Phantom (15 page)

Peeler stopped worrying the crayfish and
looked at Ned.

"I told you how I stay away from the swamp
folks, and you can be sure I stay away from Sherwood's spa. There's
times when you might have to take a risk, and there's other times
when there ain't no sense in it at all. Understand'?"

"Yes."

"I hope you do," Peeler said. "I hope you
got that well and truly fixed in your head."

Peeler went and fished another can of beer
out of the tank. Ned stood where he was, still feeling a little
awkward but glad the touchy subject was now apparently closed,

''I'm goin' over to Stony Point," Peeler
announced. "Want to come along?"

"Stony Point? Well ... " Ned hesitated.
Actually, he didn't want to go to Stony Point that evening, but in
the circumstances he thought he probably should. Cloudy always
managed to find something else to do, but Ned had been on several
of these treks before, Peeler liked to walk to Stony Point a couple
at times a week, getting there just before sunset. It was a high,
bare piece of land just outside of town, and it provided a superb
view in all directions. The sunsets were certainly spectacular from
that vantage point, but they didn't seem to be what Peeler was
looking for. Every time Ned had been there, as soon as the sun
disappeared, Peeler would frown or mutter "Shit," or just turn away
and stalk home. Clearly the old man expected something else and was
unhappy not to find it, but no matter how many times Ned asked him,
Peeler refused to talk about it. He would tell Ned to be quiet and
watch, and then, when it was over and nothing unusual had taken
place, Peeler would hardly say another word all the way back. It
was the least enjoyable time to be with Peeler, but Ned realized it
had fallen to him to be the witness to whatever it was that never
happened.

"If my parents let me," Ned said. "I'm still
kind of on probation with them, I think."

"Okay," Peeler said.

Ned did go to Stony Point with Peeler that
evening. As usual the old man pointed to a dirty yellow cloud that
dominated the sky to the northwest and said, "There's good old
Washington, D.C."

The sun was deep red, easy to look at. By
now Ned knew how to watch the sunset and Peeler at the same time.
When the horizon had swallowed the last bead of crimson, Peeler got
up to leave with a familiar expression on his face. He looked like
a man who had hiked a great distance only to see a dog crap.

* * *

13. Goodbye, Greta
Garbo

Linda had bought the two
books to prove something to herself, but now it seemed like a
mistake. They sat on the coffee table like bricks, daring her to
have another go. The newspapers and magazines were full of stories
about the author, Conrad Linger, and interviews with him. He was an
unqualified literary and popular success. His novel,
Anchor the Land
, and his
book of short stories,
Goodbye, Greta
Garbo
, were both on the bestseller list. It
was either the first time an author had two books on the list
simultaneously, or the first book of stories on the list in
decades—Linda couldn't remember which. But the point was: Conrad
Linger was the man to read.

Linda had picked up both
volumes in the Reading Room, a combination book and card shop in a
mall outside of Lynnhaven. Judging by the photo on the back cover,
Conrad Linger looked a lot like Mr. Rogers of kiddie TV fame. Linda
started with the novel,
Anchor the
Land
, but put it aside after a few
chapters. There was no story line, just a crowd of characters who
conversed in ambiguities. Linda remembered reading in a review that
one character spoke only in haikus, but to her it seemed that they
all did. Hardly a page went by without the use of a "So be it," or
a "Be that as it may." Perhaps I'll be more receptive to it another
time, Linda thought, turning to
Goodbye,
Greta Garbo
. The stories in this book were
all set on a luxury liner that was on a supposedly romantic cruise
to an unknown destination. The title story was about a distraught
woman who eventually found relief by throwing her collection of old
wine labels overboard. In another story, a man spent the entire
cruise in his cabin, reciting haikus to his pet parrot. In spite of
his efforts, the man failed to teach the bird a single haiku. The
only thing the parrot would say was "Fuck off." The captain of the
liner appeared briefly in every story. He had no name. His eyes
"scoured the inner distance." He was always being given bad news
about the weather ahead. "So be it," he said stoically. Linda gave
up after five stories, leaving a dozen unread. She took another
look at the picture of Conrad Linger. He had the kind of smile you
seldom saw on the face of a serious writer.

What's wrong with me, Linda
asked herself. I can't even finish a book anymore. She knew that
all kinds of people read these books and found them to be witty and
perceptive, enjoyable on many levels. But she had been unable to
concentrate or to really get into either one. Did the "Dick Cavett
Show" and the Sunday
New York Times
now mark the outermost limits of her intellectual
life? A few years ago she'd had no trouble reading books or doing
any number of things-whatever she wanted. How had she changed since
then? Was it just another aspect of becoming ... ordinary? Dull? It
wasn't simply the result of demands placed on her as a wife and
mother; it was more recent than that. Or perhaps it wasn't, perhaps
she was only now beginning to see what had been happening to her
for some time. If that were true she could thank the move to
Lynnhaven for helping to open her eyes. Thanks a lot.
...

Sitting in the living room and staring at
those two slabs of culture, Linda remembered an unhappy incident
that had taken place when she was nineteen and at college. Art
history was her favorite subject, although not yet her major, and a
well-known artist named Beverley Boulder had arrived on campus to
give a series of three guest lectures. Linda attended them all, and
was very impressed. Beverley Boulder was a thin, intense woman who
had nearly lost her life in a freak accident a few years earlier.
The pastel cigarette she was smoking had come too close to a bucket
of solvent. The mini-explosion that followed had burned off her
eyebrows and most of her hair, leaving scars. Beverley Boulder
looked like an Auschwitz survivor who had literally been snatched
from the incinerator.

There was a big party after the last
lecture, given by the head of the department, Professor Bellini
(known to some of his students as Art Dago). Linda managed to get
in, and during the course of the evening she met Beverley Boulder.
An intense conversation developed between them and they drifted
away from the crowd for a few minutes. Linda was thrilled and
enjoying herself immensely. Until the famous artist put a hand on
Linda's hip and invited her back to Room 308 at the Ramada Inn.

Linda was shocked. It was the first time
another woman had ever made a pass at her, and the fact that it was
someone as prominent as Beverley Boulder only made matters worse.
But as she thought about it over and over again in the days that
followed, Linda was even more disturbed by her own naiveté. Before
that awkward moment, Linda had put together in her mind an
impossible image of Beverley Boulder: a woman damaged but toiling
on, a heroic soul fiercely dedicated to Art, a priestess at the
altar of Culture. Well, maybe there was some truth in that, but
Beverley Boulder was also a red-wigged lesbian who propositioned
coeds. Not that there was anything wrong in that—it wasn't Linda's
thing, but neither did she go in for judging the way other people
live their lives. No, Linda was annoyed at herself, embarrassed
that it had taken such an incident, trivial in itself, for her to
learn something so basic. Heroes and heroines exist in the minds of
their worshippers. The great and the famous are only human (they,
too, have genitals). Why had Linda needed to create such an exalted
and one-sided picture of Beverley Boulder, a picture that reality
could only diminish? What did that say about her?

The worst part was how long it had taken
Linda to get over that evening. Whenever she saw this theme
repeated in one of its million variations on television or in a
story, she squirmed and felt upset all over again. It seemed that
she had lived through one of life's greatest clichés and would
never be allowed to forget it.

Now: Conrad Linger.

You bought those two books of his for the
wrong reasons, Linda told herself. It's the same sort of mistake.
You didn't really want to read them, you only thought you did. And
now you've found out that you can't read them. They may be moronic
or they may be the greatest thing since peanut butter, but you
can't turn another page.

And so what? Did it matter at all? No. Did
it make any difference to Ned whether his mother had read Conrad
Linger? No. It was time for Linda to start being the person she
was, to live in her own skin and feel comfortable about it. She
owed that much to her husband and son—and, of course, to
herself.

Now, she was pleased to find, the two books
on the coffee table no longer looked important or intimidating.
They were just two books.

Goodbye, Greta Garbo, indeed.

* * *

14. Resistance

Ned woke early, which was unusual. He was in
his room every night at a proper hour for someone
nine-going-on-ten, but that didn't mean he was asleep. He would sit
at the window and look at nothing in particular, or he would lower
the screen and try to sight Jupiter through his telescope, or read
by flashlight beneath the sheets, or just lie on his bed and listen
to the sounds of the night outside, letting his mind roam over a
thousand strange worlds. However tired Ned might be, sleep never
came fast—it hadn't, for as long as he could remember. And so he
usually had to be roused in the morning. But today his eyes opened
at first light.

He lay still for a while, letting thoughts
form by themselves, unprompted. It was early, because the light was
gray and the house perfectly quiet. It was cool, and he could feel
the dew in the air, the sweet taste of it in his nose. Was it six
in the morning? Maybe not even 'that. Ned luxuriated in the moment.
This was wonderful, a delicious time of the day. The world felt
rich but at peace. Your body might or might not exist; you were
floating on a cloud. The mind stirring, but not yet locked into its
daily patterns. Receptive, directionless, undriven.

When the feeling became too ripe to sustain,
Ned flung the sheet back and sat up, He shivered, pleasantly
surprised that it could be so nice and cool at any hour here in the
blistering heat of July. Outside, all was brightening gray, and far
out in the meadow he saw a patch of morning mist hanging low. Ned
pulled on a pair of cut-off blue jeans and a T-shirt. He slipped
out of his room and tiptoed along the hallway to the top of the
stairs. The house felt big and empty, it was so quiet. He went down
the stairs carefully, hugging the banister to avoid the spots that
would creak. He didn't want to wake his parents.

The digital clock in the kitchen read 6:13.
Ned drank a glass of cold orange juice and then, with nothing
special in mind, went to the cellar and got one of his father's
hatchets. It was a little heavy, but felt comfortable enough in his
hand. Ned stood in the front foyer for a couple of moments,
apparently unsure of what he was doing. The next thing he knew, he
was at the back door, quietly unlocking it and stepping
outside.

He wanted to drive the hatchet into
something, chop, chop, chop .... And now he could see what it was.
The scarecrow. No one grew anything out there anymore. The
scarecrow was obsolete, an eyesore. Besides, it bothered Ned almost
every night, seeming to dance in place, pointing up to his bedroom
window. Ned had tried to ignore it by not looking—but how could he
not look? It was impossible. Now he would solve the problem. Ned
marched in a straight line across the back lawn toward the field
where the offending object stood. The wet grass felt good to his
bare feet.

Here I come, Mr. Scarecrow.

See me coming?

I' m going to take care of you.

For good.

The rough grass and weeds of the field
scratched and pricked Ned's feet but he took no notice of it,
striding determinedly onward.

You thought you were safe.

You thought I'd never leave the window.

Or dare to come down here and deal with
you.

But you were wrong.

Ned stopped a yard away from the scarecrow,
and now everything swirled together in his mind. The phantoms, the
strange light in his room, the garbled sounds he heard in the
house, the grotesque gardens at the spa, the awful presence he had
felt looming behind his back there—and this scarecrow, which
appeared to mock and threaten him by moonlight. ...

Chop! The hatchet was sharp and the
scarecrow quickly shattered and fell apart. Yes, it was a phantom,
but one which had made the mistake of lingering through the
daylight hours—the time when Ned could do something more than hide
beneath the sheets. It was like finding Dracula's coffin and
driving a stake through his heart before the sun went down. Ned
smiled grimly as he went about his task, elated now that he was
finally striking back. At least this phantom could be
destroyed.

Chop! It was also a way of
dealing himself a new hand by cutting down the skinny ghost he had
been until now, the pale child who could only huddle in fear of
things around him, pulling the bedclothes tighter, afraid to look
over his shoulder, nothing more than a scarecrow of a boy ever
since that night he had seen his mother lying like a sack of old
laundry on the bathroom floor, unable to move, unable to help,
unable
to do anything
. You began to silt up then, and it has continued in all the
days and nights that have followed, the Sandman working on you from
the inside. But at least now you finally understand, you can say No
more, you
can do something
about it.