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Authors: Christopher Buehlman
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walked past the odds and ends of Cranmer’s yard; an axe buried in a tree stump, a loose circle of stones describing a fire pit, an old boiler pitted with rust, a dry-rotten saddle and the still Martin had mentioned. It was a great mystery to me how anyone could make liquor out of such an improvised mess; a copper tub, a series of barrels, copper tubing everywhere. Mason jars lay around in disarray. Flies swarmed over a heap of innards and discarded skins set off from the main house.
The windows of Martin’s cabin had makeshift bars across them, bars of scavenged iron through which nothing was getting in or out. As I approached the door I saw a peephole open in it, and then heard the sound of heavy bolts being drawn.
The door opened, and Martin Cranmer came outside, half shutting it behind him. His flannel work shirt was sopped with sweat, and the whole of Cranmer smelled like an old glove.
“What are you doing here?” he said, and when his mouth opened I smelled stale tobacco on top of everything else.
“Taking you up on your invitation.”
“Invitation doesn’t apply tonight. Go the hell home.”
I said nothing.
“Don’t just flap your gills at me, there’s no time. Go home and stay there. And I mean run, don’t walk. Shit.”
“What goes on around here, Martin?”
Cranmer disappeared into his cabin and came out with his rickety bicycle. He took the camera from me, put the handlebars in my hands and said, “Bring it back tomorrow or the next day. Now, if I have to order you off my property one more time I’m going to stuff you and send you back to your wife with a glass asshole.”
The door shut hard.
THE SKY TOOK on a chalky pink color and the moon rose fat and golden past the tree line as I pedaled home. My ass was sore from the hard ride, and the palms of my hands were skinned from a low-velocity spill I had taken about five minutes before. Dora was waiting on the porch, letting her feet dangle off the edge. She was opening and closing a parasol, one that had belonged to my mother when she used to stroll around downtown Chicago thirty-five years ago, so full of beauty it seemed the century would have to ask her permission to draw to a close.
I KNEW IT would come and it did.
I lay awake next to Eudora, who had already drifted into sleep still lying on her belly, the hand she had pleasured herself with supinated next to her hip. I had been unwilling to make love to her, unwilling also to discuss why, so she had done what she needed to get to sleep. I watched her back rise and fall with her breathing, watched also a lock of hair that fluttered ever so delicately near where her lips bunched on the pillow. I loved that she never turned her face away from me in sleep, even when we fought. Not that this had been a fight; just a closing-off on my part and a gracious retreat on hers.
Oh, it was coming.
The dream.
When sleep finally admitted me to its parlor, it would show me something naughty.
I lay staring up now, listening to what must have been every dog in town baying at the rich moon shining china-white past the lace curtains. They admitted light generously; the room glowed. I tried lying motionless but became aware of the arm nearest Dora, and I began to alternate hooking it behind my head and crowding it into the space between our two bodies. I remembered the one-armed man at Harvey’s Drug Emporium, and thought, Well, I suppose there really is a bright side to everything.
That damned baying.
Even with my fluid-filled, muffled ears I heard it.
The pigs are dying.
Yes, it was a very long time before I got to sleep.
The dream began with the steam machine that came to burn the lice out of our clothes just before the offensive started that September. I was part of a line of white-shouldered, white-haunched men standing in the rain, all of us holding our uniforms in our hands. In the dream the line was apocalyptically long. I noticed one louse crawling off my folded-up
The windows of Martin’s cabin had makeshift bars across them, bars of scavenged iron through which nothing was getting in or out. As I approached the door I saw a peephole open in it, and then heard the sound of heavy bolts being drawn.
The door opened, and Martin Cranmer came outside, half shutting it behind him. His flannel work shirt was sopped with sweat, and the whole of Cranmer smelled like an old glove.
“What are you doing here?” he said, and when his mouth opened I smelled stale tobacco on top of everything else.
“Taking you up on your invitation.”
“Invitation doesn’t apply tonight. Go the hell home.”
I said nothing.
“Don’t just flap your gills at me, there’s no time. Go home and stay there. And I mean run, don’t walk. Shit.”
“What goes on around here, Martin?”
Cranmer disappeared into his cabin and came out with his rickety bicycle. He took the camera from me, put the handlebars in my hands and said, “Bring it back tomorrow or the next day. Now, if I have to order you off my property one more time I’m going to stuff you and send you back to your wife with a glass asshole.”
The door shut hard.
THE SKY TOOK on a chalky pink color and the moon rose fat and golden past the tree line as I pedaled home. My ass was sore from the hard ride, and the palms of my hands were skinned from a low-velocity spill I had taken about five minutes before. Dora was waiting on the porch, letting her feet dangle off the edge. She was opening and closing a parasol, one that had belonged to my mother when she used to stroll around downtown Chicago thirty-five years ago, so full of beauty it seemed the century would have to ask her permission to draw to a close.
I KNEW IT would come and it did.
I lay awake next to Eudora, who had already drifted into sleep still lying on her belly, the hand she had pleasured herself with supinated next to her hip. I had been unwilling to make love to her, unwilling also to discuss why, so she had done what she needed to get to sleep. I watched her back rise and fall with her breathing, watched also a lock of hair that fluttered ever so delicately near where her lips bunched on the pillow. I loved that she never turned her face away from me in sleep, even when we fought. Not that this had been a fight; just a closing-off on my part and a gracious retreat on hers.
Oh, it was coming.
The dream.
When sleep finally admitted me to its parlor, it would show me something naughty.
I lay staring up now, listening to what must have been every dog in town baying at the rich moon shining china-white past the lace curtains. They admitted light generously; the room glowed. I tried lying motionless but became aware of the arm nearest Dora, and I began to alternate hooking it behind my head and crowding it into the space between our two bodies. I remembered the one-armed man at Harvey’s Drug Emporium, and thought, Well, I suppose there really is a bright side to everything.
That damned baying.
Even with my fluid-filled, muffled ears I heard it.
The pigs are dying.
Yes, it was a very long time before I got to sleep.
The dream began with the steam machine that came to burn the lice out of our clothes just before the offensive started that September. I was part of a line of white-shouldered, white-haunched men standing in the rain, all of us holding our uniforms in our hands. In the dream the line was apocalyptically long. I noticed one louse crawling off my folded-up
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