Jokers Club

Jokers

Club

By

Gregory Bastianelli

JournalStone

San Francisco

Copyright © 2011 by Gregory Bastianelli

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

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The views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-936564-30-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-936564-31-6 (dj)

ISBN: 978-1-936564-32-3 (ebook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011938190

Printed in the United States of America

JournalStone rev. date:  November 4, 2011

Cover Design: Denise Daniel

Cover Art: Philip Renne

Author Photo: John Huff

Edited By:  Elizabeth Reuter

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the staff at JournalStone for providing me with this opportunity and for the enthusiasm they have shown for this manuscript. I also want to thank my parents for their support; my children, Casey and Jenna, for providing me such life fulfillment; and my Aunt Agnes for encouraging my writing.

Several people previously read this manuscript and provided helpful insight, especially Richard Krawiec and Jim Spilios, and my many friends who always believed in me. I also owe gratitude to my writing instructors at the University of New Hampshire: Mark Smith, Thomas Williams and Theodore Weisner.

Of course, none of this would have been possible if my imagination had not been sparked by the likes of Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Robert Bloch, Stephen King and Peter Straub.  And a special thanks to Cherrie Nesman and her children, Andrew and Emma, for bringing a bright light into my life.

To my sister Deanna, for her encouragement, criticism, advice and concern that stretches back many years.

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I had only typed a single line on the page:

“Jason Nightingale had no idea when he joined the Jokers Club of the horrible events that would follow.”

Sitting in my rental car on the side of the highway after having driven all night, I felt inside my shirt pocket for that piece of paper. The rest of the page was blank, and I had stared at it many times trying to fill its emptiness. I took it out, unfolded it and looked at it again on that backwoods road -- a long runway through a gauntlet of pines and maples: tall trees whose branches stretched across the pavement, almost touching. The sun had risen moments ago and light splintered through the limbs. I had pulled over for just a moment, to rest and shake the sleepiness from my eyes. I had inadvertently dozed for a few minutes.

It was early October, and most of the leaves had turned a pumpkin shade, with splashes of red and yellow here and there. Leaves lay discarded along the embankment. Some departed their limbs and drifted down silently, settling on the hood of the car. If I stayed here long enough, the entire automobile would be buried.

The road reminded me of a dream I had about a week before. I was traveling on the very same route, but on foot. It was early morning, and a light mist hugged the asphalt surface. I was walking down the center yellow lines, toward town. It was quiet.

Up ahead in the darkness was a figure shuffling toward town, its movements slow and stiff and its body hunched over. I was gaining on him.

Tattered clothes hung on his thin body, lending him the appearance of a walking scarecrow. I wanted to catch up to him, find out who he was and where he was going.

As the road veered upward, his movements slowed. I didn’t think he would make it up the hill, and I stopped to watch. Each progression was a slow, jerking movement. I could sense pain in those steps. When he reached the top, he stopped and, without turning, languidly motioned with one arm for me to follow. With caution, I ascended the hill, wary of the figure at the top whose back was still to me. My body shook with a chill as I came alongside him.

“Why did you come back?” he asked, staring straight ahead. I gazed at what lay below us, the town of Malton. It cuddled along the perimeter of the lake like a sleeping lover too early to awaken. I turned back to the man beside me. I had recognized the strained voice asking the question.

The face turned toward me. It was long and thin, skin drawn tight on the cheek-and-jawbones like dried leather, stubble poking through the flesh. There were dark bags beneath bloodshot eyes swallowed up in their sockets. His unkempt hair looked gritty.

I know this man
, I thought. It’s Paul Woodman.
My God he’s so thin.
I didn’t like thinking about the last time I had seen him.

“Woody,” I said. “It’s good to see you.”

His gaze shifted back to the town. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I had to come back. I needed to.”

“None of us should be here.” His brow furrowed, and his eyes squinted, as if he were concentrating on something or remembering something. “Not after what happened.”

“That wasn’t our fault, Woody.”

He looked at me. “Do you really believe that?”

I do. Yes, I really do.
I couldn’t answer him.

There was a stump I hadn’t noticed before, right in the middle of the road where we stood. Woody sat on it slowly, carefully, like a constipated man settling his buttocks on a toilet seat. He winced with pain.

“God, my muscles ache,” he said.

I looked down at the pathetic creature he had become.

“Why have you punished yourself, Woody?” It was a question I had asked before, at that other time, at that other place that also seemed like a dreamland.

“It’s too late for me. But not for you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Let the past lie.”

“I can’t.” I looked back at the flickering lights from the buildings below. “It’s all I have left.”

He stood up and turned away. “I have to go now.”

I watched him as he proceeded back down the hill, feeling the pain in his shuffling steps. “Will I be seeing you, Woody?”

He stopped and for a moment, I didn’t think he was going to answer. Then he turned and looked up at me.

“Don’t open it.”

“Huh?” Open what? What the heck was he talking about? Did he mean the past?

He walked off and was enveloped in the mist. I stared after him for a while and then realized I was awake. I felt cold and alone. Unlike most dreams, the memory of this one lingered for quite some time.

When I looked out the windshield, I saw the leaves, brightly colored like burning embers, had nearly covered the hood of the car. I realized how long I had been sitting by the side of the road lost in thought. I started the engine and pulled away, the leaves bouncing off the windshield, scattering in the vehicle’s wake.

As the car began its ascent of the hill I had frequented recently in the dream, I took in the town I had not seen in years. The descent onto Main Street brought forth colonial brick and wood-framed houses soon giving way to small shops and businesses: Mr. Pepper’s Five and Ten; the Malton Lake Loom Shop; Nick’s Barbershop; The Cobbler Shop; The Used Office Supply Store; The Book Bazaar; Mr. Under’s Lakeside Memorials; Town Hall; St. Charles Church; the First National Bank.

A grassy, pie-shaped island wedged into the end of Main Street just before the lake split the road in two, its tributaries becoming Lakeview Boulevard which ran along the perimeter of the downtown side of the lake. A granite fountain stood at the tip of the island. Its water dried up in the fall like the rest of the town. The gazebo directly behind the fountain held folk singers and jazz quartets in the summer but cobwebs and shadows in colder months. The little boutiques and galleries that lined the boulevard across from the lakefront were closed and boarded up against the winter winds that sweep across the lake. Parking meters along the boulevard were decapitated after Labor Day, leaving headless poles lined like grave markers. The boardwalk that separated the boulevard from the public beach lay still like an empty railroad bed, its wooden planks warped and scuffed from the wear and tear of summer crowds. To the left of the beach, the marina slips held only a few boats, wrapped in canvas tarps. Summer cottages poking out through the woods on the other side of the lake were lonely beacons, their occupants gone back to Massachusetts or wherever they had migrated from for the summer. That side of the lake seemed another world away, accessible as the moon from this side.

An old woman walked her dog along the boardwalk, their feet clicking on the planks, and a car drifted by on the boulevard.  Other than that there was no one around. I rolled down the car window and felt the cool air blowing over from the lake.

I pulled into a parking space in front of the Book Bazaar. Something in the window caught my eye. I got out of the car and approached the store. My eyes widened, and I smiled. There on the display shelf were copies of three horror novels, all with the name of the same author: Geoffrey Thorn. That was my name, my book titles. It felt good to know my success reached all the way home, where the stories had really begun. It made it all worthwhile. Not just the money, but to know I had succeeded. It felt so unreal, as if I could blink and it would all be gone.

I did blink.

It was gone.

The window display held some faded gardening books, long past their timeliness for this season. I looked around.

My homecoming wouldn’t be what it should have been -- what it could have been. I had no books published; I had given up writing years earlier. The rejection slips had swamped me, pulled me down like a fierce undertow, drowning my hopes and my confidence. My success lived only in my fantasies. I touched my shirt pocket. All I held was a piece of paper with one line printed on it, one line that led nowhere. I hoped that here in Malton I could find the rest of the story that came after that sentence. Then I could come away from here with a resolution to the decision that was also a part of my return. Only then could I go back to New York City and my mundane job at the textbook publishing company. I had fled to the city with a fury that was going to drive me to the top. Instead, I had clawed out of the pit with my inspiration shattered.

I laughed. It occurred to me in my rush to get here, I forgot to pack my laptop. Some writer I was. Even if I was inspired, I had nothing to write with.

I looked down the block. It was too early for most of the businesses to be open, but I spied the used office supply store and noticed it was busily occupied. I passed the other empty shops and walked in, a bell ringing on the door as I entered. A bespectacled old man with a feather duster was cleaning a shelf of adding machines. He glanced at me with barely a twitch of his facial muscles.

“Hi,” I said, looking around and feeling awkward with the lack of response. The left side of the store contained rows of several types of wooden and metal office desks. Filing cabinets of different heights lined the back wall; shelves of adding machines and typewriters clung to the wall on my right. Everything looked antiquated. “Any used laptops for rent?”

“Ha,” he said. “Have you looked around the place?”

I had and realized it was a foolish question.

“I’ve got some ‘lectric typewriters, best I can do.”

Figures, I thought. I hadn’t used one since I was a kid. I remembered my mother bringing me in here to purchase my first typewriter. It was a junior high school graduation present. I marveled at the bright shiny machines and imagined all the stories I could write on them, instead of the spiral notebook and pencil I regularly used. I could write so much more with one of these, I had thought at the time.

This same old man had been the proprietor then. I looked over the rows of antiques, running my fingers along dusty keys. At least the letters were the same. I walked out of there with a small case and a ream of paper. Blank paper I was hoping to fill. And if I couldn’t, this whole trip might be a waste.

I got in the car and pulled onto the boulevard, driving along the right side of the lake. The beach was empty, like most of the town. To the east of the pooling water, the sun had cleared the tops of the pine trees. Soon the town would be awakening: businessmen sifting in to open their shops, kids waiting at street corner bus stops for their escorts to school.

As I rounded the lake, past the public beach, away from the stores and shops, I could see the old Victorian mansion looming ahead of me on the right. I pulled in front of it and stopped.

The iconic structure had been empty when I moved away. It had been owned by a trio of aged spinster sisters by the name of Peas who collected stray cats by the dozens. After two of the Peas sisters died, the lone survivor became a recluse. The house deteriorated, becoming nothing more than a pile of weathered, graying clapboards. Finally, after a strange odor began exuding from the walls, the police broke in and found the sole remaining sister had died. They didn’t know how long she had been dead, but they surmised it must have been a while. The cats had gone hungry and picked her flesh nearly clean to the bone.

After several years of desertion, the mansion had been renovated into the Tower House Inn. Its walls were painted a light, glossy blue that, when struck by the dawn light, resembled the lake water it overlooked. A cylindrical turret loomed large in the center of the mansion, looking much like the tower of the inn’s name. A wide porch, with a hanging swing, clung to the front frame of the house. On both sides of the stone walkway that led to the front steps was a black wrought iron fence with pointed spikes. It was four-feet high and ran the length of the walkway and along the perimeter of the front lawn. A set of white-painted metal patio furniture chairs lay scattered on the neat trim lawn. A flower bed encased in a rim of stones occupied the landscaping. Rising from its center was a post with a wooden sign that read: Tower House Inn – Bed & Breakfast.

Underneath it: Strangers Welcomed.

It was too early to check in. I continued driving along the boulevard which soon gave way to Autumn Avenue. I realized I was heading toward my old neighborhood so I turned quickly down a dirt lane that led through the woods by the east side of the lake. I knew where it would take me.

I parked the car and got out, walking along the familiar path. It was still worn from recent use and I wound my way along it, past evergreens and birches. There was a chill in the air. A breeze from the water was weaving its way through the trees. I heard the slight lapping of waves and came to the clearing.

This was a spot I had been to many times while growing up. The oak tree still stood at the edge of the banking, the rope swing hanging from a limb that stretched out over the water. Though the rope had been replaced many times over the years, it was still all the same to me. Voices from the past hung in the air around me. I remembered wrapping my hands firmly around the fraying rope, just above the knot, running forward and, with a holler, lifting my legs and sailing out. I remember the feeling when the rope reached its peak and you hung there in mid-air for just a fraction of a second, but it seemed long enough that you could look across the lake at the town and wave to the people on the boardwalk. You would let go of the rope and gravity would reach up and grab you by the ankles, yanking you down, the air whooshing by, the water parting at the touch of your toes, swallowing you up. The world shut off from your senses. Your feet would touch the soft, sandy bottom and your knees would bend and propel yourself upwards, the screams of the others filling your ears as you broke the surface.

Yes, I remembered.

I turned and, as if finding an old friend, I spotted the other oak. I didn’t know if it was the chill in the air, but I shivered. I wasn’t sure if I expected it to be there or not. Maybe I figured it would have died and fallen by now. But it was there.

I walked over to it, stood in front of it, and scanned the bark. They were still there. It didn’t seem possible, after all these years. I had been nineteen when I carved them and didn’t realize they would last this long.