FSF, May-June 2010 Read online

  "I don't hold it against her. When she was a kid.... Her father was a real nasty piece of work. He makes your dad look like a 4-H'er."

  "Jesus, Kevin, how many lives have you lived?"

  "I like to know why people are the way they are."

  "Was He just lying there or what?"

  "Who?"

  "God. When your grandfather found Him."

  "You could see for yourself, if you want. He'd be glad to show you."

  An ember pops. The fire flares. A brocade of cinders showboat skyward. She is hardly eager to lose it on a beach in Portugal again, but the thought of living another life.... Kev is right: the Dead do kind of grow on you.

  * * * *

  Gully casts the beam onto the breakers. Spots the rotting corpse.

  "It's kelp, you idiot,” the Chief barks.

  "A big mess of kelp,” Jimmy adds. He looks to the Chief, takes his deputy role all serious now. “But, do you think maybe they jumped? Do you? My dad says the waters hypnotize folks into jumping, even if they don't want to."

  The dogs have been racing to and fro between the Thumb and the treeline. Now Osso (or Buco for all they can tell) has gotten wind of something and the pair gallop off down along the bluff.

  Gully whips the beam around to where the dogs had been. Shivers. “What if the prick just pushed her off, eh, Chief? And then hightailed it for the woods? Then it's not a search, but a manhunt, right?"

  "Who's to say she didn't push him over, huh? Ever think of that?"

  "Like she'd do that? C'mon.” Gully snorts. “Really?"

  * * * *

  Grandpa. His soul fills her head as a rush of warm honey.

  His name is Henry. He's five and up to his ears in life preserver. They are tacking south, rounding Hurley's Basin. Just him and his pa. Sweet kid. Sweet.

  She goes again and he's Grandpa now. And he's standing with Kevvy atop Pilot's Thumb. “They want me to go for tests over Bangor way,” he says. “For what, to cut me open?"

  "But you climbed all the way up here, Grandpa. If you were sick—"

  He hushes the boy up. Tells him he knows what he knows and he's not going through the same hell the kid's poor mom went through. “It's not like I'm leaving without a plan for coming back now, am I?"

  "No,” the boy agrees, his head down to hide his tears. “I'll come up all the time. I promise. I won't leave you."

  He gives the kid a hug, ruffles his hair. And he steps from the ledge like he's stepping out for a smoke.

  * * * *

  "You didn't try to stop him,” Sara says, all squeaky clean.

  Kev goes right back at her. “I'd say that makes us kindred spirits, wouldn't you?"

  * * * *

  Gil pauses. Sniffs. “We're close. Smell that fire?” He pulls the Smith & Wesson from his belt, presses it into Jimmy's hand. “You know how to use this, need be?"

  "Wow,” Gully says with no small amount of envy.

  * * * *

  She's dabbled in stuff, smoked weed, played with TM. Inviting the Dead into her head wins hands down.

  They're up on the Katakani. Henry, Pa, and his older brothers, Pete and Frank. Hiking. Hunting. Foraging. They've been at it a goodly while when the forest turns ugly quiet. Pa cuts a slow 360, looking to fix a bead on whatever might have a bead on them. “Sometimes you go looking for stuff,” he whispers. “Sometimes stuff comes looking for you.” Sure enough, there's this crashing through the trees and they duck and they dive like it's coming down on them. But it's not.

  They get to their feet. Brush themselves off. Dazed a tad, but unharmed. Pete, he can't contain himself. “What if it's a rocket ship from Mars?” He's not so good in school, but give him Charles Fort or Jules Verne and he can quote you whole chapters. Frank pipes up that maybe a plane from Godfrey Field has come down. Now that's something Pa can buy into. They race to the rescue, Pa leading the charge up and about to a circular sweep of busted trees not thirty feet across. “What on God's green earth...?” Smack in the middle and flat on its back lies the cause of the devastation.

  "It's me,” Henry utters, not knowing what to make of what he sees. Frank, Pete, and Pa, they utter the same. This thing, it looks like whoever is looking at it. Like seeing your own self dead and gone and fixed to rot. “It's God,” Pete says, with absolute conviction. “Like he dropped fresh out of Heaven.” Pa cannot deny the boy this time. No sir. Because each of them, they know right then and there, without a shred of doubt, what their whole life is going to be. How much happy and how much sad and how much of everything else in between. They want nothing more than to be with Him. To lie right down, curl up, and die. Henry, he starts to bawl. Frank, Pete and Pa, they struggle to hold it together. But they're sniffling, all right. And their hearts, it's like they're coasting to shutdown. They are going to die. They are going to die. Then Pa, thank God, it's like he hears this little voice inside his head, shakes off the funk, announces, “We need to bury him."

  He is plenty big, but when they turn Him this way and that, He is light as balsa. No reason He doesn't blow right out to sea. They dig through the forest floor like it's whipped potatoes, fallen trees and branches crumbling as spent charcoal. No sooner are they done, the burial mound turns stone hard as if they'd never touched the ground at all. As if this big black rock has been here since the Ice Age. Pa sinks to his knees and the brothers follow. Clasp their hands in prayer. “Our Father who art in Heaven,” Pa starts. Stops cold. Doesn't move. Doesn't speak. “Pa?” Frank ventures. The boys grow fidgety, think maybe their dad has stroked out. “Pa?” Frank tries again. And Pa, he shoots to his feet, declares, “No sense praying when there's nobody to pray to."

  They gather up their gear. Head down the Katakani. Pa warns them: “Not a word. Ever. You keep your traps shut. Believing in God, that's faith, boys. But you tell folk the god they believe in is dead, that's blasphemy. They'll never let you be."

  * * * *

  A grudging gray dawn seeps into the clearing.

  Two blurs streak from the forest.

  Kev can't make heads or tails of it. Reaches behind, pulls his knife from the dirt. Too slow. The dogs’ noses are on him before he's sprung from his crouch. Hell, they're only yellow labs. Handsome buggers, too. They snuffle about his shoes and ankles, droopy tongues flinging laces of hot drool. “What're you hunting for, boys?” Kev asks softly, but it's the voice of Chief Boucher that comes in reply: “Drop the knife, son."

  The dogs pad off for the tombstone. So it's Sara they're after. Kev would follow, if it weren't for the shotgun swinging aimlessly from the crook of the Chief's arm.

  Boucher says something more, but the dogs—hell!—they've turned tail and his words are lost in the ruckus. The pair, they howl past the boy, almost bowling him over. Their yelping, it's pitiful, a snoutful of porcupine, a headful of Dead. Gil, he's never heard nothing like it. And here they come, bearing down on him like they got the hydrophobia. He moves to dodge them, but only riles them more. The lead dog, he thunders through, kicks it up a might, as his jaw strikes the 870, drives the magazine into Gil's knee. The cop, he's going down (the guy's in agony), but the rump of the second dog fishtails high and hard, sets him right, wrenching the shotgun up, behind, and under his jacket, the barrel jammed impossibly parallel to spine. Crunch, the Chief's wrist. Snap, the chief's arm. Pop at the elbow. Pop at the shoulder. And a brawny kablooie of exploding shell and bone at the head.

  Boucher crumples belly-down in a stock-still heap and out of the woods and onto the carnage Jimmy Alvin barges. Jimmy friggin’ Alvin with gun in hand. Stunned and stumbling. What the hell is up with them dogs? Jesus H. Christ! What the hell happened here? He trips, sprawls face-first into the bloodied bowl that used to be Chief Boucher's scalp, wrecks his chest against that oh-so-beautiful 870. Jimmy's fists hit the dirt and the Smith & Wesson takes a crazy bounce.

  Kev doesn't hear the shot. He never does. He's thinking if only Coach Hackles were here to see this. Jimmy Alvin, aka Jimmy The Grip, star tight end of
the Gideon High Bobcats, has fumbled a big one.

  Sara takes in the scene like she's seen it all before.

  "It was an accident,” Jimmy blubbers from his knees. He calls to Kevin. “I'm sorry, man, I swear to God, I didn't mean it.” He spits, wipes his face. Jesus H. Christ! The bloody pulp, the hard bits in his mouth, his nose, his eyes, and on his hands—he's gagging on Gil Boucher, dear God. Pukes. And pukes.

  Randy Gullickson lumbers into the clearing. The last leg has taken its toll. All that squeezing through and scraping by. His chin is cut, his jacket torn, his breathing akin to an Evinrude on the fritz. And the look on his face, you'd think his brain has been erased. It's like he can't believe a thing he sees. The Chief. And Akers. Holy friggin’ cow.

  Jimmy wretches apology upon apology, as Sara lifts Kevin's head to her lap. West Side Story comes to mind. Never fails. Tony dying as Maria sings. Talk about your goofy cheesy. She'd played Maria in school back in Darien one year. Had to fight the giggles most every performance. But now.... She brushes the hair from his eyes. “So, here we are again,” she says.

  "I told you, you can't change a life already lived. Mom gets sick, Grandpa jumps, I bleed out."

  "But us. Here. This has changed."

  "It has?"

  "We're having this conversation, aren't we?"

  "Have we had it before?"

  "Some of it, yes."

  "And me, how many times have you tried?"

  "I've lost count."

  "What year is it? For you, I mean?"

  "It doesn't matter."

  "You need to let me be."

  "I've lived the Chief's life too, you know? He isn't a bad guy. Funny thing, right to the end, he's never sure if it's me or you he's saving."

  "You can't do this forever."

  "I'm thinking maybe we've been going about this wrong. Maybe it's true, we can't change a life already lived."

  "Yeah."

  "But what about a life that's not yet done? What if I change me? What if I take the gun this time and don't give it back? What if I listen to the voice inside my head? What if I put the gun in my pack and walk out the door?"

  She plumps the sleeping bag into a pillow, gently places it beneath his head. She doesn't kiss him this time. Doesn't quite know why.

  "I swear to God, it was an accident.” Jimmy, he's like some broken record already. Gully gets his buddy's anguish and all, sure, but there's something more going on up here. “Clam up for a minute, will ya? Listen, man. You hear that—that freaky wailing?"

  Sara, she retakes her place upon the tombstone.

  And Kevvy, his trap shut tight, he slips away. Just slips away. But never without a plan for coming back.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: BOOKS TO LOOK FOR by Charles de Lint

  Makers, by Cory Doctorow, Tor Books, 2009, $24.99.

  * * * *

  So it's the year...well, I'm not sure when Makers is set. The near future. Post the dot.com boom. Kodak and Duracell have merged and Landon Kettlewell, the new CEO of Kodacell, decides the future is micro-investing in high-tech communal mini-startups.

  Enter Perry and Lester, cutting-edge inventors of such useful things as massed Elmo dolls that drive cars, or robots that make toast. But Kettlewell sees something in them and soon the pair are the heart of a nationwide movement of “New Work,” which is like the Depression-era's “New Deal,” only updated for the contemporary, digital age. Their work-plan changes everything and creates a viable source of income and creativity for thousands of unemployed.

  Documenting all of this is Andrea Fleeks, a journalist turned blogger.

  There's a large cast of characters, but these four—along with a disgruntled Disney executive who becomes their nemesis—provide the main entry points through which we view this brave new world. We follow their successes and failures, and along the way are offered glimpses of more ideas and themes than one might normally expect to find in a half dozen other books.

  Reading this novel reminded me a little of first reading Neuromancer—they're both the kind of book that feels immediate and unique when it first appears. Doctorow is a writer with a singular voice and ability, producing novels that will be admired and imitated, but no one will ever quite be able to capture the magic of the original.

  There's a lot of story here—just over 400 pages—but because of Doctorow's skill as a writer, it's completely accessible without ever losing the dense layers of all that inventive detail. Makers is smart and funny and tragic, beautifully written and as individual as the museum-like “rides” that Perry and Lester create in an abandoned Florida Wal-Mart to commemorate the rise and fall of the New Work movement.

  And now here's the interesting thing. If you want to try the book—reading it on your computer or iPod or ebook reader—you can download it and all of Doctorow's books for free at: craphound.com/makers/download/.

  While you're there, take the time to read his excellent essay on Creative Commons and copyright laws. I don't know if Creative Commons is the future, but it sure makes a lot of sense, and more power to Doctorow for pulling it off and making such a success of being a writer.

  When you read the essay, you'll get a kind of “of course” feeling (much as you will when reading the events postulated in Makers) but you have to remember that Doctorow was an unknown writer when he started this: giving his books away free online in hopes that doing so would translate into physical sales. It's something a name writer might try with her twentieth book because what does she have to lose? But Doctorow gambled it all, right from the beginning of his career, and happily for him, and for those of us who get to read his books, it paid off.

  So you have no excuse not to read Makers. Quite frankly, I think it's one of the best books of 2009. Possibly my favorite.

  * * * *

  Under the Dome, by Stephen King, Scribners, 2009, $35.

  * * * *

  I was going to start this review along the lines of how Under the Dome is the kind of book King does best (you know, the big, multiple viewpoint, sweeping epic), but when he's on, he's just as good with the tightly focused story that only features one or two characters. The key is when he's on, and he's on more often than not.

  Let me say instead that Under the Dome features the kind of goofy concept that King also does so well. In this case, it's like someone dropped a 20,000 foot tall glass jar over the New England town of Chester's Mill—nothing can get in and nothing gets out. A little air comes through. People can talk through it, though that can be dangerous since if you're wearing a pacemaker, or carrying a cell phone, close proximity to the barrier will make it explode.

  In the wrong hands, the reader would be closing the book after a few pages, and I suppose there are some readers who will do so anyway. But most people who pick up a King novel are willing to suspend their disbelief long enough to get on the roller coaster and go for a ride.

  Those who do will get a big fat dose of vintage King: a loose net of subplots around the principle conceit, with none of them boring; and a fascinating cast of likable and despicable characters, including the whole range in between.

  It's often been said that the secret of King's genius is how he takes ordinary people just like you and me, gives them an encounter with something paranormal and/or inexplicable, then shows how they react, how the experience changes them. Some descend into the basest of creatures, others rise to heroic heights, but that study of their character is what makes a book like Under the Dome so fascinating.

  I didn't really buy into the reveal toward the end of the book. I'm not saying King didn't play fair—he threw in lots of clues earlier in the story. It just didn't resonate for me. But the actions of the characters throughout certainly did.

  And what's interesting is that much of the tragedy they undergo is not directly caused by their bizarre situation. Instead, it comes from human frailty and selfishness, and in at least a couple of cases, sociopathy and outright delusion.

  I can still recomm
end the book, even with that ending, because you might well buy it.

  * * * *

  Under the Dome has the length of classics like The Stand. If it doesn't have the same mythic scope, that's only because, for all its length, King is telling a smaller story here. Or perhaps I should say, smaller ones. But that doesn't make them any less important.

  * * * *

  A Dark Matter, by Peter Straub, Doubleday, 2010, $26.95.

  * * * *

  I've heard readers say from time to time that Peter Straub's novels are difficult to read. He's too literate, some say. The stories aren't immediate enough. I don't agree and his newest novel is as good an example as to why I don't.

  A Dark Matter explores the past through the eyes of the present. We enter the story now, but it really began in the 1960s when the middle-aged protagonists were in high school and college. Back then they fell under the spell of a charismatic campus guru who convinced his young followers to take part in a secret ritual in a field that was supposed to change the world.

  It didn't change the world, but it did change them. One of them vanishes forever, one is brutally murdered. The remainder carry a secret burden that affects them for the rest of their lives. One goes blind. One ends up in an asylum, only able to communicate with sentences from books read. One goes to jail.

  But one of these kids from this group who all hung out together wasn't taken in by the guru.

  Years later, Lee Harwell is a successful writer and he doesn't often think of what changed the lives of his friends. At least he doesn't until a chance, unconnected encounter in a coffee shop gets him to thinking again of the guru, and that night in the field.

  He didn't go with them, and no one ever told him what happened—not even his present-day wife who was one of the group. But now after all these years, and with his wife's blessing, he follows the compulsion to track down the various participants and hear their stories. When he has spoken to all of them, his wife tells him, she will finally talk to him about her part.

  The past is always there as we go through our lives, making us who we are. But what we went through is rarely as high on the scale of strangeness as what Harwell's friends endured.