Sunfall Manor Read online

  Art sits down at his desk. “C’mon,” he says, “it’ll only take a minute.” He holds the phone away from his ear as she berates him again, then says, “Okay, okay, here it is.” He starts reading about a girl who grew up poor in New Orleans.

  Edgar leans over Art’s shoulder and puts his ear close to the phone. Not a word of the prose is genuine or well-written, and Art’s face darkens by swift degrees as he reads. About fifty words into the mess he’s cobbled together, Art’s voice trails off.

  “Five years,” Lisa says. “Five years of my life wasted with you, and you don’t know the first thing about me, or what I went through as a child. Why do you even try?”

  “I’m sorry,” Art mutters.

  “Do you think you’re gonna get me back if you capture me on the page? Is that what you think?”

  “No, I…”

  A click, then the line goes dead.

  “Lisa?” he pleads. But she’s gone. Has clearly been gone for a long time. And he’s left only with a flat-line dial tone and his many photographs. Smiles, frowns, looks of surprise: reminders of what will never again be, probably never really was.

  Art deletes the file, shuts down the computer, and skulks back to the couch. Edgar sits next to him and watches tears trail down Art’s twitchy face. Art takes another long pull from his beer bottle, turns the TV off, and picks up the pizza box, most of its contents still unconsumed. He walks to the front door, opens it, tosses his dinner into the yard, and shouts, “Come and get it, Sheppy.”

  He calls all the neighborhood dogs Sheppy. Sometimes even sits on the porch and talks to them like they’re real people. “I’d take you in, Sheppy,” Edgar once heard Art tell one of the mutts, “but I got it worse than you. Wouldn’t be fair. Not fair at all. Besides, my money’ll run out soon. Inheritance from working-class parents only goes so far in this world. And then you’d just be back on the streets. Don’t wanna shine you on with false hope.” The bedraggled hound had just stared up at him with sad, stupid eyes, clearly wanting food rather than excuses.

  Art sits down at his desk and glares at the blank screen. Edgar wants to know what he’s thinking and also doesn’t. Then again, it doesn’t take a mind-reader, which Edgar is not, to see that Art’s wallowing in self-pity. Edgar wishes he could feel sympathy for him, that he could do something to help, but he can’t. More accurately, he won’t. Edgar’s self-prescribed code is simple: Don’t get involved.

  Not that he’s devoid of emotions or compassion. When one of the residents buys a newspaper, usually for the classifieds, or accidentally leaves the news on, Edgar pays attention. His heart bleeds for the victims in stories—nature-related disasters, child abductions, soldiers who won’t be coming home. These are people he’d like to help, if given a chance.

  So why have I been put here?

  Art’s the worst kind of victim. The self-inflicted sort. Edgar has read Art’s published books, all two of them. They’re the only volumes on his shelves, and Art never notices when Edgar takes them to the attic, the place he escapes once his rounds are completed. He’s tried to jump rungs in the cycle, move straight to the attic, but it doesn’t work. Access denied. Not only does he have to make these rounds, he has to spend sufficient time in each dwelling. He doesn’t know how the clockwork of death works, but he’s getting a good feel for it, and knows he is a low priority in the universe’s scheme, if there is such a thing.

  He’s never had more than twenty minutes in the attic. When he’s not reading Art’s books up there, he reads old newspapers—the space is dense with them, all from the mid-to-late eighties. Someone should really get rid of those old papers, Edgar thinks. But no one, except for him, goes to the attic anymore. Not that Edgar’s really anyone.

  Art’s books are all right in Edgar’s estimation; pulp mystery novels, nothing more, but well-written and engaging. A far cry better than the stuff he’s turned out since Edgar’s arrival, which is next to nothing.

  The old newspapers, copies of the local rag, are less fun; amateur musings about small town shit. But Edgar works through them anyway, hopeful—albeit doubtful—he’ll eventually learn something about himself.

  Now Art’s uncapping a fifth of cheap bourbon. “Graduating from beer a little early tonight, aren’t we, Art?” Edgar asks then shakes his head. Art guzzles from the bottle, staring at his menagerie of photographs, strewn haphazardly upon a goldenrod display that’s long lost its luster.

  “Lisa,” Art says, “why do you hurt me?” Then he takes another long drink, all the irony of the moment clearly lost on him. A few minutes of silence grind by, the only noise coming from the ready-for-the-junkyard furnace that’s struggling to warm these cold environs. Art snatches a portrait from the shelf and throws it to the floor. The frame shatters, then he pours some of the bourbon on the detritus and says, “I love you,” in an emotionless monotone.

  Art stumbles into the bathroom. The sound of the toilet seat going up. Pissing. Then a long silence. Edgar walks to the open bathroom door, watches his subject study himself in the mirror. Art plays with his curly hair, tilts his head, plays with his hair some more. His eyes go wide, then he squints, then they’re wide again. He’s breathing heavily.

  “Why are you watching me?” Art says.

  And Edgar is nakedly ashamed. Reflexively, he turns away from Art and says, “I’m sorry.”

  “Stop watching me,” Art growls. “Quit judging me.”

  Edgar casts his attention back on Art, who is now glaring and pointing at his reflection. His reflection, of course, is doing the same thing, and that seems to enrage him further.

  The phone rings, and Art relaxes his expression. He gives himself a quick nod, then rushes, balance awkward, into the living room. Picks up the phone. “Hello…hey, Timmy-boy, thanks for calling me back,” he says, slurring every S. “Nah, well, yeah, I’m okay. Just…you know…a lot of false starts—writer stuff. I’m sure you have similar…yeah…yeah…yeah…”

  Intrigued, Edgar walks behind Art and puts his ear close to the phone.

  “…just that Trish and I think you’d be better off here in California…” the voice on the other end says, Edgar continuing to chime in with “yeah” every few seconds, “…where you’ll be close to family. We can get you back in therapy, and I talked to Julian, who says he can get you some work writing for Mexican TV. You have to understand how much we worry about you out there in—”

  “I like it out here in the middle of nowhere,” Art says. “You know how it was in LA, got to the point I couldn’t go out in public anymore. I’m alone out here, no one watching me. Just how I like it.”

  If only he knew the truth.

  “Are you able to leave the house in Nebraska?”

  “Sure, I go to the grocery store. Not much else to do. No coffee shops or movie theatres. And no fucking traffic. Again, just the way I like it.”

  “Tell me this, what percentage of your purchases at the grocery store are liquor?”

  “Hey, what kind of question—”

  “I’m your brother, Arthur, and I love you very much. Thought about you yesterday when I visited Mom and Dad’s grave. You should have been there with me, could have paid your respects and put some flowers—”

  “No,” Art says. “I can’t be there. I thought we’d gone over this. Why don’t you—”

  “We can get you back into therapy, Arthur,” the voice says again. “Are you seeing anyone professionally out there? Is there even anyone to see out there?”

  “I don’t need—”

  “Stop it with the denial and try to look at this from my perspective—this is madness.”

  “Let’s not talk about me anymore,” Art says. “I…I really don’t want to hear anymore disappointment from my baby brother.”

  “I’m sorry, Arthur, but I can tell you’ve been drinking. You promised you wouldn’t drink if we let you—”

  “No more about me, little man,” Art shouts. “I called you ‘cause I need help—real help! I’m almost ou
t of money, and I was wondering if—”

  “No more money, Arthur. If you want a place to live, you have one rent free. But it’s not out there in the sticks, it’s here with—”

  Art hangs up the phone and throws it across the room. Beginning to breathe heavily again, like a child ready to throw a tantrum, he trudges back to the bathroom. Glares into the mirror for a few seconds, then punches his reflection.

  Glass shatters. Blood runs down his wrist. He drops to his knees, clutching his injured fist, weeping like a newborn.

  And Edgar’s left asking the same question that he’s asked more times than he cares to count. “Why am I here?” Then a flurry of thoughts: Is it just to witness these things that would otherwise go unseen? If a tree falls in the forest, and no one’s around, does it make a sound? Am I the answer to that old chestnut? Am I the universe’s way to fill the void, to make moments that would otherwise go unremembered real?

  Pretty shitty job, if you ask me.

  It’s not like Art’s going to remember any of this, regardless of physical scars. He called Lisa one night and repeated, “Fuck you, little bitch,” over and over until she hung up. He called her the next night and, when confronted with his transgressions, swore the incident had never taken place. Edgar could tell that Art believed what he was saying. Every falsehood fell from his tongue with enough conviction to beat a polygraph.

  She’s just as bad as him, of course, answering the phone, prolonging his suffering. In a twisted way, Edgar’s sure Art and Lisa deserved each other once upon a time.

  But Edgar knows deep down that he’s not here to make any of this real.

  Exhibit A: Carolyn and Ralph Simmons. They never forget anything.

  Edgar wonders what kind of wrong is cooking at the Simmons place tonight. Then he wonders about the time. He glances at Art’s VCR. The clock flashes 12:00. No help there.

  He shrugs and slips through the burn-scarred wall.

  – III –

  Carolyn

  She’s sitting in Ralph’s chair, cross-stitching. This is where she always sits when he’s out, a thing that, since the night Ralph swore he’d change his ways, happens less frequently than it used to. It was bound to start again. Ralph’s word plus a nickel is worth five cents.

  Ralph never returns reeking of booze. His sins are much greater, at least in Carolyn’s mind. He comes home smelling of strange women. His eyes tell Edgar that Carolyn’s suspicions are probably right.

  Edgar looks over her shoulder. She’s stitching a butterfly. Above the insect she’s already embroidered God is Good. A copy of the King James lays on the end table beside her. In about thirty minutes, she’ll put down her craftwork and pick up The Word. Her eyes will scan the pages, much like Edgar with his old newspapers, looking for something that isn’t there. That used to make him feel a connection to her, though hardly a strong one. Not anymore. She, unlike Edgar, has the power to abandon her post. And she should.

  She won’t. And Edgar grows tired of studying her. He doesn’t hate her, and that makes her a more frustrating subject than most. He paces around the apartment and tries not to think.

  Sometimes he can enter a numb zone, a state where time seems to quicken—and he’s not so certain it doesn’t. Like most things, however, trying is the fastest route away from success. Besides, riding the numb zone usually cuts him off from attic time. And he senses that he must go there tonight, though he suspects it will, as always, lead to nothing.

  Carolyn is crying now, and Edgar turns to face her. She’s stabbing her hand with the stitching needle, little pools of blood welling in her palm. Looking away from her wounds, like a terrified child in a doctor’s office, she stares at the Bible, a red leather-bound copy—the most expensive item in the entire apartment, Edgar surmises. Not that he’s an expert on price tags.

  Carolyn’s got a photo on the wall of her and Bob Barker to prove she’s taken a shot at such determinations. She watches the video tape sometimes. Her fifteen minutes of fame. Every answer, the price is wrong. No wonder she turns to Scripture. Dangerous for one so prone to misinterpretation. Same thing with her view of Ralph, only that’s a far more perilous and poisonous vine.

  So she is a prisoner. Her undying devotion to Ralph, Edgar can’t fathom. She clings to him when he’s here, caters to his every desire, talks sweetly though it’s clear she’s crumbling within. Perhaps that’s what drives him away, hoping that when he returns she’ll be gone, knowing that she’s too good for him.

  She is.

  Carolyn’s not a bad-looking woman by any measure, and she’s young enough for a fresh start. A little plain maybe, but that’s by choice, and par for the course in these prairie wilds. No children to tie her down, she’s smart enough to take the pill behind Ralph’s back. He just thinks she’s infertile. A much more convincing liar than Ralph, she plays along with that verdict, demonstrating Oscar-worthy aplomb. A contradiction of her tragic condition, but a spark of hope nonetheless.

  She may forgive his trespasses, but she never forgets. Forgetting is not Ralph’s forte, either. Edgar can still hear the echoes of their last fight.

  “Remember when you sent your mother our rent money so that she could take a trip?” Carolyn cries.

  “She’s my mother. She was sad, needed to get away.”

  “Maybe we should get away. Do you ever think about that? Unless…maybe you spent the money on someone else. One of your whores?”

  “Remember when I took you to Austin? You complained about the heat the whole time, wouldn’t even leave the hotel room. Why should I take you anywhere?”

  “Didn’t stop you from leaving the room.”

  “Had to get away from you, bitch.”

  “You could have tried harder.”

  “Like you try? Last time you put on makeup, Slick Willy was still in the White House.”

  This continues for hours, never going anywhere. Physical violence never rears its ugly head—that’s not their style—but maybe it should be. A good boxing match to leave tangible, unforgivable wounds. Perhaps that’s what she’s trying to accomplish now.

  She’s still stabbing herself, blood dripping onto the floor.

  “Stop it,” Edgar says, reaching out to her. But she can’t hear him, and his hand only passes through her shoulder, a chill spreading through his non-being.

  Edgar tells himself, maybe there’s a way I can move her. He walks into the kitchen, grabs a pad of paper and a pen from the Formica countertop. The clock on the microwave is flashing POPCORN.

  What the fuck do these people have against time?

  Back in the living room, he thinks about opening her Bible so he can scrawl on the pages, but he doesn’t know enough about Scripture to make the gesture relevant, and he doesn’t want to turn Carolyn into a fire-and-brimstone lunatic.

  He writes, GET OUT, then slams the notepad on top of her crimson King James.

  She jumps from Ralph’s chair, gasping as she looks at the message. A few frantic glances around the room, then she says, “Who’s there?”

  Now she can see the pen Edgar’s holding, no doubt floating from her perspective. He writes, RALPH DOESN’T LOVE YOU!

  “Yes he does,” she shouts.

  Backing away from Edgar—or, more accurately, the floating pen—she loses her footing and falls into the couch. Looking in his direction, but not meeting Edgar’s eyes, she says, “What are you? The Devil? Have you come to take me away from my Ralph?”

  Edgar damns himself for breaking his code. These people, impossible to help, are a nightmare. The code makes sense, keeps him a voyeur rather than a participant. Now, he senses, the game is changing. And he’s in too deep not to make one last effort.

  He writes: Ralph keeps his money in a coffee can on the top shelf of his closet, next to his gun. Take the money and leave. Please start over. Then, out of desperation—and perhaps a little wickedness—he adds the inscription: Love, God. So much for his moral stand. No. She was a nut already.

  She closes her ey
es, pleads, “Stop it, I don’t want to see any more! Please, stop it!”

  Edgar picks up the notepad, carries it toward her, then thrusts it in her face. Alarmed by a breeze from his swift action, she opens her eyes and reads the message. Then, slowly, she rises from the couch. Now she’s meeting his stare.

  Can she see me?

  Edgar turns to a mirror, afraid and alternately hopeful that he’s somehow become real. But the reflection dashes this notion. The only body in the living room is hers, and she’s nodding, a look of understanding taking shape. Without a word, she moves in the direction of the bedroom. And Edgar feels a modicum of relief.

  She doesn’t deserve to be in this place, and maybe he is here to help her. Relief becomes hope: If this is my purpose, perhaps tonight will be my last at Sunfall Manor.

  She opens the closet and reaches up to Ralph’s top shelf, where he keeps his stash of porn in addition to his money and gun. But her hands don’t come down with the cash-filled coffee can or the latest issue of Hustler.

  They come down with the Smith & Wesson, wrapped in a dirty, once-white cloth.

  She smiles and says, “I hope your judgment will be merciful, oh Lord.” Then she—faster than Edgar can process—puts the barrel of the gun in her mouth and squeezes the trigger.

  A blast rings out, smoke billowing from her gaping maw, her brains splattered all over her husband’s closet. Carolyn crumples to the shag carpet. The gun clatters against one of the metal support posts of her and Ralph’s bed. Her face is pale. Her chest heaves one last time. A blood bubble forms on her lips then pops.

  The furnace grinds.

  Edgar almost expects to be joined by Carolyn’s ghost. What now, God? she might say. To which he’ll shrug and reply: Now we make the rounds. But that doesn’t happen. She’s gone from this world and his. And he’s already tired of playing God.

  Edgar sits on the couch and waits. Certainly someone heard the gunshot and called the cops.