Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories Read online

  “You’d learn to get used to it,” Baroque said. They listened to the heater hiss against the cold.

  “You think he’s really going to kill a bear?”

  “That’s what he said,” Baroque answered.

  As the cab warmed, the breath fogging the windshield evaporated, but all Baroque could see were woods, woods where someone or something could be watching him and Marlboro right now.

  “It’s sort of spooky when there aren’t any streets or houses around,” Marlboro said, evidently feeling the same way.

  “It wouldn’t hurt to lock our doors,” Baroque said, “just to be on the safe side.”

  They pressed down the locks and for a few minutes didn’t speak. It was Marlboro who broke the silence.

  “He wouldn’t just leave us out here, would he? I mean, he’s not acted very friendly lately.”

  “No,” Baroque said. “He’d have made us get out of the truck and driven off if he was going to do that.”

  Denton felt better as soon as he left the truck. Being that close to his brothers-in-law made him feel like a fungus was starting to grow on him. They both had a moldy sort of smell, like mushrooms. Which was no surprise, since Baroque and Marlboro moved about as much as mushrooms. They never left the house, and got up from the couch only to eat or go to the bathroom. Hell, mushrooms probably did more than that. They actually grew. They were finding nutrients, some kind of work was going on down there in the soil.

  Baroque and Marlboro had been with him and Susie two months, up from Florida to find jobs, they claimed. Evidently they expected the jobs to haul themselves up to Denton’s front porch and wait for Marlboro and Baroque to step out the door and be whisked away. Denton blamed a lot of it on their being from Florida. He’d never met anyone from the place who didn’t get on his nerves, like all the Florida retirees who drove ten miles an hour on any road that wasn’t straight and wide as an airport runway. Admittedly, Denton hadn’t been around many younger Floridians, but his brothers-in-law were indictment enough.

  Baroque, whose name sounded a lot like “a roach” to Denton, was the older of the two by eleven months. Their father was a self-proclaimed “free spirit” who’d drifted like a spore—that’s the way Denton always envisioned it, anyway—into Colorado and attached himself long enough to find Susie’s mother and have a baby with her. Then the three of them drifted on down to Florida, where Baroque and Marlboro were born. It was the father who’d named the two boys.

  Susie didn’t know how the name Baroque had come about, but Marlboro had been named after the Marlboro Man, the cigarette cowboy. Susie said it was meant as a comment on society. Thank God that Susie, at thirty the oldest by six years, had been named by the mother. Susie wasn’t a Floridian, in Denton’s view. She’d been born in Colorado and had gotten out of Florida quick as she could, earning a scholarship to Gulf Coast College, in Alabama. She met her first husband there, a fifty-year-old admissions counselor.

  As soon as Susie graduated, they married and moved to North Carolina, so mountains could blot out some sun. The first husband had problems with psoriasis. But he had at least gotten her to North Carolina, where she and Denton met.

  Susie’s first marriage hadn’t worked out any better than Denton’s. Her first husband had made Susie wear his dead aunt’s Sunday church hat every time they had sex. An awful thing, but Denton’s first wife had been even worse. The admissions counselor’s aunt might’ve been dead but at least the man hadn’t lain there like he was dead. Denton’s first wife was so frigid that each time they had sex she might as well have been embalmed. Eventually, every time they did it he’d hear organ music inside his head, the same kind that oozed out of funeral home walls. It was a wonder he and Susie could ever touch another naked person after the two partners they’d had.

  The two of them had overcome a lot, no doubt about that, but now they had a nice marriage and a fine house and Denton had a good job as an accountant and Susie was the head nurse at the county clinic. Which was why she’d let Baroque and Marlboro come up from Florida in the first place. She’d wanted to help her brothers improve themselves, and Denton couldn’t blame her for that. After all, hard as it was to believe, they were her brothers. She was even trying to get them, or at least Baroque, interested in medicine. Baroque was sort of smart, Susie claimed, and if Baroque got a job as a med tech maybe Marlboro could be an orderly or something. She’d taken them to the clinic with her for a day, and now she had them watching the medical shows. It might inspire them, she claimed, though Denton was of a mind that a good kick in their lardy asses would inspire them more.

  Susie watched the medical shows as much as she could. She might need to know this sometime, she always said when Denton complained. He understood it could be helpful to someone in the medical field, but Susie didn’t watch the shows about a heart transplant or a knee operation or a woman having a baby. Susie watched shows with names like Medical Mysteries or I Survived, shows about hundred-pound tumors or people who’d lost all their toes to frostbite or who internally combusted, and it all gave Denton the willies.

  He would go in the back room and watch the fourteen-inch TV on the bureau, catch the news on CNN and then maybe one of the business shows, or get on the computer, where he’d been doing the bear research. Anything was better than the medical shows. The worst thing to Denton was how they always ended. There’d be upbeat music and the announcer would talk about miracles, and the person who’d had the hundred-pound tumor or the man whose leg had been snapped off by a shark always acted like it was a good thing this had happened. Now Susie had Baroque and Marlboro watching them every night, probably even a few about bear attacks.

  They did at least watch them. Whenever Denton ventured into the front room, their eyes were always on the screen. They weren’t talking and seemed to be paying attention. Of course Baroque and Marlboro never did talk a lot anyway, not to Denton, or even much to Susie. They just sat next to each other, in the exact same posture, like twins. Part of that was surely their being less than a year apart in age, and also because Baroque and Marlboro did look like twins, at least in the face and especially their eyes, which changed when they shifted them in a different direction—less green to more brown or vice versa. It reminded Denton of his twelfth-grade biology project. The teacher had given every student in the class a jar of fruit flies, and after a while the fruit flies’ eyes were supposed to change, and everybody else’s fruit flies had changed eye color except Denton’s. His just crawled around on the glass for an hour and then died.

  He got a D− on a major nine-week project, which was totally unfair. Denton hadn’t picked out the flies or put them in the jar. He hadn’t asked for them. They were just there on his desk one morning. He got no college-scholarship offers like Susie, and instead had to work his way through. The damn fruit flies had made sure of that. Susie saw Baroque and Marlboro’s interest in the medical shows as a step forward. Still, neither of them had actually left the house to apply for a med tech program or orderly job, and though Susie hadn’t actually said it, Denton suspected even she was tired of her brothers being around.

  It had pretty much shut down their sex life, because their house was a fine house but a small one. Baroque was in the spare room with just three inches of drywall between him and their bedroom. Marlboro was on the couch, and if Denton and Susie could hear the springs squeak whenever Baroque or Marlboro turned over, then they sure as hell could hear what he and Susie were up to. After the nightmare sex of their first marriages, there had been issues to work out, which they had. Until the brothers-in-law showed up, Susie tended to moan some and rock the bed a good bit, but there wasn’t much of that anymore, and now Denton was starting to have some problems, and Denton had never had problems, at least with Susie.

  He stopped to rest a moment, checked to make sure the double-ply plastic bag was still in his coat pocket. Paws and gallbladder—that was all he needed. Denton had to hand it to the Chinese. They were smart, and had been smart a long time.
They’d invented gunpowder and a lot of other things, even spaghetti. The Chinese also knew how to cure certain male problems without having to explain them to a doctor and then after that having to take the prescription to a pharmacy where some eighteen-year-old cashier would stop chewing her bubble gum just long enough to do something stupid like say your name and the name of what you were picking up out loud, maybe even say it over a speaker like it was a frigging pep rally. No, the Chinese understood better how to do things than Americans. They explained what cured a problem and explained where to get the cure and even how to prepare it. It was the right way of doing things, which was why they pretty much owned the United States now. The way he’d been feeling the last few months, Denton wasn’t sure he’d mind the Chinese taking over America completely, because everybody over there worked. If they didn’t they starved. Sure, times were hard here. Denton understood that as well as anyone. He’d barely survived a layoff himself. But unlike his brothers-in-law, he’d have found something to do if he’d been laid off, even if it was picking up cans and bottles out of ditches.

  Denton moved on up the trail, wondering if a caught bear would stay quiet or make a ruckus. The only sound was the water, and not even that except where a waterfall or rapid was, all the stream’s slow parts covered with ice. No other sounds like a chain saw or car or dog, because this was real wilderness he was in now, and it was so cold the birds and squirrels were using their energy just to hunker down and survive. Denton felt cold even with his thermal underwear, gloves, and wool coat, and it would only get colder, because though it was midafternoon, the sun would soon start to fade behind the mountains. At least the cold would be good for preserving the bear paws and gallbladder. Denton wouldn’t even have to stop and get ice for the cooler, which meant five minutes less time before he could get some distance between him and his brothers-in-law.

  Denton looked down through the trees to see if he could glimpse the truck but didn’t see it. All Baroque and Marlboro had to do was sit and wait, that and lean on the horn if a ranger appeared. Even they would have trouble screwing up those directions. Then again, Denton wouldn’t put it past them to drive over to Bryson City for something to eat or a six-pack of beer, then forget where the hell they’d been parked. That was the worst of it.

  Most people were smart at something. There were guys Denton had known in high school who weren’t able to spell cat, but at least they could change their spark plugs or replace a blown fuse. Baroque and Marlboro didn’t even possess smarts like that. Having clogged up the commode three times, Marlboro, it was clear, couldn’t even figure out how to properly wipe his ass, and Baroque had driven the truck like a drunk ten-year-old the one time Denton allowed him to take it to town. Denton thought about calling them, just to be sure they hadn’t driven off, but then he remembered they would actually need money to buy a hot dog or six-pack. Still, Denton was beginning to feel uneasy about bringing them along.

  He went on, breathing hard because he was climbing steep ground, and having to be more careful too, since ice was on the trail this far up. That was something else. He’d figured, wrongly, that the cold weather would drive Baroque and Marlboro back to Florida. Florida. Denton said the word out loud. What kind of name for a state was that?

  It wasn’t a word with any backbone to it, like the hard C in the first syllable of Carolina. You could look at Florida on a map and see that it drooped down from the rest of America like a limp peter. It was a wonder the Founding Fathers hadn’t just sawed the damn state off and let it drift away. A state where the most famous person went around pretending to be an eight-foot-tall mouse. Every kid in the state had probably been to see that thing, walked up to it, and shaken its hand or paw or whatever believing it was a real mouse. Growing up to think a big animal like that wouldn’t be dangerous. No surprise, then, that when the kids grew up they’d think piranhas and pythons and walking catfish were a good idea for pets, then go dump them in some nearby swamp or river, thinking that was another good idea.

  And now it was as if the whole state was like those catfish, crawling up the Eastern Seaboard into North Carolina and taking over, because here in this very park there were people—people who were supposed to be in charge—who acted like bears were pets. Letting them wander along the roads so dumb-asses could throw marshmallows and french fries at them, like it was trick or treat and the bears weren’t real bears but idiots in costumes. Doing it even after some fool had nearly had his arm torn off by a bear he was feeding from a car window, and probably would have had his arm torn off if someone in the car behind hadn’t tossed out a bag of Cheetos. Denton had seen the whole bear spectacle firsthand just a month ago when he’d driven to Cherokee to see a client. The bears were actually lined up on the shoulder waiting for handouts. One had gotten out on the road in front of Denton’s truck and stayed there with its big red tongue slobbering, like it was owed a meal. That was another thing the Chinese had going for them. They weren’t big on pets. Hell, they ate their pets, or what passed for pets over here.

  Denton finally saw his marker and left the trail. He paused but didn’t hear anything so, if the trap had worked, maybe the creature was already dead. Denton had to admit he was relieved. If he’d caught one and it was dead, all he’d have to do was cut off the paws and do a little surgery to find the gallbladder, which shouldn’t be that hard, since he’d seen the photos—greenish, shaped like a fig. If the bear hadn’t died, he’d have to shoot it. He’d grown up in a place where you were supposed to enjoy being out in the woods shooting things, but he had never enjoyed being outdoors.

  Denton liked being able to decide how warm or cold he was going to be, and having a toilet, and knowing exactly where everything was and knowing it was close by. But here he was, way up in the woods with a pistol and knife and trap like he was Daniel frigging Boone. And what if he got caught? Having Baroque and Marlboro as lookouts probably increased the chances about a thousand percent. He’d lose a good job at the least. Maybe end up in jail, because having the gun with him meant two federal crimes.

  But there was no bear. The store-bought ham he’d hung from the limb was gone, the trap sprung. Denton looked closer, saw two silvery-brown nails and a few hairs. The bear had leaned over the trap as if reaching over a counter. Dumb luck on the bear’s part, Denton knew, but at least the damn thing might be scared enough now to think twice before going after human food again. Screw it, Denton thought, bear, medicine, and, most of all, the brothers-in-law.

  Denton had eighty bucks and a credit card in his billfold. He’d take Baroque and Marlboro to the bus station in Asheville. And buy two one-way tickets to Florida. They might eventually wander back, but it’d take those two screwups months or even years to get enough money to return. Susie had sent them money to come the first time, but there was no way in hell that Denton would let that happen again. As he began the walk back, Denton suddenly felt better than he had in a while. Everything was going to be all right.

  Even freezing his tail off on this mountain had been worthwhile. That was another thing the Chinese believed, or at least the Buddhists among them, that you went up a mountain to gain wisdom. And he damn sure had, finally realizing what to do about the brothers-in-law.

  Denton made his way back down the trail, going slow because the afternoon light was waning. He started thinking about how he’d deal with Baroque and Marlboro if they didn’t want to go. Just as he decided if it came down to the pistol he wasn’t above that, Denton tripped on a root and his ankle veered in one direction and the rest of his body in another. He didn’t stop tumbling until he was off the trail and into the stream, ice shattering around him as he entered the tailwater of a wide, long pool face-first.

  Soaked from his head all the way to his waist, Denton crawled up on the bank. His teeth chattered and he could feel his hair turning into icicles. He knew that whatever else bad had happened in his life—embalmed wife, deadbeat bears, brothers-in-law—this was worse. A whole lot worse.

  He took off his g
loves and pulled out the cell phone, praying it would still work. The cell phone, unlike him, had been totally immersed, but by some kind of miracle it wasn’t dead. Denton’s fingers were numb but he was finally able to press the right numbers and the call went through. On the eighth ring Baroque picked up and Denton explained what had happened, or at least as best he could, because his brain was clouding with every passing second, and his words didn’t match up with his thoughts the way he wanted them to. It felt like years passed before Baroque understood.

  “We’re coming,” Baroque said. “How far from the truck are you, time-wise?”

  Denton didn’t speak for what felt like a full minute. The connections of time and space were not so clear anymore.

  “Maybe thirty minutes,” he finally answered.

  Denton heard Baroque speak to Marlboro, then the sound of truck doors slamming shut.

  “We’re on our way,” Baroque said. “But we need to know if you feel cold or hot.”

  Denton realized that though his teeth chattered and icicles had formed in his hair he actually was, if not hot, at least warm.

  “Hot,” he said.

  “You got to get back in the water, then,” Baroque said. “You’ve got hypothermia. A boy on one of the shows fell in a pond and being under that cold water was all that kept him from freezing to death.”

  Denton tried hard to figure out if Baroque knew what he was talking about. It seemed Denton had heard of such a thing, maybe on the news, and the fact that Baroque had learned a word as long as hypothermia, even pronounced it correctly, struck him dimly as some kind of progress. Besides, the water would cool him off.

  “You can’t wait any longer,” Baroque said. “In a couple of minutes you won’t be able to move. We’re on our way.”

  Denton looked at the pool, covered in ice except around the falls. Somewhere deep inside him an alarm bell went off, but it was so soft Denton couldn’t figure out quite what the warning was. Baroque was still talking, telling Denton he had to do it now. Denton set the cell phone on the bank. Baroque’s words were blurring. It seemed Baroque was talking real fast, though maybe that was because Denton was starting to think real slow. Breaking the ice to enter the pool seemed too much work, so Denton crawled onto the rocks above the waterfall and slid feetfirst into the pool, going in smooth as an otter.