Read Online Shape of the Final Dog and Other Stories (9781101600665) by Hampton Fancher - Free Book Online

Bud says that he did. Now she is looking at him and Bud feels the soggy wet grass penetrating his shoes. Almost in a whisper, Miss McMurray says that two twelve-foot lizards controlling the universe was not her idea, and turns away.



T he house sits on an uneven acre, eighty yards from the road, forty from the creek, and twenty from the tree. Rat Hall was built a hundred years ago. Jack has seen a hand-painted photo of the place dated 1891. The giant sycamore in front, exactly the same. There is an owl that lives in that tree. Crows and red-tailed hawks in the day. A lizard or two on the patio usually. Coyotes, squirrels, and occasional snakes to be seen. All this a half hour from a freeway that can take you wherever you might want to be in the city of Los Angeles. Jack never locks the door.
    Rat Hall is in ruin. One day it will either be torn down or made over, but Jack likes it as it is. The living room is full of windows, but not much light. Knotted vines of wisteria obscure the glass. There are holes in the floor, in the ceiling, and spots on the walls where lathing shows through. The scent of Rat Hall is cool like mortar, a blend of wood and the dank fragrance of the old fireplace, occasionally the sweet whiff of desiccated rat down from the attic. He bought the house two years ago with the patrimony from his father’s death. A suicide.
    In the bedroom there is a crack in the linoleum. With a flashlight, Jack can see the dirt of the earth below. He likes to feel like the house, himself, and the ground beneath are all of a piece. But still, he doesn’t like thinking about what might come out of that crack while he sleeps. He’s had a bunk built five feet above the floor to put his mattress on.
    There had been a second house up the slope behind Rat Hall. It burned down fifty years ago. Its foundation and a small pile of rotted lumber are all that remain. Jack calls this place the Platform. In spring and summer, naked but for sandals, he climbs the broken stairs to lounge in the sun, do push-ups, a bit of yoga maybe, sometimes with pen and paper, in case he gets an idea.
    Except for what the wind does to the leaves of the trees or the scream of a hawk, the distant hum of a car on the road below, Rat Hall is a quiet place. A good place to write. This is what Jack is trying to do, trying to write a book about his father. But for over a year now, no matter how hard he struggles to sort it out, coherency eludes him. But the solitude of this little world suits him, being alone with his music, his books, watching the lizards, free to do what he does within the parameters of his capacities. Also, Jack has a woman. She is thin and tall, long-eyed, with a neck like Nefertiti. Stewart is severely beautiful, quietly kind, a simple girl really, with an even disposition, and except for an occasional glass of beer, doesn’t drink, has never taken drugs. Her Chinese mother was an Anglophile who insisted on using her husband’s middle name for her daughter’s first. Stewart Pritchard makes money on her looks—she is a model.
    On the cover of
Vogue
is where Jack first sees her. A week later, in person. A friend invites him to a gathering that turns into a bash. Stewart arrives in the thick of it, attracts attention. Jack keeps his distance, but through the shifting din of heads and shoulders, their eyes meet. It lasts five seconds. Stewart is first to turn away. Next time she looks, he’s gone. This is something he is good at. But before he leaves, Jack gets her number from the host. The following day she is surprised and glad to hear from him.
    And the day after that they go to dinner. He brings her back to Rat Hall. Not something he usually does with strangers. But they don’t feel like strangers. Sitting next to him on the balding velvet cushions of his couch, she looks around. Except for a little blue landscape tacked on the wall, the living room feels like a place for a tramp or a ghost, something