It might have been the first time I’d seen them even
touch
since he’d returned. They were dancing in the front entryway. I was watching from the staircase (I was supposed to have been in bed, but I’d heard the music — it was Benny Goodman, plus his big band, I remember that — and was spying). It was some highly conflicted dancing, at least on my mother’s part. One moment, her eyes were closed, her head on my father’s shoulder as if asleep and at peace; the next, her eyes were sprung open and angry, her palms against my father’s chest and pushing him away, and the only thing holding her to my father was my father. He wouldn’t let go, and she kept saying, “I don’t know, I just don’t know,” and he kept saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, oh God, I’m so sorry.” Then she’d relax for a while, only to tense up again eventually, and so on. I felt so sad for these confused parents of mine and had the distinct impression that love and marriage and dancing were like being at war with your better judgment. Watching my parents dance made loneliness look happy and relaxing by comparison, and so I went up to my room and went to bed. When I was dancing with Anne Marie at our wedding, I was remembering all this, and at the moment when I remembered going to bed and being alone, happily so, I let go of Anne Marie and took a step to the side as if making a break for it. The guests gasped, Anne Marie grabbed me, I came to my senses, saw my beautiful girl and bride, and finished the dance, and we never spoke about it afterward. She’d grabbed me hard, too. Later on I noticed two large pincher bruises on my upper biceps, as if a lobster and not the human Anne Marie had prevented me from leaving the dance floor and ruining our marriage right off the bat and not waiting eight years to do it.