Between the Bridge and the River (16 page)

Leon and Sarah kept their affair quiet for years and Pinkerton was always delighted that he had brought the boys home because since they arrived his marriage had gotten much better.

She had needed a child to look after, he thought.

The boys were in their twenties when, one day, Saul and the Reverend Pinkerton returned home early from a snake-buying trip in Tampa and found Leon enthusiastically banging Sarah on top of the tumble dryer in the basement. Pinkerton was horrified. He had never seen his wife in such ecstasy. She was sitting on the dryer barking like a dog as the young man fucked her vigorously. They were both sweating and oblivious. Lost. Sinners.

What he found inexplicable, what confused and disgusted him—and the reason they hadn’t heard him come in—was that the dryer was on.

She had been washing her husband’s purple robes.

A terrible scene ensued with much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth—another little Greek tragedy in the boondocks, the stuff operas and talk shows thrive on. Sarah professed her love for Leon, said she wanted to marry him.

Leon was struck dumb and Saul had to stop the Reverend from fetching his rifle and killing them both. He did this by hitting the preacher over the head with a clothes iron he found next to the washing machine.

The boys hightailed it out of town. Sarah begged to come with them but Saul bopped her with the iron too. He was on a roll. He had been thinking for some time that he and Leon should get out of there and make some real money. He did what all big-timey businessmen do: He turned someone else’s misery into his opportunity.

Saul and Leon stowed away in the back of a big rig that was carrying soft furnishings west from a discount warehouse in Orlando. They snuck aboard when the driver had stopped at a local gas station, just off the interstate, that was popular with truckers for its burgers and the amphetamines that the owner sold under the counter.

FRASER WAS FALLING THROUGH SOLID ROCK
. He felt surprised and surprisingly clearheaded. He noticed that his breathing was relaxed and normal. He didn’t feel panicky or upset, which was not usual when he was emerging from a blackout. He felt fine, except that it was patently obvious that he was underground and descending at a rapid pace. Through gravel and granite, past bones and temples and broken pots. He wondered why archaeologists were always finding broken pots when they went digging; ancient folks must have been really clumsy or had a lot of Greek-style weddings.

Ancient Greeks—did they even have weddings? mused Fraser.

Weren’t they all gay?

Down and down he went, each layer a civilization.

Millions dead.

Down through treacle-delicious puddingy peat, through hard black and blue coal, through blinding brilliant diamonds, and then the warm balm of white-hot molten lava, which didn’t burn him but made him feel sexy and safe.

Then a breathtaking adrenaline rush as he burst through a rock crust into a sky above a vast subterranean sea. A world lit by the clear light of a full moon, which is impossible given the circumstances, but there it was, off to the north, shining like a fat white bride.

He fell through a cloud bank, tumbling toward the calm black surface of the water. As he neared the water he started to slow down. A wonderful sensation of floating above the surface.

He saw a small sailboat in the distance and he noticed he was headed toward it. As he approached it came into focus.

The boat was about twelve feet long with a wooden hull aged by countless storms and salt. The sail was probably white but seemed silver in the moonlight. At the tiller sat a rickety thin old man in a coarse brown monk’s habit. He had a long beard and the bushiest eyebrows Fraser had ever seen. The eyebrows were so dense and bucolic that they hung down over the old man’s piercing green eyes, giving him the air of a creature watching from behind a thicket.

Fraser wafted gently on the breeze and floated down on the bench in the middle of the boat facing the old man.

The two looked at each other for a moment.

“Hello,” said Fraser.

“Hello,” said the old man, and Fraser instantly knew that the old man was speaking Icelandic but he also knew he’d be able to understand it.

At last Fraser twigged. He must be dreaming.

“Carl, it’s you, right?”

“No,” said the old man. “My name is Saknussem. Arne Saknussem.”

“Oh, sorry. I’m Fraser Darby. Nice to meet you.”

He offered his hand for the old man to shake. Saknussem looked at it for a moment, then at Fraser, then back to the hand. He took his own hand from the tiller and the boat was adrift for a moment as he clutched Fraser’s in his big skeletal claw. Fraser felt a chill shoot up his arm toward his throat. He pulled away quickly.

“Wow. You’re cold.”

The old man nodded.

“Still, cold hands, warm heart, right?”

The old man put his hand back on the tiller.

“No, cold hands, cold heart, cold teeth, cold hair, cold ears,” he grumbled, his breath making his wispy mustache flutter up.

“Right-o,” said Fraser. He was afraid of the old duffer. He was always excessively polite to people who freaked him out.

“So, where we headed?” he asked.

The old man gave him a look that told him their conversation was over. Fraser tried to fly away but found his bottom was stuck to the seat. The wind came up and Fraser had to duck as the old man swung the sail around and they tacked to the west.

The boat clipped along at a surprising speed and the old man’s eyebrows were flattened by the breeze. He looked like a dog that had its head stuck out of a car window. Fraser found he could turn around and face in the direction they were traveling, and although he would rather not be in the boat at all, at least he didn’t have to play jailhouse stare with the malevolent old collie at the helm.

Off on the horizon, a small island with three palm trees was silhouetted against the underground sky. Fraser couldn’t help but laugh when he noticed it.

After a while, milky-white chalk cliffs began to loom up ahead of them and eventually the boat washed up on a shingle beach, the almost still sea lapping quietly at stones like an old cat drinking.

Fraser turned and looked at Saknussem, who pointed to a gray workman’s porta cabin about two hundred yards up the beach next to the cliffs.

“On you go,” he said.

“Right,” said Fraser. He clambered out of the boat and started walking. Halfway up, he turned and saw that Saknussem was heading back out to sea. He shouted after him, “Thanks for the ride!”

The old man lifted his middle finger and gave Fraser a “Fuck you” gesture without even turning to look at him.

Charming, thought Fraser, and he headed toward the little hut.

A handwritten sign on the door of the hut read
PLEASE KNOCK BEFORE ENTERING
. Fraser tapped politely. No answer. He opened the door and walked in.

The interior of the cabin was set out in the style of a Beverly Hills dermatologist’s waiting room. Comfortable soft furnishings from Z Gallerie or the Pottery Barn, in this case two large green sofas.

There was an aged pine coffee table with copies of
Architectural Digest
and
Golf Pro
magazines piled on top. Fresh flowers were
arranged, hanging in little sconces. It was all very tasteful. Very nice. Relaxing.

A man sat on one of the sofas smoking a cigarette. He looked worried, his hand shaking with either nerves or the early stages of Parkinson’s disease. He was a big man, handsome, very nice sandy-brown hair that he kept running his fingers through, about fifty years old.

Rakish, thought Fraser.

He wore a checked jacket and dark slacks with white loafers, and he wore a cravat. He looked up anxiously as Fraser entered.

“Carl?” asked Fraser.

“No, sorry,” said the man in a soft Irish accent.

Fraser stood for a moment, then sat on the sofa opposite the worried man.

“I’m Fraser Darby.” He put his hand out to shake. The man took it and shook it.

“Brinsley. Brinsley Sheridan. Nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too,” said Fraser, happy to encounter someone friendly after the scary old boatman.

“I’m sorry, I’m a bit distracted, nervous, you know.”

Fraser nodded. “Yeah, that old guy in the boat would rattle anybody’s cage.”

Brinsley looked at him, puzzled.

“The sailor, Saknussem—the guy who brought us here.”

“I came in a Rolls-Royce. It was driven by a very nice Asian man called Tim. He made me a cup of tea.”

Fraser chose a different tack. “So, what are you doing here?”

“Tim told me to wait for a Mr. Lovecraft. I’ve been here about fifteen minutes. How about you?”

“I don’t really know but this is certainly one of the strangest dreams I’ve ever had,” laughed Fraser. “Present company excepted, of course.”

Brinsley gave him a sympathetic look. “You don’t know, do you?”

“What?”

“I don’t think this is a dream, Fraser,” said the Irishman kindly.

“What are you talking about? I just fell through the ground, floated across the sky, and sailed a calm sea with a cranky pensioner. Granted it’s not sexy or profound but it’s hardly the kind of thing that happens when I’m awake.”

“What were you doing before you got here?”

“Why?” demanded Fraser defensively. He still felt guilty about the ugly hooker.

“Look, before I came here I was in my bed in my house in London. My wife, Val, a lovely girl, love of my life, and my kids and my friends came to say good-bye to me. I had been in hospital with liver cancer but they said there was nothing more they could do. Val took me home. I fell asleep and woke up in the back of a Rolls-Royce with Tim making me a cup of tea. The pain of the cancer was gone and I had a full pack of cigarettes in my pocket. You see what I’m saying?”

Nothing.

Brinsley tried again. “I was losing my hair. I was going bald. Now look at it.” He ran his hand through his unarguably gorgeous thick head of hair.

Silence as the penny slowly fell.

“I’m dead?” Fraser gasped.

“I don’t know about you but I’m pretty sure I am.”

“But I’m breathing. I can feel my pulse. I’m here.”

“Yeah, that’s all true for me too but I feel it. In my gut, which is probably an illusion.”

“Are you a doctor or something?”

“No, I’m a used-car salesman but I’m also Irish and a poet.”

“You’re a car salesman and poet?”

“Not a lot of money in poetry, son. Mind you, the way things have been, there’s not a hell of a lot in the car business either. You don’t know anyone that would be interested in a Mercedes convertible? It’s a real collector’s item.”

“No,” said Fraser dumbly.

The men sat quietly for a moment.

“I play the harmonica too,” offered Brinsley.

“And does being a poet and a car salesman and Irish and being able to play the harmonica make you any more knowledgeable about this than me? We might both be dreaming, in the same dream.”

“Maybe that’s what death is.”

“Oh shit, you really are a poet. You really think we’re dead?”

“Yup.”

Fraser was thunderstruck. He thought for a moment. He thought about heading out into the Miami night, drunk and angry, he vaguely remembered head-butting someone in the men’s bathroom, he got little flashes of dancing in the gay club, and then he got a few snapshots of himself fighting with T-Bo and Silky and Wilson.

“Holy fuck,” he whispered.

“Jesus, be careful. Mind your language, we’re dead here.”

Fraser nodded. He started to cry. Fat, hot tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt about three years old. Brinsley smiled sadly at him.

“There, there, come on. It’s all right. Everybody dies,” he said.

“Oh no. I think I’m in big trouble.”

“I think your trouble is over, my friend.” The Irishman smiled softly.

“No, I mean with God and Jesus and everybody. I’ve been a bit of a lad in my life—scratch that, I’ve been a total prick. I always meant to clean up my act before I died. I think I’m going to hell.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. I’m worried about it too, I don’t know what the rules are. I had some adventures myself when I was younger. We’ll have to wait for this Mr. Lovecraft, I suppose.”

Fraser nodded, very upset. He started weeping loudly, unable to help himself.

His heart breaking on every exhale.

Time passed slowly in the cabin for the two men. Eventually Fraser calmed down and sat staring into space, numb with shock, as Brinsley leafed through an
Architectural Digest
. Brinsley put down his magazine and looked at him.

“So what do you do, then, Fraser?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Your job, what do you do?”

“Oh, well. I’m unemployed right now.”

“What did you do?”

“I was in television.”

“Really? I have some friends in television.”

“That’s nice.”

Brinsley could tell he didn’t want to talk, so he kept quiet as long as he could, but he couldn’t help himself. “Are you a celebrity?”

“No. I’m a disgrace,” spat Fraser huffily.

Before Brinsley could ask why, the door was flung open by a tall, gangly customer, about forty-six years old, dressed in a black cape, black pants, and shiny black boots. He had a long dishlike face that ended in a big chin that was magnified by the smile on his strangely small mouth.

“Hello! Hello! Hello!” he bellowed cheerily in a robust New England accent. “I am so sorry I’m late. You won’t believe the day I’ve had: gothic!”

Brinsley and Fraser stood up as he entered but the man ignored Fraser completely, strode over to the surprised Brinsley, and gave him an affectionate bear hug.

“Brinsley Sheridan, how wonderful to finally meet you.”

Fraser looked at Brinsley questioningly. Brinsley shrugged.

“I’m Lovecraft,” said the man. “Howard Phillips. Everyone calls me H.P. I’m a huge fan, Brinsley—may I call you Brinsley?”

Brinsley nodded.

“Did you bring your harmonica?”

Brinsley fished his mouth organ from his inside jacket pocket and held it up for Lovecraft to see.