An Arsonist's Guide To Writers' Homes In New England Part 10

With that, he started shoving clothes at me a once-white thermal s.h.i.+rt, now dirty to the point of being yellow; a lined flannel s.h.i.+rt; a big, bulging, blue parka that might have looked good on the Michelin Man; a black Ski-Doo ski hat with an optimistic yellow ta.s.sel that smelled as though a month earlier the dog had put on the hat before taking a dip in kerosene. Peter had a point. If we were going outside, then I'd better dress for it. It was dark by now and probably even colder than it had been, and all I had on was what I always wore: khaki pants with too many pleats, which bunched up unattractively when I sat, a pair of running sneakers, and a gray fleece pullover, and they weren't warm enough, even, for tropical Ma.s.sachusetts. So I put on the clothes Peter gave me, right over my own. It was like adding another layer of skin, and then another. Even Peter was putting on a few extra layers of flannel and then a big hooded parka over the extra layers, and at one point, after all the piling on of clothes was finished, we turned to each other as if to say, Ta-da! Ta-da! There we were, in our beards and flannel, like a couple of girls dressing side by side for our big night out. It was unlikely and sweet, the way only unlikely things can be. There we were, in our beards and flannel, like a couple of girls dressing side by side for our big night out. It was unlikely and sweet, the way only unlikely things can be.

"Ready?" he asked. I was and said so. Peter threw the plunger into the corner of the room and then leaned over the couch. There was a dog curled up there, among the blankets; I a.s.sumed it was the same dog that had been howling from its doghouse earlier. Peter had obviously let him inside while I was in the bathroom. You could barely see the dog it was, like everything else in the trailer, somewhere between brown and deep red but you could hear it sigh happily when Peter placed his hand on its head and left it there for a moment, and this sound filled me with sadness of the worst, self-pitying kind. How was it that this mottled pooch had these most precious things the love and affectionate touch of another, a couch to lie on, a place (two places) to call home and I did not? Was this what it had come to? Was I lower and less fortunate than a dog? Was there a sadder person in New England, in the history history of New England? Would even sad-sack Ethan Frome look at me and feel lucky to at least have his p.i.s.s-poor land, his failing farm, his drafty house, his shrewish wife, his impossible true love, his barely functional vocabulary? Would even Ethan Frome be glad he wasn't me? Yes, the self-pity was thick in the air; the room was full of it, the way I had been full of pee a few minutes earlier. Maybe that's what the other toilet had been for. It was an interesting idea having a place in which to deposit your self-pity and it made me feel better, for a second, for having thought it. of New England? Would even sad-sack Ethan Frome look at me and feel lucky to at least have his p.i.s.s-poor land, his failing farm, his drafty house, his shrewish wife, his impossible true love, his barely functional vocabulary? Would even Ethan Frome be glad he wasn't me? Yes, the self-pity was thick in the air; the room was full of it, the way I had been full of pee a few minutes earlier. Maybe that's what the other toilet had been for. It was an interesting idea having a place in which to deposit your self-pity and it made me feel better, for a second, for having thought it.

Then whoosh whoosh, we went out through the cold and the snow and into the van. I can't remember anything about it except that at first it wasn't any warmer inside the van than out. Oh, was it cold! I can't emphasize that enough. It was the kind of cold that makes you insane and single minded, thinking only about how to get warmer, warmer, warmer. The heater was so slow in its heating, and to keep myself from thinking about how cold I was, I concentrated on Peter's directions to turn this way and that, and on the snow in the headlights, swirling and bouncing like molecules, and outside the snow the deep, deep darkness. Remembering it now, I realize it was nice: the world felt small and homey, just me and Peter and the snow and the darkness and the truck and the heat because here it finally came, really blasting at us, just in time for me to pull up in front of the Robert Frost Place. The house was your standard old white farmhouse-the sort where you wouldn't be able to keep the hornets out during the summer, or the heat in during the winter-and the only things truly notable about it were that it hadn't been burned down yet, it was ringed by parked cars, and it was lit up like Christmas. Every light in the house must have been on, and even Mr. Frost must have been able to see it from his new and more permanent home in the Great Beyond.

"What's going on here?" I asked.

Peter shrugged, which I took to mean, I don't know I don't know.

"Let's go see," I said. Peter shrugged again, which I took to mean, No No.

"Why not?" I asked, and you already know what his answer was, or at least how he gave it, and so I won't bother to interpret it for you.

But no matter what, I was going in that house: already that week I had been locked out of my house and my mother's apartment, and I was not going to be kept out of this place, too. I got out of the van, walked up to and inside the house, and guess what? Peter followed me. This is yet another piece of necessary advice that'll go in my arsonist's guide: if you lead, they will follow, especially if it's painfully cold outside and your followers don't want to be left in the unheated van. If you lead, under exactly these kinds of circ.u.mstances, then they will follow.

17

Let me say now that between the then then when this was happening and the when this was happening and the now now from which I'm writing, I've become something of a reader. Back then I hadn't heard of the author who was inside the Robert Frost Place, about to read from his most recent book, but I've heard of him now and have read all his novels, too. Each of his novels is populated by taciturn northern New Hamps.h.i.+re countrymen with violent tendencies, doing violent things to their countrywomen and children, then brooding over the violence within them and how the harsh northern New Hamps.h.i.+re landscape is part and parcel of that violence. Recently the author moved to Wyoming to get away from the city folk who are moving to New Hamps.h.i.+re, and he's now setting his books in Wyoming, where the men are also taciturn and violent, et cetera. And the books have won a few awards, and they've been made into major motion pictures I should say that, too. from which I'm writing, I've become something of a reader. Back then I hadn't heard of the author who was inside the Robert Frost Place, about to read from his most recent book, but I've heard of him now and have read all his novels, too. Each of his novels is populated by taciturn northern New Hamps.h.i.+re countrymen with violent tendencies, doing violent things to their countrywomen and children, then brooding over the violence within them and how the harsh northern New Hamps.h.i.+re landscape is part and parcel of that violence. Recently the author moved to Wyoming to get away from the city folk who are moving to New Hamps.h.i.+re, and he's now setting his books in Wyoming, where the men are also taciturn and violent, et cetera. And the books have won a few awards, and they've been made into major motion pictures I should say that, too.

It was a good thing Peter and I arrived when we did, because we got two of the last available seats. I did a quick scan of the crowd for arsonists or potential arsonists, but I recognized no one, no one at all. There were a few women scattered around, but mostly the audience was composed of men. Some of the men were dressed like Peter and wore red plaid hunting jackets or bulky tan Carhartt jackets or lined flannel s.h.i.+rts, and all of those men were wearing jeans and work boots. Some of the men wore ski jackets and hiking boots and the sort of many-pocketed army green pants that made you want to get out of your seat and rappel. Some of the men wore wide-wale corduroy pants and duck boots and cable-knit sweaters and scarves. It was a regular United Nations of white American manhood. But all the men, no matter what they were wearing, were slouching in their chairs, with their legs so wide open that it seemed as though there must be something severely wrong with their t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.

In front of all of us was a podium with a microphone sticking out of it. On the front of the podium and all over the walls, too were posters announcing the reading, and also announcing the reader's position as the current Robert Frost Place's Writer-in-Residence. There was a picture of the Writer-in-Residence on the poster, and from the picture I recognized him in person, sitting off to the right of the podium. He, too, was wearing a red plaid hunting jacket and had a big red beard and a pile of graying red curly hair. Sitting next to him was a thin, bald man wearing wire-rimmed gla.s.ses and a yellow corduroy s.h.i.+rt so new that it looked as though it had just come out of the box. The thin, bald man got out of his chair, walked to the podium, and introduced himself as the Director of the Robert Frost Place. He talked about the history of the Robert Frost Place Writers-in-Residence, and how each Writer-in-Residence was chosen for the way he and his work embodied the true spirit of Robert Frost and of New England itself. The Director then talked for a while about what, exactly, the true spirit of New England was. I can't say I listened to all, or any, of what he said, the way you don't really listen to those car commercials when they tell you how their vehicle embodies the true spirit of America.

Anyway, this went on for a while, and at some point he must actually have introduced the Writer-in-Residence, because the Director suddenly sat down, there was some applause, and the Writer-in-Residence took his place at the podium. He took a bottle of Jim Beam the size and shape of a hip flask out of his jacket pocket and took a pull from it, and without saying a word of thanks to us for coming, he began to read. The story was about a woodpile and the snow falling on the woodpile and the old man who owned the woodpile and who wasn't actually that old but who had been so beaten down by life that he looked old. The old man was sitting at his kitchen window drinking bourbon straight from the bottle and watching the snow wet the wood that he and his family needed for their heat and that needed to be chopped, p.r.o.nto. His son was supposed to chop the wood, the son had promised, but he was off somewhere getting into trouble with a girl the old man didn't much care for because she was a s.l.u.t (she was a s.l.u.t, it seemed, not because she'd actually had s.e.x with someone or someones, but because who else but a s.l.u.t would date the old man's son?). The old man hated the girl and he hated the son and he hated the snow and he hated the un-chopped wood, which clearly was some sort of symbol of how the man's life hadn't worked out the way he'd planned, and the old man hated the bourbon, too, which he kept drinking anyway. I couldn't understand why the old man didn't just get off his a.s.s and chop the wood himself, and I also couldn't understand why the author didn't use metaphors or similes in his story, but he didn't; the story was more or less an unadorned grocery list of the things the old man hated. And speaking of grocery lists, the old man's wife entered the kitchen with her her grocery list and told the old man that she was going to the store, and as an aside she looked at the dead woodstove and said, "Pa." The old man didn't answer her, maybe because he didn't like to be called "Pa," or maybe because he liked to be called "Pa" so much that he wanted his wife to call him that again, or maybe because men like him are only called "Pa" in books and he didn't realize he was in one. In any case, his wife said it again "Pa" and then: "It's cold in here. Why don't you go out and chop some wood?" grocery list and told the old man that she was going to the store, and as an aside she looked at the dead woodstove and said, "Pa." The old man didn't answer her, maybe because he didn't like to be called "Pa," or maybe because he liked to be called "Pa" so much that he wanted his wife to call him that again, or maybe because men like him are only called "Pa" in books and he didn't realize he was in one. In any case, his wife said it again "Pa" and then: "It's cold in here. Why don't you go out and chop some wood?"

The old man didn't look at his wife when she said this; instead he looked at the ax resting in the corner, and he looked at it in such a resigned, meaningful way that it was clear that he wouldn't chop wood with it but would instead use the ax to commit some horrible violent act against his wife or his son or both and that the violence was inevitable. The story ended with him staring at the ax, and then the Writer-in-Residence left the podium and reclaimed his seat next to the Director.

There were several minutes of big, thunderous applause. It was like the time I spoke to Katherine's first-grade cla.s.s for career day. I'd brought in the ziplock plastic bag I'd invented for show-and-tell, and I showed the kids how it zipped and locked, zipped and locked, and then told them how I'd made the bag that way and why. Afterward the kids gave me a sustained, raucous ovation, not because they were so impressed by the bag, but because they were competing with one another to see who could clap the loudest and the longest. The ovation in the Robert Frost Place was like that. Even I slapped my hands together, in the spirit of the thing and to be agreeable. The only person in the audience not not clapping was Peter. At first I thought it was just that he clapped the way he talked. But then I noticed he was staring at the Writer-in-Residence, really staring at him, squint eyed and furious, as if the Writer-in-Residence were an especially hateful eye exam. Instead of clapping, Peter was grinding his right fist into his left palm in such a way that it made me feel very sorry for the palm. clapping was Peter. At first I thought it was just that he clapped the way he talked. But then I noticed he was staring at the Writer-in-Residence, really staring at him, squint eyed and furious, as if the Writer-in-Residence were an especially hateful eye exam. Instead of clapping, Peter was grinding his right fist into his left palm in such a way that it made me feel very sorry for the palm.

"What's wrong?" I whispered.

"I hate him," he growled.

"Why?" I asked, but he didn't answer me, not even a shrug. That's how angry he was.

And after thinking about it a few moments the applause continued, which was good because I think better with the help of white noise, the way some people sleep better with the help of a fan I was pretty sure I knew why he hated the Writer-in-Residence. I had a clear picture of Peter sitting at home the stove blazing away, his plunger and dog close by and reading book after book after book. Maybe he'd read the Writer-in-Residence's books, too, and they with the help of Ethan Frome Ethan Frome were telling him not what sort of person he were telling him not what sort of person he could could be but what sort of person he be but what sort of person he was was and always would be: grim, beaten down, violent, inarticulate. Maybe this was what the Director meant by the true spirit of New England, and always would be: grim, beaten down, violent, inarticulate. Maybe this was what the Director meant by the true spirit of New England, spirit spirit being not that thing that helps you rise above, but that which weighs you down. Maybe this was why Peter wanted me to burn down the Robert Frost Place: because they kept bringing in Writers-in-Residence like this Writer-in-Residence, kept bringing in men who told Peter who he was and who he wasn't, and not who he might yet be, and Peter was sick of it. This I knew for certain, as though I had Peter's letter in front of me and had read it many times and knew his reasons by heart, which of course I hadn't and didn't. being not that thing that helps you rise above, but that which weighs you down. Maybe this was why Peter wanted me to burn down the Robert Frost Place: because they kept bringing in Writers-in-Residence like this Writer-in-Residence, kept bringing in men who told Peter who he was and who he wasn't, and not who he might yet be, and Peter was sick of it. This I knew for certain, as though I had Peter's letter in front of me and had read it many times and knew his reasons by heart, which of course I hadn't and didn't.

Because if I had, if I knew then what I know now (I recovered Peter's letter, a story I'll get to soon), I'd have known that Peter wanted me to burn down the Robert Frost Place because of the Director, who, of course, was sitting right next to the Writer-in-Residence. Six years earlier (Peter had written me the letter after I'd been released from prison), the Director had hired Peter to fix a leak in the roof. A week after Peter had fixed it and been paid for the fixing, the roof had started to leak again, and Peter refused to fix it again unless he was paid again. The Director not only didn't pay him again but also made it known that Peter was unreliable and shouldn't be hired, and now Peter couldn't get work. Even six years later, he apparently couldn't get work. And so he wanted me to burn down the Frost Place because he wanted revenge on the Director. The letter didn't say why Peter couldn't just burn the house down himself, but the b.u.mbled condition of his bathroom gave me a pretty good idea. In any case, his wanting me to burn down the Frost Place had nothing to do with the Writer-in-Residence, just as the Writer-in-Residence had nothing to do with Frost himself, even though he was there under Frost's name. I wonder if this is why writers die: so they don't have to sit around and have people misconstrue what sort of writer they are. I wonder if this is why people people do it, too. Die, that is. do it, too. Die, that is.

As for why Peter read so much and had so many books scattered around his house, his letter didn't say. Maybe because he couldn't get any work, he had so much time to kill, and reading helped him do that. Maybe he was bored. Maybe he liked liked to read. Maybe because the books were from the library and free, the way so few things are. Or maybe his reasons were private, if to read. Maybe because the books were from the library and free, the way so few things are. Or maybe his reasons were private, if private private means not that someone else wouldn't understand our reasons, but that we don't entirely understand them ourselves. means not that someone else wouldn't understand our reasons, but that we don't entirely understand them ourselves.

In any case, I thought I knew who Peter hated and why he hated him, and I felt for Peter and wanted to do something to help him, something besides what he wanted me to do. Meanwhile, the applause kept going on and on and the Writer-in-Residence sat there looking more and more severe and drinking more and more bourbon, and the Director was looking more and more pleased, and Peter's face was getting redder and redder, and you could tell his resentment was getting hotter and hotter, and let's just say I felt I had to do something. If that's not good enough, let's just say that if the spirit of New England was in the Writer-in-Residence, then the spirit of my mother book reader and storyteller was in me.

"I have a question," I said, standing up as I said it. I don't know if anyone heard me over the applause, but sooner or later a group of people sitting will take notice of one man standing. When this group noticed me a few minutes later, they stopped clapping. "I have a question," I repeated.

"No questions, no questions," the Director said, standing up. When he did that, Peter growled audibly, which I appreciated, and kept growling until the Director sat down. The Writer-in-Residence didn't seem to care one way or the other. He looked weary and dulled out, as though he knew exactly who I was, as though he'd played his Mercutio to my Tybalt too many times before. Even his drinking from the Jim Beam seemed to come at planned, regular intervals, as though part of the stage directions.

"Why does your character have to be such a" and here I paused for just the right words, and not able to find them, I chose from the many inadequate words at my disposal "mopey jerk?"

The Writer-in-Residence took another pull off his bottle of Jim Beam and said that he didn't feel it was his business to say why his characters were the way they were.

"Whose business is it?"

"It's n.o.body's business, and I mean n.o.body's," the author said.

This must have been a line from one of his books, because everyone around him cheered and hooted. This is the most terrifying thing about speaking in front of a crowd: not that you've lost them, but that you never had them in the first place and never will. My face felt so hot, so red, and I bet that if I'd touched my cheek to the floor, the whole house would have gone up in smoke, and Peter would have gotten what he wanted that way. But I didn't do that: I stood there and waited for the crowd's noise to finally subside, and then said, "But it is is your business. You made him that way." your business. You made him that way."

"I didn't make him that way," the Writer-in-Residence said. "That's the way he is."

"The way he is," I repeated. I borrowed this tactic from my mother. When I was a child and I would say something stupid, she would repeat it back to me so I could hear for myself how stupid it was.

"The way he is," the Writer-in-Residence repeated back to me. Maybe that was his tactic, too.

"But suppose that's not not the way he is," I said, and before the Writer-in-Residence or his crowd could say anything else, I continued: "Suppose he's not an old man. Suppose he's a young man." The Writer-in-Residence nodded, as though that seemed a viable alternative, which only encouraged me. "Suppose he wasn't angry at all. Suppose he had a job. Suppose he was a farmer . . . " And here I paused. I remembered the bond a.n.a.lysts' memoir-brainstorming sessions; I remembered that they always urged one another, when trying to hurdle an especially big writer's block, to "write what you know." And in a sense, the bond a.n.a.lysts the way he is," I said, and before the Writer-in-Residence or his crowd could say anything else, I continued: "Suppose he's not an old man. Suppose he's a young man." The Writer-in-Residence nodded, as though that seemed a viable alternative, which only encouraged me. "Suppose he wasn't angry at all. Suppose he had a job. Suppose he was a farmer . . . " And here I paused. I remembered the bond a.n.a.lysts' memoir-brainstorming sessions; I remembered that they always urged one another, when trying to hurdle an especially big writer's block, to "write what you know." And in a sense, the bond a.n.a.lysts did did write what they knew they knew my father's postcards, knew where he had been and what he had done and so it seemed like useful advice. But I didn't know anything about being a farmer, so I tried something else. "Or suppose he was a lumberjack." But again, same problem: I knew nothing about being a lumberjack, not even what sort of saw to use in killing which sort of tree. The only job I knew anything about was being a packaging scientist. But I remembered my father's initial reaction to my job "No greatness in tennis ball cans" and I suspected the Writer-in-Residence's reaction would be the same or worse. And so out of panic and with nothing else to say, I said, "Or suppose this young man was a b.u.mbler and he accidentally ... , " and then I basically told the story I've been telling you. It was a much shorter version, but it included most of the major events and characters: my mother's stories and the burning houses and the dead Colemans and their vengeful son and my beautiful wife and children and my drunk parents and their mysterious living situation and the letters and the bond a.n.a.lysts. It's true the story didn't have a proper ending I only told the story up to the Mark Twain House fire and then said, "To be continued" but I tried to keep things close to the facts. In fact, the only thing I made up about the young man was that he played a mean twelve-string guitar, because I'd always wanted to play guitar and because twelve strings seemed better than six, since there were more of them. write what they knew they knew my father's postcards, knew where he had been and what he had done and so it seemed like useful advice. But I didn't know anything about being a farmer, so I tried something else. "Or suppose he was a lumberjack." But again, same problem: I knew nothing about being a lumberjack, not even what sort of saw to use in killing which sort of tree. The only job I knew anything about was being a packaging scientist. But I remembered my father's initial reaction to my job "No greatness in tennis ball cans" and I suspected the Writer-in-Residence's reaction would be the same or worse. And so out of panic and with nothing else to say, I said, "Or suppose this young man was a b.u.mbler and he accidentally ... , " and then I basically told the story I've been telling you. It was a much shorter version, but it included most of the major events and characters: my mother's stories and the burning houses and the dead Colemans and their vengeful son and my beautiful wife and children and my drunk parents and their mysterious living situation and the letters and the bond a.n.a.lysts. It's true the story didn't have a proper ending I only told the story up to the Mark Twain House fire and then said, "To be continued" but I tried to keep things close to the facts. In fact, the only thing I made up about the young man was that he played a mean twelve-string guitar, because I'd always wanted to play guitar and because twelve strings seemed better than six, since there were more of them.

"What do you think?" I asked after I was done. In truth I was very pleased with myself and with my story and all that had happened in it. Because you can't help being impressed with your own story. Because if you're not impressed with your own story, then who will be? "What would you say about that that guy?" I asked. guy?" I asked.

"I'd say he doesn't sound like a real person," the Writer-in-Residence said.

"He doesn't?" I asked. Oh, that hurt! Just the day before, Lees Ardor had told me she wanted to be a real person, and now I knew exactly what she meant. I would have given anything, right then, not to have told my story. I would have given anything to go back in time, before I'd told my story, and get Lees Ardor and bring her here so we could have sat there together and listened to the Writer-in-Residence tell us what a real person was.

"He doesn't sound like a real person at all," the Writer-in-Residence said. "He sounds like a cheap trick. No cheap tricks."

"No cheap tricks," I repeated. I fell back into my chair, hard, and I bet the folding chair would have folded with the impact except it had heard what had happened and felt pity.

"No tricks at all," the Writer-in-Residence said, and then he took another swig of his bourbon.

At that moment the Director stood up, walked toward the podium, and started waving his hands and arms over his head, as though he were s.h.i.+pwrecked and trying to get the attention of a plane flying overhead. "I believe that's all the time we have," he said, and then he announced that the Writer-in-Residence would be happy to sign books. This announcement caused a mad rush toward the front of the room. I sat in my seat, with my head hanging between my knees, in the crash position. Except I had already crashed and the position was taken too late. Peter was sitting next to me I could hear the angry in-and-out of his breathing but other than him, I felt completely alone. Even my mother's spirit had left me, as though it had, like the Connecticut Yankee, time-warped out of my body and this place and back into its own.

I don't know how long we sat there like that: it could have been a minute, it could have been an hour. Finally Peter grabbed the back of my (his) jacket and pulled me backward. I refused to look at him, so he had to grab my chin and turn my head and attention in his direction. Peter was angry, that was clear. I a.s.sumed he was angry at me: not only had I made a fool of myself, but by telling my story I'd probably drawn some unwanted attention to myself, and to him and his letter, and to what he wanted me to do. I hung my head again, in shame; and again he put his hand to my chin and raised it up, but gently, surprisingly gently.

"You understand now why I hate that guy?"

"I do," I said. Because I thought I did.

"OK?" Peter asked, then shrugged. I knew he was asking me if I'd burn the house down for him, for free; I knew that. I had no intention of doing what he wanted, but and this is just one of the many things of which I'm ashamed I was so grateful that he wasn't angry that I decided to play along, playing along playing along being the thing we do when it's too difficult to do its opposite and just tell the truth. being the thing we do when it's too difficult to do its opposite and just tell the truth.

"OK," I said.

"Good," he said. "Let's go."

"Where to?"

"The bar," Peter said.

"Good idea," I said. We got up and left the house, but before I did, I glanced back at the Writer-in-Residence. He was still sitting in his chair, still drinking his Beam. There was still a long line of people holding books for him to sign. The Director was still hovering over him for G.o.d knows what reason. But the Writer-in-Residence wasn't looking at the Director or his audience or their copies of his books. No, he was looking at us, longingly, as we walked out the door, and who knows: maybe he was thinking that we were real people after all.

18

The bar was a gray cinder block rancher with a black plywood entrance on the front and not to the side as on Peter's trailer. But they were from the same lowborn family of buildings. There were neon beer lights in the windows, and around the windows were flickering Christmas lights, but the lights were fighting a losing battle; half of them were out and dead. They'd probably been left up all year. There was no sign naming the place as this bar or that tavern, as if no name were sufficiently bad. The parking lot was full, the trucks they were almost all trucks parked at angry, confrontational angles, as if preparing themselves for a demolition derby or having just finished one. It was the sort of bar that gave one pause, especially if the one was someone like me, who'd never been in a bar like this before. True, I'd been to plenty of "bar and grille's": there were dozens of them near our house in Camelot. But they were the sort of places that provided crayons for the kids, and special place mats for them to deface, and stern warnings on the menu not to let the kids draw on anything but the place mats, and they were also the kind of places that issued even sterner warnings on the place mats, on the walls, on the waitresses' and waiters' uniforms, everywhere everywhere forbidding you to smoke or else, and in these ways the "bar and grille" seemed exactly like the world outside the "bar and grille" except with more rules and fewer ways to break them. forbidding you to smoke or else, and in these ways the "bar and grille" seemed exactly like the world outside the "bar and grille" except with more rules and fewer ways to break them.

This place was different, and after entering it I understood immediately why bars exist and why people like to drink in them: if a "bar and grille" reminded you of all the things you shouldn't do, then a real bar gave you the idea that there was nothing you couldn't do, and no consequences to face if you did do it. My first impression of the place was wrong; it wasn't depressing at all. For one thing, it was better-looking inside than out. The bar floor was pine, with a bowling-alley slickness to it. Overhead there was a low drop ceiling with flaking acoustical tiles that I could touch and did, which gave me a nice sense of accomplishment. For another, there was Peter, standing next to the men's room, selling drugs dime bags, he called them, ten-dollar plastic bags of marijuana to guys who looked a lot like him but happier, more talkative. For that matter, Peter in the bar seemed a happier and more talkative version of Peter, too, and that's why I say the bar wasn't depressing. Being in it seemed to free Peter. Or maybe it was the pot, much of which he seemed to deal to himself. Or maybe it was that I'd agreed to do what I in fact had no intention of doing. Right when we first got to the bar, Peter pointed at me, said, "That's him," and made introductions all around. There was Barry, Mick, Shoe, and Lyle. Of course, I didn't get their names straight at the time, but they didn't seem to mind and made me feel right at home. At one point, Peter even put his arm around me and said, "We need need you, bud," which nearly made me cry and made me feel as though I needed them as much as they needed me. you, bud," which nearly made me cry and made me feel as though I needed them as much as they needed me.

But then again, it might have been the booze making me feel that way. Peter bought me shot after shot of bourbon, and soon I started calling myself myself by the wrong name, and this got all of them laughing good and hard, which made me glad, so glad that I drank some more. I must have done at least a good baker's dozen of shots. After a point, I have no memory of any real conversation or of time pa.s.sing, although it must have, because I found myself sitting on a stool at the horseshoe bar, the guys were nowhere to be seen, and there was a band playing. by the wrong name, and this got all of them laughing good and hard, which made me glad, so glad that I drank some more. I must have done at least a good baker's dozen of shots. After a point, I have no memory of any real conversation or of time pa.s.sing, although it must have, because I found myself sitting on a stool at the horseshoe bar, the guys were nowhere to be seen, and there was a band playing.

There was no stage in the bar, but in one corner there was a band playing anyway, four guys two guitarists, a ba.s.sist, a drummer with long, stringy hair peeking out from under their ski hats, nodding their heads violently in time to a song that seemed to have no time. The ba.s.s was so loud it wasn't just a sound but also a feeling coming up through the floor, up into me, through my groin, my heart, my throat. The sound pulled me toward the band, although first I got another shot of bourbon from the bartender.

I took my drink and went and stood in front of the band. I didn't recognize the song they were playing, but when it ended, someone yelled out, "Creedence!" This seemed to encourage the guys in the band, because they launched into another song, a favorite apparently, and the dance floor got crowded women dancing with men, women with women, men without partners stomping their feet and singing into their beer bottles and before I knew it, I was dancing, too.

Yes, I was dancing, and immediately I remembered why I hadn't danced in a long time. Because when I dance, I dream, or at least I remember, which for me is exactly the same as dreaming. So the band launched into Creedence, if that's what it was, and I started stomping my feet and swinging my arms a little, and just like that, I started dreaming about the last time I'd danced, at my wedding, with Anne Marie. It was our wedding song, and I don't remember what it was another thing of which I'm ashamed but I had the impression it had been many other people's wedding song as well. I noticed many of the older married guests go soft in the eyes and clasp hands. It felt good to be in the company of so many similarly and successfully betrothed, and for that matter it felt good to have my beautiful girl in my arms, my beautiful, tall girl, who'd worn low-heeled shoes so that she wouldn't be too much taller than I was, my beautiful, tall, thoughtful girl, who smelled like the cake we'd just cut. All was well except that we were dancing, and I started remembering and dreaming that that time, too, remembering and dreaming about my parents, who weren't at the wedding, of course, because I hadn't told them about it. time, too, remembering and dreaming about my parents, who weren't at the wedding, of course, because I hadn't told them about it.

Specifically I was remembering the time when I spied on my mother and father dancing. This was a year after my father had returned from his exile, and it was certainly the first time I'd seen them dance. It might have been the first time I'd seen them even touch touch since he'd returned. They were dancing in the front entryway. I was watching from the staircase (I was supposed to have been in bed, but I'd heard the music it was Benny Goodman, plus his big band, I remember that and was spying). It was some highly conflicted dancing, at least on my mother's part. One moment, her eyes were closed, her head on my father's shoulder as if asleep and at peace; the next, her eyes were sprung open and angry, her palms against my father's chest and pus.h.i.+ng him away, and the only thing holding her to my father was my father. He wouldn't let go, and she kept saying, "I don't know, I just don't know," and he kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh G.o.d, I'm so sorry." Then she'd relax for a while, only to tense up again eventually, and so on. I felt so sad for these confused parents of mine and had the distinct impression that love and marriage and dancing were like being at war with your better judgment. Watching my parents dance made loneliness look happy and relaxing by comparison, and so I went up to my room and went to bed. When I was dancing with Anne Marie at our wedding, I was remembering all this, and at the moment when I remembered going to bed and being alone, happily so, I let go of Anne Marie and took a step to the side as if making a break for it. The guests gasped, Anne Marie grabbed me, I came to my senses, saw my beautiful girl and bride, and finished the dance, and we never spoke about it afterward. She'd grabbed me hard, too. Later on I noticed two large pincher bruises on my upper biceps, as if a lobster and not the human Anne Marie had prevented me from leaving the dance floor and ruining our marriage right off the bat and not waiting eight years to do it. since he'd returned. They were dancing in the front entryway. I was watching from the staircase (I was supposed to have been in bed, but I'd heard the music it was Benny Goodman, plus his big band, I remember that and was spying). It was some highly conflicted dancing, at least on my mother's part. One moment, her eyes were closed, her head on my father's shoulder as if asleep and at peace; the next, her eyes were sprung open and angry, her palms against my father's chest and pus.h.i.+ng him away, and the only thing holding her to my father was my father. He wouldn't let go, and she kept saying, "I don't know, I just don't know," and he kept saying, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, oh G.o.d, I'm so sorry." Then she'd relax for a while, only to tense up again eventually, and so on. I felt so sad for these confused parents of mine and had the distinct impression that love and marriage and dancing were like being at war with your better judgment. Watching my parents dance made loneliness look happy and relaxing by comparison, and so I went up to my room and went to bed. When I was dancing with Anne Marie at our wedding, I was remembering all this, and at the moment when I remembered going to bed and being alone, happily so, I let go of Anne Marie and took a step to the side as if making a break for it. The guests gasped, Anne Marie grabbed me, I came to my senses, saw my beautiful girl and bride, and finished the dance, and we never spoke about it afterward. She'd grabbed me hard, too. Later on I noticed two large pincher bruises on my upper biceps, as if a lobster and not the human Anne Marie had prevented me from leaving the dance floor and ruining our marriage right off the bat and not waiting eight years to do it.

And I was remembering and dreaming all this in the bar, too. I was so deep in my dream that the song ended with a crash of drums and a shudder of ba.s.s and a screech of guitar, and still I danced in the middle of the crowd. People were staring at me. I didn't blame them one bit and would have stared, too. I drank down my shot of bourbon, as though that would make them stop staring. It didn't. I looked around for help, to see if there was someone around who could come to my rescue.

There was: a woman to my right, holding a lit joint. I hadn't noticed her before that moment, and I've never seen her since. She was exactly my height. Her eyes were dark brown and they were squinting at me in bemus.e.m.e.nt, or maybe from the joint's smoke. She wasn't wearing earrings and for that matter had no holes in her lobes in which to put them. Her hair was straight and black and about ready to come out of her ponytail, although you could tell she would be as beautiful with her hair down as up, and that hair didn't matter much to her and was just something that happened to be on top of her head. Other than these details, I know nothing about her, not even her name, although I think about her all the time, the way you do about people and things that change your life forever although I doubt she thinks about me, which is the way life works, which is why I'm sure Noah couldn't ever stop thinking about his Flood, but once the water receded, I'm sure it didn't once think about him.

"You look like you could use this," she said, and then put the joint up to my mouth. I took a drag: it was my first drag ever, tasted like dirt, and made me cough but otherwise had no effect on me that the bourbon hadn't already had. Then the band started another song, one I recognized from high school: it was Skynyrd, the band doing its best to replicate the famous three-guitar attack with only two guitars. I didn't dance this time, though, so I didn't dream or remember-not about my parents or Anne Marie or the kids, everyone whom I loved and for whom I was put on this planet. How does this happen? Why don't we always have someone on hand to say, Don't! Cut it out! Run out into the snow and throw yourself into a drift until your capacity to hurt and be bad is frozen out of you Don't! Cut it out! Run out into the snow and throw yourself into a drift until your capacity to hurt and be bad is frozen out of you! Why don't we have that that kind of voice, a voice that tells us not, kind of voice, a voice that tells us not, What else? What else? What else? What else? but but Stop! Desist! You are about to do harm! Stop! Desist! You are about to do harm! But even if we had this voice, would we listen to it? What is it that makes us deaf to all the warnings? Is it need? Is it need that makes us so deaf, that fills us up to our ears so that we can't listen to our better impulses? Is it that we are so full of need, or so full of ourselves? But even if we had this voice, would we listen to it? What is it that makes us deaf to all the warnings? Is it need? Is it need that makes us so deaf, that fills us up to our ears so that we can't listen to our better impulses? Is it that we are so full of need, or so full of ourselves?

I wasn't thinking of any of this at the time. I wasn't even thinking about Anne Marie and Thomas, wasn't even lying to myself about being a victim with rights rather than a victimizer with no rights at all. All I was thinking was that there was a beautiful woman standing next to me, smiling at me even, her smile making the bad band sound not so awfully bad, and she had two cheeks and I wanted to kiss the one nearest to me. I leaned over and kissed her cheek, and then she turned her lips toward mine, and so I kissed them, too, with feeling, and when the kissing didn't seem to be enough anymore, we groped, enthusiastically and without regard to anyone else in the bar, as though our hands were made invisible on contact. All of this went on for a long time. I know this because eventually my lips began to get tired and there was considerable hooting and clapping that didn't seem intended for the band. I glanced up to see who was making all this noise and saw my father-in-law, Mr. Mirabelli, standing directly behind the woman. And a few feet behind him, I saw my mother. Neither of them was hooting or clapping. Both of them were looking directly at me in huge disappointment, as though the bar were a museum and I were a famous painting that they'd paid too much to see.

"Mom!" I yelled, breaking the lip-lock. "Mr. Mirabelli!" This surprised the woman almost as much as my mother and father-in-law had surprised me.

"What did you just call me?" the woman asked. She backed up a little and also turned my body, so that my back was to my mother and father-in-law, although the woman still held on to my biceps. She had quite a grip, too, a grip that reminded me of Anne Marie's at our wedding those many years ago, which makes me wonder if all women have this grip, this grip being the thing that keeps a woman steady while she's deciding whether to hold on to or let go of the man she's. .h.i.tched to.

"Wait," I said. I tried to break her grip and simultaneously twirl us around so that I could face my mother and father-in-law again, and the resulting motion no doubt came off as something violent, because the woman said, "What the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l do you think you're doing?" She asked this question loudly, several times the band had finished the song and were watching us, as we'd become the real attraction and then she disappeared and several guys took her place, guys who I think were either related to the woman or wanted to be, all of them wanting to know if I had a do you think you're doing?" She asked this question loudly, several times the band had finished the song and were watching us, as we'd become the real attraction and then she disappeared and several guys took her place, guys who I think were either related to the woman or wanted to be, all of them wanting to know if I had a problem problem. Peter and his friends had noticed what was going on, and they came over and asked these guys if they they had a problem. All this took a while to straighten out, since each of us had so many problems, and by the time it was, my mother and Mr. Mirabelli were nowhere to be seen. I ran out into the parking lot; they weren't there, either, and there was no sign of her Lumina or his Continental. But as I walked through the parking lot, I pa.s.sed by my van, and there, on the winds.h.i.+eld underneath one of the wipers, was a bar napkin. On it were the words "I think I know you." I took this to be my mother's note (the handwriting was familiar in its loops and slants), although what the words meant exactly, I didn't know. There was so much I didn't know. How had my mother and father-in-law known where I was? Who had told them I was driving to New Hamps.h.i.+re? Was it my father? Had one or both of them been involved with the phone call? Did they know each other? had a problem. All this took a while to straighten out, since each of us had so many problems, and by the time it was, my mother and Mr. Mirabelli were nowhere to be seen. I ran out into the parking lot; they weren't there, either, and there was no sign of her Lumina or his Continental. But as I walked through the parking lot, I pa.s.sed by my van, and there, on the winds.h.i.+eld underneath one of the wipers, was a bar napkin. On it were the words "I think I know you." I took this to be my mother's note (the handwriting was familiar in its loops and slants), although what the words meant exactly, I didn't know. There was so much I didn't know. How had my mother and father-in-law known where I was? Who had told them I was driving to New Hamps.h.i.+re? Was it my father? Had one or both of them been involved with the phone call? Did they know each other? How How did they know each other? Had they driven there separately, or together? Did my mother know I'd told my wife, my in-laws, too, that she and my father were dead? Did Mr. Mirabelli know now that they weren't? Were she and Mr. Mirabelli talking right now about the woman I'd kissed and the wife I'd betrayed? Why would they follow me to the bar and then leave before saying anything to me? And what was that note supposed to mean? Why did my mother did they know each other? Had they driven there separately, or together? Did my mother know I'd told my wife, my in-laws, too, that she and my father were dead? Did Mr. Mirabelli know now that they weren't? Were she and Mr. Mirabelli talking right now about the woman I'd kissed and the wife I'd betrayed? Why would they follow me to the bar and then leave before saying anything to me? And what was that note supposed to mean? Why did my mother think think she knew me? I was her son, was I not? Why would she need to she knew me? I was her son, was I not? Why would she need to think think about about that? that?

These were all questions I couldn't answer or at least didn't want to, and as a detective you learn, sooner or later, to stop asking yourself these sorts of questions and start asking questions that you actually can answer. So I asked myself: What time is it? What time is it? Then I looked at my watch: it was twenty minutes after midnight, and that meant I was already late. Then I looked at my watch: it was twenty minutes after midnight, and that meant I was already late.

19

I was late but not entirely stupid. I didn't drive all the way to the Robert Frost Place, didn't park in the parking lot as I'd done earlier. Like a real detective might do, I pulled off the road about a quarter of a mile from the house, into a slot in the s...o...b..nk that the snowplows must have used as a turnaround, parked my van there, and sneaked up to the house. This cost me some more time, of course, and by the time I got there, the bond a.n.a.lysts had already set fire to the Robert Frost Place and were standing in the parking lot watching the house burn. Their Saab was next to them with its engine on. The parking lot was ringed by white pines, and I hid behind one of them, close enough to hear what the bond a.n.a.lysts were saying.

"He's not going to show up, is he?" one of the Ryans said, referring, I was pretty sure, to me. It was the first time I'd heard him speak. "What good is this if he doesn't show up?"

"He's missing one h.e.l.l of a fire," Morgan said, and then I knew why they'd called me: to show me that they could set fire to a writer's home in New England without my help. They wanted me to be a witness. The bond a.n.a.lysts had always been like this: during their memoir-writing sessions in prison, they were always so eager to show one another how beautifully they'd written about the bad things they'd done. "One h.e.l.l of a fire," Morgan repeated.

"Who cares how good the fire is if he's not here to see it?" the other Ryan said. Tigue and G-off were leaning against the Saab, staring silently at the fire, as though it had taken their voices and given those voices to the Ryans.

"Shut up," Morgan said. "Trust me. He'll be sorry." He held up an envelope and then placed it in the middle of the parking lot, which had been plowed and was mostly clear of snow. With that, they piled into their Saab and drove away from the fire. As they pulled out of the parking lot, the Robert Frost Place's second story collapsed onto the first. I wondered momentarily if the Writer-in-Residence was still inside the house, drinking bourbon, but there were no cars in the parking lot, and I heard no screams. I found out later on that the Writer-in-Residence was not in residence at all but was staying at a nearby bed-and-breakfast. The Writer-in-Residence had gotten lucky, the way Thomas Coleman's poor parents had not.

I got a little lucky myself that night, or thought I did. I walked over to where Morgan had placed the envelope in the snow. Sure enough, it was Peter's letter to me, written those six years earlier, asking me to do what the bond a.n.a.lysts themselves had just done. I read the letter right there, in the light of the fire, learned exactly why Peter had wanted me to do what the bond a.n.a.lysts had done themselves. Morgan had no doubt left the letter there to be found by the police or fire department and thereby to incriminate me, whereas he could have saved himself the trouble and just trusted that I would eventually incriminate myself. I put the letter in my pocket.

That accomplished, I stood there for a while, watching the fire. It was beautiful huge and crackling, and with more sparks and explosions than the Fourth of July, which is further proof that fire is the most impressive of the four elements much more beautiful than the house itself had been. Although the house and the fire had a lot in common: a fire was a thing you created and admired, the way the person who'd built the house must have admired it, too. But no matter how beautiful the fire was, it wasn't particularly helpful and that saddened me: I knew now that the bond a.n.a.lysts had called me (or at least one of them had), and I also knew that they had burned the Robert Frost Place, and so those questions were answered. But those answers didn't bring me any closer to knowing who had tried to burn down the Edward Bellamy House or the Mark Twain House. What good was answering one question when you couldn't answer the others?

I heard the crunch of tires on snow, and so I turned away from the fire and crept back to my van. Before I got too close to it, I could hear an engine running, could see headlights boring through the night and bouncing off the snow, and so I slipped behind another white pine, white pines being as plentiful in New Hamps.h.i.+re as Volvos were in Amherst. It was another Lumina, and at first I thought it was my mother, but as it pa.s.sed by, I could see Detective Wilson, hunched over the steering wheel, hauling a.s.s in the direction of the burning Robert Frost Place, no doubt in search of his own answers to his own questions. When he was out of sight, I ran to my van and then headed back to Amherst. Because sometimes a detective shouldn't try to answer the tough questions, being not so tough himself. Sometimes it's better to let someone else answer them for you.

20

I remember the day my father left us. It was a Sat.u.r.day. I remember this because I didn't have to go to school that day and so was witness to the aftermath. My mother and I watched, side by side, from our living room's bay window as my father backed out of the driveway in his Chevy Monte Carlo. It was October, late, and the trees were missing their leaves, their bony branches waving good-bye to my father and his car. The trees knew he was leaving, too, and when he did, it was as though he pulled my mother's face with him. The face of the pretty, modest woman I'd known as "Mother" stretched out as she watched my father pull away from the curb, and when he was out of sight, it snapped back. Now the face was harder, the blue eyes sharper, the mouth tighter, with a little smirk at the corners. This new mother of mine was less pretty but more beautiful than my old mother, which is to say, I guess, that prettiness is something to like and beauty is something to be scared of, and I was scared of it, and her. My mother walked around the house, picking up magazines, records, coasters, couch cus.h.i.+ons, and framed family pictures, staring at them as if not believing they were actually hers, and then tossing them aside. That scared me, too.

"You're hungry," she finally said, turning suddenly toward me, as if just then remembering that though my father was gone, I was not. She was right: it was lunchtime, and I was hungry. "I'll cook something," she said, then retreated to the kitchen. I remained in the living room, picking up the things she'd scattered and in general staying out of her way, until I smelled something burning in the kitchen and went to see what it was.

The smell came from open-faced broiled cheese and tomato sandwiches, my favorite thing to eat for lunch. My mother had burned them to something resembling bread-shaped coal. She had rescued the sandwiches from the broiler, but too late, and was waving a towel over the charred mess and laughing, too loud and hysterically, and that also was scary. She was singing over and over, "She loved to cook, but not like this," as if it were a lyric to a song, a popular one I should have known but didn't. I said to my mother, "I don't know that song." Then, for some reason, thinking I'd let her down by not knowing the song, I said, "I'm sorry," and started crying.

This calmed my mother down, other people's hysteria being a well-known cure for your own. She stopped singing, made me another broiled cheese and tomato sandwich, and paid attention and didn't burn it this time. While I ate, my mother told me the first of her stories about the Emily d.i.c.kinson House, which, as everyone knows, I accidentally burned, just like my mother accidentally burned that sandwich.

Speaking of that sandwich, by the time I finally got back to Amherst from New Hamps.h.i.+re, it was nine in the morning, and I hadn't eaten anything in almost twenty-four hours. I was so hungry I would even have eaten my mother's by now thirty-year-old burned broiled cheese and tomato sandwich. So I stopped off at my parents' house to have a little breakfast before heading on to my mother's apartment in Belchertown. My father's car was parked in the driveway, and I figured while I was getting something to eat I'd ask him a few questions. The bond a.n.a.lysts had obviously stolen the Robert Frost Place letter from my father, and probably the four letters he couldn't remember, too. But how had they known where to find the letters, or even that they existed? Did my father know the bond a.n.a.lysts? And then there was my mother. How had niy mother known that I was going to the Robert Frost Place? Had my father told her? Why had he done that? Had he told my father-in-law, too? And why had they followed me?

I opened the door and could immediately hear the ping and splash of the shower, meaning, of course, that my father was taking one. I went to the kitchen, intent on eating whatever I found in there, and fast. There were Knickerbocker beer cans scattered around, as usual; on the kitchen table, there was what appeared to be a shopping list that read, "Milk, cereal, beer, wine, flowers, cheese, bread," and so on. There was nothing unusual about that, necessarily, and in my hunger I nearly forgot about it until I considered the handwriting itself: it was absolutely unfamiliar, absolutely nothing like the other notes, nothing like the notes that said, "Drink me," or the note that said, "I think I know you," and, it now occurred to me, also nothing like my father's postcards. I took the note from the night before the note my mother had left on my winds.h.i.+eld up in New Hamps.h.i.+re out of my pocket. The shopping list and the note were clearly written by two different people: one who dotted the i's, the other who didn't; one whose writing was cramped, one whose writing was expansive. These were two different writers. The writer who had written the notes had not written the grocery list. I knew my mother had written the note on my winds.h.i.+eld, which meant my father had written the grocery list. But the postcards? Who had written those?

I dropped the grocery list, ran upstairs to my bedroom, pulled a chair over to the closet. I stood up on the chair, and for the second time in two days I took the envelope down from the top shelf, took the postcards out of the envelope, and read them. I read them for the handwriting and not the content and then compared the handwriting on the postcards to the handwriting on my mother's note. They had been written by the same person. Then I compared them to the grocery list. And then I looked at the postcards themselves. From Florida there were two large, barely bikinied b.r.e.a.s.t.s with the familiar coconut joke underneath; from Wyoming there was a bucking bronc, its back legs kicked upward toward the postcard's northern border but the postmarks on the postcards read not Boca Raton and Cheyenne, but rather Amherst, Ma.s.sachusetts. This, of course, made perfect sense: my father hadn't sent them at all (which is why he hadn't seen himself in Morgan Taylor's memoir). But my mother had, and my mother had sent them from Amherst, because that's where she lived, with me. But why had she done that? Why had she pretended to be my father sending me postcards from places he'd never actually visited or lived in? And if my father hadn't been doing all these things in far-off places, then where had he been? On that October day when he left us, and my mother sang her mysterious lyric and burned my sandwich and made me cry, where had my father gone? And what had he pretended to be once he got there?

"Dad!" I yelled out, charging down the stairs and armed with the postcards. "Dad!" Just after I yelled, I heard the shower kick off and so I positioned myself outside the downstairs bathroom door, my head filled with questions and waiting for my father to give me the answers.

"Sam?" I heard the voice coming from behind me, from the kitchen and not the bathroom. I knew it was my father's voice without having to turn around, the same way I knew the notes and postcards were written by one person, the grocery list by another. If I were a real detective, I might have had a voice and handwriting expert to tell me these things for sure. But this is another thing I'll put in my arsonist's guide: sometimes you have to be your own expert, and then after you acquire this expertise, you sometimes wish you hadn't.